Webinar on Changing Dynamics of International Order & India's Foreign Policy Choices, Challenges and Options: 31 Oct 2020

The recording of the webinar on India's Foreign Policy hosted by EJSSS and BITS Pilani Goa Campus jointly on 31 Oct 2020 is uploaded in YouTube for the benefit of research and scholarly community.

Personally, it was a great learning experience for me. Amb Raghavan is DG ICWA, and he set the tone for discussions in a comprehensive (yet concise) manner outlining the whole gamut. Specially, he emphasised on Maritime dimension.

Amb Fabian was the hero of evacuation of Indians from Kwait during Iraq War 1990. He personally met and extracted a promise from Saddam Hussein for the safety of Indians and Air India crew who flew them out. 

Prof Roger Liu's analysis of Sino-Indian situation and role Taiwan can play is enlightening.

Amb Thomasz of Poland eloquently talked about strengthening Indo-EU ties. 

Amb Viswanathan's case and examples of growing Indo-Latin America ties are revelations.

Prof Shivkumar's case for integrating Area Studies Program into policy planning structure is thought provoking.

Dr Sumit Seth, Director PPR, MEA, succinctly explained how MEA goes about Foreign policy keeping national interests at heart. This part is a must for IR students!

Please circulate among the student and research community that you are associated with. The Link address is:

https://youtu.be/y2XFSWdi-TU

World Maritime Day Webinar 24 Sep 2020

UGC Centre for Maritime Studies and Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies jointly hosted a webinar on 24 September 2020 to commemorate 43rd World Maritime Day. The theme for the webinar was:

India, IOR and Indo-Pacific: Perspectives, Challenges and Opportunities

Prof Gurmeet Singh, Vice Chancellor, Pondicherry University chaired and delivered Presidential Address. Former Ambassador Rajiv Bhatia and Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Arun Prakash PVSM, AVSM, VrC, VSM, ADC, delivered the Special and Commemorative Address. Prof P Moorthy, Dean School of Social Sciences & IR, delivered the Felicitation Address.

The webinar was held in two sessions.

Session 1 covered India & IOR. Prof SK Mohanty (RIS), Prof PV Rao (Prof Emeritus, NALSAR), and Cmde Srikant Kesnur (Director, MWC Mumbai) delivered talks on India's Economic Interest in IOR, India's Maritime Power and The Wide Arc of Indian Maritime Diplomacy, respectively.

Session 2 covered India & Indo-Pacific. Prof Sanjay Chaturvedi (South Asian University), Cmde RS Vasan (Retd) (Chennai Centre for China Studies), Capt SS Parmar (Executive Director, National Maritime Foundation) and Prof PR Pradhan (BITS Pilani-Goa) delivered talks on Geopolitics of Shifting Alliances in the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives from and on India, Changing Dynamics of Power Play in Indo-Pacific Post Covid, India in Indo-Pacific: Exploring Engagement Matrices and Island Chains & the Great Game of Maritime Infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific.

Lt Gen AS Lamba PVSM, AVSM, PhD, former Vice Chief of Army Staff and current President of IPCS Delhi, delivered the Valedictory Address.

Vice Adm Ganesh (Retd) of Asian Centre Bangalore, also shared his perspectives in the end.

Prof A Subramanyam Raju, Coordinator, UGC Centre for Maritime Studies, Pondicherry University delivered the Convener's and Concluding Address.

Dr R Srinivasan, Managing Editor, Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies moderated the sessions and delivered Note of Thanks.

The webinar witnessed 138 registrations from India, Bangladesh, US Embassy, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Eminent scholars, professors and practitioners, along with members of leading Think Tanks attended both the sessions. Student scholars from various institutions also partook.

Publish Your Scholarship!!

 What do we do with our PhD thesis, once we embark into a career in research or in academia?

In the course of our thesis work, we also come across a number of facts, data and observations which have the potential to grow into a research work in their own merit. But the complacency of having secured employment, together with the 'pressures' of the environment prevent us from re-visiting those notes.

Many of us do not even consider the option of converting our thesis into a book or at least the synopsis into a research paper which could ignite the academic curiosity of the larger research community around the world.

EJSSS believes that many a potential research ideas remain in the dusty volumes of our thesis and more in the volumes of notes/data we had collected. In order to reach those potential ideas into the world of emerging scholarship, EJSSS invites synopsis of completed thesis work in all the subjects of interest to our journal.

Please Note: Synopsis will be accepted only after at least the provisional degree has been awarded. Should you have queries, please mail: submission.ejss@gmail.com

Inaugural Issue EJSSS

We are happy to announce to announce that the 1st Issue of Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies (EJSSS) with 06 papers on IR, Strategic Studies, History and Edn & Trg, one research opinion on Security  Studies and 02 Book Reviews on IR is online. EJSSS is an OA Journal committed to promote interdisciplinary research in Social Sciences/Strategic Studies. We are a member journal of CROSSREF. 

Visit us at www.ejsss.net.in

EJSSS specifically hopes to encourage young and emerging scholars to undertake interdisciplinary research and publication. We firmly believe that a knowledge driven society is the only hope for a promising and sustainable future that all of us aspire for.

The contents of our First Issue are as below:

 CONTENTS

 Articles

 1. Security-Development Nexus - China’s Policy Framework towards Africa  by 

    Dr Bertha Z. Osei-Hwedie and Napoleon Kurantin

 2. Reminiscing an African Connect: The Impregnable Janjira                                 

    Dr CS Anuradha 

 3. Bangladesh Playing Chinese checkers with India                                                    

    Group Captain AV Chandrasekaran (Retd)

 4. Covid-19 Lockdown: An Opportunity to Explore New Frontiers for                         

    Online-Training

    Dr DK Pandey

 5. India-ASEAN Cooperation in the Evolving Regional Mechanisms                             

    Dr M Prayaga

 6. Implications of Multitudinous Multilateral Institutions for Southeast Asia               

    Prof. Y. Yagama Reddy

 

Perspective/Commentary

 

7. Paradigm shift in Coastal Security in India                                                               

    Commodore RS Vasan IN (Retd)

 

Book Reviews

 

8. Rise of the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives, Dimensions and Challenges                               

    by Prof. Chintamani Mahapatra (Ed.)

    Farhat Jahan

 9. International Relations Today: Concepts and Applications                                            

    by Prof. Aneek Chatterjee 

    Masom Jan Masomy

COVID19 and Citizenship

COVID19: State Power and Citizenship[1]

Introduction

COVID19 has led to universal lockdown in various levels in over 185 countries. As of today over 2.6 million cases have been reported with over 50000 deaths in United States alone. While responsible governments are battling the pandemic with every possible means at their command, there are countries which are also being accused of using the opportunity to impose restrictions that serve their diabolical regimes.

We are witnessing mobilization through social media in developing countries like Algeria to help prevent aggravation of pandemic situation. We are also witnessing street level agitations in developed nations like USA against the preventive restrictions. A holistic view of both these phenomenon provide an interesting insight into citizenship by posing certain questions. The primary question that arises concerning citizenship is: Are governments within their right to restrain personal liberties in the prevailing condition?

The State and the Citizen

In the opinion of Thomas Hobbes, the concept of state power over citizens or “introduction of restraint upon themselves…is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of War, which is necessarily consequent to the natural passions of men, when there is no visible Power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants, and observation of those Laws of Nature . . .”^[i]. Arguing on the point of state control over citizen’s life, Rousseau said, “Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”^[ii].

Perhaps TH Marshall’s statement that citizenship is "a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community. All who possess the status are equal with respect to the rights and duties with which the status is endowed"^[iii], should merit consideration at this juncture.

If citizenship bestows equal status with respect to the rights and duties, then our next point of consideration should be on “duties”. In Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Washington State, people have taken to streets proclaiming that the lockdown conditions are impinging on their individual rights and freedoms[iv]. What does the duty of a citizen entail then, in conditions of such pandemic?

The concept of citizenship has undergone tremendous change from the time the industrial revolution set in. Earlier, serfs had only subsistence rights at the pleasure of their masters in the western hemisphere. In the East, though the concept of slavery was not unknown, larger cultural precepts like compassion and charity together with the duties of kings to provide for the desolate somewhat offset the impact of slavery. However, decolonization (which by itself we must credit as the biggest event in history towards empowerment and human rights) and the shocks to human conscience by the events in Nazi concentration camps, brought up the issue of human rights and freedoms to the fore front.

Commencing from UDHR to the innumerable international instruments, rights and freedoms have been handed down and even enforced through collective action (as in former Yugoslavia). Human Rights and freedoms todays are the bedrock of all dialogues on democracy everywhere. With the onset of human rights as a non-derogable condition, the concept of citizenship has also undergone sea change. Individual citizens everywhere are vested with political, civil and social rights that are enforceable by law.

To presume therefore that individual rights are inviolable would however be against the very concept of human rights itself. The concept of human rights does not rest on one individual by himself/herself. It rests on the principle of membership of a community or society. Nor does it rest on the power of a sovereign to give it to an individual, for, as the UDHR says in the opening stanza of its Pramble, “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”, human rights are inherent to every human being.

An individual’s right to freedom however, cannot be the basis for endangering another human being’s right to good health. For, the whole argument in favor of human rights rest but on a single pillar called equality. What every individual in the society cannot be allowed to indulge, no single human can claim it as his freedom and right.

Looking Beyond State Control

We are neither the first to think so, nor will we ever be the last to state this as a wish. Equality before law is a principle enshrined in every constitution of every country and upheld by every court of law as sanctimonious. Be it the Supreme Court of India (Indra Sawhney v Union of India[v] ) or the Supreme Court of USA (Brown v Board of Education), equality and equal treatment are fundamental to democracy. However, the constitutions do not merely envisage equality as a standalone principle. Right to equality is contingent upon a more important right – the Right to Life. No individual citizen by himself or in conjunction with one or more number of people can indulge in any activity that will endanger the right to life of other citizens. For without the Right to Life, there can never be any meaning in other rights and freedoms. The Supreme Court of India in fact gave substantial meaning to this statement in Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration, when it said, “the “right to life” included the right to lead a healthy life so as to enjoy all faculties of the human body in their prime conditions”[vi].

Conclusion

The discussion above highlights dimensions in the concept of citizenship in a world that is fighting a pandemic threatening to engulf humanity. Good citizenship, as the provisos of the constitutions and contents of the case law show, incorporates the sense of responsibility and duty towards fellow citizens, without which it would be rendered hollow.

Sociologists and political scientists need to engage in deeper studies that would enrich citizenship in the post-COVID19 world for democracy and human rights everywhere.

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[1] The author is an independent researcher with abiding interest in developing young scholarship through Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies at www.ejsss.net . Should any reader wish to use the content for his/her research, they are free to do so. A reference to this Blog will be appreciated. APA style reference for this entry is:

Srinivasan, R. (2020, May 09). COVID19 and Citizenship [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://ejournalofsocialandstrategicstudies.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid19-and-citizenship.html

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[i] T Hobbes, (1651). Leviathan. London. Chapter XVII, p 1651.

[ii] Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1913). The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right. Book I. Chapter VI. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co

[iii] TH Marshall, (1950). Citizenship and Social Class, and Other Essays. Cambridge (UK): The University Press.

[iv] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52348288

[v] Indra Sawhney v Union of India Air 1993 SC 447

[vi] AIR 1978 SC 1675

Indo-Pak Relations: A Timeline

One of the prime objectives of Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies is to enable young scholars to undertake analysis of issues in International Relations with well researched perspectives. Towards this purpose, a timeline of Indo-Pak relations published by Al Jazeera on 01 March 2019 was found to be quite comprehensive. The link is shared below:

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/kashmirtheforgottenconflict/2011/06/2011615113058224115.html

Note: Scholars advised to seek prior written permission from Al Jazzera should they desire to reproduce a part or the full article published by them.

Understanding the Evolution of India's Foreign Policy: Pragmatic Purpose to Polemic Principle

Dr Dattesh D. Parulekar delivered a lecture on Tedx on the topic "Understanding the Evolution of India's Foreign Policy: Pragmatic Purpose to Polemic Principle".

Dr Parulekar is an Assistant Professor of International Relations & Strategic Studies at the Department of IR, School of International and Area Studies, Goa University. He specializes in India's Foreign Policy & Diplomacy, Chinese Political Economy, Sino Indian Affairs in the Indo Pacific, African Affairs and Political Economy of Latin America.

The link to his talk is given below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NGyeXI5InL60PqcxdX1zl5iZzEjwBLy1/view?usp=sharing