The Central issue in 2019 general assembly elections is PM Modi. People either like him or they dislike him. There is hardly anyone who is neutral in their perception of Modi. While INC president Rahul Gandhi has been trying to make his presence felt all over India and revive his party on the strength of his leadership, he still has a very long way to go
Over the past fortnight or so, I have been camping in West Bengal for the elections. The campaign has taken me to countless small town that, in the normal course, I wouldn’t visit. I have spoken at small, middle-class gatherings and addressed people whose principal experience has been life in small towns, far away from the metropolis.
For me at least this is a new experience. During earlier elections I have operated from the campaign headquarters where you get a bird’s eye view of the campaign and where the media narrative matters a lot. In 2004, I accompanied LK Advani on his Bharat Uday Yatra that began from Kanyakumari and, after crisscrossing much of India (except West Bengal and the North-East), concluded in Puri, the famous temple town of Odisha. That journey, exhausting as it was, gave me a wonderful idea of the different political cultures in India. However, since the campaign involved brief stops at meeting venues and night halts, there wasn’t much opportunity to come to grips with a State-level campaign. Of course, I have been involved in Assembly elections in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, but the dynamics of Assembly polls are so utterly different from Lok Sabha polls where the whole country serves as one unit.
My experience tells me that the idea that a general election is shaped entirely by national issues is somewhat facile. National issues do play a very large part and invariably there is a surge in the number of votes polled by national parties during general elections. The Karnataka experience of 1984 when Ramakrishna Hegde led the Janata Dal to a victory in the Assembly some three to four months after the Congress swept the board in the general election is often held up as an example of different voting patterns. In Odisha, Naveen Patnaik has always ensured that Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are held simultaneously because such a process has invariably favoured the regional party. In 2014, amid the so-called Modi wave, the Biju Janata Dal won 20 of the 21 seats. Indeed, where Assembly and Lok Sabha elections have been held simultaneously, the local results have by and large been replicated at the parliamentary level.
It would be fair to say that the principal interest of voters with modest incomes is local politics. Experience suggests that the most passionate electoral contests take place during panchayat and local body elections. That is the point at which there is an intersection between the State and citizens. Then comes the State Assembly polls which, increasingly, is becoming more and more centre on the chief ministerial candidates. In Odisha, Patnaik has always had a head start, as has Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. In the Gujarat elections of 2002, 2007 and 2012, it was the personality and record of Narendra Modi that dominated above all else.
In this year’s general election, the Central issue is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In many respects, the election is turning out to be a referendum on him. People either like what they have seen of him over the past five years or they dislike him. I have hardly met anyone who is ambivalent in their perception of Modi. Rahul Gandhi has been trying to make his presence felt all over India and attempting to revive the Congress organisation on the strength of his leadership. But he still has a very long way to go. The 2019 election will not be a Modi versus Rahul contest.
This polarisation around Modi poses a lot of problems for regional parties, especially those parties that are not ruling. Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav have tried to circumvent the problem by forming a mahgathbandhan and presenting themselves as challengers for the Masani of Delhi. Yet, even they have carefully hedged the question of who will lead any alternative Government in Delhi. The mahagathbandhan may be able to unite the Muslim and Dalit voters but they have left the field open to Modi among other castes. It is my belief that the votes polled by the mahagathbandhan will be less than what they had together polled in 2014 and the Assembly elections of 2017. However, in Tamil Nadu, the inability of the AIADMK to resolve the post-Jayalalithaa succession will probably mean that the UPA will have a decisive advantage over the NDA in the election, Modi notwithstanding. Indeed, unless the NDA succeeds in clawing a few seats, it will drag the NDA down nationally.
In this context West Bengal presents an interesting case. The big change since 2014 is that the Left has become even more marginalised and the BJP has assumed the role of the principal Opposition. However, the symbolic popularity of the BJP far exceeds the organisational infrastructure of the party. This implies that unless there is an almighty Modi wave, the Trinamool starts with a clear advantage. National politics, is however, Mamata Banerjee’s real handicap and she has been struggling to express to develop a coherent narrative on alliances. However, by making Modi the main issue she has put the focus on national politics. This should have served the local BJP but instead it has chosen to make Mamata’s track record in Bengal the central issue. It is this curious reversal of roles that will play out. It will also test whether politics in the States are governed by local impulses or national concerns. The fight will be quite riveting.
Certainly, from the perspective of Kolkata, Delhi seems a very long way removed.
Writer: Swapan Dasgupta
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder has finally been arrested for hacking although he has been in the US’s crosshairs for sometime for revealing US secrets for the world to see. In 2010, Wikileaks dumped a huge amount of United States (US) diplomatic cables, some dating back decades, onto its website. These documents were leaked to the site by a US soldier now called Chelsea Manning. Many of the leaked diplomatic cables were mundane, others revealed American duplicity and yet more, some pertaining to India, revealed how citizens were revealing their national secrets to the US. In short, they offered an intriguing insight into the world of diplomacy and espionage. Thereafter, the charismatic founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, who had crowd-funded his website, used the proceeds to try and find more secret documents that rich and powerful individuals and big governments did not want the public at large to find out. To many, he was a hero and in 2010 he claimed the global spotlight.
The leak obviously had a negative impact on American diplomacy and Assange was right to believe that the US would want ‘revenge.’ Meanwhile, Manning was court-martialed and imprisoned by the US and while the narrative has been made that he was a confused young man, who was taken advantage of by Assange, he did face some punishment. Assange, on the other hand, managed to avoid extradition to Sweden, not for the diplomatic cable dump but to face sexual assault charges. He claims he did so to avoid the Swedes potentially extraditing him to the US but his refusal to face those charges lost him much goodwill, as did the revelation that Wikileaks was in touch with Donald Trump’s campaign, specifically his son, during the US presidential election of 2016. This was possibly in the hope that Assange could win a pardon for Trump if he was elected, but that did not happen. While Sweden dropped the charges after the Wikileaks founder ran away and hid in the Ecuadorian embassy, one of the alleged victims has apparently asked for him to be charged again. The Americans are booking him with a fairly light charge of computer hacking to gain access to protected information that will possibly lead to a maximum five-year sentence. Assange might still be a hero to some but US law is clear about computer hacking and he might pay the price for his information warfare. More importantly, one hopes that his alleged victims in Sweden get a chance to prove or disprove their cases against him, because on that front Assange is nothing but a fugitive from the law.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Jallianwala Bagh slaughter will heal only after Britain formally apologises for the crime. According to Theresa May, it is as a ‘shameful scar’ on British-Indian history. A hundred years ago this day occurred the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, which remains one of the worst crimes of British imperialism in India. On that day, officiating Brigadier, Reginald Dyer, ordered Gurkha soldiers under his command to fire on a peaceful and unarmed gathering of men, women and children to celebrate Baisakhi. The firing continued for 10 minutes and was directed at places where the concentration of people was the heaviest.
The toll, according to official figures, was 379 killed and about 1,100 wounded. Unofficial — and by all accounts more correct — counts put the figure above 1,000 dead and 1,200 wounded. Outrage among Indians was countrywide and intense. Prominent among those expressing it were Pandit Motilal Nehru, Sir Shankaran Nair, who resigned his membership of the Viceroy’s executive council in protest, Punjab legislative council members, Nawab Din Murad and Karter Singh and, of course, Rabindranath Tagore, who renounced the knighthood conferred upon him by the British Government through an open letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, published in The Statesman (June 3, 1919) and Modern Review (July, 1919).
The letter, reflecting the deepest feelings of anguish and anger, began thus: “The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India. The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments, barring some conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terribly efficient organisation for destruction of human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification.”
Stating that the “accounts of insult and sufferings” borne by “our brothers in Punjab” and the universal agony and indignation aroused “in the hearts of our people” had been ignored by the rulers, who were possibly congratulating themselves for having taught the people a salutary lesson, he added, “This callousness has been praised by most of the Anglo-Indian papers which have in some cases gone to the brutal length of making fun of our sufferings, without receiving the least check from the same authority — relentlessly careful in smothering every cry of pain and expression of judgement from the organs representing the sufferers.”
Finally, declaring his decision to renounce his knighthood, he had stated, “The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen, who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings.”
The stray attacks, including that on a woman English missionary, that preceded the Jallianwala Bagh massacre had its roots in the agitation against the draconian Rowlatt Act (1919) — ostensibly aimed at squashing sedition. It turned British-ruled India much more of a surveillance-cum-police state than it had ever been. In protest, Mahatma Gandhi called for a nation-wide strike which drew an overwhelming response. In Punjab, the movement peaked in the first week of April when rail and telegraph services were disrupted. The Punjab Government, headed by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer, imposed martial law to maintain order and sought to teach the people of the province a lesson. The massacre followed.
Shamefully, the horror did not end with it. On the following day, Dyer issued a public statement in Urdu in which he asked (in English translation) the residents of Amritsar whether they wanted war or peace. If they wanted war, the Government was prepared for it. If they wanted peace, they would have to open shops and markets. Otherwise, they would be shot.
Next came a most humiliating measure, which lasted from April 19 to 25, 1919. From 6 am to 8 pm every day, people traversing the street on which the woman English missionary was attacked had to crawl on all fours for the entire length. Even doctors were not allowed to enter the street and the sick went unattended.
The mass murder and the threats and measures that followed were emblematic of the merciless exploitation and repression that characterised British rule in India under the camouflage of discharging its benign imperial mission of making this country fit for self-rule. The fundamental goal of the imperial Government was exploiting to the hilt India’s resources for Britain’s benefit. The draining of India’s wealth, which reduced the country, once celebrated for its prosperity, to utter poverty, has been exhaustively documented by Romesh Chunder Dutt in his classic, The Economic History of India, in two volumes.
Coming to specifics, Madhusree Mukerji has shown in Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II, how British policies led to frequent famines in India from the second half of the 18th century to 1943 when between 1.5 to three million people died during the Great Bengal Famine which was primarily caused by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s cynical measures.
A number of Britishers, including Edwin Samuel Montague, secretary of state for India, criticised Dyer. But he also had his staunch supporters, including Rudyard Kipling and remained a hero to Colonel Blimps and allied circles. He was, by way of punishment, relieved of his command, denied promotion, made to retire prematurely and barred from further employment in India. This when he should have at least been cashiered and prosecuted for mass murder.
Michael Francis O’Dwyer, who fully supported Dyer’s action, was assassinated in London on March 13, 1940, by the fearless revolutionary, Udham Singh, who made no attempt to escape after the shooting and told the court during his trial that he was happy for what he had done and was not afraid of death. He ended by asking what greater honour could be bestowed on him than death for the sake of his motherland.
He was executed by hanging.
PS: British Prime Minister Theresa May has described the mass slaughter as a “shameful scar” on British Indian history. She should know that the scar will heal only after Britain formally apologises for the crime, which it has not done.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
India has once again experienced a conscience call as former service chiefs and veterans urge the President to stop politicisation of the armed forces. More than 150 armed forces veterans, including former service chiefs, to the President, seeking an end to the “politicisation” of their institution in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Three chiefs may have disowned it, saying they would remain fiercely apolitical and not be part of something that could even remotely be seen as challenging their neutrality as instruments of the State. The Rashtrapati Bhavan may have denied receiving it. Efforts may be on to play down the embarrassment it has caused to the Modi government or its “vote influencer” quotient. But no matter the number of signatories, the letter’s spirit is still more than unprecedented. For it is a noble self-defence by an apolitical and secular institution that inspires true national pride and shows why adopted militarism can never substitute the original, honourable kind. Why bravado and bravery are two different things. It is a conscience call to the entire nation to judge the narrative of the Balakot airstrikes for what it is worth, a defence of our borders and eliminating real threats as they emerge rather than an exclusivist manoeuvre that suits the government of the day. It represents the courage of the men in uniform, standing up for what is right and do so with tremendous grace and without confrontation, staying within the ambit of the Constitution. It is about respecting principles, of speaking up for the serving men and women of the forces, who are bound by the oath of silence to not question the Executive. And finally, it is about upholding the overarching idea of democracy, the veterans standing like the last of the Mohicans, assuring that the forces neither wanted political space nor could be appropriated for political purposes. Or even remotely allow that misadventure. But best of all the old soldiers upheld the value of choice — they were aware of the political reality, knew their relevance in it as a constituency but would choose to stay out of it.
The letter, titled ‘From A Group of Veterans To Our Supreme Commander’, which the President is by Constitution, specifically refers to the “completely unacceptable practice of political leaders taking credit for military operations like cross-border strikes, and even going so far as to claim the Armed Forces to be Modiji ki Sena.” It also referred to the use of military uniforms and photos of Indian Air Force Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman during campaigning. And while they acknowledged the Election Commission for swiftly addressing the complaints, they also rued that it did not have “substantive change of behaviour and practice on the ground.” Just the other day, Prime Minister Modi himself urged the youth to vote for the airstrikes. And most poll speeches happen to be liberally peppered with words like “Pakistan,” “national security,” “strikes against the enemy” and “soldiers.” One wonders if the heft of the signatories, which include former Army chiefs Shankar Roychowdhury and Deepak Kapoor and four former Navy chiefs — Laxminarayan Ramdas, Vishnu Bhagwat, Arun Prakash and Suresh Mehta — will matter at all. Or whether the President, who acts on the advice of the Executive, will indeed take note. As for stopping loaded speeches, that’s a tall order despite the Model Code of Conduct. Leaders, knowing full well that they will be reprimanded and censured for violations, still go for an aggressive pitch to attain virality in news cycles and social media. For nothing can curb the speech as it is being made. A fine or warning is a small price to pay in retrospect. But such tactics have clearly affected the morale of our forces, disillusioned them even, that the democracy they so earnestly safeguard has given politicians who use them at their own sweet will for propaganda. And they do least in terms of defence policies. True, the Modi government did treat Army veterans as a constituency and pushed a milder version of the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme. But this has not matched the low priority accorded to them compared to civil and police services. Defence budgets continue to be pathetic, there is a gaping need for operational reforms, critical infrastructure and equipment. The least the government could do is to keep the forces out of its rightful propaganda to show why it stood out in the last 70 years. Post-Balakot, it did look that brilliance came from the political leadership and not soldiers. Just because they follow civilian control doesn’t mean that they will allow misuse of their code for somebody else’s agenda. The old generals reminded us that.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
The cautionary note struck by the poll panel that tax raids on candidates should not appear selective is a welcome development. The use of unaccounted money during elections is an open secret considering the ridiculously low limits on spending — Rs 70 lakh for Lok Sabha and Rs 28 lakh for Assembly — and the improbability of sustaining a long-drawn campaign with it. The countrywide Income Tax raids on political parties, their allied networks and the seizure of massive amounts of unaccounted cash this election season are not the tip of an iceberg or a scam that has just been unearthed. Of course, there is a need to address this issue through an electoral reforms process where realistic spending limits and full disclosure of corporate donations would ultimately ensure transparency. But till that happens, every party and candidate is liable to come under the arc of suspicion. However, this is not a defence but an explanation of the largescale abuse of a system that encourages rather than discourages the use of black money. There is no doubt that the corrupt need to be punished, considering a faulty system has bred an equally strong underbelly. But to assume that only Opposition leaders are prone to wrong-doings and the ruling party and its allies are a disciplined lot while co-existing in the same eco-system is a tad too far-fetched. Media reports say that over the last six months, the IT department has conducted 15 searches on Opposition leaders and only one on a BJP leader.
So as tax raids appeared concentrated on the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh, it did compel the Election Commission (EC) to make a realistic assessment that the raids shouldn’t be seen as targetting the Opposition as part of political vendetta. Particularly when Madhya Pradesh, which slipped out of the ruling BJP’s grasp in the Assembly elections, and TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu, who walked out of the NDA, have left the party bitter. The Congress-JD(S) alliance government in Karnataka is also a sore point. It isn’t rocket science to understand that the righteousness of the move would have influenced the voter for whom corruption is still a deciding concern. So when the revenue department, which is under the Finance Ministry, countered the EC’s advisory, saying it should ask its field officers to take immediate enforcement action at their end on unaccounted cash instead, it amounted to administrative insolence of a lame-duck regime. The EC, which is empowered to take decisions while enforcing the Model Code of Conduct, rightly reprimanded that it did not need referees and that it could be as “ruthless” but would act without bias. And it has with its own raids across the spectrum. As it is, the EC has had its hands full recently, dealing with transgressions about subtle campaigning through TV programming, films, channels and communal remarks made by various leaders. People have already questioned its credibility and lambasted its toothlessness in the face of a determined government. It would do best for both institutions to avoid a public spat over their differences. The corrupt need to be punished regardless of their political affiliations. Period. This is what the BJP itself had done when its chief Bangaru Laxman was caught taking money in a sting operation. Selective raids, particularly during election time, will raise questions even in genuine cases. Also, these clampdowns should not be confined to the poll season but be a continuous process of evaluation. Many surveys have shown how legislators pile up a more than 100 per cent growth in assets in a five-year term. Surely, everybody has a right to build personal wealth but if it happens uniformly for all legislators, then there is reason to go to the roots of the fastest returns. That would help in eliminating financial jugglery in a system, which needs reforms on a priority basis.
Writer: The Pioneer
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Beijing still does not trust local cadres in governance despite the propaganda that the Tibetans took ‘their destiny in their own hands’ in 1959. For the past several weeks, the Chinese propaganda machine has been running an information warfare’s exercise based on the events of March 1959, which ended in a bloodbath in Lhasa, but which is today being promoted as the “Emancipation of the Serfs” and the “Introduction of the Democratic Reforms” by the communist regime in Beijing. One could ask: Where is democracy in China today?
Just take a look at the list of party secretaries in Tibet — since August 16, 2016, the Communist Party of China’s boss on the Roof of the World is Wu Jingjie. He is the 15th Han to hold the post since the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered Tibet in 1950. Can you imagine Tamil Nadu having non-Tamil Chief Ministers for more than 60 years or any other Indian State for the matter? The fact is that despite the propaganda that the Tibetans took “their destiny in their own hands” in 1959, Beijing still does not trust the local cadres.
The Serfs’ Emancipation is an even bigger lie. In fact, it was a massacre that saw thousands of ordinary Tibetans losing their lives in Lhasa. We have several genuine accounts of what happened at that time.
From the Chinese sources, it is worth mentioning a Kindle book, The 1959 Tibetan Uprising Documents: The Chinese Army Documents (China Secrets), published last year which provides documents from the PLA’s military intelligence on the bloody events of 1959. Another account of the events is given by Jianglin Li in her book, Tibet in Agony. The preface of the book of the Chinese scholar affirms, “The first clear historical account of the Chinese crackdown on Lhasa in 1959. Sifting facts from the distortions of propaganda and partisan politics, she reconstructs a chronology…”
China celebrates March 28 as the Serfs’ Emancipation Day, the day “reforms” could finally be implemented on the Roof of the World; the Tibetan Government had been declared “illegal” by Mao and the so-called Tibetan serfs had been liberated from feudalism and theocracy by PLA guns.
Then, there is the report of the Indian Consul-General in Lhasa (Maj SL Chibber) to the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi. Maj Chibber, an Indian Army officer from the Jat Regiment, had already spent nine years in Tibet. Chhiber, a reliable eye-witness (he even heard a few bullets passing overhead during the uprising), wrote: “In the history of movement for a free Tibet, the month of March 1959 will be most historic as during this month Tibetans, high and low, in Lhasa, Capital of Tibet, openly challenged the Chinese rule in Tibet. They set up an organisation called the Tibetan Peoples’ Independent Organisation …staged demonstrations to give vent to their anti-Chinese feelings and demanded withdrawal of the Chinese from Tibet. But this challenge, before the might of the Chinese PLA — who on March 20, started an all-out offensive against the ill-organised, ill-equipped, untrained-Tibetans with artillery, mortars, machine guns and all types of automatic weapons — was short-lived.”
He further explained the Dalai Lama’s flight: “Smelling danger, he left Lhasa secretly on the night of March 17, 1959, …for Lhoka area (south of Lhasa), where at that time Khampas had full sway.” The Dalai Lama ultimately took refuge in India on March 31.
Matthew Akester studied the findings of Jianglin Li: “Satisfactory confirmation of detail for this period of Tibet’s history is notoriously difficult due to official secrecy and the virtual non-existence of reliable non-official documentation. The figures assessed, though incomplete, provide crucial indicators of the scale of the PLA’s engagement in Tibet at that time.”
After assessing a larger number of official Chinese documents, Li noted: “Although global estimates remain elusive, the study shows from official figures that something in the order of 10 per cent of the total Tibetan population was involved — killed, wounded and captured — in military operations during these years [1957-59].”
Using reliable Chinese sources, Li calculated that eight Infantry divisions (about 100,000 soldiers), three Air force divisions and two independent regiments were involved. To this should be added three Cavalry divisions and “special units”, ie, chemical warfare, motorcycle and demolition or signals. Also were involved some logistic units such as four truck transportation regiments, engineer corps, field hospitals, Army stations, supply stations and animal hospitals or gas stations. Li estimated that some 1,50,000 military personnel participated in the “emancipation” of a couple of million recalcitrant Tibetans.
Li wrote that besides PLA units, a large number of local militia supported the operation: “The numbers of militia I was able to find in Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and Qinghai add up to over 71,000 people.” Civilians were also drafted for various tasks such as transport, evacuation of wounded soldiers, handling pack animals; no less than 143,000 civilian laborers.
The number of casualties was estimated at 10,934 (4,748 dead and 5,223 wounded) on the PLA side, without taking into account Lhasa and Central Tibet (for which figures are unknown). The Tibetan casualties were 2,55,600 for Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan only for the years 1957-59.
In January 1957, while on a visit to India, Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Premier, had long discussions with the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the introduction of the so-called reforms. Beijing had decided to postpone them by at least for six or seven years. In the course of the conversation, Zhou pointed a finger at non-existing foreigners in Lhasa: “Those bent on trouble are preparing for an incident in Lhasa. These people have some armed forces. Some three temples in Lhasa have also armed forces and they want to create an incident there. If it happened, then there would be bloodshed.”
Although there was no “foreigner” in Lhasa, except for the Indian staff of the Consulate General, but the bloodshed indeed took place in March 1959; it helped Mao to firmly consolidate the position of the Communist regime. In January 1959, Mao and the Central Committee realised that “the PLA had to be used to control the rebellion.” China was facing a revolt of the “serfs.” On January 22, 1959, Mao wrote: “It is good, since there is a possibility for us to solve the [Tibet] problem militarily.” The Chinese are fond of announcing “don’t hurt the Chinese sentiments.” One could ask, what about the Tibetan sentiments? Will the compassionate Dalai Lama ask for an apology for what the Chinese did in Tibet in the 1950s? He should.
(The writer is an expert on India-China relations)
Writer: Claude Arpi
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The nagging question has finally been put to rest as the SC has ruled that questions about the acquisition of the 36 Rafale jets from Dassault, need to be answered. The SC reaffirmed due process while asserting the right of the media to bring facts to light. For a jet that would undoubtedly strengthen the Indian Air Force (IAF) doesn’t deserve to be bandied about as a political bogey, sometimes being used as an example of crony capitalism by the Opposition, at other times being used as a strategic achievement by the ruling party and in the worst case mimicked as floatable balloons on the current campaign trail. So the Supreme Court, which had given a clean chit to the deal in December rather summarily, has decided to examine the review petitions against it, go through due processes and uphold its own against charges that the Government was steamrolling the wrinkles in the argument favouring the contract. If indeed the top court had been mistaken or facts obfuscated from it, the judges decided they would not hesitate to go through the procedural route again. Particularly, when high-level corruption allegations were involved. Whatever the informed verdict thereafter, justice would not at least seem one-sided. Or be seen as secondary to power. Most of all, the institution of the judiciary would not seem to be compromised.
So, much to the Government’s discomfort and the Opposition’s glee, the apex court will now examine secret, leaked documents on the Rafale deal which indicate parallel negotiations outside the purview of the Defence Ministry and tweaking of provisions. Much of this information was publicised by the media and the Centre objected to their credibility and intention, saying these were classified documents “stolen” from the Defence Ministry, unauthorised and should not be admissible as evidence. By rejecting this claim, the court has also restored the sanctity of the Press at a time when freedom of speech is perceived to be under threat. So it will hear review petitions in the light of new media reports cited by petitioners alleging wrong-doing in the Rafale case. The judges also took into account petitioner Arun Shourie’s argument that since the leaked documents concerned national security, they should hear out the counter views for a fair assessment of truths. The court felt there was no point in shooting the messenger by invoking a State secrets protocol or coercing it into revealing its sources. The Press had only sought answers for clarity in the public domain. Besides, the court could not ignore co-petitioner Prashant Bhushan’s logic that “if a document is relevant in deciding a fact, how it was obtained becomes irrelevant.” Citing the US verdict on Pentagon papers leak, he had said once documents are published, the government can no longer claim privilege. In December, the top court had dismissed petitions alleging that the government had gone for an overpriced deal to help industrialist Anil Ambani’s fledgling firm get an offset contract with Dassault. But then the loopholes appeared. First, the court seemed to have been misled by the Government’s claim that the pricing of the Rafale deal had already been examined by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), when, in fact, it had not. The Government tried to hide the flaw in the argument as a “typing error” and even sought a “correction.” The judges certainly did not take kindly to the idea of being fooled on technicality and language, something they are supposed to be masters of. Then media reports implied that the deal became more expensive for India because of France’s refusal to provide bank guarantees. Besides, the apex court had to maintain parity considering its own ruling that confidentiality in documents had undergone a huge change since the Right To Information Act was put in place. Whatever the outcome, the ruling has once again put Rafale back on the electoral plank as political parties continue to fan out to all corners of India through several phases of elections. But the undeniable fact is we need a decision, and a fast one, if we want to spare a thought for the severe operational deficiency in our armed forces. Whoever wins and loses the case, crows or frets about the verdict, in the end, muscular militarism is really about meeting the basic requirements of India’s most apolitical and secular institution.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
Sail supplied special quality forging steel from its Durgapur based alloy plants which went into the development of one home grown, state-of-the-art gun —Dhanush. The Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has supplied steel for India’s first indigenous and biggest artillery gun — ‘Dhanush’, which has been inducted into the Indian Army recently. With this, SAIL has once again established its commitment to fulfill the country’s every requirement to strengthen India’s defence systems.
SAIL’s special alloy steel, produced by SAIL-Alloy Steels Plant based at Durgapur, has been used for making this artillery gun. ‘Dhanush’ has been indigenously designed and developed by the Gun Factory in Jabalpur where it was handed over to the Indian Army.
The organisation, which is in its 60th year of production, has contributed in creating a strong foundation for modern India and at the same time meeting every requirement of special quality steel for Indian defence. SAIL steel has been used in the country’s various defence programs including the INS Vikrant, INS Kiltan, INS Kamorta, MBT Arju and so on.
The company’s Rourkela Steel Plant has also been supplying special grade steel to Jabalpur’s Gun Factory to meet its various technical requirements related to development and repair.
SAIL chairman, Anil Kumar Chaudhary said, “It is matter of great pride for us that SAIL steel is being used in India’s various defence programs along with being used for building the country’s infrastructure. The company is ready to meet and supply special grade steels for technical requirement of the country’s defence programs.”
In the financial year 2018-19, SAIL produced 16.3 Million Tonnes (MT) crude steel in FY19, registering a growth of eight per cent over the corresponding period last year and clocking the best ever saleable steel production during the year. The production from new mills of the company’s plants recorded a marked improvement in FY19, giving an enriched product basket. The total steel despatch from SAIL was the highest ever at 14.86 MT during FY19 due to a dedicated logistics setup created by the organisation.
It is important to note that the FY19 ended with a robust performance during Q4 with a growth of 10 per cent, 8 per cent, 14 per cent and 13 per cent in respect of production of hot metal, crude steel, saleable steel and sales respectively. Also, SAIL had the highest ever production of 9.85 lakh tonnes of UTS 90 Rail. The production of Rails got momentum in the second half of FY19 with around 5.66 lakh tonnes of production and 35 per cent higher than the H1 figure. In line with this improved performance, the company has managed to improve its turnover by 16 per cent which now stands at Rs 66,100 crore.
However, he feels that the challenge for the next year is much higher with a plan of 21 per cent increase in production of crude steel and similar growth in sales to catch on with the fast growing domestic steel consumption backed by an increased demand from infrastructure and construction segments.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
Indian Business schools are rated every year by most Indian business publications, both magazines and newspapers. The administrators and students of the top ranked institutions find them to be a chore as the rankings are pretty predictable. But for many smaller institutions, getting ranked might mean the difference between survival and death. A good position will draw new students. However, the highly competitive nature of the game — with several media houses bending over backwards to please institutions that advertised and institutions themselves knowing that they could ‘buy’ a better spot — means that the college ranking system has been badly broken, particularly in the case of professional institutions. This is symptomatic of the ‘Wild West’ nature of India’s education sector. In fact, while politicians lament the lack of jobs for youth, which is an undeniable fact, they rarely lament the poor state of Indian education because they themselves are knee-deep in the sector and purveyors of substandard education. So a standardised ranking system monitored by the government, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to be precise, made sense.
But going through this year’s rankings, tabulated under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), there are some incongruities. While it is true that some universities do not have constituent colleges, the fact that Delhi University is ranked 13th among universities while six of its constituent colleges are in the top 10 colleges seems odd. The other major point that gets lost in all the hoopla is that several new private universities that are attracting a lot of attention have not been ranked. Also, there is the curious case of Mumbai University, one of India’s largest universities by student body size, which is now ranked 81st in India. Indeed a worrying sign. In rankings of professional institutions, the usual suspects win, which is not surprising. However, while the rankings are not surprising for the large part, the HRD Ministry still finds itself unable to fix the core problems that underlie Indian tertiary education. As stated earlier, the jobs crisis is real, no matter what the government says, but understanding that poor education is responsible to a large degree should be the main priority of the day, not one of rankings. Also, with regard to private rankings conducted by media houses, the MHRD should insist that the methodology is suitably publicised.
Writer: Pioneer
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The hope for sympathetic amnesia is apparent in the recently released Congress manifesto as it talks just about governance and politics post 2014, while hoping to relegate the emergency to the doldrums of history. As it is India’s oldest party with presence in every part of the country, however nominal and depleted it may be today in many States, its statement of intent, should it come to power, must be read with utmost seriousness. However, while doing so, one must test its assertions, claims and promises on the anvil of truth. The first impression one gets from reading this document is that the party would like us to believe that the history of democratic India began in 2014! The entire narrative is pinned on this premise because if it were to go back, it would have to account for its past sins. In other words, while it makes the most noble declarations about democratic values, the Constitution, its commitment to federalism and to fight corruption, it would like the nation to forget its own dreadful track record when it imposed a dictatorship on India in 1975-77; when it crushed non-Congress Governments time and again over several decades using pliable Governors; when it brought a vicious defamation Bill to curb the media during Rajiv Gandhi’s prime ministership and, of course, when it was caught in the Bofors bribery scandal.
The manifesto is hoping for sympathetic amnesia on the part of the electorate by just talking about governance and politics post 2014 and hoping that the people will forget its pathetic record when it governed this country for close to 60 years. It is, therefore, time to tickle public memory and leave it to their wisdom to remember or forget the disturbing events of the past.
The manifesto begins with a foreword by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, who began with a rhetorical question: “Will India be a free democratic country and will Indian people be free from fear?…Or will India be governed by a pernicious ideology that will trample upon peoples’ rights, institutions, conventions?…”. This is exactly the question that was on the top of every Indian’s mind when the Congress imposed a fascist regime on the nation during the Emergency.
Further, he claimed that his party stands committed to “truth, freedom, dignity, self-respect and prosperity of our people.” This statement must be tested on the anvil of truth. The manifesto loftily proclaims that “Freedom is the hallmark of our open and democratic Republic. The purpose of law is regulation in order to strengthen freedom. Laws must be just and reasonable and reflect our constitutional values.”
The question we need to ask ourselves is whether the Congress has the moral right to even discuss these core democratic principles. If freedom is the hallmark of our Republic, why did the party impose an Emergency and snatch away all the fundamental rights of citizens? If laws must be just and reasonable and reflect Constitutional values, why was the dreaded Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) enforced ruthlessly in 1975-77 and why were all leaders of the Opposition incarcerated? Why was the 39th Amendment introduced to put Indira Gandhi above all other citizens and bar the Supreme Court from hearing her petition? Why were the essential features of a democratic Constitution like equality before law and right to life and personal liberty done away with?
Let us turn to the media, institutions and the judiciary. About the media, the manifesto says the party firmly believes that “the media must be free and self-regulated.” It says it will “uphold editorial independence and guard against Government interference.” Really? This is the same party which cut off electricity to newspaper offices in New Delhi on June 25, 1975, jailed 253 independent journalists, banned many foreign correspondents, imposed censorship on the media and even appointed an Inspector-General of Police as Chief Censor in Karnataka. This is also the same party which classified newspapers as “friendly”, “neutral” and “hostile” during Indira Gandhi’s time and brought a draconian defamation law to curb Press freedom when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister. Can we trust this party when it comes to media freedom?
The Congress’ manifesto promises that it will restore “the dignity, authority and autonomy” of institutions like the Election Commission of India. Is this believable, given the conduct of this party in the past? When the Shah Commission probed the excesses during the Emergency, the Superintendent of Tihar Jail told the Commission that Navin Chawla, who was close to the Nehru-Gandhis, asked him to throw political prisoners in asbestos cells and “bake” them or to dump them in the lunatics cell. Referring to Navin Chawla, the Shah Commission said, “tyrants sprouted at all levels overnight…”. It said Chawla conducted himself in an “authoritarian and callous” manner and rendered himself “unfit to hold any public office…”.
Is it not amazing that the party, which appointed Navin Chawla as an Election Commissioner in 2005 when Sonia Gandhi was the de facto Prime Minister, is now claiming that it will “restore the dignity, authority and autonomy” of the Election Commission and other institutions? Even more amazing is its promise that appointment to these bodies will be transparent and institutional integrity will be protected.
As regards the judiciary, the Congress has a terrible record. In the 1970s, it superseded three Supreme Court judges, clamoured for a “committed judiciary” and hurled abuses and threats on judges on the floor of Parliament. In fact, in November 1976, in the Lok Sabha, one Congress MP asked the Supreme Court judges if they had “the temerity” to go against the Government and went on to say that the party had its “methods and machinery” to deal with such judges. Now in manifesto 2019, the Congress has promised that “the independence and integrity of the judiciary will be maintained.” Given the party’s discomfort with an independent judiciary, this promise must be taken with a bag of salt.
Finally, a word about corruption. The manifesto claims that the party will take “determined steps” to bring back scamsters. This is the very party which ensured the exit of Italian businessman and Sonia Gandhi’s friend Ottavio Quattrocchi, who pocketed a commission of $7.3 million when we bought field guns for our Army from Bofors and got the UK Government to unfreeze his bank account so that he could walk away with the loot.
Somewhere in the beginning of the document, the party talks about its commitment to the Constitution and says, “Our record speaks for itself…We have done it before. We will do it again!”
Given the party’s track record, does this not sound ominous?
(The writer is an author specialising in democracy studies. Views expressed are personal.)
Writer: A Surya Prakash
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Political parties in India have not only failed to maintain a healthy gender balance in the Parliament, but have also propose feasible women empowerment schemes
“Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength,” says activist and writer GD Anderson of an effort that has still not taken off in many disadvantaged countries, India included, when we should not be lumped in this category at all. So when BJP spokesperson Shaina NC recently expressed her concern that her own party was not fielding enough women candidates for the general election, she was just a vent for the volcanic anger of women who are struggling to find political representation in the world’s biggest democracy despite forming half its electorate.
If a study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union is to be believed, then India ranks 149th in a list of 193 countries in terms of women’s representation in the lower or single House of Parliament (Lok Sabha) as of July 1, 2017. The average percentage of women’s participation in political processes stands at about 22 per cent globally while in India it is a mere 11.8 per cent. Shockingly, lesser developed countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Fiji and Ghana rank higher than India. In South Asia, the reports say, we are behind Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh in percentage terms. Even in the Rajya Sabha, women MPs are just 11.1 per cent.
Both the national parties, the BJP and the Congress, despite their existing schemes and promises, have fielded just 12 per cent and 13.5 per cent women candidates this time. And both are equally guilty of shying away from affirmative action and not pushing the Women’s Reservation Bill so far. It must be remembered that when Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments in 1993, reserving one-third of the seats in all local bodies for women, it not only challenged the patriarchal clichés about their ability but empowered them enough to effect a socio-economic change in their circumstance. Their multi-tasking, managerial abilities cascaded into practical and dynamic decision-making in the constituency they served.
Some legislative bodies in Bihar and Delhi have reserved more than one-third of the total seats for women. Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, has apportioned 41 per cent of her party’s seats to women candidates while the Biju Janata Dal leader Naveen Patnaik has set aside 33 per cent. Yet winnability is a big concern, with most unsuccessful women candidates losing deposits in past elections, be they national or local.
It is rather ironic that this should happen in a country which has seen many tall women leaders helming parties and had a woman Prime Minister much ahead of its time despite a patriarchal society that is but expected to not yield space in the one place where its power is manifest — in politics, and by extension the law of the land. While women have been able to swell up an emergent tide to renegotiate their space in social, cultural and economic spheres, this is one area where even all-women’s parties have been seen more as an aberration than normal. This is because the women we have grown accustomed to in helming political leadership have almost always assumed that role out of dynastic entitlement and seen as a continuity of a male line rather than as an independent leader. Be it Indira Gandhi, who inherited much of the halo of her father, Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi, to Meira Kumar, who took over the legacy of Babu Jagjivan Ram, or even J Jayalalithaa, who inherited an ideology and was hand-held in her journey by M G Ramachandran, women leaders have been legacy-keepers than forgers. This tokenism and substitution have cost us. Grassroots leaders like Mayawati and Mamata may have bucked the trend and waged their battle ground up but in the process of establishing their credibility and acceptability, they followed the mainstream template set by male predecessors. Given their imperatives of wooing the backwards and minorities, they hardly addressed the women’s question as one meriting attention. To win a game, they played by the rules than bending them. Until now.
Truth is in any political discourse, women have always been looked upon as another votebank to be encashed than empowered. Campaign after campaign pitch talks about how women can change the verdict as they comprise 50 per cent of voters. Survey after survey has shown how women, who have outnumbered men in State poll turnouts, actually vote independently of their family choices and usually act practically, prioritising domestic budgets and the economy as their key concern, going for candidates who matter to their livelihood. But there is no concomitant campaign, not even a social service message, about fielding them as candidates.
Yet every party has schemes which hand out benefits as patronising doles. Apart from States, even the Modi government has factored in women as a constituency, be it through the Ujjwala scheme of distributing free LPG cylinders that revolutionised kitchens and the Uttar Pradesh Assembly verdict of 2017, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme or even the toilet project as part of Swachch Bharat. In fact, this government has gone a few steps ahead of past regimes in prioritising women’s health and normalising taboos of menstrual hygiene in the public discourse. But empowerment figures are nothing to write home about. India’s female labour force participation rate is among the lowest in the south Asian region and if latest estimates are anything to go by, the rate is dropping, the reasons being attributed to supplementary family incomes and their prioritisation of maternal and care-giver roles. Equal opportunities for women could add as much as $770 billion to the country’s GDP, according to McKinsey. But women are still not seen as a productive human resource but an emergency reserve force. In the labour sector, they are seen as a floating rather than a guaranteed presence and schemes enhance their traditional gender roles rather than incentivising them in economic terms. Even “sensitive” steps like extension of maternity leave to 26 weeks from the previous 12 weeks have not worked for the women workforce, who have either been passed over for promotion, let go of projects or simply benched. Such benefits have deterred the new-age competitive sectors like start-ups and small businesses from hiring women. Wage and pay disparity, lack of social security of working women and the glass ceiling continue to be barriers in the face of a more equitable social contract. Violence against women is an ever-gathering brute force what with steady increase in sex-selective abortion, infanticide, sexual harassment and abuse and honour killings. There is no concrete plan or proposal in any manifesto yet to tackle widowhood, old age and disability among the disadvantaged and marginalised classes. And without an increase in health budgets, Indian women continue to be the most anaemic in the world and suffer severe malnutrition. The budget for midday meal schemes and anganwadis are actually down. While India has seen a significant reduction in maternal mortality in recent years, it still figures high on the global burden of maternal deaths with women still lacking access to quality maternity care. And though the allocation for girls’ education was announced at Rs 100 crore, with disparate States expected to share the financial burden, this has clearly floundered too.
The neo-age liberalism in slogans has only entrenched patriarchy and circumscribed all remedial action to the male gaze, which is exclusivist to its concerns. If we do not allow half the population the right to decide what is good for them or what they need, we will never figure respectably in the global polity despite our space age conquests. Yes, women have punched holes in ISRO, too, with their individual merits and ability. But where are the policy-makers and legislators who can raise their collective lot? This selective tagging of “women achievers” is no longer glorious but an easy advertisement. Can any political party afford half the electorate not voting for any of them? If there is a right to vote, give them the right to contest.
(The writer is Associate Editor, The Pioneer)
Writer: Rinku Ghosh
Courtesy: The Pioneer
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