NationStates Jolt Archive

In the Commonwealth there are arguably two economies: local and national.

The vast majority of Beddgelens live in what they call pantisocratic phalansteries, which are communities from several hundred to around three thousand people practicing local direct democracy, community of goods, communal education of children, and having a professional union. They tend to specialise in one primary industrial or agricultural pursuit in which many residents are engaged on the phalanstery's grounds. A few will pursue minority industries or their own personal ambitions, which may well be artistic. The phalansteries are subject to competition -usually within the Commonwealth- though some choose to offer specialty goods for export, usually in exchange for foreign specialities desired by the community. Struggling phalansteries can get help from the Commonwealth through their union, senate, and soviet connections: this is thought of largely as insurance against unforseen disasters that can cripple what are essentially small and often pioneering businesses, and does not mean that inefficient phalansteries are subsidised indefinitely. Phalansteric businesses are -as the name implies- pantisocratic, meaning democratic, which is manifest in their lack of individual management or absentee ownership.

Another resident minority will work outside the phalanstery in the cities. These are the shells of pre-revolutionary hubs now given over to very heavy industry, hyper-expensive high-technology, higher learning, and regional defence.

In the cities, the national economy is at work. The great universities are important to this, having branches associated with not only economic theory but practice as well. They really take part in the economic management of the nation. The generously termed government, such as it is, places orders with phalansteric industries as projects come along, but must always keep the Commonwealth alive on an international stage. All the unions, senates, and soviets of the Beth Gellert work to keep heavy and complex industry alive by international trade with other progressive economies and by directing city workers to the construction of heavy military equipment to protect the international revolution. City workers draw state wages -with have minimum and maximum rates- paid for by fees from Commonwealth phalansteries (taxes, essentially).

Few if any comrades ever draw the maximum wage, even if it is available to their post: nobody can draw a maximum wage from the Commonwealth and then live separate from it, and so there is a culture of avoidance in taking more than one deserves rather than to do so and face one's comrades every day. As there are no super-rich in the Commonwealth, so there are none below the poverty line. That is save for a few who choose to follow alternative theories, be they primitive or radical and without popular support: even these few comrades are offered basic state aid and quite often the privately organised aid of phalansteric communities in the unlikely event of their desiring it.

There are some hardships, with some communes being less profitable than others, perhaps because their residents have chosen to engage in economically unsound industrial pursuits (and the economic advice of scholars is freely available to registered Commonwealth member communities), but that is life, and in few places has it such support and tollerance as in the Igovian Soviet Commonwealth...

...One need look only a few decades back in history or a few miles over borders to see a different world in India.

Ranchi, today, is capital of Jharkhand, and once was the summer capital of the British in Bihar. After independence, Bihar had become a frequent target for the aggression of the Beddgelen principality that was, in the Cold War (if you listen to modern Igovians) attempting either: to impress the Quinntonians by some sort of protestant crusade, to prevent Russian or Chinese influence taking hold, or simply to give the Prince stories to tell in Roycelandian company. These Beddgelen forays extended also into West Bengal, doing little to help either of the victimised states either to develop their economies or to warm on modern religion, capitalism, or this new wonder that passed for democracy.

The Prince's expeditions never stuck, and Beth Gellert came to use the puny states as a means by which to sharpen her teeth, skirmishing and bombing as if the South Africa of the Indian sub-continent. The designs of such modern military icons as the Springer fighter-bomber orignate during these years.
But for a generation, Beddgelens have lived without their Prince, having cast him off by force of the arms he used so freely against their fellow Indians. Their economy had only continued to prosper in their superior position and with all of their advantages, while Jharkhand and West Bengal housed tens of millions in abject poverty, their lives hardly bettered by the discovery of electricty, let alone the tide of recent revolution and emancipation.

At long last were the rumblings of progress rising to thunder in the north, perhaps rolling down from the mountains of Kanendru if they would not seep up through the once rival south.

In fact, these states had seen Soviet agitation at least so early as the first seven states of the Commonwealth, perhaps earlier in real strength thanks to the reactionary pressure laid-on by the Prince's minions. It was only now that the would have a chance to receive power, the masses excited by Igovian talk of a council of the communards in which they might so easily become suddenly equal partners.

The Igovian Soviet Commonwealth of Beth Gellert

The streets and alleys of the cities, fields and forests of the country, and halls and courtyards hissed with the same talk of war. Gas, gas from the Roiks? War with worst and best of western autocrats? Crusades against the Commonwealth? Crusades against Asia?

The Igovian People's Soviet Defence Forces were less than one and a half million strong, their Auxiliaries added hardly a third of a million more to that. The French could match that for a short time if they took to total war, the Roiks could do more. The Commonwealth wasn't established to fight external powers in a sustained way, the revolution wasn't safe. It wasn't safe at home like it wasn't safe abroad. Look, now! The Soviets clamour our support in nextdoor Jharkhand! Cry brotherhood in West Bengal! We can do nothing with not two million men in almost two hundred times that! No one will help the revolution if our Army is already out-numberedby reactionaries... "We may have the arms of weak and harmless civilians, but we have the means and spirit of a Soviet!" Cried one comrade, a young lady librarian at a Porthmadog college as a movement recalling the revolution of the 80s took hold in the Commonwealth.

From Galle to Raipur, hundreds of thousands of comrades -members of unions and regulars at senates; workers, speakers, and voters but still reliant on the Army- raised up their fists in remembered indignation, enthused like not in twenty years by the course of revolutionary thinking and action and by rightist offence and menace. Dusty weapons lockers were broke-open, warehouse interiors given to light for thr first time in years, pits were re-opened and buried arms uprooted, and workshops banged and screeched back into life as the Igovian masses revived their true Soviets.

Once was the time that forty percent of Commonwealth members were in arms, then against the government. From Lee-Enfield rifles and Vickers light-machineguns left by the British to AK-47s and RPG-7s supplied by the Russians, millions of weapons were within reach of the people, and new parts and munitions already trickled from the workshops of ten thousand communes commited to the movement.

The Army was the last garment of statehood, the Army was unable to meet the people's demands, the Army was apart from the people, and the military's soviets a law unto themselves... no more! Even the legally impartial Chief Consul -comrade Chivo- could be seen embracing his comrades and clutching a Sten gun.

For hours there was anticipation and an untouchable delay as the governments of West Bengal and Jharkhand waited, their security forces exchanging fire with local sovietists, as they hoped for a counter-movement by the established Beddgelen military that might insulate them from the Igovian crisis.

Eventually, comrade Admiral Katerina Ivolgin appeared in Salvador to announce that the regular soviets were with the popular soviets: there would be no counter action. The future held radical change for the Commonwealth military. There was nothing to save the corrupt governments of Jharkhand and West Bengal.

At 2:04 in the afternoon following the gassing of Soviet Marines, Calcutta declared a soviet commune in West Bengal and officially applied to the council of the communards for inclusion in the Igovian Soviet Commonwealth. Forty-nine minutes later, a similar announcement came from Ranchi, and Jharkhand became the Commonwealth's ninth state.

Almost four hundred and ten million comrades -over six percent of the earth's population- had embraced the world commune, which now faced the long-shirked task of hauling the masses of Jharkhand and Bengal from the filth of neglect and oppression, people who in perhaps the most resource-rich part of India lived on fewer rupees per household than did a single average person even in the Punjab.

(OOC: This is a belated move to cover-up Hindustan's shifting of his borders, which were not finally set until recently. The shifting around put West Bengal and Jharkhand in BG, but I felt inclined to write something about it rather than just slap them in. This way they're adopted as poverty-stricken and over-crowded rather than just used to boost the wealthy Commonwealth out of hand as soon as a war starts. It also seemed like a good time to start the long-brewing popular move against a military seperate from the people at large, though this issue won't be fully resolved for some time... presumably not until resolution of the growing south Pacific conflict.

For a moment it looked like civil war, but the military soviets sided with the people, and Beddgelen officers with ambitions on power or conquest (in India or other people's empires) were left out in the cold along with the corrupt governments of WB and J.

The situation thus far is of a typically confusing mass mobilisation, apparently without orchestration by any authority, bringing millions of Beddgelens out with arms, and a seperate escalation of long-standing (decades old) leftist opposition to the independent governments of the two mentioned Indian states, which couldn't join leftist Hindustan or rightist BG after independence in 1947 because of rightist authorities being offset by leftist opposition... only since the Indian right (principality BG) fell has it been clear which way (left or right) they'd eventually go. It happens that BG's more extravert nature (well, Hindustan's OOC decision!) has brought them to the commune we've sought to establish, rather than to Hindustan.

Mostly, changes are in effect in words rather than practice, at the moment, and nothing has visibly changed in West Bengal or Jharkhand.

I'm just relieved to finally be able to draw borders on my map-of-India and know that they're not about to change by OOC decision :) )

The government is happy to see West Bengal and Jharkhand finally assimilated into one of the more progressive Indian states. It is hoped that this move is not interpreted by the international community as a quick land grab by Beth Gellert...of course, the international community would have no moral grounds to condemn such a move given its record of protest to French, Spanish, Russian, and Bonstockian advances in an infinitely more militaristic manner.

The Council of the Communards has already pledged massive aid to the two new states joining the Commonwealth, but debate in The Village came already to the issue of the Commonwealth's means. They were -some said- already over-stretched by supporting the world revolution abroad and by fighting the French empire, not to mention the move to create a national guard in place of the army. Free labour was being turned to military production, which everyone agreed was of little use to the Bengalis et al.

Many unions and other organisations began privately to appeal for skilled volunteers from Hindustan to join their efforts to improve life at a basic level in Jharkhand and West Bengal, where often half of a given population was unable to read and half of all villages were without electricity.

The Russian government has forwarded a request to the Bedgellens.

"We have so far resisted aiding the poverty stricken states of India, as their corrupt governments would have embezzled away all the funds. However, now that the honest---albeit, slightly...odd...----people of BG have taken over, the Russian government wishes to donate around 500 million in USD to the cause of reconstruction. However, we would like to note that the indigenous peoples retain a certain degree of autonomy, meaning, they be allowed to keep a sphere of free market enterprise and drug use laws, if they so wish."

OOC: Wages? Since when do Bedgellens have a currency?

The Council of the Communards has already pledged massive aid to the two new states joining the Commonwealth, but debate in The Village came already to the issue of the Commonwealth's means. They were -some said- already over-stretched by supporting the world revolution abroad and by fighting the French empire, not to mention the move to create a national guard in place of the army. Free labour was being turned to military production, which everyone agreed was of little use to the Bengalis et al.

Many unions and other organisations began privately to appeal for skilled volunteers from Hindustan to join their efforts to improve life at a basic level in Jharkhand and West Bengal, where often half of a given population was unable to read and half of all villages were without electricity.

The government quickly approves an aid package and shoots away a number of industrial and governmental advisors.

(A short post, will be added-to later.)

With the process of unification moving generally quite well in its infancy, Beddgelens take stock of their changed Commonwealth. By some accounts, the per-capita productivity of the largest Indian society had fallen by a quarter the moment West Bengal and Jharkhand were granted Commonwealth status. The two new states now represented over one quarter of Beth Gellert's new population, but their productivity was easily ten fold lower than that of the founding states and Victoria Salvadoria.

The People's Kosmonautical Co-operative's hope of a manned space launch in the year dwindled as communes previously devoting spare efforts to backing the agency now diverted much to helping the new states. Other programmes also suffered a little, generally manifest in delays to public entertainment facilities like sports halls and theatres, but day to day life in the rest of Beth Gellert was not made significantly more difficult by accepting the comradeship of one hundred and nine million northerners.

Already seeing some economic growth before Commonwealth, the new states were to some degree limited in real terms as population growth accounted for most GDP expansion. Outside aid, it appeared, would be just what was needed to turn surviving with potential into enjoying progress.

While some efforts were made to bring down birthrates through education and the provision of aid, a major focus of progressive effort was channeled into developing community life in place of introspective family life. "You're in the Commonwealth, now! You won't need eight children to be sure that enough are able to provide for you in old age, because you are the community's parents and we won't let you waste away!" went one quite simple message.

The Russians eventually learn that drug use laws are not accepted in the Commonwealth, which would not attempt to legislate over the bodies of private citizens even if it had the means to try, which it does not. Mafia and other such elements attempting to transport narcotics from South East Asia, Bangladesh, Kashu, or down from the Himalayas, however, begin almost over night following Commonwealth status for West Bengal and Jharkhand to find themselves or their mules running afoul of Commonwealth Guard volunteers brandishing AKM rifles broken out of storage by the Igovians.

In the words of one rifle-waving Bengali girl who encountered a known pusher from a Russian mafia group fled since Putin's anti-corruption drive, "...If anybody wants it, they'll go to the university for some seeds and books on how to do it themselves! You think we're too stupid to grow poppies? I'll grow some on your grave, you big thief!" After which the fellow is said to have fled the country.

As to free market enterprise, well the Russians will just have to decide for themselves, based on whatever their own definitions may be. Just like anywhere else in the Commonwealth, theivery will not be tollerated, and anybody trying to put themselves in a position to take more than a fair share or to create for themselves a position of authority to over-see such theft will be quickly run out of town. The Commonwealth does not base most of its economy on state ownership, since Beddgelens aren't generally keen to put the state above the individual, being not patriots but anarchists. Equally, however, like management, the private ownership of enterprise will not be tollerated: anybody who sets up his or her own enterprise and expects to take a community's assets to run it alone will find that they can access only their own share of assets, that they can not hire another person to work for them, and that they find precious little custom. Thus they'll promptly go out of business, and this is essentially the Commonwealth's free market.

With the community, or without it: this is the simple choice of the Igovian entrepreneur. With it means custom, resources, and workers; without it means personal control over a company of one without clients.

Parliament begins concentrate more and more on affairs in the Indian Subcontinent, especially with other international committments more or less stabilizing. (Although Parliament doesn't know anything about Russian designs in the Balkans).

Generous aid packages are awarded to Jharkhand and West Bengal, while engineers are dispatched to the area in order to help with infrastructure improvements.

OOC: What I mean is that the newly incorporated states be allowed to slowly adjust their laws to Bedgellen ones, instead of having their entire life turned around instantly. The two provinces weren't exactly leftist communes, and some people may chafe at having them instantly become them. So basically, give them a little lee-way and autonomy, so they can keep some of their local customs and traditions.

IC:

The Russian government has applauded the Bedgellen's anti-Mafiya efforts, and hopes that continued international opposition to organized crime will eventually destroy that reviled organization.

Never very friendly towards Russia, either the USSR or Putin's new republic, Parliament is not happy at all that Putin is poking around in what is decidedly home turf.

Russia is therefore told that Putin can do what he will with his own establishment, but it isn't exactly tasteful to criticize Beth Gellert; especially since West Bengal and Jharkhand petitioned for inclusion in the Igovian People's Soviet Commonwealth. "Brainless imperialist thugs don't know what they're talking about," says one Hindustani in passing, a veteran of the border wars with the Principality.

Among the average Hindustani, there is not so much tolerance for Putin's Russia going about like it is the global distributor of democracy. While some at least applaud Russian good intentions, a great many, especially veterans of the HDF, feel insulted. After all, Hindustan fought for democracy, in a much purer form, decades before Putin was a twinkle in his mother's eye.

"Look at them! They go and invade Kazakhstan with an army and give India a hard time for lifting its own out of poverty? Two-faced double standards is what that is!"

In the meantime, Gilgit prepares for independence. Electing to cecede from Hindustan, the small state is expected to submit an official declaration of neutrality and draft a constitution within the next few months. It is suspected that this move was percipitated by uneasiness over Gilgit's location relative to China and a desire to do away with many of Parliament's cumbersome departments seemingly necessary for nudging a larger nation such as Hindustan ever foreward progressively. Giglit, or so the Gilgit local councils surmise, will be able to move faster on its own.

The 1st Light Infantry Brigade assembles in Gilgit City for review before departing. Bagpipers play the Edinburgh Military Tattoo while the troops march into formation and are addressed by both Brigadier Mohammed Jinnah and the new Prime Minister of Gilgit.

Gilgit, while (very soon officially) neutral, won't be totally defenseless. In addition to regular infusions of aid and promises of strong ties between Hindustan and Gilgit, the new state has been left with fifteen Harriers, 30 Hunters, 30 Jaguar IBs, and another 26 Jaguar F.2s, a light fighter variant developed specially for the GAF by PAe. As for the army, it will not operate many heavy vehicles due to the nature of the Kashmiri terrain. Several FV101s and T-55/75s have been donated nonetheless, as well as about thrice as many TC. 2s (smaller carriers, similar to the Alvis Spartan). 130mm D-36 howitzers, GRADLAR and Pinaka batteries, Akash I and II SAMs, and AT. 40 ATGWs are also left for Gilgit...

"Russia is simply offering suggestions. Our annexation of Kazakhstan was to depose a dictator, and has been done in a fully democratic manner. We did not drastically alter their nation all of a sudden, however. Local customs must be respected."---Statement From President Putin As He Takes A Short Break From The Roycelandian Disco Duel

"Russia is simply offering suggestions. Our annexation of Kazakhstan was to depose a dictator, and has been done in a fully democratic manner. We did not drastically alter their nation all of a sudden, however. Local customs must be respected."---Statement From President Putin As He Takes A Short Break From The Roycelandian Disco Duel

Putin's comment is scoffed at and ridiculed. Obviously, Parliament isn't in much of a be nice to Russia mood.

Hindustan continues to wave its fists at the Russians, French, Ukranians, Spanish, and Italians collectively. Russia especially is a target of Hindustani unhappiness and discontent...if that isn't fairly apparent already.

A lot if it is just plain discontent and characteristic Hindustani indignation, but Parliament really does not wholly approve of Russian actions. (Once you get into Eastern Europe, though, you can expect things to become a good deal colder between India and Russia...)

Though only half of Jharkhand's villages were electrified, the Czech Republic-size state was India's number one source of copper, and likewise of iron ore, mica, kainite, asbestos, and uranium. These things alone had been enough to make it a frequent target for the defunct Principality's aggression. But Jharkhand was also the sub-continent's number two source of chromite, and it's third source of coal, bauxite, and thorium; and it rated highly for deposits of gold and graphite, and as well contained significant reserves of manganese, limestone, china clay, sillimanite, silver, and fire clay. With its established steel and manufacturing industries, and the planned aluminium and electronics strengths, Jharkhand was set to provide great wealth to the Commonwealth, certainly beyond the much boasted-of conquests of the Holy League. Much less of it would be wasted on pomp and ceremony or on white elephant battleships, too.

West Bengal was likely to become the Commonwealth's breadbasket, meanwhile, with the Ganges providing quite exceptionally fertile farmland. Finding viable work for its more than eighty million comrades would be a much more daunting task in future, and migration may have to be encouraged.
Just announced in Calcutta was the planned construction of a new coal powerstation in the state, against a trend for nuclear power elsewhere in the Commonwealth.

Consuls said that it was the people's opinion, based on advice from local and out-of-state universities, that pushing the further development of cleaner coal power stations would be an important part of the wider economic good health of the new states, and that it was in keeping with the wider Commonwealth view maintaining that renewable energy technology was in the short term not sufficiently advanced to meet the needs of the next few years: especially with unprecedented industrial growth anticipated in West Bengal. Apparently, a number of coal plants using various clean technologies will operate in the first generation of widened Commonwealth, leading to the introduction of renewable systems in future. It has been said that replacing the Commonwealth's old coal-burning plants with renenwable technologies in the short term would probably entail burning a lot of coal uncleanly in itself (those big windfarms don't grow like trees), and so these new plants -which not only clean coal and capture ash but in some examples separate carbon dioxide for sinking deep below the ground, hopefully to be used in more efficient oil extraction between the mainland and Victoria- will over-see the many years long transition much as nuclear plants do in many of the longer-established Commonwealth states.

------

But the transition to Commonwealth wasn't all about such orderly decisions and progressive thinking. In the short term, corrupt elements would continue in efforts to undermine the democratic processes of society. In many areas, Commonwealth Guard enrolment struck such counter-progressive elements in a solid fashion. But Calcutta's vast sprawl alone housed tens of thousands of young girls forced into prostitution, mentioned as one profound gauge of the sorry state of things. Engaging the previously disenfranchised elements of West Bengal's underworld would be a difficult enough task in itself, without all the other works to be pursued.

The founding Commonwealth states plus Victoria Salvadoria were forced by the tide of popular opinion to increase their aid to the new states simply to allow hard-pressed Bengalis and others to find time to engage in the political process. Otherwise, many were inclined to dismiss the changes with a disinterested wave or remark and to get back to slaving away for systems already being torn asunder without their input.

The project rapidly became worth billions of dollars and a mountain of popular descriptive terms arose. This aid was to pay for holidays owed the Jharkhandi and West Bengali employees of Earth Incorportated, it was thinking-time relief, political money, and so on. Natives and old Commonwealthers travelled the land, making sure that people understood that this was not a heaven-sent windfall and that it really was a sign of security, trying all the while to convince the politically ignorant to take some role in not only their survival but their life.

While the bulk of Commonwealth aid is manifest in the erection of vast power stations and key infrastructure, Hindustani aid is gladly accepted in more directly humanitarian areas as, and Consuls try to negotiate the use of some such aid to pay Commonwealth workers for the medical equipment they're building for new clinics (though many unions are working longer hours without taking a full equivalent pay rise), and to help pay for extra university places for Bengalis et cetera.

The Hudecian government takes note. (glorified TAG)

Many failed as yet to recognise or accept it, but the world was aflame in a revolutionary confligration fueled by reactionary tinder. While the Commonwealth had been trying to strike a significant blow against European imperialism and the Hindustanis to call attention to north Africa, over a hundred million Indians looked to the Igovian revolution just as eighty million South Americans empancipated themselves. Iskra! was talking of an unstoppable progress lead by long-oppressed peoples of Africa and India as five thousand sub-continental troops hunted down enemies of freedom in the UAR Lusaka and Bengalis revolted against their condescending saviours: authorities who'd kindly looked after their liberty and happily granted them their pre-defined rights since independence from the British.

If these authorities could call themselves central to liberation, where would they stop? Not at the prospect of applied force, as was seen when a few army officers and loyal recruits joined with corrupt police elements to attempt what they thought was a counter-coup. Unfortunately, they reacted with no targets, struggling to understand that the move to association with the Commonwealth was not a take-over but a popular movement by people sick of toeing lines drawn by others. Police and military units had raided temples and public buildings being used for local communard meetings, hoping to find there a leadership that had headed the revolutionary movement and instead finding common people nominating delegates from amongst their own ranks. Several of these encounters had lead to confused outbursts of violence, and gradually the councils -along with workers unions- were forming their own defence militias often with help from sympathetic rank and file army units.

Better established Commonwealth states were less than elated by news of these movements, and advisors were hurried in to warn against factionalism under arms. The Commonwealth understood the need for defence while government forces remained aggressive, but feared a degeneration into new power-grabbing competition if the militias remained for long. Efforts were under way to organise the Commonwealth Guard in the new states as was even now happening in the old.

It would not be long before the eleven inch guns of a Gull Flag Class fire support ship convinced West Bengali authorities to surrender their government in Calcutta to the people of that city. A little later, the arrival over Ranchi of four Springer attack jets resulted -after a few passes in which guns were tested and flares dropped- induced a similar result for Jharkhand.

But these were not complete operations. The Springers had been slow in arriving, and did not quickly return after their first sortie. Several West Bengali military units had received orders to suppress popular movements, and while some had obayed, leading to minor skirmishes as mentioned, others refused. A squadron flying rebuilt Dutch and Belgian Hunters was ordered to strike, and appeared to be going through with attacks only to land and make clear the pilots' commitment to the revolt that brought Commonwealth status. They later returned to simulate attack runs on their own airfield, which proved sufficient force to see the failed commanders arrested by their own men on the ground.

Soviet forces were requested as other elements of the former regimes proved less than accepting of their power's collapse, and reports started to indicate that West Bengali forces fled across the Bangladeshi border were launching operations from within the territory of that nation's hopelessly corrupt goverment. Perhaps it made little sense to Bangladeshi national interests that it should choose to antagonise the Commonwealth, but the world's most corrupt government award isn't handed out for attending to the greater good, and Igovian delegates were having as much trouble dealing with Dhaka as most other governments had in dealing with the Commonwealth's lack of a substansive capital.

tag

The HDF's Timor is quickly dispatched to aid the pro-commonwealth revolt in West Bengal, its 15" main guns and 6" QF secondary, coupled with several AS. 117 box launchers, will hopefully serve to deter any pro-authority elements. A squadron (4) of Rajasthan-class Light Frigates is also sent up the Indian coastline with the Timor.

Hunter and PAf. 4 squadrons based in Maharashtra are put on alert as well, should they be needed. Bengali Hunters are looked upon with no small amount of curiosity, and HAL quickly offers to upgrade them to or replace them with FGA. X airframes.

Many Hindustanis say quite openly that they would not at all be displeased if the events in West Bengal and Jharkhand were to repeat themselves in Bangladesh, and further state that, in the event of such, they would almost certainly vote to support the then-liberated Bangladeshi people.

"The people of West Bengal and Jharkhand are examples for the oppressed and downtrodden worldwide; a revolution does not need to be directed by a small elite! People don't need to follow a few leadership figures...they can change their own lives themselves, through cooperation and real democracy," says one redundant Parliamentarian.

OCC: Meh. I've never been good with dialogue, especially this time at night.

Whether or not the Hindustani's language was elaborate or witty, millions of comrades across the Commonwealth read them in Iskra! and other publications with a nod of agreement.

MAL Morrigan UAVs were drifting over West Bengal and -rumour had it- above Bangladeshi territory as well, apparently unafraid of a handful of MiG-29s and old Chinese aircraft, by the time Hindustani ships began to arrive in theatre. The Soviet Commune arranged to share resulting reconnaissance data in as close as possible to real time.

In relation to the Hunters* flying for the formerly independent states, it was fair to say that they were not at their best. Of six ordered to strike rebelling units, only five managed to take-off in West Bengal, and represented the bulk of airpower available even so, with just a couple of Fishbed and Flogger aircraft rusting here and there. It is thought that the two new states may initially replace their fighters with NT-7 ("Miggen") until such time as facilities and crews are up to Soviet standard and front-line aircraft are made available, however it has been suggested Jharkhand and West Bengal may look to Hindustani surplus for interim replacements to serve for just five to ten years instead of having new NT-7s built in the Commonwealth. A handful of archaic airframes will fly on only until a decision is made and initial deliveries taken.

Meanwhile, skirmishing goes on as a small number of T-55 and PT-76 tanks have been reported firing on pro-Soviet villages in northern and eastern West Bengal, though violence in Jharkhand seems to be centred on minor criminal elements and an attempt by minor government elements to escape into West Bengal to join larger concentrations of old-guard resistance.

Soviet fleet assets are still hesitant to violate Bangladeshi waters, but Senates are openly discussing the possibility of authorising pursuit of hostile elements across the boundry. The situation could yet become more serious.

*IRL, I believe that the last Indian Hunters have only been completely out of service for about three years, though the last few saw them used mainly as target tugs and what not. With West Bengal operating as a nation alone, it's not just representing less than 10% of India's normal strength, but is far from being one of the richer states, so -I presume- had no chance of acquiring and maintaining modern Sukhoi and Mirage, so I thought just to stick with what they used to have.

In response to Bengali requirements, a squadron of Hunter FGA.X fighter-bombers is flown into Calcutta in short order. The pilots depart soon afterwards, heading back to new assignments, but several ground crews, flying in via Andover transport, stay in order to instruct the Hunters' new maintainance personnel. The FGA.X isn't, judge the HDF crews, a very difficult aircraft to fly, and if anything possesses more pleasant handling than what the Bengalis must be flying. So therefore pilot training isn't deemed to be of great importance. However, regardless of how maintainance-friendly and reliable the FGA.X is trumped up to be, it is not at all similar to any other Hunter variant, used by any nation, on the inside.

But Hindustan has never tried to concentrate on the military side of things, when it comes to foreign assistance. A great number of economic and medical advisors are made available, although there is no doubt that the Igovian Commonwealth has plenty of both. Of particular emphasis is shipbuilding, owing to its prominent status in the Hindustani economy, and a number of dredges, floating cranes, and various salvage equipment are put on standby.

"It is our duty as Indians, and as fellow human beings, to do all we can in order to help the citizens of West Bengal and Jharkhand elevate themselves from poverty and corruption. Not only Bengal, though. It is the opinion of my constituancy that Hindustan and Beth Gellert should make a concerted effort to encourage similar uprisings in Bangladesh and worldwide. No person should be kept in such conditions..."
-A Parliamentarian from Sindh