Kerala has long been recognised to have done many things right. For years the darling of development experts, non-governmental organisations and social activists, the ‘Kerala Model’ seemed to show that impressive levels of human development indicators — in health, education and quality of life, comparable even to some rich countries — could be achieved without a correspondingly high level of income.
A focus on ‘failures’
But in the recent past, there has been a new debate on the ‘Kerala Model’ of development. Are we not guilty of exporting our unemployment and becoming over-dependent on remittances? Can you build high growth and strong human development indicators on such a flimsy basis? Is it sustainable? The focus in the new debates on Kerala seems increasingly on its failures: low employment, low levels of food intake and low incomes, accompanied by high levels of alcoholism and the nation’s worst suicide rate.
After decades of robust social spending and participatory governance, the lustre of the Kerala model is now under threat from emerging social and environmental risks. Indeed, there is an irony here: some of the very strengths of Kerala’s approach have become sources of vulnerability. For instance, its high life expectancy is translating into a high death rate from COVID-19.
In the face of rising risks, the Kerala model needs to be revitalised. The crucial question is how.
Reflecting the State’s social outcomes, Kerala has India’s highest literacy rate despite ranking only the ninth-highest in per capita income among 28 States. But as new global risks emerge in areas from health to climate change, Kerala’s policies need to be bolstered and new challenges deftly managed. Severely hit by COVID-19, Kerala’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) contracted over 2019-20 and 2021-22, and unemployment, at 9%, is much higher than the 6% national average. The space to revive Kerala’s sagging economy is limited because of a high fiscal deficit, around 4% of GSDP.
These difficulties could be meaningfully mitigated by smarter socio-economic investments, attention to good governance, and a far better stewardship of the environment. Kerala can develop as a knowledge economy, improve the quality of higher education and vocational training to meet the requirements of a modern workforce, and build on successes in tourism and hospitality services. All this will create meaningful employment and raise incomes.
Interventions that reach all
Our focus should be on the quantity as well as quality of health and education, and on ensuring that interventions reach all segments of the population. Basic education should continue to be a priority, but it is higher education that presents a pivotal opportunity on the global stage for Kerala — a State with high human capital and high population mobility. Played right, Kerala could become a regional, if not a national, centre for tertiary education in areas such as marine biology, health care, and digital technology, where it has considerable expertise.
Kerala was India’s first digital State with the highest share of households with personal computers and Internet connections, mobile phone penetration, and digital literacy. Digital tools are being widely used in Kerala’s COVID-19 response — for example, application of India’s eSanjeevani, a telemedicine portal, offering psycho-social support for those struggling with the virus or its after-effects. We can build on and expand such approaches, learning, for instance, from Singapore’s new generation of health apps and technologies.
Cracks in the health system
Serious gaps are growing in Kerala’s health system. A pandemic response that laid a stress on mask-wearing and social distancing and tracing got off to a vigorous early start. But infections and deaths skyrocketed in 2021, partly as the population is highly mobile and also because Kerala let its guard down in key areas of surveillance. Testing, on the other hand, has been widespread, which helped reveal infections more transparently. Sustaining the edge on health care should be high on the policy agenda.
Another strength that needs to be sustained involves institutions, building on the State’s grassroots organisation, participatory governance, and a free press. The Public Affairs Index 2020 ranked Kerala as the best-governed large State in 2019 on the basis of 50 indicators reflecting equity, growth and sustainability. Decentralised governance, a strong grass-roots-level network of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), volunteer groups, and Kudumbashree members helped in pandemic management. While there are lessons for others, Kerala needs to be more agile in public expenditure on health and developing local self-delivery systems.
The earth does matter
An asset that has turned into a worrying flash point is the State’s rich but fragile ecology that requires heightened protection. Decades of ecological degradation amplified the impact of the 2018 floods in Kerala that took some 483 lives, displaced 14.5 lakh people, and cost over Rs. 40,000 crore. It is vital that the Madhav Gadgil Committee report is adopted with the minimal necessary modifications to protect vulnerable populations. The ecological disaster across the Western Ghats needs to be confronted and investments made to repair forests, river systems, water bodies, and flood plains. The State needs a bold programme of forest restoration in keeping with the commitments on forest protection from over 130 nations at COP26.
Kerala urgently needs to revive its network of rivers, their tributaries and streams. Sand mining needs to be stopped until the sandy riverbeds are restored. Water management calls for the periodic release of water from the dams, as indicated by the World Commission on Dams. This, together with desilting of dams, could control the quantity of run-off into the dams and the need for sudden releases that exacerbate floods. Kerala’s supply of fresh water is being jeopardised by inadequate facilities for water containment. Water quality — and people’s health — are hurt by domestic waste and industrial effluents, calling for better watertreatment.
Moment for change
A reinvigorated Kerala model will do well to recognise the symbiotic links among social outcomes, environmental management, and participatory governance, and take actions that cut across these areas. It is time for revival. We must open our mental horizons to the world, outgrow our shopworn ideologies and create investment and business-friendly conditions for sustainable development.
One prerequisite for achieving sustainable development would be to change the perceptions of the State in our extremely politicised environment, especially the notorioushartalsover marginal political issues, which have driven investment away. Political parties can differ on the precise policies and investments needed, but they must come together on a platform that transcends their differences. Sree Narayana Guru famously said, “matham ethayalum, manushyan nannayalmathi— whatever his religion, it is enough that a man be good.” Similarly, Kerala must say, “rashtriyam ethayalum, rashtramnannayalmathi— whatever the politics, it is enough that the country be better.”
Shashi Tharoor is Member of Parliament (Congress) for Thiruvananthapuram (Lok Sabha). Vinod Thomas is Visiting Professor, National University of Singapore
India’s fiscal deficit (for the Centre) in FY22 is expected to be 6.8% of the GDP, or in layman’s terms about Rs. 15.06 lakh crore. When considering the debts of States as well, this jumps to about 12.7% of the GDP (as of FY21). In comparison, the budgetary outlay for MGNREGA in FY22 was Rs. 73,000 crore, while the Ministry of Defence was allocated Rs. 4.78 lakh crore for FY22. Every year, the shortfall grows wider.
The reality of privitisation
There is consensus that privatisation is the panacea. Policymakers often cite the private sector’s ability to grow faster. This may not always be true — studies indicate that the gap in growth (and service) between public sector undertakings (PSUs) with autonomy and private firms is not significant. One study highlighted that the famed British privatisation initiative of British Airways, British Gas, and the Railways led to no systemic difference in performance (T.T. Ram Mohan, February 2021); even now, private British trains can be significantly delayed by “leaves on the line”. Evidence on performance after privatisation is even more mixed in developing countries. Of course, there are examples like VSNL and Hindustan Zinc, but growth post-privatisation is often due to multiple factors (for example, better funding under a private promoter versus a starved government budget, a better business cycle). Sometimes, the difference in a PSU’s performance (and ability to generate tax revenue) is simply government apathy.
Privatisation as a revenue source has also offered paltry returns. As a state, we have sought to hock our generational wealth in PSUs for the past two decades, with limited success. The Disinvestment Commission, under the Ministry of Industries, was set up in 1996 to provide inputs on which firms to privatise in over a five-10-year period. However, this Commission was dissolved in 1999. A separate Department of Disinvestment was set up under the Ministry of Finance and later upgraded to a full-fledged Ministry in 2001. It was downgraded back to a department in 2004.
Beyond the institutional set-up, privatisation as a policy has also singularly failed to raise significant funds – actual receipts from disinvestment have always fallen significantly short of targets. For example, in FY11, Rs. 22,846 crore was raised against a target of Rs. 40,000 crore; by FY20, Rs. 50,304 crore was raised against a target of Rs. 1 lakh crore (PRS India, 2021). In total, between FY11 and FY21, about Rs. 5 lakh crore was raised (that is, about 33% of just FY22’s projected fiscal deficit (PRS India, 2021) – some of this, notably through stake sale to other PSUs. Given social and institutional constraints, India’s ability to privatise firms will continue to be slow in the future (for example, BPCL’s long-awaited journey). Clearly, this is a lever that is unlikely to raise significant revenue. Perhaps it is time to consider other options.
Going forward, outright privatisation (as opposed to stake sale) may not necessarily make sense. Air India aside, a recently held auction of about 21 oil and gas blocks had only three firms participating, of which two were PSUs; 18 blocks ended up with just a single bid. An additional push to privatise 12 rail route clusters attracted interest in just three routes, with only two bidders (again, one of which was a PSU). Meanwhile, in a market on the edge, with interest rate hikes coming, this may also not be the right time.
There is also the challenge of valuation – for example, about 65% of about 300 national highway projects have been recording significant toll collection growth (>15%, since they have been in operation); any valuations of such assets will need to ensure they capture potential growth in toll revenue, as NHAI’s highway expansion bears fruit and the economy recovers. Instead, the Maruti model is instructive – the government had a joint venture with the Suzuki Corporation, but ceded control, despite Suzuki having only 26% shareholding, in return for a push by Suzuki for greater exports from India and manufacture of global models in India. Exits from Maruti were conducted in small tranches, ensuring a better valuation for the government. Empirical evidence highlights that stake sales are considered a preferred route (about 67% of all PSU sales in about 108 countries between 1977 and 2000 were conducted via this route), as it gives time to ensure price discovery, allowing improved performance to raise valuations over time,
Beyond revenue raising, there are serious social consequences with privatisation. PSUs have been significant generators of employment in the past, with multiplier effects – there were about 348 CPSUs in existence in 2018, with a total investment of Rs. 16.4 trillion (Srivastava, Vinay K., March 2021) and about 10.3 lakh employees in Central Public Sector Enterprises (in 2019). A push for privatisation is a push for mass layoffs, in a period of low job creation.
Greater concentration of public assets in select private hands is also a medium-term concern. In India, about 70% of all profits generated in the corporate sector in FY20 were with just 20 firms (in comparison, the situation in FY93 was about 15%). Across sectors, a whiff of oligopoly is emerging – cigarettes continue to be dominated by a single player (with ~77% market share in FY21), paints has one entity with ~40% in FY21, airports now has a new operator with about six airports plus a 74% stake in Mumbai’s international airport, while telecom has just three players left. Such concentration, mixed with privatisation of public assets, is likely to lead to higher usage fees (already being seeing in telecom) and inflation, coupled with a loss of strategic control.
Selective PHU reform
Perhaps, another avenue of selective PSU reform could be considered. In China, for the past few decades, growth has been led by corporatised PSUs, all of them held under a holding company (SASAC), which promotes better governance, appoints leadership and executes mergers and acquisitions. Such PSUs that have scaled up are market leaders. In Singapore, the Ministry of Finance focuses on policymaking, while Temasek (the holding firm) is focused on corporatising and expanding its PSUs (for example, Singtel, PSA, Singapore Power, Singapore Airlines) towards a global scale. A PSU with greater autonomy, with the government retaining control via a holding firm, can also be subject to the right incentives (T.T. Ram Mohan, February 2021). Surely, Indian PSUs could aspire to be as large and efficient as the Chinese ones.
The time has come to take a relook at privatisation. Simply pursuing this path, while utilising such proceeds for loan write-offs or populist giveaways in the election cycle will not do. A hunt for immediate revenue should not overshadow the long-term interest of the ordinary Indian.
Feroze Varun Gandhi is a Member of Parliament, representing the Pilibhit constituency for the BJP
The astonishing rise of Hindutva politics, especially in the Hindi belt, has almost relegated the politics of social justice to the back burner. Till recently, it was the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that emphatically raised the agenda of social justice and also mobilised the lower castes as influential participants in the electoral democracy of Uttar Pradesh. However, in the last Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, it must be noted that the BSP has witnessed a considerable drop in its vote percentage (from 30.43% in 2007 to 22.24% in 2017). And instead, it has been the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that has emerged as a new ‘inclusive’ party, with a whopping 39% of the vote share. In the current phase of politics and elections, it is the BSP that appears to be inactive and irrelevant.
Key strategy
The right-wing party has been quite successful in engaging and bringing the socially marginalised sections into its fold by executing creative cultural strategies. However, the Yogi Adityanath government has not provided substantive welfare policies to satisfy the quest for social justice or to enable rapid economic development as far as the backward communities are concerned. The recent examples of Other Backward Castes (OBCs) leaders moving away from the BJP is a hint that the socially deprived communities could be disillusioned with the BJP and might lend their support to the Samajwadi Party (SP) that appears to be promising in political terms. Such a shift could reinvent the politics of social justice in the State.
Politics of social justice, limits
B.R. Ambedkar held the view that social justice is not merely a welfare policy framework. Rather, it is a dynamic tool to generate revolutionary political consciousness among socially marginalised groups. In the post-Ambedkar period, it was Kanshi Ram, the founder of the BSP, who reintroduced the agenda of social justice as a transformative political ideology.
Kanshi Ram utilised the ideas of social justice to highlight oppressive caste hierarchies and also inspired marginalised groups to build a robust political opposition. He argued that the national political parties retained their domination over legislative bodies by relegating the lower caste groups as a passive vote bank. He imagined that the socially marginalised communities could be united under a Dalit leadership (as Bahujan) and defeat the traditional ruling castes (often represented as Manuwadis). He proposed that the replacement of the conventional ruling elites by a Dalit-Bahujan collective would bring about a revolutionary change in governance and policy matters.
Imagining the Dalit-Bahujan mass as the ruling class was a radical vision. And forming social and political alliances are the foundational requirements to achieve such goals. However, the stiff social and cultural divisions between Dalits and Other Backward Classes disallowed the possibility to organise a unified political front. The current vanguards of social justice politics have been criticised for a deep attachment to specific communitarian identities (like the BSP and the SP are often belittled as being the parties of the Jatavs and Yadavs, respectively) and alleged that the worst-off social groups (such as the Maha-Dalits and most backward castes) are not being given their legitimate space in electoral politics. Ironically, the lower caste parties often hesitate to join hands when it comes to pushing for an agenda of social justice (there is the well-known rivalry between the BSP and the SP) but find comfort in fighting independently or by forming alliances with the parties led by social elites. The right wing exploits the trust deficit between the Dalit-Bahujan groups and mobilises them on distinct cultural fronts.
Right-wing cultural politics
Since 2014, the BJP has launched a powerful rhetoric of development, anti-corruption politics and tapped the euphoria of nationalism that often bewitches aspirational groups and motivates them to support right-wing politics. Most importantly, the maverick top leadership in the BJP effectively controls the ship of propaganda and makes this party a dynamic force among the vulnerable social groups.
The right wing’s understanding of social justice is curated under a neo-liberal ideological prescription. It looks down on popular institutional practices to ensure social justice (mainly the reservation policy) as the state’s philanthropist distributive mechanism for lending some material doles to the deprived sections. Instead, the right wing underplays lower caste identities as being socially deprived classes and reprimands their assertion for social justice as being a disruptive force against Hinduism. The BJP crafts creative cultural strategies that perpetuate the domination of caste and class elites and motivates Dalit-Bahujan sections to find solace in the assertive communal Hindu identity. The domination of the social elites over political and public institutions is thus legitimised under the rubric of Hindu social harmony.
Importantly, the right wing engages with lower caste groups as a cultural and religious subject and exploits their association with Hindu rituals and traditions. The divisionary caste segments are celebrated as ruminants of Hindu civilisation; a new iconography and social history for each fragment are invented (like the evocation of Suheldev as the legend of the ‘Pasi’ caste). Such inventions are not only utilised to institutionalise the social ruptures between lower caste groups but also becomes a potent tool to propagate communal hatred against Muslims.
Parties such as the BSP and the SP have aspired to elevate the Dalit-Bahujan masses as the new political elites. Instead, the BJP’s Machiavellian cultural politics in Uttar Pradesh have been exploiting caste divisions and relegating the lower caste groups as militant participants in a Hindu ‘renaissance’ under the aegis of social elites. The Yogi Adityanath regime has no road map to empower the vast majority of impoverished communities from poverty, social discrimination and political powerlessness. In the past, the rhetoric of inclusive growth or of Hindu unity may have impressed socially marginalised groups but such ideas have no power to liberate the poor and the vulnerable sections from their precarious social and class conditions.
A dignified presence
Hindutva’s hegemonic cultural politics can be defeated by reinventing the ideology of social justice. The proponents of social justice have to demonstrate substantive accountability towards the vulnerable worst-off groups; and they also have to ensure their dignified presence in the mainstream political process. It is required that Dalit-Bahujan politics craft creative strategies to inspire the most vulnerable sections by building a prudent engagement with the cultural diversities and social identities. A dynamic interplay of social justice and socialism would be a lethal ideological weapon to defeat the communal politics of Uttar Pradesh.
Harish S. Wankhede is Assistant Professor, Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal
The recent resignations of several prominent Other Backward Classes (OBC) leaders from the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have not only dealt a severe blow to ‘Hindutva politics’ in Uttar Pradesh but have also understood to have galvanised the Samajwadi Party (SP)-led Opposition alliance. The excitement in the Opposition is not without reason, as the BJP in recent times has never witnessed such large-scale resignations, that too in a State where it has been in power with an overwhelming majority. All those who resigned described ‘Hindutva politics’ as being against the interests of the Dalits and backward classes. The BJP was put in a defensive position. But the formation of two ‘Bahujan fronts’ seems to have provided respite to the party. The first front, called BhagidariParivartan Morcha, was formed by All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi, Jan Adhikar Party president Babu Singh Kushwaha, and Bharat Mukti Morcha leader Vaman Meshram. Mr. Kushwaha was expelled from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2011 and was also an accused in the National Rural Health Mission scam. The second front, Samajik Parivartan Morcha, was formed by Bhim Army chiefChandrasekhar Azad, MPs Rajkumar Saini and Baburam Pal and others and comprises 35 groups.
Earlier, after his negotiations with Akhilesh Yadav failed, Mr. Azad accused the SP president of insulting him and Dalits by not giving them a respectful number of seats. He then announced that he would contest from Gorakhpur against the Chief Minister. This came as a surprise to the SP as it was already planning to field one of its local leaders against the Chief Minister in Gorakhpur and wanted the support of most of the Opposition parties. It turns out that Mr. Azad did not consult any Opposition party regarding his candidature from Gorakhpur and, meanwhile, also formed a new front.
Political implications
The two new fronts cannot be ignored even if there is no established party involved in them, except the AIMIM. The leaders involved in these fronts have their own caste base and will therefore make a discernible impact. Before discussing their influence, let us first understand a few points about them. First, it is not a mere coincidence that these fronts were announced only after the resignations of OBC leaders. Second, the leaders of these fronts have justified their actions by referring to the widespread ‘nepotism’ prevailing in traditional Opposition parties (SP, BSP and Rashtriya Lok Dal) that forced them to look for a ‘new path’. Third, the mass base of the leaders of these fronts has never been tested. These parties have not contested all the seats in U.P. earlier. Unlike leaders like Swami Prasad Maurya, who resigned from the BJP due to pressure from his social base, the leaders of these two fronts cannot even claim that their supporters forced them into the decision of forming a separate front. The truth is that most of their supporters wanted them to fight the election by joining larger anti-BJP fronts. When leaders such as Mr. Azad and Mr. Kushwaha tried and failed, they distanced themselves from the larger anti-BJP Opposition alliances with the excuse that they were not given enough tickets.
Mr. Azad contested the Bihar Assembly election in 2020 but this is his debut in U.P. In a way, Mr. Azad is like Mr. Owaisi, who goes anywhere to contest an election irrespective of whether he has any organisation or political base. In Bihar, Mr. Azad joined hands with Pappu Yadav’s party. They earned the ‘vote katwa’ (splitting votes) tag. They contested more than 150 seats together but did not achieve anything. Will Mr. Azad’s new front in U.P. just be called ‘vote katwa’ or will it achieve some political success?
As far as the Owaisi-Kushwaha-Meshram front is concerned, there is speculation already about the political equations of these leaders. Mr. Kushwaha was Minister twice in the Mayawati government, and even went to jail, allegedly for corruption. Cases related to some of these alleged scams are still pending in courts. A few years ago, he left the BSP and joined the BJP. But there was so much dissent about his induction that he had to quit the party. He then wrote to the then BJP president Nitin Gadkari and appealed to him to keep his membership on hold for a while. This shows that he has no ideological disagreement with the BJP. Similarly, Mr. Saini, who has joined hands with Mr. Azad, was a BJP MP from Kurukshetra for many years. Therefore, it is not without solid basis that these two fronts are being considered as a ‘political relief’ for the BJP and a ‘headache’ for the SP-led alliance. Whether the voters of U.P. reject these fronts or provide them with some consolation prize remains to be seen.
Urmilesh is a Delhi-based independent journalist and writer, and a former Executive Editor of Rajya Sabha TV. The article was translated from Hindi by Awanish Kumar, British Academy Newton International Fellow, University of Edinburgh
Elections make or mar alliances. In recent months, the AIADMK, which was ousted from power in the State in May last year after a 10-year reign, would have realised the value of this saying.
If the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), which fought the Assembly elections together with the AIADMK, left the alliance in September, weeks ahead of rural local bodies elections in nine districts, it was the turn of another ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to leave the coalition in the run-up to the February 19 civic polls, covering 12,838 wards in 649 local bodies, including 21 municipal corporations.
While there was some bad blood between the two parties after the PMK chose to walk out of the alliance, in the case of the BJP, there has been no apparent rancour, even though the development arose as a sequel to the failure in seat-sharing talks. In fact, even when the BJP’s floor leader in the Assembly, Nainar Nagenthiran, made a scathing attack against the AIADMK a few weeks ago, the State unit president K. Annamalai immediately sought to make amends with the senior ally. His explanation seemed to have been approved by the AIADMK too, as the party’s spokesperson and former Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar asserted that the failure to reach a mutually acceptable accord on the sharing of seats of the urban local bodies had nothing to do with Mr. Nagenthiran’s observation.
The main difference between the two parties, which at times called themselves “natural allies”, was over the number of seats to be earmarked for the national party. While the AIADMK did not want to go beyond 10% of the seats, the BJP, which was provided with 9% of the wards in the previous local bodies polls, had demanded 20% in general. The AIADMK would have been prepared to give a greater share of seats in Kanniyakumari district, as the DMK did for the Congress, but it was not ready to accommodate the BJP’s demands in the Coimbatore and Tiruppur districts in the western region, one of its traditional bastions. However, what remains unanswered is why the Dravidian major chose to adopt such a tough stand despite not having any ally of considerable strength. One possible explanation is that it is desperate to shake off the tag of being the BJP’s ‘B team’, which its adversaries have attached to it.
The BJP, which has been struggling to expand its footprint in the State, views the current round of local bodies polls as an opportunity to make its presence felt. Perhaps, this was why a large number of its functionaries, ranging from secretaries of district units to members of the core committee, preferred to go it alone even before the seat-sharing talks with the AIADMK broke down. One important reason for this is that the party wants to test its real strength in urban areas, where the elections are going to be held.
The eventual political fallout of the development is not hard for anyone to guess. The DMK-led combine has remained intact and if one is to go only by arithmetic strength, its electoral prospects appear bright. But polls are decided not merely on the basis of arithmetic. Political chemistry, inter-party coordination within a formation, and cohesion in the ranks of the lead party of any alliance are equally important. There are reports of discord among the constituents of the front led by the ruling party with regard to seat-sharing. Also, the DMK faced a controversy recently over the distribution of free Pongal gift hampers through the public distribution system. But with the Opposition camp divided, it is now advantage DMK and its allies.
ramakrishnan.t@thehindu.co.in
The advent of social media has no doubt changed how diplomacy is conducted between countries. Even so, it was surprising that the MEA and the Commerce Ministry put as much energy as they did into ensuring that several multinational companies retracted social media posts their Pakistani distributors had put out last week. The posts, that appeared to be part of a coordinated exercise sponsored by the Pakistani establishment, were put out on February 5 — marked in Pakistan as “Kashmir Solidarity Day” — and contained what New Delhi termed as highly offensive messages calling for “Kashmiri liberation”. The Government’s outrage was valid, given that these companies, including Hyundai, Toyota, KFC, Pizza Hut, and pharma major Schwabe, also have flourishing businesses in India, and it was strange that private MNCs would post such politically charged messaging at all. However, where a sharp word or even a short statement of disapproval would have sufficed, the Modi government decided to go the whole distance: even summoning the Korean Ambassador while ensuring that Indian embassies took up the issue with other governments. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also raised the matter with his Korean counterpart, who apologised to the Indian people. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal added in Parliament that the original apology by Hyundai India was not adequately “forceful or unequivocal”, even as social media consumers in India threatened to boycott products made by the companies concerned.
While the Government might feel it has achieved its purpose by ensuring the companies and governments involved were contrite about the posts, it must also consider the big picture of how its actions, that appear to be at some variance with those of a secure and powerful global player, are viewed in the rest of the world. India’s claims over Jammu and Kashmir are strong, and widely acknowledged, and not so fragile that a few social media posts, that appeared only in Pakistan, can dent in any way. Second, holding foreign governments in democratic countries to account for the actions of the local distributors of their private companies could have unforeseen repercussions. It is also worth considering whether the Foreign Ministry’s resources are better spent in furthering India’s interests than on expending diplomatic capital on short-lived controversies such as the MEA’s objection to pop star Rihanna’s posts on the farmer protests last year. The apologies and statements thus extracted may prove to be a pyrrhic victory, if one considers that the intentions of those behind the obnoxious posts in Pakistan, aimed at drawing attention to their propaganda on Kashmir, were also met. A quiet word with the MNCs might have worked better than a public display of diplomatic opposition.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s shuttle diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine is one of the most significant interventions in the crisis ever since tensions started soaring in Eastern Europe. Mr. Macron, who has held talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev, has said that both sides remain committed to the Minsk accords (2014-15), aimed at ending the violence between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists in the east; Mr. Putin assured him that Russia would not escalate the crisis. Put together, these statements offer a path towards calming the Russia-Ukraine tensions. Moscow has issued sweeping demands, including rolling back NATO from Eastern Europe, which the West has rejected. But Russia’s key concerns are the growing NATO-Ukraine cooperation and the increasing western presence in the Black Sea. The U.S. had earlier offered dialogue on mutually reducing military drills in the eastern flank of Europe. And what Mr. Macron is trying to do now, through the Normandy Format talks (including France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine), is for a Moscow-Kiev dialogue based on the Minsk protocol, which, in theory, was accepted by both sides.
The crisis has also laid bare the differences within the western bloc on how to deal with Russia. While the Biden administration has threatened to shut down Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the event of a Russian invasion, the German leadership has been less specific in its response. Germany has barred Estonia, the tiny NATO member that shares a border with Russia, from supplying arms to Ukraine. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who met Mr. Putin in the Kremlin earlier this month, has said Russia’s demands were reasonable. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who visited Ukraine last week, has offered to host a peace summit. And now, Mr. Macron, who says the West “must respect Russia”, has already moved ahead. These varied responses, despite Joe Biden’s assertion of unity, show that Europe has less appetite for conflict with Russia. As a continent that experienced two disastrous World Wars and a Cold War, Europe understandably adopts pragmatic realism. But what needs to be seen is whether France and Germany have the diplomatic muscle to calm Russian nerves without making compromises on the continent’s security. A starting point could be reviving the Minsk process. The accords call for a general amnesty for the rebels, constitutional amendments giving the breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine more autonomy and the handing over of Ukraine’s borders to its army. None of the clauses in the agreement has been implemented. If the Normandy Format talks could be convened and Russia and Ukraine take steps to revive the agreement, it would be a diplomatic breakthrough.
President Nixon’s observations, in his annual foreign policy message to the U.S. Congress, on the recent Bangla Desh developments will make no contribution to the restoration of friendly relations between his country and ours. On the other hand they can only raise the doubt if he is really anxious at this time, on the eve of his visit to Peking, to work for the reversal of the downward course Indo-American relations have followed since the Bangla crisis erupted. For his latest observations, despite all the overwhelming evidence against his old assumptions that has come to light in the last few weeks, reveal the same old anti-Indian bias plus a few more veiled insinuations against India. He is prepared for “a serious dialogue with India” in the future of Indo-U.S. relations but such a dialogue, it seems, will depend on India “having an interest in maintaining balanced relationships with all major powers” and “on the posture that South Asia’s most powerful country now adopts towards its neighbours on the sub-continent.” The insinuation here is clearly that India does not now have such “balanced relationships” and that it is in the Soviet camp and that its bona fide vis-a-vis the neighbouring countries are yet to be proved. If India is to prove these bona fides to Mr. Nixon’s satisfaction to restore friendly relations with his Administration it would appear to be an impossible task, judging from his present frame of mind which seems firmly made up against India.
The argument that some extend in favour of the National Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET) is that it promotes merit. But one cannot turn a blind eye to the sad reality that it has been promoting the coaching industry that has no scruples when it comes to levying prohibitively high charges which in turn impact the poor and economically marginalised (Editorial page, “‘NEET is discriminatory, against social justice’,” February 9). The very commercial and profit-oriented intent of such coaching centres is manifest in the expensive and self-promoting advertisements that they publish in the print media. Education has been reduced to a profiteering enterprise. Moreover, any attempt to impose a fit-for-all entrance examination of this kind, without taking into consideration the social, economic and territorial barriers that people are confronted with, violates the very sense of equality.
S. Balu,
Madurai
One wonders whether there is a hint in the article of ‘pressure’ from various owners (political) of private medical colleges who are said to be losing revenue from seats that have to be surrendered to the NEET pool. If there is concern about children from a rural background and government schools being unable to afford coaching, there are ways and means to disseminate training in an equitable manner. There can also be specialised coaching at the higher secondary level. Is it that difficult?
P. Upadhyaya,
Bengaluru
The reality today is that it is the ruling party which is pitting the country itself against democracy. There are examples to substantiate this — events like the toppling of governments in (then) non-BJP States such as Madhya Pradesh and Goa by audaciously effecting defections. In a democracy, when a person captures power, he should ensure governance that also embraces all parties and their leaders.
Manoharan Muthuswamy,
Chennai
The Prime Minister’s response to the Opposition’s criticism has been an all-out attack without any remedy for the problems highlighted. The strength of a democracy lies in a healthy debate and respect in Parliament between the people’s representatives. People would like to see constructive outcomes from debates, and not personal scores being settled. The Government must acknowledge this reality.
Subash Balakrishnan,
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
The report about Pan Woliu from Beijing being fascinated by the music of Lata Mangeshkar is a perfect example of harmony between diverse nations. The same can be said about Pakistan too where millions there are diehard fans of Lataji. It is politicians who divide us.
C.K. Prem Kumar,
Kalvakulam, Palakkad, Kerala
A film about the grassroots news organisation Khabar Lahariya has become the first from India to be nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category. This alone is worth celebrating, considering the challenges of this filmmaking format, especially in India — few resources, low return on investment and, outside of a handful of international platforms, very little recognition. But an additional reason for celebrating the nomination of Writing with Fire is its subject: Directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, the film offers a window into the life and work of the Dalit women who run Khabar Lahariya, and the obstacles they overcome — from unhappy husbands and unfriendly crowds to lack of funds and inexperience with technology — as they report on issues that matter the most to the communities they serve.
Twenty years after it was born as a newspaper, first published in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region, Khabar Lahariya continues to challenge popular notions about what journalism in India could and should be and for whom it is meant. The women who work at the organisation— which made a successful digital-first pivot in 2016 — have to wage a constant battle with the prejudices of caste and gender to pursue and bring to light stories of administrative neglect, crimes against women. In doing so, they frequently put their lives on the line — not just for asking tough questions or being out at all hours, often in hostile environments, but also simply for being Dalit women.
At a time when even a section of journalists working under relatively easier and more privileged circumstances have turned away from the stories that matter, it is heartening to know that the women of Khabar Lahariya carry on undaunted. Since 2002, they’ve worked hard to spotlight issues and stories that rarely get attention. That the world should now watch and honour Khabar Lahariya’s own story is only right.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2022 under the title ‘Khabar Lahariya’s story’.
The Tamil Nadu government is standing its ground on the promise to scrap the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Less than a week after the governor returned the bill that frees the state’s medical colleges from the compulsion of admitting students through NEET, a special session of the Tamil Nadu assembly has re-adopted the bill — a first for the legislature. That’s as strong a signal as the elected government can send to the governor about its intent. In returning the bill, Governor R N Ravi had flagged several concerns, and said it was “against the interests of students, especially (those from) rural and economically poor students of the state”. But the Constitution is unambiguous about what the governor must do now — according to Article 200, once the bill is sent to him for the second time, he must give his assent, and send it onwards to the President.
There is much that is questionable about Tamil Nadu’s position on breaking away from the NEET. The all-India test was conceived as a way out of longstanding problems with the medical admission system, from multiple entrance examinations to corruption. The fear that a section of Tamil Nadu’s students might not perform well can be addressed if the state government invests resources and attention to modernising the curriculum. But while those may be grounds for the governor’s reservations, constitutional propriety demands that he must act on the advice of the council of ministers of an elected government. It must be remembered that scrapping the NEET was a part of the election manifesto of the DMK, and that the bill enjoys support from other major parties of the state, including the AIADMK. Seen in this light, the Tamil Nadu government’s displeasure at what it considers the governor’s uncalled-for critique and his “big brother” attitude is not entirely without basis. Given the long history of governors being used by strong central governments to chip away at the federal compact and the more recent Centre-state tussles over several issues, from the jurisdiction of the BSP to IAS service rules, Ravi’s action might invite suspicions of overreach, when he should be acting as a bridge between the state and the Centre.
The future of the NEET exemption bill is, of course, uncertain. It sets up the state government on a path of confrontation with the Centre. The bill needs the President’s assent for it to become law. But while those contestations and debates will take their own course, the Tamil Nadu governor must play by the rulebook.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 22 under the title ‘Play by rulebook’.
The Kerala High Court’s verdict dismissing Media One TV’s petition challenging the Union government’s order barring its transmission, after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) refused the Malayalam channel security clearance for renewing its licence, is deeply troubling. The court’s decision is entirely based on an assessment of the “material” submitted by the government in a sealed envelope.
The reasoning in the 18-page verdict appears to be a dialogue between the state and the judiciary in secrecy even as a petitioner stood before the court alleging violation of fundamental rights. “Once the State is of the stand that the issue involves national security, the court shall not disclose the reasons to the affected party,” the verdict states, justifying perusal of the ministry files in a secret envelope. While it is worrying that the government flatly refuses to justify its actions before the court, it is even more disquieting when the judiciary does not ask questions of the executive. The few reasons to justify the denial of security clearance without giving the channel an opportunity to be heard are vague and do not give any indication about the communication between the judiciary and the executive. The court seems to have gone by the “conclusions of the Committee of Officers and other responsible officers of the MHA” to rule that “Information and Broadcasting is a sensitive sector”. However, the idea that the judiciary and state can exclude the citizens from democratic spaces, when their rights are at stake, goes against the fundamental precepts of the rule of law.
In a recent string of verdicts, the Supreme Court has insisted that the government follow the raised bar in bringing evidence to the Court while invoking the national security argument. In the 2020 decision in Anuradha Bhasin v Union of India, the SC held that no absolute immunity for national security grounds has been carved out. In the 2021 interim order, directing an investigation into the alleged use of Pegasus spyware on citizens, the Supreme Court said that the “mere invocation of national security won’t render the Court a mute spectator”. Ignoring such precedents, the Kerala High Court has held that “that in a situation of national security, a party cannot insist for strict observance of the principles of natural justice”. Indeed, a substantive examination of issues when national security is involved is often beyond judicial competence and is the domain of the executive. But a procedural test, checking whether the action was taken under powers granted by Parliament and whether the state has used its powers proportional to the risk envisaged, is very much within the ambit of the Constitution. Constitutional courts, as the watchful guardians of the fundamental rights, must ask questions of the state, especially in cases of national security.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 22 under the title ‘Dialogue in secrecy’.
The Congress-I high command is thinking in terms of snap polls for the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. In the normal course, the state is due to go for polls in February next year, along with Karnataka. However, the high command seems to favour early polls in both states along with West Bengal, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Kerala may also be clubbed if the high command feels the Karunakaran ministry will survive. Though the idea of early polls was considered, a decision was not taken by the high command as it was awaiting the decision of the Election Commission on the allegedly inflated voters’ list in West Bengal.
Kerala Assembly Speaker A C Jose exercised his casting vote seven times to enable the Karunakaran Ministry in surviving its second trial of strength in the assembly on Tuesday. The ruling side and opposition were tied at 70 votes each when the motion of thanks to the governor’s address and the opposition’s amendments were put to a vote. The Speaker gave his casting vote on each occasion to the government, amidst shouts of “shame” by the opposition and the thumping of desks by members of the ruling parties, before the amendments were rejected. The motion of thanks was finally adopted and the House adjourned to meet again on March 25. The line-up was the same as on the previous occasion when the House rejected the opposition’s no-confidence motion against the Government.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister A R Antulay on Tuesday declared in Bombay that the Pratibha Pratisthan would continue to function “because of its laudable objectives to help creative artistes in all fields”. Talking to journalists, Antulay said that two more trustees — Daji Bhatavadekar, a well-known Marathi stage actor and Sunil Dutt, Bombay Sheriff — have been inducted into the trust.
This column is about three cases from January 2022.
The Supreme Court (SC) decided a case in January 2022 and the judgment made it to the headlines. If a Hindu man dies intestate (without a will), the daughter can inherit her father’s self-acquired property. Gurunatha Gounder (I) had two sons, Marappa Gounder and Ramaswamy Gounder. Ramaswamy Gounder died before his elder brother, Marappa, who also died a long time ago, in 1949. A minor point was raised about whether Marappa Gounder died in 1949, or in 1957.
Why is that timeline important? Because the Hindu Succession Act was passed in 1956 and it governs intestate succession among Hindus. This bit, about the year of Marappa’s death, was examined by a trial court (judgment of 1994) and the Madras High Court (judgment of 2009) and both courts decided Marappa died in 1949, not 1957. The SC saw no reason to question that established fact. Nor was another fact questioned: In 1938, Marappa bought the property through his own resources. It wasn’t joint family property. He could have dealt with it as he chose, had he left a will. Unfortunately, he died intestate. Marappa Gounder had only one daughter, Kupayee Ammal, and no sons. She died in 1967 and left no children. Ramaswamy Gounder had one son and four daughters. The son was Gurunatha Gounder (II). The daughters were Thangammal (dead now), Ramayeeammal (dead now), Elayammal and Nallammal. Thangammal, dead now, was the original plaintiff, who applied for partition.
When Marappa Gounder died, who should inherit his property? Should it be Kupayee Ammal, the only daughter? Or, since she was a woman, should it be Ramaswamy Gounder’s son, Gurunatha Gounder (II)? When Kupayee Ammal died, who should inherit the property? Should it be Gurunatha Gounder (II) and his heirs, or should his four sisters also have a share?
The SC decided: “Applying the above settled legal proposition to the facts of the case at hands, since the succession of the suit properties opened in 1967 upon the death of Kupayee Ammal, the 1956 Act shall apply and thereby Ramasamy Gounder’s daughters being Class-I heirs of their father too shall also be heirs and entitled to 1/5th share in each of the suit properties.” Incidentally, Gurunatha Gounder (II) is also dead. Most of the original parties are dead, including not just the one who first asked for the partition, but the original appellant.
Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrates 75 years of India’s Independence and we are setting out a template for India in 2047. Does it seem right that an issue of inheritance that should have been settled in 1949, or in 1967, is being settled in 2022? Imagine the mess in enforcing what the SC has decided. Lawsuits of fathers (or mothers) devolve on sons and daughters, up to the third or fourth generation.
Part of the mess is because of the complicated nature of inheritance and succession laws, even more so if the individual dies intestate. There are constitutional issues, one part of the Constitution vis-à-vis another. Despite the issue being controversial, we can’t possibly deny we don’t have a framework for personal laws suitable for a 21st century India. Add to that long delays in settling disputes, overload in the admission of cases and even the language of judgments.
Consider another recent case from Mumbai, the one where the metropolitan magistrate acquitted Shilpa Shetty of obscenity and indecency charges. In 2007, at a promotional event, Richard Gere kissed her and FIRs were filed in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Those FIRs were primarily under the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act and Sections 292, 293 and 294 of IPC (Indian Penal Code). I think anyone who reads those statutes and sections should agree, (a) those FIRs shouldn’t have been lodged; (b) even if there was an FIR, the case shouldn’t have been admitted in court; (c) it shouldn’t have taken 15 years to decide. Police and courts should have better things to do. Shouldn’t we be more discriminating about what cases are admitted in courts?
On language and plain English, I am repeating myself. (I have written about it in the past.) I am repeating myself because such incidents recur, especially in Himachal Pradesh, though Justice Sureshwar Thakur has now moved elsewhere, to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
In January 2022, two judges of the SC couldn’t understand a judgment authored by Thakur in 2017 and had to ask whether it was written in Latin. January 2022 wasn’t the first time. (He was incomprehensible in the past too.) There were similar examples for the Himachal Pradesh High Court in April 2017, December 2018 and March 2021.
In most organisations, people learn from past mistakes. But there is the need to be careful about the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971. When we hear “contempt of court”, we tend to think of civil contempt, where a court’s judgment or direction is not complied with. But that 1971 statute also has provisions on criminal contempt. Any act that “scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court” is criminal contempt. “Scandalising” is neither contempt by interference, nor contempt by disobedience. We inherited this expression from Britain. In 2013, following a Law Commission Report (2012), the UK’s Crime and Courts Act, said, “Scandalising the judiciary (also referred to as scandalising the court or scandalising judges) is abolished as a form of contempt of court under the common law of England and Wales.”
This column first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2022 under the title ‘The litigation labyrinth’. The writer is chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the PM. Views are personal
The Union budget for 2022-23 is a landmark budget. It lays the foundation for taking the country towards a technologically frontline economy with world-class infrastructure that is seamlessly integrated and connects the farthest corners of the country with a multi-modal logistics network. This is its unifying framework as the government attempts to lift the economy to a higher growth trajectory of 8-8.5 per cent in the coming decades.
There is unanimity across all shades of economic opinion that the current policy imperative is to generate employment at a massive scale. This must translate to the objective of fostering a higher growth rate that is shared across all geographic regions and by all income classes. The budget’s underlying philosophical premise is that the higher growth will be triggered only by an upswing of private investment, especially in employment-intensive areas. The government’s role is a supportive one, to facilitate such private investment growth through world-class infrastructure, green energy and adequate supply of required skills. The budget has also attempted to catalyse private investment by a massive increase in public capital expenditure. Moreover, states have also been encouraged to allocate greater resources to infrastructure development by making Rs 1 lakh crore available in interest-free 50-year loans to those that undertake such outlays.
This large dose of public capital expenditure is expected to “crowd in” private investment, thereby setting up a virtuous cycle of investment-enhanced employment, incomes and consumption leading once again to another bout of private investment as capacities are fully utilised. Let me add that better quality and expansion of infrastructure, including access to energy, ensures that the benefits of rapid growth percolate faster to lower-income segments. It reduces inequities and improves opportunities. Plus, the employment intensity of the infrastructure and construction sectors is on average five times that of other sectors. So, such public capex triggers private investment, helps generate employment and spread the benefits of growth over a wider set of beneficiaries.
This growth orientation of the budget was essential to pull the economy decisively out of the shadows of the pandemic-induced shock. In pursuit of this higher growth objective, the finance minister has not hesitated to let the fiscal deficit rise marginally to 6.9 per cent of the GDP in 2021-22 and keep it at 6.4 per cent in 2022-23. The fiscal hawks should note that as growth takes hold and is sustained above 8 per cent, all ratios that are relevant to the rating agencies will improve and will pose no risk of a credit ratings downgrade.
Those who, sometimes mistakenly, simplistically correlate fiscal deficit with higher inflationary pressures would do well to recognise that the present inflation, still within RBI’s tolerance range, is not demand-driven. It is a result of supply-side bottlenecks and constraints. As these constraints are addressed by improvements in logistics and rebuilding of supply chains, inflationary pressures will soften. Therefore, the budget’s laser-like focus on growth and as a corollary on employment generation is just what was required.
The budget, however, is not single-mindedly growth-oriented. It does pay sufficient attention to improving the lives of those at the bottom of the pyramid and the MSMEs. By allocating Rs 60,000 crore for the Jal Jeevan Mission it will ensure that another 3.8 crore households will receive tap water to add to the 5.5 crore who have already been benefited. With Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, this will transform the lives of crores of citizens who received scant attention during previous regimes. The affordable housing programmes will further improve ease of living. It has several other allocations that will contribute to improving lives. These include an increase of 12 per cent in the education sector budget, which has received more than Rs 1 lakh crore for the first time. People in the arid and relatively poor Bundelkhand region, spread across UP and MP, will see a glimmer of hope of sustained growth as the Ken-Betwa link finally takes off. Five more such river links have been identified and will hopefully spur inter-state cooperation to bring them to fruition.
For MSMEs in the contact-intensive hospitality sector, the budget has earmarked Rs 50,000 crore of the emergency credit link guarantee scheme. The scheme’s allocation has been raised to Rs 5 lakh crore and the period extended to March 2023. These collateral-free funds will greatly help MSMEs access cheap credit. The sector will also receive an additional boost with the revamping of the CGTMSE scheme, which will ensure additional credit of Rs 2 lakh crore for micro and small enterprises. These measures will broad-base the growth impulse and ensure that employment generation activity is spread across the country.
The budget takes bold steps to usher in an era of chemical-free, ecologically-friendly natural farming in the country. A start will be made by encouraging natural farming on a five kilometre-wide corridor along the Ganges. This will generate income and employment along its entire course while sustaining the environment.
It is worth pointing out that the budget has once again adopted a conservative approach towards resource mobilisation possibilities by keeping tax buoyancy to just about one. This is normally higher especially during the upswing of an investment cycle. Such conservatism gives us the fiscal space to respond effectively to any emergency which may have to be faced in these uncertain times. It is always better to have some firepower in store rather than be strapped for resources. The budget does well to spur growth while taking care of equity aspects and remaining well within the available fiscal space.
This column first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2022 under the title ‘Ambitious, yet measured’. The writer is Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog. Views are personal
As India’s External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar enters the “old” Quad of the University of Melbourne on Friday morning, he will be greeted with what some may find to be an intriguing jugalbandi of the tabla and the aboriginal wind instrument, the didgeridoo. And even before he begins his conversation with academics on the future of the Indo-Pacific at the University’s Australia-India Institute, he will have — in keeping with cultural protocol — acknowledged the Wurundjeri people, the traditional owners of the land, an overture that signifies contemporary Australia’s many parallel realities.
It is this new Australia — coming to terms with its difficult past, almost confident of its future in Asia and yet bound to the Anglo-Saxon world — that offers New Delhi the possibilities of the most enduring partnership in the region; friendship based on the very first principles that mould relationships, a convergence of values and of interests. While the relationship has all but transformed in the last decade and a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has been forged, it still requires leadership and political navigation if the vast promise has to translate into a sustainable reality. This ambition must be the centrepiece of Jaishankar’s agenda.
But Jaishankar’s visit is beyond the bilateral; what draws him for his first visit to Melbourne, in his current role, is the meeting of the Quad Foreign Ministers from Australia, Japan, United States and India, in person after more than two years. As the foreign ministers of this new, still-unblemished alloy arrive in Australia, a region that geographers of the old Empire had once described as the Antipodes — so distant and different as it was to their world — they do so in the realisation that this is the new centre of gravity and gravitas of international politics and the quest for balance and resilience in the face of strategic competition; of economics, markets and supply chains; of the battle against common challenges, including climate change, cyber security and Covid; and of ideas and innovation for a more habitable planet.
Understandably, Melbourne, voted consistently as one of the most liveable cities on the planet, recovering its joie de vivre after the pandemic — with a robust multiculturalism that includes a China Town and a Little India — is the natural setting this week for the critical discussions about these challenges to our planet and to the future of our region and beyond.
Bilateralism and multilateralism have not come easy for India. It is tempting to forget history, even be amnesiac about recent times, in the flood of affection that prevails today between New Delhi and Canberra. But it was just over a decade ago, in February 2010 that a prominent Indian news magazine ran a cover story on “Why the Aussies Hate Us” as attacks on Indian students in Melbourne led to a nadir in bilateral relations already at a low after Canberra’s ferocious response to India’s nuclear tests in 1998.
Today, however, it is difficult to find a single significant issue on which India and Australia have positions dramatically different from each other, and this convergence transcends the partisan divide in Canberra.
The Indian diaspora is finally coming of age in Australia; the population of Indian-born people has doubled in the last decade, and for the last five years, India remains the top source of skilled migration. The tourist and student traffic from India, which had been impacted by the sealing of Australia’s borders because of Covid, should revive after the full opening of borders later this month.
The one bridge that is still to be built is of a robust bilateral economic relationship. Corporate Australia still finds it difficult to do business with India and the “champions” for the business relationship (identified by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) need to really position themselves in the vanguard of the relationship.
However, niggardly bureaucrats from both sides have prevented an even “early harvest” minimal free trade agreement (termed in bureaucratese as CECA — Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement) from being signed despite political will and many deadlines. This agreement must be concluded at the earliest.
The bilateralism merges seamlessly into the multilateral agenda for the Quad, which formally or on the sidelines, will spend much of its time devoted to Beijing, its belligerence, its revisionism and its revanchism across the region. India and Australia have both been victims of the persistent wolf-warrior diplomacy of Xi Jinping’s China.
The concern about China has been aggravated by the increased levels of economic dependence on China. Recall that India, Australia and Japan had agreed to reduce their dependence on China and diverse supply chains through Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI).
The three countries had met in September 2021 to set into place mechanisms for trade diversification, to reduce their dependence on Chinese markets for medical supplies and other finished goods during the pandemic. While the jury is still out on the long-term success of SCRI, prima facie the dependence on China has not reduced in any significant manner even while the overall trade deficit has increased.
While the agenda of the Quad is broad, the challenge is to remain focussed on the Indo-Pacific, its stability, and not be distracted, for instance, by the shenanigans of Vladimir Putin’s Russia in Ukraine or prematurely anticipate a military alliance being forged because of the flirtations of Xi and Putin, two of the most unlikely candidates for a serious relationship or even a tempestuous affair.
Regions are markers of geography but also constructions of a cartographic imagination. You imagine your neighbourhood as much as by where you are positioned, as by where you want to be. Your geographical compass, in sum, reflects your threats and your opportunities, your ambitions and your vulnerabilities — a distinct weltanschauung. On his first visit to Australia as India’s External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar, will have the opportunity to put a real imprimatur on two relationships that he has helped to craft: The Quad and bilateral ties with the government in Canberra. What is now vital is to demonstrate that these partnerships can truly deliver on transforming the reality on the ground by giving the Quad real substance and the Indo-Pacific a fighting chance at stability despite now predictable Chinese subversiveness.
This column first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2022 under the title ‘Possibilities Down Under’. The writer is Professor at JNU and University of Melbourne and former Founder-Director of the Australia India Institute
Where was the “hijab issue” just a few months ago? Why has it suddenly erupted? These are important questions that we need to address as it’s unfortunate and of great concern that young men and women are being divided along religious lines. A dispute over uniforms has been blown out of proportion by being politicised and communalised. A matter between the administrators of educational institutions and the community should not be turned into a mandir-masjid kind of a wrangle. We have seen enough of them and they have sapped a lot of the nation’s energy.
Justice Krishna S Dixit of the Karnataka High Court has rightly emphasised that the court will have to decide the issue early as it is not a happy scene to see students marching on the roads every day. He has underlined the primacy of the Constitution over hot-headed emotions. Voices of sanity and reason must get primacy over those advocating an impassioned approach.
The protesting young women in Karnataka say that wearing “hijab” is their personal choice and key to their religious practice. That matter is also being contested in the court but in an educational institution, it’s rule, and not just personal choice, that has to be followed. Interestingly, regarding the dress code, a cleric of Hyderabad once issued a “fatwa” (Islamic decree) that it was un-Islamic on the part of Sania Mirza to play tennis in skirts and she must use a “naqab” and cover her legs. A judge was a pious Muslim at home where she covered her face with a “hijab” but while on duty on the bench, she didn’t. There are several examples like her. Many Muslim women are working in hospitals, with the government, as players and pilots. It’s not possible to work in a hijab. These Karnataka girls, too, will be our future doctors, justices, teachers, pilots.
In the Udupi controversy, the girls are being crushed between the college administration and the custodians of Islam who, in the name of secularism and Constitution, are fanning the flames. On the other hand, are ministers like Giriraj Singh, who too have not left a stone unturned by calling the deteriorating law and order situation “Ghazwa-e-Hind” (capturing of India by Muslims). Both sides are using these hapless and helpless girls as fodder for their political ambitions.
Each institution has a set of rules and regulations, norms and values. In a school or college, religious identity should not be the defining identity. An important question to ask is: Where are the other girls who are comfortable entering the classroom without the hijab and who wear it once they leave the school? The protesters are few, the silent students are many.
All those drawing and deepening the dividing lines over “hijab,” chanting Jai Shri Ram and Allah-u-Akbar as a rallying cry, must know that this country will not be ruled either by “Sharia” or “Sanatan Dharma” but by the Constitution of India as drafted by Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The strain of radicalism among Hindus and Muslims — wearing religion on their sleeves — will cause further schisms in society and expand the influence of those indulging in the politics of religion.
It’s high time that the government steps in and calms the waters lest the Opposition put the BJP government in the dock for fanning the Hindu-Muslim divide. As always, that has been a plank for the Opposition and it’s time to wake up if this government wants India to make the “Vishwa Guru.”
This column first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2022 under the title ‘Don’t divide the classroom’. The writer is former chancellor, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad
I write as a teacher who for many years has taught students in Mangalore, a sharply polarised region in Karnataka that is seeing bitter clashes over a dress code in educational institutions. My students have come from different religions, castes and nations. They spoke different mother tongues, ate different kinds of food and wore different kinds of clothes and ornaments. Some wore the markers of their married status, some wore the habit of their religious order, some wore the clothes that denoted their geo-cultural location, some wore the symbols of their religion and caste, and all conformed to the protocols of gender. These differences in appearance and beliefs and practices of thinking and speaking and eating and appearance, never ever disturbed our sense of belonging to a classroom community.
In many ways, the classroom of a government educational institution is truly representative of the society within which it is instituted, since it provides democratic access to students from all sections of society. Moreover, it acknowledges that our society is hierarchically organised and that children from marginalised communities need to be given additional support and provided privileged access to the classroom and the social capital of education. The coming together of many social worlds within these classrooms makes it a location of perpetual epistemological disruption. Here, learning takes place not only through the protocols of institutionalised pedagogy but also through the many ways in which we go astray of ourselves, as we dialogue with that stranger who is a classmate, a student, a teacher and who slowly becomes a member of a classroom community that we build together. And how we structure and inhabit this community will inform all our future possibilities of living together as social groups.
This inclusive nature of the classroom space is one of its greatest contributions to the process of learning. It is this accommodation of the variety of social locations from which our students come that has contributed to the civil discussions and debates and conversations through which the process of thinking is initiated. It is these conversations that take place across the lines of gender and caste and religion and nationality that inaugurate the process of critical questioning. Learning, as an inherently disruptive process, always goes astray of the etiquettes of academia. Classroom conversations can reposition the participants in a radically egalitarian practice of speech. Such a conversation demands a difficult translation of social ontologies, a disorientation of knowing, a process of becoming unfamiliar to oneself. It is through such conversations that education becomes a radically transformative process of recognising the common vulnerability of all human beings and the mutual care and support that we owe each other if we have to survive as a species.
When the classroom becomes a space where students are disciplined into a narrow uniformity, then learning becomes a means of straitjacketing the body and the mind. When the uniformity of the classroom is shaped by political considerations and implemented through the authority of political power, then teaching is replaced by indoctrination and learning is replaced by unthinking parroting of political ideologies. When education becomes the handmaiden of hate, the creativity and joy that sustain the great variety of life are destroyed. When teachers become the gatekeepers of bigotry and parochial political interests, they forfeit their right to the trust and responsibility that a community places on them to guide and shape its future possibilities.
When the classroom is used to catalogue, classify and exclude, it inaugurates a future of insane hate and mindless cruelty. Such classrooms become the laboratories of those who have lost the sanity that is required to sustain human existence through the mutuality of kindness and love. In such classrooms, students are instrumentalised into votes and reduced to the colour of the shawls they drape across their shoulders or the scarves they wear over their heads. They are taught the mistrust of hate and trained in the violence of anger. Then, educational institutions will shut their gates to students who fail to display the uniformity of the uniformised body. And in the classrooms, teachers will close up the processes of thinking, wondering and questioning. And educational institutions will shut down the processes of learning and teaching and experimenting with the many ways in which we can build an equal, inclusive, compassionate and intelligent society.
Hence, it has become incumbent on us to initiate classroom dialogues and listen to the faltering, almost illegible, voices that speak from the shadowy social margins, that are in a constant struggle against invisibilisation. I have struggled for a friendship with my students that could only be achieved by disrupting the classroom hierarchisation of knowing and learning. I have tried to listen to the polyphonic social rhythms of their voices. I have tried to understand their speech through the grammar of their speech, and not mine. My students have shown me great generosity by bringing their worlds to the classroom. They have listened and spoken and argued with a civility that was disinterested and without rancour. They have constantly pushed me to the precarity of uncertainty.
Together we have maintained the dissonance of knowing and being. We have wrestled with texts that have shaken us and made us forever uncomfortable. We have together unpacked the orders of meaning and the canons of knowledge. And we have done this as companions, as friends, as equals. We have translated the multiple social worlds to which we belong, to each other. We have initiated a process of difficult listening and faltering speech. We have experimented at shaping enabling, egalitarian spatialisations of the classroom. Sometimes it has been an exhilarating process and sometimes a frustrating one. I thank the generations of students who have shared with me this process of learning the order of the world, excavating the genealogy of its making and interrogating the politics of its being. Without your companionship and your speech, this could never have been done. Let us protect this classroom, that we shaped together, from all onslaughts and guard it even as the world which should sustain it seems to be falling apart.
This column first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2022 under the title ‘Not so uniform’. The writer is professor, department of English, Mangalore University
Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy committee’s (MPC’s) decision to maintain status quo on the policy interest rate (repo) and liquidity, and its macroeconomic forecasts indicate that it hasn’t bought into the central government’s upbeat views on the economic revival.
Despite a worsening operating environment for central banks across countries, RBI has opted to delay adjusting even its liquidity stance. The primary reason is that MPC believes domestic recovery is incomplete. Consequently, it concludes the current loose monetary policy should continue.
Read also: Why RBI didn’t hike rates for 10th time in a row
In pursuing this approach- of delaying adjustments to even its liquidity stance- there is one major risk MPC has opted to ignore at this moment. Inflation has become harder to estimate this year. On record, RBI has forecast a lower inflation, 4.5% on average, for 2022-23. However, it appears this forecast has taken a rather easy view of the trajectory of oil prices.
The Indian basket of crude oil has crossed the $90/barrel mark. It has been edging up for weeks now and some forecasts suggest the price will stay elevated. To this factor, one needs to add the monetary policy’s observation that cost pressure on core inflation may continue for a while.
The trade-off here is that MPC believes economic revival remains so fragile that even though the surplus liquidity in the system often pushes the weighted average call rate below the interest rate corridor targeted by RBI, status quo on liquidity should continue. The risk with this approach is that MPC may find itself behind the curve when it readjusts to a tighter monetary policy. It’s a significant but implicit risk in this morning’s policy announcement.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget last week drew praise for eschewing populism in the midst of election season. Its high approval rating was influenced by the combined impact its spending pattern and that of states will have on economic growth. However, following the release of election manifestos by political parties for the assembly elections beginning today, some may wonder if there is a complete disconnect in the economic approach of GoI and the next governments in the five states. If GoI is marked by restraint, wild populism is the name of the game in states.
BJP is the incumbent in four of the five states. But its manifestos have all the characteristics of an opposition party trying to woo the electorate on populist promises. In UP, it has promised free electricity, two free LPG cylinders and 20 million smartphones and tablets for students. A party that attempted to push difficult agricultural reforms at the Centre has doubled down on impracticable schemes in states. Therefore, in Punjab there’s a BJP promise of MSP for fruits and vegetables. To this list, in Punjab it has added everyone’s favourite and default freebie option – loan waivers and free electricity.
Other parties have manifestos that are as bad. AAP, which thinks freebies were a big part of its Delhi victories, has promised to open the coffers. Therefore, it has got on to the free electricity and monthly income transfer bandwagon. Congress and SP are older hands at this game. Their manifestos have the usual promise of free electricity, too. Congress has now broadbased its approach by grafting direct money transfers to specific groups such as homemakers and pensioners.
The problem with these promises is of course that regardless of who wins elections, state budgets will have to accommodate these populist promises. The issue is not that this will lead to a debt trap, since the extent of a state’s borrowing is fixed by GoI. The issue is that in order to fulfil election promises, budgets will have to cut back on something. Typically, that is public investment, or capital expenditure, because there is no voluble interest group for this spending. Public investment is the most effective form of government spending to create an enabling environment for economic growth. That leads to jobs, the most effective form of inclusion. That’s the premise of the well thought out Union Budget. Therefore, not just opposition parties, BJP too is in effect undermining BJP’s growth Budget.
Governors are all about restraint. Governors are often the first to forget that. Thus it is that the Tamil Nadu governor, RN Ravi, now has the state sending back the anti-NEET bill to him. Ravi had waited 142 days to respond to the first time the bill was sent and when he did respond he added a completely unnecessary commentary that the TN bill was anti-poor. That in turn made the DMK government posture more. The tactful thing would have been to send the bill back without rhetorical flourishes or, even better, send it to the President – medical education is in the concurrent list. The TN bill cannot get assent because it seeks to carve an exception out of a central exam system. Passing the bill was DMK’s political theatre. Had it been quietly rejected the issue would have gone away. Ravi should bear this in mind in future, and quickly send the re-adopted bill to the President.
The common national entrance examination for medical undergraduate and PG courses is here to stay. It ended the chaotic system of states and institutes running their own admission tests. The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 2020. So, TN’s attempts to challenge it is, and should be, doomed.
That said, there’s merit in the broader argument that NEET can favour well-heeled candidates who can afford coaching institutes and pay high admission fees. There’s also the argument that rural health services tend to get doctors who come from non-wealthy backgrounds. In fact, in 2020, the then governor Banwarilal Purohit gave assent to the former AIADMK government’s bill providing horizontal reservation of 7.5% in undergraduate medical courses for government school students. It is no one’s case that NEET cannot be improved. There are absurd cases of students with low marks in science subjects paying their way into medical colleges. But interventions such as Ravi’s is not what it needs.
Nirmala Sitharaman wants industry to 'gracefully' accept the retrospective amendment in the budget that disallows the health and education cess as business expenditure. A valid point, as the amendment is in sync with the legislative intent. However, the elephant in the room is GoI's continued reliance on cesses and surcharges to garner (read: corner) revenues. Assorted cesses - on roads, petrol and diesel - are also in force. Even if Article 270 of the Constitution allows the Centre to levy and retain any cess, they are meant to be only temporary. But they stay on. States are deprived of a share as these proceeds are not part of the divisible pool. Cesses must be used sparingly, and phased out.
The share of cesses and surcharges in GoI's gross tax revenue stood at about 10.4% in 2011-12, and has been rising sharply. The spike forced the 15th Finance Commission to recommend higher grants-in-aid to states to compensate for the low growth in tax devolution. Devolutions from the divisible pool are 41% based on the 15th Finance Commission award. Cesses and surcharges are an estimated 18.4% of gross tax revenue between 2021-22 and 2025-26. States have been asking for the abolition of cesses or making it part of the divisible pool. The demand is reasonable.
States' spending now accounts for nearly 60% of total government expenditure. They need more funds to fulfil their constitutional obligations in healthcare and education. Curtailing the divisible pool will crimp states' spending. Of course, they must also collect user charges for water and electricity and raise collections from property taxes. They should also agree to bring petroleum and electricity duties under GST, as funding programmes through tax revenues makes better sense.
<
Read in source website
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) finds the economic recovery to be fragile enough to warrant a continuation of its pandemic-induced accommodative monetary stance. Its conservatism over growth is accompanied by a degree of certainty that inflation will peak, within the policy band, in the last quarter of 2021-22 and subside in the following year. The RBI bases its projection of 7.8% GDP growth in 2022-23 on a regular monsoon, fewer disruptions from the Omicron wave, a government-led investment push, steady export growth and higher capacity utilisation. It retains its projection of inflation for the current financial year and sees it moderating to 4.5% in 2022-23 as food prices remain steady and companies lose some of their pricing power even as cost pressures linger.
The risks to both growth and inflation are principally external: global demand is slowing as commodity prices climb. For now, the RBI refuses to follow other central bankers on a rate-tightening cycle till the recovery takes a firmer hold. By keeping policy rates unchanged, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is signalling gilt yields it is comfortable with as the government sets out on next year's bumped-up borrowing programme. The bond market, which was anticipating a change in the central bank's easy money stance, can draw some comfort from the prospect of fewer policy rate hikes over the course of the next financial year. Low cost of credit is critical for a government that is borrowing big to crowd in private investment. The RBI intends its monetary withdrawal to be orderly and well communicated. It can wait for the right triggers.
RBI governor Shaktikanta Das' warning that cryptocurrencies have no underlying value only a week after the budget proposed to tax gains made by trading them puts into context the central bank's thinking on digital assets. The central bank is right to be concerned about the scope for financial instability that cryptocurrencies represent. Excessive speculation can, indeed, undermine the inherent benefits of fiat digital currencies.
<
Read in source website
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept all rates unchanged, retained its easy money stance — decoupling India’s monetary policy from ones across the world, where central banks have started tightening rates or suggested that they will — and indicated that its focus remains on growth. Ahead of the monetary policy, most economists recommended that RBI shift its focus to inflation, and a majority expected a marginal increase in the rate at which it borrows money from commercial banks, effectively reducing flow of money in the market. RBI has chosen to do neither, which is surprising. With fiscal policy doing its bit, monetary policy should have ideally started looking at the risk posed by inflation.
The central bank’s move raises two questions. One, what does it know about growth that we do not? Two, will its gamble on inflation pay off? In 2022-23, RBI expects the economy to expand by 7.8%, lower than the International Monetary Fund’s estimate of 9%, but also lower than the Economic Survey’s projection of 8-8.5%. According to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), growth across the four quarters of 2022-23 will be 17.2%, 7%, 4.3%, and 4.5%. Clearly, RBI expects a moderation in the growth rate through the year. Retail inflation in December was 5.6%. RBI expects an average of 5.3% in 2021-22 (5.7% in the current quarter), falling sharply to 4.5% in 2022-23. This disaggregates across the quarters as 4.9%, 5%, 4%, and 4.2%. RBI’s comfort level is 4% ± 2%. The projections suggest that RBI expects a dip in oil prices through the year, an assumption that the Economic Survey also makes (it assumes prices to be an average of $70-75 a barrel in 2022-23; which would mean a fall from the current $90+ levels).
Seen together, the import of Thursday’s decisions by RBI’s MPC indicate that the primary concern remains growth — unlike in many of the western economies, where the focus of central banks has shifted to managing high inflation. RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said as much while announcing the policy — that MPC believes policy support is required for a durable, broad-based recovery. This will continue “as long as necessary to revive and sustain growth,” he added. Mr Das said pretty much the same thing after the last MPC meeting, and given that broader economic data does show that private consumption (and private investment) is yet to pick up, it’s hard to find fault with this approach. That, though, only highlights the fundamental dissonance in the policy: A central bank that has played safe (and justifiably so) when it comes to growth has chosen to gamble on inflation easing.
The absence of in-person classes for almost two years due to Covid-19 left many children in West Bengal with deep learning losses, says a survey carried out by the Pratham Education Foundation and West Bengal-based Liver Foundation in December 2021. According to the document --- Annual Status of Education Report (Aser-Bengal) --- released on Wednesday, the percentage of children in Class 2 who can read words dropped from 66.2% in 2018 to 53% in 2021 – even below the 2014 levels of 54.8%. The percentage of children in Class 1 who could recognise single-digit numbers reduced from 77.8% in 2018 to 68.5% in 2021, again lower than the 2014 levels of 74%.
The results are not surprising. Several reports, including Aser’s Karnataka and Chhattisgarh reports, painted a similar picture. A recent five-part series in this newspaper also showed the drastic and varied impact of the pandemic on schools and children across states. There needs to be more nationwide reports --- the Economic Survey, too, acknowledged a gaping lacuna in government data --- to understand the real depth of the crisis and devise state-specific plans. The first step has been made by reopening schools across the country, but more steps are required to ensure any future infection spikes don’t harm learning levels the same away.
During the Aser-Bengal launch, Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee said teachers should begin from where the students are stuck instead of only focusing on the syllabus. There are other ways of bridging the gap: Targeted interventions and bridge courses, tracking down children who dropped out, and strengthening the digital reach. Policymakers need to come up with a robust plan that responds to this crisis. Education must be at the front and centre of a national conversation.
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh (UP) has always been a difficult state to predict because of its size and political complexities. More often than not, predictions go wrong as new caste-driven combinations defy all calculations.
As the state, with 403 assembly seats and 15.02 crore voters, had a peaceful first phase of the polling today with a voter turnout of 60%, the question on everyone’s minds is: Which way will the wind blow this election season?
The answer is lost in a jigsaw puzzle, but there are clues in a counter-question: How high can the Samajwadi Party (SP) jump from where it stands today?
Pollsters surmise that the election is increasingly getting bi-polar between the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies, and the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal-Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SP-RLD-SBSP) alliance, while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress remain the two spoilsports, damaging both alliances in different pockets.
Interestingly, the SP today stands where the BJP was in 2012. Both had the same tally of seats, 47. The BJP took a giant leap from 47 in 2012 to 312 in 2017. Now, it’s the SP’s turn to take that leap and, if it happens, it would be a game-changer.
The BJP independently contested the 2012 assembly elections held after the completion of BSP supremo Mayawati’s five-year tenure as chief minister from 2007 to 2012. The BJP won 47 of the 398 seats and polled about 15% of the votes.
The SP, whose young face Akhilesh Yadav had cycled through the state with the slogan “umeed ki cycle”, had then won 224 seats and polled 29.13% of the votes. He formed the government for five years, with his tenure ending in 2017 amid a raging family dispute.
A resurgent BJP then captured the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and thereafter swept every election, including the 2017 assembly polls — in which it took a big leap from 47 to 312 with its vote percentage growing from 15% to 39.67%. The SP’s tally came down from 224 to 47, its vote percentage declining to 21.28%.
Between 2012 and 2017, there was one striking difference. While the 2012 election was contested independently by both the BJP and SP, they entered 2017 with poll partners.
Now, both are back in the fray in 2022 with poll partners, some of whom have switched sides, with the BJP and the SP remaining in the driving seat.
But it’s the SP's turn to take a big jump from 47 in an election where, once again, poll issues are lost in the din of caste and communal politics depending, of course, on the region. For instance, while in west UP, farmers, unemployment, and law and order (communal riots) are the decisive issues, in central and east, the caste census, a quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and poverty take precedence. These issues aside, the caste calculus decides the winner.
Yashwant Deshmukh, the founder of C Voter (Centre for Voting Opinion & Trends in Election Research), believes the BJP and its allies may come down by about 100 seats from the present 323, and 50% of this loss will be in west UP where Jayant Chaudhary of the RLD is making waves. But there is also the opinion that the first phase sets the trend for the remaining ones as in today’s era of communication, the message travels fast and often influences the fence-sitters.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains a popular figure, the BJP has to handle cracks in its Hindu vote bank and the anger of Brahmins. Satish Prakash, an office-bearer of the Kendriya Brahman Mahasabha, says, “Yes, there may be some resentment among the Brahmins over certain issues, but eventually they will vote for the party that protects Sanatan Dharma. Where will they go otherwise?” He exuded confidence that the BJP will form the government, adding, “Even if they fall short of the requisite numbers, the BSP is there to support them. Mayawati has already said that she will not allow the SP to return to power.”
On the other hand, the SP-RLD-SBSP alliance has made smart political moves, denting the backward vote bank crafted by the BJP in the 2017 and 2019 polls. For instance, Pallavi Patel, daughter of Apna Dal founder-president, late Sone Lal Patel, along with her mother Krishna Patel, will cut into the other faction of the Apna Dal and its Kurmi vote base.
SP supporters are confident of their party president Akhilesh Yadav and allies creating waves similar to the one being witnessed in west UP. According to them, despite the presence of chief minister Yogi Adityanath (Gorakhpur) and Modi (Varanasi), east UP is going to throw a real challenge to the BJP.
The party’s confidence was reflected in Akhilesh Yadav’s tweet after receiving West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, “We had together defeated them in West Bengal and will now defeat them in UP. It is our promise to Didi that we will come back victorious.”
Can the SP take a big jump? Some say when the winds of change blow, the jump turns into a leap.
From her perch in Lucknow, HT’s resident editor Sunita Aron will highlight important issues related to the coming elections in Uttar Pradesh
The views expressed are personal
As over a hundred thousand Russian troops surround Ukraine, the odds of Russia invading Ukraine have substantially increased over the past few weeks. Some Indian commentators think that the best thing for India to do is to keep its distance from the emerging conflict, and this view seems to be shared by the ministry of external affairs. However, stepping away from the discussion over India’s possible foreign policy choices, the Russia-Ukraine crisis can help New Delhi learn more about Beijing’s behaviour in a world marked by changing power distribution and profound uncertainty.
Since its annexation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow has been waging a proxy war in Eastern Ukraine through the Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists. Now, the scale of the Russian military mobilisation, coupled with Washington’s refusal to guarantee Moscow a formal halt to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s eastward expansion, risks turning that eight-year-long proxy war into a direct one. Such assertion by Russia seems similar to Chinese external actions over the past couple of years.
While characteristically and functionally distinct from the ongoing Chinese military incursions in Ladakh, the Russian actions towards Ukraine can help provide us with a series of lessons regarding Chinese foreign policy towards India.
First, in the current world order, both Russia and China see themselves as non-status quoist powers. As the United States (US) and its allied Western European states are embroiled in chaotic domestic politics, their propensity to act globally has been exceptionally limited, especially, given the post-War standards. While both Moscow and Beijing want to use this opportunity to challenge the prevailing aspects of the world order, they both are approaching this moment from different positions.
During the Cold War, Soviet Russia used to dominate eastern and central Europe, and more specifically, had a veto over Europe’s security architecture. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, it lost its veto powers, and the US facilitated an eastward shift of western security architecture through successive NATO expansions. Now, Moscow not only sees Ukraine as the last frontier, but also wants to use this moment to get some of its veto powers back. Meanwhile, in the post-War era, China has never had those kinds of veto powers in its neighbourhood, whether it is Taiwan, India or the South China Sea. For Beijing, this is the time to establish its sphere of influence, and push the US to the periphery. To put it simply, Russia wants to go back to its position of strength, and China wants to begin to establish its rightful position of dominance.
Second, and relatedly, there is an urge to see how the domestic democratic political systems in Ukraine and India, compel Russia and China to adopt assertive foreign policies towards their neighbours. This analysis is flawed. It is not about Ukraine or India’s internal political systems, but how those systems drive these countries to make certain foreign policy choices. Therefore, whether it's Russia’s eight-year-long proxy war in Eastern Ukraine or China’s fait accompli in Ladakh, both these conflicts are as much about sending a signal to Kyiv and New Delhi, as much they are about signalling to Washington DC.
Regardless of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s friendly endeavours towards Russia, Moscow can’t help but see him and half of his country as an American proxy. Similarly, New Delhi spent years trying to carve out a “nuanced” relationship with Beijing and DC. But China doesn’t see any nuance here. For decision-makers in Beijing, the “Indo-US alliance” is a foregone conclusion. And when Beijing felt comfortable enough, it went ahead and captured a piece of Indian territory.
Third, in foreign policy analysis, there is a tendency to see past behaviour as a guide for future actions. Such analytical thinking can be a major handicap. Russia spent eight years in Ukraine flaring a proxy war. Until six months ago, no one predicted that Moscow would give up this proxy war and threaten a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Similarly, while India and China had had a few border skirmishes over the past decade, everyone — including the Indian government — was confident that a bloodless border would continue to be so.
Fourth, let’s consider the nature of conflict itself. Both Ukraine and the Ladakh crisis represent “gray zone conflict”. “In other types of limited warfare, such as insurgency or terrorism, conflict is limited by the actors’ capabilities. In the gray zone, by contrast, conflict is limited because capable actors want it to be so— they are intentionally pulling their punches,” write scholars J Gannon, Erik Gartzke, John Lindsay, and Peter Schram. “Rather than overt military actions that attempt to resolve issues or disputes, gray zone conflict involves destabilization, disruption and subversion.”
For eight years, Russia had been conducting a gray zone conflict in Eastern Ukraine, to destabilize a country that had undergone a profound political shift starting in 2014, with the exit of its former authoritarian and Moscow-leaning president, Viktor Yanukovych. Military actions of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Ladakh since May 2020, represent a similar use of gray zone conflict to destabilize New Delhi’s security calculations. Now, while Russia is threatening a shift away from such a conflict and towards a more direct one, China might have just begun its use of gray zone conflict towards India.
Finally, for a country to begin a conflict against another one, generally, its benefits need to outweigh the costs. From Russia’s perspective, if it does eventually conducts some military actions in Ukraine, Kyiv neither has the defence wherewithal nor the economic capacity to levy any serious costs on Moscow. In terms of the resulting American response, it is clear that the US does not consider Ukraine a high enough priority to intervene militarily. And most importantly, Russia seems to have decided that it is ready to pay the cost of the US and European sanctions.
A similar calculation might have driven Chinese actions in Ladakh. In an insightful paper titled “Cautious Bully”, scholar Ketian Zhang showed that China’s use of coercion against its neighbours depends on “the need to establish resolve and the economic cost of coercion”. While the current world economic order is marked by intense economic interdependence, the Indo-Chinese one is mostly asymmetric. Zhang shows that China’s intercedence with its Western peers is very symmetrical, as the former relies on them for a whole set of technological and integral inputs. While not as symmetrical, China relies on many Southeast Asian inputs and is deeply entangled with these economies via the global value chain.
However, it has no such reliance on India. And on the contrary, India depends on China for a whole lot of cheap consumption. This is what makes the India-China interdependence asymmetrical. It also helps explain India’s growing trade imbalance with China, even as their armies continue to face off each other in Ladakh.
At the moment, it is impossible the predict the direction of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But even if Moscow and DC manage to find a diplomatic solution, it is safe to say that this would not be the last episode of Russia’s aggressive behaviour in Ukraine and beyond. This also holds true for China. After all, both Russian and Chinese actions are as driven by the underlying structure of the current global system at play, as they are by the policymakers in their respective capitals.
Srijan Shukla studies international politics and business at NYU and is managing editor of NYU’s Journal of Political Inquiry
The views expressed are personal
It was in Pakistan at the peak of the Kargil War that I realised the power of Lata Mangeshkar’s voice. We had spent a harrowing day in “enemy” territory at the Hizbul Mujahideen headquarters in Rawalpindi. Our camera was snatched away, and we were kept under house arrest for hours, before finally being allowed to leave. As we returned a little shaken to our hotel, we suddenly heard a familiar sound: The pianist in the lobby was playing the enchanting tune of Ajeeb dastan hai yeh. He smiled at us, and asked: “Would you like me to play any other Lata Mangeshkar song?” Suddenly, the fear and fatigue of a day out with the Hizbul was replaced by a sense of contentment. Only Lata-di’s voice could cross the tension-filled Line of Control with such ease.
Truthfully, no one has comforted and unified so many millions across the subcontinent like the melodious voice of Lata-di, cutting across barriers of caste, community, region, even nationality. As a symbol of peace and harmony, Mangeshkar typified why music touches the soul, “moonlight in the gloomy night of life,” as someone once described the joy of a song.
As India celebrates 75 years of Independence, Lata-di’s voice is arguably the most defining marker of Indianness. Between her debut film song in 1943 and her last song, a tribute to the Indian Army, in 2019, Mangeshkar saw as many as 15 prime ministers come and go. Is there any other Indian artiste who has so mesmerised civil society over such an extended period? Amitabh Bachchan, a remarkably enduring superstar, has delivered box-office hits, anchored mega TV shows and sold a range of commercial products for decades. For over two decades, Sachin Tendulkar was the ultimate poster boy of cricket, the other great Indian passion, his every stroke being replayed in our homes through the phenomenal reach of live satellite television.
But Lata-di’s appeal is unique because she flourished in a pre-multimedia age before the noisy event managers and publicists took over. She didn’t need a breaking news quote, an Instagram post, a tweet or a music video to remind us of her durable presence. She was omnipresent, a reflection of the universalism of the ubiquitous radio and Vividh Bharti across the country. Many Indians may not have recognised her on the street, but her voice was enough to establish her permanence in their lives. As Gulzar, Hindi cinema’s eminence grise, put it so evocatively on her passing away: “With Lata, it was a case of ‘meri aawaz hi pehchan hai [my voice is my identity’].”
Lata-di was blessed to be born in an age where cinema’s distinctive identity was its music. The 1950s and 60s, in particular, was the era of unforgettable playback singing enhanced by the creative genius of the magical lyricists and music directors of the time; the films might not be remembered, but the songs were eternal. So was the emphasis on song picturisation. I have often wondered: Would Madhubala have looked so ethereally beautiful while singing “Pyar Kiya to darna kya” in Mughal-e-Azam without Lata’s voice ringing in our hearts? Or, Waheeda Rahman so effervescent while singing “Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna” in Guide?
This enduring quality of the music of a bygone era might explain why the number one show on Doordarshan in the 1970s was Chaya Geet: A collection of old film songs where the viewer could be taken on a nostalgic spin into a sepia-tinted past. This is why we have a slew of music channels and radio stations, which flourish on retro music. This is also why even now at a party, the crowd starts humming in unison when a Kishore-Rafi or a Lata-Asha hit number is played.
But while Lata-di was a nation’s voice, she was also more than just the collective of the 30,000 songs she sang in multiple languages. Her voice could evoke a range of emotions: Drive a prime minister to tears as she did with her soulful rendition of Kavi Pradeep’s classic “Ae mere watan ke logo”. Or make us fall in love again with a “Pyar hua ikrar hua” or a “Tujhe dekha to ye jaana sanam”, two ageless love anthems, quite incredibly sung four decades apart. But her genius was matched by a complete dedication to the craft. Not a word or a sur (melody) out of place, in an age of one-hit wonders, she is a reminder of the virtue of devotion to the arts as a life-long mission.
Indeed, as VVIPs lined up for her cremation at Shivaji Park, her journey was complete. The little girl who received her first music lessons from her father, Dinanath Mangeshkar, at the age of five, who acted in musical plays, who was the sole bread-winner for the family when her father died when she was 13, who rose from crowded neighbourhoods in central Mumbai to live in the plush Pedder Road area, Mangeshkar’s life story parallels that of modern India: A struggle against the odds to the ultimate peak of success, driven by raw talent and not lineage. Immortalised in life and death. Let the music play on.
Post-script: If music was her life, cricket was Lata-di’s other abiding passion. Once, while interviewing her when Sachin Tendulkar was about to retire, she giggled, “When Sachin comes to bat, I stop doing everything, even singing!” And then blushed like any young fan. That was Lata-di’s disarming charm: A voice from heaven with a teenager’s heart.
Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and authorThe views expressed are personal
The clamour for decongesting prisons has been raging for a while now. The need became even more acute with the coronavirus pandemic. As we stare at potential waves of Covid-19, there is a crying need for the justice system to look into the risks it is subjecting prison populations to, and urgently formulate remedies.
Even though the pandemic caught everyone off-guard, the Supreme Court (SC) and several other institutions quickly took steps to tackle the situation.
In March 2020, just as Covid-19 was taking hold, the SC took suo motu (on its own) cognisance of the threat of contagion in India’s overcrowded prisons, directing measures to deal with the health crisis. It formed committees to determine the category of prisoners to be released on parole or interim bail, ensured availability of medical assistance, and started court hearings through video conferencing (VC). Several high courts, including Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh, reinforced the SC’s intention with their strict guidelines. The 2014 directions in Arnesh Kumar vs the State of Bihar, which states that arrests should be an exception in cases where the punishment is less than seven years of imprisonment, were also oft-repeated.
The recently released Prisons Statistics of India (PSI) 2020 gives us a glimpse into how successful prison decongestion and medical safeguards have been. The report, however, does not contain any Covid-19 specific data.
Between December 2019 and December 2020, prison occupancy reduced marginally from 120% to 118%. The pandemic year (2020) witnessed nearly 900,000 more arrests than in 2019. In absolute numbers, in December 2020, there were 7,124 more people in jail than in December 2019.
In 17 states, on an average, prison populations rose by 23% from 2019 to 2021, as opposed to 2-4% in previous years. The appalling figures come from states such as Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, and Uttarakhand, which had tragic occupancy rates of 177%, 174%, and 169%, respectively (December 2020).
The increase in the share of under-trials in prisons was at an all-time high. PSI 2020 puts the percentage at 76% in December 2020: An increase from the earlier 69% in December 2019. Only Kerala (110% to 83%), Punjab (103% to 78%), Haryana (106% to 95%) Karnataka (101% to 98%), Arunachal Pradesh (106% to 76%) and Mizoram (106% to 65%) could reduce their occupancy below 100%.
Video-conferencing promised some relief from court closures. 69% of prisons now have VC facilities, as opposed to 60% in 2019. But the facility is not evenly distributed across the country. Tamil Nadu, Manipur, West Bengal, Nagaland, A&N Islands, Rajasthan and Lakshadweep still have VC facilities in less than 50% of their jails.
Tamil Nadu, which has more than 14,000 prisoners, has VC facilities in only 14 of its 142 jails. Uttarakhand, which has VC facilities in all its jails, continues to increase under-trial numbers and has an occupancy rate of 169%.
What VC facilities seem to accomplish is the necessity of law that a prisoner must be produced before a magistrate every two weeks. Fulfilling this technicality does nothing for decongestion or effectuating speedy justice.
The prompt availability of medical staff was another important direction by the SC. Yet, in this time of enhanced health risks for already vulnerable populations, there remains a is a huge shortage of medical staff (resident medical officers/medical officers, pharmacists, and lab technicians/attendants), leading to delays in attending to the needs of inmates.
Goa has the highest vacancy (84.6%) of medical staff, followed by Karnataka (67.1%), Ladakh (66.7%), Jharkhand (59.2%), Uttarakhand (57.6%) and Haryana (50.5%). While Goa has only two medical staff for over 500 inmates, Karnataka has 26 for 14,308 prisoners. Frighteningly, in 15 states, the number of available medical staff was reduced in this period; whereas the inmate population increased by nearly 10,000.
The shortage of medical officers is a constant. More often than not, sanctioned posts remain unfilled and are nowhere near the ideal of one medical officer for 300 prisoners laid down in the Model Prison Rules.
Shortages in medical officer vacancies average around 34% nationally. Mizoram is reported to have no medical officer. With a vacancy of 90%, Uttarakhand has only one medical officer for 5,969 inmates. Jharkhand’s vacancy levels are at 77.1%. Only Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya meet the benchmark of at least one medical officer for every 300 prisoners.
The dry figures of PSI 2020 make for a sad stock taking. But, much as the courts may direct and the prison administration strive for it, the structural deficiencies in prison will continue to make them places where the innocent must spend an unwarranted amount of time and face unfair and unacceptable health and safety risks.
While budgets remain unrealistically low, workloads high, and the police remain unmindful of procedural safeguards, prisons will remain medieval dumping grounds for the poor and inconvenient, a far cry from the ideal policy prescription of making prisons into places of rehabilitation and “correctional institutions”.
Maja Daruwala is chief editor, India Justice Report, and Rehana Manzoor is lead researcher, India Justice Report The views expressed are personal
In December 2021, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav tabled a series of amendments to India’s Biological Diversity (BD) Act, 2002. In part, the changes can be better explained as the Centre’s ongoing efforts to promote Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM). The Centre intends to promote international collaborations and investments for the manufacturing and export of ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, unani, siddha, sowa-rigpa and homeopathy (Ayush), which are largely based on codified traditional knowledge.
The bill encourages the cultivation of medicinal plants, exempts Ayush practitioners from taking clearances from biodiversity boards before using biological resources, decriminalises certain offences and hopes to bring more foreign investments.
The bill also reflects the compromise between the ministry of Ayush and the environment ministry that have been negotiating a long-standing turf dispute over the applicability of the BD Act on Ayush. For several years, Ayush manufacturers have resisted the regulatory obligations imposed through the BD Act, especially those requiring prior permissions for access and entering into monetary benefit-sharing agreements. At present, access to biological material for research or commercial application for Ayush products requires prior permissions either from the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) or state biodiversity boards (SBBs).
In 2014, a National Ayush Mission was announced by the ministry of health and family welfare (MoH&FW). While the central government was promoting Ayush, the environment ministry was in the midst of aligning India’s biodiversity regime with the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The BD Act draws its objectives from CBD. India’s ratification of this protocol meant reconciling the domestic regime, especially requiring prior informed consent of indigenous peoples and local communities for access, stronger measures against illegal access and a clear institutional mechanism to affect fair and equitable benefit-sharing (FEBS). Just days after India ratified the Protocol in October 2014, the Centre set up the ministry of Ayush. Prior to this, the department of Ayush was under MoH&FW.
The global emphasis on ABS spurred SBBs to exercise their powers under the BD Act to issue notices to several Ayush manufacturers to pay fees for access to the bio resources they were utilising for commercial products. This also allowed SBBs to collect revenue.
But this led to a massive pushback from ISM manufacturers, though the environment ministry continued to hold the position that companies needed to pay up. In 2015, former environment minister Prakash Javadekar informed the Ayurvedic Drug Manufacturers Association (ADMA) that the industry has to pay “ABS tax”. The industry didn’t budget and ADMA later circulated an advisory to its members suggesting that they defer the ABS payment.
On December 14, 2015, the Central India Ayush Drug Manufacturers Association (CIDMA) filed a petition in the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC), seeking explanation on notices issued for the recovery of ABS under the BD Act. The petition challenged the validity of the state rules and ABS guidelines, which asked for benefit sharing upon access by Indian entities. This issue also came to a head in the 2018 Divya Pharmacy case, when the company was charged with not having informed the SBB before using bio- resources, with a judgment delivered by the Uttarakhand HC on December 21, 2018, supporting SBBs.
But the Ayush industry continued its lobbying efforts. In 2019, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a policy research institute, organised a roundtable and gathered concerns from Ayush companies on the BD Act. Many of these mirror the amendments that are now being proposed under the Biodiversity Bill, 2021. The most significant of these is exempting Ayush companies accessing or using any bio resource from regulation by the SBBs. There are other amendments before a Joint Parliamentary Committee, which sought public comments by January 31.
This is an important moment to recall that India has been one of the leading countries to embrace CBD and its obligations to conserve and sustainably use bio resources. The BD Act, despite its shortcomings, is the legal framework that sets up an institutional framework through which illegal access can be curtailed and progressive arrangements for benefit sharing with communities can be explored. India’s push to attract international investment for R&D and commercialisation of ISM should not be at the cost of relinquishing our leadership at the CBD.
Shalini Bhutani is a legal researcher and policy analyst working in the Asia region. Kanchi Kohli is a senior researcher, Centre for Policy Research.
The views expressed are personal
The seven-phase Uttar Pradesh (UP) assembly elections begin today. In the pre-poll discourse, the main issues have been caste, communal polarisation, agriculture, the economy, welfare delivery, and the coronavirus pandemic.
But what about the other pressing issues such as air and river pollution, illegal sand mining, groundwater depletion, wetlands conservation, and the climate crisis's impact on the lives and livelihoods of the electorate? Unfortunately, these topics did not get traction from the political class, even though there is increasing interest among the voters (more on this later) about the environment and ecology, and their importance in the daily lives of the people.
Take, for example, Ghaziabad, which is voting today. The district, which borders Delhi, tops the National Clean Air Programme’s most polluted cities (out of the 132 non-attainment cities). But there was no discussion on the issue before the elections.
UP is also home to seven of India's 10 most polluted cities. According to the Air Quality Life Index of the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, Lucknow, the capital city, has the highest level of air pollution in the city.
Facing the brunt
However, it’s not surprising that environmental and ecology-related challenges have been edged out from the discourse.
In 2016, a few months before the last round of assembly elections in 2017, I travelled to some districts of UP to report the dire condition of the state’s rivers.
In Bahraich district, which borders Nepal, flows the river Ghaghra. It cuts through the Himalayas in Nepal and joins the Sharda river to form the Ghaghra. The local people were fed up with the river’s wayward ways. “Monsoon flooding is not the only problem with Ghaghra. It changes its course, eroding the banks and destroying everything in its route,” Nirmala Devi, a resident of Goleganj at Pakharpur block, told me. The residents hoped that politicians would put boulder lining along the river’s banks to cut flood losses and provide better compensation and rehabilitation packages to those who lost their lands and livelihood. But no politician seemed interested in their plight; instead, they kept harping on the old issues of caste and religion.
“Flood control, river erosion and compensation have been long-standing demands, but in UP all issues lose out to caste and religion during elections,” Dr Jai Narain Budhwar, a former professor at Bahraich’s Kisan PG College, told me wryly. In a climate-hit world, intense rainfall in Ghaghra’s catchment area would increase the threat of downstream flooding.
In Bundelkhand, the river Ken, which flows through the spectacular Panna Tiger Reserve, is plagued by river sand mining. This activity destroys the ecosystem of rivers, changes river courses and affects natural flows and riverbeds, devastates natural habitats of organisms, affects fish breeding and migration, impacts the water table, and increases saline water in the rivers. One needs to read Kiran Pereira’s Sand Stories to understand how illegal sand mining kills our rivers.
Again, it never became a talking point during elections, though people have been paying a heavy price for such environment-damaging activities. Today, of course, Ken is part of the destructive river-linking project.
Elections 2022
This lack of interest in environmental challenges among politicians is unfortunate because there seems to be a rising public interest in these issues, as I mentioned earlier, and a growing understanding that these need to be tackled for their benefit.
On February 10, Climate Trends, a Delhi-based climate communication organisation, and YouGov, a market research agency, released the results of a perception survey that showed 87% of the respondents felt that there is an urgent need to tackle the climate crisis. Moreover, nearly an equal number (87%) said the climate crisis was essential to their electoral vote. The Air Quality and Climate Change survey was conducted in Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Varanasi and Gorakhpur, among 1,215 respondents above 18 years with an equal representation of men and women.
The survey results revealed awareness among the urban respondents. Nearly 82% said they were aware that 10 of the 15 most polluted cities in the country were from Uttar Pradesh. Awareness was higher (88%) in the age group of 25-44. However, less than half (47%) rated their city’s air quality as “not good”, “poor” or “very poor”.
Respondents also said that vehicular exhaust (73%), construction and road dust (65%), industries within city limits (61%), and thermal power plants (38%) as significant contributors to air pollution. In addition, nearly all (96%) of the respondents said that political parties must address air pollution, and 76% felt it must be a primary issue.
The survey respondents were also conscious of the solutions to tackle air pollution: While nearly 64% spoke about the need to plant more trees, almost 60% wanted infrastructure and subsidies for electric vehicles. Others wanted cleaner power and lower dependence on thermal power plants (58%), more electric public transport (56%), and the expansion of the public transport system to reduce the usage of private vehicles (54%), and strict bans on industrial emissions within city limits.
While it is true that this survey is urban-centric and has a small sample size, the results indicate that awareness is rising. Unfortunately, the political parties have not understood this positive development and engaged with the electorate on these issues. The incumbent in Lucknow, the Bharatiya Janata Party, also did not apprise the voters of what its state government has been doing to tackle, for example, the air pollution challenge.
“In UP, there is a realisation that we need to work in this direction. There has been an increase in the network of low-cost sensor-based monitoring across Kanpur and Lucknow in the past few months. Authorities are working on a strict enforcement plan which includes the agenda of video fencing, dust tracking for compliance at construction sites and smart meters to monitor emissions. All this put together, they want to create a decision support system, which is alerted by a grievance mechanism,” explained Professor SN Tripathi of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, during the launch of the survey.
Most parties have promised free electricity to UP voters, which mostly come from polluting coal-based power plants. Yet, there has been no talk about cleaning up the sector and ensuring a just transition.
“There is a dire need to switch to renewable energy in the state. Uttar Pradesh's electricity requirement is growing over the last decade where the highest daily demand had reached 23.8 GW in 2021,” explained Kashish Shah, energy finance analyst, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). “It has met only 30% (4,261 MW) of its 2022 renewable energy building targets of 14,221 MW. Coal continues to form 90% of the state's electricity capacity and 78% of the electricity generation while only the state's renewable energy generation capacity is 4% and 14% of the generation”. The financial loss for discoms was about ₹4,917 crore in 2019-2020. “The state can retire up to 9.9 GW of coal power plants by 2030 and must increase its RE capacity to be able to meet the growing electricity demand,” Shah added.
Lost opportunity
“Environmental degradation is a big problem in the state. Yet, these are not an issue in this election. Yes, some parties have mentioned it in their manifestoes, but that’s about it. There is no rigorous discussion,” said Vikrant Tongad, an environmental lawyer. “A few months before the elections, several political parties informally contacted me for suggestions on environmental issues, but then as elections neared, all was forgotten and they went back to focus on conventional narratives. But I would like to know who will clean the Ganga, Yamuna, Hindon, Gomti, and who will ensure clean air for voters”.
When environmental challenges are sure to have a profound impact on the quality of life of the electorate of this huge state, political parties have lost yet another golden opportunity to engage with the people on these crucial issues.
This is not just unfortunate, but myopic too.
The first of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in which voting begins Thursday, February 10, allows the people of the state to express their view through the ballot now that they have heard everyone on all sides, from the Hindutva-driven BJP; the anti-BJP Samajwadi Party, driven by the anger among the people; the Congress, fighting for its place in UP; and the mostly-quiet Bahujan Samaj Party, conscious of its marginalisation. The common promise made by all the parties, big and small, is that they will modernise the state through development. The BJP also harped on its anti-Muslim theme through its so-called unlawful religious conversion law.
Many political observers believe that UP will decide who rules in New Delhi, and this is the unstated credo of the BJP as well. It is for this reason that Prime Minister Narendra Modi abandoned his home state Gujarat eight years ago so that he could become Prime Minister, and it is the reason that Mr Modi’s confidant Amit Shah worked assiduously to craft the 2014 Lok Sabha victory for the BJP in the state. The success of the BJP in UP reflects the crude politics of communalism and casteism of the party. The irony is that a state which is considered a linchpin of national politics remains politically, economically, socially, and therefore culturally, undeveloped, and it drags down India’s bid to get developed and powerful. The backwardness of UP suits many political parties as it then becomes possible to mislead the people. It is also a mystery that the people of UP, who along with those in Bihar are considered politically sophisticated, are unable to force their leaders to develop the state.
The elites of Uttar Pradesh have few stakes in the state because they have already moved to the relatively greener pastures of New Delhi and Mumbai, and they play no role in changing the political discourse in the state. The late Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal used to be irritated that the national media considered UP as a backward state. But even he was forced to play the Jat, and not the development, card during election time. UP remains a politically backward state, and it does not matter which party wins the election. Once elected, the parties and leaders want to modernise and industrialise UP, but they fail. The dialectical muddle in which UP finds itself is this -- it is not possible to become a developed state with an undeveloped political consciousness. The war cries can be the loudest, but the noise is of no avail in the national context. The people and politicians in UP are caught in a vicious circle of their own making. The people are not willing to grow beyond their social divisions and the politicians are only too eager to pamper those divisions.
If Jats want to vote for the BJP because they recall that Muslims ruled over them 300 years ago, and if dalits want to go with the BJP because of their constant battle with the Yadavs, and if the Brahmins want to join hands with the winning side, and Muslims feel helpless that there is no party that can protect them from the anti-Muslim BJP, it only points to the politics of despair. So, the claim that UP’s Chanakyan politics is a delight to the intelligent mind sounds hollow and immoral.
The vulgar political calculus in the UP election this time is not too hard to fathom. The BJP feels threatened by the SP-RLD alliance in western UP, and Mr Shah has tried hard to drive a wedge between RLD’s Jayant Choudhury and SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, and behind the scenes, the BJP leaders have tried to convince the Jat community elders that Muslims pose a threat to them. Though continuing to play the anti-Muslim theme, the BJP has not abandoned its groundwork of keeping the non-Yadav backward castes in its fold by accommodating the Apna Dal and Nishad Party. While Akhilesh Yadav will stress on the economic programme of the Samajwadi Party, he cannot overlook the sensitivities of Yadavs. The BJP believes that the only way to defeat the caste formation is through Hindu communalism.
The marginal national party in UP’s politics, the Congress, is moving along its outside track of non-caste, non-communal politics. The party’s general secretary and UP in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is focusing on women and youth has tried to sidestep the caste and communal factors. In its own time, the Congress tried to keep the castes and communities in a precarious balance, but it broke. Unless the people of UP are fed up with casteism and communalism, the Congress stands no chance in the state.
Paradoxically, the way out of the cesspool of partisan politics is offered by the Congress as it is the Congress’ traditional upper caste leadership in the state that paved the way for the emergence of the OBC, dalit and Hindutva parties.
Despite its sense of political self-importance, UP remains a marginal state in India’s economic development. India has become one of the top economies in the world with its most populous state left out of the reckoning in India’s economic growth. It is indeed the misfortune of the people of Uttar Pradesh that they are missing out on the excitement of technological changes and economic development. The poor of the state migrate to urban centres in other parts of the country, and the educated youth flock to Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad -- as well as Mumbai and New Delhi -- for jobs in the service industry and the private sector in general. And UP gets cooked in its own goose of casteism and communalism.
It is indeed the case that the backward Hindi heartland, stretching from Haryana to Bihar, with their numbers will keep Indian politics in a crude state of boil, while the rest of the country moves ahead. The BJP can hope to remain a dominant player because of its overbearing presence in the large swathe of the cow belt.
The backward states like UP will prove to be the dangerous underbelly of India, an impediment. Of course, the political teaser is whether UP’s communal politics will spread to other parts of India, as it is has in BJP-ruled Karnataka. But communalism is confined to the Mangalore-Udupi belt. Among the southern states, Karnataka is the most backward, notwithstanding the shining example of Bengaluru.
But it is UP that remains the sick man of India.