In an address delivered at the Delhi School of Economics last week, N.K. Singh, the chairperson of the 15th Finance Commission, warned about how the race to provide freebies to voters could be a “quick path to fiscal disaster.” He also noted that freebies could be harmful for the long-term economic growth of the country and emphasised the need to distinguish between productive and unproductive forms of welfare spending. In a conversation moderated byPrashanth Perumal , Renu Kohli and Himanshu examine whether there is a case for doing away with freebie culture. Edited excerpts:
Is there a trend of deterioration in the financial situation of States? Are freebies the reason for it?
Renu Kohli:When the argument is framed as freebies versus fiscal stability, a binary answer is often not possible. So let me just clarify that there are different kinds of freebies. Some of them are extremely justifiable, some of them are not. As far as fiscal stability and financial deterioration is concerned, if we see the welfare spending of the States, and if it is sustainable and affordable, then that is fine as it is the prerogative of the political executive. Having said that, we must understand what exactly we mean by fiscal stability.
Broadly speaking, in common parlance, fiscal stability is a situation in which the government is able to deploy its fiscal policy towards long-term economic objectives, which are high employment and growth rates. That leads us to measures of fiscal stability. If you see the study of the State finances conducted by the Reserve Bank of India, you find that from 2005 onwards, in aggregate, States have adhered to the limit in terms of their gross fiscal deficit, which is the gap between the total revenue of the State and the total expenditure.
The mandate is under the ceiling of the fiscal responsibility legislation, which allows them to keep the gross fiscal deficit within an aggregate limit of 3% of GDP. The only years — apart from the pandemic years — when these limits were breached were 2009-10, 2015-16 and 2016-17. 2009-10 was a crisis year and 2015-16 and 2016-17 were years of power sector reforms in which power sector debt was taken over by the state governments. Secondly, what is the trajectory of the outstanding debt?
Outstanding debt reduction has actually progressed quite well in the case of the States. From a high of 31% of GDP, it came down by almost 10 percentage points to about 22% of GDP by 2014-15. After that, it has inched up about five percentage points by FY 2020. If we compare this with the Central government’s track record, the Central government has never been able to adhere to fiscal deficit limits. Secondly, when it comes to debt reduction, the Central government’s debt-to-GDP limit is supposed to be 40%, but it has now crossed 90% of GDP. So, the problem of fiscal stability is more pressing at the level of the Centre.
Himanshu:We need to look at the definition of freebies itself. The term “freebies” gives you an impression of something that is a dole or a gift given to the population. But then freebies can be of different varieties. Certain kinds of expenditure that are done under populist pressures or with elections in mind may be questionable. But given that in the last 30 years there has been rising inequality and also some level of distress in the last decade, some kind of relief to the population in the form of subsidies may not be unjustified. It may actually be necessary for the economy to continue on its growth path.
On the fiscal front, given that after 2017, when we have the goods and services tax (GST) which is more or less taking away the power of the States to generate revenues and given that responsibility for the majority of the welfare expenditure lies in the domain of the States, the hands of the States are squeezed. So, fiscal stability is not just about expenditure but also about revenues. And mind you, the Centre also engages in giving out freebies not just to the poor people but also to a large number of corporations.
N.K. Singh claims that poverty reduction has accelerated under the Modi government. How much of this is due to growth versus the welfare measures taken by the Centre?
H:We don’t have official poverty estimates after 2011-12. The only estimates that we have are from a number of independent studies by private researchers. And I completely disagree with N.K. Singh’s claim that the rate of poverty reduction has doubled under the Modi government. None of the studies, including the IMF study, the World Bank study, or consumption surveys, confirm that. In fact, there is at least one study that concludes that the rate of poverty reduction has slowed down under the Modi government.
There is also a consensus that the welfare measures such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the public distribution system, have contributed to poverty reduction. The strengthening of these programmes has definitely contributed to poverty reduction. This does not mean that growth does not have a role to play in reducing poverty. If the growth during the Modi years was as good as it was before that, then probably the rate of poverty reduction may have been higher. So, I don’t think this is a question of welfare versus growth. I’m a little hesitant to call welfare measures as freebies because they may be essential not just for poverty reduction but also for growth. Remember, we are in a slowdown simply because demand in the economy overall has collapsed. And I think welfare spending has been able to at least prevent consumption demand from falling any further.
RK:The very idea of estimating poverty on the basis of private final consumption on the basis of national accounts was rejected long ago. So, estimating poverty on this basis is simply unacceptable. There has also been no consumption expenditure survey.
We have to question estimates of poverty coming from both the World Bank and the IMF. This is for two reasons. One is that at a time when the government is claiming that formalisation has increased, there’s no basis to believe that income distribution has not worsened as an outcome of formalisation. Secondly, at a time when free food is being given, where is the proof that the underlying income of the poor has remained intact in the absence of any consumer expenditure survey? There’s no way that this can be established. Also, the fact that the latest survey was junked and has never been published creates the suspicion that poverty may have risen.
What proportion of spending by States is productive rather than aimed simply at gaining votes in elections?
H:Well, in a democracy where political parties try and get votes from every section of the population, there is obviously a tendency for State governments to try and provide some kind of relief to voters. I am certainly in favour of expanding, for example, the MGNREGA type of spending and subsidy in the form of food ration schemes. These go a long way in increasing the productive capacity of the population. So, they’re not just doles. They build a healthier and a stronger workforce, which is a necessary part of any growth strategy. That is similar to a State spending on education or health.
One can call these as an investment for the long-term, for improving the productive capacity of the population.
But yes, there are obviously cases where State governments have gone astray and have gone into providing all sorts of freebies or gifts. But when it comes to simply giving away loan waivers, I am not in favour of these because they have undesired consequences such as destroying the whole credit culture and it blurs the very basic question as to why is it that a large majority of the farming community is getting into a debt trap repeatedly.
We need to be talking about some of these issues in the larger context of whether they actually contribute to growth. Do they actually contribute to poverty reduction, or are these simply being done to get short-term benefits at the cost of long-term damage? We know about free electricity that is being given in various States to the rural communities which has sometimes led to disastrous consequences in terms of declining water table, wastage of electricity and various other things. There are nuances to the issue, and one will have to get into those nuances to take a final call on whether a certain welfare spending is necessary or not.
Lastly, some people have been questioning subsidies going into education, such as for laptops and other things. Some of them have now become necessities for increasing productivity, knowledge, skills, and various other things. So, we need a more nuanced understanding of the issue.
RK:There is absolutely no justification for promising 200, 300 or whatever number of units of power to middle class or urban populations who are by and large regular income earners. I have a slightly different perspective on loan waivers in the light of agriculture being a very costly and extremely risky venture. It’s one of the riskiest activities to undertake compared to, say, manufacturing or any of the services segment. And there are always ways to restructure bank loans to medium and small enterprises in the event of a downturn in the business cycle or any kind of extraordinary shock.
Now, we can talk about loan waivers in the light of weather and other risks and also the fact that crop insurance has by and large always failed to offset shocks in agriculture. Also, we are in a position where direct benefits transfer can be used to deliver loan waivers directly to distressed farmers and the cost of the waiver is immediately taken on the government’s budget and financial intermediaries are not involved. Secondly, the tendency towards unproductive spending is not more pronounced at the level of the States as compared to the Centre.
If we look at social sector expenditure, there is a rising trend at the level of the States, but then the rising trend at the level of the Centre is extraordinarily high. And if you look at the core sector schemes, then the revenue spending component is as high as 65-68%.
So almost two-third of the expenditure is revenue expenditure. The issue of unproductive and productive spending should be looked at in this light and in the light of mounting interest payments.
Welfare spending has been able to at least prevent consumption demand from falling any further
Himanshu
On April 22, a Bench of the Supreme Court of India, led by Justice U.U. Lalit, decided to critically examine the routine and abrupt way in which trial judges often impose the death penalty on convicts. The challenge before the Court in the instant case ofIrfan vs State of Madhya Pradesh was to identify the mitigating circumstances and to ensure a convict-centric approach so that the imposition of capital punishment becomes rarer, fairer, and principled.
The Court seemed to think that an individualistic approach that examines the social, economic, emotional, and genetic components that constituted the offender rather than the offence, would go a long way in evolving a just and judicious sentencing policy. According to the Court, “a ‘one size fit for all’ approach while considering mitigating factors during sentencing should end”. The Bench indicated the need for mitigation experts to assist trial courts in reaching a correct conclusion on whether one should be sent to the gallows or not.
Recent verdicts as pointers
This is a significant development that can radically alter India’s death penalty jurisprudence, by a comprehensive examination of the multi-disciplinary wisdom relating to the crime, the criminal, and the punishment.
An analysis of the possible reasons to avert the death penalty is reflected in a series of recent verdicts such asLochan Shrivas vs State of Chhattisgarh (2021) andBhagchandra vs State of Madhya Pradesh (2021). These reasons might include socio-economic backwardness, mental health, heredity, parenting, socialisation, education, etc.
Needed, a different acumen
According to Section 354(3) in the Code of Criminal Procedure, while imposing the capital punishment, the judge should specify “the special reasons” for doing so. It was inBachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980) that the Constitution Bench suggested a humane and reformist framework in the matter. It said that the gallows could be resorted to only in the rarest of rare cases, that too when “the alternate option is unquestionably foreclosed”. Thus,Bachan Singh requires the trial courts not only to examine the gravity of the offence but also the condition and the ‘reformability’ of the accused. The Court, inBachan Singh , refused to declare the death penalty as unconstitutional. It, nevertheless, tried to reduce the rigour of capital punishment by trying to do away with the indiscriminate use of the penal provisions. It abundantly implied that no person is indubitably ‘irreformable’. It had the effect of practically undoing the death penalty provision, if taken in its letter and spirit. The need to have ‘unquestionable foreclosure’ of ‘alternate option’ (in the matter of punishment , such as life imprisonment) sets the benchmark for the sentencing court very high and even unattainable. This person-centric approach, for its materialisation, needs a different judicial acumen that recognises the convict in her multitudes.
But theBachan Singh principle was followed more in its breach than in compliance even by the Supreme Court. InRavji vs State of Rajasthan (1995), the Supreme Court said that it is the nature of the crime and not the criminal which is germane for deciding the punishment. This is diametrically opposite to what was laid down inBachan Singh . InMachhi Singh vs State of Punjab (1983), the Court indicated that inadequacy of other punishments could justify the death penalty. This too negated the humanistic liberalism inBachan Singh . Several other cases also were decided by ignoring theBachan Singh doctrine, as noted by the Supreme Court itself inSanthosh Kumar Satishbhushan Bariyar vs State of Maharashtra (2009) andRajesh Kumar vs State (2011).The Hindu ’sFrontline magazine (“A case against the death penalty”, issue dated September 7, 2012) had a list of 13 convicts who were directed to be hanged in different reported cases decided by the Supreme Court itself, illegally and erroneously, by discarding theBachan Singh philosophy.
This egregious judicial error will have to be kept in mind while the Court revisits the issues related to mitigating factors and individual-centered sentencing policy in the Irfan case. In the process, it may need to consider concrete guidelines for such policy.
Overuse and misuse
But the Indian experience shows that whenever the Court tries to dilute the harshness of penal provisions by a balancing approach, instead of striking down the provision, the instrumentalities of the state (including the police, the prosecution and the court) continue to overuse or misuse the provisions. The judgment of the top court inKedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar (1962) is a case in point. The Supreme Court endorsed the validity of the sedition law (Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code) with a rider that it could be invoked only when there is an incitement to violence. But the state seldom acts based on interpretation of the law. Many were booked for the charge of sedition since then for mere words, innocent tweets or harmless jokes. The top court is now seriously considering the need to revisitKedar Nath Singh itself.
It is true that Bachan Singh did not, in concrete terms, elaborate on the mitigating factors and the methods to gather them to avert the death penalty. Nor did it explain the issues such as burden of proof and standard of proof in detail. As argued by Anup Surendranath, Neetika Vishwanath, and Preeti Pratishruti Dash in a recent paper, there could be “gaps withinBachan Singh itself”. The point, however, is that going by the Indian experience, it may not be enough to provide clarity with respect to the mitigative elements in the matter of sentencing or the method of invoking them. Taking empirical lessons from the fate ofBachan Singh , the Supreme Court may have to now ask the more fundamental question posed and negatived inBachan Singh — the question of the constitutional validity of death penalty. The judiciary needs to learn a lot from history.
The poor are most affected
In India, as elsewhere, the poor, rather than the rich, are sent to the gallows. The numbers of the uneducated and the illiterate sentenced to death outweigh those who are educated and literate. InWilliams vs Taylor (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court said that failure of the defence lawyer in highlighting the mitigating factors that could lead to avoidance of capital punishment makes the legal assistance ineffective. Therefore, it infringes constitutionally guaranteed rights. In the Indian scenario, the legal assistance received by the poor facing serious charges is far from satisfactory. Lack of proper defence results in conviction. And in the matter of sentencing too, the mitigating factors are either not placed before the trial court or not persuaded adequately to convince the trial judge to avoid the death penalty. There is a marked contradiction between the Indian legal plutocracy and the marginalised.
Revisiting the case
The Court, in the instant case, will have to evolve a legal device for procurement of a comprehensive report dealing with the socio-economic and hereditary backgrounds of the accused from experts in the fields of social work, psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, etc. Yet, there could be inherent inequality and arbitrariness in applying the principles because of multiple factors such as failure of the judges, incapacity or backwardness of the parties, inadequacy of defence, deficits in the reports of experts, disparity in practical application of the doctrine, etc. As such, there is a possibility for the new juridical device also meeting the unfortunate fate which theBachan Singh verdict faced. Therefore, the true way ahead is not merely to fill up the blanks inBachan Singh by laying down concrete propositions for assessment of mitigating factors, determination of standard of proof, burden of proof etc. The Court may have to revisitBachan Singh itself in so far as it refused to declare the death penalty as violative of the right to life envisaged under Article 21 of the Constitution. Across the world, 108 nations have abolished death penalty in law and 144 countries have done so in law or practice, according to the Amnesty Report of 2021.
In the Indian context, where judgmental error is quite frequent and the quality of adjudication is not ensured, what is required is a judicial abolition of death penalty. For this, the present matter will have to be referred to a larger Bench, with a view to rectify the foundational omission inBachan Singh — of not explicitly declaring capital punishment as unconstitutional.
Kaleeswaram Raj is a lawyer at the Supreme Court of India
There are few in the Democratic Party in the United States at this point in time who are looking at whether or not the U.S. President, Joseph Biden, will run for re-election in 2024. Instead, all eyes and minds are on the U.S. midterm elections on November 8. The general perception is that Mr. Biden and the Democrats are going to lose more than just their shirts and heading into a situation where the next two years of his tenure will be a lame duck one, with little to no movement on the legislative agenda, especially if the Senate also falls to the Grand Old Party. Almost every one of the polls and pundits have written off the House of Representatives.
An argument that might hold
With minor exceptions, the traditional argument has always been that the President’s Party loses the midterm elections; statistics show that since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s elections in 1932, this has always been the case. The party of the President has lost House seats in 19 out of 22 midterm polls; and 15 out 22 in the Senate. In 2022, a total of 469 seats are in the reckoning — 435 in the House and 34 in the Senate (14 held by Democrats and 20 by the Grand Old Party). And in November, there are five Republican incumbents not seeking re-election. All eyes are on the Senate where the two parties are tied at 50, with the Republicans looking to gain only one seat to take control of the Chamber.
Polls and Biden’s standing
If Mr. Biden is going to take a beating on November 8, he will not be the first; some of his predecessors have had to face the heat as well. In 1994, Bill Clinton lost 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate; George Bush in 2006 lost 30 in the House and six in the Senate; Barack Obama was swamped in 2010 when he lost 63 in the House and six in the Senate; and during the Donald Trump Presidency, the Republicans lost control of the House as they lost 39 seats but added two in the Senate. But if the President and Democrats are facing special attention this time around, some of it has to do with the fact that the political spectrum is not past the hangover of the 2020 Presidential election and in what the 46th President set out to do in January 2021.
There are at least two things that worry the Democrats. First, the President’s standing among young Americans: in a latest poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, only 41% of young Americans approve of Mr. Biden’s performance — down from 46% from last fall and 59% from last Spring. There may not be a correlation between the approval standing of young Americans and midterm poll results, but Mr. Biden has to be reminded that in the last presidential elections of 2020, he had the backing of 69% of this category; and his approval rating of the economy is just 34% among young adults. Mr. Biden scores better on his handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic and Ukraine.
Second, Mr. Biden’s standing among the minorities (who have always stood by the Democrats) is also falling and alarmingly at that. In the presidential election of 2020, it was estimated that 90% of the African-American community voted for Mr. Biden; but since 2021, the approval rating of the President fell from 86% to 76%, with much of this being attributed to the political troubles encountered by the Democrats on voting rights and ‘Build Back Better’ legislations. The African-American community had played a crucial role in Mr. Biden’s victory in the swing states and in the south; sitting at home and not voting in November on account of apathy will make a huge difference.
Hispanics are disappointed
But the bigger shocker to the Biden White House and the Democrats comes from the support of the Hispanics which has fallen to an agonising 26% (or less than the support from the whites) in a latest Quinnipiac Poll. The Hispanics had hoped for solid movement on the all-important issue of immigration that has turned out to be a huge disappointment. In fact this latest poll puts Mr. Biden’s overall rating at 33%, the lowest among all surveys of recent months. One argument that is made is that the minority groups are turned off because of an overemphasis on the agenda of the progressives and left-leaning Democrats.
With six months to go for the midterms, traditional Democrats must be concerned at the direction of the White House and in the inability to craft a message or fine tune the messenger. Neither Mr. Biden nor the Democrats have the luxury of sitting back and arguing that nearly every President in the recent past was on the same level prior to their midterms; even Donald Trump was on much better footing at this time of his presidency while his predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, were way ahead in the approval-disapproval rating prior to the midterms.
‘All politics is local’
There is no doubt that Mr. Biden is a decent person, but hanging everything on the coattails of Russian President Vladimir Putin is not going to work. Inflation has been running high for the last several months and gas prices have been hitting the roof long before Mr. Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine. Undoubtedly, there have been gains in the economy and the job market but few in the party or the administration have been able to project this in the midst of all the noise that has been generated. Foreign policy barely makes a dent in American elections for as the former Speaker of the House of Representatives said, “All Politics is Local”. And having been in the corridors of politics for close to four decades in Washington DC, Mr. Biden should know better.
Sridhar Krishnaswami was a former senior journalist in Washington covering North America and the United Nations
The emergency use authorisation (EUA) granted on April 26 to two COVID-19 vaccines — Corbevax for children 5-11 years, and Covaxin for children 6-11 years — is one more instance where the Indian drug regulator has acted in haste. Even if the EUA granted to Covaxin in January 2021 despite no safety and efficacy data of the phase-3 trial is condoned as a desperate measure in ensuring greater vaccine availability, the regulator clearly has no fig leaf to defend the greenlighting of the vaccines for children at this stage. Evidence from across the world after the deadly Delta variant and the extremely transmissive Omicron variant has shown that unlike adults, children in general, and little children in particular, do not suffer from severe disease. The ICMR’s fourth seroprevalence survey (June-July 2021) soon after the second wave peaked nationally found that 57.2% of children (6-9 years) and 61.6% of children (10-17 years) were infected by SARS-CoV-2 virus; seroprevalence among adults was 66.7%. Since vaccination of adolescents began only in early January 2022, the antibodies detected in children in mid-2021 were only from infection by the virus. The extremely infectious Omicron variant would have infected an even larger percentage of children. Yet, the number of severe cases and deaths in children 5-11 years has been very low. True, with schools reopening, children could be at greater risk of contracting infection. But with natural infection found to offer protection across age groups, India could have waited for validation of the available evidence on the vaccines for children.
Unlike in January 2021 when approving vaccines for adults as soon as possible was the highest priority, and hence the EUA based on fewer cases and short follow-ups was seen as a necessity, the situation is not the same now, especially in the case of children as young as five. Hence, the regulator’s urgency to greenlight vaccines for children under the EUA route is highly questionable. Clinical trial data of Corbevax for children 5-12 years were posted as a preprint, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, on the day approval was granted; trial data of Covaxin for children 2-18 years were posted as a preprint in December 2021. The Health Ministry had already set a precedent last month by clearing Corbevax for children 12-14 years without first seeking the approval of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), which clears vaccines for the national immunisation programme. With NTAGI clearly against approving vaccines for children, there is every likelihood of the expert body being ignored again. Also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message on April 27, a day after the EUA, that every eligible child should be vaccinated at the earliest might prompt the Health Ministry to sidestep the NTAGI once more, thus departing even more from evidence-based policy making.
The conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s deposed State Counsellor and pro-democracy leader, in a corruption case, shows nothing but the desperation of the junta to silence her. For the military, which seems determined to destroy the Southeast Asian nation’s popular democracy, Ms. Suu Kyi, under house arrest ever since the February 2021 coup, remains the enemy number one. The conviction, in a kangaroo court, was based on the testimony of the former Chief Minister of Yangon who claimed that he had handed over to her $6,00,000 and gold in return for favours. The prosecution has presented no evidence. She was convicted earlier on five other charges and sentenced to six years in jail. In the corruption case, the court jailed her for five years. The junta has slapped more cases on her, with the clear objective of keeping the 76-year-old leader in prison. Since the coup, it has arrested 10,300 political prisoners, including most of the elected lawmakers of Ms. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. The forces have also killed at least 1,798 civilians and threatened to “annihilate” all opponents.
Myanmar’s military is one of the most stubborn enemies of democracy and basic human freedoms, having ruled for nearly 50 years using brute force. But even in the darkest moments of Myanmar’s past, there was popular resistance. And over the past three decades, Ms. Kyi has been the embodiment of that resistance. Between 1989 and 2010, she spent 15 years under house arrest. The military, faced with international isolation and growing domestic anger, agreed to release her and share power with civilians through a quasi-democratic arrangement. They barred her from becoming President and reserved key portfolios, including the Defence Ministry, for the Generals. Still, the 2015 and 2020 elections saw overwhelming public support for her party, and the country witnessed, barring the military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, relative stability and growing economic opportunities. But the military was worried whether an increasingly popular and powerful Ms. Suu Kyi, after her second consecutive election, would clip its privileges. It was this fear that prompted the Generals to stage another coup. They may have succeeded in reversing Myanmar’s limited experiment with democracy, but the coup has also wreaked havoc on the country. The Opposition has taken up arms, pushing the country to the brink of civil war. A nationwide strike has crippled the country’s economy. The political opponents of the coup have also formed an alternative unity government. So far, the military has managed to cling on to power through sheer repression. But it is not a sustainable model. Even silencing Ms. Suu Kyi would not help the junta tighten its control over a divided, impoverished, and rebellious country.
Mr. Kosakoppa Krishna Rao C. writes: All lovers of Mysore, were eagerly expecting a change, as the administration was getting out of accustomed and well established groove and power fell into the hands of those who began to exercise the same without the least regard to the feelings and sentiments of many who have grown grey in the services of their motherland. The climax reached its height and became unbearable when the administration sought to openly insult the press and the police men of Mysore. Mr. Venkatakrishniah may have offended the powers that be, but old and venerable as he is, considering his past and meritorious services to the cause of the State, which services earned for him the approbation of his sovereign who bestowed on him even a life pension from his private purse, was sought to be humiliated. A rigorous policy of repression of the press was initiated by the Government and it now learnt that even the Executive Council was not unanimous in the ushering of the policy of repression.
The Apollo-16 astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific yesterday ending an 11-day mission to the lunar highlands full of spectacular successes, disappointing failures and intriguing new clues to the puzzle of the moon’s creation. America’s next-to-last scheduled manned flight to the moon, a $445 million venture ended at 19-45 GMT (01-15 IST) Friday, when the command ship Casper landed in gentle, blue-green sea about 2,400 km. south of Honolulu. After burning through the earth’s atmosphere at 39.699 km. per hour, astronauts John W. Young, Charles M. Duke Jr. and Thomas Mattingly splashed down precisely on schedule and only a mile from the waiting aircraft carrier Ticonderoga after a voyage of 13,91,000 miles (22,37,255 km). They reported their physical condition was “outstanding”. A few minutes before, they felt a reassuring tug of gravity as three huge, orange-and-white striped parachutes blossomed under the near-cloudless skies and lowered Casper to the ocean. The parachutes were specially strengthened to avoid a repeat of Apollo 15’s hard landing last August when one of the three parachutes failed to open completely. The cone-shaped command ship nevertheless appeared before a nationwide television audience to have hit the water hard.
Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan-led government has done well to ignore the Opposition’s barbs on sending the chief secretary, V P Joy, to Gujarat to study the latter’s “dashboard” scheme. Joy, who arrived in Ahmedabad on Wednesday, praised the scheme that allows the chief minister to monitor progress of public works and programmes across ministries and the working of bureaucrats in real time from his office.
It is a sign of polarised times that even a courteous exchange of views or the sharing of ideas that can benefit citizens get caught up in political polemic. Institutions such as the National Development Council (NDC) — presided over by the prime minister, with Union ministers, chief ministers, members of the Planning Commission, now NITI Aayog, ministers of state with independent charge, as members — were built in the 1950s as a platform for states to share ideas and learn from each other. The NDC ceased to be a lively platform long ago and the Narendra Modi government had proposed to wind up the Nehru-era institution. Instead, the Modi government reconstituted the Planning Commission as NITI Aayog and re-imagined it as a resource centre — “a repository of research on good governance and best practices in sustainable and equitable development…” — for states. However, political rhetoric and showmanship often gets in the way.
State governments should showcase their success stories and invite other governments to learn from them. Gujarat could learn ways to improve school education from Kerala while Tamil Nadu should be a model for states such as UP in optimising welfare schemes and building a robust public health system. Jammu and Kashmir’s record on land reforms, working of Panchayati Raj institutions in Karnataka, and rural cooperatives of Maharashtra could be profitably studied by other states. Of course, political considerations will remain. For instance, the CPM expelled two-time MP, AP Abdullakutty, from the party in 2009 for praising the “Gujarat model” — he has since joined the BJP. The Congress seems to have taken the baton from the CPM in censuring engagements with the “enemy” — recently, it threatened disciplinary action against party leaders speaking at the CPM party congress. But all parties must recognise when the drawing of rigid political lines becomes counter-productive, when it starts looking like a self-goal.
For the past few years the Indian Test team has had a potent pace attack that has been the envy of the world. But there has never been someone quite like Umran Malik. You can marvel at Jasprit Bumrah’s physique and the intelligence in his bowling, appreciate Mohammad Shami’s seam positions, smile at Umesh Yadav’s swing at pace, nod at Mohammad Siraj’s springy zest. But Malik injects a never-before feeling: A visceral thrill at watching a ball rush through the air. There have been highly skilful fast bowlers and more are mushrooming, but Malik hurls intimidatory blurs, adrenalin-kickers, cannonballs to satiate cricket devotees’ lust for pace.
His background adds romance to the story. From Kashmir, a son of a fruit-seller, a boy who began as a net-bowler, and who is yet to play for the country. What he offers is hope, and his emergence upholds the cherished belief that in sport, particularly cricket at least, an Indian with a talent will be identified, nurtured, and celebrated — regardless of class, race, religion, region or language.
But at the core, the real deal is Malik’s pace. It may not last too long, and he will probably need more than that to become a great bowler. But that sobering thought can wait. In the here and now, it’s how he takes the pitch out of the equation, how he makes fierce Australians go weak in their knees, how he makes international batsmen flinch in pain. He is growing as a bowler. Toes and heads are being threatened, LED-bails are lighting up eagerly, stumps are flying, and as Jeff Thompson, probably the fastest bowler that ever was, once said, he can smell fear in the batsmen. For the first time, an Indian bowler can say the same.
Britain has set the stage for a military showdown with Argentina by announcing that a full sea and air blockade would be imposed on the Falkland Islands in the next 48 hours. The Defence Ministry said any Argentine ship or aircraft found in the 200-mile radius “no-go” zone declared around the South Atlantic islands would be regarded as hostile. Official British sources said friendly governments were being kept informed of Britain’s moves to regain the colony. Sources close to Prime Minister Thatcher said: “We haven’t declared war on Argentina and we shall not do so. But I wouldn’t exactly describe us as being in a state of peace at the moment”.
Barring minor incidents of violence at two places, peace prevailed in Amritsar, though the authorities have extended the curfew by another 24 hours. A peace march led by the Union Home Minister, Zail Singh, and the Chief Minister Darbara Singh saw the participation of prominent political and religious leaders.
Over bitter American protest, the UN General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution for Palestinian statehood. It branded Israel “not a peace-loving” UN member and condemned the US support for it.
The Foreign Minister of Iran, Ali Akbar Velayati, met External Affairs Minister, P V Narasimha Rao on April 28. Velayati is in Delhi on a five-day official visit. According to a spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Velayati explained to Rao that the purpose of his visit was to consolidate Iran’s relations with India in the political, economic, commercial, industrial and other fields.
On Wednesday, hearing the bail application of student and activist Umar Khalid in the larger conspiracy case of the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, the Delhi High Court asked if it is “proper” to use the term “jumla” for the Prime Minister of India. The day after, that is not the question. It is: What does it mean when a high court asks what it did? That the Division Bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar should be so easily offended on the PM’s behalf, that it should speak of a “laxman rekha” for criticism of government, points to more disturbing things. These are times when the ruling establishment has made a dismal habit of labelling dissenters and political opponents as “anti-national”, and harsh laws like the UAPA are being weaponised to target critics. These are times, too, when the courts are not as vigilant against the misuse of law to cramp citizens’ freedoms, and when they all too often give the executive the benefit of doubt. In times like these, especially, Delhi HC’s objections to words used by Umar Khalid in a speech in Amravati in February 2020 strike a jarring note.
The Delhi HC has also flagged “oont pahad ke neeche aa gaya (idiomatic Hindi for cutting the arrogant down to size)” and the use of expressions like “inquilabi” and “krantikari (revolutionary)” in the speech. The court’s picking on satirical or polemical words and innocuous phrases underlines a deepening worry about the Delhi riots cases — that dots are being joined loosely and indiscriminately, between legitimate protests against a law, CAA-NRC, in which Khalid also participated, and the communal violence that broke out in Northeast Delhi which left 53 dead. The central pillar that holds the prosecution’s edifice is the criminalisation of the protest by linking it to the violence and, by invoking the UAPA, even to terror. Another bench of the Delhi HC, last year, spoke wisely and sharply against this, while granting bail to Khalid’s co-accused, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Tanha: “… it seems that in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the state, the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred. If this mindset gains traction, it would be a sad day for democracy”. The Supreme Court intervened within days of that HC order, though, and while it did not cancel the bail, it said that the reading down of the anti-terror law is “not to be treated as precedent by any court”.
But that reading down of the harsh law, the underlining of crucial distinctions between “protest”, “law and order”, “security of the state” and “terror”, and the court’s warning that “wanton use of serious penal provisions would only trivialise them” is a judicial moment to hold on to. It gives reason to hope that the excesses of the executive will be checked by the court. One hopes, with due respect, that the court, through its remarks on Khalid’s vocabulary, was merely being provocative in the back-and-forth that marks the adversarial process of justice. Because when citizens’ freedoms are threatened, the only bulwark is a judiciary that will speak up without ambivalence or delay, on substance rather than style. To flag what can, or cannot, offend the PM is not the responsibility of an independent judiciary.
The victims’ movement, decrying the criminal justice system’s lack of a participatory approach, spread like wildfire around the world in the previous century. The movement that began in the US has withstood the test of time and is credited with establishing the present discourse on enhancing the victim’s position as a stakeholder in the administration of criminal justice.
Crime, which is essentially a wrong against the state, triggers the entire state machinery (police, judiciary) to spring into action to remedy the wrong and punish the wrongdoer. The cog that sets the wheel in motion acts as a mere spectator in the entire battle fought between the prosecutor and the accused. However, the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Jagjeet Singh and Ors. v. Ashish Mishra and Anr. (Lakhimpur Kheri violence case) has ignited a beacon of hope in victim jurisprudence. In this judgment, the court cancelled the bail granted to the accused by the high court over the denial of a fair and effective hearing to the victim in the bail proceedings. This necessitates an inquiry into the role of the victim in an adversarial criminal justice system like ours. As former US President Ronald Reagan put it, “For too long, the victims of crime have been the forgotten persons of our criminal justice system”.
A milestone in the recognition of victims in the criminal justice process was the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power, 1985. Victim participation is given a prominent position in various jurisdictions throughout the world and can be observed at various stages of a criminal trial, including producing evidence and questioning witnesses. It includes the right to know the status of the investigation, petition the court for further direction, being heard in the grant or cancellation of bail and advance arguments after the submission of the prosecutor’s arguments. Unfortunately, in India, the victim is consigned to the shadows and often lurks in the background of a criminal trial, and even the protection of her interests is entirely dependent on the alacrity of public prosecutors who are already overloaded by the Indian court system’s vast pendency.
The convenient wielding of the wand by the courts in granting bail is buttressed by the Prison Statistics of India (NCRB, 2020), according to which 39.3 per cent of convicts and 95.4 per cent of undertrial prisoners were enlarged on bail in 2020, thus affirming the canon that “bail is the rule, jail an exception”. The ever-evolving jurisprudence of bail is primarily dealt with by the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 and supplemented by judicial precedents. Granting bail in non-bailable cases is at the discretion of the court or the officer, depending on numerous factors like nature and gravity of accusation, severity of punishment which the conviction will entail, the danger of the accused absconding, tampering with evidence, reoffending and the interest of society. It is pertinent to note here that bail is an indefeasible right of the accused in bailable cases; the scope of discretion is only in non-bailable matters.
The victim’s participation in bail matters is provided for in the limited circumstances of non-bailable matters or where the accused is to be released on bail in case of suspension of sentence pending appeal, where the punishment prescribed is more than seven years imprisonment, and in cancellation of bail. The opportunity of being heard here is conferred on the public prosecutor, representing the victim. The high court, in the exercise of its inherent power, can allow the complainant or the victim to intervene and oppose the bail, pending appeal.
In contrast, special legislation like the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and POCSO Act, expressly recognise the victim’s right to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any court proceedings, including the bail proceedings and to be informed by a special public prosecutor regarding the same. This right extends to the right of being heard at any proceeding under the act — bail, release, conviction, sentence, etc.
The V S Malimath Committee (2003) and 268th Law Commission Report of India, (2017) championed the victim’s right to participate in grant or cancellation of bail and suggested “victim impact assessment” reports in bail matters, respectively. The concerns of the victim, along with the information on the physical, mental, the social impact of the crime and bail, must be given due consideration.
The victims’ right to be heard at every stage of the proceedings under the SC/ST Act has been held to be inexpungible by the Supreme Court in Hariram Bhambhi v. Satyanarayan (2021), where non-issuance of notice to the victims for the bail proceeding was held to be incurable. However, the victim’s right to be heard is completely disregarded in IPC offences, as evidenced by the frowning of the apex court in Rasiklal v. Kishore (2009) upon cancellation of bail (non-bailable case) on the grounds of the complainant being unheard.
The ripples created by the decision of the Supreme Court reinforcing the right of a victim to be heard in matters of bail in non-bailable cases is one of the first steps in the long journey of remodelling the Indian criminal justice system to make it more victim-inclusive at each stage. The bail application in non-bailable cases should be decided after weighing the relevant considerations and affording an adequate opportunity of hearing to the victims.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 29, 2022, under the title ‘Making room for the victim’. Gautam is assistant professor and Das is a PhD research scholar at USLLS, GGSIP University, Dwarka
Priyam was the life of the party at the daycare centre. A bright-eyed boy who captured the heart of the caretakers and played with abandon. Sometime after his second birthday, all this started changing. He stopped playing with his toys, he seemed more interested in organising them now. He stopped talking, not responding even when called by name. He stopped smiling at people and making eye contact.
Then the rhythmic movements started; rocking his body, banging his head or repeatedly tapping on the table. One day he banged his head so much that when his father came, hurriedly summoned by the caretaker, there was a trickle of blood running down his face. That was his last day at the centre; they refused to keep him after that.
Nancy was different. Growing up in a family with siblings and grandparents, she was used to people. But outsiders were studiously ignored. She heard all the questions and comments but never acknowledged them. Loud noises, rough-textured clothes, squishy toys, strong-smelling foods, all caused strong aversion. Now 10, she ventures out to play with other kids. She is often confused by the endless chatting of the other kids. She cannot fathom why they can’t just come, play and go home. She comes home crying most days because the others refused to include her in their play. She is smart, she understands that she is doing something wrong, but does not know what.
After multiple visits to the paediatrician and clinical psychologists, numerous questionnaires, behavioural evaluations through observations and play, both Nancy and Priyam were diagnosed to have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). People with ASD have difficulties in social interaction and communication, show repetitive behaviours like rocking movements or repeating certain words over and over again and are obsessive about routine and order in their daily lives. Between one in 50 to one in 150 people have a diagnosis of ASD in countries where this is being systematically done. In India, we do not have sufficiently uniform access to diagnosis to know the numbers.
A range of conditions previously known as Autism or Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) or Asperger’s Syndrome now come under the common umbrella of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Like Priyam and Nancy, people with ASD have very diverse difficulties, hence the term “spectrum” is used. True to the name, brain scans of people with ASD show a range of differences: In the volume and size of the brain and in the numbers and connectivity of neurons in the brain. But none of these differences is enough to diagnose a child as being on the Autism Spectrum. We know that the brains of ASD people are different from the brains of neurotypical people but we still do not know how that causes the behavioural changes. Autism is mostly genetic; the risk for autism increases in families with previous cases of ASD. But there is no single “autism gene” that can be tested for risk. The condition is a result of brain development being affected by a combination of nearly 100 or so genes.
High-functioning ASD kids, like Nancy, find it difficult to navigate the social world, but they are independent, able to attend mainstream schools, find employment and thrive. Many times, they excel at something that gets them noticed among their peers such as extraordinary mathematical, musical or artistic abilities. For such “high-functioning” autistic kids, these skills make their journey through life somewhat easier. But at the other end of the ASD spectrum are the children who do not speak beyond a few words, like Priyam. Some, but not all non-verbal children, may also have an intellectual disability. These children would usually need occupational therapy to identify objects by name, to learn to ask for help and communicate with others.
In a recent study, scientists tested the communication abilities of neurotypical adults with autistic adults and autistic adults with other autistic adults. Very surprisingly, they found that autistic people could communicate with each other as well as neurotypical people can with other neurotypical adults. This study revealed that perhaps it is not just the ASD individuals who need help with communication. But rather, the rest of the society should also learn how to communicate with, work with and value the diversity of brains we have amongst us. As parents, as teachers, as friends and family, we must learn how to open our arms and minds to differences amongst us. Many autistic children go on to live happy, fulfilled, loved and loving adult lives. But this journey always begins with acceptance and engagement at home and in the immediate social circle.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 29, 2022, under the title ‘Opening our arms and minds’. The writer is a scientist at CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB), New Delhi. Views are personal
In October last year, India witnessed significant power shortages stemming from the low inventory of coal at the power plants. After seven months, we are back to square one as reports of coal-shortage induced power outages across states continue to pour in. On the one hand, there is a rush towards buying expensive coal and power on the exchanges. On the other, states like Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat have asked industries to reduce consumption to manage the power deficit. As economic activity resumed after the Covid-induced lockdowns, the demand-supply mismatch for commodities such as coal widened globally, leading to a surge in prices. Geopolitical tensions have exacerbated the existing crisis. Amidst such unprecedented volatility, how can the Indian power sector become more resilient to future shocks?
Global supply disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict have sent coal prices touching historical highs. The cost of imported coal in India is expected to be 35 per cent higher in the fiscal year 2022-23 compared to the past year. Subsequently, power producers paid a premium of up to 300 per cent in March to secure coal supplies in the domestic spot market.
Even as coal stocks available with state thermal power plants fell, India also witnessed a sudden rise in energy demand in March — the hottest in its recorded history. This pushed peak power demand to 199 GW in the middle of March. The last week of March saw a 13 per cent higher demand over past year trends, accompanied by high electricity prices on the power exchange. This has left distribution companies (discoms) with two options: Procure expensive power, but face uncertainty in revenue recovery or resort to power rationing, as several states are doing.
The Ministry of Power has taken a host of measures to alleviate the crisis. This includes giving directions to ensure maximum production of coal at captive mines, rationing of coal to non-power sectors, and a price cap of Rs 12 per unit on electricity traded on exchanges. But we need to do more to enhance the sector’s resilience to such disruptions from exogenous factors.
First, create an enabling ecosystem to ensure power plants work efficiently. India has about 200 GW of coal-based generation capacity which accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the total electricity generated in the country. However, according to a CEEW assessment, a disproportionate share of generation comes from older inefficient plants, while the newer and efficient ones remain idle for want of favourable coal supply contracts or power purchase agreements. Revisiting fuel allocation and supporting the priority dispatch of efficient plants could help India reduce coal demand by up to 6 per cent of our annual requirement, and set aside more coal for the proverbial rainy day.
Second, enable discoms to undertake smart assessment and management of demand. We have advanced tools for medium- and short-term demand forecasting. However, few discoms have embraced these to inform their procurement decisions. With more than 90 per cent of power being procured through long-term contracts, discoms have little incentive to dynamically assess and manage demand. Introducing time-of-day pricing and promoting efficient consumption behaviour would help shave peak demand and avoid panic buying in the market.
Third, empower electricity regulators to help bring down discom losses. Despite two decades of sectoral reforms, the aggregate losses of discoms stand at 21 per cent (2019-20). This is reflective of both operational inefficiency and poor recovery of dues from consumers, including those affiliated with state governments and municipal bodies. These losses are also the reason for discoms not being able to pay the generators on time, resulting in payment delays to Coal India, which, in turn, is reluctant to supply coal on request. Besides the ongoing initiatives like introducing smart meters and network strengthening, empowering regulators would be critical to infuse payment discipline across the supply chain of the electricity sector and to keep cost recovery as a key metric.
Given the country’s development aspirations, India’s power demand is set to rise substantially and become more variable. Increasing climatic and geopolitical uncertainties underscore the need to become more efficient in the way we generate, distribute and consume energy. We need to act now for the long-term resilience of India’s power sector.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 29, 2022 under the title ‘Shock-proofing power’. Agrawal is a Senior Programme Lead and Ganesan is a Director at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water CEEW, Delhi
The Union Budget 2022-23 received a great deal of attention even before the financial year began due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the consequent rise in inflation. There has been considerable speculation on whether the fiscal targets will be altered due to the evolving conditions. The government, however, is quite sure of the numbers and has not spoken about the need to revisit them. Let’s see how things have changed since February.
To begin with, the critical estimate of GDP growth assumed for this year has certainly changed, with the RBI also adjusting its earlier forecast. However, the budget was conservative to begin with, assuming an 11.1 per cent growth estimate on which its revenue collection targets were based. Given that real GDP growth has been scaled down by the RBI to 7.2 per cent, and as inflation has gone up, on balance, the 11.1 per cent assumption looks tenable. Hence, inflation has been a positive for the government in this respect.
Another positive that emerged last year was that overall tax collections were even more buoyant than expected. From the budgeted figure of Rs 22.17 lakh crore, the revised estimates raised the target to Rs 25.16 lakh crore. In comparison, actual collections have turned out to be even higher at Rs 27.07 lakh crore. Budgets normally calculate taxes as a per cent of GDP; and this ratio rose by almost 1 percentage point to 11.7 per cent in 2021-22, up from the revised estimates of 10.8 per cent. If this buoyancy is maintained, then the government can expect the 2022-23 target of Rs 27.57 lakh crore to be exceeded by around Rs 2.5 lakh crore (of this, around 30 per cent will go to the states). The Centre would potentially get an extra Rs 1.75 lakh crore. But will this scenario materialise?
This additional revenue would ideally flow from enhanced GST collections, corporate tax, and customs. Central to GST collections increasing is private consumption. Today, high inflation erodes the purchasing power of households, which will divert a larger portion of their incomes for necessities that have become expensive. Therefore, there will be uncertainty here. Corporates did well last year as they did manage to pass on higher input costs to the consumers, especially in the second half of the year. Can they do it for the second time is the question. High growth in trade volumes led to the government raking in higher customs collections. With global growth set to slow down in 2022, a similar flow is unlikely. Therefore, higher tax collections cannot be taken for granted on account of the buoyancy witnessed last year.
At the same time, the government will be watchful of excise collections as it is possible that rising fuel prices will lead to lower consumption. Interestingly, overall consumption of petro products increased in March 2022 even as the daily price hikes set in. Also, in case crude oil continues on the current path and remains in the region of $100-120/barrel, a call may have to be taken by the government on the excise duty: Once the prices of diesel and petrol remain at a new threshold, there will be a tendency for freight rates to be increased permanently. This will have a secondary impact on inflation. A careful assessment will be needed on this front.
Further, on the revenue side, the LIC disinvestment that was to happen last year will materialise this year. The disinvestment has been pushed through for May, but would be of a much lower amount (around Rs 21,000 crore) than envisaged earlier. But this does send a strong message that the government is determined to go through with the disinvestment. It will be interesting to see if this would be a part of the Rs 65,000 crore target for this year. At any rate, other big-ticket disinvestments have to be considered this year.
On the expenditure side, too, there is uncertainty on account of the price rise. The biggest concern will be the fertiliser subsidy, which has been a volatile expenditure item. Higher prices of natural gas have meant that fertilisers have been more expensive and so, the budgeted amount of Rs 1.05 lakh crore will have to be revisited. With inflation already high and agriculture expected to be the bright spot again, the government cannot risk ignoring the subsidy element on fertilisers because there can be an impact on farm product prices.
The food subsidy will also need to be examined. The minimum support price (MSP) has become even more significant today because there is a corresponding commitment to procurement. The present rise in food prices globally has meant that there is a good global market, especially for wheat. Exports for wheat and maize might rise but can distort the procurement process. The MSPs may have to be made more attractive to ensure that there are adequate stocks with the FCI. Under normal circumstances, this may not have mattered but the decision to extend the free food scheme for the first six months of the year does mean that stocking has to keep pace.
The budget had assumed that interest rates would be stable. However, conditions have changed quite quickly with bond yields moving up by almost 50 bps for the 10-year G-secs. The market expectation is that the benchmark can touch 7.4-7.5 per cent if conditions do not improve in the global arena. This will mean that the entire Rs 15.95 lakh crore of gross borrowing will have to be carried out at a higher cost. This can result in an additional Rs 8,000 crore of interest if the 50 basis points increase holds through the year. There could be an upward bias if rates go up further.
Therefore, the course and length of the war are critical. The longer the conflict continues the greater will be the impact. While the government has adeptly managed the fiscal numbers in the last couple of years, this year will be particularly challenging considering the nature of the shock.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 29, 2022 under the title ‘A war runs through it’. The writer is chief economist, Bank of Baroda and author of Lockdown or Economic Destruction. Views are personal
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s all-time great novel Crime and Punishment, the hero Rodion Raskolnikov initiates a classical discourse on the sociology of crime and the rationale of society punishing the “criminal”. It was a common belief till the second half of the 19th century, when this immortal character was created, that a criminal is a cursed creature who deserves exemplary punishment, that too publicly.
Justice was often instant with very few rights available to the person facing the “judge”. In many cases, a person declared guilty was stoned, beheaded or hanged to death in full public view.
The changing face of the criminal, crime and punishment offers fascinating insights into the changing value systems of society. Acts considered criminal a few hundred years ago do not attract punishment today. Most societies don’t punish extramarital relationships and LGBT people are not seen as deviants. Similarly, the rights of a person charged to defend himself reasonably have been recognised as part of natural justice. It is like the journey of a state towards civilisation. A more civilised society means more compassion towards a delinquent. The purpose of punishment changes from the destruction of the soul and body of a recalcitrant to facilitating him to become an integral part of the nation. Nation-states that top the human development ladder have abolished capital punishment. In India, the courts award such punishment in the rarest of the rare circumstances.
Civilised societies have also recognised the rights of the accused as part of natural justice. Instant justice has become a thing of the past and an accused is provided a lawyer, his right to appeal a sentence is honoured and a person is generally considered innocent until proved otherwise. The sudden appearance of a bulldozer denies a victim any opportunity to avail any of these — vakil, dalil and appeal. He is simply condemned to watch an arrogant bureaucracy demolish his property helplessly.
In independent India, which is trying to modernise very fast, instant justice has been abolished from the books but is deeply entrenched in the psyche of the people. Ram Manohar Lohia, a dominant presence in the political discourses of this country till the late 1960s, described this tendency as “cruel cowardice”. He gave the example of the average Indian who dared not oppose the goonda of his locality but never missed the chance to give a blow to the pickpocket caught at a bus stop.
The Indian state displays this tendency at times, though not as brazenly as it has done of late. From my UP experience, I can admit that there was always a complicit state that looked the other way when a “dreaded outlaw” was gunned down by the police in an “encounter”, but such acts were rarely celebrated. Except for a brief period when V P Singh was the chief minister and the state publicly extolled encounters, which were mostly fake, governments are not known to acknowledge them openly. A state may take some corrective measures, though unwillingly, only when there is a public outcry or judicial intervention. It is after a long gap that important political and executive functionaries have started speaking publicly in favour of instant justice. The police have been given the role of investigator, judge and executioner and they are really enjoying it. In the last few years, hundreds of people who were yet to be declared guilty by a court of law were, reportedly, shot in their legs and maimed.
The most unfortunate part of the story is that a large number of people support this cruelty. A few years ago, youngsters who had sexually assaulted and murdered a doctor were taken out of jail and killed by the police in a manner which could have shaken the conscience of any civilised society. However, the people of Hyderabad celebrated this ghastly violation of the law. Perhaps the traditional attraction for instant justice discouraged citizens from asking questions about the inability of the justice dispensation system of the country to punish such heinous criminals in a short time frame. My memory of UP has numerous anecdotes of people coming out on the streets and celebrating the killing or maiming of a person by the police who otherwise could not be punished by a court of law. This shows both attraction towards instant justice and the acceptance of an outdated legal framework, not equipped to meet the challenges of modern-day life. The state also appears to be happy about this uncivil acceptance, as bringing fundamental changes in police procedures, prosecution and courts will involve expenditure, and instant justice is cheap. The time has come when the nation has to choose between an expensive civilised justice dispensation system or a brute tradition in which the police dons the cap of investigator, judge and hangman.
Recent instances of bulldozing residential or commercial dwellings of people who the rulers of the day think have committed unpardonable crimes have opened the Pandora’s box from where some very uncomfortable questions are emanating about the character of the Indian state. Instant justice makes an individual barbaric and similarly, instant justice makes a society barbaric. The bulldozer culture is turning the Indian state into an uncivilised and barbaric state. If this is not stopped immediately we will lose whatever little we have achieved through our wonderful Constitution in the last seven decades. Our journey to make our society democratic and amenable to the rule of law will turn into a nightmare.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 29, 2022, under the title ‘The return of instant justice’. Rai, a retired IPS officer, is the author of Hashimpura 22 May, a chronicle of the 1987 custodial killings
The political argument over India’s tax policy of petroleum products is an essential one. However, it requires unpacking to reach a meaningful conclusion. GoI and states independently tax petrol and diesel, the two most important products. GoI’s taxes are to be shared with states according to a formula recommended by the Finance Commission. However, there’s a catch here. The Constitution’s Article 270 allows GoI to completely retain taxes classified as cess and surcharge. Effectively, GoI has the power over classification to decide how much it will share with states. This is the root cause of friction with opposition-administered states.
The backstory for the current argument began in March 2020. As the pandemic swept across the world, lockdowns kicked in and oil prices collapsed. At that point, GoI increased its taxes on petrol and diesel. Between March 14, 2020 and May 6, 2020, central excise on unbranded petrol and diesel increased by 44% and 69% respectively. The incremental tax was collected in the form of cess, which meant it was not shared with states. Consequently, even as crude oil price fell from around $65/barrel in early January 2020 to about $20 in April 2020, the pump price of diesel increased from Rs 67.96 per litre in Delhi to Rs 69.39 in May.
India’s GDP contracted by 6.6% in FY 2020-21, which adversely impacted tax collections. However, GoI’s fuel taxes were the exception to this trend. Driven by higher fuel taxes, GoI’s FY 2020-21 revenue from the petroleum sector was Rs 4.5 lakh crore, an annual increase of 36%. What about states? Collectively, their FY 2020-21 revenue from petroleum shrank by 1.5% to Rs 2.2 lakh crore. About 68% of the Rs 6.72 lakh crore of revenue generated by the petroleum sector in FY21 went to GoI.
As crude prices began to rise in 2021, public pressure for tax relief mounted. In August 2021, Tamil Nadu lowered tax on petrol. In November, GoI cut taxes on both petrol and diesel, which catalysed reductions by more than 20 states. However, taxes remain high when located in the current economic context where elevated inflation is cutting into discretionary spending of a large section of the population. GoI, with superior revenue-raising powers and as the main beneficiary of tax increases in FY21, should take the lead and engage in one more round of fuel tax reductions. This will put pressure on states to follow suit. In all, it’s the appropriate fiscal adjustment.
The one youngster who has taken this IPL by storm is Sunrisers Hyderabad speedster Umran Malik. The J&K-born 22-year-old has been turning heads and shattering stumps, picking up 15 wickets in the eight matches he has played so far in the tournament. What has wowed fans and seasoned cricketers alike is Malik’s sheer pace and accuracy. He has consistently bowled some of the fastest deliveries of the matches he has played, clocking speeds of 150 kmph and above. In fact, the recent match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Gujarat Titans saw Malik bowl a scorching spell that delivered a five-wicket haul. The highlight was Malik’s 153 kmph yorker to a well-set Wriddhiman Saha that sent the stumps flying.
But what was truly heart-warming was the crowd at Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium giving Malik a standing ovation at the end of his dream spell. Calls have been growing for Malik to be fast-tracked into the Indian team, with former batting great Sunil Gavaskar insisting that the speedster should play in the upcoming tour of England. This again goes to show that sports – particularly cricket in India – can transcend ethnicity, religion and politics of polarisation in ways that most other public activities can’t.
It doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is, once you don the Team India jersey, all divisions melt away. It’s also to the credit of BCCI that cricket in India has evolved into a strong market-driven sport. This has attracted youngsters, many of them trained in private cricket coaching centres across the country. And the IPL has certainly made a career in cricket financially viable. This is precisely why the son of a fruit-seller from Srinagar is today being hailed as the next big thing in Indian cricket. Plus, if Malik does make it to Team India he will inspire countless young people in J&K to take up the sport. That will certainly be a great Indian success story.
Tomorrow being May Day, we suggest you take your Sunday seriously. While the practice of celebrating International Workers' Day - by not working - was chosen by the communists and socialists in 1889 in Paris, there is no reason why others shouldn't also mark it. After all, capitalists also do work, the only difference being that they tend to see the word 'labour', rather illogically, as being a bit back-breaking, while work is, well, work. In any case, in many cultures - at least in the northern hemisphere - the first day of May is considered as the first day of summer. With temperatures being what they are in far too many parts of working India, we may choose to stick to the workers' angle since we're already in the thick of summer.
For those who think that work is dangerous - as opposed to it being dangerous in some lines of work - there's always the pleasure in shouting 'Mayday! Mayday!' But it would be wise to know that this international distress call has nothing to do with May Day. It was conjured up in the early 1920s by the officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport, functional between the world wars, as an anglicised and phonetic equivalent of the French 'm'aidez' - help me. If we weren't on chhutti tomorrow as resting workers, we would have called that effort a bad job done to confuse people about May Day.
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The Uttar Pradesh government's move to ensure compliance to noise pollution norms, reiterated in relevant court orders, is welcome. It signals a commitment to addressing health and environmental hazards like noise. The government should make public the list of places that had to remove loudspeakers for operating without permission and those that had to reduce their decibel level. That way, it is far more liable to ensure that implementing norms does not provide political fodder or result in harassment.
Rising decibels are part of urbanisation and industrial activity. But lack of civic sense is also a cause. Reducing decibel levels from traffic and industrial processes requires innovations, technology and mitigation efforts. But reducing noise made by loudspeakers, sound amplifiers, public address systems is a low hanging fruit that's ready for picking. The Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000, last amended in 2010, lays out clear rules for loudspeaker use in public spaces. To ensure implementation, the UP government says it consulted diverse stakeholders who have supported this move, many making the required decibel adjustments when they realised the authorities mean business. That is the way forward.
The Adityanath government must ensure compliance with noise norms by all stakeholders, and not just loudspeaker users in religious places. It should consider special permits for occasional raising of decibels, such as festivals, within a particular time frame. Faith in the government's fairness is critical for this drive to succeed. It requires the administration to ensure that it governs without fear or favour, a commitment to the rule of law and its equal application. It could then serve as a pilot for other states too.
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In yet another reminder of the expanding and deepening footprint of the climate crisis, India is facing a nationwide surge in heatwaves. The early heatwaves that began on March 11 have now impacted 15 states and Union Territories and are likely to intensify till May 2, according to the India Meteorological Department. On Thursday, Delhi recorded a maximum temperature of 43.5 degrees Celsius, the highest April temperature in 12 years. Surprisingly, after Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh, a favourite destination for summer holidaymakers, has been the most affected by heatwaves — with 21 heatwave and severe heatwave days. This year’s spike in heatwaves is due to “anti-cyclones” and the absence of rain-bearing Western disturbances. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned that temperatures are rising rapidly in the country and much earlier than usual.
But none of this should shock us. In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that India would be facing increasing heatwaves and droughts due to the climate crisis. Another report released in October, said that heatwaves in India are likely to “last 25 times longer by 2036-2065” if carbon emissions remain high.
Heatwaves have enormous impacts on health, agriculture, water availability, and power. Therefore, the answer to the challenge has to be seen as a larger governance issue, with the response being multidis-ciplinary and inter-ministerial. India has a heat action plan, and sends out weather alerts and advises people on dos and don’ts during the heatwave days, but such plans will not be enough to tackle the heat threat. Instead, India needs to make fundamental changes in policies to adapt to and minimise heat losses. For example, policymakers will have to address issues such as: Do cities, which are turning into heat islands, need dedicated officials to address extreme heat; what kind of blue and green infrastru-cture will cities need to offset rising heat; how can communities be encouraged to participate in environmental restoration; should school sessions and work timings change since summers are setting in early; how can housing for the poor be retrofitted with cool roofs, and what kind of heat-tolerant varieties of crops must be sown to offset losses to agriculturists and secure food supplies? While effecting multi-sectoral policy changes may not be easy, delays in taking the right climate-sensitive steps will only create a whole new set of problems for the country in the coming years.
Before Covid-19 erupted, poverty was declining across the world. A Brookings Institution study showed that extreme poverty, defined as those living in households spending less than $1.90 per person per day in terms of purchasing power parity, had fallen from 1.9 billion people (1990) to 648 million (2019).
The pandemic, however, disrupted this trend. In India, the first wave led to the loss of millions of jobs, and resulted in an increase in impoverished families. The Centre for Sustainable Employment (Azim Premji University)’s The State of Working India Report, 2021, estimated that the pandemic pushed 230 million Indians below the poverty line. Though the last few months witnessed an uptick in the employment rate, the total number of employed individuals is still lower than the pre-Covid-19-levels, as per data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
A study conducted by the United Nations Development Programme in partnership with the Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, to assess recovery scenarios over the next decade, found that by 2030, the pandemic could directly drive a quarter of a billion people into extreme poverty.
The pandemic has been a period of reckoning for governments and civil society. It has been equally so for philanthropy funders, who looked aggressively for solutions as the humanitarian crisis unfolded. It led to a strong recognition for the need to strengthen and build long-term resilience in communities to fight against future calamities of this scale.
As funders dug deeper to understand the causes for high levels of vulnerability, it was evident that existing inequalities in household incomes and unequal access to social protection measures were the two main reasons that led to low resilience levels in communities, causing them to sink deeper into poverty.
To support these disproportionately vulnerable communities to recover from the pandemic, it became apparent that solutions had to be designed with the participation and contribution of members of these affected groups. These solutions also had to be developed keeping in view the specific needs of the community to be served, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. To this end, many philanthropy funders reoriented their grant-making strategies for a sharper focus on equity and inclusion, incorporating a stronger role for members from disproportionately vulnerable groups to design and execute recovery interventions.
For instance, in 2020, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation allocated an additional $125 million (approximately ₹935 crore) over three years to support recovery initiatives in the United States, India and Nigeria. The challenge was to identify ideas for support that would advance a more equitable recovery from the crisis. Starting with a blue-sky approach, we had conversations with civil society organisations (CSOs) leaders, government officials and other philanthropy funder institutions to identify and develop opportunities for grant-making support. In India, our efforts culminated in making grants of $10 million (approximately ₹75 crore) to support field-level action aimed at strengthening the ability of vulnerable groups to deal with future calamities effectively.
The CSOs we supported work in close partnership with local institutions of governance such as gram panchayats and municipal wards, community leaders and government health functionaries such Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM) workers and village health committees. Coupled with a strong field presence, CSOs were involved in a range of activities such as providing emergency rations and medical supplies and promoting livelihood-generation activities such as subsistence farming, cattle rearing and micro-entrepreneurship in several rural districts of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh that saw massive inward migration on account of job losses.
They also undertook activities that led to easier access to existing government-funded social protection schemes such as helping households organise their personal identification documents to claim benefits from welfare schemes. In addition, CSOs such as Jan Sahas worked with a network of other CSOs to provide safe, secure, and sustainable internal migration of labour. It studied movement patterns of major migrant communities and in partnership with local CSOs across these tracks, jointly decided on a menu of offerings to migrant families, including food, shelter, medical help and other basic requirements on a running basis.
Here’s what we learnt. It is important to acknowledge early that existing inequalities in any social context are deep rooted and are often intergenerational, so off-the-shelf prescriptions do not work well. For long-term, sustained impact, funders should consider supporting both local and macro-level interventions that aim to bring about long-term change in the ecosystem that impacts the lives of vulnerable communities. To do so, it is critical to develop solutions that are custom-built to address specific requirements of the target group. Interventions are likely to succeed better if they are designed and executed by CSOs that have a strong, deep-rooted association with, and experience in working with the target group.
These organisations typically have the strongest capacity to develop and execute solutions with local inputs, increasing the probability of success in resolving the challenge for the funder institution.
Moutushi Sengupta is director, India of John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, the country arm of the US-based grant giant that supports CSOs in the United States, Nigeria and India. She has been part of Dasra’s collaborative platforms including the Dasra Philanthropy Week and Community of Foundations The views expressed are personal
India aims to become a $5-trillion economy by 2025. China, which started from a similar base in the late 1970s, today has an economy four times larger than India’s. There is much to compare and contrast between the two countries. We focus on the fact that while the male labour force participation rates in the two countries are fairly similar, their female labour force participation rates (FLFPR) are vastly different. While China’s FLFPR, at more than 60%, is higher than the figure for the world and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, India’s FLFPR is abysmally low at 18.6%. The big gap in the size of the female workforce is a critical detail that unabating comparisons between the two countries have overlooked.
With its aspirational agenda, India can no longer afford to pass over the untapped potential of the female working-age population. But India has a bigger problem: Not enough jobs to absorb the steady rise in its workforce. To rev the engine for sustainable growth, India needs to create at least 90 million new non-farm jobs by 2030.
India experienced high growth for over a decade, has seen steadily declining fertility and maternal mortality rates, and rising female education attainment levels until the pandemic hit. These are the classic preconditions to rising FLFPR elsewhere in the world. But not in India. According to the ministry of finance in 2021, only 24.5% of working-age women participated in the labour force. Women also bore the brunt of the pandemic — the likelihood of a woman being employed in August 2020 was nine percentage points lower than that for men, compared to August 2019. The decline in unemployment rate for women indicates that they are not moving from unemployed to employed, but out of the labour force altogether.
The bulk of the research on female participation in the labour force has been on supply-side constraints: Family income and employment, marital status, childcare arrangements and safety, and domestic responsibilities. However, none of these phenomena fully explain the frequent transition of working-age women in and out of the labour force, as well as the women expressing the desire to be in paid work, if work were to be available at or near their homes. Indian women’s labour force participation is more likely shaped by low and declining demand for female labour rather than supply-side constraints keeping women indoors. Certainly, demand-side constraints are more amenable to policy interventions. Recruiters are around 13% less likely to click on a woman’s profile than a man’s while hiring candidates and 3% less likely to advance a woman to the next round of the hiring process, according to LinkedIn Gender Insights Report. Employers may do so because they perceive women as less capable and unsuitable for certain “male-dominant” jobs.
Gender-discriminatory laws with the intent to protect female workers further reinforce such essentialist norms by drawing parallels between adult women and children. For instance, the Factories Act, 1948, prohibits the employment of women, adolescents, and children alike in operations the government deems “dangerous”. The Trayas State of Discrimination report explored gender-discriminatory employment-related laws, a hitherto unexplored demand-side constraint. The study used 48 Acts, 169 rules, and 20 notifications or orders to uncover the cumbersome regulatory landscape women and their employers face in India. States adopt different regulatory stances in spelling out discrimination against female job-seekers. They either completely prohibit female employment at certain hours or jobs, require permission or give conditional exemptions.
Some laws diminish women’s agency by anchoring their employment to their familial relationships. The Shops and Establishments Acts of Madhya Pradesh and Sikkim allow women to work in shops/establishments at night only if they are family members of the owner. This mentality also reflects in the biases of hiring managers who are likely to discriminate against married women, especially with young children, but not against men.
Additionally, employers believe that hiring women is costlier than hiring men. Providing infrastructure and special amenities such as crèches, compulsory safe transport at night, women’s hostels, and maternity leave make employers averse to hiring women. Unsurprisingly, the 2017 Maternity Benefits Act, which increased the mandatory maternity leave period from 12 weeks to 26 weeks, is seen as a leading reason behind the drop in female hires.
Lately, there seems to be a gradual movement away from absolute restriction. For instance, the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (OSHWC code), which replaces the Factories Act, allows women to work at night based on conditions that states set. While Himachal Pradesh’s draft OSHWC Rules impose 14 conditions, Haryana imposes 25 conditions, including requirements of a minimum number of women in the night shift, and Punjab proposes to bring the number of conditions down to eight. By introducing the right type of reforms, states can set trends for years to come.
Non-discrimination in the law is a necessary first step to help female job-seekers enter the market without any roadblocks. But employers also need to see the paucity of women as a problem and be willing to implement solutions to alleviate the multiple demand-side constraints. As a country we need to commit to first providing and solving for women in our labour force as we celebrate Labour Day.
Ashwini Deshpande is professor of economics and director, CEDA, Ashoka University, Bhuvana Anand is co-founder, Trayas, Shaveta Sharma-Kukreja is co-managing director, Central Square Foundation and adviser, Circle In. With additional inputs from Sirjan Kaur, Prisha Saxena, and Tarini Nath The views expressed are personal.
In 2017, when I began a 12-part investigation on women and work, people were surprised when told that Indian women were dropping out of the labour market in droves. “But you see women everywhere,” was the response I often got. At that time, women’s labour force participation at 27%, according to the government, placed us just above Saudi Arabia among the G20 nations.
That free-fall is now a train wreck. Since 2016-17, over 20 million additional women have quit, and workforce participation is 9% in a post-pandemic world, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, and 18% if you go by government data. Either way, it’s alarming. What’s worse is that most are not even looking for jobs.
The decline of women in the labour force from 2004-to 05 is one of India’s enduring mysteries. Why would women, across demography, geography and income, quit paid work in such large numbers? Why would they quit when educational attainment was up, fertility was down, and the economy was growing?
There are numerous theories.
Women quit paid work because they are studying (good news). But, they also left because of the burden of housework. They quit because of a lack of infrastructural support, including affordable and safe transportation.
The obliteration of women from paid work doesn’t find enough space in public discussion. Rarely mentioned in Parliament, it is never an election issue as, say, the unemployment of young men.
Yet, for several reasons, we should care. We should care because if women participated in the economy on a par with men, it could push the Gross Domestic Product up by 60%, instead of the present 18% or less.
When families believe daughters and daughters-in-law will bring home an income, they are more invested in their education and health. As a result, these women are likely to have greater clout and status in families.
India needs a focused fight that involves government, the private sector and civil society. The government can pass laws and policies such as expanding paternity leave and providing tax breaks for companies that promote inclusion. It can widen skilling for women beyond embroidery and papad-making to more lucrative work. It can take steps to improve public transportation.
The private sector, too, has a role in making it easier for women to return to work after maternity leave; by enlarging mentorship and networks and using corporate social responsibility funds to promote empowerment.
And civil society activists must also plug the gaps — step up digital training and work to remove patriarchal ideas of women’s work and place in society. If we strive for an equal society, women must be enabled to reach their full potential. Beti padhao does not work, unless betis also go to work.
Namita Bhandare writes on gender
The views expressed are personal
After weeks of meetings which supposedly involved marathon presentations, poll-strategist Prashant Kishor has refused to join the Congress. In doing so, Kishor also hinted that the Congress’s problems require a thorough overhaul from within. “I declined the generous offer of #congress to join the party as part of the EAG & take responsibility for the elections. In my humble opinion, more than me the party needs leadership and collective will to fix the deep rooted structural problems through transformational reforms”, Kishor said on the microblogging platform Twitter.
HT reported that the deal fell through over four demands that Kishor made and were not acceptable to the party. That he would only report to party president Sonia Gandhi; his demand for use of data in the choice of candidates, which effectively meant a free hand; his view on alliances with regional parties; and his desire to focus on the parliamentary elections in 2024, not the state elections this year or next.
Had Kishor’s demands been accepted, would he have succeeded in reviving the fortunes of the Congress party? An even bigger question to ask is can a consultant revive the Congress party at all?
Elections, like other battles, are won or lost on a mix of strategy and tactics. The former revolves around the core politics or ideology of a party and the latter can include raising some issue or making some alliance for the elections or focusing on one particular community in candidate selection. The other crucial input in elections, like other battles, is the role of real-time intelligence.
What does a consultant like Kishor bring to the table on these fronts?
It is important to note that barring the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), all of Kishor’s electoral engagements have been at the state level. Except for the Congress campaigns in the 2017 Punjab elections, Kishor has only worked with regional parties at the state level, where the leadership and decision making authority is concentrated with one person.
At least in the medium term, most of India’s regional parties do not have a core politics which goes beyond capturing power. The Trinamool Congress (TMC), for example, was a part of the first National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, became a part of the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and is now against both the BJP and the Congress. Less than two years after winning Bihar with the help of Kishor and his team, the Janata Dal (United) broke ranks with its pre-poll ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar and went back to its old ally, the BJP.
The Congress does not have this luxury, even if it wants to practice such opportunism. It must oppose the BJP on a consistent basis to stay relevant. So there is little a consultant can offer here.
One area where Kishor brings useful and perhaps crucial wisdom to the table is on the question of real-time intelligence. Because most regional parties are personality-based and their organisational structures are driven more by sycophancy than democracy, it is very difficult for the leadership (or the supreme leader in most cases) to be aware of the actual sentiment on the ground, not just vis-à-vis candidates but also regarding issues. By deploying a technocratic-managerial model where information collectors are free of vested interests or where feedback can be collected by doing away with party intermediaries, Kishor has been helping parties get critical information that their own machinery would not have been able to get. In some cases, such information can be used to iron out differences in alliances as well. Projecting Nitish Kumar as the chief minister’s face in the 2015 Bihar campaign, lest the RJD’s past baggage makes voters apprehensive, was one such example.
Where does all this fit in with the task of reviving the Congress?
At the level of the states, the Congress’s political challenge can be classified into three kinds — states where it is the direct challenger to the BJP (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Assam), states where it is in an alliance with other major regional parties and challenges the BJP or its allies (Maharashtra, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand etc.) and states where it is not in an alliance with dominant regional parties and not even considered a serious challenger to the BJP (Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Delhi etc).
It should be obvious that any national strategy which the Congress designs will have to account for these three broad varieties of state-wise challenges.
The Congress needs all the help it can get to win direct contest states against the BJP. This includes settling the question of leadership (it cost the Congress its government in Madhya Pradesh) or candidate selection (the factionalism between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot was more than obvious in the ticket distribution in the 2018 Rajasthan elections and the Congress seems to be having factional problems in Chhattisgarh as well).
These examples make it clear that while it will be useful for the party to have some external objective intelligence on things such as candidate selection or leadership face, the responsibility of implementing these decisions lies squarely on the shoulders of the national leadership. On this count, Kishor’s demands for single point reporting and adherence to his recommendations are justified in a way. A consultant cannot be held accountable when his suggestions are not implemented in the first place.
However, this is not all. Most states which will go to polls before the 2024 elections (Gujrat and Himachal in 2022 and Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in 2023) are under the first category. What is interesting is the fact that the Congress gave the BJP a big scare in the 2017 Gujarat elections and managed to win Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in 2018 without any help from a consultant like Kishor. However, its 2019 Lok Sabha performance in these states was much worse than its assembly performance. This speaks more about the lack of ability or appeal of the national leadership of the Congress than the organisational prowess of its state units.
Can a strategist like Kishor fix this problem?
Three questions are relevant here.
The Congress’s attitude towards the BJP’s Hindutva politics, the need for an objective assessment of the reasons for Congress’s long-term decline and the question of whether the national leadership and the regional leadership are on the same page regarding these two issues.
On the first question, the Congress has been displaying a split personality disorder of sorts. During elections, its leaders including the Gandhis indulge in optics such as temple visits, which is meant to appeal to the Hindu vote base. The Congress has not really attacked the BJP on core Hindutva issues such as Ram Temple, abrogation of Article 370 and the criminalisation of Triple Talaq. But the leadership, especially Rahul Gandhi is extremely shrill in his general rhetoric against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP. As is obvious, these strategies are mutually contradictory as the second allows the BJP to continue to brand the Congress as anti-Hindu and undoes any potential benefit from the first.
Let us come to the second question. The first structural headwinds to the Congress did not come from the forces of Hindutva. With the exception of the Left in Kerala (it saw the formation of the first anti-Congress government in 1957) and later Bengal, it mostly came from regional political formations which either rallied the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) or regional pride sentiment against the Congress which was both a party of upper castes and the national hegemon. The present-day Congress seems to have uncritically accepted both these streams of politics. Any value judgment notwithstanding, this has also meant that the party has lost traction among sections such as upper castes and its cultural appeal on nationalism in the Hindi belt. The Congress’s loss on this front has been the BJP’s gain. A useful counterfactual to ask is what would have been the results if the Congress fought the Uttar Pradesh elections from a purely upper-caste plank rather than a women-centric campaign? The idea might sound grossly politically incorrect to wokes, but realpolitik often goes beyond the realm of the politically correct.
No consultant can help the Congress decide on what are existential questions for its politics. This has to be part of the consultant’s original brief.
The third question, namely whether there is political synergy between the Congress’s top leadership (largely the Gandhi family) and others on what direction it should take on the first two questions, is the most important.
Rahul Gandhi himself has given indications (he wrote a letter after the 2019 debacle of the Congress) that the Congress rank and file often betrays him on ideological issues. If the top leadership and the rest of the organisational leadership are not on the same page, no matter what the decision, it will never be implemented. On this count, the best lesson the Gandhis can take is, ironical as it may sound, from within the family. Indira Gandhi led a split in the Congress party to steer it in a left-ward direction (and also capture power) even though she did not have a majority in the party organisation. The Congress (I) eventually triumphed over the old boys’ club which is often referred to as the syndicate.
Both the Gandhis and the dissidents (such as the G-23) have been avoiding a confrontation on the organisational issue. Perhaps, the former consider themselves indispensable (but do not want to actually create a precipitation around this question) and the latter do not have a willing challenger. This has not helped, because neither side is convinced by the reasons given by the other side for the tailspin India’s grand old party currently finds itself in and keeps blaming the other camp.
The fortunes of the Congress party will ultimately be decided on how it deals with these three questions. And it can start engaging with the first two questions only after the third question has been settled. So-called attempts to revive the party by creating empowered committees such as the one Kishor was expected to participate in, without dealing with these structural questions, are just delusions which are best captured by replacing the world conference with committee in a 1922 poem called Conference Crazy written the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. The concluding line of the poem is worth reproducing here.
Oh, for just one more decisive conference,
concerning
the abolishment of all conferences!
Every Friday, HT’s data and political economy editor, Roshan Kishore, combines his commitment to data and passion for qualitative analysis in a column for HT Premium, Terms of Trade. With a focus on one big number and one big issue, he will go behind the headlines to ask a question and address political economy issues and social puzzles facing contemporary India.
The views expressed are personal
All chief ministers in the country would be lending their ears when the Prime Minister asks them to “work as a team in line with the ethos of cooperative federalism during the current global challenges”.
But when Prime Minister Narendra Modi chooses such an occasion of global challenge to drive a wedge among states using the taxation on fuels as a tool, he is in fact undermining the very agenda of cooperative federalism that he himself has been pushing.
Mr Modi’s statement that some states, which are run by parties other than NDA and its allies, do not pass on the benefit of the Union government cutting fuel taxes is less than fair on more than one count. He appears to suggest that the Union government alone is keen to reduce the burden on the people by slashing various taxes and levies on fuel. That’s not true. The NDA government that came to power in 2014 was a beneficiary of the steep fall in crude prices that happened a few months into its tenure. But it never chose to pass the benefit over to the people; instead, it kept adding various taxes, basically additional excise duty and cess which the Centre need not share with the states.
Move over to 2020, and there was a demand for a cut in fuel taxes after the pandemic started in March but Mr Modi waited for almost two years to reduce a minor portion in the high rates his government had been systematically imposing since 2014.
It may be remembered that states impose a VAT on fuel prices, and every cut in central excise duty will result in a proportional reduction in the state revenues, too. If the states were to borrow the logic of the Union government, then they could have raised the VAT rates and prevented the revenue fall. But none did it; instead, they chose to forego their revenues. Some states, including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala, announced an additional cut in their VAT rates instead.
Several states have pointed out that the discriminatory policies of the Union government are putting their finances in dire straits. While West Bengal says it has a sum of Rs 97,000 crores due from the Centre, the amount is more than Rs 20,000 crores in Tamil Nadu and Rs 17,000 crores in Maharashtra. Every state Mr Modi picked on will have a similar story to tell.
The Goods and Services Taxes regime was initiated on the premise that the Union government will share the tax revenue with the states. But the opposite is happening with the former steadily increasing the non-shareable segments of taxes and slashing the shareable ones. The additional excise duties and the income tax are the cases in point. Worse, the NDA government has a history of delaying the payments to the states. In fact, some states were forced to openly state that they will be moving the Supreme Court to get the Centre to release GST compensation which is their constitutional right.
The Prime Minister is right in pointing out that we are yet to get over pandemic times. He may well remember that it is a time for a politics of unity, not division.
Where is Twitter headed under an ownership led by Elon Musk and banks? Having set the cat among the pigeons in claiming before making the offer to buy the microblogging site that he wished to restore its status as an absolute free speech platform, the world’s richest man may have backtracked just a bit by qualifying unfettered free speech as one that “matches the law”. He did, however, say he was against censorship which gives the game away.
Content moderation had been the thrust of reform that global criticism aimed at a runaway bestseller on the Internet had brought about. As a plaything of the rich and the radical, it could go for a toss and it’s also on the cards that Twitter will be on a highway to confrontation, especially in the EU, which has now passed laws to ensure hate speech is filtered out. Here in India, Twitter, headed by a PIO unless Mr Musk says otherwise, is certain to ruffle the feathers of a government that had most frequently asked it to filter content in virtual censorship of tweets that offended the rulers.
In thin-skinned India, where people are accustomed to taking offence at the speed of a tweet, one should not look askance if there is trouble ahead for Twitter with the government. The rulers’ idea of free speech is more of a tempered one to suit the dispensation rather than full scale censorship, which has never been demanded because those in power have also used the social media to transmit their ideas, spewed venom at opponents and scuppered free speech by shrill and selective objections.
If half the world feels afraid now, it is because misogyny was most widespread in Twitter’s unfettered days and harassment an everyday occurrence to the point of women being the primary victims. The problem is Mr Musk is not thought of as a solution to any of the imagined woes against Twitter. For instance, would it surprise anyone if Donald Trump were to return triumphantly to privately-owned Twitter? We fear the worst could happen if an amorphous Twitter gets an eccentric boss who may find tinkering with a platform that serves an influential section of humanity might create a problem even rocket science could not solve.
The number of new daily Covid infections has been inching up for the last two weeks with Friday reporting 3,377 cases, the highest after mid-March this year. The numbers have risen from a low of 795 cases reported on April 7. The number of deaths and the test positivity ratio are also on the rise, reminding all concerned what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a meeting of chief ministers the other day that the pandemic threat is not over yet.
The good news, according to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortia, is that very few recombinant variants of the coronavirus have been found after genome-sequencing analysis were done on the samples. The trends do not show an increased transmission or rate of increased hospitalisation either. Given that the sub-variants caused major spreads in Europe, it is important that the trend continued and the spread contained. It is a cause of worry that almost half of the total number of the daily tally comes from Delhi and the lion’s share of deaths from Kerala. Both the states have already reintroduced mask mandate in public places.
The Union government has been insisting on the five-pronged strategy of track-test-treat-vaccination and Covid-appropriate protocol to contain the spread of the infection. It is time state governments rewired the mechanism of tracking and testing along with genome testing of the positive cases so that even the early signs of the sub-variants are tracked.
A major challenge before the governments is the opening of the schools after nearly two academic years. It may be remembered that the schools that had opened in several states towards the end of 2021 had to be closed thanks to the third wave. While hoping that there will not be a fourth wave, the governments have to be extra cautious when it comes to children and their schooling. With the abysmal level of technology penetration in rural areas and among urban poor, and that the percentage of children who have access to electronic devises for studies is as low as nine per cent in some states, the governments have to envisage a scenario where a fourth wave is real and that the children have a better fare than the last two years. Giving an extra thrust to vaccination could be a key tool to keep the schools going.
India was able to tide over the crisis the third wave had created on the strength of the precautions it had taken in the aftermath of the first and second. Hospital infrastructure was kept at the optimum level and supplies of essentials were enhanced multi-fold, resulting in the relatively smooth passing of the wave compared with the second which saw a shortage of hospital beds, intensive care units, ventilators, critical medicines and medical oxygen. The same or an enhanced level preparedness is called for now, too.
India has as of now administered 193 crore doses of the vaccines, which included precaution doses for people aged above 18 and vaccination for children aged between 12 and 18 years. This shows that of a country of 100 crore adults, there are still people without getting a single dose and a substantial number of people without the third dose. This is not acceptable and the Union government must identify the lacunae and plug them. Experience says we can afford to ignore no signs.
The exchange between a Kannada and a Hindi film star on the popularity of their language was just another in a series of discussions on national languages that tend to go nowhere because of the complexity and numbers of India. It appears the reach of regional films in today’s high-tech environment is getting longer adding weight to the argument that any extensive promotion of Hindi can only be regarded as imposition in the many states in which it’s not the dominant language.
The home minister had set off the debate by calling for Hindi as the link language in a throwback to old arguments about the need to find a common language in a veritable Tower of Babel of thousands of languages and dialects. What those who assiduously promote Hindi for their own political ends don’t seem to understand is that far more Indians do not speak Hindi, one of two official languages of India, than those who do.
Outside the northern belt of the NCR, UP, MP, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, the language of general communication isn’t Hindi. Almost six decades ago, the imposition of Hindi in schools became such an issue that till today national parties are anathema to the Tamils and they ride piggyback on Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian majors. The fact is, language is a sensitive and potentially divisive issue in a complex Indian setting and anyone talking about it on a motivated way to the point of polarising opinions is only stirring the pot.
Historically, English has been a unifying force and in the modern age has also impelled India as a global IT power. While all languages of the nation can aspire to link people of different regions, Hindi cannot claim a sole right to be the sole alternative to English, which by definition is as much an official Indian language as Hindi. India’s diversity is best served by the principle of equity when it comes to its languages. By repeating ad nauseam their preference for Hindi, some politicians of national parties are only driving a wedge.
I am writing this column to wish everyone Id Mubarak! This has been one of the hottest months in recent history, and I am not talking about the heatstroke inducing temperature alone! Most of our Muslim brethren have observed the holy month of Ramzan, keeping rozas and praying for peace. It’s been a tough April for multiple reasons. One of my closest friends, along with her husband, have just about pulled through, after suffering a series of serious medical setbacks. “It’s Allah’s shukr that we are alive,” they said, back in their home after a prolonged period of hospitalisation. Their devoted children did not leave either parent unattended for even a single minute. Now the whole family is looking forward to celebrating Id-ul Fitr, especially the grandchildren. As always, I will be receiving something special from their home — a tradition that has remained unbroken for decades. I am a member of their extended family, just as they are of mine.
If only more stories could be like this one. Over a posh Italian dinner, I had tears in my eyes when I thought of the tremendous hardship my dear friends had gone through, struggling for their respective lives in two separate hospitals. A person at the table said: “Oh… but all your friends represent the Muslim elite. My problem is with the ‘other’ Muslims.” On seeing my horrified expression, there was a quick rephrasing of what had been said, but the meaning remained the same. Considering this person is an American passport holder, the arrogant and offensive remark disturbed me sufficiently to argue back. Big mistake! Consider this comment: “Muslims in India don’t behave like they belong here…”. Had this person conducted a survey? Researched the subject? Spoken to Muslims about what exactly they feel about their country — India — that is as much theirs as it is mine? The conversation had begun to get toxic. I reminded this same person it was her Muslim driver who had rushed to help her at 6.30 am when she had suffered a fall and there was nobody else around. He had steadfastly stood by her during her own medical emergency. He is a poor man. An honourable man. And a proud Muslim.
“He’s an exception”, she said flatly. With a snigger she trotted out that rubbishy cliché — you must have heard it a zillion times — “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.” I felt deeply ashamed to be at the same table, but didn’t want to embarrass our host or create a scene.
The same day I had talked to a “non-elite” Muslim, who had shared some great news with me — his daughter had passed a tough, competitive exam and been recruited by a top international firm. He himself was a semi-literate person, a trader, who had invested every extra rupee to educate his children. The odds were daunting… they remain daunting. As the politically-motivated hijab row debates carry on, not for a moment is anyone bothering to even think how challenging it is for Muslim girls to get the same educational platforms as their Hindu sisters. When these opportunities are given, so many young girls shine and go on to build strong careers. That is the way forward… the only way. But going by the sly, subversive and dangerous tactics creeping into the system, it appears as if political parties want to further isolate and marginalise the next generation of Muslims — both boys and girls. The millennials have already faced the heat and battled prejudice. India’s Muslims are being systematically pushed out of the mainstream, but nobody dares to talk about it, fearing retribution.
I have been called a “Pakistani agent” often enough, and accused of being on the payroll of dodgy Pakistanis politicians. I receive hate mail, death threats and face abuse each time I post something positive about Muslims, or even wish “Id Mubarak” on social media platforms (I wish “Happy Diwali” and “Merry Christmas” too). So far, such greetings are not considered “crimes”. Emphasis: So far! Because we still call ourselves a secular nation, according to our Constitution. “It should be changed…” — I hear people say bluntly. “After all, we are the majority — India should declare itself a Hindu nation. Then let the Muslims figure what they want to do — stay or leave. About time they knew their place.” How glibly these words roll out. Like it’s as simple a decision as booking a ticket to Disneyland or staying behind to deal with hatred.
People also talk casually about the “violent Muslim” as if it’s a part of the DNA of every Muslim, no matter which part of the world he or she comes from. “What about violent Hindus?” I counter, citing recent examples. “It’s always a reaction… we never attack. We retaliate.” These are people one has grown up with talking like despicable bigots. My daughter was asked in all seriousness: “Will your mom allow you to marry a Muslim?” What a question! As bad as asking: “Will your mom allow you to marry an alien?” The lady asking it is neither a Muslim nor a Hindu. She’s Sikh. Why didn’t she ask: “Will your mother be okay if you married a Sikh?” Because, so far, the Sikhs have not been demonised the way the Muslims have been. But who knows what may happen down the line?
Another self-declared scholar talked about Yogi Adityanath and how well he is handling his state after winning the last Assembly election. “He is firm and means business. The Muslims in Uttar Pradesh have got the message loud and clear — behave, or else. Frankly, there’s no other way.” “Bulldozer justice” does not require justification. It’s enough to accuse “someone” — of throwing a stone at a Hindu procession. A militant procession with men brandishing swords and pistols. Such a shame that Arvind Kejriwal began spinning the Rohingyas and Bangladeshi refugees yarn after the riots in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri. “Someone” threw a stone and showed disrespect. That someone has to be a Muslim! Bring on the bulldozers and teach them a lesson.
Rewriting the history books is the easy part. Rewriting culture can be a lot more challenging!
“I must go down to the Shulabh again
To the Shulabh Shauchalay
A rupee a pee
Two for a poo
Everything short of a lay….”
From The Love Song of J. Alfred Coronanidhi, by Bachchoo
I must confess to a certain backwardness in this thrustingly forward era of the social media, of fantastic forms of communication, of the ability to find out in an instant, by means of a universally transmitted photograph, what a friend ate for dinner or breakfast that very day, etc… I confess that I don’t do Facefile, Tweettweet, Instapound, Trik Trok or any other of these worldwide obsessions.
On the plus side, I suppose these fantastic, even liberating technologies enable the Russian population to keep in touch with what their fascist government is doing in Ukraine.
Moreover, the present and succeeding generations are able to be in touch with loved ones and friends as never before.
But then there is also the plague of anonymous bullies — are they called Trolleys? — who abuse, threaten and blackmail others through the social media. There are people called “influencers” whose opinions, tastes and persuasions or example couldn’t get me to, shall we say, swap from corn to bran flakes for a single breakfast. Apart from these pretenders who trade on the gullibility of the vain, there are also self-appointed Aristotles who churn out daily gibberish, conceitedly deluding themselves that it’s “philosophy”.
My last victims in this diatribe, gentle reader, are those zillions who think others are, or should, be interested in what they ate or a pose of their pet cat or dog. That’s a form — alas universal! — of idleness.
I don’t apologise from staying away from all the above, but what I should perhaps feel ambivalent about is the fact that I have never read a book on my computer screen. I think they are called e-books. The reason I mention this is because as a writer of books myself I regularly receive notices from the publishers of my books about how many copies have been sold and what monies they have earned me through the doleful percentages that publishers pay their writers. Recently all these notices of income list the number of e-books that have been “sold” or downloaded or whatever and what sum of money has been paid into my account as a result.
Should I feel guilty about never having bought a book in the e-book form? I am not averse to reading things on the computer screen. After all, one of my jobs is as an editorial consultant to a very popular Web series platform which regularly sends me scripts in English, Roman Hindi and Devnagari to read. I read these diligently. They are often very interesting, but it’s work. Books for my pleasure, my obsessions, my research, my nostalgia… I want to encounter these in print on paper between hard or soft covers.
Why?
The easy answer is that I grew up with that form in which reading existed. Yes, there is a visceral attachment to books as physical tangible things. It may be attached to the subconscious memory of haunting, in my boyhood, a library in Pune (then Poona) called the Albert Edward Institute. It was a decrepit building on the veranda of which old men gathered every day to read the battened-down free newspapers and to which my friends and I paid a rupee a month to borrow books from the two-rooms-full of neglected dusty shelves — books by Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and then Zane Grey, Erle Stanley Gardner and someone called Marie Corelli. We read without distinction or any kind of critical discrimination.
When we had money to spare, we would browse the shelves in Manney’s bookshop next to the West End cinema in Pune cantonment. The fragrance of gathered books was mildly addictive…
But is there another reason, something darker, some unacknowledged fear that the printed book may, as the verbally transmitted epic or the monk-calligraphed parchment did, be supplanted by the ethereal form — and so disappear? In the UK, the bookshop is battling for survival.
Lenin had said that one capitalist swallows another and Waterstones, the big bookstore chain of Britain, has just swallowed Blackwell’s of Oxford and Heffer’s of Cambridge, having previously acquired Foyle’s of London, Hatchards and numerous other not-so-legendary names. It could be interpreted as an inevitable consolidation against the threat from Amazon, which now sells 50 per cent of all books sold in the UK.
Will the cautionary lifting of Covid-19 restrictions bring book buyers back to the bookshops to savour the browsing amongst physical books in preference to tapping their computer keys to be annoyed by recalcitrant websites? There are certainly indications that the return to some kind of “normality” has affected or restored behavioural patterns.
For instance, in the first three months since the lifting of some Covid-19 restrictions, 1.5 million UK households cancelled their video subscriptions.
Perhaps Waterstones is on to eroding the 50 per cent of book sales that Amazon claims today. I must further confess (You haven’t turned into a Catholic, have you? —Ed) that in the last two years I haven’t been into a bookshop and have done all my book buying through Amazon.
I do still have a £100 voucher from Daunt Books as a result of some talk I gave there three years ago. Daunt is also owned by Waterstones and though I am not basically in sympathy with monopolies, I now have no option but to haunt Daunt.