Maximum Pressure on Iran Won’t Work

Trump’s new Iran sanctions will hurt the United States in the long term.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press conference at the State Department in Washington on April 22. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

BY ELIZABETH ROSENBERG

 | APRIL 26, 2019, 3:24 PM
This week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo moved to end sanctions waivers on Iranian oil—a major step to increase financial pressure on Tehran. The new policy, once it goes into force on May 2, aims to force China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey to stop buying crude from Iran, depriving the country of its primary source of cash.

In the near term, the pressure tactic will mostly work, successfully siphoning off a significant share of Iran’s oil exports. The big buyers in the handful of countries still doing oil business with Iran will plead for leniency, or kick and scream, and then grudgingly wind down. They are unlikely to get to zero, for lack of affordable and available alternatives, possible permission from the United States to slow-walk their retreat, and good old-fashioned recalcitrance. But they will likely steer away from committing reputational and financial suicide by flagrantly breaching U.S. sanctions.

President Donald Trump will surely shout victory. He is right that the United States can, for now, weaponize the global financial system. Washington can use sanctions to bring businesses around the world to their knees, making them the unwilling executors of U.S. national security policy.

Tehran is seething and threatening retaliation. It is probably closer to leaving the 2015 nuclear deal than it has ever been. European countries and other supporters of the agreement are irate. Their limited willingness to cooperate with the United States on security issues is shrinking.

These are all desired outcomes for the Trump administration, regardless of the collateral damage to the working poor around the globe, who will bear the brunt of spiking energy prices.

Ultimately, by tightening the economic vice, the Trump administration aims to isolate Iran and create enough pressure to instigate regime change. The White House wants to exact commitments from Iran to end its support for terrorism, missile proliferation, and human rights abuses—along with other destabilizing regional activities—and curtail the country’s nuclear ambitions. The administration also wants Iran to embrace transparency, liberal politics, and peace.

To be sure, many people both in and outside Iran want to see new leadership in Tehran that is more committed to rule of law, a free and protected civil society, and global engagement. However, there is little to indicate that the Trump administration’s brand of maximum economic pressure will deliver this result.

What the White House strategy is set to deliver is a meaningful, if temporary, dip in Iran’s oil exports. This hollow triumph will come at an exceedingly high cost.

To begin with, Iranian oil exports should only take a serious slide when most of the big players exit Iranian oil deals next month. But exports will inevitably creep back up and continue to flow. Smaller-scale traders will ferry cargoes to smaller-scale refineries. Smaller-scale banks or trading companies, with extremely limited exposure to the United States and U.S. sanctions enforcement, will process the oil transactions. Regulators in countries angered by the U.S. policy may look the other way as this barter and smuggling activity occurs. Chinese, Indian, and Turkish entities are the most likely candidates for this new kind of commerce.

The United States cannot possibly hit every Iran sanctions violator, no matter how much it wants the pressure policy to work. Washington cannot rely on the same international intelligence sharing and enforcement assistance as it made use of during the 2012-2015 period of intensive Iran sanctions. As some Iranian oil continues to make its way to market, observers may conclude that U.S. sanctions are not so tough after all, which could supercharge the incentive to push the envelope or breach them. This will make Trump’s Iran policy less effective.

Many expect that Iran will suffer through the intensive sanctions regime instead of capitulating. Irregular warfare is cheap, and Iran has always put funding for terrorist proxies ahead of a broad social safety net and domestic investment. Iran’s revolutionary generals will continue to threaten Israel and others in the Middle East.

Another enormous problem with Trump’s strategy is that it could send a message to the world that all U.S. sanctions, not just those on Iran, are underwhelming—a heavy cost for the United States to bear. As major, long-term competition mounts with a rising China over strategic influence and global leverage, weakening sanctions seems particularly misguided.

Even considering the immediate future alone, it is deeply unwise for the Trump administration to undermine the power of U.S. sanctions. They are a core part of Trump’s strategy to move North Korea toward denuclearization and weaken Nicolás Maduro’s brutal regime in Venezuela. Economic pressure is also one of the few tools the United States can deploy against the Kremlin’s democratic interference campaigns, hacking, and violation of territorial integrity.

For now, the Trump administration can thrill in its sanctions adrenaline high—a victory for policy-driven market manipulation. The next generation of U.S. leaders will be the ones who have to cope with the troubling and enigmatic longer-term outcomes: an even more entrenched and embittered Iran and a weakened U.S. arsenal of economic tools. Their part will be to win back the confidence of U.S. partners and allies and seek their help with the daunting challenge of addressing the Iranian security threat and restoring the United States’ tarnished economic leverage.

Video: Gaza embroidery artist challenges gender norms

25 April 2019

Suleiman Jibril Abu Taima challenges gender norms in Gaza by practicing traditional embroidery.

Usually done by women, embroidery is a cherished part of Palestinian heritage.

Abu Taima was displaced from his home in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, during Israel’s 2014 assault on the Gaza Strip and forced to seek refuge in a school run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, where he taught girls how to embroider.

More than 2,250 Palestinians were killed during that assault – about one in every 1,000 Gaza residents. Israeli fatalities included more than 60 soldiers and six civilians.

Abu Taima faced social judgments for taking up embroidery during that time, and he stopped practicing it until he met his fiancee Ferial Fisefas, who encouraged him to continue.

“Israel is trying to obliterate the Palestinian cause and Palestinian heritage,” Abu Taima told The Electronic Intifada, which is why he says he holds on to it.

Video by Amjad Ayman Yaghi, Sanad Ltefa and Ismail Abu Hatab.

Tackling The ‘Impossible’: Ending Violence

‘There’s no course or exam to pass to become a parent, and most try to figure this out once a parent, and usually in an exhausted overwhelmed state. 

by Robert J. Burrowes-2019-04-24

Whenever, in ordinary circumstances, the subject of violence comes up, most people throw up their hands in horror and comment along the lines that it is ‘in our genes’, ‘nothing can be done about it’ or other words that reflect the powerlessness that most people feel around violence.

It is true that violence is virtually ubiquitous, has a near-infinite variety of manifestations and, at its most grotesque (as nuclear war or run-away climate catastrophe), even threatens human extinction in the near-term.

Nevertheless, anyone who pays attention to the subject of violence in any detail soon discovers that plenty of people are interested in tackling this problem, even if it is ‘impossible’. Moreover, of course, at least some people recognize that while we must tackle each manifestation of violence, understanding the cause of violence is imperative if we are to successfully tackle its many manifestations at their source. To do all of this effectively, however, is a team effort. And hopefully, one day, this team will include all of us.

In the meantime, let me start by telling you a little about some of the people who are already working to end violence by tackling one or more of its many manifestations. These individuals are part of a worldwide network set up to focus on ending violence – ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ – and they have signed a pledge to do so.

Concerned about US government threats to Iran and Venezuela, several Charter signatories were part of one or both recent peace delegations to Iran and Venezuela respectively. These delegations were designed to open more lines of communication and to demonstrate solidarity with those who do not submit to US hegemony.

The 28-member US peace delegation to Iran from 25 February to 6 March 2019 included long-term nonviolent activists Margaret Flowers, Kevin Zeese and David Hartsough. Unfortunately for David, author of Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist and director of Peaceworkers, his trip didn’t go as planned. If you would like to read a compelling account of his time in Iran with some wonderful Iranians, while learning something about what it means to be on the wrong end of US sanctions, you will find it here: ‘An American Casualty of U.S. Economic Sanctions on Iran’. Glad you got the lifesaving medical treatment from our Iranian friends that you needed David, despite the sanctions! And it is a tragedy that Iran has recently suffered even more, as a result of the devastating floods that have hit the country, with the sanctions cruelly denying them vital emergency assistance. See ‘Stop the ongoing U.S. economic terrorism against Iran and help its people!’

In relation to Venezuela, a 13-member peace and solidarity delegation from North America landed in Caracas, Venezuela on the weekend of 9-10 March 2019. The delegation included leaders of antiwar groups from the US and Canada and, once again, Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers of ‘Popular Resistance’ and ‘Clearing the Fog’ podcasts. You can read an account of this delegation’s findings in Kevin and Margaret’s highly informative report ‘Venezuela: US Imperialism Is Based On Lies And Threats’.

Another initiative to support Venezuelans was outlined in the article ‘A Nonviolent Strategy to Defeat a US Military Invasion of Venezuela’.

Traveling widely to witness and demonstrate solidarity with those on the receiving end of US military violence, another long-term nonviolent activist, Kathy Kelly, recently wrote an article pointing out that ‘Every War Is a War against Children’ in which she evocatively documented examples of what this means for those children living in the war zones we call Yemen and Afghanistan. In an earlier article, Kathy questioned the morality of those corporations – such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon – that profit from the killing their weapons inflict. See ‘Can We Divest from Weapons Dealers?’

Environmental journalist Robert Hunziker continues to fearlessly research and truthfully document the ongoing assaults that humans are inflicting on Earth’s biosphere. In his most recent article ‘The Blue Ocean Event and Collapsing Ecosystems’, Robert straightforwardly explains the content of a recent interview of Dr. Peter Wadhams, the world’s leading Arctic scientist. Robert notes that ‘Currently, the Arctic is heating up about 4 times faster than the rest of the planet... the temp difference between the Arctic and the tropics is dropping precipitously... thus, driving the jet streams less... creating meandering jet streams... in turn, producing extreme weather events throughout the Northern Hemisphere, especially in mid-latitudes where most of the world’s food is grown.’ Robert also notes that the study of ancient ice cores by a team from the British Antarctic Survey, University of Cambridge and University of Birmingham found ‘major reductions in sea ice in the Arctic’ which will crank up (via temperature amplification as a result of no Arctic sea ice) Greenland regional temperatures ‘by 16°C in less than a decade’ with horrific implications for life on Earth. Thank you, Robert, for reporting what the corporate media won’t touch and even many activists find too terrifying to seriously contemplate.

In Chile, Pía Figueroa continues her heavy involvement in efforts to network those committed to peace and nonviolence and to develop media channels that report the truth. Pía reports that ‘Pressenza International Press Agency’, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last November ‘in more than 40 places of the world’, continues to advance its contribution ‘with a journalism focused on peace and nonviolence, to a world in which all human beings have a place and their rights are fully respected, in a framework of disarmed and demilitarized societies, capable of re-establishing the ecological balance through governments of real and participatory democracy.’

Since attending the Media Forum organized in the city of Chongqing, China, by CCTV+ and CGTN, in October last year, Pía has been busy organizing the upcoming Latinamerican Humanist Forum in Santiago with the objective of ‘Building Convergences’, as its slogan points out. It will be held on 10-12 May with the participation of many grassroots and social organizations involved in more than twenty networks of nonviolent action and inspired by the European Humanist Forum that took place in Madrid, Spain, in May 2018.

Anwar A. Khan was born into ‘a liberal Muslim family in Bangladesh’. As a 16 year old college student, he participated in the ‘Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, which resulted in horrendous loss of life, genocide against Bangladesh’s intelligentsia and systematic rapes.’ This experience taught him the nature of the US establishment as he was ‘on the battle field along with so many friends of mine and Indian soldiers to fight back the obnoxious nexus of the Pakistani military regime and the Whitehouse establishment’ to create Bangladesh. Khan Bhai went on to complete a post-graduate education, before embarking on a 43-year (so far) business career, involving many different levels of corporate engagement and which took him to many countries of the world, including Venezuela in 2010 where he met both Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro.

He also writes regularly in his spare time and recently wrote an article highlighting the adverse impact of the lack of infrastructure under which many impoverished countries suffer, given the way in which the global economy functions to exploit them. In the article, he describes an inferno that started on the night of 20 February 2019 in a building at Chawkbazar, a 300-year-old Dhaka neighbourhood, ‘where chemicals for making deodorants and other household uses were illegally stored’. The fire ‘quickly spread to four nearby buildings where many people were trapped. Hundreds of firefighters rushed to the scene but traffic jams in the narrow streets held them up. It took almost 12 hours to bring the fire under control....’ The horrific inferno claimed about 100 lives and more were injured. For the full account, see ‘After Nimtali, now Chawkbazar inferno hell, a crisis of humanity’.

Commenting on the current project that she is organizing with friends, Lori Lightning outlines the rationale behind ‘Bear Bones Parenting’:

‘There’s no course or exam to pass to become a parent, and most try to figure this out once a parent, and usually in an exhausted overwhelmed state. Bedtimes, meals, chores, and healthy open communication all become a task without a trusted framework in place.

‘Based on 51 years of combined wisdom as educators, counselors, health practitioners, moms, step moms and foster moms, Bear Bones Parenting offers an intuitive formula to demystify the basics of parenting and a workbook with tools for reflection and wellness practices to take you actively through day to day living no matter where you are at in your life. You dedicate 15 minutes a day and in trade stop being overwhelmed. A “do it yourself” workbook filled with tools to turn life into what you envision for yourself and your family.

‘Our cast of puppets help to inspire playful reflection on our children’s temperaments and our own. Eventual creation of short videos will be easily accessible for busy parents and provide some examples of how things typically play out with temperaments and inspiration of the Bear way, which is curious, intuitive, firm and loving.

‘We hope that BBP can help reduce parental stress and frustration so there is time to connect in joy and curiosity with our children and foster their independence.’

For more information, you can contact Lori at this email address:


Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh is volunteer Director of The Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) and the Palestine Museum of Natural History (PMNH) but he is also actively engaged in the Palestinian struggle for liberation from Israeli occupation. As he evocatively noted in a recent Easter reflection: ‘This is the tenth Easter I celebrate after returning to Palestine in 2008.

 When we native Christian Palestinians have a few moments to meditate and reflect in this season, we reflect that some 2.5 billion human beings believe in a message that originated with a Palestinian baby born in a manger here and was crucified for being the first revolutionary Palestinian to push for caring for the sick and the poor.

‘We reflect on the real message of Jesus, a message of love and coexistence. The harsh reality on the ground reminds us of our responsibility to shape a better future.

‘We are hopeful because we take a long view of history. Some 150,000 years ago, humans migrated from Africa using Palestine as the passage way to Western Asia and then the rest of the world. 12,000 years ago, this area became the center of development for agriculture (the Fertile Crescent). This was where we humans first domesticated animals like goats and donkeys and plants like wheat, barley, chickpeas, and lentils. This transformation allowed our ancestors time to evolve what we now call “civilization”. Hence, the first writings, the first music, and art, and the first thoughts of deities. From our Aramaic alphabet came the Latin, Arabic, Syriac, and Hebrew alphabets. Aramaic was the language of Jesus and much of our current Palestinian Arabic is still Aramaic words.’

Mazin continues to travel regularly, lecturing about initiatives of the museum but also about the political reality in Palestine. If you would like to volunteer to assist the museum’s projects, or to donate money, books, natural history items or anything else that would be useful, you are welcome to contact Mazin and his colleagues at

Finally, we are deeply saddened to report the passing of Tom Shea, a long-time stalwart in the struggle for a better world and one of the original team of individuals who launched ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ on 11 November 2011. We include below the testament of his great friend and fellow nonviolent activist, Leonard Eiger:

‘For Tom Shea, Peace WAS the Way

‘My dear friend and fellow Ground Zero member Tom Shea passed away peacefully in the early morning hours of April 3rd surrounded by his family.

‘Earlier in his life Tom had been a Jesuit, a high school teacher, and had started an alternative high school and Jesuit Volunteer Corp: Midwest. He had also been involved in social justice issues on the national level with the Jesuits. Ground Zero member Bernie Meyer remembers Tom with great fondness, from being a student at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland where Tom was teaching, to resisting together at Ground Zero many years later.

‘Tom was 47 when he left Cleveland for Traverse City, Michigan in 1977. There he met his partner Darylene, and they were inseparable from then on. Together, they participated in the Nuclear Freeze movement, and were part of the Michigan Peace Team. They traveled to New York for the second Conference on Disarmament in 1982. They protested both the first Gulf War and the war in Iraq. They also engaged in war tax resistance.

‘At Darylene’s suggestion, they attended a course in conflict mediation in the early ‘80s at a time when there was little written on the subject. That experience led them to a course taught by Quakers at Swarthmore College in 1986. In 1990 Tom and Darylene founded the five-county Conflict Resolution Service in Northern Michigan and trained the first group of volunteer mediators. Their mission was to promote peace and civility in the community through the use of mediator guided dialogue. In the early days of the program, volunteers met in church basements and around kitchen tables to train, role play and share experiences. They would travel to the homes of people needing mediation, focusing on resolving family and neighborhood conflicts.

‘Tom and Darylene moved to Snoqualmie, Washington in 2007 to spend more time with Darylene’s children. Tom got involved in community issues and continued his war tax resistance work. You could find him every April 15th, in front of the local post office, offering tax resistance information.

‘I was still leading a social justice ministry at the Snoqualmie United Methodist Church when one day Tom called the church office and asked who was doing social justice work in the area. We connected immediately due to common work and friends. Soon, Tom and I were making the pilgrimage together across the water to Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, and the rest (as they say) is history.

‘I have spent countless hours with Tom and Darylene, discussing world affairs and working together on strategies and tactics for our work with Ground Zero. Tom and Darylene have been inseparable as both life partners and co-conspirators for peace. Tom once said that Darylene is like a Jesuit herself: “Jesuits are taken as very scholarly people and she’s very scholarly.”

‘In addition to working on media and communications for Ground Zero, and planning vigils and nonviolent direct actions at the Bangor Trident nuclear submarine base, Tom put himself on the line many times, often entering the roadway blocking traffic, both on the County and Federal sides, symbolically closing the base and risking arrest. Tom also created street theatre scripts that have been used during vigils at the submarine base to entertain and educate people.

‘Robert Burrowes, who cofounded ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’, said that “Tom was one of the true legends in my life. A long-standing symbol of, and nonviolent fighter for, everything that could be in our world.” When all is said and done, Tom’s life can be summed up by A.J Muste: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

‘We will be scattering some of Tom’s ashes (per his wishes) at Ground Zero Center during our August Hiroshima-Nagasaki weekend of remembrance and action.

‘I invite you to honor Tom’s memory by supporting the work of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. There are many ways we can engage in war tax resistance in the context of a broad range of nonviolent strategies for social change.’

While diminished by the passing of Tom, the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action continues ‘to explore the meaning and practice of nonviolence from a perspective of deep spiritual reflection, providing a means for witnessing to and resisting all nuclear weapons, especially Trident. We seek to go to the root of violence and injustice in our world and experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action.’ You can read about their ongoing efforts on their website, Ground Zero, which also features a ‘Current Action Alert: Stop the “Low-Yield” Trident Warhead!’

Each of the individuals mentioned above is part of the ongoing and steadily expanding effort to end the violence in our world. They refuse to accept that violence cannot be ended, and each has chosen to focus on working to end one or more manifestations of violence, according to their particular interests. If you would like to join these people, you are welcome to sign the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

If your own interest is campaigning on a peace, climate, environment or social justice issue, consider doing it strategically. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.

If your focus is a defense or liberation struggle being undertaken by a national group, consider enhancing its strategic impact. See Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

If your preference is addressing the climate and environmental catastrophes systematically, consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’.

If you would like to tackle violence at its source, consider revising your parenting in accordance with ‘My Promise to Children’. If you want the evidence to understand why this is so crucial, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

If you are aware enough to know that you are not dealing effectively with our deepening crisis, consider doing the personal healing necessary to do so. See ‘Putting Feelings First’.

It may be that ending human violence is impossible, as many believe. But there are a great number of people around the world who do not accept this and who are struggling, relentlessly, to end violence before it ends us. What about you?

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Yemen proves it: in western eyes, not all ‘Notre Dames’ are created equal

As an archaeologist, I’ve seen Yemen’s rich heritage. But for too many world leaders, only arms sales really matter
The old city of San’aa on June 12, 2015 following an overnight Saudi-led air strike. ‘Every day I watch Yemen burn, and every day I hear only silence.’ Photograph: Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images

Fri 26 Apr 2019 

Like everyone else the world over, I watched in horror last week as Notre Dame burned and its spire fell. I saw the stunned reactions of onlookers on the news, on social media and in front of television sets and phone screens on the streets of Nice, where I live. A part of France’s national identity and an international symbol of Paris was collapsing before our eyes.

This accidental burning of one of the most important French cultural and religious monuments struck a painful chord in just about everyone I know: I was getting messages of grief from friends in Sudan, Yemen, the US and South America. The unthinkable sight of Notre Dame burning evoked photographs of burning buildings during wartime, and nostalgia for all the valuable historical objects within them that had been turned to ash. One could not look at this sight without feeling grief.

And yet my mind couldn’t stop questioning why the horrified reaction to the destruction of Notre Dame, a Unesco world heritage site, isn’t the response we always see to the destruction of any historical monument, no matter its location and no matter your nationality, race or religion.

Even as we grieve for Notre Dame, hundreds of millions of dollars in arms are being sold by the US, the UK, France, Italy, Australia and other countries to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as they begin their fifth year of aerial and terrestrial assault on Yemen. While Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world in terms of GDP, it is immensely rich in cultural heritage. And today, this ancient and proud country of 25 million is being torn apart, along with its invaluable heritage.

As a result of this brutal military campaign, more than 85,000 children have died of malnutrition,
there have been 18,000 civilian casualties, and several million people are internally displaced. Since the beginning of the conflict in 2015, hundreds of Yemeni religious and historical monuments, three of which are Unesco world heritage sites, as well as renowned archaeological sites and museums, have been bombarded or suffered collateral damage from aerial attacks by the coalition, using the planes, guidance systems, and bombs sold to them by western nations.

I have worked as an archaeologist on sites throughout the world, surveying, documenting, excavating and restoring our communal human past. This past holds so many keys to our future, and we archaeologists hold these truths in our hands. We are the discoverers and protectors of a universal history, and we uncover and transmit clues on our origins, our past innovations and conflicts, and the rise and fall of ancient empires and fabulous monuments. In these modern times, archaeologists have an ethical and legal duty to respect and protect this past. We also have a responsibility to build public awareness so that citizens of the world engage in protecting heritage on all levels, tangible and intangible.

During the 10 years of my career I spent working and living in Yemen and reconstructing its past, I discovered a country with a history so rich, a landscape so beautiful, and a population so generous that it was impossible not to fall in love with it. While many may be unfamiliar with Yemen, they will likely be familiar with its plethora of “Notre Dames” which, as well as being symbols of Yemen’s national identity, are an important part of our communal human history.

To Yemen we owe the Queen of Sheba and the palaces and temples of the Sabaean kingdoms, the incense trade, the Marib dam, some of the earliest Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities and the monuments they raised, and archives dating as far back as the 9th century BC. And to Yemen we also owe the oldest and most splendid mud and stone vernacular architecture in the world, and a unique protected ecosystem unknown elsewhere in the world, on the Uneso world heritage island of Socotra. The fragile natural heritage of the island of Socotra is being undermined by Emirati development, as they annex it and turn it into a deluxe tourist destination, all the while continuing to bomb civilians and Yemeni heritage.

Every day I watch Yemen burn, and every day I hear only silence. Donald Trump has been very clear as to why he recently vetoed a bill passed by both houses of the US Congress to stop US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Congress has seen overwhelming evidence that these arms are being used against a devastated civilian population under siege and suffering from famine and cholera. But the president of the United States expressed what all world leaders are hiding from their citizens: arms sales are more important than human lives and world heritage.

Arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its coalition are being criticised and investigated by parliamentarians, lawyers and human rights groups across the globe because the situation in Yemen is beyond dire, and continued violence, embargoes and forced starvation are simply unjustifiable. Let’s stand up and collectively rebuild Notre Dame; but let’s also stand up and stop our governments’ destruction of Yemen, its people, and its Notre Dames, where the source of the burning is clearly no accident. It is being carried out with the assent of our governments, funded by our taxes, and in our names.

• Lamya Khalidi is a researcher in archaeology at the French National Centre for Scientific Research

A majority of Americans oppose impeachment. Most also say Trump lied to the public.

President Trump speaks with reporters on the South Lawn at the White House on Friday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By Dan Balz and Scott Clement-April 26 at 3:00 PM

A majority of Americans say they oppose calls for Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the wake of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the president sought to interfere with the probe, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Thirty-seven percent of Americans favor starting the process that could lead to impeachment, a slight dip over the past month, while 56 percent say they oppose the idea, about the same as a month ago.

House Democrats are grappling with the question of how to proceed in light of Mueller’s findings and the public release of the redacted report, which detailed multiple examples of potential obstruction of justice.

Democrats are looking for a plan of attack with the release of the redacted Mueller report and Attorney General Barr’s upcoming congressional testimonies. (Blair Guild/The Washington Post)

The new survey highlights the dilemma faced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other leaders in her caucus: While party leaders have sought to tamp down impeachment talk, worried that engaging in such a process would backfire in the 2020 election, their political base supports it.

Roughly 6 in 10 Democrats say they support the initiation of such an investigation in the House, with 53 percent saying they hold that view strongly. Meanwhile, nearly 9 in 10 Republicans oppose impeachment, with 78 percent strongly opposed.

About 6 in 10 independents are against impeachment now, and independents are more opposed today than they were when measured in a January poll — a sign of the potential political danger for Democrats as they seek to win back key centrist voters in their goal of beating Trump next year.

House Democratic leaders have said they will pursue various investigations, including possible obstruction of justice by the president, although they have so far stopped short of embracing the idea of impeachment. Some Democratic presidential candidates say the Mueller report justifies pursuing such proceedings, however, and are urging House leaders to move ahead.

Overall, the Post-ABC survey finds that partisan allegiance colors the views of Americans about what the Mueller report found, what it means and what should be done as a result. But on one question there was agreement across the political spectrum.

Mueller receives positive marks from Democrats and Republicans, with 53 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of independents saying they believe the report was fair and evenhanded. Fewer than 3 in 10 of any partisan group say the report was not fair. That marks a significant shift in attitudes since January, when barely one-fifth of Republicans (22 percent) thought Mueller’s report would be fair, while 62 percent of Democrats had confidence in the special counsel to issue an evenhanded report.

[Read full poll results | How the poll was conducted ]

Trump has repeatedly denounced the investigation, both as it was taking place and since, calling the matter a “witch hunt” and allegations of collusion a “hoax.” The president’s credibility is called into question by a majority of Americans, with 58 percent saying they believed he has lied to the public about matters under investigation by the special counsel. One in 3 say they believe he has told the truth.

Mueller’s report said the investigation did not establish that there was a conspiracy among Trump campaign officials to work with the Russians to sabotage the 2016 election, though there were many contacts between campaign associates and Russians with ties to their government detailed in the report.

On the question of obstruction, the report cited multiple examples in which Trump appeared to seek to interfere with Mueller’s investigation, but Mueller said he believed that Justice Department policy that says the president cannot be indicted in office also meant he should draw no conclusion as to whether the president committed a crime. For that reason, the investigation did not offer a conclusion as to whether the president’s actions constituted obstruction. Attorney General William P. Barr declared that the findings did not justify a criminal charge of obstruction.

The evidence of interference presented in the report has spurred Democrats to push for documents, hearings and testimony from current or former Trump administration officials, action that is seen as a prelude to possible impeachment proceedings. Trump said earlier this week he opposes such testimony and will fight any subpoenas issued by House Democrats, setting up a lengthy legal clash and a standoff between the executive and legislative branches.

Trump has declared “total exoneration” by the Mueller report, despite the clear statement in the report that investigators did not reach that conclusion. Asked their view of whether the report cleared Trump of all wrongdoing, 53 percent of Americans say it did not while 31 say it did. Among Republicans, 61 percent say they believe Mueller’s investigation cleared Trump of all wrongdoing, while 87 percent of Democrats say it did not.

On the question of whether Trump tried to obstruct Mueller’s probe, 47 percent say he did try to interfere while 41 percent say he did not. This finding masks lopsided opinions among partisans. Roughly 8 in 10 Democrats say Trump tried to interfere with the investigation in a way that amounts to obstruction of justice, while almost 8 in 10 Republicans say Trump did not do this.

The White House on April 18, the day the Mueller report was released to the public. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

In the current Post-ABC poll, Trump’s overall approval rating stands at 39 percent, a statistically insignificant change from January, when it was 37 percent. Among registered voters, his approval rating is 42 percent. His disapproval rating among all adults (as well as among registered voters) is at 54 percent, down slightly from 58 percent in January. At the time of the earlier survey, Trump and congressional Democrats were in a dispute over funding for a border wall, which had led to a partial shutdown of the government.

A 58 percent majority of Americans say the Mueller report has not changed their impression of the Trump administration. Among those whose views have changed, 23 percent say they view the administration more negatively while 11 percent view it more positively.

Slightly more than 1 in 3 Americans say the Mueller investigation makes them less likely to support Trump’s reelection in 2020, while 14 percent say they are more likely and a plurality of 46 percent say the findings are not a factor in their choice for the next election. Unsurprisingly, the biggest block of people who say they are more likely to oppose Trump for reelection is among Democrats.

The survey finds a clear partisan split on the question of whether, based on the Mueller report and other available information, the Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election undermined the legitimacy of the outcome. Overall, 49 percent say it did not rise to that level, while 42 percent say the Russian role undermined the election’s legitimacy. Roughly 7 in 10 Democrats say it did, while about 8 in 10 Republicans say it did not.

Looking forward, 76 percent of Democrats say possible Russian interference represents a threat — major or not so major — to the legitimacy of the 2020 election, while 61 percent of Republicans say it does not threaten its legitimacy.

Support for impeachment is higher among Americans younger than 40 than among those older. It is highest among African Americans, 69 percent of whom say they favor it. The strongest opposition to impeachment comes from white evangelical Christians, white men without college degrees, white mainline Protestants and white Catholics. Support is higher in the Northeast and in the West than it is in the South and the Midwest.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted by telephone April 22-25 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults, with 65 percent reached on cellphones and 35 percent on landlines. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

Arundhati Roy on Caste, Ambedkar and Gandhi

Featured image courtesy The Delhi Walla

PROF. CHARLES SARVAN-04/21/2019

In the Preface to her “The Doctor and the Saint: Caste, Race, and ‘Annihilation of Caste’. The Debate between B. R. Ambedkar and M. K. Gandhi” Arundhati Roy states that it was originally written as an introduction to the annotated edition of Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s 1936 “Annihilation of Caste.”

An icon is an image or likeness, usually one that is respected, if not venerated; an iconoclast is one who attempts to damage or destroy an icon, and this is what Arundhati Roy does here with Gandhi, seen by many as a saintly figure.  Implicit in the question, “Who is the greatest Indian ever” is the codicil, “Of course, after Gandhi”. Transcending national and geographic borders, Gandhi is seen as a universal, eternal phenomenon). Ambedkar (1891-1956), born into a poor untouchable family, earned doctorates in Economics from the University of Columbia and from the London School of Economics. He regarded Gandhi not as a catalyst for change but as an agent for orthodoxy. Ambedkar is recognised as one of the founding fathers of the Republic of India; but the gaining of the franchise can mean not the dawn of true democracy but only the replacement of foreign imperialism by the tyranny of the native majority. As Ambedkar asked: For whose freedom are you fighting? Democracy cannot flourish in soil that is essentially undemocratic.

The work of the army and police is to keep the peace, which involves preserving the status quo which, in turn, means crushing minority aspirations.  Annihilation of Caste is not a text that is included in school or university syllabi in India nor is it available in bookshops. Roy acknowledges she has paid ‘an inordinate amount of attention to Gandhi in an introduction to what is essentially Ambedkar’s work’ but to write about Ambedkar without reference to Gandhi is to do the former a disservice while to remove ‘Ambedkar from Gandhi’s story, which is the story we all grew up on, is a travesty’.

Roy observes that, unlike Gandhi, Ambedkar was not an astute politician. For example, given place and circumstance, Gandhi chose the right ‘weapon’: satyagraha. (Satyagraha performed on Galle Face Green by members of the Federal Party in was then known as Ceylon, was met with mob violence and was a total failure.) Gandhi urged the suppressed classes to opt for ‘sweet persuasion’ and not for satyagraha or ‘soul force’ because with them, he argued, it would become its opposite, Duragraha or ‘devilish force’. (During the Second World War, Gandhi advised the Jews to ‘summon to their aid the soul-power that comes only from non-violence’ and urged the British to ‘fight Nazism without arms’.

One of the difficulties Arundhati Roy encountered with Gandhi is that he wrote and spoke copiously: researching this book meant going through ninety-eight volumes of his collected works. Further, Gandhi was not consistent. Indeed, he himself said: “My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with the truth as it may present itself to me in a given moment”. The result is that one can cherry-pick in order to present a case, depending on one’s prejudice or partiality. Admittedly, this must also apply to our present author, Arundhati Roy. Gandhi admired the caste system – “I believe that if Hindu Society has been able to stand, it is because it is founded on the caste system” – but was against its hierarchy. “Mahatmaji does not want the caste system abolished. He does not want you to dine with untouchables but we must be prepared to go near or touch them, as you go near a cow or a horse”. Religions that teach us that what we experience and endure in this life is the product of our actions in a previous birth can create docility, a passive endurance, in the hope of better fortune in the next birth. Such beliefs perpetuate the status quo and are to the advantage of the ruling classes.

Ambedkar saw an affinity between Buddhist teaching and socialism, and thought the former could furnish the moral foundation for the latter’s material and social framework. He and thousands of his followers converted to Buddhism on 14 October 1956.  However, since ‘race’, tribe, caste is a much stronger feeling than religion, conversion from one to another often doesn’t help as, for example, the Marrano Jews found in Spain. Being Christian did not help the Afro-Americans during slavery nor, later, under Jim Crow. In passing, it’s interesting to note that on 15 January 2014, at a public meeting in Washington D.C. African Americans signed a Declaration of Empathy which called for ‘an end to the oppression of Dalits in India. Though their scriptures do not sanction it, elite Indian Muslims, Sikhs and Christians all practice caste discrimination. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal all have their own communities of Untouchable sweepers. Even today in Pakistan…there does not seem to be much heartache over the very un-Islamic practice of untouchability (It must be noted that Ambedkar had no illusions about Buddhism:

“He was wary of classical Buddhism, of the ways in which Buddhist philosophy could, had and continues to be used to justify war and unimaginable cruelty. (The most recent example is the Sri Lankan government’s version of state Buddhism, which culminated in the genocidal killing of at least 40,000 ethnic Tamils and the internal displacement of 300,000 people in 2009”.)

There’s a great difference between a voluntarily chosen life of simplicity and optionless poverty whose python-coils one struggles in vain to escape. Above all, poverty is powerlessness and in that sense, Gandhi was anything but poor. Behind his poverty stood wealthy industrialists and landowners; later, Western admirers and devotees. Not surprisingly, Gandhi challenged neither the accumulation of wealth nor gross economic inequality. To say that Gandhi was Christ-like is not valid. The father of Jesus was a carpenter; Gandhi’s father, Karamchand Gandhi, was the prime minister of the princely state of Porbander. Nor was Jesus ‘sponsored by big business’. “What do we do with this structure of moral righteousness that rests so comfortably on a foundation of utterly brutal, institutionalised injustice?”

In trying to understand Gandhi, Arundhati Roy goes back to the time when he arrived in South Africa (May 1893) because his ‘views on race presaged his views on caste’. The incident of Gandhi being thrown off a train for sitting in a whites-only compartment is well known, but this is only half the story. Gandhi was a ‘passenger Indian’, that is, one of those Indians (Muslims, and upper caste Hindus) who had come to South Africa to do business. Gandhi himself was hired as legal adviser to a wealthy Muslim merchant. See: The message of tolerance and inclusiveness between Hindus and Muslims continues to be Gandhi’s real, lasting and most important contribution to the idea of India’. Gandhi’s demand was not that he be allowed to sit with whites but that he did not want to sit with Black Africans. The Durban post office had only two entrances, one for whites and the other for ‘kaffirs’ – a derogatory term in South Africa, like ‘the n word’ in the USA. Gandhi succeeded in getting a third entrance for Indians, claiming that both the English and the Indians are Aryans. Of course, whites saw all Indians as ‘coolies’. (Similarly, white right-wing groups today will not embrace Sri Lankans who approach them claiming a shared Aryan stock.) The commune he set up, the Phoenix Settlement, had a few Europeans but no black Africans. Gandhi volunteered his services to the British in their war against the Dutch and, later, during the Zulu rebellion, he urged support for the whites. With time, Gandhi ‘reimagined’ his attitudes and actions. In order for Gandhi to be a South African hero, it became necessary to rescue him from his past and rewrite it. That the Asian community in South Africa is not now persecuted is because of the many Asians, young and old, male and female, who joined the struggle of the ANC: when I taught in Zambia, the headquarters of the ANC was in Lusaka, and I personally knew some of them. (See Mrs Bamjee in Nadine Gordimer’s finely realized short story, ‘A Chip of Glass Ruby’.)

Gandhi also distanced passenger Indians from indentured coolies. The latter ‘lived and worked in conditions of virtual slavery, incarcerated on sugarcane farms. They were flogged, starved, imprisoned, often sexually abused, and died in great numbers’ (Roy, page 51). Of these ‘wretched of the earth’ (to use the title of Fanon’s classic work), Gandhi said they are without morality and religion, and apt to tell lies. ‘After some time, lying with them becomes a habit and a disease. They would lie without any reason… their moral faculties have completely collapsed’. Yet, Roy argues, different values and perceptions were present and available at that time; ‘Pandita Rambai (1858-1922), Gandhi’s contemporary from India, did not have his unfortunate instincts.’  Though born a Brahmin, she rejected Hinduism for its patriarchy and its practice of caste. Travelling to the United States, she was warmly welcomed by Afro-Americans such as Harriet Tubman, born into slavery. Du Bois published his The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, and there was that most remarkable of individuals, Emma Goldman (1869-1940).

Though Gandhi spoke of inequality and poverty, though he sometimes even sounded like a socialist, at no point in his political career did he ever seriously criticise or confront an Indian industrialist or the landed aristocracy. If the poor realized that the rich cannot accumulate wealth without their cooperation, the poor would ‘become strong and would learn how to free themselves’. Gandhi was elected a member of the advisory committee for life of the Textile Labour Union: ‘no worker was ever elected to the union leadership. No worker was permitted to be present at closed-door arbitration between the management and the union.’ Untouchables were not allowed into the common canteen. They had separate drinking-water tanks and segregated housing: see page 95. His main sponsors were mill-owners, industrialists and landowners but his ‘main constituency was supposed to be the labouring class’ (96).

The Communist party of India were People of the Book, a book written by a German Jew who had heard of, but had not actually encountered, Brahminism. This left Indian communists without theoretical tools to deal with caste. Since the lower castes were illiterate, by default the leaders of the Communist Party of India and its subsequent offshoots belonged to (and by and large continue to belong to) the privileged castes, mostly Brahmin. Ambedkar believed the enemies of the Indian working-class were ‘capitalism (in the liberal sense of the word) andBrahminism’. As in Sri Lanka, ‘racial’ identity – the vertical line – counts more than the horizontal, that is, class affiliation.

At the famous (or notorious) Round Table Conference, Ambedkar and Gandhi clashed, both claiming to represent the Untouchables. (On his voyage back from England to India, Gandhi visited Mussolini in Rome and was very impressed with the fascist leader: page 108.) In 1932, the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, granted separate electorates in India for, amongst others, the Forward and Scheduled Castes, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and  the Untouchables. The Award was seen as favouring the minorities over the Hindus and Gandhi, then in prison, declared a fast until death. The threat of committing public suicide was blackmail (page 108). The privileged–caste Hindus who ‘segregated themselves from Untouchables in every possible way, who deemed them unworthy of human association, who shunned their very touch, who wanted separate food, water, schools, roads, temples and wells’ now protested their separation: the majority needs its minority. The British government said it would revoke the provision only if the Untouchables agreed, and Ambedkar and the Untouchables, from being victims, became villains who wanted to divide the sacred country. “After four days of fast, on 24 September 1932, Ambedkar visited Gandhi in prison and signed the Poona Pact” (page 110). Dr Ambedkar knew that if Gandhi died, the Untouchables, utterly defenceless, would be massacred in their thousands. (In the circumstance, it’s fortunate that Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu – even as Sri Lanka’s first avowedly ‘racist’ Prime Minister, S W R D Bandaranaike was murdered – 26 September 1959 – by a Sinhalese Buddhist monk.) Later, Ambedkar wrote:

“There was nothing noble in the fast. It was a foul and filthy act… the worst form of coercion against a helpless people to give up their constitutional safeguards…and agree to live on the mercy of the Hindus. It was a vile and wicked act” (page 110).

After the Poona Pact, Gandhi directed all his energy and passion towards the eradication of ‘untouchability’ but it was his way of anchoring Untouchables to the Hindu faith. Gandhi was a complex figure, and complexity can mean the co-existence of contradictions. “In November 1936, in a now-famous conversation with John Mott” about converting Untouchables to Christianity, Gandhi asked, ‘Would you, Dr Mott, preach the Gospel to a cow? Well, some of the untouchables are worse than cows in understanding’”.

Superficially, the Untouchables have made progress. ‘India has had a Dalit President and even a Dalit Chief Justice’ but only 2.24 percent of the Dalit population are graduates and the overwhelming number are still landless. The electoral system, so-called democracy, has entrenched rather eradicated injustice. Brahmins, though only a small percentage, hold the highest positions. 47 per cent of all Supreme Court Chief Justices are Brahmin. Brahminism, as Ambedkar observed, is ‘the very negation of the spirit of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’. Statistics are cold; they hide reality, the human experience.

Malala Yousafzai is internationally known and admired, and quite rightly so. Surekha Bhotmange, in the state of Maharashtra was an untouchable who had dared to educate her children and refused to meekly accept the injustice and cruelty visited on her family. In September 2006, an upper-class mob dragged her out, her daughter and two sons. The sons were ordered to rape their mother and sister. When they refused, their genitals were mutilated and eventually they were lynched. Mother and daughter were gang-raped and beaten to death. Yet unlike with Malala, there were no ‘I am Surekha’ petitions from the UN to the Indian government, nor any fiats or messages of outrage from heads of state.

In December 2012, Jyoti Singh, aged 23, was gang-raped when she and her male companion entered a private bus after an evening out seeing a film. Ms Singh subsequently died of her injuries, though flown to Singapore for specialist medical attention. It was undoubtedly a horrific crime and aroused both national and international condemnation but according to the National Crime Records Bureau, ‘every day, more than four Untouchable women are raped by Touchables (page 5 in the book). In the same year (2012) alone, 1,574 Dalit women were raped”. Roy adds that only 10 per cent of rapes and other crimes against Dalits are ever reported. I gather that over 90% of an iceberg’s volume is underwater, unseen: so too with the crimes against the Untouchables. Apart from “rape and butchery”, there is the stripping and parading naked, the seizing of land, the restriction of access to water. In 2005, Bant Singh of Punjab, an untouchable, ‘had both his arms and a leg cleaved off for daring to file a case against the men who gang-raped his daughter’. I read that the word dalit in classical Sanskrit meant broken or scattered; it has also been applied to ‘the working people, the landless and poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited politically and economically and in the name of religion’. Some castes, like the Mahars, the caste to which Ambedkar belonged, had to tie brooms to their waists to sweep away their polluted footprints, others had to hang spittoons around their necks to collect their polluted saliva. Men of the privileged castes had undisputed rights over the bodies of Untouchable women. Love is polluting. Rape is pure.

“The Doctor and the Saint” is a thoroughly researched work, written with passionate moral indignation. Arundhati Roy states that she relies largely on the words of Ambedkar and Gandhi but, as Heidegger observed, even objectivity is judged by the subjective self. Besides selection, ipso facto, implies omission. As Arundhati Roy acknowledges in the epigraph to her brilliant novel, The God of Small Things, a work that has rightly earned several awards including the Booker Prize, a single story is not the only story.

Indian consumers face post-election fuel price shock, economy could be hit

A boy walks past an oil tanker train stationed at a railway station in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, February 1, 2019. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

Manoj Kumar, Nidhi Verma-APRIL 26, 2019

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Surging global oil prices will pose a first big challenge to India’s new government, whoever wins an election now under way, especially as domestic prices have been allowed to lag, meaning consumers are in for a painful surge as they catch up.

For oil-import dependent India, higher global prices could lead to a weaker rupee, higher inflation, the ruling out of interest rate cuts and could further weigh on twin current account and budget deficits, economists warned.

But compounding the future pain, state-run fuel suppliers and retailers have held off passing on to consumers the higher prices during a staggered general election, which began on April 11 and ends on May 23, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That delay is expected to be unwound once the election is over. And there could be additional price increases to make up for losses or profits missed during the period of delayed increases, the sources said.

In some major Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, pump prices are adjusted periodically so they move largely in tandem with international crude prices.

That was what was supposed to happen in India but the election means there have been many days when pump prices have been unchanged.

In New Delhi, for example, while crude oil prices have gone up by nearly $9 a barrel, or about 12 percent, in the past six weeks, gasoline prices have only risen by 0.47 rupees a litre, or 0.6 percent.

State-controlled fuel suppliers and retailers declined to say why they had delayed price increases, or discuss whether there has been any pressure from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A government spokesman declined to comment.

The opposition Congress party said Modi’s government was violating its own policy of daily price revision by advising the state oil companies to hold prices steady.

“The government should cut fuel taxes otherwise consumers will have to pay much higher oil prices once the elections are over,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a senior leader of the Congress party.
Nitin Goyal, treasurer at the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, representing fuel stations in 25 states, said prices were similarly held down for 19 days in the southern state of Karnataka last year, when it held state assembly elections.

Only for them to surge after the vote.

“Consumers should be ready for a rude shock of a massive jump in retail prices, similar to the level we have seen in the Karnataka state election,” Goyal said.

‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’

Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at Singapore-based consultancy FGE, said retail prices of gasoline and gasoil prices would have been up to 6 percent, or about 4 rupee, higher if they had been allowed to rise in line with global prices.

“Indian pump prices have failed to keep up with the recent uptrend in crude prices,” Paravaikkarasu said.

“With the country’s general elections underway, the incumbent government has been keeping pump prices relatively unchanged.”

India had switched to a daily price revision in June 2017 from a revision every two weeks, as the government allowed retailers to set prices.

 

A woman crosses a railway track under an oil tanker train stationed at a railway station in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, February 1, 2019. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

But the government faced protests last October when retailers raised prices by up to 10 rupees a litre after the crude oil price went above $80 a barrel, forcing it to cut fuel taxes.

Global prices rose to their highest level in 2019 on Thursday, days after the United States announced all Iran sanction waivers would end by May, pressuring importers including India to stop buying Tehran’s oil. [O/R]

Higher oil prices will mean Asia’s third largest economy is likely to see growth of less than 7 percent rate this fiscal year, economists said. Growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the October-December quarter, the slowest in five quarters.

Rating agency CARE has warned that a 10 percent rise in global oil prices could increase demand for dollars, putting pressure on the rupee and widening the current account deficit.

India’s oil import bill rose by nearly one-third in the fiscal year ending March 31 to $140.5 billion, against $108 billion the previous year.

“The increase in international oil prices is a credit negative for the Indian economy,” ICRA, the Indian arm of the Fitch rating agency, said in a note.

“Every $10/ bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the fiscal deficit by about 0.1 percent of GDP.”
Any big price rise would also build a case for the central bank to keep rates steady, or even raise them.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which cut the benchmark policy repo rate by 25 basis points this month, warned that rising oil and food prices could push up inflation.

Policymakers are worried that a sustained increase in the oil price in the range of $70-75/barrel or higher can move the rupee down by 3-4 percent on an annual basis.

The rupee has depreciated by 1.24 percent against the dollar since a year high in mid-March.

($1 = 70.1800 rupees)

 India’s Not as Safe as You Think It Is

Hotel Mumbai is a tale of courage. It is also a worrying reminder of India’s security flaws.

An Indian police commando stands guard in front of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai on November 25, 2010, ahead of the second anniversary of the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks. (Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images)

BY SUMIT GANGULY

| APRIL 26, 2019, 1:48 PM
In India, visitors to elite hotels encounter what has now become a familiar drill: a body scan and a check of one’s belongings. If they arrive by car, guards also look inside the vehicle’s trunk and hood. These security precautions were put in place almost immediately after the Nov. 26, 2008, terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which included targets such as the city’s iconic Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. But the decade-old hotel checks are perfunctory; it is not difficult to imagine even a petty criminal bypassing the guards, let alone a trained terrorist. And worse, the half-hearted security measures characterize a larger issue, which is that more than a decade after the most devastating terrorist attack on Indian soil, the country’s security establishment has failed to rectify crucial systemic flaws.

The 2008 attacks, widely attributed to members of the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, are newly relevant because of last week’s coordinated suicide bombings across Sri Lanka, which killed more than 300 people. Perhaps inspired by Mumbai’s model, the targets in Sri Lanka included luxury hotels in Colombo, likely because that is where the perpetrators would be able to kill wealthy tourists—and how they would capture global media attention.

India’s 2008 experience is also back in the public consciousness because of the new film Hotel Mumbai. Starring the well-known international actors Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Jason Isaacs, and Anupam Kher, the movie provides a compelling account of the coordinated assault that gripped the country’s financial capital for nearly 72 hours. And while the attacks spanned several locations—including a heavily trafficked railway terminal, a Jewish outreach center, and a posh hotel called the Oberoi—the movie recounts three days and nights of horror mostly from within one hotel, the glamorous Taj.

As with any film, Hotel Mumbai takes cinematic liberties by changing the sequence of a few events and adding fictional scenes for dramatic effect. However, for the most part, the film deftly captures the fear that this unprecedented attack unleashed on a hapless city’s inhabitants and visitors.

Patel, a British actor of Indian origin cast in the role of a hotel employee, provides an accurate yet painful glimpse of the profound inequality that defines modern India. After waking up in a squalid slum, quickly grooming himself, and dropping off his child at an improvised day care, he wends his way to the gleaming Taj hotel barely in time for his shift. Throughout the film his character showcases how those on the lower rungs of the hospitality industry are expected to be suitably obsequious as they attend to the whims of the country’s wealthy and powerful.

Most importantly, Hotel Mumbai deserves credit for depicting India’s shambolic security response. Mumbai’s police are shown to be hopelessly ill-equipped and outgunned. Were it not for the courage of these police officers and the selfless acts of the Taj’s hotel staff, the overall death toll for the attacks could have stretched well beyond the official count of 174. The mettle of the hotel staff is embodied by the performance of Kher, a veteran Indian actor who plays the role of the real-life head chef of the hotel, Hemant Oberoi. As the terrorists open fire across the Taj, Oberoi saves several lives by calmly moving guests into an exclusive section of the hotel, the Chambers. The question, however, is why heroes like Oberoi were needed in the first place. What steps has India taken to secure its cities from a reoccurrence?

It is now well known that Indian intelligence agencies had received warnings from their U.S. counterparts about an impending attack. However, there were no specific alerts. When the attacks began, local and national security authorities were caught flat-footed. It turned out India had no dedicated counterterrorism force. And the country’s elite National Security Guard (NSG) commandos were in a base just outside New Delhi, with no local presence in or around Mumbai. When the commandos were informed about the attack, they lacked a dedicated aircraft to fly to Mumbai. As a result, they arrived at the scene nine hours after the attack began, by which time the terrorists had not only killed dozens of people but had also taken hostages at the Taj hotel, prolonging the attack for a further two days.

Other structural and idiosyncratic factors worsened the response to the crisis. Routine policework is controlled by individual states in India. As a result, federal police or paramilitary forces can, under most circumstances, only be deployed when a state government explicitly seeks their services. Accordingly, the state government of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, had to specifically ask the central government to send in NSG forces to cope with the onslaught. This established procedure, in turn, wasted critical hours.

Flawed choices worsened the crisis. Shivraj Patil, who as minister of home affairs was at the time the nation’s top law enforcement official, announced on national television the deployment of NSG units to Mumbai. The terrorist handlers in Pakistan, who were in real-time contact with their charges, promptly alerted them to the imminent departure of the commandos for Mumbai. Any hint of surprise that the commandos may have enjoyed was effectively squandered. As Hotel Mumbai depicts, the terrorists began to seize hostages in response to the deployment of NSG forces.

Has India done enough to ensure that similar attacks don’t occur again? After 2008, there was a flurry of proposals to secure urban areas and enhance maritime security. Only a few of those plans have been realized. Today there are NSG hubs in some large Indian cities. India has created a National Investigation Agency to tackle terrorist violence. The Mumbai police has a dedicated counterterrorism unit within its ranks. Some efforts have been made to secure India’s vast coastline. But there are still several well-known systemic flaws that can be exploited. In the event of a crisis, individual states still need to formally request federal help, which could slow down response times. The security of ports remains patchy: Coastal police still lack adequate equipment and, in 2016, an Indian Intelligence Bureau audit concluded that 187 out of 227 minor ports still lacked any meaningful security measure. Some national security precautions, while implemented, are not taken seriously: At Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus, the site of a major massacre during the 2008 terrorist attacks, metal detectors routinely go off as local police pay scant heed. And at hotels across the country, guards make a show of scanning guests, but it is well known that the checks are easy to sidestep. India’s security personnel remain outgunned: While a series of checkpoints have been set up across cities such as Mumbai, the police manning them are armed with World War II-era rifles.

Other institutional reforms announced in the aftermath of the 2008 attacks remain in abeyance. For example, plans were made for the creation of an apex National Counter Terrorism Centre, modeled along the lines of the United States’ organization of the same name. However, owing to both political and bureaucratic constraints, this entity has yet to be set up. Similarly, a national grid for the sharing of intelligence across various agencies remains in limbo, as intelligence organizations are still unwilling to share information with one another. Other critical gaps also remain. For example, most railway stations still do not have bomb detection and disposal squads. India is especially vulnerable along its coastline: While fishing boats of 20 feet or longer are required to have automated identification systems, smaller boats face no such requirements. Fisherman are required to have biometric identification but there are no checks on whether they have them or not. All of this is especially galling because the Mumbai attackers came ashore at a small fishing village near the city, and on a small boat.

Fortunately, since 2008, India has not witnessed an attack similar in scale to the tragedy that befell Mumbai. There have, however, been several brazen terrorist attacks in other parts of the country, notably at a police station in Gurdaspur in Punjab in 2015; at an air base in Pathankot, also in Punjab, in 2016; and at the Indian Army’s local brigade headquarters in Uri in Indian-administered Kashmir the same year. Finally, the most recent attack on a paramilitary convoy in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir on Feb. 14 provoked a short but intense crisis in India-Pakistan relations.

The frequent skirmishes and attacks along India’s border with Pakistan may capture the most media attention, but this shouldn’t come at the expense of the protection of its urban centers. Ultimately, this may be Hotel Mumbai’s legacy: It should serve not only to remind the world of the horrors of terrorism and the human spirit that fights back, but also of the reality that the 2008 Mumbai attacks could happen all over again. India needs to do much more to ensure it has learned from one of its deadliest terrorist attacks.