Editorials

The crisis in West Bengal’s jute industry is getting exacerbated, with several mills suspending operations this year. Shiv Sahay Singh visits mills along both banks of the Hooghly to understand the growing despair of workers, owners and farmers

On Eid, after a brief spell of rain, the crowd that had assembled outside the Ishaque Sardar Masjid in Kankinara Nayabazar area in the morning hurriedly dispersed. After two years of pandemic-induced restrictions, this Eid was expected to be celebrated with pomp. But though people hugged and greeted each other in front of the picturesque mosque after the morning prayers, there was no palpable joy accompanying festivities.

“Livelihood is the biggest source of happiness,” said Wahid Kamal, rolling up the sleeves of his fraying grey shirt and looking at his six-year-old son Atif, who was wearing a new pink shirt. Wahid and Mohammad Guddu, both workers at the Reliance Jute Mill at Bhatpara in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, explained how difficult the holy month of Ramzan had been this year after the mill closed, leaving workers with no income.

Inside the jute mill quarters, the mood was even less celebratory. Ejaz Afjal said he lent some money to his neighbour, a father of three, who, like Ejaz, has been out of work for the past few months. It was on the morning of January 27, 2022 that Wahid, Mohammad, Ejaz and nearly 5,000 workers went to Reliance Jute Mill to find a notice hanging on the gate announcing temporary suspension of work.

The crisis

The large iron gates at the entrance of the century-old jute mills on both banks of the river Hooghly are forbidding. They tend to reflect the mood of the area: during elections, posters of competing political parties are affixed to these gates; every autumn, banners and advertisements on Durga Puja adorn them; during general strikes, messages from trade unions cover them; and occasionally, small notices on white paper, announcing suspension of work, are stuck on them. The people of this region, which has witnessed terrible riots and intense political battles during the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 Assembly polls, fear these white notices the most.

Mill workers saw the notice waiting for them on January 1, 2022 on the large yellow painted gate of the Gondolpara Jute Mill. This sprawling mill is located near Chandannagar, on the western bank of the river, not far from the erstwhile French settlement. On March 31, the gate of the mill bore a rather unusual notice, which said that the “majdoor lines will get two more hours of electricity” — a small relief for those living there. Ever since the mill closed, power supply at the quarters had been irregular, totalling 12-14 hours a day.

Without power on a hot day, a young couple, Kanai Shaw and Renu Shaw, sat inside their small cubicle-like quarters. Renu rocked her five-month-old son, lying on the hammock, to sleep, while her four-year-old daughter ate a frugal lunch. An emaciated Renu said her husband had been out of work for the past few months. The family was hungry and helpless.

Though suspension of work is no new phenomenon, recent months have been especially difficult. Between November 2021 and April 2022, at least 12 mills along both the banks of the river downed their shutters, putting 60,000 workers out of jobs in one fell swoop. The workers of Reliance Jute Mill on the eastern bank and Gondolpara Jute Mill on the western bank all lost their jobs when this decision was taken.

According to the Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA), there are about 93 jute mills in India, of which 70 are in West Bengal. Of the 70, 54 are located in the three districts of North 24 Parganas (25), Howrah (15) and Hooghly (14). The IJMA, which dates back to 1884, estimates the number of workers at 3.5 lakh. It says about 40 lakh farmers are associated with the production and trade of the golden fibre. About 80% of the finished product – or B. Twill jute bag — is bought by the government for packaging food grains and agriculture produce like sugar.

According to industry experts, the recent crisis began last September, when the Office of the Jute Commissioner, which comes under the Ministry of Textiles, fixed the maximum price of raw jute at Rs. 6,500 per quintal. This decision to cap the price at Rs. 6,500 led to a fall in procurement (as raw jute sells in the market at a price higher than Rs. 6,500 per quintal) and mills decided to suspend work. A mill owner and a prominent person in the West Bengal jute industry explained the losses mill owners are incurring. At his Kolkata office, he did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation and pegged it at Rs. 12 lakh a day. “The capacity of my mill is 100 tonnes a day,” he said. “The market price of raw jute has climbed to Rs. 7,200 per quintal which is Rs. 700 more than the Rs. 6,500 cap by the government. For buying 100 quintals, I have to spend Rs. 7 lakh more.”

Another issue which the jute mill managements of the State stress on is non-implementation of the Tariff Commission’s report for fair price of B. Twill jute bags, which has led to a loss of Rs. 1,500 crore to the industry, according to jute mill owners. Since September 2016, the jute industry is being reimbursed for the jute bags on a provisional temporary price. In March 2021, the Tariff Commission submitted its final report; it is still to be implemented. “Apart from spending Rs. 7 lakh more, we are losing Rs. 5 lakh because the Tariff Commission’s report on B. Twill jute bags has not been implemented. How can I keep the mill open if I have to shell out Rs. 12 lakh a day,” the mill owner asked.

While there have been no reports in the public domain about the steps taken against hoarders, the Jute Commissioner, Moloy Chandan Chakraborty, said in a statement that farmers generally dispose of their stock of raw jute by October/November every year. “Thus, there is hardly any raw jute left with the farmers,” the statement said. “At present no jute of the current season is being held by farmers and jute lies with middlemen/traders and even with mills in their own name or in the name of third parties at various places. Relaxation in the upper price cap will only accrue illegitimate gains by these parties and no benefit will accrue to the farmers.”

In an order on May 11, the Calcutta High Court directed the Jute Commissioner to “review and re-fix the rate” of raw jute if the notified rate cannot be adhered to. Justice Amrita Sinha’s 16-page order explained the supply-related bottlenecks. It pointed out that since jute mills are legally bound to supply jute bags to the government for which they are reimbursed at the notified rate, they have no other alternative but to sell the finished products at a loss. With sustained losses, the mills are destined to close down and the already dying industry will perish in no time.

“On the other hand, if the notified rate is increased, the government may not agree to pay more for the jute bags and the idea of switching over to cheaper alternatives may be a viable option. If that be so, then the jute mills, because of exorbitant rates, may not find any takers of their products. Large scale joblessness and economic crisis is bound to follow,” the order said.

Of the many issues raised by the court, one was why the price of raw jute was hiked despite a bumper growth. “There must be some loopholes which are required to be plugged. But who will bell the cat is possibly the next relevant question,” Justice Sinha said.

On the mill floor

Production is an elaborate exercise. Hastings Jute Mill, one of the oldest jute mills in the country, was once the weekend retreat of the first Governor General of Bengal, Warren Hastings. The mill is located at Rishra, in Hooghly district, and was launched by the Birkmyre Brothers in 1875, with 230 looms. It is one of the mills that is still open and sees hectic activity. Bales of jute are first treated with oil and then turned into fibre through mechanised looms. The set-up is like an elaborate car assembly unit. By the time the fibres are turned into threads, they have passed over a dozen machines. Sunlight seeps through the skylight and thousands of people on the factory floor do back-breaking work on old looms. After fibres are turned into threads, they are put on a spool and woven into large bales of jute cloth to be cut and stitched into jute bags. At the end of the assembly line, there is a small set-up where jute imported from Bangladesh is processed. The fibre from Bangladesh looks, and is also considered, superior to Indian jute.

On May 5, the IJMA issued a statement that the Government of India (GoI) is considering continuing anti-dumping duties against imports of jute products from Bangladesh. “Despite the current anti-dumping duty, jute exports from Bangladesh to India, as per Government of Bangladesh statistics, have been increasing. IJMA has contended that the industry would have been completely wiped off by now, had the GoI not imposed an anti-dumping duty,” the statement said. The industry body stated that Bangladesh provides cash subsidies for jute production.

According to a report of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), 2022-2023, India’s jute production has been declining during the last decade. The main reason for this is the decrease in acreage, which is mostly due to cultivation of crops such as paddy, maize, groundnut and sesame. The availability of various types of synthetic substitutes is also reducing the demand for jute. According to the CACP, while the average area annually under jute cultivation was 8.2 lakh hectares from 2000-01 to 2009-10, it dropped to 7.3 lakh hectares from 2010-11 to 2019-20. In 2021-22 it was 6.3 lakh hectares. However, jute production has increased this year compared to the previous year.

In the farmlands

About 50 km from the historical Hastings Jute Mill, at Astara villa in West Bengal’s Tarakeshwar block, farmers expressed concern about extreme climate conditions. Ganesh Khanra and Tapan Kumar Khanra, who used to cultivate six bighas (one acre is 1.6 bigha) of jute about five years ago, now cultivate four.

Ganesh, Tapan and other farmers claimed that every bigha of jute cultivation costs Rs. 16,000 to Rs. 18,000 and the yield is about four tonnes per bigha. Based on the recommendations of the CACP, the minimum support price of jute for 2022-23 has been fixed at Rs. 4,750 per quintal. If one farmer produces four quintals of jute per bigha and sells it at the MSP, he barely breaks even.

The jute crop is sown in early April and harvested in July. The crop is about 6-7 ft high at the time of harvest. But as tedious as the cultivation of the golden fibre is the process of extracting the fibre from the harvest. The jute crop is left to rot in water bodies for almost 15 days. Every jute farmer in the village has a small water body. In order to extract the jute, a person has to stand in waist-deep water in these ditches in the stench and pull out the fibres. The agricultural labourers who do the hard work are not from Hooghly; they come from Gosaba and other interior areas of the Sundarbans. Their daily wage is Rs. 400-500, a substantial expense for farmers. In this picturesque village which was known for quality, jute farmers are slowly switching to other crops like groundnut and sesame.

No demands or protests

The issue has also turned political. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, voters of Barrackpore on the eastern bank and Hooghly on the western bank voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and sent two MPs to Parliament. The region has migrant workers from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh who have worked in the mills for two-three generations.

By 2021, the voters once again turned to the Trinamool Congress. With mills closing and the policies of the Centre being largely blamed for the crisis, Barrackpore BJP MP Arjun Singh started criticising the Jute Commissioner. The change in the party’s fortunes in Barrackpore created ripples not only locally, but in the entire BJP establishment. The State BJP vice-president, who vowed to protect the interests of jute workers and farmers, was summoned to Delhi and a meeting was arranged with Union Textile Minister Piyush Goyal. The development has also sparked speculation on whether Singh is using the crisis to warm up to the Trinamool Congress, the party he left in 2019 to join the BJP.

Curiously, there have hardly been any protests by trade unions in a State that has seen militant trade unionism in the past. There have been no demands that the mills open, nor have there been strikes. An administrator of a century-old jute mill in Hooghly said that there is no trade union left: “The older leaders are past their prime and a new leadership has not come up. This is an advantage as there is no interference in running the mills, but also poses problems as there is no one to take the issues relating to the mills to the people.”

West Bengal Labour Minister Becharam Manna publicly praised the labourers of the jute industry. “They do not strike even though they are suffering,” he said. The last incident of trade union-related violence in the State was reported in the Hooghly North Brook Jute Mill in July 2014 when workers killed the CEO over a dispute of wage cuts and Provident Fund (PF) cuts.

Dashed hopes?

As he stood a few metres away from the Weaverly Jute Mill, Rajkumar Yadav, one of the representatives of a national trade union, said he had high hopes from the tripartite meeting held of Central and State officials and stakeholders of the jute industry on May 9. A layer of dust on the mill gates made it difficult to read the notices pasted on it. The mill closed in November 2020. Yadav said the days of trade unionism were over. He claimed that several retired employees had not got their PF dues because the management did not deposit its share. “Hundreds of workers in each mill have not got their PF. But you will not see even a handful of complaints at the office of the Labour Commissioner,” he said. In almost all the mills, the workers and retired employees do not know who to approach if their PF is denied. “Sometimes they do not want to vacate the quarters,” the union leader said. The closed jute mills are also witnessing reverse migration, with workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh going back to their homes after the mills closed.

Every closed jute mill is a unique story of despair. Gauripur Jute Mill has been closed since 1997. The workers remember that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had visited the area in 2010 and given assurances to the workers. Hanuman Jute Mill in Howrah closed in December 2021, New Central Jute Mill closed in 2015 in Bidge Bidge (South 24 Parganas) and Kolkata Jute Mill in January 2021 in the city.

Even the jute mills that are open hardly present a picture of hope. Not far from Reliance Jute Mill is Nadia Jute Mills which, according to the workers, is “operational somehow”. The mill workers’ quarters, which extend till the bank of the river, are in a dilapidated state. Last October, the roof of the workers’ quarters came crashing down and five people had to be rescued by firefighters. Arjun Majhi, a mill worker, said his cow died in the incident. “We do not know who owns and runs the mill. Who do we ask for repairs,” Arjun asked. The roofs of the quarters are hanging at several places, the pillars have tilted, and one water tap that was meant for over 20 families has dried up. The only object that stands as a reminder of the present is a large cut-out of Lord Ram with his bow and photographs of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee wishing people on Ram Navami. Everything else, including the fate of the workers and the industry they belong to, appears to be hanging by a thread.

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The future of Sri Lanka is volatile and uncertain but there is an undercurrent of hope being sustained by the people

For 30 days in Sri Lanka’s own ‘Gota go gama’, a space carved out by protesters in front of the Presidential Secretariat, Sri Lankans responded to a vision of an alternative Sri Lanka — one that was democratic, non-violent, inclusive and creative; where youth would find a special place and where fear no longer would be the governing principle. Music, theatre and traditional rituals filled the space along with political chants and slogans. People from every community sought refuge at ‘Gota go gama’ from the daily hardship of living, irrespective of class, religion, gender or ethnicity.

Aggression has seeped in

Then came May 9 and government thugs attacked and brutally destroyed that sacred space and injured so many. That spirit of violence has now seeped into the protest movement itself and is also exploited by angry people at the local level. As protesters confronted their Jacobin streak, government supporters were beaten, humiliated and the houses of government ministers burnt to the ground. Vigilantes roamed the streets while the police and security forces seemed surprisingly indifferent. Many of the private properties of the Rajapaksas were completely destroyed. On May 11, the government began to enforce the Emergency more purposely, deterring anti-government vigilantes, telling those who were rebuilding ‘Gota go Gama’ that they had to go home and that the curfew would be strictly enforced. Whether this is a temporary measure during curfew or whether this entails a more decisive role for the military remains to be seen. The situation remains tense and volatile.

Before May 9, Sri Lanka was witnessing a larger social movement in the making. It was youth-led but involved a large cross-section of the people. For over a year, young people in different spaces seemed to be organising things through social media. Sceptics dismissed their mobilisation as peripheral. No one writing in the mainstream could imagine any real threat to the Rajapaksa power and authority. Strongman authoritarianism still remained the ideology of political elites. All this changed with the novel coronavirus pandemic and the massive economic crisis accentuated by man-made folly in particular economic decisions that were taken. The remoteness and the lack of communication by the government, whose members continued with their conspicuous consumption, rankled the population. Foreign exchange shortages and a debt crisis combined to completely disrupt the lives of average citizens. Confronted by fuel and gas shortages, the lack of food availability and the spiralling cost of living, a desperate population turned to its youth to express its anger and frustration.

A forum and its vision

Youth mobilisation had several components united by anger against the Rajapaksa regime. Young social activists had been organising things over the last year for a new political culture. Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, Black Lives Matter, the Arab Spring, the Indian farmers’ movement and Shaheen Bagh, they created an enclave for an alternative vision of Sri Lanka. The emphasis was on non-violence, democracy, ethnic harmony and creative expression. Large crowds and leading celebrities flocked each evening to ‘Gota go Gama’ to express their solidarity. The security forces stepped back. Fear had been broken.

These young activists were then joined by all-island student and academic unions. There was a bit of unease when this occurred, since some of the groups had a violent history, but for 30 days they joined in and extended their ful support to the peaceful protest. Trade unions, the environmental movement, professional associations, and civil society groups from women’s groups to Rotary Clubs and religious leaders of all faiths including leading Buddhist monks, also made their way to the village. Democracy, ethnic harmony, corruption and the arbitrary alienation of assets seemed to be the major themes.

Perhaps the foremost group of heroes were the young lawyers. If any protester is arrested or manhandled, hundreds go to court to be present during the hearing and give the court some courage to stand up to the authorities. This created a safety net for the movement. Lawyers also mingled with the protesters and intervened if there was any tension or difficulty.

Every day the protesters held out the possibility of a united Sri Lanka and most observers at the site before May 9 described the scene to be vibrant and exhilarating. And, yet, the very broad-based nature of the movement made it clear that differences and tensions were also very much a part of the mobilisation. The nationalist, violent underbelly of Sri Lanka also came to the fore with the presence of some of the participants. Their active vigilantism remains a major concern. Only the active intervention of religious figures, civil society leaders and the legal profession has stopped violence in certain places.

A place for Tamil culture

One of the main questions that has been raised is why the north and the east have not participated as fully in these protests as expected. The Tamil nationalist narrative is basically to ask “Where were you when we went through dire economic consequences during the war?” and statements arguing that Tamil issues were not being addressed. What the protests have done has been to celebrate the Tamil culture and language as never before in a Sri Lankan gathering; but there is no discussion of devolution or a Tamil nation. There is also deference to the rank and file of the army — perhaps as a strategic move — that rankles many Tamil commentators. But despite this nationalist reticence, Tamils have participated at the local level and were very much a part of the hartals that have taken place throughout the island. Many from the Jaffna University Students Union and women from the north and the east have also come to ‘Gota go Gama’ and been quite active in their participation. On Thursday, leading northern civil society activists penned a letter in support of the protesters who had been affected by the violence on Monday.

At the political level

So where do we go from here? Until Thursday it was clear with the indefinite strikes called by all the major trade unions and the enormous uprising taking place that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa must follow his brother (the former Prime Minister) and leave office for the sake of the country — that there will be no stability unless that happens. On Thursday, Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Prime Minister. For stability it is important that the new Prime Minister command not only the confidence of Parliament but also the confidence of the protesters as well. It is still uncertain whether Mr. Wickremesinghe is such a person though his knowledge of finance and economics is welcomed by some stakeholders.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa agreed to resign in favour of a national unity government. The lead Opposition party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) have insisted on the implementation of the proposals presented by the Bar Association in Sri Lanka. This would include a return to the 19th Amendment, especially its provisions on the independent judiciary and independent commissions, the abolishing of the executive presidency through a 21st Amendment, and the setting up of the economic framework for International Monetary Fund (IMF) negotiations. After that, a general election is to be held within six months. The President, in his recent address, also committed himself to some of these demands. With the government Members of Parliament so divided and the Opposition fluid in its loyalties, many worry that nothing will come to pass without constant pressure from the protesters and society in general.

If President Rajapaksa does not resign, it is still unclear whether the public, for the sake of stability, would accept a Wickremesinghe-Gotabaya Rajapaksa combination. It is the kind of “deal” that the protesters have abhorred and highlighted. It is more likely that the unrest and turmoil in Sri Lanka will persist until President Rajapaksa leaves. He would be ruling with a very unpopular Parliament and if turmoil gets out of hand, Sri Lanka may be faced with the Myanmar option — an option that the commander of the army has vehemently denied. There have been cases of security force excesses, but for the most part, there has been a striking indifference. Many who are at the protest sites say that many members of the security forces appear to support their struggle. There will be strong resistance if the Myanmar option is considered and it is unlikely that the rank and file of the security forces will support such an operation against their own communities.

Meanwhile, the IMF has signalled that it will go ahead with its negotiations since there seems to be an all-party consensus for that to happen. The future of Sri Lanka is volatile and uncertain, being on the verge of economic collapse, but there is an undercurrent of hope. The active engagement of individuals, organisations and civil society in keeping people accountable for good governance is a movement that appears unlikely to go away.

Radhika Coomaraswamy is Chairperson, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka

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The killing of a Kashmiri Pandit working in J&K administration raises troubling questions about law and order in the Valley - Indian Express

The environment in the Valley is fraught, and the administration must not add to it, even if it can do nothing to provide a healing touch to those affected by the violence.

The killing of yet another Kashmiri Pandit in Budgam district of Kashmir Valley is a disturbing development, and further evidence that the J&K administration has been unable to prevent such targeted killings. Last month, a Kashmiri Pandit was injured when militants shot at him in Kulgam. Before that, another killing shook a small Rajput community that has been living in south Kashmir for years. On Thursday, the person targeted was Rahul Bhat, a young revenue department official, who had moved to the Valley under a two-decade old Central employment scheme for Kashmiri Pandits whose families had left during the 1990 exodus. Shockingly, he was shot by his two assailants in the government office where he worked. Last October, after a spate of attacks on Kashmiri Pandits and migrant workers, the J&K police had claimed to have killed the “masterminds” behind the attacks.

However, it has been clear for several years that a policy that focuses on “elimination” of militants alone is not working. Militancy in Kashmir is a revolving door that produces more recruits for each one that is killed in an encounter. That these killings are being carried out by local boys is well known. The police have said there is an increasing presence in the Valley of “foreign” militants — that usually means they are from Pakistan — and that they are pushing young Kashmiris to carry out these killings. Last month, after more such killings, the police said they would launch night patrols in remote villages where non-migrants lived in order to prevent attacks on soft targets. But how much protection can a stretched police force provide to individuals or groups is the question that Kashmiri Pandits who seek to return to the Valley have been asking.

Over the last nearly three years, the administration has silenced anti-government dissent in the Valley to such an extent by sheer diktat that it was clearly blindsided when a large number of Pandits, who like Bhat, are employed by the government in the Valley and live in “transit camps” in various districts, came out to protest the administration’s failure to protect members of the community. The J&K administration seems not to know that policing of such protests, routine in other states, does not require tear gassing or a baton charge. It should also be putting the lid on activities that seem to emphasise the divide between Muslims and Hindus. The environment in the Valley is fraught, and the administration must not add to it, even if it can do nothing to provide a healing touch to those affected by the violence.

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May 14, 1982, Forty Years Ago: Wheat Crop Damage - Indian Express

Krishi Bhavan experts are still to make a detailed assessment to ascertain the extent of damage to the wheat crop by continuous rains in the northern states.

Krishi Bhavan experts are still to make a detailed assessment to ascertain the extent of damage to the wheat crop by continuous rains in the northern states. Though in the beginning, officials tended to give the impression that the damage is not as extensive as feared, they are now feeling concerned over the dim rabi prospects. What is worrying is the weather forecast that rains will continue for the next few days. The wheat crop has suffered badly in parts of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Reports suggest that the loss is likely to be as high as 25 per cent in parts of Punjab and Haryana.

Indira vs Marxists

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has said that the Marxists have tried to malign her and her family in every possible way. “Are they aware of the might of Indian womanhood?” she asked. Addressing a number of meetings in different Kerala districts, she asked the youth and woman to take a firm stand against the misrule of the Marxists. The party, and not the people, was supreme in the eyes of communists, she said. They were in favour of one-party rule. On the other hand, the Congress (I) believed in democracy and that was why there were non-Congress (I)-ruled states and ministries.

Punjab Polls

Chief Election Commissioner S L Shakhdar has rejected the Punjab government’s appeal to cancel by-elections in Nangal and Faridkot constituencies. He reportedly told the government that the situation did not warrant a postponement.

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Afghan Peace Talks

Iran’s seat at the UN-sponsored talks on Afghanistan is likely to remain vacant though an Iranian government representative is likely to be present in Geneva for consultations.

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The bulldozer is becoming, in Delhi and beyond, the symbol of a divisive, vindictive politics - Indian Express

Delhi's municipal administration must rethink its approach to allegedly illegal constructions. Else, as in Jahangirpuri, the judiciary must step in.

There are, in the laws of the land, ways and means to deal with illegal constructions and encroachments in urban areas. But by any measure, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s demolition drive at Madanpur Khadar invites several questions. And coming as it does on the heels of the demolitions at Jahangirpuri last month, in the wake of communal violence and tension, it threatens to erode confidence in the impartiality of the BJP-run Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The bulldozer — and its perceived targeted use recently by the MCD — as a symbol of governance is threatening. Its being ranged against lower-middle class, working people is cause for deep unease.

First, the current demolition drive raises questions about due process, and occurs against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s recent intervention: Last month, the apex court had asked the MCD to maintain status quo in Jahangirpuri after the latter began demolitions. As residents and police clashed on Thursday — AAP MLA for the area Amanatullah Khan was arrested and 12 others detained — there was little clarity on whether MCD notices had, indeed, reached those whose homes or businesses were being demolished. It is incumbent that people are informed — and have a chance to respond — before they are rendered homeless. Demolition is irreversible and so the bar for it has to be high, the burden of proof on those who order the bulldozer. The letter of the law apart, the insensitivity of the authorities speaks to a politics that lacks empathy. The urban poor live in cramped housing, in urban conglomerations that occupy the liminal space between the legal and illegal. Government and politics to them have become an instrument of fear rather than negotiation and representation. To put the demolition drive in perspective, Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia has said that razing all unauthorised constructions in Delhi will render 70 per cent of the population homeless.

It is difficult not to read into the spate of demolitions a larger, divisive politics. SDMC chairman Rajpal Singh said: “These people (locals) are Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. AAP supports them and obstructed MCD in its duties.” Even AAP has played along until now. Thus far, there is little evidence to show that residents in Madanpur Khadar are illegal migrants. But such statements of dubious veracity appear part of the playbook that was deployed in Jahangirpuri and Khargone, Madhya Pradesh in April. The bulldozer in this context stands for petty vindictiveness of an overpowering state. Delhi’s municipal administration must rethink its approach to allegedly illegal constructions. Else, as in Jahangirpuri, the judiciary must step in.

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Faux populi: Public opinion cannot influence jurisprudence - Indian Express

Menaka Guruswamy writes: Otherwise, as seen in the Roe v Wade draft opinion, it could become problematic

On May 5, 2022, the current affairs site politico.com had a major scoop. It obtained the draft opinion of Justice Samuel Alito, apparently speaking for the majority of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) overruling Roe v Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992). These two previously decided cases enable women in the US to access abortions, albeit with some restrictions.

This is the first time that a draft opinion of the SCOTUS has been made public before the judgment was delivered. SCOTUS was established on March 4, 1789. The almost 225-year-old court, founded to interpret the American constitution that was adopted in 1789, has a long history of being an ideologically divided court, hearing deeply contentious political issues. The draft opinion, written for Thomas E Dobbs, State Health Officer of the Mississippi Department of the Health v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, is expected to be delivered in June or July.

Within both the polity and law in the US, no issue is as emotive and divisive as matters related to abortion. The Republicans oppose abortion rights, framing the conversation as “pro-life”, while the Democrats strive for the ability of women to have reproductive control over their bodies — or “pro-choice”. Doctors providing abortions have been attacked in the past, and their clinics bombed. Judges are appointed to the SCOTUS by conservative and liberal Presidents keeping in mind how they would rule on key issues like abortion rights.

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Let me give some context to Justice Alito’s draft opinion, that will enable the reader to discern the rationale for his opinion and appreciate the politics within constitutional law. I have written in an earlier column about the 6-3 divide in the SCOTUS, with the conservatives constituting the majority (‘Justice in the time of the virus’, IE, January 22). Conservative judges also frame the regulation of abortion as a state legislative rights issue, giving enormous weight to the apparent public opinion within those states. Federalism in the US grants the 50 states within the country enormous fiscal and legislative power. This is different from India’s model of federalism.

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In the draft opinion that was leaked, after being circulated to the other eight judges of SCOTUS, Justice Alito writes “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” adding, “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” Justice Alito continues that “at the time of Roe, 30 States still prohibited abortion at all stages. In the years prior to that decision about a third of the States had liberalised their laws, but Roe abruptly ended that political process. It imposed the same highly restrictive regime on the entire nation, and it effectively struck down the abortion laws of every single State.” Here is how the issue is initially framed: Legislatures in states must be able to adopt laws on abortion as they see fit. The justification offered is in the context of the legitimacy of such laws being made by the will of the people, through their representatives.

Therefore, Justice Alito writes “in some States voters may believe that abortion rights should be more even more extensive than the right Casey and Roe recognised. Voters in other states may wish to impose tight restrictions based on their belief that abortion destroys an unborn human being…. Our nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.” Justice Alito clearly sees this an issue for the legislature to decide based on the will of the voters.

A key question then arises. Is it appropriate for any constitutional court to pay attention or rely on public opinion to arrive at conclusions? The highly respected Pew Research Center reported in 2021 that 59 per cent of US adults say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while only 39 per cent think it should be illegal. However, the deep difference in viewpoints is reflected in political party supporters and their views, evidenced by the Democrats (72 per cent) and Republicans (39 per cent) who support abortion. Within the scheme of Justice Alito’s own logic of the will of the people, a majority would appear to support abortion rights, and therefore the court should uphold abortion rights.

Yet, is public opinion a legitimate parameter for constitutional courts to take into account when adjudicating issues of rights? The notion that constitutional courts should take the will of voters into account is at odds with the understanding of courts elsewhere, like in India. Across jurisdictions, in the constitutional scheme of separation of powers, the executive, legislature and judiciary are expected to play different roles: The executive to govern using the rule of law, the legislature to make law and the judiciary to ensure that those laws are in consonance with constitutional values. The introduction of public opinion and deference to the legislature as a valid basis for adjudication by constitutional courts leads to extraordinary conclusions.

For instance, at various points of time, the SCOTUS may have reflected the popular opinion of the time and consequently upheld slavery (Dred Scott v Sandford, 1857), segregation (Plessy v Ferguson, 1896), sodomy laws (Bowers v Hardwick, 1986) and forcible exclusion and relocation of the ethnic minority of Japanese Americans (Korematsu v United States, 1944). The virtue of constitutional courts is that they are expected to be insulated from public opinion. In that regard, they are freed from the vagaries of the will of the voters and enjoy the quiet introspection and justification through legal reasoning that the law creates space for. It is this solitude that is the privilege of both the bar and the bench. This solitude is the essence of the practice of law. To shatter that solitude is to make the interpretation of the law subject to the vagaries of shifting public opinion, leading to popular decisions, that are often opposed to the dignity of sections of citizens.

The writer is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court

What Zakir Hussain’s Farewell to Shiv Kumar Sharma says about Hindustani classical music - Indian Express

The tabla maestro's farewell speaks of a tradition in which faith was all about assimilation

The most thought-provoking photographs do not over illustrate. They are candid, yet compassionate. At times, such images benumb, and, then, spell out the reality of a different world, one that is far removed from those that are ingrained in popular consciousness.

In the image of a 71-year-old Zakir Hussain accompanying Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma, for the one last time – as his pallbearer — the grief unmistakable, even on his masked face, is one such poignant moment. The kind that will stay in public memory for long.

As Sharma’s son Rahul walked in front of the bier with the traditional pail and his other son, Rohit, waited while the pyre was being readied, Hussain held on to his friend, wrapped in a tricolour, sticking to the vocabulary of hundreds of their classical concerts together, where he would support the delicate baaj of Sharma’s santoor by lowering his tabla’s volume, gently supporting it, never overpowering it. He was also comforting the distraught Hari Prasad Chaurasia.

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No one teaches you how to grieve. Holding Sharma till the end was perhaps Hussain’s way of being there; like he was while performing the sweet and pensive raag Kirwani in 1979 that was eventually turned into an HMV record. This was the 25th year of the santoor’s presence on the classical stage, and Sharma had invited Hussain to be a part of a concert held at the now-defunct Rang Bhawan in Mumbai. It remains one of the most wonderful renditions of the raga – and there are some excellent ones in competition. The rapport between the two and the warmth that marked their collaboration is palpable in the rendition.

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Express Opinion |Shivkumar Sharma was a musician’s musician – he thought music

Hussain’s affection and immense respect for Sharma, about a decade his senior, also came from the association that his father, Ustad Allah Rakha Khan, had with the santoor maestro. For many years, before Hussain began accompanying Sharma more regularly, Khan, 20 years Sharma’s senior, was often on the tabla. This was also the time when Khan was in the process of lifting the tabla from the margins of Hindustani classical music and placing it under the spotlight. Back then, accompanying artistes did not enjoy much stature. The names of musicians did not appear on records or posters and they were paid much less than the main artiste. Tabla players were even made to sit behind the main performer. The word tabalchi was used in a rather derogatory manner. Khan’s travels with Pandit Ravi Shankar helped highlight his brilliance to the western audience.

The affinity that Sharma and Khan had towards each other went beyond the appreciation of each others art. It was deeper and went all the way to Jammu, where these two Dogra men came from. Once, at a concert in Chicago, Sharma spoke in Dogri about how the two had a great programme “Bada achha programme hoyiya,” Sharma said. Khan responded, almost immediately, that this happened because two Dogra musicians were performing together.

Communalism was yet to make its presence felt in ways known to us today. It still stays slightly away from the hallowed halls of Hindustani classical music. Though this tradition does have issues of its own, assimilation remains its leitmotif. It is a world where the best-known exponents of the dhrupad style, the Dagars, sing a tradition that traces itself to Sama Veda. It’s a world where perhaps every musician, whatever their religion, worships Saraswati – the goddess of music — and where a Zakir Hussain does not let the tiranga slide from Sharma’s grieving wife Manorama’s hands and holds it to his heart just before standing quietly in a corner, next to his friend’s burning pyre, suffering, and not ready to let him go just yet.

How to make a Uniform Civil Code - Indian Express

Tahir Mahmood writes: Uniform Civil Code must be nationwide, and involve the abolition of all regressive laws

The reported move to frame a Uniform Civil Code in certain states is the talk of the town. A state-level UCC, however, seems to be prima facie incompatible with Article 44 of the Constitution which proclaims that the “State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”. The all-India character and extent of the proposed code inherent in this phraseology is too conspicuous to be overlooked. Under the Constitution, family and succession laws are in the concurrent jurisdiction of the Centre and states, but a law to be equally applicable in the entire country can be enacted by Parliament alone. In many cases relating to minorities, the apex court has frowned on continued inaction in this regard, but the addressee of its concern has always been the Centre.

In furtherance of the constitutional goal, Parliament enacted a civil marriage law in 1954, the Special Marriage Act. Not replacing any community-specific law, it was made available to all citizens as a secular alternative. Any man and woman, whether professing the same or different religions, could opt for a civil marriage. Existing religious marriages could also be voluntarily converted into civil marriages by registration under the Act. Section 21 of the Act laid down that all couples married under its provisions and their descendants will, in regard to their properties, be governed by the religion-neutral chapter on inheritance in the Indian Succession Act of 1925. The Special Marriage Act and the Indian Succession Act together were, thus, to constitute a UCC of an optional nature for all Indians alike. The law minister of the time, C C Biswas, had called this “first step towards a UCC”.

To regulate religious marriages among the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, a new law called the Hindu Marriage Act was enacted in 1955. A Hindu Succession Act came in force next year for the properties of those covered by the 1955 Act. Section 29 (4) of the Act clarified that “Nothing contained in this Act shall be deemed to affect the provisions contained in the Special Marriage Act, 1954”. The 1954 Act and the Indian Succession Act as secular laws thus remained available to those governed by Hindu law even after the enactment of the Acts of 1955-56.

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The Special Marriage Act and the Indian Succession Act (attached to it) do not apply in the entire country — nor for that matter do the Hindu law Acts of 1955-56. When Goa, Daman and Diu were liberated from Portuguese rule in early 1960s, a Parliamentary law had provided for continued application of the archaic Portuguese Civil Code of 1867 in those territories “until amended or repealed” by a competent authority. That 155-year old foreign law, no more in force even in its parent country, still governs Indian citizens in these parts of India. In Puducherry — liberated even before Goa, Daman and Diu — a sizable section of citizens called Renoncants (Indians whose ancestors had during the French rule abandoned personal law) are still governed by the 218-year old French Civil Code of 1804. Provisions are found in all central family law Acts of India, excluding them from their scope.

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Continued application of anachronistic foreign laws to Indian citizens in certain parts of the country stares in the face of the constitutional goal of a UCC. Supposing that such a code can be enacted at the state-level, a beginning should be made by repealing and replacing them with the central marriage and succession laws in force everywhere else in the country. Taking this rational step should pose no problem as Goa is under the rule of the party in power at the Centre and Daman, Diu and Puducherry (as Union Territories) are also within its jurisdiction. Enforcing central family laws in these places will be all the more logical in view of the fact that in 2019, the government did extend them to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, to replace their local variants — though unlike the Portuguese and French laws, they were neither of foreign origin nor antiquated.

Furthermore, the Special Marriage Act is patently discriminatory in certain matters. Its list of prohibited degrees in marriage (relatives one cannot marry) is a copy of that under the Hindu Marriage Act but, unlike that Act, it does not recognise the rule prohibiting marriages within the limits of sapinda relationship (covering distant cousins). So, a Hindu can freely marry a second cousin under the Act, though his religion prohibits it, but a Muslim cannot marry under it a first cousin which his religion allows and is a common practice in the community. To make things worse, under the Hindu Marriage Act, the rule of prohibited degrees can be relaxed on the basis of custom but not under the Special Marriage Act.

During the Emergency days, the Special Marriage Act was amended to provide that if both parties marrying under it were Hindu their properties would be governed — not by the Indian Succession Act as originally provided — but by the Hindu Succession Act. This retrograde step has never been questioned by any court. On the contrary, the objection raised to it in the Maneka Gandhi case (1985) was met by a Delhi High Court judge with spirited defence.

There is nothing wrong in placing the whole nation under a single law of family rights and succession. This must be done in compliance with the constitutional guarantees for equality before the law and equal protection of laws. The provision of the Special Marriage Act relating to prohibited degrees in marriage should be suitably amended, and its 1976 amendment restricting the applicability of the Indian Succession Act must be set aside. The Act, so amended, should be extended to every part of the country. The day this is done, the constitutional promise of a “uniform civil code for the citizens throughout the territory of India” will stand duly fulfilled.

The writer is a Professor of Law & Ex-Member, Law Commission of India

Attack on MSU exhibition is part of long, troubling history - Indian Express

Ram Rahman writes: Ongoing cultural onslaught has led to muted protest and self-censorship

The recent assault on the Art Faculty graduation exhibition at Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) Baroda feels like a déjà vu. In 2007, Srilamanthula Chandramohan’s work was attacked for “hurting Hindu sentiments” and the ensuing controversy enmeshed the senior faculty and galvanised the arts community to come out publicly in both his and the department’s defence. Not so now. What has changed ?

To understand, we need to step back and look at the history of the last few decades. I write this as someone who has personally faced attacks. My involvement in arts activism began as a founder member of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat) in 1989. After all, the public murder of a cultural activist was the most violent form of an attack on the freedom of expression. I was a part of the team which conceived, researched and designed the exhibition ‘Hum Sab Ayodhya’ in August 1993, after the Babri Masjid demolition of 1992. The exhibition, designed in multiple copies which travelled across India, sought to show the complex and rich cultural, religious, architectural and political history of Ayodhya. It was attacked in Faizabad on the grounds that a text quoting the Dasaratha Jataka which had a different genealogy to the Valmiki Ramayan was blasphemous. A debate erupted in Parliament where an accusation was made that there was an obscene poster. There was no such thing. Cases were filed against Sahmat, which were thrown out by the Delhi High Court eight years later.

I faced physical attacks in Pune and Columbia University in New York over the same exhibition. We also witnessed the attacks on Bhisham Sahni’s TV show Tamas and Habib Tanvir’s play Ponga Pandit. Both were successive chairmen of Sahmat.

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But it is in the last decade that the larger picture of the assault on culture and history has become visible. Of course, the most shocking case for the artist community was what happened to MF Husain. His enforced exile and death in England were a shock the art world has never forgiven. The accusation of hurting religious sentiments became a convenient call amongst Hindu right wing groups. The Husain case was a warning. And while Sahmat organised robust public events over the years in defence of Husain, those are no longer effective.

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These attacks on writers, artists, theatre directors are only a small part of the rewriting of not just history but the entire cultural space. The destruction of a large part of Delhi’s incredible modern architecture in Pragati Maidan is a part of this rewriting or reconstructing. Most shocking was the destruction of Raj Rewal’s Hall of Nations and the Nehru Pavilion, now being celebrated and lamented in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Both were engineered by Mahendra Raj who died last week, but lived to see his major works demolished. The buildings coming up in their place are what this government calls “world class” – huge, characterless structures with no relevance to our building traditions. This is exactly what is happening to the Central Vista. It is a clear assault on anything connected with the “Nehruvian era”. The removal of major cultural institutions like the IGNCA and the National Museum from this central focus exposes the importance of cultural institutions to the new regime.

The demolition of an entire section of the historic centre of Varanasi to create a coldly characterless stage set for the Prime Minister is a part of this obsession of creating grandiose projects like the Sardar Patel statue and the ecological disaster of the Sabarmati project in Ahmedabad. What happens to the Gandhi’s ashram in its new “world class” avatar remains to be seen.

The attacks on any public debate or dissent by the use of draconian laws against students and activists and the attacks on JNU, Jamia and AMU are all a part of this wider project of “cultural nationalism”. Arrests of cartoonists, comedians and journalists and attacks on Dalits are celebrated by some in the media. The removal of Gandhi’s beloved Christian hymn Abide with Me from the Beating the Retreat ceremony and the garish laser displays and projections on the secretariat buildings and the ghats of Varanasi and Ayodhya signal the new disco aesthetic of this Hindutva culture. Add to this the rising unchecked hate speech against Muslims and the cyber attacks on Muslim women. “Hijab” and “halal” are the new battle cries. The cases related to the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, Mathura’s Shahi Idgah mosque and the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and the calls for renaming all city, village and road names that are Muslim add to the broad agenda. Rama and Hanuman have also been weaponised.

Returning to the art scene, is it a surprise that very few people will now come out to protest or even sign a petition against the recent attack? In 2019, when Article 370 was withdrawn from Kashmir in what many considered an unconstitutional manner, Sahmat proposed a postcard art project on the issue. As we sent out proposals, it became clear that many artists were terrified of touching the subject out of fear of being targeted. This was the week when an FIR was filed in Muzaffarnagar against Shyam Benegal, Aparna Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and a host of others for being “anti-national” and signing an open letter to the PM expressing anguish at the rising hate crimes and his ensuing silence. This was a case of self-censorship on a wide scale. Realising that the 70th year of the Constitution was coming up, we proposed an art project to celebrate it (before the CAA was announced). Here we had an enthusiastic response, as no government could object to celebrating the Constitution.

Just last week at the India Art Fair, photographer Prarthna Singh’s book Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh on the anti-CAA protests, was removed from display at the photo book booth. The rustication of a student by MSU for making a “controversial” artwork comes as no surprise. Our mythology has been the source of our great art traditions. But no one now will dare to venture into that rich vein. Forget political dissent – the amazingly vibrant murals which came up along the walls of Jamia during the anti-CAA protests were all whitewashed overnight after Covid hit.

In this larger context of the cultural onslaught, the future of any creative endeavour in India is bleak. Let us not have any illusions.

“Where the clear stream of reason/ has not lost its way into the/dreary desert sand of dead habit;/ Where the mind is led forward/ by thee into ever widening/ thought and action-/ into that heaven of freedom,/ my father,/ let my country awake.”

Dear Gurudev, the country has entered a deep, dark sleep.

The writer is a photographer, curator and artist-activist

Don’t play politics with Covid death numbers, let’s learn from them - Indian Express

Shamika Ravi writes: Covid death data has led to intense speculation and politicisation. The core issue is not that the numbers are right or wrong, but the absence of high quality data.

Across the world, there is a desperate attempt to measure the cost of the Covid-19 pandemic, and one such measure is the excess deaths. In countries where robust infrastructure exists to register every death promptly, reliable and verifiable estimates of excess deaths are publicly available. However, in many countries with inadequate birth and death registration infrastructure, estimates of excess deaths are subjected to uncertainty and shrill politicking. Even with sophisticated statistical methodology, unreliable data would lead to imprecise and speculative estimates. Unfortunately, social and news media’s overzealousness has led to the politicisation of excess deaths under these circumstances. The latest to join this fray is the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Existing literature shows that methods for estimating deaths when data are not yet available tend to fail spectacularly as hard data become available. Hence this has serious implications for estimates of deaths in developing countries and overall global estimates. Complex mathematical models with simplistic assumptions become inaccurate and difficult to interpret — and no matter what the urgent compulsions to publish simple estimates of Covid-19 deaths, complex models should not take precedence over high quality data.

Opinion |Why there’s no agreement on India’s Covid death figures

In the Indian context, provisions of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act of 1969 require every death to be registered within 21 days of the event. The Civil Registration System (CRS), which is “defined as a unified process of continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the vital events and characteristics thereof, as per legal requirements in the country”, is the repository of all registered births and deaths in the country. The CRS reports data at the national, state, and district levels. In the context of the pandemic, the CRS has become the go-to place for estimating excess deaths in India. Registered deaths during the pandemic are compared to an average of registered deaths before the pandemic (baseline estimates) to produce estimates of excess deaths.

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However, careful research of the death data from CRS has repeatedly revealed serious shortcomings. For example, for 2019 (before the pandemic), researchers C Rao et al. showed that the CRS data on deaths (7.64 million) undercounted the number of dead by 2.28 million, which was systematically more severe for the elderly (above 60 years) and the children (under five years), who accounted for 56 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively of the additional deaths. Not surprisingly, they also found that adjustments in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh accounted for 75 per cent of the additional deaths.

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This implies that death data from the CRS, mainly to produce the baseline estimates before the pandemic compared with registered death data during the pandemic, is not a reliable source of death unless adjustments are made for sex, age, and location. It is important to reiterate that in 2019, the CRS reported an overall registration of 7.64 million deaths, which was 92 per cent of the overall deaths estimated by the Sample Registration System (SRS). However, according to these researchers, after adjustments were made for age, gender, and location, the total death count for 2019 was 9.92 million. Therefore, the overall level of registration (LOR) or completeness of death data after adjustments for age, sex, and the location was 77 per cent, which was 15 percentage points lower than what was reported by the CRS.

Furthermore, when one disaggregates the data by gender, they report that the completeness of death data was 81 per cent for males and 72 per cent for females. Given that the level of registration of death data in the CRS was much lower in earlier years; it ranged from 75 per cent in 2015 to 85 per cent in 2018, one would expect the bias or undercount of the death data in the CRS to be much larger for earlier years.

Express View |Data on deaths during pandemic underlines country’s healthcare system needs urgent upscaling

The bottom line from this research is that using the CRS death data for the pre-pandemic period as the baseline without adjusting for age, gender, and location (given that the registration level has not been uniform over the years) would lead to exaggerated numbers of excess deaths. Unfortunately, researchers, journals and journalists have chosen to completely ignore this fact. The rush to pronounce damning evidence of loss of lives from the pandemic is leading to one set of “guesstimates” after another.

Another source of data that researchers have used to estimate excess deaths is the household survey, such as the CVoter tracker survey. Even though it is a national survey carried out daily using computer-assisted telephonic interviews, its primary purpose is to track perceptions of governance, media, and other social indicators. The sampling methodology and the questionnaire are not designed to collect death data from households. A reliable source of death data in India is the Sample Registration System (SRS), a large-scale demographic survey. It covers more than 8 million people across all states and Union Territories. Its primary purpose is to produce birth and mortality rates at the national and state levels. Unfortunately, the SRS survey has not been carried out during the pandemic.

In contrast, the CVoter tracker survey, with a coverage of 0.14 million adults and death numbers based on self-reported data from telephonic surveys with no on-field verification, is a simplistic and imprecise methodology to elicit data on death. In addition, the low response rate also raises fundamental concerns of non response bias which are not easily quantifiable. Researchers have assumed no behavioural change in response to survey questions over time. Heightened media coverage and overall fear and interest levels during waves of the pandemic would instead imply likelihood of varying responses from people. For example, people would be significantly more sensitive to events and surroundings during a wave than during normal times. These simplistic assumptions make the estimates of excess deaths highly questionable.

The lack of accurate data on deaths has led to intense speculation and politicisation. The truth of the matter is that even before the pandemic, India did not have an infrastructure of collecting real-time robust death data. The core issue is not that the numbers are right or wrong, but no matter how sophisticated the statistical methodology, there is no substitute for high quality data. From 2015 to 2019, due to massive digitisation efforts, the level of death registration has improved drastically from 75.3 per cent to 92 per cent across India. However, this remains a work-in-progress with several shortcomings; a staggering 2.28 million deaths (approximately 23 per cent of the total deaths) were not accounted for in the CRS death data even in 2019. The situation was exponentially worse in earlier years with low levels of death registrations.

The pandemic has provided a window of opportunity to invest heavily in building a robust and reliable infrastructure that collects timely data on vital statistics, such as births, deaths and migrations. This should be a project of national importance and deemed an urgent priority requiring complete cooperation of central and state governments. Such an infrastructure would become the cornerstone of public health in India.

The writer is Vice President, Observer Research Foundation

Get used to it: Ukraine war may last long. Policy should adapt to new normal - Times of India

Finland is expected to formally announce over the weekend that it will apply for a Nato membership. Sweden may soon follow suit. Finland’s membership of Nato, when it does come through, will make it the sixth treaty member to share a border with Russia – Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania are the others. Russia has warned of consequences if Finland joins Nato. In all, geopolitical tensions are unlikely to subside soon. Consequently, the economic disruption caused by the tensions is also bound to be prolonged.

India is likely to experience the economic fallout mainly through two channels, commodity prices and financial markets. The Indian basket of crude has hovered around $105/barrel for a while. In addition, commodities, including agricultural products, have recorded a sharp increase in the price level over the last six months. Elevated inflation is now a global phenomenon and it may endure for some time. The combination of geopolitical risks and inflation has jolted financial markets which are linked through portfolio investors. As most major central banks have begun aggressive monetary tightening, RBI’s job has become more challenging. Foreign exchange rates are one of the vehicles of monetary transmission. Fluctuations in the rupee’s exchange rate against major currencies in the wake of actions taken by other central banks can undermine RBI’s efforts in reining in inflation.

But despite the looming uncertainty, none of the challenges are new. High inflation along with financial market volatility is a situation India has dealt with earlier. RBI’s cushion of about $532 billion in foreign currency assets should be adequate to smoothen the adjustment underway as economic agents adapt to recent developments. The one certainty in this environment is that both firms and individuals will adapt to the situation. A prolonged spell of high commodity prices may catalyse a faster pace of transition in energy systems.

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After reducing the duration between second dose and the booster shot to 3 months for international travellers, GoI must reduce the general 9-month gap between second dose and boosters and ramp up messaging on importance of precaution doses. Other countries with advanced vaccination programmes administer boosters at much shorter durations. The US CDC prescribes a first booster for all adults five months after the primary series and a second booster for those over 50 or those who are immunocompromised, four months after the first booster. The UK encourages the first booster three months after the second dose.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is preparing for 100 million Covid infections later this year. While India’s Covid trajectory has diverged from other nations in the months after the third wave in January, there’s no room for complacency. Data from the 2015-16 Demographic and Health Survey of households indicates 42% of diabetes and 56% of hypertension patients are unaware of their condition. These comorbidities are a key reason to encourage all adults to take boosters.

Vaccine supplies are plentiful now. Over 17.5 crore doses are lying unutilised. The low offtake of boosters isn’t surprising: Many people are assuming without evidence that the Covid threat has passed. Nearly 6 crore adults between 18 and 59 are eligible for boosters, but just over 12.5 lakh have taken the jab. The US prognosis of another tidal wave of infections must prod India also to improve its booster dose programme.

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In cases challenging a law’s constitutionality, the courts must grapple with questions of both social and political values, and their own role in the constitutional scheme. This week, in RIT Foundation v Union of India, a rare thing happened: Two judges of the Delhi High Court split right down the middle in their conception of both the marital relationship and of the role judges play in the constitutional framework. Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) makes rape a criminal offence but makes an exception for “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife”. This exception was under challenge.

Justice Rajiv Shakdher called the marital rape exception (MRE) “steeped in patriarchy and misogyny” and said a husband’s “conjugal expectation” to have sexual intercourse with his wife does not give him an unfettered right to have sex without his wife’s consent. “Modern day marriage,” Justice Shakdher held, “is a relationship of equals… Consensual sex is at the heart of a healthy and joyful marital relationship.”

While justice C Hari Shankar agreed that “conjugal rights… end where bodily autonomy begins”, he found that non-consensual sex by a husband within marriage does not amount to “rape”. There are other provisions of the IPC, such as Sections 304-B (dowry death), 306 (abetment to suicide) and 498-A (cruelty), that can be invoked where non-consensual sex has occurred, but a married man cannot be called a “rapist”. The judge compared rape by a stranger with marital rape, to conclude that a wife forced to have sex with her husband “on occasion” does not feel the same degree of outrage as a woman raped by a stranger.

These are two opposing views of the sexual bond in marriage. Given that marriage is a social institution that affects most people’s lives, this is a judgment people must read for themselves to contemplate these divergent views. Do we – as rights-bearing citizens – think that forced, non-consensual sex within a marriage is rape? Is it more humiliating to be forced to have non-consensual sex by your husband than to be raped a stranger? Conversely, what is a married couple’s experience of a sexual relationship based on mutual consent? If a wife can expect to be treated as an equal in the bedroom, how might she then assert her equality in other spheres?

The court has also differed on the role that the judiciary plays while examining social and political questions. Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the judiciary, executive and the legislature operate in different spheres. One organ cannot take over the functions of the others. As a corollary, courts are often called upon to exercise “restraint” by deferring to the presumed wisdom of the legislature which is assumed to know what the people want.

Justice Shakdher notes that the court is faced with a legal question: Does the MRE violate the fundamental right to equality, a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, and self-expression? While the judiciary, he says, ought to defer to the legislature in matters of economic policy, the court is obliged to decide questions of fundamental rights violations by States. Shunning this responsibility would amount to abandoning the court’s constitutional duty. Both the Union and the Delhi government refrained from expressing an opinion before the court. Thus, Justice Shakdher notes, “Practically, the State made no case for or against the continuance of the impugned provisions on the statute.”

By contrast, having found the MRE does not violate the equality clause (because non-consensual sex with a stranger and a husband are fundamentally different), Justice Hari Shankar holds the court cannot strike down a law merely because it feels that the act should be an offence. It is for the legislature to make marital rape an offence, and the most the court can do is to recommend this change to the legislature.

To have a society free of sexual violence, our most intimate relationships must be based on equality. Every incursion into the family is marked by doubt and hesitation as to the effect that it will have on society. Yet, where the legislature and executive hesitate to act or even express an opinion, the court must exercise its role in the constitutional scheme as the guardian of fundamental rights. The Delhi High Court has granted parties leave to appeal before the Supreme Court (SC). In 2018, the Gujarat high court had held marital rape should be criminalised. It is now for the SC to decide between these differing views.

Arundhati Katju is a Delhi-based lawyer

The views expressed are personal

In a charged UP, why 2022 may be different from 1992 - Hindustan Times

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Uttar Pradesh (UP) is on the boil again, and this time, it is not due to elections. Over the past month, a raft of petitions involving decades-old religious disputes strewn across the state have fanned communal tensions. Two of three petitions concern nerve centres of Hindu traditions: The Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi and the Krishna Janmabhoomi Temple in Mathura. The third petition, the only one that’s been unsuccessful for now, involves arguably the world’s most recognisable monument: The Taj Mahal. All three claim that Islamic structures were built during the medieval times by Muslim rulers by demolishing Hindu shrines, and together, may represent a return to the tumultuous 90s, when the politics of the state, and the country, was shaped by the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Of course, 2022 is not 1992; India has since opened up to the world, become a global powerhouse, pulled millions out of poverty, built a powerful middle class and become assertive on the global stage.

But if some things have changed, many others have not – a majority of Indians continue to be driven by caste and faith allegiances, the benefits of economic liberalisation haven’t percolated to the downtrodden, and anxieties about slipping back into poverty have been exacerbated by the pandemic The biggest link is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – a fledgling party looking to spread its footprint then, and the national hegemon now. It is the interplay of these factors that will determine whether 2022 follows the trajectory of 1992, or charts a new path.

But first, a look at the cases. The first involves a dispute in the Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi mosque complex in Varanasi – and it is the petition that has achieved the most success legally. In 2021, five women sought worshipping rights at the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal, located behind the mosque complex. They argued that Hindu deities were installed within the mosque complex and devotees had a right to access them. On April 26, a local Varanasi court ordered a survey of the mosque complex, but when the survey began on May 6, it ran into angry protests from Muslim groups. The Varanasi court, and later the Supreme Court refused to stop the exercise, marking a victory for the Hindu petitioners. Some Hindu groups believe a temple was partially razed to build the 17th-century Gyanvapi mosque; Muslims refute this – but never found many takers on either side. But the controversial survey was enough to exacerbate tensions.

The second dispute involved Mathura’s Krishna Janmabhoomi, the site where devotees believe the Hindu god Krishna was born. Since September 2020, nine cases have been filed in the courts of Mathura, with one thing in common: They all argue that the Shahi Eidgah mosque was built after demolishing a part of the Krishna temple next door. Some of them want the 13.37 acres of the mosque complex returned to the temple while others challenge a 1968 settlement between the Sri Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sangh and the Shahi Masjid Eidgah that established a status quo that held for the next 50 years. The Allahabad High Court has asked all petitions to be decided within four months, so expect more movement on this account.

The third claim is by a BJP leader on the Taj Mahal. His petition, dismissed by the Allahabad High Court this week, asks for 22 locked rooms in the mausoleum to be opened to ascertain the presence of any Hindu idols. The failure of the petition is unlikely to dampen the spirits of fringe Hindu groups, who claim Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahalaya, a Shiva temple.

These petitions represent a churn in the state’s politics, and in Hindutva. The parallels with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement are many: Disagreements that were managed for decades are slowly becoming intractable as the position of communities ossify. Local support for the so-called reclaiming of the sites is growing among Hindus. And Muslim communities find themselves on the backfoot and are defensive of what they see as an attempt to attack their culture.

There is another direct link – the petitions represent an alarming erosion of the mandate of the Places of Worship Act, which placed on July 11, 1991 a status quo retrospectively on the character of places of worship as existing on August 15, 1947. Only the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya was kept out of the purview of the law, which was aimed at avoiding dispute in Ayodhya spreading by freezing other such religious disputes – at the time, kar sevaks, or religious volunteers would chant ‘Ayodhya toh bas jhanki hai, Kashi, Mathura baaki hai’ (Ayodhya is a tableau of what’s coming in Kashi and Mathura). What’s happening shows that once the lid of majoritarianism is opened, it is difficult to put it back onto the box.

But 2022 is very different from 1992 in three crucial ways. One, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was a carefully crafted political campaign helmed by a rath yatra by LK Advani, who mobilised young Hindu men and galvanised kar sevaks to gather in Ayodhya. It was a painstaking, if eventually violent, effort that saw leaders from BJP, its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and affiliate groups go to villages, hamlets and small towns to recruit volunteers. The 2022 moment is led largely by fringe organisations and individuals (only the Taj Mahal petition is linked to a BJP leader, and the party has largely refrained from commenting on it). To be sure, these individuals are from Hindu groups that claim proximity to the ruling party, but, at least for now, there is little large-scale political mobilisation on the issue.

The reason for this might lie in the second difference between 2022 and 1992: The status of the BJP. The rath yatra, and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement built the BJP’s base in north India, propelled the party from two seats in Parliament to 85, and 16 seats in UP to 221. The mobilisation helped it achieve grassroots appeal, broadened its base beyond the traditional upper castes and gave it an emotive issue that has been its ideological core ever since. The BJP today is the central pole of Indian politics, its position is well entrenched, and its message, clear. It has managed to blend Hindutva with muscular nationalism and welfare and the enduring popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a record of efficient welfare delivery have created a new constituency of poor and lower caste support for the party. Put simply: It once needed the Ram Janmabhoomi movement to establish itself; right now, it doesn’t need these movements.

This brings us to the third crucial difference – the absence of a robust Opposition. Even at the height of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, non-BJP parties offered a credible political and ideological alternative. Mulayam Singh Yadav was mobilising Yadavs, Muslims and some other backward class groups into a cohesive electoral constituency, and Kanshi Ram was stitching together Dalits and small backward groups into a new vote bank. In contrast,the Opposition today is fragmented and weak – the Samajwadi Party faces a serious challenge of expanding its appeal and the Bahujan Samaj Party is in an existential tailspin.

So, how will this moment evolve, and what will the government’s role be? Though the new disputes may not be as important to the BJP, they keep the pot boiling and give the more extreme elements of its coalition an ideological goal at a time of increasing economic distress. Moreover, it puts the Opposition in a bind. Even if the courts put an end to the dispute for now, it will simmer until there is social reconciliation, or a political signal that enough is enough. Will that happen? Only time will tell.

letters@hindustantimes.com

Indian foreign policy needs a structured gender lens - Hindustan Times

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The new realities of today such as the challenges of the climate crisis, the pandemic and conflict in many regions of the world call for a change in traditional foreign policy approaches. India has emerged as a major voice on the world stage on several of these issues, all which call for gender inclusion. A recent report from the think-tank Kubernein Initiative and the Konrad Adeneur Stiftung Foundation takes a fresh look at applying a gender mainstreaming lens to our foreign policy’s future. The report suggests that India has made considerable progress in terms of applying a gender lens to foreign policymaking and also increased representation--but more structure is needed.

A gender inclusive foreign policy will give India greater agency in the growing global discourse on the intersectionality of foreign affairs with the other pressing issues of the day such as the climate crisis, health, trade, and multilateral agreements. The presidency of the G20 which goes to New Delhi next year offers an opportunity to try and shape discussions on all these, currently largely western-centric. G20 coordinator and former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla says, “India’s narrative recognises the centrality of gender equality and women’s empowerment in all aspects of its development has been prioritised and will be a cross-cutting theme during India’s upcoming presidency.”

Given the robust performance of the ministry of external affairs, India can offer a unique perspective on redefining existing frameworks and move the needle on inclusivity, based on the experiences of diverse communities which would bring in aspects of vulnerability, inclusivity and equity.

Moving forward, the report suggests that we consider gender mainstreaming in a foreign policy approach that is rooted in the Indian context. While training and sensitisation at the leadership level is ongoing at the Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service, greater capacity building and informed discourse within a defined framework and structure could result in a more inclusive policy down the line. Lakshmi Puri, former assistant secretary general of the United Nations (UN) and former deputy executive director of UN Women, who played a significant role in framing this report, says, “India is well-placed to be a champion for promoting gender parity, advancing gender equality-related global and regional norms including in forums like G20, mainstreaming it into development cooperation and in leading campaigns worldwide following an all-of-government, all-of-society approach.”

We need systemic changes to allow for greater advancement of women and more diverse voices in the foreign service. As Ambika Vishwanath, director of Kubernein Initiative, says, “We have already seen progress in terms of numbers, however in the space of policy-making and implementation, there needs to be a more formal, designed structure that builds on our positive experiences and could present a framework for other countries as well.”

There are no soft issues anymore in today’s world. Natural disasters, health, the climate crisis, human security and technology, and disruptions in governance systems are interrelated and all these must be seen through a gender lens.

According to research data, countries which have a robust gender equal foreign policy have seen multiple benefits in education, health and human security.

India may not announce a formal gender inclusive foreign policy soon but given our increasing visibility on the global stage, we can certainly make a difference to the conversation both internally and externally.

lalita.panicker@hindustantimes.com

The views expressed are personal

In the Philippines, the fall and rise of the Marcos family - Hindustan Times

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I know 36 years is a long time in the Philippines, where 70% of the people were not even born in 1986, but I’m still flummoxed and stunned by the fact the son of the tyrant Ferdinand Marcos – renowned for his corruption, plunder, embezzlement, and cruelty – who ruled for two decades, including 10 years of martial law, won a landslide victory and has become the new president of the archipelago. This must be one of the strangest things to happen in history. Just a year ago, the return of Marcos rule was inconceivable. Possibly unimaginable. Last Monday, Bongbong, to use the son’s popular moniker, realised the almost impossible.

However, let me explain by first going back to 1986. Marcos Pere was standing for his fourth term as president, opposed by Corazon Aquino. Three years earlier, her husband, Benigno, had been assassinated on the tarmac of Manila airport. He was returning from exile to challenge Marcos. Cory, as she was affectionately called, took up the challenge. The election was rigged and a fraudulent result announced in Marcos’s favour.

Within hours the Philippines erupted. Tens of millions poured onto the streets. The delightfully named Cardinal Sin led the protests. Even Marcos’ defence minister and army chief deserted him. The term “People’s Power” was coined to describe this revolution. It was electrifying. The world held its breath for three long days, anxiously wondering what would happen.

On February 26, the Marcoses fled the country, seeking sanctuary in Hawaii. Now consider what they took. Then, what they left behind. A 23-page United States (US) Customs record shows they arrived with 22 wooden crates, 12 suitcases and countless boxes. Their luggage contained clothes to fill 67 racks, 413 pieces of jewellery, 70 pairs of jewel-studded cufflinks, 24 gold bricks inscribed “To my husband on our 24th anniversary”, $717 million in cash, $4 million unset precious gems contained in Pampers diaper boxes, 65 Seiko and Cartier watches and deposit slips for banks in the US, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands worth $124 million.

Left behind at Malacanang Palace were 3,000 pairs of shoes belonging to his wife Imelda Marcos, 15 mink coats, 508 couture gowns, many with their Bergdorf Goodman labels still attached.

Amnesty International claims that during Marcos’ 20-year presidency from 1965 to 1986, 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 tortured and 3,240 documented as killed. The newspaper Bulatlat claims 120,000 were, in fact, detained.

Marcos died in 1989. Imelda is still alive. The BBC says she has several “convictions connected to an estimated total of $10 billion of plundered money”.

Not surprisingly, in the 1980s and 90s, Ferdinand Marcos was hated and reviled. Today, his eponymously named son is politically beloved. How did that happen?

This is a question that is much asked and will be debated for a long time. Let me suggest three early, hesitant and incomplete answers. First, during the decades of Marcos tyranny, Ilocos Norte, their stronghold, was pampered and protected. So Bongbong always had a base from which to begin again.

Second, social media and sheer disinformation have literally whitewashed the past. Statista claims Filipinos spend four hours a day on social networks compared to just two in the United Kingdom. Consequently, stories of Marcos’ tyranny and corruption are considered fake news. In fact, his dictatorship is now called “a golden period”. History has been re-written and the Marcos dictatorship is painted in soft, alluring colours.

Third, Bongbong’s running mate is the daughter of the outgoing president, Sara Duterte-Carpio. She brings with her, her father’s popularity.

The closest India has come to anything similar is the fall and rise of Indira Gandhi between 1977 and 1979. In Britain something similar, but opposite, happened; within months of winning World War II when Winston Churchill lost the election. But the Marcos saga is in a different league altogether.

If there’s a lesson for us in South Asia, it’s don’t write off the Congress. There could still be another Gandhi prime minister. Even the Rajapaksas could rise again.

Karan Thapar is the author of Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story

The views expressed are personal

Krishank Manne | Time to introduce the Telangana model of development - Deccan Chronicle

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had envisioned turning India into a USD 5 Trillion economy by 2024-25, but his claims now ring too boisterous as the IMF’s recent findings say that the country will have to wait till 2029 to see that become true.

It is now evident that Modi’s economic policies all turned out to be fallacies, and the central government is attempting to boost the economy by putting public sector units to sale. At one end, PSU’s are propagated as non-performing assets, states like Gujarat and Haryana depend on Adani Power and are suffering with massive protests due to constant power outages. On the other hand, surprisingly, Adani Power’s net profit has jumped multi-fold to Rs 4645 crores in the March quarter. Government of India disinvesting in profit making institutions and corporates making big earnings while states are in crisis - precisely the reason why Telangana’s IT Minister KT Rama Rao called the central government alliance as NPA or the ‘Non Performing Asset Government’.

It would seem that the BJP has prioritised things that are quite different from the common man’s concerns. It has decided to pursue the controversies that will play into its agenda, be it the Khalistani politics in Punjab and Haryana, bulldozer politics in Delhi and UP, Hijab-Halal controversy in Karnataka, loudspeaker battle in Maharashtra, or the prevalence of Urdu in Telangana. Meanwhile, water and power shortages in Gujarat continue to torture the public who voted for them. Corruption continues to make headlines in Karnataka, and hike in cooking gas and fuel prices has made life hell for people across the country. But none of these seem to be issues worth pursuing for the ruling party.

On the developmental front, one must assume that the BJP is aware of their own government’s poor performance from the way they themselves have now stopped using the once much used catch-phrases like ‘Acche Din’ or ‘Vikas’ in their speeches these days.

Instead, a new tactic is in play - claiming progress through ‘Double Engine Governments’, where a state is ruled by the same party that is in power at the centre. Even if claimed to be true, this is a blatant violation of the Constitution and a disrespect to the co-operative federalism as well as the rights of voters, who are now threatened that they would be denied rights, opportunities and development if BJP is not voted into power in their state. However, it is not true, as the fact remains that it is the very same states with BJP in power, though pampered by Modi ji and his corporate friends, are the ones still limping in terms of development.

However, the question of development and progress is not one we can simply leave out of political conversations. We have examples before us of nations crumpling down due to bad political, economical and social policies that happened much recently and right in our neighbourhood.

In addition to this, we must also examine why India, a country with its abundant resources and potential to grow on par with superpowers like China and America, is still nowhere near them. We are held back by limited perspectives, political divide, unclear vision and ravaging policy making. The need of the hour is a new thought process and indeed a new direction for the nation.

The nation needs results, as participatory democracy works only when the people can feel that work is indeed done, and only then further radical changes can be initiated. To begin with, Centre dismantling concurrent and state lists will only make things difficult. Agriculture and allied industries need reforms, such as farmers being safeguarded by constitutional provisions to encourage farming and raise the production quantity, and of course simultaneously improving the infrastructural facilities that are still lagging behind in many states.

It is in this context Telangana’s development between 2014-2022 should be taken as a case study on how it has grown to the top from almost nothing. Today, Telangana has no power cuts and continues to provide 24 hour free electricity. It has no water scarcity, it is popular for welfare schemes to various sections of society, and is appreciated for its focus on infrastructure building. Now is the moment the Telangana model should be shown to the nation as an example of how good governance, with a new thought process, can lead to better opportunities. And when Telangana can do it, then why not an Uttar Pradesh, a Bihar, a Gujarat, or a Haryana?

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India is not Sri Lanka; and, Sri Lanka is not India. Our island neighbour is going through an economic meltdown. Its foreign currency reserves have dried up; inflation is skyrocketing; food prices are going through the roof; fuel shortages have led to miles long queues; power cuts have become endemic; and the health system has ground to a halt due to lack of medicines.

India is facing major problems of unemployment and inflation. Foreign currency reserves have dipped. Growth rates are sluggish, the informal sector is hurting, consumption has not picked up, and the rupee is sliding. Yet, India is not in the throes of an economic crisis. Sri Lanka is an island economy. It is over dependent on one source for revenue — tourism — which has taken a huge hit due to the pandemic. India is a continental economy. Its productivity spectrum is far more diversified. And, decades of investment in institutions for the management of the economy, have made it far more resilient in weathering transient global crises.

This being said, there are striking parallels in the social and political developments in both countries. Like India, Sri Lanka is a multi-religious, multilingual and plural country. Like India, Sri Lanka too has a majority community, the Sinhalas. The Sinhalas are Buddhist. They constitute some 70 per cent of the population. Tamils, mostly Hindus, account for 18 per cent. And Muslims total around nine per cent. Like India, therefore, Sri Lanka has been grappling with how to live in a society where there is harmony and goodwill between the various communities that constitute the nation.

Sri Lanka has done a very bad job on this score. Successive governments have, for short term political dividends, encouraged Sinhala entitlement, rooted in mytho-history, discriminatory policies, politics, hyper-nationalism and communalism. As a result, the country witnessed a deadly civil war with Tamil insurgency in which over 100,000 people were killed. The economy was set back by decades. The war against the Tamils was pursued ruthlessly and ended in 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE. The person who claimed credit for this “victory” is the current President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Not surprisingly, Gotabaya Rajapaksa reaped short-term political rewards for aggressively representing the Sinhala cause. He won the 2019 presidential election with a huge majority. His inauguration ceremony was triumphantly conducted at a Buddhist temple. Next year, his party, the Sri Lankan People’s Party, swept the parliamentary elections. This led him to believe he was invincible. Riding on the support of the majority Sinhala community, he took decisions on the spur of the moment which were disastrous. He ordered wide-spread tax cuts when the economy was starved of revenue. In a move reminiscent of the disastrous demonetization step in India, he suddenly banned the import of fertilisers, declaring that all farmers should rely only on organic fertilisers. The farm crop was badly hit, as were export sectors like tea and rubber production.

On the socio-political side, he continued to encourage Sinhala dominance. Promises made to the Tamils after the civil war for economic relief, rehabilitation, and better political representation, remained unimplemented. The Muslims were targeted too. Since 2012, Buddhist monks and their supporters had begun to attack Muslim neighbourhoods, mosques and businesses with impunity. He did not think it fit to stop this. His regime became increasingly autocratic. Civil society was threatened, as were human rights lawyers. Generals in the army, close to him, began to run civilian departments. He did not take kindly to dissent or criticism. The pandemic was his alibi, but he deliberately chose to ignore that tourists to Sri Lanka dwindled also because of the deadly bomb attacks on churches, and the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 267 innocent people.

Linguistic chauvinism also contributed to internal unrest. From its very beginning as an independent nation, the ultra-right among the Sinhala community wanted Sinhalese to be imposed as the sole national language. For them, Sri Lanka was not a plural society but a Buddhist monolith, Sinhadipa, whose primary purpose was to make the country a Dhammadipa. The analogy with attempts by certain quarters to impose Hindi in India as the national language, is stark. The concept of Dhammadipa is also worryingly similar to the myopic demand for Hindu Rashtra.

Alas, while Gotabaya Rajpaksa won the last elections with a resounding majority playing precisely on such divisive politics, his country is up in flames today. People of all communities, Tamil, Muslim, and Sinhala — the constituency he considered his vote bank — are up in arms and out on the streets against him and his repressive regime.

Thus, there are, indeed, some important lessons to be learnt from Sri Lanka. The first is that countries that are not at peace with themselves internally can never enduringly achieve economic prosperity. Social harmony is the bedrock on which the edifice of economic development can be built. Deliberately majoritarian policies, in plural societies, appear politically expedient, but ultimately unleash endemic social instability that vitiates stable economic progress.

The second is that hyper-nationalism appears a good way to garner votes in the short term but, ultimately, leads to authoritarianism in the name of “national security”, stifling dissent and discourse so essential to a democracy, and destroying due processes of law. This creates serious fault lines in society, and devalues the belief system in established institutions of the Republic.

Thirdly, Sri Lanka teaches us that once the genie is let outside the bottle, it is difficult to bottle it back. The divisiveness and bigotry so unleashed acquires a momentum of its own. It’s a fire that spreads, beyond the control of those who encouraged it in the first place.

And lastly, Sri Lanka is a living example of a country where the political hubris generated by ethnocentrism and divisive politics often leads to the real problems of the people being ignored. We have only to see what dominates the media in our country today — azaan, Hanuman Chalisa, burqa, halaal, temple, masjid, Vishnu Stambh, etc., etc. — to understand that nobody seems to be concerned about the burning problem of lack of jobs and skyrocketing prices.

India is not Sri Lanka. But, perhaps, there is much we can learn from Sri Lanka.

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Editorials - 14-05-2022

The crisis in West Bengal’s jute industry is getting exacerbated, with several mills suspending operations this year. Shiv Sahay Singh visits mills along both banks of the Hooghly to understand the growing despair of workers, owners and farmers

The future of Sri Lanka is volatile and uncertain but there is an undercurrent of hope being sustained by the people

That a civil servant’s pliant stance ends service neutrality hardly seems to bother the political or bureaucratic leadership

Cutting fuel taxes is a must to ensureoverall macroeconomic stability

More needs to be done to enhance WHO’s ability to respond to disease outbreaks

The Uttarakhand couple has significantly upped the stakes in the guilting game. Will other parents now employ similarly deadly manoeuvres? Can the present move even be topped? Beleaguered offspring all over the country await news of further development with bated breath.

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The environment in the Valley is fraught, and the administration must not add to it, even if it can do nothing to provide a healing touch to those affected by the violence.

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Krishi Bhavan experts are still to make a detailed assessment to ascertain the extent of damage to the wheat crop by continuous rains in the northern states.

Indira vs Marxists

Punjab Polls

Afghan Peace Talks

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Delhi's municipal administration must rethink its approach to allegedly illegal constructions. Else, as in Jahangirpuri, the judiciary must step in.

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Menaka Guruswamy writes: Otherwise, as seen in the Roe v Wade draft opinion, it could become problematic

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The tabla maestro's farewell speaks of a tradition in which faith was all about assimilation

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Tahir Mahmood writes: Uniform Civil Code must be nationwide, and involve the abolition of all regressive laws

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Ram Rahman writes: Ongoing cultural onslaught has led to muted protest and self-censorship

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Shamika Ravi writes: Covid death data has led to intense speculation and politicisation. The core issue is not that the numbers are right or wrong, but the absence of high quality data.

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