The farm Bills may claim to open up the agricultural sector but the implied corporatisation may engulf farming communities
Corporatisation of agriculture in the US, where factory farming birthed an uninterrupted chain of “farm to fork,” has wiped out rural communities, their organic methods, their unique produce, their relevance and independent existence. It all began in the 1970s to realise a dream of becoming big enough to command the world’s food market with industrialised processes, merging of lands and shifting priorities to commodity crops. But in no time there was a glut due to over-production, farmers could never get the commensurate prices and were driven to debts. They had no option but to foreclose and sell out. Now farmers do not even make up a quarter of the total US agricultural production. Buying into the promise of “making it big,” they stretched their resources and were subsumed by food giants. This is exactly the scenario that our farmers fear following the passage of farm Bills, which began as ordinances during the lockdown, in the Lok Sabha. Yes, structurally, they may seem to streamline the agricultural processes but the farmer is not willing to give up his right to exist on his terms. Worse, he fears that these could ultimately reduce the current system of open-ended FCI procurement by the State. Little wonder then that farmers have taken to the streets across North India despite the Prime Minister’s assurance that the new Bills would “empower” them by giving them direct linkages to the market and that their minimum support price (MSP) would still be guaranteed. Such has been the cascading effect of their anxieties that regional parties that sustain on the rural votebank, namely the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), are under pressure to withdraw support to the ruling BJP as allies. The farmers have made it very clear that there would be no political future for parties and MPs that voted with the Government. So the lone SAD Minister, Harsimrat Singh Badal, resigned as Union Minister of Food Processing Industries while in Parliament Sukhbir Singh Badal warned that the proposed laws would “destroy” the 50 years of hard work done by successive Punjab governments to build the farm sector. While the Government insists that the new laws will help create “one nation, one market” and remove trader barriers so that farmers can sell their produce outside notified grain markets, the latter fear that in an open, competitive market, they would not get the minimum support price that the Government has promised to continue. Besides, they feel that entering into contracts with corporations would willy-nilly give the latter negotiating rights and greater control that would impinge on their autonomy and decision-making. And that although the older system would continue, as a weakened parallel mechanism, it would ultimately crumble before emerging monopolies. It is the implication behind the grandiloquence of a prosperous countryside and the devil in the detail that have our farming community up in arms. For example, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020, allows buys and sales outside the notified Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis, thereby limiting their cartelisation tendencies. It also prohibits State Governments from collecting the fee, cess or levy for trade outside the APMC markets. A licence won’t be required to trade in farm produce and anyone with a PAN card can now buy directly from growers. Hence they want clarity on what “outside” means and contrary to perception that they want middlemen out, they actually have a trusted bond with their existing commission agents, as their licence is proof enough of their credibility and delivery abilities, and would not want to experiment with an untested model. With most of them not literate enough about exercising their rights, dispute resolution could also end up being loaded against them. Besides, they would want direct payment as banks could deduct amounts as loan recovery. State Governments like Punjab are obviously upset that access to another market would dry up their own revenue from APMC mandis and are seeing this as an affront to federal controls. The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, seeks to bring uniformity in contractual farming rules and State APMC acts. So the farmer can now enter into a contract with a corporate entity at a mutually agreed price. The problem here is that the mechanism for price fixation is not codified and farmers fear that corporations could use their institutional heft to manipulate or browbeat them into accepting their terms. Finally, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020, aims to remove cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from a regulated list, which is being seen as a major threat to the food security of the poor. The Government argues that as a food-surplus nation, we don’t need it anymore but the pandemic-induced crisis has shown us how supply chain disruptions and local level hoarding can lead to a price spiral.
Farmers are not entirely without reason, battling as they are bad loans and non-payment of sugarcane dues in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. They do not want to be swamped. Many experts would argue that it is easy enough to push reforms in a sector that anyway makes a very small portion of our GDP. But farmers make up 60 per cent of the country’s population, a voter base that no political party can ignore. Both the SAD and JJP owe their political legitimacy to farmers and have no option but to advocate their rights. Besides, both represent States that are heavily dependent on procurement at MSP. The Bills may well turn out to be the BJP’s Achilles’ heel provided the Opposition is quick enough to mount a united campaign.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
If impersonating was Jessica Krug’s way of legitimising herself as an academic, mobilising the disenfranchised and then representing them as perpetual victims is another
The recent confession of Professor Jessica Krug about her true identity may have outraged many. However, it offers an opportunity to re-evaluate what academics given to consciousness-raising often do. Krug, a historian teaching African history at George Washington University, admitted in a blog that she is a Jew born of White parents and has nothing to do with African-American Blackness, something which she had been claiming for a long time. She regretted that her action was “the very epitome of violence, of thievery and appropriation, of the myriad ways in which non-Black people continue to use and abuse Black identities and cultures.” In the same breath, Krug declared that she is no culture vulture but a culture leech. Her actions though have proved otherwise. Prior to her outing of herself in the blog, Krug had used a more African-sounding name (Jessica La Bombalera) in her activist avatar, and during a demonstration had questioned the gentrification of New York by calling out the “White New Yorkers” for having failed to spare a thought for Black and Brown New Yorkers. We don’t know what prompted her to come out as White though it is said that there were increasing murmurs about her identity that forced her to do so.
The knowledge market: On the face of it, a situation such as this is not representative of the academic environment in the US or India. This is where the present intervention marks its departure. Krug’s admission, no doubt, betrays her inability to fake it any longer, but more importantly, it reveals the malaise of contemporary academic knowledge production. The difference between usurping the voice of the weak (what academics do) and pretending to be the weak (what Krug did) is perhaps one of degree and not of kind. When Krug claimed to be a culture leech rather than a vulture, she was highlighting that subtle difference. We can be reasonably sure that Krug is not the first one and won’t be the last, at least until the academic market stops converting experience of marginality to elitist knowledge and suspends placing a premium on the dish of victimhood.
Those who see Krug’s problem as an individual transgression are either oblivious of what goes in the name of knowledge or are beneficiaries of such methods. Academic scholarship has often been obsessed with not just representing cultural difference but also in producing, controlling and owning it. Few questions are raised about the moral foundation of such knowledge. It is taken for granted that if cultural difference does not exist, it is to be invented and if academic knowledge has to sustain itself, “savage slots” are to be continuously filled. Krug took it one step further. Instead of being content with immersion or academic self-othering, or sponging on cultural difference of the Blacks like a leech, she chose to become indistinguishable from what she was writing about.
A few years ago, Harvard University had gone to the market advertising its culture of diversity by projecting Elizabeth Warren, a law professor who claimed to be a Cherokee Indian (and went on to have a thriving political career). The difference between birth identity and assumed identity may appear as academically adventurous and a cool way of moving beyond fixed identities, but in reality, and for the people whose identity is thus stolen, it is an act of violence. In a post-modern academic world, race is increasingly seen as a political invention rather than a frozen identity, thus creating a pathway for becoming someone else, or belonging without believing. That way, what Krug did was chic because she was making herself a trans-individual. But we all understand that Blackness as knowledge and Blackness as experience (not just individual but collective and communal) are different things. One is of romanticisation, appropriation, exoticisation, even silencing, and the other of everyday-ness and its struggle.
Though living the marginal life involves costs in real life — humiliation, powerlessness, sub-human life and so on — the academic world knows the benefits of being Black or minority, at least in the latter’s potential for being objects of knowledge. In the market of scholarship, victimhood sells and is safely monetised: Black or Coloured in America and Muslim or Dalit in India. Cultural difference and victimhood are a minefield of fame and money.
That said, the demonstrations over the death of George Floyd or over atrocities against Dalits reveal a mindset of remembering the victim only when they can be used as a medium of accumulating symbolic capital. It is not just about dehumanising and instrumentalising them for advancing one’s career but also the belief that being a victim pays. The willingness to barter away one’s identity, as Krug did, springs from the conviction that academic benefit from such impersonation outweighs the losses.
Imaginary victims: What Krug did not acknowledge in her confession is that her violence was not only directed as genuine Black experience but also at White experience. While faking to be Black, she was creating a template in which Whiteness is antagonistic to Blackness and so was perpetuating a race binary. She was reducing her own race by making it appear inflexible, intolerant, exclusivist and the negation of Black experience. Her impersonation implied that sincere appreciation of Black history is not possible while being White. She also pandered to those radical elements who believe that genuine understanding of the other is possible only by denying one’s own authenticity. Her pretension perpetuated the academic world of make-believe that being majority is a matter of shame and its disavowal or degradation is necessary to speak for the weak.
Krug converted the Black experience to some bare codes defining Black authenticity: Angry, violent, abusive. That is what she was doing while appearing as Jessica La Bombalera. The resonance of this mentality in India is not difficult to find. Dalits and Muslims are often projected in the media as angry and violent because that is the only way to be weak and a minority. Being helpless and being violent are the expressions of the same authentic core. Academics like Krug not only stereotype or steal identity, they also create norms which guide victimhood. As long as the Black man is anti-police or a Muslim is anti-State or a Dalit is anti-Brahmin, they are authentic; a republican African-American is beyond this template as is a nationalist Indian Muslim.
An academic from Hunter College named Yarimar Bonilla said something very revealing about Krug, that the latter not only fooled others about being a woman of colour, but also into thinking that they are actually inferior, intellectually and politically. Krug was denying them their being, their worth outside her own writings and activism. What it reveals is that being a victim of violence has more moral, academic and perhaps political worth than being normal and majority.
So behind minority identity, its production and circulation, there is a political economy of cultural difference and of diversity that can be a passport to capital — economic or symbolic. Becoming the other involves a life-time of dedication to live another life. Krug must have internalised the new identity. In the acknowledgment section of her book Fugitive Modernities, she thanked her “ancestors, unknown, unnamed, who bled life into a future they had no reason to believe could or should exist. … Those whose names I cannot say for their own safety, whether in my barrio, in Angola, or in Brazil.” It may be mentioned here that Krug had received financial assistance for writing this book from Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
It is not important to know whether being White or feigning Blackness is better for being a scholar of African history. What is important is the knowledge itself — of victims and minority. As long as we are getting ethnic food in Delhi haat (market), it does not matter if the cook is White or Brown. There may be many service providers but the good/service is the same.
Impersonation as passport: If impersonating was Krug’s way of legitimising herself as an academic, making common cause with a supposedly discriminating law or mobilising the disenfranchised and then representing them as perpetual victims is another. The latter is much more rampant and a fairly common practice governing funding agencies that guide research on minority cultures. Though such politically engaged research may appear as a fight for an inclusive polity, it also betrays the desire to be the source of all cultural politics.
That partly explains Brahmin academics monopolising Dalit experiences. At a poetry reading session, a very fair-skinned Brahmin poet advocated “our own” Dravidian cause and how her Dravidian skin will always be a marker of her identity. She spoke with a flair even as her complexion struggled to adjust itself to the victim narrative. Playing around this politics of “we” and trying too hard to be someone else in order to be legitimised is an effort complementary to Krug’s.
(The writer is Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras and a cultural critic.)
Despite Russia’s protests, it circulates fictitious map showing parts of India at SCO. Is China behind this adventurism?
Pakistan is playing a dangerous geo-political game, needling India from the other end as China’s serf State, without realising that all of it could boomerang on itself. Having failed to internationalise the Kashmir issue despite the abrogation of Article 370, it has now taken its territorial aggression to redrawing its maps and appropriating what it fancifully feels is owed to it. So in August it released a new map, incorporating Kashmir, parts of Ladakh and Junagadh in Gujarat. India had rightly called this vacuous and unilateral declaration, which is not backed by any credible reasoning, support groups, historical reasoning or legal validity, as a “political absurdity.” So Pakistan, in a bid to legitimise its claims, circulated this map at a virtual meeting of the national security advisors of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member countries, despite host Russia’s resistance. India rightly walked out of the meeting, saying Pakistan’s move violated SCO norms, which mandated that no bilateral issue would be discussed and that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member-states would be respected. The Russia-India-China axis dominates the SCO, which, as a counterweight to the US-dominated NATO, has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organisations accounting for almost 44 per cent of the world population, stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea. China is seeking to use it in its global domination against the US and while it has sufficiently debt-trapped Central Asian republics and other regional players to do its bidding, it is trying to neutralise Russia by becoming its biggest investor and is now needling India. Considering that India is intransigent on yielding to China’s terms on the Ladakh standoff, regardless of the meetings of the Foreign and Defence Ministers of both nations on the sidelines of the SCO, it just wanted to embarrass India, making it look like an “occupier” at a public forum. And for this it used its proxy, Pakistan. China has also been trying to convince Russia to scale down its defence deals with India following the border standoff and the map fiasco, which undoubtedly has left Moscow red-faced, was about strong-arming it as well. True, Russia is pragmatic enough about keeping both China and India on its side to establish its relevance in a multi-polar world and even front India to counter Chinese heft. But China certainly doesn’t want India, which has won brownie points at international fora for being decorous and respecting the rule of law, to prevail at SCO. In fact, it was what Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said recently that shows this cartographic offensive to be a part of a larger pattern and not just Pakistan’s independent move. “The new map shows Kashmir shares a clear border with China,” a clear indication that like Nepal, this attempt to redraw boundaries was made at China’s behest and underlines our eastern neighbour’s desire for strategic contiguity in the region than Pakistan’s any real concern for Kashmir. While India is firm on Chinese withdrawal from eastern Ladakh that seems to have driven a wedge in their greater plan to control the Karakoram by squeezing us with salami-slicing, Pakistan’s map claims are clearly intended to warn us of a two-front offensive. Pakistan is heating up the Line of Control (LoC), having moved almost 20,000 soldiers recently to match Chinese deployment on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Its ceasefire violations and infiltration bids have gone up by about 60 per cent this year, something which didn’t happen even after the Balakot airstrikes. If recent reports are to be believed, then the Chinese are no longer shadow-boxing. Just like in Nepal, their officials have had a series of meetings with their Pakistani counterparts in Gilgit-Baltistan and have been aiding them clandestinely to revive old terror networks against India. Debt-trapped by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with its economy in the doldrums and heavily dependent on borrowings and bailouts, Pakistan is but a pawn in China’s gameplan.
Yet Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan forgets that such unilateralism will beget unilateralism from the Indian side as well. And hurt its interests. The new map is nothing but an adventurist version of its 1947-48 map and in one blow scythes through all bilateral agreements that came after it, primarily the 1972 Shimla Agreement. If Khan wants to negate the understanding that bilateral disputes will be resolved bilaterally, is he also prepared for the negation of all other bilateral treaties we have regarding water-sharing? And if he has taken the liberty of depicting territories under Indian control as Pakistani territory, then how would he counter other valid land claims from our side? In that sense, Pakistan’s latest offensive is nothing short of playing with fire. Realising that the US is now more an ally of India and is humouring it, Pakistan is desperately coopting the Kashmir issue under the banner of pan-Islamism. So it is involving Turkey, which wants to be a leader of the neo-Islamic world, in its criticism of India and seeking Chinese endorsement. Only Pakistan doesn’t realise that its Kashmir strategy is still not quite exportable. And that China, while using it for posturing, will continue to engage with India for geo-strategic reasons.
Will the global Muslim community raise its voice for the restoration of the holiest of Islam’s revered sites that were destroyed by the Wahhabis?
The five centuries-old Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992 by a Hindu mob, mostly comprising diehard Kar Sevaks (volunteers) of the Vishva Hindu Parishad led by Sangh Parivar leaders. Intellectuals across the globe, irrespective of caste, creed and religion condemned the demolition, as did the Supreme Court (SC). No sane person will justify the demolition of the Babri Masjid but the bigger heinous crimes of massacres, multiple demolitions and destruction of the holiest of religious and heritage sites, shrines, relics have taken place in Saudi Arabia. This was done at the behest of its Wahhabi/Salafi rulers of Zionist ancestry who, wearing the cloak of Islam, in the middle of the 18th century introduced a new and distorted version of the faith based on terrorism. The demolished and desecrated holiest of Islamic religious places included the birth place of Prophet Mohammad.
Wahhabism, the new, distorted version of Islam, aimed to capture worldwide political power using terrorism. The dreaded terrorist, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, is one such example of this diabolical plan. This negative ideology was created by one Sheikh Najdi ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, in association with a Bedouin tribal leader Muhammad-ibn-Saud. Wahhabi ideology should not be mistaken as Islam’s tenets, although its practitioners shrewdly camouflage their real identity under the cover of Sunni Islam and associate the names of their terror groups with typical Islamic names, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and so on.
Wahhabi ideology manifestly declares, “Follow my ideology, else get ready to be killed.” According to renowned British historian and writer Charles Allen, all dreaded terrorist organisations like the ISIS, the Taliban, the Al-Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Boko Haram, and so on, follow Wahhabi ideology. And, Abu Bakr Baghdadi’s ISIS, following the Wahhabi ideology alone, murdered more than 20 lakh people. A majority of them were Muslim youth in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other parts of the world.
On December 6, 2019, the day marking the 27th anniversary of the demolition of Babri Masjid, several review petitions were filed in the SC by individuals who were party to the case. The pleas were supported by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Earlier, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind had also filed a review petition against the order saying justice can be done only by ordering the Centre and the UP Government to build the mosque at the disputed site.
Surprisingly, the entire Muslim community across the globe, including the intellectuals, remained silent spectators when Saudi ruler Abd-al- Aziz, the son of Muhammad ibn Saud, who was also the son-in-law of Sheikh Muhammad Najdi ibn Abd-al-Wahab, the founder of Wahhabism, in 1802 attacked Karbala in Iraq. He allowed the desecration of the shrine of Hazrat Imam Husain (grandson of Prophet Mohammad).
Giving the details of the attack, Charles Allen in his book, God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad, has quoted Lieutenant Francis Warden who wrote, “They pillaged the whole of it and plundered the tomb of Hazrat Imam Husain, slaying in the course of the day, with circumstances of peculiar cruelty, about 5,000 of the inhabitants. A huge amount of booty was seized.”
In 1803, Abd-al Aziz ibn Saud obtained a visit permit from the Shareef of Mecca on the pretext of performing Haj, whereupon his Wahhabi fighters laid waste Islam’s holiest shrine the Ka’aba, wherein Muslims across the globe perform the ritual of Haj. Abd-al Aziz ibn Saud followed in the footprints of Yazid who had earlier desecrated Ka’aba in 682 AD.
According to TE Ravenshaw, author of A Memorandum on the Sect of Wahhabees, “They robbed the splendid tombs of the Mahomedan saints, who were interred there and their fanatical zeal did not even spare the Prophet’s Mosque (in Medina), which they robbed of the immense treasures and costly furniture to which each Mahomedan Prince of Europe, Asia and Africa had contributed his share.”
In 1804, a Wahhabi gang crossed the great desert in the Hijaz and destroyed tombs of Prophet Mohammad’s family members at Jannat-ul-Baqi, the ancient cemetery of Medina, and even despoiled the grave of the prophet. After this, the Wahhabi gang reached Mecca and demolished another heritage site, the cemetery of Jannat-ul-Mualla, where the ancestors and other close relatives of Prophet Mohammad are interred. Again on April 21, 1925, Wahhabis demolished the shrine of Prophet Mohammad’s daughter Hazrat Fatima Zehra as well as those of his grandsons, namely Imam Hasan, Imam Zain ul Abideen and Imam Mohammad Baqir. The shrines are still lying demolished and the Saudi Government does not repair them or allow pilgrims to offer prayers at the revered sites.
Again in 2014, a leading Saudi academic had proposed to destroy the tomb of the Prophet Mohammad in Medina with the mala fide intention of removing the remains of the Prophet from there and burying them anonymously in the Jannat-ul-Baqi cemetery. However, the nefarious plan to destroy the tomb under the custody of Saudi monarch Abdullah was exposed by another academic, hence it could not be executed. Had it been executed, the motionless Muslims would have remained calm as the perpetrators were Wahhabis in Muslim attire and not people from any other religion.
In India, those who demolished the Babri Masjid are still facing trial in the Special CBI Court at Lucknow, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. In all, there are 32 accused and the apex court has directed the Special CBI Court to conclude the hearing by September 30 this year. Till now the CBI has presented 351 witnesses before the court.
What legal action has the Saudi Government or the groups of Muslim countries taken against the perpetrators of mass destruction and demolition of heritage and revered sites and massacres committed by Wahhabis feasting on Saudi petro dollars and spreading terrorism in the name of Islam? There is a deafening silence on that account.
The cacophony created by the Muslim leadership and millions of their followers on the matter of Babri Masjid may be based on the presumption that its perpetrators were Hindu bigots and the thugs behind the demolition of the holiest of Islamic sites, like the Jannat-ul-Baqi in Medina and the Jannat-ul-Mualla in Mecca, were Muslims. It matters little to them that the perpetrators of the crimes against Islam are Muslims just in name.
Will the global Muslim community raise its voice and take a conscious decision for the restoration of the holiest of Islam’s revered sites of religious and heritage importance that were systematically destroyed by the Wahhabis? If they don’t it will smack of hypocrisy and bigotry.
(The writer is a legal journalist and author)
After experiencing the catastrophic effects of climate change, it’s high time for all nations to join hands in adopting low carbon pathways to restore the ozone layer
The ozone layer, the Achilles’ Heel of our Earth’s atmosphere, is responsible for protecting our terrestrial and marine life. The layer, which is a highly reactive and made of trace gas, constitutes about three molecules for every 10 million molecules of air and absorbs bits of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation that hits the Earth. However, decisive research in the early 1970s underlined signs of trouble in this vital blanket. In 1974, late Professor Sherwood Rowland and Professor Mario Molina at the University of California, Irvine, published an article in Nature elucidating the detrimental threats to the ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases.
It was found that CFC, which is commonly used in refrigerants for cooling applications and aerosols,was eating away at the ozone layer once it was released into the Earth’s atmosphere. The situation got worse as the consumption of CFC exponentially increased in various business and industries due to its low cost and properties, namely non-inflammability and non-toxicity.
Beginning of the world’s most successful environmental agreement: Eleven years after the findings of Professor Rowland and Professor Molina, a team of English scientists, too, learnt about the thinning of the ozone layer, which is popularly known as the “Ozone Hole.” They realised that the CFCs had started to break down the ozone, leading to the entry of harmful UV rays into the Earth’s surface. This had led to an increase in skin cancer cases among humans and was harming terrestrial and marine ecosystems, too. With the objective to preserve human health and protect the environment from the harmful effects of the depleted ozone layer, the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer came into existence on March 22, 1985.
The convention provided the framework for the Montreal Protocol (MP), the most successful environmental agreement till date to achieve universal ratification. On September 16, 1987, the United Nations (UN) and 45 other countries signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. It aimed to preserve the protective shield through worldwide control, reduction and phasing out of production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances (ODS). Three decades ago, the speech of a 12-year-old girl, Severn Cullis-Suzuki from Vancouver, Canada at the 1992 Earth Summit caught the attention of leaders of parties and the UN in strategising expeditious measures for phasedown of ODS. “I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the hole in our ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don’t know what chemicals are in it. If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it,” said Cullis-Suzuki in her landmark speech.
In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed September 16 as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, commemorating the date of the signing, in 1987, of the Montreal Protocol. Today, the Parties to the Montreal Protocol have phased out 98 per cent of their ODS, which saved an estimated two million people from skin cancer annually.
Refrigerants, the key determinants: The establishment of a regime for refrigerants started taking shape during the 18th century when the world embraced the technological advancement known as the vapour compression refrigerating system which later became the most successful commercial technology.
The unprecedented need for cooling resulted in the application of early adopted natural refrigerants (carbon dioxide, ammonia, sulphur dioxide, water and air). The first generation of refrigerants was gradually succeeded by the fluorochemicals, commonly known as Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) and Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC) like R13, R123, R22 due to their varied properties like stability, non-flammability and so on. Initially, this regime of refrigerants was hardly looked at by researchers from the environmental perspective.
Later, their detrimental impacts on the ozone layer led to usage of Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) and Perfluorocarbons (PFC), which are not ozone depleting, but had global warming potential that can be thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to climate change. During the early 2000s, the unprecedented adoption of HFC refrigerants in majority of applications led to the rise of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the associated global warming effects.
Continuing the momentum: Realising the colossal impact of the carbon footprints caused by HFC refrigerants, world leaders and the UN had convened at the capital of Rwanda for the 28th meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in October, 2016. The convention led to the formation of the Kigali Amendment, intending to reduce the emissions of GHGs in a move that could prevent up to 0.5° Celsius of global warming by the end of this century, while continuing to protect the ozone layer. Aiming at a sustainable climate, as a course of action under the Kigali Amendment, the world economies are now making efforts in a phased manner to scale down the currently-used HCFC and the high global warming potential (GWP) HFC by the late 2040s to countermeasure global warming.
Thus, swift adoption of low-GWP refrigerants can be well addressed by exploring environmental benefits as well as market readiness. However, while pushing the envelope, it is important to see the refrigerant transition from the perspective of market adaptability, maintaining the business-as-usual scenario. The overall environmental impact of the refrigerant can only be reduced by integrating refrigerants with low upfront costs, energy efficiency of overall refrigeration systems and safety aspects.
For instance, merely changing a refrigerant in an existing refrigeration system without modifying it may reverse the desired economic and environmental benefits.To avoid such scenarios, the cooling industry has been putting its efforts into designing systems to ensure commercial viability of next-generation low-GWP refrigerants. However, the use of such new systems is very limited and primarily depends on end users who are inclined to the existing systems with commonly-used refrigerants due to their low costs and already proven results.
This year, the theme of the Ozone Day is “Ozone for life: 35 years of ozone layer protection”, commemorating the success of the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. At the same time, the continuous release of GHG emissions into the atmosphere has resulted in the decade of 2010-2019 being the hottest-ever. After experiencing the catastrophic effects of climate change, it’s high time for all nations to join hands in adopting low carbon pathways for our future generations. The deployment of sustainable energy options and the adoption of environment-friendly refrigerants in the cooling sector are expected to avoid upto 0.5° Celsius of global warming by 2100.
Cooling: India harbours16 per cent of the world’s population but currently only around seven to nine per cent of its people have access to air-conditioners. Cooling is cross-sectoral, spanning wide thematic areas like space cooling, industry, transport, food security and so on. According to the 2018 International Energy Agency (IEA) report, India’s cooling industry is expected to grow exponentially by 2050. Recognising the accelerated growth of cooling needs in the future, India proactively introduced its strategic document, India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) in March, 2019 to show its commitment to explore and adopt cutting-edge solutions for more sustainable cooling with less environmental impacts.
To tackle this unprecedented growth, it is imperative for the Indian cooling industry to strategise accelerated methodologies by promoting indigenous research and development activities to practise the best energy-efficient technology options and adopt the next generation environmentally-friendly refrigerants in a business-as-usual scenario.
This can be well-supported by actions like ensuring the synergies among inter-ministerial actions, creation of a strong institutional framework to identify, certifying and financing innovative cooling technologies, fast-tracking the patenting procedures for new cooling technologies and effective implementation of existing cooling policies.
In the long-term on the demand side, the emphasis should be placed on factors like creating a user demand pool in favour of cooling aided by public-private-partnership and facilitating credit-linked incentives to the manufacturers and users adopting newly-developed cooling technologies and so on.
(Shanmuganathan is Associate Fellow and Saraswat is Project Manager, Cooling, Centre for Global Environment Research, TERI)
Going through courts will only harden extremist viewpoints on same-sex spouses. There needs to be a public debate
When the Supreme Court struck down the penal provisions of Section 377 that criminalised all but vaginal intercourse, it effectively removed the legal persecution of homosexual relationships. Now a group of petitioners has approached the Supreme Court asking that it mandates that same-sex marriage be legalised in India. Surprisingly, for some in the LGBTQ community, this petition is being led by Right-wing agent provocateur Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, who has identified himself as a homosexual for many years. Yet the Solicitor-General (SG) of India Tushar Mehta, arguing before the Division Bench, has toed the cultural line that our values will not allow us to recognise same-sex marriage.
Make no mistake, a same-sex marriage has been a contentious and highly debated issue for many years in many parts of the world. In Australia, the debate ran for years until a much-publicised direct referendum approved it and allowed lawmakers to legislate to that effect. This newspaper feels that same-sex marriages should ideally be first debated in the public sphere and then in Parliament because any changes to laws governing marriage would have to be effected in the legislature, not in courts. That will take a certain amount of time and that will allow for the hardest views against such a move to soften as happened in the US. Going through the courts will only harden the viewpoints of religious and social extremists of every hue. The signature of a judge does not do away with centuries of discrimination and hate, which are very often wrapped up in what we call “values.” This is why the view of the SG is disappointing, and ideally he should have argued that this is something for Parliament to discuss and the time is right for the discussion to start. Anyone who understands the legislative process knows that such a major change will take time but unless a process is started, no change can ever take place. Is the time right for India to start discussing how to legalise same-sex marriage? Yes, it is. And we should have no pretence that our values do not allow such things. The law should not discriminate against same-sex marriages and the shared rights of partners. And like in most other nations where same-sex marriage is now legal, the happiest people are always the divorce lawyers, because same-sex marriage means same-sex divorce as well.
Govt coldly denies compensation to dead migrants saying it doesn’t have data. Can it heartlessly ignore facts or credible media reports?
Benjamin Disraeli once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” Perhaps this is what the Government has internalised in dealing with a national crisis. Since it doesn’t believe in any kind of data collection that has not been commissioned by it, it denies that there has been any migrant death during the pandemic-induced lockdown. It doesn’t matter that its white lies are caught out by countless heart-breaking stories in the media of labourers turfed out of their city jobs overnight, forced to trudge back to their villages and without money, succumbing to hunger and illness on the way or even to destitution at their homes, without relief or dole of any kind. This denial of reality by the Government is not only brutal in its insensitivity but also a shabby disowning of its responsibility in keeping a nation together in the middle of an unprecedented crisis. Worst, its inhuman response came on the floor of the Parliament where, to a question on whether families of those who had lost their lives while trying to reach home during the lockdown had been compensated, the Union Labour Ministry put out a clinical statement that since there was no data on migrant deaths, the “question does not arise” of relief and aid. Even if one were to assume that the concerned Minister, his office and bureaucrats had for some curious reason blacked themselves out from news about India’s worst reverse migration, how does the Ministry explain its own admission that more than one crore migrants made their way back to their home States from various corners of the country? Can it blithely assume, therefore, that no hazard befell them, considering most were daily wage earners and had nothing to fall back upon? Hungry, sick and walking for days, were they in an endurance test on a reality show where their deaths could be easily dismissed as collateral damage? Is the figure not an indication of the jobs lost in the country’s largely unorganised labour market? For once, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reacted rightly, tweeting, “If you haven’t counted, have the deaths not taken place?” Also, how can the Government discount the deaths recorded by its own Railway Ministry of the many migrants who died on Shramik trains that were organised much later to ferry them back home? Or were run over by trains as they fell asleep on tracks, exhausted and beaten? More than 1,400 road accidents killed 750 people, including 198 migrant workers, between March 25 and May 31.
Even if the Government doesn’t believe in statistics, the world does. Especially, those that come from credible organisations of long standing and which are relied upon by policy-makers themselves. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) have already listed that 41 lakh jobs were lost in the country during the pandemic. A World Bank report in April indicated that the livelihood of nearly 40 million internal migrants had been affected. Recently, the Centre for Monitoring India Economy (CMIE) said that five million salaried people had lost their jobs in July alone while that figure had peaked in April at 17.7 million unemployed. Further, 37.5 million students have been out of campus and are staring at a year without prospects. Without direct cash transfers, the credit-based stimulus packages, which address structural facets of the economy, have made little sense to the wage earners. A lot of them have sought refuge in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), participating in schemes with a 100-day work assurance. Such is the plight that there has been a surge in enrolment with even degree holders (MA, BBA) and self-employed youth signing up for project work and digging as they have lost their jobs in the cities. About 14 crore people across the country have MGNREGA job cards. The Government will need a massive Rs 2.8 lakh crore if each card holder can get a guaranteed 100 days of work this year. Still MGNREGA, in its present form, alone cannot take care of the returning migrants unless its scope is extended to include agricultural activities. The Centre did well by raising the allocation for this scheme but a chunk of this has gone in clearing arrears. Even this financial year began with pending wage and material liabilities of Rs 16,045 crore. An allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore for FY 2020-21 would mean that Rs 84,000 crore is available for employment generation this year. Besides, even with the scheme receiving the highest allocation since it was first rolled out, it accounts for just 0.47 per cent of the GDP. This is much lower than the World Bank’s recommendation of 1.7 per cent for optimal functioning. The second challenge is of uniform implementation as States with differing priorities and machineries are entrusted with it. With fund leakages and corruption at the level of local self-Government, the scheme has gone askew in many places. There has been a consistent demand for expanding the number of work days beyond the existing 100 days but the national average number of days employed per household in the last four years has been just 47. May be this is an opportune moment to align the scheme with economic imperatives. But more needs to be done. While individual States are already setting up job portals to list returnee workers with their skill sets and allocate them appropriate work zones, this ought to be pan-India so that labour-starved States can benefit too. Till we value the labourer, recovery will be a chimera, a smart India a paper town. Besides, atmanirbharata can truly take off when we value and respect fellow human beings and not deny their existence.
Battle experience cannot be bought and this could expose the Chinese chimera on the battlefield
None less than the Chinese leader Xi Jingping himself has conceded that the world’s largest standing military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with more than 2.1 million active-duty strength, is afflicted by the “Peace Disease.” Since taking over the reins of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the General Secretary and chairmanship of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in 2012, Xi has unleashed transformational investments and restructuring in the PLA in terms of doctrinal, strategic, technological, cultural and on-boarding of weapon platforms. Yet, he remains acutely conscious of the combat inexperience that besets a military force that has not been tested since 1979, where it came a cropper against a decidedly inferior Vietnamese force. Importantly, the Vietnamese forces that had fought the Chinese in 1979 were still blood-soaked from fighting the American forces for nearly two decades, and had even worn out the supposedly better organised, trained and equipped military then. The essential mass of the Chinese PLA in 1979 had last seen a full theatre-level combat only in the early 1950s (Korean War) and soldiers, therefore, were raw and untested when they had taken on the Vietnamese. They were soon made to pay a price for lazily assuming that a larger force, better equipment and aggressive posturing could compensate for combat inexperience. It is this foreboding pertaining to the obvious inexperience of today’s PLA that Xi has been alluding to in the context of “Peace Disease,” even as it continues its optics of aggressive posturing, intimidation and global expansionism.
There are other elements compounding the “Peace Disease” that are pertinent in questioning the core spirit of PLA’s fighting abilities. First, the perennial concern of ensuring PLA’s loyalty and subservience to the civilian CCP – this got magnified by the purges initiated against the PLA Generals in the initial Xi years and elevating his own “young guard.” Not only was this “young guard” of post-1979 vintage but the essentiality of “unity of command” in a Chinese combat unit (at company levels) is always diluted and compromised with the shared command responsibility of the political officers, who are responsible for ensuring the non-military task of loyalty to the party, i.e. CCP. A vital chink in the structural formation of the PLA is the relative under-development of the non-commissioned officers (NCO cadre), which is invaluable for operational efficacy. The steel of the Indian Army that shone in the Kargil operations was attributable among other things to the “junior command” that led from the front, where the role of NCO cadre was significant. Unlike the militaries of India (or even Pakistan), which are bloodied in real time operational experience in internal urgencies or restive borders, the Chinese “Peace Disease” comes with accompanying laxities. Even the 1967 Nathu La and Cho La border clashes in the Indo-China history were symptomatic of a recalibrated Indian military that was by then battle-hardened and in a very different frame of mind from the Indian military of 1962.
Undoubtedly, China has embarked on mammoth military investments that ensure that its annual budgetary allocation (estimated at $261-266 billion in 2019) towards its armed forces is almost four times that of India. There is debatable realism about the Chinese claims in cutting-edge military technologies (the Chengdu J-20 Stealth ‘5th generation’ fighter plane) or about the quality of training, restructuring, command systems and so on. Despite its claimed proficiency in indigenous weaponry, China has openly sought S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft systems, SU-27 and SU-35 fighter jets from Russia, among other platforms and technologies to “reverse engineer.” But where the Chinese score over countries like India is in the way they have internalised “security” as an integral component of their national vision, international manoeuvres and strategic calculus for all policy decisions, be it internal or external. Whereas, beyond selective invoking of the “Indian soldier” whenever tensions looms, the Indian governance has diminished the role, relevance or priority on defence matters and only displays knee-jerk or politically competitive “investments” in the said domain. Ironically the mismanagement of India’s domestic affairs by its political classes has ensured that the armed forces have not suffered any “Peace Disease.”
Battle experience is one of the most important features that determines the fate of forces, along with others like the lethality of weapons, processes, leadership, numerical strength or even environmental factors like social, cultural or political moorings. Japan’s “banzai” culture and motivation levels could compensate for material disadvantages. The numerically far-superior and experienced Iraqi military (after the decade long Iran-Iraq war) got decimated within 100 hours by the superiority of American weapons, training and professionalism in the first Gulf War. At the same time, the same battle-experienced and obviously more professional American military has been forced to “pull out” of Afghanistan when faced by the rag-tag Taliban militia who neither have the matching weaponry, training, nor the infrastructural wherewithal.
The Chinese awkwardness with the reciprocal stare-down at Doklam, Galwan gallantry and recent operations of the Indian Army in occupying advantageous heights is reflective of the “Peace Disease” that has been sought to be compensated by sabre-rattling, deceit and troops/infrastructural build-up.
Lieutenant General He Lei of the PLA had famously remarked a couple of years ago that his biggest regret before retiring was that he never fought a war – his successors are even more distant from war experience, whereas, those on the other side may have other concerns and deficiencies, but “Peace Disease” is certainly not one of them. Battle experience cannot be bought and this could expose the Chinese chimera on the battlefield.
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands)
India's COVID-19 caseload sprinted past 49 lakh with 83,809 people testing positive in a day, while 38,59,399 people have recuperated so far taking the national recovery rate to 78.28 per cent on Tuesday, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The total coronavirus cases mounted to 49,30,236, while the death toll climbed to 80,776 with 1,054 people succumbing to the disease in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the coronavirus infection was recorded at 1.64 per cent.
There are 9,90,061 active cases of COVID-19 in the country which comprises 20.08 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and it went past 40 lakh on September 5.
According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 5,83,12,273 samples have been tested up to September 14 with 10,72,845 samples being tested on Monday.
India is at the number one position in terms of the number of recovered coronavirus cases followed by Brazil and the US, according to the Johns Hopkins University, which has been compiling COVID-19 data from all over the world.
India is the second worst hit nation in terms of COVID-19 cases after the US, while it is at the third spot in terms of fatalities globally after the US and Brazil, according to the JHU data.
Of the 1,054 new deaths, 363 are from Maharashtra, 119 from Karnataka, 68 from Punjab, 62 from Uttar Pradesh, 60 from Andhra Pradesh, 58 from West Bengal, 53 from Tamil Nadu, 29 from Madhya Pradesh, 26 from Delhi, 25 from Haryana, 18 from Chhattisgarh, 17 each from Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir, 15 each from Kerala and Uttarakhand and 14 each from Rajasthan and Goa.
Thirteen fatalities have been reported from Assam, 11 from Odisha, 10 from Telangana, nine each from Bihar and Puducherry, seven from Tripura, six from Jharkhand, five each from Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh, two from Sikkim while Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Ladakh have registered one fatality each.
A total of 80,776 deaths have been reported so far in the country includes 29,894 from Maharashtra followed by 8,434 from Tamil Nadu, 7,384 from Karnataka, 4,972 from Andhra Pradesh, 4,770 from Delhi, 4,491 from Uttar Pradesh, 4,003 from West Bengal, 3,227 from Gujarat and 2,424 from Punjab and 1,791 from Madhya Pradesh.
The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.
"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.
(Courtesy: Pioneer)
There are several reports globally on the rising economic disparities in the post-liberal era, upon which no political party is keen to act
Even as the world celebrates the International Day of Democracy today, it is clear that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept has gone awry throughout the world. Power and political activity are the essence of modern-day democracy. Yet, political authority, which is based on legitimacy and is a tool to deliver political, economic and social justice, has been rendering yeoman’s service to corporates, both domestic and foreign.
Ruling dispensations all around the globe have resorted to authoritarianism under the guise of the health emergency. In addition, democratic upheaval through excessive centralisation and the curbs imposed on political activities during this pandemic, have left minimal space to raise the concerns of the urban poor.
The contagion, a bolt from the blue, has caught our health systems off guard. In India, the labour class has been caught between the devil and the deep sea, thanks to the recent twin moves of the Government: Privatisation and the sudden lockdown. Seemingly, the rudderless policies of the Government have created enough space for further pauperisation of the underprivileged masses.
Now, the federal governments of Third World countries have to walk on razor’s edge to meet fiscal deficit targets on one hand and connect the welfare dots on the other. Amid this chaos, big corporations are making hay due to the relaxation of tax rates and labour laws. As the unemployment numbers in the country soar and the working class is hard put to find jobs, industries and businesses will expect this surplus labour to be at their beck and call. Amid this gloom and doom scenario, the ruling elite has been trying to divert the attention of the suffering masses by shifting the national discourse towards sensitive issues like religion and hypernationalism.
Neo-liberalism and corporatisation: The stringent measures taken by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) against Third World nations — like pruning subsidies, rollback of welfare measures and the abatement of labour laws as essential for any sort of relief package during the crisis of balance of payments — have left the labour class helpless.
The US, with the support of the WTO (World Trade Organisation), had exhorted all these countries to provide untrammelled access to its products. Apparently, the aims and paths of federal governments of these nations, the WTO and the IMF are congruent with regard to free trade and the globalisation of capital.
The lawful protection of the working class under the labour laws had proved disastrous for the interests of the capitalist class and was being viewed as an impediment to their exploitation. However, the decades-long struggle to retain these labour rights in independent nation states has come to a naught due to weakened trade unions and the decline of social capital in times of Covid.
However, despite the “new normal” of the Coronavirus era, the time has come to fight tenaciously to restore the rights of the working class, which have been tossed aside as of now.
When the market space is being dominated by monopoly, duopoly or triopoly, free and fair competition which unhindered markets guarantee, go out of the window. Extolling the virtues of neo-liberalism, the modern nation states have centred their development agenda in and around urban centres. Economically, in the post-liberal era of India, upward mobility is largely confined to sections of the urban middle class.
Welfare economics: It is wrong to mention that welfare economics is based on the “rob Peter to pay Paul” principle when Peter has direct access to resources (natural, political, economic and social) as opposed to Paul. It is not Peter but Paul who is running from pillar to post in search of opportunities. The notion of political equality of a liberal ideological stream revolves around freedom and liberty of an individual and overlooks the core elements of equality like social and economic justice. Governments all over the world have successfully repudiated the pro-poor agenda and this volte face from a welfare State to a pro-capitalist State has pushed the labour class into deeper penury.
The politician-capitalist nexus: The unholy nexus between the political class and corporates has been riding roughshod over the interests of the poor. This alliance makes it vital for the political class to safeguard the vested interests of tycoons. It is appropriate to mention here that representative democracy has been metamorphosing into a turncoat democracy.
Back in the day, politicians were known for their erudition, statesmanship and uncompromising ideological commitment. On the contrary, the present day representatives of the people are turning into snollygosters for their personal gains. There are several voluminous reports from different corners of the world on the rising economic disparities in the post-liberal era, upon which no political party is keen to act. As the late pop singer Michael Jackson once sang, “All I want to say is that they don’t really care about us.” The lyrics are still relevant in these pandemic-riddled times.
Globalisation and dependency: The South Asian nations started on their liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation path at the same time, with the exception of Sri Lanka, which opened up its economy slowly, in fits and starts. They had adjusted their economic apparatus with a new global integration process at a time when the global economic architecture was dominated by a unipolar power, the US. Since then, the lopsided globalisation process has been converting many Third World countries into dependents and in some cases they have been almost reduced to aid recipients dependent upon erstwhile colonial powers or the US.
Under the banner of global integration and in the name of free trade, the Western powers have been bleeding these nations of their resources. Asymmetrical globalisation has also challenged the sovereignty of these nations while the same has remained intact in case of developed nations.The US has been playing a rigged game of globalisation under the auspices of the WTO, the World Bank and other agencies. The time has come for Third-World nations to rise as one to have a just order in the international sphere.
(The writer is Director of an IQS academy in Hyderabad and a columnist on global affairs and trade)
What was the rush to list the names of Opp leaders, academics and civil society activists in a supplementary chargesheet on Delhi riots?
The problem with today’s narratives is that they are premised on half-truths or myth-making to set off a wildfire so rabid that it gulps reason, which is seen as an enemy of the State rather than its victim. And this is being done with such regularity that thinking minds and civil society are becoming targets of a witch-hunt for daring to dissent or challenge the established order of things. The brutality of targetting is even more evident as names uncomfortable to the establishment are red-marked while provocateurs friendly to it are blatantly overlooked and spared. What else can explain the Delhi Police’s purported fumbling over the revelations of the February riots, one that saw a motivated leaking of information that noted civil society activists figured in a supplementary chargesheet based on disclosures of the accused. While it may have claimed that disclosure was not the sole basis of further action, and needed to be backed up by corroborative evidence, cross-checking and information, why list their names in the first place then? That too of people, who are not capable of any criminal activity ever? Also, the simultaneous insistence that the disclosure by three students, who were accused of fomenting trouble, was “truthful” and not coerced made no bones about the intent to demonise dissent. And protect the hate-mongering of ruling party leaders like Anurag Thakur and Kapil Mishra, the latter’s “goli maaro” equivalent to a war cry of prejudice. So it is that CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury was labelled as an instigator for representing an ideological polarity. Economist and professor Jayati Ghosh was mentioned as a more than oblique slight to the intelligentsia and Swaraj Abhiyan activist Yogendra Yadav was circled out for speaking out on rights of students to protest. The message is clear, there is a threatening shadow over anybody who chooses to exercise the Constitutional right to free speech, ask questions, protest in a democratic spirit or hold a divergent political view. Why this move is loaded and dangerous is because there is nothing that separates the protester from the rioter, the dissenter from the conspirator, the debater from the disruptor and equates them at the same level. It is also a comment on society that one has to be a qualified conformist than being an educated commentator. Anyway, the line between fact and fiction on the riots has blurred with too many ground truths held back from the public domain. Disproportionately though, the Government narrative of stereotyping the riots as another volatile expression of communal angst has been gaining ground.
The Delhi Police is capable of conducting a sound probe but appears to be under pressure to “manage” a certain narrative so that courts have very little to deliberate on. Certainly, nothing could be a bigger travesty of justice. And if the Delhi Police looks toothless, one would dread to imagine what happens in the State police forces of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, where the ruling party sentiment will sit in judgment on the right to protest. Can the Delhi Police, being an elite and professional law-keeping force in the country, yet pass the litmus test of the riots case? Already as a purveyor of the official narrative, it has had a tough job defending its “no-show” or “silence” during the violence at JNU and the targetted mayhem in the riots. Its passivity has raised questions on its institutional integrity and loyalty to its role ordained by the Constitution. That, too, at a time when there are too many eyewitnesses, live accounts and video footage. For example, there is little doubt that an unruly mob beat up students in the JNU campus to leave too much of a grey area as to how events unfolded. Also, by the Government’s own report and statistics, the minorities were the worst affected by the riots. Yet the police seems to have cracked down on those who fight for their justice. Then Lt Governor, Anil Baijal, as the Centre’s representative, overturned the Delhi Cabinet’s decision that had disbanded the panel of lawyers suggested by the Delhi Police from arguing in the Supreme Court and the High Court in the interest of a fair probe. The AAP Government, which has time and again insisted that the Delhi Police is not under its purview and did not oppose it or the Home Ministry to which it reports despite public criticism during the riots, rightly exercised its prerogative to suggest a transparent inquiry. It argued that since the courts had already raised serious questions on the investigations done by the Delhi Police in the riots case and during students’ protests, the lawyers shouldn’t be pro-Government. So against the Delhi Police’s proposal to appoint six senior lawyers, including Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and ASG Aman Lekhi, as special counsel in the High Court and Supreme Court in 85 cases related to the riots and the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests, the Delhi Government wanted to field its own legal team. Does this mean that the Centre is trying to dictate the course of the trial, investigation and public perception? Or is it trying to justify the crackdown on the protesters and label them as seditious? Therefore, it is all the more imperative for Delhi Police to settle for nothing but the whole truth and uphold the rule of law fearlessly. For that is its mandate anyway that cannot be challenged by anybody.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
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