In the recent Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won four States (Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won one (Punjab). There was a premise that this time, particularly in U.P., there was a strong resistance to the BJP’s Kamandal or religious nationalist politics from the Samajwadi Party (SP)’s social justice politics or Mandal politics. What actually won the day for the BJP and what, therefore, happens to the idea that Hindu religious politics can be or should be countered by caste identity politics? Radhika Ramaseshan and Indrajit Roy discuss this question in a conversation moderated byVarghese K. George . Edited excerpts:
What do you think of the notion that an Other Backward Classes (OBC) consolidation can counter the rise of Hindutva considering that this has failed in four elections in U.P.?
Radhika Ramaseshan:Caste and religion are mutually compatible in U.P. This was proven in 1991, when the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections took place simultaneously. That was when OBC consolidation segued into religion because the BJP used a heavy dose of religion in its campaign. It fought on the back of the Ram Mandir movement. The anti-minority component underpinned the rhetoric. Yet, large sections of the backward castes and Dalits were attracted to the BJP, which finally won a simple majority.
Heartland politics is dynamic. A certain section may vote for one party in one election and abandon it in the next. But there are some constants: the upper castes have largely voted for the BJP since 1989, and as a reaction to the Mandal Commission’s recommendations.
I think it is nothing short of genius that the BJP has been able to wed Mandal and Kamandal well. What did it do? In 1991, Kalyan Singh, a backward caste Lodh, was made the Chief Minister to undercut the impact of Mandal. Subsequently, the BJP expanded its social engineering experiment to include large sections of OBCs. In 2014, the BJP succeeded after a long hiatus. It even got large sections of the Yadav votes. One thought that the others were committed to one form or the other of the Socialist Party, in this case, the SP. But Narendra Modi’s larger-than-life persona dominated the election, there was development, but everything was underpinned by Hindutva. The Yadavs wanted to be in the mainstream of politics and decided to vote for the BJP. That was a major tipping point for the BJP’s success in 2014, 2017 and 2019.
In 2022, things changed a little. The BJP’s tight social engineering fabric began to fray on the edges — I would say in 2019 when Om Prakash Rajbhar quit the BJP.
As segments of the backward castes which were with the BJP moved away, it led to speculation that the BJP’s ability to hold together various caste groups under its umbrella had diminished over time and therefore, the time was ripe for a new way of Mandal politics. Do the 2022 results show that this isn’t the case and might never be?
RR:I will not reach that conclusion since everything is in a state of flux in U.P. But this election proved that what we took for granted — namely, the strong social engineering fabric that the BJP had put together, can sort of give way under pressure. The SP tried hard, couldn’t succeed entirely, but it didn’t do too badly.
Indrajit, do you think that the BJP’s ability to be a catch-all party, at least in terms of Hindu caste groups, is now being challenged? Or does this election prove that the BJP’s stability is pretty formidable?
Indrajit Roy:We often assume Hindutva to be a monolith, to be unchanging, to be a fixed entity. But we can speak of varieties of Hindutva. I would like to point to two broad varieties of Hindutva. One is a more Brahmanical version. But what you see increasingly is a Bahujanisation of Hindutva — what some people refer to as subaltern Hindutva. This is in tension with Brahmanical Hindutva. Radhika pointed to this tension when she referred to the deliberations in 1991 on who should become Chief Minister. So, caste politics has posed a challenge to Hindutva politics and continues to do so. The SP has been able to mount a challenge. In Bihar, in 2020, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was able to hold the fort against the BJP. The BJP succeeded eventually in both U.P. and Bihar, but the premise of caste politics does lead practitioners to challenge Hindutva and that is because of the inability within Hindutva to resolve this tension between Brahmanical Hindutva and the Bahujan Hindutva.
Hindutva is premised on the ground that all Hindus are equal or at least there should be unity among the Hindus. And of course, that appeals to people who have been marginalised within a caste-based hierarchy for centuries. But if you look at things like vote shares, you will find that some of these appeals don’t always translate into votes. We have got used to talking about the growing attraction of the OBCs, Dalits, etc. towards the BJP. But see the massive support that the BJP enjoys among the privileged castes (some 90%) and contrast that with other castes, even other OBC castes, and the numbers don’t reach 70%. So, we exaggerate the extent to which other castes, OBCs, Dalits have floated towards the BJP.
Radhika, there was resentment among underprivileged caste and class groups vis-à-vis the BJP and a noticeable streak of anti-incumbency as well. But either it wasn’t to the extent that would have threatened the BJP or a larger number of people chose to stay with the BJP. What does this indicate?
RR:During my travel, the younger people in subaltern castes, backward sub-castes or Dalit sub-castes, who are disenchanted with the government of the day, raised issues like unemployment, the threat of privatisation of the public sector, and the threat of privatisation of education. They were dying to get out of the village. They found that agriculture was no longer an attractive proposition; indeed, it was becoming increasingly unprofitable. When they think of a job, they still think of the government sector. And they find that jobs in the government sector are shrinking. They think that privatisation of public sector units will phase out or even end reservation. They feel that privatisation of education will simply make the colleges and higher institutions inaccessible to them. There was a definite shift of the younger population towards the SP, but obviously it was not enough.
The older lot preferred to be conservative and vote for the BJP because they were not sure whether the SP was strong enough to answer the challenges that were raised by the younger people. There was also the lingering fear that the return of the SP would mean the ascendancy of the Yadavs and possibly the Muslims. And that would hit them hard. This was already evident in certain villages. The Yadavs were not exactly on the rampage, but they were shouting and saying wait for March 10 and you will see what we can do. That injected a certain element of fear in primarily the OBCs and sections of the Dalits.
Ex-government employees also tilted towards the SP because Akhilesh Yadav had promised to restore the old pension scheme, which is not linked to market fluctuations.
Indrajit, do you think the BJP’s success is largely due to its own strengths, but also equally a failure of Bahujan politics?
IR:I would caution against the narrative of failure of Bahujan politics. It’s a measure of the success of Bahujan politics that the privileged castes have felt so worried that they’ve had to consolidate behind one party. But that aside, one area where Bahujan parties could do better is to build cross-caste alliances. The SP and BSP are both too closely associated with one caste. So, where these parties have failed is to build cross-caste alliances within the OBCs. We talk of the OBCs and Dalits as if they are single homogenous categories; they’re not. To build a genuine subaltern block requires much more work than getting up a few months before the elections and campaigning. It requires social mobilisation at the grassroots level, which comes from hard work. I wouldn’t say that Bahujan politics has failed because I think it’s a measure of its success that we are using categories like OBCs and Dalits in our political narratives. It is a measure of its success that the higher castes feel threatened enough to consolidate behind certain communities. But you could say that Mandal politics has been very successfully reduced to the perception that SP is only Yadav politics or BSP politics is only Jatav politics.
Whether the BJP is able to win on its own merits... Let’s face it, the idea of Hindu unity has appeal. That’s something that the BJP has built on successfully. It has reached out to different castes and communities, especially those historically marginalised and oppressed. These are groups that also found that the Yadavs, when they were in power, were behaving just as the previous oppressors, if not worse, sometimes. So, as far as these communities are concerned, it makes rational sense to latch up to a party that promises Hindu unity. So it’s not a case of false consciousness; it’s a case of making a genuine attempt to look at what political calculations matter. But, as I said, the extent to which these subaltern communities support the BJP has been exaggerated.
Is the BJP more successful than almost all the other parties in terms of giving more representative character and optics to its own party organisation and government?
RR:Certainly. This is a trend which was noticeable post-2014 when Amit Shah reorganised the U.P. unit, which was traditionally dominated by the upper castes with other groups getting token representation. The BJP restructured the organisation right from the block level onwards. It sought to give representation to every sub-caste among the OBCs and Dalits, including the Jatavs. The Yadavs are the only caste that the BJP is wary of. The Yadavs probably don’t get the kind of representation they would expect to in the BJP, but every other sub-caste is represented. More importantly, there is an attempt to relate to them at a symbolic level. For instance, when the BJP started wooing the Rajbhars, it resurrected a 11th century warrior, Suhel Dev, who was worshipped by the community.
When the BJP accuses the SP of being a Yadav party, is that accusation based on reality or is it an allegation that the BJP has conjured up?
IR:To an extent the SP couldn’t have got away with being a purely Yadav party. It does have support among other OBC communities. So, I think it is an unfair allegation. But the SP has not done enough to rebut those allegations. And it has been quite happy to be considered a party based on Muslims and Yadavs. I wouldn’t say that the SP is purely a Yadav party. But the fact that it has been dominated by one family for decades has not helped it at all.
What could be a viable opposition to the BJP?
RR:A viable opposition has to emerge from the present spectrum. I do not see anything outside the political circumference which can mount a challenge to the BJP. It has to be a coalition of the Opposition parties. It has to be based on a narrative, a counterpoint to whatever the BJP has been peddling.
IR:I think that coalition politics should not be written off. The one issue which I feel may have some traction is the question of the caste census. If the caste census emerges in importance, you can see caste politics, and parties that espouse the politics of caste emancipation will continue to be important.
This election proved that the strong social engineering fabric that the BJP had put together can sort of give way under pressure.
Radhika Ramaseshan
The Indian Railways has never had it so good. So it would seem going by the images of sleek bullet trains, ‘Vande Bharat’ express trains, Vistadome coaches and ‘airport standard’ remodelled stations that usually accompany railway-related news these days, the periodic reports about record-breaking capital investments, historically high originating freight loading, and, thankfully, the historically lower number of accidents. Paradoxically, this feel-good image makeover is also accompanied by a deafening silence on crucial policy issues, especially those that concern the financial health and the future management architecture of the Indian Railways.
Precarious financial health
Despite the recent strictures passed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (C&AG) for attempting to airbrush the financial statistics of 2019-20 and 2020-21, in order to project that the Indian Railways is in the black, attempts continue to window dress the financial statistics. Thus, in the revised estimates for 2021-22, against a pension outgo of Rs. 52,500 crore, the appropriation to the pension fund is restricted to Rs. 49,000 crore. If the full outgo was reflected in the appropriation to the pension fund, the nominal ‘surplus’ of Rs. 875 crore would turn into a deficit of Rs. 2,375 crore, in turn landing the Indian Railways in the red.
Again, in the Budget estimates for 2022-23, under ‘freight earnings’, an incremental loading of 75 million tonnes is shown to generate an additional revenue of Rs. 20,000 crore; whereas during the 2021-22 (revised estimates), an incremental loading of 169.06 million tonnes generated Rs. 28,044 crore. The disproportionate increase in earningsvis-à-vis physical loading during 2022-23 (Budget estimates) is not supported by commodity-wise loading figures except for an amount of Rs. 10,000 crore under ‘Miscellaneous Goods Earnings’, details of which are not available. This fixation to project the organisation as being financially viable has a background.
A dilemma of identity
The Indian Railways suffers from a dilemma of identity: is it a commercial entity or a government department trying to work on commercial principles? As the only “earning” department/Ministry of the Government of India that fully meets the salary, and (till recently) the pension obligations, of its serving and retired employees out of its own earnings, it has always been an outlier. The pressure to project an image of a public undertaking that is financially viable is, therefore, immense. This explains the tendency to fiddle with financial statistics.
On the other hand, there is the recent trend that the Government is pursuing to invest heavily in projects with long gestation periods — examples are line doubling and new lines and 100% electrification (not all of which are viable) — financed by heavy institutional/market borrowings, This sends a signal that the organisation has switched to a policy of heavy investments toward capacity expansion to be in a ready state to meet future traffic needs. Revenue generation, at least in the short term, will, therefore, lag the working expenses which include repayment of loans/lease charges, that are skyrocketing, with a drastic reduction in internal resource generation.
The Eighth Pay Commission, normally due by around 2025-26, is bound to strain finances further. The Government needs to acknowledge that in the short term, the Indian Railways will have to function as a “spending department”. A realistic projection of the financial position will spur concerted action to reverse the trend within a short time frame. Band-aid measures such as tinkering with the financial statistics could result in transforming the Indian Railways into another basket case like the former government-owned airline, Air India. Therefore, the investment policy needs to be spelt out clearly.
‘Silo-less’ utopia
The absence of a clear policy is evident in another crucial area: changing the management architecture of the Indian Railways. A momentous decision was made by the Union Cabinet in December 2019 to do away with the decades old system of recruiting officers to the eight organised ‘Group A’ services in the Railways (five technical and three non-technical) through the Combined Engineering Services Examination (CES) and the Civil Services Examination (CSE), respectively, and instead have recruitments to a single service called the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS). The ostensible reason for this tectonic shift was to curb the scourge of “departmentalism” that was seen to hamper optimum decision making and the smooth working of the Railways.
After a delay of more than two years, the formation of IRMS was officially notified on February 9, 2022, followed by the announcement of a nearly 40% reduction in the ‘Group A’ cadre strength under the IRMS. More significantly, it was also notified that recruitment would be through the CSE. The purported argument advanced for this astonishing decision is that, even now, about 70% of the candidates who qualify in the CSE are engineers and, therefore, there is no need to hold a separate examination for the IRMS!
Certain conclusions/consequences follow from these decisions. First, the Indian Railways is content to recruit its managers (remember, not engineers) to manage technical functions from a cohort of engineers who have already decided to pursue a career outside engineering. Second, it is most likely that the recruits will not be among the top rankers in CSE. Third, these “reluctant engineers” may not become available in sufficient numbers, assuming that the Government still considers that candidates with an engineering background are required to manage technical functions within the Indian Railways. Finally, with no ‘departmental silos’ and a common seniority, it is possible to visualise a situation where a recruit starts his career managing locomotives and rolling stock, then advances through middle management levels managing track, signals and communications, and then at senior management levels, works as financial adviser and human resources manager, ending his illustrious career at the apex level handling policy matters on operations and business development. A truly rolling stone gathering no “departmental moss”!
Privatisation moves
This may appear to be almost bizarre. Yet, there could be a method in this apparent madness. The Indian Railways is poised to migrate to the Public Private Partnership (PPP)/Joint Venture (JV) mode or outright privatisation in its major activities such as train running, asset maintenance, station management, project management and execution, production units and medical services. All relevant domain expertise will reside in the private sector, supported at the lower levels by promotee managers and supervisory technical cadres. The research and technical training establishments could be spun off as autonomous institutions. The residual Indian Railways will be “managed” at the middle and higher levels by a cadre of free-wheeling managers, essentially functioning as contract administrators.
This perhaps explains the unprecedented reduction in the cadre strength of the IRMS by almost 40% when compared to the cadre strength of the present Group A cadre, i.e., from over 8,000 to about 5,000. In effect, this is the beginning of the end of the Indian Railways as we know it today.
It is tragi-comic that a matter that is of seminal importance — a veritable transmogrification of the Railways — should be the subject of second guessing, conjecture and speculation, in the absence of clearly enunciated policy. The situation was succinctly summed up by a young railway engineering aspirant thus: “It appears that Indian Railways do not require engineers.”
About a year ago, it was none other than the Prime Minister who vented his frustration on the floor of Parliament over the ubiquitous grip of the generalist in all areas of the public sector, His statement in Hindi was: “Sab kuchh babu hi karengey ? IASban gaye matlab woh fertilizerka karkhana bhi chalayega , chemicalka karkhana bhi chalayega , IASho gaya toh woh hawai jahaz bhi chalayega ?Yeh kaun si badi takat bana kay rakh di hai humnay ?” It can be translated as: ‘Will bureaucrats do everything? Just because they’ve become IAS, does it mean they will run fertilizer factories, chemical industries,... if one becomes IAS will he even fly aircraft? What is this humongous force that we’ve created?’
Which raises the question: what does the Government really want?
K. Balakesari, belonging to the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers, was Member Staff, Railway Board.
E-mail: balakesari_k@hotmail.com
Can the developed world respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a flagrant violation of international law — by adopting measures not rooted in international law? The United States, Canada, and the European Union (EU) are using all the levers available to impose punitive economic sanctions on Russia. An important arrow in the sanctions quiver is trade restrictions. For instance, Canada has suspended the most favoured nation (MFN) treatment to Russia, which it owes to the latter under the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), i.e., the global institution that polices the international law on multilateral trade. Canada believes that “those who do not support the rules-based international order cannot benefit from it”. Likewise, the EU and the U.S. are contemplating similar moves.
In a parallel development, the U.S. and the EU have formally notified the WTO General Council that Russia’s participation in the “Developed Countries Coordinating Group” (i.e., an informal group at the WTO) stands suspended due to its “egregious violation of international law, [the] UN Charter and fundamental principles of international peace and security”.
Article XXI, trade, security
Based on the public justifications offered by these countries, the question is this: does the WTO allow its members to take actions against any other member for breaching international law obligations on peace and security?
Under the WTO regime, the right of countries to impose trade sanctions, such as suspending MFN, on security grounds, is regulated by Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Article XXI, the only provision governing trade and security linkages in the WTO, empowers a member country to adopt measures “which it considers” necessary for the protection of its essential security interests (ESI) taken in time of “war” or other “emergency in international relations”. Article XXI is not entirely self-judging, though the words “which it considers” give significant discretion to the country to determine the necessity of the measure adopted to protect its ESI.
Article XXI is a defence that countries can employ when charged with violating their WTO obligations. Thus, Canada can justify deviating from the MFN rule by demonstrating that it is protecting its ESI due to an ongoing war or emergency in international relations. However, Article XXI cannot be employed to judge whether Russia has breached international law on peace and security.
As international trade lawyer Mona Pinchis-Paulsen has argued, this interpretation of Article XXI was confirmed by a 2019 WTO panel in the ‘Russia – Measures Concerning Traffic in Transit’ case that incidentally involved Russia and Ukraine. This dispute arose after Russia’s annexation of Crimea (2014), which, in turn, triggered economic sanctions against Russia. Russia hit back by imposing transit bans and restrictions on the movement of Ukrainian goods to Kyrgyzstan. While hearing Ukraine’s challenge of the Russian transit bans, the WTO panel refused to characterise the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law in general.
International law justification
If Russia challenges the Canadian suspension of MFN before the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), Canada will have to show that its actions are backed by Article XXI. Canada’s argument that it is doing so because Russia does not respect the rule-based order will have no basis in the WTO law. Even if it is judicially established that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a breach of international law, that alone will not be sufficient to impose trade sanctions against Russia as per the WTO law unless countries make a clear case under Article XXI.
The Russia-Ukraine war undoubtedly constitutes an international armed conflict, as attested by the recent United Nations General Assembly Resolution. Furthermore, violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity is a threat to the ESI of several countries. Thus, countries can use the legal cover of Article XXI for trade sanctions.
Many argue that none of this matters because the dispute will not go before the DSB, which remains severely crippled due to the U.S.; America has been blocking, with impunity, the appointment of appellate body members for the last several years. But this argument is unable to see the wood for the trees. Countries that want Russia to respect the rule-based order should follow it themselves irrespective of whether their actions are judicially tested. Countering Russian illegality with measures not ingrained in international law amounts to reprisal. If every country starts taking the law into its own hands, the legitimacy of a rule-based international order, which is already at a low ebb, will come crashing down.
Prabhash Ranjan is Professor and
Vice Dean, Jindal Global Law School,
O.P. Jindal Global University. The views expressed are personal
Strangely, the world has taken forever to understand one word: consent. And if the media is the legendary microcosm that it is, then it took as long to imbibe the entirety of that word. ‘No’ actually means no, for a sexual act, or an interview. While transgressions still occur with stunning regularity, it is safe to say that the bulk of the media — mainstream and digital — handles rape in a much more mature manner than it used to.
The recent interviews of actor Bhavana on her ordeal during her kidnap and sexual assault and life post that are an indication of this maturity. Having remained officially anonymous through the encounter, she decided to speak out to the media, partly as an offer of thanks to the community that stood by her, but also because she thought it was time to tell her side of the story. If a woman with the profile of Bhavana was forced to live in the shadows as a result of what had happened to her, then imagine the lives of ordinary people jolted out of their humdrum existence by something as violent as sexual assault and then, thanks to the media, being subjected to excruciating re-runs of the very incident they would like to forget.
The media learns, over time, and follows the laws of the land (it is illegal to name the survivor of a rape unless she or he consents to be identified, in writing). But it would be fair to say that it arrives through gross violations. It also took a long while to shift the narrative from victim mode to survivor.
The Nirbhaya story probed the conscience of the nation, and galvanised the state to at least immediate action, but extreme acts of violence against women, which are unmindful of her station in life, qualifications, or independence, continue because of the patriarchal constructs we live in. But if the woman is poor and/or uneducated, the trials and tribulations are harsher and she finds it extremely difficult to navigate the system.
Unlike now, there were often no consequences earlier for violations by the media, no rap on the knuckles, no outrage on social media. Not in one case though, many years ago, in a small village in Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu. The story was one that media organisations fought to scoop: young girls of the village, it was said, were pledged to the local goddess Mathamma whenever the family or village, beset by a crisis(mostly health-related or death), prayed for her benevolence. These girl children would then grow up, deified, but also become, in every sense of the term, the ‘property’ of the village.
The times had changed and the villagers claimed that while children were still beknighted Mathammas, they were not subject to any kind of sexual abuse. They still lived in the temple. They were denied the chance to get an education. Besides, the villages still lacked even basic healthcare facilities. There was a certain case to be made for deprivation-induced subjugation of girl children, but one had to coax the villagers closer to the truth.
But as bridges were being built slowly, there came the unmistakable sound of a camera clicking, and the whirring that follows. A photographer thought it was okay to shoot a picture without asking if he could. Whatever strained bonhomie was established melted in a second. The villagers were incensed by this one act, done without permission. What followed that evening, which stretched into a very long night, was a chase. We were forced to take shelter in a sturdy ambassador car as it rained stones outside. We spent a few hours on a rickety bench in a deserted police station, made calls to higher authorities, and finally, reached a compromise of sorts, before release.
What an unasked question can do, to both sides of the story, can fill volumes. Consent is not optional, it has always been essential.
ramya.kannan@thehindu.co.in
The Government’s decision to begin the COVID-19 immunisation programme for children between 12 and 14 years with Corbevax, a protein subunit vaccine, from March 16, is welcome as a part of India’s efforts to extend coverage to the school-going population, but it also raises some concerns. One is the urgency shown to greenlight the vaccination programme for children in this age group without first seeking the approval of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI), a body whose express mandate is to study various facets of the vaccine before clearing it for the national immunisation programme. Never before has the expert body been completely sidestepped to clear a vaccine for the immunisation programme, and by doing so, has set an unhealthy precedent. Also, the decision to use the new COVID-19 vaccine first on children between 12-14 years without widespread use in adults first could have been avoided. True, protein subunit vaccines are generally considered safe for all age groups, but that cannot be a reason to begin vaccinating young children first. Any serious adverse effects seen once the immunisation programme begins might cause vaccine hesitancy and jeopardise the immunisation programme using other vaccines for children. It is perplexing that Covaxin, which has been used for immunising adults and adolescents between 15 and 18 years and whose safety profile is now known, has been excluded for children in the 12-14 age group.
Earlier, concerns were raised about the absence of efficacy data for Covaxin at the time of approval by the Indian drug regulator and about its inclusion in the immunisation programme from mid-January 2021, which arguably led to vaccine hesitancy in the beginning. No lessons seem to have been learnt. Greenlighting Corbevax for children in the 12-14 age group, even when data on safety, immunogenicity and efficacy have not been made available even as preprint (it is not peer reviewed), is inexplicable in the current situation, which can no longer be described as an emergency. The fourth national seroprevalence survey that was done soon after the deadly second wave peaked revealed that 67.6% of the population above 10 years had antibodies against the virus. The percentage of children in the 12-14 age group who would have been infected during the third wave driven by the extremely infectious Omicron variant might be staggeringly high. If children have been found to be much less likely to suffer from severe disease and death, the high seroprevalence in this age group even before the third wave makes it even harder to fathom the urgency shown by the Government to vaccinate this subset of children. Evidence-based policy making should not be jettisoned even if, or rather especially if, a pandemic is raging.
Bhagwant Singh Mann, who took oath on Wednesday as the 28th Chief Minister of Punjab, encapsulated in three slogans the content of his politics and governance ambitions —Inquilab Zindabad , a call for revolution;Sat Sri Akal , the Sikh clarion call for the triumph of truth; and,Bharat Mata Ki Jai . A masterful combination of regional and national emotions, claims of a higher morality amid decadence, and the promise of radical change were what made the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) the overwhelming choice of Punjab voters. The party won 92 of the 117 seats, overthrowing the feudal families that have held the State in a vice grip, even as its people plunged into desperation and hopelessness. Several of AAP’s MLAs hail from the most ordinary of backgrounds. Mr. Mann, a comedian-turned-politician, at 48, has taken over a traumatised State that is crying for a new life. Its farm sector is flailing, in economic and ecological terms. Its youth are leaving in hordes, and drug abuse continues to corrode society. The State’s finances are in tatters. Mr. Mann inherits this mess, and the people have trusted him with the task of rescuing them. As the new CM has noted, there is no time to lose. He has begun well, by announcing an ambitious anti-corruption mechanism and calling upon AAP workers to remain humble and close to the people.
Mr. Mann’s performance as Chief Minister will be watched outside Punjab too. As a border State with a volatile history, there are unique governance challenges. With little experience in government, his task is cut out — to learn the ropes quickly. He will be watched also for the reason that AAP is claiming to have become the only viable challenger to the BJP at the national level. The party has been in power in Delhi for seven years, but Punjab is the first full-fledged State that comes under its command. If he can steer it ahead, and well, his party’s claims at the national level will be bolstered; if he falls short, the ambitions of AAP and its founder-leader and Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal, will be affected. Since his performance will be so closely tied to the fortunes of his leader — whose feet he touched when they met after the Punjab victory — Mr. Mann will be under scrutiny from that angle too. Meanwhile, implementing AAP’s election promises will add a new burden on the State’s finances. For a distressed population, AAP’s Delhi model, which it promises to replicate in Punjab, will be comforting. Mr. Mann is a breath of fresh air, and a ray of hope at many levels. He, however, faces the challenge of running a government and sustaining a politics supposedly without any ideological outline on a platform of corruption-free governance and high-cost welfare schemes. The AAP government in Punjab will be a test for the party and, if it succeeds, a model that others might seek to copy across the country.
Washington, March 17.: About 60 per cent of U.S. relief aid for what was “East Pakistan” is being reprogrammed or cancelled, the State Department disclosed yesterday. The disclosure came following claims by Senator Edward Kennedy that the Nixon Administration had misled the American people on the extent of U.S. aid actually reaching the war-torn nation. The Department spokesman Mr. Charles Bray, said that of the total U.S. commitment to “East Pakistan” relief of $158 millions, between November 1970 and November 1971, $97 millions represented Food-for-Peace dollar sale agreements with the Government of Pakistan. To deliver this food to Bangla Desh would require renegotiation of the agreements with the new Government in Dacca, which the U.S. has not yet recognised. Mr. Bray insisted that the U.S. had provided enough food to prevent famine and that there were enough stocks on hand to meet the needs of Bangla Desh through the dry season ending in June. Mr. Kennedy, who heads the Refugee Sub-Committee, yesterday contested the State Departments version of the food needs. He said they were, and remained massive. Mr. Bray said that the differences of interpretation were due to technicalities and semantics.
The likelihood that Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi might travel to India as a part of a multi-nation swing through South Asia later this month injects new possibilities in what has been a problematic two years for India-China relations. If it takes place, it would be the first high-level visit between the two countries since China’s ingress across the Line of Actual Control into areas claimed by India in eastern Ladakh, unilaterally pulling out of several bilateral agreements between 1993 and 2013 on peaceful management and resolution of the border issue, and avoidance of military conflict at the LAC. The Galwan clash in which 20 Indian soldiers died took bilateral relations to the lowest point they have been in three decades. The two sides have held 15 rounds of military commander-level talks to defuse the tensions in that region, with mixed results on disengagement at some “friction points” but not at others, and no breakthrough yet on the Indian larger demand for the restoration of status quo ante, that is, the situation as it existed in April 2020, including access to traditional patrolling points in the Depsang Plains. Also worrying for India is the unprecedented levels of infrastructure building activity and military posturing by the People’s Liberation Army close to the LAC on the Chinese side.
Against this background, any peaceful engagement, especially at the political level, between India and China is always welcome as it is an opportunity to improve the relationship. As reported by this newspaper, the Chinese side has also proposed other engagement, including a “civilisational dialgoue” and interactions between business and the film industries of both sides. Wang’s visit — proposed to be followed by a return visit to Beijing by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar — also comes at a time of massive shifts in the international order arising out of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Beijing, like Delhi, but for different reasons, is walking an international tightrope between its “no limits” friendship with Moscow and its global economic interests, now under threat from the US-Europe sanctions against Russia. In this sense, the proposed, but yet unscheduled engagement, could throw a challenge to Delhi’s mandarins. On February 4, when President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping met in Beijing, their lengthy joint statement included a substantial mention of BRICS, and the “deepened strategic partnership” between its members (India is a member too). Beijing is to host the summit this year, and is also in the chair of the trilateral Russia-India-China forum. At a time of fast evolving geopolitical jostling, it would suit Beijing to play host to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for these meetings.
However, for Delhi, bilateral concerns with Beijing will need to remain the primary agenda of any engagement. India-China talks have never been easy even in the best of times. But Delhi must make the most of the Chinese outreach to push not just for a de-escalation in Ladakh, but also for a quick, time-bound diplomatic settlement of the border issue, which has only become more complicated in the last two years.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on March 18, 2022 under the title ‘Opening a window’.
The disclosure, made to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, that the director of IIM-Rohtak was ineligible for a post he held for five years, must embarrass both the government and India’s premier institutes of management. It reveals extraordinary lapses and loopholes in the appointment process, first reported by this newspaper, and must prod the government to take swift action against those who looked the other way or let it happen. Even though IIM-Rohtak director Dheeraj Sharma failed to meet a minimum criterion — he secured a second class in his undergraduate examinations, instead of the first class required — his name was green-lit by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by the Prime Minister, as was the norm till the IIM Act came into being. A second class undergraduate degree per se may be a silly reason to block the best candidate but if that’s the criterion, any waiver needs a reasoned explanation to ensure that the playing field is level.
Not only that didn’t happen, Sharma refused to submit his undergraduate degree to the Ministry of Education despite three reminders. And when Sharma’s candidature was challenged in court, the Ministry of Education last year consistently denied any irregularity and asked for the plea to be dismissed. It has now filed an affidavit, conceding that it was wrong. But Sharma has now got a second term as the IIM-Rohtak director — even if his first term stands invalidated. While scams involving inflated degrees and qualifications are not unheard of in many colleges, the unearthing of such a deceit at an IIM does dim its success story. Justly celebrated as institutes of academic excellence, the IIMs pride themselves on being uncompromising when it comes to talent, and discouraging mediocrity. They have also fought a long battle to protect and preserve their academic autonomy, even if that has involved wrangles with the government. But the appointment —and now, a second term — of the IIM-Rohtak director suggests a breakdown of a system of checks and balances, and a culture of procedural impropriety.
Whether it was political influence or corruption that allowed Sharma to game the system, or convinced the system to lower its scrutiny, the revelations now send a warning to the IIMs. Since 2018, the IIMs have the power to appoint directors, chairpersons and board members, without any role of the government. But such processes must remain open, transparent and credible — and be seen as such. For the IIMs, the task now is to tighten the verification processes. Both IIM-Rohtak and the Ministry of Education must investigate the sins of omission and commission that led to this scandal. Yes, under the IIM Act, the institute has autonomy to choose its leader but does it want to give a second term to one who, on evidence, has been, dodgy? For, this has little to do with the transcripts of an undergraduate degree, this is about academic honesty and integrity.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on March 18, 2022 under the title ‘Falling standards’.
Festivals, anthropologists tell us, serve many purposes. They can be occasions for exchanging gifts and, as a result, affirming social hierarchies — think of the paltry bonus or rationed piece of dessert offices provide during Diwali. But there’s another kind of festival as well, when society as a whole decides that it’s time for the rules to break down, to engage in primordial, communitarian revelry. In large parts of India, Holi serves that purpose. And for two years, thanks to a pandemic that is both a great leveller and isolator, many Indians were robbed of the safety valve of celebration.
Holi, perhaps more than any other festival, is about transgression. In colleges, students splash water on their professors, in housing colonies the old and young alike take great pleasure in putting colour on each others’ faces. There’s even a permissiveness around inebriation. In a society where hierarchy — who you can eat with, love etc. — is often strictly enforced, Holi is a day of relative equality. And given how much inequality has grown during the pandemic, people need a splash of colour more than ever. Now, for the first time since 2019, the fear of the pandemic isn’t overshadowing the prospect of having a little fun.
Most Indians should take comfort in the fact that they are vaccinated. Yet, the temptation to play Holi perhaps needs to be tempered. The virus is, at best, dormant. So, perhaps, a pichkari; colours applied with masks on. For those who enjoy Holi, it is not quite the same as the time before the pandemic. But, it is certainly a happier Holi than the last two years.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on March 18, 2022 under the title ‘Happier Holi’.
Kerala was placed under President’s rule on March 17. A proclamation under Article 356 to this effect has been issued. The Union cabinet met in the evening and decided to recommend to the President placing the state under Centre’s jurisdiction in pursuance of the Governor’s recommendation. Governor Jyoti Vencatachellum dissolved the state assembly after the resignation of the 80-day old Karunakaran ministry following the withdrawal of support by a ruling front member, Lonapan Nambiar. This is the second time that Kerala has been placed under President’s rule in the last two years. Elections to the state assembly were held in January 1980. Chief Minister Karunakaran advised the governor to dissolve the assembly even though he did not enjoy a majority in it.
India has quietly cautioned Bhutan that any dilution of the special relationship between the two countries would be detrimental to both. New Delhi conveyed the message directly to the King of Bhutan in a speech by President N Sanjiva Reddy during a dinner hosted in honour of the visiting dignitary. The King said he appreciated India’s assistance to Bhutan’s Fifth Plan which is currently underway.
As the government maintained silence on the attack by a politician on two eminent surgeons, the functioning of the cardiothoracic department of AIIMS came to a standstill. All three resident doctors and three senior surgeons of the department have resigned. Five patients, scheduled to be operated on March 17, were told that their surgery will not be held. There are at least 30 other patients awaiting surgery or under post-operative care.
In her budget speech, the Finance Minister talked of land resource management. Any reform or initiative that strengthens land governance, impacts the economy positively and has a ripple effect across sectors.
Consider this: The computerisation and digitisation of land records, undertaken in the recent past, has enabled the e-procurement of wheat and paddy in the states through the minimum support price scheme. It is extremely convenient now for the mandi administration to make an assessment of the food crop sown and the foodgrain produced by individual farmers on the basis of khasra entries. All that the mandi administration has to do now is to plan the arrival of farmers to the mandi by staggering them village wise. And on arrival, check whether the food crop in the khasra entry matches the quantum brought to the mandi by the individual farmer. On satisfaction, payment as per the MSP is credited to the individual farmer’s account.
Most states now use computerised land records for e-procurement. While transactional efficiencies are evident, there are other benefits as well. The staggered arrival plan of farmers’ produce at the mandis can be conveniently planned on the basis of data related to total acreage under cultivation in the villages. The long queues of tractors crowding the mandis, once a common sight, is not seen these days. The ease of living of the farming community has thus been positively impacted.
Similarly, payments under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-Kisan) in the states are being done on the basis of computerised land records. Also, take the case of land acquisition for setting up an industry or infrastructural facilities like highways or railway lines. Proper and updated computerised land records are extremely essential for relief and rehabilitation.
The budget speech included three land governance initiatives. It is apparent that the initiatives are technological at their core. It is the most pragmatic way of implementing central schemes in the states. Technology cuts across geographical, regional and state policy barriers and integrates the nation by preparing all relevant sectors of the national economy to avail of the intended spin-off benefits. These three initiatives will impact the citizen and the national economy. Let us examine each of them.
First, the Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN). In plain language, this is an Aadhaar-like identification for a land parcel or plot. Each land parcel or plot is assigned a unique identification number. And therefore, like Aadhaar, the agencies and services can use the land database from anywhere in the country to authenticate a farmer or the beneficiary’s identity for the purpose of delivery of services. The land-farmer relationship will be strengthened and authenticated. For the farmer and the individual land holder, it would facilitate and enable access to information relating to his entitlements through various means like kiosks and mobile phones. Benami and fraudulent transfers of land especially in urban areas is a big concern for states. This framework, integrated with Aadhaar, will put a check on such irregular and illegal transfers.
Second, the National Generic Document Registry System (NGDRS) — One Nation One Registration Software System — is undoubtedly a major initiative for urban property registration. It is a software application platform that facilitates online registration of immovable properties and documents as compared to the manual registration process used earlier. The entire process, right from applying for registration to paying the stamp duty and furnishing encumbrance certificates, is online. States/UTs can conveniently make use of the software. Frequent visits to various offices and institutions like banks and local bodies are not required anymore. Utility bills from local bodies and encumbrance certificates from banks are now submitted online. It is only at the time of the final execution of the registration document that the physical presence of the buyer and seller is mandatory as per Section 32A of the Registration Act. Since the processes are online, there is a higher degree of transparency in the transaction of these properties which reduces disputes and fraudulent transactions as well. NGDRS, therefore, is a major convenience for buyers and sellers of immovable property. It cuts into the costs, time and processes in registration drastically.
The third initiative is transliterating the land records in any language under Schedule VIII of the Constitution. The objective is to break the linguistic barriers in land records. Presently, land records are largely in regional languages. These linguistic barriers need to be overcome in order to open up the national economy. A prospective property buyer from Maharashtra should conveniently get access to land records of Tamil Nadu in his language. It is time that all forms of unintended barriers, including linguistic ones, which impede economic growth, be dismantled.
To conclude, the budget speech has underscored the significant role land resource management and governance is expected to play in the resurgence of the national economy in the years to come. It has strengthened the belief that the use of technology for land governance is pragmatic and a strategically convenient and acceptable approach when states are implementing schemes. And it has also emphasised that reformative land governance initiatives will positively impact and benefit the citizen as well as various other sectors of the economy in more ways than one. Land resource management and governance, like the keel of a ship, will provide the right balance and float to the national economy despite one of the worst economic downturns induced by the pandemic. How smooth the sail will be will depend on how readily and effectively states take up the land governance initiatives.
This column first appeared in the print edition on March 18, 2022 under the title ‘A ripple effect reform’. The writer is Secretary, Department of Land Resources, Government of India. Views expressed are personal.
The Karnataka High Court’s verdict on school students wearing the hijab has hardly settled the controversy that seems to have become the latest flashpoint in our religiously-polarised nation. Girls in hijab were denied entry into classrooms on the ground that by wearing the headgear they had violated the uniform prescribed by their institution. The matter could have been easily resolved through a dialogue between the college authorities and parents. Instead, it got politicised with different religious and political outfits jumping in the fray with their radical and antagonistic positions. It was made out as though the right to education and right to religious freedom are at loggerheads. Sadly, the HC did not correct this misplaced notion. Nor did it address the vitiated atmosphere in some of the educational institutions in the state as highlighted by the shocking videos of boys in saffron scarves heckling a girl in hijab.
Educational institutions are entitled to frame their own rules but these cannot infringe the fundamental rights granted by the Constitution. Besides, uniforms cannot be more important than education itself. Courts can hardly help when citizenry fail to resolve social issues mutually in the face of institutional rigidity. When justice dies within hearts, courts and verdicts become irrelevant.
The girls in hijab pleaded for protection of their rights to religious freedom, education and freedom of choice. The Karnataka government argued that reasonable restrictions, with a view to maintaining secular perspective, are enforceable under what it called the institutional discipline doctrine.
A BJP government arguing for upholding secularism is rather rich. India is not France where secularism is an avowed ideal translated into practice. Hindutva leaders publicly denounce secularism as a Western notion and openly espouse religiosity in public life. We live in an era of saffron-clad MPs and ministers. Surely Parliament is as much of a public space as a classroom. And, a chief ministerial office demands as much adherence to a secular dress code as a classroom. Singling out girls in hijab is outright discriminatory and smacks of double standards.
It is now well-known that the hijab does not form part of the essential practices of Islam. Nor is it one of its five pillars. Several Islamic scholars, notably Fatema Mernissi, have researched the origins of the veil in Islam to conclude that it is not only not mandatory but has nothing to do with women. A harmless Arabic word used in the religious text to describe a wall, a barrier, a hurdle, a partition has been distorted to impose the veil on Muslim women in male-dominated societies over centuries.
The hijab has arrived only recently in the Indian subcontinent. Our grandmothers and mothers did not wear the veil. My grandmother, a headmistress, wore the Gujarati sari to school. My mother’s generation adopted the more fashionable Bengali sari and salwar-kurta. Growing up, we always saw women in our mohallas dressed modestly in saris or salwar-kurtas. There was an occasional family or two in the mohalla whose women observed strict purdah. The entire mohalla respected their preference and made adjustments to save them from any unforeseen embarrassment. All women covered their heads whenever an occasion demanded — such as during a religious ritual or when someone passed away. Many elderly women regularly covered their heads with dupattas or sari pallus. They did not suffer from concerns like ensuring that not a strand of their hair should be visible.
The argument about hijab being a woman’s choice could lead to a slippery slope. Nevertheless, I believe that her choice must be respected. The absence of social reform in Muslim societies in South Asia has resulted in patriarchy masquerading as religion. Particularly when religion is made into a sort of rocket science where only the holy men have authority. In the orthodox worldview the burden of the so-called Islamic identity must be borne by women. Fundamental Quranic values of justice, kindness, compassion and wisdom are forgotten and the stress is on outward appearance. A pious woman must be in hijab.
A woman in hijab has as much choice as a woman with sindoor — the behavioural norms are preset for both. Such is the power of religion in our society that there are pre-defined ideals of a good woman and how she must appear and behave. Religion can be made an easy ride for misogyny and bigotry. Little girls going to KG classes in head-to-toe burqa is a sight that stirs many emotions in me and surely many others. I get questioned regularly: But why are you not in an Islamic dress?
Progressive Muslims in North Africa, the Far East and other parts of the world have to contend with political Islam that has the veiled woman as its mascot. The veil, as imported from Arabia, is making its presence felt in Muslim societies the world over even though it is alien to most of these societies. This can be because of several reasons including the reaction by different communities to Islamophobia. But it must not be forgotten that the veil is primarily a patriarchal construct, and not intrinsic to Islam.
We are a multi-faith democracy with a Constitution rooted in values of justice, equality, and pluralism. The practice of secularism has, no doubt, been deeply flawed in our politics and fissures along religious lines have always existed. But despite communalism and communal riots, we have remained a plural and peaceful society. Hate speeches and open calls for the genocide of Muslims as witnessed in Haridwar recently signify a new low for our polity. It is important that ordinary Indians —Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians — reject the divisive politics of hate. Peaceful co-existence, tolerance and mutual respect can defeat the politics of divide and rule. Religiosity must be confined to the private realm. Overt display and competing religiosities can only harm us all. Political religion in our neighbourhood, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has wreaked havoc in the lives of ordinary people.
All girls must be in school, with or without hijab. The nation will progress when girls are educated and empowered. Governments must focus on enabling greater access to girls’ education including higher education. They must not waste public resources and precious judicial hours on fighting legal cases to deny students their choice of attire in the name of uniform.
This column first appeared in the print edition on March 18, 2022 under the title ‘Much ado about attire’. The writer is a women’s rights activist and one of the founding members of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan
The passing of Mina Swaminathan comes as a loss to generations of researchers, practitioners and activists who drew inspiration from her work. Most of all, it is a loss to India’s anganwadi sector. She was a pioneering educator, researcher and activist for women’s equality. She was a tireless friend of India’s children, especially those without privilege.
In the decades after independence, a generation of women leaders, Mina Swaminathan among them, set up some remarkable organisations. These would lay the foundations for important welfare programmes in the young nation. Mina was deeply involved in trailblazing initiatives such as the Centre for Women’s Development Studies CSDS) and mobile creches. Her greatest contribution was to lead the group whose report would become the basis of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) in India.
Born in 1933, Mina was the daughter of Tamil writer “Krithika” Mathuram Bhoothalingam, and civil servant and economist S Bhoothalingam.
In Cambridge, Mina met her future husband, agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan. Both were committed to nation-building in independent India. After the devastation caused by the Bengal famine, Swaminathan chose to study agriculture. He would become an institution builder, leader of the Green Revolution in India, and first awardee of the World Food Prize.
Mina’s contributions were equally far-reaching. In 1970, she was asked to chair a study group on early childhood development. The group included Chitra Naik, J P Naik and Anil Bordia. Their report, submitted in 1972, was a powerful call to action: “With every year, the gap between the privileged and the others widens… Social justice demands attention to the preschool child because the first five years are crucial for all forms of development.” The report became the basis of ICDS, the largest programme of its kind in the world.
Mina believed that children and mothers deserved better support. She wrote: “When a woman says, ‘I quit working because I needed to take care of my child,’ society accepts it as the natural instinct of a mother. This is obviously not enough — there is need for the involvement of the father and family, society and state, if children are to be born for happiness and not just for existence.” For breastfeeding campaigns to go beyond slogans, she said, women needed nutritional support.
As early as 1979, she wrote about the children of the urban poor. Millions of children growing up in urban poverty, she remarked, were invisible to policy. This was due to an exclusive focus on rural India in the mistaken belief that all urban Indians had escaped poverty. She noted drily: “Funds are not wanting for fountains, parks, and city beautification. Cannot the same resources be used for worthwhile programmes for children?”
In 1985, for the CSDS, she conducted a study of childcare facilities for low income working women in India, titled “Who Cares?” It was brought out by the feminist press Kali for Women. In her introduction, Vina Mazumdar reflected: “Like many of us who belonged to the first-generation beneficiaries of the equality clauses of the Constitution, Mina Swaminathan had believed the women’s question to have been settled at the time of Independence…”
But the “women’s question” remained. Women were usually coerced into work with lowest pay and lowest skills, such as childcare, making them near-invisible in the workforce. Mina emphasised that it was important not only to provide good childcare, but also quality training for childcare workers. She cautioned that a one-size-fits-all approach would not suit India’s diversity.
She was an educator and mentor all her life, encouraging researchers to learn about the lived realities of women and children. Research, she said, must ultimately “engage the passions in a call for action, but action to be taken in a climate of understanding.”
Fifty years ago, it was a bold and powerful vision to propose setting up anganwadis across the country. Today, there are over a million anganwadis in India, and twice that many workers, providing multiple services to many millions of mothers and children. I am reminded of the character in a George Bernard Shaw play who says: “You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’” Mina Swaminathan asked, on behalf of India’s children: Why not?
This column first appeared in the print edition on March 18, 2022 under the title ‘Her network of care’. The writer is in the IAS. Views are personal
A renewed surge in Covid infections across Europe, East Asia and Australia, likely being driven by Omicron’s “stealth” sub-variant, BA.2, has prompted GoI to insist on greater disease surveillance and genomic sequencing. In countries like the UK, Germany and Australia the new wave has taken shape in a matter of weeks after the Omicron wave of December-January appeared to abate. Contrast this to the gap of several months between earlier waves. Admittedly, India’s Covid trajectory is far from alarming at present. Just over 2,500 infections were detected on Wednesday and the weekly positivity rate is a low 0.4%.
However, the surge in other countries does raise worries over the duration of immunity even though most testing positive have mild symptoms. There’s, however, no cause to jump to quick conclusions or be complacent: Disease behaviour could be getting modified and moderated because these countries have administered plentiful booster doses. Against South Korea’s 63 booster doses per 100 people the corresponding numbers for other affected countries like UK, Germany and Australia are 57, 57 and 48 respectively. India, meanwhile, is at a low 1.4 booster doses per 100 people.
GoI’s decision to remove the “comorbidity” precondition for the 60-plus age group to avail precaution doses is welcome. Allowing those over 45 and any adult with comorbidities to avail booster doses is the next logical step. Many adults received second doses over six months ago. Their waning immunity is an uncomfortable prospect amid massive infection surges abroad and the resumption of normal international air travel operations from March 27. While GoI experts have claimed that the Omicron wave renewed mass immunity, this still doesn’t explain the ongoing Covid surges in countries equally hit by Omicron.
Changes may also be needed to the “precaution dose” programme going by the initial reports of the CMC Vellore mix-and-match study. That a booster dose of Covishield for those double-dosed with Covaxin induces a sixfold rise in antibodies questions the current strategy of homologous boosting. However, the Vellore trials found the impact of Covaxin for those administered two doses of Covishield underwhelming. This is where other studies, for Bharat Biotech’s intranasal vaccine, SII’s Covovax and Biological E’s Corbevax, will offer greater clarity given that over 80% adults received Covishield. With the bouquet of vaccines growing, GoI should reveal a timeline for the booster programme. This will help vaccine companies to calibrate production. The bottom line is India shouldn’t get caught napping by emerging variants as had happened during last year’s Delta wave.
The US Federal Reserve increased its policy interest rate, the federal funds rate, by 0.25 percentage points to a range of 0.25-0.5%. It’s the first increase since 2018 and the central bank has indicated that it will be just the first of more increases likely in 2022. America’s economic context made an increase in interest rates inevitable. The unemployment rate is 3.8%, close to a 50-year low, and annualised inflation is 6%.
The influence of the US economy, when juxtaposed with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, will complicate matters for India’s economic policy makers. There’s already an outflow of foreign portfolio investment as capital shifts to safe havens – net FPI outflow in February was $5.4 billion. Outflows, which cause rupee depreciation, along with a surge in prices of commodities such as crude oil, will harden inflation in India. However, RBI’s large forex reserve of $631.9 billion is adequate to smoothen currency movements. It can partially offset the inflationary impact of a depreciation of the rupee against the dollar.
There are two key issues at stake. RBI’s next monetary policy meeting will take place in the backdrop of a worsening outlook on inflation. Notwithstanding that, there should be a status quo on interest rates. Inflationary pressure is coming through higher commodity costs and supply chain disruptions. Neither problem can be solved through an increase in interest rates. Moreover, local developments provide reason to keep rates steady. CMIE’s jobs data showed that the unemployment rate increased from 6.6% in January to 8.1% in February. Corroborating it were the PMIs of employment in both manufacturing and services which shrank for the third straight month in February. Weak purchasing power, not overheated demand, is the main problem. The solution lies in fiscal policy, beginning with a reduction in central fuel taxes.
A Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) working group has suggested greater autonomy for foreign investment by Indian private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) funds, as reported by this newspaper. Allowing PE and VC firms to proceed with outbound investment in unlisted companies without seeking prior approval from the capital markets regulator will be a welcome development because it increases the speed of decision-making and competitiveness. Indian VC has found itself disadvantaged by existing rules in efforts to invest in portfolio companies abroad. This is particularly true of technology-focused funds where the portfolio of investments is spread out over multiple markets.
Last year, Sebi doubled the overall ceiling for investment in unlisted foreign securities by the Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) vehicle to $1.5 billion in order to facilitate such activity. The working group is understood to have retained the 25% cap on an AIF's corpus that can be invested abroad. This would serve the purpose of controlling the outflow of money pooled at home. But the restriction of investments by AIFs to only foreign companies that have links to India through operations or subsidiaries works against VC's need to diversify beyond the Indian startup ecosystem.
Sebi has been streamlining regulation of the AIF industry with a raft of changes in rules, such as permitting simultaneous investments in other AIFs, harmonising the definition of startups, streamlining reporting requirements, recognising accredited investors and easier rules for the large value funds they invest in, and operationalising special situation funds that invest in distressed assets. Although the compliance burden on the AIF industry is rising, the channel is becoming more transparent as these pools of investment grow. A rapidly evolving regulatory framework must ensure these investments are efficiently routed under supervision.
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The compromise proposal for waiver of certain provisions of intellectual property rights (IPR) under the Word Trade Organisation (WTO) to tackle Covid-19 is a small step in the right direction. In October 2020, India and South Africa proposed a comprehensive waiver for Covid vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and technology. It had the support of developing countries but was unacceptable to the developed economies. In 2021, the US switched sides to support a waiver. The European Union (EU), Britain and other rich countries opposed it. They pushed for compulsory licensing, a complex proposition given the large number of components and attendant IPRs in vaccines.
A waiver limited to vaccines as the world prepares to 'live with' a coronavirus endemic may seem too little. There is a need to ensure universal access to affordable diagnostics and therapeutics. India and South Africa, and their partners, must not lose sight of this. The compromise gives six months from the adoption of the vaccine waiver to work out a deal for diagnostics and therapeutics. The low vaccination rates in many developing countries underscores the urgent need to provide affordable vaccines at a fast(er) pace. WHO reported in early February that 21 countries in Africa had fully vaccinated less than 10% of their populations, 16 less than 5%, and three less than 2%. The compromise gives the waiver to developing countries that account for less than 10% of global exports of vaccines in 2021. This puts the EU and China out of the reckoning, and provides countries like India an opportunity.
Two years of sustained efforts by India and South Africa, working constructively with developing and developed country partners, have led to this outcome. Though it might not seem like much, this is a good day for the global south.
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After a brief interregnum, Covid-19 is back in the news with the fast spread of the infection being reported in several Asian and European nations. As per the World Health Organisation, new infections are up eight per cent globally compared to the previous week, with 11 million new cases and over 43,000 new deaths reported from March 7-13. It is the first rise since the end of January.
China was the first country to report the new wave early this month and it has now imposed a lockdown in several provinces covering an estimated 40 million people. The numbers are now rising in Hong Kong and South Korea as well. The United Kingdom, Italy and the United States have also reported the spread of the pandemic again. Reports say daily cases in the UK and Finland have increased by 60 per cent and 100 per cent, respectively. Most regions in the US reported the cases rising twice at the speed compared with last month’s.
WHO estimates that a combination of factors has contributed to the flare up. They include the highly transmissible Omicron variant and its BA.2 sublineage, the decision of many nations to do away with the Covid-appropriate protocols, including the use of masks and the social distancing norms, and low vaccination. The UN’s health watchdog suspects the drop in testing in many countries would have kept the real picture from emerging. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is on record saying the cases are just the tip of the iceberg.
The number of new cases in India has of late been in the range of 2,500. India has distributed about 180 crore doses of the vaccine against the virus, which nearly covered the entire population. These two factors offer India a reasonable assurance that we need not be alarmist at this juncture. But, given the nature of the spread of the virus, the pattern of which is now available with the scientific community, there is little scope for us to lower the guard. With the world connected the way it was before the pandemic set in in 2020, it takes no time for the virus to hit us again.
The Union government has taken note of the new development and has advised the states to be vigilant against the pandemic. In an advisory, the government has reiterated its position that the five-pronged strategy must be followed in all states and union territories: test-track-treat-vaccination and adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour.
Life was literally limping back to normalcy after the two-year run of the pandemic when news of the latest spread is coming. We can now be better prepared to take on the new variants with better scientific knowledge and the availability of preventive tools such as vaccines. The government must now speed up the administration of the booster dose of the vaccine by opening it up for all and push vaccination of the younger lot. The healthcare infrastructure should be kept well-oiled and the morale of its foot-soldiers safeguarded. It must also be ensured that there is no laxity in testing. The alacrity with which the government prepared itself for the third wave must be retained or redoubled while taking on the next, should it land on our shores.
There is a vast and mostly forested region spanning almost the entire midriff of India from Odisha to Gujarat, lying between the westbound Narmada and the eastbound Godavari, bounded by many mountain ranges like the Vindhya, Satpura, Mahadeo, Meykul and Abujhmar, that was once the main home of the original autochthonous Indian, the Adivasi. Though this is the home of many tribal groups, the largest tribal group, the Gonds, dominated the region. The earliest Gond kingdom appears to date from the 10th century and the Gond rajas were able to maintain a relatively independent existence until the 18th century, although they were compelled to offer nominal allegiance to the Mughal Empire.
Jadunath Sarkar, the great historian, records: “In the sixteenth and seventeenth century much of the modern Central Provinces (today’s MP) were under the sway of aboriginal Gond chiefs and was known under the name of Gondwana. A Mughal invasion and the sack of the capital had crippled the great Gond kingdom of Garh-Mandla in Akbar’s reign and later by Bundela encroachments from the north. But in the middle of the seventeenth century another Gond kingdom, with its capital at Deogarh, rose to greatness, and extended its sway over the districts of Betul, Chindwara and Nagpur, and portions of Seoni, Bhandara and Balaghat. In the southern part of Gondwana stood the town of Chanda, the seat of the third Gond dynasty and hereditary foe and rival of the Raja of Deogarh.”
But the glory of Deogarh departed when the Maratha ruler of Nagpur annexed Deogarh after the death of Chand Sultan. Incidentally, the Gond ruler of Deogarh, Bakht Buland, founded the city of Nagpur. Jadunath Sarkar writes about him thus: “He lived to extend the area, power and prosperity of his kingdom very largely and to give the greatest trouble to Aurangzeb in the last years of his reign.” In fact, the one big reason Aurangzeb could not deploy all his power against Shivaji was because the Gond kings were constantly at war with the Mughals and kept interdicting the lines from the Deccan to Agra. But, of course, the history of modern India is not generous to them.
During the British days this region constituted much of the Central Provinces of India, later to become Madhya Pradesh. This is the main home of about 13 million Gond people who are India’s largest single tribal grouping. The Gonds are now a culturally and linguistically heterogeneous people, having attained much cultural uniformity with the dominant linguistic influences of their region. Thus, the Gonds of the eastern and northwestern Madhya Pradesh region that now includes the new state of Chhattisgarh speak Chattisgarhi and western Hindi. But the Gonds of Bastar, which is at the southeastern end of this vast region and a part of Chhattisgarh, are different in this respect.
Though there are many tribal groups like the Halbas, Bhatras, Parjas and Dorlas, the Maria and Bison Horned Gonds are the most numerous. The language spoken by them, like that of the Koyas of Andhra Pradesh, is an intermediate Dravidian language closer to Telugu and Kanarese. There is a history to this.
According to Sir W.V. Grigson, ICS, who in 1938 wrote The Maria Gonds of Bastar (which is still widely referred to), the Bastar princely family was descended from the Kakatiya kings who reigned at Warangal from AD 1150 to 1425. According to Bastar tradition and folk songs after Pratap Rudra Raya, the greatest of the Kakatiya kings was killed in battle with the invading forces of Ahmad Shah Bahmani, his brother Annam Deo fled across the Godavari into Bastar. Bastar was then constituted of a group of loosely held feudal dependencies of Warangal.
Wherever the Gonds still speak their own language, they refer to themselves as Koi, or Koitur. It is only in the Telugu regions that a name close to what they call themselves, Koya, is used for them.
Anthropologists generally refer to only these “Teluguised” Gonds as Koitur and even though there are large groups of Koitur living in Andhra and Maharashtra, Bastar is truly the land of the Koitur.
Dr Kalyan Kumar Chakravarthy, director of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal, has written eloquently and cogently on this in his concluding chapter “Extinction or Adaptation of the Gonds” in the book Tribal Identity in India, also edited by him. The Sangrahalaya established for the exclusive study, research and preservation for posterity the unique aspects of India’s tribal societies and their culture, has most beautifully and imaginatively recreated these on the Shamla Hills overlooking Bhopal’s magnificent lake. If you visit Bhopal, this institution and the beautifully laid out and imaginatively mounted depictions of Adivasi homes and lifestyles in the Tribal Museum are a must.
Public attitudes in metropolitan India however seem to have been conditioned by the works of artists like J.P. Singhal, who has through his popular calendar art of bare-breasted tribal women titillated millions and served to establish the generally prevalent view of these people.
Popular Indian cinema has consistently depicted tribals in a lurid and garish manner. It is common to have them painted black and dancing in grass skirts in a new musical genre called the Bollywood Tribal Fusion. Even the Ramayan cannot be deemed exempt of having nurtured certain attitudes about Adivasis. What was the monkey army all about?
Much of the dense forests of the Bastar region have since been chopped down and the animals hunted to near extinction. Once great herds of wild buffalo have been reduced to a mere handful precariously surviving near Kutru. There are only a few tigers left in the beautiful Kanger Valley Reserve. The traditional existence of the Koitur is as much threatened. Migrants from other parts, now increasingly from the Hindi-speaking areas of old Madhya Pradesh, have settled in large numbers and have reduced the indigenous population to a minority in many areas particularly in and around Jagdalpur and Kondagaon.
The National Mineral Development Corporation, a PSU, operates India’s largest iron ore mine in Bailadilla in Dantewara district. Instead of bringing prosperity to the local people, it has done irrevocable harm. Few benefits of this economic exploitation have trickled down to them, while the ecological degradation of the area is devastating. Even worse has been the social degradation that has visited the Koitur Gonds, in general, and the sexual exploitation of their women, in particular, by people from the so-called civilised sections and regions of India.