Editorials - 10-03-2022

Kyiv is paying a heavy price and a change of tack is needed, where the cardinal objective is to save lives and Ukraine

Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which began from the third week of February, shows no sign of ending. It has, in the meantime, led to a humanitarian crisis of gigantic proportions. The number of refugees streaming into countries adjoining Ukraine has revived memories and images of the vast numbers who sought refuge in Europe following the wars in Syria, Iraq and North Africa at the turn of the century. No one would have anticipated that a similar situation would arise just a few years later in Europe. The number of refugees has already approached, and possibly even crossed, the two million mark; and this is apart from the several thousands who have been killed inside Ukraine. It is a vivid demonstration of the callousness of human nature, more so considering the underlying cause of the conflict.

It is most surprising that nothing concrete is being done by powerful nations in Europe and across the world to try and end the conflict through a process of reconciliation and negotiation. What the conflict, though, has exposed is the irrelevance of the United Nations in dealing with situations of this kind — becoming in many ways a modern day variant of the ill-fated League of Nations created at the end of the First World War.

More an economic concern

The primary concern of European nations and the United States appears to be the economic impact of the conflict — rather than the human costs involved — consequent on the ongoing war in Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund has already issued a warning of the serious global impact of the war, which includes a surge in energy and commodity prices, and being taken seriously by the U.S., almost all European nations and many countries across the globe. Leading western economists have been pontificating on the economic consequences of the war, and the ways and the means to reduce its impact. Similar concerns about the human costs of this unnecessary war are nowhere to be found. Least of all to be found are suggestions on how best to end the conflict, or at least bring about a truce to reduce the human toll that keeps steadily rising.

Debating the sanctions route

It may appear tendentious to think that there are leading elements in the West who believe that by waging a prolonged ‘sanctions war’ against Russia of the kind currently being pursued — rather than seeking a compromise by which to end the genocide in Ukraine — an option had become available to checkmate Russia, which under Russian President Vladimir Putin was posing a threat to the West. Russia deserves to be rightfully condemned for being in violation of the United Nations Charter and invading Ukraine.

There are, however, far more efficacious means to checkmate Russian moves than persisting with a prolonged period of ever widening economic sanctions aimed at crippling Russia’s economy. This may be an ideal way to achieve a ‘regime change’ in Moscow, getting citizens to rise against the regime due to the shortages and other restrictions imposed by a ‘sanctions’ regimen. It is, however, not the best way to end a conflict in the shortest possible time, and avert a greater human tragedy that a prolonged conflict entails. Sanctions, no doubt, do and will affect Russia and its economy, but it has had little impact on Russia’s war effort. Meanwhile, Ukraine, or more particularly the citizens and the residents of Ukraine, are innocent victims of the tussle between the West and Russia.

For the present, each new sanction only strengthens Russia’s determination to compel Ukraine to cut its links with the West. No country within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or even those outside it, is at present willing to send forces in support of Ukraine. Waiting for the eventual collapse of the Russian state while leaving Ukraine and its citizens to the not-so-tender mercies of the Russian juggernaut is tantamount to becoming an accessory to genocide. While concerns that the conflict in Ukraine may lead to a nuclear conflict do appear exaggerated, what is taking place is a tragedy of a kind that should not befall any nation.

Deconstructing Ukraine

The need to break the cycle of conflict and end the death of innocent civilians — as also the destruction of property — is the most vital issue at this juncture. There are, no doubt, certain special circumstances that make the problem inherently difficult and complicated. Ukraine, for instance, is not just another country as far as Russia is concerned. It was part of the erstwhile Soviet Union till 1991, and even at the time there were inherent tensions in the relationship. Ukraine in turn has long struggled with ethno-linguistic tensions encompassing western and central Ukraine and the Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine. Western Ukraine is also largely Catholic while the east is largely Russian Orthodox. Even after its split from Russia in 1991, Ukraine has had problems in maintaining a semblance of neutrality between Russia and the West.

Aggravating the situation is the fact that Ukraine was, in a sense, a child of a series of ‘Colour Revolutions’ that shook parts of the Russian Empire in 1991 — when Russian influence was at its lowest ebb after the Second World War. Matters got further aggravated when a pro-Russian President of Ukraine — who was elected in a relatively fair election — was ousted and had to flee the country. Following this, Russia intervened and annexed Crimea and took aggressive measures to reinforce Russian influence in Donetsk and Luhansk, regions of eastern Ukraine which have large Russian populations.

The ties between Russia and Ukraine are thus in a sense both historical and political. The declared ambition of NATO is to deter Soviet expansionism and, hence, any nation becoming a part of NATO is deemed by Russia to be anti-Russia. Russia has, from time to time, made it apparent that under no circumstances would it countenance NATO membership for Ukraine, and that this would be perceived as a hostile act towards Russia.

The politics of the war

As of now, Ukraine has become a pawn between Russia and the West. The war over Ukraine is, furthermore, a reflection of the prevailing myopia of current leaders who seem doomed to repeat past follies. An extension of NATO by the inclusion of Ukraine at this time — a country with a complex history and polyglot composition — was hardly a compelling necessity at this juncture, but badly misreading the situation (for even as far back as 2007 at the Munich Security Conference where I was the Indian delegate, Mr. Putin had made it amply clear that ‘NATO extension... represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust’). Since then, Mr. Putin has given no indication whatsoever of any change in his attitude on this issue.

This misreading of Mr. Putin’s personality has been a cardinal error, and Ukraine is paying a very heavy price. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who openly flaunts his pro-West inclination, is hardly a match for President Putin in terms of strategy and tactics.

While Mr. Zelensky employs grandstanding as a strategy, Mr. Putin is a born fighter. Anyone who has had an opportunity to interact closely with Mr. Putin would never have attempted to challenge him in the manner that Mr. Zelensky has been doing these past few weeks. Currently, an unlikely hero to his fellow countrymen, he could well go down in history as someone who has caused the ruin of Ukraine. Had he had played his cards properly, he could have prevented the situation from reaching the present impasse and still maintained Ukraine’s independence. To say the least, this is extremely unfortunate for Ukraine, and much of the world as well.

Press the pause button

A change of tack is clearly called for. At this time, the cardinal objective should be to save human lives and the existence of Ukraine. Ukraine’s ambitions to join NATO, which are in any case a distant dream, need to be put on the back burner. For the present, any extension of NATO further to the east should be given up, and, instead, an effort made to rebuild some of the bridges that existed between Russia and the rest of Europe at the beginning of this century. Alongside this, the West should hit the ‘pause button’ on initiating ‘Colour Revolutions’ which have led to more conflicts than peace in Europe or elsewhere. More than anything else, leaders of nations and countries need to understand and assimilate the lessons of history, to avoid the kind of critical mistakes that have been evident during the current Russia-Ukraine crisis and war.

M.K. Narayanan is a former Director, Intelligence Bureau, a former National Security Adviser and a former Governor of West Bengal



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The State has to recalibrate its welfare architecture and strengthen urban governance

In the 2022 urban local body elections held after over 10 years in Tamil Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its allies won by a sweeping majority. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin attributed this resounding victory to the Dravidian model of governance, a relatively inclusive model that combines high economic growth with social development. While these results are rightfully celebrated, the newly elected representatives must reckon the stakes of this victory and the ongoing and imminent urban governance challenges.

A post-agrarian scenario

A significant factor that has fostered inclusive growth in the State is broad-based urbanisation that is driven not only by metropolitan cities, but also by localised economic processes. Although exact urban population numbers as of 2021 are still awaited, estimates suggest that more than half the State’s population now lives in urban areas. It is in recognition of this urban growth and corresponding land use transformations and development needs that Tamil Nadu recently decided to constitute new urban development authorities in Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Hosur, along the lines of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority. The proportion of the urban population is expected to increase to 67% by 2036, according to some estimates, given that the agricultural sector is shrinking and urban agglomerations are expanding.

Agriculture, considered the backbone of the Indian economy, is now only a residual sector in Tamil Nadu. According to the Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households 2019, only 26% of rural households in the State directly depend on agriculture as the main source of livelihood. In contrast, in Kerala, 33% of rural households identify agriculture as their main source of livelihood, while 61% and 54% do so in “developed States” like Gujarat and Maharashtra, respectively. Therefore, if we conservatively assume that 50% of Tamil Nadu is urbanised, seven out of eight households rely on the non-farm sector in Tamil Nadu. In addition, the survey reveals that a majority of the households that reported agriculture as their main source of income also rely on wage labour to complement their household income. As much as 62% of farm household income comes from wage labour in Tamil Nadu, as against 43% in Gujarat and 45% in Maharashtra. This is perhaps an indicator of how much diversification has occurred even within farm households in the State.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is a critical source of livelihood, particularly for landless labourers and marginal landowners who together constitute over 92% of all rural households in the State. Therefore, when a village gets designated as urban, landless labourers suffer the most. Change of designation of land from rural to urban might benefit landowners from increased land values. However, this is not the case for those who are landless. Though the main reasons for urban growth in Tamil Nadu are the absorption of villages into the nearest urban jurisdictions and the designation of existing villages as census towns, there has been some resistance from village panchayat heads against classifying their villages as urban, simply so that they can continue to avail of the benefits from MGNREGS.

Labourers displaced from rural and agrarian sectors are not being adequately absorbed by urban sectors. The main driver of employment generation in urban areas is the low-end service sector and construction. The share of those employed in construction in the total workforce has more than doubled between 2005 and 2019, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2019-20; while the proportion of those in manufacturing has been stagnating around 20% for more than a decade. In comparison, Gujarat increased its share of the workforce in manufacturing to 20% in 2019 from 16% in 2004-05.

The quality of jobs available is also notable, given that 63% of all non-agricultural enterprises are informal. The pandemic has only further informalised the labour force and made it harder to access jobs. In other words, the dispossession rate from traditional occupations in the State is higher than the rate at which secure employment is generated in the urban sector. While this dispossession has weakened the caste basis of occupations, it has not ensured secure opportunities in modern sectors.

To its credit, the Tamil Nadu government has announced a pilot urban employment scheme inspired by the MGNREGS. However, this is set to cover select corporation zones, municipalities and town panchayats, and at a mere expense of Rs. 100 crore, without any support from the Union government. A demand-driven, guarantee-based approach to ensure urban employment is an immediate need for urban centers, especially given the adverse effects of the pandemic on employment.

With more and more people moving to urban centres in search of employment, we are likely to witness urbanisation of poverty as well. The State has to reckon with the need to provide affordable housing, health care, subsidised food and fuel through the public distribution system, among other necessary social measures. This will entail expanding and strengthening the capacities of urban governance structures which are less participatory compared to rural Panchayati Raj institutions. An urban grievance redress mechanism must be set up.

The Union government’s role

The Union government has been encroaching policy spaces where State-level protections have been ensured for citizens. For instance, Tamil Nadu has 34 welfare boards for informal workers across multiple sectors. These are the primary mechanisms through which workers receive formal benefits including pensions, maternity benefits, compensation in the event of an accident or death, educational scholarships for children of workers, and skills training. These boards, a vital aspect of the State’s inclusive development, are now under threat from the Union government’s new labour laws, which seek to “consolidate” and “universalise” provisions for all labourers.

In addition to the ideological biases and centralising tendencies of the Union government, many national policy interventions also suffer from a rural bias (the Jal Jeevan Mission, for instance), which Tamil Nadu’s majority urban population will not benefit from. The Union government’s aggressive one-size-fits-all strategy does not do justice to State-specific development patterns.

Even as it is losing potential funds from the Union government, the State has not been raising its own resources optimally, through property taxes, for instance. Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Chief Minister Arvind Subramanian pointed out that despite being the most urbanised State in India, Tamil Nadu’s property tax collection is only Rs. 2,500 crore, much lower than the earnings of less urbanised States like Maharashtra and Karnataka.

In sum, Tamil Nadu needs to take steps to keep up with the rate at which urbanisation is taking place, recalibrate its welfare architecture and strengthen urban governance, while collectively bargaining with the Union government to reclaim its rightful budget shares and policy priorities.

Kalaiyarasan A. is Research Affiliate at South Asia Institute, Harvard University, and Priti Narayan is faculty at the University of British Columbia



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Freshwater resources are under stress, the principal driver being human activities in their various forms

The Global Water System Project, which was launched in 2003 as a joint initiative of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) and Global Environmental Change (GEC) programme, epitomises global concern about the human-induced transformation of fresh water and its impact on the earth system and society. The fact is that freshwater resources are under stress, the principal driver being human activities in their various forms.

Fresh water, water valuation

In its fourth assessment report in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted the link between societal vulnerability and modifications of water systems. It is globally estimated that the gap between demand for and supply of fresh water may reach up to 40% by 2030 if present practices continue.

The formation of the 2030 Water Resource Group in 2008, at the instance of the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank’s promotion of the group’s activity since 2018, is in recognition of this problem and to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on water availability and sanitation for all by 2030 (SDG 6). Formally, it is: “to ensure safe drinking water and sanitation for all, focusing on the sustainable management of water resources, wastewater and ecosystems....” The latest UN World Water Development Report, 2021, titled ‘Valuing Water’, has laid stress on the proper valuation of water by considering five interrelated perspectives: water sources; water infrastructure; water services; water as an input to production and socio-economic development, and sociocultural values of water.

Designing a comprehensive mix of divergent views about water (along with ecological and environmental issues) held by stakeholder groups is necessary. In this context, a hydro-social cycle approach provides an appropriate framework. It repositions the natural hydrological cycle in a human-nature interactive structure and considers water and society as part of a historical and relational-dialectical process.

Inter-basin transfer projects

The anthropogenic factors directly influencing a freshwater system are the engineering of river channels, irrigation and other consumptive use of water, widespread land use/land cover change, change in an aquatic habitat, and point and non-point source pollution affecting water quality. The intra- and inter-basin transfer (IBT) of water is a major hydrological intervention to rectify the imbalance in water availability due to naturally prevailing unequal distribution of water resources within a given territory.

There are several IBT initiatives across the world. One recent document indicates that there are 110 water transfer mega projects that have either been executed (34 projects) or being planned/under construction (76 projects) across the world. The National River Linking Project of India is one of those under construction. These projects, if executed, will create artificial water courses that are more than twice the length of the earth’s equator and will transfer 1,910 km3 of water annually. They will reengineer the hydrological system with considerable local, regional and global ramifications. Based on a multi-country case study analysis, the World Wildlife Fund/World Wide Fund for Nature (2009) has suggested a cautious approach and the necessity to adhere to sustainability principles set out by the World Commission on Dams while taking up IBT projects.

Some of the key assumptions

Recently, inter-basin transfer of water drew attention in India due to a provision made in Budget 2022 for the Ken Betwa river link project which is a part of the National River Linking project (mooted in 1970 and revived in 1999). This decision raises larger questions about hydrological assumptions and the use and the management of freshwater resources in the country. We shall ponder over some of them.

First, the basic premise of IBT is to export water from the surplus basin to a deficit basin. However, there is contestation on the concept of the surplus and deficit basin itself as the exercise is substantially hydrological. Water demand within the donor basin by factoring present and future land use, especially cropping patterns, population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation, socio-economic development and environmental flow are hardly worked out. Besides this, rainfall in many surplus basins has been reported as declining. The status of the surplus basin may alter if these issues are considered.

Second, there is concern about the present capacity utilisation of water resources created in the country. By 2016, India created an irrigation potential for 112 million hectares, but the gross irrigated area was 93 million hectares. There is a 19% gap, which is more in the case of canal irrigation. In 1950-51, canal irrigation used to contribute 40% of net irrigated area, but by 2014-15, the net irrigated area under canal irrigation came down to less than 24%. Ground water irrigation now covers 62.8% of net irrigated area. The average water use efficiency of irrigation projects in India is only 38% against 50%-60% in the case of developed countries.

Agriculture, grey water use

Even at the crop level we consume more water than the global average. Rice and wheat, the two principal crops accounting for more than 75% of agricultural production use 2,850 m3/tonnes and 1,654 m3/tonnes of water, respectively, against the global average of 2,291m3/tonnes and 1,334m3/ tonnes in the same order. The agriculture sector uses a little over 90% of total water use in India. And in industrial plants, consumption is 2 times to 3.5 times higher per unit of production of similar plants in other countries. Similarly, the domestic sector experiences a 30% to 40% loss of water due to leakage.

Third, grey water is hardly used in our country. It is estimated that 55% to 75% of domestic water use turns into grey water depending on its nature of use, people’s habits, climatic conditions, etc. At present, average water consumption in the domestic sector in urban areas is 135 litres to 196 litres a head a day. Given the size of India’s urban population (469 million estimated for 2021), the amount of grey water production can be well imagined. If grey water production in the rural areas is considered it will be a huge amount. The discharge of untreated grey water and industrial effluents into freshwater bodies is cause for concern. The situation will be further complicated if groundwater is affected.

Apart from the inefficient use of water in all sectors, there is also a reduction in natural storage capacity and deterioration in catchment efficiency. The issues are source sustainability, renovation and maintenance of traditional water harvesting structures, grey water management infrastructure, groundwater recharge, increasing water use efficiency, and reuse of water.

Planning ahead

Looking into these issues may not be adequate to address all the problems. Nevertheless, these measures will help to reduce demand supply gap in many places, and the remaining areas of scarcity can be catered to using small-scale projects. The axiom that today’s water system is co-evolving and the challenges are mainly management and governance has been globally well accepted. Water projects are politically charged and manifest an interplay of social relations, social power, and technology.

It is important to include less predictable variables, revise binary ways of thinking of ‘either or’, and involve non-state actors in decision-making processes. A hybrid water management system is necessary, where (along with professionals and policy makers) the individual, a community and society have definite roles in the value chain. The challenge is not to be techno-centric but anthropogenic.

Srikumar Chattopadhyay is ICSSR National Fellow, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, and former Scientist, National Centre for Earth Science Studies, Thiruvananthapuram



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A formal approach to homes for the elderly is an important policy and planning issue for India

As India becomes increasingly urbanised and families break up into smaller units, homes for the elderly have sprung up. The care of elderly people is managed by a set of professionals or voluntary organisations interested in geriatric services. The number of such care homes is rising rapidly in urban and semi-urban India. These homes are either paid for, or offer free or subsidised service. Typically, such homes are run by NGOs, religious or voluntary organisations with support from the government, or by local philanthropists. They provide accommodation, timely care, and a sense of security for their residents. However, the quality of service varies as these homes lack regulatory oversight. Many homes lack clearly established standard operating procedures, and their referral paths to health care are informal. There is an urgent need to understand the quality of life at such institutions, including the impact of these homes on the mental health of their residents.

A rapidly growing section

A formal approach to homes for the elderly is an important policy and planning issue for India. The UN World Population Ageing Report notes that India’s ageing population (those aged 60 and above) is projected to increase to nearly 20% by 2050 from about 8% now. By 2050, the percentage of elderly people will increase by 326%, with those aged 80 years and above set to increase by 700%, making them the fastest-growing age group in India. With this future in mind, it is essential that our policy framework and social responses are geared to meet this reality.

A recent set of research papers from Hyderabad focusing on the quality of health in homes for the elderly has some interesting insights. The papers highlight the fact that good intentions and a sense of charity are often inadequate when it comes to addressing the basic health needs of their elderly residents. These papers are outcomes of the Hyderabad Ocular Morbidity in Elderly Study (HOMES) by the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute that was primarily meant to understand the vision needs of elderly residents of such homes. About 30% of the residents who were part of the study (over 1,500 participants from 40 homes) had a vision impairment of some sort, but nearly 90% of this vision impairment could be addressed by simple, relatively low-cost health interventions: issuing better eye glasses or cataract surgery.

The study also found some ‘unseen’ effects of vision impairment: many were prone to depression. In fact, those with both vision and hearing impairment had a rate of depression that was five times higher than those without. Our homes, buildings and social environment are not built keeping the elderly (or people with disabilities) in mind. As people age, and their motor skills weaken, they are at a greater risk of falling down and hurting themselves. Having an impairment increases this risk. Instead of planning for accessible and elderly-friendly structures that allow them to operate safely, we reduce their mobility. People with functional skills are asked to stay away from daily tasks like cooking, sewing, cleaning, or washing up. This reduces their sociability, their sense of independence and well-being — all leading up to mental health issues and depression.

The state of homes for the elderly today offers us some low-hanging fruit we can address easily: build formal pathways for basic health screening between such homes and public health facilities. This can include screenings for blood sugar, blood pressure, periodic vision and hearing screening, and a simple questionnaire to assess mental health. Such interventions are inexpensive (think of all the motorcycle-operated screenings outside public grounds for morning-walkers) and could go a long way in identifying health issues and offering support. The next step would be to build formal pathways to address any health issues that such screenings identify. Many hospitals (public, NGO-run, and private care) can help.

Public policy support

Crucial though will be the need for robust public policy to support homes for the elderly. Health institutions will also need to offer a comprehensive set of packages that are tailored for the elderly — not piecemeal solutions for diabetes, cardiology or cancer, for example. What happens once care is provided? Homes for the elderly must be guided, again by policy, to make their facilities, buildings and social environment elderly- and disabled-friendly. Design, architecture and civic facilities must be thought from the ground up — and these innovations must be available for all residents, not just those living in expensive ones. There are lessons here for society as a whole, but, as they say, let’s take one step at a time.

Tejah Balantrapu is Associate Director, Science, Health Data, and Story-telling , L.V. Prasad Eye Institute; Srinivas Marmamula is Associate Director, Public Health Research and Training, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute



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The former interim general secretary of the AIADMK continues to be a subject of intense debate

Even nearly five years after having lost the position of a pivot in the AIADMK, the sidelined former interim general secretary, V.K. Sasikala, continues to be a subject of major political discourse both within and outside the party. Though the Sasikala factor was a subject of discussion even during the lifetime of former Chief Minister Jayalalaithaa, who regarded her a confidante, it has acquired a new dimension ever since Ms. Sasikala returned to Chennai from Bengaluru in February 2021 after completing a four-year sentence in a disproportionate assets case.

Last week, the Theni district unit of the AIADMK adopted a resolution calling for the re-entry of Ms. Sasikala and her nephew and AMMK general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran into the organisation. The resolution is significant for a couple of reasons. Theni is the home district of AIADMK coordinator O. Panneerselvam, who revolted against Ms. Sasikala in February 2017 before she went to the Bengaluru jail. The meeting was held at Mr. Panneerselvam’s farmhouse, although it was the district secretary of the party, S.P.M. Syed Khan, who presided over it. The development proves that despite Ms. Sasikala being declared persona non grata by former Chief Minister and party co-coordinator Edappadi K. Palaniswami and his supporters, there are still some sections in the party which want her back in the organisation.

Even before the excitement over the event could die down came the news that Mr. Palaniswami and Mr. Panneerselvam had a telephone conversation in which the latter is said to have distanced himself from the Theni development. But that was not the end of the drama. The next day, Mr. Panneerselvam’s younger brother O. Raja, who is the chief of the Theni District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union (Aavin), met Ms. Sasikala in Tiruchendur, one of the six abodes of Lord Muruga, although she was on a “pilgrimage”. This led to his expulsion from the party by Mr. Panneerselvam and Mr. Palaniswami.

This is the second time in the past three years that Mr. Raja has been expelled from the party. In December 2018, hours after being elected chief of Madurai district’s Aavin, he was expelled only to be re-admitted a week later after he expressed regret. The reason for Mr. Raja’s expulsion at that time was that he had approached Mr. Dhinakaran for support without Mr. Panneerselvam’s “knowledge and approval”.

However, there are sceptics who doubt whether Mr. Panneerselvam will stick to the anti-Sasikala line permanently. For, in January 2021, one of his sons, V.P. Jaya Pradeep, wished Ms. Sasikala a speedy recovery when she was down with COVID-19. Eight months later, when Mr. Panneerselvam’s wife Vijayalakshmi died at a hospital in Chennai, Ms. Sasikala rushed to offer her condolences to the AIADMK’s coordinator.

In June last year, a large number of district units of the party adopted a resolution condemning Ms. Sasikala for seeking to “take over the party and create confusion among its cadre.” Yet, the units in Theni and Thanjavur, the home district of the party’s deputy coordinator, R. Vaithialingam, did not follow suit. What has not gone unnoticed is that Ms. Sasikala, Mr. Panneerselvam and Mr. Vaithialingam all belong to the Mukkolathor community.

Despite several attempts, Ms. Sasikala has not been able to wean away the rank and file of the party, which, in her own words, had “never seen such a spell of continuous electoral reverses” as it did since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. At present, a majority of the party’s office bearers, if not more, are behind Mr. Palaniswami, who does not seem to be toning down his strong anti-Sasikala line.

ramakrishnan.t@thehindu.co.in



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Putin should pause the war and start talkson Zelensky’s compromise proposals

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a Churchill-like speech at the British Parliament on Tuesday, vowing to fight to the end “in forests, fields and streets”. But hours before his speech, through video-conferencing, he sent the clearest signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin — in an interview — that he was ready to compromise on the most sensitive issues such as Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, and the status of Russian-controlled Crimea and the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk republics. He also called for “a collective security agreement” that would include Russia, the U.S. and Western European countries as part of a lasting solution. What makes his apparent concessions important is that he announced them a day after the Kremlin laid out three conditions to stop what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine: It wants Kyiv to accept Crimea as a Russian territory, recognise Donetsk and Luhansk as independent republics and amend the country’s Constitution to drop attempts to join any bloc (NATO) and reinstate its neutrality. While Mr. Zelensky stopped short of offering recognition to the breakaway regions, his offer for compromise and dialogue opened a path towards a political settlement. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement on Wednesday that its goals would be better achieved through talks also signals hope for a de-escalation.

In the last two weeks, Mr. Zelensky has emerged as the face of the Ukrainian resistance. But he is also in a difficult situation. The Russian advances are slow given Russia’s relative power, but in the last 13 days, Ukraine has lost sizeable territories, from its northern border with Belarus to its southwestern Black Sea coast. Russia has not taken any major Ukrainian city except Kherson in the south, but most cities, including Kharkiv in the north and Mariupol in the southeast, are being encircled. Kyiv, the capital city, is being enveloped from the east and west. Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly asked for military help from NATO. But his request for a no-fly zone was shot down. Even the Polish offer to send its fleet of MiG-29 fighters was dismissed by the U.S., which does not want any kind of military involvement in the conflict. So, the practical solution before Mr. Zelensky is to take advantage of Ukraine’s initial resistance and seek a solution through talks. Against this backdrop, his comment about Ukraine dropping its NATO bid is a welcome step. But the question is whether Mr. Putin would take this and be ready for de-escalation. If Russia had expected a quick collapse of the Ukrainian government, it has been proved wrong. Nearly a fortnight of conflict has taken a huge toll on Russia’s economy. Its ties with Europe have been set back by decades. Continuing this war endlessly does not serve anybody’s interest. If Mr. Putin’s primary concern is Russia’s security interests, he should pause the operation and start serious dialogue with the Ukrainians on Mr. Zelensky’s proposals.



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Leaders’ wrangling should not lead to politicising of constitutional norms

Two contrasting issues concerning the legislature in two States appear to sum up the potential for political controversy when elected governments and Governors do not see eye to eye. In the West Bengal Assembly, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and legislators of her party had to virtually plead with Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to start reading his customary address amidst a prolonged uproar by the Opposition BJP MLAs. Mr. Dhankhar appeared ready to give in to the protesters, but was ultimately persuaded into reading the first and last lines. In Telangana, on the other hand, the K. Chandrasekhar Rao government seems to have decided not to have Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan address the legislature before it presented this year’s Budget. Instead, it is treating the current meeting of the legislature as a continuation of the last session. That the session, which last met some months ago, was not prorogued, has given scope for the government to contend that it is just a further meeting, and it is not necessary for the Governor to open it with an address. The ceremonial address is usually delivered in the first session of every year. Dr. Soundararajan has issued a rare statement to argue that the government’s position was technical, and it would not be proper to commence the Budget session without her address. The episode appears to arise from points of conflict between the government secretariat and Raj Bhavan, as the ruling TRS seems aggrieved that the Governor deviated from the text of her address last year and on some other issues too.

The Governor’s address is a constitutional formality, albeit a significant one, as it is essentially a statement of policy of the regime of the day. That the formal occasion is mired in political wrangling is a sign of institutional decay and unwarranted politicisation of constitutional norms. That Ms. Banerjee saw the incidents in the Assembly, which almost resulted in the abandonment of the Governor’s address, as “an attempt to create a constitutional crisis” shows that leaders still attach constitutional significance to the tradition. It will be desirable if the same recognition is seen in Telangana too. After all, if not now, the next session will have to open with the Governor’s address. It is true that there are sound arguments that question the need and the relevance of the office of Governor, or support the view that some incumbents are politically partisan. There may even be a case for doing away with the formality, or even arguing that the policy statement is better read out by the elected Chief Minister. However, as long as the current system is in vogue, there is a case for abiding by the norms. Politics notwithstanding, it is only in such formality that civility in public discourse is expressed.



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Modern scientific farming and animal husbandry have no doubt made possible spectacular increases in food production to match the fast rising population. But they also pose grave hazards to the health and lives of the very humans they help to sustain. So serious and widespread is the new danger that the Agricultural Examination and Research Institute based in Kiel, West Germany, recently gave expression to its sense of alarm over this situation. According to the institute, it is practically impossible to find in West Germany to-day food products that do not have an element of residual and toxic wastes, though the use of pesticides and insecticides on growing crops. Flour, vegetables, milk and other animal products were all found contaminated with such poisonous impurities. While realiable data are not available regarding how harmful these toxic residues are to grown-ups, children are feared to be particularly susceptible. A tendency to cancer, cell damage and disorders in the biological regulatory systems are said to be among the hazards posed by these toxins.



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To be so openly earnest about one’s quest for a life partner at a time when romance is reduced to the direction in which one swipes takes courage, especially as — thanks to social media — ridicule becomes very public very quickly now.

What does it take to plaster a Tube station with advertisements seeking a bride? About £2,000, a healthy dose of hope and complete indifference to whether or not other people will treat the whole exercise as a massive joke (Warning: They will). Jeevan Bhachu, an Indian-origin marketing professional and part-time DJ from London, who has placed massive billboards on the platforms of the Central and Bakerloo lines at Oxford Circus, remains unfazed by the prospect of public ridicule. In an interview that appeared after his public appeal caught the eye of the local press, Jeevan stated that in his search for the right woman, he’s willing to expand coverage to even more Tube stations.

Jeevan’s humour-laced, but earnest, quest for a saathi — “Best Indian you’ll takeaway” — is inspired by another seeker with subcontinental roots, Muhammad Malik, who had unleashed a similar billboard campaign across major cities in the UK in January. It could be said that both campaigns operate in the hoary tradition of personal ads in newspapers and  “matrimonial” websites in India — of course, on a much larger, far more creative scale. But the affinity shouldn’t be stretched. While there’s always been something cringe-worthy about matrimonial ads that demand “fair and lovely, convent educated, homely brides”, the grandness of gestures like those by Jeevan demands admiration. Lovers of yore scaled mountains and battled dragons to prove their earnestness; in the age of internet virality, Romeos (even if they’re only potentially so) splash out on meme-worthy ad campaigns.

To be so openly earnest about one’s quest for a life partner at a time when romance is reduced to the direction in which one swipes takes courage, especially as — thanks to social media — ridicule becomes very public very quickly now. Could it be that the barbs of the cynical don’t sting those who are waiting to be felled by cupid’s arrow of true love?

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on March 10, 2022 under the title ‘Jeevan seeks saathi’.



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Granular information on the shape of this learning loss will be useful for policymakers. But it is also important to remember that data — in itself — is not the solution. The immediate short-term step is to embark on a back-to-basics revision programme across schools and classes.

Classrooms across the country are coming to life as children return to schools and playgrounds. But, going by anecdotal accounts, teachers and schools are now confronted with a formidable challenge — nearly two years of school closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic have not only interrupted children’s learning but also eaten away at their foundational skills and abilities. This has been corroborated by field surveys carried out in Karnataka, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh by private agencies that show alarming regression in students’ abilities. This is a grim sign, as the weight of such learning deficits in reading, writing and comprehension in primary school is bound to stunt education at higher levels. And so, the Centre’s plan to carry out a national survey of Class III students to assess the extent of this learning loss is a welcome one. The “foundational learning study” will be carried out by the Ministry of Education in 22 languages; specially trained “field investigators” will carry out the assessments in schools; the focus will not be on intimidating tests, but on interactive, face-to-face assessments.

While the growth of educational opportunities in the previous decade is a result of an expanded primary education programme and the Right to Education legislation, concerns about the quality of education persisted. Several ASER reports carried out by the Pratham Foundation have consistently red-flagged the fact that children are going to school, but not learning to read, write or do simple sums. The Centre carries out its own assessments through the National Achievement Survey, but this is the first time it is paying attention to the challenges of foundational learning. It does so at a time when the pandemic has worsened this crisis.

Granular information on the shape of this learning loss will be useful for policymakers. But it is also important to remember that data — in itself — is not the solution. The immediate short-term step is to embark on a back-to-basics revision programme across schools and classes. That will imply freeing teachers from the tyranny of “completing the syllabus”, allowing them the autonomy to make unconventional teaching choices. In the long run, the government will also need to walk the talk on resources to tackle this crisis, which it seems reluctant to do so. Funds for training teachers, for instance, have been slashed in the current budget, which places misguided faith in e-learning and TV channels to reach children. The education crisis can snowball into one of equity, creating a new fault line between haves and have-nots, with alarming consequences for the future.



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In a major outbreak of violence, anti-liquor agitators indulging in looting, clashed with the police in Anantnag town in Kashmir, leaving at least 65 people injured.

In a major outbreak of violence, anti-liquor agitators indulging in looting, clashed with the police in Anantnag town in Kashmir, leaving at least 65 people injured. The police fired several rounds in the air to disperse unruly supporters of the pro-Pakistan Peoples League who took to the streets for the second day and forced shopkeepers to close their shops. The police swung into action with firearms after lathi-charge and tear gas had little effect on the mob demanding a ban on the sale of liquor. Infuriated at the police action to re-open the closed shops, pickets of the Peoples League looted several wine shops, threw liquor bottles on the roadside and stoned police personnel.

Pak Weapons Trade

Pakistan has acquired from the US and China fighter aircraft, guns, communication equipment and missiles besides other war equipment in the past one year, Defence Minister R Venkataraman told the Rajya Sabha. Answering questions on the Pakistani arms build-up, he said it would not be desirable to disclose all the information on the subject. He said it was not known whether all the arms for which Pakistan had signed agreements with the US up to December 1981 had been delivered.

Fans vs Police

A Tiruvalluvar Transport Corporation express bus was burnt down, window panes of 10 other buses were smashed and scores of persons, including 23 police personnel, were injured in repeated clashes between fans of matinee idol Sivaji Ganesan and the Tamil Nadu police at Meenambakkam airport. The police fired 23 rounds of tear-gas shells and resorted to lathi charges to disperse a 5,000-strong crowd of Ganesan’s fans and Congress-I workers who had come to the airport to greet him.



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The 15th round of talks between the ground-level military commanders of India and China at the Line of Actual Control, scheduled for Friday, may provide more insight into the ripple effect, if any, the Ukraine conflict might have on tensions in Eastern Ladakh.

Among the many interesting observations that Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi made at a press conference in Beijing on Monday, one was particularly telling. Noting that China- European Union trade had exceeded $800 billion for the first time in 2021, Wang said the cooperation between China and Europe, “going through decades of ups and downs, is deeply rooted in solid public support, extensive common interests and similar strategic needs. Such cooperation… cannot be reversed by any force”. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Beijing has had to balance its “no limits” friendship with Moscow, its vital economic relationships with the US and Europe, and the need to be seen and accepted as a responsible power but without yielding on its core belief — that American unilateralism is the original sin. It has constantly finessed its statements on the conflict to reflect the fast-evolving ground situation. On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “maximum restraint to prevent a humanitarian crisis” in a conference with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, commended their mediation efforts, and said China would coordinate with France, Germany and the EU, and work actively with the international community. He referred to a six-point initiative that China has undertaken to ease the humanitarian situation in Ukraine. He also reiterated China’s neutral formulation that the UN Charter and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be respected, and that the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be taken seriously.

It is clear that Russia’s actions in Ukraine have left Beijing in a difficult position, one that it may not have anticipated perhaps due to a belief, now misplaced, that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be able to pull of a surgical operation. The sanctions against Russia are going to hurt Beijing as well. But it appears that China also sees an opportunity in the present moment to project itself as a country that believes in de-escalation and conflict resolution and is prepared to work with other global powers to achieve this. It seeks to play down the image of a country that needles its neighbours and indulges in coercive Wolf Warrior diplomacy.

Beijing still considers the US as its primary rival in its quest for global supremacy. Wang’s deliberate casting of the Quad grouping as an “Asian NATO” may have been an attempt to draw a comparison between the Indo-Pacific and the conflict in Europe, but it contradicts its own position that the two are not comparable. If anything, in terms of security, China is a beneficiary of the war in Ukraine, with the US preoccupied in Europe. The 15th round of talks between the ground-level military commanders of India and China at the Line of Actual Control, scheduled for Friday, may provide more insight into the ripple effect, if any, the Ukraine conflict might have on tensions in Eastern Ladakh.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on March 10, 2022 under the title ‘Balancing act’.



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R Mahalakshmi writes: He shone a light on the complex historical processes, challenged top-down view of change

One of the leading historians of our times, Bhairabi Prasad Sahu, died on March 3, barely three months before he was to retire from the department of history, University of Delhi. Sahu was known for his numerous works on early Indian history, as well as his commitment to teaching and mentoring students. The community of historians, his colleagues and students are shocked by the untimely demise of a scholar of his calibre and productivity.

An alumni of Delhi University, his doctoral research, later published as a monograph (1988), was in the field of archaeology, and focused on the faunal remains from the palaeolithic to the neolithic contexts in the Indian subcontinent. Scholars like Gordon Childe had proposed the idea of a neolithic “revolution”, suggesting a radical transformation in subsistence strategies for communities dependent on hunting and gathering, who had now turned to herding. Sahu broadly agreed with the view that a qualitative change in the life of people, related to the development of sedentism, private property and other social institutions, can be traced to the emergence of pastoralism in prehistoric times. In an article ‘Animal Use in Ancient India’ (1987), he turned his attention to the early historic period and discussed the plentiful availability of archaeological data on meat eating, and concluded that beef was an important part of the diet in several parts of ancient India. The implications of this work were significant, and in later years his teacher and then colleague D N Jha wrote a full monograph on the subject of beef-eating in ancient India, countering upfront the communal narrative of its association with Muslims (and Christians).

It seems that Sahu’s attention was drawn to the early history of Odisha (1984) even while he was completing his thesis. Critically examining the view that Ashoka’s Kalinga war had ramifications as far as the development of state society in the region was concerned, he went on to discuss the nature of the state as revealed through the epigraphic sources of the early historic and early medieval period. This was the beginning of an academic engagement that defined his oeuvre as a scholar. The seminal works of B D Chattopadhyaya and Hermann Kulke provided the blueprint for several historians unable to reconcile with the top-down approach of historical change that a previous generation of scholars such as D D Kosambi and R S Sharma had proffered.

While the latter were the harbingers of the study of socio-economic aspects instead of dynastic history, it was suggested that there were possibilities for understanding things differently if the local and the regional were brought into play. This model pioneered the understanding that historical regions can have different processes as well as pace of growth, leading to political, economic as well as social and cultural structures.

Sahu took these ideas forward in his evocatively titled collection of articles, Changing the Gaze: Regions and the Construction of Early India (2014). The work challenged the tendency to view regions as ossified, unchanging entities; advocating a focus that locates sub-regional as well as trans-regional connections. In The Making of Regions in Indian History: Society, State and Identity in Premodern Odisha (2020), he brought a sharper focus on the issue of integrative processes in Odisha’s history, from the time of Ashoka and Kharavela to the dynasties of the Bhaumakaras and Eastern Gangas. Chauvinistic claims of the present often get telescoped into the past when it comes to regional identity, and there is an insistence on seeing modern contours instead of historical regions. Sahu’s scholarship on premodern Odisha and on the evolution of regions has important implications for the way in which we understand history in general, and how it is taught at all levels.

Sahu served as the joint secretary (1999-2002) and secretary of the Indian History Congress (2006-2009), as well as a member of its executive committee on several occasions. A regular at the annual sessions of the IHC since his student days in the University of Delhi, he presented numerous papers and was committed to the strengthening of this body of professional historians. The responsibility of carrying forward the ideals and vision of the founding members of the IHC of encouraging scientific temper and rigorously researched history has fallen on successive generations of scholars since the time of its inception in 1935. BP Sahu stands tall among them. The history fraternity will miss him, but his scholarship will remain relevant for our times.

This column first appeared in the print edition on March 10, 2022 under the title ‘A clearer gaze’. The writer is professor of history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and secretary, Indian History Congress.



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Denis Alipov writes: Russia was forced into a situation with few choices

It is with genuine astonishment that I read the conversation the German Ambassador to India, Walter Lindner had in the ‘Idea Exchange’ hosted by Shubhajit Roy, Deputy Chief of National Bureau of The Indian Express (March 7).

I have just arrived in New Delhi and am yet to present my credentials to the President of India. Protocol and ethics require me to refrain from making public appearances. However, I cannot but respond, since the German Ambassador to India took the liberty to publicly stigmatise Russia, its president and its policies.

Lindner seems to be a fine man, and like many from the generation of “flower children”, he sincerely believes in his ideals. However, a politician should be a realist, for the world we all live in is far from ideal. However, it looks as though realism is not the strongest trait of the German ambassador.

The point I am trying to make is that it doesn’t take a great degree of intelligence or courage to blame President Vladimir Putin for all the deadly sins that afflict the world. What is much harder is to accept that you too bear responsibility for the tragedy in Ukraine. All the more so, if you’re driven only by one side of the truth. And, if you had turned a blind eye towards the eight long years of torture, humiliation and mass killings in Donbas.

You had failed to listen to Russia’s consistent requests and even pleas since the mid-2000s — we don’t want confrontation, we want equal security for all.

You don’t seem to grasp that it’s not Ukraine that is fighting for freedom and independence. It’s Russia that’s doing so. Russia is not there to occupy or enslave, unlike Nazi Germany in the not-so-distant past.

Lindner says that Russia is “bending” history. Well, it’s high time you open your eyes, Mr Ambassador, for the US has been doing precisely that for the past 20 years, obsessed with the notion of unrivalled global dominance and feeding you and the world the very same fake narrative of which you accuse Russia.

It is true that Russia is a young and imperfect democracy. Our many shortcomings make us appear an autocracy to some. But, tell me, which country is perfect in this world? Our only desire is to freely evolve at our own pace without interference. Russia’s core foreign policy objective is to preserve the international laws agreed to by all instead of following a “rules-based order” advocated by a few. There cannot be one ultimate truth in international relations, it is always a compromise. The very compromise Russia was so highhandedly denied and in which Germany didn’t seem to have much say.

Perhaps, the German Ambassador has a different viewpoint but that doesn’t mean I should agree with him. And maybe he would agree with me that had Germany had a more independent foreign policy, it would have succeeded in respecting the interests of Russia and Europe at large, and wouldn’t have allowed a situation when we were left with no other choice but to use force to make Ukraine listen to us. It was not our choice alone, Germany too bears responsibility for the current situation.

That’s the realpolitik and it is much more grim than what the German Ambassador thinks. The people “across the pond” who call the shots are much more cynical than him. I’m happy that the German Ambassador can afford the luxury to theorise about ideals. Unfortunately, we have to deal with harsh reality.

This column first appeared in the print edition on March 10, 2022 under the title ‘We didn’t start the fire’. The writer is Russia’s Ambassador-Designate to India.



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Anand Krishnan writes: The efforts to scale up, which are most welcome, must be re-envisaged to focus on quality and societal needs along with commercial viability.

India’s medical education system has attracted a lot of adverse attention due to the crisis in Ukraine and the resultant need for evacuating medical students, delay in post-graduate counselling because of reservation-related litigation and Tamil Nadu legislating to opt out of NEET. I take a look at what ails the system based on my close encounters with it, as a member of the faculty at a medical college and as a father whose daughters went through this process in the last decade.

There is a serious demand-supply mismatch as well as inadequate seats in terms of population norms. In private colleges, these seats are priced between Rs 15-30 lakh per year (not including hostel expenses and study material). This is way more than what most Indians can afford. It is difficult to comment on quality as nobody measures it. However, from personal experience, I can say that it is highly variable and poor in most medical colleges, irrespective of the private-public divide.

The MBBS degree continues to be an attractive option. However, unlike in the past, a substantial section of the middle class no longer feels that this is a good return of investment. Students opting for a medical career, with some exceptions, are of two types: Those who see this as a path to social and economic mobility. The second category is that of children of doctors, especially in the private sector, whose parents want them to continue their legacy. The first group is highly price-sensitive while the second is not.

The government’s initiative to open new medical colleges has run into a serious faculty crunch. Except at the lowest level, where new entrants come, all that the new colleges have done is poach faculty from a current medical college. Academic quality continues to be a serious concern. The Medical Council of India (MCI) did try to address many of the earlier loopholes of ghost faculty and corruption. It introduced the requirement of publications for promotions to improve the academic rigour of faculty. But this has resulted in the mushrooming of journals of dubious quality. The point is that the faculty and medical colleges will learn to game the system. Faculty salaries in many state government-run and private colleges are low and private practice is common. This ruins the academic atmosphere.

Another distinct feature of the medical education system in India is its complete disregard for students’ welfare. Only the top 0.25 per cent of the applicants get a seat in a decent government medical college. In times of scarcity, social justice takes a backseat. Most parents simply lack the wherewithal to weigh the pros and cons of individual medical colleges. The counselling process is very complicated to negotiate, even for a person like me. After my experience of reporting to a college at 9 am and leaving at 5 am the next day with scarcely any arrangement or hospitality in peak summer, I vowed not to send my daughter to an institution that has scant respect for its future students and their parents. The system is designed for non-resident and other wealthy Indians to capture the seats left unfilled due to their high prices. This is engineered by using a percentile system for defining eligibility — and not per cent — so that students with money and low scores can get through.

What do you do if you and your family have invested money and emotion in making you a doctor and you do not get enough marks to qualify for a government medical college? Many such students used to settle for a Bachelor in Dental Surgery degree. This led to a mushrooming of dental colleges of dubious quality and India produced far more dental surgeons than were in demand. Subsequently, several of these colleges shut down. The only option then is to do MBBS in a country that one can afford.

A situation of high demand coupled with a student-unfriendly system is designed for the entry of middlemen. As soon as you register with a coaching agency or the NEET results are out, you are bombarded with offers from agencies ensuring seats in Nepal, Mauritius, Ukraine, Russia, China and so on. Parents are lured into spending their hard-earned savings by middlemen who paint a rosy picture of the scenario in these countries. Even after this, these students often fail to clear the foreign medical graduate examination — this has a pass rate of 15 per cent. Caught between parental pressure and an unfriendly system, the students have nowhere to go.

We cannot discount the impact of the corporatisation of the health sector and the increasing need for specialisation in medical education. If the health sector is treated like a service industry with a profit motive, medical education provides human resources — like business managers. Universal need and information asymmetry are among the many reasons often cited to make the case for the exclusion of market forces in health services and medical education. The increasing need for specialisation, with students having to prove their worth at every level or pay through their noses, is becoming a scourge for the new entrants to the system. This explains the decline in attraction for the MBBS among a section of students.

So, what needs to be done? There are many who propose a rapid scale-up of seats by converting district hospitals into medical colleges using a private-public partnership model. The NITI Aayog seems to be moving in this direction. This is a dangerous idea without the government putting in place two things — a functional regulatory framework, and a good public-private model that serves the needs of the private sector as well as the country. We have so far failed miserably in both, largely due to the political-private sector nexus. Recent efforts by the National Medical Council (NMC) to regulate college fees are being resisted by medical colleges. The government should seriously consider subsidising medical education, even in the private sector, or look at alternative ways of financing medical education for disadvantaged students.  Quality assessments of medical colleges should be regularly conducted, and reports should be available in the public domain. The NMC is proposing a common exit exam for all medical undergraduates as a quality control measure. This is loaded against students. I hope that the current scaling up efforts, which are most welcome, are re-envisaged to focus on quality and societal needs along with commercial viability.

This column first appeared in the print edition on March 10, 2022 under the title ‘After the evacuation’. The writer is Professor, Centre for Community Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Views are personal



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Bibek Debroy writes: Recent CAG report raises questions on land acquisition, process of allotment to builders, points to governance deficits

Uttar Pradesh is often in the news, even when there are no elections. It is a large state, with a large population. It has a large economy and India’s growth and development trajectory are dependent on what happens to UP. UP’s districts are heterogeneous and a shade over 10 per cent of UP’s GSDP (gross state domestic product) originates from the Gautam Buddha Nagar district, which includes Noida, Greater Noida, Dadri, Jewar and Dankaur.

UP is a state with extremes, understandable for a large state. At one end, there are districts like Gautam Buddha Nagar, Lucknow, Agra and Prayagraj. At the other end, there are districts like Chitrakoot, Mahoba, Shravasti and Balrampur. However, visibility-wise (depending certainly on who is viewing), Noida gets some extra prominence, and now, so does Greater Noida. The New Okhla Industrial Development Authority is a “planned city”, as is Greater Noida, the extension.

Noida was set up on April 17, 1976 and April 17 is “Noida Day”. Section 3 of the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Area Development Act 1976 provided for the notification of a Noida Authority and the 1976 legislation was “for the constitution of an Authority for the development of certain areas in the State into industrial and urban township”. Noida has won several awards.

But there is one aspect on which Noida has won no awards. I am referring to the CAG’s Performance Audit Report on “Land Acquisition and Allotment of Properties in NOIDA” in Uttar Pradesh. This is Report No. 6 of 2021, tabled on December 17, 2021. “This report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) contains significant observations arising out of ‘Performance Audit of Land Acquisition and Allotment of Properties in New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA)’ during the period 2005-06 to 2017-18 of the Government of Uttar Pradesh (GoUP). The report emanates from the scrutiny of files and documents pertaining to NOIDA and collection of data from other government departments and agencies viz. Registrar of Companies (RoC), Uttar Pradesh Real Estate Regulatory Authority (UPRERA), Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) etc., and its cross verification with the data of NOIDA. In July 2017 ,GoUP entrusted the audit of NOIDA, and three other Industrial Development Authorities (IDAs) to the CAG.” This is the first report of the kind and the objective sounds reasonable. In the interests of transparency and accountability, there should be many more of the kind. But the Noida report belies such hopes.

To quote again, “The audit of ‘Land Acquisition and Allotment of Properties in NOIDA’ has raised serious questions of propriety and pointed to governance failure at every level. In the course of acquisition of land, the rights of farmers were side-stepped through misuse of statutory provisions. The allotment of properties was replete with instances of lack of due diligence, contravention of rules and orders, misrepresentation and wilful concealment of facts. In numerous cases, allotment has been made to entities who did not meet the essential criteria laid down in the brochures resulting in allotment to entities without financial capacity for executing such projects. This has caused severe distress to home buyers on account of incomplete projects and a huge amount of outstandings remaining overdue to NOIDA. The milieu created by NOIDA and in several instances endorsed by the Board with respect to selective changes in brochure conditions, under-pricing of certain categories of plots and allotment in categories at lower rates along with reduction of allotment money, mortgage, sub-division, permission to exit and transfer clearly suggest that officials in NOIDA had acted in clear breach of public trust and in complete disregard to the interest of NOIDA and the home buyers. The creation of third-party rights in the allotted properties has put the interests of stakeholders in further peril. In spite of the clear evidence of breaches, the Authority failed to act against builders/allottees and take action against its own officials for their dereliction of duty and role in permitting/abetting the continuing infractions. These issues bring out serious lapses of probity, integrity and ethics in governance of the Authority.”

I have merely quoted from the preface. The 425 pages in the report should scandalise all of us. Let me leave aside land acquisition issues and give a sample of what occurred once land had been acquired. “Consequently, land use conversions were regularised by introducing various activities viz. sports city and mixed land use, schemes not interrelated with the core objective of NOIDA were launched and various activities not permitted in agriculture use, institutional use and industrial use were allowed causing loss to NOIDA.” Or, “NOIDA allotted 67 group housing plots measuring 71.03 lakh sqm which were sub-divided into 113 plots by the allottees. Audit observed that out of the 113 projects, 71 projects were either incomplete or partially completed, which constituted 63 per cent of the total projects. Out of the 1,30,005 flats sanctioned, occupancy certificate was not issued for 44 per cent of flats, due to which home-buyers who have invested their lives’ savings and hard-earned money in the purchase of flats still remained deprived of possession of their flats. Though the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Area Development (UPIAD) Act, 1976 has prescribed penal measures for defaulters, NOIDA had failed to take action for huge dues against the builders even after lapse of the tenure for payment.” There is much more. How did this go on with impunity and who is culpable? In fairness, many recommendations made by CAG have been accepted.

This column first appeared in the print edition on March 10, 2022 under the title ‘The NOIDA that failed people’. The writer is chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the PM. Views are personal

Why society gains when start-ups fail - Indian Express

Manish Sabharwal, Neeraj Kakkar write: The few that survive will raise India’s soft power and prosperity by using improbable ideas to solve impossible problems

The gift of middle-class parents for entrepreneurs like us was learning early in life that we don’t live in an economy but a society. (C R Sasikumar)

Superstar venture investor Vinod Khosla says, “Most people think improbable ideas are unimportant. The only thing that’s important is improbable.” India attracted immense fuel for improbable entrepreneurial ideas in 2021: Private equity investment was $77 billion, of which $42 billion went to early-stage ventures. As global financial markets swoon, every startup where salaries are paid by investors rather than customers is breathlessly rethinking business plans. But before the customary entrepreneurial schadenfreude peaks, it’s useful to remember that most startups are expected to fail, startups don’t socialise their losses, and startups will solve real problems for India.

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This article’s title draws from former Wharton professor Jitendra Singh’s thesis that society needs entrepreneurs to massively underestimate their odds of failure because only one out of 10 ventures succeeds. But since society doesn’t know which venture will succeed, it must encourage many statistically independent and genetically diverse tries by entrepreneurs delusional about their odds of success. This high failure rate is not a problem per se — society only needs a few successes to harness the gains of innovation, productivity and job creation.

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Now let’s look at the three hypotheses about startups proposed earlier.

Most startups are expected to fail: A new book, The Power Law by Sebastian Mallaby, makes the case that startup investing is unlike public market investing. He suggests public markets follow a “normal” distribution like human height — most people cluster around the average with a few exceptionally low or high. But venture investments follow a “power law” of distribution, that is, most go to zero but the tiny number that shoots into the stratosphere more than compensate for the losses or mediocrity of the many. Every startup that fails causes pain but economies that treat failure as a disease will never create innovation, immunity, and jobs.

Startups don’t socialise their losses: Corporate bank loans expanded from Rs 18 lakh crore in 2008 to Rs 54 lakh crore in 2014. This above-the-speed-limit binge to crony capitalists created bad loans that needed many lakh crores of government money to recapitalise nationalised banks. This money was diverted from government spending on healthcare, education and defence. The current venture capital binge will also create many write-offs but this cost will fall on consenting adults with broad shoulders — foreign institutions, angel investors and entrepreneurs with successful previous exits. The government bailout of bank loan losses corroded the legitimacy of entrepreneurship; the coming venture capital losses will leave behind assets, generate learning and breed valuable alumni.

Startups will solve real problems for Indians: India is poor not because of a shortage of land, labour or capital but a disease that results from how the three combine — what economists call total factor productivity. Ending our poverty needs higher productivity regions, cities, sectors, firms and individuals. A modern state is a welfare state that does less commercially so it can do more socially. It needs allies in reimagining financial inclusion, supply chains, distribution logistics, employability, retail, transport, media, healthcare, agriculture and much else. Many of our startups shall redeem their pledge to solve these problems “not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially”.

Three issues related to startups are worth flagging. First, the global capital supply fuelling startup funding faces challenges from fiscal and monetary policy normalisation: The rate-sensitive two-year US government bond recently touched a 1.6 per cent yield after being at 0.4 per cent as recently as November — because the risk-free return cannot be return-free-risk forever. Investors are returning to weighing financial sustainability and capital efficiency along with addressable markets. Second, this explosive startup funding has created excesses. Blood-testing company Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes raised $700 million while crossing over from the acceptable hyping of her product’s future to lying about performance. She took the wrong lessons from Steve Jobs’s famous “reality distortion field” — Holmes admired him enough to dress like him — and ironically went to jail the same week that Apple’s market capitalisation crossed $3 trillion. Finally, private markets are not only delaying IPOs — Amazon went public within three years of starting with less than half the value of a unicorn — but unicorn IPOs’ underperformance suggests that public markets have a different calibration.

As the funding environment for startups changes, founders must remember the timeless political advice of “campaign in poetry but govern in prose”. Startups only reach their destiny when they stop being startups; convincing customers to cover their costs, assimilating non-founder leadership and institutionalising governance. The wonderful book Harsh Realities by Harsh Mariwala and Ram Charan chronicles the multi-year journey of Marico in creating a strong foundation with “a clear strategic direction, the right set of capabilities, a well-thought succession, high governance standards, and a value-adding board”. Building institutions is the work of decades and involves choices like the meritocratic selection — and the recent tenure extension — of N Chandrasekaran as group chairman by Tata Sons. It’s impossible to know if luck or skill matters more for entrepreneurial success in the short run. But in the long-run test of being a good ancestor, nothing matters more than wise governance and talent choices.

The gift of middle-class parents for entrepreneurs like us was learning early in life that we don’t live in an economy but a society. Our challenge was getting our parents comfortable with their perceived personal financial risks because the India of their youth had an unmeritocratic business regime where entrepreneurial success needed a surname, connections, or your own money. Economic reforms have blunted incumbent advantages by enabling partnerships between daring financiers and first-generation entrepreneurs. Most of these entrepreneurs will fail because they are driven by the magnificent but risky human impulse freedom fighter Ram Prasad Bismil called sarfaroshi, poet Mir Taqi Mir called junoon, and economists call innovation. But the few that survive will raise India’s soft power and prosperity by using improbable ideas to solve impossible problems.

This column first appeared in the print edition on March 10, 2022 under the title ‘Licence to fail’. Sabharwal and Kakkar are co-founders of Teamlease Services and Paper Boat respectively

To catch a tippler: Amendments won’t solve the administrative and judicial mess Bihar’s prohibition has created - Times of India

Nitish Kumar’s ill-advised 2016 Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act is predictably creating trouble for the administration. Thousands have been arrested for drinking and then jailed. Police records indicate 3.8 lakh cases and 4 lakh arrests under the law and 20,000 bail pleas pending disposal in Patna high court and trial courts. So, the judiciary is also dealing with repercussions of a bad law. Reportedly, 16 of Patna HC’s 25 judges – that HC is already hampered by 28 vacancies – are caught up in hearing bail petitions moved by prohibition violators.

With Supreme Court on Tuesday threatening to release all arrested on bail, weeks after CJI NV Ramana criticised the law’s design, a chastened Bihar cabinet has approved amendments that will let off first-time drinkers with a ‘reasonable’ penalty and will confiscate liquor suppliers’ property. These changes may not solve the problem. The original 2016 Act punished drinkers with 5-7 year jail terms and Rs 1-10 lakh fines. Facing flak, a 2018 amendment imposed fines not less than Rs 50,000 or 3-months imprisonment for first-time offenders and jail terms of 1-5 years and fine up to Rs 1 lakh for repeat offenders. Bihar’s annual per capita income is Rs 46,000. So new penalties will have to lower by an order of magnitude if jailing is to be avoided. But if penalties are very small, disincentive against breaking the law will be very small, too. That’s the problem with bad laws like prohibition – there’s no way out of a mess. As for confiscation of property of liquor suppliers, under prohibition, supply typically happens via gangs, not individuals. So, it’s likely a frontman will get penalised while the big guys walk away.

Thoughtless application of laws, even when those laws are good, can also jam up the system. NCRB found that 16 lakh (25%) of 66 lakh cognisable offences filed in 2020 were violations of Covid social-distancing norms. Energy spent on tackling these misdemeanours detracts from prosecuting pending heinous offences. For all the rhetoric on being truly tough on major crime, the political obsession with policing behaviour and individual preferences is making a creaky justice system worse.



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In an extremely delicate operation, the last big group of about 700 Indian students was finally evacuated from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy. Establishing a humanitarian corridor for the extraction had proved to be quite challenging. In fact, earlier attempts failed due to Russian shelling. But hectic diplomacy on India’s part finally resulted in a breakthrough with the Ukrainians and Russians agreeing to provide safe passage to the Sumy students. They are now expected to cross over to Poland from where they will board Operation Ganga flights back to India.

The successful Ukraine evacuation adds to India’s long list of such rescue missions from war-torn countries. The most notable ones include the 1990 Kuwait airlift where around 1,70,000 Indians were brought back home after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, kicking off the first Gulf War. Similarly, when conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in 2006, India launched Operation Sukoon to evacuate not just Indians but also nationals of neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal with the help of the Indian navy. Then during Operation Rahat in 2015, India evacuated nearly 4,000 citizens along with foreign nationals of 26 countries from war-torn Yemen.

That said, now that the Ukraine rescue operation is winding down, the focus will shift back to India’s position on the war. Hitherto, the need to evacuate around 20,000 Indian citizens in Ukraine was seen as one of the factors influencing New Delhi’s neutral position on the war. But with most Indians out, pressure will grow on New Delhi to take a clear stand.

This is already evident in France’s stated desire to see India play a more “forceful” role in the next phase of UNSC meetings, while the US has long made clear that India can’t have different standards for the Indo-Pacific and what’s happening in Ukraine. There’s no denying that Russia’s aggression on Ukraine was militarily unprovoked and violated the sovereignty of an independent state. With China too violating India’s territorial sovereignty, the only way New Delhi can counter Beijing is through the support of the US and its allies. Plus, Russia is now primed to be in the China camp. India can’t afford to abstain from critiquing Russia any longer.



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With UP going the BJP's way, the national agenda that had got a bit unsteady during the last round of state elections is firmly back on track.

If not quite pervading with the force of 'Yes, We Can!' the cumulative result of the assembly elections in five states is certainly imbued with 'It Can Be Done' for the two winners - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The challenge for the former was to maintain scale, especially in the lodestone state of Uttar Pradesh, and for the latter, it was to scale-up. Both did it with moderate ease and credit. Handling anti-incumbency is always a tough task for governments. Fortunately for the BJP, the catchment area of anti-incumbents - a credible opposition - is yet to materialise in UP, Goa and Manipur. In Uttarakhand, the Congress continued to show its talent to implode.

In fact, Punjab voters showed what, indeed, can happen when presented with an option that is perceived to be not so much a 'Delhi party' as much one that is not from the moribund cookie-cutter of the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal. The fact that the not-so-grand-any-more party had decided to conduct a spring cleaning in autumn - with elections less than six months away - couldn't have upset AAP plans of making hay while the farmer agitations in neighbouring Delhi, comprising largely disgruntled Punjab farmers, were still fresh in memory and manifesto.

With UP going the BJP's way, the national agenda that had got a bit unsteady during the last round of state elections is firmly back on track. The mandate confirms Adityanath as being perceived as an able governor, perhaps first among the equals of BJP chief ministers. His governance agenda tailor-made for his state remains on course. It remains to be seen whether it is 'exportable'. The Samajwadi Party's rise in vote share not translating into (enough) seats underlines the work Akhilesh Yadav needs to do to pose as a serious challenger as part of a larger grouping. But his seems to be a work-in-progress. Something that can't be said about the national party, which Mamata Banerjee from the sidelines suggested post-Thursday's results, could merge with her party 'to fight the BJP'.

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The Congress' usefulness by dint of its 'shallow but wide' pan-India presence - as opposed to the deep(ening) but narrow presence of regional parties - is diminishing fast.

One key takeaway from the election results in five states is that the national opposition space remains fragmented. Even with the rise of regional parties, the presence of the only national party in the mix, Congress, is fading like the Cheshire cat. Spreading their cumulative influence in some kind of 'the whole is greater than the parts' way doesn't look feasible now if 2024 is to be considered as the day of their reckoning on the national stage.

The current feeding spree has Congress on the menu, with most of these regional parties growing electorally at its expense, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress being an exception. AAP is the latest in this long line. After the latest round of polls, the picture of the Opposition that emerges ahead of 2024 is a motley crew that is still vacuum-cleaning non-BJP voters in their states, hoping to gain national- level critical mass at some stage. This lack of scale has consequences beyond the electoral. In terms of geopolitics, economic growth and addressing global challenges such as national security and climate change, these parties are yet to acquire the heft required to push back the Centre on issues that lie beyond their backyards. The Samajwadi Party's impressive vote share in UP, or even AAP's victory in Punjab, still fail to challenge the current national narrative. Perhaps with more state elections this year, this may change.

The Congress' usefulness by dint of its 'shallow but wide' pan-India presence - as opposed to the deep(ening) but narrow presence of regional parties - is diminishing fast. It is up to the BJP's state-level opponents to decide how to spread their influence in the form of a real and effective alliance. It could even find it useful to have the Congress in its fray.

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It might be a semi-final to 2024 as the victors will no doubt claim, or it may not be that (as the losers will insist), but there are five trends evident in the results of the latest round of assembly elections that will continue to play out over the next two years.

One, this is the end of Mandal politics. The Samajwadi Party (SP)’s vote share in Uttar Pradesh (UP) — 32.02% at 9pm — is among the highest it has ever seen and is perhaps a reflection of the perfect consolidation of Muslim and Yadav votes. But the party’s efforts to attract other backward classes (OBCs) has clearly failed. Indeed, the consolidation of “upper caste”, OBC, and non-Jatav Dalit voters that helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last three elections in the state (two Lok Sabha and one assembly) is evident this time too. The Bahujan Samaj Party’s vote share of 12.82% (at 9pm) is actually lower than that in 2017 (22%) and 2019 (19%), perhaps indicative of migration of more of its Dalit voter base to the BJP. This may well be the end of the road for that party and its leader Mayawati.

Two, there is a new pole in Indian politics. This is the potent combination of welfarism and Hindutva. If the latter helps the BJP retain its core, and actually build on it, the former ensures the support of OBCs that have not benefitted from the Mandal wave in politics (which is actually most OBCs) and Dalits. The BJP’s messaging on this front has also been spot-on: In later phases of the UP elections, welfarism was the most dominant strand in the party’s campaign. It’s entirely possible that this combination (welfarism+Hindutva) results in the party benefitting from pro-incumbency in coming elections. At 9pm, the BJP’s vote share in UP (along with allies) was 44%, only marginally lower than the 50% it touched in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when the SP and BSP were in alliance.

Three, the Aam Àadmi Party (AAP) has clearly emerged the first among equals among India’s Opposition parties with its victory in Punjab. If the party manages to do in the state what it has achieved in Delhi in terms of education and, to some extent, health care, it may well become a significant political force in at least a few other states. For a political start-up that is less than a decade old, to achieve this is very significant. Already, the AAP is the only political party other than the BJP and the Congress that is in power in two regions — Punjab and Delhi. The AAP has to be an important constituent of the political grouping that comes together to take on the BJP in 2024 if such an alliance hopes to pose any sort of challenge (although national elections, as 2019 has shown, are very different).

Four, Narendra Modi has delivered UP to his party. Since late last year it has been clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was making UP his election (his Lok Sabha constituency is in the state) — something that became even more evident with every phase of the election. The clear win for the party in a state that rarely returns incumbents to power is a definite vote for him. With wins in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur, his party, the BJP, is also sitting pretty. The BJP has retained all four states where it was in power. The trend that has played out since 2014, when the BJP became the clear national hegemon of Indian politics is for people to vote overwhelmingly for the party in national elections, and pick strong regional parties in at least some provinces. The results of the latest round of assembly elections show that the BJP is well placed to win again in 2024. The party’s resounding win in UP will also enhance the standing of the state’s incumbent chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who will now become one of the tallest leaders in the party.

Five, the Congress continues to fade. Its decimation in Punjab (a state that it looked like winning just a year ago), and Uttarakhand, and its continued irrelevance in UP should worry the Congress. Forget opposing the BJP, even the party’s efforts to be a constituent of the national Opposition to the BJP is now under threat. The Gujarat election, later this year, the Karnataka election in mid-2023, and polls in three key heartland states in December that year, could well decide the party’s future.

A fundamental shift in electoral behaviour - Hindustan Times
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The Samajwadi Party (SP) did everything it promised it would do in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) election. Its alliance touched a vote share of almost 35%, it achieved caste consolidation among the groups it said it would, but this still wasn’t nearly enough.

With a crumbling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) shedding votes, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) improved on its 41% vote share from 2017 — breaking the trend of party alternation that has characterised UP’s politics over the past few decades.

In Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) seemed like a spent force after its state unit seemingly imploded after the 2017 election. Yet, five years later, without much of a state unit, Bhagwant Mann as a recently named chief ministerial (CM) candidate, and a thin party machinery, it trounced the competition by winning more than 75% of the 117 seats in Punjab.

The traditional regional party powers could not compete in Punjab or UP. In many ways, these elections herald the core changes taking place in Indian electoral behaviour today. Traditionally, whether farmer leader, party organiser, caste leader or village sarpanch, an Indian citizen’s access to State benefits was thought to be negotiated through a “middleman” or “intermediary.” They were the facilitators and gatekeepers of public goods. A ration card, a visit to the police station, renewing licences or “transfer” of kin, the intermediary was the entry to the Indian State.

But, through two cycles of elections that this team has observed, the role of the intermediary in Indian politics stands fundamentally decimated with welfare delivery — and political attribution and power — centralised in party leaders.

The AAP’s core challenge in Punjab was the ubiquitous boots on the ground problem. In Gidderbaha, we met an AAP supporter who could not even recall the name of the party’s candidate (though he knew the others). In a long interview with an AAP booth worker, we saw little semblance of party structure or coordination. This was in sharp contrast to its competitors, the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), who had well developed networks of polling booth workers, and local financial power. Yet, despite all this, time and again we heard voters pining for Arvind Kejriwal’s governance and the “Delhi Model”.

In UP, too, there was talk of the frustrations of local caste leaders and candidates who had a base in the constituency, leading to “local anti-incumbency.” But when we spoke to voters, it was clear that local legislators were no longer the guarantors of welfare benefits that they once were. As a young man outside Lucknow told us, “We are three brothers, and each one of us gets 6,000 a year, plus some of us even got an extra 1,000 under e-shram. Our ration has also doubled since last December.” They had been BSP supporters in 2017, but now, he added, they would switch to the BJP. Naturally, they were supportive of both CM Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as they were the new guarantors of welfare benefits.

What explains this shift of loyalties away from local intermediaries? Fundamentally, this is attributed to the nature of change in the Indian State. As it moved to a direct cash transfer model, a State limited in its ambition and hampered by its reach has stopped investing in difficult to provide infrastructure such as health, housing or education. For it, a direct cash transfer to young people, to women, to farmers is what can be provided efficiently, and, as a bonus, it is compatible with political centralisation.

A standard framing to understand Indian politics was the need for “descriptive representation,” the principle that voters are best represented by leaders and legislators that look like them — in caste or religion. This was a core principle in the rise of social movements and parties that animated caste assertions in the 1990s. But many voters expressed that they felt trapped by such characterisations. A man from the Thakur/Chauhan community explained that he could never vote for any party other than the BJP because in any other party, hamari ginti nahin hogii (we are not counted.)

Whether duplicitous or not, the parties — the BJP in UP and the AAP in Punjab — promise a politics that is not predicated on “counting.” In the run-up to the election, many felt that the BJP would suffer heavy losses because notable non-Yadav other backward class (non-Yadav OBC) leaders had defected from the BJP to the SP. Among the most notable defections was that of Swami Prasad Maurya.

Yet a quick visit to areas with the Maurya community found them still largely supportive of the BJP. The new articulation of centralised beneficiary politics means that someone from the Maurya community is perfectly comfortable voting for Narendra Modi rather than a leader from her own caste community.

In Punjab, too, the Congress pinned its hopes on wooing the scheduled caste community (which makes up about one-third of the state’s population, according to the Indian Census) by naming Punjab’s first-ever scheduled caste CM, Charanjit S Channi. But, much like the SP in UP, the Congress went up against a party (in the AAP) that had no discernible identity-based connect or appeal, choosing rather to sell its “Delhi Model” to bolster health and education in the state.

The elections in UP and Punjab are, thus, more than ordinary electoral defeats. They portend an emerging new politics in India.

Bhanu Joshi is a PhD candidate in political science at Brown University. Ashish Ranjan is an independent election researcher. Neelanjan Sircar is senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research

The views expressed are personal

Churn in Punjab politics began with farmers’ stir, culminates in AAP’s win - Hindustan Times
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The electoral sweep of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab marks a significant turning point in the state’s politics and its reverberations are likely to be felt beyond its geographical boundaries. Though Punjab is a relatively small state in terms of its size or the number of electoral seats — when compared to states such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal or Tamil Nadu — it occupies an important place in the national imagination. Besides being located on the international border, it is also among the states with a strong sense of regional identity.

Its regional politics has traditionally been represented by the Akalis, now divided into multiple political parties. The Akalis have also been the face of the Sikh panthic identity and politics. However, despite its distinct regional self-image, national parties such as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have always been active and accepted. The AAP is the latest entrant.

Outside Delhi, it was in Punjab that the AAP found rather easy traction. It entered state politics during the 2014 national elections. Even when it could not win a single parliamentary seat in Delhi where it was in power, Punjab elected four AAP candidates to the Lok Sabha. Its performance in the 2017 assembly elections was also not bad and it emerged as the main opposition party. However, its victory in 2022 has a much larger significance. It has nearly completely undermined the traditional axes of Punjab politics, the most important of which has been Sikh panthic politics.

Many expected that this time, caste would play a bigger role in the elections, though Punjab has hardly been known for caste-based politics. Interestingly, Kanshi Ram, the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), came from Punjab. However, his party tasted only occasional electoral success in the state. Punjab is also not a land of Brahmanical Hinduism. Caste divisions do exist and persist in the region, with their specific local flavours. More importantly, at 32%, Punjab has the largest proportion of the Scheduled Caste (SC) population in the country, nearly double the national average. Though these numbers have never presented themselves in the form of a common Dalit political bloc, political parties have often been tempted by these interesting regional demographics of caste in Punjab.

Much before anyone else, in the last week of November 2021, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal declared that his party would appoint a Dalit deputy chief minister (CM) in Punjab if it was voted to power. The Akalis followed suit and declared an electoral alliance with the BSP.

The ruling Congress went a step further and replaced its CM in the last year of his term with Charanjit Singh Channi, an SC, and went on to project him as its chief ministerial candidate. In their thinking, the electoral arithmetic was simple, the traditional voter of the Congress, plus SC consolidation behind it, would make for a winning formula.

However, this did not work. These assembly elections are going to be remembered for many things, and the politics of caste is one of those. Caste matters but caste alone does not determine electoral outcomes. It also works in complicated ways. SCs in every state are a conglomeration of several jatis, each with its own sense of self-identity, seeking its hissedari (share). SC communities also have a sense of hierarchy. And finally, a Dalit consolidation invariably also invites a counter consolidation of dominant and upper castes, which could prove counter-productive.

Punjab wanted change, a new narrative of citizenship. “We have seen the Akalis, we have seen the Congress, they are all the same, self-serving,” was a common iteration often heard from different parts of the state and from a cross section of voters. With an established presence in the state, the AAP could present itself as this new alternative.

In a sense, the process of political churn in the state’s politics was put in motion by the recent farmers’ movement against three now repealed central laws. Though a section of the farmers who decided to contest elections did not succeed, the movement turned out to be an important source of political change in the region. It undermined the local level divisions and schisms of caste and class and called for kisan-mazdoor ekta (unity between the cultivators and agricultural labour). In the process, it de-legitimised the thus far unquestioned authority of the regional political elite. It is not surprising, therefore, that almost all of them, including stalwarts such as Parkash Singh Badal, Amarinder Singh and the sitting CM lost their seats.

Finally, it will be interesting to watch what Punjab does to the AAP. The new party emerged in Delhi and has been almost completely controlled by Arvind Kejriwal. Anyone questioning his authority or leadership has been pushed out of the party. This includes three of the four Members of Parliament elected from Punjab in the 2014 elections. With its government in a much bigger state compared to Delhi, it will have to rethink its organisational-and-command structure.

Surinder Jodhka is professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

The views expressed are personal

The AAP’s constant focus on governance was the decisive factor in Punjab - Hindustan Times
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All of last year, Punjabis were fighting Dilli — they even laid siege to the Capital and symbolically captured its Red Fort — but, in reality, all they wanted was for Punjab to become Dilli. Make no mistake though, it was a story of two Delhis. The one they were fighting was the metaphorical Dilli, the central hukumat, and the one they wanted to emulate was the physical city-state being governed by Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

As anyone living in Delhi will tell you, relatives and acquaintances from Punjab were curious about the “Delhi Model” pioneered by Kejriwal. “Who even talks of schools, clinics and public transport in today’s politics?” was a rhetorical question thrown at contrarians saying “models” of faraway states only looked greener from the other side. “Even if Delhi’s transformation is rosier in advertisements than on the ground, it’s safe to say there’s work in the right direction. We want that.”

The AAP’s pitch has been clean, corruption-free administration responsive to people’s concerns, but its appeal in Punjab has always been aspirational. The Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, is a regular port of call for the well-travelled Punjabi and the development of urban infrastructure in the Capital has been staggering over the past couple of decades to the outside viewer. Not all of it is thanks to the AAP, of course, but exposure to Delhi raised the profile of the incumbent government immensely in the eyes of non-partisan visitors.

More than anything, the AAP’s constant focus on governance was the decisive factor in Punjab. “We have altered the political discourse to the extent that when it comes to Delhi even the BJP is forced to talk about schools and hospitals. Their Hindu-Muslim [discourse] doesn’t work here,” Kejriwal said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, 2019. From the average Punjabi’s perspective, he’s not off the mark at all.

The careful emphasis on governance over ideology hasn’t gone unnoticed either. Many have tried to project it as the AAP’s weakness that it sits on the fence on key ideological issues such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the protest against it at Shaheen Bagh or the communal riots in northeast Delhi. The Punjab voter, however, views it as Kejriwal’s deft evasion of the bait thrown by the BJP and his refusal to be drawn into the rules of the game set by that party. Competing on who’s the bigger educator or health care provider has proved to be an effective electoral strategy rather than competing over whose ideological hard line is closer to the bone.

The AAP seemed well on course to forming the government in Punjab in 2017 itself before opponents’ accusations of Kejriwal hobnobbing with Khalistanis derailed the march. To be sure, a last-ditch attempt was made again this time as friend-turned-foe Kumar Vishwas levelled wild allegations that Kejriwal was essentially a separatist.

But Kejriwal, having burnt his fingers once, did not get pushed on to the back foot, doubling down on counter punches — “Which terrorist builds 12,000 classrooms” to plain and simple “I’m not a terrorist” — before and after the victory.

A big difference over the 2017 polls this time was how emotionally charged the state’s polity was in the run-up to the elections. In their year-long mass movement, farmers’ organisations did not allow a single political leader from Punjab to take the stage at any of the venues, such was the anger against established parties in the state. The AAP tapped that resentment well, by first lending support through free Wi-Fi and langar contributions at the protest sites and later by opening talks with prominent farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal as the possible chief ministerial face of the party.

That convinced rural voters of the party’s good intentions vis-a-vis agrarian issues, as opposed to the Congress and the Akalis despite one dumping an incumbent CM (Captain Amarinder Singh) and the other breaking up with the pre-eminent national party of this era (the BJP). Having created a favourable mood, the AAP smartly dropped the negotiations with Rajewal and went with one of its own, Bhagwant Mann. The selection, done through a purported phone-in poll, was mocked by other parties but got much traction on the ground. The party’s “Ik mauka Kejriwal nu” (one chance to Kejriwal) campaign leveraged the Delhi CM’s personal appeal and resonated with voters, resulting in a one-sided victory.

The Congress’s desperate attempt to cover lost ground by ousting Captain Amarinder Singh was seen as too little, too late by voters who grew tired of the Grand Old Party’s endless internal bickering. The high command’s dithering in dealing with Amarinder’s intransigence and the subsequent inclination to divide its eggs into two baskets — Channi and Sidhu — backfired spectacularly. The Akalis lost even their core support base to the AAP over a perceived lack of sincerity towards panthic issues and a break up with the BJP that was as opportunistic in voters’ eyes as the tie-up in the first place. Both the Congress and the Akalis, however, have a strong ground-level organisation in the state and cannot be written off. But the road ahead will be tough.

The AAP government itself will have a lot on its plate from the get go, as shambolic state finances, rising unemployment, stagnant farm incomes, widespread drug abuse and the younger generation’s single-minded pursuit of overseas prospects by abandoning any residual faith in domestic projects do not make for a good inheritance on day one in office.

The poetically inclined Mann, a former satirist known for his love of drink, will understand this better than anyone, lest he be quoted to by a rambunctious Punjabi voter: “Kahin aisa na ho yaan bhi wohi kaafir sanam nikle”.

The views expressed are personal

The BJP has changed the old rules of politics - Hindustan Times
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Yogi Adityanath is the first sitting chief minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh (UP) to be returned to power since Independence. In the days of the Congress dominance of yore, the party won successive state elections, but always with a different CM. And the last time an incumbent party returned to power in UP was at least 37 years ago: Almost a decade more than the median age of the average Indian. Such a political triumph would be staggering in itself. That the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled it off after two years of economic strife (the Gross Domestic Product has just returned to its pre-lockdown size), the deprivations of the coronavirus lockdowns, and a vociferous farmers’ agitation — and with a landslide — makes it even more stunning.

Far from contracting, the party increased its vote-share from 2017, despite the pressures of five years of incumbency. The BJP’s sweeping victory reflects the fact that the wide social coalition that powered its UP triumphs in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the 2017 assembly election, and the 2019 Lok Sabha election is not only intact, but stronger and deeper. Specifically, while the BJP retained the support of upper caste voters, non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBC) and non-Jatav Dalits who entered its social tent after 2014 have stayed on. The inclusion of these castes in the BJP’s social matrix made the party the most representative by caste in UP, barring the Muslims. The 2022 result demonstrates that this was not a transient trend, but a more deep-rooted development.

The slow death of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) exacerbated this shift. Many Dalits who left the BSP’s embrace (its vote-share dropped by over nine percentage points) chose mostly to switch to the BJP.

This is because, in many villages, it is the Yadav who is seen as the oppressor by Dalits, not upper castes. The BJP, for instance, swept UP’s reserved Scheduled Caste (SC) seats by a wide margin. Even though Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) grew its vote-share substantially to its highest ever, it ended up a poor second as it hit a social glass ceiling. The SP, which had once been UP’s party of OBCs, lost because it has now become a party only of Ahirs (Yadavs) and Muslims. It failed to widen its social base.

For example, a significant number of Jats, believed by many to have defected from the BJP before the election, did not switch. Further, the support of other OBC groups allowed the BJP to easily decimate its challengers in the regions of western UP that were most affected by the farmer agitation, and went to polls in phases 1 and 2.

Second, the election demonstrates once again that the BJP is now the default party of the village in the Hindi heartland. In UP, it won 177 rural seats (compared to 95 by SP), and 45 semi-rural seats (compared to 14 by SP), according to CNN-IBN’s Analytics Centre. The old stereotype of the BJP as an urban, upper caste Brahmin-Bania party has been outdated since 2014.

Data that I put together, with the psephologist Jai Mrug and the data scientist Rishabh Srivastava showed that the BJP registered over 40% vote-share in as many 82.6% of UP’s 46 rural Lok Sabha seats in 2019, compared to 52.1% of rural seats in 2014. It was already the primary pole of politics in rural UP.

The result of 2022 reflects that the BJP’s rural roots have only deepened since. From Awadh to Bundelkhand to Doab to Purvanchal, this deepening of the BJP’s rural roots is uniform across UP’s regions.

Third, this election has seen the making of a Yogi constituency, along with Prime Minister (PM) Modi’s unquestionable endurance as India’s most popular national political leader. In 2017, Yogi Adityanath was picked as CM after the BJP won. This time, by winning a mandate of incumbency in India’s most politically significant state, he has carved out a unique place for himself among the BJP’s regional satraps. This has huge implications for national politics.

Fourth, the BJP’s model of social welfarism, built on direct-benefit-transfers and schemes such as PM Awaas Yojana-Grameen (17.5 million houses built nationwide, 1.6 million in UP between 2014-19) and Swachh Bharat (17.1 million personal toilets built in UP between 2014-19) allowed it to overcome the stresses of anti-incumbency. This focus on development, combined with an unapologetic Hinduness, drove its political gains.

Hindutva is crucial to the BJP’s positioning but only a part of why it is winning. As a senior official working closely with Yogi Adiyanath said to me in 2021: “Hindutva gives you speed if you are going in a particular direction, but welfare is the wheel that makes it all run.”

The digital dividend, assertive women voters and a new generation of youth are driving fundamental permanent shifts in the old rules that governed Indian politics. The 2022 results accrue from these deep-seated structural changes in India’s polity.

The AAP’s historic landslide victory in Punjab also draws from its adroit harnessing of this national shift. Arvind Kejriwal’s party is now poised to replace the Congress, which remains in harakiri mode, in key states precisely because the Grand Old Party’s leadership remains so out of touch with the wider Zeitgeist.

Nalin Mehta is the author of The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party 

The views expressed are personal

UP polls: Sunset for the Mandal-Kamandal divide - Hindustan Times
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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes back to power in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh (UP), in a mandate considered a referendum on the agenda and governance style of the party. The mandate seems to rise above the here and now — agrarian distress, Covid-related governance failures, price rise and unemployment, among others.

As the curtain falls on the election season, I raise three questions, with vignettes gathered from my fieldwork in Purvanchal, the eastern part of UP. First, do people vote for their identity or their interests? Second, where does the meta narrative of religion and Hindutva figure in this highly localised discussion of jati, caste, and making services work for people? Third, and most important, in what ways do the voices of the people reshape the political arena?

The geography of Purvanchal is vital to locate these questions spatially. Covered in the sixth and seventh rounds of the elections, the region has political heft with 111 of the state’s 403 assembly seats. The victories of the BJP in 2017 and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in 2012 were rooted in strong performances in this region. The region is home to some of the poorest caste communities. Purvanchal is a laboratory of political ideas — vikaaswaad (development), jati and Hindutva all compete in the same cauldron — and is home to the strongholds of Yogi Adityanath (Gorakhpur), Narendra Modi (Varanasi) and Akhilesh Yadav (Azamgarh).

Many new allies of the SP, Om Prakash Rajbhar, Swami Prasad Maurya, Dara Singh Chauhan, and Krishna Patel, also belong to this region and carry with them a conglomeration of most backward social castes, including Rajbhars, Kushwahas, Nonia Chauhaans, and Kurmis, all of whom backed the BJP in 2017. Conventional wisdom dictated that these polls should have been marked by jati-based vote banks shifting to the Samajwadis. Yet, the incumbent (BJP) won, indicating that the voter moved away from the politics of jati identities.

In my field work in Gorakhpur rural and the urban peripheries of Varanasi, voters complained about the high prices of cooking gas cylinders and their inability to buy refills, but rarely blamed Modi or Yogi. In Sahjanwa (Gorakhpur), farmhands complained about the difficulties in selling their grain in the local market, long queues for procuring fertilisers and rising costs of the mobile internet — but these grumblings were against the market. These were different from their pleas to the state and leaders, mainly for support amid economic distress.

The pitch of this poll campaign was initially set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inaugurating the Purvanchal Expressway but by mid-February, there was an obvious course correction, with an emphasis on labhaarthi (beneficiary politics). Women voted more in greater numbers in Purvanchal — they have since 2017. Perhaps they are emerging as a bloc invested in the politics of developmentalism. Rarely did the voice of the poor electorate reach a crescendo. They complained neither of patronage politics nor control of dominant communities, as had been the case in previous governments. The BJP’s pitch of acting against the local dabang (strongman) and maintaining law and order rang true, even in the face of increased economic distress. What remained unsaid was an implicit consent to the construction of a new Ram temple and other elements of a hardcore Hindutva agenda.

It is important to note that Yadav campaigned extensively, offered himself as the face of new promises and highlighted the lack of fulfilment of the BJP’s poll promises of doubling farmer incomes, filling up of government vacancies, and implementation of the old pension scheme. By the end of the campaign, he was topping up the BJP’s welfare packet with an extended tenure and the addition of mustard oil and ghee. The improvement in its tally is a reflection of some of this effort, especially in southern Purvanchal.

But it is clear that Mandal politics is neither the SP’s exclusive preserve nor will mere paeans to social justice suffice. The political arena has been reshaped effectively by the poor raising their voice and grievances. Both the SP and the BJP now emphasise welfare and delivery. The politics of Hindutva is now focussed on the economic well-being of the extremely poor, and they will face regular opposition in the assembly, once again poised on people’s issues. This is the sunset of the Mandal-Kamandal divide that defined the landscape of UP politics since the 1990s.

Manisha Priyam is a professor at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration

The views expressed are personal

The female voter has shifted the arc of electoral politics - Hindustan Times
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Humein Modi pasand hai (We prefer Modi). This is what a young woman from the Rawat community, sitting next to her husband in Mohanlalganj, had to say as she began listing the benefits she received (ration, gas and the latest promise of 1,000 with her newly made “e-Shram card”). Her husband, on the other hand, was very clear. His vote was going to the Samajwadi Party (SP) due to joblessness and mehengai (inflation). If the exit polls are to be believed, then this difference between husband and wife was no exception.

This distinction between the preferences of female and male household members, the emotive connection with Modi and the expressed trust in the promise of welfare benefits were a repeated theme in conversations we had with Hindu women voters across parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP). This trust has been carefully nurtured over the years.

In 2017, Ujjwala — the scheme providing gas cylinders for free — was the instrument for forging a connection and trust among the female vote base. In 2022, it was the Public Distribution System or free ration. Many female voters told us that they received phone call reminders, often from party workers, to collect rations.

There were other reminders too. Back in Mohanlalganj, a young housewife who would switch from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) this time, described, Unke photo har jageh dikhit haar (we see his photo everywhere). This process has melded the strength of the BJP’s party cadre with the deification of the Prime Minister (PM) to make welfare delivery, with Narendra Modi as its provider, an effective tool for the political mobilisation of women.

An analysis of how these expressed preferences translated in voting patterns will give us a more definitive understanding of factors that contributed to the BJP victory in UP, but the narrative constructed around the PM and the affinity many female voters expressed point to an important shift in electoral politics that needs reckoning.

The emergence of the female voter as a critical vote bank defies the framework of the identity, caste-based dynamic that has dominated our understanding of politics (particularly in North India). The narratives in eastern UP point to the emergence of a new politics built around the person (Modi) rather than the issue, using the prodigious resources of the party to deify the leader — what political scientist Neelanjan Sircar has called “the politics of vishwas (trust).”

The female voter is emerging as the foundation of vishwas politics, with a clear articulation of the female labharathi (beneficiary) of schemes directed specifically at her. A large number of female voters with Jan Dhan accounts recalled receiving funds in their accounts during the first Covid-19 lockdown. The Ujjwala scheme, despite the fact that most beneficiaries do not have the means to refill cylinders, is still popular and its link with Modi is alive in female voter narratives. It is this direct attribution that has been the primary strategy to mobilise female voters.

While women often pointed out that ration benefits cannot compensate for joblessness or increased prices, it still provided a reason to vote for the BJP, and fit neatly into a narrative that saw the PM as a protector in times of crisis. Cultivating the woman vote through personalistic politics and welfare delivery is not unique to the BJP. According to Lokniti, there was a seven percentage point gap between women’s and men’s support for Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress over the BJP in last year’s West Bengal elections. In Bihar, too, a similar strategy has been effective for Nitish Kumar.

These discernible political preferences between women and men, which the BJP has effectively mobilised, is emerging as the new cleavage in our electoral landscape. It is also different from the politics of caste which was embedded in a narrative of dignity and rights.

In the current framing, women are being cast as labharthi linked to a personalised politics. Its long-term impact on democracy needs greater examination.

Finally, a word on the Congress. The growing importance of female voters is perhaps why the Ladki hoon, ladh sakti hoon (I am a woman, I can fight) campaign was conceived. But the Congress failed to understand and identify the roots of the connect between the female voter and the BJP, in particular the PM. If it wants to take the female voter more seriously, the Congress will need to develop a deeper understanding of the voter and her preferences.

The presence of female voters as a critical vote bank has shifted the arc of electoral politics. The Mandal-Mandir framework which used to analyse so much of Indian politics has less resonance with the female voter than the emotive appeal of leaders. It is time we take these distinctions seriously.

Yamini Aiyar is president and chief executive, Centre for Policy Research 

The views expressed are personal

What the state verdicts say about Indian politics - Hindustan Times
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The exit polls prepared us well for what unfolded on counting day. There was a broad consensus among pollsters on the direction of the verdict — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retaining four states and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) comfortably winning Punjab. The Congress had a fighting chance in Goa and Uttarakhand, but the final tally in these states is another nail on the coffin of India’s Grand Old Party.

What are the big takeaways from the verdict?

First, the BJP may breathe a sigh of relief as the party has been struggling to win states since 2019. It barely managed to return in Haryana and Bihar, and did so with the support of allies. The party lost Jharkhand, failed to form the government in Maharashtra, continues to remain a marginal player in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and couldn’t meet its own heightened expectations in West Bengal. The party’s only solace was retaining Assam. The victory in the four states, especially in Uttar Pradesh (UP), has definitely made things easier for it as far as the election of the President of India is concerned (scheduled to take place in July this year). It will also boost the morale of the party against the background of economic distress, the ongoing pandemic, and continuous attempts to forge an alliance of Opposition parties.

Second, the scale of the party’s victory in UP indicates the long-term potential of the social coalition the BJP curated between 2014 and 2019. The presence of the BJP as a formidable player in states with a significant Muslim population is likely to create bipolarity due to the consolidation of votes along the axis of religion. The sheer arithmetic weight of this broad-based Hindu coalition is so high that any oppositional challenge needs to be extraordinary to defeat it.

The results indicate that even if parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP) improve their vote share, bipolarity along with BJP’s strong base will ensure a glass ceiling that is hard to breach in the absence of a new political imagination. The BJP’s social coalition of upper castes and non-dominant lower castes is held together by an ideological glue of ethno-political majoritarianism, aided by the delivery of welfare benefits, mobilised by charismatic leaders on the top, and complemented by deep organisational prowess on the ground. The loss of a few percentage points of vote share, thus, is unlikely to impact the party’s chances. Even in states that it could not win, such as West Bengal, the party has emerged as the principal challenger from being a marginal player.

Third, the BJP’s electoral success is a result of continuous political alertness and creativity. Sure, it is also marked by a certain level of unilateralism in which the party has pushed legislation without sounding out all stakeholders, but it has not shied away from taking two steps back when pushed against the wall. The party has moved swiftly, creating one ideological wedge after the other and keeping the Opposition in suspense. Simultaneously, it has creatively crafted new political categories of beneficiaries of welfare schemes and women. These have helped the BJP to overcome the gender disadvantage it faced pre-2014. In the past eight years, the gender gap has not only closed, but now as the exit poll estimates indicate, the BJP enjoys greater support among women. This became clear in Bihar 2020 and Assam 2021. In all four states the BJP won, women voters have catapulted the party to victory. We need greater research to understand the connection of women voters with the BJP, because if this pattern continues, then we are looking at a tectonic shift in Indian politics.

Fourth, while it would be too early to suggest that the AAP, with its sweeping mandate in Punjab, is likely to emerge as a main national challenger to the BJP, it could prove costly for anyone to ignore the perceived traction of the former’s Delhi Model of governance. The AAP’s rise in the short-term will help the BJP as the former will eat into the Congress vote. And the party’s attempt to now quickly expand may shake up the frozen patterns of political competition in several states in north and west India. The Congress must brace itself for another round of attrition with the AAP’s entry.

Finally, these results also carry the potential challenges that the BJP will have to encounter sooner or later. Concerns related to the economy, unemployment and inflation are real issues, and the BJP can only ignore these at its own peril. Exit poll data from all states, especially UP indicate that the BJP is no longer the most preferred party among young voters, as used to be the case between 2014 and 2019. The BJP also fares poorly among students, unemployed, and low-wage labourers.

Can the BJP weather the brewing storm among young Indians anxious over their economic prospects or does it not need to worry given the state of the Opposition? Are we likely to see more street-level protests and mobilisation in absence of credible and effective electoral Opposition? The answer will determine the course of Indian politics in 2024 and beyond.

Rahul Verma is with the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi 

The views expressed are personal

‘Dil mein aata hun…”: Why some can’t fathom Yogi Adityanath’s win - Hindustan Times
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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has achieved a decisive victory in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. At 5:30 pm, the BJP led alliance had won/was leading in 268 out of the 403 assembly constituencies (ACs) with a vote share of 44%. This is, no doubt, a historic achievement for the BJP and Yogi Adityanath. No chief minister in Uttar Pradesh has completed a five-year term and managed to get re-elected before this.

While the BJP is justified in celebrating its Uttar Pradesh victory, the predicament of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and its leader Akhilesh Yadav could not have been greater. With a vote share of 36.4%, the SP led alliance has fought its best-ever election in terms of popular support in Uttar Pradesh by quite a distance. Yet, it has managed a seat share of just 32.2%. In 2012, when the SP managed a majority of its own for the first time and Akhilesh Yadav became the chief minister, the SP had managed a seat share of 55.6% with a vote share of just 29.2% vote share.

The Uttar Pradesh results, coming after the defeat of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in 2020 elections in Bihar, the other major ‘Mandal’ party in India signifies a deep crisis of Mandal politics and its claims of being able to challenge the BJP as it could in the 1990s and the 2000s.

What explains this crisis?

At the empirical level, the answer the simple. Mandal parties have failed to expand beyond their core base, while the BJP has achieved a phenomenal expansion of its support base. The reason the SP could not win Uttar Pradesh this time is not because it did not fight a good election. Its vote share is the highest ever. It has lost because the BJP is too big a party to defeat with just the core social base of the SP. Community-wise vote share numbers from the Axis My India exit poll survey – their overall vote shares are not too off the mark – show this clearly. The SP managed a huge consolidation of its traditional MY (Muslim-Yadav) constituency, but the BJP managed to consolidate pretty much everything else.

To be fair to it, the SP did try to form alliances with smaller parties representing various caste groups and tried to fight the elections with an upper caste versus others narrative, best captured in the election being an 85% versus 15% contest statement by Swami Prasad Maurya, an Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader who defected from the BJP to SP just before the polls. Maurya himself lost the elections in Fazilnagar constituency. Creating such a political polarization has always been the dream project of Mandal politics. The RJD faced a similar problem in the 2020 Bihar elections, where non-Yadav OBCs and Dalits voted for the NDA in greater numbers than for the RJD led alliance.

The theoretical question to ask is: Why have parties like the SP and the RJD failed to bring together other communities within the OBCs with them?

It is useful to apply the concepts of civil society and political society; first developed by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and then improvised in the Indian context by political scientist Partha Chatterjee, to answer this question.

Gramsci saw the capitalist state as a mix of political society and civil society. The former represented the organs of power of the state (police, army, courts etc) while the latter mediated between the interests of the numerically dominant economic have-nots and the minority ruling class through institutions such as trade unions and so on. In order to perpetuate its rule, the ruling class would always concede some benefits to the proletariat, Gramsci argued, describing it as an act of ‘passive revolution’ by the bourgeoisie.

It is not very difficult to understand why the original concept of civil society was a non-starter in Indian politics, which is characterised by deep fault-lines of caste. Economic identities are always negotiated through layers of caste in India.

The caste-class tension became even more acute when India shifted to a universal franchise system post-Independence after a quasi-democratic model during the British Raj where rights of contesting elections and voting were largely with the privileged classes. The civil society elite which existed pre-independence was not willing to concede space to the new entrants which came predominantly from the ranks of the OBCs. The really downtrodden, the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) were granted reservation in both jobs and legislatures under the constitution, which basically fructified the arrangement under the Poona Pact between Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar. By their sheer numerical majority, the OBCs prevailed in increasing their share in legislatures, something political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot has described as ‘the silent revolution’.

While the OBC resurgence began as a genuine attempt to make civil society more representative – the original Mandal Commission report talked about a lot of issues such as land redistribution etc, along with reservation in jobs and educational institutions – in practice, it soon mutated into some sort of ‘political society’, not in the Gramscian term, but how political scientist Partha Chatterjee has described it for democracies such as India. Chatterjee has explained this concept at many places and a reproduction of a passage from a 2008 paper of his titled Democracy and Economic Transformation in India is useful.

“I have called political society which includes large sections of the rural population and the urban poor. These people do, of course, have the formal status of citizens and can exercise their franchise as an instrument of political bargaining. But they do not relate to the organs of the state in the same way that the middle classes do, nor do governmental agencies treat them as proper citizens belonging to civil society. Those in political society make their claims on government, and in turn are governed, not within the framework of stable constitutionally defined rights and laws, but rather through temporary, contextual and unstable arrangements arrived at through direct political negotiations. The latter domain, which represents the vast bulk of democratic politics in India, is not under the moral-political leadership of the capitalist class”.

It is useful to think of Mandal based parties as a political society of sorts comprising of just the sub-caste which formed the core support base of the party. The fact that the BJP and other opponents of the Mandal-based parties accuse the latter of running a lawless regime basically means that when in power, the relation between the favoured caste group of Mandal based parties and the state was not based on law of the land, but a negotiated settlement in the favour of the caste group. As is obvious, it was often the other caste groups which suffered during such negotiated settlements. At some point in time, Mandal based parties also included Muslims within this political society clique. In return for this preferential treatment, these communities lent their political support to the Mandal based formations.

As is obvious, this kind of political arrangement was bound to be unstable. Once other OBC groups realised that Mandal politics under its original vanguards (such as the SP and the RJD) was not about building an inclusive civil society but just empowering a particular caste group through bargains in the political society framework, they made their own competing political societies, best seen in the proliferation of small caste-based parties. Such formations found a willing ally in the BJP which along with its core support-base among upper caste groups, whom Mandal had originally dislodged from power and rendered vulnerable, was more than happy to make a tactical alliance of extremes to usurp political power back from the forces of Mandal. While this process started more than two decades ago when the BJP originally formed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with regional parties including the likes of Janata Dal (United), or the JD(U), and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar, it gained even more momentum in the post-2014 phase.

The 2015 Bihar results were proof that the BJP was politically vulnerable without this coalition of extremes. The JD(U) and RJD alliance achieved a huge victory in Bihar. But the alliance did not survive because of contradictions between the two parties, which in our framework can be described as a contradiction between two competing political societies.

The BJP’s political project would be desirable, if this new alliance actually carried forward the project of building an inclusive civil society and pushing forward the passive revolution process.

However, two concrete traits of the present-day BJP make this impossible. One, the BJP seeks to undo the very constitutional foundation of not differentiating on the basis of religion in terms of civic rights to other Muslims. Its political rhetoric on things such as the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act are concrete examples of this. Second, the BJP’s proximity to big capital, best seen in its political finance model and the big-business tilt in its policies such as reduction of corporation tax rates, the passage of (now repealed) farms laws and the push for the formalisation of the economy is actually reversing the gains of passive revolution Indian democracy has achieved. While the BJP claims to be a harbinger of unprecedented welfare benefits, in practice, under the present regime, the balance of power has actually shifted firmly in favour of the capitalist class in the Indian economy.

These economic reverses, to be sure, have not gone unnoticed, and even Mandal-based parties have tried to raise these issues during electoral battles against the BJP. Both the RJD and the SP tried to make a big deal out of unemployment in the 2020 and 2022 Bihar and Uttar Pradesh elections. The reason why their political polemics have failed to strike a chord is that the larger population which is suffering because of the pro-big-business economic policy realignment is equally wary of the Mandal way of governance. Their experience has taught them that returning the Mandal forces to power will only restore power for the political society, which existed during the Mandal era rather than usher in a genuine inclusive civil society, which will advance a class agenda. This sceptical constituency includes both members of upper castes; large sections among whom are also in dire straits economically speaking, as well as the OBCs and SCs who were not a part of the core constituency of Mandal based parties. What has not helped matters for Mandal based parties is the fact that a small but visible section of the Mandal aligned political society has actually exploited political power to achieve significant upward economic mobility for itself. There is very little recognition of this material reality by Mandal based parties and they still try to sell the factually incorrect narrative of the 1960s and 1970s when economic well-being was a sole preserve of upper castes in northern India by virtue of their disproportionate land ownership.

It is this distrust, which makes the Mandal challenge to the BJP and its coalition of extremes, a doomed project to begin with. Their sectarian model of political mobilisation based on a caste-based political society model has very little traction for those outside it. The BJP, on the other hand, is more than willing to share token political power with smaller competing political societies to keep the forces of Mandal out of power, even as actual policymaking is heavily centralized and civil society in the Gramscian term significantly weakened, which means an unprecedented tilting of scales in favour of big capital.

What can really hurt the BJP is a more inclusive political challenge rooted in the Gramscian civil society model which pre-empts the formation of a coalition of extremes tactics used by the BJP against Mandal based formations which are based in Partha Chatterjee’s political society model. The fact that the BJP has still not managed to vanquish regional parties in states with strong linguistic identities such as West Bengal and Odisha (chief ministers in both these states are upper castes) or suffered intermittent reverses in Hindi belt states such as Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where the Congress and not Mandal based formations were its main challenger, supports this argument.

This is not to say that Mandal based formations will become irrelevant in the immediate aftermath of Uttar Pradesh results. A new political Opposition — it could be the Aam Admi Party after receiving a boost from its Punjab victory for all we know — will have to claim the Opposition space from the Mandal-based parties in order to emerge as the main challenger to the BJP. This will entail fragmentation in opposition votes.

Another process that could receive a simultaneous momentum could be the shifting of Muslims towards an identity-based formation such as the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen. We must remember that the main reason for the affinity of Muslims to Mandal-based parties was the latter’s claim of being the most effective challenger to the BJP. If that purpose is not being fulfilled, Muslims might as well reconcile themselves to asserting their identity without political representation.

The BJP, of course, would be happy with both of these possibilities.

roshan.k@htlive.com

The views expressed are personal

Policies and People | Climate crisis: Draw up a policy on internal migration - Hindustan Times
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Last week, Climate Trends, a New Delhi-based communications strategy initiative, focussing on building public understanding and discourse on issues of the climate crisis, environment and clean energy, released a series of case studies on the impact of the climate crisis on the lives and livelihoods of people. 

One of the stories is about Pravin Chaugule of Shirdhon Village, Raigad district, Maharashtra. His family has been growing sugarcane for generations. But today, Chaugule is forced to abandon sugarcane for short-term crops. “We used to grow sugarcane, which takes 12-14 months. Rains have become unpredictable. We do not see rains during the sowing season, while we see incessant rains during the harvesting time. This has had a huge impact on the quality as well as yield. I am now sowing soybean, cicer and urad, which just takes three-four months and damage cost is also lesser than sugarcane,” said Chaugule.

This forced change in the agricultural pattern is not surprising. Agronomic studies have established that warmer climatic conditions will not favour agrarian productivity. “Temperature rise is most likely to reduce traditional rainfed and irrigated cash crops like jowar, bajra, pulses, sugarcane, onion and maize. Also, warm winters will have a significant impact on wheat production in terms of quality and yield,” explained Rahul Todmal, assistant professor of geography, University of Pune.

While Chaugule is still brave enough to continue farming, many are being forced to give up, and leave their homes searching for livelihood. Moreover, climate crisis-induced movement will increase in the coming years, warns the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, released on February 28.

“We are on the cusp of a major environmental change that is going to redistribute populations on a planetary scale," Francois Gemenne, a lead author of the report, told AFP.

“There is increased evidence that climate hazards associated with extreme events and variability act as direct drivers of involuntary migration and displacement and as indirect drivers through deteriorating climate-sensitive livelihoods (high confidence),” says the IPCC report. “The impacts of climatic drivers on migration are highly context-specific and interact with social, political, geopolitical and economic drivers (high confidence).”

The trafficking trap

Forced displacement alienates the poor from their rights to natural resources, income, livelihood, habitation and human dignity, writes Umi Daniel, director, Migration Education in Aide et Action International, in State of India’s Environment 2022, published by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). 

Other than these impacts, the climate crisis-induced extreme weather events put women, children, and minorities at risk of modern slavery and human trafficking. 

The phenomenon is on the rise, among other countries, warned the International Institute for Environment and Development and Anti-Slavery International in a report released in November 2021. 

Modern slavery — including debt bondage, bonded labour, early or forced marriage, and human trafficking — converge with the climate crisis, particularly climate shocks and climate-related forced displacement and migration, the report says. Giving the example of climate-hit Sundarbans, the report says, many women are being trafficked and forced into hard labour and prostitution.

“We have always survived on government ration. After Amphan and Yaas cyclones, we had to live at an ashram because we had no home left. So, when we got a chance to work in Delhi, we jumped at it. We never thought we would be sold for sex work. We just wanted to bring in some money,” a trafficking victim told Down To Earth (DTE), a CSE publication.

“If we overlay trafficking network map with the climate-affected, we will see many of the source areas are climate-affected zones,” said a DTE ground report presented at the Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2022, an annual media conclave organised by CSE, recently.

“While the climate crisis and trafficking link is still anecdotal, there is growing concern about the issue in the Asia Pacific,” said Chris Richter, Migration, Environment, and Climate Change Regional Thematic Specialist, International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency.

A comprehensive policy

India needs a comprehensive policy on internal migration as sudden and large-scale displacements (like those prompted by the climate crisis) are likely to become frequent, says Daniel.

The policy, he adds, must look into five key issues:

First, it should thoroughly study the country's migration and displacement hotspots, map the risks and hazards, and assess human vulnerability.

Second, the policy should prioritise investment in disaster mitigation, natural resource management; resilient infrastructure, and livelihood regeneration.

Third, through effective programmes and policy measures, the national policy must reduce distress, involuntary and unsafe migration. 

Fourth, it must ensure that regions that receive the migrant workers are planned and equipped to house them humane, inclusive, and disaster-resilient support systems.

Last but not least, all internal migrants should have greater access to social protection, meaningful rehabilitation, livelihood opportunities, and access to citizenship rights.

Dilip Cherian | Whistleblower Khemka gets promoted; new rules for DIGs - Deccan Chronicle

Whistleblower Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who has the dubious distinction of being one of the most transferred babus in the country (54 times), has been promoted to the apex scale of chief secretary after 30 years of service. This is remarkable considering that he has constantly been at odds with practically every political dispensation in the state.

But there is something even more remarkable going on in Haryana. Mr Khemka is not alone to get promoted to the apex scale — six other IAS officers of the 1991 batch, too, were promoted, raising the total number of such officers to 20! Besides Mr Khemka, the officers are Vineet Garg, Anil Malik, Ms G. Anupama, A.K. Singh, Shrikant Walgad and Abhilash Likhi.

 

Given that Haryana has a total cadre strength of 205 posts, including 44 posts earmarked for central deputation, the concentration of so many babus at the top of the state hierarchy should raise questions.

The Indian bureaucracy has often been called “top-heavy”, and not without reason. The Haryana example is not unique — apparently, this trend has become more pronounced throughout the country. Observers point out that this is a distortion — going by the book, the state government cannot have more than six IAS officers in the apex scale. But clearly, it suits governments to ignore the rules.

 

Centre changes deputation rules for DIG-level officers

The proposal to amend the All India Service Rules which allow the Centre to summon any IAS, IPS or IFoS officer on Central deputation, with or without the state’s consent, has already riled up the governments in Opposition-ruled states. Undeterred, the Centre has now dropped the empanelment rule for central deputation of DIG-level IPS officers.

The rule was changed apparently to widen the pool of DIG-level police officers for central deputation and try and fill the many vacancies in the central police organizations and the Central Armed Police Forces. The situation is indeed grave — nearly half of all DIG-level posts reserved for IPS officers at the Centre are vacant. Against 252 sanctioned posts of DIGs for IPS cadre, there are 118 vacancies.

 

Sources have informed DKB that while the states will have to relieve such officers before they can join the Centre, some fear that this is another attempt by the Centre to increase its own powers over officers serving in the state at the cost of the state governments. The earlier proposal on amending deputation rules for IAS officers drew the expected flak from some states who have claimed that the move would weaken the federal structure of the Constitution. This too may face similar resistance.

Winds of change in Rail Bhavan

Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has kickstarted the much-awaited reorganisation of Indian Railways to improve efficiency and remove the silos within the management structure. Two years after the Centre sanctioned the merger of the eight existing services of Indian Railways into a single entity, Mr Vaishnaw has announced the creation of the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS).

 

The IRMS proposal had been pending alongside other key reforms including the introduction of a corporate accounting system and the creation of an independent rail regulator to determine passenger and freight tariffs, among others.

For IRMS, recruitment will be conducted through a common examination conducted by the UPSC along with other All India Service officers, where candidates will indicate their preferred area of expertise. So far, recruitment to the Railways was either through UPSC for traffic and administrative staff, through joint engineering services examination, or directly through the Indian Railways Institute in Jamalpur.

 

However, sources say that there are still some details that have yet to emerge. There is no clarity as of now on how the seniority, pay and promotions of existing Class A officers will be determined in the new system. That is what Mr Vaishnaw, Railway Board chairman and CEO V.K. Tripathi and senior Railway officials will have to spell out now, even as they finalise a policy to promote private sector R&D in railways.

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The BJP’s spectacular results in these Assembly elections -- barring in Punjab, where it has never really had any serious influence -- will possibly go down as a special landmark for the party, and a reference point for India. More than any preceding Lok Sabha or state election, it wakes us to the fact that the present ruling party is set to dismiss all comers -- regional and national opponents -- with a wave of the hand in something like two-thirds of the country.

In a multi-hued, diverse country, this is the closest that a party like the BJP can come to the analogous “Congress system”, which dominated Indian politics across regions for a quarter century or more after Independence.

 

This means that the psychological appeasement of the country’s majority religious community - another name for majority communalism - now appears to have entered the election chessboard as a stable factor that is likely to dominate politics and society over the long term, edging the “secular” parties - the Left-liberal with a socialist tint, or plain caste-oriented ones - to the margins, even if they were to rid themselves of the dynastic tag.

It is a moot point whether the stability element and the strongly pro-BJP results owe in considerable measure, even if not fundamentally, to the personality of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is evidently more loved than disliked, though the latter quotient is far from insubstantial. At least that is what the recent election results seem to suggest.

 

Barring Punjab, in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur - where the elections were held - the BJP was the ruling party. Resentments against it ran high even in the reckoning of pro-BJP observers. This was especially the case in Uttar Pradesh, which truly offered what looked like a hateful and a hated regime. And yet, the results tell a story that seemed far from real. Or, is it that the tale of the election result is only too real.

It tells of the fact that voters in Mr Modi’s “New India” think more “80-20” that CM Yogi Adityanath spoke of in an election speech, without inhibition or a sense of public morality alluding to the Hindu-Muslim population ratio, than of the miseries of everyday life encapsulated in rampaging unemployment, runaway prices, deplorable public health services, thousands of (Hindu) corpses floating on the holy Ganga during the high point of the Covid-19 pandemic, and millions of angry farmers, and attacks on dalits and minority communities.

 

“Eighty-twenty” has trumped everything in its path. The BJP’s political, intellectual and ideological rivals and opponents totted up resentments among the public, which is what people do in a democratic system. But this appears to have left only a sideways impact on the poll results (other than in Punjab, where the communal factor was absent), not amounting to much.

Majority communalism may well have long-term drivers that are not discernible in the general analysis. It’s also likely to be organically linked to aspects of our societal structures, economy and culture -- not unlike the situation in Turkey, where the rise, first, of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP Party in a slow and stumbling way, and then in full-fledged and compelling fashion under his outright leadership.

 

In Turkey, the reigning motif was of armed forces-guided “secularism”. This penetrated society in the Muslim but European parts of the country and was reflected in politics, commerce and economics. But Anatolia, the Asiatic part where sits Ankara, the capital, simmered with discontents in a reaction to the secularists. The class structure of rural and semi-rural areas had no stable cultural or business structure links with the Europeanised north of the country.

The rise of the fundamentalist AKP at the grassroots is partly explained by this.

 

The difference between Turkey and India is also great, and that makes Mr Modi’s electoral successes all the more noteworthy. Turkey is hardly as diverse as India in its religious or class makeup and the takeover by an idea may not be as complex a venture there as in India. Even so, will the situation change in Turkey after its current leader? In the same way, will the scenario in India change once its current leader is no longer at the helm?

On this will depend how far-reaching or shallow is the penetration of the majority communal appeal at an extended societal level, which is the precursor to political and electoral preferences being decisively influenced. But Thursday’s election results portend far-reaching trends.

 

The foremost of these is the impact on the fortunes of the Congress. In that party are ideologically secular and modernist leaders who are also politically experienced and have played a long innings administering the country. But even if they come to the fore upon the jettisoning of the dynastic elements, or through voluntary self-abnegation by the Gandhis, it is hard to see how much of a challenge they can pose to the BJP -- both politically and ideologically.

Two, once the Congress goes down, effectively speaking, it is hard to think of any regional party being able to stand up enough to give a fight. The Samajwadi Party under Akhilesh Yadav put up a brave show in UP but it was far from adequate. In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress was impressive. But would that be the case if it was an Opposition party? That’s a question that can’t be wished away. If the BJP meets real resistance above the Vindhyas, it’s likely to be in Bihar (where a regional party can show the way if it combines effectively with others), Punjab and Kashmir.

 

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