Across the world, we are witnessing the rise of political parties that build their base on popular dissatisfaction with the prevailing economic situation in the country, a virulent dislike (in fact, hatred) of the hitherto ruling elites and minority groups and the yearning for a messiah who will usher in a period of prosperity and national glory: President Trump with his MAGA is a prominent example. In this day and age, ideologies like communism and socialism are only empty catchphrases and distinctions of right, left and centre have ceased to have any meaning. Seizure of economic, political and social power are the only goals of the new elites that seek to replace their jaded predecessors. The new power structures emerging or already in power in different countries do, however, have a common approach on how to access and then hang on to power, relying on the concepts of populism, unitarianism, oligarchy, majoritarianism and nationalism. The implications of these for democracy and for the democratic functioning of societies is what ought to concern all those who value basic human rights of the individual and operation of societies according to the rule of law.
Populism is by no means the preserve of authoritarian rulers alone. In the absence of any meaningful approach to tackle the weighty problems of joblessness, social and economic inequality and environmental degradation (the last impacting the lives of millions), resort is had to the provision of freebies, whether monthly income support to women and the aged, free/highly subsidised food grain supply to large swathes of the population or provision of free electricity, transport, etc. I have no bones to pick with supportive measures to ameliorate the lot of the disadvantaged and marginalised groups in society. But when policy measures aim to reach over 60 percent of the population for an unspecified period of time, it is legitimate to worry over whether governments will be able to sustain the staggering fiscal burden over time. Giving a population fish rather than teaching it how to fish is going to create dependent populations that are unable to raise resources to sustain their families. Competitive populism among political parties has created serious fiscal crises in many countries, including India, and governments are hard pressed to match revenues and expenditures: education, health and crucial infrastructure sectors bear the long term consequences of suboptimal funding.
Unitarianism is another concept that appeals to a dominating, authoritarian mindset. There is a contemptuous dismissal of the thought processes of other individuals, with the resultant cessation of dialogue and consensus as means to reach acceptable solutions: “papa always knows best”. This disease has long permeated the politico-administrative milieu in India. State governments which argue vociferously for devolution and decentralisation of financial and administrative powers are loath to delegate the same powers to urban and rural local bodies. I have been witness to this in my years in the Maharashtra bureaucracy: the powers of Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis, given through legislative enactment in the 1960s, were steadily whittled down by the 1980s. The 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution have largely been ignored by most state governments. Maharashtra hastily scuttled the Mayor in Council initiative in Mumbai and Nagpur, once it became clear that the Mayor could well emerge as a rival centre of power in cash-rich municipal corporations. The Inter State Council, which could have served as a useful vehicle for centre-state consultation on various issues that impinge on the autonomy of states, has been moribund for years. The current wisdom is that “double engine sarkars” need to have engines from the same party at the centre and in the states. The absence of countervailing political power at various levels of governance has deleterious effects on democracy.
Oligarchy or the dominance in the polity and economy of select political and business elites is another warning signal that democracy could be under threat. A symbiotic relationship has always existed between governments and business — the parties running these governments need money to fight elections and business needs to ensure that government policies add to its profits and growth. But a feature of recent years has been the close nexus between governments and business, so much so that governments alter the level playing field of open bidding to favour a specific a few corporate interests. This has led to the entry of business oligarchs into active political life, Elon Musk being the latest example. The consequences are twofold: it leads to severe economic inequalities in the economy as well as lopsided growth which is capital intensive, with growing joblessness in the economy. There is also the attendant danger of violation of environmental norms, with severe impact on the health and livelihood of large sections of the population.
Majoritarianism is a strategy employed by governments to counter opposition to curtailment of personal liberties and to economic policies that affect the lives of common people. These governments are increasingly resorting to evoking fear and dislike of the “other” in the minds of the majority community on issues ranging from diet to marriage, personal laws, cornering of scarce jobs and change of religious belief. This is partly achieved through legislative fiat (beef laws, immigration control regulations, anti-conversion laws, uniform civil codes) and partly through covert (and not so covert) support for vigilante groups that actively propagate a majoritarian agenda. The joblessness and income/wealth inequalities that are a consequence of favouring selected oligarchs and going in for misdirected financial sops to large sections of the population will sooner or later fuel public anger. To counter this, recourse is had to the “enemy” within the country who is intent on destabilising the economy and society. These enemies could range from minority communities to citizen groups, liberal voices, academics and journalists. With the active connivance of print and electronic media, conspiracy theories are spun out to create insecurity and fear in the minds of the majority community. The ruling dispensation is thus able to develop a dedicated vote bank that will ensure legitimisation of its policies at election time.
Nationalism, and the dangers posed by it, were pointed out by our national bard, Rabindranath Tagore, over a century ago. As succinctly emphasised by him “There is only one history — the history of man. All national histories are merely chapters in the larger one.” He was clear that “the fierce self-idolatry of nation-worship” cannot be the goal of human history. The concept of nationalism, which is hardly a few centuries old, has been used as a convenient tool by political elites to capture power, ensnare their gullible populations in its web and to extend their dominion over lands outside their borders, often in defence of those living there who share a common linguistic or ethnic history (Nazi Germany in the 20th century and Russia in recent years). This extension of the “other” from the minority community within the borders of one’s country to those of this community living in other countries in the neighbourhood facilitates the creation of an enemy without, aided and abetted by their “collaborators” within the country. At appropriate moments, mass hysteria can be whipped up using this weapon of nationalism to stifle freedoms of local minority groups and to resort to military adventurism against other countries in the name of protecting the rights of “one’s sisters and brothers”.
The lethal cocktail of the above five elements is given potency (a) by suitably altering history lessons in educational institutions to emphasise past victimhood of the majority population; (b) through sustained media bombardment of populations to convince them of the danger to their safety and security; (c) by getting the buy-in of all institutions of the state — the bureaucracy, judiciary, investigative agencies, independent constitutional bodies — to the seductive concepts of national interest and national security; and, finally, (d) by suppressing, through draconian laws, the expression of dissent and critical comments by the independent press, academia, intellectuals and civil society groups that question the actions and policies of the ruling dispensation. As institutions charged with the maintenance of checks and balances on the executive are weakened, the country moves inexorably towards a perverted interpretation and application of the rule of law. There is no need for coup d’etats or imposition of martial law. The instruments of democracy are enough to bleed democracy through a thousand cuts.
Archive for the ‘political economy’ Category
1 Apr
The five fatal flaws that can derail democracy
1 Feb
Eppur si muove
The year was 1633 CE. Galileo Galilei, the renowned Italian astronomer, was facing the ire of the Catholic Church for challenging the old Ptolemaic view that the sun revolved around the earth. To save himself from being burnt at the stake, Galileo recanted his theory. However, under his breath, he murmured “Eppur si muove” (and yet it moves).
Cut to 2025 CE and nothing much seems to have changed. Punishments for religious heresy still exist in parts of the world governed by theocracy-dominated regimes, starting from our western neighbour Pakistan and extending westwards to a number of other nations. But punishments (and threats of punitive action) for political heresy abound all over the world, including India. The latest instance is the communication from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to two well-known Indian cartoonists, Satish Acharya and Manjul. X has informed them that the Mumbai police has flagged cartoons carried on X, which the police deem objectionable. A long way from Nehru telling the famous cartoonist Shankar “Don’t spare me Shankar”.
The last thirty years or so have seen an alarming decline in our ability as a country to tolerate (leave alone appreciate) humour, or any news, that exposes our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The early years of this century were witness to the hounding of the noted artist M.F. Husain for his depictions of goddesses and Bharat Mata, leading to his self-exile. There was also the deplorable occurrence of the vandalisation of the venerable Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute by self-appointed guardians of Shivaji Maharaj, responding to a book by James Laing which they deemed derogatory to Shivaji Maharaj and his family. Since then, the downward spiral has accelerated: Sanjay Leela Bhansali faced an ink attack for his film on Rani Padmavati, which had to be renamed Padmavat. Any and every caste/clan group is up in arms whenever they perceive that a hero of their tribe has been slighted. Rightly have political commentators labelled us a “republic of hurt sentiments”.
We now seek to rewrite history in order to valorise rulers of yore, whether Maharana Pratap or Prithviraj Chauhan. Reference is made at the highest levels of governance to the “thousand years of subjugation to foreign rule”, a very north-centric view, considering that Hindu empires flourished till 1565 CE and thereafter in the south, not forgetting Maratha dominance till 1818 CE. Terming the Mughal or Bahamani rulers or Tipu Sultan as foreigners is to ignore the reality that they were firmly rooted in the soil of India, regardless of their religious leanings. Even the freedom struggle and partition, and the events that followed in their wake, have not escaped airbrushing, based on political ideology. It is always easy to view and comment on historical events in hindsight, ignoring the compulsions of that time, which led to specific decisions, whether on partition itself, the manner of accession of Kashmir to the Indian Union or the economic development pattern adopted in the 1950s.
The mass media and an obliging bureaucracy have also contributed to the twisting of factual accuracy. Official handouts from government sources are carried without any critical examination of the contents. Indeed, the print and audiovisual media, controlled largely by powerful corporate houses, not only parrot official versions but even go further to create alternative truths. Inconvenient (unflattering) data from nongovernmental/international sources is debunked: official data is released tardily, with no public discussion or debate on the figures. The time-honoured Decennial Census is now four years overdue, even though the Covid pandemic has come and gone. Data from official sites, which was available on the internet earlier, is now often not easily accessible.
But it is the easy recourse to brute state power and arbitrary vigilante justice over the past decade or so that causes greatest concern. This recipe has been tested time and again in different states of India. Any innocuous attempt at wry humour or any investigation of misdemeanours by the executive, by a journalist, comedian or cartoonist, has led in the past to filing of cases under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, with incarceration of the “offender” until s/he secures bail from the courts. Despite repeated suggestions from respected citizens and civil society organisations, defamation continues to be a criminal offence in India. Our former colonial masters, under whose rule the offence of defamation was made a part of criminal law, have abolished criminal libel in 2009. However, despite replacing the colonial era Indian Penal Code with the newly minted Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita (BNS), the provision for criminal defamation (Section 356) remains on the statute book, with untrammelled scope for misinterpretation and arbitrary interpretation. That a leader of the main opposition party could be convicted for apparently hurting the sentiments of an entire community and lose his membership of the Lok Sabha is a fair indication of which way the wind blows.
Section 152 of the BNS is even more chilling in its ambit. Spoken or written words, signs, visual representation or electronic communication can invite a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. The explanation to this section seeks to exempt from the operation of this section “comments expressing disapprobation of the measures, or administrative or other action of the government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means without exciting or attempting to excite the activities referred to in this section….”. However, given how often in the past the police machinery has shown alacrity in registering offences against anyone voicing views that go against the official grain, it can legitimately be apprehended that this section confers wide powers for arbitrary arrest, till the affected party manages to secure bail, possibly months or years later.
Article 19 of the Constitution confers on all citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression. With this right being infringed on many occasions, one is reminded of the quote attributed to Idi Amin “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech”. Before uttering or writing any words that could be deemed offensive, the thinking citizen will probably consider s/he is better off remembering the words of the scamp in a droll song from the film Anpadh:
सिकंदर ने पोरस से की थी लड़ाई
जो की थी लड़ाई तो मैं क्या करूँ
(Sikandar (Alexander) fought with Porus. If he had a fight, what can I do?)
28 Jul
Of Kangaroo justice and Kafkaesque trials
While the origin of the phrase “kangaroo court” is still not certain, the term is quite clearly defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted.” I would modify the term to “kangaroo justice” where due process of law is given short shrift.
Three incidents in recent history make us wonder whether we live in an era of kangaroo justice: (1) In December 2019, four men accused of the rape and murder of a young woman were shot dead by the police when, while in judicial custody, they were being taken to the scene of the crime near Hyderabad for a reconstruction of events as part of the investigation. The subsequent judicial enquiry concluded that these men were summarily eliminated and indicted ten police personnel in this connection. (2) In April 2023, Atiq Ahmed, a former Member of Parliament, and his brother, Ashraf Ahmed, in judicial custody in connection with several crimes, were shot dead by assailants posing as media persons, in the presence of UP police personnel, while being taken for medical examination to hospital at the unearthly hour of midnight. (3) 84 year old Father Stan Swamy, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, passed away in July 2021, after a series of ailments, while in judicial custody, without being given bail on medical grounds.
In the first two instances, summary executions by uniformed persons and by ordinary citizens made a mockery of the rule of law. Legal processes were unfortunately short-circuited to render instant justice (injustice?). While there was public support for the two actions, this does not behoove a democratic society that ought to be totally committed to the rule of law. The third case is even more unfortunate: an octogenarian social worker, who was not questioned by the NIA during his incarceration for eight months in Taloja prison near Mumbai, was refused bail even when it was apparent that his health was failing and that his release on bail posed no threat to the state or society.
“The wheels of justice grind slowly, but grind exceedingly fine” is a metaphor attributed to both ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers, acknowledging the slow pace of delivering justice, though justice is finally done. In the Indian context, delivery of criminal justice is often excruciatingly slow, with the main stakeholders at the pre-trial stage — the police, victims and their families and the accused — left with a feeling of frustrated helplessness as cases drag on for years. The phenomenon of ‘encounter specialists’ taking the law into their hands to dispose of criminals and of public lynching of notorious ant-social elements are but symptoms of a deeper malaise. Shoddy investigation of crimes, prompted sometimes by political pressure and sometimes by the lure of lucre, and interminably long periods between the commission of a crime and the final verdict of guilt seriously affect the credibility of the criminal justice system.
It is against this unsatisfactory background that recourse is had to the arrest of persons for even petty crimes and/or where they are not habitual offenders, just to satisfy public sentiment. Once arrested, the accused remain in jail because, in many cases, they cannot manage to give the surety/security required for grant of bail. The courts and the police are reluctant to trust the release on bail of persons on personal bonds/undertakings. Non-granting of bail and overcrowding in jails are two sides of the same coin. According to the Bureau of Police Research and Development, in 2022, India housed 5.73 lakh persons in its jails as against a prison capacity of 4.36 lakhs. The National Crime Records Bureau has reported that the proportion of people in jails, who are not convicted, rose from 33% in 1947 to 66% in 2012 and 76% in 2022.
More disturbing is the increasing trend of arrests of those deemed by the ruling dispensation to be opposed to them politically or those who raise their voice against actions of those in power that smack of restraint on or misuse of constitutional rights — these range from politicians of opposition parties to “anti-nationals” and “urban naxals”. The draconian provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on grant of bail keep those accused under these Acts in prison for years on end. Under both laws, the court has to be satisfied, before releasing the accused on bail, that a prima facie case of guilt is not made out by the prosecution: this has led to a situation today where courts at all levels are reluctant to grant bail, never mind the provisions for bail and bonds under the newly enacted Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) (or its predecessor Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure). It has long been a judicial precedent that bail ought to be refused only where (a) the offence is likely to be repeated while on bail; (b) the accused may abscond; (c) witnesses may be influenced; (d) evidence may be tampered with. The Hindu newspaper has highlighted (September 10, 2022) the abysmal conviction rates of 3% for those arrested under UAPA between 2018 and 2020, and 0.05% under PMLA until March 2022. As a consequence of the stringent provisions for grant of bail, the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, Umar Khalid in the Delhi Riots case, AAP politicians Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in the Delhi liquor policy and former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren have been in jail for months and years on end without commencement of trial. The eagerness of a state like Maharashtra to enact the Special Public Security Act, modeled on similar legislation in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Telangana, with provisions for keeping lower courts from intervening in executive actions under the Act, does not bode well for civil liberties of citizens.
What is clearly required to safeguard the right to liberty of citizens are three sets of legislation to check abuse of authority:
(1) Requiring the courts to reach a preliminary conclusion about the possible guilt of the accused under the UAPA/PMLA vitiates the judicial process of a fair trial. It is essential to delete the proviso to Section 43 D(5) of the UAPA which reads “Provided that such accused person shall not be released on bail or on his own bond if the Court, on a perusal of the case diary or the report made under Section 173 of the Code is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation against such person is prima facie true.” Similarly, Section 45 (ii) of the PMLA which reads “where the Public Prosecutor opposes the application, the court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that he (sic) is not guilty of such offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail;” deserves to be removed from the statute book.
(2) The right to bail must be enshrined as a fundamental right, under either Article 21 or 22 of the Constitution of India. This will ensure that special laws do not tamper with the right to bail of an accused, which should be governed only by laws of general application like the BNSS.
(3) India, unfortunately, has no statute governing tort law. Legislation must be put in place which provides for legal damages in the form of monetary compensation for confinement in prison which does not result in conviction. This compensation would be payable by the state. However, where a miscarriage of justice which leads to incarceration is established in a court of law as motivated by mala fides on the part of specific government functionaries or other individuals, compensation to the affected party would also be payable by the concerned persons. The same principle of individual as well as state liability would apply to all deaths in police/judicial custody that are attributable to gross negligence or deliberate actions in violation of the rule of law by the guardians of law or other persons.
Since it is evident that the executive at the Union and State levels seems to lack both the moral authority and the resolve to ensure that law enforcement agencies do not overstep their powers, it is high time that the legislature and the judiciary step in to ensure that the ordinary citizen is protected from arbitrary actions that interfere with her/his enjoyment of personal liberty. This will be a lasting tribute to the framers of the Constitution of India in the seventy fifth year of the Republic of India.
14 Jul
Statistics and the Muslim bogey
I have been exposed to the subject of statistics through my school, undergraduate and postgraduate years. Hence, I have this strange suspicion about what the numbers tell. Whether it is a government tomtomming its achievements on the economic front or exit pollsters coming up with poll predictions, I take all these prognostications with a generous pinch of salt. There is still some doubt about whether the authorship of the phrase “Lies, damned lies and statistics” can be attributed to Benjamin Disraeli or Mark Twain. Regardless, I am of the firm belief that the numbers that determine the statistics must be stripped to the bone to arrive at reasonable conclusions, untainted by hyperbole.
Which is where I have issues with the recent working paper put out by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM) on the status of the Muslim community in India during the period 1950 to 2015 (referred to hereafter as the Report), drawing on country-wise estimates of religious demographics available for 1950 and 2015 from the Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project – Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem) published by the Association of Religion Data Archives in the year 2019. The estimates differ from the Census of India figures for 1951 and 2011 only by a couple of percentage points. The Report has reached the conclusion that “…in India, the share of the majority Hindu population decreased by 7.82 percent between 1950 and 2015 (from 84.68 percent to 78.06 percent). The share of Muslim population in 1950 was 9.84 percent and increased to 14.09 percent in 2015 – a 43.15 percent increase in their share.” The increase and decrease in the Muslim and Hindu populations is shown in terms of the percentage change in the respective percentage shares, taking the percentages of 1950 as the base.
This is where the problem arises. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of statistics would know that an increase from a low base by a certain number would give a greater percentage increase than a corresponding decrease by the same number from a much higher base. For example, a rise from 5 to 10 is a 100 percent increase while a reduction from 95 to 90 is only a 5.26 percent decrease. Had the Report used the same yardstick of increase in percentage share for the Sikh and Buddhist populations during the same period, the increases would have been 49.19 percent for the former (1.24 percent to 1.85 percent) (the Report wrongly gives the percentage change as 6.58) and a humongous 1520 percent for the latter.
One could have excused this cavalier jugglery with numbers if the conclusions of the Report had not been used by spokespersons close to the BJP to, on the one hand, glorify the approach to support of minority (specifically Muslim) populations over the first six and a half decades and, on the other hand, to repeat ad nauseam the slogan “Hindu khatre mein hain” .
Sudesh Verma[1] has fallen into the familiar trap of equating the change in percentage shares of Hindu and Muslim populations between 1950 and 2015 with the change in percentages of absolute Hindu and Muslim populations between 1950 and 2015. He then plays on the usual fears of the Muslim population overrunning the Hindu population, apparently oblivious of the 2011 Census figures, which show a Hindu population of 980 million and a Muslim population of 172 million. The usual reasons for the higher growth of the Muslim population are trotted out: “rapid reproduction, illegal infiltration encouraged by vested interests and conversion.” The latter two reasons can by no means contribute to any explosive increase in Muslim population. The first reason has also been tempered by the falling birth rates in the Muslim population — the total fertility rate (TFR) of the Muslim and Hindu populations stood at 4.4 and 3.3 respectively during the the National Family Health Survey-1 (NFHS-1) in 1990-91; the TFR came down to 2.6 for the Muslim population and 2.1 for the Hindu population in NFHS-4 (2015-16). As the TFR differentials narrow over time, it would be the height of misinformation to claim that the Hindu population would be overwhelmed in numbers by minority, especially Muslim, populations, when the numbers clearly show that the twain shall never meet.
The Report highlights that “…India is one of the few countries which has a legal definition of minorities and provides constitutionally protected rights for them.” It also refers to the progressive policies and inclusive institutions that are reflected in the growing number of minority populations within India. Significantly, it observes “Given its plural, liberal and democratic nature, India has continued its civilizational tradition of harboring persecuted populations from several countries over the last six decades.”: this, even though India does not have a clear-cut domestic policy or law for refugees and is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol.
It is ironic that the Report and the article by Surya Prakash[2] should speak in glowing terms of India’s plural, democratic ethos which has, in their view, provided a conducive environment for the growth of minority populations. The period from independence to 2014 (which is the focus period of the Report) has often been disparaged by the current ruling dispensation, with frequent references at the top political levels, even recently, to the appeasement of minorities and infiltration by, and conversion of the majority community population by, minority communities. It is unfortunate that even sections of the higher judiciary appear to subscribe to this distorted worldview[3] .
Nor has the growth in Muslim population been seen in terms of the measures that are needed to bring down the growth rate of that population: these include raising literacy and education levels of women, income earning opportunities, healthcare and outreach to promote family planning practices. It needs to be emphasised repeatedly that minority communities prosper because of constitutional guarantees, proactive social and economic policies and a fraternal environment in society, not because of the magnanimity of the majority community.
This is where governments need to walk the talk in creating a conducive environment for minority communities to realise their potential. Mere assertions of the democratic rights of all citizens (including minorities) are not enough. Union and state governments need to relook at legislations on cattle slaughter and anti-conversion, which have become convenient tools used by vigilante groups to create problems for minorities. Governments also need to firmly rein in the cancer of hate speech and avoid executive actions, like the bulldozer raj, that seem to largely target specific communities. India is a melting pot of many races over many millennia, a fact recognised and embedded in constitutional provisions. Let us, as a nation, not distinguish between people on the basis of religion or any other social marker. In the final analysis, we are all part of the human race, best exemplified in the lyrics of Sahir Ludhianvi:
तू हिन्दु बनेगा ना मुसलमान बनेगा
इन्सान की औलाद है इन्सान बनेगा.
[1] Sudesh Verma: India First – Rising Muslim Population: Arise Before It’s Too Late (News18.com, 11 May 2024)
[2] A. Surya Prakash: The changing face of religious demography (New Indian Express, 23 May 2024)
[3] Prateek Chakraborty: Majority population will become minority one day: High Court on conversions (India Today, 2 July 2024)
30 Jun
50 years on…history repeats itself
June 25 is a date that has long receded in my memory. The sudden invocation of this date by the Prime Minister at the start of the 18th Lok Sabha triggered off many memories. I remember standing at a bus stop in Delhi on the morning of 26 June 1975 when I heard of the imposition of the emergency in India. I reached home to hear the voice of Indira Gandhi announcing the imposition of the internal emergency. As a politically naive college student with a passing interest in politics, the implications of the Emergency never struck home till far later. I saw the first display of opposition to the emergency when protesting students, including the then Delhi University Students’ Union President Arun Jaitley, were rounded up by the police and bundled into buses before their incarceration in prison.
Over the next 18 months till the end of 1976, we, the citizens of India, were bombarded with news of the remarkable changes taking place in the economy and society (reminiscent of the pronouncements in Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984). As news of the demolitions in Turkman Gate in Delhi and the forced sterilisations filtered through to us through a largely quiescent print media, disgust and cynicism started building up in the general public. The 1977 Lok Sabha elections blew the safety cover off the pressure cooker, with the Congress party getting the least number of seats in 25 years after the 1952 elections.
The past few years are strangely reminiscent of the Emergency: the difference is in the use of the knife rather than the hammer to injure the body politic. The use of MISA during the emergency to detain political opponents has been replaced by laws like the UAPA and PMLA, which have been used to arrest those voicing dissent against or opposing the ruling dispensation, ostensibly on the vaguely worded grounds of threat to the integrity or sovereignty of India or the likelihood of striking terror in people or for economic offences. Just as the use of MISA was made immune from judicial review during the emergency through inclusion in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, the stringent provisions for grant of bail under Section 43D(5) of the UAPA and Section 45(1) of the PMLA make it very difficult to secure bail, as they virtually require an opinion of the judiciary that no prima facie case establishing guilt has been made out. The continued incarceration of a number of the accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case and of a serving Chief Minister and a former Deputy Chief Minister are evidence of the reluctance of the judiciary to grant bail even when the accused pose no flight risk and are not likely to tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses. As in MISA, the present scenario allows for continued detention for long periods while the investigating agencies take their own time to file chargesheets and the judicial process moves at a snail’s pace.
The cavalier attitude of the administration towards the rule of law is another feature common to the emergency and the present day. Excesses committed by the bureaucracy (and the police) during the emergency have been well documented by the Shah Commission. Today, demolitions of even residential buildings, especially, but not restricted to, of the Muslim community, are carried out for apparent infractions like protesting against arbitrary executive actions or even alleged violation of anti-beef laws. There is a marked reluctance of the executive magistracy and the police to act firmly against hate speech and to strictly enforce the law when processions violate the rights of the minority community. The support of the police for the actions of vigilante groups in various states ruled by the BJP emboldens these groups to enforce their writ in matters relating to alleged “beef” consumption, “love jihad” and “conversion”. Indira Gandhi’s concept of a “committed bureaucracy” seems to have taken shape in the recent decade.
During the emergency, in the famous words of the paterfamilias of the BJP, L.K. Advani, “when the press was asked to bend, they crawled.” The situation today is more pathetic: large sections of the media genuflect before power and fail in their duty of keeping a check on executive excess. Not only that, they have taken it upon themselves to put a gloss on all actions of the government.
The Supreme Court faced its moment of truth during the Emergency in its inability to confront the denial of civil liberties by the government, best exemplified by its judgment in the ADM Jabalpur case. Today, the higher judiciary (the Supreme Court and High Courts) are facing the stonewalling by the central government on appointment of judges. Delays in hearing cases with major constitutional implications and perplexing, contradictory judgments by the judiciary at various levels has eroded the faith of the citizen in the judicial process. Unfortunately, in comparison with its 1977 predecessor, which conducted the then Lok Sabha elections admirably, the Election Commission of India has, in the recent Lok Sabha elections, been far too lenient in enforcing the Model Code of Conduct, leading to a rather bitter, acrimonious election campaign: but then those were times when, in spite of political differences, decency prevailed in public life. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has been rather chary in releasing reports on the performance of Ministries and PSUs in recent years, in marked contrast to the alacrity it displayed in the pre-2014 period.
What marks the difference between the environment of the emergency days and that of the present day are the deplorable fissures that have developed between different communities and groups in today’s society, as well as the atmosphere of bigotry and intolerance that seems to envelop society like a dark cloud. The Lok Sabha Speaker, just after his election to that august post, called for two minutes silence in remembrance of the dark memories of an emergency that is half a century old. Given the serious reservations in large sections of civil society and the political class about the infringements and restrictions on basic human rights and freedoms in the last decade and the erosion of trust and fraternity between social groups, it would have been in the fitness of things if, instead of the two minute silence, he had announced a full day discussion in the Lok Sabha to ascertain the views of members, especially those from the augmented opposition benches, about the worsening social cohesion and harmony between groups and the lessons all of us, especially those governing the country, need to imbibe from the Emergency. Unless we, as a nation, introspect on where we are headed, we will be left ruefully contemplating the words of the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
1 Nov
The Rumblings of Global Hunger
Every now and then, the release of a Global Index comparing countries in respect of some metric sets off a chain reaction in government circles in India, whether it be press freedom, the state of democracy or human rights. The latest controversy swirls around the release of the Global Hunger Index 2022 (GHI-22), which places India at the 107th position in a list of 121 countries for which data is available.
The GHI-22 score for each country is based on a weighted average of four standardised indicators. While one could always quibble about the excessive reliance on under-five child nutrition and mortality indicators and the sample sizes for estimating the prevalence of undernourishment in arriving at the GHI-22, there is no denying the fact that, in international comparisons, India still has way to go to reach the levels of even some of its South Asian neighbours. The NFHS-5 percentages for child stunting in Indian states like Bihar, Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh are uncomfortably close to those in some African countries and higher than most of India’s immediate neighbours. Child wasting percentages in most Indian states are in excess of 15 percent, higher than those in most countries of the world.
Rather than spending time disputing statistics, governmental energies can be more usefully deployed in effectively tackling child undernutrition. Four areas suggest themselves for immediate attention. The first step has to be the use of real-time accurate data, based on anthropomorphic indicators of weight and length/height of every child in every anganwadi, to zero down on the specific locations where stunting and wasting are serious problems. The tablets provided to anganwadi workers under the Poshan Abhiyan campaign will serve their purpose only if online growth monitoring charts of each child, based on current height/weight/length measurements, are available to ICDS field staff (Anganwadi workers and their supervisors) to enable immediate corrective action in respect of children who are stunted and wasted and/or whose growth is faltering.
Secondly, the health and nutrition status of pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers must be given priority. Nearly 50 percent of pregnant women in most states are anemic; about 20 percent of women have subnormal body mass indices. The state must provide maternal nutrition and health support in areas with the highest incidence of child stunting/wasting and mortality — this will check the incidence of low birth weight and the onset of malnutrition at the stage of infancy. States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka are providing pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers with a daily hot meal at the anganwadis. Apart from the nutrition aspect, this measure also enables attention to be given to micronutrient supplementation, nutrition education (especially breastfeeding advice) and peer support to women. Both the union government and the states need to provide budgetary support to this programme. The pernicious practice of contractor-driven supply of Take Home Rations to mothers and under-3 children should be discontinued forthwith, with womens’ self-help groups (SHGs), in association with anganwadis, being entrusted with the work of providing hot meals to mothers and children. Nutritional support, along with provision of creches for under-3 children, run by SHGs, would not only promote nutritional and cognitive development in these children, but would also enable their mothers to earn a livelihood to enhance family incomes.
The third policy focus should be on the care of the infant, especially in the first 28 days after birth. The SRS data of the Registrar General of India shows that 80 to 90 percent of under-5 child mortality occurs in the first year of birth. Equally dismaying is the statistic that, in nearly all Indian states, over 70 percent of infant deaths occur in the 28 day neonatal period, indicating that neonatal mortality accounts for over 60 percent of child mortality. The responsibility here falls largely on the Public Health department of states, since neonatal monitoring of the newborn is one of the weakest linkages in the nutrition-health chain in government. The NFHS5 data shows that nearly 80 percent of mothers and children received postnatal care from health personnel within two days of delivery. This contrasts sharply with the UNICEF 2021 State of the World’s Children Report which shows figures of 65 percent and 27 percent for maternal and child postnatal care, though this data may be a couple of years older. In any case, anganwadi workers and ASHAs need to regularly monitor the nutrition and health status of newborns in their first 28 days of life and refer all cases where the nutrition and health position of the child is severely compromised to the nearest medical centre.
Above all, governments need to prioritise maternal and child nutrition and health in a meaningful manner. My experience as Director General of the Rajmata Jijau Mother-Child Health and Nutrition Mission in Maharashtra showed that political and bureaucratic commitment from the very top is crucial in instilling a sense of accountability in implementing departments and in promoting inter-departmental coordination to tackle this issue which spans a number of government departments. Regular reviews at the levels of the Chief Minister, the Ministers for Health and Women & Child Development and the Chief Secretary lead to greater attention being given to solving problems at the district and sub-district levels — budgetary support for programmes in specific areas, resolving personnel issues and ironing out interdepartmental problems in implementation are some of the positives from such high-level interventions.
This is not to minimise the importance of macro interventions on the economic and social fronts. Empowerment of women, through access to higher education, skill development and income-earning opportunities and enhancing community awareness on good health and nutrition practices would impact the problem significantly. Strong economic growth, coupled with job opportunities, would increase family incomes and improve nutrition outcomes. But a determined government focus on the issues mentioned in the earlier paragraphs would lead to significant improvements in the situation in the short and medium term, even as the longer term measures take root in the country. As Nelson Mandela said “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children”.
(Published in the Free Press Journal (30 October 2022)
27 Oct
A Tale of Two Elections
India benefited in two ways from her association with Great Britain — the English language and a parliamentary system of government. But there is a third useful lesson India can learn from Britain: how to conduct the election of the leader of a political party. The process that has played out in the British Conservative Party after the resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July this year stands out in stark contrast to the confused muddle in conducting the election for the President of the Indian National Congress (INC).
The procedure for election of the leader of the Conservative Party, who would become the Prime Minister, involved a two-stage process. In the first stage, Conservative MPs voted for selecting the two candidates who would confront each other for the top job. This exercise narrowed the choice down to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, with the former emerging the winner in an election where over 80 percent of over 170,000 Conservative Party members exercised their franchise.
Contrast this with the process that has characterised the election of the President of the INC. With the anointed heir apparent to the throne playing the reluctant suitor, the election was fixed for 17th October, rather close to the crucial state assembly elections slated for December/January. Noises from various party functionaries and carefully planted media reports made it obvious that there ought to be a consensus candidate favourable to the party high command, without the need for an election. With Shashi Tharoor throwing his hat into the ring, the election process, however, had to be gone through.
In an age when electronic lists are the norm and the British Conservative Party can conduct online elections involving 170,000 plus members, the INC’s delay in releasing a list of under 10,000 PCC members bordered on the ludicrous. After much urging from some party members, the existing lists of these 9000 plus members were made available to the candidates standing for election. The campaign by the two candidates revealed clearly the culture that prevails in the party. In state after state, party functionaries preferred to go along with Mallikarjun Kharge, seen as the “high command” candidate, despite his contention that he has his independent position on various issues. The party old guard did not look too kindly on the younger interloper, and it is little wonder that the election was a one-sided affair reminiscent in style if not in degree of the INC President election of 2000, which brought Sonia Gandhi to the helm of affairs.
The high command structure in place in the INC since the time of Indira Gandhi has played havoc with the INC’s regional power bases, leading to election fiascos for the party in state after state, and at the national level. Maharashtra is a prime example: no INC CM after 1972 has spent a full five years in office. With dissidence against incumbent CMs having become the norm, it is little surprise that the INC has had 12 CMs in the 36 years it was in power in Maharashtra between 1972 and 2014. As in UP and Bihar, the INC is fast losing its relevance in Maharashtra, occupying fourth place (44 seats) in the number of MLAs in the assembly, a far cry from 1985, when it held 161 seats. The failure of the INC to establish its electoral dominance in national and most state elections since 2014 is, at one level, an outcome of the disgruntlement of state-level leaders — Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have all witnessed revolts against the party leadership.
An ambitious politician finds her/his path to the top obstructed by the “old guard” and/or by a suspicious leadership. Ambition not being seen as a desirable quality, contenders for a more meaningful role in the party are compelled to switch to other political formations.
Coupled with ambition are the two vices of greed and fear. Politics offers easy pickings through patronage networks and the non-transparent nature of decision making in government departments. This tendency has been accentuated in recent years by the allure of inducements for switching sides immediately after elections or sometime between two general elections, the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India having repeatedly failed in checking defections midstream. The disease of treating ministerial posts as avenues for personal aggrandisement also renders most politicians vulnerable to investigations by law enforcement agencies, a tool which comes in handy for the party in power to arm-twist politicians into shifting their loyalties. A former Maharashtra Congress Minister has openly admitted that he breathes easy ever since he switched sides.
The drama that surrounded the INC presidential election is symptomatic of the disease that affects ALL political parties in India. Most parties in India are family-managed enterprises, where the hereditary right of succession seems to be a given, regardless of whether the successor displays any political ability. Even where there is no “dynasty culture”, the party morphs into an outfit run by one or more leaders, with a small coterie to advise them. Both at the state and national levels, the preference is to nominate persons for specific posts based on their loyalty to the party bigwigs or to ram through candidates for party and government leadership on the basis of the choice of the high command.
In such a scenario, loyalty and commitment to the party’s ideology (if it has one, in the first place) and to its success in elections are replaced by individual expediency. Almost overnight, politicians spout rhetoric that was anathema to them just a short while earlier and eulogise their new leaders whom they had no qualms about abusing and criticising while in the earlier party.
The noted author Ramachandra Guha had, fifteen years ago, characterised India as a 50-50 democracy. More recently, he downgraded this rating to 30-70. Given the absence of inner party democracy across the board in Indian politics, one wonders if India is nearer a 10-90 democracy.
7 Sep
Let’s rescue politics from resorts
Almost exactly twenty years after ‘resort’ politics was resorted to in Maharashtra to save the Congress coalition government of Vilasrao Deshmukh, history has repeated itself in the recent rebellion within the ranks of Shiv Sena legislators. While bundling away legislators in bulk to resorts to keep away prying suitors was a novelty in 2002, it is the norm in 2022. From Gujarat to Rajasthan, from Karnataka to Madhya Pradesh, the flock of disgruntled dissidents or loyalists (depending on which side of the table you are on) have been spirited away before crucial voting or before governments are toppled. There are, of course, states like Goa and Manipur where the resort to resorts is not even necessary: it is game, set and match even as the election process ends, with wholesale defections to the party which offers the best terms.
What boggles the mind is the scale of operations today. In my view, cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) has a hoary ancestor in the Indian Political League (IPoL): the latter commenced functioning around 1967, a good forty years before the IPL was born. Players in the IPoL are free to switch teams whenever auctions take place: these could be before elections or at more frequent intervals, depending on team managements. Auctions can adopt a carrot and/or stick approach: positive inducements, such as signature bonuses and subsequent access to ATM assignments, and/or negative pressures, using law enforcement agencies to uncover the murky pasts of politicos. Once safely home in her/his newly adopted political party, the freshly laundered politician has a new launching pad for her/his political future.
Where does this continuous cycle of saam-daam-dand-bheda leave the ordinary voter? Increasingly, her/his vote ceases to matter. No matter whom s/he elects to office, there is no guarantee that that person will remain loyal to the party and the ideology which may have influenced the voter in her/his favour. The anti-defection law has proved to be a non-starter. Developments in recent years from Arunachal Pradesh to Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have not dampened the enthusiasm of Aaya Rams – Gaya Rams to jump ship at the call of the Sirens. The Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India seems to indicate clearly that two-thirds of the MLAs/MPs of a party have to switch allegiance to another party to retain their membership of the legislature (the Goa pattern) and not attract the anti-defection provisions. Although the Tenth Schedule vests all powers to decide on disqualification of members with the Speaker (or the Deputy Speaker, as the case may be) and bars the jurisdiction of courts, there has been judicial intervention in both Arunachal Pradesh and Maharashtra. With the impartiality of the Speaker/Deputy Speaker being questioned whenever disqualification proceedings are launched, the Tenth Schedule is fast becoming a dead letter. India has made rapid strides in recent years in “anti-defecation” measures: it is time now for “anti-defection” measures with more teeth.
What is, therefore, required is legislation that discourages modern day Aaya Rams and Gaya Rams from flitting from one party to another. For a start, a winning candidate set up by a political party must resign her/his seat if s/he decides to join another party. Similarly, independent winning candidates who declare their support to the government formed by a particular political party must resign their seats if they switch loyalties to any other party. Drawing on the recent happenings in Maharashtra, I would propose that even if more than two-thirds of the legislators of a party withdraw support to the party that put them up for election and opt to join another party, the opinion of the party functionary who issued Form A at the time of nominations for election should be the clinching factor; if this functionary does not ratify the withdrawal of support, the withdrawal of support should be deemed to be grounds adequate for disqualification. The decision for disqualification must be that of the Speaker of the House and, if there is no Speaker, that of the Deputy Speaker. Additionally, the disqualified member and her/his family members (covering at least the spouse and all sons/daughters) should be ineligible for standing for election for a period of six years from the date of disqualification, thus removing them from the election process for effectively the present and next term of the House. This will rule out those legislators who think they have the necessary financial and social clout to get reelected even if they have to resign from their seats. There should also be a mandatory assessment by the Income Tax department of the income and assets of the member and his/her family members to check the flow of illicit funds to their accounts in return for the switch in loyalty.
I know that I am asking for the moon in proposing measures that will rein in incentive/disincentive-induced defections. In the current political climate, these measures are unlikely to find any resonance with political parties. The opacity of the electoral bonds regime in place today and the multiple avenues for stashing away windfall gains in safe tax havens make it highly improbable that unscrupulous politicians will be deterred from looking for easy political capital. However, we have reached a stage today where the very sanctity of the electoral process is in jeopardy. If money and muscle power can dictate who comes to power, the voter will repose little faith in the electoral system, the surest recipe for a democracy to head on the path to disaster.
P.S.: A little bird just whispered in my ear that future legislators whose loyalty is sought to be bought are likely to ask for more exotic resorts to spend time in while the political drama plays out. Antigua, Bali and the Cayman Islands are doing the rounds as possible venues. To which I can only quote Cicero: O Tempora! O Mores!
This blog was published in the Free Press Journal on 29 August 2022 (here)
27 Aug
Bilkis Bano case – the interface of law and ethics
If 2012 saw the conscience of a nation shaken by the Nirbhaya rape incident, 2022 has witnessed an equal nightmare in the wholesale release of eleven men convicted of gangrape and mass murder in 2002 in Gujarat, that too on the very day that India was celebrating the 75th anniversary of its independence. The Government of Gujarat utilised its good fortune in being declared the “appropriate government” by the Supreme Court decision of May 2022 (which overrode Section 432(7) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)) to arrive at the facile reasoning that the 1992 remission policy provided for remission of life sentence (even in cases involving rape and murder) after 14 years in prison. The subsequent tightened guidelines on remission by the Government of Gujarat (2014) are apparently not applicable since the 11 men were convicted in 2008, when the 1992 remission policy was in place.
The decision of the Government of Gujarat begs many answers. Let us accept the argument that, as per the 1992 remission guidelines, these 11 men were eligible for release from prison. Some other nagging questions of law still remain. The case was prosecuted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), an agency created under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946. Section 435 of the CrPC makes it mandatory for the state government to consult the Union Government in cases prosecuted by the CBI (note well that consultation here means concurrence of the Union Government). If such permission was not taken, the remission of sentence is ab initio void in law. If concurrence was taken, the Union Government is a willing party to this decision. Since, as in many other decisions of the Government of India today, no clarification is provided on this issue, the public is left guessing. Even if concurrence of the Union Government under Section 435 of the CrPC was taken, there is still the matter of taking the opinion of the presiding Judge of the court which passed the original order of conviction, regarding grant of remission of sentence under Section 432(2) of the CrPC: this has been mandated by the Supreme Court as well. This process has definitely not been gone through in the appropriate special CBI court in Mumbai.
These are the legal issues on which no clear answers are forthcoming as of now. But even more troubling is the process of decision making at the level of the committee on remission headed by the District Magistrate, Godhra, and the Home Department, Government of Gujarat. Even granting that the 1992 remission guidelines allowed for remission of sentence to those convicted of murder and rape, there are still other considerations that have to be kept in mind when granting remission. The Supreme Court has, as far back as 2000, laid down guidelines for remission of sentence which include, inter alia, whether the crime affects society at large and whether recurrence of commission of crime is possible. In the Bilkis Bano case, there can be no doubt that the nature of the crimes committed — gangrape and mass murders — definitely affected society at large. On the issue of possible recurrence of criminal acts by the convicts subsequent to their release, newspaper reports indicate that witnesses were threatened when the convicts were released on parole during their incarceration. Whether these factors were taken into consideration while granting remission is a matter of speculation — there is no clarification from the state government.
However, as much as these legal issues, what ought to concern us all as citizens of a humane, compassionate society are the ethical dimensions of this entire episode. Photographs have been shown of the distribution of sweets to the released convicts; even more appalling are reports of the felicitation of the convicts by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, this in a criminal case monitored by the Supreme Court and where verdicts of conviction were confirmed by the Bombay High Court. Common decency dictated that the release, even if in accordance with the procedure laid down by law, be kept low-key in deference to the sentiments of the survivors of the crimes. A member of the remission committee and a sitting ruling party legislator went so far as to suggest that the convicts were of high caste, had good upbringing and that charges were framed against them because of ill intentions of some persons. It was incumbent on the administration of the Government of Gujarat to take steps to prevent the organisation of such events and to discourage such statements which could cause unease in the minds of the victims and the minority community.
In fact, the Government of Gujarat should have taken the initiative to organise a reconciliation meeting between the victims and the perpetrators of crimes. The effort should have been to bring a sense of closure to the tragic incidents of 2002 and promote a spirit of harmony in the village where both sides would be residing henceforth. Nelson Mandela adopted this approach with his Truth and Reconciliation Commission, following the end of apartheid in South Africa, to build an atmosphere of trust and cooperation between the coloured and white communities. Our own Bapu, Mahatma Gandhi, spent the first Independence Day wiping the tears of the victims of communal fury in Bengal.
It is this spirit of fraternity (bandhutva) that is sorely lacking in the India of today. We can debate till eternity whether the 11 persons should have been released or should have continued in prison, depending on our ideological predilections. But unless those who committed these crimes are fully aware of the damage they have caused to the psyches of their victims and are truly remorseful for their past misdeeds, there can be no meeting of minds between the different communities. Immense damage is caused to the social fabric, when vested interests dabble in spreading hatred and misunderstanding among communities. Let us, in this 76th year of India’s independence, move from untruth to truth and from darkness to light: only then will we truly be free.
15 Aug
The Idea of India – at 75
As India celebrates the 75th anniversary of her existence as an independent nation, it is time to reflect on what ‘India’ truly represents. What has given this country the resilience to meet multiple challenges on the economic, political and social fronts over three-quarters of a century and retain her status as the largest democracy in the world (even if there is still a gap between the actual and the potential)?
India has been fortunate that eminent personalities oversaw the transition from imperial to democratic rule, developing a robust Constitution of India (‘the Constitution’) that has, in spite of many amendments, stood the test of time. At this juncture in our history, it would be appropriate to identify the core principles that have enabled India to chart her course of nationhood. The strength of India rests on three fundamental principles embedded in her Constitution: the primacy accorded to the individual, the emphasis on pluralism and the operation of the federal structure of the nation.
India has, over the ages, taken into her fold people from diverse races, cultures and religions. The country displays a heterogeneous collection of languages and traditions. Pluralism is not confined to religion: it is the trait which welcomes and embraces different ethnicities, linguistic groups and those from diverse cultural backgrounds. The Constitution’s greatest boon has been its focus on bringing together in one nation-state people who were earlier subjects of British India and nearly 600 princely states. It has located a number of pluralist measures in the Part on Fundamental Rights (‘Part III’). These include the freedom to profess, practice and propagate any religion as well as the protection of cultural and educational rights of minorities. Discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth is specifically prohibited.
What is equally noteworthy is the primacy accorded to the individual in Part III. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law to all persons, irrespective of whether they are citizens or not. The subsequent Articles lay down clearly the rights of citizens — of life and liberty, freedom of speech and association, public employment, etc. This marks a sea change in a social milieu where the collective, in the shape of the family, clan or community, was, in centuries past, the arbiter of the rights and duties of the individual. The Constitution gives the individual a dignity of her own, not linked to any entity other than the nation of which she is a citizen.
It is significant that the very first Article of the Constitution defines India as a ‘Union of States’. The territories administered by the British and the princely states which signed the Instrument of Accession to the Indian Union were amalgamated into different states. Article 1 of the Constitution was a recognition of the reality that it was these states that constituted the nation. There is a clear division of responsibilities between the Union and the States in the matter of governance. The Seventh Schedule delineates the subjects which are the exclusive domain respectively of the Union and of the States (as well as those where there is concurrent jurisdiction of both). The Constitution provides for a Finance Commission to propose, at regular intervals, the allocation of financial resources between the Union and the States; it also created All India Services that serve both the Union and the States. These provisions are intended to ensure a collaborative and synergistic relationship between the two, often governed by different political parties. Recognising that federalism has to strike roots below the state level, the Constitution (73rd and 74th) Amendments provided for substantive devolution of powers to rural and urban local bodies.
However, there are areas where closer attention from the Union and state governments, the judiciary and civil society is necessary if India is to serve as an example of a healthy democracy. Powers of arrest are still exercised by law enforcement agencies in a routine fashion and subordinate courts treat bail applications with a negative frame of mind, so much so that the Supreme Court was constrained to recently observe that India should not become a “police state”. Special acts have severely circumscribed the granting of bail in certain cases. These lead not only to the “process becoming the punishment” (as observed recently by the Chief Justice of India), but also to the burgeoning number of undertrials in jails in India. The 2006 directives of the Supreme Court to insulate the police forces from political pressures need to be implemented by all governments in letter and spirit if the sanctity of individual liberties is to be maintained.
The pluralist ethos has come under strain in recent years, through a combination of executive actions (and inaction) and the emergence of vigilante groups that seek to deliver ‘justice’ in a summary manner. Increasing intolerance for the views of others, especially with the explosive growth of electronic and social media, has contributed to the growing incidence of hate speech, which sows the seeds of bigotry and hatred in large segments of society. It is time governments impartially administer the laws which check such actions (and courts take a severe view of infractions of laws causing social unrest). The media and civil society also need to call out those elements that seek to sow dissensions among different sections of society.
There is an urgent need to tone down the adversarial relations between the Union and state governments. A spirit of mutual goodwill, respect and consensus between the Union and state governments, especially those governed by parties other than that governing the Union, is crucial in furthering the economic development of the country and improving the lot of the common citizen.
The promise in the Preamble of the Constitution to secure to all citizens of India justice, equality, liberty and fraternity will be realised in ample (if not full) measure when all the stakeholders in the country actively promote the values enshrined in the Constitution. Only then will India’s tryst with destiny truly be fulfilled.
This blog was published in the Free Press Journal (15 August 2022) (here)
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