Potted history of 2024 and what it portends for 2025
Ghazala Wahab
In a year marked by horrifying violence, cruelty, religious divisiveness and oppression, two instances of resistance stood out. Perhaps, it was no coincidence that both were angry outbursts of the formerly colonised against their erstwhile colonial overlords.
In March 2024, Guyanese President Mohammad Irfaan Ali whose forefathers were trafficked as indentured labour by the British (either from eastern Uttar Pradesh or Bihar) appeared on BBC’s HARDtalk. Faced with his host’s persistent questioning on environmental damage Guyana’s prospecting of offshore oil and gas reserves would cause, he lashed out, “(What) …give you the right to lecture us on climate change. I am going to lecture you on climate change…” he told his interviewer in a tone, which was both authoritative and aggressive.
He ended his outburst with a question that everyone in the developing world would want to ask. “When is the developed world going to pay for it…?” When indeed.
Six months later, in October, a member of the New Zealand Parliament and ethnic Maori, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke tore up the bill proposed by the government seeking to reinterpret race relations in the country. However, tearing up the bill in the Parliament was not enough. Maipi-Clarke walked into the well of the House performing the protest Haka dance. She was joined by other Maori MPs and the people sitting in the visitor’s gallery. The protest was triggered by what the Maoris believe was the whitewashing of colonial history and the atrocities suffered by the ethnic people.
Heartening while these acts of resistance by the formerly oppressed were, they were merely two ephemeral drops in the ocean of tyranny that 2024 was–perhaps, the worst year in a long time for the weak and powerless. Not only that, there has not been a year as dangerous as 2024 in decades—it almost brought the world to the brink of a world war. The Russia-Ukraine war, which had been dragging to a closure for almost a year was given a fresh momentum by the outgoing Biden administration of the US. In November, the US government authorised Ukraine to use Lockheed Martin-built ATACM (Army Tactical Missile System) inside Russian territory.
The tactical ballistic missile system with a range of 300km was deployed in Ukraine by the US in 2023 to be used on Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation. However, with the certainty of a ceasefire on Russian terms, especially after the spectacular BRICS Summit hosted by President Putin in October, which added 13 new nations as partner members in addition to the existing nine full members, the US expanded the protocol on ATACM. In response, Russia changed its nuclear doctrine, lowering its threshold. According to the revised doctrine, even if the Russian territory is attacked by a non-nuclear power with the support of a nuclear power, Russia will regard it as a joint attack, reserving the right to exercise the nuclear option.
This was supposed to be a deterrent against Ukrainian adventurism but given that the US is also engaged in another war—Israel’s genocide in Gaza–, there is global anxiety about the two theatres coalescing in the situation reminiscent of World War II. Especially, when Israel, with the full support of the US has been expanding the envelope of the conflict. Through 2024, Israel has been at war with Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen, in addition to flattening Gaza. By the end of the year, the two friends successfully overturned Russian and Iranian supported regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Never mind that on the ground this project was executed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of the Islamic State proscribed by the US and led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani who proudly carries a reward on his head announced by the US. He was also covertly helped by Turkiye, who while being a member of NATO, had also expressed interest in joining BRICS. For the larger geopolitical objective of reshaping a favourable Middle East, foot soldiers like Jolani are as useful as they are dispensable. Just as Osama bin Laden used to be once upon a time.
The global powerplay reflected in India too. Two elections portended the future. The General Elections which brought back the Narendra Modi government to power for the third term, albeit with a reduced majority and the long-pending elections in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir which placed National Conference’s Omar Abdullah on the chief minister’s chair; except that the legs of the chair had been chopped off. With a powerless chief minister and a still powerful prime minister, policymaking in Kashmir remains in the realm of narrative-building. Both promise a ‘naya (new) Kashmir’, though both know that on the ground it is an idea with limited deliverance.
Even though Kashmir was relatively peaceful in 2024, only 127 were killed in the year, of which 26 were the security personnel (including military officers) and 31 civilians, this peace was achieved by barricading the ordinary Kashmiris out of the mainstream. How they feel or think behind the barricade is no longer important, as long as they remain there.
Similar narrative building has been underway in Chhattisgarh where the government claims big success against the Maoists, opening new regions, including the Abuj Madh forest, for corporate mining. A record number of 296 purported Maoists have been killed in 2024, a situation reminiscent of Operation Green Hunt of 2009. And just as it was then, there are serious allegations of fake encounters, deliberate hunting down of innocent tribal, illegal detention and torture.
The other region which has remained restive is Manipur, forcing the chief minister Biren Singh to apologise to the people of the state, while appealing for peace. Given the blood that has been spilt over the last year and half and the mutual hatred that divides the Manipur society, peace can only come from exhaustion not sentiment. 2025 looks to be more of the same. May we be proved wrong.