Month: April 2023

Itaewon and Morbi: Six Months Since the Two Tragedies, a Study of Contrasts

There are a few similarities too. But unlike in South Korea’s crowd crush, following Gujarat’s bridge collapse In India, no press conference was held by any of the heads of government. All action that needs to be performed by a government or municipal body was done by the high court.

On the night of October 29, 2022, a crush of humans in the Itaewon neighbourhood of South Korea’s capital, Seoul, led to the deaths of 156 people. 

A day later, on October 30, in Morbi city of Gujarat, 139 people died after a bridge over the Machchu river collapsed. 

It has been exactly six months since then.

In both countries, heavy doses of politics greeted the deaths. To both countries, global leaders wrote heavy letters of condolences. In both countries, many – though not all – asked if they were preventable. Some pointed to the government’s role in exacerbating the causes that led to them. Some asked very tough questions, others did everything possible to drown out the noise of these questions. 

In their similarities, but especially and more so in their dissimilarities, the two tragedies present a quaint picture of the two systems that run their respective countries. 

Time and place

Both incidents happened on holidays. Exacerbating the tragic element was the very fact that those who died were seeking to enjoy their day.

In Seoul’s Itaewon, Halloween celebrations are bigger than big. The Korean drama Itaewon Class, for instance, introduces the neighbourhood’s vibrant culture to viewers through a scene depicting Halloween. Last year was the first time that the gatherings saw pre-COVID levels of mass participation. News pieces predicted tens of thousands of visitors, mostly in their late teens and early twenties. 

Gujarat, too, was as sharply in focus as could be. The state was awaiting assembly elections.

But in Morbi, which until the tragedy saw little activity, October 30 was a normal Sunday. A new bridge, opened to the public, drew town folk who for Rs 17 each, wanted an evening with views of a river. The bridge which collapsed is a colonial-era structure, and had been closed to the public until weeks before the collapse.

Initial reactions

Initial news reports (Korea’s first reported that hundreds were injured, only later were deaths confirmed) treated the incidents with stunned disbelief and concern. In India, the toll climbed quickly. In Korea, all those who were first reported as having been injured, were, in one fell sweep announced as dead. 

Later turns, however, indicated the two countries’ personal brands of greeting news.

In Korea, where the mainstream media is understood to largely be conservative and thus pro-establishment, many blamed youngsters for being out and about and celebrating a day that was not explicitly connected to Korean culture. The backlash against this was instant as the country’s very online population buckled down on people’s rights to celebrate any holiday they wanted to without getting killed. 

In India, in close assonance, the rightwing mobilised soon enough to claim that the victims of the bridge collapse were the ones to blame for its collapse.

“They shook the bridge, here’s a video,” was the sum total of thousands of tweets. The Wire Science, in the immediate aftermath, analysed how the shaking of a bridge – while capable of bringing it to collapse – couldn’t really have been said to be the singular cause of it coming down. 

Initial reports

News reports paved the way for clarity on both tragedies after the initial flurry. In Korea, the location of the incident played an important role. 

“Although there was a brief spell between 1995 and 2005 when more progressive media emerged in Korea, since 1987, Korean media has largely been conservative. This meant that not a lot of Korean papers were drawing attention to the system failures that led to the crowd crush,” says Korean studies scholar Abhishek Sharma. 

But, says Sharma, what turned the tide was the fact that Itaewon housed several foreign embassies and as a result, foreign media kept up steady attention on how the tragedy was being handled, the victims’ families’ protests demanding justice, and how they were coping. 

The shift of large global publications’ newsrooms from a politically vulnerable Hong Kong to Seoul also contributed to the heightened spotlight on the matter. 

From as early as October 30, 2022, to mid-November, outlets like CNN, Washington Post, Vice and BBC were uploading deep dives and ‘What Really Happened’ pieces on the crowd crush, complete with interviews of authorities and victims. 

In that time, traditional media outlets reported on daily updates like the beginning of an enquiry, but it can be argued that the human element of it was largely missing. Sharma notes that the lone left-leaning news outlet Hankyoreh (“note that its circulation is only half of the fifth largest paper in Korea,” he says) had struck a tone similar to foreign outlets.

In India, most of the mainstream media reported on the tragedy with the air of it having interrupted a more important political event, the assembly election in the state. 

Early on, a report by NDTV examined opposition parties Congress and AAP’s claim that a hospital where some of the injured were being treated was being refurbished with great haste ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit. The portal published before and after photos and this led to a smattering of commentary on priorities.

Most of the immediate coverage, including the unearthing of the fact that Oreva Group – the company tasked with the refurbishment of the Morbi bridge – had little experience in specialised construction work, was led by local Gujarati media, says veteran journalist Darshan Desai.

“They did interviews with Muslim boys who were helping with the rescue efforts, they also interviewed victims,” says Desai. 

Gujarat Samachar TV, the Bhaskar app and website and other local channels offered what Desai called essential “saturation coverage.”

Also read: 22 Wires on Morbi Bridge May Have Been Broken Before Collapse: SIT Report

Heads of government

Speaking of Modi, the two tragedies are united by how the two heads of government found their way to their midst. 

South Korean President Yoon Seokyeol, in many ways, resembles Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In Yoon’s public conduct, there are the stirrings of infringing upon media freedom that India is now familiar with. Yet one of the major points of difference is Yoon’s lack of popularity in Korea. 

While both Modi and Yoon were particularly attached to the neighbourhoods which saw the tragedies, in Yoon’s case, this connection became a particular problem. This is because, shortly after coming to power, Yoon announced that he would no longer be executing his official duties from the Blue House – traditionally the official residence of the South Korean president. He set up an ambitious plan to move it and in the meantime has been working from Itaewon.

Seoul residents and commentators have long since been critical of this move. But after the Halloween tragedy, they were livid and claimed that hundreds of cops from the Itaewon Gu precinct had been moved to guard Yoon as a result of his move. Many said that this led to the lack of forces to tackle the crush on the day. Not helping Yoon was a steady claim that he moved the official residence on advice from a shaman. In the months since the tragedy, this claim has lost fire. 

Initially, Yoon said that prima facie it did not appear to him that the administration could have been responsible for this situation. After thorough criticism, he walked back on the statement. 

He promptly announced a national mourning period and apologised to the nation a full seven days after the tragedy. His government’s special investigative unit, formed to look into the disaster, raided police, fire department and other government offices, in full media presence – in a style reminiscent of recent practice in India.

Modi, who was in and out of Gujarat frequently at that time because of election campaigns, visited Morbi two days after the tragedy.

While the toll was in its 30s and most parts of the country were yet to grasp what had happened, the Prime Minister’s Office tweeted through its official Twitter handle that an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh would be given to the kin of the people killed in Morbi. At that time, there was no inkling of who could be responsible for the collapse. Initially, news channels reported that Modi was to cancel his plans in Gujarat in the light of the incident. However, the next day, Modi spoke at an event and said he was functioning with a heavy heart.

There has been no news connecting Modi to Morbi since November last year. 

Who is to blame?

In both countries, the question of who is to blame for the tragedies took centre stage. 

In the case of Itaewon, the government led with the charge that it could not possibly be blamed because the gathering of a crowd took place without a particular event or a designated organiser.  

The Korean prime minister Han Duksoo deserves mention here. In a press conference which was attended by non-Korean speaking journalists, Han attempted to crack a joke, saying that a World Series match between the Lakers and Sox would be well provided for security-wise – as opposed to an organic gathering like in Itaewon. This insensitive joke made it to prime-time news there, leading the PM to offer a hasty apology. 

Many were reluctant to believe that all was administratively okay at Itaewon that night. Besides, they said, the Korean subway has a method of not stopping at stations which see extra crowds. But that night the trains stopped at Itaewon through the night. 

Later, some also ascribed some of the victims’ malintent and said that they were pushing others downhill, contributing to the crush. Some others fought this claim, observing that the situation could not have been known to anyone, considering that a steady crowd had been adding to the group every moment.

Earlier this year, the opposition-led National Assembly impeached Korean Interior Minister Lee Sang-min over the Itaewon response. The Blue Roof, a Korean policy newsletter, noted that Lee is the first cabinet minister in South Korean history to be impeached. “The motion to impeach alleged that Lee abdicated his duty to coordinate disaster response in violation of the constitution and statutes mandating officials’ responsibility to maintain public safety.” 

The special investigation team’s report has highlighted the roles of a bunch of local police officials, subway authorities and fire department officials. But notably, senior position holders were not named. “We don’t even know if those named and taken into custody [two senior cops were arrested], are still in jail or out,” says Korean journalist Raphael Rashid.

In India, no press conference was held by any of the heads of government. Desai points out that all the action that needs to be performed by a government or municipal body was, in fact, done by the high court.

Indeed, the Gujarat high court’s suo motu recognition of the tragedy led it to ask remarkably straightforward questions, like how the Morbi bridge’s repair work was awarded to the Oreva Group, hitherto watch and e-bike manufacturers, without a tender.

A day after the tragedy, the Morbi police arrested nine persons. This group included Oreva managers, sub-contractors and remarkably, two ticket-booking clerks and three security guards who supposedly failed at crowd control. 

Later, the managing director of Oreva Group, Jaysukh Patel, was arrested.

In early April, five months after the tragedy, the Gujarat government superseded the Morbi civic body which is controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party which rules the state too. Desai notes the appalling delay in such a move, and that it comes only after the court has hauled the government up. “The chief officer of the municipality was suspended but even now his name doesn’t appear in the FIR. There are 52 councillors in the Morbi civic body but they have all said that they did not know as to how Oreva got the deal. The chief officer apparently did it all and never let the general body know,” Desai says, highlighting the unbelievable aspects of the way blame has been apportioned.

Reparations

While India is no stranger to seeing big losses disappear as more losses take over headline spaces, in Korea this particular tragedy has had a short shelf life in public and political imagination. 

In Korea, the government functions with the knowledge that the Sewol tragedy of 2014 – when a sinking of a ferry killed 326 mostly young people – led eventually to a change in the government, spurred entirely by the people’s anger. The tragedy was made into a symbol of all that is wrong with the government and on its anniversary, even today, people and government officeholders mourn. Prominent artists have made songs, works of art and continue a public uproar about it even now. 

Initially, all news outlets in South Korea made note of this history.

Hashtags calling for Yoon’s resignation and opposition parties’ resolutions to get to the bottom of the matter on behalf of the people have lent an air of unease around Yoon. Even before the tragedy, South Korea’s previous president Moon Jaein scored higher on popularity scales than his successor.

But then, to the surprise of many, the daily demand for accountability almost came to a halt. “Itaewon was wrapped up quite quickly, almost swept under the carpet. This, in a country where the Sewol tragedy has proven to be never-ending in public memory, in a good way,” says Rashid. 

Rashid says that the whole incident is reflective of the Yoon administration’s clear goal to get the media to stay in its lane.

A memorial set up at the City Hall Square by families of the victims was panned by Seoul mayor O Sehun as “illegal”.

Not all is bleak. In late April, the interior ministry submitted a Complete National Safety Plan Overhaul report, aiming to look deeply into safety protocols for public situations like the one in Itaewon.

In India, news of administrations learning lessons are few. So it must be noted that in Gujarat, too, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in April lodged an FIR against officials of two firms that were involved in the construction of Ahmedabad’s Hatkeshwar bridge that was damaged in just four years after it was thrown open to the public. The Rs 40-crore bridge will be demolished, and this decision has come before extracting human cost. 

However, there is no bigger testament to the fact that canny politics can override human loss than the vote of the people. The BJP, which quickly announced as its Morbi candidate one Kantilal Amrutiya, who made sure to be photographed rescuing people from the river, returned with a thumping victory to the state and to Morbi.

In favouring Amrutiya, the BJP snubbed its sitting Morbi MLA ​​Brijesh Merja, changing tactic with the tragedy. 

That Morbi has disappeared from public memory is also thanks to opposition parties’ inability to hold it up as a devastating human rights matter, feels Desai.

In a country of many, the fact that Morbi is not a big city, and that the tragedy’s victims are largely poor people are also crucial factors in the tragedy’s short shelf life in public memory. 

A lone report by Newslaundry on the election round, had, however, noted that Morbi’s residents too suffered from serious trauma and the mental illnesses that follow the aftermath of a disaster as big as a bridge collapsing into a river.

‘Casteism Rampant’ in Bihar Says SC, Asks High Court To Re-Examine Plea for Stay on Caste Survey

“There is so much casteism there. In every field. Bureaucracy, politics, service,” Justice M.R. Shah, one of the two judges on the division bench, remarked.

New Delhi: While noting that casteism is rampant in Bihar, the Supreme Court on Friday, April 28, refused to hear a petition that sought an interim stay on the ongoing caste census in the state. Instead, it asked the petitioner to approach Patna high court with his plea, and directed the high court to dispose of it “preferably” in three days.

“There is so much casteism there. In every field. Bureaucracy, politics, service,” Justice M.R. Shah, one of the two judges on the division bench, remarked, according to Bar and Bench.

The petitioner, in fact, approached the top court after the high court had turned down his plea for an interim stay. However, the Supreme Court observed that the high court should have heard the matter on merits before deciding on whether or not to grant interim relief.

“One way or the other, (plea for) interim relief has to be considered on merits. Let a division bench consider it,” Justice Shah said. “We clarify that we have not said anything on merits and it is for the high court to take a call on the same.”

The petition was moved by Youth for Equality, an organisation that works against caste-based policies and reservations.

Meanwhile, Mukul Rohatgi, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, told the court that caste-based census is being done only in view of elections, and it is a serious matter. He also said that Bihar has rampant casteism.

For its part, the counsel for the Bihar government noted before the court that multiple petitions are being filed against the government’s move to conduct a caste-based census.

At this stage, Justice J.B. Pardiwala, the other judge on the division bench, sought to know from the Bihar government the “haste” with which such a survey is being taken up. To this, Bihar’s counsel responded by saying that it is a matter of complying with directive principles enshrined in the constitution. Justice Pardiwala responded by saying, “What directive principles?”

The court then directed the Patna high court to look into the matter and dispose of the case in three days “preferably”.

The first round of the caste survey in Bihar was conducted between January 7 and 21. The second round started on April 15 and will continue till May 15.

Earlier, in January this year, the Supreme Court had turned down three public interest litigations (PILs) that sought directions from the court to the Bihar government to stop the caste census.

“This is a publicity interest litigation. If we allow this then how will they determine how much reservation to be given? You want to withdraw? Go and file before the high court. Sorry, we do not entertain such petitions,” Justice B.R. Gavai had remarked.

Majority for Congress in Karnataka, Big Loss for BJP: ABP-CVoter Opinion Poll

Opinion poll figures show that out of 224 assembly seats in Karnataka, Congress is likely to win 107 to 119, with the BJP finishing a distant second with 74 to 86 seats. The JD(S) can get 23 to 35 seats, as per the survey.

New Delhi: An opinion poll conducted by ABP-CVoter predicts the Congress party forming the next government in Karnataka while the BJP could lose big in the only southern state where it is in power. The performance of the Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)] in the May 10 state assembly elections is expected to be quite below the mark, the survey suggests. 

Opinion poll figures show that out of 224 assembly seats in Karnataka, Congress is likely to win 107 to 119 seats, with the BJP finishing a distant second with 74 to 86 seats. The JD(S) can get 23 to 35 seats, as per the survey, while others are expected to win 0 to 5 seats.

Congress party is projected to dominate the Greater Bangalore region (32 seats), Central Karnataka region (35 seats), Mumbai-Karnataka region (50 seats) and Hyderabad Karnataka region (31 seats) while competing neck and neck with the JD(S) in Old Mysore region (55 seats). BJP’s performance is expected to be good only in the coastal Karnataka region (21 seats).

The opinion polls numbers are bad news for the ruling BJP which has never won a simple majority in the state, despite forming government through defections from other parties. This exercise by the saffron party was popularly known as Operation Kamala. Its state government has been battling with charges like corruption, earning the moniker “40% commission”, and the party’s central leadership’s failure to quell an internal rebellion.

The ABP News-CVoter poll received responses from 17,772 people in Karnataka. Data suggests that the BJP is 5% behind the Congress in terms of vote share. Congress is projected to get a 40% vote share, with the BJP trailing at 35%. JD(S) may get 17% of the votes, mainly from its traditional strongholds. Around 8% of the votes are expected to go to others.  

The results of the election will be announced on May 13.

Kuno’s Cheetahs Will Wander More, Experts Predict

With the second cheetah death in Kuno National Park, authorities have also begun to worry about space as the animals move out. ‘Bringing them back’ may not be a viable option in the long term, experts told The Wire. 

New Delhi: On April 23, an African cheetah brought to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park died due to heart failure. It was the second cheetah to die in the park, where India’s Project Cheetah is being implemented. 

On April 22, another that was released in the wild crossed Kuno, its surrounding grasslands, agricultural fields and villages, and almost reached the Uttar Pradesh border more than 100 kilometres away before the monitoring team tranquilised it and ‘brought it back’.

As Project Cheetah unfolds, so are the challenges surrounding it — some of which experts had warned of before it swung into action. The Madhya Pradesh forest department recently wrote to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to look for “alternate” sites; Kuno could not accommodate more than 10 cheetahs, some officials said, citing both space and logistical issues.

Meanwhile, cheetahs will continue to explore the area and venture out of Kuno and in the process come into conflict with livestock farmers, scientists have predicted. Bringing them back each time may not be a viable option, they said.

Moreover, cheetah mitr – locals appointed by the forest department to increase awareness about the cheetahs in nearby villages – are alleging that the department is not keeping them informed of any development regarding the cheetahs, let alone their movement. With cheetah sightings in agricultural fields, there is fear – lots of it – in people, they said.

Cheetah deaths not unexpected

On April 23, a six-year-old male cheetah named Uday died in its enclosure in Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh. The animal was one of the 12 that arrived from South Africa in February this year.

A postmortem revealed that it had died due to heart failure, a senior forest official had said. 

But what caused the cardiac failure? A detailed report – to ascertain what really caused the heart failure – is awaited, and will be ready in a few days’ time, divisional forest officer of Kuno wildlife division Prakash Kumar Verma told The Wire. 

Stress from being cooped up in enclosures for too long is a factor, biologist Vincent van der Merwe told Hindustan Times after the news of Uday’s death. Van der Merwe had been involved in capturing the cheetahs in South Africa for translocation to India. After 10 months in captivity, the animal had lost fitness and suffered from chronic stress, Merwe told HT. The animals “must go back into the wild where they belong” and are “unhappy in cages”, he had said.

In fact, there have been reports of the cheetahs from South Africa having lost fitness during their wait to come to India because they were kept in enclosures since July 2022 when they were captured from the wild in South Africa. Officials had attributed the longer time in enclosures to a delay in the signing of the MoU between India and South Africa to translocate the cheetahs.

Uday was the second cheetah to die in the Park. Earlier, on March 27, a female cheetah named Sasha succumbed to kidney failure. However, that a certain number of cheetahs will die as part of Project Cheetah has already been factored into the Action Plan released by the government in January 2022.

“Not all deaths after release should be a cause of worry,” the Action Plan reads. “Mortality of reintroduced cheetah is expected in spite of all the efforts taken to minimise risks. Appropriate publicity needs to be done prior to the commencement of the project, so that all the stakeholders, public and officials are aware of this eventuality and it should not put the project in bad light or consider it a failure due to cheetah deaths.”

“The two cheetah deaths (one from Namibia and one from South Africa) observed to date are within expected mortality rates for a project of this nature,” a media statement by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) also said on April 27. 

Wanderers they are, will be

Kuno’s cheetahs are also wandering, and wandering wide. Currently, four cheetahs – three males and a female – have been released into the wild in Kuno. Of these, a male and female – Pavan and Asha – were first sighted on the borders of Kuno. Pavan has also ventured into agricultural fields in adjoining villages.

On April 22, Pavan (earlier called ‘Oban’) had to be tranquilised near the border of the adjoining state of Uttar Pradesh, and brought back to Kuno. He crossed grasslands, agricultural fields and villages reaching almost as far as Jhansi on the UP border, Verma told The Wire. 

“That’s more than 100 km away from Kuno,” Verma said. “We did not expect the cheetah to move so far.”

While the forest department had conducted awareness programmes for villagers near and around Kuno, they had not done this in the villages further away. This caused a bit of a challenge when Pavan arrived near Jhansi because people did not know how to react or what to do if they saw one, Verma told The Wire. 

Though the furthest so far, this wasn’t Pavan’s first foray outside the Park. In early April, the cheetah was spotted in a village around 20 kilometres from the Park’s borders. A video of Pavan taking refuge in a wheat field has also surfaced.

And it’s unlikely to be Pavan’s last – if he’s released from the enclosure he has currently been housed in at Kuno, after his April 22 walk to the UP border. 

That’s one of the predictions that a team of cheetah biologists made in a scientific letter published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice on April 20. Based on their knowledge and study of cheetah spatial distribution (which depends on the animals’ social organization and behavior), the team – led by Bettina Wachter of Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, who had spoken to The Wire about this in October last year – made six predictions. Their first prediction is that the solitary male and two brothers will form a territory each, separated by 20-23 km. This gives rise to their second prediction: that all three males will occupy all of Kuno. 

“We further predict that irrespective of the territory size, these three males will occupy the entire KNP which is ~17 km  x 44 km in size (Prediction 2), thus not leaving space for additional territories for males introduced from South Africa,” they wrote.

A study in Namibia found that translocated cheetahs in that country explored the new area extensively.

“We therefore predict that the eight cheetahs will conduct extensive excursions outside the KNP during their exploration phase (Prediction 3), potentially coming into conflict with livestock farmers,” the authors wrote in their letter.

Their fourth prediction is that it will take many months for the territories of both males and females which are released in the wild to settle. This settling into territories will occur based on cheetah spatial distribution. So their fifth prediction is that the additional males (brought in to Kuno or born there) will settle around 20-23 km away from the already established cheetah territories, again coming into conflict with livestock farmers. This will again result in females moving in and out of Kuno too, and these too will come into conflict with farmers, as per their sixth prediction.

She expects the cheetahs to prey sooner or later on livestock, Wachter told The Wire. 

“Cheetahs are opportunistic hunters and hunt whatever is the easiest prey. We know from Namibia that in the core areas of the cheetah territories, livestock losses are very high because it is easy for cheetahs to bring them down,” she said. 

Moving livestock away from the cheetahs’ core territories can reduce livestock kills by 86%, Wachter added. In Namibia, the cheetahs then adapt quickly and turn to the next easy prey which are gazelles or juveniles of the antelope species. In India, this process of setting up the territories in a regular pattern could take a while. So it is likely that “livestock animals will be taken a bit everywhere until this process is completed”, she said.

The male named Pavan did bring down a calf in the Shivpuri-Madhav National Park area, Verma confirmed to The Wire. 

Kuno or another park?

It is important to let the cheetahs explore their new place because it will help them decide where to establish good territories, said Wachter. Bringing them back each time may not be a viable strategy over the long term. It is “unlikely to stop them from their need to explore their new home,” she told The Wire. “Every immobilisation bears some physical costs and thus stress, thus I do not think that it is healthy for the animal to do this several times in a row.”

Local forest officials are also waking up to the concerns that experts had pointed out to The Wire earlier. Space is an issue, and Kuno will not be able to accommodate more than five individuals since the animals have huge home ranges, scientists told The Wire in October last year. The animals could also move out of Kuno in search of new territories and this could lead to human-cheetah conflict, others had said.

In a letter last week to the NTCA (which is implementing Project Cheetah), the chief wildlife warden of Madhya Pradesh J.S. Chauhan wrote that an alternate site be identified for the cheetahs. Kuno could not accommodate more than 10 cheetahs, some officials told Hindustan Times. Both space and manpower is an issue, others said. Officials also told PTI that lack of space is an issue. All the 18 cheetahs cannot be released into the wild in Kuno, one official said. Some news reports suggest that some of the cheetahs could be moved to Rajasthan’s Mukundara Tiger Reserve.

While officials at the NTCA have responded saying that the plan had not been to release all the remaining cheetahs in Kuno anyways, several questions remain. As per the Action Plan, Kuno can accommodate 21 individuals within its boundaries. If the Action Plan was right, why won’t the animals be released there? 

There has been no confirmation from the government as to which other parks have been identified for the cheetahs’ release. Meanwhile, as the confusion continues, the South African environment ministry’s statement on April 27 says that the remaining eleven cheetahs they translocated to India will be released into free-ranging conditions over the next two months.

The statement does not mention that Kuno is where this could happen. However, it is “anticipated” that “a few of the founder population may be lost within the first-year post-release”, the statement read. “Many of the released cheetahs will escape the boundaries of Kuno National Park and may have to go through short-term stress during the recapture process. Once the cheetahs have established home ranges, the situation will stabilise.”

According to Wachter’s recent letter, if India plans to establish several cheetah populations in the country, Project Cheetah will need to be tweaked to take into account the big cats’ socio-spatial organisation. The predictive approach in their letter can be adjusted with new incoming information which will permit making data-guided predictions, Wachter said.

If the cheetahs are not fenced in and forced to live closer together, they predict that the big cats will follow the same social and spatial system that they do elsewhere such as in Namibia, where Wachter and her colleagues have been working for more than 20 years now studying cheetahs.

“It might be worth [sic] to observe in which direction the cheetahs move out of the park and then maybe try to identify another national park in this direction, thus to let the cheetahs establish a natural corridor,” commented Wachter. However, everything depends on the local situation in India, she said.

One of the cheetahs released inside a special enclosure of the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, September 17, 2022. Photo: PTI

Meanwhile, there could be trouble brewing on the ground: all may not be well among the people who now have to live with the cheetahs. Perceptions about the cheetah have changed for Sultan Jatav, who was proud to be a cheetah mitr when The Wire spoke to him in September 2022 when the big cats arrived at Kuno. Jatav, a 26-year-old school teacher, now lives in the village of Paira near Kuno and was among the many villagers who had to move out of Kuno on account of the Asiatic lions that were to first arrive there. He is a cheetah mitr on paper, but he’s no longer one on principle, he told The Wire.

“The forest department had assured us cheetah mitr that they would keep us informed about the cheetahs, but this is not happening,” he said. 

Villagers, including cheetah mitr, are hearing about the cheetahs only through media coverage. Jatav knew about the death of two cheetahs only through newspapers that covered the issue, he said.

There’s fear among people too, with frequent cheetah sightings in agricultural fields, he claimed. Jatav sighted a cheetah recently when he went to Baroda village, around 15-20 kilometres from Kuno.

“There is fear among the people,” Jatav said. “A lot of it.”

J&K L-G Received Rs 25 Lakh Loan from Man Arrested for ‘Faking’ Access to PMO

J&K L-G Manoj Sinha had disclosed in the 2019 election affidavit that he had received Rs 25 lakh as an ‘unsecured loan’ from Sanjay Prakash Rai. Sinha unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Ghazipur constiuency on a BJP ticket.

New Delhi: Sanjay Prakash Rai ‘Sherpuria’, a businessman who was arrested recently by the Uttar Pradesh Police for duping people by allegedly claiming access to Prime Minister’s Office, had lent Rs 25 lakh to Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor, Manoj Sinha, as an “unsecured loan” before the 2019 general elections.

It has now emerged that Sinha himself, in his election affidavit, had disclosed that he had a loan of Rs 57 lakh in total, of which he borrowed Rs 25 lakh from Rai. The affidavit had also disclosed that he had four other “unsecured” loans from other individuals amounting to Rs 3 lakh, Rs 6 lakh, Rs 8 lakh, and Rs 15 lakh.

Sinha was an MP from the Ghazipur Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh between 2014 and 2019. However, his re-election bid as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in 2019 was unsuccessful. He lost to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Afzal Ansari.

In August 2020, Sinha was appointed as the LG of Jammu and Kashmir, nearly a year after Article 370 was abrogated and the erstwhile state was downgraded to a Union territory.

Sinha, who was also Ghazipur MP twice before in 1996 and 1999, remained active in the party and the constituency even after his loss in the 2019 election. However, after his appointment as LG, he has stayed away from party activities owing to his constitutional position.

According to Indian Express, a source close to Sinha claimed that the L-G has had no contact with Rai since 2015-16. Also, a detailed questionnaire sent to Sinha on alleged links with Rai went unanswered.

“The L-G was transparent and declared the money received as unsecured loan in the affidavit,” the source said, adding that L-G has “made many attempts to reach out to him and return the money”, but Rai has been unavailable.

Meanwhile, Ghazipur BJP president, Bhanupratap Singh, distanced the party from Rai. “Rai is neither a member nor an office bearer of the BJP. He used to visit Ghazipur and meet us but he has nothing to do with the party,” he told the newspaper.

Another prominent leader from Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said, “Rai was known for his proximity to senior party leaders and whenever he came here, local party leaders regularly met him.”

Rai ended up in the police’s net recently after police received information that he had taken Rs 6 crore from Gaurav Dalmiya, a Delhi-based businessman, promising to get his name cleared from a probe being carried out against him by a central investigation agency, according to Dainik Bhaskar.

The Uttar Pradesh Police’s special task force (STF) arrested him on Wednesday, April 26, at Kanpur railway station while he was traveling from Delhi to Ghazipur. He was handed over to Vibhuti Khand police station. Two days prior, Rai’s aide, Kashif, was arrested in Noida after police conducted searches at multiple locations in Noida.

Rai runs an organisation called “For Youth,” an NGO, with the slogan to make Ghazipur self-sufficient through self-employment. There are allegations that he has routed his alleged ill-gotten money through his NGO.

The Dainik Bhaskar report shows photographs of Rai with several of the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders, including J.P. Nadda, Anurag Thakur, Keshav Prasad Maurya and Mohan Bhagwat. The Wire cannot immediately confirm the veracity of these pictures.

Rai is said to have been a BJP ticket aspirant from the Ghazipur assembly constituency in 2017. However, he failed to secure a ticket. He is also said to have been involved in the 2019 BJP parliamentary election campaign from Varanasi, represented by Modi. He also authored a book on Modi, Divya Drishti Modi.  

Public Sector Oil Companies Yet To Get $300-400 Million Dividend From Russian Projects

The issue in payments of dividend to Indian companies arises due to the unavailability of banking channels after Russia was removed from the SWIFT global payment system by the US. 

New Delhi: Government-owned oil companies are yet to receive dividends worth $300 million to $400 million from Russia since the Ukraine crisis began in February 2022, reports MoneyControl, citing a senior petroleum ministry official.

The issue in payments of dividends to Indian companies arises due to the unavailability of banking channels after Russia was removed from the SWIFT global payment system by the US. 

Public sector companies including ONGC, Oil India, BPCL and Indian Oil have stakes in Russian oil and gas projects for which they have not received dividends due to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow. The government is negotiating a way to resolve the issue, the official said, according to the website.

According to Bloomberg, about $2 billion in payments from India to Russia is stuck over the last year, and Russia has decided to stop supplying credit for about $10 billion worth of spare parts as well as the two S-400 missile-defence system batteries that are yet to be delivered.

On April 18, the Narendra Modi government signed a significant deal with the Vladimir Putin administration where India agreed to adopt the Russian financial messaging system, Service Bureau of Financial Messaging System of the Bank of Russia (SPFS), for making banking payments to Russia, as per the New Indian Express. SPFS is a financial messaging system that works like the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the international payment system used by banks to transfer funds worldwide. 

After its banking channels were removed from SWIFT, Russia has been asking India to adopt the SPFS to make the payments. Moscow developed the SPFS after Russia was threatened with expulsion from SWIFT when it annexed Crimea in 2014.

Four Years On, a Father’s Struggle to Find His Son Who Was Arrested in UAE Under Charges Unknown

Four years ago, Zakir Hussain learnt that his son Salim had been abducted from his residence in Abu Dhabi. Now all he knows is that Salim is in a UAE prison. What are the accusations? He doesn’t know.

New Delhi: Fifty-four-year old Zakir Hussain’s life suddenly turned upside down when he learnt that his son Salim had been abducted by masked assailants from his residence in Abu Dhabi four years ago, on July 21, 2019. The next six months marked the beginning of the most testing pursuit of Hussain’s life.

Fast forward four years, all he knows is that Salim is in a UAE prison. What are the accusations? He doesn’t know.

For over three decades, Hussain has worked as a driver at the office of the British High Commissioner in New Delhi. He told The Wire that when he moved to Delhi from Hyderabad, the sole aim of his life was to toil hard enough to provide the best education to his children. He believed that education is the only way out for his children to lead a happy life in this country. And against all odds, he succeeded.

Hussain’s three children, two boys and a girl, pursued higher education and got placed in reputed companies. His elder son works in the marketing sector and his daughter has just completed her master’s in psychology and got placed in an international school. His youngest son, Salim, pursued a career in computer engineering and got placed in Qualcomm in 2015. Hussain recounted it as one of the happiest days of his life.

Then he elucidated Salim’s academic achievements in great detail. “Salim was a school topper and pursued his degree in computer science engineering from VVIT, Hyderabad,” he said with a sense of great pride and with a special emphasis on the name of the institute.

“In 2017, he received two lucrative placement offers, one in Bengaluru and one in Abu Dhabi. Salim asked my opinion on which offer to accept,” he continued. Hussain suggested Salim to go for the latter to get international exposure and a respite from the growing communal politics in the state.

Hussain, whose whole life has revolved around embassies and diplomats, knew that the UAE and India have a great friendship and he saw no harm in sending his son to Abu Dhabi. Moreover, Abu Dhabi is just four hours away via flight. Now, he laments that had he asked Salim to take up the Bengaluru job offer, he would be with him today.

Salim’s father, Zakir Hussain. Photo: author provided

Salim’s arrest

“For two years, Salim’s stay in the UAE was quite peaceful but weeks before his arrest, he had suddenly become tense and told me that there is something suspicious going on in his company and that he wants to leave soon,” said Hussain, recalling this conversation which happened two months before Salim’s disappearance in 2019.

They talked over the phone at length almost everyday. Now he’s allowed to talk over the phone twice a week for a few minutes but they can only speak in English. The call is monitored and they cannot speak much. His last call with Salim was on Eid when he uttered the words “Eid Mubarak” and the call was disconnected in a minute.

Hussain immediately shifted the topic to Salim’s career plans again. Salim wanted to pursue a master’s degree in the US and he also received an offer letter from a renowned university. Soon after, he shifted to a different cyber security firm, right before his disappearance.

Salim (in photo) wanted to pursue a master’s degree in the US and he also received an offer letter from a renowned university, said his father. Photo: author provided

Hussain kept pleading to the authorities for any tip about Salim’s whereabouts. He flew to Abu Dhabi to meet the Indian embassy officials, who, he said, were considerate but of no help. In an interview to the National, a UAE-based news platform, former ambassador Navdeep Suri had in 2019 acknowledged meeting Zakir Hussain in person and being aware of the case.

“A representative from the embassy accompanied Mr Hussain to Khalidiya police station in Abu Dhabi…The father filed a missing persons case,” he said. When The Wire reached out to former ambassador Suri, who retired four years ago, he said that there were quite a few such cases and he cannot recall individual ones at the moment.

In its submission to the high court, the Union government said that it has tried to help the family through various diplomatic channels and that the matter was raised at the level of the ambassador with the UAE government. The government shared a summary of 25 note verbales (a diplomatic communication from one government to another) that were issued in the case.

The first one was issued four days after Salim’s disappearance in which the government had asked the UAE authorities to investigate the case of abduction. The government made these requests seven times until six months passed. On January 21, 2020, the government sought consular access for the first time as the ambassador was informed that Salim had been detained for an investigation connected to some national security issue. However, until now the government hasn’t received even a copy of the judgment.

Despite the intervention of the Indian government, it was only after six months that Hussain was informed that Salim had been arrested by the UAE authorities.

Also read: As New Power Equations Emerge in West Asia, India Can Only Stand and Watch

Reasons for the arrest

For the next three years, he set out to find answers to another question: What are the charges against his son? He is still finding answers. Sometimes, he writes to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and sometimes, he visits the ambassador’s office. But now, he is only hopeful about the judiciary’s intervention, which is perhaps his last resort.

The Wire sought the help of Anjolie Singh, an expert in international law, to disentangle the intricacies of what appears to be an extraordinary case of failure of diplomatic protection. Even for Anjolie, this is the most bizarre case that she has come across in the span of her 20-year legal career.

“Here’s a distraught father running from pillar to post in the MEA and all he’s asking for is the set of charges under which his son has been convicted. And as per the government’s own admission, it has failed to do so,” she said.

What’s even more shocking, she pointed out, is the fact that even the government claims to not have any information about the case. Anjolie finds it hard to believe that three years after they claim the issue was raised with the UAE, the MEA is yet to get a copy of the judgment detailing the charges for which the person has been incarcerated, including any clarity on the details of the number of years for which he has been sentenced.

Anjolie explained that the Indian Mission’s lack of information about the case despite “constantly [being] in touch” and “continuously seeking information” from the UAE authorities is a comment on the sorry state of diplomatic protection to Indian nationals abroad. She also questioned the government’s heavy reliance on informal communication channels to retrieve information for such a long duration despite the existence of an agreement on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons between India and the UAE.

Shahrukh Alam, counsel for the petitioner, has informed the high court that while the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) may not be applicable, there are other treaties which could be used to help the case of the petitioner’s son. The petition notes that the lack of any information about the reasons for the arrest and conviction of Hussain’s son is a violation of principles of natural justice and it obstructs him from accessing the legal resources available to him.

Considering the nature of the matter, the Delhi high court requested a senior official from the MEA or the Indian embassy in the UAE to join the proceedings virtually in order to inform the court what steps have been taken to assist the petitioner.

Hussain has met several officials at the MEA for assistance. “I even met Dr. Jaishankar while he had come to visit the office of the British High Commissioner.” It was not a formal meeting, he clarified, however, he was assured that the government is looking into the matter.

Hussain’s version and the government’s submission before the court show that the response of the Indian government has been ineffective rather than indifferent. Anjolie remarked that a “Vishwaguru” and a “would-be superpower” should at least provide basic consular assistance to its nationals.

“It is unclear if this stems from the MEA’s inability to procure this information or its unwillingness to provide any information to the family of the prisoner,” she added.

“I had sent my son to Abu Dhabi considering India and UAE’s relationship. I am afraid that my child may be sacrificed to uphold this friendship. I hope that is not the case,” said Hussain.

He also shared a teary-eyed video of his wife folding Salim’s clothes. Over the course of these four years, his wife has been very disturbed ever since Salim has been away.

Those who have followed Hussain’s journey have seen him turn from a lively old man about to retire happily with his family into a distraught father holding on to the hope of reuniting with his son one day.

Also read: India Will Not Put Pressure on Qatar to Release Detained Ex-navy Officers: MEA

Another similar case of Indian Navy veterans in Qatar

There’s another similar case where eight veterans of the Indian Navy, kept in solitary confinement in Qatar since August 2022, face death sentence. In this case, too, the charges have not been shared with India.

MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had told ANI on April 20, “As far as I am aware, the charges [in the Qatar case] have not been shared or conveyed so far.”

The Indian Navy veterans were detained in Doha last year on the charges of spying for Israel on the country’s advanced submarines.

“This is now in the legal process. Let me emphasise that we are making all efforts to assist these Indians who were detained and we are also extending consular assistance as well as legal assistance as part of the legal process that is underway,” Bagchi had said.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, in a tweet, on April 26, voiced concerns on this matter, highlighting that the MEA says that “the charges have not been shared so far” with India. 

The court is scheduled to hear this matter on May 3.

Praying on the Road Is Not a Good Feeling, but What Else Can Indian Muslims Do?

People would have you believe that what we perceive as humiliation is part of a big plan to destabilise the country. In 2023, they make it appear to be some grand conspiracy, as if it’s a plot to disrupt the nation’s peace.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

Note: The Kanpur police have booked close to 2,000 people for offering Namaz on road, allegedly without permission.  

A video of thousands of Muslims performing Eid Namaz on the highway went viral recently. The video was of Jaipur Eidgah. And because Jaipur is my hometown and where I grew up, I must have performed Eid Namaz on the same road for at least 20 years.

It made me nostalgic and triggered a flood of emotions. What follows is my perspective and my memories.

Let’s begin with the location of Eidgah. The entire area is known as Eidgah locally; as you can see, to the right, there is an Idgah Van Vihar Colony, and just above it is an Idgah Kachchi Basti. Locally, the road also is known as Eidgah Road. The yellow road on the map is the national highway.

The Jaipur Eidgah. Photo: Google Maps

When we were kids in the 1980s, there were two road connections from Delhi Highway to the city of Jaipur. This Eidgah Highway, and another from Amer Road. This highway was rarely used because trucks moved at high speeds on it, and people preferred the more tranquil and scenic Amer entry.

Eidgah is a term used in South Asian Islamic culture to refer to the open-air enclosure usually located outside the city that is reserved for Eid prayers offered in the morning of Eid al-Fitr (Mithi Eid in local parlance) and Eid al-Adha (Bakra Eid).

It is usually a public space that is not used for prayers during the rest of the year. On Eid, the first thing Muslims do in the morning is gather at a large open ground and offer special prayers. Every now and then, you’d hear the word “maidan” attached to Eidgah, which literally means open ground. This is because there used to be a large ground, where people would read namaz, which was connected to the Eidgah.

As a general guideline in Islam, performing the Eid namaz on the outskirts of town is better and more virtuous than performing it in town. Failing to perform Eid namaz in the Eidgah without a valid excuse is against the Sunnah. Because it is difficult to have Eidgahs on the outskirts of major cities, a large open plain ground is chosen for the Eidgah. However, because Jaipur already had an Eidgah, this was not a problem.

But, as far as I recall, even in the early 1980s, Jaipur Eidgah had a peculiar problem. It was not connected to a large ground. Maybe the open, extended space was considered large when it was built, but not by the early 1980s.

As a result, people would spill over to the sides and eventually onto the highway. Even in the early 1980s, a large section of the highway was covered with namazis. I used to be one of those namazis, when I was younger, somewhere far from the Eidgah structure.

Eidgah was about 6km away from my home. Which seemed like a long distance when I was a kid. It was truly on the outskirts of town. Jaipur was much smaller back then.

My father is a pious man. And because it was nearly impossible to find a prayer space inside the Eidgah, he would finish his early morning prayer (fajr) and leave on his black Atlas cycle just around sunrise for Eidgah. It was a big deal for him to pray inside the premises.

He would often lament that we lived so far away from the Eidgah that he would never get a place in the first three rows of namazis. Our uncles were tasked with bringing all of us children to Eidgah. And it used to be complete pandemonium.

Our uncles were screaming and shouting at us to get us ready on time. They were all terrified of my father. He is the “elder brother” of the family. Everyone had to shower and change into white kurta-pyjamas. (Winters were absolute torture for early morning bathing.)

The ladies of the house would be screaming as well. There would be chaos as, inadvertently, one of the pyjamas would be found torn in the morning because no one bothered to check it when it was purchased. Another pyjama’s izarband (drawstring) would be missing. Someone’s new kurta would have a stain. Some child might cry because they were wearing an old kurta with a new pyjama, or vice versa. Some kid would be crying because they had been slapped for laughing at the crying kid. Every morning of Eid was a race against the clock.

But every year, we’d arrive on time, but never at the Eidgah. But on the highway, about a hundred metres from the Eidgah. We’d bring our improvised janamaaz (prayer mat), which was mostly a freshly washed double bedsheet, and spread it out on the road while we waited.

Every year, our uncles would argue that because we were too far away from Eidgah, we would not appear in the Rajasthan Patrika front-page photo this year. The photo of the namaz used to be on the front page of the newspaper the next day. Everyone was a tiny dot in that picture, but it felt great if you could tentatively locate yourself in it. The photograph was always taken from the tall exterior wall of Eidgah.

And the Eid Namaz is distinct from other namaz. The procedure is slightly different. Every child makes mistakes inadvertently. And as kids, we’d remember who made which errors.  It was a contest of “who failed less”. The kid who made the fewest mistakes won the bragging rights.

We’d get 5-10 minutes of playtime after the namaz, either at the small Eid mela or just faffing around at the venue. But, in the next 20 minutes, all the namazis would clear the road and traffic would begin. We wouldn’t stay long because my father would return from the main Eidgah premises, either ecstatic that he got a spot in the starting rows or devastated that he couldn’t make it in time.

As soon as we returned home, there was joy all around, and we began badgering elders for the customary “Eidi”. There was always talk about how small the Eidgah is and how rare it is for someone to get a place inside the main premises of Eidgah. And this was back in the 80s.

Other youngsters took our position as we grew older. The discussions remained constant. No Muslim appreciates praying on the road, and most of us found it humiliating. Eid, on the other hand, is intended to be a collective prayer that ends with embraces. Muslims adapted to it.

We recognise that masjids cannot accommodate the whole population. Praying on the road is not a good feeling, but what else can we do? The summer heat is awful, and the monsoon season is the worst if it begins to rain.

People would have you believe that what we perceive as humiliation is part of a big plan to destabilise the country. In 2023, they make it appear to be some grand conspiracy, as if it’s a plot to disrupt the nation’s peace. As if we intend to take over the highways. As if roadblocking is something that Muslims like doing. When it’s just something we’ve learned to live with.

Imagine having a perfectly clean and peaceful location to pray inside a mosque and Muslims swarming the streets, clogging traffic, merely to frustrate people. Only a hateful and malicious mindset would believe that.

By the way, I had a great time writing this, thinking about the past. At one point, I even forgot I was demolishing the schedule. I couldn’t care less. But now you know why Muslims pray on the road. We don’t want to do it, but we don’t have any other option.

It’s a sad situation, but that’s life. Indian Muslims are hardy people who find joy even in the most difficult of circumstances. We rarely have somebody to explain our points of view to. We just go about our business while being pelted with muck from all sides.

Finally, all I have to say is this – On a particularly happy day, such as Eid, nobody likes to pray on the road.  Muslims do not read namaz on the road because they want to, but because they have to.

Darab Farooqui is a screenplay writer. He wrote the screenplay for Dedh Ishqiya.

Karnataka: ECI Files FIR Against BJP Candidate for Illegal Attempts to Induce Rival To Withdraw

The charge is that BJP’s candidate from Chamarajanagar, V. Somana, tried to offer inducements to the JD(S) candidate to step down. Offers included money and a ‘government vehicle’, according to the poll panel.

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) said on Saturday, April 29, that it has taken “serious note” of a BJP candidate in the Karnataka assembly election who was trying to influence a Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)] candidate to withdraw by offering money and a government vehicle and filed a first information report (FIR).

The alleged attempts by V. Somanna, the BJP candidate from Chamarajanagar, to influence Mallikarjuna Swamy alias Alur Mallu, the JD(S) candidate, to withdraw were revealed in an audio clip that is circulating on social media.

According to the ECI, Somana offered “money and government vehicle” to the JDS candidate. “An FIR has been filed in the matter under Section 171E [bribery] and 171 F [Punishment for undue influence or personation at an election] of [the Indian Penal Code] in the Town Police Station, Chamarajanagar,” the poll panel said in a press release titled “ECI conveys no tolerance towards any attempt of bribery or intimidation to candidates and voters in the ongoing Karnataka elections 2023: CEOs and DEOs to keep strict vigil on social media for timely action.”

The commission has directed the chief electoral officer of Karnataka to ensure constant monitoring of the ground situation. “For conviction under Section 171E and 171 F of IPC, 1860, the election can be annulled on account of corrupt practices under section 123 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the candidate may be disqualified under section 8 (1) (a) of the R.P. Act, 1951,” the release goes on to say.

The assembly election in the state, which will be held on May 10, has been rife with complaints of attempts to subvert the level playing field. Data leakage and misuse concerns have been ongoing too for some time, which The Wire has reported on earlier. The sitting MLA of Karnataka’s Malleswaram assembly seat, C.N. Ashwath Narayan – also the BJP candidate for the constituency in the upcoming polls – has sent messages on WhatsApp to voters with excerpts from electors’ individual voter identity cards, leading to outrage. 

As per a report in Deccan Herald, “A few residents (of the constituency) called it illegal and questioned how the MLA, who is also a cabinet minister (in the current Basavaraj Bommai government), could have access to voters’ mobile numbers.” According to the report, some voters have registered a complaint with the returning officer, accusing the MLA of illegally accessing his mobile number.

NSA Doval Assured Russian Counterpart of India’s Support in Multilateral Fora: Leaked US Intel

Doval, as per the leaked documents, also told Patrushev that New Delhi was working to ensure the Ukraine war did not come up during a Group of 20 meeting chaired by India, despite “considerable pressure” to do so.

New Delhi: National security adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval assured his Russian counterpart Nikolay Patrushev of India’s support for Russia in multilateral venues during a meeting at Moscow on February 22 this year, leaked classified US intelligence assessments show, according to a Washington Post report.

Doval, as per the leaked documents, also told Patrushev that New Delhi was working to ensure the Ukraine war did not come up during a Group of 20 meeting chaired by India, despite “considerable pressure” to do so. He also cited India’s resistance to pressure to support the Western-backed UN resolution over Ukraine, saying India “would not deviate from the principled position it had taken in the past.”

The documents were among a trove of US intelligence secrets leaked online through the Discord messaging platform. Several sensitive files were released by a 21-year-old IT specialist of the US Air National Guard, revealing US concern over Ukraine’s military capacity against Russian forces and also instances of alleged spying by Washington on its allies Israel and South Korea.

It is not clear how US intelligence agencies gained access to Doval’s discussions with Patrushev.

Patrushev, a close confidante of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had officially met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 29, when he was in Delhi for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting. Russia’s Security Council said in a readout cited by Russian news agencies after the meeting that Patrushev and Modi discussed “issues of Russian-Indian bilateral cooperation and mutual interest,” without providing further details.

A week after Doval’s meeting, the Modi government had suggested removing any reference to the Ukraine war from a joint statement to be issued at the end of the meeting of G-20 foreign ministers in New Delhi. It claimed that this was in line with its neutral stance on the issue and a reiteration of its view that diplomatic channels should be employed to resolve the crisis. 

However, the Western countries did not agree to that suggestion and this disagreement resulted in a failure to forge a consensus on broader global challenges. In place of a joint statement, a G20 Chair’s Summary and Outcome Document was released, underlining the positions expressed by member countries in relation to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Analysing leaks about positions that developing countries have taken regarding the US’s rivalry with Russia and China, the Washington Post report says that Joe Biden’s “global agenda faces significant challenges as major developing nations seek to evade the intensifying standoff” and in some cases “exploit that rivalry for their own gain”.