Recently, Chief Minister of Arunanchal laid the foundation stone for a memorial to be built in the remembrance of Major Bob Khathing. He was an Indian Army officer who played a great role in establishing Indian sovereignty in the then North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA), now Arunachal Pradesh. It was 70 years ago that Major Khathing saved Tawang for India.
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After Independence, re-establihing Indian sovereignty in NEFA was not an easy task and here Major Khathing and his guardian angel, Jairamdas Daulatram, played a big role. Daulatram was a representative from Sindh and later East Punjab in the Constituent Assembly. It was, however, after Independence — during his tenure as the Governor of Assam between 1950 and 1956 — that he played the role of being a nation-builder.
An astute statesman, Daulatram understood well the strategic importance of Tawang and realised that whoever controlled Tawang would control the North-East. In the autumn of 1951, Major Khathing, who on retirement from the Army had joined the Indian Frontier Administrative Service (IFAS), then working as an assistant political officer, was summoned by Governor Daulatram.
The Governor shared his view with Major Khathing and told him that neither the Centre nor he had the ability to get the Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Roy Boucher, to agree to a military expedition for the task to control Tawang. Thus he wanted Major Khathing to lead a ‘quiet’ operation to take control of Tawang.
After appointing Major Khathing as a serving officer of 2 Assam Rifles, the Governor allowed him to collect Rs 25,000 from the treasury for the expenses necessary for the expedition. Major Khathing asked the Governor to give two months to conclude the operation. Daulatram, however, gave him just 45 days.
In 1914, Henry McMahon, the then British Foreign Secretary, had managed then Dalai Lama’s envoy to come to Simla to sign a free trade agreement between Tibet and India. They also signed a treaty demarcating the southern boundary of Tibet.
Under the Simla agreement, the border between India and Tibet had three buffer kingdoms — Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. East of Bhutan was a large stretch of sparsely populated and utterly inhospitable land, referred to as the Dirang Dzong of Tawang. Dzong, in Tibetan, stands for fort.
It officially became the North East Frontier Agency in 1954 and Arunachal Pradesh still later. Tawang, which is clearly south of McMahon line, became a contentious territory only in 1951, when China advanced into Tibet and the ruler of Tawang decided to pay allegiance to the Chinese-backed Tibetan authority in Lhasa.
Getting Battle Ready
To make his men battle-ready, Major Khathing got down to arranging stores and arms. What he got from the army stores was brown US Army-issued Angola shirts, which he accepted, though they were mostly of awkward sizes. He travelled to Chabua and Dinjan, where the US Air Force had left behind large metal containers of stores when they withdrew their operations six years ago.
There were hundreds of containers kept in safe custody of the Army and the Air Force. When he broke open these containers, he found camping gear, tents, Irwing Jackets, woollen gloves and socks, inners, just about everything that he wanted for his expeditionary force. He got them repacked into four of the same containers and had them transported to the Tinsukia railway station, from where he sent them to Tezpur via Guwahati — this was the only road and rail crossing across the Brahmaputra river.
He himself caught a routine ferry from Dibrugarh to Majuli island and crossed over to the north bank of the river on elephant back. Once across the river, he requisitioned an old war surplus jeep from a British tea planter and drove down to Tezpur, arriving several days before the men and material actually arrived there.
At Tezpur he made arrangements for around 200 mules and donkeys, 400 odd porters from the plains, and another 200 from the hills. He also requisitioned 10 odd tailors and cobblers to go with him on the expedition. He procured food supplies locally. As the men and material arrived, he moved his base camp to a large clearing at Lokra, about 20 km north of Tezpur.
For three weeks he drilled his men and took them on long endurance runs, carrying out rifle shooting practice. He formed small teams of porters, each hundred men, in charge of a Naik of the Assam Rifles, and sent them with the men and animal ported packed stores in relays to establish forward camps. He also sent scouts towards Tawang to not only reconnoitre easy mountain trails, but also gather intelligence.
Due to the sudden nature of the activities, the expedition came to the notice of Major TC Allen, the last British political and intelligence officer of the East, based in Dibrugarh. Allen visited Major Khathing, who told the former to either come with him to Tawang or face arrest till the expedition was over. Allen, a keen mountaineer, applied himself with zest as his second-in-command.
Expedition Begins
The expedition started from Lokra on January 17, 1951, with 200 soldiers. There were no regular roads or bridges over the rivers and streams; one just had to walk across the region. Because of physical endurance of troops and staging of camps 20-25 km apart over inhospitable terrain with just goat tracks, Major Khathing was able to move his expeditionary force at great speed.
Within nine days they were able to reach Dzong at Bomdila. He camped right at the closed gates of the Dzong, which was held by local feudal lord Katuk Lama, who owed allegiance to Dzongpen of Tawang.
The next day, on January 26, 1951, Major Khathing hoisted the Indian flag in front of the Dzong and invited all the inhabitants to a feast. The Governor sent a Dakota from Guwahati to survey the progress. The aeroplane flew low over the monastery and while the soldiers waved, it did several rounds of the monastery. The show of force was enough to make Katuk Lama panic and dispatch runners to warn all Dzongs towards Tawang.
After three days of rest, the expedition moved out on February 1, 1951, to Chakpurpu and Senge Dzong at the base of Sela Pass. The five-mile climb to Sela Pass sapped their energy and wits. Undaunted, they moved further up to Nauranang.
On February 4, they camped at Jang village. Two locals and some troopers were sent out to collect information and gauge the feelings of the local people towards the expedition, besides inviting them for another feast. The next day, the headman and elders of Rho Changda and the surrounding villages of Jang visited Major Khathing.
Through an interpreter, Major Khathing explained the purpose of his visit and advised them not to pay obeisance to Lhasa as they were now free citizens of India. He then detached Capt Limbu, Subedar Bir Bahadur and Jemadar Udaibir Gurung, tasking them to scout around the Sela tract to find a militarily defensible site and construct a permanent check-post and barracks to establish an Indian frontier post. He left behind some of his troops as well as porters and advised Limbu to take the help of the locals to carry out his task.
Major Khathing moved his task force further. On February 6, they camped at Gyankar and the Dzongpen of Lhau came to meet them. They brought presents and offered incentives in gold and women if he would go back. He smiled and welcomed them as fellow citizens of the new republic to enjoy the new-found freedom. Next day was Lhosar, the first day of the Year of the Iron Horse. In the evening, it snowed heavily and the weather turned extremely cold. However, the entire force including porters was warm in American war surplus clothing due to the foresight.
The Voice Of God
The troop reached Tawang on February 7, 1951. They spent two days scouting the area for a permanent site where both civil and military lines could be laid out with sufficient area for a playground. A place was chosen north-east of Tawang Monastery and Major Khathing camped his force at that location. He put his soldiers and porters to build a semi-permanent military camp with wooden logs and stones. He then sent emissaries to the Dzongpen for cordial meetings. For two days there was no reciprocity. The small population remained indoors.
After three days, Major Khathing ordered his men to fire 20 rounds of two-inch mortar at the hill sides and fire off 1,000 rounds of .303 Ammo in the air. In the closed confines of the mountain, on a dark and silent night, the fireworks sounded like frightening thunder claps, echoing and reverberating, one placating message after another, “The voice of God.”
The next morning, Major Khathing lined up his troops, fixed bayonets and marched his troops up and down Tawang for four hours. He also planted the Indian flag in front of the monastery. This had the desired effect and the Dzongpen sent emissaries. Major Khathing put Major Allen, his second-in-command, to negotiate an armistice and draw up a parchment for the formal accession.
On February 13, as Allen was making no headway, Major Khathing sent out patrols to round up the Chhgergans (officials) of the Dzong and bring them into the camp. For several days, they were wined and dined with great hospitality and respect. Thereafter, he issued a general order that they were henceforth not to accept the suzerainty of the Dzongpens or pay tax or tribute to them.
Finally, on February 20, Major Khathing ran out of patience. He was also running out of the time that the Governor had given to him. Along with Major Allen, the Chhgergans and a hundred troops, he marched directly to the palace of Nyertsang, the Dzongpen of Tawang. He did not meet with any resistance and there was no violence. All proceedings were done with traditional cordiality and respect.
Nyertsang wanted to seek advice from the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. “What Government? The Chinese army has invaded Tibet,” Major Khathing interjected. “Have you ever heard of Col Younghusband?” Allen asked Nyertsang. “There is a treaty with the Government of Tibet, and as per that treaty the area south of the McMahon Line is in India, not Tibet. Tawang is part of India. Since India is a Republic now, you really have no business here,” Allen said.
Major Khathing signed the treaty on behalf of the Republic of India. As a token of appreciation, a nazrana of Rs 1,000 was paid to Nyertsang.
Major Allen renamed the kingdom the North East Frontier Agency. Major Khathing appointed Allen as a Lieutenant Governor, accountable to the Governor of Assam, to administer the area till the Government of India could send its representative.
Rebuke As Reward
Once the expedition was over, Major Khathing had a final task to do — to go back to the Governor and inform him that he had carried out his duty without firing a shot (except for the fireworks to create the ‘Voice of God’). So, he set out downhill to Tezpur with a small retinue, leaving the expeditionary force in charge of Major Allen. The Governor sent a Dakota to pick him up from Tezpur and they flew to Delhi to see Jawaharlal Nehru.
It took Nehru another four years of tough negotiations with Zhou En-Lai to come to terms and sign an eight-year agreement over Tibet and form the first Sino-Indian pact. In April 1954, after the pact, the Government announced its sovereignty over NEFA and appointed an Indian overseer team to replace Major Allen.
The country acknowledges Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India. Major Khathing went back to IFAS to serve the Union of India in consolidating its position in the North-East in different capacities and his contributions were also acknowledged with a Padma Shri. The Government, however, is still to de-classify his valorous deeds in Tawang. As for Daulatram, he served as Governor of Assam till 1956 and was thereafter nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
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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.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.