The Panchsheel or “Five Principles of Peaceful Existence” was a joint statement issued during Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s visits to India in 1954. It was the period marking end of colonialism and emergence of new nations in Asia and Africa. These five principles were as follows:
- Mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
- Mutual non-aggression.
- Mutual non-interference in internal matters.
- Equality and mutual benefit Peaceful co-existence.
- Peaceful co-existence
Panchsheel principles resonated with India’s aspiration as India wanted to preserve her independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity. India focussed on establishing relations with other countries as equal footing and get protection from external invasions. In China, India saw an equal partner and reliable neighbour. India was one of the first countries to recognize China’s government.India not only supported the UNSC permanent seat for China but also invited China to take part in Bandung Conference.
Panchsheel is a framework of basic tenets of engagement between the two sovereign countries and withstands the test of the time. It is equally relevant for all times. So it is no surprise that first Asia-Africa conference at Bandung, Indonesia in 1955 adopted these principles.
The above principles reflected the common desires of the overall human society to seek independent survival and development since the ancient times, and were in line with the global trend of peaceful coexistence between or among nations which might have different ideological and social systems, and echoed the aspirations of the peoples across the world vis-á-vis development in a peaceful international environment while realizing prosperity via cooperation, and conformed to the common aspirations of the relevant countries to resolve the historical issues in a peaceful manner.
Meanwhile, the Five Principles were also widely acclaimed by the international community for their inclusiveness and openness, and were adopted through a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements, thus becoming the legal norms for the international community to address disputes or historical issues in a peaceful manner, and creating a legal platform for the relevant nations to develop friendly and cooperative relations.
The Five Principles were, essentially, in accordance with the spirit of the UN Charter, and stood for the interests and will of the developing countries. They were, therefore, recognised by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) soon after the three nations put forward the principles. They were further quoted and recognised by the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, which was passed by the 25th UNGA in 1970, and by the Declaration on Establishing a New International Economic Order, passed by the 6th special UNGA in 1974. Meanwhile, the Five Principles were also widely accepted by the international community for their inclusiveness and openness, and were adopted by a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements.
The Five Principles have withstood the test of the changing international situation over the past 60 years, and demonstrated their vitality. During and after the Cold War, China and India, the two ancient civilisations, were both faced with some mind-boggling realities. Both had a huge population. Both needed to feed these hungry millions. Both were economically devastated through colonisation. Both had a glorious past, but a dismal present. And both wanted to revive the glorious years of the past.
The ever-changing international situation warranted the two countries to review and address our bilateral problems or disputes from the strategic perspective, and prevent them from becoming obstacles in terms of steady development of the bilateral relations. Despite the sad fact of the border conflicts in 1962, China and India reached out to each other, and addressed the disputes and differences via the diplomatic channel, and facilitated conditions for a chapter of a new kind of nation-to-nation relations.
It is based on the above strategic thinking that the two nations established the Strategic Cooperative and Partnership Relations in 2005, which were aimed at promoting the common interests and realizing the common prosperity, and opened a new chapter of our bilateral relations, with the characteristics of harmonious coexistence and common development. At the same time, China and India set up a series of bilateral dialogue mechanisms, including strategic dialogue, strategic economic dialogue, famous-person forum, and special representative dialogue for addressing the border issues, etc. All the said mechanisms were complementary to one another, and played key roles in reducing tension, addressing disputes and building mutual trust.
During the post financial crisis era, China and India are both destined to form the fate community. On the home front, China and India are both faced with the impacts resultant from the ever-changing international situation, are both faced with challenges from the on-going industrialisation and globalisation, both are under increasing pressure to maintain the momentum of economic growth, and are thus charged with the historical task of national rejuvenation.
Therefore, the above scenarios have warranted the two countries to address the historical and economic issues effectively, take stock of each other’s potential, push for closer political and economic cooperation based on the comparative advantages of each side, and realise a peaceful and cooperative development on the basis of the Panchsheel Treaty.
In the international arena, China and India, as emerging economies with ever-increasing global influence, are both destined to further join hands in terms of global governance.
Therefore, they are to jointly influence the orientation of globalization, and facilitate conditions for it to be more balanced, universally beneficial, lobby for all the countries to participate in the global governance on equal footing, call on all the counties to resolve their issues and disputes through consultations and negotiations, give full attention to the interests and aspirations of all the countries around the world, especially those of the developing counties, push forward further reforms of the current international governance institutions, expand the representation of the developing countries at the existing governance institutions accordingly.
India is engaged in nation building process, for which peaceful environment is need of the hour and Panchseel can be the instrument for that.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.