New Delhi: After reporting for 20 years in the Middle East, Max Rodenbeck, moved within the organization to India in January as The Economist magazine’s South Asia bureau chief.

Ahead of the magazine’s India Summit in New Delhi on 7 September in which Mint is a media partner, Rodenbeck speaks on a range of issues, from the “bumpy track" of Indian economy, Raghuram Rajan’s “unnecessary" exit from the Reserve Bank of India to the government’s “unclear" Pakistan policy. Edited excerpts:

You have been in India for eight months. How different is it reporting in India compared to the Middle East?

It is much easier than the Middle-East in many ways. It is more traditional open reporting. In many of the Middle-Eastern countries, it is very restrictive. You have to be very careful.

India is a much freer environment and the governments, business are used to speaking to the press and they want to get their point across. So, in that sense, India is a much more open country.

But what is difficult about India is that it is also very noisy. There is a lot of noise around events and you do not know if they are important or not. You have to careful about not to listen to the noise too much. There is a catchy slogan and you do not know if it is being followed up on the ground.

I understand that governing a country of the scale of India, you have to work in slogans and big picture. In order to reach your voters, you need to shout. But you get the feeling that particularly with this government, there is a lot of show than delivery.

What are the challenges that India is facing right now?

India is on the right track, just that it is bumpy. In terms of the economic challenges, the government is going in the right direction. There is not too much big worry about the Indian economy. There is only so much you can do to get the economic growth rates up. India is growing in the right direction. So, a 5% or 7% growth rate—both are fine. The biggest challenges is just getting the house in order like the cleaning up the bureaucracy, clearing up the courts, improving the police and curbing corruption. All this housekeeping is the biggest challenge.

Max Rodenbeck, 54Rodenbeck began writing for The Economist in 1989, covering the Middle East region from Morocco to Iran, and topics ranging from wars and revolutions to radical Islam, Arabic pop culture and the ancient art of distilling arak. His book “Cairo: The City Victorious has been published in eight languages.

How will you assess the Narendra Modi government’s tenure as he reaches the half-way mark of his term? The Economist has been very critical of Modi. Has Modi proved it wrong?

To the government’s credit, it has avoided major mistakes. There have been no major scandals, which is quite refreshing. I do not think Economist’s worries about Mr. Modi and his government was wrong. But I think it is useful to have people critical and watchful to keep them on their toes.

I think Modi has been very clear to stay above the day-to-day happenings. It would have been better if Modi spoke about some issues earlier and more effectively. For instance, the Kashmir issue was allowed to go on for a very long time without any word from the Prime Minister. That is not a very good precedent. When Modi spoke out, things have started moving towards a solution. So, he could have spoken out earlier.

The Economist recently wrote that the new Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel could be a clone of Raghuram Rajan and so there was no need to change the governor? Do you think the government mishandled the whole situation?

Was changing the governor midstream necessary? Mr Modi could have spoken out earlier and the whole issue was dragged out a bit till a point Mr Rajan felt unsupported. There was no clear signal. Although, one should not exaggerate the importance of all this but you had a situation where the debt problem is a big one and requires long-term clever and technical solutions to make it work. And you need a steady approach. So, changing the governor was unnecessary. Even in his last week in office, Mr. Rajan is getting good things done. Mr. Rajan is a highly competent and highly committed professional.

But do we have examples of other governments across the world bearing with the central bank governor’s open criticism?

Actually, yes. A Republican Alan Greenspan under a democratic government in the US. But central banks are independent. The more independent central banks are, it is better for your country. I can understand why there were qualms about whether Mr. Rajan should have been such a high profile figure. It is also partly the fault of the Indian press looking for another hero. We have three Khans in Bollywood and they are looking for the fourth Khan. I think it is difficult to maintain your cool under this sort of constant adulation.

The government is looking to bring the geospatial information regulation bill, which has some stringent penalties for misrepresenting Indian map. The Economist has had several run-ins with the government on this matter.

I saw the first draft of the bill which was terrible. It was appalling, ridiculous and dumb. Virtually, all stakeholders have said that this won’t work and you can’t do this.

Jail sentences for printing a map of India other than the official one or simply the idea that you can regulate satellite mapping at all...it is extremely difficult. There are thousands of thousands of satellites out there and more and more companies rely entirely on geo-spatial information. It is a fast growing area. For the government to regulate all this, it needs to be very carefully done.

It is coming as a part of a slightly disturbing trend. Coming to India from the Middle East, one thing very refreshing was how open India is. But what worries me is how fragile this openness is.

Whether it is the geospatial bill or the national security agenda, one sometimes thinks that India goes overboard in these things in a way that is not good for India. Some parts of the Indian security establishment have too strong a role with very little oversight. Is there actually a very big threat to the country? Actually no. Except for an unhappy neighbour with nuclear weapons, India is a very lucky country.

The opposition here in India alleges that the government does not have a consistent policy towards Pakistan. In this context, how do you see prime minister Narendra Modi raising the Balochistan issue in his independence day speech?

The opposition’s criticism is quite justified because the government has not made its Pakistan policy clear. I don’t think this government’s position is far different from the previous patterns of foreign policy positions. It’s such an unhappy relationship between India and Pakistan. It’s always a bit dismaying politicians succumbing to the temptation to escalate the situation often for political reasons. You have hardliners and softliners on both sides. You have to try and create the space for the doves to fly.

From the Pakistan side, they are already having a problem in Balochistan. They just arrested an Indian fellow and accused him of being an Indian spy in Balochistan. So from Pakistan side, it looks like there is a concerted Indian effort to turn Balochistan into a bigger problem. Whether it is a fact or not is a different thing. From Pakistan point of view, it makes it more difficult to deal with India. Then the question arises, does Indian government really want to push this issue? Or is this just a little trial balloon? So I am not sure how quite effective it is.

How do you think the India-US strategic relationship unfolding from here onwards at a time China’s has started flexing its muscles? Both countries just signed a defence logistics agreement.

There is so much noise about this defence deal. It has taken India 10 years of negotiations. The US has such an agreement literally with half of the world. It’s not such a dramatic pact. There is a growing convergence of interest between the US and India. In fact, it is one of the strangest relationships because this relationship should have happened long time ago, but somehow the whole Pakistan, Kashmir, Middle-East and Cold War got in the way of what should have been a very normal relationship between the world’s two biggest democracies that actually share a lot in common including the bad stuff such as the dysfunctional governments, terrible criminal justice system, the repeatedly intervening courts. But there is also a natural strategic alignment also.

It’s not just because of rise of China that India, US have to get together against China, it’s also because the US has been strategically diminishing and someone has to replace America which used to be, whether you like it or not, very important in maintaining world peace. India is a growing power and somebody has to fill this vacuum in a very measured, reasonable way. It’s very reasonable for India to play a larger role in the world stage.

There are things in the past that made India very wary of the Americans. The Vietnam war, the Iraq war have been a disaster. It is a very good thing that India has stayed above all of that and not aligned with America. But I don’t think Americans are asking for complete alliance. India does not have to be quite shy as it used to be. It can be more self-confident about entering into agreements with Americans or the Chinese or whoever they want to.

Do you see the growing Islamic radicalism around the world could be a threat to India given its large size of Muslim population?

Yes; it can definitely be a threat to India which is why it is so important in keeping the Muslims on board. Any government has to make an extra effort. In terms of Islamic history, this is a very unhappy phase, very bad time for the Muslims. There needs to be more sensitivity towards Muslims, especially in this country. Indian Muslims, by and large, have been extremely loyal citizens and have not been touched by the world trend of fundamentalism.

If there has been fundamentalism, it has come from outside. But if Indian Muslims feel more and more alienated, less and less represented, it’s not healthy. That’s something critical to keep in mind.

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