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Editorials - 08-05-2022

Tavleen Singh writes: Sycophants have a place in autocracies where for a while they thrive by singing praises to the Dear Leader, but even there, they end up weakening him eventually instead of helping him become a better autocrat.

It should have been a good week for our Prime Minister. He has just returned from what appears to have been a very successful trip to Europe. Other than meeting important leaders he would have been happily reminded of old times when he met members of the diaspora in Berlin and Copenhagen and they chanted ‘Modi, Modi, Modi’. The Prime Minister was in his element when Indian musicians in full costume appeared seemingly out of nowhere giving him a chance, as usual, to try his hand at playing a large drum. Reporters who travelled to Europe to cover his tour were adulatory in their reports of his successes. One Hindi news channel reported that it was Modi’s ‘stature’ that would soon end the war in Ukraine. The Danish Prime Minister seemed to back this up by urging him publicly to ‘speak to Putin’. Modi could not have asked for more.

Within hours of returning to the motherland, though, some uglier realities began to surface. First, came news that the Asia-Pacific Director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had in a Congressional briefing presented a report called ‘India’s Crackdown on Free Speech’. “Nobody wants to see India become a very strong dictatorship like China…,” said Daniel Bastard “(but) the situation is becoming more or less the same in some aspects.” The report he presented to the US Congress talked of routine violence against journalists, mentioning Kashmir in particular, and it said that the Indian media was being forced into self-censorship.

Then came alarming news from the World Health Organization that the Government of India had concealed Covid deaths to such an extent that the real figure was probably 10 times the official count. The same officials who let us down so badly at exactly this time last year were trotted out to declare that the WHO was maligning India and using a methodology that was unreliable. They said that India had a very strong register of births and deaths and that this indicated that the official figure of 4.81 lakh deaths at the end of 2021 was accurate.

Now let’s examine if the charges being made against Modi are true or malicious propaganda. This newspaper has done a thorough analysis of the WHO’s charges and concluded that although there may have been some undercounting, the actual figure is nowhere near the WHO’s estimate of 47.4 lakh deaths. What we need to ask is why India’s official figures are being questioned at all, and the answer, in my humble opinion, is that too many lies were told by too many officials at the height of that deadly Delta wave that swept through India last summer.

When bodies were seen floating in the Ganga, we were told that this was normal because some Hindus believed in giving their loved ones a ‘jal samadhi’. When the banks of our most sacred river began to be covered in thousands of shallow graves, the official explanation was that there were Hindu communities who believed in burial. When people started dying from the unavailability of oxygen and hospital beds, the official explanation was that this was an exaggeration. When queues formed outside cremation grounds, we were told that there were some ‘vulture journalists’ who had no business to be reporting from cremation grounds.

Not many did. The media has been whipped into such subservience. The courage that we once showed in reporting government corruption and failures began to die before Modi won his second term, and has died some more in the past four years. Reporting on politics and governance has become difficult. Journalists who continue to show defiance are routinely punished by the Government of India’s investigative agencies. And in any case, there are no more than a handful. There are private news channels today that sound so much like government mouthpieces that if poor, shabby old Doordarshan were closed for good, it would not be missed.

The problem with forcing officials and journalists to become servile sycophants is that the government begins to believe its own propaganda. So, when international organisations or newspapers report on failures and flaws, the response of the highest officials in Modi’s government is to talk of an ‘international conspiracy’ against India. This is crazy talk. As the Prime Minister would have discovered on his tour of Europe, the West is very keen for India to succeed so that it can act as a buffer against the emerging new world order led by China.

If there is an ‘international conspiracy’, it is to make India somehow overcome her failures of governance and economic policy to emerge as a real challenge to China. When India has done well, she has been applauded by the same western newspapers which our officials charge with being anti-India. It is because the Modi government’s media policy has been essentially to muzzle the domestic media that there has been bad press abroad. It is because we lied about the extent of the horror we experienced during last summer’s deadly Covid wave that there has been such a serious loss of credibility.

Sycophants have a place in autocracies where for a while they thrive by singing praises to the Dear Leader, but even there, they end up weakening him eventually instead of helping him become a better autocrat. In democratic countries, the damage that sycophantic officials and servile journalists do is incalculable. Until it is too late.



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Priyanka Chaturvedi writes: Politicians are censured and reprimanded for stepping out of some imaginary Lakshman Rekha that draws the line on how they can dress, talk and eat in public.

Recently a video of Rahul Gandhi at a club, attending a friend’s wedding in Nepal, went viral. The video became an occasion to sit in judgement on whether he is a serious politician. What is the role of a “serious” politician and does the politician in question fit the bill — I leave that part to people and party workers to decide. However, one segment of the reactions to the video clearly translates into this rather unreal expectation from politicians — that they can’t take time off to step out for lunch, dinners, social gatherings or to be seen amongst friends and family beyond work. It’s this notion that I choose to address.

Politicians are censured and reprimanded for stepping out of some imaginary Lakshman Rekha that draws the line on how they can dress, talk and eat in public. When I joined politics, I was advised by well-wishers to not share my personal life — details of my family and friends or holiday pictures on social media. I chose to disagree. I would be a hypocrite to hide an aspect of my life just to adhere to some expected standard of how society perceives its leaders. However, the few times that I have shared bits and pieces of my personal life, I have received repulsive comments on social media platforms, where the bots get unleashed. Hence, it is no wonder that many politicians choose to keep their lives private. Unfortunately, it is the era of mobile phones and surreptitious video recording that make it almost look like a crime to be seen to be letting your hair down.

In many countries it is considered normal for the head of State to take time off. As the profile and demography of politicians gets younger in a young nation, we need to embrace the idea of a changed way of political life. Wouldn’t it be nicer to have politicians share some moments of their private lives, those spent amongst their friends and family? Why should they look and behave like uptight killjoys, 24×7? It is the reality of today that the youth don’t connect with politicians. It is so because they can’t relate to someone who is always politically right. The definition of a ‘serious’ politician needs to be challenged and changed.

In the same vein, it should be normal to have politicians across political divides to enjoy some moments together. I recall an incident during an education summit in Doha in which Alka Lamba (Congress), Nupur Sharma (BJP) and I (Shiv Sena) took part, along with many others. After the summit, we went on a city tour and clicked a selfie together. In all sincerity, we posted it on our social media platforms. Little did we realise that it would go viral for months, with many commenting about how we were holidaying at some unknown destination instead of working for the people. While I found it very amusing, I ended up defending myself to many.

I believe it is time to stop putting politicians on a pedestal and tie them to the ideas of ‘tyaag and balidaan’. More importantly, political opposition should be based on issues; reducing the narrative to commenting on personal lives is the lowest form of opposition. We politicians are as human as anyone else. Stepping out for a breather is something every profession and organisation encourages as long as it doesn’t come in the way of work. Ever since the pandemic happened, there has been a constant emphasis on mental health and fitness, and creating awareness about work-life balance. As a society, we need to normalise politicians having a personal life without being critical, unless it involves behaviour that is banned by law. Wouldn’t people prefer to see those in political lives as one of their own, facing similar challenges, similar time constraints, similar work-related stress?



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P Chidambaram writes: There is a deliberate and determined attempt to strike at the very foundations of the Indian State. There is a stealthy attempt to deprive the people of their liberty and inalienable rights by chipping at the margins

I believe I was born free. That I was born in a Westminster-like democracy or a Soviet-style state or an absolute dictatorship or a noisy, quarrelling country is a matter on which I had no control.

I believe I was born with certain inalienable rights. Among them are the right to my body, the right to move freely, the right to exercise my power of speech and writing, the right to form associations with my fellow human beings and the right to work to provide for myself and my family.

The ‘State’ is no more than the collective name to citizens who choose to organise themselves and constitute a ‘State’. When the citizens give unto themselves a charter, that becomes the Constitution of the State. The State cannot assert any right or power or duty beyond what is written in the Constitution. A citizen who does not accept the Constitution may leave the country and bec7905914ome the citizen of another country —  if that country will accept her.

Ordinarily, the State and the citizens should be able to co-exist in this perfectly sensible arrangement. The rub lies in the following: the meaning of what is written in the Constitution becomes, sometimes, the bone of contention and, therefore, interpretation. The right to interpret the Constitution is asserted by the judiciary (“sole repository of judicial power”) but that is contested by the legislature (“sole repository of law-making power”). The judges are invariably appointed, but the power of appointment, usually, rests with the government.

In this arrangement, there will be occasions when a conflict may arise between the written word and its meaning. There will be occasions when the legislature and the judiciary may disagree. It is the resolution of such disagreements that distinguishes a mature, civilized country from others.

Such an occasion arose in the United States in 1973. The judges stood by the people and upheld the right of women to privacy, and agency, on the question of abortion (Roe vs Wade). Such a moment arose in India in 1976. The judges stood by the government-of-the-day and let down the fundamental rights of the people including the right to life (A.D.M. Jabalpur vs S S Shukla).

Save or Bury the Constitution 

In Roe vs Wade, the question was whether a State had the power to make a law restricting the right of the mother to abort the fetus. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a right of personal privacy does exist under the Constitution and the right is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. However, balancing the woman’s right against the State’s interest, the Court ruled that the rights were different up to the end the first trimester, during the period from the end of the first trimester up to viability of the foetus outside the womb, and during the period from viability to birth.

Roe vs Wade divided Americans like no other judgement before — until

Mr Donald Trump came along and divided Americans more on other issues. There is a likelihood of more division and bitterness if Roe vs Wade is reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. A leaked first draft of the judgment of a majority of the Court in a pending case proposed that Roe vs Wade be overruled. According to the leaked document, the decision in Roe vs Wade was “egregiously wrong” and “its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences”. If Roe vs Wade were actually overruled, it would have profound consequences for birth control and same-sex marriage. That is the power the Court wields to enlarge or restrict liberty.

A Nation Waits

There are several cases pending in the Supreme Court of India touching upon liberty. Among them are:

  • the demonetization case: can the State demonetise 86 per cent of the currency, without notice, depriving millions of people of food and medicines for several days?
  • the electoral bond case: can the State make a law that provides for anonymous and unlimited donations to political parties by corporates (including loss-making companies) and ingeniously connects crony capitalism, corruption and contributions to the ruling party?
  • the Lockdown: can the State impose a total lockdown without notice to the people and render millions without a home, food, water, medicine, money and means of travel to their permanent places of residence?
  • Repeal of Article 370 of the Constitution: can the State dismember a state that had joined the Union under an Instrument of Accession into two sub-state units without obtaining the consent of the people or of the legislature of the state?
  • Sedition: can the State slap charges of sedition under Section 124A of the IPC on any one who opposes or mocks the State’s actions?
  • Encounters & Bulldozers: can the State employ methods like encounters and demolitions to quell dissent or protests by the people?

There is a deliberate and determined attempt to strike at the very foundations of the Indian State. There is a stealthy attempt to deprive the people of their liberty and inalienable rights by chipping at the margins. In the World Press Freedom Index 2022, India has slipped to 150 among 180 countries. Vigilant citizens have knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court, the self-described sentinel on the qui vive.

Liberty is waiting for a saviour.



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Naseeruddin Shah writes: The removal of Faiz’s verses from school textbooks indicates the chilling fact that protest of any kind is no longer permissible.

Manal al-Sharif, the Saudi human rights activist who was jailed for defying the ban on women driving in her country, said with hope, “the rain begins with a single drop”. However in our country, that first single drop was of acid rain, and it fell when Narendra Modi was elevated to Chief Minister of Gujarat as reward for being the charioteer of L K Advani’s hate-fuelled ‘rath yatra’, which opened the floodgates of the othering of the Muslim community.

A stroke of genius designed to alienate Muslim men and women from each other was not just the banning but the criminalization of triple talaaq — mark however the irony inherent when Modi talks only of his concern for Muslim women, never the men… The hypocrisy is quite staggering when one considers how quickly these “behen betiyan” became traitors instigated by a “foreign hand” in the Shaheen Bagh demonstrations. His attempts, later, to tar the protesting farmers as “andolanjeevis” and parasites didn’t work quite so well.

Millions of Modi’s apologists of course will argue that the PM is not personally responsible for every ill-deed and cannot be expected to comment on everything, including the barbaric instigations spewed forth almost every day by Hindutva clerics. That open calls for a genocide of Muslims elicited no response (forget condemnation) at all is proof, if proof were needed, that the rot begins at the top. The constant invocation of Aurangzeb and Mahmud Ghaznavi has only one goal — to exacerbate imaginary wounds among the right-wing Hindu populace in our country. Even Tipu Sultan who resisted the British with all his might is not safe from vilification. And of course the Taj Mahal and Qutb Minar were “Hindu temples” converted into Muslim memorials.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s nazm “Hum dekhenge…” was written during the rule of Zia-ul Haq; he penned “Aaj bazaar mein…” during his imprisonment by the Ayub Khan government — neither despot bothering with even putting up a pretence of democracy. The removal of his verses from school textbooks indicates the chilling fact that protest of any kind is no longer permissible. Is someone afraid that these poems will resonate with the imprisoned intellectuals, activists and teachers in our country? Or is it just that Faiz is Pakistani? The removal of “Hum ke thehre ajnabi…” is baffling as it was written to heal, not rub salt in, wounds when Faiz visited the newly created Bangladesh. I really wonder if the worthies on the education board who forbade these poems have actually even read or understood them.

The ball of course was set rolling (with not a little instigation, one assumes) by a faculty member of IIT Kanpur who was offended by the line “Sab taj uchhale jaayenge, sab buth ukhaade jayenge”, as tending to glorify Ghaznavi! Does someone with such tunnel vision and limited understanding of imagery deserve to be teaching at an IIT or anywhere at all? The supreme irony is that “Hum dekhenge…” was considered anti-Muslim by right-wingers in Pakistan at that time!

With an unspeakable sense of trepidation one awaits the day when Faiz’s, or any Urdu, poetry and literature will be banned in totality in our country, considering the anxiety in some quarters to declare Urdu a foreign, or Muslim, language and the speed with which attempts to erase all traces of India’s Muslim past are under way, while our Pradhan Sevak addresses the nation from ramparts of Red Fort, which of course was built by “Hindu kings” and for which the marauding Mughals “falsely” claim credit!

At the same time the Prime Minister of a country that actually looted us is warmly received and hugged and is Modi’s “khaas dost”, just as Donald Trump was at one time, not to mention Nawaz Sharif.

As it is, Boris Johnson is hanging on to the PM-ship of his country with a single strand of his disheveled hair, and Trump is edging closer to incarceration. One is excusably concerned about the future of the next world leader whom Modi will walk around hand-in-hand with. Could it be Vladimir Putin?

With not one contestant on a quiz show sometime ago being able to name the writer of “Saare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara” (Rabindranath Tagore? Munshi Premchand?) or who coined the slogan “Inquilab zindabad”; with the Hindification of Persian city names; the dissemination of literature like “Vedic scientists of ancient India”; the claim that we had flying machines centuries before the Wright brothers; that it was IVF that resulted in the birth of a hundred Kauravas; that the God Ganesha’s elephant head was placed on him by plastic surgery, it does seem inevitable that future history books will be indistinguishable from mythology and render us the laughing stock of the world.

There will presumably be 600 years in our country’s history which just didn’t happen or in which untold miseries were heaped upon the Hindu populace of India by Muslim invaders whose only preoccupation it seems was to convert temples into mosques.

Truly “Khoon ke dhabbe dhulenge kitni barsaatonke baad?”.

The writer is an actor, director and ‘occasional writer’



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Coomi Kapoor writes: Despite warnings that the Congress is a quagmire, Kishor was willing to take a leap of faith because Priyanka Gandhi Vadra backed to the hilt his plan for revamping the party. But he discovered that the popular perception that the Gandhi family works as a single unit was incorrect.

After the breakdown of negotiations with the Congress, Prashant Kishor decided that his next experiment will be “direct contact’” with people rather than his working for political parties. He selected his home state of Bihar, which looks like fertile territory, what with Nitish Kumar and the BJP warring and Tejashwi Yadav still to find his feet. Kishor’s hopes of indirectly controlling the Congress, the only all-India alternative to the BJP, were shattered after his recent interaction with Congress leaders. Despite warnings that the Congress is a quagmire, Kishor was willing to take a leap of faith because Priyanka Gandhi Vadra backed to the hilt his plan for revamping the party. But he discovered that the popular perception that the Gandhi family works as a single unit was incorrect. Priyanka does not have the power to call the shots on her own and Rahul’s advisers ensured that Kishor’s position in the party would be ambiguous. Reality hit home during the negotiations over the lack of constitutional authority of the proposed Empowered Action Group with Kishor as a member. Kishor discovered midway through the talks that Rahul had already left India for a scuba diving trip followed by a visit to Nepal for a wedding. Priyanka had flown off to Los Angeles. Kishor was informed that any formal position for him in the party could be decided only around September when a ‘new’ party president could be chosen.

Nitish Moves Out

Nitish Kumar moving out of the CM’s residence at 1, Anne Marg, to his old house at 7, Circular Road, has reinforced the buzz that he may soon step down as Chief Minister. The excuse that the house is being renovated does not explain why 17 cows were also shifted, since the cow shed was not to be touched. Nitish has made his unhappiness with the BJP evident ever since its members started demanding that a BJP leader be installed as CM. Their argument is that the BJP won 74 Assembly seats in 2020 compared to the JD(U)’s 43, even though both parties contested about the same number of seats. Hints have been thrown that Nitish could move to Delhi as a Central minister or be considered as a candidate for vice-president. But Nitish, a seasoned veteran at floor crossing, knows better than to take the BJP’s blandishments at face value. He has rubbished Yogi Adityanath’s ban on loudspeakers on mosques, mended fences with old rival Tejashwi Yadav and criticised any move for a Uniform Civil Code. He is aware that his trump card is that without his 40-plus MLAs no government can be formed in Bihar.

BJP’s 4 R Team

The BJP has a team of four feisty people, all with names beginning with R, to take on the Shiv Sena. Rane (Narayan), Rana (Navneet), Ranaut (Kangana) and Raj (Thackeray). The BJP’s aim is to win Mumbai’s Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections later this year, which would cripple the MVA government. The BJP’s strength is the support of north Indians and Gujaratis. The Shiv Sena relies on the Marathi manoos. Raj Thackeray’s rally in Aurangabad had the full backing of the BJP, which hopes that Raj’s shrill Hindutva campaign and call for a ban on mosque loudspeakers will eat into the traditional Sena vote. The mild-mannered Uddhav has become the darling of a section of liberals while alienating his party’s hardcore supporters. To restore the Sena’s Hindutva credentials, Aditya Thackeray is planning a pilgrimage to Ayodhya and Uddhav wants to honour Bal Thackeray’s wish to rename Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar, but the Congress is resisting. The Congress also wants to contest municipal elections independently.

Consensus Building

The BJP does not require non-NDA parties to win the forthcoming presidential and vice-presidential elections, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi would like to give an appearance of consensus by seeking the support of neutral parties. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has been deputed to speak to Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Rajya Sabha MP G V L Narasimha Rao is to approach Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao and NTR’s daughter D Purandeswari is to talk to Andhra CM Jagan Reddy.

What Ho, Jeeves

P G Wodehouse was in the news when prison authorities refused to allow activist Gautam Navlakha a book by the humorist on the grounds that it was “a security risk’’. Ironically, former Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha Shumsher Sheriff believes that he secured the highest marks in his UPSC interview in 1977 because he cited Wodehouse as one of his favourites. His interviewer, renowned administrator Badruddin Tyabji, roared with laughter and was even more tickled by the answer to the question as to what he liked best about Wodehouse books. Sheriff explained that after reading them, it was impossible to construct the story by yourself.



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The wounds of Partition are certainly felt most acutely by those who lived through it, but descendants of those who had to cross the border feel a sense of loss as well. In ‘The Language of Remembering’, oral historian and author Aanchal Malhotra interviews second and third generations of Partition-afflicted families to discuss everything from trauma to identity, religion to hope. In an interview with Sunday Times, Malhotra explains why even 75 years later, young people feel the pain of their ancestors so keenly.

Read more at TOI+



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In 2014, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) began keeping separate records on sedition cases. It shows an annual increase in cases registered. The numbers - 43 cases registered, 14 chargesheets filed, trial completed for four in 2014 - shot up in 2019 to 93 cases registered.

The issue before the Supreme Court is whether Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) - the sedition law - is being used 'appropriately' or not. Governments have shown a propensity towards a far too liberal interpretation of sedition, even though the apex court in the 1962 'Kedar Nath Singh v State of Bihar' case set out to restrict its definition. Data shows that chargesheets are filed in less than 50% of cases registered under Section 124A. Labelling dissent or criticism as inciting a violent attack will not do. This is not just about protecting the freedom of speech and expression, but also about ensuring that the state properly prosecutes those who do break the law. Section 124A is a hindrance in this respect, while being an all-purpose blunt instrument. It needs to be repealed.

In 2014, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) began keeping separate records on sedition cases. It shows an annual increase in cases registered. The numbers - 43 cases registered, 14 chargesheets filed, trial completed for four in 2014 - shot up in 2019 to 93 cases registered, 40 chargesheets and trial completed for 30, with only one conviction each in 2014 and 2019. Pre-2014 records are event-based, but the excesses included filing sedition charges against some 9,000 protesters against the Kudankulam nuclear plant.

GoI is right when it says that misuse is not reason enough to repeal a law. But if misuse results in consistent miscarriage of justice through the abrogation of rights, while being unable to convict those having actually waged war against the state or incited such action, then it is time to jettison the law. Other laws exist to protect the state. A 2018 Law Commission consultation paper lists 10 questions - ranging from the extent to which citizens may enjoy the right to offend, to considering ways to strike a balance between free speech and 'sedition' - to provide safeguards to prevent misuse of the IPC provision. It is time to undertake this exercise. Else, 124A will continue to be a sledgehammer that deals with flies.
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Such rapid rises in US interest rates will have a domino effect on the rest of the world, pushing up credit costs for governments that have committed to big borrowing programmes to pull their economies out of a pandemic-induced slowdown. Global capital will be affected by the higher risk-weighted return in the US.

The US Federal Reserve's efforts to stabilise prices could have a multi-year spillover on emerging economies through capital flight, higher debt servicing and devalued currencies. Fed chair Jerome Powell last week announced a half-percentage-point hike in the federal funds rate as the central bank joined the battle with inflation that the markets see as culminating with the policy rate settling at 2.75-3% by 2023.

Such rapid rises in US interest rates will have a domino effect on the rest of the world, pushing up credit costs for governments that have committed to big borrowing programmes to pull their economies out of a pandemic-induced slowdown. Global capital will be affected by the higher risk-weighted return in the US, which could slow growth in emerging economies that witnessed asset price bubbles due to the Fed's unprecedented quantitative easing. A strengthening dollar also exerts pressure on foreign debt repayment, particularly for energy-importing nations facing wartime fuel disruptions. Finally, slowing US economic activity limits growth of export-oriented economies that are trying to fix broken supply chains.

Hard landings by the Fed have had disastrous economic consequences in the developing world, a pattern since World War 1. New research upholds the view that hawkish inflation-busting led to debt crises in Asia and Latin America. With every episode, however, emerging economies have built up buffers. But the risk of default is high with global indebtedness rising during the pandemic, and now due to fuel-supply disruptions caused by the conflict in Europe. Sri Lanka's debt default could be an early distress signal building up in the developing world becoming more indebted while dealing with health and jobs crises.
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Liking a social media post; cheering a team in a cricket match; criticising government policy or leaders – these are some of the grounds on which have authorities slapped sedition charges on Indian citizens in the past five years, underlining how the stringent provision, a relic of colonial-era law-making, was increasingly being used as a tool by governments of various dispensations and political ideologies to blunt dissent and free speech.

Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code was introduced by British administrators in 1870 to effectively muzzle the freedom struggle and dissent; though the United Kingdom repealed the provision in 2009, it has continued to not only remain on the books in India but also becomes preferred law for administrations looking to intimidate political opponents and making errant citizens fall in line in India. Though conviction remains abysmal – the National Crime Records Bureau found the conviction rate in 2019 to be around 3%, suggesting that many sedition cases were hollow and not grounded in material evidence – the difficulty in obtaining bail and the vagaries of the criminal justice system ensures that the threat of the charge is a significant deterrent for free expression.

It is possibly due to such worries that the Constituent Assembly refused to include sedition as a reasonable restriction to free speech. Flagging the most famous victim of sedition laws in British India, Mahatma Gandhi, the freedom fighter KM Munshi argued that the chilling effect of the provision outweighed any potential benefits. “The word sedition has been omitted…the essence of democracy is criticism of government,” he observed.

Every nation has a right to zealously guard its sovereignty from internal and external aggression, and, therefore, penal provisions to punish violence and threats to security are justified and necessary. But there is a raft of civil, criminal and anti-terror statutes to deal effectively with such exigencies. A mature democracy doesn’t need a colonial-era provision kept alive by administrative hubris. The law is antithetical to the march of democratic thought and expansion of rights, which have progressed far beyond what British law-makers could have imagined in 1870.

In the Supreme Court, the government has argued that the sedition law is necessary, leaning on a 1962 judgment that upheld the provision. But the same verdict also held that the presence of a pernicious tendency to incite violence is a precondition to invoke the clause and that it shouldn’t be used to stifle free speech. In both letter and spirit, governments across the land have violated this pronouncement for years. It is, therefore, time for the much-abused sedition law to be repealed.



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The breathless saga over the past 48 hours involving Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga – which began with his early morning detention by Punjab Police, followed by the Haryana Police blocking the convoy carrying the leader and Delhi Police taking his custody back, then moved to the judicial domain with a local Punjab court issuing a warrant for his arrest and ending with the midnight relief granted by the Punjab and Haryana high court – saw all parties involved cut sorry figures. Worse still, the episode represented a hijacking of due process and cemented the solidifying trend of law-enforcement agencies acting as proxies of their political bosses in targeting opponents.

Despite the drama involved in the three-state turf war, the incident offers a sobering view of how entrenched political loyalties have weakened State institutions and how urgently reforms are required to unlink law enforcement from political compulsions. Without going into the merits of the case against Bagga – he is accused of issuing threats to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and has a previous record of physical assault – it is clear that in a hurry to score political points, the administration pushed the law-enforcement machinery to cut procedural corners. It is also clear that this flagrant disregard for established norms and rule of law is now popular across the ideological spectrum, from the Aam Aadmi Party to the BJP (last week, Gujarat lawmaker Jignesh Mevani was picked up by Assam Police and quickly booked in a second case after bail was granted in the first charge).

This doesn’t bode well for a democracy where the rule of law has to reign supreme. Despite political differences, parties and governments must find common ground to push through long-pending reforms that can lay down clear guidelines for inter-state police action and penalties for violating these norms. The cycle of political one upmanship must end.



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On March 23, the Karnataka high court (HC) passed a transformative verdict that situates the Constitution’s promise of equality above the regressive, common law doctrine of “coverture”, under which a woman loses her legal personality after marriage. In Hrishikesh Sahoo vs State of Karnataka (2022) — a first judgment of its kind — not only did the court deny the husband protection from being prosecuted for the offence of rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but it also, in doing so, unequivocally denounced the three oft-cited myths about marital rape.

First, the HC rejected the myth of an irrevocable implied consent to sexual intercourse by the wife in a marriage. The idea of an irrevocable implied consent has its origins in the 17th century statement made by Matthew Hale, former chief justice of the King’s Bench, in England. He said: “A husband cannot be guilty of rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife has given up herself in this kind to her husband, which she cannot retract.” While Britain, through a judicial order, did away with the marital rape exception in 1991, Hale’s proposition continues to haunt India in exception 2 to Section 375 of the IPC. As per the exception, sexual intercourse by a man with his wife (above 15 years) does not amount to rape and is not punishable under Section 376 of the IPC. Although the exception stipulates 15 as the age of consent, the Supreme Court in Independent Thought vs Union of India (2017) held this to mean 18 years. In Hrishikesh Sahoo, the HC refused to be bound by the exception and concluded that a “brutal act of sexual assault on the wife, against her consent, albeit by the husband, cannot but be termed to be a rape.”

Second, the exception has been historically justified on marital privacy, i.e., whatever happens between spouses does not merit interference from the State. But the State must so intervene if and when the marriage involves non-consensual, criminal acts — sexual or otherwise. As rightly observed by the HC, the institution of marriage does not confer a “special male privilege” upon the husband to force himself on his wife.

As an extension of the marital privacy myth, it is often argued, albeit incorrectly, that to allow the wife to bring rape charges against the husband would mean that the State is facilitating or endorsing marital discord and disharmony. This argument overlooks that little is left to reconcile in a marriage where forceful sexual intercourse and violence have become the norm. Besides, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, makes sexual abuse a form of domestic violence, enabling a wife to approach a court for a protection order.

Lastly, the HC rejected the myth of credibility and proof requirements, which wrongly demand the preservation of the marital rape exception. It is argued that the exception works to prevent a vindictive woman from bringing false rape charges against her husband. The argument is misplaced. Several offences exist in the IPC that are difficult to prove or defend. Any penal provision is neither free from abuse, nor can it guarantee a full conviction rate. The purpose of a penal statute is to act as deterrence.

In the past, Indian courts have displayed problematic attitudes in their credibility assessment in rape cases. In some cases, the courts put rape survivors in the dock and subjected them to the humiliating ordeal of callous court trials. It is, therefore, heartening to see Hrishikesh Sahoo setting the record straight.

Unfortunately, Parliament has allowed the marital rape exception to stay in the statute book for over 70 years since adopting the constitutional guarantee to equality in 1949.

The 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder triggered a wave of protests across the country and resulted in key reforms in the anti-rape law, but fell short of the abolition of the marital rape exception. Today, the prevailing dispensation is looking to bring about key reforms to Indian criminal law but discussions on marital rape exception are off the table.

The Karnataka HC must, therefore, be congratulated for taking a bold, rights-based stand on the issue, instead of deferring to Parliament’s wisdom. Moreover, by denouncing these myths, the court has reminded Parliament of the vital difference between the Victorian-era of law making and positive judicial constitutional law-making.

Indira Jaising is a senior advocate. Ashish Goel is an advocate of the Supreme CourtThe views expressed are personal



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Take a look at the headlines on the front pages of newspapers on Saturday. Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, national secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Yuva Morcha, was arrested in Delhi by Punjab Police under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the team, including Bagga, left for Mohali. Arjun Chaurasia, a BJP worker, was discovered hanging from a tree in Kolkata. Amit Shah, the Union home minister, was in Kolkata that day. The Enforcement Directorate raided multiple premises of a senior Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer from Jharkhand and a few others in various locations.

This was only the beginning of the day. As the day progressed, temperatures rose. The squad that arrested Bagga was stopped in Kurukshetra, Haryana, by uniformed police officers. Meanwhile, after Bagga’s father filed a complaint in Delhi, a case of kidnapping was filed against Punjab Police officials, and a team from Delhi Police arrived in Kurukshetra to rescue Bagga. This police vs police conflict is unprecedented.

Later, Punjab officials were forced to hand Bagga over to Delhi Police. It would appear that they made a technical error in their haste. The Delhi high court has ruled that police from a state cannot act in another state without first informing the local police. However, the taint of arrest remains for Bagga. Punjab Police may attempt to apprehend him in the near future if all technicalities are met. The question here is what kind of action will be taken against the Punjab Police squad? Is this a criminal offence or should it only face disciplinary action?

In Kolkata, in the afternoon, after visiting the residence of the deceased activist Arjun, Shah announced that the perpetrators of this crime would face the harshest punishment. Earlier too, Shah would visit the homes of BJP workers, who suffered in political clashes. Obviously, he does not want the saffron party’s morale to deteriorate under any circumstances. West Bengal’s situation is worrying. Since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, nearly 50 people have been killed in political clashes, according to a claim by senior BJP leader from the state, Dilip Ghosh. The West Bengal government has not made any official data available on this so far. The ruling Trinamool Congress dismisses all these claims though the state has a long history of political conflict.

This furore was not limited to Kurukshetra and Kolkata only. Crores of rupees was recovered from the premises of Indian Administrative Service officer Pooja Singhal, reported to be a close aide of Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren; her chartered accountant and husband. The amount was so large that officials from the Central Bank of India were summoned to count it. Those in the ruling coalition of the state characterised these raids and the investigation into alleged mining allocation irregularities as being part of a political vendetta.

What have our leaders done to these institutions? Why has their credibility declined so drastically? Why do we have rogue elements among officers associated with these agencies who seem to act at the behest of their political overlords? Unfortunately, all parties are equally responsible for fuelling this destructive trend.

When similar raids were conducted in some cases in Maharashtra and West Bengal a while ago, the local police and central agencies came face to face. The situation deteriorated to the point where central security forces were called in to protect the investigators. The clash between Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar and the Central Bureau of Investigation had become a hot topic in the run-up to the Bengal elections. Meanwhile, BJP national president JP Nadda’s car was also targeted. The central government acted decisively, recalling three police officers stationed there.

The manner in which Bagga was apprehended has reopened old wounds. The matter of Ravi and Navneet Rana had not yet been settled in Maharashtra when this incident occurred in Delhi. The police of one state are filing kidnapping cases against the police of another, and the police of one state are preventing the police of another from taking back someone under arrest. What kind of democracy is this? Adesh Gupta, Delhi president of the BJP, announced that they will repay all this with interest. The Aam Aadmi Party is also launching similar attacks.

The time has come for voters in this country to consider whether they elected their representatives as public servants or as overlords. What kind of democracy is this, where laws, ranging from sedition to terrorism, are imposed arbitrarily? Is it sedition or any kind of offence to criticise those in power?

Regrettably, those in power bear the responsibility for putting an end to this trend, despite the fact that they are the perpetrators of all this.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, HindustanThe views expressed are personal



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An unlikely war has ensued between the Government of India and the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations health arm, with respect to the number of deaths caused by the pandemic Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021. The WHO has estimated that 1.5 crore deaths have happened globally due to the pandemic or its impact, and the figure is not the officially recorded 54 lakhs. Most of these deaths have happened in Southeast Asia, the Americas and Europe. And of them, 47.4 lakh deaths, close to one third of the total deaths, happened in India. India’s official toll was 4.81 lakh at the end of 2021.

Apart from the deaths directly linked to Covid-19, WHO has considered those deaths which were caused by people’s inability to access health systems overburdened by the pandemic as Covid deaths. The world body also took recourse to mathematical modelling after classifying nations per its own norms.

 

WHO classifies countries that have provided to it complete and nationally representative monthly all-cause mortality data for the specified period as Tier I and puts those nations that have not granted WHO access to the complete data and for which it requires the use of alternative data sources or the application of scaling factors to generate the national aggregate in Tier II. India is in the second tier.

India has questioned the very approach by which WHO arrived at the number of deaths in this country. India contends that it itself has a robust process for the registration of births and deaths. It claims its civil registration system (CRS) meticulously recorded the deaths and births, the data is authentic and published by Registrar-General of India and hence “mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India”. The government has also pointed out that WHO admitted that for 17 states it used data from websites and media reports which is a “statistically unsound and scientifically questionable” methodology. It has opposed the use of the Global Health Estimate of 2019, which considers a uniform test positivity rate for the entire country, for modelling.

 

It’s a “one-size-fits-all” approach and hence unacceptable. Several state governments, including those not ruled by the BJP, have questioned the process and reliability of the WHO data. Some state health ministers have even alleged that it is an attempt to defame India.

The WHO’s response has been limited to pointing out that it has good quality data to estimate excess mortality in countries with less accessibility and that it is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. The data on Covid-19 deaths highlights the need for more investment in “resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems” according to the world body.

 

There is little to gainsay in this wordy war as it is about data. It is important that we have accurate and reliable data as it is critical to decision making. Rejecting the WHO methodology, questioning the results and attributing motives do not help the larger cause of the people. The government and the WHO must work together and get to the bottom of it with a common purpose of serving the people of India. Covid death data cannot remain an open question; it needs a closure.



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These days I feel stupid a lot of the time because there’s so much going on that I don’t understand but everyone else seems to. When I ask them about it, though, mostly they just say, “But it’s so obvious!” And then they go away leaving me in the dark.

For instance, when Elon Musk bought Twitter for $45bn or whatever, I just couldn’t understand why he did it. I actually have trouble understanding what that amount of money means. A few thousand dollars, yes, but $45bn? There’s no way my mind can wrap itself around that number.

 

So I was relieved when my professor friend Raghavan dropped in to drink my tea and sample a new batch of samosas. I thought he’d be able to explain, his job being explaining things to restless youngsters. So I sat him down and plied him with food and drink, and, when he had polished off the last crumb and emptied his last cup of tea, I put it to him. “What’s all this about Musk and Twitter and free speech?”

“Politics,” he replied, reaching for a toothpick.

“What!” I exclaimed, taken aback. “I thought it was business!”

 

He belched and put down the toothpick. “Musk said something about free speech,” he said. “If that’s not politics, I don’t know what is.”

“But what about that $45bn?” I asked. “That’s a gargantuan sum of money: it’s about half Sri Lanka’s GDP, or almost all its debt. That seems far too much to pay for a social media platform, which is just some servers and some software. I thought that was all business.”

He smiled a smile full of pity. “Your years are showing, old man,” he said. “In your day, wealth meant land or similar things. Physical assets. All that’s changed since the internet came along.  It’s not the servers and the software but what people do with them.”

 

“Yes,” I said sadly. “I know. There’s something called a demat account which holds all my shares, but it doesn’t feel real. In the old days they had share certificates with signatures and seals and stamps and copperplate… Very beautiful. My bank account, likewise. I can see my balance on my phone anytime, but that doesn’t feel real either. I was always happy when my wallet was fat, but now all my money is in my phone, and I’m just not comfortable with it.”

The smile widened. The pity deepened. “That’s not the half of it,” he said. “The term social media understates the value of the service. Look at this way: you can now talk to your brother in Australia whenever you like, and it costs you next to nothing.”

 

“Ah!” I said, needled by the pity. “I didn’t know that free speech includes speaking to people abroad for free!”

His smile fell off and he clenched his fists, but he recovered in a moment. “At the very least,” he said, “Twitter will have some advertisement value for Musk. He can use it to peddle Tesla cars along with his views.”

And then I asked him the one question that just wouldn’t go away from my mind. “Why would he spend $45bn on Twitter when he can plaster the world with Tesla promotions for one per cent of that?” I asked. “And create another social media platform as well for less than that?”

 

“Twitter’s profitable,” he said. “Musk thinks he’ll make a profit out of advertising revenue. Besides, creating a social media platform is a chancy business. Ask Google. They tried and failed. Finally, Musk has nearly 90 million followers on Twitter. He might lose many of them if he switches platforms.”

“Right,” I said, “he has lots of followers. But from what I read, there are plenty of people who don’t like Musk’s political views, mostly US Democrats. Won’t they be tempted to quit Twitter? If they do, Musk will lose half the herd.”

 

“I doubt it,” he replied. “People who were kicked out of Twitter before Musk took it over are returning. Besides, the controversy itself is drawing attention to the conflict between American businessmen and leftists. You pay more attention to your enemies than your friends, and it’s easy to be brave on Twitter. So Musk has turned Twitter into a battlefield! He hopes it’ll be a profitable battlefield. ”

“He might get wiped out,” I said.

“Oh no, he won’t,” replied Raghavan emphatically.

 

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Because he’ll bring down too many people with him if he crashes,” he replied.

“Like the Lehmann Brothers crash of 2008. The US government ended up saving the people responsible, giving them fortunes. And it’s not only the American government. Just think a bit. Which is Tesla’s biggest market outside the US?

China. Where do Tesla batteries come from? China. There’s a Tesla factory in Shanghai, China… The Chinese banned Twitter some years ago, so now they can interfere in US politics through Musk with no risk to themselves. For all you know, they might just sustain Musk on Twitter with advertisements. They won’t have to fire a shot or shed a drop of blood. They’ll just sit at home and pull the strings.”

 

“How?” I asked.

“It’s easy for the Chinese,” he said. “They’ll get a few million people – real human beings, not bots – to join Twitter. All telling the world exactly what the Chinese government wants them to say.”

“What about free speech?” I asked. “Musk said he was for it, didn’t he?”
The smile returned, and the pity, wider and deeper than ever before. “He might have said so,” he replied. “But he doesn’t have to mean it, does he?”

 



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The bulldozer has been very much in the news recently as the “bludgeon of choice” to destroy the homes and livelihoods of people in areas hit by communal strife in New Delhi and various parts other parts of the country. In fact, the Supreme Court had to intervene to stay the use of “the bulldozer” that was being vigorously deployed to remove what was being described as a routine drive to remove “illegal encroachments”.

On May 1, Labour Day, the administration of the Union Territory of Chandigarh deployed the ubiquitous bulldozer to flatten the homes and hearth of 4,000 working class families in the name of making the City Beautiful slum-free. The dictum seems to be, rather than remove poverty just annihilate the poor.  

 

The use of the bulldozer as a weapon is not new. Invented in 1904 by grain harvester manufacturer Benjamin Holt as a diesel-powered traction machine that could traverse terrain too mushy to support horse-drawn or wheeled tractors, it soon brought about a transformation not only in the agribusiness business and construction industry but in military affairs as well. Holt’s track-drive contraption became the impetus that led to the origination of the first prototype of the military tank called Little Willie.

When Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany in 1933 and gave his personal architect Albert Speer a “carte blanche” to virtually demolish Berlin and build a new capital called Germania for his one thousand-year Reich, the omnipotent bulldozer got deployed to flatten Jewish neighbourhoods that were soon levelled in record time.

 

Thousands of average Berliners also felt the bite of the bulldozer. From 1936 onwards, they were forcibly rehoused to make way for the new city. Jewish citizens were moved to poky places. Then they were ghettoised before being transported to concentration camps. Project Germania, therefore, had a critical role to play in enabling Nazi authorities to carry out the Holocaust with Jewish homes being pulverised much before the pogroms against them formally commenced in the November of 1938. When the deportation of Jews from Berlin began in August 1941, Speer’s department was a prime beneficiary, seizing and plundering 23,765 apartments occupied by Jews by the end of October 1942.

 

Throughout Second World War, as the Final Solution against Jewry unfolded, the bulldozer repeatedly came into play against their home and hearth except where the real estate was so expensive and in chic neighborhoods that it made more sense for the Nazi warlords to simply expropriate them for personal use.

After the assassination of the Nazi Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czech Land) on June 4, 1942, in Prague by Czech partisans, the village of Lidice was first flattened using artillery and then bulldozed to try and wipe it of the face of the earth. The villagers’ crime, they harboured the partisans.

 

Ironically, history inevitably comes a full circle. The ominous bulldozer has also become the weapon of choice for the Israelis to flatten Palestinian homes. The Palestinians have been fighting since 1948 to try and have a homeland of their own promised to them by the United Nations Partition Plan of Palestine in 1947 before the British made haste in 1948.

As far back as November 2004, Human Rights Watch documented and aggressively campaigned to stop the sale of American-made bulldozers to Israel as they were being used to obliterate Palestinian homes. An American company called Caterpillar manufactures a bulldozer, referred to as the D9 and tailored to military specifications. It would sell its product to the Israelis pretty much as a weapon under the aegis of the US Foreign Military Sales Program. After the bulldozers would arrive in Israel, they were further armoured by the state-owned Israel Military Industries Ltd. The armoured D-9 would then weigh more than 64 tons, stand 13 feet tall and measure 26 feet long with front and rear blades.

 

A Human Rights Watch report, entitled “Razing Rafah”, documented the methodical use by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of the D9 bulldozer to perpetrate illegal demolitions throughout the Palestinian-occupied territories. The IDF annihilated over 2,500 Palestinian homes in 2000-04 in the Gaza Strip alone, most of them in complete violation of even military preconditions mandated by global humanitarian law. Nearly two-thirds of those homes bulldozed were located in Rafah, a town and refugee camp on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. The Israeli military employed the Caterpillar bulldozer to raze the homes of more than 10 per cent of the population in Rafah. The IDF wrecked above 50 per cent of Rafah’s roads and ripped open in excess of 40 miles of water and sewage pipes with a rapier attached to the bulldozer’s back known as “the ripper”.

 

In 2018 again, human rights groups again denounced transnational building companies for their role in the destruction of Palestinian villages including Khan al-Ahmar. Caterpillar, JCB and LiuGong heavy equipment not limited to bulldozers were deployed to pulverise Palestinian homes. Israeli courts declined to proscribe this perversity. Amnesty International characterised the court’s decision as sanctioning a “war crime”.

Given that between 1992 when we established normal diplomatic relations with Israel and now, hundreds of our law enforcement officers have gone to Israel on training visits and exchange programmes, it is evident that the “bulldozer syndrome” has got hardwired into the institutional hard drive of our system.  

 

In 2003, the United Nations had commenced developing standards for conglomerates dubbed UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights. The text stipulates that companies must abjure from engaging in or benefiting from defilement of international human rights or humanitarian law. It further caveats that companies “shall further seek to ensure that goods and services they provide will not be used to abuse human rights”.

The time has come to build a countrywide movement against those Indian and foreign companies whose bulldozers and other heavy equipment like JCBs are used in utter contempt and violation of the law of the land for the perverse and malafide objectives of promoting hate and bigotry by “pointedly targeting   certain sections of our people”. Also, hold those officers to account who carry out illegal orders of their political masters.



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The dramatic rise of Sinn Fein — the nationalist political party that has consistently called for a united Ireland by merger with the Irish Republic — makes the already complicated situation of Northern Ireland in the post-Brexit era even more complex. Once just the political wing of the militant Irish Republican Army that fought the UK for decades before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, Sinn Fein has emerged from the polls as the leading party with the right to nominate the first minister.  

Sinn Fein could help determine what appears to be not only an uncertain future but also a knotty present thanks to a protocol by which checks are imposed on goods flowing in from the rest of the United Kingdom in a sort of mythical border in the Irish Sea. But then it would depend on whether they are allowed to rule at all since the DUP, the Unionist party, could wreck it by declining to join the new government by nominating a deputy first minister within four months and thus precipitating a new election.

 

The demographics has changed with the Catholics almost in the same numbers as Protestants now but Brexit may have proved the gamechanger though all parties contested the elections more on governance, jobs and bread-and-butter issues like the cost-of-living crisis and the healthcare system. The Northern Ireland Protocol was still the unspoken factor though the people or rulers can do little about it.

It’s up to the government of Boris Johnson in London to decide on whether the protocol is to be overhauled, altered or done away with, but which would come not only at the cost of further alienating the EU but also endangering the Good Friday Agreement and the open border between the two Irelands.

 

The DUP, which has made removal of the protocol an article of faith, might be impeded from joining a regime with the Sinn Fein in the complex power sharing formula that has been a political feature of N. Ireland for close to a quarter century now. How the dice rolls from here would be fraught with interest for a land that had rescued itself from sectarian strife with considerable effort following decades of a violent conflict.



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The delimitation exercise in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir is part of the Narendra Modi government’s plan to reconstitute the controversial land into what it considers is a favourable mode to India. This was preceded by the removal of the erstwhile state’s special status under Article 370 of the Constitution, which was provisional. But right from the days of Syama Prasad Mookerjee and the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Article 370 had been a bone of contention. It was also a part of the core agenda of the 1980-born Bharatiya Janata Party, along with the building of the Ram temple on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, and the enactment of the Uniform Civil Code in place of the personal laws of different communities, including Muslims.

The Modi government was not satisfied with removing Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir. In August 2019, Union home minister Amit Shah did two more things — demoting Jammu and Kashmir to the status of a Union territory and separating Ladakh from the state and constituting it as a separate Union territory. The BJP and the Modi government were only too aware of the dangers of trifurcation of the state, which would have created three separate units — Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. The RSS had way back in the late 1990s mooted the idea of a trifurcation of J&K and the Atal behari Vajpayee-led BJP had then shot down the idea. So, the Modi government bungled when it separated Ladakh, and made a late correction by holding itself back from separating Jammu and Kashmir.

 

It is not very clear whether the Modi government has a Kashmir policy as such, though the general sense is that it would want to reduce the political importance of the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, and the delimitation exercise is part of that thinking. If that was indeed the intention, the separation of Ladakh and making Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh into two separate Union territories appear to be futile exercises. Similarly, the delimitation move, which has the trappings of a rationalisation of the existing system, again appears to be an aimless exercise.

 

In the new delimitation exercise, the difference in strength between the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, with 96 per cent Muslims, and the Jammu region, with 66 per cent Hindus and 34 per cent Muslims, has been narrowed, with Jammu gaining six seats and going up to 43, and Kashmir getting an extra seat and reaching 47. The new provision in the reconfiguration of the constituencies is the creation of nine Scheduled Tribes (ST) constituencies, with six in Jammu and three in Kashmir. The ST category of constituencies is again a bid to break the so-called Muslim domination. The fact is that Hindus in Jammu think of themselves as Dogras, and those in the Kashmir Valley as Kashmiris. Of course, the Gujjars and Bakarwals, the ST segments, think of themselves as Gujjars and Bakarwals. It is in Pakistan, and the BJP look at the Kashmir issue as a Hindu-Muslim one. It will be wrong to dismiss the religious aspect of the issue in terms of the 1947 Partition, but Kashmir politics has not played out on religious lines. Whatever their bitter regional rivalries, the Kashmiris and Dogras are only too keen to hang together.

 

Union home minister Amit Shah has also been saying that the UT status for Jammu and Kashmir is a temporary measure, and when conditions improve — there is again no clarity on what those conducive conditions are — the statehood of J&K will be restored. It may even be possible that once the Assembly elections are held, then Jammu and Kashmir might regain its statehood.

The mathematical elegance of dividing equally the 90 Assembly seats into the five parliamentary constituencies, with each getting 18, can well serve as a model for the rest of the country whenever a nationwide delimitation exercise takes place. But beyond that, it does not add much value. The attempt to break the Jammu-Kashmir geographical and political divide by combining Anantnag in the Kashmir Valley with Poonch and Rajouri is not exactly a clever one. It is just administrative juggling. The regional differences in Jammu and Kashmir are indeed revealing. The Poonch and Rajouri folk do not identify themselves either with Kashmir or with Jammu. The people who live in Doda again defy identification with either of the two big entities. And the Kashmiris themselves do not consider Doda as Kashmiri, one of the reasons that in the eyes of the people of the Valley, Ghulam Nabi Azad is not a full-fledged Kashmiri!

 

It is most likely that Prime Minister Modi and home minister Shah will go into a self-congratulatory mode in the belief that they have handled the long-festering Kashmir problem well. This would be an illusion.

Jammu and Kashmir has been a part of India ever since Maharaja Hari Singh had signed the Instrument of Accession on October 26, 1947, though there is the quibble about whether it was done before or after the arrival of the Indian troops, and the whole-hearted and full-throated support of the then popular leader of Jammu and Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, who spoke eloquently in the state Assembly and in the United Nations as a member of the Indian delegation about Kashmir being an integral part of India. So, the removal of Article 370, the bifurcation of the state, its demotion to the UT status, and the delimitation move have not added an iota of credibility to the fact of Jammu and Kashmir being an integral part of India.

 

The interesting question remains whether the surgical political operation in Jammu and Kashmir, including the delimitation, will change the nature of politics in the Union territory. The BJP does want to gain an upper hand and find allies in new parties that it wants to nurture in the Kashmir Valley, in place of the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). It is always a good sign if new players emerge but the BJP, an old party, wants to orchestrate the political drama. As of now, there are smaller parties in the Kashmir Valley and the BJP wants to patronise them, but these small parties do not promise anything new and significantly different. The Assembly elections, however, which will be held under the new configuration, is something to look forward to.

 



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President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol (YSY), who will be sworn in as South Korea’s new leader for a five-year term on May 10, is a first-time politician and a former prosecutor-general. He catapulted into politics after helping convict former President Park Geun-hye in her impeachment trial. Yoon Suk Yeol is considered rather unfamiliar with global affairs and is likely to rely on his trusted advisers to frame policy.

Prof. Kim Sung-han, the head of the diplomacy and security division of the incoming President’s transition team, and was vice foreign minister in the 2008-13 Lee Myung-bak administration, is regarded by the South Korean media as the brain behind President-elect Yoon’s foreign policy architecture which focuses on reinforcing Seoul’s security alliance with Washington by restoring trust between the two countries.

 

In an article in Foreign Affairs prior to his March 9 election this year, YSY indirectly criticised the current policy of outgoing President Moon Jae-in and said that Seoul’s reluctance to take a firm stand on a number of issues that have riled the relationship between Washington and Beijing has created an impression that South Korea has been tilting towards China and away from its long-time ally, the United States.

In the campaign, YSY had strongly criticised the Moon government for creating a “master-servant” relationship between the two Koreas by doggedly pursuing the dialogue with North Korea as an end in itself rather than as a process for negotiations towards denuclearisation.

 

YSY said in an interview to the Washington Post on April 14 that South Korea must step up its foreign policy commensurate with its economic and cultural status and become a stronger ally of the United States. Yoon aspires to make South Korea a critical player in addressing global challenges — including supply chain management, climate change and vaccine production. In Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Yoon would find a ready partner to work together in pursuing their shared objectives.

On the four-nation Quad (comprising the US, India, Japan and Australia), the President elect has said that before deciding on seeking to join the Quad, South Korea will support and cooperate with its working groups in tackling global issues such as “vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies to create a synergy with the Quad countries.”

 

Mr Yoon called North Korea as South Korea’s “main enemy”, a stance different from that of outgoing President Moon Jae-in, but said that he would continue a two-track response to pursue dialogue and offer humanitarian aid.

Importantly, Mr Yoon has said that poor Seoul-Tokyo relations have backfired on South Korean companies and have hampered Seoul’s ability to coordinate with Tokyo and Washington. He said South Korea should work to rebuild confidence by having frequent conversations with Japanese officials. He asserted that during his presidency “South Korea-Japan relations will go well”.

 

This would be a course which friendly democracies like the United States and India would encourage. In the shifting strategic balance of the Indo-Pacific, it is of vital importance that all democracies work together and harmonise their policies to ensure peace and stability in the region. Any progress towards normalisation of sentiments between South Korea and Japan would positively influence the strategic balance in Northeast Asia.

In parallel, North Korea has been signalling its own frustration over the impasse regarding easing of the crippling sanctions faced by it. In April, Chairman Kim Jong-un vowed to speed up the further development of its nuclear arsenal “at the fastest possible pace” and threatened to use them against its enemies. On May 4, North Korea launched a ballistic missile towards the East Sea. This was North Korea’s 14th missile firing this year, just six days before the new conservative President takes over in Seoul. Subsequently on May 5, a North Korean propaganda website described the incoming South Korean President as “pro-United States” and “confrontational”.

 

After being elected, US President Joe Biden was the first foreign leader that YSY called. Subsequently, YSY also spoke to Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida of Japan, Boris Johnson of Britain, Scott Morrison of Australia and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 17. China’s Xi Jinping sent a letter of congratulations on March 11 and the two spoke on the phone on March 25.

On March 10 itself, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his warm congratulations to YSY, adding that he looked forward to working with him to further expand and strengthen the India-ROK “Special Strategic Partnership”. On May 6, India’s ambassador in Seoul, Sripriya Ranganathan, called on Mr Yoon when YSY affirmed that India-ROK ties would be scaled up significantly by his administration.

 

New Delhi’s ties with Seoul have gradually flowered after the advent of democracy in South Korea in the 1990s. There is a strong sense of goodwill and friendship towards each other among the leadership as well as people in the two countries. There is strong bipartisan political commitment in both countries to deepen the strategic partnership and scale up trade and investment relationship.

South Korea’s Presidents, of both the liberal and conservative persuasion, have invested in promoting friendly ties with India. In India too, the “Strategic Partnership” established by the UPA government in 2010 has been strengthened as the “Special Strategic Partnership” by the NDA government.

 

However, till now, the strategic partnership has been mainly based on economic cooperation as the outgoing South Korean President was wary of rubbing China the wrong way. The incoming Yoon administration may make a more objective and realistic assessment of China as a disruptive and expansionist nation responsible for upsetting the peace of the entire Indo-Pacific region.



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