Time to move from rhetoric to reality

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

The daring cross-border attack on the Indian brigade headquarters at Uri in Kashmir, which left 17 dead and about 30 injured, several of them seriously, poses a severe challenge to the Narendra Modi regime even as it copes with the situation created by more than two months of civil unrest in the valley.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who has emerged as the government’s chief spokesman on Kashmir-related issues, blamed the attack on the “terrorist state” of Pakistan. Modi, in a tweet, assured the nation that those who were behind the despicable attack would not go unpunished.

The social media and television channels were abuzz with the informed and the uninformed offering Modi advice on what punishment to give. Suggestions from former army officers and diplomats ranged from calls for surgical strikes to passionate pleas for well-thought-through responses.

Terror groups have targeted military establishments on more than 10 occasions since the eruption of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s. In terms of casualties, the worst attack was the one staged by a gang of three at the Kaluchak cantonment in 2002 in which 31 persons were killed and 47 injured. Of the dead, three were army personnel, 18 were family members of army men and 10 were civilians.

The most audacious of all Kashmir-related terrorist actions was the 2001 attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi. Six police personnel, two Parliament security guards and a gardener were killed but no MP was even hurt. The government, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader AB Vajpayee, viewed the event as a proxy attack by Pakistan and drew up plans for a military response but did not go ahead with it.

The Uri attack was the second one this year. In January a group of terrorists had sneaked into the large air force base at Pathankot. The encounter that followed resulted in the death of six defence personnel. It was apparently a calculated attempt to derail the India-Pakistan peace process. Following the attack scheduled official level talks between India and Pakistan were cancelled.

Going by the government’s accounts, the terrorists directly involved in all these attacks were liquidated in the encounters that followed.

Since the Pathankot attack, with one thing leading to another, there has been continuous deterioration in India-Pakistan relations. In his Independence Day address on August 15, Modi, in a marked shift from the position taken by all previous governments, openly voiced support for rebels challenging the authority of Pakistan in Baluchistan.

The ground situation in Kashmir took a turn for the worse when protests erupted after security forces announced the killing of young Hizbul Mujahideen commander Buran Wani in July. Many parts of the valley have been under prolonged curfew, and at least 80 persons have been killed, more than 100 blinded and several thousand injured in firing of supposedly non-lethal pellets by central security personnel.

As Pakistan despatched a large number of special envoys to world capitals to mobilise opinion against human rights violations in Kashmir valley, India decided on a similar effort with the focus on Pakistani rights violations in Baluchistan and Kashmir areas under its control. The flip side of such tit-for-tat manoeuvres is that they put India and Pakistan politically on the same level.

Some observers see in Modi’s toughening stance the influence of National Security Adviser Ajit Doyal, who, since retirement from the police, has attracted a bunch of admirers by recounting his exploits as an intelligence officer and has openly advocated a hawkish line. But he is also believed to be the one who sold to Modi the idea of inviting all South Asian leaders to his swearing-in ceremony in 2014.

For Modi the time has come to move from rhetoric to reality. Recent events have revealed two grave weaknesses which India can ignore only at its peril.

One is the ease with which terrorists have been able to intrude into fortified military establishments. The Uri attack resulted in heavy casualties as it took place when one unit was taking over from another. If the attack was timed with prior knowledge of the changeover, it indicates the terror planners have good intelligence support. Clearly, strengthening of the security environment deserves a higher priority than reprisal.

The other is the alarming degree of alienation in the Kashmir valley. In the past civil unrest manifested itself mainly in the form of demonstrations in Srinagar streets. This time young stone-throwers were out in the streets in the countryside and police personnel abandoned many stations. Restoration of normalcy must come first. All else can wait.

The Centre must not forget the healthy atmosphere that prevailed in the valley during the three armed conflicts with Pakistan. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 20, 2016 

Housing sector paradox

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

India’s real estate sector is headed for a crash, the US way, a business journalist warned a few months ago. Crazy as it is, the real estate bubble is not going to burst any time soon, a market watcher countered. Real estate is overpriced and if the property market were to function as efficiently as the stock market, prices must crash, an experienced analyst opined. All three advanced seemingly convincing arguments in support of their conflicting viewpoints.

There has been no crash but there are signs of stagnation on the housing front which presents a paradox with widespread homelessness on one side and proliferation of unoccupied residential units on the other.

In the cities, where big real estate companies are engaged in feverish building activity to cater primarily to the upmarket, a large number of flats are lying unsold. According to a property research firm, in the Mumbai metropolitan region alone there were about 226,000 unsold apartments at the beginning of the year. This was 31 per cent more than a year ago.

In the real estate business, a fall in demand does not lead to a fall in prices because builders have the capacity to hold on until they get the desired prices. The conventional explanation for this is that the industry has access to black money. The government indulgently looks on at the flow of black money into construction as it brings hoarded wealth back into circulation.

Urban housing costs remain high as land is scarce and, therefore expensive. There is also mismatch in the market between supply and demand. The big builders are offering villas and luxury apartments costing upwards of Rs 10 million. Most buyers are looking for flats priced not more than Rs 5 million.

A recent official report estimates that the number of homeless persons is about 78 million. They need affordable housing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set for the country the goal of “housing for all”. However, he has not formulated an action plan for the purpose. Instead, he is continuing with the decades-old scheme under which states take up housing projects for the poor with Central assistance. It cannot end homelessness in the foreseeable future.

Last November, in a bid to give a fillip to the industry, the government removed all restrictions on foreign direct investment in the real estate and construction sector except for a three-year lock-in period for select projects. An industry spokesman claimed the step would have a huge positive impact on the housing sector as a whole, especially the affordable housing segment. However, there is no indication so far that foreign investors are interested in that segment.

Chinese and Japanese developers have shown interest in industrial projects. A leading Chinese firm has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Haryana government to develop a new industrial city in that state at a cost of $10 billion over a period of 10 years. Japanese firms, which are ready to invest up to $2 billion in industrial projects in the next two or three years, are said to be seeking strategic partnerships with Indian builders.

Much of the recent urban construction activity has been carried out flouting regulations with the connivance of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, posing a grave threat to the environment. The floods that played havoc in the newly developed suburbs of Chennai city recently were the result of reckless construction blocking natural drainage. Governmental agencies were as much to blame as private operators.

The Judiciary is seized of many instances of construction in violation of regulations. Last April the Bombay High Court ordered demolition of a 31-storey apartment complex in the city which has become a national symbol of political corruption. An appeal against the judgement is pending before the Supreme Court.

Last week the Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu government not to register plots and buildings if there was violation of regulations. According to officials, the judgement may adversely affect those who bought plots in more than 300,000 housing colonies in the state. 

Both the judgements indicate a hardening in the stand of the courts. Earlier when faced with fait accompli, they were generally inclined to take a lenient view, considering the cost incurred and the hardship that would be caused to the buyers. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will also take an equally tough position. --Gulf Today, September 13, 2016.

A worrisome job scenario

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With the working population rising rapidly and job opportunities lagging behind, India, which has replaced China as the world’s fastest growing economy, is in the most challenging phase of its developmental effort.

According to the latest UN projections, India’s population will outstrip China’s by 2022, six years earlier than previously calculated. While China has to contend with an ageing population, India, theoretically, has an advantage over it by virtue of its larger working population. But to take advantage of the demographic situation, it has to improve its ability to create jobs.

Currently an estimated one million people enter the workforce each month. The rate of job creation, which has always been short of the requirement, is now declining. A recent official survey revealed that eight labour-intensive industries, including textiles, garments, BPO, metals and automobiles, created only 135,000 jobs last year. They had created 490,000 jobs the previous year.

A study of the performance of more than 1,000 companies by a private rating agency also showed that the job creation rate was falling. Together these companies created only 12,760 jobs last year as against 188,371 in the previous year. The manufacturing sector companies recorded a 5.2 per cent decline in job growth. In the previous year there was a 3.2 per cent growth.

Three industries account for the bulk of employment in the organised sector. They are manufacturing (40 per cent), banking (23 per cent) and information technology (18 per cent). Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious goal of creating 250 million jobs over a 10-year period cannot be reached unless they generate more jobs.

Some analysts have suggested that studies based on the performance of companies may not reflect the true position as industries are increasingly outsourcing certain types of jobs. But, according to the official survey, there was a decline in contractual jobs also last year.

The dismal situation revealed by the studies has prompted critics to taunt the Prime Minister with questions like “Where are the promised jobs, Mr. Modi?” The fact is that low job creation has been a feature of India’s economic development even before Modi’s time. Between 1991 and 2013, India recorded an average annual growth of 6.5 per cent but did not create enough jobs to attract even half of those entering the labour market.

Modi’s expectation that increased flow of foreign direct investment and his Make in India programme will boost job creation has not materialised. About 60 per cent of the FDI is in the form of private equity investment, which may fetch the investor a decent return but does not necessarily result in job creation. The Make in India programme requires skilled labour for manufacturing and high-end services. Skilled workers form only two per cent of India’s labour force.

Medium, small and micro enterprises are the backbone of the industrial sector. There are about 40 million such units and they employ about 100 million people, making them the largest provider of jobs. Falling exports and difficulties in obtaining timely credit hamper their ability to play a bigger role.

Official and unofficial studies limited to the organised sector do not give a full picture of the job situation. More than 90 per cent of the country’s working people are in the unorganised sector where wages are low and underemployment is widespread.

Although China has fallen behind India in the rate of growth of the economy, it is still ahead in job creation. According to Human Resources Minister Yin Weimin, China created more than 13 million new jobs for urban residents last year. However, the pace of job creation is slowing. The target for this year is only 10 million new urban jobs.

China’s major problem on the job front now is the rehabilitation of 1.8 million workers who are expected to be laid off by state-owned coal and steel plants as the economy switches from the investment-led model to one that relies on domestic consumption, services and innovation.

Interestingly, Arvind Panagariya, Vice-Chairman of the Niti Ayog, which has taken over the functions of the erstwhile Planning Commission, senses an opportunity for India in the Chinese downturn. He believes the high wage levels in that country will tempt manufacturers of certain items like textile and footwear to view India as an attractive alternative location.

Amartya Sen, the economist, has pointed out that India is trying to become a global economic power with an uneducated and unhealthy labour force, which has never been done before and never will be done in the future either. Clearly the government has to do more to realise its goal. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 6, 2016.

Kashmir’s shadow over SAARC

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With India-Pakistan relations deteriorating in the wake of violence in Kashmir, now in its eighth week, the fate of the 19th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, scheduled for November 9 and 10, hangs in the balance.

SAARC, which comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, together account for 21 per cent of the world’s population but only nine per cent of the global economy.

SAARC members differ vastly in size and economic strength. India with an estimated population of 1,330 million and gross domestic product of $2,073.5 billion is much larger than the other seven countries put together. Pakistan, the second largest country, has an estimated population of 194 million and GDP of $270.0 billion. The Maldives with only 371,000 people is at the bottom of the population table. Bhutan with a GDP of $2 billion has the smallest economy, but it attaches more importance to gross domestic happiness than to gross domestic product.

India-Pakistan differences have held SAARC back from time to time in some areas. A common market is one of SAARC’s objectives but Pakistani fear of Indian economic domination has stalled progress in that direction. In 1995, a ministerial meeting decided on the creation of a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) as a first step towards the goal of a common market. It was only in 2006 that an agreement in this regard went into effect. A decade later, intra-SAARC trade is still only a little more than the region’s GDP.

A South Asian motor vehicles agreement was negotiated by SAARC officials ahead of the last summit at Kathmandu in 2014 but Pakistan was not ready to sign it. Believing that it backed out as it now attaches economic integration with China more importance than South Asian economic cooperation, India decided to go ahead without it.

The relations between the two countries took a dive early this month when Laskar-e-Taiba chief called for demonstrations when Rajnath Singh visited Islamabad for a meeting of SARC Home Ministers. Rajnath Singh was flown from the airport to the meeting venue in a helicopter and he flew back immediately after the meeting without joining a lunch from which, curiously, even the host, Pakistan’s Home Minister stayed away.

Arun Jaitley stayed away from the SAARC Finance Ministers’ meeting in Islamabad last week, depriving it of much of its importance. Nevertheless, SAARC Secretary General Arjum Bahadur Thapa of Nepal called upon the group to move from SAFTA to South Asian Economic Union.

With India and Pakistan at loggerheads, speculation is rife over whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the November summit. Reports in a section of the Pakistani media have indicated that he might stay away although so far no one of consequence in India has suggested such a step is contemplated.

Modi made a personal investment in improving relations with India’s immediate neighbours when he invited the leaders of SAARC countries to his swearing-in as Prime Minister in 2014 and all, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, promptly turned up. Several setbacks followed but he demonstrated his readiness to walk the talk with an unscheduled stop at Lahore on his way home from Afghanistan to greet Sharif on his birthday.

The current wave of unrest in Kashmir began when protests erupted over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by the security forces. At least 67 persons were killed, over 6,000 injured and more than 100 blinded by pellets as youths defied the curfew. Pakistan launched a campaign against the human rights violations and India responded by raising the issue of rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Baluchistan for the first time.

Even as Modi and Chief Minister Mehmooba Mufti, whose Bharatiya Janata Party and People’s Democratic Party which are partners of the coalition that rules the state, began efforts to restore peace in the troubled valley, Nawaz Sharif deputed 22 diplomats to internationalise the issue. Under the Shimla Pact signed after the 1971 war which resulted in Bangladesh’s formation, the two countries are committed to resolve issues, including Kashmir, bilaterally without outside intervention.

Some course correction may take place sooner or later since Sharif, as the host, and Modi, as the leader of the largest member country and one who began his prime ministerhip with a commitment to friendship in the neighbourhood, have much at stake in the success of the SAARC summit. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 30, 2016.

South Asia’s Olympic blues

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As sportspersons from 206 countries put in their best and the medals table at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics started lengthening, three among the world’s most populous nations were experiencing a not-unusual drought.

By the eleventh day of the games, several hundred medals had been given away but India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which with populations currently estimated at 1,382 million, 193 million and 163 million rank second, sixth and eighth respectively in the global chart, did not figure in the medals table.

The closest they came to winning a medal was when Dipa Karmakar, the first Indian gymnast to enter the Olympics finals, finished fourth in the women’s vault event, missing the bronze by 0.15 points. It was the best Indian performance yet in gymnastics. Indians celebrated the event the way they had done when Milkha Singh missed the bronze narrowly in 400 metres at Rome in 1960 and PT Usha missed it even more narrowly in 400 metres hurdles at Los Angeles in 1984.

It was the time of the year when the Government of India announces awards for sports persons, and the awards committee recommended that Dipa be given the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, the nation’s highest sporting honour.

On the 12th day, Sakshi Malik, another young woman, ended India’s medals drought by taking the bronze in the 58 kg category of women’s freestyle wrestling. It certainly was an occasion to celebrate as she is only the fourth Indian woman to climb the Olympics podium and the first to get a wrestling medal.

“Daughter of India made us proud,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. Indians set the social networks ablaze. Haryana, Sakshi’s home state, offered her a job and a cash reward of Rs 25 million.

Mocking the celebration, Pakistani journalist Omar R Quraishi wrote: “Finally one of the 119 competitors that India sent to Rio has won a medal – a bronze – now see how they portray it as if they won 20 golds”.

As he wrote those lines, the seven Pakistani sportspersons in Rio were packing their bags to go home, having failed even to qualify to participate in the finals of their events. Pakistan’s best performance was by a woman shooter who finished 28th among 51 who participated in her event.

In its 69 years, Pakistan has won 10 medals – eight in field hockey and two in individual events. The last one was the hockey bronze of 1992.

Bangladesh, now in its 44th year, is the most populous country which has never won an Olympics medal.

British-ruled India, which included the present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, began its association with modern Olympics at the second games held at Paris in 1900. The lone participant from the country that year was Norman Pritchard, son of a British couple, who competed in four athletic events and won silver medals in two of them. He later became a Hollywood actor under the name Norman Gordon.

There was no Indian participation in the next four games. Small teams sent to the 1920 and 1924 games returned empty-handed. The 21-member contingent which went to Antwerp in 1928 included a 14-member hockey team. It snatched the gold from Britain. Thereafter the hockey gold remained an Indian preserve until 1964 except for one occasion when Pakistan took it.

On Friday, PV Sindhu earned a silver in badminton and became the first Indian woman to win an individual silver. More celebrations and rewards followed.

It was the gritty performance of two young women that saved India from the ignominy of a total washout. With their medals, India was at the 67th place when the games ended.

Why does South Asia, home to about 1.74 billion, fare so poorly when tiny Cuba, with fewer than 12 million people, bagged seven medals, including two gold and two silver? The answer is that this dismal situation is the result of social conservatism, economic constraints and political mismanagement.

Sakshi Malik and Dipa karmakar had received little support from the government and sports organisations as they battled social taboos and took to the supposedly unfeminine sports of wrestling and gymnastics. Sakshi’s first coach, Ishwar Dahiya, recalls that villagers staged protests when he started training her 12 years ago.

In evaluating Olympics performance the size of the population is not quite relevant as sportspersons come from only a small section of South Asian societies. Many disciplines require intense training for long periods, which few can afford. Most sports bodies are controlled by politicians who know little about sports. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 23, 2016.

Free country, unfree people

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As India stepped into the 70th year of Independence on Monday, large sections of the population whom the promised freedom has eluded so far served notice that they are not ready to wait any longer.

The Congress, an offshoot of the organisation which spearheaded the freedom movement and dominated the political scene for most of the post-Independence period, is now on the decline. So are other parties of pre-Independence vintage like the Communist Party of India and its offshoots.

Parties whose roots lie in movements which were not part of the freedom struggle now wield power at the Centre and in many states. Topping the list is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. It is now the largest political party.

Since Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the national flag and spoke from the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort on August 15, 1947, the Prime Minister’s address to the nation from there has been the highlight of Independence Day celebrations. States hold similar events at their capitals.

This year the Centre drew up plans for the fortnight-long celebrations with the stated purpose of rekindling the spirit of patriotism. It sought to link the traditions of the independence movement with those of the army, which the nation inherited from the colonial power.

The celebrations began with events marking the 74th anniversary of the Quit India movement, the last major agitation of the freedom struggle which Gandhi had launched in 1942 with a call to “do or die”. Seventy-five ministers of the Modi government led the events at over 150 places across the country. It was a palpable attempt to appropriate the legacy of the freedom movement in which few Hindutva leaders had participated.

Speaking at a Quit India anniversary function, Modi broke his silence on the situation in Kashmir, many parts of which have been continuously under curfew following protests over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani more than a month ago. Responding to the slogan of “Azaadi” (freedom), which resounds in the valley from time to time, he said people in Kashmir could feel the same azaadi as people in the rest of the country.

While Modi thus tacitly acknowledged that Kashmiri protesters do not have a sense of freedom, he did not go into the reasons behind it. Nor did he indicate how he proposed to create conditions in which they can feel a sense of freedom.

The presumption, implicit in the Prime Minister’s words, that outside Kashmir the people experience a sense of freedom is not entirely true.

As Modi walked up the steps at Red Fort to address the nation, several thousand Dalits converged in the small town of Una in his home state of Gujarat where on July 11 foot soldiers of Hindutva, posing as protectors of Cow the Mother, had stripped and flogged four members of the community engaged in their traditional occupation of skinning dead animals.

Worried that the Una attack and similar incidents reported from other places would harm its prospects in the forthcoming elections in the states, the BJP replaced Anandiben Patel whom Modi had installed as chief minister when he moved to Delhi.

Modi said most of the cow protectors were anti-socials. His remark angered a section of the Hindutva leadership but it did not impress the protesting Dalits. Jignesh Mevani, a Dalit activist, organised the march to Una from Ahmedabad, styled as “Azaadi kooch” (Towards Freedom).

In the troubled tribal region of Bastar in Madhya Pradesh, Soni Sori, an Adivasi activist who had suffered physical and sexual torture at the hands of the security forces, was leading a week-long march which began on August 9, the UN-designated International Day of the Indigenous People. She carried the national flag, ignoring warnings by Maoist insurgents who are active in the area.

Dalits and Adivasis together constitute one-fourth of India’s population of 1.2 billion. Outside these backward communities, too, there are large sections of marginalised people who are yet to reap the fruits of freedom. In fact, even among the rest of the population many remain unempowered. The only gift of freedom they enjoy is the right to vote in the elections.

That explains why the slogan “Azaadi” was raised by students of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University early this year. The Hindutva establishment dubbed the students traitors. JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar explained that they wanted azaadi, not from India but in India. “We want freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty, freedom from the caste system, all of that,” he said.

A free country with unfree citizens is not entirely unusual. The lack of social mobility adds a new dimension to the problem in India.

On the completion of the framing of free India’s Constitution, its chief architect and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar had pointed out that it only granted political democracy. It should be backed by social democracy, which meant recognising liberty, equality and fraternity as principles of life, he said.  -- Gulf Today, August 16, 2016

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Since the fledgling Aam Admi Party first came to power in the National Capital Territory of Delhi three years ago, its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, has been playing a high-stake game, leading to skirmishes.

In 2013, the AAP put an end to the Congress party’s 15-year-long rule in Delhi state and blocked its traditional rival, Bharatiya Janata Party, from returning to power. In the hung state assembly, it held 28 of the 70 seats, against the BJP’s 31 and the Congress party’s eight. To keep the BJP out of power, the Congress offered to back an AAP government, and Kejriwal became the chief minister.

A bureaucrat turned social activist, Kejriwal was part of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement. Breaking with Hazare who was opposed to entry into electoral politics, he formed the AAP and mobilised support for it across the country using social media.

Taking a leaf from the Hazare movement for a national anti-corruption machinery, to be known as Jan Lokpal, Kejriwal drew up a bill to set up a Jan Lokpal for Delhi. The BJP and the Congress joined hands and blocked its introduction in the state assembly. Kejriwal who had been in office for only 48 days resigned.

He called for fresh elections to the assembly along with the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The authorities did not concede the demand. In retrospect, he must be glad they rejected the demand.

Thanks to Narendra Modi’s vigorous, no-holds-barred campaign, the BJP made a clean sweep of Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats.

When fresh assembly elections were held in 2015, the Modi magic did not work. The AAP bagged 67 of the 70 seats, leaving just three for the BJP. The Congress was washed out.

Since then Kejriwal has been projecting himself as a potential challenger to Modi at the national level. On his part, Modi has not been able to forget the humiliation his party in the assembly elections. Delhi’s ambiguous constitutional status offers tremendous scope for both to act in furtherance of their personal and party interests.

Delhi, which served as the capital of many kingdoms, suffered a decline after the collapse of the Moghul regime. The British ruled the subcontinent initially from Calcutta (now Kolkata). They shifted the capital to Delhi in 1911. Twenty years later New Delhi, designed and constructed by British architect Edwin Lutyens, became the capital. 

In popular parlance, Delhi is a state, but under the Constitution it is one of seven Union Territories. Of the seven, two, Delhi and Puduchery, have elected assemblies with power to make laws applicable to their respective areas on certain subjects. With an area of 1,484 square kilometres and a population of about 25 million, Delhi is now India’s most populous city and the world’s second largest urban conglomeration.

Delhi’s unique status is based on the provisions of Articles 239AA and 239AB, which were introduced by the 69th Constitutional amendment, which was enacted in 1991, the National Capital Territory of Delhi Act of 1992 and the Transaction of Business of the Government of NCT of Delhi Rules of 1993.

Every country with a democratic system has found it necessary to devise methods to ensure that an elected body at a lower level is not able to create hurdles in the way of the federal authorities. The legislative measures of the 1990s were steps in that direction. Two factors have contributed to the present situation. One is that these are among the country’s worst drafted laws. The other is that both the BJP and the AAP are driven by political motives.

Kejriwal, who views Delhi as a springboard, is pursuing a two-fold strategy to build up a national image. He has taken some populist measures to endear himself to the people and initiated steps against some big business houses to project himself as a ruler who can act tough against the corporates. In the process, he has disregarded some of his constitutional limits.

Determined to foil Kejriwal’s plans, the Centre has used its legitimate overriding authority, exercisable through the state’s Lieutenant Governor, and sometimes even stepped beyond it. The Delhi high court recently quashed one of several cases registered by the police against AAP MLAs as the allegation was found to be false.

Kejriwal is mounting a big campaign to seize power in Punjab, where the Akali Dal-BJP government completes its term next year. The alliance and the Congress have been alternating in power in the state for decades. -- Gulf Today, August 9, 2016. 

A quarter century of reforms

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The 25th anniversary of economic reforms passed unnoticed last month. A strong votary of economic liberalisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to carry the reform process forward. There was, however, no official celebration of the jubilee.

The reform process was initiated by a Congress government. Some give Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi credit for taking the first steps in this regard. However, if the process is to be assigned a date of birth it must be July 24, 1991. On that day Dr Manmohan Singh, as Finance Minister in PV Narasimha Rao’s government, presented his first budget in which he outlined proposals to move away from the path charted by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s.

Nehru, who set before the nation the ideal of a socialist pattern of society, envisaged a mixed economy in which the private sector will have an assured place but the public sector will occupy the commanding heights. The attempt to establish a regulated private sector led to the evolution of a corrupt system which critics dubbed licence raj.

Narasimha Rao did not formally repudiate the socialist ideal, but acute economic distress compelled him to change the course. A sharp fall in the foreign exchange level had forced the country to raise money from the Bank of England by mortgaging a part of its gold reserves. Later the International Monetary Fund provided a loan to tide over balance of payments difficulties.

The reforms comprised three elements: liberalisation or freeing the economy from bureaucratic control, privatisation or divesting of state undertakings and globalisation or integration of the domestic economy with the world economy. The Left and some sections within the Congress party opposed them on ideological grounds. Businessmen who had prospered under the licence raj were not keen on changes.

In the circumstances, the Rao government and its successors chose to hasten slowly, much to the chagrin of global promoters of the new international order. As Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh too moved cautiously. Ground realities have impeded Modi’s efforts to accelerate the pace of progress in the past two years.

India began globalisation more than 12 years after China did. Today, in terms of exchange rates, China is the world’s second largest economy with a gross domestic product of $10,983 billion, after the United States with a GDP of $17,947 billion. India stands seventh with $2,091 billion. Purchasing power parity valuation puts China above the US with a GDP of $19,392 billion and India in the third position with $7,965 billion.

Manmohan Singh recalled recently that the economy had recovered faster than he had expected. Inflation came down. The balance of payments position improved.

Just as the economic progress achieved during the Mao regime stood China in good stead as it opened up, the foundations laid by Nehru provided the ballast as India ventured into choppy seas. Information Technology units’ earnings from software exports and Non-Resident Indians’ remittances helped the country stabilise the foreign exchange situation quickly after the rupee was effectively devalued.

The service sector is now the main driver of the economy. It contributed as much as 69 per cent to the GDP last year. The manufacturing sector is almost stagnant, despite Modi’s vigorous pursuit of foreign investments under his Make in India programme. Agriculture which is still the mainstay of a large section of the population recorded a meagre 1.1 per cent growth.

The flip side of the economic success story is the heavy price the poor is called upon to pay. Tribes are being dislocated from their traditional homelands to make room for industries. While the rich get away defaulting on bank loans, small and marginal farmers are driven to suicide. The Centre’s slashing of expenditure on health and education adds to the misery of the poor.

A feature of the recent economic growth is that it is not accompanied by job creation. According to the latest census report, the unemployment rate rose from 6.8 per cent to 9.6 per cent during 2001-2011. The trend continues.

What marks the post-liberalisation era apart from the past is the emergence of a middle class pleased with easy availability of consumer goods. Its seeming prosperity deflects attention from the sharp rise in inequality.

In a lecture two years ago International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said the net worth of India’s billionaire community had increased 12-fold in 15 years, “enough to eliminate the absolute poverty in this country twice over.” --Gulf Today, August 2, 2016.

New flare-up in Kashmir

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Ten days of violence touched off by the killing of Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander, by security personnel have thrown Kashmir valley into another phase of turmoil.

At least 40 persons were killed and about 3,000 injured during the protests. Police pellets hit more than 100 persons in the eye, resulting in blindness.

As I write, many areas are still under curfew and internet services remain suspended. Newspaper offices have been raided in an action reminiscent of the days of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule.

Security forces eliminated Wani in a planned operation. His home-town was cordoned off ahead of the funeral but about 40,000 people gathered to pay him homage and his comrades gave him a 21-gun salute.

Wani’s seven-year career in terrorism was not too bloody. He is said to have picked up the gun after humiliation by the police who stopped and abused him and his brother while on a joyride on a friend’s new motor bike. The brother, who was working for his Ph.D. degree, was killed last year.

Wani was wanted in four cases of shooting, none of which was fatal. Although Hizbul named him its commander, he was a home-grown militant. He did not go to Pakistan for training and he did not show signs of religious indoctrination.

The sense of outrage the valley witnessed on his death was of a kind not seen for a long time. The police response was so grossly disproportionate to the situation that the victims drew sympathy even from Kashmiri Pandits who had fled the state after terrorists targeted its members in an earlier phase of militancy.

In a statement, the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti condemned the killings and the use of pellets as a means of crowd control. It said the attacks on property left behind by Pandits were not what the Muslim majority wanted but were the work of miscreants seeking to take advantage of the situation.

Pradeep Magazine, a journalist belonging to the community, wrote: “Today, when I see that horrifying image of the young girl blinded by the violent response from the security forces, I want to respond with love, warmth and compassion to all those who have suffered in this long-drawn conflict that does no credit to either side.”

The state of Jammu and Kashmir has been subjected to contrary pulls and pressures from the dawn of Independence. Its Hindu maharaja toyed with the idea of an independent state while Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference, which led the movement against his rule, favoured accession to India. Pakistan claimed it in the name of its Muslim majority. A raid by tribesmen equipped by Pakistan, forced the maharaja to accede to India and the people rallied behind Sheikh Abdullah who took charge of the administration.

India raised the issue of Pakistani aggression in the United Nations but the West frustrated its hope of justice by equating the aggressor and the victim. Sheikh Abdullah went to the UN to defend accession to India. Pakistan produced PN Bazaz, leader of the Pandits organisation, to endorse its view that a Muslim majority state should go to it.

Sheikh Abdullah’s arrest and removal in 1953 following reports that he was seeking independence for the state with US support pitted his followers against India. They kept the plebiscite demand alive until Indira Gandhi reinstated him as Chief Minister in 1975.

A 1965 Pakistani bid to engineer an uprising using infiltrators failed due to lack of local support. Under the Shimla Pact, signed after the 1971 war which had resulted in Bangladesh’s emergence as an independent nation, India and Pakistan undertook to resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, through bilateral talks.

The 1990s witnessed a rash of terrorism directed from across the border and calls for “azaadi” resounded in the valley. Prime Minister AB Vajpayee began a healing process which continued for a while under Manmohan Singh before things went out of control again.

India has deployed a large number of troops in the state and the army has invited charges of excesses. However, in this month’s events the central and state police forces appear to have played a major role.

Wani belonged to the fourth generation of post-Independence youth. According to veteran journalist Prem Shankar Jha, who is the author of two books on Kashmir’s recent history, his killing was a self-defeating exercise. He believes Wani could have been weaned away from the path of violence and used to communicate with the angry youth.

Communal elements on both sides of the India-Pakistan border tend to view J and K as a piece of real estate. Enlightened administrations must recognise that the problem is one involving hapless victims of history. In the final analysis a lasting solution can arise only through a political process, not through clash of arms. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 19, 2016.

Era of army impunity ends

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The immunity from prosecution which security personnel deployed in insurgency-hit areas have enjoyed under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) may become a thing of the past with the Supreme Court striking a decisive blow for freedom and accountability.

AFSPA, which is in force in parts of Jammu and Kashmir and the predominantly tribal states of the northeast, stipulates that there can be no legal proceedings against personnel acting under it. There has been a plethora of allegations of human rights violations by security forces and these have led to violent protests on several states.

In an 85-page judgment, delivered last Friday, a Supreme Court bench said every death caused by the armed forces should be thoroughly enquired into. “It does not matter whether the victim was a common person or a terrorist, nor does it matter whether the aggressor was a common person or the state. The law is the same for both and is equally applicable to both,” it declared.

Rejecting the government’s claim that denial of immunity would demoralise security personnel, the court said there was no concept of absolute immunity for an army person who committed a crime.

Every person who violated prohibitory orders in a disturbed area was not an enemy, it pointed out. Even if the person was an enemy there should be an enquiry to ascertain if excessive or retaliatory force had been used. It also drew a distinction between use of force in an operation and in other situations.

It entrusted the National Human Rights Commission with the responsibility of ordering enquiry into allegations against the security forces, and named the criminal investigation department of the police as the agency to conduct the enquiry.

AFSPA’s roots go back to the colonial era. The different versions of the law in force in various states are all based on the ordinance the British promulgated in 1942 to deal with the Quit India agitation which the Congress party launched even as the Indian National Army, formed by Subhas Chandra Bose to fight alongside Japan, was moving towards the eastern border from Singapore.

The ordinance was allowed to lapse after World War II. A few years after the country gained freedom it was resurrected to grant immunity to army and paramilitary personnel called out to deal with Naga insurgency in the eastern state of Assam. It is now in force, under the name AFSPA, in Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast and in J and K.

Ordinarily, AFSPA is applicable only in areas notified as “disturbed”. Most versions of the relevant law limit the “disturbed area” notification’s validity to six months. However, some areas have been kept under AFSPA continuously for half a century by repeatedly reissuing the notification.

J and K invoked AFSPA following a spurt in insurgency in 1992. The state’s Disturbed Areas Act lapsed in 1998 but AFSPA continues to this day. The National Conference government headed by Omar Abdullah wanted AFSPA to be withdrawn but the Centre did not oblige.

The People’s Democratic Party which heads the state government now also favours withdrawal of AFSPA, but the Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the Central government and is PDP’s junior partner in the ruling coalition in the state, is a vocal supporter of the law.

The day the Supreme Court verdict on AFSPA came the security agencies announced the killing of 22-year-old Burhan Wani, said to be a home-grown Hizbul Mujahideen commander, and two associates in an encounter. At least 20 persons were killed and 200 injured as security forces fired on youths protesting against his killing.

The worst part of AFSPA is the security forces’ reluctance to part with it and the government’s readiness to honour their wishes. People in many states have been seeking the withdrawal of AFSPA for decades. Irom Sharmila, a young woman poet of Manipur, who began an indefinite fast in November 2000 demanding repeal of AFPSA and is kept alive through nasal feeding in a hospital, has become a global icon of the human rights movement.

The state of Punjab and the Union Territory of Chandigarh came under AFSPA in 1983 in the wake of the secessionist Khalistan movement. Under Congress and Akali Dal governments Punjab retained it until 1997. Chandigarh held on to it until the Punjab and Haryana High Court struck it down in 2012. Tripura’s Communist Party of India (Marxist) government lived with AFSPA for 14 years.

The apex court verdict has formally ended the era of army impunity. But more struggles in legal and other forums may be needed to make it a reality.--Gulf Today, July 12, 2016.

Menace of lawless lawyers

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Lawbreakers in advocate’s robes trying to overawe the judiciary, lower court judges resorting to trade union tactics, politicians looking on passively if not actually encouraging recalcitrant elements, and higher courts unable or unwilling to discipline the unruly – these are sure signs of evolving threats to Rule of the Law.

Such elements have surfaced in different states from time to time. In the state of Telangana, which was carved out of sprawling Andhra Pradesh two years ago following a prolonged agitation, they have all manifested themselves at the same time.

The law providing for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh stipulated that the governments of Telangana and the residuary Andhra Pradesh will both function from Hyderabad, which is in the former’s territory, until the latter built a separate capital and that the undivided Andhra Pradesh High Court based in Hyderabad would serve both the states until Telangana set up a separate high court.

The separation turned messy as the two states started squabbling over division of water and power. A new point of friction developed when the AP High Court allocated members of the lower judiciary to the two states, leading to protests by judges and lawyers in Telangana alleging the state got a raw deal. Their agitation paralysed the lower courts, causing immense hardship to litigants.

At least 130 judges allotted to Telangana are said to belong to the residuary Andhra Pradesh state. About 100 judges attended a meeting to protest against their appointment. The High Court suspended 10 agitating judges. The members of the Telangana Judicial Officers Association then threatened to resign en masse.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao joined the fray by dashing off a letter to the Centre demanding immediate setting up of a separate high court for the state. Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda’s thoughtless remark comparing Rao with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is involved in a running battle with the Centre, embittered public opinion.

Agitating lawyers taking the law into their own hands is by no means a rare phenomenon in India today.

Last October, in Tamil Nadu, a large group of lawyers held rallies on the premises of the Madras High Court in Chennai, barged into courtrooms shouting slogans and staged a sit-in outside Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul’s court while he was presiding over the proceedings. They were demanding, among other things, withdrawal of contempt proceedings against two Madurai-based leaders of the bar association. The Madurai bench of the high court had witnessed unruly scenes earlier.

According to a media report, some judges and lawyers hold that recurrence of such incidents is the result of a steady intrusion of criminal elements into the legal profession. Lawyers and policemen have clashed in the vicinity of Chennai courts on several occasions.

Tamil Nadu Bar Council Vice-Chairman PS Amalraj estimates that only 15 per cent of the state’s 80,000 advocates are involved in disruptive activities. Many of them are not practising lawyers, he says.

In an attempt to ensure purity of the justice delivery system, Madras High Court judge N Kirubakaran recently directed the Bar Council of India not to enrol as lawyers persons involved in criminal cases.

Similar incidents have been reported from other states like Uttar Pradesh too. However, the criminal records of lawyers in the states pale into insignificance when compared to pro-BJP lawyers in the national capital. Early this year, they physically assaulted Jawaharlal Nehru University Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, whom the police had charged with sedition on a dubious complaint by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a pro-BJP student organisation, on two occasions when he was produced in the courts.

They also pounced upon JNU professors who came to express solidarity with the students, media personnel who were there to cover the court proceedings and a team of senior lawyers who were deputed by the Supreme Court to watch the proceedings and report it.

The Delhi police, which is directly under the BJP-ruled Centre, remained mute spectators when the lawyers indulged in hooliganism. Rejecting media reports which referred to the lawless lawyers as goons, their spokesman claimed they were patriots!

It was easy to identify the men who assaulted Kanhaiya Kumar on the court premises as video recordings of the attack by lawyers were available. Yet, neither the Delhi police nor the Bar Council of India pursued the matter expeditiously. As a result, the culprits remain unpunished.

Scandalised by the developments which took place under its very nose, as it were, the Supreme Court warned of strong action. However, there has been no action so far.--Gulf Today, July 5, 2016.

Power play dashes NSG hopes

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has none to blame except himself for the embarrassment caused by the failure of India’s bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group last week. He had unwisely upped the ante ahead of the NSG plenary at Seoul by personally lobbying at a few world capitals, including Washington.

President Barack Obama pledged US support to India’s admission, and the government fed the media with reports that Modi had won over all the countries he had wooed. However, 10 countries blocked the path by raising objections based on India’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). They were in a minority but under the NSG rules another country can be admitted only if all 48 existing members agree.

Some analysts have suggested that the US did not work hard enough to ensure India’s admission. They point out that the US assigned comparatively low level diplomats to lobby for India. They contrast this with the direct intervention of President George W. Bush and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to secure a one-time waiver for India from the NSG regulations when it signed the civilian nuclear deal with the US in 2008.

Officially India blamed China, without naming it, for the failure of its membership bid. But countries like Switzerland, Brazil and South Africa, which were among the objectors, cannot be accused of acting at China’s behest. Switzerland had reportedly offered support when Modi visited that country but opposed it at the plenary. Brazil and South Africa, along with China, are India’s BRICS partners.

As India’s NSG campaign was gaining ground, Pakistan, which, too, has conducted nuclear tests and refused to sign the NPT, also applied for membership. Claiming to be on par with India, it argued that country-specific exemption from NPT conditions would have negative impact in South Asia. China endorsed this argument.

India refuted Pakistan’s parity claim. It pointed out that while India had scrupulously adhered to the non-proliferation principle, Pakistan was known to have made available nuclear knowhow to other countries.

On his way to Seoul to pursue India’s application, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar stopped at Beijing to soften China’s opposition. Modi who met President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at Tashkent, Uzbekistan, urged him to take a fair and objective view of India’s credentials. But these efforts were of no avail.

The Seoul setback does not spell the end of India’s bid. The NSG has named Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi to hold consultations with member countries on the issue.

What has dashed India’s hopes is power play. China’s stated position is that it is not against India’s entry but wants norms laid down for admission of non-NPT members. Evidently it wishes to hold India down at the same level as Pakistan, its all-weather friend.

Writing in the Chinese Communist Party’s English language tabloid Global Times, Fu Xiaoqiang, Director of the Institute of Security and Arms Control, said Beijing could support India’s NSG entry if it “plays by rules”. He went on to make clear what exactly he meant by playing by rules.

He said entry into NSG would make India a legitimate nuclear power. During Modi’s last visit, the US had recognised India as a major defence partner, and this meant the US was now treating it as a military ally.

He added, “Against the backdrop of Washington’s accelerated pace of promoting its pivot to the Asia Pacific region, it will be highly likely to keep supporting New Delhi’s nuclear ambitions in order to make it a stronger power to contain China.”

Beijing, he added, welcomed New Delhi playing a role as a major power in global governance and could support its path towards NSG if it stuck to its policy of independence and self-reliance.

Obviously what stands in the way is China’s perception that India has joined hands with the US against it. At home, too, there are critics who view with disfavour Modi’s willingness to align India closely with the US even as a multipolar world is emerging, which will end its status as the sole superpower.

One of the driving forces behind Modi’s NSG fixation is the desire to expand nuclear capability for civil and possibly military purposes. However, even those who share his nuclear ambitions doubt if NSG membership is important at this stage. According to former Atomic Energy Commission chairman MR Srinivasan not being a member of the NSG will not hamper the civil nuclear programme as India has signed agreements with several countries under the 2008 NSG waiver. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, June 28, 2016.

A miracle maker bows out

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, who provided a calm environment for the economy through skilful management of monetary policy, quitting in September, the path is clear for the Narendra Modi administration to bring another autonomous institution under its heel.

The rupee was falling against the dollar and inflation was ruling high when the Manmohan Singh government picked Rajan to head the RBI in 2013. He steadied the rupee and brought down retail inflation.

The rupee’s movement against the dollar was held in the narrow range of 66.02 to 67.09. The inflation rate was brought down from 10.5% to about 5% in two years. In the past year it has moved up but still remains below 6%.

Rajan worked the miracle mainly by using the RBI’s right to fix interest rates. Initially he raised the repo rate (rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial banks) and reverse repo rate (rate at which the central bank borrows from commercial banks), against the wishes of the government. After stabilising the monetary system, he reduced the interest rates, but not to the extent the government desired.

In the favourable atmosphere he created the GDP grew from 5.6% in 2012-13 to 7.6% in 2015-16, foreign exchange reserves rose from $275 billion to 363 billion and the current account deficit fell from 4.8% in 2013 to 1.1% last year.

Rajan is credited with having forecast the ongoing global financial crisis three years in advance. Speaking at a function to honour outgoing US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan he had said a disaster was ahead. Recalling his words, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said last year, “The world should have listened to him.”

Economists and financial analysts say the effect of Rajan’s departure will be felt in the years ahead. However, he disapproves of personalisation of the office and says the RBI will survive any governor.

A product of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, Rajan served as Professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund before returning to India in 2007 to head a committee on financial sector reforms. He later became Chief Economic Advisor to the Government.

At the RBI, he was often at loggerheads with the government as it kept pressing him to lower interest rates to raise the growth rate. He resisted, pointing to the high fiscal deficit and possible price rise. After the change of government, the pressure on him increased as Modi was in a hurry to push up the growth rate and usher in the good days he had promised in his campaign speeches. Rajan started relenting but the quantum of rate cut always remained below the government’s expectations.

The government responded by attempting to tamper with the RBI’s autonomy. It proposed the creation of an independent debt management office. As Rajan objected, the move was dropped.

The government then planned to transfer part of the power to regulate the bond market from the RBI to the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The SEBI’s opposition forced the government to drop that too.

Thereafter the government sought to reduce the RBI to the level of certain other financial sector regulators. The RBI’s protests resulted in stalling of the proposed changes.

The Establishment’s unhappiness with Rajan came into the open when Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy called for his removal a few months ago. He was believed to be acting at the instance of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the power behind the Modi government.

The RSS, which is quite innocent of monetary policy, was apparently incensed by his remarks on the growing intolerance after the lynching of a Muslim at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly eating beef. “Tolerance and mutual respect are necessary to improve the environment for ideas, and physical harm or verbal contempt for any group should not be allowed,” he had said in a convocation address at IIT Delhi.

The government, which habitually hypes its record, was peeved with his comparison of the Indian economy to the fabled one-eyed king of the land of the blind.

When the government constituted a search committee to find a candidate to fill the vacancy that will arise when Rajan’s tenure ends it became a clear indication that he would not get an extension. In a note to RBI staff last week he announced his decision to return to academia when his current term ends.

“My ultimate home is in the realm of ideas,” Rajan said in that note. Such a man is, no doubt, a misfit in an administration which delights in surrounding itself with mediocrities.

As Rajan takes the bow some of the tasks he began remain unfinished. One of them is cleaning up of the balance sheets of public sector banks that are weighed down by bad debts, a process he had described as a deep surgery. Another is the formulation of a monetary policy framework. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, June 21, 2016.

Move to club all elections

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working on a plan to hold the national, state and local elections simultaneously although opinion is divided on the issue.

In the early days of Independence, Lok Sabha and assembly elections were held together. They got decoupled when some assemblies were dissolved before they completed their five-year tenure and early elections held.

Today, three out of every five years are election years in many states as they go to the polls at different times to choose their Lok Sabha, assembly and local body representatives. Consequently, the parties are constantly in election mode.

The holding of Lok Sabha and assembly elections together again was mooted by Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani, who was No. 2 in the AB Vajpayee government, in 2012. He said impending elections even in a remote corner used to influence decision-making by that government. To avoid recurring periods of policy paralysis he proposed a fixed tenure for the Lok Sabha and the assemblies and simultaneous elections to them every five years.

Less than four months after Modi led the BJP to power in 2014, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice took up a study of feasibility of holding simultaneous elections. While the opposition Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar and the Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee opposed the idea, several regional parties supported it.

In its report the committee proposed holding of elections in two phases instead of one. It suggested that elections to state assemblies whose terms end within six months to one year can be held together in November 2016, when the present Lok Sabha will be at the middle of its term, and elections to the other assemblies can be held along with the Lok Sabha poll in 2019.

The committee realistically assessed that simultaneous elections “may not be feasible in 2016 or even in a decade”. Yet the government began pushing the idea immediately. Addressing a meeting of office-bearers of the BJP, Modi said clubbing together Lok Sabha, assembly and local elections would reduce the time and money spent on electioneering and allow party workers time to attend to people’s needs.

Deposing before the parliamentary committee the Election Commission had said the additional electronic voting machines and voter verifiable paper audit trail machines needed to hold LS and assembly elections simultaneously would cost about Rs 93 billion. When the Law Ministry sought its views on the committee’s report, it repeated these figures and said costs of storing the machines would also go up. The machines had to be replaced every 15 years, it added.

If elections to local bodies are also clubbed with LS and assembly elections, more equipment would be needed and the costs would go up further. The balance sheet of democracy must take into account costs that cannot be expressed in monetary terms as well.

Voters generally differentiate between elections to national, state and local bodies and pick nominees of different parties to represent them in these bodies. The results of the recent elections in Delhi and Bihar bear this out.

Voters in all seven of Delhi’s LS constituencies chose BJP candidates in 2014. The party led in 60 of the state’s 70 assembly segments. But in the assembly elections that followed the people voted overwhelmingly for the Aam Admi Party. It bagged 67 of the 70 assembly seats. The BJP got only three.

In 2014, the BJP won 22 of Bihar’s 40 LS seats, as against only 12 in 2009, and the party led in 122 of the 243 assembly segments. But in last year’s assembly elections it got only 53 seats, as against 91 five years earlier.

Modi is pursuing for simultaneous elections because it would help his party. Studies have shown that when elections are held together 77% of the assembly constituencies produced a winner from the same party. This means if simultaneous elections were held in 2014 the BJP might have won up to 46 assembly seats in Delhi and 93 in Bihar.

According to former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi, though good in principle simultaneous elections seem to be an idea fraught with constitutional issues and administrative problems. He posits a scenario of the Lok Sabha getting dissolved in 13 days, as happened in 1998, and all assemblies being dissolved to hold simultaneous elections.

Fixed tenure may work well in a presidential system, but is unsuited for a multi-layered parliamentary democracy. Simultaneous elections may reduce costs but they will extract a heavy price by distorting the popular will. -Gulf Today, Sharjah, June14, 2016, -

A reality check on Chabahar

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The deals India struck with Iran and Afghanistan during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visits to these countries have led to brouhaha at home and disquiet in Pakistan. The two sides appear to be exaggerating their hopes and fears.

While in Tehran last month, Modi committed $500 million for the development of Chabahar port in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province, which adjoins Pakistan’s Balochistan province. India, Iran and Afghanistan signed a trilateral agreement to create a transport and transit corridor.

The port and the corridor will free landlocked Afghanistan from dependence upon Pakistan for trade with India and other countries. They will provide India with access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan. They will also help boost Iran’s trade.

Last week, on his way to Qatar and the United States, Modi made his second visit to Afghanistan in less than six months. On the occasion, he inaugurated the India-Afghanistan Friendship Dam in Herat province, built at a cost of nearly $300 million, to replace the Salma dam which was damaged during the civil conflict. It will irrigate 75,000 hectares of land and help generate 42 mw of power.

India is one of the largest benefactors of war-torn Afghanistan. It has so far spent more than $1 billion in reconstruction projects and humanitarian aid in the country. While leaving, Modi tweeted, “The dam is a generator of optimism and belief in the future of Afghanistan.”

Chabahar is barely 70 km from Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan province where China is building a port under an agreement of 2012. It is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Many in India view Chabahar and the trilateral trade and transit corridor as a riposte to Gwadar and CPEC.

There is unrest in both Iranian and Pakistani parts of Balochistan. Iran has accused Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) of fomenting trouble on its side of the border and Pakistan has alleged that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is aiding dissidents in its territory.

According to Pakistani authorities, Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian national whom they are holding on espionage charges, was working for RAW. Indian authorities say he is a former navy officer and he was in Chabahar as a businessman.

Against this background, it is not surprising that the trilateral project has set alarm bells ringing in Pakistan. Speaking at a seminar in Islamabad, Asif Yasin Malik and Nadeem Lodhi, both retired lieutenant generals who had also served as Defence Secretary, said it posed a security threat to Pakistan. Malik asked the government to take diplomatic measures to avoid Pakistan’s isolation. Lodhi suggested using China’s influence to fix the problem.

There is a bit of irony in the generals’ response. Pakistan has been without a full-time Foreign Minister for some time and in any case the army has been formulating foreign policy in respect of neighbouring countries.

Iran’s Ambassador in Pakistan, Mehdi Honerdoost, has revealed that the Chabahar project was first offered to China and Pakistan but they showed no interest in it.

The euphoric as well as alarmist response to Chabahar stems from conventional political and military wisdom, and overlooks the new concepts of strategic relationships being put into practice the world over.

Iran, which has just emerged from years of Western sanctions, is estimated to have 9.3 per cent of the world’s oil reserves and 18.2 per cent of the gas reserves. It is eager to make up for lost time and claim its due place in the global economy.

Significantly, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran hailed the Chabahar agreement as not only an economic document but also a political and regional one. Ambassador Mehdi Honerdoost, while recalling that China and Pakistan had rejected Chabahar, said they could still come in. Iran needed more partners for the project, and “Pakistan, our brotherly neighbour, and China, a great partner of Iranians and a good friend of Pakistan, are both welcome,” he added.

A joint statement issued when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Iran in January had identified development of ports as a possible area of cooperation. In a commentary on the India-Iran agreement on Chabahar, the Chinese Communist Party’s English-language newspaper Global Times observed that China might be a major beneficiary of the port.

Khursheed Kasuri, considered the most successful of Pakistan’s recent foreign ministers, has said the present situation has arisen because the country’s civilian government and military leadership are not on the same page. That is a problem which Pakistan should resolve in its own interest. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, June 7, 2016.

Racism raises its ugly head

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A few incidents of attacks on African nationals in and around New Delhi, one of which resulted in the death of a young man from Congo, has turned the spotlight on the ugly face of racism. Though officials are in a state of denial, conscientious Indians accept that racialism is a reality.

Masunda Kitada Oliver, 23, a graduate student who supported himself working as a French tutor, was beaten to death by three men on May 20. Police said the attack followed a late-night quarrel over hiring of an auto-rickshaw. Two men were immediately taken into custody but 10 days later the third remains untraced.

The African embassies decided to stay away from the Africa Day celebrations by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) on May 25 in protest and to advise their governments not to send new students to India. There were retaliatory attacks on a few Indian grocery shops in Congo. All this forced External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to act.

She sent out tweets to assuage African feelings and depa Dayuted her junior colleague, VK Singh, to talk to the envoys. Singh offered to meet the envoys once in three months to discuss the problems African nationals experienced.

The envoys were assuaged enough to drop the planned Africa Day boycott. Officials said the minister of state would do an outreach event with African students, along with the embassies concerned, each quarter to reassure them of their safety. But African outrage did not subside. The Association of African Students (ASA) in India scheduled a demonstration in the capital today (May 31) to “get justice and help prevent more tears”.

The official response was too little and too late. Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to deplore the violence. Sushma Swaraj erred in leaving it to VK Singh, who, as a former Army chief, is no credible guarantor of human rights, to interact with the African envoys. Singh used the opportunity to settle scores with his pet aversion, the non-complaisant media.

Last Thursday, six Africans were attacked with sticks and cricket bats in a Delhi suburb. The victims included a Nigerian priest attached to a local church, a Ugandan woman who runs a salon and a Cameroonian businessman who was in the city for a surgery.

The priest said this was the third time he was attacked. This suggests he may have been targeted on religious grounds.

However, some local residents said there was resentment over the Africans playing loud music.

The police met residents’ association members and asked them not to misbehave with foreigners living in the area. They also met representatives of the Africans and advised them not to play loud music at night.

The Delhi incidents are a manifestation of the deep-rooted prejudice in the society, which the authorities refuse to acknowledge. African nationals are stereotyped as fraudsters and drug addicts. Racist epithets are hurled at them.

Typical of the authorities’ insensitivity to racism is Tourism and Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma’s comment that the Delhi lynching was unfortunate but “even Africa is not safe”. To prove the point, he said when he went to South Africa he was not allowed to go for walks for reasons of security.

In February, a Tanzanian woman was attacked in the city of Bangalore following a road accident. One of the men held in connection with the incident was a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Two years ago Somnath Bharti, Minister in the Aam Admi Party government of Delhi state, personally led a raid on a house occupied by Ugandans accusing them of drug addiction and prostitution.

The first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had instituted a scholarship scheme to enable young Africans to study in India. Graduates of Indian universities occupied important positions when their countries became free. Many of them had experienced discrimination on the campuses but did not encounter violence.

The ICCR still offers several hundred scholarships to African students. With private universities attracting paying students in large numbers, many cities now have hundreds of African students. Complaints of discrimination are common.

Racism in India is an extension of the centuries-old exclusionary caste system. The demand for fair brides in matrimonial advertisements bear out the ingrained colour prejudice. White foreigners rarely encounter hostility.

The current spurt in racist attacks coincides with the increasing incidence of violence against Dalits, Adivasis and minorities in the wake of the rise of the Hindutva ideology, predicated on the concept of Us and Them. People from the northeastern states, who constitute a racial minority, have come under attack in Delhi and Bangalore in the recent past.

Modi, who played host to 41 African heads of state and governments in New Delhi last year, is due to visit South Africa and Mozambique this year. He must think of some clean-up job at home before that. -- Gulf Today, May 31, 2016.