Abstract: Startups and innovations in Businesses, by definition challenge the boundaries of current regulatory frameworks. However, nations that have been flexible from a regulatory perspective, have had larger number high impact startups. India needs to have a clear, centralised mechanism for regulatory changes. In addition, there is an urgent need to ward off the tendency of the judiciary to create regulatory frameworks, without the institutional capabilities.

Introduction

Uber was illegal in most countries when it started off. And it would have been a dead-on-arrival idea, had it not been for the US states to start creating enabling regulatory spaces that gave Uber the toehold in its home country. This gave Uber the ability to change the regulatory spaces in other countries and emerge as a multi-billion-dollar global phenomena.^[1]

India too has its share of startups that are getting throttled because of existing regulatory frameworks, that were created for a different technological ecosystem. An excellent example is that of the entire drone startup ecosystem, that was on the grey zone between legal and illegal, till the government stepped in to clear the air and come out with well deliberated enabling policies and regulations on drones. In the absence of such policies, even suppliers of drones to the military were engaging in unlawful actions, every time they would fly a drone for testing purposes.

In fact, our home-grown commercial vehicle aggregators face pushback when they try to do something as simple as trying to get an auto-rickshaw to deliver a package. Such an activity of enabling an auto-rickshaw to deliver a package would lead to increase in the income of the auto-rickshaw driver and would increase the asset utilization in the economy, as well as increase efficiency in the economy. However, as per regulations it is illegal for auto-rickshaws to carry goods instead of passengers. In the era of aggregating everything via apps, it is seriously debilitating to not being able to use auto-rickshaws to deliver goods. It does not help startups that are trying to change the status quo and have to create new markets, deal with attracting funds, attracting talent, aligning with the compliances in the country and then also engage in public policy discussions to change regulations that are limiting the ability of the modest auto-rickshaw drivers from earning more, thereby also reducing tax collections of the government.

Case of e-education

During the Wuhan Covid pandemic, e-education saved more than a year for millions of students in this country. Given the experience in being able to deliver e-education at scale, there is a clear need for frameworks and policies that enable e-education to be delivered for K-12 and for higher education in courses where physical labs and physical meeting is not required. This would enable not just delivery of education where it is not being delivered, but also improving the quality of education where it is currently being delivered.

The Union Budget 2023 declared the setting up of a Digital University, under the aegis of the government. However, it would be worthwhile to also promote strong entities from the private sector to also bolster the Digital Universities infrastructure and capabilities, thus being able to export education digitally to the world, earning precious foreign exchange. If India needs to upgrade the educational qualification of its workforce and increase their productivity at scale, digital universities are perhaps one of the most potent ways to do so in a short period of time. However, India does not even have a regulatory framework for Digital Universities. A non-governmental body cannot even apply to become a Digital University as such a concept is non-existent.

Case of other Innovations

Indian vehicles get certification at ARAI for scooters, cars, busses and other existing vehicle types. However, if someone comes out with a vehicle that does not fit the above definitions, then they cannot get the certification required to sell their vehicles in India. So, if a startup creates a trike, which is a three-wheeler bike with two wheels in the front and one in the back, there is no category of such a vehicle and hence the startup will not be able to get their product to see the light of the day. In comparison, we already see a patent war in Europe where the Italian scooter manufacturer Piaggio has stopped the french manufacturer, Peugot Motorcycles, from manufacturing similar trikes (2 wheels in front and one in the back) as Piaggio claimed it had a patent on it. It is also interesting to note that Piaggio exercised its patent right only after Peugot Motorcycles moved under the ownership of Mahindra & Mahindra. However, the point to note is that the Indian ecosystem would not have even allowed such a vehicle type of trike to be created in India due to regulatory constraints. Of course, we will eventually accept such a vehicle type when foreign players start looking at India for such a vehicle type, with mature foreign technology, while India did not give the regulatory space for such vehicle types to come up within India.

It is pertinent to bring up the case of our regulatory frameworks that drove one of our finest scientist to die by suicide. The then governments and regulatory frameworks prevented Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhay, who had independently invented in vitro fertilisation (IVF), to share his innovation with those who needed it in India. Moral and ethical issues were quoted to even give a very real threat of arrest to Dr. Mukhopadhay. He died by suicide. Eventually IVF was allowed in India, only when foreign entities brought the concept to India.

In recent times, in 1997, a Dr. Baruah, a doctor from Assam was lampooned in the media and in the policy circles and arrested for attempting to implant a pig’s heart into a human. Instead of providing more funding for continued research, the doctor had been hounded out of practice. Dr. Baruah was clearly not a quack, being a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians in the UK.^[2] The same has now been done by doctors in Europe and subsequently in US. Our inability to provide a safe regulatory space for such innovations and scientific breakthroughs to happen and to flourish, will continue to impede India from being a technological and economic powerhouse. With not being able to take this breakthrough forward, India has lost out in a future multi-billion-dollar xenotransplantation industry.

In fact, Indian regulatory framework is preventing simple income-enhancing changes such as letting an auto-rickshaw carry a package or setting up of Digital Universities. As one has perennially rued, India will allow such innovations only if it has been done elsewhere and hence only if a foreign company brings it to India.

Regulatory frameworks as an independent source of generating value in the economy^[3]

Taking the example of Bike taxis, which is a concept that is already prevalent in many southeast asian countries, we analyse how regulations can generate value. In India, where we have overloaded three wheelers of all sizes carrying commuters who would like to commute at the cheapest cost possible, it is but obvious that a bike taxi would be of immense demand for commuters. However, bike taxis are actually not yet legal in most states of the country. Making bike taxis legal would lead to millions getting a livelihood while providing a cheaper and more convenient mode of transportation to many millions in our crowded cities. Needless to say, it would also lead to more tax collection and an increase in the size of the economy.

While there is no central legislation regulating bike taxis, the Central Government has recommended that bike taxis be allowed for commercial use and had also directed the State Governments to consider allowing private bikes to be converted into taxis so as to be used for commercial purposes and the regulations around the same. The matter of whether or not bike taxis are permissible, now lies in the hands of individual State Governments. Till then, we continue to lose the ability to increase efficiency of commuting in our cities.

Let us consider the case of Digital maps. Up until 2021, Digital Maps in India were illegal. Indian laws required Indian firms to seek licenses and additional approvals to create and publish topographical data. Such a regulation not only deprived the nation of an extremely useful asset, but also led to handicapping local digital map players while providing foreign players an iron grip over the Indian market. Although this regulation was changed in early 2021 and it has led to significant economic activities, it had already done the damage of blocking the growth of robust Indian digital mapping companies. In fact, no less than the Prime Minister of country noted that the “deregulation” step will help the country become more self-reliant and help reach its US $5 trillion GDP goal.

India also has unicorn startups running online gaming industries where the founders wake up every morning to check if they have been banned yet. State governments after state governments have been seriously considering the idea with total bans and partial bans on online gaming. Even though the government understands that one cannot stop the march of technology, we still have a situation that entire industries and the millions of people working in it, are perpetually on tenterhooks if their industry will continue to operate the next day.

That brings us to the case of cryptos. Much has already been analysed on cryptos. It has significant economic and geopolitical implications. But what would be difficult to do would be to impose a blanket ban on cryptos. Hence, however difficult it may be, creating a regulatory framework would be essential.

We also had the case of industries being declared out-of-bounds for the private sector, because public sector enterprises were operating in those sectors. Hence, startups providing bus services were illegal as they competed with the state’s bus services. Or providing food on train was illegal as it competed with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Even voice over IP (what many of us commonly use on a daily basis over messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram) was illegal in India as it competed with VSNL (a telecom company that was then under the government) and BSNL.

In fact, even delivering medicines to consumers was illegal, and so is delivering alcohol to consumers, thus inhibiting aggregator startups that were into online pharmacies and inhibiting aggregators that can enable alcohol delivery (which is a major source of revenues for most state governments).

Regulatory Destruction of Economic Value: Case of banning vehicles based on age^[4]

The previous sections captured on how regulations can, and are leading to considerable value creation in the economy. However, there are also regulations that destroy very significant economic value. These are not necessarily regulations by the executive, but regulations that have come out due to the judiciary.

Judicial intervention leading to banning vehicles based on their age is unprecedented globally and would lead to enormous value destruction. If the aim is to reduce pollution, then emissions should be the criteria. Wanton destruction of private property is not judicious.

Specifically, if one looks at the Supreme Court order on October 29, 2018, that prohibited the plying of 15-year-old petrol and 10-year-old diesel vehicles in the national capital region and directed the transport department to announce such vehicles to be impounded if found plying, it is leading to a humungous destruction of property and economic value. It is especially of concern since the central government had subsequently come out with a new voluntary vehicle scrapping policy, which looks at the vehicle’s fitness as the criteria for scrapping and not its age.

Evaluating the impact of the regulatory change brought in by judicial intervention, approximately 3 lakh two wheelers will get scrapped annually and about 1 lakh four wheelers will get scrapped annually. Taking a conservative residual value of two wheelers to be Rs 10,000 on average, and residual value of four wheelers to be Rs 2 lakhs on an average, that is a value destruction of a whopping Rs 2,300 crore annually. What are we getting in return? We are supposed to get (a) cleaner air, (b) more demand for vehicles and hence more jobs, (c) creation of a vibrant scrappage industry and hence more jobs and (d) creation of an electric vehicles retrofitting industry. Are these really the benefits that we will get? Let us look at each one of them more closely.

Looking at the first supposed benefit of cleaner air, if this was really the objective of NGT and the courts, then the order would be have been to have stricter norms for pollution check. The criteria for scrapping vehicles would have been their fitness check and pollution emission checks and not the age of the car. This is exactly the regulation that the central government has brought in, which focusses on the fitness of the vehicle rather than merely the age. The orders to scrap vehicles based on age appears to be more driven towards creating a market. The cost is being borne by the middle class who did not know at the time of purchasing their vehicle that the life of their property will in future be curtailed by judicial orders. It needs to be debated if the courts have the right to snatch away property from people based on specious arguments of pollution being linked to age of a personal vehicle. Such arguments may hold for commercial vehicles but not for personal vehicles. One needs to ask what is a pensioner expected to do when she bought what she thought was the last vehicle that would be hers for the rest of her life, now that that vehicle is being taken away from her. We need to consider where is she expected to get the money to buy another vehicle. When she had bought the vehicle, the “contract” with the government was that she can drive the vehicle till it is fit to drive. It was not based on the age of the vehicle. Why are the courts and the state government now suddenly taking away that vehicle by citing pollution when clearly one can have emissions as a norm for scrapping cars and not age. Such regulations push people into poverty with respect to their current standard of living.

If at all a regulation is to be brought in which scraps vehicles based on age, then that rule should have been declared at the time of buying the vehicle, and not midway through the life of the vehicle. Such an action would be tantamount to cheating the people of their property. Such regulation may be prospective but never retrospective.

In fact, around the world, age has rarely ever been used as a criteria to scrap vehicles. Most vehicle scrappage policies are driven by incentives and not by fiat. By forcing the scrappage of vehicles by age, the courts are taking away property from citizens.

In fact, the Constitution originally provided for the right to property under Articles 19 and 31. Article 19 guaranteed to all citizens the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property. Article 31 provides that “no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law.” It was also provided that compensation would be paid to a person whose property has been taken for public purposes, and that is how the USA had designed its own vehicle scrappage policy.

Unfortunately, the provisions relating to the right to property were changed. The 44th Amendment of 1978 removed the right to property from the list of fundamental rights. A new provision, Article 300-A, was added to the Constitution, which provided that “no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law”. Subsequent liberalisation of the economy and the government’s initiative to set up special economic zones led to many protests by farmers and led to calls for the reinstatement of the fundamental right to private property. In fact, the Supreme Court itself had sent notice to the government questioning why the right to property should not be brought back. And now we see the Apex Court itself taking away property from citizens in a manner that begs to have more rationale. However, none of this should imply that in a democratic setup, properties will be taken away by changing the regulatory frameworks.

If age was a criteria for taking away property, we should look at the thought experiment of the courts deciding that all houses that are over 30 years of age should now be demolished and rebuilt as it has been found that a few houses above the age of 30 years have collapsed. It would obviously lead to a massive demolition industry, lead to new buildings being created, and many jobs getting created. But is that the right thing to do? At whose cost would these industries and jobs get created? Such actions may happen in countries like China. However, in a democratic country like India, regulations should not be used in such draconian manner, leading to destruction of economic value. It appears that pollution was an excuse for this massive value destruction.

In fact, vehicle owners cannot even get their vehicles converted to electric vehicles as the norms are not ready and the homologation rules are too complex to make electric retro-fitment economically viable. Moreover, we have not even considered the possibility of creating an industry to refurbish the vehicles and export them to other countries, the way Japan does.

Let us look at the second projected benefit of more demand for vehicles and hence more jobs. We need to do an in-depth study on whether people really have that kind of disposable money to be able to buy new vehicles. With rising expenses and rising cost of medical care, buying new vehicles will really not be top priority. We also need to consider if it is morally right to take away someone’s vehicle so that that the person is then forced to buy another vehicle. This then bring us to the hypothetical but equivalent case on the need to pass a regulation to demolish all houses above the age of 30 years as people would then buy new houses and grow the economy. The argument is obviously not an acceptable argument.

Similarly, if we look at the third and fourth benefits of creating a scrappage industry and creation of electric retrofitting industry, both arguments are unacceptable as we are creating these industries by taking away someone’s hard earned property. To add to the woes, there is no clarity on how the electric vehicle retrofitting will work as retro-fitment kit for each model of a vehicle would require homologation which is extremely expensive and time consuming. Again, one only needs to compare it with the hypothetical order of demolishing all houses that are above the age of 30 years, to see the   unethical nature of this order.

One has not witnessed such large-scale destruction of economic value through regulations in the recent past. Unfortunately, since the orders supposedly lead to a larger market for the automobile giants, it is a losing battle for the weak middle-class to be able to challenge the order. The middle-class cannot do dharnas and choke arterial roads and highways. They have to get up in the morning and go for their jobs and keep the economic engine running and mutely submit themselves to the regulatory burdens. And thus, yet again, it is the middle class that will be at the receiving end of a regulatory intervention that helps large companies rather than protecting the vulnerable.

Regulations distorting the economy

The government has been charging a tax on digital payments while promoting digital payments. It is tantamount to a tax on a tax paid purchase and inhibits the growth of digital payments. Since it is obvious from economics that an indirect tax distorts the economy, an indirect tax on the indirect tax, further distorts the economy.

When one makes a digital payment to a merchant, using a card, the merchant usually incurs a facilitation charge which is a small portion of the value of the transaction. So, if one is paying by say credit card for buying medicines, the chemist needs to pay a small amount of the transaction value to the credit card network, in order to receive the payment. This amount actually is not just the cost of facilitating the payment, but is also the interest cost of the payment as the payer then gets around 45 days of credit to pay back that amount. Thus, it also becomes an important tool for providing access to small credit to the common people.

These charges are legitimate charges for a legitimate service being provided. However, one needs to pay 18% as GST on the digital payment charges. So, in effect, to make a payment digitally, one needs to pay separately to the government also. This is unacceptable as one is already paying taxes on the goods or service being purchased, and on top of it, one has to also pay an additional tax to the government if one is making the payment digitally. And this is especially convoluted in the context that the government is promoting digital payment.

To be fair to the government, the government does give a waiver of taxes on digital payments of values less than Rs 2,000. However, as seen in recent cases in the industry, the indirect taxes arm of the government (CBIC) believes that such waiver is only for banks and not for fintechs. Hence fintechs who did not charge a GST on transactions below Rs 2,000, were presented with show cause notices and humungous tax demands. It seems to be a classic case of left arm not knowing what the right arm is doing.

Even if this issue of taxing the transactions facilitated by fintechs is resolved, and payment transactions below Rs 2,000 are not taxed, the fundamental issue stays – is it right to levy an additional tax on the payments when the payer is already paying a tax on the goods or services purchased? Should we treat payments as a service? Consider the case that someone pays their taxes using a credit card. The person has to then make an additional tax payment on the tax payments since they are using digital payments to make that payment. This is indeed convoluted. And as is the impact of any convolution, it has a deep impact on ease of doing business. Consider small businesses trying to keep track of GST on each of their digital payments so that they are able to claim an input tax credit on all these payments. It is a challenging situation.

How big is the impact of the GST on payments? Typically, credit cards charge around 2% as the transaction facilitation charges (also called as MDR which stands for Merchant Discount Rate). This 2% is then shared across multiple players who orchestrate the transaction in the backend, each player getting small fraction of this 2% charge, and the share goes down to as small as 0.05%. After GST, the total cost of making digital payment bumps up to 2.36%. So, the government ends up getting 0.36% which becomes one of the largest chunks for facilitating the payments. What also needs to be noted is that the government does not have any direct role in facilitating the payments, and yet gets a lion’s share of the total transaction charges that a citizen incurs for getting small credit and for making a payment digitally.

The government has also been working hard along with the card networks to reduce their charges. However, if the government itself stops levying a tax on payments, the charges would reduce by a whopping 18%.

The Challenges of Regulating Crypto^[5]

Cryptos pose a significant challenge to the regulatory framework. It would be difficult to ban cryptos and it is challenging to construct a regulatory framework that protects the people and the financial institutions from cryptos. Hence it is important to consider cryptos separately, in order to understand the dimensions of creating regulatory frameworks for economic growth through new technologies.

Much has been debated over the cryptocurrencies that has posed a significant regulatory challenge to policymakers. In its worst, the argument of cryptocurrency backers is the threat of the nuisance value of crypto i.e., many people have already invested into cryptos and hence any regulatory framework that leads to reduction in the value of the cryptos will hurt the considerable number of people who have invested into cryptos. This is not a tenable argument since the government must ensure that there is no further harm to the rest of the public.

In fact, to begin with, cryptocurrency itself is a misnomer as its legal existence in most countries is that of a commodity and not a currency. What it implies is that most countries globally do not accept cryptos as legal tender. As free people of free nations, one is free to buy anything that they want with their tax-paid money, and hence people are free to buy cryptos. But the cryptos cannot be uses as a currency. They can buy it only as a commodity and trade in it, pretty much like the way children trade in cricket cards (or baseball cards in US). So perhaps, we should refer to cryptos as crypto-commodities or perhaps as crypto-assets for those who believe cryptos to be assets.

However, what is more critical is that cryptos do not have any inherent value per se. There are other currencies also that do not have any inherent value. In fact, most modern currencies, starting with the US dollar, do not have any inherent value. In 1971, the US dollar delinked itself from gold and rescinded from its commitment to pay one ounce of gold for every USD 35. This made the US dollar the first “crypto” from the perspective that it had absolutely no underlying value any more. And hence, the US government could print as much of US dollars as it wanted, to fund its own growth, while being within certain economic and monetary policy constraints.

The rest of the world gave credence to such a currency and accepted the US dollar to be the benchmark currency and the de facto currency for most international trade. This was driven by the fact that the US dollar was backed by the strength of the US economy. The powerful US economy was one of the largest exporter as well as importer of goods and services and hence it commanded the currency for trade, which obviously was the US dollar. In addition, the US government and military ensured that all energy trade in the world happens through US dollar. Whenever there was a threat of such trade happening through other currencies such as the Euro, Rouble or the hypothetical African Union Currency, such trade structures and regimes were violently displaced. And thus, a currency with no underlying value, became the strongest currency in the world.

With this argument, the question that arises is, why cannot a crypto, with absolutely no underlying value, become a strong currency. Actually, it can, as cryptos such as Bitcoin, are actually backed by a large economy, which is largely black in nature. Bitcoin gained popularity as trade on the “Silkroute” increased. “Silkroute” is not the trade route of the past but is a place in the darknet where drugs, guns and other illegal commodities are traded on the internet. Therefore, need for anonymity while dealing with such illegal commodities becomes paramount. One cannot pay for drugs online using their bank account or credit card as the buyers can be traced and caught. This is where bitcoin comes in. It enables the payment for such illegal commodities being traded in the darknet. Fiat currencies just cannot be used as it would leave trace of the buyer and lead the person to be identified and caught. Hence Bitcoin was the perfect currency for this darknet trade and therefore, Bitcoin is backed by this dark economy, just as US dollar was backed by the US economy. This is primarily where the Bitcoin derived its early value from. Bitcoin is not controlled by any one person or government. It provides perfect anonymity.

Till June of 2021, it was widely believed that cryptos provide the anonymity described above. However, in May this year, there was a ransomware attack in the US on the pipeline system by the name Colonial Pipeline, which is the largest oil pipeline system in the US. A very large sum of ransom was paid to the attackers and this money was paid in Bitcoins. The attackers conveniently thought that no one would be able to catch them, once they have the Bitcoins, as Bitcoins is anonymous and not traceable. But, within weeks, the US government was able to trace the Bitcoins and recover them. This is possible since the Bitcoins actually have a public ledger where one can see which email address is owning them. With the resources at the disposal of the US government, it was possible for the US government to trace out the IP addresses and the ownership of the Bitcoins and recover the same. The same cannot be easily done by other governments. For other jurisdictions, such as India, cryptos remain de facto anonymous.

The question that then arises is why would anyone prefer to use cryptos for payments over say a centralised construct such as UPI. Why would people move to an energy-guzzling, high carbon footprint crypto such as Bitcoin over an easy-to-use, low carbon footprint solution like UPI? The answer is the same as for the use of Bitcoin for Silkroute – anonymity. For long, it was theoretical that cryptos can be used for money laundering and for terror financing. Towards the end of 2021, it turned out that the Enforcement Directorate of India had identified that using cryptos, Rs 4,000 crore has been laundered out of India in the last one year. In addition, the global body on terror financing, FATF (Financial Action Task Force) updated its Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach to Virtual Assets (cryptos) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). The FATF standards now require countries to assess and mitigate their risks associated with crypto transactions and subject them to supervision or monitoring by competent national authorities. This guidance is supposed to help countries and VASPs understand their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations, and effectively implement the FATF’s requirements as they apply to this sector. Ones needs to understand that the implication of not aligning with FATF is severe. As an example, FATF has put Pakistan on the grey list and has threatened to put them on the black list, which will severely limit the ability of Pakistan to raise funds and to do transactions.

With so many challenges, regulating cryptos becomes a tough job. On the other hand, it is also difficult to ban the march of technology. But how does one regulate something, which transcends the jurisdiction of one’s own country? One can perhaps put KYC (Know Your Customer that banks use to ensure they know whose account they are opening up in order to remove anonymity) on crypto exchanges operating in India. But what about crypto exchanges that are operating outside of India and are accessible from India, just like any other Internet based service? Such exchanges will not follow the laws of the Indian government. What if money laundering is done through the fungibility of the exchanges per se? How can one enforce any regulation brought in by the government?

It appears to be a situation where the government needs to do a tightrope walking on the issue and cannot rush into creating a regulation. It will be a challenging situation for governments across the world to regulate cryptos within the FATF framework and to manage the diminishing control of central banks on their monetary policies due to cryptos replacing their fiat currencies in a creeping manner.

Conclusion

In the brave new India, where a plethora of changes are being brought in by the government, by the society and by the industry, it is only right to have a channel where startups can reach out to and enable regulatory frameworks to change quickly for enabling startups to bring innovation and prosper, and in the process, enable the nation to also prosper. The government has already done it in the case of drones. We need to have a structured process wherein we can quickly create supporting regulatory structures that can propel India into leadership in many future multi-billion-dollar industries.

Quick, appropriate regulatory frameworks that respond to technological changes and innovations are in themselves a significant source of value creation in an economy. One can be reminded of the Sarai Act of the late 19th century. The act mandated that all sarais (hotels and inns) would need to mandatorily keep an earthen pot of water outside for all visitors and passers-by and provide a place to tie the horses. That law carried on till the 21st century till the government finally abrogated the law. We need to make such changes much more rapidly. Perhaps, looking at the Better Regulation Office of the UK Government as an example of an institutional structure that is dedicated to overhaul older laws and enable increased efficiency in the economy would be a good starting point.

Author Brief Bio: Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya is a noted expert in technology policies and technology-led societal transformation. A recipient of the prestigious APJ Abdul Kalam Award for innovation in Governance, he is currently President of Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research. He is also CEO of Zerone Microsystems Pvt Ltd, a deep-tech startup in the fintech sector.

Reference:

^[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/opinion-columns/story/regulate-regulations-india-boost-startups-1887529-2021-12-14

^[2] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/in-1997-this-indian-doctor-tried-pig-heart-transplant-was-jailed/articleshow/67111349.cms

^[3] https://www.indiatoday.in/opinion-columns/story/gdp-india-regulatory-frameworks-1892828-2021-12-28

^[4] https://www.indiatoday.in/opinion-columns/story/ban-on-aging-vehicles-regulatory-destruction-economic-value-1899590-2022-01-13

^[5] https://www.indiatoday.in/opinion-columns/story/why-regulating-cryptocurrencies-is-a-big-challenge-for-1882386-2021-11-30

In August 2014, India’s newly elected Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi gave a clarion call to the nation to focus its attention on making India a manufacturing powerhouse with his ‘Make in India’ vision^[1]. Defence manufacturing was identified as one of the 25 sectors in this vision^[2].

India has been one of the largest importers of defence equipment for over three decades and had the ignominious distinction of being at the top of the list from 2004 to 2014. As per the authoritative data base released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in 2020, India’s defence imports reduced by 33% from 14% of the global total in the period 2011-2015 to 9.5 % in the period 2016-2020, with Saudi Arabia pushing India to the second position.^[3] Whether this drop was due to the success of the indigenisation process or due to the complexity of the acquisition procedure will become evident only when the figures for the current five year period are released. India is slated to procure some significant military hardware in the next few years including its most expensive ever import, the S-400 Air Defence system from Russia, 24 Sikorsky MR-60 helicopters from the USA, two Type 1135.6 Krivak class frigates and possibly, a nuclear-powered attack submarine on lease from Russia. The Air Force and the Army are also in need of modernisation and not all requirements can be met indigenously due to the capacity and capability constraints of the Indian defence industry.

Indigenisation and self-reliance in defence manufacturing is a strategic imperative for India. As a regional Indo-Pacific power, India’s dependence on imports is a critical vulnerability. This has been exposed more than once; the first time was when the Soviet Union collapsed and so did its defence industry which left the Soviet equipped Indian Armed Forces facing a spares crisis with serious consequences for the country’s security. The second instance was the sanctions imposed by the West in the wake of the nuclear tests carried out by India in May1998 which also affected India’s military preparedness adversely. Both these events led to a thrust on indigenisation but was limited in scope and substance and focussed more on addressing the immediate crisis.

In 2020, the Ministry of Defence unveiled a Draft Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy^[4] to energise the defence manufacturing sector and set an ambitious target for defence turnover of USD 25 billion in ‘Aerospace and Defence Goods and Services’ with exports worth USD 5 billion by 2025. It is also intended to double defence procurement from the present Rs 70,000 crore to Rs 140,000 crore in the same time frame. Presently, the share of domestic procurement is about 60% of the total procurement^[5]. The recent Budget has increased this allocation to 68%, which in percentage terms is 10% more than the current financial year. With the projected capital allocation of Rs 1.52 lakh crore^[6], this amounts to a considerable Rs 1.03 lakh crore. This is ambitious but attainable and when seen in conjunction with the review of all ‘Buy Global’ cases undertaken by the Defence Acquisition Council in January 2022, it clearly spells out the intent to minimise the dependence on imports and invest more in developing indigenous capability. While this is indeed encouraging and necessary, there are considerable capacity and technology constraints in the defence industrial ecosystem which will need to be addressed. Perhaps an indication of how much of the 58% committed in the current FY has actually been spent on indigenous equipment would offer an insight into the probability of attaining the intended target.

In 2021, the Government listed a total of 209 items which would be produced indigenously with the timeline reflected against each in two ‘Positive Indigenisation Lists’. Another ‘Positive Indigenisation List’ included 2,851 items including assemblies. Components and sub-components, imports of which are also embargoed. In addition, various other initiatives have been taken to encourage indigenous defence production. These include the ‘Innovations for Defence Excellence’(iDEX) scheme to encourage MSMEs, the Implementation of “Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India), Order 2017, the launch of the SRIJAN portal to facilitate indigenisation and the establishment of two Defence Industrial Corridors, one each in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu^[7].

Revisiting the Defence Acquisition Procedure

The Ministry of Defence has always been pro-active in promulgating policies encouraging the growth of the defence manufacturing base in the country, promoting indigenisation and meeting the requirements of the Armed Forces. However, regrettably, implementation has been found wanting. At the turn of the century, it was decided to streamline the defence procurement process through an institutionalised mechanism to ensure transparency, probity and above all timely procurement. This led to the promulgation of the first Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) in 2002. Since then, this document has undergone numerous iterations (2005, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2016 and the latest in 2020, now renamed the Defence Acquisition Procedure). The document has grown from 141 pages (DPP 2005) to a humungous 657 pages (DAC 2020). These well-intentioned improvements over the years have led to it becoming increasingly complex in its understanding, interpretation and implementation.  This is primarily because successive iterations have rarely been a result of any meaningful internal audit of the existing procedure as newer categories of acquisition and procedural terms and conditions have been added without adequately analysing the success, or lack of it of the existing ones.

To illustrate the point, MoD introduced the ‘Make’ category in DPP 2006 with the intention of developing indigenous capability in some core areas. Amongst the first programmes announced with great expectation was the plan to build an indigenous FICV (Future Infantry Combat Vehicle) with active participation from all the leading private players including MSMEs. Other programmes included a nation-wide Defence Communication Network (DCN) and a Battle Management System (BMS). The FICV programme was cancelled after a few years which led to industry incurring considerable losses on its investment. While the larger players were able to absorb this, it was the MSMEs which bore the brunt. Subsequently, a revised ‘Make’ procedure was reintroduced and since then it has continued to evolve. In the DAP 2020, ‘Make’ has been subdivided into Make 1,2 and 3. It is too early to assess the effectiveness of this but the bottom line is that the Indian Army is no closer to getting a FICV today than it was 15 years ago.

Similarly, in a bid to encourage indigenisation, the degree of indigenous content required in various categories has been on the rise. However, this has rarely taken into account either industry’s technology constraints or its appetite to make costly investments either in R&D or in Transfer of Technology (TOT) without any assurance of an adequate return on its investment.

In 2006, MoD introduced the concept of Offsets and issued detailed guidelines. As per this, all Buy Global contracts above Rs 300 crore had to have an Offset element of at least 30%.  The aim was to ensure the induction of cutting-edge technologies. These guidelines met with limited success and were revised in 2016 with the contract value being raised to Rs 2000 crore and multipliers being added to attract technology. However, this too did not give the required boost.  In the DAP 2020, offsets have been waived for procurements through the G2G or the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) mechanism. This has virtually sounded the death knell for any useful offsets because most big-ticket items come via this route. In fact, with the increase in the indigenous content in most procurement categories, offsets have become more or less redundant and could perhaps be dispensed with.

The MoD claims that the DAP 2020 has been developed keeping in mind the shortcomings of its previous iterations and has included inputs from all stakeholders including foreign and domestic industry. Many new provisions have been added, including the leasing of equipment, encouraging foreign industry to manufacture in India, incentivising technical innovation and providing an impetus to MSMEs and start-ups for developing disruptive and cutting-edge technologies. Timelines to process acquisitions have been tightened with due accountability to reduce procedural delays etc.

The Defence Acquisition Procedure as the very term suggests is a procedure that provides the guidelines for defence procurement and is not a set of rules carved in stone. Hence, in certain cases, a degree of flexibility should be available to ensure timely induction of an essential capability.

The reason this does not happen is because of a glaring anomaly in the country’s higher defence organisation wherein the Armed Forces  headquarters, who are the final users of the equipment and have the knowledge, the expertise and the experience are not an integral part of the Ministry of Defence; they are in fact attached offices which limits their participation in the decision making process to being the ‘repository of technical information and advise the department on technical aspects of question dealt with by them’.^[8] This is hardly conducive to effective or efficient decision making on matters of national security.

The Indian Ministry of Defence is manned by a large and complex organisation of generalist bureaucrats drawn from all departments of the government for limited tenures, more often than not with no background knowledge of matters pertaining either to national security, the armed forces or the technological complexities of defence equipment. Thrust into appointments where they have to take decisions on issues, they know very little about, they often raise queries and seek clarifications on matters which highlights their ignorance and lack of professionalism. Even a single frivolous query can lead to delays of a few months at times and if they keep getting raised by different departments and at different levels this to-and-fro can go on for years, as indeed it does with consequential effects on defence modernisation, combat preparedness, committed liabilities, budget allocations etc. The irony of the Indian MoD is that the Armed Forces have perhaps the least representation in any of the departmentts of the MoD.

In the absence of the professional knowledge to evaluate equipment on the basis of a weighted matrix, the MoD bureaucracy has perpetuated the myth that the lowest bid (L1) is the best criterion for selecting an equipment. It has a mistaken belief that this leads to cost savings whereas in reality it is leading to just the opposite. A weighted index with realistic expectations would deliver better and speedier results. Cost is an important factor in defence procurements the world over but the decision is based on more sophisticated methods of price discovery to select the best their Armed forces require, unlike India which chooses the cheapest. Unfortunately, despite this being common knowledge, little has been done to address this in successive DPPs including the DAP 2020.

Perhaps the most major criticism of the complex Defence Procurement Procedure is that hardly any big-ticket item has been procured via the DPP route. In the past two decades all helicopters, aircraft, ships, submarines and artillery guns procured from abroad have come through the G2G/FMS mechanism. The MMRCA was one programme which followed the DPP till the declaration of the L1 bidder. However, this could not be taken to its logical conclusion for a host of reasons and the Government finally had to resort to a G2G arrangement with France for these aircraft under very different conditions and prices than had been determined via the laid down procedure.

Widening the Defence Industrial Base

It has now been two decades since the defence manufacturing sector was opened to the private sector. However, it has been largely restricted to a network of Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSU) which work directly under the MoD’s Department of Defence Production (DDP). This limits the manufacturing capacity in the country and leads to importing equipment to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces. This dependence on imports not only contradicts the Government’s avowed aim of indigenisation and self-reliance, but also creates a strategic vulnerability which it cannot afford. Indian industry has made remarkable progress in other strategic areas like space technology, atomic energy and missile development. A vibrant MSME culture has been the fountainhead of innovation and has contributed significantly in these. However, the defence sector has been unable to replicate this success to the same extent.  This has led to capacity and capability gaps in the country’s defence preparedness. These can be effectively addressed by energising the country’s vast public sector network and creating an enabling environment to encourage private sector participation. There is a perception, and not without reason, that there is an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ syndrome where the ‘us’ (Defence PSUs) have always enjoyed a playing field that is heavily skewed in their favour and thus have a distinct advantage over the ‘them’ (private industry). The MoD’s Department of Defence Production must dispel this belief with policy initiatives that translate into tangible outcomes.

Energising the Public Sector

India’s vast network of public sector undertakings has the unenviable reputation of being inefficient, bureaucratic and lacking the agility to adapt to change. This is often attributed to the lack of incentive in the absence of a competitive environment since they benefit from the preferential treatment by the government. This is especially true of the DPSUs which continue to get most contracts by nomination. Despite this, the DPSUs have fallen far short of expectations in delivering quality products on time and within cost.

One of the success stories in the Indian defence sector has been indigenous shipbuilding which is mainly the preserve of the public sector. For over five decades, the indigenous construction of ships and submarines has been undertaken mostly at the five public sector shipyards, four of which (MDL Mumbai, GSL Goa, HSL Visakhapatnam and GRSE Kolkatta) are under the MoD while CSL Kochi is under the Ministry of Shipping. However, these shipyards, despite their inability to deliver any major platforms in time or within cost have rarely been penalised. This story is not limited only to the shipyards but is also echoed across other DPSUs that have thrived in a non-competitive captive market.

In the current system it is the MoD which defines the requirement and places an order to the MoD for equipment to be manufactured by the MoD at a price decided by the MoD which is then sold to the MoD while ensuring that the MoD does not incur a loss, the delays in delivery and cost over-runs notwithstanding. This internalisation of the ecosystem encourages inefficiency, is counter-productive and is a major anomaly in the system.

However, it would be unfair to single out the only the DPSUs for blame; the stifling oversight of the MoD greatly limits their autonomous functioning and is perhaps another reason for their lack of incentive and innovative spirit. They have the skilled manpower, the desired infrastructure and many decades of rich experience in their core area of expertise. Perhaps a phased privatisation of the DPSUs would make them more competitive and efficient because it would give them the financial and functional autonomy to optimise their core strengths, trim the flab and optimise productivity. However, since this is unlikely to happen at least in the near future, they could, for a start be delinked from the Ministry of Defence and like other industries, be placed under the Industry Ministry. They would then have to compete with private industry in a more level playing field than exists at present and would energise them to realise their full potential.

Defence is a strategic sector where certain critical programmes need MoD/Armed Forces oversight because of the sensitive technologies involved and the demands of national security. Tier 1 and Tier 2 vendors in the private sector are already supporting the DPSUs in sensitive and strategic programmes. India’s private sector has also more than proven its worth, capability and maturity and is operating successfully in a globally competitive environment. Hence MoD oversight can be incorporated into contracts awarded to the private sector as well. Citing MoD oversight as an excuse for nominating DPSUs is not a justifiable argument. This oversight in sensitive programmes can be extended to the private sector, which is fully cognisant of the importance of security.

Some of the recent policy initiatives of the Ministry of Defence give rise to optimism that the private sector is being encouraged to become an integral and important part of the defence industrial ecosystem. Initiatives like the Strategic Partnership model which was introduced in the 2016 edition of the DPP “to institutionalise a transparent, objective and functional mechanism to encourage broader participation of the private sector, in addition to capacities of DPSUs/OFB, in manufacturing of major defence platforms” ^[9] in the manufacture of submarines, aircraft, helicopters and armoured vehicles is a very positive step in the right direction. Two important and long overdue programmes are currently being progressed under this model – Project 75(I) for the indigenous construction of six conventional submarines and the other for the induction of 111 Naval Utility Helicopters (NUH). It is perhaps too early to comment on this model as it is still at a very early stage but for it to be successful, the MoD’s flexibility and agility to adapt will be critical.

Another encouraging development has been the dissolution of the 220-year-old Ordnance Factory Board with its 41 factories now restructured as seven DPSU clusters based on the Union Cabinet’s decision on 16 June 2021. Corporatisation of this behemoth was long overdue and had been recommended by various committees over the years. It is hoped that this restructuring will lead to more efficient functioning in a cost competitive defence manufacturing environment.^[10] However, despite a clarification in Parliament that the terms and conditions of the work force as Central Government employees will continue to be protected, the Unions expressed their dissatisfaction and it required legislation to prevent them from striking work.^[11] The corporatisation of the OFB has been a very progressive step and its success will be keenly observed.

At present it seems unlikely that the MoD will allow its DPSUs either to be privatised or get eclipsed by the private sector but it is encouraging that the MoD is willing to admit that the DPSUs “…continue to enjoy a commanding role based on various forms of governmental support over the past decades…”^[12]. It also acknowledges that the “active involvement of the private sector in the manufacturing of major defence equipment will have a transformational impact. It will serve to enhance competition, increase efficiencies, facilitate faster and more significant absorption of technology, create a tiered industrial ecosystem, ensure development of a wider skill base, trigger innovation, promote participation in global value chains as well as exports.”^[13]

Enabling the Private Sector

India’s security requirements over the next few years requires a synergistic approach to defence manufacturing. India’s private sector, both large and small, is keen to be a part of the defence manufacturing ecosystem. Indian MSMEs have been contributing significantly as sub-suppliers to DRDO and the DPSUs and the Indian entrepreneurial spirit is driving a vibrant start-up culture keen to showcase their skills in harnessing disruptive technologies.

However, despite two decades having elapsed since the private sector was permitted to participate in defence manufacturing with the aim of widening the defence manufacturing base in the country, it has not been able to get the necessary traction and remains less than optimally utilised for various reasons, not least being the lack of both encouragement and a conducive environment.

The fate of the private sector in warship construction is reflective of this. Of the four private sector shipyards which invested large sums in developing warship building skills, three have become insolvent partly because of their inability to deliver but more so because of MoD’s reluctance to allow them to develop their capability. The irony is that while the DPSU shipyards despite building ships for over five decades are unable to deliver ships either on time or within cost and are not penalised for it, these fledgling private shipyards did not get similar support.

Many of India’s leading industrial houses have taken impressive initiatives and made considerable investments in this sector. It is now for the government to develop an enabling policy framework to leverage their skills by ensuring a level playing field, supporting their efforts in the initial stages, and providing some reassurance of an adequate return on their investment. The Government’s production and export policy has set an ambitious defence production target of USD 25 billion by 2025 including exports worth USD 5 billion.^[14] The emerging security challenges in the next decade or so with two belligerent neighbours constantly sniping at our heels will require India to accelerate and augment its capacity and capability development. This will only be possible with the private and public sector working closely together to widen the country’s defence-industrial base towards meeting its requirements and the laid down targets.

It is important that in addition to equipping its own armed forces, the defence industry should also be able to export military hardware to friendly foreign countries. Defence exports provide military and diplomatic leverage and are an important source of revenue generation to support the internal requirements. Diplomatic leverage is an important consideration for an emerging power like India to retain its edge in its strategic sphere of influence. India is ranked within the top 25 countries in defence exports but its share is actually less than 0.2%. The recent contract worth USD 375 million signed with the Philippines for the Brahmos missile is a significant breakthrough and more such contracts should follow.^[15] The MoD should also ease the procedure to ensure that Indian industry, whether public or private is able to operate with the requisite flexibility in a competitive international market.

India recognises that technology infusion requires industry to collaborate with foreign OEMs; it has been repeatedly highlighted that Indian and foreign OEMs should set up Joint Ventures and Special Purpose Vehicles which includes both, a manufacturing and a R&D element. To facilitate this, the Government has been steadily increasing the FDI limits in the defence sector which is presently at 74% to make the Indian defence industry an attractive proposition investment destination and then take advantage of cost advantages to manufacture in India and export to other countries in the region.

Conclusion

India’s defence manufacturing is poised on a transformational cusp. Many of the impediments of the past which retarded progress in the past are being addressed. The MoD has set ambitious targets for indigenisation and its recent policies are aimed at revitalising this sector with a focus on innovation, technology development, exports, enhancing existing capacity and improving efficiencies in defence manufacturing. Restructuring within the MoD towards improving efficiency and quality is an encouraging development. The entry of the private sector also bodes well for the future. However, there are still areas where the pace of change could be accelerated. The emergence of India as a defence manufacturing hub not only to meet its own security requirements for India but for the entire region will depend on the MoD’s ability and inclination to walk the talk in ensuring that its progressive policies are implemented in both, letter and spirit.

Author Brief Bio: Commodore Anil Jai Singh is the Vice President of the Indian Maritime Foundation. The views expressed are personal.

References:

^[1] PM launches ‘Make in India’ global initiative. www.narendramodi.in/pm-launches-make-in-india-global-initiaitive-6644

^[2] Make in India: List of sectors, Objectives and Budget Allocation (jagranjosh.com).www.jagranjosh.com/general knowledge/list-of-sectors-covered-under-the-make-in-indi-plan-152635017-1

^[3] www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2021.03/fs_2013_at_2020pdf. Trends in international arms transfers, 2020 (sipri.org)

^[4] Draft Defence Production & Export Promotion Policy – DPEPP 2020 | Department of Defence Production (ddpmod.gov.in). www.ddpmod.gov.in/dpepp

^[5] Ibid

^[6] Ministry of Defence Press Release on Union Budget 2022-23 dated 01 Feb 2022

^[7] Ministry of Defence Press Release on Manufacturing of Defence Equipment dated 04 Feb 2022

^[8] Slide 1 (mcrhrdi.gov.in)

^[9] Chapter 7, Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020.Pp 479.

^[10] Explained: Dismantling the Ordnance Factory Board | Explained News,The Indian Express.

^[11] Home | Directorate of Ordnance (Coordination and Services) | Government of India (ddpdoo.gov.in)

^[12] Chapter 7, Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020.Pp 479

^[13] Ibid.

^[14] Draft Defence Production & Export Promotion Policy – DPEPP 2020 | Department of Defence Production (ddpmod.gov.in)

^[15] In a first, India to export BrahMos missile to Philippines – The Economic Times (indiatimes.com)

The announcement in the budget about the introduction of Digital Rupee and the 30% tax on the income from virtual digital assets has set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons. Due to a lack of clear and holistic understanding of such technology based financial instruments, there are doubts in the mind of one and all on these aspects. To have a clear appreciation of why Government chose to take the decisions it announced in the budget, let us first examine the most important decision of introduction of the RBI backed Digital Rupee, followed by the taxation on virtual digital assets.

What is Digital Rupee? Digital Rupee is a Central Bank-backed Digital Currency (CBDC). It is not a decentralised cryptocurrency like Bitcoin nor is it a Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) like Ethereum. Digital Rupee is nothing but a virtual currency having the same intrinsic value of a physical rupee which is a fiat currency^[1], which draws its value from the demand and supply of the currency in the market. This digital currency will not be on a decentralised distributed ledger but shall be an RBI controlled centralised Blockchain. This implies that the Digital Rupee is not the same as a virtual digital asset and shall enjoy a privileged status of being the only recognised and legitimate digital currency in India. The Government and the RBI will never be comfortable with a private non state controlled Crypto currency in the country as it has serious potential to undermine the country’s economy and may lead to high levels of tax evasion and money laundering.

How is the Digital Rupee different from Rupee transactions done through any digital platform such as credit cards, digital applications or UPI wallets? The existing digital platforms, while doing digital transaction, still transact physical rupees at a fundamental level. This means that the RBI has to print all those currencies and make it available to all the banks which are connected to these digital platforms. The Digital Rupee on the other hand is a virtual currency which runs on a powerful blockchain based cryptographic algorithm which secures the transactions. This implies that this virtual currency can be legitimately transacted on a peer-to-peer basis, while the government will have the complete visibility on the entire transaction end to end. This shall give the Government a greater leverage to legislate and bring laws that can bring additional revenues on areas that otherwise escape the tax net.

Decentralised Crypto currencies are often generated by a process called mining. However, in case of Digital Rupee, the RBI shall decide the quantum of currencies that are to be generated. The value of the rupee then, shall be equal to the fiat system value of all the money printed physically by the mint and generated by the digital ecosystem. It is therefore clear that the Digital Rupee shall facilitate ease of transaction while enhancing the security of transactions and reducing the cost of various overheads involved in printing, handling, maintaining and securing the physical rupee. The ownership of Digital Rupee is therefore not akin to owning a Bitcoin or Ethereum like currency whose market values are very volatile and therefore tempt greedy investors with a preposition of making quick money. It is to be borne in mind that the intrinsic value of these currencies is zero.

Currencies like the Bitcoin and Ethereum offer anonymity of ownership which is the main reason why people choose such assets. While the Indian Government has taken all possible legal measures to ensure that every transaction can be tracked when a physical rupee is used to buy a crypto currency, it still has some serious gaps in tracing crypto transactions. For example, if an investor invests Rs 1000 and buys a crypto currency, the government can easily track the process through a mandatory KYC requirement imposed on exchanges that operate inside the ambit of Indian laws and its jurisdiction. However, if a person receives crypto coins through the process of mining or as a consequence of a peer-to-peer transaction from a third party, such transactions cannot be traced by the Indian Government. It is therefore important to note that for some people, Crypto currencies shall still be seen as a better digital asset than a Digital Rupee due to the singular reason of anonymity that it offers.

The Digital Rupee still holds multiple aces up its sleeve and could potentially unleash a plethora of benefits to the economy and Government in unimaginable ways, provided the plan is executed without any hurdle or confusion. One of the biggest challenges in the Indian economy is the relatively low and poor tax compliance. Nationalistic rhetoric cannot boost the revenue collected through direct tax beyond a certain point. Unless technology is designed, implemented and adopted in a transparent fashion, financial transactions can never be traced or formalised. The Digital rupee may just be the tool which could potentially be the right answer to solve the puzzle of tax compliance amongst the people.

One of the key concerns of a Digital rupee is the fear that people may have less deposits in the bank as the currency is primarily stored in a crypto wallet. This may impact the ability of a bank to lend and consequently lead to reduced revenues. The fundamental notion behind such a theory is that money is deposited in the bank for securing it. Beyond security the returns offered by the banks in terms of interest on the deposit also needs to be taken into account. A Digital Rupee shall mean less overheads and expenses, which in turn could mean a higher return for money deposited in a bank. If the RBI delegates the responsibility of managing the crypto wallet with a defined set of guidelines, then the money in the wallet is as good as a bank account and therefore the Digital Rupee would not cause much disruptions in the system as it exists on date. The job of RBI is to act as a watchdog and draft policies rather than getting into services and management of technology. The crypto wallet, recognised by the RBI and operationalised by the registered financial institutions, can manage the issue of credit and liquidity effectively, while ensuring principles of uniformity, standardisation and security of the currency in the digital regime.

The Digital Rupee will only make sense if it is proliferated significantly. While it would not be advisable to completely replace the physical currency with the Digital Rupee, a gradual and regulated infusion of the Digital Rupee in the market while replacing the physical currency must be adopted. Any half-hearted approach could potentially prove to be counter-productive, squandering in the process, all the potential benefits a digital currency can bring to the economy. The eventual target should be to replace the physical currency to at least 60% to 70% levels in an agile timeframe. It is very important to send the right signals, otherwise market sentiments may get confused leading to confusion and chaos.

The Digital Rupee will have to cross the first hurdle of adoption by the people. The following steps could be taken by the government to overcome this hurdle.

1. To begin with, the government may create a free digital wallet for each person with an Aadhaar Card and a Voter ID along with a PAN card. All the three identities may be technically merged into a single virtual token which shall be the finger print for every digital wallet.
2. The Government may transfer all direct benefit transfers (DBT) through various subsidies to these digital wallets during the initial phase to ensure proliferation of the digital rupee.
3. It may incentivise the retail business with lesser GST rates if the transaction is carried out with a Digital Rupee. A 10% discount passed on to the customer may effectively compel the retailers to migrate to a formal banking platform. The government shall pass on the benefits accrued due to lesser overheads to the retailers and the customers for some time.
4. It may disburse all salary and bill payments as Digital Rupee.
5. The printing of new currencies shall be paused till such time the Digital rupee reaches a certain threshold say 50% to 60%. The eventual physical cash may be allowed to operate only at about 30% of the current level and a calibrated decision towards this end may be taken based on the behaviour of the economy and the response from the people.
6. Banks shall have significant downsizing of HR and the reduced overheads in the banking system shall compensate for the revenue shortfalls arising out of the digitisation of the rupee.

Once the targets are met, the discounts offered could be gradually withdrawn. Since there is a likelihood of a widened tax net, the tax rates would stabilise at the discounted levels or at a slightly higher level, based on the economic situation at that point of time. One of the indirect benefits of the digitisation of the rupee shall be that most of the accounts and financial related jobs shall be significantly downsized as AI based Fintech automation platforms will take centre stage. The potential downsizing of people with finance background shall be as much as 80% and these jobs shall mostly get transferred to the IT tech-based jobs. This would result in lesser government jobs and a much leaner government work force. The Tech jobs shall mostly be in the private sector, and therefore the productivity and accountability shall be better. The process of audit and compliance also shall get automated to a large extent leading to better compliance, with little scope for manipulation The overall credit-worthiness, from the individual to business level, will show a dramatic improvement due to the higher compliance, which will result in lesser NPA’s for the banking sector as a whole.

To achieve this, the technology backbone would require a higher degree of resilience and reliability in its architecture. Without a 24×7 power and internet availability, these technologies cannot be sustained, as outages beyond a certain threshold could potentially impact business big time. Offline protocols can introduce security vulnerabilities in the system and therefore, the technology architecture has to be much more robust and resilient, with high availability, if the Digital Rupee has to take off initially.

The boost to the economy shall however come from an altogether different quarter. Indian economy has approximately 93% of its work force in the informal sector. This means a significant part of our economy is in the informal sector and the GDP of the country does not totally account for the actual value of the economic activity. One of the interesting observations of the unorganised sector is that the same owner often creates multiple entities wherein one entity is formal while the others are informal. Based on the situation and comfort, transactions are seamlessly moved between the formal and informal entities to evade tax. The informal entity needs cash to sustain its activity unhindered on a large scale. This is where proliferation of the Digital Rupee beyond 60% shall make it difficult for such business to carry on and may need better tactics and strategy to survive. The demand for a Digital Rupee by the work force due to better value preposition in the market may compel such owners to switch to the Digital Rupee instead of cash.

The government may also impose a transaction tax for deposit or withdrawal of cash in any bank beyond certain limits. This may create another hurdle for free flow of money to and from the system. The details of the deposit may also find a trail in the crypto wallet which may ensure a reasonable trail of transaction and flow of the currency without much overheads.

All these moves may force the informal sector to move into the formal sector, which may effectively boost the GDP figures significantly in a short span of time. This could be the boost the government was looking for to stimulate the GDP figures towards the much hyped 5 Tn economy mark. The projected 10% Y-Y growth in the next three years would imply a growth of 30% for the economy by the year 2024. Add to this a one-time possible correction of at least 30% to 40% due to the formalisation of the informal economy and the net growth would be around 70% if the growth rates are compounded Y-Y. 70% growth in 3 years would attract better FDI which could boost the market sentiments further resulting in the perfect recipe for a big-bang boom of the economy. The market sentiments may give a good push taking the overall growth to well beyond 100 percent of the present GDP levels. This is the only way the country can hope to touch the 5 Tn GDP size in a faster time-frame.

The 30% tax levied on the digital assets is seen by many as a clandestine move to legitimise the Crypto currency in India. This again appears to be a smart move by the government to discourage the use of such speculative instruments while staying clear of banning the technology. Banning would be difficult to justify in a court of law, as the government would need a similar technology to implement the Digital Rupee. Hence, the Government, by announcing 30% tax on digital assets, has standardised the tax for any speculative income arising out of such investments that was left out till date. In short, this taxation is considered at par with the income raised on activities like gambling which are taxed at 30%.

This move will discourage all those involved in speculative crypto investment by fulfilling the KYC requirements through established Crypto stock exchanges which are registered as legitimate Indian companies. There is also a possibility of these exchanges being brought under the GST regime for the transactions they do. So, if they are brought under either the 12% slab or the 18% slab, it shall sound the death knell for legitimate crypto investment in the country.

Any legitimate investment should have adequate checks and balances in the system with protection of the interest of the gullible and naïve investor. Since over 40,000 crore is invested in these platforms, these are the next breeding grounds for a major scam where people may be conned of their money overnight. Since these assets have zero intrinsic value, the possibility of insolvency of the owning company may lead to complicated legal battles which the investors would find difficult to sustain and win in a court of law. Such instruments, therefore, have potential to cause serious political turmoil and the move to tax is one more step to keep the tail clear so that potential scamsters do not find an easy method to stage a big scam. People who still consider such investments would be doing so at their own risk which then could be used as a shield to defend if there is any untoward incident in the fintech market.

It is therefore clear that both the moves announced in this budget have serious potential to transform the economy towards a higher growth trajectory while ensuring better compliance. A higher GDP number means a robust double-digit growth which effectively means higher revenues and less fiscal deficit. If the pandemic subsides without causing further problems for economy and no major conflicts happen, India is set poised to a double-digit growth and the march towards the 5 Tn economy appears most likely be on course. The ruling party can, therefore, potentially seal the fate of the election, even before it begins in May 2024.

Author Brief Bio: Wg Cdr S Sudhakaran (V) is MD & CEO, QuGates Technologies

End Notes:

^[1] Fiat money is a government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver, but rather by the government that issued it. The value of fiat money is derived from the relationship between supply and demand and the stability of the issuing government, rather than the worth of a commodity backing it.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought renewed focus on a healthier way of living around the world, and India embraced it as an opportunity to showcase its heritage in natural and sustainable living. The pandemic has brought preventive medicine to the limelight throughout the world. After facing a virus that had no cure or vaccination for over a year, it is now well accepted that while allopathy rightfully dominates the curative health market, the preventive healthcare market needs to be developed at par with allopathy.

In India, our rich culture of traditional medicine, which had unfortunately gone dormant over the years, came to life once again as Indians went back to their roots to fight a health enemy that modern medicine did not have a cure for. This is not to say that AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy) developed a cure for the Covid-19 virus but to reiterate that immunity building is a challenge that the AYUSH system of medicine championed long back. But the journey or the reincarnation of the AYUSH system in India did not start as a response to the pandemic. In 2014, with a vision of reviving the profound knowledge of our ancient systems of medicine and ensuring the optimal development and propagation of the AYUSH systems of healthcare, the Ministry of AYUSH was formed as a historic move in a world that was becoming increasingly globalised and unfortunately leaving behind its traditional knowledge.

Earlier, the Department of Indian System of Medicine and Homoeopathy (ISM&H) formed in 1995, was responsible for the development of these systems. It was then renamed as the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga, and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy 2003 with focused attention towards education and research but AYUSH medicine still lacked the attention it deserved without being under the aegis of a ministry.

As a testimony to the establishment, India’s Ayurvedic and herbal products export value increased from USD 354.68 Mn in the financial year 2015 to USD 446.13 Mn in the financial year 2019. This is to say that we were making steady progress even before the pandemic hit, but the year 2020 certainly gave the much-needed boost to the government’s efforts.

While nobody predicted back in 2014 that the world would face a crisis such as Covid-19, in hindsight, the formation of the ministry became a larger blessing for the country. As the pandemic hit, the Ministry of AYUSH shared guidelines for safe Ayurveda Panchakarma practice in the COVID-19 pandemic, the AYUSH products saw a 44 per cent increase in sales post the onset of Covid-19^[1] and an AYUSH Covid-19 Helpline was launched by the ministry.^[2] Just like that, AYUSH medicine started gaining its trust back with renewed momentum.

The market size of the AYUSH industry as a whole grew around 17 per cent between 2014 and 2020 with the increase in global and domestic demand, enabled by strong support to regulatory, research and development, and robust infrastructure by the Ministry of AYUSH.^[3] In December of 2020, the Ministry of AYUSH and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry decided to work collectively for setting up AYUSH Export Promotion Council (AEPC) to stimulate AYUSH exports.^[4]

The scope of AEPC, which will be housed in the AYUSH Ministry, includes expediting standardisation of harmonised system code for AYUSH, collaborating between AYUSH Ministry and the Bureau of Indian Standards in order to develop international standards for AYUSH products and services, identification of best practices and success stories and their promotion, ensuring quality and standards of AYUSH products and their price-competitiveness, and creating a brand for Indian AYUSH.^[5]

The government is now aiming to position India as a destination for health and wellness tourism through the AYUSH System. It has developed the Champion Services Sector Scheme for Medical value Travel to enhance medical tourism in the field of AYUSH and to provide support establishing world-class state-of-the-art AYUSH hospitals. A National Medical and Wellness Tourism Board is also formed to boost medical, wellness, yoga, and Ayurveda tourism.^[6] India is already a hub for medical tourism and thus, medical tourism is an excellent area for India to push AYUSH medicine backed by research and development.

As for creating the Indian brand is concerned, incentives are provided to AYUSH drug manufacturers for participating in international exhibitions and trade fairs and for market authorisation and registration of AYUSH products with bodies like USFDA, EMEA, UK-MHRA, NHPD, TGA, alongside other international regulatory agencies abroad for the purpose of export. So far, more than 50 products (Unani and Ayurveda) have been registered in eight countries namely Kenya, the USA, Russia, Latvia, Canada, Oman, Tajikistan, and Sri Lanka^[7] Registration for products is an important milestone for manufacturers to enter into newer markets with registrations in bigger nations like the USA aiding trust development in other partner nations as well.

Under the Ministry of AYUSH, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed between the Pharmacopoeia Commission for Indian Medicine & Homoeopathy (PCIM&H) and the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP) in September 2021.^[8] This MoU will lead to the constitution of a joint committee to develop the action plan along with timelines for the development of monographs and other activities for cooperation in the field of traditional medicine^[9].

While this MOU will develop the confidence of the global community about the safety of AYUSH drugs, one of the major outcomes of this partnership will be that both PCIM&H and AHP would be working to identify various challenges faced by the herbal market of Ayurveda products or drugs in the USA. This will lead to the adoption of Ayurveda standards developed out of this cooperation by the manufacturers of herbal drugs in the USA as well.

Development of monographs of Ayurveda and other Indian traditional medicine products and herbal products, exchange of technical data for the development of monographs with due acknowledgment between the parties, training and capacity building, exchange of herbarium specimens and botanical reference samples, and phytochemical reference standards are also the part of MoU. There is an understanding for the development of a digital database and identifying further areas of co-operation for the promotion of quality standards of drugs/products used in Ayurveda and other Indian traditional medicine.^[10] The National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) under the Ministry of AYUSH also launched a Voluntary Certification Scheme for Medicinal Plants Produce (VCSMPP) in order to encourage good agricultural practices and good field collection practices in medicinal plants. The VCSMPP will enhance the availability of certified quality medicinal plants as raw materials in the country and also boost their export and increase India’s share in the global export of herbs.

Ministry of AYUSH is presently implementing the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the National AYUSH Mission (NAM). Under this scheme, subsidy at the rate of 30 per cent, 50 per cent, and 75 per cent of the cost of cultivation is provided for the cultivation of 140 prioritised medicinal plants on farmer’s land. Under the Medicinal Plants component of the NAM scheme, supporting market-driven cultivation of prioritised medicinal plants in identified clusters or zones within selected districts of states is being implemented in a mission mode throughout the country. As per the scheme guidelines, support is provided for the cultivation of prioritised medicinal plants on farmer’s land, nurseries with backward linkages for raising and supply of quality planting material are being established, and post-harvest management support with forwarding linkages, primary processing, and marketing infrastructure will also be created.^[11]

While AYUSH healthcare as preventive medicine continues to be developed, it is important to understand that the traditional medicine industry is not limited to drugs given for prevention or treatment of ailment but extends to lifestyle and cosmetic products as well. While the AYUSH drugs industry is still at a nascent stage, it is the lifestyle products and cosmetics industries that have been growing well for over a decade now with many firms from India emerging as market leaders as well.

While India did have big names like Dabur and Himalaya making use of the country’s knowledge in traditional medicine in the lifestyle products segment, we lacked grassroots development of the AYUSH industry through small businesses becoming a part of the industry. Countries like China and South Korea have been able to proliferate their traditional medicine-based products throughout the world at a higher pace than India primarily because of the existence of several manufacturers and suppliers alongside the bigger firms.

With the world moving towards natural products, there is tremendous scope for the export of Indian traditional medicine knowledge and products. According to a 2018 report published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the Natural and Organic Beauty Market may reach USD 22 Bn by 2024.^[12] According to research conducted by Kline Group, a global consulting services firm, about 50 per cent of the US consumers surveyed perceive natural over-the-counter (OTC) products to be safer than traditional OTCs. Safety drives substantial use of natural products in the paediatric population and 49 per cent of parents give natural OTCs to their children, with 72.3 per cent giving their children natural OTCs first before administering traditional (allopathic) OTCs.^[13]

The proliferation of lifestyle products can act as a starting point for the promotion of AYUSH drugs abroad as lifestyle products are easier to deliver to consumers, riding on the wave of naturalisation of consumer products. We already have brands such as Forest Essentials and Kama Ayurveda gradually capturing the global market and led by the AYUSH ministry and the Startup India initiative, there are niche brands mushrooming in the AYUSH products industry as well. Recent names include Sadhev, a Kerala-based beauty brand, that is using family knowledge to create beauty and lifestyle products and the firm has already been covered by the likes of Elle and GQ magazines.

The growth of the AYUSH industry at a global scale will be done through the twin strategy of supporting lifestyle brands that are vocal about their use of AYUSH raw material in their products and at the same time the development of a robust research and development ecosystem for the AYUSH drugs to reach a wider audience, first in India and then abroad. Taking this spirit forward, the most recent Indian budget has announced that land up to five kilometres on either side of the River Ganga would be designated for natural farming giving a major boost to organic agriculture in the country.

Despite the pandemic, India’s organic food exports have grown by more than 50 per cent with food material now being exported to European countries like Germany and others. This sustainability push is not merely in food products but also in renewable energy. India’s installed solar power capacity crossed 48 GW in November 2021 and the country is one of the leading players in the world in renewable energy. The country has consistently beaten its own commitments under the Paris Agreement meeting them before time.

The argument in this essay is that this is a turning point in the history of sustainability in the country. There is both appreciation and demand for a better quality of living both at home and abroad and products and services, and rules, are being created to promote sustainability. More work is needed to push both domestic and global consumption and use of Made in India sustainable products and to ensure a ‘green switch’ of the Indian economy. This switch will make the Indian economy future-ready and ensure that the country’s health bill reduces significantly.

Author Brief Bio: Hindol Sengupta is Vice-President and Head of Research, and Karishma Sharma is a Researcher, at Invest India.

References:

^[1] https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/pune-news/ayush-products-see-44-rise-in-sale-post-covid-outbreak-vaidya-rajesh-kotecha-101612972985581.html

^[2] https://www.ayush.gov.in/

^[3] https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1778864

^[4] https://ayushnext.ayush.gov.in/detail/post/ayush-export-promotion-council-is-on-anvil-by-commerce-ayush-ministers-to-stimulate-sector-s-exports

^[5] https://ayushnext.ayush.gov.in/detail/post/ayush-export-promotion-council-is-on-anvil-by-commerce-ayush-ministers-to-stimulate-sector-s-exports

^[6] https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1739452

^[7] https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1778864

^[8] https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1754957

^[9] https://medicaldialogues.in/ayush/ayurveda/news/ayush-ministry-inks-mou-with-us-group-to-enhance-export-potential-of-traditional-medicines-82140

^[10] https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1754957

^[11] https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1704851

^[12] https://static.investindia.gov.in/2021-08/GI%20Tagging%20in%20Ayurveda.pdf

^[13] https://static.investindia.gov.in/2021-08/GI%20Tagging%20in%20Ayurveda.pdf

As tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the discourse from the West depicted President Vladimir Putin as a prowling hegemon bent on reviving the Russian-Soviet Empire, and President Xi Jinping as a statesman anxious about international stability. In reality, Putin is a status quoist who sought the fulfilment of promises made after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Xi (following Deng Xiaoping et al) is dedicated to overturning the US-led post-1945 world order. That the Russian action may actually trigger fundamental changes is incidental; Beijing began the disruption with its smooth march through nations and waters across the globe.

Shortly after the Russian attack on February 24, 2022, Dima Adamsky (Reichman University, Herzliya) observed that Ukraine symbolises Putin’s angst with the post-Cold War order. “It was a unipolar world with one hegemonic power, the United States, whose victory…spawned an attempt to dictate America’s principles and way of life to the rest of the world.”^[1] Tim Marshall (Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics, 2016) explains that the strategic interests of nations are dictated by geography. Russia needs warm water ports for trade and commerce: Ukraine’s Black Sea coast connects with the Mediterranean; Sevastopol in Crimea hosts a Russian fleet.

Legal scholar Francis Boyle endorses Moscow’s claim that the 1990 agreement between Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev and US Secretary of State James A. Baker III and other European leaders promised that if USSR agreed to the reunification of Germany, NATO would not expand “one inch farther to the east.” Though not put into writing, all commitments made by high-level government officials are binding under international law.^[2] American statesman Henry Kissinger and political scientist John Mearsheimer have strongly disapproved of America intruding on Russia’s natural sphere of influence.

Sergei A. Karaganov (Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Moscow) blames Moscow for “being weak and trusting our Western partners” and asserts that Russia needs a “return to the status quo ante of 1997 when the Russia-NATO Act was signed.”^[3] He points out NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya.

Putin’s Perception

Putin first revealed his mind at the Munich Security Conference (2007) where he questioned NATO’s eastward movement. Between 1991 and 2007, it admitted the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). Putin lambasted the US’s stationing anti-missile systems in Europe, and withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. In 2008, NATO put Ukraine and Georgia on its wait-list; Russia moved against Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, 2008) and Ukraine (Crimea, 2014) to retain a buffer against the West. As late as December 2021, Moscow gave Washington its “security proposals,” which included an end to further eastward expansion of NATO; and withdrawal of NATO troops in Eastern Europe.^[4]

Russia waited patiently for seven years for implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2202 of February 17, 2015, which consolidated the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, to settle the situation in Donbass. The current military action aims to restore Moscow’s status as an equal partner at the (new) Concert of Europe.

Addressing the Russian people on February 21, 2022[5], Putin asserted that Ukraine is a creation of Bolshevik Russia. After the 1917 revolution, Lenin severed historically Russian land, and after World War II (Great Patriotic War), Stalin gave Ukraine some lands that belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary; he compensated Poland with some traditionally German land. Then, in 1954, Khrushchev gifted the Crimea to Ukraine. Lenin also gave the new soviet republics (administrative and territorial entities) the right to secession.^[6]

Under this flawed Bolshevik Constitution, Ukraine and other republics claimed independence when the USSR collapsed. Russia accepted the new situation stoically and helped the new republics, even paying USD 100 billion Soviet debt alone. In return, most of them gave Russia part of their Soviet foreign assets. But Kiev refused and demanded a share of the Diamond Treasury, gold reserves, and former USSR property and other assets abroad. Putin alleged that Kiev frequently blackmailed on energy transits and literally stole gas.

In a hard-hitting speech, Putin declared that foreign-backed NGOs promoted Russophobia and neo-Nazism in Ukraine. The country is ruled by oligarchic clans with billions of dollars in Western banks. He alleged that the Maidan protest and coup d’état in 2014 was funded by foreign states. The violence included the tragedy in Odessa, where peaceful protesters were brutally murdered and burned alive in the House of Trade Unions. The criminals behind that atrocity were never punished, “But we know their names and we will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.”

When Crimea opted to return to Russia, Kiev activated extremist cells, including radical Islamist groups, sent subversives to attack critical infrastructure facilities, and kidnapped Russian citizens. Ukraine’s March 2021 new Military Strategy focused on confrontation with Russia, including creating a terrorist underground movement in Russia’s Crimea and Donbass “with foreign military support in the geopolitical confrontation with the Russian Federation.”

International law, Putin asserted, stipulates the principle of equal and indivisible security, which means that a nation must not strengthen its own security at the expense of the security of other states. This was stated in the OSCE Charter for European Security (Istanbul, 1999) and the OSCE Astana Declaration (2010). Ukraine joining NATO is a direct threat to Russia’s security, he emphasised.

The Attack

The attack on Ukraine exposed NATO’s reluctance to face war. US President Donald Trump had berated European nations for using the American umbrella to curtail defence expenditures and build their own economies. However, the American arsenal also lags behind the Russian, and given the post-Covid impact on economies, upgrading defence capabilities may put undue strain on Europe.

Within hours of the Russian deployment, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told his nation that he had reached out to 27 European leaders, but was offered only lip sympathy.^[7] Moscow meanwhile offered to negotiate if Kiev agreed to discuss neutrality. Putin had declared his aim to “demilitarise and de-nazify” Ukraine, an allusion to Stephan Banderas and the Maidan coup of 2014. Zelensky expressed willingness to discuss a “potential neutral status,” but insisted on third party guarantees.

This article does not presume to predict the course of this military action, or the fate of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. However, a few points are in order. Under public pressure, NATO countries are preparing to send arms to Kiev. The situation appears grim; citizens are fleeing to neighbouring countries in droves.

Fallout

Putin’s objective is clearly to cement Russia’s influence in Ukraine, as in Belarus and Kazakhstan. The era of NATO enlargement is de facto over, unless Europe wants a serious war. The initial abandonment of Ukraine has ended Washington’s primacy in Europe. Henceforth, the European Union / NATO will have to focus on the security of core members (Germany, France), leaving the rest to fend for themselves, barring Finland and Sweden. Worse, the victory of Donald Trump (or a Trumpian candidate) in the 2024 US presidential election could shatter the transatlantic relationship.

Moreover, the US-Europe cannot sustain a prolonged economic war with Russia. Eventually, sanctions will be tempered as Russia commands huge energy resources that Europe needs. Besides gas, Moscow controls several critical resources such as palladium, titanium etc.

India and China refused to join the chorus of condemnation of Moscow at the UN Security Council. In early February, Xi Jinping and Putin issued a statement wherein Beijing backed Moscow’s opposition to NATO expansion and its other security concerns in Europe. Once the invasion began, China called for restraint and a negotiated solution. The Chinese government blamed the United States for the crisis, by “hyping up tensions”. India has used its good offices with Russia and Ukraine to rescue its stranded students in that country, the only country in the world that is airlifting its nationals from a crisis-torn region.

Biolabs

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program has a huge presence in Ukraine, where several laboratories work on a number of “the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases.” The stated priorities are “to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.”^[8]

Ukrainian and American scientists work together on Avian EDPs, potentially carried by migratory birds over Ukraine, Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine, African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) in Domestic Pigs and Wild Boars in Ukraine, and ASF Bio-surveillance and Regional Risk Assessment. Russia disapproves of the presence of such sensitive laboratories on its doorstep.

Revolutionary China

A few words on China are in order. British geographer Halford J. Mackinder argued that, ‘who controls Eurasia, controls the world’, even though European colonialism was rooted in naval power. Currently, 90 per cent of global trade moves on the high seas. This was why US strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan mooted, “Control of the sea by maritime commerce and naval supremacy means predominant influence in the world; because, however great the wealth product of the land, nothing facilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea”.^[9]

China in the 21st century married both these concepts and emerged as the first non-Western power to project power in Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific. Sensing Washington’s decline, Beijing began challenging the US-dominated post-1945 Euro-Atlantic order by positioning itself on the oceans and land routes across Asia and between Asia and Europe, relying on diplomacy and economic strength.^[10]

In barely a decade since their official unveiling, the New Silk Roads (September 2013) and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (October 2013) are spreading across different geographical regions, embracing over 70 nations. Unlike the US Marshall Plan that rehabilitated Western European nations with common religious, cultural and political (democracy) affinity, the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) offers to build infrastructure across nations of Africa and Asia, regardless of political or cultural affinity.

It is not widely known that post-World War II Western hegemony rests on the power to underwrite ocean-bound trade as the US and its Western allies control the marine service industry that supports the Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOCs), which earns them huge revenues. They control the insurance and reinsurance of goods and ships that ply on SLOCs, and the freight rates. The institutions that declare parts of the sea dangerous or hostile are located in Western capitals, and Washington has the power to impose sanctions and stop ships from moving in or out of a particular harbour. This, as former naval officer Atul Bhardwaj notes, is contrary to the principal of multi-polarity in world affairs, and this is what Beijing is seeking to overturn.^[11]

If the B&RI succeeds, it would make China the world’s leading power by 2049, the centenary of communist rule. All ports along the Maritime Silk Road are strategic: Melaka Gateway and Kuantan (Malaysia); Kyaukpyu (Myanmar); Jakarta and Batam Island (Indonesia); Colombo and Hambantota (Sri Lanka); Gwadar (Pakistan); Djibouti; Mombasa (Kenya); and Piraeus (Greece). China also has a major stake in a dry port in Khorgos in landlocked Kazakhstan, for a transport hub.^[12] European nations that have joined the B&RI include Greece, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland, and Eastern European countries including Hungary and Poland.

Previously, as part of their Eurasian integration plans, Moscow and Beijing began augmenting their gold reserves to undermine the hegemony of the US dollar and evade US sanctions. In 2012, China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) set up a yuan-ruble payment system. In October 2015, Beijing created the China International Payments System (CIPS), which has an agreement with SWIFT, to help countries sanctioned by Washington.^[13] It remains to be seen how effective these systems are in helping Moscow overcome the growing sanctions imposed on it for its action against Ukraine.

Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church is a powerful and often overlooked element in Putin’s political psychology. The Clinton administration’s unilateral assault on and break-up of Yugoslavia was also an attack on the Slavic Church. Putin moved to rescue President Bashar al-Assad because the Russian Orthodox Church has its roots in Damascus. This changed the politics of West Asia.

Addressing the Russian people on February 21, 2022, Putin asserted that even before the 17th century, people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians.^[14] He berated Kiev for acting against the Orthodox Church under Western patronage: “Kiev continues to prepare the destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.” Putin charged that new draft laws are directed against the clergy, and millions of parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate have been registered in the Verkhovna Rada (unicameral parliament of Ukraine).

At the time of writing (February 27, 2022), a Russian delegation headed by Vladimir Medinsky had arrived in Gomel, Belarus, for talks with Ukraine. Diplomat Dmitry Peskov claimed that the Ukrainian side had chosen Belarus as the venue for the talks, but Zelensky later changed his mind, citing “military action from Belarusian side.” Instead, he welcomed offers from Turkey and Azerbaijan to broker talks with Moscow. However, after Belarus President, Alexander Lukashenko, spoke with Zelensky, he agreed to send a delegation.

There can be no doubt that eventually Putin will insist on regime change in Ukraine. Russia had raced to seize the Chernobyl plant from the Belarus side partly to reach Kiev sooner, but mainly to squash possible attempts by Ukraine to rebuild a nuclear stockpile.

However, the lasting impact of the current crisis will be in the Asia-Pacific where China is expected to become more assertive. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has urged Washington to “ditch strategic ambiguity and make clear it will defend Taiwan”. Australia will also expect stronger guarantees for its security vis-à-vis Beijing. Europe, especially Germany, has understood the need to enhance its security. The US-led world order has been sundered; the new order has yet to take shape.

Author Brief Bio: Sandhya Jain is a political analyst, independent researcher, and author of multiple books. She is also editor of the platform Vijayvaani.

References:

^[1] Haaretz: ‘Putin Has an Ultimate Goal, and It’s Not Ukraine’, Dima Adamsky, Feb. 25, 2022.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-putin-has-an-ultimate-goal-and-it-s-not-ukraine-1.10633936?v=1645803515874

^[2] TRANSCRIPT: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kpfa-flashpoints/id79896091?mt=2

^[3] Russia in Global Affairs, It’s Not About Ukraine, Sergei A. Karaganov, February 7, 2022.

https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/it-is-not-about-ukraine/

^[4] The Hill, Fifteen years after Munich, Putin is driven by the same fears, Wesley Culp, February 12, 2022.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/593857-fifteen-years-after-munich-putin-is-driven-by-the-same-fears

[5] https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censorship/president-putins-full-text-of-february-21-2022-speech-to-the-nation/

^[6] Address by the President of the Russian Federation, February 21, 2022.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828?s=03

^[7] RT, Ukraine ready to discuss neutrality, Zelensky says, February 25, 2022.

https://www.rt.com/russia/550546-zelensky-nato-ukraine-neutrality/

^[8] U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Biological Threat Reduction Program,

https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defense-threat-reduction-office/biological-threat-reduction-program/

^[9] The Economist, “Who Rules the Waves?”, October 17, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/international/21674648-china-no-longer-accepts-america-should-be-asia-pacifics-dominant-navalpower-who-rules.

Unless otherwise stated, all URLs have been checked May 2020.

^[10] Ratner, Ely and Samir Kumar, The United States Is Losing Asia to China, Foreign Policy, May 12, 2017.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/12/the-united-states-is-losing-asia-to-china/amp/

^[11] Bhardwaj, Atul, Belt and Road Initiative: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, China International Studies, May-June 2017, pp. 100-02.

^[12] New York Times, China’s Ambitious New ‘Port’: Landlocked Kazakhstan, Andrew Higgins, Jan. 1, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/world/asia/china-kazakhstan-silk-road.html?smid=tw-share

^[13] The petro-yuan bombshell, Pepe Escobar, thesakeris, December 26, 2017. http://thesaker.is/the-petro-yuan-bombshell/

^[14] Address by the President of the Russian Federation, February 21, 2022.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828?s=03

Abstract

Spirituality too has its laws just as laws have a spiritual dimension. We pay considerable attention to manmade laws but not enough to natural or higher laws. A spiritualised, rather than litigious, society is more conducive to human welfare and well-being. This requires the voluntary adherence to Dharma which, in the present context, is righteous conduct and responsible citizenship. A responsible and virtuous populace will uphold true Svaraj, which means not just political independence, but robust self-government. In such a society, an enlightened and empowered public does not need external agencies to control or monitor it. Most citizens will not only be law-abiding, but they will also show concern and compassion for their fellow-human beings, for the nation, and also for the environment. But this cannot be attained only from the outside, by legislation, judicial systems, courts of law, the police and paramilitary, the bureaucracy, all lead by politicians or elected representatives. Change can come from within, by seeing oneself relationally as a part of others and of society, by regarding the world as one family (vasudhaivakutumbakam). That is how spirituality in practice can reduce our dependence on state control and the enforcement of laws. It would lead to a state of co-existentialism and cooperation. That is the true meaning of suraaj or a well-governed republic.

Introduction

Is there a connection between law and spirituality? It can be asserted without doubt and ascertained from past experience that a spiritualised (Dharmic) society, has far lower incidents of crime and lawlessness. Consequently, the need for a complicated system of justice and jurisprudence also reduces, because most people will not really want to break laws or harm one another. Throughout society, a fundamental understanding of the nature and of life on earth will prevail. This, then, can be our starting point for an understanding of the relationship between law and spirituality.

If we learn, from early on, to be responsible for the welfare of one another and for society at large, would not our lives improve dramatically? Not just that, our attitude to planet earth will itself change. Instead of fighting with each other and destroying the very habitat that shelters and nurtures us, we will celebrate the gift of life on earth as the greatest opportunity for service and satisfaction.

A beautiful hymn embodying the spirit of the United Nations composed in Sanskrit by the senior pontiff of the Kanchi Math, the late, great sage, Jagadguru Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, affectionately and reverentially known as the Paramacharya or Periyaswami exemplifies the same. It was sung at the United Nations on Oct. 23, 1966 to celebrate UN day by M. S. Subbulakshmi and Dr. Radha Viswanathan in raga Kaapi set to Adi Taala:

मैत्रीं भजत अखिलहृज्जेत्रीम्

आत्मवदेव परानपि पश्यत ।

युद्धं त्यजत स्पर्धां त्यजत

त्यजत परेषु अक्रममाक्रमणम् ॥

जननी पृथिवी कामदुघाऽऽस्ते

जनको देवः सकलदयालुः ।

दाम्यत दत्त दयध्वं जनताः

श्रेयो भूयात् सकलजनानाम् ॥

Here is a rendering into English alongside the line-by-line transliteration:

maitrīṃ bhajata akhilahṛjjetrīm – Cultivate friendship, which will conquer all hearts

ātmavadeva parānapi paśyata – Look upon others as your own self.

yuddhaṃ tyajata – Renounce war

spardhāṃ tyajata – Forsake competition

tyajata pareṣu akramam ākramaṇam – Renounce unrighteous aggression to acquire others’ possessions

jananī pṛthivī kāmadughā(ā)ste – Mother Earth is like the veritable Kamadhenu (wishfulfilling cow of plenty)

janako devaḥ sakaladayāluḥ – God, our father, is most compassionate

dāmyata – practice restraint

datta – give

dayadhvaṃ – be kind

janatāḥ – O people

śreyo bhūyāt sakalajanānām – May all people flourish and attain the highest goodness.^[1]

To me this composition is the very essence of spirituality in action. A society following such principles would certainly not be excessively litigious.

Spirituality and Law

The word Spirituality comes from the Latin word ‘spiritus’ meaning ‘breath.’ The deeper meaning of this word is quite akin to what we call ‘prana’ from the ancient times. This Sanskrit word is now part of the vocabulary of most modern Indian languages. It refers, simply speaking, to the non-corporeal aspect of who we are. The underlying idea is that we are not merely the body. There is an aspect of our existence, call it cit, chetana or consciousness, which cannot be reduced to the body.

If we were to understand this in terms of Advaita Vedanta, then we would say that I (as Ātman) am not just merely the body; of course, the body is mine, but I am consciousness (Brahaman) and consciousness is infinite.^[2] Consciousness has no beginning and no end. Hence, the ‘prana’ that lives within each one us is infinite. Hence, spirituality is the realisation of a sense of vastness and oneness in our daily lives. This may sound a bit farfetched, but when we look at the stars in the clear night sky, trillions upon trillions of them, too many to conceptualise, let alone count, we are filled with a sense of awe and wonder.

Similarly, when we consider or contemplate our own bodies, usually no more than six feet tall, we are astounded that they contain trillions of tiny cells, each with their well-defined and separate functions. What is more, our own bodies consist of the same particles, atoms, molecules, and above all, space or emptiness, that the rest of the universe is made of. There is literally no way to determine where we end and the rest of the universe begins. Our individuality, thus, is much more of a mental construct than a physical fact. The whole of reality is one interconnected and complex network or system. We thus begin to see ourselves as being beyond just our tiny bodies or limited minds.

Now, let us consider the word ‘law.’ It too is derived from the Latin and etymologically related to words such as lex, ius, jus, iurisdictio, jurisdictio. All of these point to something that is normative and binding, ultimately something that is written down and codified. But in India, we were rarely governed in our past by elaborate legal systems or written down codes. There was a common understanding of what was right and wrong derived from the practice of Dharma. People’s conduct in everyday life was guided by this common, albeit, unwritten “constitution” of the land. In most cases, problems were solved, disputes settled, and satisfactory results achieved without resorting to elaborate and costly litigation.

Our judicial system, in the modern sense, can be traced back to the colonial period. The Indian Penal Code, which is still in force, was notified in 1862. But it was drafted even earlier, after the setting up, under the East India Company’s Charter Act of 1834, of the first law commission of India. Its chairman was none other than Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay. This system was imposed upon us by our erstwhile foreign rulers to take control of our territories, seize our natural resources, and put our people to work for them? Our laws and their enforcement mechanisms, our justice delivery system, and, indeed, the whole system is thus a legacy of legal imperialism?^[3]

Speaking from an Indian perspective, Lord Macaulay was the same person who penned the notorious “Minute” on Indian education in 1835. While amplifying “white man’s burden,”^[4] he made the sweeping and derogatory statement, “A single shelf of a European library was worth the entire literature of India and Arabia”.^[5] With the intention to shape the Indian legal and education frameworks to rule India, Macaulay and the “brown sahibs” he created in service of our colonial masters, were trained to understand and administer law, legal theories, legal institutions and legislations imported from the European continent.

Not just Mahatma Gandhi, but many other notable freedom fighters were lawyers and barristers—Jawahar Lal Nehru, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Mohammadali Carim Chagla, and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, to name a few, although the last did not become a barrister because he was already a marked man as an enemy of the British Empire. The irony is that all these men were legal luminaries of their time but most of them were actually jailed for breaking despotic British laws. They knew that the imported legal system that was imposed on us by the British did not sit well with our cultural orientation. This whole state of affairs can further be elucidated by this short excerpt from William Dalrymple’s book, The Anarchy^[6]:

…existing methods of revenue collection were maintained, run out of Murshidabad offices that were entirely staffed with Mughal officials. But frock-coated and periwigged British officials were now everywhere at the apex of the administrative pyramid, making all the decisions and taking all the revenues…colonial proprietor and corporate state, legally free, for the first time, to do all the things that governments do: control the law, administer justice, assess taxes, mint coins, provide protection, impose punishments, make peace and wage war.

It was a system of outright loot under the flimsy cover of law. So, you can see why our judicial system may be mismatched to our civilisational practice, which is based on the sanctity of the spoken word, not on written documents. That is why we say in India, “Raghukula reet sada chali ayi, praan jayi par vachan na jayi.” Vachan refers to giving one’s word, which one must maintain under all circumstances. One’s word is one’s bond. That is the essence of Dharma. But these days, only a written agreement is considered valid or legally enforceable. This means that society does not hold people accountable for what they say, that lying is not just common but considered acceptable. But a society that does not respect truth, whether in thought, word, or deed, cannot be a Dharmic society. When the amount of salt added to food exceeds the pinch that adds flavour to it, the whole meal is spoiled. Similarly, the whole society in which untruth exceeds the tiny quantum that is necessary for the smooth functioning of day-to-day routine, the whole society is destroyed.

For a society which follows spiritual principles, there is no need or temptation to take what is not ours, let alone torture others in order to do so. If we are not separate from other people, then where is the compulsion to hurt others or be unkind to them? If we take a moment to look around ourselves, we feel surrounded by the frenzy of violence and injustice, not only towards human beings but also the planet. There are heinous crimes of manslaughter, rape, robbery, battery, assault, and so on, being carried out on a daily basis. We cause grievous hurt to one another as well as trifling wrongs of broken promises, civil injuries, cheating, fraud, and so on. Should we begin to see all beings as parts of ourselves, suffering the same pain and pleasure, heat and cold, hunger and thirst—then much of these wrongs would cease.

To put it in a nutshell: “Being spiritually enlightened or awakened would change our fundamental attitudes to ourselves, to other lives and to other human beings.” When we go deeper into this issue, we will realise that a fully awakened (not woke!) populace will obviate the need for the kind of legal system which we have today, and which most of us will agree, doesn’t really work well. But this is an ideal state. More practically, we need to reform our present legal system even as we try to spiritualise ourselves and our nation.

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied: What Ails Our Legal Framework?

At present in India, there are 3.9 crore cases pending in the district and subordinate courts. There are another 58.5 lakh cases pending in various High Courts and more than 69,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court. So, the cumulative figure comes close to 4.5 crore or 45 million pending cases in the Indian judiciary.^[7]

This is an immense and unconscionable figure by any standards, as our own Hon. Supreme Court justices have observed. Our daily experience is that what passes for justice, ends up in litigation, which results in endless harassment. This incessant torture in getting through a legal suit is well explained in the memoir, Anita Gets Bail,^[8] by former union minister, distinguished writer, and former editor of the Indian Express, Dr. Arun Shourie. He narrates how one fine day there’s a knock at his door—it’s not the dreaded midnight knock that we associate with communist regimes, but rather a mid-afternoon knock. A posse of police people arrive at his residence and say, “Sir, is there somebody called Mrs. Anita Shourie here? We have a warrant for her.” The author replies to that shocking piece of information with a polite counter-question, “Can I know what the charge is?”

To cut the long story short, we discover that Mrs Shourie is being charged with building a farmhouse on protected forest land in the Aravallis on a property that she does not even own. After endless visits to the court, far away in Faridabad, the mess is sorted out. But for Mrs Shourie, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, as for the entire family, it has been nothing short of a nightmare to deal with India’s civil and criminal justice system. Let me also highlight another key concern of the author. The incomprehensible language of the judgements of our learned judges, how it is practically impossible for an ordinary citizen to make head or tail of what is going on in any case that he or she may have the misfortune of being entangled in. What the memoir tells us is that even a man of the stature and qualifications of Dr Shourie is unable to grapple with our legal system. What then of millions of less fortunate citizens who are tied to this unintelligible and inefficient law and law enforcement mechanism?

Along those lines, it is difficult not to mention a very famous novel, The Trial, by Franz Kafka,^[9] which illustrates legal and metaphysical dystopia even more dramatically. The protagonist in the novel is being tried for a charge he doesn’t know of, a crime that he hasn’t committed, and in the end is sentenced to death, after very bizarre and illogical legal proceedings. Red tape and the complications of the law are satirised in this novel but it is an utmost existential crisis that is being portrayed in it.

In another essay from 19th century, Civil Disobedience,^[10] the author, Henry David Thoreau, narrates how he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay taxes. The punishment imposed on him prompted him to write this celebrated essay, which subsequently influenced Mahatma Gandhi. The main theme of Civil Disobedience is that there is a law that is higher (natural law) than man-made law. Man-made law is not perfect because man is not perfect. This very idea went on to become the inspiration for Gandhi to lay the cornerstone for his own Civil Disobedience campaign.

The above examples drawn from literature highlight the common, underlying idea that human laws are not immutable, but subject to time, space, customs, and prevailing beliefs. They need constant scrutiny and modification if they are to serve their purpose and if, more importantly, justice is to be served.

Gandhian Methods: Spiritual Means to Attain Legal Ends

As we know from our freedom struggle, Gandhi was a constitutionalist, but he became the most celebrated law-breaker in history. How did this happen? If human laws are found totally unjust and oppressive when measured against higher laws, Gandhi believe that one must disobey them. This is precisely what he did, gladly bearing the punishment. He became a prisoner of conscience, spending a total of over eleven years in colonial prisons. He was arrested frequently, on one occasion thrice in four days! But it was the British Empire which was on trial, not he. As a truthful, moral, and upright person, he was telling the world that in an unjust society, the best place for an honest man was the jail. In a discourse of Law and Spirituality, the work of Gandhi to raise voice and gather mass support against the despotic British law is too distinguished and memorable to be forgotten.

Gandhi is most popularly known for how he shook the very foundations of the British Empire that ruled more than 1/4th of the entire land mass in the world by his simple but powerful grassroots method of Satyagraha. The word ‘Satyagraha’ is a compound of two Sanskrit nouns, ‘Satya’ meaning ‘Truth’ and ‘Agraha’ meaning ‘insistence.’ To insist on truth was the Gandhian way. If it necessitated the breaking of unjust laws, he did not hesitate to do so.^[11] Unfortunately, today, we have trivialised Satyagraha. We have become a culture of protesters, demanding even unfair and unjust things – andolanjeevis, professional protesters as one of our national leaders put it. But for Gandhi, ‘Satyagraha’ meant ‘Truth-Force,’ which he also called “love-force or soul-force”. In his autobiography, My Experiments With Truth, Gandhi confessed that he derived moral and spiritual guidance from Bhagavad-Gita.^[12]

The Mahabharata, of which the Gita is a part, famously says, “Ahimsaparamodharmah” – non-injury is the supreme Dharma. But our ultimate duty is to safeguard the dharma itself. Only then will dharma also protect us: धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः, as the Manava Dharmashastra (8.15) puts it: “Those who protect Dharma are protected by the Dharma.” Gandhi was able to use non-violent resistance to morally compel the colonial government not only to change its laws, but eventually to leave India. Today, his methods are used in many parts of the world by those who wish to exert pressure on their own governments to change.

Gandhi believed that ruling and governance not be limited to the elites of the society. Self-rule or svaraj meant that the entire community had to be uplifted and enlightened. For these very reasons, Gandhi, along with Mrs. Kasturba Gandhi, conducted many experiments and rural development projects all over India.^[13] In his seminal work, Hind Swaraj (1909), he spoke at length of his idea of an ideal society, based on truth and non-violence. Gandhi also criticised lawyers, although he was himself a barrister, for fleecing their clients and doing little to resolve disputes. The fact that Gandhi’s call for Satyagraha was well received by the Indian people is enough to prove that Indian society is dharmic, rather than legal in its orientation. What is noteworthy here is that the Indian populace could accept and act on a path shown by Gandhi because it felt organically and intrinsically a part of Indian culture and society.

Gandhi’s ideal was to make India a self-governing and dharmic society. The living example of this is how, even today, we are one of the least policed, criminalised, or legalised society per capita. Dozens of villages may have just one police station, with only 2-3 law enforcement officers keeping the peace with just sticks and bicycles. How is this possible? It is because the populace is quite capable of regulating and governing their internal matters at the local level itself. That is also the reason why legal recourse is not only frowned upon but is looked down upon as something artificial, foreign, incomprehensible, not to mention enormously expensive and ruinous.

When you are truthful and follow dharma, you hardly need the law. In today’s times, the state of affairs in India is such that a law-abiding citizen in India becomes anxiety-stricken when approached by a policeman. What is he going to get me for, is the first question that pops up. Doesn’t that tell us something? Law enforcement and the legal system have got a bad name. The reason? Right back to Mughal times, the office of the Kotwal was known for its corruption and extortion. Some of those bad practices continue which leads to lack of trust between the citizens and the legal system that is governing them. On the other hand, the intrinsic dharmic nature of India does not need an expansive and expensive apparatus of law to decide what is right and what is wrong for citizens. In a dharmic society, it becomes the first nature of citizens to act in alignment with righteousness. In other words, the connection between Spirituality and Law is that in a highly evolved and dharmic society, the latter is far less important. Instead, of increasing the number of courts, judges, and laws, we need to re-emphasise Dharma, which does not require an artificial and imposing judicial system.

What Can We Do?

We have already seen that we need to link law and spirituality because human laws can be deeply flawed. But there is also the urgent need to decolonise legal systems. Not only our own, but legal systems around the world are a legacy of the British or other European colonial powers. These systems carry their euro-centric features which are often inconsistent with the deep-seated value system and historical progression of our societies.

Therefore, there has been a longstanding demand to overhaul or amend our inherited laws and justice mechanisms. In addition to the civilisational mismatch, many laws inconsistent with the ground realities and practicalities of India have also come under scrutiny. For instance, in contemporary times, LGBTQ rights and scrapping of provisions of the sedition law have been at the forefront of these debates. Homosexuality was criminalised in Section 377 of the IPC during British rule. This decision to criminalise homosexuality was made to conform to Christian religious values although the practice was secretly rampant in the Church for centuries. There was an additional reason: to protect young, colonial males from predatory sexual marauders. The latter may still be found, as in Afghanistan, where “bachabazi,” the practice of abusing pre-puberty boys still persists. Ancient Indian culture was far more sexually permissive. Same-sex love was not taboo, though it was not the norm.^[14]

As to the sedition law, the Indian judiciary unites to question this tyrannical British law. Addressing Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Centre, Chief Justice of India, N. V. Ramana noted, “Sedition is a colonial law. It suppresses freedoms. It was used against Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak… Is this law necessary after 75 years of Independence?”

The reality is that despite the visible dissatisfaction with the colonial remnants in the Indian legal system, we are still following them although some of them are antiquated and unjust measures. India has inherited the laws that our own freedom fighters struggled against, often defied, broke and went to jail for. It is utterly poignant that some of those laws still persist in India. Under these “Rowlatt Act”^[15] type of regulations the state can imprison and hold us for almost any length of time without having to justify its position on such detention. Our colonial masters used these laws to stifle and subdue us. Unfortunately, the independent state of India is using these very laws, and more like them such as UAPA, MCOCA, AFSPA, and NSA, against its own citizens. Worse, every major political party, when in power, has taken recourse to them.

Even under the normal provisions of the law, a person may be arrested and detained, just for making a statement considered inflammatory. To offer a very recent example, Union Minister and Rajya Sabha MP and former CM of Maharashtra, Narayan Rane, was detained for his allegedly offensive remark against Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. He was charged with Section 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot, if rioting be committed, if not committed) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the IPC. This event brings to light the opacity and unintelligibility in the legacy of the British legal system as can also be seen from the fact that not once in the history did the collegium of the Supreme Court elevate a single professor of law or a notable jurist to the rank of a judge, despite having the powers to do so.^[16]

Dharma, Law, and Contemporary Challenges

Law emanates from morality or Dharma, not the other way round. You can have Dharma without law, but never law without Dharma. Moreover, as we know only too well, Dharma and morality are never static.^[17] They change with time, space, and circumstances. Take for example today’s debate over imposition of Sharia Law in Afghanistan. The Sharia was codified many centuries ago. Most would consider it not suitable for current times. Arguably, both Judaic and Islamic laws go all the way back to Hammurabi’s Code,^[18] with its principle of “lex talionis” or retaliatory justice, commonly known as “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

Gandhi famously said that such a law would render most of the world blind. However, harsh punishments such as cutting off limbs for stealing or stoning to death for adultery are still in vogue in some societies. Long ago, even Jesus Christ discouraged such harsh and inhuman punishments. In the Bible^[19] there is a famous passage when Jesus intervenes to stop a group of people from stoning a woman for adultery. Jesus says, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7 KJV). Clearly, the counter-argument against these primitive laws is that they violate human rights. Moreover, penal action cannot justify excessive violence or cruelty. To consider manmade law as immutable or permanent is, therefore, undesirable and retrogressive. It puts human law in conflict with the higher law, which we may term natural or divine law.

Taking such examples from scriptures, religious codes, and history, we can draw the inference that man-made laws are not perfect because man is not perfect. Our laws have to be measured against higher laws to come to a more reasonable interpretation and application of law that actually serves human beings. A purely legalistic and normatively overdetermined system, with an endless array of mandates and caveats, does not align with the inherent ethics and moral inclinations of a given society. An overly positivist approach to law is not only unnatural but also defeats the purpose of having law and legal framework itself. In that light, it was observed by Justice P. N. Bhagwati in the Hussainara Khatoon case,^[20]

Today, unfortunately, in our country the poor are priced out of the judicial system with the result that they are losing faith in the capacity of our legal system to bring about changes in their life conditions and to deliver justice to them… The law is regarded by them as something mysterious and forbidding– always taking something away from them and not as a positive and constructive social device for changing the social economic order and improving their life conditions by conferring rights and benefits on them. The result is that the legal system has lost its credibility for the weaker sections of the community.

If we read this excerpt in the light of what I have stated earlier, we will find that the emphasis on self-regulation and Dharma will save us from endless and incomprehensible legal procedures, extortionate litigation, and delayed justice. Instead, a responsible citizenry, vigilant about each other’s rights and welfare, will result in overall good governance and peaceful society.

Attempts have been made to incorporate traditional methods in judicial remedies and mechanism, and such attempts have had favourable results. Lok Adalat^[21] is an example. Similarly, if we resort to mediation before and arbitration after litigation, we will reduce the endless pile of pendency in our courts. Such mechanisms will provide citizens with expedient, inexpensive, and less tedious means of legal redressal. But, even more importantly, if we weave the social and legal fabric with the unbreakable threads of dharma, we would not even need to reach the pretrial stage. That is because no one would wrong another and thus no one would have to suffer needlessly. Of course, this is the ideal state and does not obtain anywhere in the world at present. But it is substantially evident that wherever people are more Dharmic, crime, lawlessness, and violence are mitigated. That is what the idea of Ram Rajya signified originally and whose connotations were revived by Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle.

Delimitation: Breaking or Building the Wall?

To avoid misunderstanding, let me clarify that this paper is not advocating a case for the abolition of law. Law cannot and should not cease to be in our times. There are institutions of modern-day society which require laws and robust enforcement mechanism. International business will not invest, let alone flourish, in India without well-defined statutes and enforceable contracts. The case of the reversal of the palpably unjust and unsustainable retrospective taxation clause is a good example Though the Indian government stands to lose over a billion dollars, we have saved our face and reputation as a country where laws are not changed retroactively and arbitrarily. We suffered enough by driving out Coke and IBM in 1977; such pseudo-socialistic measures need not be repeated under the guise of Swadeshi or Atmanirbhar Bharat. Rather, our resilience and reliability can be built only on a culture of excellence and ability to compete globally.

Similarly, the entire legal framework of Company Law, Intellectual Property Law, Taxation Law, Information & Technology Law, Media Law, and so on are absolutely required today as are civil and criminal law. What is attempted to being conveyed is that human wellbeing and welfare cannot be ensured only from outside. Instead, an inside-out transformation is the Indian way. This is where Dharma and spirituality come into the picture. When we become better human beings, we will also become less conflicted and contentious. Direct and speedy resolutions of disputes in such a society will be a matter of daily practice rather than protracted and, oftentimes, fruitless litigation.

In a dharmic society that India is, there is oneness in how one sees our fellow human beings. In such a view, the odds to inflict any type of harm and distress to others reduces dramatically. If 95 percent of the people follow Dharma, then the law can deal with the 5% who don’t. Religions were invented by humans as codes to regulate human conduct. As the noted Jewish historian, Yuval Noah Harari in his much-celebrated book, Sapiens^[22] puts it:

In order to survive, the inhabitants of a particular valley needed to understand the superhuman order that regulated their valley, and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. It was pointless to try to convince the inhabitants of some distant valley to follow the same rules. The people of Indus did not bother to send missionaries to the Ganges to convince locals there…Being communicated with one another directly and negotiated the rules governing their shared habitat.

Even before the advent of Islamic or European invaders, Indians were capable of regulating their internal matters and community affairs from time immemorial as can be seen from India being the hallmark of civilisations, cultures and traditions. Assimilation of European legal modules, theories and institutions have neither fully derailed things nor destroyed the traditional Dharmic framework of our civilisation. The challenge is only to realign ourselves and our legal framework to our age-old Dharma. This is exactly what Gandhi advocated in Hind Swaraj.

Conclusion: From Dharma to Moksha

We have delved into spirituality mostly in terms of Dharma, but before we close, we can go even deeper, towards Moksha, or liberation. The purpose of human life is maximum freedom. Freedom from wants, cares, suffering—even freedom from bodily limitations and death. India is a country of seekers, not of believers. What this means is that we ask innumerable questions and find innumerable answers to them. We look for better and better ways to be human as also to exceed and transcend our humanity.

Towards that end, let us briefly examine the paradox that the topic “Law and Spirituality” presents. One view is that they belong to two entirely different realms, as the Biblical injunction found in the synoptic gospels, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ) [Matthew 22:21, KJV]. Law belongs to the practical aspect of life and spirituality belongs to what is beyond whatever our senses can grasp. In this regard, there is a hard position, as suggested above, that separates these two and an equally hard contrary position in which both belong to the same world, without separation, as we find in some schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Believing that Law and Spirituality are interconnected but not identical, I take the intermediate position. I say this because you need practical wisdom to succeed in the world. For a grihasta or householder, aparigraha^,[23] would be disastrous. But, by the same token, success in the world does not guarantee true happiness either. If it did, why would the rich be miserable, to the extent even of committing suicide?

My experience tells me that those who do not have what it takes to succeed in the world rarely do well on the spiritual path either. Why is this the case? That is because to achieve siddhi or victory on the latter path is even harder, requiring more energy, expertise, application, dedication, and persistence than attaining worldly success. And why not? When the rewards are reportedly and reputedly greater?

That is why in India we evolved the idea of the four purusharthas or the cardinal aims of human existence, namely, dharma (righteousness and virtuous conduct), artha (money and power), kama (pleasure and satisfaction), moksha (liberation and freedom from suffering).^[24] The nature of dharma and moksha bears on the theme beyond the physical realm, while artha and kama are the vehicle of finding our way through that physical realm. In order to combine Law and Spirituality, let us take dharma and moksha on one side, and kama and artha on the other side. You will see that we need both in order to develop our full potential and to find happiness in the here and now, as well as achieve freedom from fear, whether of suffering or death. As long as we are afraid to suffer, we can never be free. Therefore, upon conjoining the two, we can pave our way to more holistic human flourishing.

That is why I say, instead of litigation, go towards arbitration; instead of arbitration, go towards mediation; instead of mediation, go towards discussion; instead of discussion go towards spirituality. Then we can reach to the higher truths, doing away with our inter-personal as well as intra-personal conflicts. We learn to accept others as they are rather than insisting on making them the way we want them to be. We also learn to accept the world as it is, without giving up our duty to make it a better place.

So rich and effective is spirituality in awakening our higher senses and intelligence that India invented and curated myriad yogic and other practices to align the physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual dimensions of our being. This fivefold integral yoga by Sri Aurobindo^[25] is one such well known works of spiritual and yogic practice. I highlight this because I believe that each one of us has a ‘shakti punj’ (source of energy) within us. And by channelizing this energy in the right direction and with good intentions, we can unlock a higher realm of existence where everyone means well for fellow human beings and the need for positive, rule-based law will be in perfect harmony but not supersede natural law and divine law.

If society is spiritualised, law will also not be untouched from such a reform. Because, as stated earlier, law adjusts itself according to the needs and priorities of the society. This would reduce crime, violence and overall lawlessness, which, in turn, would reduce the need for litigation. Hence, spiritualising the society to address our interrelations with each other is the most feasible and attractive way to secure equity and fraternity, not to mention reducing the burden on our already over-loaded and unwieldy justice system.

The “Golden Rule,” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” uttered in this form by Jesus in “The Sermon on the Mount,” is found in some form or the other in all traditions.^[26] As a negative injunction, attributed to Confucius, it is equally effective: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.” Although absolute non-violence is not possible because life feeds on life, but we can certainly forswear the intention to hurt others. If out of 7.9 billion people on the planet, even if one billion internalise and practice spirituality, the world would be a completely different place.

Finally, in a spiritualised world, there is more meaning to life because now nobody is living solely for themselves. Spirituality is capable of bringing communities together and unifying them in mutually satisfying and enhancing partnership.

India won its svaraj from British rule, at least in terms of political independence, nearly 75 years ago. But has it also attained suraaj – good governance, leading to a society in which the well-being of all is ensured? When it comes to our legal system, how many common citizens feel protected and safe under it? Are cases resolves speedily, justice dispensed in a timely and fair manner? How much trust is there between the rulers and the ruled, although the former are supposed to serve the latter? Such questions do not have simple answers. We are a nation in the making, a society still being re-formed after centuries of oppression and destruction. We cannot be too harsh in our self-criticism, but rather demonstrate patience and faith in the destiny of India. But if the Dharmic foundations of our society are strengthened and if our society is spiritualised, attaining suraaj in addition to svaraj, will not remain a dream. It will become a reality.

Let me end with the famous assurance that occurs no less than eleven times in the Mahabharat: यतो धर्मस्ततो जयः (Yato Dharmas tato Jayah). It means, “Where there is Dharma, there will be Victory.” This is also the motto of the Supreme Court of India.

Author Brief Bio: Prof. Makarand R. Paranjape is a Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

References:

^[1] See the official website of the Kanchi Sankara Math for their rendering and photos of the performance: http://vandeguruparamparaam.blogspot.com/2016/10/maitreem-bhajatha-timeless-poem-for.html.

^[2] Deutsch, Eliot, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction, University of Hawaii Press. 1973.  p. 3 note 2

^[3] Schmidhauser, J. R. Power, “Legal Imperialism and Dependency,” Law & Society Review Vol. 23, No. 5 (1989), pp. 857-878.

^[4] Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden. Oxford University Press, 2007

^[5] http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html

^[6] Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and The Pillage of an Empire. Bloomsbury Publishing 2019. p. 209

^[7] Pending Dashboard, National Judicial Data Grid, last accessed 8 September, 2021, https://njdg.ecourts.gov.in/njdgnew/?p=main/pend_dashboard

^[8] Shourie, Arun, Anita Gets Bail: What Our Courts Are Doing? What Should We Do About Them?. (New Delhi: HarperCollins Publishers India, 2018).

^[9] Kafka, Franz, The Trial (New York: Schocken Books, 1999).

^[10] Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and “Civil Disobedience”. New York: Signet Classics, 1980.

^[11] Diwakar, R. R. : Saga of Satyagraha. New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1969. p. 1

^[12] Gandhi, Mahatma. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Washington DC: Public Affairs Press of Washington, 1948.

^[13] Gandhi, M.K, India of My Dreams, (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1947).

^[14] Ray, S., “Indian Culture Does Recognize Homosexuality, Let Us Count The Ways,” The Quint, September 11, 2018.

^[15] Rowlatt Acts, 1919, legislation passed by the Imperial Legislative Council, the legislature of British India. The acts allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted internment of suspects without trial.

^[16] Chhachhar, V. “Appointment Of Judges In India Through Collegium System: A Critical Perspective.” Sml. L. Rev. 208 (2018).

^[17] Cicero, Marcus Tullius, and James E. G. Zetzel. 1995.

^[18] Hammurabi, King of Babylonia., and Robert Francis Harper. The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon About 2250 B.C.

^[19] Bible: Epistle of James. James 2:11

^[20] Hussainara Khatoon & Ors vs Home Secretary, State of Bihar, 1979 AIR 1369, 1979 SCR (3) 532

^[21] Section 19 & 20, Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987

^[22] Harari, Yuval N. author. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. New York:Harper, 2015.

^[23] Aparigraha- non-accumulating material possession and worldly pleasures. The five great Yama in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are Non-violence-Ahimsa, Truth-Satya, Non-stealing-Asteya, Celibacy-Brahmacharya, Non-attachment/Non-possession – Aparigraha

^[24] Bhagavad-Gita

^[25] Sri Aurobindo was an Indian philosopher, maharishi, yogi, poet, and Indian nationalist. See The Penguin Sri Aurobindo Reader ed Makarand R Paranjape (New Delhi: Penguin, 1999).

^[26] Simon, Blackburn, Ethics: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 101.

“We owe a lot to the ancient Indians, teaching us how to count. Without which most modern scientific discoveries would have been impossible” ~ Albert Einstein

Indian civilisation has accorded immense importance to knowledge — its amazingly vast body of intellectual texts, the world’s largest collection of manuscripts, its attested tradition of texts, thinkers, and schools in so many domains of knowledge. In Srimad Bhagavad Gita, 4.33,37-38, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that knowledge is the great purifier and liberator of the self. India’s knowledge tradition is ancient and uninterrupted like the flow of the river Ganga, from the Vedas (Upanishads) to Sri Aurobindo, knowledge has been at the centre of all inquiry.

The entire body of organised knowledge is divided into two sets in the Mundakopanisad — pars vidya and apara vidya (Mundakopanisad, 1.1.4), knowledge of the ultimate principle, paramatma or Brahman i.e., the metaphysical domain, and knowledge that is secondary to how one grasps aksara-Brahman i.e., worldly knowledge. Accordingly, a distinction is made between jnana and vijnana, the knowledge of facts of the perceptible world. Over time, knowledge of different domains has been institutionalised into disciplines, or vidya and crafts, or kala. Indian disciplinary formations include fields as diverse as philosophy, architecture, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, metrics, sociology (dharmasastra), economy and polity (arthaśāstra), ethics (nitishastra), geography, logic, military science, weaponry, agriculture, mining, trade and commerce, metallurgy, mining, shipbuilding, medicine, poetics, biology, and veterinary science. In each of these, a continuous and cumulative series of texts continues to be available despite the widespread loss and historically recorded destruction.

Tradition mentions 18 major vidyas, or theoretical disciplines; and 64 kalas, applied or vocational disciplines, crafts. The 18 vidyas are: the four Vedas, the four subsidiary Vedas (Ayurveda – medicine, Dhanurveda – weaponry, Gandharvaveda – music and Silpa – architecture), Purana, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Dharmasastra and Vedanga, the six auxiliary sciences, phonetics, grammar, metre, astronomy, ritual, and philology — these formed the basis of the 18 sciences in ancient India. As far as the applied sciences are concerned, there are competing enumerations of 64.^[i]

The first thing to note is the constructivist dimension of Indian thought. At one time in its intellectual history, from 1000 BCE to almost CE 600, the Indian mind, it appears, was deeply immersed in empire-building, both of the terra firma and the terra cognita. Few cultures can show such wide-ranging, structured systems of ideas in almost all spheres of human life as witnessed in India during this phase. This led to the generation of a vast stock of ideas, which imprinted itself on the Indian mind making it naturally reflective and ideational.

The ancient Indian masters of politics – Kautilya, Bhīṣma, or Vidura – always followed the path of realpolitik over political ideologies. However, there were definite principles and theories upon which the foundation of the Classical Indian polity was based. The specific vidya or branch of Indian knowledge systems dedicated to the discussions of those principles, theories, and experience-based prescriptions was called dandaniti, the other three vidyas being ānvīkṣikī, trayī, and vārtā. This four-fold division is mentioned in Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra 1.2.1 (Kangle 1960). Each of the vidyas has one or more lineage of masters who have created multiple schools of thought, thus preserving, expanding, and proliferating the Indian knowledge systems. For dandaniti, the traditionally celebrated masters or acaryas are Bṛhaspati, Śukra, Uśanas, Bhīṣma, Kauṭilya, Kāmandaka, to name a few.

Among these masters, Bhisma’s teachings throughout the Shanti Parva and the Anushasana Parva of Vyasa’s Mahābhārata stand out as an exhaustive commentary on this unique paradigm of assimilating and practicing power, polity, politics, and administration. In the extent of its treatment of dandaniti, it is paralleled only by the Arthaśāstra.^[ii]

It is now accepted that western criteria are not the sole benchmark by which other knowledge systems should be evaluated. While the term ‘traditional’ often implies ‘primitive’ or ‘outdated’, many of the traditional sciences and technologies were quite advanced[iii] even by present-day standards and better adapted to unique local conditions and needs than their ‘modern’ alternatives.

The United Nations defines ‘Traditional Knowledge Systems’ as:

“Traditional knowledge or local knowledge is a record of human achievement in comprehending the complexities of life and survival in often unfriendly environments. Traditional knowledge, which may be technical, social, organisational, or cultural was obtained as part of the great human experiment of survival and development.”^[iv]

Laura Nader describes the purpose of studying Traditional Knowledge Systems (TKS): “The point is to open up people’s minds to other ways of looking and questioning, to change knowledge attitudes, to reframe the organisation of science — to formulate a way of thinking globally about traditions.”

Modern science perhaps dates to Newton’s times. But Traditional Knowledge Systems (TKS) date since more than 2 million years, when Homo habilis started making his tools and interacting with nature[v]. Since the dawn of history, different peoples have contributed to different branches of science and technology, often in a manner involving interactive contacts across cultures separated by large distances. This interactive influence is becoming clearer as the vast extent of global trade and cultural migration across vast distances is being recognised by researchers.

Not only in the field of dandaniti and rajadharma, the Indian civilisation also had a strong tradition of science and technology. Ancient India was a land of sages and seers as well as a land of scholars and scientists[vi]. Research has shown that from making the best steel in the world to teaching the world to count, India actively contributed to the field of science and technology centuries before modern laboratories were established. Many theories and techniques discovered by the ancient Indians have created and strengthened the fundamentals of modern science and technology. However, the vast and significant contributions made by the Indian sub-continent have been ignored. The British colonisers could never accept the fact that Indians were highly civilised even in the third millennium BCE when the British were still in a barbarian stage. Such acknowledgement would destroy the civilising mission of Europe that provided the intellectual justification for colonisation.

British Indologists did not study TKS, except to quietly document them as systems competing with their own and to facilitate the transfer of technology into Britain’s industrial revolution[vii]. What was found valuable was quickly appropriated, and its Indian manufacturers were forced out of business, and this was in many instances justified as civilising them. Meanwhile, a new history of India was fabricated to ensure that present and future generations of mentally colonised people would believe in the inferiority of their ancient knowledge and the superiority of the western ‘modern’ knowledge. This has been called ‘Macaulayism’, named after Lord Macaulay, who successfully championed this colonial strategy from the 1830s.³

Arthaśāstra

Kautilya (also known as Chanakya or Vishnugupta) was the Chief Minister and the brain behind King Chandra Gupta Maurya (317-293 BCE), which led to consolidation of the Mauryan empire and ushered in the Golden Age of India. It also put an end to the threat by the successors of King Alexander. The strategy helped in uniting the whole Indian sub-continent and sowed the seeds for the concept of the Indian nation. The Mauryan Empire not only spread across the sub-continent but extended in the west till the Persian border and to Myanmar (erstwhile Burma) in the east. The strategy propounded by Kautilya was the treatise Arthaśāstra, a comprehensive compendium of the art of ruling a kingdom and defeating one’s enemies. Verse 1.1.19 states that “this work easy to learn and understand, precise in doctrine, sense and wordiness, has been composed by Kautilya” lays to rest doubts about the authorship of this treatise. Moreover, Kautilya states right at the beginning that Arthaśāstra is a compendium of similar treatises written by earlier teachers. Subsequent works like Kamandaka’s Nitisara, Dandin’s Dashakumaracharita, Vishakhadatta’s Mudrarakshasha, and Banabhatta’s Kadambari give credence to the traditional Arthaśāstra’s dating and authorship.^[viii]

The Arthaśāstra was very influential in ancient India up to the 12^th century CE, after which it faded away. The text, however, was rediscovered in 1904 by Dr R Shama Shastri and was published in English in 1915.

Dr RP Kangle (Kangle 1960) in his study, “The Kautilya Arthaśāstra”, points out on the relevance of Kautilya in the modern era, “We still have the same distrust of one nation by another, the same pursuit of its interest by every nation tempered only by the considerations of expediency, the same effort to secure alliances with the same disregard of them in self-interest”. It is difficult to see how rivalry and the struggle for supremacy between nations can be avoided or how the teachings of Arthaśāstra based on these basic facts can ever become superfluous. Historically, neither the formation of the League of Nations nor later the United Nations Organization has transformed the world as envisaged. Hence, the Arthaśāstra and its basic tenets would continue to remain relevant in the foreseeable future. ^[ix]

The Arthaśāstra is a vast compendium comprising 15 books, which are divided into 150 chapters, 180 sections and 6000 shlokas. The Sanskrit meaning of Arth is wealth, but Kautilya’s meaning encompasses a much wider canvas. The wealth of a nation has two major pillars – its territory and its subjects. The treatise is essentially a treatise on the art of governance and covers all aspects required for a society to function internally, and as a nation-state in its relations externally. Thus, at the macro level, the topics covered a span from statecraft, war to diplomacy. At the other end of the spectrum, micromanagement of the state is also covered in detail, e.g., revenue sources and taxation, commodity prices and their taxes, standardisation of weights and measures, the organisation of the army, descriptions of forts and defences. Interestingly, there exists a very prominent mention of the Navy as it has mentioned the ‘superintendent of ships’ in Book II. Kautilya may have foreseen the importance of a seaborne force and a Navy.

Kautilya’s treatise in many ways reflects the complexity of the present world. The problems of his times continue to exist, though in a more magnified manner. Heinrich Zimmer describes it aptly, “One feels inclined to bestow new and deep respect on the genius who at that early period recognised and elucidated the basic forces and situations that were to remain perennial in the human political field. The same style of Indian thought that invented the game of chess grasped with profound insight the rules of this larger game of power. And these are rules that cannot be disregarded by anyone seriously preparing to enter the field of political action, whether for motives of rugged individualism or in order to take the world in his hands.”^[x] Kautilya wasn’t just a strategist, he was a guru, a researcher, and an inspiring thought leader. He is among the foremost expert on leadership and good governance the world has known.

On military strategy, the principles enunciated by Kautilya are as relevant today as they were when they were written. He considered statecraft and military strategy to be inseparable and that warfare was an integral part of it. Military strategy has been dealt with extensively, covering various aspects of deceit, training, planning, to the conduct of actual warfare. The king is advised to assess the interests of the state before embarking on a campaign by considering eight crucial factors, which would ensure that the gains outweigh the losses. In addition to quantifiable parameters, these factors cautioned against the likelihood of revolts and rebellion in the rear, and on dangers like treachery during the campaign. Great importance was given to internal security and Kautilya emphasised that threats to national security must be eliminated at any cost. He reasoned that internal stability was essential for the economic well-being of the state.

To ensure internal and external security, Kautilya wanted a network of spies operating within the state, and in enemy states. He was among the initial proponents of intrigue, covert operations, and using diplomatic offensives as instruments of state policy. Detailed descriptions of espionage and counter-espionage activities set this work apart from any other political treatise. All these ideas are relevant and practiced even today.

Arthaśāstra laid down the prime responsibilities of a king – protection of the state from external aggression and expansion of its territory by conquest. To achieve these aims, he specified four types of warfare:

• Mantrayuddha or war by counsel through the exercise of diplomacy. This option was to be exercised when the king was in a weaker position compared to his opponent.
• Prakasayuddha or conventional warfare. This was to be used when the king is in an advantageous position.
• Kutayuddha or concealed warfare, also known as guerrilla warfare. This warfare includes psychological warfare and activating agents in the enemy camp.
• Gudayuddha or clandestine war. As the name suggests, the aim is achieved through covert means. The state does not publicly display any signs of aggression but spreads propaganda and disinformation behind enemy lines through covert means. Roger Boesche has said in his book on Arthaśāstra that “silent war is a kind of fighting that no other thinker I know of has discussed”.

For ensuring a successful military strategy, Kautilya has covered in detail the organisation and management of the army. Crucial to the success of the army, he emphasises the traits required by its leadership. Interestingly, he called for the army to function under civil supremacy and made the organisation function efficiently through smooth coordination between its components. Kautilya even went into such details as specifying 34 types of adversities that an army could face. These remain largely relevant even today, as does the basic organisation he proposed, with modifications for incorporating modern-day challenges and technology.

Kautilya was a proponent of the Realist school of thought, which advised maximising power through political rather than military means. He believed in realpolitik and that ends justified the means, including the use of ruse, deceit, cunning and subterfuge. He justifies going to war by the natural enemy concept which states that if the enemy is not eliminated, the enemy will eliminate the state/king at some point in time.

Modern warfare is not restricted to the actual conflict alone. Rather, it encompasses the military, political, economic and diplomatic aspects. War or conflict has two distinct characteristics. One represents progress and change, and the other represents constancy and permanency. On one hand, the dynamics of progress and change depend much upon a commander’s imagination, innovativeness, grasp of technology and complexity. While on the other, the Arthaśāstra is testimony to the constant and unchanging nature of war. Studies of military history show that certain features constantly recur; that certain relations between the type of action and success often produce similar results; that certain circumstances have time and again proved decisive. Past is the prologue of the future, underscores the relevance and significance of studies of military history such as propagated by the Arthaśāstra or other ancient texts. ^[xi]

Military strategy comprises statecraft, diplomacy, and warfare. Warfare comprises of two characteristics – one remains permanent over time, while the other keeps changing and evolving with progress and technology. The changing component also depends on the quality of leadership at any given time. The permanent characteristics of warfare are those which are studied through military history, which provides lessons for future warfare/situations. This brings out the relevance of ancient texts like Arthaśāstra in the current context.

Status of Incorporation of Ancient Texts in the Armed Forces

The Indian Army has been at the forefront in this regard and has been studying the relevance of ancient scriptures to modern warfare. The Army War College, Mhow brought out a paper in 2016 titled, “Interpreting Ancient India’s Strategic Military Culture”, which took examples from different texts to correlate aspects of statecraft and warfare in ancient and present times. The study noted that “Indigenous strategic thoughts and art of war found in the Arthaśāstra, Mahabharata and other literature are not only organic to Indian psyche but are also relevant even in today’s context”. 7 The paper also listed other scriptures for study, like Dhanurveda – which talks about military strategy, tactics, organization, and training of defence personnel, military arrays, divisions of fighting, equipment, weapons etc. The paper also studied the evolution of military strategy in India and emphasized the information warfare strategy by Kautilya, the Indian art of war and foreign policy.

Another text mentioned in the paper was the Manusmriti, where Chapter 7 dealt with statecraft, organisation and function of the army, description of forts, and firearms in the Shukraniti, authored by sage Shukracharya; and the Puranas like Agni Purana, Brahma Purana and Brahmanda Purana which deal with diplomacy and warfare.^[xii]

There has been a push towards “Indianisation” of the Indian military and at the Combined Commanders Conference held in Kevadia, Gujarat, in March 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stressed greater indigenisation in the national security apparatus, including in the doctrines and customs of the Armed Forces.^[xiii]

Consequently, Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff sponsored a study, “Attributes of Ancient Indian Culture and Warfare Techniques and its incorporation in present-day strategic thinking and training” at the College of Defence Management (CDM), Hyderabad. The study focused on ancient Indian texts Arthaśāstra, Bhagavad Gita and Thirukkural, and it termed Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra a “treasure trove” for the Armed Forces. The study brought out that these texts were relevant in the present-day context concerning leadership, warfare, and strategic thinking. The study, published in 2021, recommended incorporating relevant teachings from ancient Indian texts such as Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra and Bhagavad Gita into the current military training curriculum. The study has also suggested establishing an ‘Indian Culture Study Forum’ on the lines of those existing in Pakistan and China, for carrying out further research.

The study also recommended further study of ancient texts such as Manusmriti, Nitisara and Mahabharata, and to conduct periodic workshops and annual seminars on lessons from ancient Indian culture and texts for the Armed Forces. It proposed making CDM a Centre for Excellence in Indian Cultural Studies and to incorporate this knowledge as part of the formal training curriculum in military institutions.

More recently, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General MM Naravane, on 27 January 2022, while delivering the keynote address at the annual seminar on National Security at the College of Defence Management (CDM), emphasised using the vast repository of ancient knowledge available, which could enhance current strategic thinking. He stressed on the application of this knowledge in conjunction with an understanding of contemporary situations and battle-space architecture. This would aid in formulating more efficient solutions for resolving present-day challenges. He further pointed out that India must look for meeting its security concerns through realpolitik in the current geo-strategic environment. In this context, ancient Indian knowledge on statecraft and military strategy propounded millennia ago remains relevant even today. The General stressed about the need for indigenisation and atmanirbharta and said that this is equally relevant in our thought process, as it is for weapons and equipment. The requirement, therefore, is to develop Indian perspectives to meet our challenges, based on our ancient texts, moderated by current concepts. He further mentioned that the armed forces had taken up an exploratory project to examine the relevance of these texts to meet contemporary security challenges.^[xiv]

Conclusion

China’s contributions to the global knowledge pool are widely acknowledged. Arab scholars have ensured that the important role played by Islamic countries in the transmission of ideas and inventions to Europe is common knowledge. However, in the latter case, many discoveries made in ancient India are often depicted as being of Arab origin, though the Arabs only re-transmitted to Europe what they had learnt in India. Even post-Independence, such distortion of facts continues to prevail, negatively impacting appreciation of ancient Indian knowledge. To a large extent, India’s intellectual elite continues to promote pre-colonial India as being feudalistic, superstitious, irrational and lacking scientific temper. This notion has led to an entrenched prejudice against our indigenous knowledge systems in contemporary society. A major reason for this prevalent notion is India’s flawed education system, which has subverted the projection of ancient Indian knowledge and scientific achievements in its curricula. Thus, even when facts are presented, few in the west or amongst the elitist Indians, are willing to believe them, as stereotypes about India are deeply entrenched.³

The study of warfare in ancient Indian texts examines the permanent qualities of human nature, in the dynamic technological dimensions of military conflict. The question thus arises about Kautilya’s relevance in the present. ⁷ He remains an exception in the ancient, as well as in the modern world, as being the sole strategist who was able to translate his tenets into practice, leading to the creation of a huge empire. The Arthaśāstra covers every topic required for running a country, most of them continuing to be relevant even today. Shiv Shankar Menon, former National Security Advisor, during a seminar by IDSA in 2013, had summed up the relevance of Arthaśāstra by stating, “The concepts and ways of thinking that the Arthaśāstra reveals is useful, because, in many ways, the world which we face today is similar to that in which Kautilya operated in when he built the Mauryan Empire to greatness.”^[xv]

Author Brief Bio: Commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, Brig AP Singh, SM*, VSM was part of the Trishna crew which circumnavigated the globe. He was the National Coach for the Optimist Class (a boat for sub-junior category in the 8 to 16-year age group) for over two decades and accompanied the national team for numerous national and international events.

References:

^[i] Indian Knowledge Systems Vol 1 https://iks.iitgn.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Indian-Knowledge-Systems-Kapil-Kapoor.pdf

^[ii] Principles of Dandaniti and Rajadharma in Leadership and Strategy by Sreejit Datta; AGNI (Vol XXIV, No III) Sept-Dec 2021 issue

[iii] http://www.indianscience.org/index.html

^[iv] Traditional Knowledge Systems of India https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/india/traditional-knowledge-systems-of-india/

[v] https://orientviews.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/how-colonial-india-destroyed-traditional-knowledge-systems/

[vi] https://www.thebetterindia.com/63119/ancient-india-science-technology/

[vii] https://orientviews.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/how-colonial-india-destroyed-traditional-knowledge-systems/

^[viii] The Arthaśāstra – A Treatise on Statecraft and Military Strategy https://knowledgemerger.com/the-arthashastra/

^[ix] Relevance of Arthashastra in the 21^st century http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/relevance-of-arthashastra-in-the-21st-century/

^[x] Philosophies of India by Heinrich Zimmer, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1952

^[xi] Impact of Arthaśāstra on Modern Warfare https://www.essaycompany.com/dissertations/history/kautilya

^[xii] New marching tunes, no more pre-1947 battle honours – armed forces set to get more ‘Indian’ https://theprint.in/india/new-marching-tunes-no-more-pre-1947-battle-honours-armed-forces-set-to-get-more-indian/673013/

^[xiii] Ancient Indian Warfare like Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra to be part of Indian Military Training https://therightmag.com/editors-choice/ancient-indian-war-fare-like-kautilyas-arthashastra-to-be-part-of-indian-military-training/

^[xiv] Harness Ancient Indian Knowledge System to Deal with Present National Security Challenges: Army Chief https://bharatshakti.in/harness-ancient-indian-knowledge-system-to-deal-with-present-national-security-challenges-army-chief/

^[xv] Relevance of Arthshastra in the 21^st Century http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/relevance-of-arthashastra-in-the-21st-century/

Book Author:  Jay Bhattacharjee

Book Review by Maj Gen Dhruv C. Katoch

There is an inherent strength and resilience in the people of Bharat. Despite being subjected to repeated foreign invasions since the eighth century, vandalised and colonised in part, this ancient civilisation could never be subdued nor vanquished. Like a phoenix, it rose, time and time again, and while all other civilisations crumbled and disappeared with the ravages of time, Bharat today, is the only ancient civilisation which remains. This, by itself, bespeaks of the inherent civilisational and cultural strength of this ancient land.

What the conquerers attempted to do was to erase both the knowledge base as well as the cultural heritage of the people of Bharat and replace the same with alien concepts. This was power play at its worst, which led to the destruction of India’s centres of learning and places of worship. The British rule over India, which started with the arrival of the East India Company, was focussed on wiping out all traces of Indian civilisation and in looting and plundering the land. But the narrative they spun was one of carrying out a noble and civilising mission. Earlier, the invasions from the Arabs and others, which began in the eighth century, were equally ruthless and focussed on destruction, loot and plunder. While Bharat’s cultural and spiritual edifice survived due to its inherent resilience, the psyche of the people was somewhat dented. Post-independence, the process of rejuvenation and rediscovery began, but it found resistance from vested interests within the country.

The book, “Resurgent Bharat and Other Issues” by Jay Bhattacharjee represents the narrative of a resurgent Bharat, and the challenges which Bharat—an old civilisation but a young nation state— faces from within as well as from external inimical forces. Essentially, it is a battle of narratives, which encompasses the very idea of what India was, is, and what she seeks to be. Since independence, the narrative which was spun out for the masses was written by historians who had a leftist and Islamist bent of mind. The narrative was a continuation of what the Islamic invaders and later the British had instituted into the public discourse. Events were viewed from the perspective of the invaders and not from the viewpoint of the indigenous people. This was a deliberate attempt by the ruling clique, who perhaps themselves had been psychologically debilitated and could see little good in their own culture and civilisation. Consequently, any attempt to view events through the Indian perspective was not only derided but deliberately stifled and those espousing such views were denied a voice in the corridors of power and in our educational institutions. India’s left leaning elite was determined to wipe out all vestiges of India’s cultural past and the demand of electoral politics aligned the ruling party with such forces.

But despite the fact that attempts were made to stifle the voice of those propagating a nationalist narrative, such voices continued to grow. Today, many decades post-independence, the voice of Bharat has finally emerged, strong and clear. Much of the credit for this turnaround goes to authors like Jay Bhattacharjee, who has done yeoman service to the country by speaking out for Bharat’s spiritual and cultural ethos, despite facing severe opposition to his views, especially from the Lutyen’s coterie. This coterie is not confined to the municipal limits of the Lutyens Zone, nor can all the inhabitants of this geographical space be so described. Rather, it refers to people exhibiting a particular mindset, who have honed their skills in deriding their own culture and civilisation, an attribute that was mastered from the time of the Islamic invasions and later during British rule.

In this collection of essays by Jay Bhattacharjee, written over the last quarter of a century, the author has delved into multiple issues which are of concern to India. Understandably, Indic culture and civilisation along with the twists and turns of Indian politics, occupy a quarter of the space, for this is the edifice on which a vibrant Bharat has to be built. Ultimately, the issues which impact India are not just about development, jobs and good governance, but also about how we look at ourselves and at our history. Should India be held hostage to ideologies that seek to demean our culture, our heritage and our very way of life? Or should we reclaim with pride the ethos and spirit of a proud people, whose land was pillaged for a thousand years but whose spirit could not be subjugated? Here, Jay does yeoman service in awakening the mind through his very caustic essays, tinged with humour and at times a bit of acerbity. More importantly, by challenging those who continue to espouse the legacy of Macaulay, he forces the reader to think and question long held beliefs and opinions.

The collection of essays also includes the authors thoughts on religious issues which continue to inflame India, the state of the Indian economy, military and strategic issues and also on India’s justice delivery—or rather the lack thereof. Some of the essays are tongue in cheek, hitting hard at the pompous and the servile who occupy high positions in the corridors of power and in society. But each essay makes the reader think and ponder, which is why this is a book that must be read and treasured. You may agree with the author or you may disagree with him. But it is not possible to ignore him. And that is the strength of this book.

For all those who have a strong desire and a penchant to see India as a great power, occupying its rightful place in history, this book will act as a strong motivator. Bharat is moving on…and so should you.

Author Brief Bio: Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch is Editor, India Foundation Journal and Director, India Foundation.

The debate on the impact of population growth essentially centres around two contrary views. The Malthusian view^[i] is predicated on the proposition that human population grows in geometric progression whereas food supply grows in arithmetic proportion. Food supply will hence run out, giving rise to the need to curtail population growth. Malthus believed that high rates of population will permanently condemn societies to a perpetual state of under development. This theory received the support of economists such as JS Mills and JM Keynes. Karl Marx, however, gave a contrary view, which was supported by sociologists. Marx stated that the widespread poverty and misery of the working-class people was not due to an eternal law of nature as propounded by Malthus but to the misconceived organisation of society and by the unequal distribution of the wealth and its accumulation by capitalists.

The debate essentially revolves around four key issues:^[ii]

Do small families improve the prospects of children?

Is a rapidly growing population detrimental to economic growth?

Is high fertility a result of low income and poverty?

Is rapid population growth a symptom, rather than a cause, of poor economic performance?

Food shortages, of which Malthus expressed concern have been largely overcome by advances in science and improved agriculture. However, this does not take away from the fact that larger populations require greater consumption, which stresses the environment, pollutes the atmosphere and causes environmental degradation, which is already causing concerns to people across the globe.

The population of the world, which stood at around 2.6 billion in 1950, took just 37 years to nearly double to 5 billion in 1987, adding an additional 2.4 billion people to the planet. The next billion was added in just 12 years, making the world’s population touch the 7 billion marks in 1999. By 2050, the world’s population is expected to increase to 9.7 billion, and peak at around 11 billion by 2100.^[iii]

In the Indian subcontinent, an examination of the populations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, between independence in 1947, to the present times, reveals that the population of India increased fourfold during this period. The population of Pakistan, for the same period, increased seven times and Bangladesh, six times. In India, the rate of population increase was not uniform, increasing about six times among the Muslim population and three times among the rest.^[iv] There is a view that the unbridled growth of population in India and in other parts of the world has adversely impacted development initiatives to reduce poverty and has also led to substantive environmental degradation.

In her book, Building the Population Bomb (Oxford University Press, 2021), Emily Klancher Merchant states that overpopulation has been blamed for everything from climate change to poverty. She however posits that it is not population growth but global socio-economic inequality and environmental degradation that are the causative factors and that society incorrectly blamed a “population bomb” for problems that had other causes. “A wrong diagnosis,” she avers, produces ineffective solutions. In this, she echoes the Marxian viewpoint.

That is perhaps an oversimplification of a problem which has multiple dimensions, but Ms Merchant is not the only one who believes that reducing poverty will ipso facto, lead to a reduction in population. In their book, ‘Population and Development, Dennis Ahlburg and Robert Cassen note that, while it is believed that more rapid population growth increases poverty by reducing real wages, the relationship with poverty is ‘neither obvious nor well established’. They question the assumption that an increase in the labour force necessarily reduces wages, but caution that the relationship between population and poverty varies considerably across regions, countries, growth sectors and policy environments.^[v]

In a study carried out, examining the link between population and per capita income growth and poverty, a case study of Uganda is instructive. Uganda achieved reasonable economic growth while also experiencing high population growth. However, the evidence garnered in the study also suggested that “the currently high population growth puts a considerable break on per capita growth prospects in Uganda”. The study further went to state that high population growth led to low achievement in poverty reduction, which concomitantly, made it very difficult to make substantial improvements in poverty reduction and per capita growth.^[vi]

There is no gainsaying the fact that unbridled population growth hinders poverty alleviation programmes, attenuates consumption and waste and has a negative impact on societies and the worlds eco-system. The examples of South Korea and Taiwan—two countries which have successfully controlled population growth, are instructive in this regard. Both these countries have seen rapid increases in per capita incomes as birth rates declined, giving them a positive demographic dividend.^[vii]

There is a need to control population growth through policy initiatives through expanding education and health care, especially for the girl child, and on implementing voluntary family planning programmes. This can succeed, as seen in an experiment conducted in the Matlab region of Bangladesh, in a controlled population group, a portion of which was provided with free services and supplies, home visits by well-trained female family-planning workers, and comprehensive media communication. The programme also had an outreach to husbands, village heads and religious leaders to obviate any backlash from the male population. The results indicated a substantial decline in fertility rates—1.5 percent— between the targeted population and the non-targeted population in the controlled area. This shows that family planning programmes can succeed in conservative societies. Other countries such as Iran and Rwanda too have shown similar results.^[viii]

Over the years, based on empirical data, a causal relationship has been established between rising prosperity and declining fertility. Both East Asia and some countries of South East Asia are examples of this trend that as incomes rise, fertility tends to fall and between national income growth and falling birth rates as also between family incomes and fertility. Improved economic conditions, therefore, do lead to a decline in birth rates.^[ix] But for the converse to hold true, would require good governance models. In any case, the debate should now focus on both aspects: Good governance and taking measures to reduce the birth rates. Both should go hand in hand, simultaneously.

India should lay emphasis on population control measures that are enlightened and in the interest of women. Improved education and health care for the girl child, better and improved access to reproductive health control, a concerted media campaign on the need and necessity for small families, sensitising religious and local leaders on the issue and making them part of the programme, are some of the initiatives which could be taken. Alongside, must be legislation to encourage the small family norm, through incentives and disincentives. The recent bill passed in parliament, bringing the age of marriage of girls on parity with boys to 21 years is a welcome step.

The resources of the earth are limited and population control is the need of the hour. This is also in conformity with the goals as laid down by the United Nations. While population trends are not explicitly mentioned in the SDGs, but several of the SDGs are directly or indirectly related to future demographic trends. As humans are the only polluters in the planet, restricting their unbridled growth must remain the core issue for India and the world.

Author Brief Bio: Maj Gen Dhruv C. Katoch is Director, India Foundation and Editor, India Foundation Journal.

References:

^[i] Based on the book, An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus.

^[ii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781831/

^[iii] https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population

^[iv] Data interpolated from census of India and from other sources.

^[v] Ahlburg, Dennis & Cassen, Robert. (1993). Population and development. International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2.

^[vi] http://www2.vwl.wiso.uni-goettingen.de/departmentpaper/NO_133.pdf

^[vii] John Bongaarts, Development: Slow down population growth, available at https://www.nature.com/articles/530409a

^[viii] Ibid.

^[ix] Note 2.

“India is the only big economy which has delivered in letter and spirit on the Paris Commitment”^[i] stated Prime Minister Modi in his address at Glasgow COP 26 Summit on 2nd November. He noted that India with 17% of the world’s population was responsible for only 5% of greenhouse gas emissions annually. He committed India to achieve the target of net-zero emissions by 2070 and reducing CO2 emissions by 1 billion tons by 2030. In one fell swoop, he silenced the critics (except of course the professional India baiters) and assumed leadership in the battle against climate change.

If the road ahead is bound to get more difficult, the journey thus far for India (and the developing nations) has not been easy either. “India has been a late starter and much of its infrastructure remains to be built. China’s emissions rise is likely to flatten as its years of intensive growth will soon be behind it, when it reaches its peak by 2030”.^[ii] As such India’s GHG emissions are bound to rise, attracting mounting pressure, economic and political, from the sinners’ turned saints.

Climate change poses an existential crisis to mankind and is well described as Covid-like epidemic ‘in slow motion’. That comprehension has finally dawned on the decision-makers and the populace at large, the world over. What is still missing is a genuine sense of urgency and willingness to collectively put the shoulder to the wheel.  Politicking, buck-passing and grandstanding, remain the order of the day, while the steady build-up of CO2 and other Greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere is choking the lungs of mother nature with ruinous consequences.

This short paper aims to look at the magnitude of the crisis, reasons for foot-dragging by the rich countries, and practical measures by the comity of nations to contain/reverse the damage. Humanity has no choice but to rise to the occasion. The only imponderable is whether or not substantive climate action will be initiated before nature’s balance is disrupted irreversibly.

Background

In the last 200 years, global temperature has risen by at least 1%. This is the result of the huge stock of greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the process of carbon-intensive development of the industrialised world with little regard for the environment. It is as if a thick blanket has enveloped the earth. Here it is important to distinguish between GHG stock and flow. The latter is the addition of GHG annually which currently measures a whopping 51 billion tons, while ‘stock’ represents the cumulative quantity of pollutants released by mankind. The restrictions imposed around the world during the Covid pandemic saw an overall decline in CO2 emissions of 5.6% in 2020.^[iii]

GHG remains in the atmosphere for over 100 years and therein lies the foremost challenge. Even if the emissions are brought down to zero, it would take a century for the environmental poison to dissipate. Methane (CH4) is 262% and nitrous oxide (N2O) is 123% of the levels in 1750 when human activities started disrupting Earth’s natural equilibrium. “The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere breached the milestone of 400 parts per million in 2015. And just five years later, it exceeded 413 ppm”.^[iv] Roughly half of the CO2 emitted by human activities today remains in the atmosphere. The other half is absorbed by oceans and land ecosystems, which act as “sinks.”

The challenge will get compounded with the addition of some 3 billion inhabitants in Africa between 2020-2100. The African population is expected to increase from 1.3 billion to 4.3 billion despite significant resource constraints, socio-political instability and security deficit. This would greatly aggravate inter and intrastate strife. Most of the increase will come in sub-Saharan Africa, which is expected to more than triple in population by 2100.^[v] Meanwhile, the European population would shrink. The Asian population is likely to increase from 4.6 billion in 2020 to 5.3 billion in 2055, when it would start shrinking. China’s population should peak in 2031, while India’s should grow until 2059 to touch 1.7 billion.

In spite of damaging the environment, polluting the rivers, cutting down trees, and generating unconscionable levels of plastic waste, experts were divided about the extent of the actual impact on the climate. Many believed and some still do, that climate change is a boogie meant to extract resources from the industrialised world and pave the way for the development of new forms of energy and technologies, to the detriment of oil-producing nations. Nevertheless, the first serious attempt at taking stock of the situation was made at the Rio conference in 1992 which recognised the need for taking corrective measures and put the onus essentially on the industrialised world under the principle of ‘polluter pays’. Both mitigation and adaptation measures were envisaged. It was agreed that the rich nations will help the developing countries in curtailing pollution and enhancing energy efficiency.

The 1997 Kyoto Summit which was meant to concretise the gains of Rio turned out to be a tame affair. President Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol but was unable to secure Senate backing. A bigger fiasco was to follow in 2017 when President Donald Trump, a climate sceptic, decided to pull out of the Paris Accord (2015). The withdrawal came into effect three years later thanks to an inbuilt stipulation that no nation will be able to quit before 3 years of signing it.  Mercifully, with the change of regime, President Biden re-joined the Accord.  All the same such a yo-yo approach does not augur well for effective climate action, particularly since the US is the lead actor in the matter. Given the inevitable electoral cycle in the US, the COP (Conference of the Parties) would have to brace for such disruptions, unless there is a groundswell of support for effective climate action in the US and politicians fear a voter blowback for being seen as a naysayer.

Climate solutions entail a cost, are not attractive politically and gains are intangible. In other words, climate action does not win votes, as it is an investment into the well-being of future generations while politics is mostly about instant gratification. There are a handful of leaders who have the vision to recognise that the present generation has a fiduciary responsibility to leave the earth habitable. Meanwhile, the industrialised world has been looking at ways to wriggle out of the commitments. They ganged up to gradually chip away at their responsibilities to facilitate mitigation and adaptation by the rest of the world. The first to be attacked was the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) which front-loaded action by the developed Nations.

In 2000, the biggest polluters were the US and European Union, both in terms of absolute and per capita emissions. India’s per capita emissions, for example, was barely 5% of that of Europe. By 2020, the per capita gap started to shrink, emissions by the developed nations have peaked or are close to peaking while that of the developing countries are naturally rising. It may be pertinent to note here that though at the receiving end, the developing countries have not been very successful in staking out common positions nor do they have institutionalised consultative mechanisms like the G7. Just to cite one example, Brazil, South Africa, India and China constituted a group called ‘BASIC’ in November 2009, to co-ordinate positions on negotiations on climate change. They worked well during COP 17 in Copenhagen and COP 18 in Doha in 2012. However, China broke ranks when it outgrew BASIC. “As the run-up to the 2015 Paris climate conference showed, China’s interests in climate change negotiations could now be reconciled with those of the US. It was the China-US joint announcement and statement that largely produced the Paris outcomes” writes Shivshankar Menon.^[vi]

The 2015 Paris Conference introduced the concept of voluntary commitments “in the form of ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDC) targets, to be communicated by each signatory to the UNFCCC. It represented “a ‘bottom-up’ approach where countries themselves decide by how much they will reduce their emissions” by a certain year. It essentially forces developing countries to share the burden and responsibility of climate action and dilutes the principle of CBDR reached in Rio. The Paris Agreement was signed by almost all (193) countries in the world at COP21 in Paris in 2015. Its other salient outcome was an agreement to limit the rise in the global average temperature to ‘well below’ 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and ideally to 1.5 degrees;^[vii] strengthen the ability of nations to adapt to climate change and build resilience; and align all finance flows with ‘a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development’. The affluent nations committed to providing $100 billion annually by 2020 which constitutes the core for climate action.

Glasgow Summit of COP26

The NDCs submitted under the Paris Agreement were collectively not ambitious enough to limit global warming to ‘well below’ 2 degrees, forget 1.5 degrees. However, there is a provision for the signatories to submit more ambitious – NDCs every five years, known as the ‘ratchet mechanism’. COP26 was the first test of this ambition-raising function. And that objective was well served. 126 countries submitted new NDC targets while 41 countries did not, as of 12 November 2021. The new NDC targets cover 90.8% of global emissions.^[viii]

The UK has, for instance, pledged to reduce emissions by 68 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and 78 per cent by 2035. The European Union (EU) is aiming at a reduction of at least 55 per cent by 2030 relative to 1990 levels, and the US is targeting ‘a reduction of 50-52 per cent’ compared to 2005 levels. Considerable skepticism existed among the participants at Glasgow summit. Hardly anyone spoke of climate justice and the rich nations remained hesitant to walk the talk. It further sanctified the concept of net-zero emissions.

Magnitude of the Challenge

At the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric CO2 levels were roughly 280 ppm, which rose by the early 21st century to 384 ppm and by 2020 to 413.2 ppm.^[ix] The US has emitted 399 billion tonnes (bt) of CO2 or 25% of the global total since 1751. China, which was a late starter, has already released 200 bt of pollutants since 1899 or 13.8% of the global total, as compared to a mere 3.21% by India over the same period. But Chinese annual emissions are now the highest at 10.17 bt annually or 20% of the global total. They will continue to rise and peak by 2030. Emissions of Europe and the US have already peaked.

Graph^: GHG emissions from the top 10 emitting regions^[x]

Security, health and economic impact

The impact would be as under:^[xi]

• By 2050, more than 143 million people could be driven from their homes by conflict over food and water insecurity and climate-driven natural disasters according to the World Bank.
• Rising temperatures threaten biodiversity, with one million species in danger of extinction that affect crop growth, fisheries, and livestock.
• Warmer temperatures could expose as many as one billion people to deadly infectious diseases such as Zika, dengue, and chikungunya.
• A warmer climate could lead to an additional 250,000 people dying of diseases including malaria each year between 2030 and 2050, as per the World Health Organisation.
• The Red Cross estimates that more than 50 million people around the world have been jointly affected by COVID-19 and climate change.
• An additional one million people could be pushed below the poverty line by 2030 due to climate change as per World Bank estimates
• By 2050 at least 300 million people who live in coastal areas will be threatened by dangerous flooding.
• A Stanford University study found that climate change has increased economic inequality between developed and developing nations by 25% since 1960.

COVID-19 pandemic is likely to exacerbate the impact of climate-driven challenges and disrupt efforts to address them. Climate-driven disasters threaten to overwhelm local health systems at a time when they are already under extreme stress, and the costs of damage and recovery from a natural disaster when compounded with the pandemic are estimated to be as much as 20% higher than normal.

Where does India stand?

India is the 7th most vulnerable country to climate change, according to Global Climate Risk Index 2021, both in the mainland and her over 7000 km long coastline. The good news is that India is “now ranked 10th in fighting climate change”^[xii] —and is probably the only G20 country compliant with its commitments and the Paris agreement. India has already reduced the emissions intensity of GDP by 28% over 2005 against its target of 33-35 percent by 2030 and increased her installed capacity of renewable energy to 38.5% against its target of 40% by 2030. At Glasgow, India committed 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030 equivalent to almost 50% of her capacity.

The task is cut out for India especially as the “energy investment requirement will rise from about USD 70-80 billion annually to USD 160 billion. Much of India’s wealth is yet to be created. It is estimated that 60% percent of India’s capital stock—factories and buildings that will exist in 2040—is yet to be built”.^[xiii] Therefore, the adoption of green technologies is the best option for growth, to create a more responsible and sustainable economy. “USD 10 billion of FDI in the past 20 has been received in the renewable energy sector but there has been a slowdown since. Also, in the last 2-3 years Indian investment in the renewable energy sector especially wind energy has fallen.”^[xiv] India has taken a slew of salutary initiatives to mitigate the impact of and adapt to climate change including launching the National green hydrogen mission to promote production and usage of green hydrogen across sectors; a Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) of 25 countries to reduce risk through research innovations and share of good practices has been established; ISA or the International Solar Alliance was unveiled in 2015 along with France which now has 101 member-countries (the US joined in Glasgow) to promote solar energy. A Rs. 400 / ton cess on coal (or carbon tax) has been quietly imposed.

India has substantial low-grade coal reserves and her dependence on coal-fired thermal plants will continue for the foreseeable future. Coal-based plants are the most polluting. Chinese coal consumption comprises 50% of the global total and India’s 11%. “For years, climate geopolitics was premised on the approach that developed economies must bear the lion’s share of mitigating climate crisis. It was considered unfeasible to impose the same burden on developing economies. India has reshaped that understanding of climate commitments fundamentally—we have shifted the global balance of power by showing that developing countries can lead the way in pledging comprehensive climate targets while also successfully meeting their socioeconomic objectives”^[xv] says Minister Puri, making a virtue of necessity.

But on the flip side, partly due to the Covid pandemic, mass poverty has risen in India from 60 to 134 million as per Pew Research Centre measured on the yardstick of people earning up to USD 2 in PPP terms.^[xvi] India has also become the 3rd largest emitter of GHG globally, contributing 6.6% of the total as against 27% by China and 11% by the US. But in per capita terms, Chinese emissions are four-fold that of India.

Major steps being taken to combat climate change

Renewable and Nuclear Energy

Two-thirds of global energy is generated by fossil fuels, which account for 67% of annual GHG emissions. Oil-producing countries and multinational oil corporations have considerable clout and resources to lobby the decision-makers and blunt any campaign to kick the oil addiction. The better way is to innovate and come up with green energy solutions like renewable energy which today is the cheapest form of energy. The green premium, for the generation of renewable power, especially solar, has come down dramatically. As per IEA (International Energy Agency), “The world’s best solar power schemes now offer the ‘cheapest electricity in history’ with the technology cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries”.^[xvii] But battery storage poses a huge challenge as a cost is as high as dollars 200 per unit. According to IEA report the technology for energy transition up to 2030 is proven and known. But only 50% of the technology needed for the transition during 2030-2040 has been developed so far.

The Fukushima incident adversely impacted national plans of enhancing nuclear energy capacity. IEA recommends that nuclear energy comprise 10% of the total capacity of a nation. The reason is that, other than renewable energy, nuclear power is the cleanest. It is impossible to switch to 100% renewable energy capacity as the generation is weather-dependent. Therefore, to avoid blackouts and ensure continuous supply some amount of nuclear capacity is necessary. Taking all factors into consideration, Bill Gates in his new book also recommends nuclear power as the best non-renewable energy source.

Presently, France is the biggest user of nuclear energy comprising 70% of its total capacity; it is about 20% in the case of the US and Europe and a mere 2% in India. 4% of Chinese capacity is nuclear but could rise to 10% by 2030 as some 150 nuclear plants are proposed to be established.^[xviii] Research on producing three types of hydrogen power is being stepped up. The big difference is that the burning of hydrogen produces water instead of CO2.

Green Buildings

Globally, the buildings sector consumes more than half of all electricity for heating, cooling and lighting and accounts for 28 percent of energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions. Green buildings represent one of the biggest investment opportunities of the next decade—USD 24.7 trillion across emerging market cities by 2030.^[xix] Most of this growth will occur in residential construction, particularly in middle-income countries. Most of this investment potential—$17.8 trillion—lies in East Asia Pacific and South Asia, where more than half of the world’s urban population will live in 2030. The investment opportunity in residential construction, estimated at $15.7 trillion, represents 60 percent of the market. There is a strong business case for growing the green buildings market. Construction of Green buildings could cost up to 12 percent more, which is easily offset by a reduction in operational costs up to 37 percent, higher sale premiums of up to 31 percent; up to 23 percent higher occupancy rates, and higher rental income of up to 8 percent.^[xx]

Climate Finance

The transfer of “climate finance and low-cost climate technologies have become more important. India expects developed countries to provide climate finance of USD 1 trillion at the earliest. Today, it is necessary, that as we track the progress made in climate mitigation, we should also track climate finance. “The proper justice would be that the countries which do not live up to their promises made on climate finance, pressure should be put on them”, said PM Modi, who did not mince his words at the Glasgow summit.^[xxi]

A Green Climate Fund was established in 2010 by some 190 countries to help developing countries respond to climate change. The fund has raised over USD 10 billion since 2014, and has directed resources to projects dedicated to both mitigation and adaptation. Through partnering with a number of international organisations, NGOs, and private sector companies, the fund has helped build resilience for an estimated 350 million people worldwide. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry recently stated that the United States would recommit to the Fund as part of renewed efforts to support global climate finance.

Over a decade ago, developed countries promised to mobilise USD 100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor countries deal with the worst impacts of global warming and invest in green energy sources. In 2019, rich nations raised USD 80 billion for climate action but mostly on commercial terms. In November 2021 U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to double his contribution to USD 11.4 billion, but that money is for 2024 and hasn’t been approved by Congress.

Rich countries now estimate they have raised between $88 billion and $90 billion annually, and are seeking to reach the $100 billion goal in 2022.^[xxii] Truth be told, there is no paucity of resources in the developed world—only a lack of political will.

Conclusion

The solution to the climate challenge is innovation and technology, especially green technology. Significant initiatives have been taken in the last few years. Green banks are being set up. Buildings are going green. Green energy or renewable energy, especially solar, has become the cheapest to install, generate and maintain. Even more significantly, the employment opportunities being created in establishing renewable energy facilities are more than conventional energy. But as noted above, this is just a beginning and the journey ahead is far more uphill. Availability of climate finance on soft terms is critical for the success of mitigation and adaptation measures by developing nations. The difficulty is that the need for climate justice does not weigh on the conscience of the western world.

A sticking point which has angered the poorer nations is the failure of rich countries to make good on their promise. The poorer nations rightly state that they cannot cut emissions faster without the cash. As per the figures collated by the OECD, almost no progress has ben made between 2018 and 2019.^[xxiii] It is quite evident that despite the tall talk and half-hearted commitments to help the developing countries in adapting to climate change, the rich countries will try to get away with as little as possible. As most of the growth will come from emerging markets and the least developed countries, it would be efficacious if they transition straight away to Green Technologies and energy, instead of crossing the pit in two leaps, which would entail delays and higher costs. Lack of money cannot be held as an excuse. The pandemic has shown that governments can find money where necessary.^[xxiv]

While some amount of finance and green technologies will be contributed by the affluent nations, realistically, the heavy lifting will have to be done by the developing countries themselves, from their own resources. And in reality, they have no choice, as the cost of neglecting climate action will be too high to bear.

A holistic approach will have to be followed entailing action and changes in every sphere especially lifestyle; aggressive recycling and cutting down on waste; creating environmental consciousness at home, school and public space; reducing and eventually eliminating green premium; increasing R&D budgets for innovation in green technologies; information exchange, adoption of best practices, imposing penalties like carbon tax and providing incentives for adoption of green practices.

Author Brief Bio: Amb. Vishnu Prakash, has served as High Commissioner to Ottawa, Ambassador to Seoul, Official Spokesperson of Foreign Office and Consul General to Shanghai. He has also done postings in Moscow, New York, Vladivostok, Tokyo, Islamabad and Cairo. Since retirement in Nov. 2016, he has turned a foreign affairs analyst & commentator, with special focus on the Indo-Pacific region

References:

^[i] Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at COP26 Summit in Glasgow  http://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/34466/national+statement+by+prime+minister+shri+narendra+modi+at+cop26+summit+in+glasgow

^[ii] Shyam Saran, How India Sees the World: From Kautilya to the 21st Century

^[iii] Fall in CO2 emissions https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59016075

^[iv] Greenhouse Gas Bulletin: Another Year Another Record https://shar.es/aWzs9E

^[v] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/

^[vi] Shivshankar Menon, “India and the Asian geopolitics: The Past, Present”, Penguin, pp 329

^[vii] What is COP26 and why is it important? https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/what-cop26-and-why-it-important?CMP=share_btn_tw

^[viii] CAT Climate Target Update Tracker https://climateactiontracker.org/climate-target-update-tracker/

^[ix] https://www.britannica.com/science/greenhouse-gas

^[x] https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html

^[xi] Climate Change and the Developing World: A Disproportionate Impact: https://www.usglc.org/blog/climate-change-and-the-developing-world-a-disproportionate-impact/

^[xii] India among top 10 countries with higher climate performance: Report http://www.ecoti.in/nqj18a

^[xiii] Net-zero presents many opportunities for India — and challenges https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/net-zero-presents-many-opportunities-for-india-and-challenges/

^[xiv] Vivekananda International Foundation webinar of 22 November 2021: Talk by Dinkar Srivastava

^[xv] HTLS 2021: India’s energy growth from scarcity to justice to security https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/htls-2021-india-s-energy-growth-from-scarcity-to-justice-to-security-101637607948586.html?utm_source=twitter

^[xvi] In the pandemic, India’s middle class shrinks and poverty spreads while China sees smaller changes https://pewrsr.ch/3eP3Fih

^[xvii] Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-is-now-cheapest-electricity-in-history-confirms-iea

^[xviii] Note 14.

^[xix] Green buildings represent one of the biggest investment opportunities of the next decade https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/a6e06449-0819-4814-8e75-903d4f564731/59988-IFC-GreenBuildings-report_FINAL_1-30-20.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=m.TZbMU

^[xx] Ibid.

^[xxi] Note 1.

^[xxii] Climate finance https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-05/rich-countries-fall-10-billion-short-in-climate-finance-pledges

^[xxiii] Ibid.

^[xxiv] Climate Change: The Slow Motion Pandemic http://www.iesve.com/discoveries/blog/8579/climate-change-slow-motion-pandemic

Steady depletion of the environment has been a global concern for the past few decades and has precipitated a climate emergency. This is especially true for countries like India where the sheer size of population increases the magnitude of the challenges of balancing development and ecology. As the world’s second most populous country and a powerhouse economy, India has multi-dimensional challenges that lead to poor environmental outcomes. Considering that fulfilling a need as fundamental as food is the duty of the state and agriculture is a well-known source of pollution, fostering the practice of sustainable agriculture will remain critical in meeting the sustained demand for nutrition while adapting to the climatic changes, and securing the livelihood of farmers who make up about 43 per cent of income-generating Indians.^[i] By the same criterion of population, India is also at risk of becoming the junkpile capital of the world, unless well-thought out and calibrated measures are taken to establish the processes to pivot it into a circular economy. It is intriguing to see that technologies like plastics or pesticides that were once indicators of development and were deemed necessary for a better life have turned into the major contributors to pollution, affecting all aspects of human life. However, there is little doubt that in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, technology will play a vital role in mitigating the socio-economic concerns caused by environmental degradation. Technology has to be the mainstay of this transition – whether to fill the gaps or to promote innovation.

Sustainable agriculture for nutrition and income security

India has traditionally been an agrarian country and is among the top 10 agri produce exporters, providing a fairly large amount of rice, cotton, soya beans and meat to the world.^[ii] In turn, Indian agri exports ensure nutrition security globally and income generation for farmers locally. However, agriculture is threatened by the changing climatic patterns – untimely rainfall and rise in sea level that increases the challenges of farmers, while increasing the demand for climate-resilient seeds, an R&D-intense area where India is still making progress.

Agriculture is an input-intensive activity where use of water for irrigation, fertilisers and pesticides, farm machinery and tilling add to the adverse environmental impact. Besides, it is also an established source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A report by the International Energy Agency states that India emitted 2,299 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in 2018, contributing about 7 per cent of the global emissions.^[iii] Agriculture and livestock owned a share of 18 per cent of gross national emissions, i.e., more than 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Making agriculture sustainable will encompass using less chemicals and reducing the intensity of use of natural resources like water, and smart, frontier technologies like Internet of Things (IoT).

The term IoT refers to physical devices embedded with sensors, software, processing ability, and other technologies and are connected through the Internet or other communications networks so as to enable them to exchange data with other devices and systems. The benefits of using IoT in farming are:

• It enables remote monitoring of farm conditions and infrastructure, thereby saving time and labour on routine activities
• It helps transform information into data and improve decision making by analysing them
• It generates faster and quicker insights from data across the value-chain, and helps farmers respond to market needs
• It promotes efficiency in food production by reducing wastage and ensures safe and sustainable food to our customers through better traceability, thereby creating positive impact on a farmer’s income

According to IBM estimates, IoT may help farmers increase food production by 70 per cent by 2050. Apart from better pest management and weather forecasting, IoT, with the help of sensors, could save up to 50 billion gallons of water every year by optimizing water usage.^[iv] To drive the uptake of digital technology in agriculture, Agriculture Victoria has rolled out a 12-million dollar on-farm Internet of Things trial in four regions for sheep, cropping, dairy and horticulture farmers.^[v]

IoT can be used for a host of agricultural activities, including:

Irrigation and water quality management: India is a frontrunner in exporting rice, one of the most water-intensive crops – producing a pound of rice may need up to 2,273 litres (500 gallons) of water^[vi] and flood irrigation, a highly inefficient method, is preferred by farmers in the north-western India. This has substantially stressed the groundwater level in these states and enabling better insight about irrigation can help people counter the growing threat of drinking water. The Internet of Things is a critical ingredient in optimising water use for irrigation in farming and related activities. There are four factors which can nudge farmers to adopt smart irrigation systems. These are: integration of real-time weather forecast data, enabling synchronization of the systems with moisture sensors installed in the farm, control of the system from anywhere in the world, and reducing farmer’s input cost while helping to conserve limited water resources. When combined with sensor nodes powered with wireless communication, it can help in monitoring the water quality as well. Such a system can measure the physical and chemical parameters of the water such as temperature, pH, turbidity, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen, and the data can be viewed on Internet-powered devices using cloud services.

Integrated pest management: Though agrochemical use by Indian farmers is far less than the global average, most of the farmers are unaware of which fertilizer or pesticide to use for which crop and at what stage. This often leads to problems like residue or contamination of water bodies. While the government has proposed methods like Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), the uptake across India has been sporadic. As a result, adopting integrated pest management (IPM), an effective and environmentally sensitive approach to pest management that relies on controlled use of pesticides and fertilizers, becomes imperative. It helps increase the quality of the crop even as it reduces the input cost for farmers. However, implementing integrated pest management requires real-time information on pest infestation. IoT infrastructure can play an important role by collecting disease and insect pest information using sensor nodes, and processing the data for enabling action. Even in cases where farmers are not comfortable handling devices on the system, local Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVKs) can be connected on the platform to inform farmers about pest infestation status of their farms and guide them about the type and of pesticides they need to use.

Soil quality monitoring: The quality and fertility of soil are dependent on factors such as soil temperature, soil moisture, and microbial diversity. However, seemingly unrelated factors such as air temperature may also impact the quality and fertility of soil. Sensors connected to IoT systems can monitor the parameters and help farmers make informed decisions on sowing the seeds, use of irrigation or harvesting the crop, thereby reducing manual effort and water usage, thus controlling cost and environmental impact. They are also easy to install and low maintenance. IoT systems can be used for backup data securely, review historical or instant data to track trends or predict irrigation needs, and set up reminders. It also makes overwatering or underwatering of crops less likely and may arrest depletion of groundwater by promoting water conservation.

Other advanced technologies for sustainable agriculture: Tractors are one of the best friends a farmer can have. It reduces the effort to prepare the ground for sowing. However, a tractor can weigh anything between 1700-2600 kg^[vii] that also exerts intense pressure on the soil. This may lead to compaction of soil, affecting its ability to hold water and making water and nutrients available to the plant. Deploying small robots instead of tractors can prevent soil’s exposure to this pressure as well as help farmers to take care of their crops better – these robots can be fitted with geotagging-enabled cameras, equipment for precise broadcasting of pesticide, and planting saplings. Adopting genome editing can also help in better practice of sustainability in agriculture. Genetic modification of select crops, e.g., fruits, can have twin benefits of saving them from being plucked too raw and use chemical ripening agents for making them consumable and preventing them from rotting naturally. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates, more than 40 per cent of food produced in India is wasted, costing the country an estimated US$14 billion every year.^[viii] Genome editing can help fruits like banana, which releases ethylene gas upon ripening that leads to ripening of other bananas in the proximity, to produce less of the plant hormone and remain healthy looking without any brown patches.^[ix] Owing to the volatile public sentiment towards GM crops and genome editing, a transparent and robust governance framework is necessary before implementing such measures.

Case study: Shepparton East orchard, Australia

In 2015, Maurice Silverstein decided to upgrade his irrigation system to an automated drip system on his apple and pear orchard at Shepparton East, Australia. This upgraded system will allow him to access real-time soil moisture readings from sensors across the orchard and will also shift from sprays to drip irrigation, promoting more efficient and less water usage. It will alert him to problems in the system, such as blockages or leaks, and can be controlled by an app on his phone, empowering him to respond more quickly than relying on field inspections alone. This system allowed Maurice to be more efficient with his time and water, even as allowing him greater flexibility in terms of movement. Though he needs to be close at hand to fix any problems, he can manage his irrigation system and his orchard from anywhere that has internet coverage.

Case study: Detection of borer insects in tomatoes, India^[x]

A study presented at the International Conference on Computing and Communication Systems in Shilong in 2015 discussed an investigation on IoT-based borer insect detection in tomatoes using a robot attached to a wireless web camera and Azure cloud service. The web camera used in the investigation took videos of tomato plantation real-time and sent the data to the Java enabled Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) where the detection in unripe tomato is done. The information was then processed by the database stored at the Azure cloud platform for matching with appropriate pesticide amalgamation, following which a robot sprayed appropriate amounts of pesticides on the tomato plants.

The process consisted of two stages. In stage 1, real-time video feed from wireless webcam, accessed at Cloud end, was converted into grayscale imagery. Image segmentation was performed later to eliminate leaves and branches, and images of tomatoes were retained by performing dilation, following which RGB images of tomatoes were retrieved using masking of dilated images. In stage 2, the number and type of pest on the tomatoes were identified, and an adequate amount of pesticide was sprayed over the tomatoes.

Waste management for better environment and economy

It is not startling to realise that India is home to 17.7 per cent of the world population and as per a 2016 estimate, generates more than one-tenth of global waste. India produces an estimated 277 million tonnes of municipal solid waste every year, of which 77 per cent is disposed of in the open or end up in landfills, 18 per cent is made compost and 5 per cent is recycled. However, according to the “Swachhata Sandesh Newsletter” by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), as of January 2020, 84,475 wards of India produced 147,613 metric tonnes of solid waste every day. The tally is led by Maharashtra (22,080 MT a day), Uttar Pradesh (15,500 MT a day), Tamil Nadu (15,437 MT a day), Delhi (10,500 MT a day) and Gujarat (10,274 MT a day).^[xi]

Inefficient management of solid municipal waste and poor implementation of existing regulations have made it a major source of air and water pollution in India. New-age, smart technologies can help us integrate waste management, monitor collection and disposal, and minimize the environmental impact due to waste mismanagement. Integrated waste management systems, powered by Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) monitoring systems, can monitor automatically, and operate from a centralised control station to ensure efficiency and will require minimum manual intervention, reducing margin of error. Smart technologies can be used in the fields of:

Waste segregation: Despite several attempts, instilling a culture of segregated waste disposal remains a dream in India. Technology can help improve the situation with innovations like smart bins. These sensor-powered, pre-programmed bins can enforce waste segregation and trigger a warning when the wrong type of waste is dumped in it. The bins may also come with interactive screens to guide users on next steps for a safe disposal of that type of waste. Improving waste segregation at source is at the heart of efficient management and will play a vital role in optimising the whole chain.

Waste collection:^[xii] Currently, trucks carrying dumpsters to landfills are powered by fossil fuel, particularly diesel. This makes the waste disposal process a double jeopardy – while landfills themselves are a source of pollution, emissions from the trucks add to the pollutants in the air. Deploying a fleet management technology, common in the logistics sector, can optimize the waste collection step in the chain. Fleet management technologies use a network of sensors connected through GPS to create and analyse data to identify the best route for the fleet or individual vehicles, as required. This will help trucks to avoid traffic and not only reduce emissions but also enable maximum trash collection in less time. Besides, using vacuum suction to empty garbage bins through a network of underground pneumatic tubes can help in increasing the speed of waste collection and disposal.

Other advanced collection and disposal technologies:^[xiii] Advanced economies have made substantial effort to improve their waste management measures, some of which may prove useful for India as well. One such innovation is a solar-powered waste compactor. This is a smart device that registers the bin’s fill level in real time and activates an automatic waste compaction. The compactor-bin has effectively increased a normal trash bin’s capacity by up to 5-8 times. A similar technology is an ultrasonic trash can sensor that regularly informs the user on how full is the container and helps in reducing the cost of overfilling a skip. Another similar intervention is an image-based trash can sensor that is connected through GPS and automatically monitors both fullness and contents. The sensor also determines which containers need service each day, schedules routes and allocates jobs to drivers.

Waste-to-energy generation: This is a well-known technology for recycling residual waste that uses combustion to provide heat and power, and in turn, reduces the speed of landfills that dot the fringes of all metropolitan and smaller cities in India. Though waste-to-energy is around for some time, the uptake has remained a challenge. There is little doubt that increasing the uptake of this technology will substantially reduce waste disposal to landfills and generate clean, reliable energy from a renewable fuel source, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emission. However, the technology faces hurdles in India due to various operational and design problems, lack of segregation of waste at source being the primary one.

Case Study: New York (the US) and The Hague (The Netherlands)^[xiv]

New York has one of the more complicated waste management ecosystems in North America. The city is home to about 8.6 million people and employs around 72 hundred waste collectors to keep itself clean and sanitary. Times Square alone receives a daily footfall of about 500,000 pedestrians, creating roughly 15,300 pounds of garbage. In March 2013, as part of the largest public space recycling initiative in New York City, 30 smart waste and recycling stations were deployed in Times Square. These units were capable of waste compaction, equipped with real-time fill level monitoring and collection notifications. Connected to smart stations, these units increased the total trash collection capacity by nearly 200 per cent while the frequency of collection per bin decreased by half.

In 2009, the city of Hague in the Netherlands began installing underground trash bins that can hold a larger quantity of waste. By 2017, there were 6,100 such units installed below the pavements with the top of the bin coming out of the ground at waist height. More than half of these bins are sensor-enabled, allowing officials to remotely monitor the fill levels of containers and set up ‘smart schedules’ for emptying them. The Hague’s success with these underground containers put the city as an example of innovative waste solutions in a 2017 New York City Zero Waste Design guidelines report.

Case study: A zero-waste film set (India)^[xv]

A gathering is an ideal setting for waste generation – be that a feast, a meeting, or work, e.g., shooting of a film. However, a recently-released Bollywood cinema titled ‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’ ensured that the city, which acts as its setting, does not start a landfill with its 17,000 kgs of waste generated in three months.

Six steps followed by the team include:

• Replacing plastic water bottles with water dispensers and reusable water bottles
• Using biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes and big bottles of toiletries instead of small disposable ones
• Providing colour-coded bins for disposing solid and liquid waste and PPEs
• Deploying a trained crew for segregating waste at source
• Distributing leftover food among low-income families in the area
• Recycling the waste into bricks, lamps, and other products

Conclusion

The prevailing discourse on environment-friendly technology often overlooks their hidden harms. Besides, most of these technologies are capital-intensive in nature. While COVID-19 has pushed the world to think about the environment with commitment, harnessing only capital-intensive solutions can cause ‘greenflation’ and affect overall productivity and growth of the country. For low-and-middle-income countries like India, access to advanced technologies to mitigate environmental concerns is almost always affected by lack of knowhow, adequate funds, and scepticism on part of the user. These can be addressed by focusing on easy-to-use and cost-effective technologies as well as right policy and regulatory interventions, and their implementation to promote adoption of technological solutions.

However, when it comes to environmental challenges, there is no better way to save the planet than to prevent the damage. Interestingly, though sustainable agriculture and waste management are India’s bigger ‘trouble’s, they overlap when it comes to food waste. A UN report in March 2021 states that household food waste in India is about 68.7 million tonnes a year. Food waste alone is a major source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that global food loss and waste generate 4.4 Gt CO2 eq every year, or about 8 per cent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, effectively making the contribution of food wastage emissions to global warming almost equivalent to global road transport emissions.^[xvi] According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), stopping food waste can reduce all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions by about 6 to 8 per cent.^[xvii] However, the bigger concern is, wasting food also aggravates the overall greenhouse gas emissions scenario as it adds to the emissions caused during the production, processing, and marketing of these products. Besides, it adds on to India’s burgeoning and unmanageable waste burden. Therefore, in addition to sourcing or developing technologies to address the environmental challenges at hand, it is equally urgent to create awareness about the pitfalls of irresponsible consumption and nudge for behavioural change in consumers.

Author Brief Bio: Parul Soni is Global Managing Partner of Thinkthrough Consulting and founder and Secretary General of Association of Business Women in Commerce and Industry (ABWCI) – a Virtual Chamber of Commerce for Women. He is a consummate professional with over 25 years of experience and expertise in international investment, bilateral and multilateral trade, cross-border policies, regional trade agreements and negotiations at national and international levels. He has worked in over 54 countries with Fortune 500 companies, global alliances, industry associations, international development organizations and knowledge institutions. He has been working actively with fast-growing Indian entrepreneurial and global organisations for establishing and expanding their presence across South Asia.

^[i] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?locations=IN

^[ii] https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-breaks-into-the-top-10-list-of-agri-produce-exporters-11626975654126.html

^[iii] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/agriculture/climate-change-and-agriculture-way-ahead-for-low-emission-growth-73537

^[iv] https://www.sigfox.com/en/iot-soil-condition-monitoring-sensors-will-optimize-agriculture-through-data-2

^[v] https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/farm-management/digital-agriculture/internet-of-things-in-agriculture

^[vi] https://apnews.com/article/india-climate-change-business-science-environment-and-nature-52a57d80d1dcb85f508cfd5f80120870

^[vii] https://www.ijcmas.com/6-10-2017/T.K.%20Maheshwari2,%20et%20al.pdf

^[viii] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/india-grows-more-food-wastes-more-while-more-go-hungry-1752107-2020-12-22

^[ix] https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/five-ways-we-can-feed-the-world-in-2050.html

^[x] http://14.139.206.50:8080/jspui/bitstream/1/6301/1/NK006-20170724003.pdf

^[xi] https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ORF_OccasionalPaper_283_SolidWasteManagement_FinalForUpload-2.pdf

^[xii] https://wasteadvantagemag.com/5-futuristic-waste-management-technologies/

^[xiii] https://www.norcalcompactors.net/technology-innovating-waste-management/

^[xiv] https://www.iotforall.com/smart-waste-management

^[xv] https://www.indiatimes.com/entertainment/originals/chandigarh-kare-aashiqui-became-a-zero-waste-film-556146.html

^[xvi] https://www.fao.org/3/bb144e/bb144e.pdf

^[xvii] https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/fight-climate-change-by-preventing-food-waste

The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate (UNFCCC) was finally held from 1-12 November 2021, in Glasgow, UK. With climate change intensifying, scientists are warning that humanity is running out of time to limit global warming to 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels. The Emissions Gap Report 2021 shows that new national climate pledges combined with other mitigation measures put the world on track for a global temperature rise of 2.7°C by the end of the century.^[i] That is well above the goals of the Paris climate agreement and would lead to catastrophic changes in the earth’s climate. To keep global warming below 1.5°C this century, the aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement, the world needs to halve annual greenhouse gas emissions in the next eight years.

Civil air flights continue to see very high growth especially in major developing nations and emerging economies. This includes both passenger and cargo movement. New airports are being built and old modernised to cater to the increasing demand. Aviation affects the environment in many ways: people living near airports are exposed to noise from aircraft; streams, rivers, and wetlands may be exposed to pollutants discharged in storm water runoff from airports; and aircraft engines emit pollutants to the atmosphere. India is amongst the top five fastest growing markets. Besides flight and ground safety, environmental protection is the most important issue for all aircraft operations.

Global aviation contributes about two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and are growing with growth in aviation. But aviation supports eight percent of the world’s economic activity in terms of GDP. As a result of massive increase in air travel by 2025, it is estimated that the total CO2 emission due to commercial aviation may reach around 1.5 billion tons. The amount of nitrogen oxide (NO) around airports, may rise from 2.5 million tons in 2000 to 6.1 million tons by 2025. The number of people who may be seriously affected by aircraft noise may rise from 24 million in 2000 to 30.5 million by 2025. However, analysts believe that the aviation related greenhouse gas emissions figure should peak at around 3 percent due to sustained actions being evolved by the governments and industry.

Many actions need to be taken. The aircraft engines have to be made more efficient with lesser emissions. Managing the airport construction related pollution, operating waste, e-waste, noise and chemical emissions are many of the concerns requiring technological solutions. Ecological airport redesign, changes in air and ground operating procedures, and eco-friendly initiatives can alleviate environmental pressures without causing passenger and operational stress. The terms ‘Sustainable Aviation’ or ‘Green Aviation’ are increasingly being used to address the technological and socio-economic issues facing the aviation industry to meet the environmental challenges of twenty-first century. The environmental programs have to be scientifically evolved specific to each airport. Balance has to be maintained between social, economic and environmental imperatives. The ultimate goal is to produce the greatest improvement in the quality of life of the citizens.

Greenfield Airports and Biodiversity

Airports have considerable effect on city’s urban development and have negative impacts on the environment. At a local level, even though noise seems to be the main concern, air emissions, resource (energy and water) availability, waste and water management, and ecosystems and land use planning constitute issues that are directly linked to local communities’ tolerance. Environmental impact and sustainability require life cycle sustenance. Selecting a site for airport or its expansion, must look at ecological balance, bird and animal habitats, compatible land use, landscape deterioration and biodiversity damage. We need to avoid building on green spaces and work with local communities and organisations to conserve biodiversity on sites near airports.

Climate Change

Internationally, aviation is considered one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Even though aircraft emissions are not included in Kyoto protocol, emissions that are directly controlled by airport operators are ground-based, and therefore are subject to national targets. Air pollution caused due to various reasons including the burning of aviation fuel greatly contributes to climate change. Disruptive weather affects aviation the most. The most important measures require improvements in energy efficiency and conservation, ground fleet conversions, low emission power generation plants on site or renewable energy supplies. Geothermal, hydropower, solar or wind power is used to cover a significant proportion of energy needs. Many airports focus on achieving carbon neutral operations by offsetting carbon emissions that they cannot eliminate.

Air Pollution

Degradation of local air quality is another issue. The most significant sources of air pollution (lead emissions) are aircraft, airside and landside vehicles, ground support equipment, fuel storage, engine testing, fire training and road traffic. Burning of aircraft wheel tyre rubber during landing and take-off contributes to particle matter in the air, and fuel transfer and storage facilities contribute to increased volatile organic compound (VOC) concentration. Key pollutants of concern include oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulate matter, sulphur oxide and carbon dioxide. The most common applied measures to control air pollution include air quality monitoring systems, air traffic management, promotion of green transport, reduction in commercial vehicle trips to-and-from airports by providing efficient public transport like airport metro etc.

Noise Pollution

Noise disturbance is a difficult issue to evaluate as it is open to subjective reactions. There are significant consequences on the surrounding areas as take-off and landings are a major source of noise. Large airports normally install noise monitoring systems, put operating restrictions and limits, manage air traffic, create anti-noise barriers, and support home insulation etc. Adverse effects on people living close to an airport, could include interference with communication, sleep disturbance, annoyance responses, performance effects and cardiovascular and psycho-physiological effects. Aircraft flying at a height of 10,000 ft above ground do not usually produce ‘significant’ noise impact. Noise monitoring computer software models produce aircraft-wise noise footprints to help calculate noise levels around the airport. These noise ‘contours’ can then be placed on a map to see which communities are subjected to different degrees of noise levels.

All commercial aircraft are supposed to meet the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO’s) noise certification standards. The ‘balanced approach’ is reduction of aircraft noise at source; land-use planning and management measures; and noise abatement operational procedures and restrictions. Avoiding overflying residential areas hospitals and schools as far as possible; using least affected runway(s) and routes; using continuous descent approaches and departure noise abatement techniques; avoiding unnecessary use of auxiliary power units by aircraft on-stand; building barriers and engine test-pens to contain and deflect noise; towing aircraft instead of using jet engines to taxi; limiting night operations; applying different operational charges based on the noisiness of the aircraft, are some of the measures.

Supersonic/Hypersonic Flights

Concorde was the only supersonic airliner in commercial use. Many countries did not permit its operations or even overflights in view of sonic booms and resultant high sound and vibrations. Even military aircraft are allowed supersonic training flights in restricted areas away from population centres. Sonic booms over hospitals have resulted in premature deliveries of babies. However, the human beings want to travel faster. Hypersonic flight is already a reality. Hypersonic airliner could do Mumbai to New York in just two hours. The saving grace is that hypersonic flight would normally be at very high altitudes closer to space.

Waste Management

Airports generate large amounts of waste, including a considerable proportion by companies involved in cargo handling, retail, flight catering, and aircraft maintenance. As most of the waste produced at airports is generated by customers and contractors, it is important to encourage good waste management practices. A holistic waste management approach would include efficient disposal and recycling of engineering material and human waste.

Water Management

As airports cover large areas of land, it creates large amounts of runoff water which has to be effectively managed to comply with environmental standards before being discharged. Water is a valuable resource, one that needs to be used sparingly. Airport water run-offs are known to contain high levels of chemicals and toxic substances coming from aircraft and airfield de-icing, fuel spillage, fire-fighting foam, chemicals and oils from aircraft and vehicle maintenance, detergents used for aircraft and vehicle cleaning etc. Waste water and effluents need proper management to avoid polluting the environment. Most common measures applied against these are waste-water and sewage plants, drainage systems, surface and ground water quality monitoring, oil/hydrocarbons and grease separators, use of biologically degraded de-icing and anti-icing agents etc. As infrastructure providers, airports use significant volumes of water in operations. Regular water usage monitoring, leak detection and targeting, and introducing water conservation practices are important. Airports may install various leak detection systems, install water reduction devices and implement water recycling operations to reduce the demand of potable water. Drainage and rain water harvesting have to be inbuilt.

Need for Green Aero-engines

Among the many factors requiring attention, the aircraft engine requires special addressing. Most airliners nowadays fly at above 30,000 feet (9 km) altitude. Therefore, the majority of aircraft emissions are injected into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (typically 9 – 13 km in altitude). The resulting impacts are unique. The impact of burning fossil fuels at altitude is approximately double that due to burning the same fuels at ground level. This requires technological innovations and intervention. New aircraft and engine designs/technologies, and alternative materials need to be evolved. Interestingly, the most important role in an airplane’s fuel efficiency is also of the engines. Any solution must thus look at both. The two most-widely used aircraft today—the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 have shown that newer models of the same aircraft, with better engines, can not only carry more passengers and payload, but do so while burning nearly 25 percent lesser fuel.

Sustainable and Green Aero-Engines

Sustainable and Green Aero-Engines (SAGE) initiatives are being taken both in the European Union and in the USA, to develop aero-engine technologies, with new engine architectures that offer opportunities for reduction in CO2 emissions relative to current turbofans. Emissions of CO_2, H₂O, O₂ and N₂ which are products of hydrocarbon fuel combustion are all function of engine fuel burn efficiency. Areas being addressed include lightweight low pressure systems for turbofans; composite fan blades and high efficiency low pressure turbine; advanced engine externals and installations including novel noise attenuation; high efficiency Low Pressure (LP) spool technology while further advancing high speed turbine design; option of an aggressive mid turbine inter-duct; high efficiency and lightweight compressor and turbine; and low emission combustion chamber for next generation rotary-craft engine. Developments in controls and electronics, lightweight metallic and composite materials, hydraulic and pneumatic systems, and novel manufacturing methods, specific aero-engine parts, like casing, tanks, pipes, high temperature materials such turbine blades, and sensors would require attention.

SAGE 2 Project

European Union’s SAGE 2 project headed by Rolls-Royce and Safran focuses on demonstrating the technologies such as composite propeller blades with aero-acoustic optimisation, electric de-icing system and equipment. The gas generator used in the SAGE 2 open rotor demonstrator is derived from a Snecma M88 engine. The Airbus A340-300 MSN001 aircraft is being used as a flight test vehicle, with one full size Contra Rotating Open Rotor (CROR) pusher engine attached to a representative pylon and engine mount. Open rotor technologies offer the potential for significant reductions in fuel burn and CO2 emissions relative to turbofan engines of equivalent thrust. Open rotor engines remove the limitation by operating the propeller blades without a surrounding nacelle, thus enabling ultrahigh bypass ratios to be achieved. Installation of the open rotor engine on the airframe has its complexities, as the airflow through the propellers interacts with the supporting airframe structure in a different manner. The trend for Very High Bypass Ratio (VHBR) engines requires technology developments across a broad range of complex gas turbine systems, from fan inlet through the complete compression, combustion and turbine to exhaust.

CAEP Targets

The aircraft engines account for most of the noise and fuel consumption characteristics of airplanes. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has a Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) since 1983. Aircraft are required to meet the engine certification standards adopted by ICAO. Of particular relevance is the Standard for NOx, a precursor for ozone, which at altitude is a greenhouse gas. Standard for NOx was first adopted in 1981. It was made more stringent in 1993, 1999, 2005 and 2011. CAEP/8 standard was set in 2010. The CAEP medium and long-term NOx technology goals was to target reduction by 45% of CAEP/6 standard by 2016; and 60% by 2026. GE clean-sheet engine GE9X class engines employ modern technologies give better specific fuel consumption (SFC). It means 10 percent lower fuel costs even when compared to the 300ER. The engine has 15db noise levels well within stage 4 margin, and 29 percent emissions within CAEP/8 margin. Novel cycles that increase bypass ratios, incorporation of lean burn technology is evolving. ICAO is developing the first non-volatile PM (nvPM) standards (covering soot or black carbon particles) for turbofan/turbojet engines. Similarly, standards are being set for turboprops, helicopter turbo-shaft, and APU engines. The nvPM standard will help better assess impact.

Design Considerations

Changes in engine design or operation might include ultra-high bypass turbofans; open rotor engines; use of alternative fuels; relocating engines on the body of the aircraft such that engine noise gets deflected upwards. An example of a ‘green’ design change can be seen in the blended wing and body of the subscale, flying X-48B aircraft prototype. Other concepts may include capitalising on the potential of advanced electrical power technologies such as batteries or fuel cells to reduce the amount of fuel needed. Using High-tech engines, propeller efficiency, advanced aerodynamics, low-drag airframe etc. can result in higher fuel saving and less gaseous emissions. Improvement in performance can be achieved by moving from a component-based design to a fully integrated design by including wing, tail, belly fairing, pylon, engine, high lift devices etc. into the solution. At the April 2018 ILA Berlin Air Show, a high-efficiency composite cycle piston-turbofan hybrid engine for 2050, combining a geared turbofan with a piston engine core was presented. The 2.87 m diameter, 16-blade fan gives a 33.7 ultra-high bypass ratio. The 11,200 lb. (49.7 kN) engine could power a 50-seat regional jet. Although the engine weight increases by 30 percent, the overall aircraft fuel consumption is reduced by 15 percent.

New Engine Concepts

Two new engine concepts currently under investigation include the ‘Combined Brayton Cycle Aero Engine’ and ‘Multi-Fuel Hybrid Engine’. Even though modern engines are supposedly very efficient, a large part of the energy input is ejected as waste heat (over 50%). Improving performance by heat recovery is the requirement. A heat exchanger integrated in a turbofan core can convert recovered heat into useful power which can be used for onboard systems or to power an electrically driven fan to produce auxiliary thrust. A dual combustion chamber, with first stage between HP Compressor and HP Turbine burning cryogenic fuel like Hydrogen/Methane or liquid natural gas, and the second combustor at an inter-stage uses kerosene/bio-fuel in the flameless combustion mode is being considered. High temperature generated in the first stage, allows flameless combustion in the inter-stage, thus reducing CO, NOx etc. Cryogenic bleed air cooling can enhance the engine thermodynamic efficiency by cooling the bleed air thus allowing increase in temperature of the fuel. contra-rotating fans (CRF) can use boundary layer ingestion to reduce both noise emission and improve propulsive efficiency.

Next Generation Innovations

Developed under the US Department of Defense’s Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology (ADVENT) and adaptive Engine Technology Development (AETD) programs, is the GE Adaptive Cycle Engine (ACE). Unlike traditional engines with fixed airflow, the GE ACE is a variable cycle engine that will automatically alternate between a high-thrust mode for maximum power and a high-efficiency mode for optimum fuel savings. ACE is designed to increase combat aircraft thrust by up to 20 percent, improve fuel consumption by 25 percent to extend range by more than 30 percent, and provide significantly more aircraft heat dissipation capacity. These adaptive features are coupled with an additional stream of cooling air to improve fuel efficiency and dissipate aircraft heat load. The joint GE/U.S. Government investment of more than US$ 1Billion, the ACE engine will incorporate both heat-resistant materials and additive manufactured components. In the ADVENT program, GE reached the highest combined compressor and turbine temperatures ever. The Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) is underway. The challenge remains in going to higher overall pressure ratio engines due to increasing cooling air temperatures, constraints imposed by developing new material technologies and detrimental weight and drag impact on ultra-high bypass ratio engines. GE Aviation’s Passport engines feature a higher-pressure ratio and a compressor made of new—and unnamed—advanced materials. GE predicts that the engines will achieve 8 percent lower fuel consumption and considerably lower NOx emissions. The pulse detonation engine (PDE), which has the potential to radically increase thermal efficiency, is one of the more exciting propulsion technologies being researched. PDE uses detonation waves to combust the fuel and oxidiser mixture. Instead of burning it, it explodes it. In theory it can be used up to Mach 5.0.

Some of the statistics around aero engines can explain the challenges of engine technologies, and why very few manufacture modern engines. Each wide-chord fan blade exerts a centrifugal force of around 70 tons, equivalent to the weight of a modern locomotive; each high-pressure turbine blade generates the same amount of power as a Formula 1 car; and the turbine discs will now have a “dual microstructure” to give different mechanical properties at the centre and at the edge of the disc.

Electric and Solar Engines

A number of electrically powered aircraft, such as the QinetiQ Zephyr have been designed since the 1960s. Some are used as military drones. In 2007, France flew a conventional light aircraft powered by an 18 kW electric motor using lithium polymer batteries, and became the first electric aircraft to receive an airworthiness certificate. Solar-powered manned aircraft designed to fly both day and night without the need for fuel are already under development. Solar electric propulsion have been performed through the manned ‘Solar Impulse’ and the unmanned NASA ‘Pathfinder’ aircraft. Many big companies, such as Siemens, are developing high performance electric engines for aircraft use. Small multi-copter UAVs are almost always powered by electric motors.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Hydrogen fuel cell technology is fast evolving. A hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical device that uses a chemical process to convert hydrogen to electrical power, which in turn can drive one or more electric propulsion motors on the unmanned aerial vehicle. Electricity, water and heat are the only products of this chemical process, which makes hydrogen an extremely clean fuel. Hydrogen fuel cells are smaller, lighter, more versatile and more resilient than alternatives like batteries or small gasoline and diesel engines. Unlike batteries, hydrogen fuel cells do not need to be recharged. Simply connect a carbon fibre hydrogen storage tank to the fuel cell, and fly! Drones powered by a hydrogen fuel cell have much longer range and flight duration than a comparably sized battery-powered aircraft. Typical rotary and fixed wing platforms can fly up to three times longer with hydrogen fuel cell onboard. UAVs are already flying far beyond the capabilities of drones powered by batteries or gasoline engines. Operators of fixed-wing or multi-rotor platforms can fly up to three times longer with proven hydrogen fuel cell onboard.

The 600-watt and 1200-watt liquid-cooled hydrogen fuel cells and compressed hydrogen fuel source are ideal for military and commercial missions of all kinds, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), search and rescue, law enforcement, infrastructure and agriculture inspections, and other missions where silent operation and long duration flights are critical. The hydrogen fuel cell advantages can be summed as nearly three times the range or flight time of batteries, no need for recharging, all-temperature performance, faster turnaround times between missions, no environmental footprint, virtually noise-free, logistic simplicity, liquid-cooled technology operates more efficiently at high altitudes than air-cooled fuel cells, and longer service life. Hydrogen fuel cell technology will be increasingly used on larger aircraft.

Flight Planning Tools

The flight efficiency approach requires choosing optimum flight routes. All aircraft operators and computerised flight plan service providers exchange and compare their flight plans with the best filed flight plan accepted by the integrated initial flight plan processing system. Special software tools show shortest route plans. Dynamism through the application of the Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA) concept, under which the military release airspace to civil aviation helps. The flight planning from aircraft start-up to switch-off can be a great tool to reduce engine use and fuel consumption. This allows substantial savings in distance flown, time, fuel and environment. The air and ground crew, the airline operator, air and radar controllers, among many others can play a significant role.

India’s Aviation Environmental Regulations

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) which is responsible for all aspects of enforcement and regulation has an Aviation Environmental Unit. All operators such as the airlines, navigation service providers and airport authorities too, have environmental cells. It is mandatory to submit to DGCA monthly fuel consumption data to set up a carbon dioxide emission inventory. The DGCA sponsored noise study for Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) Delhi has now become the standard for all major airports in India. DGCA has laid down guidelines for noise measurement and monitoring at airports, including noise mapping, validation, action plan, noise reporting and proposed aviation noise limits. The Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation’s Green Aviation Policy, 2019 aims to achieve the sustainable and inclusive growth of the aviation industry in the country and remedy the ecological concerns posed by the industry. The policy creates a regulatory framework to remedy the environmental issues created by the civil aviation industry by identifying key areas that require guiding principles and regulations.

Environmental Initiatives – Indian Airports

Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), New Delhi, was the first Indian green-field airport build with international best practices keeping environmental excellence and sustainable work practices in mind. The focus was on natural resource conservation, pollution preventions and environmental skill development. All the aspects and associated impacts due to services and operations is based on ISO 14001:2004 Environment Management Systems (EMS). IGIA ensured building green infrastructure, renewable energy initiatives, climate change & greenhouse gas management, followed international environmental standards and controls, and resource conservations (water, energy, & materials). Noise abatement is one of the key areas. Automatic aircraft noise monitoring System is installed in approach’s of all runways and identify noisy aircraft. Distribution of aircraft movement across the three runways is based on time of the day and individual aircraft noise levels. Inputs from noise complaint system are also factored in. Continuous decent approach is followed to reduce noise. IGIA has target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030. Other major Indian airports have introduced many energy efficient technologies such as energy efficient air-conditioning and water chillers, solar water heating, solar boundary lighting, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) or electric ground vehicles, LED lighting, waste water treatment plants, and high efficiency pumps. Cochin, Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh airports have already installed solar power plants. Bangalore and Hyderabad airport solar projects are under implementation.  Ultimate aim is to make the airports carbon neutral. Bangalore has 273 hectare of green belt and 971 hectare of natural greenery. Chandigarh International airport uses only natural light during day and mostly LED lighting thereafter. It also has a transparent glass roof with low heat gain that cuts down air conditioning requirement.

Conclusion

Advances in engine architecture, aerodynamics, and materials have resulted in today’s aircraft engines consuming 40 percent less fuel — and emitting 40 percent less CO2 — than engines manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s. Each kilogram of fuel saved reduces carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 3.16 kg. Modern aircrafts are 30-40% more efficient than those of 15 years ago. Fixed electrical ground power can reduce the amount of fuel burn used on ground power by up to 85%.

However, we cannot be satisfied with the pace of progress from the past. The next set of engine technologies, including open fan architectures, hybrid-electric and electric propulsion concepts, and advanced thermal management concepts, offer the potential to achieve at least a 20 percent additional improvement in fuel efficiency compared to today’s state of the art single-aisle aircraft engines. Industry initiatives to approve and adopt 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and investigate hydrogen as the zero-carbon fuel of the future should deliver. Aero-engines of the future will be more and more fuel efficient and environment friendly. The future of flight will be defined by how the aviation industry innovates to lower emissions and improves fuel efficiency. Global warming is causing global mean sea level to rise in two ways. First, glaciers and ice sheets worldwide are melting and adding water to the ocean. Second, the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms. On future pathways with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, sea level rise could be as high as 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) above 2000 levels by 2100. More than 260 airports are at risk of getting submerged due to such a sea level rise or coastal flooding. Up to 20% of flight routes could be disrupted. Therefore, time to act is now, lest it becomes too late.

Author Brief Bio: Air Marshal Anil Chopra, PVSM, AVSM, VM, VSM is a QFI, test pilot, and a pioneer of Mirage-2000 fleet. He was AOC J&K, ACAS (Inspections) and retired as Air Officer-in-charge Personnel (AOP). Post retirement, he served as a member of the Armed Forces Tribunal. Presently, he is the Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), New Delhi.

^[i] https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2021

Any event can be easily manipulated politically if the intent from the start is to set a narrative contrary to the belief of the people, the geography, culture or history. The Western world has mastered that art. History reveals the attitude of the West to first get a foothold, and then overlook well-established ideals of sustainable development used by local societies. Following a consumerist approach, they have manipulated and replaced those models for their own benefit—monetary, political and social.

By controlling the branding and shaping of perceptions they control mindsets, which enables them to propagate matters in a chosen manner. By glamourising their own lifestyles, they create new markets. Simultaneously, they sow insecurity in the minds of the target social group. Climate Change is one such notion that has been twisted into politics and economics. It is a term coined only by the West and they have succeeded in making it look or seem more attractive than it really is.

What is Climate Change

Weather is essentially the state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time. Although a definite time scale cannot be attached to it, weather conditions can change rapidly or last for weeks. Climate is the synthesis of weather for a long enough period for reliable statistical determination of its properties. Changes in weather are collectively known as climate. Unlike the weather, where the change is instantaneous or may last for weeks, the climate is relatively constant from year to year or century to century.

Nevertheless, there is evidence of fluctuations or variations in climate. When these fluctuations follow a particular trend, it is called a climatic trend. These fluctuations may themselves be cyclic in nature and are known as a climatic cycle. Over a longer period of time, climatic fluctuations may be such that they will shift the climate of a given area. Such changes in climate are called climate change. Various terms like climatic variations, climatic fluctuation, climatic trend, climatic cycle and climatic change refer to relevant time scales and are mostly just terminologies.

Variations in climate on geological time scales run into millions of years. Such variations in climate that occurred during recent history dating back to perhaps a few thousand years are collectively called climatic change. Changes in climate usually occur over a period of 100 to 150 years and are termed secular or instrumental changes. Other variations in climate that happen within a period of less than 30 to 35 years are used to calculate values of climatic normals. These variations are too rapid to be considered climatic change.

Are we in a Climate Change?

Article 1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines climate change as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods”. Thus, the UNFCCC makes a distinction between ‘climate change’ due to human activities altering the atmospheric composition and ‘natural climate variability’ that occurs due to natural causes.

It is unanimously agreed that the earth is warming. How much of this warming can be directly attributed to or caused by human activity is not clear? Their effects are extremely difficult to assess, though accumulations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are more than likely taking their toll. What is clear is that, globally, 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all occurred in the 21st century. Each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one. 2001-2010 has been the warmest decade on record.

Average global air temperatures over land and sea surface in 2014 were 0.57 °C (1.03°F) above the long-term average of 14.00°C (57.2 °F) for the 1961-1990 reference period. By comparison, temperatures were 0.55 °C (1.00°F) above average in 2010 and 0.54°C (0.98°F) above average in 2005, according to WMO calculations. The estimated margin of uncertainty was 0.10°C (0.18°F).

Is it man-made?

It’s our recklessness that we multiply uncontrollably, deforest, burn stubble and use chemicals, knowing well that they cause destruction and degradation. We understand that if we do not take action now it will be too late! Ironically, we ourselves are products of climatic change. Had climate not changed, reptiles and mammoths would have ruled the earth and there would be no coal. We are a product of such transformations and this climate change will ultimately pave way for other ecosystems to evolve.

We cannot master the functionality of nature or its ways. What we see today might not be there tomorrow and there might be something new in the climate that we still do not know about. However, to link every event in the atmosphere to global warming defies logic. What we do know is that climate change has acquired a new dimension in the form of opening up new battles, disputes and new war including perception war.

The Politics of Climate Change

Climate change is a natural event but the concept can and has been used to convey manipulative motives more than it has been dealt with naturally. Ever since the term came into use, it is strongly used to build narratives that are even contradictory and are altered in different regions and for various purposes by assorted groups.

When a model of change is not in sync sustainably, does not adjust naturally, and is laced with consumerism, it speaks of hidden intents and motives. When it is being done with the purpose of changing the perception of people, it is nothing but a deception of the highest order, an epidemic (infodemic) and a form of war (perception war). Solutions turn political when there are many unexplained truths and a refusal to accept change is woven into the scheme of things.

Climate Change is politics when its interpretation is manipulated, converted into economics and used in trade. It becomes a weapon to threaten and destabilise countries. With different narratives in mind, Climate Change is used as a power projection. Politics comes into play with the setting of a narrative and usually involves hiding the truth by justifying lies. To begin with, Climatic Change has been used by its supporters with an aim to shift blame. Secondly, when it involves treatment, it is using economics and business. Climate Change politics is about looking away from simple solutions. Thirdly, it gets converted into a tool that is used to threaten all those who do not subscribe to a particular view. Towards this end, facts are doctored, information deliberately hidden, some arrangements camouflaged, and scientific knowledge is interpreted with a hidden agenda.

The Industrial Revolution and Crony Capitalism

The industrial revolution saw almost all the western economies present a consumerist model that was capital-driven and energy and resource-intensive. There was little thought given to the impact this would have on the environment. Now, having created a dirty world, the same creators are scrambling to treat the negative effects.

Crony consumerism has generated waste that required constant management. Energy use at every stage created the present man-made climate change. The industrial revolution created by Western economies has now become one of the greatest catastrophes to infest mankind. The waste generated by the combined western world in the last 200 years still remains in the atmosphere and is now the greatest cause of global warming. It is the biggest source of all greenhouse gases and subsequent environmental degradation. Western economies have made every effort possible to hide and manipulate this fact from the world. They seek to absolve themselves from the magnitude of damage caused by them and are shifting the blame to developing economies. They have also outsourced manufacturing and thus have exported pollution and emissions to developing countries.

Having used coal lavishly during their industrial revolution phase, the Western world now wants to prevent developing countries from using this cheap source of energy. This comes at a time when the developing world wants to attain a better GDP to come to some degree of parity and has just started to use coal on an industrial scale.

Food Consumption Patterns

Food consumption habits, tastes and pattern of the West leaves much to be desired. Let us examine the issue of meat production and consumption. Meat production causes global warming at a much higher rate than the cultivation of vegetables and grains. 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock and their by-products. The industry accounts for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. Cows produce around 150 billion gallons of methane each day. Methane has a global warming potential 86 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) and is 25-100 times more destructive than CO2 over a 20-year time frame. Livestock farming is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. It stays trapped in the atmosphere for 150 years. Agricultural practices in the western world are also highly energy-intensive and without principles of ecological conservation. The higher rate of production ignores the cost involved in terms of energy and other inputs. The same goes for their livestock farming. The West carries on with it since they think they are correct and have the right to do so. To top it all, they convince the world of the correctness of this practice and shamelessly defend it too.

The Fashion Industry Camouflages Intent

Unmonitored growth of the fashion industry contributes to extreme levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The western world hides the truth to maintain its superiority in branding and identity, apathetically to an extent of affecting global warming. In fact, the industry accounts for 10 percent of global carbon emissions which is more than the emissions for all international flights and maritime shipping, combined.

Carbon dioxide emissions in the manufacture of polyester are three times more than those for cotton. By 2030, such emissions from the manufacture of textile alone are projected to increase more than 60 percent.

Pets come with “Climatic Price” Tags

When it comes to climate change, fondness for pets is not far behind. There are 470 million pet dogs and 370 million pet cats on the planet, and they all add to climate change. An average-size cat generates 310 kg of CO2e per year, an average-size dog produces 770 kg of CO2e per year, and a large dog creates 2,500 kg of CO2e per year. Over 64 million tons of greenhouse gases are released only because of America’s pet cats’ and dogs’ eating habits. A minor shift will bring about change, though of a minuscule level.

Travel has side effects

Travel generates huge amounts of carbon. The travel industry accounts for 8 percent of global carbon emissions and tends to grow at a rate of 4% annually. It is the need of the hour to promote carbon offsetting to compensate and reduce travel emissions. Visitors from high-income countries contribute to a majority of this footprint. Also, we indeed to promote local tourism to cut on air travel. Unless the lifestyle, GDP-oriented consumerist model, and the so-called industrial revolution-based model are changed, climate change will remain.

Narratives and Concealments as Politics

It is ironic that several narratives are aided with concealments that abound in the world. While the whole world is undergoing warming at a differential rate, there are many anomalies too. The role of methane and Trifluromethyl Sulphur Pentaflouride has been inconsistent and so has been on Ozone hole whose mechanism of formation left some in quandary and also which never grew to the desired size once the West found a market for new alternative to CFC.

The information on Arctic as well as the information and interpretation on glacier melts is inconsistent and contradictory. The causes of Arctic warming and its domino effects remain mired in contradictions. What is never even mentioned is that water temperature increases in the Arctic region contribute significantly to carbon dioxide and methane emissions and the resulting warming leads to more thawing—an effect called ‘positive feedback’.

One may not even know the truth behind the narrative related to petroleum reserves and their potential for the world but here too, the negative consequences are glossed over. The truth behind fusion reactors being environment friendly too are not very clear, neither is the reality behind the damage that could be caused by the lithium batteries. The impact of disposing of solar cells when they have lived their life is hidden too. The reality of the environmental impact of nuclear power, solar panels is replaced with another narrative. Misconceptions associated with limitless energy remain disguised. Such narratives are set in the name of so-called development and globalisation. It was western societies that coined the term ‘Climatic Change’. They then funded think tanks to pour doubts over global warming, and then later hired retired scientists to shower scorn over climate science. This resulted in enormous bias in their so-called researches that lacked objectivity. Though the West comes out with researches on global warming at frequent intervals the aim is to seed doubts and therefore the intent of the researchers even if the research was absolutely right.

Global Warming and Power Politics

The likely impact of global warming is a scary eye-opener. Projections indicate that in the US, rising seas will render important naval bases (like Norfolk, Virginia, and Mayport, Florida) essentially useless. A good number of islands and many coastal cities around the world are on the brink of submerging.

While the polar warming raises concern, contrastingly, the same areas will benefit from a more temperate climate. Greenland may have a flourishing agricultural industry by the middle of this century. 40 years ago, Arctic ice was near impenetrable. Submarines could navigate the Arctic Ocean, but not destroyers or cruisers. That is no longer the case. As the ice caps melt, there will be a geopolitical ocean-heist in the far north to gain control of aquatic hydrocarbons, deep-seabed mining and shipping routes. With Russia on one side of the Arctic and five NATO nations on the other (Canada, Denmark by virtue of Greenland, Iceland, Norway and the US), the possibility of conflict is likely to rise just like the ocean levels. The USA of course will be the last country to give any advantage to the Russians.

In the Arctic, where temperatures are rising doubly as the global normal, Russia, China and others are formally trying to establish a geopolitical foothold over the region. Resources here that were once under the ice, now stand exposed. The melting of permafrost in Siberia will pave way for the expansion of the agricultural area and its simultaneous effect will be felt on the food security of Russia too with an added muscle power to its politics. China can use Tibetan region and its snow cover to alter the albedo and affect the monsoons.

Checking Russia, China and other Choke Points

Phasing out oil imports will help reduce the income and geopolitical power of countries like Russia, which currently relies heavily on the EU market. Of course, the loss of this key source of Russian revenue could lead to instability in the near term. Strategically, as oil becomes less relevant, the old strategic chokepoints — starting with the Strait of Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb strait will become less dangerous. These seaborne passages have preoccupied military strategists for decades. But as the oil age passes, they will be less subject to competition for access and control by regional and global powers.

Business Economics as Politics

A transition, either economic, technological or perceptual is a good business proposition as it offers opportunities that never existed before. It could be in the form of technological development. To begin with, developing countries have already been converted into trash bins of recycling. Developed countries have smartly outsourced all the dirty manufacturing and made the third world a dump yard for pollutants. Energy shift and transition in the Middle East economies will mean conversion to solar energy. The new climate change politics is creating and has created two different blocks, “petra” and “electra” with a concomitant effect on control of energy politics and consequently power politics.

Greater emphasis on electric power reliance will allow China to rise and petrostates will fall —or so says conventional wisdom. In reality, the geopolitical fallout of a clean energy transition will be far more subtle, complex, and counterintuitive. But politics and economics will always speculate. China also dominates the market for some of the commodities—such as lithium and cobalt—that are critical inputs for many clean energy technologies such as batteries. This naturally raises national security risks, particularly in military and communications applications, where these commodities are also crucial.

Shrinking demand for oil and gas will mean lower prices, implying that even if petrostates gain market share, they would still see revenues collapse. West Asia will have a lot of stranded assets to deal with once there is a shift in energy and power structure. Unable to sustain themselves, these organisations will become mere tools for negotiations. Of course, the reality is more complicated

The future scenario could will be that some petrostates may be tomorrow’s electrostates. Saudi Arabia, for example, which has abundant, low-cost solar power, announced a US$ 5 billion project to turn renewable energy into hydrogen, and has also sent Japan the world’s first blue ammonia shipment. Other countries rich in cheap renewable power, such as Chile, may also emerge as the superpowers of a new hydrogen-based economy. Moreover, advances in carbon-capture technology could create opportunities for natural gas to play a role in a low-carbon economy, either directly or converted to other fuels such as hydrogen. Such energy transition in itself will shift power away from those controlling and exporting fossil fuels to those who master green technologies of the future. Gradually eliminating fossil fuels and reducing its dependence on energy imports will vastly improve European Union’s strategic position. In 2019, 74% of their gas and 87% of their oil came from imports. Fossil-fuel products worth US$ 386 billion or €320 billion came from abroad that year.

In short, the western countries used untested unsustainable energy and distributed toxic pollutants into cleaner environments. They invaded developing countries and industrialised them on their own paradigms of consumerism and crony capitalism. Then they de-industrialised themselves by exporting dirty industries. Now, citing environmental ethics, western powers are blaming the same countries to which they exported their emissions and are asking them to pay for cleaning the garbage and dirt that they themselves created everywhere! To prevent genuine forthcoming action, western funded think tanks pour doubts into minds over who is responsible for global warming. Unprincipled retired ‘scientists’ are being hired to pour scorn over climate science.

Politics of Solution and the Perception War

Manmade climatic change should not have taken place in the first place. Simple sustainable solutions exist, but they are not being propagated by the polluters. Global powers keep on inserting infodemics to alter the truths, to discard genuine and easy solutions for their own purposes.

To begin with, tackling CO₂ emissions is simple. The Covid 19 pandemic showed us that the lockdowns imposed in 2020-21, which halted social and economic activities led to global carbon dioxide emissions dropping by 6.4% or 2.3 billion tonnes. While lockdowns are not being advocated, global warming can be tackled using simple natural systems. In order to make the transit from an energy-intensive society to a more ecocentric one, (commercially speaking to electric one), we will have to stop producing pollutants and greenhouse gases. Reducing the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere can be achieved through dietary changes and through innovate building designs that consume less energy. We will also have to follow environment-friendly practices like afforestation, carbon storage by expanding wetlands, expand mariculture through seaweeds and kelp farming and encourage basalt weathering.

In terms of dietary habits, a shift to reduced calorie consumption (2000 calories per day instead of 2500 calories) will suffice. Today, about 20% of the world overeats and it leads to obesity. A diet shift is also suggested to cut down the consumption of proteins to the recommended level. We need to focus more on plant-based proteins and cut down on meat-based ones. When protein requirements are to the order of 55 grams of proteins per day, there is little need to consume 75-90 grams of protein daily. In addition, cutting down on beef consumption and cattle in general from our daily diet will offer both dietary and environmental benefits. It saves agriculture for land use and reduces greenhouse gases. Rather than beef, one can choose poultry, fish, and, of course, legumes.

Other simple solutions include lifestyle changes that can be supplemented with other changes like changes to building design, curbs on commuting habits, and weekend spending. That means altering the lifestyle and brand image of the West and homogenisation of lifestyle to be closer to nature.

The world has involved itself in various conventions and concepts. These include the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (1972), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) or UN Environment, UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol (COP 3; UNFCCC Summit 1997) and other important UNFCCC Summits Post Kyoto, the last one being the Katowice (Poland) Climate Change Conference 2018. They have practically achieved nothing.

The new solutions such as the Net Zero concept, bears testimony to the ongoing manipulative streak. In simple words, net-zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. We reach net zero when the amount we add is no more than the amount taken away.

Net-zero, which is also referred to as carbon-neutrality, does not mean that a country would bring down its emissions to zero. Rather, net-zero is a state in which a country’s emissions are compensated by absorption and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Absorption of the emissions can be increased by creating more carbon sinks such as forests, while removal of gases from the atmosphere requires futuristic technologies such as carbon capture and storage.

The emission-reduction targets for 2050 or 2070, for rich and developed countries seem an eyewash. The same rich countries whose unregulated emissions over several decades are mainly responsible for global warming and consequent climate change assured the rest of the world to wait. They did nothing other than boost pollution. The net-zero formulation does not assign any emission reduction targets to any country. Theoretically, a country can become carbon-neutral at its current level of emissions, or even by increasing its emissions, if it is able to absorb or remove more. From the perspective of the developed world, it is a big relief, because now the burden is shared by everyone, and does not fall only on them. Glorifying its net-zero targets the West is putting pressure on the developing nations. India constitutes around 18% of the global population but contributes less than 5% of pollution.

The West is under the illusion that the important target is how much you are going to put into the atmosphere, before reaching net-zero. They assume that emissions from burning coal can be compensated in real-time by protecting a forest. This is ignorance given the fact that plants need time to grow whilst cutting fossil fuel emissions has immediate results. The fact is carbon removal does not take place in real-time.

India is opposing this net-zero target since it is likely to be the most impacted by it. Over the next two to three decades, India’s emissions are likely to grow at the fastest pace in the world, as it presses for higher growth to pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. No amount of afforestation or reforestation would be able to compensate for the increased emissions. Most of the carbon removal technologies right now are either unreliable or very expensive. In any case, India is not in a position to control emissions on account of various ongoing development projects aimed at taking the country forward. These projects are worth USD 28 trillion.

Opportunities for India

The earth has enough regenerating capacity environmentally. Economically, Japan and Germany are live examples of how a country can be rebuilt from the rubble after the harshness of World War II. There are many advantages that a country can gain when it starts afresh because it can remodel itself, insert a lot of lateral thinking, and look at creating new opportunities.

India is in a position to take leadership in environment protection through its soft power reach to include prevention, improvement and control. This can be done through its local wisdom and knowledge, weaving indigenous people with technology and making the historical knowledge gained through millennia to get identified and respected and implemented by the world (Gleb Raygorodetsky, Why Traditional Knowledge Holds the Key to Climate Change)

Managing Indigenous Societies and their Knowledge throughout the world

• Indigenous people and their traditional ways of life have contributed little to climate change, but ironically are the most adversely affected by it. This is because of their geographic and historic dependence on local biological diversity, ecosystem services and cultural landscapes as a source of sustenance and well-being. These indigenous people are located predominantly at the social-ecological margins of human habitation—such as small islands, tropical forests, high-altitude zones, coasts, desert margins and the circumpolar Arctic.
• The indigenous people, comprise only four per cent of the world’s population (between 250 to 300 million people). They utilise 22 per cent of the world’s land surface but maintain 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity in, or adjacent to, 85 per cent of the world’s protected areas. They are the real victims of climate change.
• Indigenous lands also contain hundreds of gigatons of carbon—a recognition that is gradually dawning on industrialised countries that seek to secure significant carbon stocks in an effort to mitigate climate change.
• Indigenous observations and interpretations of meteorological phenomena are at a much finer scale, have considerable temporal depth and highlight elements that may be marginal or even new to scientists.
• Indigenous peoples’ observations contribute importantly to advancing climate science, and have meaningful experiences applicable at the local level.
• Resilience in the face of change is embedded in indigenous knowledge and know-how, diversified resources and livelihoods, social institutions and networks, and cultural values and attitudes.

This local knowledge can be utilised through several mechanisms. It includes workshops with the help of several other partners (UNDP, UNESCO, and CBD) — to promote respect for the local and traditional knowledge at the national and local levels. For indigenous peoples, such workshops will provide an opportunity not only to present their experiences and knowledge about climate change in their communities, but to gain valuable information on global climate processes that are affecting their communities. Moreover, indigenous people learn about other indigenous climate change-related experiences, while scientists gain opportunities to ground-truth (field check) climate models and scenarios.

India can actually play a pivotal role in not only ending the suffering of indigenous people but utilising their knowledge and experience of being a 15,000-year-old actual civilisation. India can model Universities based on such experience on the lines of Barefoot College in Tilonia, but will need to create a realistic model that is visible and invisible as per its choosing. This is where India can truly be a ‘Vishva Guru’. This model will help a new diplomacy for India-Eco-Diplomacy. It will also empower a lot of local communities across the globe. India is the only country that has the willingness and ability to provide a platform to showcase the indigenous genius to the entire world.

By creating an eco-centric approach that sets value and importance on the entire environment and all life in it, India can lead the whole world to make the shift! By fusing management and technology with minimal investment, India can showcase its carbon capture methods to the whole world. India needs to create self-reliant models of independent units with zero emissions that are environmentally sustainable in different agro-climatic regions. This model could be adopted by different countries with a similar climate like Mali, Cambodia, Siberia and Argentina. India can have a strong stand at the Conference Of Parties COP26 of the UN Climate Change Conference and play a major role in carrying its offshoots. She can set examples by expanding and reclaiming wetlands to capture and sequester carbon deposits. Wetlands cover about 6 to 9% of the earth’s surface and sequester roughly 35% of the global terrestrial carbon.

Although forests were considered the best natural protection against climate change, recent research shows that seaweed is the most effective natural way of absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere. India has a large Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that can be used to remove huge amounts of carbon deposits and provide protein to its citizens from seaweed. The 7500 odd km of coastline is an effective way to grow and nurture kelp—a type of seaweed whose farming is considered to be a remedy for all the ills associated with global warming. Kelp can grow as much as 20 cm every day. It not only absorbs carbon dioxide but also de-acidifies the ocean water. By drawing CO₂ out of the waters they allow our oceans to absorb even more CO₂ from the atmosphere.

With the largest basaltic exposure in the world, India can additionally use basalt weathering technology to absorb carbon deposits. Basalt weathering means mixing crushed basalt with soil, which slowly dissolves and reacts with carbon dioxide to form carbonates. This method would allow between 0.5 billion and 2 billion tonnes of CO2 to be separated from the atmosphere each year.

Going ‘local’ is India’s recent mantra, though this life pattern is from ancient Indian wisdom. Our distinct set of concepts and thought patterns include theories based on the revival and evolution of local wisdom that is seldom found elsewhere in the world. These concepts can be weaved with our minimalistic living lifestyle and our nature-centric development visions. They are suited for different geographical settings that can be used anywhere in the world with similar agro-climatic conditions.

Minimalistic living strives to only use things that serve a purpose. It’s about simple living and having only what one needs to go about daily life. It is a smart rendezvous of technology, attitude and curbing the desires for sustainably. The components of the model include energy management, water management, vegetarian diet management, housing using natural ingredients and zero energy agriculture linked with satellites. Rural India works like a partially closed ecosystem in which energy obtained from plant photosynthetic is used to grow crops.  This in turn provides an essential energy input to grow more food and is an endless cycle. This can be co-joined with new farming technologies developed with countries like Israel, as well as agricultural technologies based on minimum energy.

The second solution is the modification and linkage of the Happiness model of Bhutan. Both these models wean away countries from a GDP-based development model, but also provide alternative sustainable income on India’s soft power platform.

The third is the extension of PM Modi’s concept of ‘One Sun, One World. One Grid’ (OSOWOG) initiative organised along with the Chatth festival (the only festival that worships the Sun). It aims to raise awareness about various ways to harness energy from the Sun. It aims to build a transnational grid that would allow countries to source solar power from regions where it is daytime to meet their green energy needs when their own installed solar capacity is not generating energy.

India is actually at cusp of change to unleash a new knowledge to the world, cleanse the world of its infodemics on climate change, weave the world communities into making the earth a liveable, sustainable and a more beautiful place.

Author Brief Bio: Prof K. Siddhartha is an Earth Scientist, Knowledge and Perception Management Consultant and Thought leadership trainer. A strategic thinker, he has been advisor to several Governments. He has written 116 research articles, authored 43 books, and is a mentor to a large number of civil servants in India.

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