they is to shoot regularly and and then once this comment tell me for women to go for well I doubt that was common enough but I do remember these are not common people they are clearly they're they're they are both uh sanyal and binadasa's father were both linked to the revolutionaries they were not and and you know so they they were they were probably routinely handling various kinds of guns and bombs that's what I was going to ask you know how did it work for these women that the reason I'm asking stories because of that that like you know I mean my mom will say what time are you coming back what time are you going but these women were going about you know well I can tell you my great grandfather was was not quite uh uh ordinary person I mean he was himself involved in in uh you know various revolutionary activities that they wanted their women also they didn't put their women in uh you know at the back of the room and say confidently since I knew


of the room and say confidently since I knew my great-grandmother okay who we used to call mamuni she was quite a formidable lady she was I was like five foot nothing but uh uh possibly the only person was afraid of she was quite uh quite a character so so it's not completely out of character that she was out there practicing shooting with binadas but anyway Bina Das then goes off on uh on on graduation day uh in Calcutta University uh uh he she pulls out this revolver and shoots five bullets at the governor of Bengal and Mrs but she's arrested of course and sent off to jail for nine years um my great-grandmom of course would claim that if she had been the one shooting it she would not have missed now that is of course Very troubling idea because if that had happened I may not have existed either yeah that's true yeah that's true I'm gonna read out this one portion uh when we talk about The Gather rights


one portion uh when we talk about The Gather rights you know you say this that the whole episode you talk about the komakato marrow and you know bringing the the uh Grand sahib on the you know he carried it on his head and things and you said that the whole episode send shock waves you know because of what happened then I'm not going to go into the details about that what that kamaka tomorrow incident is you can people can Google it and read it if you have not read it before you write about this and you say that the whole episode sent shock waves uh across India and the diaspora in Canada a group of gadarites decided to kill those they suspected of working for British intelligence one by one their bodies were found this included Arjun Singh uh then there's Bela Singh uh then you talk about Uma singer gadarite pulled out a gun and shot him dead meba was immediately arrested condemned to death Bella would survive a couple of more


death Bella would survive a couple of more assassination attempts in Canada uh before being killed in Punjab later tell me about this whole gadarites and what happened then and their links uh you know the links of what happened in that period to the origins of the kalistanis in Canada so all this while we were talking about the revolutionaries within India but do remember the revolutionaries were spread all over all over the world they had links to foreign governments like the Germans the Turks the Japanese to other Freedom movements like those of the Irish and they were operating in places like uh the west coast of Canada and the U.S California and British Columbia and in in British Columbia and uh and Canada uh they functioned through a network of gurudwara's like in India they are functioning through a network of akadas in North America they were functioning through a network of gurudwaras where they were a group of nationalist Sikhs Punjabi is more generally but specifically Sikhs


Punjabi is more generally but specifically Sikhs who were sort of pushing for Indian Freedom they were providing financing they were personally willing to pick up arms and move to India and doing all kinds of things were going on and remember the context as well a significant proportion of those fighting in the first world war for the British cause in Europe were Sikhs so this was not a just you know another just yet another community that was involved in all of this so there was this simmering tension and the and of course the British intelligence yet again was fully aware that you know this was a dangerous thing from their perspective so what they did is interesting they got hold of a secret agent called Hopkinson and Hopkinson began to infiltrate these gurudwaras in British Columbia and he was given a huge amount of resources to essentially find out loyalist Sikhs particularly those who were willing to use these resources giving to create first a wedge between the Hindu community and and and and the


between the Hindu community and and and and the more hardcore seek community and so if till that point in time the hindusik community was basically indistinguishable it was more a spectrum than than clearly separate and so you see that begin to happen in um in the UK but more importantly in Canada and so of course the gadarites were aware that this was going on and so they began to shoot out shoot the these informers and British agents in in the midst and there are these gun fights in the gurudwaras ultimately what happens is that Bella Singh who was one of the collaborators he panics and he shoots a bunch of uh gatherites inside a gurudwara in British Columbia and he's captured the British cannot hang him and punish him because he is one of theirs so they do a short trial and everybody knows that Bella Singh is going to be released at the end of the show trial so the court happens and Hopkinson turns up to give


court happens and Hopkinson turns up to give testimony on his behalf while he is about to do this another Sikh gather right pulls out a revolver and shoots him dead and then he also attempts to kill bilas it doesn't manage anyway meva Singh is captured he's hanged sadly nobody remembers me was saying in India but he was you know he basically in my view should be celebrated he died in Punjab much later no maybe he was hanged he was hanged he was hanged belasing the collaborator collaborator he Bela Singh however found that it was too dangerous to be for him to be in Canada because there were all these guthrites Sikhs hunting for him he decides then that it's actually better for him to go back to Punjab which is actually safer where he can sort of disappear in the Woodwork among the general population but even there he's hunted down by the revolutionaries and killed um but what happens as a result of this is


but what happens as a result of this is that there is this um this group of uh British loyalists Sikhs who slowly take control of the gurudwara's uh uh with British support both in Canada and in the UK and this idea of kalistani movement interestingly even today uh comes from exactly those same gurudwaras that had been infiltrated with Hopkinson 100 years ago so this is the source of your Palestine movement so in case you're wondering why on Earth would Canada be the center of kalistani movement of you know of all places on Earth well this is the reason now also the UK as well same reason so there's a historical contextual yes connection between these absolutely and but didn't the gurdwaras didn't the people then want to weed away these uh elements in their gurdwaras no so this tussle continued as I said this is a brutal tussle but in the end I mean this this uh this tussle Still Remains and it's still there at your book release event


and it's still there at your book release event in New Delhi uh the home minister said that and I quote this India's independence is a collective result of efforts but one-sided narrative uh was imposed on the masses through education Legends and writing of history and he also said we have to extract history from the streams of extremists versus moderates and make it realistic what is realistic uh Sanjeev because the there are many who are saying that there's a lot of rewriting which is happening and it is pandering to a narrative now it's a populist narrative so my view is that look let the facts all come out everybody is allowed an opinion but you you're not allowed your own facts whatever I've written in my book are very easily verifiable I've given resources its references at the back you can check those out or you can go and do your own research you will find that they are completely and solidly backed by facts I mean you can quibble about the things on


facts I mean you can quibble about the things on the edges but the broad narrative that I have put together in this book is and on other books as well has never been overturned by anybody so my view is I am not saying that the peaceful movement led by Mahatma Gandhi had no role in our freedom struggle that is not the case I have therefore not called this book the alternative story I've called it the other Story by which I'm saying that look yes there was a non-violent movement but there was this other armed struggle as well which was an important part of our history we should know about it and all these amazing people who gave their lives fighting for uh our our freedoms so you know um what happens is that these the new interpretations which are coming out are digging up things which nobody remembers or it was deliberately done which you mentioned Jay said Deepak mentions Vikram sampath and many other historians the new age historians they are saying that


historians the new age historians they are saying that it was deliberately done what happens also is that religious identities come into Clash over these historic narratives now I can give you if it could be about the mughals it could be about tipu Sultan and now when elections come then it's it's resurrected again so was there a deliberate attempt that let's not let's put Band-Aid over all this because it's just going to cause well it you know putting Band-Aid doesn't help what was the history was history this is what the facts are lying about them doesn't help at all I mean just to give you an example there is no evidence that tipu Sultan was fighting for Indian independence I mean he was going quite happy to write letters to the Turkish Sultan asking for help so he's asking for you know help from all kinds of foreign groups and the people he was fighting were not only the British he was fighting the nizam he was fighting the marathas he was


nizam he was fighting the marathas he was fighting the traven core more than adequate evidence um that he was doing atrocities against fellow Indians very little evidence that he was fighting for Indian independence so if your purpose is to look for Muslim Patriots then let me put some others why not Khan right here's a man who gave his his part of the Hindustan Republican Association uh and was hanged for the kakuri case so the problem here is that if you really want to dig in you'll find all kinds of other things as well but this peculiar skewed narrative it doesn't really help because it doesn't convince anyone even a mild scratching of the surface of History shows you that these narratives are false it's like when they talk about mughals he said you nobody celebrates darashiko whereas not just that I mean we start with these utter absurdity of trying to celebrate Babar was Indian because he died here and did not take our money and go away


here and did not take our money and go away well he actually wanted to he couldn't find his way back to Central Asia he was rude road was blocked and for many generations after that the mughals did try to make their way back by the way an expedition was led even by aurangzeb when he was a prince to try and make their way back to Bukhara so and that they didn't come here to loot and plunder they came here to make this to civilize us or something but this is absurd you read tizuki Barbary I or Babar Nama in Persian and Babar is absolutely clear why he came to India he came for the gold he says so himself so you see what happens here is that two things one is this is false and it doesn't cut any eyes secondly what you have done here it and is that you have then painted the idea that the their Muslim identity overrides everything else and that somehow Indian Muslims of today must somehow identify with Babar because


Muslims of today must somehow identify with Babar because he was a Muslim now this is a very dangerous line of thoughts let me explain why this is exactly the mistake that Mahatma Gandhi did during the khilafat movement what was he doing he was basically asking Muslims to join the freedom struggle not on the basis of their freedom but on the basis of their isions Islamic Turkish uh Khalif Turkish Sultan who was also considered the Khalif so the point I'm making is that this this is a very slippery slope and I think it is unnecessarily foisted on the uh Indian Muslim I don't know who but most of them are descendants of Indians not of uh turkey Invaders but it's it's something that Pakistan did right when they were doing their history so they have done it so they have done this absurd thing you know they name their missiles after Gori and uh and so on now this is crazy because read your own history your own great great great grandfather grandmother were


history your own great great great grandfather grandmother were killed raped Etc by these people um so why are you celebrating this is a you know bizarre form of Stockholm syndrome um these are there's also this talk that because of these new narratives which are coming that Indian Academia is confused uh conflicted uh is the architecture of Indian Academia so weak that it can't take on these multiple narratives now well there was a longish period when uh it well there was sort of a ethnic cleansing of alternative narratives in Indian Academia interesting uh so and by the way this has happened around the world the world I mean the amount of ideological diversity even in Western universities is just uh you know ridiculous but you still have the odd a thinker who may not confirm conform uh and uh but in India it was absolute complete cleansing and this started from the 1950s you saw you know in the economics field for example you had the likes of BR shanoi I just


example you had the likes of BR shanoi I just pushed out because he didn't he wanted more marketing yeah you wanted to bring in this somewhat uh entirely socialist kind of thing so and you see that also in the history writing uh RC majumdar is pushed out uh from being the chairman of the writer of the official history his books were not available for a long long time yes so you know this this was done in a neat and clean way and since there were nobody in Academia over a period of time they completely cleaned it out the only way you will get alternative narratives now is from outside of Academia of course now new people may emerge over time but the you know I I and uh Vikram and Sai Etc always criticized you know but you are not a trained historian well if I was subjected to that training I would have been brainwashed basically what you're objecting to is that I didn't get subjected to the same amount of brainwashing that's maybe why


to the same amount of brainwashing that's maybe why I'm able to write outside outside of the official narratives but a massive system of brainwashing in the name of sort of historiography and uh and of course patronage systems in terms of papers and seminars and doctorates Etc was that Machinery was created that Machinery by and large is to a large extent still alive but what is happening is that outside of that controlled environment other narratives are popping up so now that we're talking about your other hats and how it's held against you so let's get on to that you're a numbers person yes so how did you why did you abandon that have you abandoned that no your regular job is that yes so tell me give me some Gan now on this Bank collapse which has happened how safe is Indian money especially of the startups and how can India prevent this kind of a thing happening here what's happening with the Silicon Valley Bank I'm presuming that's what you mean and and


Bank I'm presuming that's what you mean and and the other smaller Banks as we speak in the US um this is precisely what we were warning the world about including the us so you go back to the covet period and you will see a leading economists including some who have won Nobel prizes like stiglitz and Krugman and of course many NRI economists based in the west telling us go out there and spread helicopter money monetary and fiscal expansion it does not matter and so on and you will remember that many of us who were in government and myself personally we were continuously saying bad idea this is not a demand side shock to start with this is a supply side shock and pushing in all this uh fiscal and monetary uh sort of resources in in this massive burst is going to create bubbles so what has happened is first of all many you know many uh developing countries have gone under Pakistan or Egypt or Sri Lanka and so on but even developed


or Sri Lanka and so on but even developed countries I've ended up with massive debts and also this Rush of liquidity in then created all this dislocation in the uh in the in the Silicon Valley Bank as one example of it what happened they got a lot of money that they didn't know what to do with this so they put them I can't believe they did it very frankly they stuffed them into long uh bonds now anybody who has even done the first undergraduate class of any bond mats in their Finance you know in finance uh when they're doing their Finance course will know that uh any increases in interest rates will lead the bonds to crash and the longer the bonds the worse that crash is going to be I mean if they were forced to do something with that money maybe put it at very short-term bonds or whatever of short-term uh instruments of some sort so instead they put them in these 10-year treasuries and inevitably when interest rates went back though


and inevitably when interest rates went back though the prices of those bonds collapsed and there essentially they went bankrupt yeah now this is you know this is uh really toddler level uh mistake and I can't believe this happened but do remember that we were being advised to do this here in India and in some ways this is in a slightly different way is what we actually did do uh following the uh the financial crisis of 2007-8 uh we had gone out there and done this massive amount of lending and it had created bubbles um and it had led to all kinds of npas in our system which uh you know I was part of the team that went through it in 17 18 19 cleaning it up so what I'm trying to say here is that we were being advised to do things would would have inevitably led to exactly the things you are now seeing in the US and in Europe and other countries and the UK all of them now have extremely constrained fiscal uh systems they


them now have extremely constrained fiscal uh systems they don't know what to do because they've already committed so much resources massively uh over indebted inflation that is not in control they're trying to control it by tightening monetary policy but their banking system now cannot certainly take this tightening so yeah you know one of the important lessons here is never lose track of macroeconomic stability and you know in the in it's it and and the true test of economic character is being able to hold it together when you are under severe stress and I think we passed that test the true test why didn't the ratings agencies why did they give them a ratings and stuff like that the bank this is a common problem and this happened because of two reasons uh the first reason is often more uh uh sort of played up is that their incentive structure is to give everybody a very high rating because then you know the person who gets rated pays so you want to give them the best rating possible and so there's


to give them the best rating possible and so there's an incentive structure problem and there is a lot of debate about the agency problem incentive structures Etc but my view this is only one part of the problem the other part of the problem a more severe problem is that even if you sorted out all these Agency problems it wouldn't do anything is that frankly the future is unknowable so therefore what you need to do is to create buffers in the system in various ways and really look through their to their uh through their uh balance sheets and stress test them over and over again and that that is unfortunately not done very much so it's not the case just that the you know that the rating agencies are have an incentive problem many cases they genuinely don't know what's happening and so but that's their job that's their job but they don't do a good job of it and I have written extensively on why unfortunately we end up using taking these ratings way too seriously and hardwiring


using taking these ratings way too seriously and hardwiring it into a policy so now what happens in these situations is suddenly everybody's ratings go down so you have to force Capital onto it in the banking system that causes further tightening and so on and so forth so instead the ratings now become Pro cyclical so just when you need more capital is when you are having these ratings downgrades and even Banks which are otherwise fine will suddenly find that they have to tighten things up and when the whole system does this you actually cause the problem to worsen and it's in some ways negating what the FED is trying to do is putting liquidity in could it happen in India too well anything can happen but we have put in a lot a lot of trouble to try and create all those buffers over the years uh we you know we created the insolvency in bankruptcy court we we took the trouble of taking very large companies through that through the insolvency process we reinstated creditor rights


through the insolvency process we reinstated creditor rights uh much of this was painful in the year 1718 you will remember or even 19. you will remember there was a time you came to India that was the time you came to India and one of the first things I did was to look through uh the dirty dozen of these large corporations that have run up huge debts um and of course to do some by the way the term dirty doesn't uh was my application to the yeah to this I remember reading about it yeah yes so there were so the problem was of course that are uh back in 2015-16 our banks were stuffed with all this npas and the problem was that everybody said now oh my God what we're going to do with it uh we have this new insolvency in bankruptcy code and uh but you know it's never been tested so one of the conventional ideas of that time was okay there's a lot of this stuff that thousands of these npas you know tens of thousands of


of these npas you know tens of thousands of crores of uh uh bad loans Etc what are you going to do about it and the conventional wisdom was let's take a few relatively small cases through the system test it out and then we'll try the bigger cases now my view on this was look the complicatedness of a case is uncorrelated to its size okay okay you can have a very large bankruptcy but maybe a relatively simple case so rather than uh take a a small case through it why not take the biggest cases through it because we did some analysis in uh in the finance ministry and we discovered 50 cases accounted for two-thirds of the problem in fact one a dozen cases accounted for between 25 and 30 percent of the problem so resolve this first so yeah so my argument was look surely no matter how bad this insolvency and bankruptcy system is and how untested it is surely it could deal with 12 cases right so he then focused on just those 12 cases which as I


then focused on just those 12 cases which as I said we dubbed as the dirty dozen and these those were then then those cases did go through the um you know there was this one uh seminar this a reform agenda for 2047. yes in that you said that in the olden days of the Planning Commission the government was telling what the private sector should do was telling the private sector what to do but and I quote you said that's not how we think about policy making anymore and then you said that the role of the government is to provide leadership where necessary infrastructure were essential now is that the is that the goal that the Prime Minister has laid out till 2047 uh what is how are you guys working is this what it is minimum government uh yes so this is essentially a restating of the minimum government maximum governance point which is that it isn't the business of the government to run everything and unlike in the past you know wise men sitting in uh Planning Commission telling


know wise men sitting in uh Planning Commission telling everybody how they should live their lives the job of the government is to provide the playing ground but it is not to be for the most part a player it can provide the playing Ground it can create Regulators you can call them the umpires or referees it can prepare the ground it can maybe even sell the TV rights or whatever it is but actually playing of the match the government by and large in most cases does not have a role and that is a principle that we have by and large uh uh you know used uh uh in in the last 30 years of reforms that has basically been what we have done so since 1991 to now what has really been when we said reform and we said liberalization we meant roughly the same thing the reason is that the last 30 years of Reform was about removing the Indian state from the things it should not be doing and to a large extent this is now done I mean there are the odd things this


now done I mean there are the odd things this but you know the principle of privatization for example is not a matter of debate I mean it's now a matter of the Tactical Act of actually selling criticism comes with that right I mean yes everybody agrees privatization necessary Road sports we need right but then comes that accusation that when you're privatizing when you're asking the private sector to build your roads and boats there's crony capitalism which is happening no so therefore the point is you auction these things and do it and as uh transparent away as you have to and of course uh you know asking the state itself to do it does not remove uh rent seeking so that is you know rent seeking is a problem whether you do it by the state or Not by the state uh that's uh you know but there's the old card which used to say that when uh when panditji bit the navratnas there was no there was no I think you may want to read a little bit about


think you may want to read a little bit about something called the Mundra Scandal which happened in 55 which was exposed interestingly by his son-in-laws Gandhi and the then Finance Minister ttk had to resign so it is not the case that there wasn't corruption there was corruption right from the beginning in fact this is in an economic case there was corruption and uh even in defense deals the Jeep Scandal happened in 1948. so there was plenty of corruption about and it was much debated at that time but coming back to your point the last 30 years of reforms was about withdrawing the Indian state from the things it should not do the next 25 years still 2047. should be about getting the Indian state to do the things it should do and there are a whole bunch of things we need to do reforms in in order to do that first most important thing we need to do is legal system reform it's not a part of the executive but certainly Judiciary is an


of the executive but certainly Judiciary is an important part of the Indian state enforcement of contract delivery of justice is an important role that the Indian State needs to do but having 40 million cases stuck in the pipeline is not the way it's getting done so we have to this is a reform that has to happen of course you know there are in any kind of Reform there'll be all kinds of Dimensions about a tussle between the government and Judiciary and all these things will also happen but it's got to be done it's got to be done and the people of this country have got to demand it um yes they should also keep track of that the government does not you know politicize it and all that that too but you cannot now avoid it okay this reform of the Judiciary System whether it happens from inside happens because the government happens because of public pressure or some combination of the three or in par and you know preferably in part that all these three are in Partnership that


part that all these three are in Partnership that would be perfect but some sort of Reform of the judicial system has to happen Okay number one number two we also now need to do something about reforming the administrative system and the bureaucracy uh here too um you know every government around the world needs an administrative system a bureaucracy and so on to to basically run the country yeah the the general administration of the country so saying that over get rid of the bureaucracy eventually doesn't work every country has some sort of a bureaucracy the problem is that the Indian bureaucracy was created under Colonial rule and its purpose was not Service delivery but control right naturally there were small Elite ruling the country and now what happens is that we become independent this uh bureaucracy however becomes very useful as also the tool for a socialist system of economic planning and uh and running the government so we go from one control system to an even more control system where it needs


system to an even more control system where it needs licenses and permits and all kinds of other things so the bureaucracy actually rather become weaker actually becomes even more powerful now 1991 comes along and since 1991 the what has happened is that this there has been a roll back of the state so the rollback of the powers of bureaucracy but the reducing of the powers of the bureaucracies doesn't mean the bureaucracy has been reformed it's just given less Powers I mean you don't need to go to a gazetted officer anymore to get all kinds of things signed so he has been withdrawn or she has been withdrawn but they have not been reformed yeah so what you now need to do is to go through administrative reforms to get get the bureaucracy to think to be to be designed not for control but for delivery of service police reforms included police reforms are also part of this part of this okay generally getting the Machinery to be


of this okay generally getting the Machinery to be service oriented I.E today there's no point in complaining that the bureaucracy is not delivering but it's not designed to do this and no in no individual uh you know the major individual you know is Officer or IPS officer is particularly good and forward-looking Etc but that can't be the basis of this no yeah see we are all trying to improve the individuals not the system over the system does not does not uh so you know you you as an overhaul that absolutely you take how does a district get run it gets run by a district magistrate or District collector yeah average District registry is 33 years old 34 years old very Junior person has no experience in ever running anything Sunday's made the virtual king of that District yeah uh he or she is there for two years that absolutely has no chance of even finding out half the things that need to be done and inevitably he or she has made uh chairman of every third Committee in that district


uh chairman of every third Committee in that district and they probably don't even haven't had chance to even attend one meeting or chair one meeting of whatever that subject is so we need to for example make the district magistrator more senior role allow people to be there for longer periods of time and take this as this this is The Cutting Edge of administration right so there are many many things that need to be done okay so judicial reforms admin reforms that I mean I can keep going okay but these two reforms are absolutely critical getting the Indian state to deliver uh uh um the things it's supposed to do justice and then of course Administration which includes of course Municipal Administration other police policing and other things you know uh you're very active on social media uh sanchief so couple of questions which I have which came up you know which I've seen you respond also um this whole thing that you know these reforms will be carried out or these changes are being carried out because of electoral


these changes are being carried out because of electoral autocracy there's this term which is being banded I love a lot where it says that because the BJP has the numbers they are they are thrusting this down the throats of people with it there is no consensus in the country about these things so all democracy is supposed to be through majorities no um as long as a certain class had the majority in Parliament not necessarily majority of population voting for them and a majority in Parliament even if it was in Coalition they thought it was democracy when they get voted out for a variety of reasons this Elite now sadly finds that democracy isn't uh such a useful thing after all so and by the way it's not only in India many places in the world what's happening is that the idea of liberal democracy is that self-certified liberals mean right so whenever the self-certified Liberals don't win then it becomes some you have to create these oxymorons like electoral


you have to create these oxymorons like electoral autocracy I mean it's just completely absurd things and the idea itself is absurd so you know this is this is by the way is part of a much more systematic thing that we are seeing worldwide and I've written about this by the way I've written working papers articles about this how we are seeing systematically uh a narrative built against India whether it's by V Dem or eiu or Freedom House all of them by the way funded by nebulous private Charities such as the Roses open Society Etc and they have the same narrative filtering through systematically so this is also part of a a a global power game in which we are you know we have no choice but to participate but we have to be out there and keep questioning all these um Power we have to participate like why why because you see we cannot ignore these things so let me explain this many of these uh indices like you know the ones that I just mentioned these


like you know the ones that I just mentioned these institutions publish a whole bunch of things you know index on global Freedom index on Democracy academic freedom and so on and uh you will see India is always rated as low as possible so you know you have 140 countries really annoying yeah 140 countries ranked on Democracy India's 108 yeah yeah or we are rated in academic freedom below Afghanistan and Pakistan I mean just imagine so there's obviously not even a pretense of being objective about this whole matter so I began writing about this uh uh for some some time now and the response is also quite funny uh the V Dems director basically comes and doesn't doesn't respond to any of my criticisms instead says no no our things must be right because we use high maths and a supercomputer to work this out so why do you need a supercomputer all you did was took opinions of 25 people that's it I mean a survey of 25 people to decide on how the world should be ranked you've


decide on how the world should be ranked you've got to be kidding me so this is the level of operations that is happening but all this while we never call them out and a lot of people's viewers oh you know ignore them you can't ignore them I'll tell you why because you see many of these things yet slightly hardwired into real life things so for example or these indices by V Dam eiu Freedom House many others they eventually end up in something called World Banks World governance indicators now this in turn is 20 of the weightage at many of our Sovereign ratings and Sovereign ratings have an impact on on the trade advice on all kinds of things this is therefore a kind of power that is in a secondary way managing narratives is is used by these nebulous funders to essentially manage the world let's say and this is by the way being extended so don't please take this seriously there's something called ESG Norms you will see this everywhere from now on


Norms you will see this everywhere from now on it's called environment social and governance uh norms and there is a very strong Lobby worldwide trying to in in put these norms and indicators and indices into investment decisions trade decisions and so they will be used against us why um well because it serves various purposes uh in terms of you see India is a rising power and we don't seem to be listening to um you know Western narratives or at least or the Deep States in many of these countries and so many of the deep State and corporate and uh geostrategic interests um will want to trip us uh on on and we should expect this to happen but I'm just telling you that do not be blind to what is a very well oiled machinery and this is not just happening in these perception indices by the way have you talked about perception and disease but I will be in the next few days also publishing a working paper and how this happens even and hard data


paper and how this happens even and hard data so when you see the U.N population division uh calculating India's uh say um expected uh uh uh you know expected uh life uh um life expectancy life expectancy at Birth um or uh ILO is calculating uh female labor participation or who is creating a global standard for stunting and then it gets into all these Global hunger index and all of this yeah and of course freedoms no freedoms and all that perception so all those perception ones there is there's a lot of debate there's also Professor babonus who's also been raising this I've been raising it for years so there's at least some uh some understanding some pushback that these these opinion based stuff is dodgy okay but now but the hard data ones are also dodgy okay and I'm as I said I'm going to publish a paper very very shortly I've been writing about it in newspapers and otherwise but I'm publishing a working paper very shortly where I will show you even this


paper very shortly where I will show you even this hard data is systematically tinted and one of the sad facts is that our own data agencies are uh are participating in it by not applying their minds to many of these Global um sort of standards and so on there's no pushback from our own data agency so one of the things I'm trying to do is to get there be a much greater uh Consciousness in the government and in non-government data agencies in India that when you apply Global standards sometimes they are good sometimes they are not so good sometimes they're appropriate so it's not always that inappropriate but we seem to all there seems to be something very odd that of the many many of these indices which I went through you never find there being an error on the upside the error is always to the downside okay now how can that be possible yeah yeah so I think there has to be some investigation into the matter now some part of it may be uh simply you know not some


of it may be uh simply you know not some Grand conspiracy just that that that sectoral interest in that sector wants to exaggerate how big that problem is in that sector because they then get grants vote from the government or private sector or International grants by exaggerating the problem so that is one part of the problem certainly because I found that in many of these cases the people in that sector are aware of this but what but they don't seem to be there doesn't seem to be any great interest in correcting the error so you know uh Sanjeev I was uh talking about you know the many hats you wear now you came back to India in 2017 and there were many like you who you know came in 2014 and 2017 to be part of uh Mr modi's agenda or the bjp's agenda for India in the uh next decade or whatever they had their plans it reminded me a lot about when Rajiv Gandhi came to power he invited a whole bunch of young people


power he invited a whole bunch of young people saying come and be part of the India story Pakistani say that that happened when Benazir Bhutto came to power she also got a whole you know all these educated Elites of pakistanis who were working in England who were working in uh in the U.S saying come be part of the Pakistan story um did that inspire you in some way when um Mr Modi came to power that yeah you want to be here you want to be in India what was it that made you leave a relatively cushy job and come to India so let me say that India has a longest tradition of this by the way so they have at least in the space of economists so let me just stick to that part you saw for example Manmohan Singh is also part of that yes phenomena then you had a generation that happened around about the liberalization time a little bit before when you had monkeys and others who came so there was also that and


and others who came so there was also that and then later on you had briefly raghuram Rajan for example back but yeah so there were there has been uh history at least in the field of Economics of uh Indians living outside of India or leaving their jobs coming back and and carrying on here and being quite successful I mean one month and prime minister but some of them didn't stay and some of them went back like arvind subramaniam um Raghu went back as well so there's a you know mixed bag but the idea of people coming and participating in the India story uh is uh is a is a well-established one well before me uh in my personal case of course uh you know I've been very much uh aligned to a particular um way of thinking about the um India its economy and so on and of course the term right wing is bandied about and and I understand that it doesn't always exactly translate into the Indian context but for the for the lack of conservatives maybe maybe


for the for the lack of conservatives maybe maybe or nationalist or whatever you may want to call it anyway you know what I mean yeah so there is a group of thoughts which I subscribe to which aligns with uh certainly what Prime Minister Modi is trying to do and so I had actually met him even before he became prime minister when he was in Gujarat and of course when he he comes to power um I was uh you know I was very very happy and then at some point in time uh you know I I have the I had the opportunity of joining this uh uh Finance Minister jaitley's team and then I served under him as principal economic advisor then Finance Minister nirmala Rahman after him and then a year ago I then shifted to become Prime Minister modi's economic member of his Economic Council so that's been my journey I have to say it's been absolutely fabulous um I don't know what the others think about it maybe they have to put up with


think about it maybe they have to put up with somewhat idiosyncratic character but uh um I have had a great time you know I always like to know about the author not just about the book what leads you to write about Indian history you're an economist you you have a day job which is so exhausting because you're working on a you know on transforming the Indian economy um what is it that you do that inspires you what is it that you do to relax to give you ideas what what makes you what you are so I am believer in the what is in in basketball is called the full court press so that play the whole thing you know you know so I don't believe I don't have any silos on my head um you're not center right center left Center no that's an ideological Point silos in basketball yeah no that's a no no I play the whole thing so okay you you play forward back continuously it's a it maybe people find it more exhausting uh but in


maybe people find it more exhausting uh but in my head there are no silos there is no Silo between history geography economics Urban Design or any other space in life because these are actually pedagogical separations yeah monuments also so many times I've seen you've I mean you've taken pictures in your book it's yeah I've even published reports on uh yeah what we should do with management and so on so uh in my head there is no separation between these two in fact in real life there isn't any separation between these two um and so I think the fact that these subjects are taught separately uh that is just uh you know convenience of the academic system the real world does not uh function in silos at all and I don't see why they we should in real in the real world have these silos if if you have the processing power to deal with different things and you find them interesting do it but the perception about uh about uh the right wing if I mean I'm using that term I


right wing if I mean I'm using that term I know nobody likes it or the right and left but the perception about the right wing is you look they're not happy people they don't know how to relax they don't know so they they're you know very sanskari they will eat only vegetarian food they will not they're not urbanists you're an urbanist absolutely right so the entire idea you know that you are breaking that stereotypes uh well as far as um vegetarian food is concerned let me say that I am on record to say that uh I am a great lover of crustaceans okay as is well known but that's again stereotype no Bengali okay yeah so you know people uh so I I think people have these stereotypes so there's no particular reason to have them um you know I have also written books like life over two beers and you know what do I relax cricket cricket no not Cricket not Cricket no I you know I cannot understand how people watch test Cricket


know I cannot understand how people watch test Cricket this is really like watching paint dry if you want if you want to say that absolutely if you want to around on The Lawns for five days choose croquet okay we've got the most boring thing ever yeah the same thing as test Cricket if you want to make it interesting get rid of the pads and the helmets maybe I'll watch it otherwise please flat sport you want to watch yeah so I like martial arts I I am a black belt in Taekwondo I you know I like watching a mixed martial arts boxing uh you trained in martial arts yeah I'm a black belt in Taekwondo now that's something that your ancestors would love right Shooters and then now you have yeah so yes absolutely both both and Sachin sanyal were very much uh you know so very much so much for punjabis who think that bengalis are more into art and culture and have nothing to do with uh with martial arts and all and here you are


uh with martial arts and all and here you are so it's it's The Stereotype right so Bengali at least you know the stereotype bengalis have a punjabis they're not into culture but agriculture agriculture but that's not true a Punjabi music and poetry has a very long and Rich history yeah so the same thing is true of Bengal you know 100 years ago interestingly bengalis were known for being entrepreneurs today nobody thinks of that as being the case yeah my own family as I told you my mother's family were entrepreneur so so there is a there are there you know you travel a lot I've seen in your book that you you weren't just um you didn't just go uh into a library and do your research you went to all those places and you want to partake in the culture of the place like absolutely you've gone and you've you've tasted Cuisine uh somebody takes you to a restaurant in a place which you imbibe yes so it's not so much clear


you imbibe yes so it's not so much clear in this book but my earlier is even more so that I go to those places and I talk about what happened but even here I go to Raj bihari the bosses restaurant in in uh Tokyo and tasted the his recipe for example of chicken curry so my view here is that you need to be able to engage in it now there is also a personal angle to this I actually don't like writing where people don't realize this no after so many books no I actually dislike writing I actually like researching them I thoroughly enjoy researching all these books you go to places you do cool stuff yeah so I enjoyed that part of the thing and then humanize those people so much you know there it's not dry characters in your business yes and then you talk like you said about the curry yeah so I go and eat because by the way earned is living running a restaurant so so you know and his and his and his chicken curry is


and his and his and his chicken curry is still uh his recipe is still being used in Tokyo so people interest you right it's not just it's not just people try interesting yeah people interest me but I think what interests me is actually the act of researching all of this it because I said I don't have too many silos in my head so this is part of that I you know I like to immerse myself in the world in general so this is part of that immersion process so when I'm researching it it makes no sense going and spending all your time in the library uh and by the way if you just do that you'd actually miss many many important things like for example it may say in the in the Memoirs let's say that I went into and so place and went down this Lane and turned left now somebody who just read it in in a book will not understand that turning left is important because if you go there you'll see that if we turn right something totally different would


see that if we turn right something totally different would have happened yeah but there is no way you would be able to tell that if you just read it so you have to go to that place immerse yourself into it and as I said it's part of what I do anyway as a you know so I you know I went to and and some of it I enjoy myself doing like the cellular jail thing uh till you went and saw those rooms yes that just to say that they were tortured yeah you can't tell you have to go there these are tiny rooms smaller than this room yeah uh cold brick walls and you know with just a door a barred uh door in front of you where by the way it's been designed in such a way that the prison guards can continuously watch you whereas you can't talk to anybody on either side so it has been designed for a particular kind of mental control and you know you can read all of you want about it unless you


can read all of you want about it unless you don't it you feel suffocated when you go not just that you don't also realize that you know a few weeks later uh Dyer was actually given a sarupa in uh in the Golden Temple now that is bad in itself but when you go there you realize that the jallianwala bag and the golden temple are 300 meters apart yeah you're literally going to the same location and you are being honored for carrying out genocide so I think it's very very important to go to the place otherwise that is again A Part which was the Band-Aid I keep coming back to that the collaborators and the Band-Aid that nobody talks about how he was given a sarupa about how they were collaborators then absolutely they are collaborators then and they are collaborators now I'm coming back to the book even though yeah but you can see that happening even in today so for example even this uh suspicious narrative that is continuously bandied


uh suspicious narrative that is continuously bandied about about India you know electoral autocracy and all of this yeah uh or for example the BBC uh program that was recently done very controversial one what is interestingly that much of this is actually done by people of Indian ethnic origin so this collaborator class is still there interestingly many of these people are direct descendants of those collaborators but point is that this class has always existed and we can't deny that you know few hundred thousand uh Brits ran a country of hundreds of millions of people it was only possible because of collaboration but today there's no monetary benefit that they would get no by doing that well first of all there is monetary benefit I mean after all uh you wouldn't need a billionaires to be funding this stuff otherwise would you um and then there are intelligence agencies or friendly countries some of them in our neighborhood there are corporate interests um and so on so I think you have I mean you know the


so I think you have I mean you know the entire episode relating to vaccines for example just happened three years ago um clearly driven by all kinds of corporate interests yes and it comes out later and then you say that they weren't exactly Cassandra's who were warning us about this uh the other thing that which I wanted to ask you you know which when you would we were talking with the book was about when you had written about how Marxist literature was kept in those uh jails and it was tell me about the influence of Marxism on the revolutionaries I'm coming back to the book though I was done with the book but I'm going to come back to it and the other thing was about the influence of Hinduism also because many people think that the revolutionaries were atheists and agnostic not at all not at all so not at all so first of all um a very large part of the of the Revolutionary movement is directly derived from not just Hinduism but a


directly derived from not just Hinduism but a specific branch of it the shaktism many of them were very strong shaktas I.E worshipers or bhavani or Durga or Kali and so on many of the initiations into the Revolutionary movement happened with a you know a text in Gita or Veda or something in one hand a sword or a revolver in the other hand and oath was taken to Durga or bhavani or Kali so so Shakti Islam is a very important part of this when you listen to Vande mataram the first two stanzas are relatively secular about the motherland but the next three are clearly derived from shakta image imagery so the uh the the part of Vande mataram which not many people recite yes but you should you should listen to it in fact for this book I actually created for the the third and fourth stanzas I I got my younger son to create a video for it by the way yeah you can see it on online so good


way yeah you can see it on online so good [Music] [Music] [Music] please [Music] I'm always [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] to remember this uh because this is the section that was sung by the revolutionaries to The Gallows and so Hinduism and more gen more specifically shaktism was a very major part of the ideological driving force of all of this and that comes in that anandmat movie absolutely and by the way they are also being inspired by for example shivaji who himself is inspired by bhavani so there is this very strong lineage of ideas and so on now somewhere in the 1920s interest arises in Marxism because remember till the point of the Russian Revolution nobody really has heard of Marxism in India it's really in the late 20s this something pops up um but in in the the revolution is living outside India are the first to find out about it many of them by the way have become refugees in Soviet Union because they


have become refugees in Soviet Union because they have nowhere to run away so they end up in Tashkent and one of them MN Roy actually found these Communist Party of India and tashkin in the early 1920s but in India nobody knows much about this till the very late 1920s and one of the very first people to read about uh the Marxism in India is of course bhagat Singh but it is very important to remember that bhagat Singh Is Not the founder of the communist movement in India he's in fact himself a part of a explicitly nationalist movement uh he's hanged do remember for uh avenging the death of Lala lajpatra who would today be called Hindu nationalist his movement the Hindustan Republican Association and the Revolutionary movement from which he derives himself is led by somebody called sanyal who totally despises is Marxism and he writes that repeatedly in his book so he's a completely anti-marxist so in his uh tract which


completely anti-marxist so in his uh tract which he lit wrote while in jail called why I'm an atheist bhagat Singh himself says that you know I am the only person in this system leftover who is who is kind of believes in Marxism and everybody else is uh is a nationalist and uh and so on so that is the uh uh that is how things were till the 1930s now what happens is that the communist movement begins to gather Pace in the 1930s uh there are many reasons for this some of it is Russian support but interestingly uh also reason was that the British actually supported the spread of marxist literature in Indian jails to the revolutionaries uh to in order to divide them from the nationalists so many revolutionaries went into jail as nationalists and came out as marxists and of course uh by the 1930s who controls the Communist party it's British communists and to some extent the Russian Communists there's some conflict between the two but British


there's some conflict between the two but British Communists double agents like uh rajini Palma it was half Indian half Swedish and many others and of course it turns out to be a great investment because of course the the Marxist uh the former revolutionaries now marxists uh communist side with the British during the second world war and so you have the Communist Party leaders calling um netaji as you know Running Dog of Tojo and you know criticizing him and so on so that is how it happens now what happens unfortunately is that Emin Roy the original founder of the CPI drifts off from the party and of course after Independence there is another problem that you know they had said all these bad things about people like netaji and they didn't really participate in the freedom so they adopt bhagat Singh as a sort of see our guy had also participated in in the freedom struggle but in fact bhagat Singh had nothing to do with the Communist Party of India um so


to do with the Communist Party of India um so they are retrospectively bringing him back and that is why you have this strange situation three people are hanged on the same day for the same crime bhagat Singh you only hear about bhagat Singh why because he has been resurrected by the marxists because he's the only person they could sort of say Aussie a Marxist guy also did something and so he then becomes like a founding father of marxist movement and deaf and also freedom fighter and is adopted and built out in subsequent decades um of course bhagat Singh is a remarkable person but he is subsequent not an icon of Marxism is what you're saying yeah he's not quite an icon of Marxism he was not a part of the Marxist movement he was part of a nationalist movement as I said he he ultimately gets hanged for avenging the death of a Hindu nationalist yeah the other two were hanging with him would today also be called


two were hanging with him would today also be called Hindu nationalists so uh you know it's rather be rather difficult we're going to go into a Borough now about where Hindu nationalism and that's a whole different thing yes so anyway um for all of you do read this it's a very easy read doesn't take much time but very interestingly told story about so many Heroes that we should have known about thank you Sanji for being part of this podcast thank you so much for having me here thank you for watching or listening into this podcast do like or subscribe on whichever Channel you have seen this or heard this Namaste click here to watch the previous episodes [Music] foreign [Music]


we have now learned to manage our differences now us has understood that there are compulsions in India related to the relationship with Russia in terms of what the United States can share with India if it also has sophisticated Russian technology this is a question for India the United States wants to go as far in the relationship as we can the U.S is almost a comprehensive partner it's the largest trading partner it gives us military equipment we have nearly 5 million Indians in the United States so it's it's a very different relationship prior to the war the Russia Ukraine war the US was the second largest supplier of natural gas India today the relationship is in a much more robust place the Indian leaders have said repeatedly now that don't they don't see the quad as against anyone but as a positive for something it's a false narrative that the Chinese are trying to create that it's a military Alliance that has been explicitly denied I think what Hindu Pacific is done is really to put India


Hindu Pacific is done is really to put India back into the larger picture it was the nature of the political controversy that India was beginning to engage the U.S seriously Imran Khan had gone so far in his anti-americanism that the U.S sees an opportunity uh in engaging some of the other actors you know in Pakistan's GDP today is less than maharashas and one Indian state Namaste Jain welcome to another edition of ani podcast with Smitha prakash this special edition is being recorded at the rice Cena dialogues held in New Delhi in 2023. I've recorded two sessions on India U.S relations the challenges that lie ahead the one here is in dry Cena dialogue with former Diplomat Arun Singh India's ambassador to the United States from 2015 to 2016 and Ambassador can adjuster who needs no introduction to Indians he's been U.S ambassador to India from 2017 to 2020 and has served on the National Security Council and National Economic Council after this interview we'll run


and National Economic Council after this interview we'll run a second recording which I recorded in January 2023 with dhruva jayashankar and C Raja Mohan who have also closely observed the complexities of the india-us relationship but first with Ambassador Singh and Ambassador juster thank you gentlemen for agreeing to do this podcast I'd like to begin with you Ambassador Singh just this week the American Top Diplomat for the region uh Donald Lou he expressed The View that U.S was aware that India wasn't going to end relations with Russia uh I'm coaching him he said I don't think they're going to end those relations anytime soon but we're talking to them about the role they can play in this conflict to what do you attribute this non-application of pressure on India with regard to Russia I think two things have happened recently which capture where the relationship is today on 31st January this year the Indian and U.S national security advisors launched a new initiative on critical and emerging Technologies


a new initiative on critical and emerging Technologies artificial intelligence Quantum cyber 6G biotech commercialization of space the fact that the two countries have decided to partner in this kind of technology is a reflection of the trust and confidence that they have in the relationship so that's one dimension and the second dimension is what you refer to as Donald Lou's comments about we have now learned to manage our differences which is a new stage in the relationship earlier when we had differences it did brought about some disruption now us has understood that there are compulsions in India related to the relationship with Russia it's a legacy relationship even now we are 60 percent of higher defense inventories of Russian origin so they understand that when India wants to maintain the Strategic autonomy of its decision making it cannot give up on relationships that are in its national interests so the way they've decided to play it is show understanding for India's concerns and interests and the U.S national security advisor has said for example that with India


national security advisor has said for example that with India now we are playing the long game and the Secretary of State Tony blinken that we understand India's compulsions on Russia so I think given the depth of the india-us relationship they have assessed that there is no point for them in trying to put any pressure on India related to his relationship with Russia because that's an area where India cannot compromise especially when India says that takes decisions in its own interests right Ambassador Justin would you like to take on from that uh where you've been uh Ambassador here in in New Delhi you've been in India Watcher a friend of India here when do you think this maturity in relationship came about what was that watershed moment or is it a it's a you know a process I think it's been a process over the last 22 years uh it began uh really with the President Clinton's trip to India at the end of his term in 2000 but I believe President Bush really had the concept of transforming the relationship uh overall


really had the concept of transforming the relationship uh overall and that the world's largest and the world's oldest democracy should have a better relationship and it steadily changed there have been uh key points along the way we first began with a high technology cooperation group that then led to a next steps in strategic partnership that laid the foundation for the Civil nuclear deal which really was transformational and again the relationship sometimes as my colleague said has had difficulties or challenges on a day-to-day basis but when you step back and look at the Arc of the last 22 years it's extraordinary how much we have accomplished but we'll continue to face challenges going forward and just to comment on the situation with Russia the United States understands the history and the complexity of India's relationship with Russia and the fact that it has a lot of its military hardware from it and we very much want to move forward further in terms of our high technology relationship but I think it would be wrong to assume that at some point


it would be wrong to assume that at some point the two May Clash because today in the military world it's not just a question of equipment it's a question of systems and networks and military items talk to each other through their software and there will be technological limitations in my view and from my understanding from people in the defense community in terms of what the United States can share with India if it also has sophisticated Russian technology in its system or network as well this is a question for India the United States wants to go as far in the relationship as we can but there may be some inherent limitations depending on India's own choices in terms of how it wants to array its various military items because at some point we cannot have the most sensitive U.S technology together with the sensitive Russian technology for fear at least at this point that it would be compromised whether there are technological fixes to that or whether there will have to be policy adjustments that remains to be seen down the road


adjustments that remains to be seen down the road I'll stay on the topic of Russia you heard the foreign minister Russian foreign minister that I seen a dialogue he said that Western nations are blackmailing countries uh in in the Asian region and pressurizing countries dividing them even um and old relationships are unable to withstand the kind of pressure that uh that America is putting uh them through do you agree with that I listen to the Russian foreign minister and I was waiting to hear something cogent and compelling and I thought it was somewhat uh disappointing and even the audience laughed at times at some of the way he pieced together uh his history just as we said the United States isn't pressuring India or other countries that is for their choices to what to do vis-a-vis uh the war in Ukraine uh we think that it is a uh real violation of international law and a series of atrocities in terms of what has occurred we'd like to see uh Russians stop their behavior and we


like to see uh Russians stop their behavior and we like other countries to join us with that but those every country has chosen its own path and we accept that and we're not twisting anyone's arm or forcing them that's a interpretation that the Russian foreign minister has given but I don't think it's in accord with reality investors saying in in this post-covered world that we are in uh international relations are sharply divided over the Russia Ukraine conflict and over you know the conflict in say the South China Sea um we saw that there was really no Meeting of Minds at the G20 what about the quad G20 and quad what are your what is your view on these two so if you looked at the comments that the Indian external affairs minister made after the meeting of the G20 his suggestion was that there was a broad meeting of mind and there was an outcome document it was essentially on two paragraphs related to Russia and Ukraine where as he said two of the delegations couldn't agree


as he said two of the delegations couldn't agree with the broader formulation that was there picking up the Bali declaration at the end of the year so certainly related to what's happening in Russia related to some of the unilateral actions that China has taken in South China see East China Sea along the the line of control with India there are challenges that countries are facing and India's effort I think through the G20 process this year would be to try and focus on areas where there is Convergence try and focus also on the financial and economic issues issues that are concerned to the developing countries India it can be in a meeting of countries of the South and is talking about the voice of the South because those are some of the concerns that need to be addressed now in that framework I think the quad census revitalization in 2017 has an important role to play in terms of as it has projected maintaining a rule space to order maintaining freedom of navigation sovereignty territorial Integrity of


freedom of navigation sovereignty territorial Integrity of countries and they're also working together to show to the countries in their region in asean the Pacific island countries that through their work the quad is bringing something positive on the table to the benefit of the countries in the region and again you'd have seen comments from Indian leaders that they see the quad as a force for Global code and that's how they're approaching right ambassading like uh we heard the four uh saying that it's for Goodwill and all but China insists that this is being militarized that quad is a military tool it's it's a military grouping what do you have to say to that look China is trying to construct a narrative which it feels will serve its interest and try and undermine the growing sort of influence the quad countries uh bringing to the table and if you saw comments even made at this conference by all the court participants and leaders it's anything but a military alerts and they've said repeatedly that the security aspect


alerts and they've said repeatedly that the security aspect the military aspect is not there in the grouping in terms of the various conversations that having when they talk about issues related to climate change new and emerging Technologies uh infrastructure connectivity digital Tech Technologies so they are not discussing security but I think China's as you've seen is trying to bring about its unilateral influence on the countries in the region and it feels that the countries of the Quad if they're able to work together will give to countries in asean in the Pacific island options other than China so from their perspective they don't want to that and so they want to construct a narrative to try and undermine this effort but but that's their self-serving purpose and everybody else has to see it for what it is and if I could just expand on the excellent comments of uh my colleague uh I was very impressed yesterday at the uh panel with the quad ministers at how comfortable and easy they were I was involved in the


and easy they were I was involved in the revitalization of the Quad first at the working level in 2017 and then at the ministerial level in 2019 and then as was stated the uh it's been raised in 2021 to the leadership level and the increasing Comfort among the parties in discussing issues they're called The Beatles right yes exactly and and the expanding agenda and uh as Arun said it's really meant to be an open architecture inviting anyone else to participate in positive common uh Goods for the region in a whole host of areas as we said in Freedom of navigation over flight cyber for security vaccine distribution resilient Supply chains and it's a false narrative that the Chinese are trying to create that it's a military Alliance that has been explicitly denied but it is an alternative vision of the architecture for the region in which there's not predatory financing there's not trying to twist the arms of other countries in terms of what to do but to offer them opportunities for their


to do but to offer them opportunities for their benefit overall so I was very impressed with the quad regrettably the G20 has a it is a consensus organization so if you have two states that are out of consensus you can't get a document that has everyone on board but they as was said there were really two paragraphs only that were not agreed upon but the contrast with the quad was quite striking and how how positive that was oh if I could just add one sentence here that the Indian leaders have said repeatedly now that don't they don't see the quad as again against anyone but as a positive for something and the rules based on the freedom of navigation and things are happening right uh Ambassador Singh like Ambassador juster um you have served like he has served in India you've served in the U.S several tenures um in the last three to four years one has noticed that the line between National Security and trade it's kind of got blurred um and uh India's external affairs


of got blurred um and uh India's external affairs minister also said that Global South cannot calibrate its foreign policy without looking at things like energy fertilizer so everything gets uh you know these two things have merged now when it comes to and being seasoned diplomats I'd like both of you to give your point of view on this so from my perspective what is happening now is a turn away from the attempt that was made since 1990. after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the unipolar phase and Global relations there was an effort at globalization of trade and production and therefore uh go for efficiency in production involve all countries in the world and that was the effort as part of the effort in the U.S the projection was that you must integrate China more and more into the international mainstream because that would lead to political and economic liberalization in China uh but as a result of that over time they found that China has become more protectionist China is exploiting the rules of the


more protectionist China is exploiting the rules of the WTO to subsidize its industry has predatory trade and economic policies and then covet further exacerbated that impact when there was a disruption in supply chain so with the impact of these two phenomenon I think there has been a sense and you hear that move from the U.S which was the original articulator of globalization that first that you needed to do onshoring of production now they've moved away from that they are talking of French Shoring of production and therefore with that security becomes an important element in the supply chains that are being constructed and again from India's perspective with China we have a very difficult relationship and we have a huge trade deficit with China so looking at our own security uh French Shoring of production and Supply chains will probably become a positive element in in terms of how India looks at straight and economic relations right could I get to you sure there have been a number of developments that have occurred over the last few years that have


that have occurred over the last few years that have affected the economic agenda first countries have realized that trade has had positive and negative elements to it and there have been some displacements of local working forces without properly integrating them back into the economy and so people want to be a little more careful about trade and how open and liberal it is secondly with covid-19 there was a realization that some of our critical dependencies are on countries that we can't necessarily trust and so while it's important to have Supply chains that need to be with trusted partners and be resilient and strong and then third some of the points that a room is just making in terms of China have led folks to feel that we need to decouple at least in sensitive areas from China I think we have to make sure though that we don't over correct the other way and look totally at self-sufficiency or really narrowing some of the trade issues because trade is important not just for its economic element but as a strategic matter and


for its economic element but as a strategic matter and so I'm sensitive to the fact that we have to be sensitive to local populations and displacement but we also have to see that China has a robust regional trade strategy it's joined the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement is Supply to join the comprehensive and Progressive agreement on trans-pacific partnership it has the belt and Road initiative it has robust bilateral relations and that for them is the major arena of influence in the region and the United States and India are not in the regional agreements we don't even ourselves despite the fact that our trade levels keep increasing have a trade agreement between us and we have to in my opinion think more uh carefully about the broader trade relationship and our regional strategy for strategic reasons as much as anything so that we are not left out of shaping the rules and the norms for issues such as the digital economy and other important matters going forward right uh just uh in conclusion um Ambassador


forward right uh just uh in conclusion um Ambassador saying do you think that you know this the rice Cena dialogue and hosting and the quad and G2 the G20 foreign ministers do you think that this was a grand test for Indian foreign policy to host the Russians the Americans and the Chinese on one platform no I don't think it's a grand test as such I think it's a good Confluence of various events that are taking place and it's uh good to have them together at the same place where they can have some interactions of course the U.S Secretary of State as you know met the Chinese foreign minister in Munich and had an interaction with the Russian foreign minister in India so those are useful but they would certainly have come to attend the G20 meeting as they did at Bali and the Chinese and Russian foreign ministers will come back here despite our difficulties with China we'll come back here for the Shanghai cooperation related meetings that will happen later the year so I would say


that will happen later the year so I would say these are useful opportunities to build on right so would you like to add to that I would just add that it is a uh fortuitous Confluence of events that does help showcase India's own role in international Affairs and the capabilities of the Prime Minister and the minister of external Affairs and working with a variety of Partners and pulling all of these events off very successfully this week and what I think everyone agrees has been a a positive series of meetings thank you Ambassador Justin thank you Ambassador Singh thank you for speaking with us on indo-us relations thank you thank you the second session of this podcast on India U.S relations Is with dhruva Jay Shankar and C Raja Mohan this episode was shot in January 2023. today my guests will unravel the naughty issues plaguing the india-us relationship both are foreign policy experts dhruva Jay Shankar is executive director of The Observer Research Foundation America his earlier stints include being a


Research Foundation America his earlier stints include being a fellow at the Brookings Institute in India and Washington DC and the German Marshall Fund in Washington DC with several stints in universities in Singapore and the U.S dhruva has written extensively on Indian foreign policy with special emphasis on indo-us relations see Raja Mohan is a senior fellow with the Asia Society policy Institute in New Delhi earlier he was the director of Institute of South Asian studies National University of Singapore and currently a visiting research Professor there Raja Mohan was also the founding director of Carnegie India and has served on the National Security Advisory board thank you gentlemen for coming to Ani podcast with Smitha prakash it's always good to have friends on the podcast where I can chat without having egos hurt and without worrying about sensitivities I've had you over I've met you I've worked with you several times and Raja is the one you know dhruva who when we we went to cover the one to


who when we we went to cover the one to three nuclear deal and for the life of me I couldn't understand whether it's going to happen or not happen if we were waiting in the room and I said this isn't working I don't think it's working I'm going to go with the story because my deadline was coming and Raja was like wait India us you never know it just might and thank God I didn't file my story or thank Raja I didn't find my story so I'm going to begin with you in the pecking order simply because raja's seen India U.S relations uh you know he has the benefit of having seen it over a longer period of time uh early mover Advantage I'm going to ask you uh you've had Decades of experience on seeing India U.S relations uh reporting on it uh as a reporter and then analyzing it too at what point do you see uh the relationship now with India hosting the G20 and uh the future ahead I think some of your


and uh the future ahead I think some of your younger listeners might not know how difficult the relationship was just 30 years ago correct and today it's really us is almost comprehensive partner it's the largest trading partner it gives us military equipment we have nearly 5 million Indians in the United States so it's it's a very different relationship today but when we were covering say 30 years ago yeah it was they would be intense recromination at the drop of a hat suspicion suspicion distrust so I think you had the differences over Kashmir differences so Pakistan differences over the nuclear issue so it was a very testy touchy relationship if you go back to the 1990s so I think with the nuclear tests in 1998 and then the Civil nuclear deal into 2005 and the bush administration's decision to what we call dehyphenate separate India and Pakistan and step back from Kashmir activism together I think this series of developments between 1998 to 2005 a laid the basis for a very very


2005 a laid the basis for a very very different relationship and I think since then despite all the pessimism about the relationship it has grown from strength to strength as I said today the trade is about 160 billion dollars and it's really uh and the and the links say between Bangalore and Silicon Valley are the businesses between Bombay and New York I mean it's really an amazing partnership today you know but the the past and the present to see it from that prism uh do you also see the the probably the nuclear deal uh as that that watershed moment of before and after I think there are a few different watershed moments in hindsight um you know I think the nuclear tests were actually a big uh it drew American attention to India in a way that it hadn't in a sustained manner previously and you had the jaswan Singh stroked Albert uh uh dialogue that uh amongst others covered very intensely and and reported and you know again it was in some ways 1998 was the


know again it was in some ways 1998 was the low point but it also led to a realization on both sides about how to prepare the relationship um again 2005 was a 2005 to eight was was a major moment as well for the first time in in the US was signaling to India that it wanted to not just make amends but actually actively move India into a category you know otherwise India was being treated like a North Korea in some ways on the nuclear issue uh to suddenly from a pariah to to a partner and so that period I think was very intense we had a very intense debate I think again I find sometimes I I remember it still because I was early in my career at that time but I find young people younger than me sometimes don't remember how intense it was we had a very strong debate in India uh in those years about what is the future of the relationship with you guys what is what does it mean for India's place in the world can we India rise without


India's place in the world can we India rise without a partnership with the US so um so I think that that was a formative period in some ways but I think we're now at a very different Plateau you know different stage completely um again uh it's not that there aren't differences we have differences over Russia on trade issues uh sometimes on digital issues immigration sometimes Pakistan rears its head still but you know on all of those issues I think they're much better managed today the number the the level of contact and dialogue between the two governments between the two people's integration between the two economies is just at a qualitatively different level uh and you know I I I'm based in Washington now but every few weeks there's a senior official from India coming in we just had the the Commerce Minister there we will have National Security advisors who knew and and two ways the the secretary's cabinet secretary is coming here uh to India so I think it's a qualitatively very different relationship I think uh


it's a qualitatively very different relationship I think uh the visits used to be there there every time I mean there were so many people going from India but the level of uh you know that they would meet that seems to have changed isn't it that the officials they would meet in the establishment in the U.S I think that's changed I mean again I I don't know all the meetings you know prior to the 90s uh you know now a lot of it is available in the archives you can see what was discussed in some of those meetings some of it I think is is certainly the seniority uh you see and again we take it for granted but you know I hear sometimes in Washington complaints from other countries uh officials from other countries saying oh we don't get face time with senior officials in the US government how come India get so much face time so again I think we now take it for granted that that uh that is the case but that does seem to be uh


is the case but that does seem to be uh true you know most Indian officials meet with their counterparts in terms of protocol uh sometimes higher than that uh you know that I think just a late last year the foreign secretary came and you know the secretary of state in the US who's a cabinet level person gave him some time a brief time to meet again for many other countries they noted this they see this how much importance India is being given yeah Raja from dhruva mentions from paraya to partner uh hasn't been an easy Journey right and it hasn't been a journey without hurdles without speed Breakers what were those hurdles and when did we cross those or did we cross those smoothly you remember the the great debate on the nuclear deal you had Prime Minister Manmohan Singh you know had to constantly go back to you know George W bush and say look I got serious opposition so don't insist on certain conditionalities so you must be more sensitive to my requirements


so you must be more sensitive to my requirements so by George W bush kept making the necessary amendments so that Mr Manuel sink in successfully steered through the parliament but yet in the finally he had to face up a leading Coalition of partner the left parties ended their support yeah had to go into the parliament to seek a confidence vote you remember all the drama in the morning yeah but he was willing to stake it even then I keep repeating this to many people who don't remember that for if on a foreign policy issue a prime minister was ready to stake his government because in India as you know look the foreign policy is not subject to parliamentary approval unlike in the U.S where every agreement all major increments have to be ratified by the senate in India the executive has the power to do things but I think it was the nature of the political controversy that India was beginning to engage the U.S seriously you remembered all the arguments at the time or India will lose its


the arguments at the time or India will lose its independence India will India's independent foreign policy will be sacrificed and that separation of the civil and Military nuclear programs will be a disaster so I think the the intensity of the argument was completely disproportional to a deal which is fairly straightforward and that it was in to the benefit of India but yet the political opposition to it you remember how the BJP both were opposing the deal yeah and I think in the end I think it was really people like uh you know Mr Kalam was the president former president at the time you had people like mullah I'm saying yeah the whole lot of other people rallied around to bail out the government so I think it was a very very critical moment if Mr manman Singh had lost the confidence vote I think things could have taken another turn the other part is once the agreement was done we haven't bought a single American reactor since then yes that's that's another thing so I think what


yes that's that's another thing so I think what had changed was the trust it was never about the reactors it was never about the nuclear deal if Russia had given us a similar deal I mean they didn't have the power to give it to us they would have been no debate I think it was the long accumulated political distrust to the United States that led to the controversy and after that you never hear about what went in there I think today there is a level of comfort um I think the challenge of the nuclear deal was not to produce a nuclear reactors in India but to overcome the trust deficit and the second aspect to it was the fear that Americans and the British would intervene and take Kashmir away from us once Bush removed that so I think two major sources of Suspicion were removed and after that it's been really one Advance after another while we have differences today but the differences are really marginal compared to the expanse of the cooperation that we have in the past


of the cooperation that we have in the past there was only differences there was very little cooperation I'll just give you one example in 1990 India's total two-way trade with Russia was higher than with the United States Russia was about Soviet Union was about 5.6 billion dollars and U.S was about five billion dollars so last year India Russia trade was barely 10 billion in 22 it's grown because of the oil purchases but the U.S trade is 160 billion dollars come in those 30 years from really 5 billion dollars to 160 billion dollars and it's growing and we have a a what do you call a surplus on our side so I think it's a very different relationship and this way the the diaspora was another critical element whose campaigned for the support the nuclear deal in the U.S and since then they become a really a living bridge between India and the U.S in on the nuclear issue I remember even at that time the Americans you know used to say that yeah we we


Americans you know used to say that yeah we we are signing this deal with you guys but when it actually comes to Commerce it's the French who will probably get in and we because of our bureaucracy which is the Americans and because of various knots in this uh whole thing uh we will not be doing Commerce for a long long time and sure enough you know how many years has it been since almost uh and we still don't have an American reactor they have still not been able to do the kind of level of Commerce that they had envisaged where is it stuck what is the problem no I think it's really I mean one part was the liability I think where the Manmohan Singh had a great Triumph in doing the nuclear deal but I think they squandered much of it by doing a liability bill which made it very hard for Western companies to set up reactors in India so except the Soviet Union except Russia we haven't bought reactors from anyone but but I think


bought reactors from anyone but but I think it's really the liability we made it really difficult for Outsiders uh so I think that's a tragedy but I think as George Bush is to say look it's not about reactors that value has not bought any reactors the nature of the commerce between those two sides has dramatically grown and I think that's why that the absence of mistrust uh with or without reaction yeah both Conti rice and George Bush they both used to say that yes that's true uh dhruva since you're in DC you you see the relationship through two prisms I guess uh tell me what is the what is the view in Washington DC do they think that this relationship had more potential than it's actually delivered so I'll say actually one thing on the nuclear the Civil nuclear Commerce um I think a few things happened one was the nuclear liability bill um and it was in some squandered opportunity but a few other things happened one was the Fukushima disaster yes


things happened one was the Fukushima disaster yes and that sort of changed globally not just in India but that changed the sort of uh you know set back in some ways the move uh which today actually makes sense from energy security point of view from a climate change point of view uh the Civil nuclear energy industry the third thing that happened actually was the U.S nuclear industry went bankrupt essentially Westinghouse their largest producer and so just when India was you know India was starting to make moves towards moving ahead on this they weren't able to deliver on their side um so I think it was there are multiple reasons why that didn't materialize I would also say you know Dr rajaman mentioned the commercial relationship in the diaspora but there's another turning point we haven't touched upon uh which I think was the Y2K uh and by by extension in some ways the growth of the Indian I.T industry the um you know the establishment of uh uh sort of a tech ecosystem and that in some ways


of a tech ecosystem and that in some ways led directly to the establishment of a large diaspora in in a very successful Indian American diaspora a lot of the trades and services between the two countries and so I mean there's not one single turning point but if you had to pick one perhaps the Y2K was that moment and we were still in some ways seeing the benefits of that but is you know are people disappointed by uh you know again maybe people who work in the Civil nuclear industry are and again the reasons are not just on the Indian side uh there are many reasons why that hasn't materialized uh I would say broadly I think people are actually quite satisfied with the progress that has been made you look at defense for example it was you know 2005-6 there was no defense trade between us and no substantial there was a GE engines for the for the theaters but but not very much today India India operates eight platforms that are U.S origin uh military platforms and


that are U.S origin uh military platforms and some of them quite significant ones um so that has completely transformed you actually now have joint production in India in places like Hyderabad and Bangalore of you know make in India products by U.S companies and Indian working with the Indian companies that's just on the security side um but I think if you look across the board today and energy you know prior to the war the Russia Ukraine war the US was the second largest supplier of natural gas to India after Qatar it was the fourth largest supplier of oil to India and again this was something that five six years ago was a trickle today it's a major part of the relationship renewable energies as well so I think you know you go down on almost every area today the relationship is in a much more robust Place how do people in Washington see it I think people who track the relationship broadly understand this uh people at the senior levels of government largely see this they see it as a positive relationship they've


see this they see it as a positive relationship they've devoted a lot of time I think some people who are it's more the chatterati I think some people who are casual observers some of the foreign policy generalists really haven't paid as much attention to the relationship as they should there isn't the depth of understanding about India it's still like I think given how how large India is this still unfortunate lack of understanding I think about India many aspects of India so that I think a lot more work needs to be done there is that specific just to India U.S relations I mean the way India functions uh is it hard to understand uh is befuddling to most uh observers outside and you know practitioners of foreign policy I think two things about the Americans you know they're very practical people I mean as long as the overall relationship is moving forward the lack of progress on the nuclear issue does not really matter that things are improving across the board there's most defense cooperation today we have something


board there's most defense cooperation today we have something called the quad which was unimaginable say decade ago that it is working so as long as the overall the ball is being pushed forward okay minor disagreements or failures does do not really really matter second I think the Americans will keep coming coming at you you know unlike you know in other parts of the world I mean they might say look we are very difficult to deal with I mean Indians are not easy to deal with and I think lot of times declaratory policies don't get translated at the at the bureaucratic level but the markets just keep coming at it and keep trying different ways to move forward rather than saying look I'm kuti with you and I'm not going to do any more so I think there is a there is a innate pragmatism within the U.S so not just with us like they have huge differences with Europe but today in the Ukraine case they've come together they've had huge trade problems with Japan but yet that relationship