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UPSC EDITORIAL ANALYSIS 12 APRIL 2021 EDITORIAL 1: THROUGH a BACKCHANNEL, STEPS FORWARD Topic: General Studies (India and Its Neighborhood Relations)

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UPSC EDITORIAL ANALYSIS 12 APRIL 2021 EDITORIAL 1: THROUGH a BACKCHANNEL, STEPS FORWARD Topic: General Studies (India and Its Neighborhood Relations) 1 UPSC EDITORIAL ANALYSIS 12 APRIL 2021 EDITORIAL 1: THROUGH A BACKCHANNEL, STEPS FORWARD Topic: General Studies (India and its Neighborhood Relations) Context: • India-Pakistan border commanders agreed to strictly observe all ceasefire agreements between the two countries around a month ago. • Prime Ministers of both countries also agreed to resolve issues back-channel without any official acceptance. Several clues: • The joint statement issued by the Director Generals of Military Operations in February consisted of terms like the resolution of “core issues” indicating coordination at a diplomatic level and high-level political approval. • Later on, scheduling of the much-delayed Indus Water Treaty talks, granting of sports visas, and the salutary messages between Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan strengthened rumours of a backchannel. • Before the ceasefire agreement of February, India - Pakistan relationship had a recriminatory period due to the 2019 Pulwama attack, the Balakot strikes, the capture of an Indian pilot and the government’s decision on Jammu and Kashmir. • Further, in the recent electoral speeches by Mr Modi and his Cabinet, there was no reference to Pakistan. • The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)’s has also decided not to criticise the U-turn by Mr Khan on trade are further clues of Back Channel. • Also, MEA and Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) have not issued rebuttals or denials to news reports in international and national news organisations in the past few weeks regarding the talks overseen by National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and 2 Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa for months, in different neighbouring countries, facilitated by foreign governments like UAE. • Further, MEA and MoFA’s responses to specific questions about the existence of a backchannel have been carefully worded non-denials. An unbroken chain: • History of backchannels or officially sanctioned contacts between India and Pakistan have been instructional. • Backchannels have operated in the worst of times, like wars, terror strikes and military action and their existence was brought to light only years later. • For example, Only when former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Hamid Gul, reviled for his role in building the Taliban and arming Kashmiri militants, died, Former Research and Analysis Wing chief A.K. Verma wrote about their channel for peace talks that began in 1988. • Mr Verma wrote that there were back-channel talks initiated by General Zia-ul-Haq and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi through Jordanian Crown Prince Hassan. The leaders were close to an agreement, but General Zia’s death in a plane crash ran the process underground. • During the Kargil War, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee chose an unorthodox back- channel interlocutor, R.K. Mishra, a journalist for conversations between both countries. • Mishra met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s diplomat Niaz Naik, to hammer out the ceasefire agreement through various secret visits, and this was revealed when Both Mishra and Naik died in 2009. • They both never spoke of their work themselves, but their conversations were the beginning of an unbroken chain for the next decade. • After their death, backchannels were handed over on the Pakistani side from to Riaz Mohammad Khan and Shahryar Khan and on the Indian side from NSAs Brajesh Mishra and J.N. Dixit to Special Envoy Satinder K. Lambah. • Over the years, nothing has been publicized, but there have been back-channelling talks between Indian and Pakistani diplomats for a proper map of the India-Pakistan Line of Control. • For talks, diplomats have travelled across the border without visas or any official record. On one occasion, the Pakistani President did not even know about the arrival of the Indian diplomat until he found the Indian plane parked next to his on the tarmac in Islamabad. Learning from the past: • In 2014, a Washington-based Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member, Jitendra Tuli, visited the Pakistani NSA and other senior officials for a soon-to-be-sent invitation for Prime Minister Sharif from India. • He also suggested holding off giving India ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status, until the elections in India. • After Mr Modi invited Mr. Sharif to his swearing-in, the two leaders exchanged messages through Sajjan Jindal, whose meeting with Mr. Sharif in Murree set off a controversy in Pakistan. • Even when the official channels faltered, other channels were activated. 3 • Mr. Doval’s first contact with Pakistan Special Envoy Lt Gen Nasir Janjua in Bangkok as well as Mr. Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore in December 2015 were signs of ‘non-official contact. • After the Pathankot attack in 2016, the Doval-Janjua backchannel worked to ease tensions and facilitate the visit of a Pakistani investigative team to the scene of the terrorist attack. • Even during Kulbhushan Jadhav’s arrest, the channel worked until the MEA confirmed publicly in January 2018 that the two officials had met in Bangkok, the day after Mr. Jadhav’s family was allowed to meet him in Islamabad. • MEA says, “Terror and talks cannot go together but talks on terror can definitely go ahead. • In 2016, Six former Pakistani High Commissioners also travelled to Delhi for a Track-II consultation with 9 former Indian High Commissioners, including Doval, indicating that the present dispensation is not averse to learning from the successes and failures of the past channels. Why a backchannel now? • The latest revelations of a backchannel taking place since 2020 should not be a surprise as there have been various back channels in past too. • While friendship and trust between neighbours with a bitter history are impossible to buy engagement too is inevitable. • Domestic constraints and challenges on other fronts highlight the need for a workable peace on the India-Pakistan front. • Pakistan’s economic condition and the mounting pressure from the Financial Action Task Force to shut down all terrorist safe havens is one of the reasons for Pakistan's willingness to engage via the backchannel even after India’s decision on Jammu and Kashmir. • Also, For India, the stand-off with the People’s Liberation Army at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh has made the possibility of a two-front war more real and thus there is a need to reduce tensions with Pakistan. • Further, both Delhi and Islamabad, need to be mature parties in the regional engagement with Afghanistan, by not providing a conflagration at their boundaries. • Thus, These above reasons take precedence for the back channel even during the absence of terror attack in India traceable to Pakistan. Conclusion: ✓ The existence of a backchannel at this time is supported by top officials from both the side. Also, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, in his memoir titled Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove, wrote that every leader he had ever interacted with had said privately, “Let’s make history!" and then how could Mr.Narendra Modi be an exception to it. Reference: Through a backchannel, steps forward: https://thg.page.link/xELPzVaCk2TJiQ3E6 4 EDITORIAL 2: WHY THE PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION BILL MATTERS Topic: General Studies Paper-2 (Important Aspects of Governance- Transparency, Accountability) Context: • In the recent Pandemic, more people have used digital channels to fulfil a variety of needs like purchasing groceries and accessing health services. • Unfortunately, the number of personal data breaches from major digital service providers have also increased in the same period. • The recent data breach at MobiKwik could stand to be India’s biggest breach with the data of 9.9 crore users at risk. • The existing data protection regime in India does not meet the standard, hence there is a need for Robust data protection regimes to prevent such events and protect users’ interests. • The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, now under scrutiny by a Joint Parliamentary Committee, may help to provide robust protections to users and their data. No effective protection: • In India, The Information Technology Act, 2000 governs how different entities collect and process users’ data, However, this data protection regime falls short of providing effective protection to users and their personal data. • Under the existing rules, entities can override the protections in the regime by taking users’ consent to process personal data under broad terms and conditions. • As the users mostly don't understand the terms and conditions, they give their consent blindly. Further, the frameworks emphasise data security instead of data privacy. 5 • In essence, entities should use technical measures to protect personal data, instead, there are weaker obligations to respect users’ preferences in how personal data can be processed. • As a result, entities use the data for purposes different to those that the user consented to. • Also, The government agencies are not included in the ambit of, The data protection provisions under the IT Act, which creates a vacuum for data protection when governments are collecting and processing large amounts of personal data. • Finally, the act has been inadequate in addressing risks emerging from new developments in data processing technology. • In 2017, Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) v. Union of India, which established the right to privacy as a fundamental right, The need for a more robust data protection legislation was realised. • The Court called for a data protection law to protect users’ privacy over their personal data and based on which, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology formed a Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Justice (Retd) B.N. Srikrishna to suggest a draft data protection law. • The data protection Bill, in its current form, is a revised version of the draft document proposed by the Committee. The upcoming regime: • First, the proposed amendments to the Bill seeks to apply the data protection regime to both government and private entities across all sectors.
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