Hyper localisation is the only mantra for Assembly elections and national parties should re-orient strategies than just machinery
In the end, the best part of Indian democracy is that it self-corrects runaway ambitions and restores the representative nature of our polity. So the results of the Jharkhand Assembly elections come as no surprise in the sense that they reject a presidential model of governance that the ruling BJP pushes through the magic wand of PM Narendra Modi and remind us why we are a federal union of States. The tribal-dominated State has voted local, showing the BJP, much like Haryana and to some extent, even Maharashtra did, why imposing an outsider as Modi’s acolyte will not work till the party genuinely believes in decentralising regional branches, building local leadership or empowering alliances with parties that have them. That it needs to build its own coalition dharma rather than breaking parties. Clearly, the writ of Shibu Soren and his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) runs large, no matter what his history of political bargaining with national parties or corruption scandals might have been. Locals trust him to take care of their concerns, particularly land rights, no matter what and son Hemant has been consistent in his protectionist campaigns, the latest being an attack on the global investors’ summit as a “maha chintan shivir of land grabbers.” He claimed it as sanctifying an organised loot of the land of adivasis, moolvasis and farmers. Though the BJP may now be mending bridges with Sudesh Mahto of the All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU) or Babulal Marandi of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM), the fact is it had treated both badly, enough for them to discontinue their partnership with it. The non-tribal consolidation cannot work in a State where 26 seats are completely dominated by tribals. In the end, the BJP had to pay for outgoing Chief Minister Raghubar Das’ bartering of land rights and pushing amendments that diluted tribal ownership and made it easier for the State to transfer land to industrial projects without local consent. For tribals, “jal, jangal aur jameen” will always be key issues where they want stakeholdership and through it their relevance in political power. They do not want displacement, relocation or rehabilitation, no matter how attractively they are packaged. Given a large number of lynching incidents, the divisive plank also misfired for the BJP, particularly when it sought to divide Christian and non-Christian tribals. Even the urban vote, which had tilted towards the BJP last time, has drifted, proving that people are not buying into its jumlabaazi. Considering its mammoth Lok Sabha victory and aggressive posturing on delivering pro-Hindu promises made in its manifesto, the BJP should be worried about a hitback from a rather unorganised Opposition in less than six months, that, too, by island leaderships in States.
While the BJP needs to be rational, the Opposition shouldn’t be exulting either because all its successes are coming from a default systemic setting rather than any active effort. The local Congress — and it needs to be clarified so — has picked up 14 seats against six last time on its own steam. The Central leadership has been totally absent during campaigning and one tends to think that as a benefit than a drawback. If the party indeed wants to stay in the hunt, rather than playing second fiddle to regional parties, then it needs to immediately call for organisational elections instead of putting caveats in the common minimum programme of State Governments. Empower a group of State leaders other than the Gandhis. And if it has to be a Gandhi, let it be Priyanka with a greater understanding of the political pulse, she being the only axis of her party for the protests over new citizenship policies. Or better bow to the greater message, that the Congress can reinvent itself beyond the Gandhis. There is cheer for Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has picked up one seat and put up a fight in bordering seats with Bihar, a precursor to how he could mount a counter-pressure to the BJP and Nitish Kumar in the Bihar polls. Meanwhile, the new Jharkhand Government has to be on performance mode from day one, as all parties have promised populist and socialist agenda. One wonders where the revenue for all this would come from as the State fares rather poorly on economic indices, particularly on hunger and poverty. The major challenge for the new government will be on handing out doles, which never seem practical for implementation. Primary among them is the reservation of OBCs. The Congress promised 27 per cent reservation from the existing 14 per cent, jobs to at least one person per household and a separate Sarna code (religious code) for tribals. The BJP, too, promised job reservation while the JMM pledged to provide 67 per cent quotas to OBCs, Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes besides government jobs to locals. This hyper-localisation, then, is the way State polls will be fought as that alone has reduced BJP’s federal pie to less than 50 per cent of the country today.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
There’s a need to delink CAA from NRC that is being used to propagate a nationwide hunt to weed out one community. The Centre must clarify that it is going by continuity of past regimes
The demonstrations in several cities since the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are highly coordinated, with agitators connected to groups in different parts of the same city, having transport for rapid movement from one spot to another, given contact numbers to access eminent lawyers, taught to access offline communication during internet shutdowns and armed with protest tools. Their slogans are fairly uniform, political parties and groups behind them are the same and now, an eminent E-zine has issued an “advisory” for politically correct coverage of the rallies.
With violence exceeding one week (and likely to continue after a Christmas break), there is an urgent need to delink the CAA from the non-existent National Register of Citizens (NRC) that is being misused to propagate a nationwide hunt to weed out one community. The Centre should, therefore, state that it is continuing former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s National Population Register (NPR), for which enrolment began alongside Aadhaar in 2010. (This writer was enrolled vide form number 02046115, household block no. 0021, household number 128). The rules framed then should be made public and amendments invited.
The CAA logically follows the defanging of Article 370 of the Constitution and scrapping of a State subject. Hence, the need for a law to provide citizenship to Hindu refugees, who came to Jammu & Kashmir in 1947, unaware that the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was busy overthrowing the benign king and creating a veritable hell for non-Muslims in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. It made sense to cover all persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — all of which are Islamic Republics.
Afghanistan had a sizeable Sikh and Hindu population under the kingdom of Maharaja Ranjit Singh; it slowly migrated to India, especially after the assassination of former Presidents Mohammed Daoud Khan (1978) and Mohammad Najibullah (1996), and the rise of the Pakistan-backed Taliban. Hence, Afghan minorities deserve the same consideration as those from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
As Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated in Parliament (December 9 and 11), the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 failed abysmally to protect minorities in Pakistan. Its first Law Minister, Jogendra Nath Mandal, who helped the Muslim League wrest Sylhet from Assam, fled to West Bengal the same year. Similarly, the Christian community that worked actively for Pakistan, fared poorly in the Islamic Republic and has been included in the ambit of the new Act. Muslims are free to seek citizenship on individual basis under existing laws (given to 2,830 from Pakistan, 912 from Afghanistan and 172 from Bangladesh in the last six years).
The Cabinet Mission Plan clubbed Assam with Bengal in Group C to create a predominantly Muslim zone in eastern India, like the one proposed in western India. Gopinath Bardoloi retained Assam for India but Constituent Assembly member Rohini Kumar Chaudhary warned that at least three lakh Muslims had entered India illegally.
Thereafter, the interim Parliament passed the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, to enable the Central Government to remove outsiders whose “stay in Assam is detrimental to the interests of the general public of India or of any section thereof or of any Scheduled Tribe in Assam.” Hindu refugees were exempted. However, as the North-eastern States expressed anxieties, special provisions were invoked to protect their social and linguistic uniqueness. The refugees in Bengal are mainly Matua (Namashudra), who kept the communists in power for nearly three decades and then ensured the Trinamool Congress’ victory. Before independence, Mahatma Gandhi (Delhi prayer meeting, July 16, 1947) said if minorities were unable to live in Pakistan, “the duty of the adjoining province on this side of the border will be to accept them with both arms and extend to them all legitimate opportunities.”
In a letter to Sri Krishna Das (July 21, 1947), he said, “The poor Hindus, who will migrate owing to oppression, will certainly be accommodated in India.” On November 5, 1950, Jawaharlal Nehru assured the Parliament, “There is no doubt, of course, that those displaced persons, who have come to settle in India, are bound to have the citizenship. If the law is inadequate in this respect, the law should be changed.” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel promised vigilance for the welfare of the minorities in Pakistan.
In March 1964, the then Union Home Minister Gulzarilal Nanda said if the honour and lives of Hindus are not safe, “the door has to be kept open…”, a sentiment echoed by Communist Party of India (CPI) MP Bhupesh Gupta. After the emergence of Bangladesh, CPI(M) leader Gautam Deb observed that religious persecution of Hindus continued after the assassination of Mujibur Rahman.
On April 20, 2010, former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi urged the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to grant citizenship to those who fled religious persecution at Partition. CPI(M) MP Basudeb Acharia (Lok Sabha, April 25, 2012) demanded amendment of the citizenship Act to grant citizenship to Bengali refugees, who migrated even before the Indira-Mujib agreement. He was supported by PL Punia and Khagen Das in the Lok Sabha and Shyamal Chakraborty and Prasanta Chatterjee in the Rajya Sabha. The 20th Congress of the CPI(M) passed a resolution, demanding rights for Bengali refugees (April 2012).
In 2003, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government gave special powers to some border districts of Rajasthan and Gujarat to grant citizenship to Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Manmohan Singh urged a more liberal approach towards refugees after Partition. In June 2012, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat wrote to Singh about the plight of Bengali refugees: “Their situation is different from those who have come to India due to economic reasons.” Karat said lakhs of families from Scheduled Caste communities like Namashudra, Pondra Khatriya, Majhi were affected.
Finally, there is no “right to infiltrate.” Every nation protects its borders, distinguishes between refugees and intruders and makes laws to confer citizenship on foreigners. When Jews came to Kerala after the destruction of the Temple of Solomon (70 AD), descendants of the Prophet to Sindh after Karbala (680 AD), Parsis to Sanjan (8th century), all sought permission from local rulers. Post-1947, Tibetans, Baha’i and others were given refuge. But sneaking into the country and acquiring voter and ration cards by stealth is neither legal nor acceptable.
(Writer: Sandhya Jain; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Non-violent movements are more successful than violent ones. But for that we need to discipline ourselves as Gandhi did during his satyagraha
There is always a way to get your point of view across. And students in this country have shown how that can be done, the art of democratic persuasion in a non-violent manner at a time of State suppression. Students of IIM Bengaluru resorted to a unique way of protesting against the exclusionary implications of the new citizenship law despite the Section 144 restrictions and the not so veiled threats that their placements and academic records could be tarnished if they participated in agitations. So very peacefully, each student came out of the institution’s gates one by one, laid down a blank placard and placed a pair of shoes next to it. The police didn’t have to call in reinforcements except look over the rows and rows of unwritten message boards and shoes. In another part of the city, protesters sat in twos at a time in a relay race format, honouring the restrictions that not more than four persons could assemble at a given place at a given time.
In Delhi, protesters handed over roses to the cops and kept it peaceful, reading the Constitution, performing skits and songs and symbolising their angst at the rabid identity politics in the country by choosing fluidity in “what they wore”, Hindu girls covering their heads with the abaya and young boys going shirtless to show off their janeus. Not out of a need to shed the majoritarian guilt of persecution by the powers that be but to show that a Hindu-only narrative didn’t need to be advertised, wasn’t insecure but was lived as the real spirit of India. Perhaps in a long, long time in the nation’s history, are we seeing a spontaneous outpouring of what everyday people think the idea of India should be and not one that is being force-fed for political expediency. One where identity should be about holding your own in a post-globalised world and not about macho wish-fulfilment at home. That benign majoritarianism has been our civilisational pride, a rule of reason, and not about bullying and chomping at minorities. That we don’t need to be reminded how blessed we are as Hindus or that existence by birth means nothing if our actions are judged and recorded wrongly. That we have never been unitary, binary even, but multi-disciplinary. That’s a heritage stronger than timelines.
The blank posters spoke a thousand words at a time of India’s worst clampdown on democratic rights in decades, possibly after the Emergency. One where simple dissent is being projected as a nihilistic conspiracy and brutal detentions are being used to discourage it. But history is not about competitive whataboutery, something that our political parties forget depending on which side of power they are on. What was unsaid in the posters — at a time when anyone, even the media, can be booked for incendiary propagation of ideas — is that an unheard voice can still hang in the air to countervail the brute force of the establishment. It is a ghost on our conscience. The shoes were about registering presence by being absent. Silence couldn’t have been louder and “non-protest” couldn’t be more felt. It was also a telling picture of the reductionist idea of citizenship that we are being forced to subscribe to. What many are not getting is that nobody is being anti-Hindu or not feeling for persecuted Hindus anywhere in the world. But the younger generation, whom we have imparted legacy lessons well, are showing us that you don’t need to demonise others to make you feel good. Can anybody deny that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) implies a religion-based code of acceptance in this country, no matter how many Hindus we save worldwide? Can anybody guarantee that the compilation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be free of bias at a time when profiling is being ingrained in our daily lives viscerally, that the need to prove ourselves again means our existing antecedents are not worthy enough, that Muslims who don’t make it past NRC on grounds of refugee ancestry cannot fall back on CAA as Hindus can? Or that Hindu inlanders left out erroneously (no logistical human mapping is zero error) will not resent the easier norms for later immigrants? Can anybody deny the need for civil debate, discussion and resolution of these issues rather than treating every question as evil that shouldn’t be heard, spoken or seen? Finally, can anybody disagree that the NRC is the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back, that the countrywide civil protests are but an outpouring of deep emotions of distrust in and disgust at resetting the nation’s proven architecture? That anger can be volcanic and secular?
Perhaps, as Indians we forget that the world’s most successful protest movements were born of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence or Ahimsa, one that continues to inspire generations of young people everywhere, even rock bands like U2. One that lies at the core of civil movements in Egypt and Tunisia. One that gave us our freedom and will continue to guide us whenever that is threatened. That civil disobedience, manifested by Gandhi’s salt march against a colonial tax and boycotting British goods, generated a swell of unrest that got our precious midnight hour a little closer. In their book, Why Civil Resistance Works, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan analysed over 300 violent and non-violent major political campaigns in the last decade and found that non-violent campaigns had been twice as effective than the violent ones: They succeeded 53 per cent compared to 25 per cent for an armed resistance. They assessed that a democracy initiated by a non-violent movement was less likely to fall back into civil war. In the 2011 Arab Spring, several countries had anti-Government protests. Yet non-violent street demonstrations in Tunisia, that led to the overthrow of the President and eventually democratisation, had a more lasting effect. They also found out that only 3.5 per cent of the population was enough to effect a leadership change.
Of course, the researchers also noted how these campaigns succeeded because the protests were not just one-off but sustained over time with discipline and dedication through a choreographed sequence of events. This then is the next challenge of the civil society movement that has come out on the streets, continuity and a community to sustain it. How long, how much, how many? Crucially, how latent, how overt? Critics usually do not have much faith in such movements, especially those led by students, saying they fizzle out because at some point ennui is bound to step in, be it as career pursuits for students, the seeming pointlessness of fighting the stubbornness of status quo, and the individualistic human desire to get on with life as usual. The problem is disruption may be a clutter-breaker but routine has a way of sedimenting itself after an upheaval. So measured and workable action plans with regularity matter more than one news-breaking moment.
The researchers have shown how countries with sustained non-violent campaigns were about 10 times likelier to transition to democracies within a five-year period. And though they may appear to “fail” in the short-term, the non-violent civil movements basically sow the seed and nudge moderate elements even within a rigid structure to move in from the edges.
We need a critical mass and have just begun. As the latest round of protests has shown, the commitment of a younger generation did succeed to pull out a passive majority, even the elderly, on cold winter evenings. That is dawn of a new sensibility that one needs to get real than make a social media post.
While the establishment may be the direct enemy, little do we realise that elitism is the bigger one. This is dominated by business and economic interests, who fear any kind of disruption, and the media. The last is particularly to blame because it has stunted itself to a lapdog than being a pillar of democracy, has become a propagandist than a purveyor of justice. Then there are challenges of sustaining the movement with different innovation strategies than just mass assemblage. The students had enough ammunition to dramatise their message but repetitive patterns and ideas can get boring, so non-compliance will require newer gestures of inclusivity in the social space. It would be worthwhile, in our case, to turn this unrest into a larger coalescence of crusades against all issues that bother us most, most notably the economic slide.
But the biggest challenge of all is not to fall into the trap of counter-violence, chaos, especially those orchestrated by the establishment itself as a diversionary tactic. This means we are stupidly signing up for what the order of the day wants us to do, living up to its stereotypes. Nobody understood this better than Gandhi who insisted on disciplined action as the only way of intensifying outrage against injustice and awakening moral conscience. This, he felt, had a bigger appeal among critics, opponents and civil society, who would ultimately be the counter-balance. Gandhi’s salt satyagraha was the biggest example of how this stung and thoroughly confused the imperial Government. The history of non-violent protests began here not without reason. Only if we value it enough as relevant today. As Joan Baez once said, non-violence is nothing but “organised love.” Of the humanist kind.
(Writer: Rinku Ghosh; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The Government comes out with some clarity on NRC a tad too late. It must address concerns of civil society
The civil unrest across the country over a citizenship law and identity documents has given us a primary lesson, that no matter what the electoral verdict, as a people we are good enough to defend our democracy. Finally, the ruling BJP has realised that its manifesto cannot become the nation’s own. That majority appeasement doesn’t work just as the minority variant hasn’t so long for the Congress. That ghettoisation of any minority will always find protectors from the majority community as thousands of Hindu lawyers and doctors attend to Muslim detainees in Delhi. Neighbourhood first. And that the aggrieved Muslims can rightfully claim the tricolour, be non-violent and rebel against stereotypes of being led by either the clergy or sectarian representatives. They can hit the streets on their own. So it is that a stung Government has thought it right to clarify norms that will determine the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and bust some myths regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Question is why it didn’t bother to have a wider discussion with all stakeholders or launch an information awareness campaign, like it did with the Goods and Services Tax (GST)? Why couldn’t it have initiated an all-party consult? What was the hurry to push it with brute force, knowing full well that questions about our legacy on this land would only fuel anxieties? Unless it wanted to set a new context of polarisation, otherisation and fear. Now 15 lives have been lost in the cross-sectional protests over CAA and NRC. Can the Government innocently claim that it always meant well, that educated people were impatient about clauses and that fear-mongering was sponsored by an Opposition that’s not only scatter-brained but frankly resourceless? Besides, its latest clarifications are a climbdown from its stated positions on the subject. So the Aadhaar card, which the Government claimed could not be a valid proof of identity because of scanty information, will now be accepted to get your identity certificate. It turns out that 1987 will be the new cutoff year before which one doesn’t need to prove ancestry — You, your parents would have to be born before that year. For Assam, the cutoff date will be 1971. This means the clause of legacy data, which was the bedrock of the NRC compilation exercise, stands diluted. Even now the role of the registrar, who will be presiding over the documents, has not been defined. Neither have the new norms laid down any protocol to eliminate administrative arbitrariness and bribe-seeking. In the absence of any clarity, the present explainers are just about arresting a crisis in retrospect than a well thought-out strategy. Frankly, the Government is yet to spell out how the poor are going to procure documents, how the nationwide process would be executed logistically (everybody remembers the queues of demonetisation) or what it might additionally cost us if we are left out even inadvertently. And is such an elaborate exercise worth the cost considering that even if identified, illegal immigrants would not make more than a single-digit percentage of the population? There is still no clarity on addressing concerns in the North-east, where indigenous people do not want an extra drain on their resources by a new wave of refugees, even if they are Hindu. The Government was expected to allay fears but maintained its threatening rhetoric and will be guilty of allowing the situation to serve its partisan interests.
An equal share of the blame has to go to the Opposition for not converting this into a national debate on specifics and ceding the ground due to a lack of political will. Even if its leaders didn’t find Parliament conducive to hearing out their concerns, they could have spearheaded a movement demanding answers to questions bothering the polity. It is the space vacated by them that has been taken over by students now. And now that civil society has joined in, and the scale of the protests has become as remarkable as the breadth of participation, Opposition leaders are crawling out of the woodwork. The Congress failed miserably here, despite having the depth of seniority and experience. Neither could it get all its Chief Ministers to Delhi to make a point, nor could it get its articulate spokesmen and savvy speakers like Shashi Tharoor to even rally with party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi at India Gate. Even regional leaders and Opposition Chief Ministers have not ventured out of their turfs, making them look like prisoners of votebank politics rather than escalating a major national issue. The citizenry’s challenge will be to sustain the fire in the absence of a leader. This is like walking the thin edge. For in the end, it is only through politics that it can be cleansed. On the other, politics corrupts the best of intentions.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Repeated tremors felt in Delhi must propel Governments to get their acts together and make the capital disaster-proof
As a 6.1 magnitude temblor shook the Hindukush region of Afghanistan and Pakistan on December 20, people in Delhi-NCR, too, felt the foreshocks and aftershocks. Though the tremors caused no damage, within seconds, it raised concerns about the resilience of the capital, which, too, is prone to severe seismic threats. Delhiites indeed have plenty of reason to worry about as the capital is most susceptible to several fault lines given its geographical location and could bear the cascading brunt of a predicted big earthquake in the Himalayas. It falls in the high risk seismic zone IV region and is close to the Mahendragarh, Moradabad, Delhi-Haridwar and the Sohna fault line, which are easily subject to seismic disturbances. The density of its population, high-rise buildings, especially in the NCR areas, and the growth of illegal colonies in violation of safety norms have worsened matters. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has itself acknowledged that around 90 per cent of the buildings in Delhi are at a risk of collapse during a strong earthquake. Despite the associated risks, both the Centre and the State Government have adopted a carefree attitude and have done little to make the city quake-proof. This despite repeated court reminders to get their acts together and make the buildings earthquake resilient. Several court orders issued in 2015, 2016 and 2019 have called upon the Government and the concerned authorities to prepare an action plan and make the buildings compliant with the requirements of the National Building Code 2005. Though the Delhi Government claims to be prepared with an action plan, the file is shuttling between the law department and Government departments and is waiting for approval on clarifications.
The less said about the task at hand the better. Though on paper, the Government plans to make 32 lakh buildings earthquake-safe, it falls short of the required strength of trained engineers who could do their job without taking recourse to bribes. This poor level of disaster preparedness is shocking and symbolic of apathy of the powers that be. Our disaster preparedness can well be compared to our attitude towards traffic safety norms. We know that not wearing a helmet or driving without a seat belt can be lethal. But the chalta hai attitude refuses to shed its weight around.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
This is a critical component of education globally as people are moving to alien locations and have to coexist with those belonging to different economic, cultural and religious backgrounds
Freedom of expression constitutes the backbone of people’s faith in the democratic process. This freedom of expression also permits organised protests on issues that indicate a difference between governments and a certain section of the people. Vested and anti-social groups and individuals invariably infiltrate in such organised protests and often succeed in misleading sensitive, educated people in colleges and universities. Small-time politicians never miss such opportunities of fuelling the fire. This is what is being witnessed in India in the name of protests, some of it genuine, some of it instigated against the NRC and CAA in universities and cities.
In India, education is being subsidised by the taxpayer; crores of them live below the poverty line and even sleep hungry. It is indeed unimaginable that public property could be vandalised by people who love India and Indians! Is something seriously wrong with our education system which has prepared those in power today and is preparing the next generation to take over the reins of the nation tomorrow? Education planning must extend its canvas beyond course completion and percentage of marks in Board examination. Is it not a serious inadequacy of school education that the selected group of young people that comes to universities is largely bereft of its social and national responsibility and becomes a pawn in the machinations of few anti-social and unscrupulous elements in the game of creating disturbances and destruction? While law-enforcing agencies shall take immediate steps to check violence and destruction, the nation must ponder over possible long-term strategies rather urgently.
We have a great opportunity of introducing transformational reforms in education at this juncture. 2020 could indeed be a defining year in Indian educational reforms, resplendent with high expectations, generational aspirational and inevitable transformational initiatives. One expects the new National Education Policy; NEP-2020 will see the light of the day “very early” in the year ahead and that the programme of action would be launched in full flurry by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), for which prior preparations are already under way. The NEP-2020, once it is announced and implemented, shall have the strength of unprecedented levels of consultations on one hand and also be a rare outcome of two successive committee reports.
The first committee, tasked to prepare the draft of the new education policy, was appointed by the MHRD in October 2015 under the chairmanship of TSR Subramanian and submitted its report in April 2016. The MHRD felt the need for more consultations and appointed another committee under the chairmanship of K Kasturirangan. This report, submitted in May, was made public on the same day and everyone was invited to offer his/her comments and observations. It is reported that these have been examined by experts in concerned professional institutions and the MHRD has almost finalised its final draft. The suggestions received from individuals, experts, scholars, institutions and outcomes of numerous consultation meetings and interactions constitute a rare collection of documents and data which must be analysed in years to come through well-organised researches and studies as it would authentically indicate the social, cultural and economic connect of education to the swift changes that now engulf the entire content and process of education in our schools and institutions of higher learning and research.
Several unprecedented challenges would emerge before educational policy planners and implementers in 2020. Several of these were known earlier but not appropriately prioritised earlier. One sincerely expects that the pioneers of new education initiatives in India shall remember the golden words of the Delors Commission Report of the UNESCO International Commission on Education in the 21st century: “Education is also an expression of affection for children and young people, whom we need to welcome into society, unreservedly offering them the place that is theirs by right therein — a place in the education system, to be sure but also in the family, the local community and the nation. This elementary duty needs to be constantly brought to mind, so that greater attention is paid to it even when choosing between political, economic and financial options. In the words of a poet: ‘The Child is the Father of Man’.”
The Kasturirangan Committee has taken conscious note of the inadequate definition of education. Two of its suggestions are in fact path-breaking and have the potential to usher in the much sought after balance needed to bring the best out of “head, hand and heart.” It recommends complete abolition of bifurcation of liberal and vocational education. Further, the Draft NEP-19 realises the importance of initial years of education and has made very bold recommendations to modify the existing RTE Act to include children in the age group of three to 18 years. The need to accept and adapt a holistic approach to education, has been highlighted in the Draft NEP-2019, as “India has had a long and illustrious history of holistic education.” The Indian tradition of knowledge generation, creation and transmission to the next generations was always directed not only at “preparation for life in this world or for life beyond schooling, but for complete realisation and liberation of the self.” There could be no better articulation of these aspects than the words of Swami Vivekananda quoted in the NEP-2019: “Education is not the amount of information that we put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library. If education is identical with information, the libraries are the greatest sages of the world and encyclopedia are the greatest rishis”. He persistently pleaded for man-making and character-forming education.
The goal of holistic education requires serious conceptual and structural changes in the content and process of education. It is necessary to realise the scientific basis of the importance of learning in early years. Zero to eight are the most crucial years and this realisation comes forth very strongly in the Draft NEP-2019 when it recommends substantial changes in school education in the format of 5+3+3+4. These represent foundational stage of grades 1-2; preparatory stage of grades 3-5, middle stage covering grades 6-8 and secondary stage of four years; 9-12. Acceptance of this suggestion of focussing on early years and removal of distinction between liberal and vocational education could usher in an era of much-needed focus on education of the heart. It should also be properly comprehended at the implementation stage that education must assist not only in developing “cognitive skills — both ‘foundational skills’ of literacy and numeracy and ‘higher-order’ cognitive skills such as critical-thinking and problem-solving — but also social and emotional skills. The last are also referred to as “soft skills”, including cultural awareness and empathy, perseverance and grit, teamwork and leadership, among others. The process by which children and adults acquire these competencies is also referred to as Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).” It was amply realised by the Delors Commission in 1996 that one of the four pillars of education in the 21st century would be “learning to live together”. This is now the critical component of education and learning globally as people are moving to alien locations and are destined to live together with people who may be vastly different in social, economic, cultural and religious backgrounds. It must be acknowledged that such diversities are causing severe anxiety situations and eruption of violent reactions and clashes are no longer rare exceptions.
The young of today shall have to live together with diversities practically in most of the countries and India would be no exception. In fact, many of the European nations are looking towards India to learn how it could live with adherents of different faiths and religions for thousands of years. India has its own issues within the nation and also mounting pressures from jealous neighbors who would not relish its successful march ahead on the path of development and progress. Our young persons, in their initial impressionable years must learn how to celebrate diversity. They must also learn how deeply endowed was the culture of ancient India that realised the “essential unity of all human beings”, and also propagated that every religion must get equal respect from the followers of other religions, as there could be different and divergent paths to reach the same ultimate truth. There is no other way out than the culture of acceptance of diversity.
It is the subtext of the NRC and a civil society movement that are forcing regional parties and CMs to up the ante
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so,” said Mahatma Gandhi. But as the pan-Indian clampdowns on protesters over the segregatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the binary National Register of Citizens (NRC) acquire a martial fury, and an activist-scholar holding his picture is dragged away, the father of the nation would seem to have been reduced to an anachronism. Except that his spirit is not as there is a collective outpouring of anxieties nationwide about partitioning the identity of India where co-existence is not just a word but lived in daily life. Perhaps, this version of civil disobedience is for the first time breathing life into a counter-current against the BJP’s monolithism and demonisation of imagined ills. So federal parties and Chief Ministers, fired by students and civil society taking to the streets, are challenging the implementation of the deeply disturbing NRC. And although the Centre may push it down our gullets under the Constitutional cover of it being in the Union List, the Opposition-ruled State Governments have committed themselves to morally question that process. No matter what the official line is about verifying who is an Indian and who is an intruder, the NRC, in effect, means proving our citizenship all over again no matter what our religion is. It involves a complex documentation process, sorting and review, should we fail to meet benchmarks. It is built on a deep distrust of all existing criteria of citizenship with the BJP Government insisting that they, Aadhaar included, have been manipulated by vested interests for votebank politics. Does the NRC list then mean that all our past attempts at census have been flawed and discriminatory? Leave aside the costly logistical exercise in stressed times, the rush for “acceptable” papers has already generated a parallel, dark economy, one which breeds a new societal matrix of privileges and money power. One where you could be pre-judged and dangerously profiled, too. Even with the narrowest margin of error — we cannot have zero error in a country as vast and diverse as India — it has been estimated that millions could be left out just because of procedural oversight. And a bonafide citizen could lose life as he knew it. In that sense, it is a re-purification exercise and a fig leaf for flushing out not just illegal immigrants but scaring the citizenry, be it majority or minority, in general. If we do not make the cut in this blatantly exclusionary document, either because of a lack of papers, some from our grandparents’ times or some perceived inconsistency, a vast majority of Indians could be Stateless and without rights. Rather the intent is to demolish the social plurality of India and impose majoritarian consent by creating a new support base of genuflecting cheer-leaders. And as some citizens could become Stateless, the overnight denial of pre-existing rights of the inlander and the immediate and no-paper admission for outsiders, be they Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, under CAA present a dichotomy that’s not convincing anybody.
As Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal rightly said, 70 per cent of Indians, most of them poor, have no documents to prove their citizenship. An entire generation has been mostly home-born and has no birth documents. Besides, there is still no clear-cut detention policy for the numbers who would be rendered Stateless after such an exercise. Considering the Government’s own commitment to Bangladesh that illegal immigrants won’t be deported there and Dhaka itself challenging India on proof, the only answer would be relocation of these people to geographical backyards. Perhaps they could get a conditional work permit without voting rights. That nobody wants to talk about. While most Congress-ruled State Governments are opposing NRC as a “tool to force people to leave the country,” it is Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh who matches the fire power of his Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee in stalling NRC in States. But it is Biju Janata Dal leader and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, known for cushioning the BJP at the Centre for political expediency, who surprised observers by refusing to support the NRC. Clearly, he couldn’t ignore protesters of different faiths who marched from a mosque to his residence. One doesn’t know how far an amorphous people’s movement can sustain itself in the face of brute subjugation but perhaps we as a people need to make a conscience call, honest dissent over dishonest compliance, action over silence.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Students must be left to study and equip themselves for life. If some want to pursue social causes in an agitational mode, they should do it outside the campuses
On December 20, a weekly newspaper published from Delhi carried a photograph with the caption, “Citizens’ anguish” and the sub caption read, “I am a Christian, my husband a Hindu and my daughter is Indian.” It then referred to pages that carried details about the protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Earlier, demonstrations on such themes were captioned as “students’ agitation” by many media houses. By definition, CAA neither touches upon the veracity of those who are currently citizens of India, nor does it have anything to do with the “students.” But captions on CAA have been catchy. If perusing a genuine cause, where is the need to seek subterfuge under inaccurate and misleading captions? “Student” is a word that has several shades of meaning. At the time of writing this article, this word already surfaced in the front page of newspapers for nearly a week numerous times. In fact, courtesy a major Central university in South Delhi, it has been making headlines for over a year now for all sorts of reasons, including physical intimidation of the Vice-Chancellor in his vehicle. The time has come to step back from the scene of action and take an objective look at the news stories that are made out of such events. What becomes a cause célèbre and what is allowed to peter away if not quietly, at least by default, needs some thought.
To understand any process, a historical look at how it grew across time will help. The first major national leader who mixed educational institutions with political movements was Mahatma Gandhi. Hence, sanctified with his precursor intervention, protests have been legitimised through various stages of growth. In the early 20th century, Gandhiji gave a call to the students to quit their educational institutions and join his movement. Subsequently, he came to the conclusion that the premature entry into politics by the youth, who had not even obtained adulthood, was not fair for the growth processes. So, he went about setting up some “vidyapeeth(s).” Four of them were particularly notable. Institutions with appellation of “national” also got currency and Bihar National College, Patna, was one of them. The purpose of these lines is not to track the evolutionary growth of these institutions but to highlight, from a social science perspective, that the capacity of these institutions so set up was lesser than the seat capacity of the institutions the students were supposed to quit. Thus, it is that a whole generation and more went into public movement with half-baked processes of learning. This can be a contentious line of thought and it may be premature to take a position on it.
However, one thing was subsequently clear: The leadership of the independence movement largely passed into the hands of relatively younger people, who had gone for their education to England and came back for their own reasons. Gandhiji, MA Jinnah and Jawaharlal Nehru were but a few such notables. Those with “desi” education had to make do with more supportive leadership roles. That again may be a topic fit for discussion sometime later. Closer to the scene of action, after a relatively quiet 50s, where educational institutions were themselves few, began the process, which converted a lot of universities into an apprentice set-up for training in political leadership. There, many future political leaders-to-be, cut their teeth. To get back to the CAA-linked agitation, interestingly, the media carried stories of “student movements” from States where CAA would not even apply; to those where there were reported protests against their identity being inundated by the number of migrants; to crowds which were burning public property to agitate against implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
On December 18, one of the dailies published a two-column thumb nail on the history of “student protests” in India since independence. In the 10 movements listed, most of the areas mentioned for agitation had little or no correlation with student issues. Illustratively, it said that on February 9, 2016, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) “erupted” in protests over the 2013 execution of Afzal Guru. An “eruption” does not take place three years later. Geographically, it could have been that JNU and Afzal’s name may have been highlighted, but clearly, it was not a student issue. On December 19, another daily discovered a “potential” student agitation in the so-called prestigious business school in Hyderabad. The plea is simple: There can be issues and issues for agitations. If peacefully conducted, anyone can demonstrate for anything. However, no service is rendered, to anyone worth a reputation by misleading glib captions such as “citizens’ anguish” “student movement.” It was indeed a student movement in the University of Sussex when the students demonstrated against the invite to Huntingdon to address the university. The merits of the agitation apart, it was truly a students’ issue. Nobody’s cause is served by misleading captions to omnibus issues. Campus life is sacrosanct. All heads of institutions know how to protect it. To be fair to the student community, the heads have a collective responsibility to protect the students from the vagaries of people pursuing political goals. Students should be left to study and equip themselves for life. If they choose to go “political” later on, that’s another story. If some of them want to pursue social causes in an agitational mode, they should do it outside the campuses.
(Writer: Vinayshil Gautam; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
It’s ironic that an economy on the verge of meltdown is now witnessing a spike in food prices. A solution has to be found
Like every year, food inflation is back in the news but this time it has reached a 71-month high. It would be anybody’s guess as to what accounted for the increase: A steep rise in prices of vegetables battered by the monsoon deluge is the main reason. Given the dramatic price rise of onion and milk across the country, the spike in wholesale and retail food prices isn’t surprising. Onion imports and a gradual increase in domestic supplies have arrested the spiral. The seemingly tone-deaf response to the crisis, particularly by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, was like pouring fuel into the fire, at least on social media. Clearly, long-term solutions have to be found. The Narendra Modi-led administration has shown that it can act on commodity prices. Its actions on the pulses crisis a few years ago saw the country move from being a net importer to that of a net exporter. Better management of the onion crop and an investigation into whether the crisis was manufactured have to be undertaken.
Nevertheless, food inflation has now become a reality of life. Controlling prices too much may eventually lead to farmers facing the brunt. And this wouldn’t be politically sound, too. Plugging gaps in procurement and managing the supply chain system can help mitigate the price increases and enhance efficiency. However, what has worsened the problem this time is the economic slowdown. With jobs growth at a standstill and people’s wallets facing more competitive pressures, even a small rise in the prices of essential food item tends to hurt the people more. For example, the repercussion of the milk crisis will be felt in a few weeks when prices of not just packaged pouches but dairy products like cheese and paneer will rise. This, coupled with increasing fuel rates, will likely pinch the common man even more in the coming weeks. What then should be done? Can a Reserve Bank of India cut help? Previous rate cuts have not spurred spending, nor have they encouraged banks to increase lending. Given the state of the financial sector, a reduction in interest rates will hardly help. The Government has also managed to tie itself up in knots, desperate as it is to increase taxes without realising the impact it will have on discretionary spending. The only way out is to splurge in the next wave of reforms, increase agricultural productivity and strengthen cold storage and distribution networks. With year-long restrictions imposed on retail traders and wholesalers on volumes they can trade, farmers are unable to sell their produce when they have a bumper crop. During shortages, distributors make money by hoarding. If the Government increases its own stocks and based on predictive analysis, grades export restrictions, it can arrest sharp price fluctuations.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Making RBI the issuing authority will ensure that the Centre won’t enjoy the sole discretion on information use, which is possible now with SBI being the issuing authority
For long, widespread use of black or unaccounted money in elections has been the fountainhead of corruption. Fighting elections — be it a Member of Parliament (MP) or Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) or any other elected body — costs huge sums which a candidate/political party is unable to garner. Businessmen and industrialists (even other entities engaged in undesirable activities) exploit this vulnerability of candidates and political parties to give contributions, expecting good returns, either by way of favourable policies or support in other forms such as award of contracts and so on. On getting elected, the latter returns the favour. The grant of such benefit results in the generation of more black money which gets funnelled into the system, resulting in a vicious cycle of political funding on an increasing scale and intensification of corruption. The subsisting fairly liberal threshold of permitting contribution per person up to Rs 20,000 in cash has paved the way for crores to be given to political parties in cash even while keeping the identity of donors anonymous. To rein in use of unaccounted money and bring “transparency” in election funding, in its first term, the Modi Government took two major initiatives. First, based on the recommendation of the Election Commission (EC), it lowered the limit for anonymous cash donations from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2,000. Second, in the Union Budget for 2017-18, it announced an Electoral Bond Scheme (EBS) as part of the Finance Bill. The scheme was implemented from January 2, 2018. Both the initiatives have come under strident criticism. In particular, critics have targetted the EBS saying, “this has legitimised the role of black cash in elections and kept the identity of donors anonymous, even as an overwhelming share of this money has gone to the ruling party (BJP) at the Centre.”
The issue was raised in the ongoing Winter Session of the Parliament even as the Supreme Court (SC) has posted a writ petition challenging the constitutional validity of the scheme for hearing in January 2020. Meanwhile, scrutiny of the initiatives is in order. The first measure won’t make any dent. If, both the giver and receiver are determined to engage in exchange of cash, they will do so even with a lower threshold. To escape being seen as a violator, all that the receiver needs to do is to show in records 10 times more entries than it was doing earlier. For instance, a party which receives Rs 1 crore from a single donor, will show it as receipt from 5,000, donors, each giving Rs 2,000 instead of the earlier 500 entries of Rs 20,000 each.
That apart, given the circulation of currency on a mammoth scale (in the aftermath of demonetisation, though bulk of it was sucked out of the system, it is now back with vengeance) and absence of any credible mechanism to check its movement, even if the Government were to completely bar contributions in cash and insist that every single rupee has to be paid by cheque or electronic mode, even then, it won’t be possible to make any dent on use of cash. Coming to the EBS, the bond is a bearer instrument like a Promissory Note that is payable to the bearer on demand and is interest-free. The bond can be purchased by any citizen — singly or along with other individuals — or a body incorporated in India. The instrument is issued in denominations of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore and its sale is opened once in every quarter for 10 days, and a month ahead of general elections or as notified by the Government. They are valid for only 15 days. To purchase the instrument, the donor has to submit the Electoral Bond Application Form along with the deposit slip, citizenship and KYC documents and cheque or demand draft at any authorised branch of the State Bank of India (SBI). Alternatively, the instrument can be bought online through NEFT/RTGS visiting the SBI website. The donor can give the bond to a party of his/her choice. Only registered political parties that secured at least one per cent of the votes polled in the last general elections are eligible to receive this instrument, which can be encashed by eligible parties through accounts in authorised banks, currently only the SBI.
All parties are required to maintain accounts of receipts and expenditure and submit them to the EC. The sale of the first batch of electoral bonds took place in March 2018. For six months during 2018, SBI sold bonds worth Rs 1,056 crore. During January-March, 2019, the value of bonds sold increased to Rs 1,716 crore. The charge against the scheme is three-fold. First, it legitimises the use of black cash. Second, it lacks transparency and keeps the identity of the donor anonymous. Third, an overwhelming share of such contribution is cornered by the ruling party. The first charge is untenable. This is because a person or an entity keen to buy bonds can pay for it only by cheque or electronic transfer, implying that the amount used for the purpose has an address. It is visible to the authorities who can ask, if need be, further questions on its source and ascertain whether tax has been paid on it. When the donation is made from a known source of income through banking channels and the money is fully accounted for and legitimate, the question of legitimising it (allegedly through EBS) does not arise.
The second charge, too, is without any valid basis. The authorised bank from where the donor purchased the bonds has all the particulars viz. citizenship, KYC of the latter. Though the information is not in the public domain, this can always be accessed, if need be, by authorised agencies viz. Income Tax Department, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and so on, in criminal cases under directions of the court. Notwithstanding the above, the allegation may have to do with an objection raised by Urjit Patel, then Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) vide his correspondence with the then Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley (September 14, 2017) wherein he had insisted on issuing bonds in “Demat” form only and the RBI to be the only issuing authority whereas, the Ministry wanted these to be in physical form and issued by the SBI as well.
The RBI also wanted a unique identifier and an additional security feature-based ID to be incorporated in the bond. Patel’s proposal could be a shade better as issuing a bond in Demat form ensures that the information on the buyer/donor is indestructible, unlike a physical document which can be destroyed. Besides, making RBI the issuing authority would ensure that the Government of the day would not enjoy the sole discretion regarding the use of the information — something which is possible under the present arrangement of the SBI (wholly owned by GOI) being the issuing authority.
However, just because a better option was on the table, it can’t be inferred that the dispensation put in place in any way compromises on the fundamental requirement of knowing the identity of the donor. The only safeguard is that this is not disclosed to the public, on which even the RBI did not disagree. In any case, the information can always be accessed under directions of the court. As regards the third charge, this is inconsequential as to whom a particular entity wants to donate and how much is entirely its prerogative.
Merely because one party gets a lion’s share, that fact can’t be a valid argument for lambasting the scheme. There is thus no valid reason to doubt the credibility of EBS. It helps in increasing the role of “legitimate” sources in funding elections even as authorities know who such donors are.
However, the real hard nut to crack is donation in cash which can’t be reined in by a simple act of reduction in threshold or even making it zero. It could be cracked only when people themselves minimise use of cash in their day-to-day activities. For now, that appears to be a pipe dream.
(Writer: Uttam Gupta; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Since meeting goals by 2030 requires substantial changes in all aspects, the limited effectiveness of governments may not be sufficient unless businesses and civil society play their part
The world cannot survive unless drastic steps are taken. The member states of the United Nations (UN) in 2015 adopted the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development with 17 Goals at its heart. This is a universal call to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people live a productive, vibrant life and enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. Since 2020 is round the corner and we are just a decade away from 2030, we must analyse the sufficiency of the actions taken by governments, businesses, developmental organisations, scientific community and civil society to make achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a reality. Since these require substantial changes in all aspects, the limited effectiveness of governments may not be sufficient, unless businesses and civil society play their part.
The UN’s SDG Report, 2019, is helpful in measuring headways made in several critical areas and indicates some positive developments like substantial decline in extreme poverty, 49 per cent fall in the under-five mortality rate since 2000 and access to electricity to a large chunk of the world’s population. Marine life has also been safeguarded and protected areas have multiplied since 2010. Issues regarding illegal fishing are also being smoothened. The Paris Agreement on climate change has been signed by 186 parties. Rapid urbanisation has also been addressed worldwide with 150 countries framing policies at the national-level aiming to solve the problems arising from it. Over 300 policies and instruments have been developed by several countries, including the EU, to encourage sustainability in production and consumption. These improvements could not have been possible without the widespread support of all stakeholders and this all-pervasive participation creates considerable optimism and promise for a secure future.
However, unified and concentrated action is still required in many areas. Environment protection and action to reduce climate change are the top priority as it is predicted that global warming will rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in years to come if greenhouse emissions are not checked. This, coupled with increasing sea levels because of it, will have cumulative effects that will be irreversible and disastrous. Add to this an increasing ocean acidification, coastal erosion, extreme weather conditions, the frequency and severity of natural disasters, continuing land degradation, risk of loss of one million plant and animal species and we have a perfect recipe for the ecosystem’s collapse.
Human suffering is closely linked to this environmental degradation as it has the capability to make many parts of the planet derelict. Given the loss of vital plant and animal species and global warming — with the last four years being the warmest on record — food production will be at risk, leading to large-scale food shortage and increasing global hunger. This can potentially displace up to 140 million people by 2050, unless strong and decisive action on climate change is taken by the entire world.
The goal to end extreme poverty by 2030 also looks unattainable as violent disturbances, conflicts and displacements are adding to the exposure to natural disasters, leading to deep-rooted deprivation. At least half of the world’s population lacks essential health services, more than half of the world’s children do not meet educational standards and women in all parts of the world continue to face disadvantages and discrimination.
Since achieving SDGs is not easy or possible alone, all stakeholders should partner for the cause. As resources are limited, be it financial, natural or human, society must make optimum use of the same. By way of partnership, we have the ability to bring together diverse and scarce resources to deliver a higher impact, greater sustainability and increased value to all. According to the UN, “Partnerships for sustainable development are multi-stakeholder initiatives voluntarily undertaken by Governments, inter-governmental organisations, major groups and other stakeholders, whose efforts are contributing to the implementation of inter-governmentally agreed development goals and commitments.”
Through this the UN has recognised the importance of partnerships by businesses and all leading institutions as imperative in international relations and global development. This fundamental shift in its thinking and approach is expressed in its clear acceptance of the interrelations and interdependence of thriving business, prosperous society and a healthy environment as a whole. All societal sectors without exception have been named as key development actors and an unprecedented level of cooperation and collaboration is the need of the hour for achievement of SDGs.
Since the launch of SDGs, several wide-ranging development partnerships have seen the light of the day, both at global and local levels; from international networks to bilateral arrangements; from multi-sector, multi-issue platforms, to single-sector, single-issue interest groups. To bring some standardisation into the multitude of collaborative arrangements with quite different qualities, three basic types of partnerships can be identified, which can be distinguished in terms of the main objectives of the partnership and the nature of the relationship between the partners.
The first category, “Leverage/Exchange” involves partnerships that are complementary to each other and are a one-way transfer or reciprocal exchange of resources like knowledge, services, skills and funding, that the organisations need to employ towards their own strategic goals. It is applicable when each partner has something that is more valuable to the other than to themselves, resulting in net gain on exchange. For example, the relationship between an aid agency and a university research institute can constitute a partnership of mutual benefit where the agency accesses research outputs and expertise from the institute while providing research funding or sources of data and case studies to the institute. An example of this type of partnership is Coca-Cola and the Global Fund Project Last Mile, which leverages Coca-Cola’s logistic, supply chain, distribution and marketing expertise to build African Governments’ capabilities to ensure communities have better access to life-sustaining and life-enhancing medicines. Coca-Cola gains by demonstrating its commitment to a better planet as well as providing employee engagement opportunities.
The second category, “Combine/Integrate”, identifies a cross-sector partnership, which is essentially a partnership between two or more organisations where complementary resources are pooled to identify solutions to a common problem and in the process accomplish a shared strategic goal. Innovative approaches, which are developed by all the partners involved through brainstorming and consistent dialogue and mutual accountability, are the hallmarks of this type of partnership. The core belief here is that one can achieve more by working together and combining the resources than individually. An example in this category can be seen in Bangladesh between a social enterprise and a major supplier of renewable energy, SOLshare, and Grameen Shakti, which is being supported and enabled by UN DESA. Grameen Shakti brings access to its massive existing customer base and network of solar homes, as well as its knowledge of the communities, and SOLshare brings cutting-edge, innovative technology with the potential to transform the supply of affordable energy to low-income households in Bangladesh.
The final partnership type “Transform”, is more ambitious and focusses on the final goal of tackling a development challenge in an innovative and multi-faceted way where the problem definition may be unclear, and partners bring differing world views and perspectives to the issue. For example, Scaling up Nutrition is a global, country-led and multi-sectoral movement to combat undernutrition and catalyse support for countries with a focus on a set of evidence-based direct nutrition interventions. Here a partnership is developed to facilitate a system change with the involvement of various actors like countries, various Government ministries (e.g. ministries of education, health and agriculture) as well as other change agents like businesses, civil society and the UN.
We are at a time where interventions to save the planet have to be colossal and no country or individual can contribute in isolation. The challenges are global and require global solutions. The SDGs have brought countries and communities together to work for a better life and a sustainable planet. It is the duty of all stakeholders to develop and to further strengthen international cooperation on climate change, migration, technology, trade and partnerships. Let us take the advantage of many synergies that we have and work together to achieve the 2030 Agenda.
(Writer: Hima Bindu Kota; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
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