THE CAST OF CONFLICT
Caste and communal violence dominate internal security concerns. And the government is losing ground on relations with Pakistan and China
ASIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENT of the NDA government has been a robust response to cross-border terrorism. It might not have succeeded in getting the Pakistan army to turn off the terror tap, but what it has managed to do is to draw a red line, to indicate that attacks like those at Pathankot and Uri will come at a cost.
For the first time in nearly four years, cross-border terrorism has dropped to second place among perceived threats to internal security, with 22 per cent of the MOTN respondents finding it a significant threat. This drop is the sharpest since January 2017 when 44 per cent of respondents believed it was threat number one. What has displaced terrorism is something that causes greater worry—caste violence. Twenty-seven per cent respondents felt growing caste violence was the biggest threat to the country’s internal security. (It was not even an option in this question in the last MOTN in January 2018.) Their fears are not unfounded. Since 2015, at least four major communities—Gujjars, Jats, Patidars and now the Marathas— have stepped up their demand for reservations. In Gujarat, 14 persons were killed and hundreds of buses torched in July 2015, following a police crackdown on Patidars agitating for reservations. In March 2016, Jats demanding OBC status went on the rampage damaging property and holding the state to ransom for 10 days. The origins of such agitations and the desire for a great leap ‘backward’ are complicated. Besides, the apex court has capped reservations at 50 per cent and solutions like Rajasthan’s 5 per cent quota for Gujjars in government jobs
have been shot down by the courts.
Another big worry is the fear of growing communal violence, which people see as the third biggest threat to internal security after terrorism. Fears of communal violence have registered a sharp increase from January 2017 when only 9 per cent of the respondents felt it was a big threat. Last month, minister of state for home Hansraj Ahir told the Rajya Sabha that 111 persons had been killed in 822 acts of communal violence last year, a marked increase over the previous year: 86 persons were killed in 703 incidents in 2016 and 97 died in 751 such incidents in 2015.
Neighbourly Ties
There has been a slide in the number of respondents who hold a favourable view of the government’s handling of relations with Pakistan—an 11 percentage point drop from peak approval numbers of 67 per cent in the January 2018 edition of MOTN. One of the reasons for this sharp drop could be a nearly 200 per cent jump in ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the border during the month-long Ramzan this year, over the previous two months. The MOTN was polled before Pakistan’s recent polls and the anointment of Imran Khan as prime minister. India has not played any cricket in Pakistan since the 26/11 attacks. A recent photo-op of the Indian envoy to Islamabad, Ajay Bisaria, presenting Khan with a cricket bat autographed by Indian team members suggests that cricket diplomacy could be an early move towards the normalisation of ties.
Relations with China continue to be a source of worry for the government. Last year was marked by a two-month-long standoff with China over a road its People’s Liberation Army was building through Bhutan’s Doklam plateau. This year saw a new bonhomie as Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping at an informal summit in Wuhan. However, only 34 per cent of the respondents say relations have improved. This is a drop of 8 percentage points from January 2018 when 42 per cent felt relations had improved.
The China outreach might have been prompted by a mercurial and somewhat unpredictable US president. Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policy has put him on a collision course with countries like India and China, which enjoy trade surpluses with the US. India is being dragged into a trade war with the US, which has levied duties on imports of Indian steel and aluminium. India has imposed retaliatory tariffs on 29 American imports. None of these differences seem to have reflected in the survey on the question of how India’s relations with the US have changed under the Trump presidency—53 per cent feel they have improved either significantly or somewhat—a dip of one percentage point over the January 2018 MOTN.