Table of Contents
Today’s brief reads three articles. Richard Wike in Foreign Affairs reports that the world now doubts American democracy itself. Pramod Boro in ThePrint asks that the Sixth Schedule councils be given money of their own. Rahul Bedi in The Hindu asks what two decades of defence agreements with Washington have built.
The world has stopped believing that the United States respects the freedoms of its own people.
Richard Wike directs Global Attitudes Research at the Pew Research Center. He writes that disapproval of the United States has changed in kind. In earlier falls the world disagreed with particular policies. It still thought well of the values the country stood for. A new Pew survey of 36 countries finds attitudes at their most negative since Pew began this work in 2002. People abroad now doubt the state of American democracy itself. A growing number believe the government does not respect the liberties of its own citizens.
The record
- V-Dem this year moved the United States from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy. It said that “democracy in the USA has fallen back to the same level as in 1965”, the year the Voting Rights Act was passed.
- Freedom House records that the average level of freedom across more than 200 countries and territories has fallen for 20 consecutive years.
- Across the 36 countries surveyed this year, a minority said the United States respects the personal freedoms of its people. A clear majority said it does not.
- The share saying the United States respects personal freedoms has fallen by double digits in 12 of the 13 countries where Pew asked the same question in 2021. Five years ago 61 per cent of Swedes said it did. Today 27 per cent do.
- In 2008, the last year of the Bush presidency, majorities or pluralities in 20 of the 23 countries polled said the country respected personal freedoms. That share is now at its lowest ever in 15 countries, among them Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and South Korea.
- Since 2023 the share who believe the United States contributes to peace and stability has fallen in 19 of 22 countries. It fell by 30 percentage points or more in Australia, Canada, Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden.
- The share who call the United States a reliable partner has fallen in 14 of 17 countries tracked since 2022. It fell by 30 points or more in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
- A median of 28 per cent across the 36 countries approve of the immigration policy. A median of 18 per cent approve of the tariff regime. Last year a median of 21 per cent across 24 countries had confidence in the handling of climate change.
- A median of 22 per cent approve of the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. A median of 20 per cent approve of the handling of the war in Iran.
- Among the ten European nations polled, approval of the threats over Greenland goes no higher than 18 per cent, in Hungary. In Sweden it is three per cent.
- In 2007, 11 per cent of French adults thought the United States considers the interests of countries like theirs. Today ten per cent do. Germany moved from 26 per cent to 23 per cent. The United Kingdom moved from 23 per cent to 26 per cent.
- In 2014 a median of 74 per cent across 44 countries opposed American drone strikes in places such as Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.
The argument
This is material on hegemony and on the limits of it. Wike writes that for eight decades the United States led an order it helped design. As hegemon it accepted a responsibility for peace and stability. It generally sought the cooperation of others. Foreign publics now doubt that commitment. The complaint is therefore not about one policy. It is about whether the state that leads still keeps the standards the order was built on.
Hold apart two kinds of disapproval. The first is disagreement with what a state does. Iraq and the drone strikes belong there, and both passed. The second is doubt about what a state is. Wike argues that the second has now arrived, and that it will be harder to reverse. Hard power was used more freely at the same moment as doubt grew about liberty at home. That is why he ends on the reservoir of goodwill. A state can spend it down. It cannot quickly fill it again.
“But having swapped soft power for hard power and having abandoned its commitment to the freedoms of its own citizens in the eyes of much of the world, it will have to demonstrate that it still cares about those ideals.”
Richard Wike
“The United States is not meeting the expectations many around the world have for the standard-bearer of an enlightened global order.”
Richard Wike
Autonomy in the Sixth Schedule will stay weak until the councils are given money of their own.
Pramod Boro writes on the pending Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2019. The Sixth Schedule was written for the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Their land systems, customary laws, village institutions and languages needed protection inside the Union. The Autonomous District Councils created under it were meant to be instruments of self-government. Boro says they were never meant to be decorative. He asks that the amendment be read as the renewal of a founding constitutional promise, and not as a concession from the Centre. He was the second Chief Executive Member of the Bodoland Territorial Council and now sits in the Rajya Sabha.
The record
- The Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 6 February 2019. The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs gave its report on 5 March 2020.
- It proposes stronger provisions for District, Village and Municipal Councils, elections through State Election Commissions, State Finance Commissions, anti-defection safeguards and women’s representation.
- It also proposes a route through Article 280 for adding to the resources of councils in tribal areas.
- Article 275(1) gives grants-in-aid from the Consolidated Fund of India to states in need of assistance. These include schemes for the welfare of Scheduled Tribes and for raising the level of administration in tribal areas.
- Article 275 carries a special historical reference to the tribal areas of Assam. Boro reads that as proof that money for tribal administration was part of the original constitutional design.
- His fiscal proposal has two legs. Article 275 supplies targeted welfare and development grants. Article 280 supplies predictable devolution tied to what the councils actually do.
- The Ministry of Home Affairs has recorded steps taken under the Bodo Peace Accord of 2020. They include the surrender of cadres and the announcement of a special development package.
- The North East had about 4.57 crore people at the 2011 Census, just under four per cent of India’s population. More than 80 per cent of them live in rural areas. Nearly 47 per cent belong to tribal communities.
- Boro asks that council seats be increased on stated criteria such as population, area, representation of smaller tribes and local diversity. He asks that the reservation of seats for women be strengthened further.
- He adds that anti-defection rules must not be used to put down legitimate dissent in the councils.
The argument
The usual answer on the Sixth Schedule stops at the powers of the councils. Boro moves the argument to the money. A council may hold powers over land, forests and customary law. It cannot plan a school, a road or a hospital without a revenue it can count on. That is why he puts Article 275(1) and Article 280 together. One gives grants for a purpose. The other gives a share fixed by formula through the Finance Commission. Read together they answer the paradox he names, that bodies created for special autonomy are often weaker in funds than ordinary local bodies elsewhere in India.
The second use is on peace accords. Boro treats the Bodo Accord of 2020 as proof that talks can replace conflict. He then says an accord does its work only when its promises become institutions. Surrender of cadres and a development package are steps, not the end of the matter. This gives a line for questions on regional aspirations and on the working of federalism. Special autonomy is claimed here as a constitutional promise, not as a favour from the Centre.
“The strength of India lies not merely in its geographical boundaries but in its extraordinary ability to accommodate diverse identities, cultures, languages and aspirations within a democratic constitutional framework.”
Pramod Boro
“Money routed without accountability may fail; autonomy without money will certainly fail.”
Pramod Boro
Rahul Bedi writes that defence cooperation between India and the United States has a settled reputation. It produces ambitious political announcements that do not become industrial outcomes. The trade itself has grown. Since 2002 India has bought more than 22 billion dollars of American equipment. Co-production and transfer of technology have not followed. Bedi takes the impasse over the General Electric F414 fighter engine as his central case.
The record
- Since 2002 India has acquired over 22 billion dollars worth of United States defence equipment. It includes Apache and Chinook helicopters, C-17 and C-130J transport aircraft, P-8I maritime patrol aircraft and M777 howitzers.
- The cost of each F414 engine has nearly tripled. It has risen from around ₹70 crore to ₹80 crore to over ₹200 crore. General Electric has also sought an Indian investment of about 800 million dollars, or ₹7,576 crore, to set up a dedicated production line.
- Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is negotiating procurement and licensed manufacture of the F414 for the Tejas Mk-II. The Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Aeronautical Development Agency are separately engaging General Electric over the same engine for the proposed Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft and the Navy’s Twin-Engine Deck-Based Fighter.
- The F414 programme was unveiled during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2023 Washington visit. It was presented as the flagship achievement of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies, or iCET.
- The Defence Technology and Trade Initiative of 2012 was the first serious attempt to give this cooperation an institutional form. It generated years of meetings and delivered no significant military capability.
- iCET, launched in 2022, widened the agenda to semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, telecommunications, space, biotechnology, drones and resilient supply chains.
- INDUS-X, launched in 2023 to link defence start-ups, academia and industry, has yet to produce noteworthy co-development outcomes.
- Talks on co-producing the Javelin anti-tank guided missile have stayed unresolved for more than a decade. The proposed work on the General Dynamics Stryker infantry combat vehicle has fared the same way. Bedi expects both to be shelved quietly.
- India bought 31 MQ-9B SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian remotely piloted aircraft from General Atomics in 2024 for around 3.5 billion dollars, through the Foreign Military Sales route. The promised local assembly, partial manufacture and domestic maintenance ecosystem has yet to appear.
- The International Traffic in Arms Regulations govern the release of technical data and manufacturing know-how by the United States. Under them that release stays subordinate to broader security considerations.
- Officials in both countries now look to the proposed Reciprocal Defence Procurement Agreement as the next test of industrial cooperation.
The argument
The two states want different things from the same partnership. India treats defence partnership as a way of acquiring advanced technology, building its own manufacture and cutting dependence on imported equipment. The United States treats advanced defence technology as a strategic asset held under export control. That is the clash Bedi puts at the heart of the record above. It explains why every framework since 2012 has grown the trade and not the factory.
Two warnings follow for an answer on India and the United States. The first is that exercises, logistics agreements and interoperability are a poor measure of the industrial side. By that measure the relationship has matured as a buyer and seller arrangement. The second is about the Reciprocal Defence Procurement Agreement. It would open each country’s procurement market to the other. Bedi points out that such reciprocity could put India’s young defence manufacturers against far larger and wealthier American firms. Whether it makes a real balance or fixes an unequal competition in place is left open.
“Successive India-U.S. defence initiatives have been heralded as ‘historic’, ‘transformational’ or ‘game-changing’, yet implementation has repeatedly fallen well short of the rhetoric.”
Rahul Bedi
“The consequence is a defence relationship that has matured as a procurement partnership but far less as a mechanism for transferring capability and strengthening India’s atmanirbharta.”
Rahul Bedi
Where this belongs in your syllabus
Open the note and read the full topic.
The questions this feeds
Questions from earlier years that today’s reading speaks to. Where the answer is written, the red link opens it. The full set is in the PYQ Vault.
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