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THE HINDU IMPORTANT EDITORIALS OF JULY – 2019

01-JULY-2019

A THUMBS DOWN TO UNILATERALISM

The U.S. is acting in defiance of agreed rules to target India’s WTO-

consistent policies

Economic relations between India and the United States are on a knife-edge after

the U.S. took a series of unilateral actions against India’s exports, that began in 2018,

followed by India’s recently announced retaliatory move of increasing tariffs on 28

products imported from its largest trade partner. As a result of these developments,

India has become the Trump administration’s most significant target after China.

No one could have summed up the essence of the U.S.’s unhappiness over India’s

policies as well as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his recent statement in

New Delhi. He said, “The United States has been clear we seek greater market access

and the removal of trade barriers in our economic relationship.” Soon after, U.S.

President Donald Trump sought withdrawal of tariff increases effected recently by

India, saying that for years, India has “put very high tariffs against the United States”.

What needs to be noted is while similar complaints have been made by successive

U.S. administrations over the past few decades, the tone and tenor of the Trump

administration has distinctly upped the ante.

Some background

Let us recall some of the major instances where the U.S. has questioned India’s trade

and other related economic policies. In the past, U.S. agencies — in particular, the

Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the United States

International Trade Commission (USITC) — have “investigated” India’s trade

policies, the conclusions of which have been used by the administration to demand

changes in policies that would benefit American businesses. The latest demands

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stem from two extensive USITC investigations which were conducted between 2013

and 2015 on India’s trade, investment, and industrial policies.

These investigations were carried out at the request of the U.S. House Committee

on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance “under section

332(g) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1332(g)) regarding Indian industrial policies

that discriminate against U.S. imports and investment for the sake of supporting

Indian domestic industries, and the effect that those barriers have on the U.S.

economy and U.S. jobs”. The first of these investigations, the report of which was

submitted towards the end of 2014, covered only the opening months of the first

Narendra Modi government, following which a second request was made by the two

Congressional Committees to investigate the performance of the government in its

first year in office. This report was submitted in September 2015.

Propriety and procedures

The main message that was conveyed by these investigations was that American

businesses strong disapproved several of India’s key policies on trade and

investment and that these policies had to be amended. Although in 2014, the USITC

seemed to support the direction of the Modi government’s economic policies in its

first few months, in the second report, which covered the government’s first year in

office, the familiar tone of disagreement over India’s trade and investment policies

appeared once again. The investigations conducted by the U.S. agencies raise

several issues of propriety, procedures and substance. These three dimensions need

to be understood well for this is the only way in which the Government of India can

prepare appropriate responses to the persistent questioning by the U.S.

administration of its trade and investment policies.

The first is the issue of propriety. It is important to mention here that all of India’s

trade-related policies (which include intellectual property rights that were

investigated and questioned in the two USITC reports were done under the cover of

the U.S.’s domestic laws. This is tantamount to unilateralism, the response to which

should be an unequivocal “no” in this age of multilateralism, where differences on





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policy issues between sovereign countries must be resolved in the appropriate

multilateral forums. The possibilities of a stronger power using unilateral means

should be eliminated. It is in this spirit that the General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade (GATT) was established as an integral part of the post-war global economic

governance. GATT was replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.

The areas that were investigated by the USITC during the two investigations were

also those that are covered by the WTO. Therefore, propriety and global trade rules

demanded that the concerns of American businesses about India’s policies had to

be addressed within the WTO through consultations among the members. The main

purpose of the GATT/WTO is to provide a forum for the resolution of disputes by

following multilaterally agreed rules. The global community agrees that this would

be the best way of preventing countries from getting into trade wars, which had

pushed the global economy into the depression of the 1930s. The only country

disagreeing with this position is the U.S.; it seems intent on pushing its trade

partners into trade wars.

Flawed step

Now to the procedure of conducting the investigations. This was deeply flawed for

it provided a platform for vested interests in the U.S. to make common cause against

India’s policies. What is more, in these investigations, U.S. government agencies

have been not only acting as the judge and the jury but also actively engaged in

getting the findings of the investigations implemented.

As mentioned earlier, the substance of the investigations touched trade-related

issues that are covered by the WTO agreements. Since the establishment of the

WTO, India’s policies have mostly been consistent with its commitments; where they

have not been, other WTO members, including the U.S., have approached the

dispute settlement body of the organisation to make India fall in line.

The fact that the U.S. is not approaching the WTO to challenge India’s trade and

investment policies that American businesses find detrimental to their interests

implies the following: India’s largest trade partner is acting in defiance of agreed





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rules to target India’s WTO-consistent policies. Take, for instance, India’s high tariffs

which have left Mr. Trump greatly perturbed. These tariffs were agreed to in the

Uruguay Round negotiations in consultation with all members of the organisation.

Moreover, in the period since, India has lowered tariffs on many agricultural and

industrial products. Contrast this with the U.S.’s position wherein it continues to

defend its high levels of agricultural subsidies which are used for lowering

commodity prices to levels at which no other country can have access to its domestic

market. Thus, the U.S. does not need tariffs to protect its agriculture; it uses

subsidies, instead. The WTO also informs us that the U.S. also uses very high tariffs

on tobacco (350%), peanut (164%) and some dairy products (118%).

What is at the core

The India-U.S. discord over trade stems from a deep-seated desire of U.S. businesses

to have a bigger footprint in the Indian economy, and to achieve this goal, the

administration is stepping beyond legitimate means. This discord defies Mr.

Pompeo’s simplistic formulation that “great friends are bound to have

disagreements”. In fact, the basis of the discord lies in the way the U.S. has been

targeting India’s policies, disregarding the rule of law. Early resolution of this discord

seems difficult as the U.S. has decided to undermine the WTO’s dispute settlement

mechanism and walk down the path of unilateralism instead. Under these

circumstances, the Government of India would have focus on two fronts: to remain

engaged with its largest trade partner and to also engage actively with the global

community to make the U.S. understand the imperatives of a rules-based trading

system.





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02-JULY-2019

IS THERE A CASE FOR FREE RIDES FOR WOMEN?

Revenues from appropriately charging personal transport can make

public transport cheap

Women may soon get to travel for free on buses and Metro trains in Delhi. This

gender-based public transport fare subsidy programme, announced by the Aam

Aadmi Party government, has not been tested anywhere in India in the past.

Proponents claim that the policy will protect and liberate women. Critics argue that

it is financially unviable and unfair. As polarised debates over the intent and impact

of the policy continue, it is useful to assess whether this idea, in principle, has any

merit.

Subsidies to the disadvantaged

Cities often provide public transport fare subsidies to all or some citizens to

encourage them to use public transport, or for easing their travel cost burdens.

Singapore, for example, offers a discount to rail commuters who are willing to travel

before the morning rush-hour. Public transport is free for residents in Estonia.

Luxembourg, with a population of about 600,000, has made public transport free for

those under the age of 20. Paris, with a population of over 2 million, has announced

a comparable plan. Hong Kong has implemented a public transport fare concession

scheme for people aged 65 years or more. Berlin offered women a 21% ticket

discount for one day in March this year to highlight the gender wage gap. In India,

however, urban transport fare discounts are less common, although concessions for

seniors, students, and other socioeconomic groups are available for government-

operated flights and long-distance railway services.

Fare discounts intend to make public transport truly public as some people are at a

relative disadvantage in urban transportation markets due to their unique social,

economic, and health circumstances. Article 13 in the United Nations’ Universal

Declaration of Human Rights recognises freedom of movement as a basic human





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right. If we consider transportation as a fundamental social need and providing

mobility for the transportation-disadvantaged as our collective responsibility, then

any urban transport policy should include subsidies targeted at the disadvantaged.

Specific supply-side investments or fare price discounts to help the disadvantaged

travel, conduct activities and prosper are therefore justified. Public transport may

even need to be free for some. In this context, let’s take the case of women.

Women in India travel far less than men, and this has significant impacts on their

education, employment, and enjoyment. A study in Delhi found that college girls,

compared to boys, chose lower ranked colleges with safe and reliable transport

access. Similarly, an estimated 60% of women workers in India choose to work from

home or at a place which is less than a km from home, according to the 2011 Census.

The remaining working women tend to rely excessively on public transport,

according to a World Bank Study conducted in Delhi. An RTI application revealed

that, in 2013, only 13% of Delhi driving licences were issued to women. These

findings are suggestive of gender differences in travel choices and patterns.

Wage discrimination, gender segregation in employment, and household labour

divisions contribute to gender inequality in transportation. Because men’s jobs are

considered to be more valuable, they tend to own the household vehicles and

commute privately. This lopsided rationing of household transport budgets also

results in women taking slower commute options to save on expenses. When Delhi

Metro hiked fares last year, around 70% of women surveyed in a study suggested

that they would have to choose a less safe travel option for work, or travel less.

Compromises on education and jobs for travel purposes is one of the reasons for

women earning less than men, leaving the workforce, and consequently being more

cash-poor than men. Finally, limited money to travel also means that women are

willing to forgo hospital visits, significantly affecting their health.

There may be a case for free or discounted public transport for women. A subsidy

like this is most likely to benefit women who might consider taking up jobs for which

they are better suited but are further away from home. Women can engage in a

range of activities that promote their well being. Free public transport can therefore





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bring more women to public spaces, and, consequently, make those spaces safer for

women.

The high cost of free rides

Two questions remain. Who will pay for the subsidies aimed at the transportation-

disadvantaged? And will such subsidies make it difficult for public transport to

achieve its other major goal — reducing car use and cleaning up the air?

To address these questions, we must first recognise that personal motorised vehicle

travel is highly subsidised globally, including in India. Believe it or not, driving is

cheap. Car and motorised two-wheeler users are not required to pay for the full

costs their travel choices inflict on society in the form of traffic congestion,

environmental pollution, and distortions in urban form. Promotion of cleaner fuels

and vehicle-sharing can reduce but not eliminate the costs. Indian cities must

consider pricing interventions such as congestion charges, mileage-based road use

charges, parking charges, and higher petrol taxes so that private driving costs better

reflect full social costs. London and Stockholm, for example, have been charging for

congestion for over a decade. Such measures, in addition to discouraging driving,

can help governments generate funds for expanding, improving, and operating

relatively cleaner transportation alternatives such as public transport. Better public

transport service is key to getting people out of cars, reducing air pollution, and

making cities more liveable. It is possible that revenues from appropriately charging

personal motorised travel will be sufficient to make travel by public transport cheap

or free for the transportation-disadvantaged, without any additional public subsidy

requirement.

Even if free public transport for women makes economic sense and seems fair,

would all women support the policy? Informal surveys conducted after the Delhi

government’s announcement suggests that women are divided in their preference

for the policy. Women who feel this policy treats them as lesser citizens should have

the choice to opt out. Whether a free public transport pass for women should be





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income-based is unclear; means-testing for a public transport fare concession

programme may not be worth the effort.

Finally, this debate is not for Delhi alone. It’s time that all Indian cities crafted

efficient, effective, fair, and context-specific public transport policies. Men and

women do not enjoy equal freedom to move in India, and policymakers should act.

03-JULY-2019

RECLAIMING THE SPACE OF NON-VIOLENCE

Civil society must reinvent Gandhi as a political philosopher in the

struggle against violence that has crushed solidarities

The Bharatiya Janata Party government took over barely a month ago, and already

a spate of attacks on the minority community, particularly the horrific incident in

Jharkhand, have further scarred the body politic. Citizens who have some notion of

what we owe other people merely because they are human, have protested in

words, verse, and deed. I am not positing a causal relationship between this

government and rising incidents of crime against minorities: merely pointing out a

striking coincidence.

A handful of criminals hold the minorities to ransom. They hold our society to

ransom. The poet Gulzar had written: ‘Phir giri gardan, sar katne lage/Log bat te hi,

khuda batne lagey/Naam jo poochey koi..dar lagta hai/Ab kise pooje koi… dar lagta

hai/Kitni baar sooli par mujhe tangaa hai chand logon ne’. Once again necks have

fallen/once again heads are hacked off/People have been divided/now Gods are also

divided/If someone asks my name I am petrified/Who shall I now worship? I am

frightened/How many times will a handful of people string me up on a stake?

There was a time when beef politics was used as an excuse to target and murder.

The ban on beef was satirised by the poet Saghar Khayyami thus; ‘Nafraton ki jung

mein dekho to kya-kya hogaya/Sabziyan Hindu huin, bakra musalman ho gaya’. Just

see what has happened in this war of hate, vegetables have become Hindu and the



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goat is now Muslim. Today these vicious hoodlums do not need an excuse. They

lynch, injure and murder at will.

TIME FOR CONTEMPLATION

It is time to reflect on what these everyday incidents of violence do to us. It is time

to reclaim the space of non-violence that has been under relentless attack by

murderers who take the name of lord Ram to kill, photograph and celebrate killings.

It is time to ask this: What exactly does violence do to a society? Why is violence bad

politics?

When the ‘finger of violence writes the alphabet of power in blood on peoples’

bodies, the script is ineffaceable; the imprint it leaves on the body politic is indelible.

Violence leaves stigmata much like the murder of Duncan left blood on Lady

Macbeth’s hands’: ‘Will these hands ne’er be clean?’ The power of violence over

/human beings cannot be underrated. It is not a weapon that we pick up and discard

at will. It is a ‘quagmire that relentlessly sucks people into its murky depths. From

here there is no escape. When violence holds individuals and groups in thrall, moral

disintegration follows’. We, the people of India become helpless spectators of

violent acts committed on our fellow citizens.

We are not the cowards that surround a vulnerable human being, bully and lynch

him to death. Violence is the spectacle, we are the consumers of these nauseating

acts even if we do not want to. These acts belong to the world of Marquis de Sade;

the sexual impulse is indisputably connected to violence. Today these acts have

become our world. And we have become as defenceless as the victim.

RECREATING SATYAGRAHA

Some of us protest, write petitions, assemble, record our disgust, abhorrence, and

pain. Does the government listen? It is time that we in civil society stand up and

recreate Gandhi’s notion of Satyagraha. Satyagraha differs from methods of violent

action, because it emphasises self-suffering. The eyes of our people might be

opened, as Gandhi suggested, by the suffering of the satyagrahi. Gandhi opts for





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self-suffering rather than make another person suffer, for many reasons. This mode

of politics impacts the collective consciousness.

As people begin to reflect on and analyse the injustice to which they and their fellow

citizens have been subjected to, an injustice that needs to be battled, they also come

to think about the methods that should be used to battle these injustices. In the

process, they are politicised and motivated to act. And this Gandhi felt was

revolutionary because public opinion becomes a vital force, challenges injustice, and

challenges the government for its acts of omission.

This course of action demands courage. Distinguishing satyagraha from passive

resistance and other forms of civil disobedience, Gandhi suggested that the

philosophy is not a weapon of the weak. It demands tremendous moral strength and

fortitude because it commands that we relentlessly battle with injustice with

steadfastness, commitment, fearlessness, and willingness to accept punishment.

The philosophy of satyagraha enlightens the mind, but, more importantly, it gives to

us a theory of action. In the process, the agent becomes aware of the distinction

between what is right and what is wrong, gets sensitised to injustice and the need

to fight for justice against the abuse of power. She becomes aware of the virtues of

non-violence. She makes the transition from an audience that consumes violence to

an agent of change. It is only then that the Indian people will come into their own,

and we will recreate the freedom struggle as a second freedom struggle.

For this we must realise that if we wish to lead a good life, we can only do so in a

good society, a society that understands the value of the human being irrespective

of her religion. But violence diminishes us in many ways; it reduces our humanity.

Violence befuddles and reduces us to inaction. Non-violence illumines our minds. It

is only then that we the people of India can transit from being spectators to

participants in the second freedom struggle

Gandhi rejects violence for two reasons. Violence stems from the conviction that the

perpetrators of violence are right, or that they know the truth. Their truth —

whether this truth is what the world is about, or what the position of different



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individuals in this world should be, or how the world should be organised, or how

relationships in this world should be patterned, or how the world should be

perceived — has to be imposed on others. The logical corollary of this premise is

that the other appears before them as a lesser human being, or as not fully human.

SEARCH FOR TRUTH

But we can never know what the truth is. We have to search for the truth, because

truth or in Hindi, sat, is not an object, it is a state of being. Since none of us know

the truth, we have to search together. None of us has the competence to punish

other people through violent words, deeds, or even thoughts.

There is a stronger argument that Gandhi makes for negating violence. In the

western tradition, we ought to treat others in the same way as we would like to be

treated. According to the Hindu doctrine of Advaita or non-dualism, Gandhi argued

that those who hurt others assault their own integrity. Others are ourselves in a

different form. Let us reflect on this.

Gandhi negated violence, because he saw it as reducing citizens to consumers,

because it presupposes a flawed conception of the truth, and because it ultimately

harms the perpetrator. Civil society has to reinvent Gandhi, we have to make him

relevant not as the Mahatma but as a political philosopher who guides us in our

struggle against the senseless violence that has crushed our sentiments and our

solidarities. This is the objective of the second freedom struggle.

04-JULY-2019

BUDGET 2019 NEEDS TO GIVE THE ECONOMY A MUCH NEEDED

STIMULUS

The economy needs a stimulus and the Budget has to push for growth

while ensuring fiscal responsibility

Faltering GDP growth, a consumption slowdown, a truant monsoon that has already

hit kharif sowing, global trade tensions and a freeze in the credit market that has set





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alarm bells ringing across the financial system. This is the backdrop to the maiden

Budget of the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman.

WALKING A TIGHTROPE

The Minister has had less than a month to work on this crucial Budget which is

expected to work its magic on the economy. Ms. Sitharaman’s position is

unenviable. She has to push for growth, which means stimulus measures, but also

stay fiscally responsible, which means sticking to the fiscal deficit glide path. This

balance is almost impossible to achieve in an environment where tax revenues do

not offer enough support for a stimulus package.

The questions before Ms. Sitharaman are simple: Should she opt to stimulate

consumption in the economy even if it means putting the fiscal deficit glide path in

temporary cold storage? If yes, what is the best way to do that?

Following from the above are subsidiary questions such as these: Will the resultant

higher borrowings crowd out the private sector borrowers and push up market

interest rates at a time when the monetary authority is driving rates down? What

will be the impact on inflation? Should the stimulus be in the form of cutting taxes

and putting more money in the hands of the consumer? Or should it be in the form

of even higher spending on infrastructure that will have definite fiscal spin-offs? And

what about welfare spending? The government has already announced an

expansion of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana that will take away

₹87,500 crore this fiscal. And there are many other pet schemes of this government

that need to be funded.

GROUND REALITIES

To be sure, the answers are not easy. But just consider these. GDP growth fell to

5.8% in the fourth quarter of 2018-19, with important industry segments reporting

a fall in growth. Sales of automobiles, the bellwether for the larger economy, has

been sliding since October last year and in the first quarter of this fiscal, sales



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volumes are down by about 18%. Fast moving consumer goods, two-wheeler and

consumer durables manufacturers are all reporting dull rural sales.

Real estate and construction, one of the biggest job creators in the economy, have

been in stupor for several months and are a direct cause of the credit freeze in the

markets now. It is clear that the bottom has fallen off consumption demand,

something reflected in the annual results of a host of companies in the consumer

sector.

Given these, there is little doubt that the economy needs a stimulus. The downside

to the government embarking on this path is clear. Direct tax revenue growth failed

to meet budgeted levels in 2018-19, falling short by ₹82,000 crore from the target

of ₹12 lakh crore. Goods and Services tax collections, though rising, are still not

stabilising at the required level of between ₹1,00,000 and ₹1,10,000 crore a month.

It will be next to impossible for the government to meet its over-ambitious tax

estimates in the interim Budget for 2019-20. And then there are the bills to pay from

last year to the Food Corporation of India and a couple of other public sector

undertakings which helped the government ‘achieve’ the fiscal deficit target last

year.

PROS AND CONS OF OPTIONS

There are a few options that the government can consider for off-balance sheet

financing. First, go big on asset sales. The interim Budget had earmarked ₹90,000

crore from disinvestment but if the government is able to successfully pull off the

Air India sale, it would be almost half-way there. There are a host of other

government companies that can be sold off to raise the targeted proceeds.

Second, a one-time transfer from the Reserve Bank of India’s reserves, which is

under the consideration of the Bimal Jalan Committee. However, if reports of the

committee’s deliberations are to be believed, it may be futile for the government to

hope for a major windfall here. The committee will anyway submit its report well

after the Budget is presented.



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Third, 5G spectrum auctions. While there is reason to hope for some support here,

it is unlikely that it would materialise this fiscal. The telecom companies are still

licking their wounds from the combined effect of past excesses and bruising

competition in the market. Their appetite, as it is, is poor for any more spectrum. So

pushing through a 5G auction now would be disastrous.

That leaves us with just one option — that of increasing borrowings which will, of

course, mean curtains for the fiscal deficit target of 3.4% this fiscal. Higher

government borrowings may elbow the private sector borrowers out.

Increased borrowings by the government will have the unintended negative

consequence of pushing up market rates which is something that the government

would not desire. And then, of course, there will be questions to answer from

Standard & Poors and Moody’s which are certain to take a dim view of the fiscal

indiscretion.

But then there is some good news too. Thanks to the recent directive of the stock

market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India directing mutual funds

to put away 20% of their liquid scheme investments in government securities, a new

market opens up for the government. Whether it is deep enough to absorb the

increased borrowings is a matter of detail but it can certainly cushion the market to

some extent.

Second, yields on government securities are at around 6.82% currently. So even a

10 or 20 basis point rise due to higher borrowings may not cause much dissonance.

The market is aware of the difficult circumstances now and should be able to take

this in its stride.

As for the ratings agencies, the government needs to be in dialogue with them,

reiterate its commitment to fiscal discipline and reassure them that this is a

temporary aberration.



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ON STIMULUS

So, once the decision is made to be accommodative, Ms. Sitharaman’s problem will

be to identify the best way to impart stimulus. There are two choices — either to cut

taxes and let consumers to go out and spend the excess. Or just borrow and spend

on asset creation in infrastructure. Given that there is a serious slowdown in

consumer-facing sectors, the better option may be to put more money in the hands

of consumers.

A good option to consider would be adjusting income tax slabs and increasing

deductions under Section 80C which is a measly ₹2 lakh now. Better still would be

to increase the interest deduction for housing loans which would also give a boost

to the real estate market. These measures would run counter to the reform

objective of easing out all exemptions and lowering rates. But then that is under

examination by the Direct Tax Code (DTC) panel; the concessions given now will

automatically become a temporary measure assuming that the DTC is soon

implemented.

The fall in tax revenues from the concessions will be eventually made up

downstream from indirect taxes if consumers spend the extra money in their hands.

The choice to borrow and spend is indeed a difficult one but in the current

circumstances this may be inevitable. Fiscal conservatives are bound to frown at this

and there would be dire warnings of the consequences of not adhering to the fiscal

deficit commitment. The best answer is that this government now has five years to

make up for the indulgence. Will Ms. Sitharaman go the whole way?





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05-JULY-2019

BLUE-SKY VISIONS: ON ECONOMIC SURVEY 2018-19

The ambitions of the Economic Survey depend on the implementation of

its ideas

The Economic Survey for 2018-19 reflects the views of its principal author, Chief

Economic Adviser (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian. And the CEA has made bold to

use the new government’s first economic assessment-cum-agenda setting exercise

to posit a range of ideas that he attributes to “blue sky thinking”. From an embrace

of a “world that is in constant disequilibrium”, and the need therefore to adapt to

it, to the stress on drawing upon Richard Thaler’s work in the behavioural economics

of ‘nudge’ for addressing issues including gender equality, savings and tax

compliance, the survey attempts to reset multiple paradigms. The broad goal is to

help drive economic strategy to achieve sustained real GDP growth of 8% so as to

enable fulfilment of the government’s grand vision of making India a $5 trillion

economy by 2025. For that, the first task is to take stock of the economy’s current

state. The CEA is cautiously confident that the slump in investment, which he rightly

identifies as the key driver of growth, jobs and demand, has bottomed out. Setting

the huge electoral mandate for the government as an enabler that would “push the

animal spirits of the economy”, the survey projects real GDP growth to rebound to

7% in 2019-20. But the CEA doesn’t shy away from flagging ‘consumption’ as being

crucial in determining the growth trajectory in the current fiscal year, and in pointing

out its vulnerability to the health of the monsoon-dependent rural economy. With

rainfall as on July 3 about 28% less than average and large parts of southern and

western India in the grip of a crippling drought, clearly the circumspection appears

well warranted.

On the fiscal front, the survey is even less optimistic. It lists several challenges to

achieving the fiscal deficit target of 3% of GDP by March 2021: the “apprehensions

of slowing of growth” and the implications for revenue collections; the shortfall in

GST collections and the imperative that it places on revenue buoyancy this year; the





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hunt for resources to fund the expanded PM-KISAN scheme, Ayushmaan Bharat and

other government initiatives; and the impact on oil purchase prices due to the U.S.

sanctions on import of crude from Iran. It is, however, on the policy prescriptions

front that the CEA comes into his own. Central to the recommendations is the focus

on triggering a self-sustaining “virtuous cycle” of savings, investment and exports.

To achieve which, he suggests, presenting data as a ‘public good’, ensuring policy

consistency and reducing the cost of capital. Micro, small and medium enterprises

must be nourished, especially firms that are most likely to boost both job creation

and productivity, and labour laws made flexible. Ultimately, it is the implementation

that may well decide how “blue sky” these ideas are.

06-JULY-2019

UNION BUDGET 2019-20: BUCKS FOR THE BANKS

The Union Budget is hoping to spur the economy by revitalising the

financial sector

The maiden budget of Nirmala Sitharaman has many interesting features, but it does

not have a defining central theme. There were expectations of a big growth push

through either tax cuts or large expenditure programmes even if it meant a rise in

the fiscal deficit. But the Finance Minister has chosen to be fiscally conservative,

opting to play the long-term game, though it could lead to pain in the short term.

The only indulgence she has permitted herself is a big ₹70,000 crore capital infusion

in banks that will, it is hoped, spur lending to growth sectors in the economy. Also,

quite notably, the budget has sought to address the problems that have plagued the

non-banking finance companies space over the last few months and the consequent

credit freeze and loss of confidence in the market. Ms. Sitharaman has

comprehensively addressed the important issues of liquidity, solvency and poor

governance in the NBFC sector. She has made available a liquidity window of ₹1 lakh

crore to public sector banks through the Reserve Bank of India to buy pooled assets

of NBFCs and offered a one-time credit guarantee for first loss of up to 10%. To

enable better supervision of the sector, housing finance companies, which have





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been the main villains of the piece, will come under the RBI’s regulatory ambit. A

long-standing demand of NBFCs for equitable treatment with banks in the matter of

taxing interest receivable on bad loans has been conceded. They will not need to

maintain a Debenture Redemption Reserve on public placements that was leading

to locking-up of funds, which is their raw material for business. These are important

reform measures for NBFCs. More interesting is the move towards reviving

development financial institutions. The big problem faced by NBFC financing

infrastructure is the lack of long-term funding sources to match their lending tenure.

This pushed them into borrowing short-term funds to lend to long-term projects,

leading to asset-liability mismatches. The proposal to set up a committee to study

the issue, including the experience with development finance institutions, is

welcome.

There are several reform measures that have been announced, but the most

interesting is the reiteration of the government’s commitment to strategic

disinvestment and the declaration that it is willing to allow its stake to fall below

51% in non-financial PSUs. Start-ups can heave a sigh of relief as the angel tax is

practically off the table. The government seems to be moving towards a single

identity card for citizens in the form of Aadhaar, which will now be interchangeable

with the PAN card. Taxpayers who do not have a PAN card can file returns quoting

their Aadhaar number, which effectively can be a substitute for PAN in all

transactions. Another reform measure is the introduction of faceless e-assessment

of tax returns taken up for scrutiny. This will eliminate the scope for rent-seeking by

officers as there will be no interface between assessee and official. In fact, the

assessee will not even know the identity of the officer scrutinising the return. This is

an absolutely welcome measure but needs to be closely watched for

implementation. The corporate sector has got a minor sop with the turnover limit

for the 25% tax bracket being raised to ₹400 crore per annum from ₹250 crore. The

expectation was that this would be extended to all companies irrespective of size. It

appears that the government wants to wait for the finalisation of the Direct Taxes

Code, which is being examined by a committee. Real estate companies may have





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reason to cheer as the generous tax concession for affordable housing may create

demand, especially in the smaller metros.

The ‘nudge theory’ of economist Richard Thaler, mentioned extensively in the

Economic Survey 2018-19 presented in Parliament on Thursday, has been put to use

by the Finance Minister to push forward two of this government’s pet themes —

increasing digitalization of money and promoting electric mobility. On the first, there

will now be a 2% tax deducted at source when withdrawals from bank accounts

exceed ₹1 crore in a year. This is a commendable measure, but it could lead to

genuine problems for businesses such as construction and real estate that are forced

to deal in cash for wage payments. Of course, the TDS can be set off against their

overall tax liability. The second, and more interesting ‘nudge’, is towards electric

vehicles where those taking loans to buy one will get a tax deduction of up to ₹1.5

lakh on the interest paid by them. But the fact is that there are not too many electric

vehicles in the market now. And even for those that are there, the waiting period to

deliver one is long. Besides, there is no ecosystem, such as charging points, even in

the major cities. The government’s hope seems to be that this incentive will create

a market for e-vehicles that will then lead to the development of the ecosystem.

The budget documents show that the government has stuck to the glide path for

fiscal deficit, which will be at 3.3% this fiscal. This is, however, based on exaggerated

growth projections in tax revenues. The estimated total revenue receipts this fiscal

is ₹19.62 lakh crore, which implies a 25.56% growth compared to the actual receipts

of ₹15.63 lakh crore (as presented in the Economic Survey) in 2018-19. This is an

extremely ambitious projection, especially given the ongoing slowdown in the

economy. Of course, the Finance Minister could get a comfortable buffer if the Bimal

Jalan committee that is going into the sharing of RBI’s reserves with the government

comes up with favourable recommendations. The government also appears to be

sliding into a protectionist mode, going by the increase in customs duty on

everything from cashew kernels to PVC, newsprint and even auto parts. While some

of it may be well-intentioned to promote domestic manufacturing, this sends out a

retrograde signal on the reforms front.





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8-JULY-2019

RECLAIMING THE INDO-PACIFIC NARRATIVE

The ASEAN’s intent to be in the driving seat is clear as it seeks to manage

the emerging regional order with policy moves

At the 34th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in

Bangkok in June, its member states finally managed to articulate a collective vision

for the Indo-Pacific region in a document titled “The ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-

Pacific”. At a time when the geopolitical contestation between China and the United

States is escalating, it has become imperative for the ASEAN to reclaim the strategic

narrative in its favour in order to underscore its centrality in the emerging regional

order.

Though there were divisions among ASEAN member states in the run-up to the

summit, they managed to come up with a non-binding document. It underlines in

the document the need for an inclusive and “rules-based framework” to “help to

generate momentum for building strategic trust and win-win cooperation in the

region”. An awareness of the emergence of a great power contest around its vicinity

pervades the document as it argues that “the rise of material powers, i.e. economic

and military, requires avoiding the deepening of mistrust, miscalculation and

patterns of behaviour based on a zero-sum game”.

Despite individual differences and bilateral engagements ASEAN member states

have with the U.S. and China, the regional grouping can now claim to have a

common approach as far as the Indo-Pacific region is concerned and which the Prime

Minister of Thailand, Prayuth Chan-ocha, suggested “should also complement

existing frameworks of cooperation at the regional and sub-regional levels and

generate tangible and concrete deliverables for the benefit of the region’s peoples”.



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Conduct in the China Sea

What has been interesting also is the ASEAN member states agreeing to push for a

quick conclusion of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, an increasingly

contested maritime space which is claimed largely by China and in parts by the

Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. Tensions continue to rise over the

militarisation of this waterway; in June, a Philippine fishing boat sank after it was

rammed by a Chinese vessel. It is hoped that the first draft of the code for

negotiations will see the light by this year end. With these moves, the ASEAN is

clearly signalling its intent to be in the driving seat as it seeks to manage the

geopolitical churn around it.

Engaged with the Indo-Pacific concept for some time now, it has now been pushed

into articulating its formal response with a sense of urgency after other major

regional players began laying their cards on the table. The release of the U.S. Free

and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy report in June — it focusses on preserving a

“free and open Indo-Pacific” in the face of a more “assertive China” — was perhaps

the final push that was needed to bring the ASEAN discussion on the subject to a

close. Japan had already unveiled its Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept in 2016,

while Australia released its Foreign Policy White Paper in 2017, detailing its Indo-

Pacific vision centred around security, openness and prosperity. Prime Minister

Narendra Modi articulated India’s Indo-Pacific vision at the Shangri-la Dialogue in

2018, with India even setting up an Indo-Pacific wing in the Ministry of External

Affairs (MEA) earlier this year.

For a long time, the ASEAN has been reluctant to frontally engage with the Indo-

Pacific discourse as the perception was that it may antagonise China. But there was

soon a realisation that such an approach might allow others to shape the regional

architecture and marginalise the ASEAN itself. And so the final outlook that the

ASEAN has come up with effectively seeks to take its own position rather than

following any one power’s lead.

The framework



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While the ASEAN outlook does not see the Indo-Pacific as one continuous territorial

space, it emphasises development and connectivity, underlining the need for

maritime cooperation, infrastructure connectivity and broader economic

cooperation. The ASEAN is signalling that it would seek to avoid making the region a

platform for major power competition. Instead its frame of reference is economic

cooperation and dialogue. The fact that the ASEAN has gone ahead and articulated

an Indo-Pacific outlook is in itself a seeming challenge to China which refuses to

validate the concept. But the ASEAN’s approach is aimed at placating China by not

allowing itself to align with the U.S.’s vision for the region completely.

India has welcomed the ASEAN’s outlook on the Indo-Pacific as it sees “important

elements of convergence” with its own approach towards the region. During U.S.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to India in June, India was categorical that it

is “for something” in the Indo-Pacific and “not against somebody”, seeking to

carefully calibrate its relations with the U.S. and China in this geopolitically critical

region. As External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has suggested “[and] that

something is peace, security, stability, prosperity and rules”. India continues to

invest in the Indo-Pacific; on the sidelines of the recent G-20 Summit in Osaka, Japan,

Mr. Modi held discussions on the Indo-Pacific region with U.S. President Donald

Trump and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with a focus on improving regional

connectivity and infrastructure development.

With the ASEAN finally coming to terms with its own role in the Indo-Pacific, the ball

is now in the court of other regional stakeholders to work with the regional grouping

to shape a balance of power in the region which favours inclusivity, stability and

economic prosperity.





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9-JULY-2019

THE IMPORTANCE OF DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION

Without it, we will continue to allow unhealthy scepticism about

democracy to grow

A persistent concern exists about democracy’s failure to fulfil our expectations.

While our votes are forceful ‘paper stones’, effective in getting rid of governments

we dislike, they are powerless to give us effective, efficient, good governments. Why

do we have to put up with corrupt rulers with criminal records — qualities that

obstruct good governance? Why tolerate those who strive to do more good for

themselves than for the people, who have neither vision nor wisdom? Why have

mediocre politicians who shun contact with people with ability and talent?

Better, wiser governments

Some cynics may respond to this crisis of democracy by arguing the following: to

achieve our national goals, we must assemble the best team to govern. Such a team

cannot be elected by popular mandate but instead by those who have the

intellectual wherewithal to select those fit for it. To such people, democracy —

which is committed to the principle of one person, one vote, and which extends

franchise to all regardless of ability — can never produce the best team.

They might draw an analogy from cricket where we play to compete at the highest

level and win — something not possible if the best cricketers are not selected. But

this is not achieved by popular vote. Instead, we rely on experts — a selection

committee consisting of experienced cricketers. If popular mandate can’t give us the

best team that realises our national goal in cricket, why expect a different result in

politics? Why not select our government by a similar procedure involving experts?

So, to reiterate the conundrum: democratically elected governments in our times

are neither efficient nor wise. They show a propensity to fail at achieving their





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national goal — a high quality of life for all people. Then why not abandon

democracy? Or at least introduce an eligibility criterion, restricting the vote to those

with formal education? Won’t education help in identifying the best political

representatives? A democrat need not reject this argument. She may respond that

this need not entail abandoning universal adult franchise but the distribution of

education to all. This seems a decent solution. Sustainable democracies require a

high rate of literacy. The more educated we are, it might be claimed, the better we

become at choosing the best people to run our government.

But this argument is flawed. Literacy and education by themselves do not create

good citizens or yield mature democracies. Many are formally illiterate but are

politically astute and even possess qualities of good citizenship. Conversely, many

educated people are prone to being self-obsessed, undemocratic, and even

authoritarian. Primary, secondary or even higher education by itself does not

guarantee good citizenship.

The solution then is not just education per se, but universal education of a certain

kind, one that is focused on improving the quality of our democracy. Our current

education system does not focus on education in democracy or what we might call

democratic education. Nor does it build on elements of democratic culture

embedded in our traditions.

Core elements

What then are the core elements of democratic education? For a start, it requires

the cultivation of democratic virtues. For instance, the ability to imagine and

articulate a minimally common good. This requires that we distinguish what is

merely good for me from what is the good of all. And since each of us may develop

our own distinct idea of the common good, to find an overlapping common good.

Relatedly, an ability to handle difference and disagreement and to retain, despite

this difference, the motivation to arrive at the common good through conversation,

debate, dialogue and deliberation.





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The ability to imagine and conceive a common good is inconsistent with what the

Greeks famously called ‘pleonexia’, the greed to grab everything for oneself, to

refuse to share anything, to not acknowledge what is due to each person, to have

no sense of reciprocity or justice. It follows that the idea of the common good cannot

be developed without some sense of justice. Democratic education requires training

in not succumbing to pleonexia. Also crucial is a spirit of compromise, of moderation,

and a willingness, within acceptable value parameters, of mutual give and take.

None of this is possible without other general capabilities such as listening patiently

to others, being empathetic to the plight of others, and having a commitment to

continuing a conversation with people despite disagreement.

More important is the ability to participate in a particular historical narrative or, as

the political theorist Jeremy Webber puts it, a “commitment to a particular debate

through time”. Members of a political community become better citizens when they

relate to critical issues through historically inherited terms of debate, a continuing

narrative, a specific ongoing conversation. The reflection of that debate in political

decision-making is central to the members’ feeling of engagement and participation.

For example, there is a particular way in which the question of religion has been

framed in India, as also issues of nation, caste and gender. Individuals become

effective and meaningful citizens only by learning the terms set by debates around

these specific issues. Since a useful entry to them is available through rich debates

in the Constituent Assembly, a familiarity with them is a crucial ingredient of

democratic education in India.

It also follows that democratic education involves a basic understanding of our

society and its history, of its multiple cultural, intellectual and religious traditions,

which set the terms of specific debates. I am frequently appalled at my own

ignorance of the historical trajectory of our complex social problems. And saddened

to find that my highly educated friends do not know that a constitutional minority

in India is not just a numerically small group but one potentially disadvantaged by

virtue of that fact; some mistakenly believe that religious minorities have

reservation in jobs and in institutions of higher education; massive illiteracy





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continues to exist about the atrocious nature of our caste system; many continue to

think that ‘secularism’ is a wholly western concept, as if ‘religion’ is not! Only a

proper democratic education can remove these misunderstandings and flaws.

What then is democratic education? Conceived broadly, it is a historically specific

enterprise, determined by the inherited vocabulary of specific political languages

and the terms of debates in a particular community. It is designed specifically to

enable conversation on issues central to a particular community, to strive for

agreement where possible and to live peacefully with disagreement where it is not.

In short, it involves social and historical awareness and key democratic virtues.

Many of these understandings and virtues can be inculcated by a good liberal arts

education. The 2019 National Education Policy recognises this but alas insufficiently.

And as far as I can tell from my skimpy reading, it has virtually nothing to say about

how this relates to democracy. So, it appears relatively innocent of the more specific

requirements of democratic education. Without proper democratic education, I am

afraid we will continue to perpetuate bad democratic practices, allow unhealthy

scepticism about democracy to grow and eventually imperil it.

10-JULY-2019

THE MALAISE OF MALNUTRITION

India needs to double yearly rate of fall in stunting cases to achieve its

2022 target

A new report, ‘Food and Nutrition Security Analysis, India, 2019’, authored by the

Government of India and the United Nations World Food Programme, paints a

picture of hunger and malnutrition amongst children in large pockets of India. This

punctures the image of a nation marching towards prosperity. It raises moral and

ethical questions about the nature of a state and society that, after 70 years of

independence, still condemns hundreds of millions of its poorest and vulnerable

citizens to lives of hunger and desperation. And it once again forces us to ask why

despite rapid economic growth, declining levels of poverty, enough food to export,





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and a multiplicity of government programmes, malnutrition amongst the poorest

remains high.

A trap of poverty, malnutrition

The report shows the poorest sections of society caught in a trap of poverty and

malnutrition, which is being passed on from generation to generation. Mothers who

are hungry and malnourished produce children who are stunted, underweight and

unlikely to develop to achieve their full human potential.

The effects of malnourishment in a small child are not merely physical. A developing

brain that is deprived of nutrients does not reach its full mental potential. A study in

the Lancet notes, “Undernutrition can affect cognitive development by causing

direct structural damage to the brain and by impairing infant motor development.”

This in turn affects the child’s ability to learn at school, leading to a lifetime of

poverty and lack of opportunity.

Another study in the Lancet observes, “These disadvantaged children are likely to

do poorly in school and subsequently have low incomes, high fertility, and provide

poor care for their children, thus contributing to the intergenerational transmission

of poverty.” In other words, today’s poor hungry children are likely to be tomorrow’s

hungry, unemployed and undereducated adults.

The findings in the report are not new: many studies over the last five years have

exposed the failure of the Indian state to ensure that its most vulnerable citizens are

provided adequate nutrition in their early years. India has long been home to the

largest number of malnourished children in the world. Some progress has been

made in reducing the extent of malnutrition. The proportion of children with chronic

malnutrition decreased from 48% percent in 2005-06 to 38.4% in 2015-16. The

percentage of underweight children decreased from 42.5% to 35.7% over the same

period. Anaemia in young children decreased from 69.5% to 58.5% during this

period. But this progress is small.





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An ambitious target

The government’s National Nutrition Mission (renamed as Poshan Abhiyaan) aims

to reduce stunting (a measure of malnutrition that is defined as height that is

significantly below the norm for age) by 2% a year, bringing down the proportion of

stunted children in the population to 25% by 2022. But even this modest target will

require doubling the current annual rate of reduction in stunting.

The minutes of recent meetings of the Executive Committee of Poshan Abhiyaan do

not inspire much confidence about whether this can be achieved. A year after it was

launched, State and Union Territory governments have only used 16% of the funds

allocated to them. Fortified rice and milk were to be introduced in one district per

State by March this year. But the minutes of a March 29 meeting showed that this

had not been done, and officials in charge of public distribution had not yet got their

act together. Or, as the minutes put it, “The matter is under active consideration of

the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution”. Anganwadis are key

to the distribution of services to mothers and children. But many States, including

Bihar and Odisha, which have large vulnerable populations, are struggling to set up

functioning anganwadis, and recruit staff.

The key to ending the tragedy of child nutrition lies with a handful of State

governments: the highest levels of stunted and underweight children are found in

Jharkand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Malnutrition is a

reflection of age-old patterns of social and economic exclusion. Over 40% of children

from Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes are stunted. Close to 40% of children

from the Other Backward Classes are stunted. The lack of nutrition in their childhood

years can reduce their mental as well as physical development and condemn them

to a life in the margins of society.

Stunting and malnourishment starts not with the child, but with the mother. An

adolescent girl who is malnourished and anaemic tends to be a mother who is

malnourished and anaemic. This in turn increased the chances of her child being

stunted.





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The problem is access to food

As Amartya Sen noted, famines are caused not by shortages of food, but by

inadequate access to food. And for the poor and marginalised, access to food is

impeded by social, administrative and economic barriers. In the case of children and

their mothers, this could be anything from non-functioning or neglectful

governments at the State, district and local levels to entrenched social attitudes that

see the poor and marginalised as less than equal citizens who are meant to be an

underclass and are undeserving of government efforts to provide them food and lift

them out of poverty.

A lot of attention has focussed on the government’s aim of turning India into a $5

trillion economy in the next five years. Whether this will achieved is a matter for

debate. But these declarations only serve to obscure a larger reality. There is a large

section of society, the poorest two-fifths of the country’s population, that is still

largely untouched by the modern economy which the rest of the country inhabits.

As one part of the country lives in a 21st century economy, ordering exotic cuisines

over apps, another part struggles with the most ancient of realities: finding enough

to eat to tide them over till the next day.

11-JULY-2019

A DEMOGRAPHIC WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY: ON POPULATION AND

POLICY

In India, investing in the laggard States will ensure their role as being

the greatest contributors of the future

Last month, the United Nations released the 26th revision of

World Population Prospects and forecast that India will overtake China as the most

populous country by 2027. The only surprise associated with this forecast is the way

it was covered by the media. Is this good news or bad news? Is it news at all?



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Is this news? Not really. We have known for a long time that India is destined to be

the most populous country in the world. Population projections are developed using

existing population and by adjusting for expected births, deaths and migration. For

short-term projections, the biggest impact comes from an existing population,

particularly women in childbearing ages. Having instituted a one-child policy in 1979,

China’s female population in peak reproductive ages (between 15 and 39 years) is

estimated at 235 million (2019) compared to 253 million for India. Thus, even if India

could institute a policy that reduces its fertility rate to the Chinese level, India will

overtake China as the most populous country.

The element of surprise comes from the date by which this momentous event is

expected. The UN revises its population projections every two years. In 2015, it was

predicted that India would overtake China in 2022, but in the 2019 projections it is

2027. The UN has revised India’s expected population size in 2050 downward from

1,705 million in 2015 projections to 1,639 million in 2019 projections. This is due to

faster than expected fertility decline, which is good news by all counts.

Like it or not, India will reign as the most populous country throughout most of the

21st century. Whether we adjust to this demographic destiny in a way that

contributes to the long-term welfare of the nation or not depends on how we deal

with three critical issues.

Population control

First, do we need to adopt stringent population control policies? History tells us that

unless the Indian state can and chooses to act with the ruthlessness of China, the

government has few weapons in its arsenal. Almost all weapons that can be used in

a democratic nation, have already been deployed. These include restriction of

maternity leave and other maternity benefits for first two births only and

disqualification from panchayat elections for people with more than two children in

some States along with minor incentives for sterilisation.

As demographer Judith Blake noted, people have children, not birth rates and few

incentives or disincentives are powerful enough to overcome the desire for children.





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Ground-level research by former Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh Nirmala Buch

found that individuals who wanted larger families either circumvented the

restrictions or went ahead regardless of the consequences. As one of her informants

noted, “The sarpanch’s post is not going to support me during my old age, but my

son will. It does not really matter if I lose the post of sarpanch.”

Second, if punitive actions won’t work, we must encourage people to have smaller

families voluntarily. There are sharp differences in fertility among different socio-

economic groups. Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for the poorest women was 3.2

compared to only 1.5 for the richest quintile in 2015-16. To get to TFR of 1.5, a

substantial proportion of the population among the top 40% must stop at one child.

In western societies, low fertility is associated with the conflict that working women

face between work and child rearing and the individual’s desire to enjoy a child-free

life. Not so for Indian couples. In India, couples with one child do not consume more

nor are women in these families more likely to work. My research with demographer

Alaka Basu from Cornell University shows that it is a desire to invest in their

children’s education and future prospects that seems to drive people to stop at one

child. Richer individuals see greater potential for ensuring admission to good

colleges and better jobs for their children, inspiring them to limit their family size.

Thus, improving education and ensuring that access to good jobs is open to all may

also spur even poorer households into having fewer children and investing their

hopes in the success of their only daughter or son. Provision of safe and easily

accessible contraceptive services will complete this virtuous cycle.

Population and policy

Third, we must change our mindset about how population is incorporated in broader

development policies.

Population growth in the north and central parts of India is far greater than that in

south India. What should we do about the old policies aimed at not rewarding States

that fail to control population growth? These policies include using the 1971

population to allocate seats for the Lok Sabha and for Centre-State allocation under





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various Finance Commissions. In a departure from this practice, the 15th Finance

Commission is expected to use the 2011 Census for making its recommendations.

This has led to vociferous protests from the southern States as the feeling is that

they are being penalised for better performance in reducing fertility.

There is reason for their concern. Between the 1971 and 2011 Censuses, the

population of Kerala grew by 56% compared to about 140% growth for Bihar, Uttar

Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. A move to use the 2011 Census for funds allocation

will favour the north-central States compared to Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

However, continuing to stay with a 1971 Census-based allocation would be a

mistake. Cross-State subsidies come in many forms; Centre-State transfers is but

one. Incomes generated by workers in one State may also provide the tax revenues

that support residents in another State. The varying pace of onset and end of

demographic transition creates intricate links between workers in Haryana today

and retirees in Kerala and between future workers in Uttar Pradesh and children in

Tamil Nadu.

Demographic dividend provided by the increasing share of working age adults is a

temporary phase during which child dependency ratio is falling and old-age

dependency ratio is still low. But this opportunity only lasts for 20 to 30 years. For

States such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu which experienced fertility decline early, this

window of opportunity is already past.

As the United Nations Population Fund estimates, over the next 20 years, the

window of opportunity will be open for moderate achievers such as Karnataka,

Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir. As the demographic window of opportunity closes

for these States, it will open for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other States that are the

last to enter fertility transition. This suggests that workers of Bihar will be supporting

the ageing population of Kerala in 20 years.





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The focus areas

In order to maximise the demographic dividend, we must invest in the education

and health of the workforce, particularly in States whose demographic window of

opportunity is still more than a decade away. Staying fixated on the notion that

revising State allocation of Central resources based on current population rather

than population from 1971 punishes States with successful population policies is

shortsighted. This is because current laggards will be the greatest contributors of

the future for everyone, particularly for ageing populations of early achievers.

Enhancing their productivity will benefit everyone.

It is time for India to accept the fact that being the most populous nation is its

destiny. It must work towards enhancing the lives of its current and future citizens.

12-JULY-2019

CAN INDIA MAKE THE TRANSITION TO ELECTRIC VEHICLES?

India has taken some baby steps but more needs to be done to improve

demand and supply

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an additional income tax

exemption of ₹1.5 lakh for purchasers of electric vehicles in Budget 2019-2020. She

also said that the GST rate on electric vehicles would be lowered to 5%. Can India

make a smooth shift to electric vehicles? G. Ananthakrishnan explores the options

with Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering,

IIT Madras, and Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO, Ather Energy.

What do you think will be the impact of the Budget announcement of a tax break

for electric vehicle purchases?

Ashok Jhunjhunwala: Electric vehicles are very important for the country. I think this

is the first definite statement made by the Government of India in that direction.

Some companies have been resisting the change, but it will happen however much

you resist it. It is a matter of time. But by slowing it [the transition] down, India will



https://www.thehindu.com/business/budget/union-budget-2019-20-electric-vehicle-sales-may-move-to-the-fast-lane/article28298537.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/business/budget/union-budget-2019-20-electric-vehicle-sales-may-move-to-the-fast-lane/article28298537.ece



34

get hurt, and will be dependent on outsiders for the technology. This Budget clearly

indicates that the government will go all out for it, and it is best that companies

prepare and take advantage of it. It is giving specific breaks in the beginning, but

finally India has to win with electric vehicles even without any subsidy or concession.

It is time for the auto industry, researchers and everybody working towards the

development of next generation products to make up their mind that it is going to

be electric vehicles.

Tarun Mehta: The tax concession is positive as a Budget announcement, but in

terms of numbers GST is a bigger benefit. From a market shaping perspective,

incentivising EMI purchase of electric vehicles has a big impact. There are two things.

Today, the market does not have many financing options for electric vehicles. By

incentivising EMI purchases, the government has ensured that [for] every customer

who wants to go in for them, there will be a lot of interest from banks and NBFCs to

create relevant products. The second advantage is that electric vehicles need more

financing options. Because you want to take the upfront sticker shock out of the

battery, motor, etc. Today, a lot of customers may not consider financing options

and hence are dissuaded by the upfront price. Incentivising makes the customers do

the mathematics with financing in mind, which makes them realise that for electric

vehicles the overall total cost of ownership is so much better.

Where does India stand on the global scene on electric two-wheelers?

AJ: We have just begun. Frankly, we don’t stand very far up. But there is nothing in

this technology that we cannot do ourselves. We have started making batteries. I

have seen in many places that motor controllers are in the final stages of design and

development. The rest, we can do: the body, tyres. Of course, some improvements

can be there. In the next one or two years, a huge push [will be witnessed] and that’s

where India will be not just on par [with other countries] but will start leading in the

technology.

The key concern for me will be whether we import everything from China or make

it ourselves. If our industry is not to be affected, and jobs are not to be lost, there is





35

huge employment in the auto sector. If the traditional internal combustion engine

(ICE)-based vehicle is going away, we will have a huge crisis with many losing jobs.

The only way they will continue to have jobs, or the number of jobs can be increased,

is to start making every sub-system of electric vehicles.

We have to beat China on performance and price. That needs to be done in the next

couple of years. That is what the Centre for Battery Engineering and Electric Vehicles

at IIT-Madras has been working on for four years. It has actually done so much to

convince India that yes, we can do it ourselves. And there are a number of incubated

companies working closely, getting these things done. Two-wheelers and three-

wheelers will start scaling up in a year. This year you will see plenty of it, and next

year it will really scale up. Two years down the line, it will start edging out ICE

vehicles.

There are only some small players now. A large number of small players and some

big players must get into it in a full-fledged way. Customers don’t want only a single

type of vehicle, [they have to be] in different sizes, with different power, battery

sizes. These are all going to come in the next two years.

TM: China is a very interesting place. Just in sheer volume terms, India is far behind.

However, India has a far stronger two-wheeler industry, and a very capable

assembly and component manufacturing ecosystem. Indian component

manufacturing for two-wheelers is even more price competitive than China, which

is a very rare thing to achieve. In China, there are no credible players. There is a very

large market but no credible players and very little real R&D for electric two-

wheelers. There are a lot of commodity components being manufactured there. In

India, local market and large players can create a strong R&D base, leverage our local

demand to create economies of scale, a strong supplier base, and take a leadership

role in two-wheeler electrics globally.

Is there a time frame by which we can do that?

TM: Most larger two-wheeler original equipment manufacturer (OEM) players today

have ₹10,000 crore to ₹20,000 crore of deployable capital, and the electrification





36

process will take only a fraction of it. Indian industry can invest, and our suppliers

can make the transition. We will create more jobs, high quality jobs. From

assembling mechanical components we can move to manufacturing PCBs [printed

circuit boards], assembling electronic boards, and bring battery manufacturing to

India.

Do we have sufficient battery capacity to meet rising demand?

AJ: Four or five years back, we were nowhere in battery manufacturing. I had gone

to labs in China, the U.S. and Germany. The Germans were by far the best. But in the

last four to five years, we have started making battery packs as good as those made

in Germany, probably better. This has happened through start-ups. We have a start-

up at IIT-Madras, Grinntech, and we have a number of manufacturers who have

jumped into it. As electric vehicles grow, batteries will be made in India.

There are three parts to battery production. One is battery pack development, which

we will do immediately. Number two is cell manufacturing. On this a number of

companies are setting up cell manufacturing units in India as a joint venture. It will

take two or three years to start cell manufacturing. The third is raw material.

Lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel — for that we need to recycle old batteries. Even

cell phone batteries, which is lithium ion. We throw away 300 million cell phone

batteries. If we recycle and extract, we can expect [to recover] 90% of lithium,

cobalt, manganese, nickel and graphite. And there are small companies that have

the technology.

Battery technology will continue to evolve. There is no question of limits. The cost

falls as better technology starts coming in, giving us higher energy density. More

energy per kilogramme of material. There will be continuous work on that, at least

over the next 10 years.

TM: Capacities will have to be installed now. All of us building battery packs are now

in the process of installing more capacity quickly. We don’t have cell supply in India

today, but cells are abundantly available in the global supply chain. Which is what





37

we will have to tap into to build battery packs. As our volume rises, as we start

topping a few gigawatts in capacity, cell manufacturing will come to India.

What will drive adoption and use of electric vehicles from a policy perspective?

AJ: Basically governments have to think of phasing out [ICE vehicles]. For example,

the amount of pollution that we have, we cannot continue to live in that kind of

pollution. We are importing all the oil; we cannot continue to import all that oil. City

after city may say, no more ICE two-wheelers or three-wheelers and four-wheelers

from this date onwards. This is what China is doing. And we have to move in that

direction. Enough time has to be given for change.

TM: The Budget incentivises the demand side. We need a few policies around the

supply side and on infrastructure. We need to incentivise battery pack and cell

manufacturing. Rebates around setting up battery plant capacity, manufacturing of

battery packs in India in the next 18-24 months will help. On the infrastructure side,

the government can come up with requirements to have charging points in every

parking location. We don’t need charging hardware that OEMs and other companies

can bring, we only need access to an electrical socket.

There are in-between segments like electrically powered bicycles. Will they

become more popular?

TM: Micro-mobility is a new, emerging segment. I am not sure what form factor will

be suitable there — electric cycles or electric stick scooters or something which is a

smaller version of the bicycle. But I am pretty confident that real micro-mobility

within one km sort of travel will find interesting solutions beyond scooters and bikes

in the next five years.

AJ: Let the manufacturer find customers and if they like it, let them go for it. We

should do minimum regulation.

What about the EU model of a law for automobile companies to cap total

emissions across products to spur electric vehicle growth?





38

AJ: All that should be done. Step by step. Don’t give too many shocks. Already the

auto industry is nervous. Convey to them that this is going to happen, give them

time and make it happen. For three-wheelers and two-wheelers, they have

suggested [a shift by] 2023 and 2025 [respectively] for new vehicles to be 100%

electric. That is a very good window. In due course we can define this for cars.

TM: It makes a lot of sense for a place like India. However, places like Europe and

the U.S. have been implementing policies like that for almost a decade, but we

would not have the luxury of 20 years to implement them.

Should taxation of conventional fuels have a role to play?

AJ: Finally, at some point of time, conventional fuel vehicles have to move out. I am

open to time frames, we should have a discussion with the auto industry and figure

out what is doable. In the meantime, support electric vehicles as much as possible,

so that they can become a common thing.

TM: You can use capital created by the United Nations and still tax polluting vehicles

to generate a balance to fund cleaner transport. We don’t have the time to wait to

do only a handful of things. We should do everything we can. Funding factories,

funding lithium cells, electric infrastructure, vehicles and subsidising user behaviour.

13-JULY-2019

DEATH BY DIGITAL EXCLUSION?

Many in Jharkhand have been denied food under the public distribution

system as their ration cards have been cancelled in the mad rush for

putting in place adigital system. While activists claim that some have died

from starvation, the government denies this. Shiv Sahay Singh reports on

the problems created by Aadhaar

A few weeks before Kaleshwar Soren, 45, died, he sold the last of his belongings, a

Palash tree, for one and a half kg of rice. His ration card was cancelled in 2016 for

reasons that are still not clear. As a result, the tribal had not received any food grain





39

under the public distribution system (PDS) since then. Human rights activists claim

that Soren, from Mahuadanr village in Dumka district of Jharkhand, died of

starvation on November 11, 2018. The government denies this.

Jian Kisku and his wife Rasodi Hembram live in similar conditions next door. The

couple has no ration card and has not received any foodgrain under the PDS. A few

days ago, they sold a chicken that was bred in their backyard to buy 5 kg of rice,

which they ate with the paste of a wild fruit. There is no telling where the next meal

will come from.

Soren, Kisku and Hembram had ‘priority household’ cards that were later cancelled.

Under the National Food Security Act, 2013, the PDS ensures 5 kg of food grain per

person per month to those who hold these cards. Antyodaya families, or the poorest

of the poor, are entitled to 35 kg of food grain per family per month under the Act.

These people are not exceptions. There are dozens in the village who claim that they

are not receiving food grain under the PDS. Others who do receive food grain don’t

have a ration card; they have a ration card number scribbled on a piece of paper. It

is on the basis of this that they get their food grain.

A cruel joke

Mahuadanr is a remote tribal village about 300 km from Ranchi, Jharkhand’s capital.

The market closest to the village is a few km away in Lakadchowk, where the centre

of attraction on a rain-swept afternoon is a giant LED screen mounted on a truck.

The screen runs small video clips in the local language as well as in Hindi on how the

“double engine growth” of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and the

Raghubar Das government in the State has taken Jharkhand to new heights.

Two days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit here to participate in

International Yoga Day celebrations, hundreds of people gather in front of the

screen to listen to how the Centre’s Ayush and Yoga programmes can cure ailments.

While people enjoy the spectacle, they don’t appear to be interested in the message.

Men drink hadia, the local liquor made of rice sold by over a dozen women who have





40

brought the drink in plastic containers. While there are video clips on several

schemes of the State government, including one to set up a tribal museum dedicated

to tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda, there is no video on the PDS, a lifeline for the

tribals who comprise 26% of the population in the State. It seems like a cruel joke to

them.

Right to Food activists in Jharkhand have listed in detail 20 deaths between

September 2017 and June 2019 due to hunger and malnutrition because of alleged

irregularities in the PDS and a few due to denial of social security pensions. The

irregularities are manifold. From the deletion of ration cards to the problems in

linking ration cards to Aadhaar, the system seems to create more problems than it

solves, excluding many families rather than including them. Many activists also point

out that the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011, which helps identify PDS

beneficiaries, is faulty and outdated.

The last in the series of deaths compiled by the activists was from Latehar district,

where Ramcharan Munda, 65, died on June 6, 2019. While the administration is still

investigating how Munda died, everyone including the ration dealer admits that

ration was not delivered to Munda’s village for several months. The curious case of

non-delivery of food grain is what ails the PDS in one of the poorest States of the

country.

Problems without Internet

For obtaining food grain and other essentials through the PDS in Jharkhand, a

beneficiary has to meet several criteria. First, the family needs a ration card. Then

they need to have Aadhaar cards. Next, the ration cards and Aadhaar numbers have

to be linked. But it doesn’t end there. In a majority of the ration shops of the State,

delivery is through an electronic point of sale (EPOS) machine. It is through this

machine that the biometrics of a beneficiary, mostly thumb impressions, have to be

entered and verified from the server database. The EPOS machine works only if it is

connected to the Internet. If the beneficiaries face no hiccups in any of these stages,

they get their quota of food grain.





41

Something or the other can go wrong in any of these stages. In Lurgumikala village,

for instance, the Internet failed. Due to irregular connectivity, the ration dealers of

Mahuadanr block of Latehar began distributing ration offline — they made entries

in a notebook or register after the ration was handed over to the beneficiary.

Problems arose when the ration dealer, Ramrudra Prasad, 68, died and his job was

transferred to his wife Manju Devi. This transfer somehow turned the system from

offline to online. This meant that the dealer was required to distribute food grain by

keeping the EPOS machine online and record the biometrics of every beneficiary. As

there was no connectivity even after her husband’s death and the EPOS machine

would not work, for months Manju Devi collected food grain from the warehouse

but did not distribute it. The food grain remained undelivered.

Ration dealers of the block say they have to feed all the information into the EPOS

machine offline and then wait for Internet service to upload the data online. The

senior-most ration dealer of the block, Ramdut Prasad, says he sends his son to the

adjoining district of Simdega to upload the data. “Unless we upload the data we will

not get food grain for the next month. Moreover the SIM in the EPOS machine is 2G,

whereas we have 4G facility on our phone,” he says.

The Internet problem in Latehar not only confuses ration dealers but also district

officials. At the office of the District Collector, a young employee of a major hospital

chain is struggling to write an application in Hindi. He is working on a pilot project

on telemedicine in Latehar, but bad connectivity is posing some serious problems

for him.

The District Collector, Rajeev Kumar, says there are several areas in the district,

including blocks like Mahuadanr, Barwadih and Latehar, where connectivity is a

major issue. Of the 592 ration dealers in the district, about 328 are distributing food

grain offline. “But I cannot say that leakages will stop if the online system is fully

functional,” he says. “Even if someone uses his thumb and gets 2 kg of rice instead

of 5 kg, what can you do?”





42

Jharkhand’s Food and Supplies Minister Saryu Roy admits that the reports of deaths

due to irregularities in the PDS are presenting the State in bad light, but says there

is no going back on the online distribution of food grain. “There is no point in going

back to the earlier system. If we go back, it will be regressive. What we can do to is

to bring improvements in the existing system,” he says.

To prevent deaths caused by irregularities in the PDS, some steps have been taken.

Every ration dealer has been provided with an ‘exception register’ through which he

can provide food grain to those whose names are not in the system. A protocol has

been put in place to investigate the hunger deaths. This requires the district surgeon,

the district supplies officer and any representative appointed by the District

Collector to determine the cause of death.

A lab for experiments

At his residence in Ranchi, the Minister blames the overenthusiasm of bureaucrats

for the “slippages” and “glitches” in PDS distribution. Roy refers to an order passed

by a Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) of Chattrapur earlier in the day. The SDO had said

that families not using the toilets built under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

programme would not get food grain under the PDS. Things took a turn for the

worse, he says, when former Chief Secretary of Jharkhand, Rajbala Verma, in a video

conference on March 27, 2017, directed that ration cards that were not linked to

Aadhaar be cancelled.

Roy does not directly answer why Jharkhand has turned into a lab for all these digital

experiments. He goes on to talk about another pilot project, Direct Benefit Transfer

(DBT), in which money was being transferred directly to the bank accounts of PDS

beneficiaries to enable them to buy ration. The project has been stopped, because

that too came with many problems. The DBT scheme was tried at Nagri in Ranchi

where about 12,000 people across 13 Panchayats received money to buy rations.

Other than connectivity issues and money not landing in accounts on time, the DBT

made things more complicated. Roy says: “While it took one day for a beneficiary to

get food grain earlier, under the DBT the PDS beneficiary had to go to the bank,





43

collect money, and then buy rations from the PDS dealer.” After nearly a year of

protests by people and Right to Food activists, the Jharkhand government finally

decided to roll back the DBT scheme in October 2018.

A government in denial

While the government remains in denial about the deaths highlighted by Right to

Food activists, the Minister admits that Santoshi Kumar, 11, died because her family

ration card was deleted for not being linked to Aadhaar. Taramani Sahu, a foot

soldier of the Right to Food Campaign, says she had raised this issue with the district

authorities months before Santoshi died. The administration assured intervention,

but that came only after the child’s death. Twenty months after Santoshi died in

Karimati village, her family has ration cards under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY)

scheme, which means that they are entitled to 35 kg of foodgrain a month.

Again, it was only because activists intervened that Koyli Devi got a shed built for

rearing goats. Despite having a MGNREGA card, Koyli Devi has not got any work

under the scheme. She works at a construction site at a nearby market. A Panchayat

functionary says she has not applied for work under MGNREGA. The distress

emerging out of patchy PDS distribution in the State is further compounded by poor

implementation of 100 days of work guaranteed under MGNREGA.

A report sent by the Jharkhand government to the Director of MGNREGA at the

Centre looks at 18 cases of alleged hunger deaths between 2017 and 2018. While

there is no mention of whether the families got jobs under the rural job guarantee

scheme, the document dated December 26, 2018, has one concluding sentence at

the end of each of the 18 cases: “In this case the death does not appear to be linked

with MGNREGA”. The same report rejects hunger deaths in all 18 cases. While in the

case of Santoshi the report points out that her death was due to an illness, in case

of Soren it refers to a knee injury that occurred due to a fall he had almost two years

before his death.

While in Santoshi’s case the administration has ensured ration cards to the family,

in several cases where similar allegations have surfaced, the families are yet to be





44

enrolled in the PDS. For instance, Budhni Birajia of Amaotoli village in Mahuadanr

block of Latehar district died on January 1, 2019. The family, which belongs to a

particularly vulnerable tribal group and maintains that there was no food when she

died, still does not have a ration card. Sanchi Birajia, Budhni’s daughter-in-law who

has to feed a family of five, says that the local ration dealer has spared a few kg of

rice for her. In cases where the local dealers feel that denial of ration can lead to

starvation, they spare a few kg of food grain to those who are not enlisted as PDS

beneficiaries.

Siraj Dutta, a prominent face of the Right to Food campaign in Jharkhand, says that

of the 20 who died, 11 were Adivasis and four were Dalits. Eleven of the deceased

were women. In 13 cases, the inability to link Aadhaar to ration cards led to the

denial of entitlements. Dutta says all the experimentation with the PDS in Jharkhand

is aimed at doing away with “identity fraud”, but studies from 2016 have shown that

most of the leakages are “quantity fraud”. Dutta and other activists claim that over

10 lakh ration cards were cancelled in the State when ration cards were linked to

Aadhaar.

Abject poverty

Balram, a Right to Food activist, says, “Even if the digitisation is perfect and all the

ration cards are linked with Aadhaar and all the EPOS machines are connected to

the Internet, there will be many exclusions as the baseline data on which the ration

cards have been issued are not correct.” Given the debate around whether or not

these deaths were linked to starvation, he points to the fact that a large number of

people live in chronic hunger.

Balram’s words ring true in different parts of State where people living in distress

claim they do not have ration cards and are not getting food grain under the PDS.

The argument of district collectors and officials is that the National Food Security

Act only permits 80% of the population to be covered under the Act, 86% in rural

areas and 62% in urban areas, and unless bogus ration cards are removed from the

system, no new cards can be issued.





45

Not far from Budhni Birajia’s house lives Kunti Nagasia with her son Rinku Nagasia.

Rinku, who is about 10 years old, is the only earning member of the family. He gets

₹20 a day from doing odd jobs in the village. The family has no ration card. For years,

they have not been getting any food grain under the PDS. Afsana Khatun, a volunteer

with the Right to Food campaign, has raised the plight of the family with authorities

and has also arranged for some medical help. Kunti has recently returned from a

State-run hospital where she was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. Rinku has

also been diagnosed with the same disease. A peek into the single room hut reveals

that the family is battling abject poverty. Two or three utensils and a few rags are all

they own.

Kunti hurriedly points at a plastic gunny bag kept hidden under the rags. The bag

contains rice. As in the case of Budhni’s family, the ration dealer has been kind to

spare a few kg of rice to Kunti’s family as well. The neighbours have also been kind

and given her four raw mangoes and half a kg of rice.

“Who will give us anything after this ends? We will eat it slowly,” Kunti says. Kunti

and Rinku cannot recall the last time they had eaten dal. They turn silent when asked

about vegetables. For as long as they can remember, their meal has consisted of rice

and salt. “If they die tomorrow, will you say that they died of TB or hunger,” Afsana

asks.

15-JULY-2019

RELYING ON THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT ENOUGH

For Dalits, the institution has become synonymous to a grievance cell

offering no immediate solutions

Caste plays an important role in every facet of life, writes Suraj Yengde, a first-

generation Dalit scholar, in his latest book, Caste Matters. Mr. Yengde grew up in

dire circumstances in a family where the “education level did not go beyond tenth

grade”. He talks about everyday humiliations and about the resilience of Dalits. Mr.

Yengde questions Brahminical power as also divisions within the Dalit community,





46

the legacy of Ambedkar, and explains why Dalits must lay claim to power. An

excerpt:

The Dalit movement in India is yet to be fully formed with a sizeable consensus. It

lives in various forms, sizes and shapes. It has not yet formulated a cogent

programme to take in politically conservative Dalits by bringing them into the wider

Indian democratic experience. Dalit scholars and politicians alike can be seen

struggling to formulate a workable theory of Ambedkarism or Dalitism that would

be a manifesto for common liberation.

By exclusively relying on constitutionalism as a means of emancipation, this class of

intellectuals argues for a utopian dream. The methods of attaining Dalit

emancipation, however, remain unknown. The sooner India’s oppressed realise this,

the better. One cannot depend on the limited conceptions of constitutionalism for

deliverance. Owing to the limited control of this institution, the Constitution has

become synonymous to a grievance cell offering no immediate solutions.

Limited reach

The linguistic accessibility of the Constitution and its reach to the oppressed is

extremely limited. Few peasants would consider the Constitution as a written word

that would guarantee them protection from the landlord’s real and financial

whipcord. Similarly, beggars who are living on the mercy of donors’ charity would

think that this dossier guarantees them equality and access to freedom. The idea of

the Constitution is romantic. No one really knows its limitations but lauds its

profundity without testing it out. Many Dalits are repeating the state’s narrative of

constitutionalism as being the ultimate virtue — a god-sent panacea. It does nothing

more than apply a lotion to massage one’s shattered ego. But when it comes to

exercising the enshrined codes in the Constitution, Dalits seem to be harming their

self-worth. This is because not everybody feels this document is close to their hearts

as much as Dalits. Not everyone has similar expectations from the Constitution.

Thus, it creates genuine gaps while considering constitutional morality as a common

virtue. Hence, in such a situation of one-sided applicability, mutual cohabitation is a





47

long shot. One has to pierce through the devious agenda of casteist rogues by

injecting a radical antidote to set a tone of mutuality and respectability. Unless this

is settled, no further conversation can be foreseen that will yield real results.

Second-class citizens

As much as Dalits feel empowered in a constitutionally mandated democratic

republic, any hope of their issues being redressed withers away when reality comes

knocking. After every gruesome atrocity or everyday humiliation they undergo at

the workplace or in their shared housing, the promise of constitutionalism shatters

into pieces. Dalits are often accorded second-class citizenship. At the workplace,

they do not get the requisite respect and attention from their co-workers. A senior

bureaucrat friend, Tushar (pseudonym), who has an advanced degree from an Ivy

League school, told me about his unpleasant experience. Prior to his departure to

America, he was given a heavy workload with additional responsibilities by his

immediate dominant caste supervisors. Tushar narrated the story of how he was

tasked to work on projects that demanded his extra involvement which in turn

consumed more time than required. His selection to an Ivy League institution made

everyone at his workplace insecure. He was regularly taunted with disparaging

comments. ‘What will you do after studying economics, which is not your field and

different from the work you currently do?’

One of the limitations of the Indian Constitution often echoed within Dalit circles is

the absolute visionary absence of Dalit pride and the eruptive definition of

liberation. Constitutionalism has proved to be an unreliable doctrine to influence

perpetrators of casteism. The landmark case of Surya Narayan Chaudhury v. State

of Rajasthan in 1988 exposes one among its many limitations. This case prohibited

temples from discriminating against Dalits’ right to worship and enter the sacrosanct

spaces as a rule of law.

The verdict delivered by the Chief Justice of India, Justice J.S. Verma, pointed out the

fact that ‘mere enactment of such a law or guaranteeing a right in the Constitution

of India is not enough and the change needed is really in our hearts and not





48

elsewhere. It is the willing acceptance of the society which alone is the sure

guarantee of eradication of any social evil.’

The Justice J.S. Verma verdict expressed the inadequacies of legal provisions in the

absence of society’s willingness to acknowledge its prejudices. This goes in line with

Ambedkar’s comments on the uselessness of legislation in the face of social

sanction.

Using Ambedkar

Guarding the elitism of the Constitution and selling it under Ambedkar’s name has

come at the cost of Dalit radicalism. Ambedkar is now centralised as a sanctimonious

figurehead. And in a country like India, to worship someone is to kill any critical

thoughts about the person. Various ideological and semi-social and political circles

play football with Ambedkar and enjoy the show put on by Dalits around his

portraits. Ambedkar’s image is used to silence Dalit rage around any issue, to the

benefit of the oppressor, who is more than happy to co-opt Ambedkar into their

vicious programme of hatred and violence. At the time of writing, every Dalit leader

in the 2019 election campaign has spoken of protecting the Constitution. They found

it a more appealing idea to attract the common mass towards ‘Samvidhaan’, as

opposed to other traditional issues at hand, such as social justice, welfare

programmes, education, health, taxation and the protection of the working class.

The affection of Dalits towards constitutionalism is a curious subject of inquiry. No

mainstream Dalit leader has dared to critically engage with the debate around the

Constitution and its encouragement of Dalit passivism.

16-JULY-2019

A TEST OF LAW AND JUSTICE

The challenges made to the 103rd constitutional amendment present a

more difficult judicial examination than usual





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Constitutional challenges are often described as hard cases. This is, however, seldom

true. Invariably, disputes possess a simple solution. We can debate over what

theories of interpretation to apply and over whether the text of a clause needs to

be read literally or in light of its historical background, but in most cases, the

Supreme Court’s own precedent and commonly accepted legal theories provide an

easy enough guide to finding a principled answer. The challenges made to the 103rd

constitutional amendment, though, which a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court

is slated to hear this month, present a rather more difficult test.

Here, the issues involved concern questions both over whether the amendment

infringes the extant idea of equality, and over whether that idea is so intrinsic to

the Constitution, that departing from it will somehow breach the document’s basic

structure. The court’s answers to these questions will operate not merely within the

realm of the law but will also likely have a deep political bearing — for at stake here

is the very nature of justice that India’s democracy embodies.

The law, which was introduced in January this year, amends Articles 15 and 16 of

the Constitution, and grants to government the power to provide for reservation in

appointments to posts under the state and in admissions to educational institutions

to “economically weaker sections of citizens [EWS]”. At first blush, this reservation,

which can extend up to 10% of the total seats available, may not appear to impinge

on the existing constitutional arrangement. But what it does mandate is a quota that

will apply only to citizens other than the classes that are already eligible for

reservation. Consequently, persons belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled

Tribes and persons who are not part of the creamy layer of the Other Backward

Classes will not be eligible to the seats available under the quota.

According to the petitioners in the Supreme Court, the central hypothesis of the

amendment, where reservation is predicated on individual economic status, violates

the Constitution’s basic structure. In their belief, the law, by providing for affirmative

action unmindful of the structural inequalities inherent in India’s society,

overthrows the prevailing rationale for reservations. In doing so, they argue, the

amendment destroys the Constitution’s idea of equal opportunity. The Union of



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India argues that while the Constitution demands equality, it does not confine

Parliament to any singular vision. According to it, the power to amend the

Constitution must necessarily include a power to decide how to guarantee equal

status to all persons.

Meaning and purpose

In some senses, as sociologist Gail Omvedt wrote in these pages (“The purpose of

reservation – I”, March 24, 2000), “the whole history of the struggle for reservation

has also been a debate about its very meaning and purpose”. When reservations

were first introduced by some of the princely states the policy was seen largely as

an alleviative measure. For instance, in the princely State of Mysore, where

privileged castes had cornered virtually every post available under the government,

a system of reservations was introduced denominating communities as “Backward

Classes”, and providing for them a larger share in the administration. By the time

the Constitution was being drafted as a reading of the Constituent Assembly’s

debates shows us, the rationale for reservations had broadened. The Constitution’s

framers saw the measure as a promise against prejudice, as a tool to assimilate

deprived groups into public life, and as a means of reparation, to compensate

persons belonging to those groups for the reprehensible acts of discrimination

wrought on them through history. Marc Galanter has called this a compensatory

discrimination principle.

Yet, despite the expanded justification, the basic foundational logic for reservations

was still predicated on a demand for a fairer and more representative share in

political administration. This is demonstrated by R.M. Nalavade’s comment in the

Constituent Assembly. “Our experience in the provinces, though there are

provisions for reservation in the services, is bitter,” he said. “Even though the

depressed classes are educated and qualified, they are not given chances of

employment under the Provincial Governments. Now that we have provided for this

in the Constitution itself, there is no fear for the Scheduled castes. According to this





51

clause we can be adequately represented in the provincial as well as in the Central

services.”

By providing for a more proportionate distribution of the share in administration,

the programme of reservations, it was believed, would end at least some of caste-

based domination of jobs, particularly of employment in the public sector — a

domination that was built over thousands of years, where Dalits and Adivasis were

denied access to equal status. As Ms. Omvedt has pointed out, the strategy behind

reservations could, therefore, never have involved an attack on pure economic

backwardness. The idea was always to disavow caste-monopoly in the public sector.

Theory of justice

Even when the Constitution’s first amendment was introduced in 1951, to allow the

state to make special provisions beyond reservations in public employment for “the

advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens, or for

the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes”, the rationale, as the lawyer

Malavika Prasad has argued, remained constant. Attempts made at the time to

categorise individuals on the basis of economic status were expressly rejected.

Behind this thinking was a distinctive theory of justice: that by according a greater

share in public life to historically disadvantaged groups the relative position of those

groups would stand enhanced. No doubt such a policy would not, in and of itself,

help eliminate the various inequalities produced by the caste system, but it was

believed it would represent a resolute effort to eliminate at least some of the caste-

based domination prevailing in society.

Indeed, the policy and the idea of justice that undergirds it have been seen as so

indispensable to the Constitution’s aims and purposes that the Supreme Court

in State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas (1975) held that reservations based on social and

educational backwardness, far from being an exception ought to be seen as an

intrinsic facet of the idea of equality.





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Unseating equality

It is in departing from this logic that the 103rd amendment unseats the

Constitution’s code of equality. Pure financial ability is a transient criterion; it

doesn’t place people into a definite group requiring special privileges. If anything,

allowing for reservation on such a principle only further fortifies the ability of

powerful castes to retain their positions of authority, by creating an even greater

monopolisation of their share in administration. If such an end is indeed the vision,

it’s difficult to see how the elementary conception of equality guaranteed by the

Constitution can continue to survive.

Now, no doubt the Supreme Court may, on the face of things, consider Parliament

as possessing the power to altogether dismantle the Constitution’s existing idea of

equality without simultaneously demolishing the document’s basic structure. But, if

nothing else, when the court hears the challenges made to the 103rd amendment,

it must see the petitioners’ arguments as representing a credibly defensible view.

The least the court ought to do, therefore, is to refer the case to a constitution

bench, given that Article 145(3) mandates such an enquiry on any issue involving a

substantial question of law concerning the Constitution’s interpretation, and, in the

meantime, stay the operation of the amendment until such a bench hears the case

fully. Should the court fail to do so the government will surely one day present to it

a cruel fait accompli.

17-JULY-2019

MAKING SENSE OF KARNATAKA’S POLITICS

Castes and communities are the key players, where gain to one’s

community becomes an overriding consideration

A distinct genre of political theatrics in which elected representatives play ‘hide and

seek’ in plush resorts to escape poaching by their very own and rival party leaders

is currently playing out in Karnataka. While the dramatis personae, the layout of



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53

the plot, the resources deployed, and the message conveyed are distinct this

round, this mode of doing politics is not new to the State.

In fact, following the State elections last year, leaders of the ruling coalition enacted

a similar play almost 14 months ago by shepherding the elected representatives of

their respective parties to safe havens; this was done ostensibly to stop them from

being poached by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which laid claim to power as the

largest party in the House and needed a few more legislators to secure a majority.

The bare sketch

Such mimetic displays have not been rare in the past either. They make room for

extended invention of sub-plots and even erasure of a few, often delving deep into

the rich folklore Karnataka is known for. Analogical practices are there in other

States too, although Karnataka can claim a certain expertise in this regard by now.

While such theatrics may have tactical political purpose at times, the question to be

asked is the purpose for which such a political tactic is employed; the bearing it has

on electoral representation, and the affront such political means offer to nurture a

democratic culture.

In Karnataka, there is a coalition government of the Indian National Congress and

the Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S). The Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy, is from the

JD(S) that has 37 members, while its majority partner, the Congress, has 78 members

in the 224-member House. While there are two independents, the BJP, which is in

the opposition, has 105 members. From the beginning, the relationship between the

coalition partners has been very uneasy, with the media constantly abuzz with

rumours of a breakdown. On its part, the BJP has made umpteen attempts to wean

away a few members from the coalition, widely termed ‘Operation Kamala (lotus)’.

After the Lok Sabha election, and the BJP’s resounding victory where it got 25 Lok

Sabha seats out of 28, the rumblings within the coalition have become louder;

moving to the greener side, i.e. the BJP, has become more tempting for the fence-

sitters.



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A few days ago, there was drama when 16 members of the Assembly, three from

the JD(S) and 13 of the Congress, most of them sheltered in a luxury hotel in

Mumbai, announced that they had resigned from the Assembly. Two independents,

who were made ministers earlier in order to retain them within the coalition fold,

resigned from the cabinet and extended support to the BJP. The Speaker of the

House, however, faulted the procedure adopted by 10 legislators to tender their

resignations, dragging in the Supreme Court to decide its rectitude. While receiving

these resignations afresh, following the court’s directive, the Speaker stood his

ground on ascertaining their constitutional and legal validity.

In Parliament, the Opposition accused the ruling BJP of employing unfair means to

bring down an elected government. With the Karnataka government having decided

to convene the Budget session, the coalition partners issued a whip to its members

to attend, holding out the threat of disqualification for non-compliance. The

Supreme Court was made to step in in order to decide the relative status of

resignation and disqualification of elected members and their precedence, given

their widely different political implications. On the floor of the Assembly, the Chief

Minister announced that he would move a trust motion on his government, which

has made the issue of status and precedence crucial to the ambitions and designs of

the rebels, and also placing them in a quandary. The unfolding of these events has

been laced with several subplots: lavish living, private jet-hops, invocation of divine

help, political “attempts” to cajole the rebels to return to the party-fold, and a

roughing up of party colleagues, and each party moving its Assembly members to

well-secured and lavish resorts.

Disaffection within coalition

While the coalition government and the parties supporting them have targeted the

BJP for attempting to pull down the government, the first group is primarily

responsible for allowing disaffection within its fold to spread for three reasons.

First, for reasons known to itself, the Congress did not include the most important

leaders from Northern Karnataka in the ministry for months; a small coterie of





55

Vokkaliga leaders in the coalition from the erstwhile Mysore region have attempted

to direct the course of political developments. The Lingayat-dominated northern

region, already smarting under years of neglect and drought, has consolidated itself

as a bloc to resist the encroaching dominance of its traditional rival, and has

gravitated wholesale towards the BJP which has been nursing it for years. Second,

the JD(S) with the Chief Minister at the helm and with the support of a section of the

State Congress leadership, has systematically attempted to undercut the lucrative

wheeler-dealer network that the Siddaramaiah government of the Congress (2013-

18) had built — it involves mining, land, construction and transport — and which

directed those resources to its henchmen. It led to interference in departments and

transfer of employees which the ministers concerned regarded as their fiefdoms. It

made Mr. Siddaramaiah, the pre-eminent leader of the Congress in the State, to

blow hot and cold occasionally against the coalition.

Third, the Congress and JD(S) are traditional political rivals in the southern region of

the State and over the years, a significant section of the Vokkaligas, the pronounced

social base of the JD(S), have been attracted to the Hindutva agenda. The inability

of the coalition to forge an overlapping voting base is what has led to its

overwhelming defeat in the very region of its strength.

The data is telling. In the Assembly elections of April 2018, the BJP, the Congress and

the JD(S) secured 36.34%, 38.14% and 18.3% of the voteshare respectively, while in

the Lok Sabha elections, it was 51.4%, 31.88% and 9.67%, respectively. The

disaffection has led a large number of Congressmen to question the utility of the

coalition on grounds of sectarian loyalties, personal interests, and future electoral

prospects; some of them with large interests at stake have decided to jump ship.

The hand of the BJP has always been there with the bait and offering promises.

The disaffection mentioned above have little to do with representational logic, i.e.,

upholding the interests of one’s constituency, striving to further the interests of the

political community of the State, or even the objectives of one’s own party. Due to

a number of historical reasons, castes and communities are key players on the





56

political scene in Karnataka. Hindutva has been attempting to fill this vacuum in

recent years but has a very tentative hold still.

Personal gain, sectarianism

Even today, the elected representatives primarily consider themselves as members

of castes and communities, and in the distribution of public resources, the gain to

one’s community becomes an overriding consideration. Therefore, elected

representatives form a clique with a powerful leader with access to public resources,

and strive to tilt the scales in their favour. Being elected as a member of the

Legislature is often perceived as an entry point to seek other goodies such as a

ministerial berth through which the member can channelise public resources for

personal gain and to extend patronage. In the context of the weakening party

leadership of coalition partners, since a representative may have to largely fend for

himself or herself, the temptation to accumulate as much as possible during one’s

stint is seen as a mark of political common sense.

It is time Karnataka politics discovers not merely its egalitarian and pluralistic

traditions and sets out to reconstruct its political architecture to reflect them. A

public culture imbued by such a perspective may not eliminate all differences but

there would be some yardsticks to hold elected representatives to accountability.

But for the time being, it seems a mirage.

18-JULY-2019

AT THE UNSC, A THREE-POINT AGENDA

India should once again become a consensus-builder, instead of the

outlier it has progressively become

India’s singular objective as a non-permanent member of the United Nations

Security Council (UNSC) in 2021-22 should be to help build a stable and secure

external environment. In doing so, India will promote its own people’s prosperity,



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57

regional and global security and growth, and a rule-based world order. It could

emerge a partner of choice for developing and developed countries alike.

India’s representation in the UNSC has become rarer. It is to re-enter the Council

after a gap of 10 years. The previous time, in 2011-12, followed a gap of 20 years. In

total, India has been in the UNSC for 14 years, representing roughly a fifth of the

time the United Nations (UN) has existed. India must leverage this latest

opportunity to project itself as a responsible nation.

Changing state of world

India finds itself in a troubled region between West and East Asia, a region bristling

with insurgencies, terrorism, human and narcotics trafficking, and great power

rivalries. There has been cataclysmic dislocation in West Asia. The Gulf is in turmoil.

Though the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh) has been defeated, Iraq and

Syria are not going to be the same as before. Surviving and dispersed Daesh foot

soldiers are likely preparing new adventures, many in their countries of origin. The

turbulence in West Asia is echoed in North and South Asia, a consequence of the

nuclear and missile tests by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and

Afghanistan’s slow but unmistakable unravelling from the support, sustenance and

sanctuary provided in its contiguity to groups such as the Haqqani network, the

Taliban, and al-Qaeda. Other problems in Asia include strategic mistrust or

misperception, unresolved borders and territorial disputes, the absence of a pan-

Asia security architecture, and competition over energy and strategic minerals.

Alongside, the western world is consumed by primordial, almost tribal instincts,

turning its back on the universal values it once espoused as western values. Pundits

and political scientists, who had spoken of the end of the nation state and the end

of history itself, are grappling with the rise of new nationalism.

The benign and supportive international system that followed the Cold War has all

but disappeared. At the beginning of this century, the words ‘national interest’ had

acquired almost a pejorative connotation. They are now back in currency. Fear,

populism, polarisation, and ultra-nationalism have become the basis of politics in



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many countries. No wonder that five years ago, when Henry Kissinger completed his

latest work, World Order, he found the world to be in a greater state of disorder

than at any time since the end of World War II.

Even so, the world is in a better place today than when the UN was first established.

The record on maintaining international peace and security, one of the prime

functions of the UNSC, has been positive, with or without the UN. The world has

been distracted from its other shared goals, especially international social and

economic cooperation. Although coordination between 193 sovereign member

nations will be difficult, it is well worth trying. To this end, the permanent members

(P-5) as also other UN members must consider it worth their while to reform the

Council.

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, “World in 2050”, predicts that by 2050, China

will be the world’s number one economic power, followed by India. In China’s case,

this is subject to its success in avoiding the middle-income trap. And in India’s, to

more consistent economic performance than the experience of recent years. That

said, one of the challenges of the international system today, and for India in the

UNSC, is that this profound impending change is largely unrecognised by the great

powers and other countries.

What should India aim to do?

There is no need for India to fritter away diplomatic goodwill in seeking an elusive

permanent seat in the UNSC — it will come India’s way more by invitation and less

by self-canvassing. India will have to increase its financial contribution, as the

apportionment of UN expenses for each of the P-5 countries is significantly larger

than that for India. Even Germany and Japan today contribute many times more

than India. Although India has been a leading provider of peacekeepers, its assessed

contribution to UN peacekeeping operations is minuscule.

At a time when there is a deficit of international leadership on global issues,

especially on security, migrant movement, poverty, and climate change, India has

an opportunity to promote well-balanced, common solutions.





59

First, as a member of the UNSC, India must help guide the Council away from the

perils of invoking the principles of humanitarian interventionism or ‘Responsibility

to Protect’. The world has seen mayhem result from this. And yet, there are regimes

in undemocratic and repressive nations where this yardstick will never be applied.

Given the fragile and complex international system, which can become even more

unpredictable and conflictual, India should work towards a rules-based global order.

Sustainable development and promoting peoples’ welfare should become its new

drivers.

Second, India should push to ensure that the UNSC Sanctions Committee targets all

those individuals and entities warranting sanctions. Multilateral action by the UNSC

has not been possible because of narrowly defined national interest. As on May 21,

2019, 260 individuals and 84 entities are subject to UN sanctions, pursuant to

Council resolutions 1267, 1989, and 2253. The U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office

of Foreign Assets Control maintains a larger list of individuals and entities subject to

U.S. sanctions. The European Union maintains its own sanctions list.

Third, having good relations with all the great powers, India must lead the way by

pursuing inclusion, the rule of law, constitutionalism, and rational internationalism.

India should once again become a consensus-builder, instead of the outlier it has

progressively become. A harmonised response is the sine qua non for dealing with

global problems of climate change, disarmament, terrorism, trade, and

development. India could take on larger burdens to maintain global public goods

and build new regional public goods. For example, India should take the lead in

activating the UNSC’s Military Staff Committee, which was never set into motion

following the UN’s inception. Without it, the UNSC’s collective security and conflict-

resolution roles will continue to remain limited.

Looking at polycentrism

A rules-based international order helps rather than hinders India, and embracing the

multilateral ethic is the best way forward. India will be a rich country in the future

and will acquire greater military muscle, but its people will remain relatively poor.





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India is a great nation, but not a great power. Apolarity, unipolarity, a duopoly of

powers or contending super-powers — none of these suit India. India has a strong

motive to embrace polycentrism, which is anathema to hegemonic powers intent

on carving out their exclusive spheres of influence.

Finally, India cannot stride the global stage with confidence in the absence of stable

relations with its neighbours. Besides whatever else is done within the UN and the

UNSC, India must lift its game in South Asia and its larger neighbourhood. Exclusive

reliance on India’s brilliant team of officers at its New York mission is not going to

be enough.

19-JULY-2019

DOES THE ANTI-DEFECTION LAW SERVE ANY PURPOSE?

The Supreme Court has held that it is the Speaker’s discretion to decide on the

resignations of the 15 dissident MLAs belonging to the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular)

coalition government of Karnataka as and when he considers appropriate. What is

the right course of action for the Speaker? Srinivasan Ramani discusses the political

saga in the State with P.D.T. Achary, former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha, and

M.R. Madhavan, president of the PRS Legislative Research. Edited excerpts:

Mr. Achary, the Supreme Court ruled on the Karnataka incidents saying that the

Speaker has the complete discretion to decide upon the resignations of the MLAs.

What does this entail on the resignations so far? While the Speaker also has the

duty to verify the voluntary nature of the resignations, does this mean he can

question the letter of resignations that was handed over to him in person and even

if it is in the prescribed format?

PDTA: Yes, certainly. Under Article 190(3) of the Constitution, the Speaker has to

satisfy himself that the resignations are voluntary and genuine and can reject them

if he feels they are not. The Speaker has absolute discretion in this matter.





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So, in this case, the legislators have sent a sworn affidavit saying that they have

resigned. Should this not bring the matter to rest?

PDTA: The Constitution is clear on this. Only the Speaker has the discretion to decide

whether the resignations were voluntary or genuine. No other constitutional

authority can decide this.

Mr. Madhavan, in the specific case of Karnataka, the legislators have resigned

saying they do not have confidence in the current government. The argument

being made by their detractors is that these resignations are a ruse as they are

doing so to evade disqualification. What is your position on this?

MRM: There are far more fundamental issues to be discussed here. All the

institutions including legislature and judiciary here follow certain rules based on the

Constitution, but beyond that there are certain conventions and assumptions under

which these institutions operate. For example, the Speaker; there are only a certain

set of rules to be followed by him/her. Beyond that, there is an assumption that the

Speaker is a neutral person and acts in good faith. Unfortunately, that assumption

has been broken into pieces in our country.

For example, in the last Parliament, there was a no confidence motion tabled by a

set of MPs. The Speaker refused to consider this, saying that there was too much

disturbance in the Lok Sabha, but during the same period allowed the Finance Bill to

be passed without discretion. In the elected House prior to this, a similar incident

occurred in the way the reorganisation of States bill (that bifurcated Andhra

Pradesh) was passed.

In the States, in the last Andhra Pradesh Assembly for example, four MLAs who

officially belonged to the YSRCP were in the Cabinet led by Mr Chandra Babu Naidu

(of the TDP)! Yet the Speaker did not act on their disqualification. What more proof

was required to prove that the person had switched sides? There is therefore the

problem of political culture with the lack of ethics and the judiciary cannot do much

about this.





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In Karnataka’s case, the Supreme Court would have embroiled itself into a political

crisis and did the right thing by allowing the Speaker the discretion to rule on the

resignations.

Mr. Achary, as Speakers generally belong to the ruling party, they have tended to

act less as neutral institutions, as several recent actions that were pointed out by

Mr. Madhavan show. In some cases, despite clear cases of defections, the

Speakers have refused to act. Is this not against the spirit of the anti-defection

law?

PDTA: Yes. Speakers have not acted as impartial umpires generally on issues related

to defection. There is a basic assumption in the Tenth schedule that the Speaker will

decide things on merit and be impartial. Invariably they come from ruling parties

(Somnath Chatterjee being the Speaker in UPA-I was an exception). There have been

many issues in which Speakers have acted — sitting on cases of defection, the way

they have conducted proceedings, etc.

But the anti-defection law is something handled by politicians. Also, there have been

demands that it should be handled by the Election Commissions, and politicians

have resisted it. They, being what they are, have dealt with it in their own way.

In the case of Karnataka, there are issues which are quite important. The Supreme

Court has said that the Speaker will have the discretion to decide upon the

resignations and after that he has to convey it to the Supreme Court. I have a

reservation about this. The Speaker has the authority to decide upon the

resignations and no outside authority should come into the picture. Merely because

the matter was brought to the Supreme Court and the court has given an interim

order, the Speaker’s decision shouldn’t be conveyed back to the court. What

happens if the Speaker rejects the resignations? And I think there are reasons for

doing so in this case. What does the Supreme Court do?

The other part of the order was that the members are free and nobody can be

compelled to enter the House. The ruling party and other parties have the right to

issue a whip to its members to attend the house and vote on a measure. I am not





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able to understand this part of the order. Suppose the MLAs who have resigned do

not attend the proceedings despite the whip, they should be bound to face the

consequences. I think this part of the Supreme Court order is problematic.

Mr. Achary, the penalty for defection is disqualification. Doesn’t the member

therefore have the right to join another party after resignation? Can a Speaker

prevent the member from resigning only to hold him guilty of defection?

PDTA: I think the petitions under the 10th schedule in these cases were given much

before the resignations. Cases of anti-defection were filed before the resignations

came up. Suppose the Speaker refuses to accept the resignations, they will continue

to remain members of the ruling party (the Congress) and the party has the right to

issue a whip and if they don’t attend the House, they will face the consequences.

That is the law. But in the Karnataka situation, everyday something new emerges —

a trust vote followed by a possible fall of government, and so on. It is difficult to

know what lies ahead in such a fluid situation.

Mr. Madhavan, considering the Speaker is not an impartial person in practice,

shouldn’t the anti-defection law be implemented by an authority such as the

Election Commission? Or should there be a timeframe to decide upon actions

related to the anti-defection law?

MRM: The Election Commission being impartial is another assumption, probably a

reasonable one. But I think looking for another institution to decide on this process

is to look for a bureaucratic solution to what is essentially a political problem. The

whole problem, in my opinion, arises in the anti-defection law itself, which goes

against the principles of representative democracy. That is the original problem.

If you go back all the way to 1774 to Edmund Burke’s famous speech on

representation. He says that the representative should think of what is good for the

country and not just for his constituents. Similarly, there is a famous speech by

Winston Churchill where he says that, for him, first came the nation, then the

constituents, and then the party. What we have done with the anti-defection law is

that we have made every MP or a MLA a slave of the party leadership. Invariably,





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we have converted a parliamentary system to a de-facto presidential system

because the head of the executive who happens to be the Prime Minister also

controls the majority party in the legislature. In essence, the executive and the

legislature seem to have merged in purpose.

While discussing the draft constitution, Dr. Ambedkar once spoke about the

differences between the presidential system in the United States and the

parliamentary system that he proposes and showed how, despite the stability

inherent in the former, there was the responsibility of any member, including those

of ruling parties, to move motions and question the government of the day in the

latter. He said that this responsibility was very important in a country like ours. We

have chosen the parliamentary system but the anti-defection law has hollowed the

deliberative aspect of representative democracy.

To me there is one solution. Delete the Tenth schedule of the Indian Constitution.

Mr. Madhavan has a very strong view on this that the anti-defection law has

reduced the legislator into a figurehead of the party leadership and is against the

deliberative nature of parliamentary democracy. But at the same time, there is an

expectation that legislators delineate themselves on ideas and issues, which is why

they go to elections for a mandate on the party ticket. Defections reduce them to

individuals who seek the loaves of power to move from one party to another. Mr.

Achary, how would you address these two aspects and what is your view on the

anti-defection law as it exists?

PDTA: When the anti-defection law was passed, people were very afraid about the

curbs on freedom of expression and speech of the legislators. The evil that was

staring us in the face then was the “Aya Ram Gaya Ram” business which was shaking

up the entire party system. In order to put an end to this and to preserve the party

system, the law came about, with some important weapons for the political party.

But there are some provisions that are problematic.

The law says, for example, that even if a legislator has been expelled by a party and

continues to a member in the legislature, he/she will still be held against the party





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whip and could be disqualified if he/she voted against the whip’s directions. This is

illogical.

The Supreme Court has said that when the party issues a whip, it must be for a very

important legislative measure or a trust vote on which the government’s survival is

at stake, for example. For occasions, parties need not issue a whip. I don’t think

political parties are clearly aware of this. I know instances when the parliament

secretariat had to circulate this decision by the Supreme Court on whips to parties.

Whips should be used only for crucial issues.

So, both of you will agree to the statement that there is a problem with political

culture, that well-thought-out laws or institutional corrections cannot necessarily

address?

MRM: I agree to an extent. We certainly need well-thought-out laws. But I think on

the question of defections and other acts, society at large, the electorate, needs to

act on this kind of political culture. Legislators who act in unscrupulous ways should

be voted out in subsequent elections. It is that simple. If you do certain things that

you should not do, then you will lose elections. That is how democracy is supposed

to work.

PDTA: The anti-defection law needs to be looked into again by the lawmakers and

reformed in light of the experience of its implementation since 1985. There have

been a large number of cases of defection and how awkwardly they have been

handled. Lately, for e.g., we have seen people moving out of parties in large numbers

and eluding disqualification by suggesting that they have merged with their new

party. The law is clear, mergers are between two parties and two-thirds of the

members will agree to the merger. Now the practice is the other way around — two-

thirds of the members or more move out and then they merge with the new party.

The law is made to stand on its head by the legislators. In light of this, if the law, the

way it is, has to go, I would agree with that.





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20-JULY-2019

THE NEP AND LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION

The draft’s endorsement of critical thinking would have gained credibility

if it had promoted liberal values

A few months ago, a school principal told me about her conversation in the morning assembly

with children of the middle (Grades VI-VIII) section. She had asked them for suggestions to

turn the school into heaven. Some children suggested a garden, with trees, grass, and flowers

blossoming all year round. Others pointed out that the school already had a nice garden. They

suggested that heaven should have peace, so we should end all fights. The assembly ended

with everyone taking a vow to stop all fighting in the school to make it like heaven. A short

while later, two boys came scuffling into the principal’s office, quarrelling and seeking her

intervention. On inquiry, one of them said, “Ma’am, didn’t you say you want our school to be

like heaven?” Then he pointed at the other boy and asked, “What is he doing here, Ma’am?

He fights with me all the time.”

This story came back to me when I started reading the section on higher education

in the 480-page draft of the National Education Policy (NEP). I had completed my

reading of the section on school education, so I was ready to be told how a future

generation that spends its school years under the guidance of the proposed new

policy will spend its college years. For improvement in learning at school, the draft

NEP wants critical thinking and creativity to be treated as the cornerstones of

intellectual development from early childhood onwards. As a term, critical thinking

or inquiry has gained enormous popularity of late. It does not mean ‘critical’ in the

common sense. How the term has evolved in recent educational theory implies the

ability to place ideas and problems in a larger context in order to locate creative links

and clues by using information and concepts drawn from different subjects. Imagine

our youngsters proceeding to higher education after this kind of intellectual training

at school: you can picture a transformed college classroom.



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Pivotal to reform

In the draft NEP, the section for higher education opens with ‘liberal arts’ as the key

to reform. This is another term that has been gaining currency in India over recent

years, but its history is rather different from that of critical thinking. In India, owing

to our colonial history, we are more used to the term ‘liberal’. In modern education,

‘liberal arts’ refers to undergraduate courses in America’s elite private universities.

For years, I have been looking for a suitable term in my mother tongue, i.e. Hindi, to

convey the many layers of meaning underlying the word ‘liberal’. The common

translation is ‘udaar’ or large-hearted. (I am sure this is the term they will use when

the draft NEP is made available in Hindi.) The idea of liberalism as large-heartedness

or intellectual generosity ran into trouble when ‘neo-liberalism’ gained centre-stage

in economic policy. The only way one might notice some generosity in it was by

recognising the state’s willingness to loosen its grip. Neo-liberalism has now settled

in, transcending ideological boundaries, but its impact on liberal arts education in

America is far from clear. Many scholars have suggested that the turn towards neo-

liberal policies has weakened critical thinking in liberal arts courses. This matter has

suddenly become relevant for us in the wake of the draft NEP proposing both critical

thinking and liberal arts, virtually in the same breath.

Applying critical thinking

Implementing the draft NEP in my own mind, I thought of using critical thinking to

reflect on the prospects of liberal training. The late Professor Ravinder Kumar, an

eminent historian of modern politics, was a self-avowed liberal. I once heard him

explain why liberalism is the hardest social doctrine to practice. He said the capacity

to tolerate your adversaries, with curiosity to understand them, calls for a mutual

agreement. If there is no such consensus, i.e. liberal outlook is practised by one side

only, it can be frustrating, and might even lead to a tragic failure of liberalism itself.

When I hear about liberal arts courses being offered in private universities, I often

wonder what future awaits them. How will they face a world in which the ‘narrow

domestic walls’ are rising higher and higher? This metaphor was used by Tagore, a

bold liberal, who wanted India to become a ‘heaven of freedom’. ‘Where knowledge





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is free’, the same poem said. The liberal arts undergraduate courses I am referring

are to cost ₹8 lakh per year.

The draft NEP’s support for liberal arts comes with a plea for increased public

funding. It also cites employability as a justification. Even more interestingly, the

argument excavates historical grounding. It says: “Indian universities such as

Takshshila and Nalanda... definitively emphasised the liberal arts and liberal

education tradition.... The critical Indian concept of liberal arts has indeed become

extremely important in the modern day employment landscape of the 21st century,

and liberal arts education of this kind is already being extensively implemented

today (e.g. in the United States in Ivy League schools) with great success. It is time

India also brought back this great tradition back to its place of origin.” (pp. 223-224).

The resounding, elaborate commendation of liberal arts in the draft NEP brought me

back to the principal’s story about turning her school into heaven. The boy who

asked her about his classmate — “What is he doing here, Ma’am?” — was asking a

fundamental question pertinent to the future of liberal values. The youngster’s

query demonstrates that he has internalised the spirit of the age. Many children do

that. Their questions carry valuable material to understand our times better and

more objectively than we might be able to do as adults, submerged as we are in our

ethos, feeling forced to cope with it. The boy’s query contained the hope that

principal Ma’am, being the custodian of heaven, will exercise her authority to

adjudicate in his fight. What were her choices? There were mainly two: to expel the

alleged fighter or to ask the complainer to talk to his adversary. Only the latter would

qualify as a liberal administrative measure.

Perhaps this is what the draft NEP also wants in its push for the liberal arts, as a

futuristic substitute for the monochromatic ‘BA’ our system is used to and stuck in.

Since the draft NEP is committed to critical thinking, surely its writers had cast a

glance at the larger ethos and noticed the demise of several bastions of liberal

education. Had they evinced even moderate concern, their endorsement of the

liberal arts would have gained credibility. Unless liberal arts graduates are to be

produced exclusively for export, their training would have to include the smartness





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to not let anyone know what exactly you believe in. One suspects that their

American counterparts already receive such training.

Let me get back to the heaven alluded to in the principal’s story. Trees and peace

apart, a school turned into heaven will surely have to resolve the problem of fear,

so endemic to our education system. The boy who wanted the principal to

adjudicate was not afraid of indicating to her his own preferred solution. It was

implied in the question: ‘What is he doing here?’ This stance also carries the hope

of impunity from being charged of intolerance. As a grown-up he might say: ‘If we

want to preserve our neatly fenced heaven, why can’t we expel from it the people

we don’t appreciate?’ We might add: isn’t this already being argued in many liberal

countries, so why should we hesitate? My principal friend, however, followed her

instinctive good sense and sent the two boys away, asking them to talk it over and

play without a quarrel together.

22-JULY-2019

THE TREMOR OF UNWELCOME AMENDMENTS TO THE RTI ACT

The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill is a twin attack on

accountability and the idea of federalism

“Amendments” have haunted the Right to Information (RTI) community ever since

the RTI Act came into effect almost 14 years ago. Rarely has a law been so stoutly

defended by activists. It is not possible to pass a perfect law. But it was a popular

opinion strongly held by most RTI activists that a demand for progressive

amendments could be used as a smokescreen by the establishment to usher in

regressive changes.

Nevertheless, the sword of Damocles of regressive amendments has hung over the

RTI with successive governments. Amendments have been proposed since 2006, just

six months after the law was implemented and many times thereafter. Peoples’

campaigns, through reasoned protest and popular appeal, have managed to have

them withdrawn.



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The proposed amendments tabled in Parliament on July 19, 2019 have been in the

offing for some time now. In the form of the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill,

2019, they seek to amend Sections 13, 16, and 27 of the RTI Act which carefully links,

and thereby equates, the status of the Central Information Commissioners (CICs)

with the Election Commissioners and the State Information Commissioners with the

Chief Secretary in the States, so that they can function in an independent and

effective manner. The deliberate dismantling of this architecture empowers the

Central government to unilaterally decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other

terms of service of Information Commissioners, both at the Centre and the States.

Introducing the Bill in the Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for Personnel, Public

Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh, asserted that this was a benevolent and

minor mechanism of rule-making rather than a basic amendment to the RTI law.

Agent of change

Why is there unseemly haste and determination to amend the law? Some feel that

it is because the RTI helped with the cross-verification of the affidavits of powerful

electoral candidates with official documents and certain Information Commissioners

having ruled in favour of disclosure. It is unlikely to be a set of instances but more

the fact that the RTI is a constant challenge to the misuse of power. In a country

where the rule of law hangs by a slender thread and corruption and the arbitrary

use of power is a daily norm, the RTI has resulted in a fundamental shift —

empowering a citizen’s access to power and decision-making. It has been a lifeline

for many of the 40 to 60 lakh ordinary users, many of them for survival. It has also

been a threat to arbitrariness, privilege, and corrupt governance. More than 80 RTI

users have been murdered because their courage and determination using the RTI

was a challenge to unaccountable power.

The RTI has been used brilliantly and persistently to ask a million questions across

the spectrum — from the village ration shop, the Reserve Bank of India, the Finance

Ministry, on demonetisation, non-performing assets, the Rafale fighter aircraft deal,

electoral bonds, unemployment figures, the appointment of the Central Vigilance



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Commissioner (CVC), Election Commissioners, and the (non)-appointment of the

Information Commissioners themselves. The information related to decision-making

at the highest level has in most cases eventually been accessed because of the

independence and high status of the Information Commission. That is what the

government is trying to amend.

The RTI movement has struggled to access information and through it, a share of

governance and democratic power. The Indian RTI law has been a breakthrough in

creating mechanisms and platforms for the practice of continual public vigilance that

are fundamental to democratic citizenship. The mostly unequal struggle to extract

information from vested interests in government needed an institutional and legal

mechanism which would not only be independent but also function with a

transparency mandate and be empowered to over-ride the traditional structures of

secrecy and exclusive control. An independent Information Commission which is the

highest authority on information along with the powers to penalise errant officials

has been a cornerstone of India’s celebrated RTI legislation.

Part of checks and balances

The task of the Information Commission is therefore different but no less important

than that of the Election Commission of India. Independent structures set up to

regulate and monitor the government are vital to a democratic state committed to

deliver justice and constitutional guarantees. The separation of powers is a concept

which underscores this independence and is vital to our democratic checks and

balances. When power is centralised and the freedom of expression threatened no

matter what the context, democracy is definitely in peril. That is perhaps why these

set of amendments have to be understood as a deliberate architectural change to

affect, in a regressive manner, power equations, the freedom of expression and

democracy. The Commission which is vested by law with status, independence and

authority, will now function like a department of the Central government, and be

subject to the same hierarchy and demand for obeisance. The decision of the

government to usurp the powers to set the terms and conditions of service and





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salaries of an independent body must be understood as an obvious attempt to

weaken the independence and authority granted by the law.

Apart from Section 13 which deals with the terms and conditions for the Central

information Commission, in amending Section 16, the Central government will also

control through rules, the terms and conditions of appointment of Commissioners

in the States. This is an assault on the idea of federalism.

Opaque moves

All the provisions related to appointment were carefully examined by a

parliamentary standing committee and the law was passed unanimously. It has been

acknowledged that one of the most important structural constituents of any

independent oversight institution, i.e. the CVC, the Chief Election Commission (CEC),

the Lokpal, and the CIC is a basic guarantee of tenure. In the case of the Information

Commissioners they are appointed for five years subject to the age limit of 65 years.

It was on the recommendation of the parliamentary standing committee that the

Information Commissioner and CIC were made on a par with the Election

Commissioner and the CEC, respectively. The manner in which the amendments are

being pushed through without any citizen consultation, bypassing examination by

the standing committee demonstrates the desperation to pass the amendments

without even proper parliamentary scrutiny. The mandatory pre-legislative

consultative policy of the government has been ignored. Previous governments

eventually introduced a measure of public consultation before proceeding with the

amendments. In fact, both the United Progressive Alliance and the National

Democratic Alliance put out proposed amendments to the RTI rules on the website

for public deliberation. But the present regime seems determined to pass these

amendments to the law itself without any consultation.

The reason is not far to seek. If the amendments are discussed by citizens and RTI

activists in the public domain, it would be apparent that these amendments

fundamentally weaken an important part of the RTI architecture. They violate the

constitutional principles of federalism, undermine the independence of Information





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Commissions, and thereby significantly dilute the widely used framework for

transparency in India.

The RTI community is worried. But the sword of Damocles is double-edged. It is an

idiom originally used to define the hidden insecurity of an autocrat. Questions are

threats to unaccountable power. The RTI has unshackled millions of users who will

continue to use this democratic right creatively and to dismantle exclusive power.

The RTI has been and will be used to withstand attacks on itself and strengthen the

movement for transparency and accountability in India. Eventually, the Narendra

Modi government will realise that while it might be able to amend a law, it cannot

stop a movement.

23-JULY-2019

THE JUDICIAL PRESUMPTION OF NON-CITIZENSHIP

In further strengthening the Foreigners Tribunal, the judiciary has failed

to fulfil its duty as the last protector of rights

On May 17, in a very short hearing, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court (the

Chief Justie of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna)

decided a batch of 15 petitions under the title Abdul Kuddus v Union of India.

Innocuously framed as resolving a “perceived conflict” between two paragraphs of

the Schedule to the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National

Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, the judgment — little reported in the media —

nonetheless had significant consequences for the ongoing events in Assam

surrounding the preparation of the National Register of Citizens (“the NRC”).

Two parallel processes

What was the issue in Abdul Kuddus? In short, it involved the status of an “opinion”

rendered by a Foreigners Tribunal, as to the citizenship (or the lack thereof) of any

individual. The issue arose because, in the State of Assam, there are two ongoing





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processes concerning the question of citizenship. The first includes proceedings

before the Foreigners Tribunals, which have been established under an executive

order of the Central government. The second is the NRC, a process overseen and

driven by the Supreme Court. While nominally independent, both processes

nonetheless bleed into each other, and have thus caused significant chaos and

confusion for individuals who have found themselves on the wrong side of one or

both.

The petitioners in Abdul Kuddus argued that an opinion rendered by the Foreigners

Tribunal had no greater sanctity than an executive order. Under the existing set of

rules, this meant that an adverse finding against an individual would not

automatically result in their name being struck off the NRC. Furthermore, the

Tribunal’s opinion could be subsequently reviewed, if fresh materials came to light.

This was particularly important because, as had been observed repeatedly,

citizenship proceedings were riddled with administrative (and other kinds of) errors,

which often came to light much later, and often by chance. And finally, the

petitioners argued that if the opinion of the Foreigners Tribunal was used to justify

keeping an individual out of the NRC, then that decision could be challenged and

would have to be decided independently of the decision arrived at by the Tribunal.

In short, the petitioners’ case was that the two processes — that of the Foreigners

Tribunal and of the NRC — should be kept entirely independent of each other, and

without according primacy to one over the other.

Flawed tribunals

The Supreme Court rejected the petitioners’ arguments, and held that the “opinion”

of the Foreigners Tribunal was to be treated as a “quasi-judicial order”, and was

therefore final and binding on all parties including upon the preparation of the NRC.

There are, however, serious problems with this holding, which will severely impact

the rights of millions of individuals.

To start with, neither in their form nor in their functioning do Foreigners’ Tribunals

even remotely resemble what we normally understand as “courts”. First, Foreigners



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Tribunals were established by a simple executive order. Second, qualifications to

serve on the Tribunals have been progressively loosened and the vague requirement

of “judicial experience” has now been expanded to include bureaucrats. And

perhaps, most importantly, under the Order in question (as it was amended in 2012),

Tribunals are given sweeping powers to refuse examination of witnesses if in their

opinion it is for “vexatious” purposes, bound to accept evidence produced by the

police, and, most glaringly, not required to provide reasons for their findings, “... as

it is not a judgment; a concise statement of the facts and the conclusion will suffice”

(although the Court, as an offhand remark, also added “reasons” to “facts” and

“conclusions”). Subject to provisions of this manner, Tribunals are left free to

“regulate [their] own procedure for disposal of cases.”

Unsurprisingly, over the last few months, glaring flaws in the working of the

Foreigners Tribunals have come to light. Questions in Parliament showed that as

many as 64,000 people have been declared non-citizens in ex-parte proceedings,

i.e., without being heard.

Testimonies reveal these people are often not even served notices telling them that

they have been summoned to appear. Alarmingly, an investigative media report

featured testimony by a former Tribunal member who stated that his compatriots

competed to be what was jokingly referred to as “the highest wicket-taker”, i.e. the

one who could declare the highest number of individuals “foreigners”.

When adjudicating upon a person’s citizenship — a determination that can have the

drastic and severe result of rendering a human being stateless — only the highest

standards of adjudication can ever be morally or ethically justifiable. But in further

strengthening an institution — the Foreigners Tribunal — that by design and by

practice manifestly exhibits the exact opposite of this principle, the Supreme Court

failed to fulfil its duty as the last protector of human rights under the Constitution.

Unwelcome departure

The Court attempted to justify this by observing that “fixing time limits and

recording of an order rather than a judgment is to ensure that these cases are



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disposed of expeditiously and in a time bound manner”. This, however, is the

reasoning of a company CEO, not that of the highest Court of the land, adjudicating

upon a matter that involves the rights of millions of people. When the stakes are so

high, when the consequences entail rendering people stateless, then to allow such

departures from the most basic principles of the rule of law is morally grotesque.

The Court’s observations in the Kuddus case, and indeed, the manner in which it has

conducted the NRC process over the last few months, can be traced back to two

judgments delivered in the mid-2000s, known as Sarbananda Sonowal Iand II. In

those judgments, relying upon unvetted and unreviewed literature, without any

detailed consideration of factual evidence, and in rhetoric more reminiscent of

populist demagogues than constitutional courts, the Court declared immigration to

be tantamount to “external aggression” upon the country; more specifically, it made

the astonishing finding that constitutionally, the burden of proving citizenship would

always lie upon the person who was accused of being a non-citizen. A parliamentary

legislation that sought to place the burden upon the state was struck down as being

unconstitutional.

What the rhetoric and the holdings of the Sonowal judgments have created is a

climate in which the dominant principle is the presumption of non-citizenship. Apart

from the absurdity of imposing such a rule in a country that already has a vast

number of marginalised and disenfranchised people, it is this fundamental

dehumanisation and devaluation of individuals that has enabled the manner in

which the Foreigners Tribunals operate, the many tragedies that come to light every

week in the context of the NRC, and judgments such as Abdul Kuddus. It is clear that

if Article 21 of the Constitution, the right to life, is to mean anything at all, this entire

jurisprudence must be reconsidered, root and branch.





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24-JULY-2019

A BRIDGE ACROSS THE INDIA-PAKISTAN ABYSS

It would be a travesty to waste the opportunities made possible by the

Kartarpur corridor plan

Ties between India and Pakistan are at an ebb — their lowest in two decades. The

thread from this phase, as a series of events — the Kargil war (1999), the Agra

Summit (2001), the attack on Parliament (2001) and Operation Parakram (2001-02)

— meant a sustained period of deep hostilities, with diplomatic missions

downgraded and travel routes truncated. Since 2015 and Prime Minister Narendra

Modi’s Lahore visit in the same year, the leaders of both countries have not met for

talks. In mid-2018, the backchannel diplomacy between the National Security

Advisers of both countries was called off by Pakistan, while in September 2018, India

called off a planned meeting between the Foreign Ministers in New York. In the

wake of the Pulwama terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir in February this

year, India attacked terror targets in Pakistan which in turn sent fighter jets to the

border. Subsequently, after India moved missiles and deployed submarines,

Pakistan raised a full air alert and imposed an airspace ban that lasted till mid-July.

Unbroken thread

What has been disconnected from all those tensions are the talks on the Kartarpur

corridor. The offer from Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan to open the corridor

was conveyed first by Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and

accepted by Mr. Modi, marking a rare moment of coordination between the two

nations.

That the talks have continued through one of the most difficult years in the

relationship is equally remarkable; there have been three rounds of technical-level

meetings to ensure both sides complete the infrastructure needed before

November 2019, the 550th anniversary of Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak.



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https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ied-blast-in-kashmirs-pulwama-many-crpf-jawans-killed/article26268289.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/air-strikes-hit-balakot-in-pakistan-initial-assessment-100-hit-sources/article26373318.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/iaf-plane-shot-down-pilot-taken-captive-by-pak-army/article26390980.ece

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The symbolism for pilgrims who will be able to travel from Dera Baba Nanak town in

Punjab to the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur just a few kilometres inside

Pakistan, which are sites where Guru Nanak spent his last few years, goes well

beyond the date and year. This is a route that the Guru and his followers traversed

with ease for half a millennium until Partition resulted in the India-Pakistan border

cutting through it. While Sikh pilgrims have been given easy access since then to

Guru Nanak’s birthplace at Nankana Sahib, the circuitous 200 km route to Kartarpur

via Amritsar-Wagah has been off limits. The Kartarpur shrine has one of the last

copies of the original Guru Granth Sahib; there are some who believe that it contains

not only the wisdom of the 10 Gurus but is itself the 11th and last Guru. Giving life

to the wishes of so many will also ensure political dividends in India, an aspect no

government in the State or at the Centre can ignore.

Some irritants

Despite the rich significance of the corridor, there were many reasons for the earlier

hesitation to revive the project. The Kartarpur corridor project is an issue that has

been raised by India for several decades, with New Delhi’s reasons for wanting the

corridor clear. However, in the case of Pakistan, these have not been as transparent,

with the military establishment’s surprise backing only raised doubts on whether

Islamabad has an ulterior motive. In a dossier handed over during the last round of

talks on Kartarpur on July 14, India spelt out its apprehensions over Pakistan

allowing separatist Khalistani groups, including those funded by groups based in the

United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, to try and influence pilgrims. Of

specific concern is the ‘Referendum 2020’ plan by the Sikhs for Justice group

(banned by India).

This group has already held a series of public events in the U.S. and the U.K.

demanding a ‘worldwide referendum’ on a separate Sikh state. The other irritant is

the possible use of the corridor for drugs and arms movement; there are many

routes and tunnels at the border between the two Punjabs. The terror threat by



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Pakistani Punjab-based anti-India groups such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-

e-Mohammad is also a constant concern.

Agreeing to the Kartarpur corridor means the government has made an exception

from a matter concerning national policy for a matter of faith. In the last few years,

every avenue has been shut down from those for official, bilateral and regional

(South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) talks to even those for travel and

tourism. Trade too has ground to a halt with cross-Line of Control (LoC) trade route

suspension the latest casualty.

With such strictures in place, New Delhi’s decision to embark on a course that will

need regular and repeated India-Pakistan meetings is nothing short of a breach of

its otherwise firm “no talks without terror ending” policy. For example, at a time

when Indian and Pakistani Ministers do not even hold talks when they meet at

multilateral conferences, New Delhi sent two senior Ministers to Pakistan to

participate in the ground-breaking ceremony for the event. It remains to be seen

who the government will send to the inauguration, and whether Mr. Modi, who has

likened building the Kartarpur corridor to the fall of the Berlin wall, will grace the

occasion.

A range of possibilities

With the Kartarpur exception to India’s policy on Pakistan now established, it is

necessary to see whether it can be built on to create a mechanism for broader

conversations between India and Pakistan. The obvious extension from this would

be for having other faith-based “corridors” for Hindu, Muslim and Sikh pilgrims in

both countries; this would be in addition to the list of 20 shrines (15 in Pakistan, five

in India) that were negotiated under the 1974 Protocol on visits to Religious Shrines.

The template that Kartarpur has given both sides is also worth considering for the

format of other bilateral negotiations given that the talks have been immunised

from both terror attacks and election rhetoric. The venue of the talks, at the Attari-

Wagah zero point, lends itself to more successful outcomes too away from the glare

of the media, without focus on arrangements for both parties. The two sides can





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cross over, meet for the duration of talks and return after issuing a pre-arranged

joint statement.

The timing of the Kartarpur opening may also lend itself to exploring other bilateral

engagements.

Ahead of the next plenary of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in October,

Pakistan will remain under pressure to keep terror groups subdued. According to

various reports, infiltration figures at the LoC are significantly lower (a 43% reduction

since the Balakot strikes in February); officials have marked about 20 terror camps

in PoK they believe have been “shut down” recently. Civilian and military casualties

from ceasefire violations have also reduced. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s

government, which has been buoyed by Mr. Khan’s U.S. visit and by Pakistan’s new-

found acceptance in the international community for its role in Taliban talks, and

Mr. Modi’s government, which has been bolstered by its strong electoral mandate,

will also be in the strongest positions politically to forge agreements.

Thus, it would be a travesty to waste the opportunity made possible by the Kartarpur

corridor, and by extension, the founder of the Sikh faith himself (revered by Hindus

and Muslims in India and Pakistan) to bring both countries back to the table for talks.

The most famous story at Kartarpur is the one of the ‘miracle’ that Guru Nanak

wrought after his death as his Hindu and Muslim followers debated late into the

night whether their Guru should be cremated or buried. When they awoke, his body

had vanished, replaced by flowers which they divided up. The Guru Nanak’s

‘samadhi’ and grave were built side by side. As pilgrims across the border pay a visit

in November, it should be clear what the bigger miracle is: that the Kartarpur

exception has been made at all.

25-JULY-2019

HAVING THE LAST WORD ON ‘POPULATION CONTROL’

There should be a clear understanding that offering choices and services

rather than outright state control works best





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On July 11, World Population Day, a Union Minister expressed alarm, in a Tweet,

over what he called the “population explosion” in the country, wanting all political

parties to enact population control laws and annulling the voting rights of those

having more than two children. Just a month earlier, a prominent businessman-yoga

guru wanted the government to enact a law where “the third child should not be

allowed to vote and enjoy facilities provided by the government”. This, according to

him, would ensure that people would not give birth to more children.

Both these demands are wayward and represent a warped thinking which has been

rebutted rather well in the Economic Survey 2018-19. The Survey notes that India is

set to witness a “sharp slowdown in population growth in the next two decades”.

The fact is that by the 2030s, some States will start transitioning to an ageing society

as part of a well-studied process of “demographic transition” which sees nations

slowly move toward a stable population as fertility rates fall with an improvement

in social and economic development indices over time.

Dangerous imagery

The demand for state controls on the number of children a couple can have is not a

new one. It feeds on the perception that a large and growing population is at the

root of a nation’s problems as more and more people chase fewer and fewer

resources. This image is so ingrained in the minds of people that it does not take

much to whip up public sentiment which in turn can quickly degenerate into a deep

class or religious conflict that pits the poor, the weak, the downtrodden and the

minorities against the more privileged sections. From this point to naming, targeting

and attacking is a dangerous and short slide. The implications of such an approach

are deep and wide but not easily understood because the argument is couched in

sterile numbers and a rule that, it would seem, applies to all sections equally. On the

contrary, what is suggested is the ugliest kind of discrimination, worse than physical

attacks or social prejudice because it breaks the poor and the weak bit by bit, and in

a very insidious way.

Policy of choice



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The fig leaf of population control allows for the outrageous argument to be made

that a family will be virtually ostracised and a citizen will be denied his or her basic

rights if he or she is born as the third child. This has of course never been public

policy in India.

In fact, a far-sighted and forward-looking National Population Policy (NPP) was

introduced in 2000 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The essence

of the policy was the government’s commitment to “voluntary and informed choice

and consent of citizens while availing of reproductive health care services” along

with a “target free approach in administering family planning services”. This is a

position reiterated by various governments, including the present government on

the floor of both Houses of Parliament. For example, in March 2017, the then

Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Anupriya Patel, in a written reply in

the Lok Sabha noted that the “family Planning programme in India is target free and

voluntary in nature and it is the prerogative of the clients to choose a family planning

method best suited to them as per their reproductive right”.

The then Health Minister, J.P. Nadda, has said pretty much the same thing. About a

year ago, he articulated the “lifecycle framework” which looks to the health and

nutrition needs of mother and child not merely during pregnancy and child birth but

“right from the time of conception till the child grows… carrying on till the

adolescent stage and further”. This argument is not about denying services but

about offering choices and a range of services to mother and child on the clear

understanding that the demographic dividend can work to support growth and drive

opportunity for ordinary people only when the population is healthy.

Crucial connections

Thus, family health, child survival and the number of children a woman has are

closely tied to the levels of health and education of the parents, and in particular the

woman; so the poorer the couple, the more the children they tend to have. This is a

relation that has little to do with religion and everything to do with opportunities,

choices and services that are available to the people. The poor tend to have more





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children because child survival is low, son preference remains high, children lend a

helping hand in economic activity for poorer households and so support the

economic as well as emotional needs of the family. This is well known, well

understood and well established.

As the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16) notes, women in the lowest wealth

quintile have an average of 1.6 more children than women in the highest wealth

quintile, translating to a total fertility rate of 3.2 children versus 1.5 children moving

from the wealthiest to the poorest. Similarly, the number of children per woman

declines with a woman’s level of schooling. Women with no schooling have an

average 3.1 children, compared with 1.7 children for women with 12 or more years

of schooling. This reveals the depth of the connections between health, education

and inequality, with those having little access to health and education being caught

in a cycle of poverty, leading to more and more children, and the burden that state

control on number of children could impose on the weakest. As the latest Economic

Survey points out, States with high population growth are also the ones with the

lowest per capita availability of hospital beds.

In fact, demographers are careful not to use the word “population control” or

“excess population”. The NPP 2000 uses the world “control” just thrice: in

references to the National AIDS Control Organisation; to prevent and control

communicable diseases, and control of childhood diarrhoea. This is the spirit in

which India has looked at population so that it truly becomes a thriving resource;

the life blood of a growing economy. Turning this into a problem that needs to be

controlled is exactly the kind of phraseology, mindset and possibly action that will

spell doom for the nation. It will undo all the good work that has been done and set

the stage for a weaker and poorer health delivery system — exactly the opposite of

what a scheme such as Ayushman Bharat seeks to achieve. Today, as many as 23

States and Union Territories, including all the States in the south region, already

have fertility below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. So, support

rather than control works.





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Scars of the past

The damage done when mishandling issues of population growth is long lasting. Let

us not forget that the scars of the Emergency are still with us. Men used to be part

of the family planning initiatives then but after the excesses of forced sterilisations,

they continue to remain completely out of family planning programmes even today.

The government now mostly works with woman and child health programmes.

Mistakes of the Emergency-kind are not what a new government with a robust

electoral mandate might like to repeat. So it is time to ask some of the prejudiced

voices within the government and ruling party not to venture into terrain they may

not fully understand.

26-JULY-2019

HOW TO MAKE THE SURROGACY BILL MORE INCLUSIVE?

The government need not restrict the surrogacy option to married

couples only

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha earlier this month

with the intent of facilitating altruistic surrogacy in the country. The Bill stipulates

that a surrogate mother has to be a ‘close relative’ of the intending couple. The

government claims that regulating surrogacy will put an end to rampant

commercialisation of the practice. But in the process, it has left a lot of women from

underprivileged backgrounds who lend their wombs worse off. In a conversation

moderated by Ramya Kannan, Dr. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, West Bengal MP,

gynaecologist and fertility expert, and Gita Aravamudan, award-winning journalist

with an interest in gender issues and author of 'Baby Makers: The Story of Indian

Surrogacy' look at the Bill’s shortcomings.

How will the Bill impact surrogacy in the country? Will it increase or decrease the

chances for people to choose from the many reproduction options?





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KGD: I would like to mention that I have spoken to Union Health Minister Harsh

Vardhan. I have also, in fact, written to him that it looks like we are putting the cart

before the horse. For surrogacy to happen, we need embryos, and embryos are

cultured in various In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) laboratories. So, before speaking of

surrogacy, we should have brought in the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)

Bill, which has been lying in cold storage for years now. We should have formulated

rules and regulations for ART because there is a mention of ‘donor eggs’ in the

Surrogacy Bill; and it is the donor eggs that are used for the IVF procedures. Second,

the Bill specifies that the intending couples should be married Indian couples. There

is no mention of Non-Resident Indians working or studying abroad who may want

to come back home to have a baby. As far as the other provisions go, they are mostly

okay, but we need to be able to debate the Bill at length.

Are there any problems with the Bill?

GA: There are a lot of problems. First, as Dr. Kakoli said, we are putting the cart

before the horse because there is a whole process involved, and surrogacy is only

the ultimate end of it. There are many other points in the Bill that are very

problematic. First, it leaves out a lot of people in case they want to have a baby

through IVF, including unmarried couples who want to have a baby through

surrogacy, gay couples and single men and women.

Also, the Bill allows only altruistic surrogacy; this provision is very problematic as far

as I’m concerned. I spent two years with surrogate mothers, clinics and intending

couples; what I found is that the people who are lending their wombs in order to

bear children for somebody else — they are doing a job which is very creditable

because they want to help somebody, but it doesn’t mean that they should put their

life on hold for it, or that they should not be paid for it.

Altruistic surrogacy has, in fact, failed in other countries, and has resulted in various

other forms of assistance being given, though money may not be paid. If we are

going to rely on relatives alone, many may not come forward. Surrogacy should be





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declared as a kind of profession — the person providing a womb must have a

contract, must be paid properly and get insurance and proper medical checks.

Both of you sound quite agitated at the exclusion of certain groups of people.

KGD: I would like to mention here that our group, led by my husband, Dr. Sudarshan

Ghosh Dastidar, was the first in the country, possibly globally too, to help a single-

male parent have a baby through IVF surrogacy in 2005.

We have been working on IVF since 1986-87, so we have had so many experiences

of dealing with people who seek surrogacy. Thus, I strongly speak in favour of

transgenders and same-sex couples. I think they should have been included in this

Bill.

But as far as the experience of surrogate mothers is concerned, some women had

been exploited so much that the government was forced to bring this proposal. The

mothers were not being given good food or medical treatment and postpartum care

was non-existent.

While in my own experience, I have always dealt with close relatives who came

forward as surrogates, I am all for including other groups of people too in the Bill, if

couples are unable to, or cannot bear children due to medical reasons. However, I’m

strictly against ‘fashion surrogacy’, where women who feel their figure would be

disturbed if they carry a baby opt for surrogacy.

GA: In the case of LGBTQI couples and single parents, when medical facilities are

available, surrogacy should be allowed, because otherwise how will they have a

baby? They will need the womb of a surrogate. Living in has become acceptable now,

and live-in couples should also be allowed to have surrogate babies. All these archaic

rules, I think, should be shed from the Bill.

Surrogate mothers have indeed been exploited, because there is no process to

monitor the clinics or any law to ensure that the mothers are not defrauded by the

clinics or the intending couples. The question is, will this Bill manage to ensure a

fair and just process?





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GA: So, I agree with Dr. Kakoli that there are certain places where surrogates were

thoroughly exploited and it was the agents, the middlemen, who did that. However,

instead of removing the means of livelihood from them, you should have a contract

that all surrogates and the commissioning parents have to sign.

The contract should include details of the payment to be made, specify insurance

coverage, and give an assurance that the mothers will be treated properly even in

the post-partum stage. I have come across a couple of surrogate homes in Gujarat,

in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, where the surrogates are actually treated very well.

Surrogates are actually not very attached to the babies they are carrying in their

wombs, because it is a means for them to get a livelihood. If the government can

only ensure that everything is done legally, we don’t need this kind of a Bill that is

so non-inclusive and superficial, in the sense it doesn’t delve deep into the problems.

So, it seems logical that ART is the key to surrogacy. Is it possible that the ART Bill

will be fast-tracked now?

KGD: We are trying to solve the problems by talking, and we are going to discuss this

next week. Only at the end of the discussion will we be able to see how many

amendments the government has accepted.

If you have a surrogate pregnancy, it should be preceded by an IVF. That is why IVF

should be discussed first. IVF clinics have mushroomed all across the country, and

malpractices are happening, for instance, in dichotomy or seed-splitting. There are

also advertisements where celebrities falsely claim to provide a 100% success rate,

whereas the internationally acceptable rate for women is about 35%, and it can

never be more than 40%.

We do have, in certain age groups, a 70% success rate; but it might be just 30% for

the next age group, so the cumulative rate comes to 35%-40%. But these IVF units

are claiming a 100% success, so more patients are going to them. Costs are also going

up. While an IVF procedure earlier used to cost less than ₹1 lakh, it now costs ₹4

lakh-₹5 lakh. So, the ART Bill should be tabled before the Surrogacy Bill.





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GA: The ART Bill has been in cold storage. But the Surrogacy Bill, which deals with

the end of the process, is being touted as very important. It is not. What is important

is to take note of the fact that malpractices are taking place in these IVF laboratories,

to the extent that somebody else’s embryo can be put into you saying that it is yours.

These fly-by-night operators have to be regulated. ART Bill has to be taken up again,

and discussed first, after being tabled in Parliament, and passed. Otherwise, are

going to have a very messy situation.

Have all points of view been represented in the Bill? Did a consultative process

precede the introduction of the Surrogacy Bill?

KGD: When the ART Bill was drafted in the late 1990s, an expert committee was

constituted by the Indian Council for Medical Research. It held public debates in all

four parts of the country and we involved the public. We put out advertisements in

newspapers and asked the public to speak out. Only after this, did the ART Bill come

about. Even for surrogacy, the public should have its say, because this is a

democracy.

Couples with infertility problems, transgender people, single women, divorced

women, and widows should be involved in the public debate and only then should

the Bill be brought in.

GA: Exactly! I agree with you on that. The Constitution gives a woman the right to

reproduce, or not to reproduce, as she wishes, and she has the right to privacy when

she makes her reproductive choices. So, this has to be incorporated into the Bill —

If I have a right to reproduce, that means I can hire a surrogate, I can go in for IVF

whether I’m a transgender, a lesbian or a divorcee, I have this right as I wish.

A woman who has lent her womb also has these rights.

Any closing remarks?

GA: We need a law, but passing the Surrogacy Bill without looking at the whole

process — I think this means we are heading for disaster.





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The whole Bill has been drafted without taking into consideration the many physical

and emotional factors at stake. Meanwhile, there are many people who don’t know

whether or not they can hire a surrogate. There are people who have already hired

surrogates. What will happen to their baby? There is a lot of doubt in these areas

now.

When the government banned surrogacy for foreigners, some foreigners who were

here earlier had already put some embryos in deep freeze thinking that they would

come back and have another baby through the viable embryos. Following the ban,

they asked for the embryos to be returned. They had gone through a lot to produce

a life form, but the government said there can be no export and import of embryos

any more. So what will happen to those embryos? You cannot put everything in

jeopardy at the last moment, and then say ‘let me think about it and get back to you

after a year’. This is a very complicated issue.

27-JULY-2019

THE UNRAVELLING OF A KIDNEY RACKET

The National Capital Region is the epicentre of a well-organised illegal

organ trade. The Hindu reports on the web of criminals and their modus

operandi

Months after the monsoon hit the small town of Saket Nagar in Kanpur last year,

Sangeeta Kashyap*, 33, packed her bags for Delhi where she had been promised a

good job. She was excited; she had never stepped out of Kanpur before.

“My husband’s friend had promised us ₹40 lakh. We dreamt of a ‘pakka’ house, a

good education for our children, and even some savings to help us through illnesses.

We also planned for old age,” says Sangeeta. On reaching the city that promised to

fulfil her dreams, Sangeeta was given accommodation in a guest house in Ghaziabad.

“The next day I was taken to a small clinic,” she says, unable to recall the location.

“There, the doctors ran a series of tests on me. My husband’s friend told me that

this was important because my employer wanted me to submit a medical clearance





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certificate before employing me as a maid and a cook. But then he took my Aadhaar

card and told me that I have to assume a Muslim name and identity. I refused. I

realised that something was amiss. Later during the week, when I was taken to a

hospital, I overheard people describe me as a kidney donor. I panicked and raised a

hue and cry at the hospital. I insisted that I be sent back home immediately. They

packed me off to Kanpur and I thought the worst was over,” she recalls. But the

nightmare had only begun.

“My husband’s friend came home and tried to convince me to sell my kidney,” says

Sangeeta. “He told me that he has been living a good life after selling his. When I

refused, he along with some other men threatened and assaulted me. They

demanded that I pay them ₹50,000 as part of my travel and medical expenses.

Frightened and broke, I approached the police. A senior officer asked me to file a

complaint. An FIR was registered on February 1 against six persons in the Barra

Police Station in Kanpur under Section 420 [cheating and dishonestly inducing

delivery of property] of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Human Organ

Transplant Act.” Sangeeta was unaware that her complaint would blow the lid off a

massive organ racket.

High demand, low supply

The epicentre of this massive illegal organ trade is the National Capital Region. The

web of criminals includes police personnel, doctors, hospital administration staff,

medical support staff, and kidney and liver donors — all catering to patients with

end-stage kidney and liver failure. These patients can’t be treated with medicines or

dialysis and therefore require a transplant.

A dozen leading private surgeons are under the scanner now. These include top

urologists in Delhi who allegedly worked in nexus with some police personnel from

the Uttar Pradesh Police as well as brokers (some of whom were previous donors

themselves) to ensure a smoothly running profitable trade, the value of which some

people peg at over a ₹100 crore.





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So far, 15 people, including the CEO of Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute

(PSRI), Deepak Shukla, have been arrested, and notices have been served to two

leading doctors at Fortis Hospital in Delhi for violation of the Transplantation of

Human Organs (and Tissue) Act, 1994. This legislation was brought in with the

objective of “regulating the removal, storage and transplantation of human organs

for therapeutic purposes and for the prevention of commercial dealings in human

organs.”

These arrests and notices could prove to be only the tip of the iceberg.

“Investigations against another leading hospital in central Delhi are currently under

way and more arrests are likely,” says a senior Delhi police officer who is

investigating the case.

“The industry is thriving despite several raids and laws against it because those who

sell their organs are desperate for money. It is a trade that guarantees high profit.

Plus, it’s easy to do business in India,” says a senior Health Ministry official who did

not wish to come on record.

Impoverished donors are pushed into the trade as organ donations from cadavers

and brain-dead patients in India are not enough to meet the requirement of over a

lakh citizens annually who require a kidney transplant.

In 2016, in its reply to a Lok Sabha question, the Union Health Ministry noted that

there is a huge gap between the demand and supply of human organs for transplant

even though the precise numbers of premature deaths due to heart, liver, lung and

pancreas failures have not been compiled. The Ministry noted that against the

demand of 2 lakh kidneys, only 6,000 were available. Similarly, against the demand

of 30,000 livers only 1,500 were available, and against the demand of 50,000 hearts

merely 15 were available across the country. According to the Multi Organ

Harvesting Aid Network Foundation (Mohan Foundation), a Chennai-based NGO

working on organ donation, only about 3% of the demand is met.

The Indian Transplant Registry notes that live transplants account for the majority

of kidney transplants in India; cadaver transplants account for a very small number.



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“In India, [the] deceased organ donation programme is largely restricted to big

institutions and the private sector which makes it less accessible for all. The

deceased donation rate in 2013 was 0.26/million population and this went up to

0.36/million population in 2014,” it says.

Modus operandi

In the case that the police is investigating at the moment, patients who needed

transplants were admitted in large and well-known private hospitals that are

protected by a battery of lawyers and administrators, says a senior Delhi police

official.

“Donors, all of whom are from very poor families, are brought to these hospitals for

initial testing and matching with patients,” explains Lucknow-based Vardhan, a

prime witness in the case. “We are then trained to face the interview board of the

competent authority [which evaluates transplant of organs between near relatives

related genetically] or the Authorisation Committee [which evaluates transplant of

organs between those related emotionally and where the donor’s intentions are

altruistic] of the hospital for clearance for donation. Then we are housed in guest

houses in Delhi. There we are tutored to tell the hospital board that we are relatives

of the patients we are donating organs to. At this point, the payment too is partially

made.”

Like Sangeeta, Vardhan’s story began around August last year. He desperately

needed money to pay for the operation of his two-and-a-half-year-old child who was

born with a hole in the heart. He decided to sell one of his kidneys.

“An old friend told me about this offer. He made it out to be a noble deed. He said I

would get ₹2 lakh — enough to pay for my child’s surgery and for setting up a small

shop for myself. It seemed like a good option. I thought God has given the poor two

organs as personal insurance against bad times,” he says. He breaks down while

showing large surgery scars on his abdomen.





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Following the surgery, Vardhan has one kidney and no child. He is without a job. And

to make matters worse, he has been receiving death threats from those in the illegal

organ trade.

“Life has become unbearable. The hospital administration’s goons took back the

money I got from my kidney sale after I refused to work with the gang. My child died

without treatment. And my wife, who I married against the wishes of our parents,

left me as she was frightened by the death threats. No one is willing to employ me

in Lucknow because they think I am involved in something illegal. I used to repair

watches. I have become a nervous wreck following the investigation,” he says.

His only mistake, he says, was his refusal to become a headhunter himself. “They

call me daily to tell me that I will be ‘accidentally’ killed in an accident soon. They

stole my money after I refused to work with them,” he says.

Attractive to the poor

“While there are many layers of control to prevent exploitation, the fact that there

are a negligible number of organ donations makes finding a matching donor for the

patients a tough task,” notes the Mohan Foundation. Under the law, only those

related to the patient are allowed to donate organs. This further reduces the number

of prospective organ donors.

In 2013, the medical journal, Indian Journal of Anesthesia, stated that of the 205

patients declared brain-dead at AIIMS in Delhi in the trauma centre over the last five

years, only 10 were potential organ donors. The reasons were varied. There was lack

of awareness about organ donation among family members. Many believed that

donating a person’s organs after death would affect the person in his or her ‘next

life’. And processes were simply not in place to help such donations.

“Indian organs are being sold thanks to advertising by word of mouth. We are

dealing with an underground mafia of organ traders. In this case, the gang managed

to create fake identities. And with the help of medical persons, they managed to





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manipulate medical tests and documents,” says a senior official from the Uttar

Pradesh police who is involved in inter-State investigation.

“Those in the business had created a large database of those who were ready to

donate their kidneys and livers. These people were then recruited into the business

to find more sellers. And with every new racket being busted, we also find that the

age of the donors/sellers is rapidly falling. Younger men are being recruited or are

coming forward to donate their kidney or liver. This is really worrying,” says a Delhi

police officer.

A witness in the case, Sonu*, admits that he is only 18-20 years old. “According to

my official papers, I am much older though,” he says. “I decided to sell my organ to

help my family which was on the verge of starving to death. But today, even after

selling my kidney, my life is no better. Policemen and laws don’t understand that we

sell our organs just to ensure that we are able to stay alive.”

Sonu and Vardhan were admitted in the same hospital at the same time for kidney

removal. Like Vardhan, Sonu too was cheated by middlemen, who only gave him a

portion of the promised sum of ₹2 lakh.

“When I close my eyes, I dream of blotches of blood. The cops tell us that they will

catch those who exploited us. But will we get our entire promised money or the

organs we sold? No one is ready to answer these questions,” he says.

The investigating agencies claim that they are fully aware of the reasons that compel

people to sell or donate organs. “A kidney is sold for anything between ₹70 lakh and

₹1 crore depending on how urgent the need is. The donor/seller never gets over ₹3

lakh. The rest of the amount is distributed among those who run the business,” says

a senior official officer from the Uttar Pradesh Police.

Expanding the web

It was when a police team from Kanpur approached the Delhi police regarding a

kidney racket that they stumbled on T. Rajkumar Rao, 40, alleged to be the kingpin

of an international kidney racket.





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Rao himself was a donor. But unlike other donors, Rao was ambitious and built his

own empire. He had been arrested before and sent to prison. But after being

released, he resumed his activities and changed his base from West Bengal and its

neighbouring States to central India. He got donors and sellers from Unnao, Kanpur,

Lucknow and Fatehpur.

A police officer who once interrogated him recalls Rao as being very sharp and

knowing how to influence donors and later make them part of his racket.

“There were around 12 permanent members in the gang. They would prepare fake

documents, coordinate with hospitals and donors, transfer money and prepare

donors for interviews,” he says.

Rao used to keep a large portion of the money for himself in every deal. The rest

was shared among the others, including the donor. “He never paid the promised

amount to the donor. And when the donor asked for it, Rao would urge him/her to

bring more donors with the promise of more money. Regardless of the deal, the

donors get only between ₹2 lakh and ₹4 lakh of the promised ₹5 lakh,” says the

officer. Donors who refused to co-operate were threatened with legal cases of

cheating.

Suresh Singh* got a kidney transplant in 2016, and was chargesheeted for

demanding money for it. “After a prolonged kidney treatment my doctor

recommended a kidney transplant. He told me that my kidney would stop

functioning soon,” he says. “I discussed it with the personal staff of the doctor and

offered to pay for a kidney if I could get a donor. I got a call from the doctor’s

secretary, who gave my family members the contact of a man who could arrange a

donor for me. After several rounds of negotiations, the deal was fixed at ₹20 lakh.”

Suresh was asked to pay immediately, he says, while the paperwork was taken care

of by the ‘staff member’. “I paid the amount before the operation and it went off

smoothly. I met the donor only once during the interview. I was introduced as his

elder brother to the hospital,” he says. He explains that a major part of the payment

was made through cash and rest was transferred to a bank account.





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Rajesh Yadav, Superintendent of Police (Crime), Kanpur Police, says that a Special

Investigation Team has been formed to investigate the case. “Till now we have

arrested 15 people in the case including doctors and middlemen. We are in touch

with the Delhi and Faridabad Police to get information regarding the whereabouts

of other suspects,” says Yadav.

“To make this a watertight case we have ensured that the donors and recipients are

prime witnesses and not the accused. During the investigation, we found that the

hospitals and middlemen had prepared a fake profile of donors. The coordinators at

PSRI hospital had forged DNA reports to present the donors as blood relatives of the

recipient. We are also looking at how the organ transplant clearance committee of

hospitals ignored all the facts and never cross-examined donors and recipients,” says

a police officer who is part of the SIT team and did not wish to be identified.

A 2003 report in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics is a chilling postscript to the

story. “If the organ trade is not controlled, disappearances, especially among street

children [and] kidnapping rackets may flourish along with the theft of organs of

executed criminals in future. The people may lose trust in the medical community

and may suspect their involvement in the premature declaration of death on seeing

a signed donor card.”

29-JULY-2019

GOVERNING INDIA THROUGH FISCAL MATH

A focus on fiscal deficit reduction alone is not sound economic

management. The revenue deficit must be in the picture

While it is important for a government to pursue a sound economic policy, including

management of the public finances, it is yet another matter to make a fetish of any

one aspect of it. The latter appears to govern this government’s approach to policy

when the fiscal deficit is given pride of place in its self-assessment. Not only is this

unlikely to yield results on its own, it is not even necessarily prudent.





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Thread of fiscal discipline

Soon after the Budget for 2019-20 was presented, one of the Finance Minister’s

predecessors remarked that “fiscal prudence rewards economies”. This was perhaps

issued both as praise for the Budget itself and as a justification of the approach taken

during his own tenure. Though a concern for the size of the fiscal deficit would have

been inevitable since the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget

Management Bill in 2003, and has therefore been on the radar of political parties of

all persuasions at the Centre, it has been raised to special significance since 2014. It

figured in the most recent Economic Survey, and its anticipated magnitude for 2019-

20 was the final statement in the Budget speech that had followed. The Finance

Minister had commenced the speech saying how the government was committed to

fiscal discipline.

In the context, “fiscal discipline” is understood as taking the economy towards the

3% of the gross domestic product. The basis for this figure can be queried but that

is beside the point. Actually, the point is two fold: whether the fiscal deficit should

be the sole index of fiscal management and what a reduction in the deficit would

achieve. To suggest that fiscal prudence rewards economies is to suggest both that

the fiscal deficit is the right indicator of fiscal soundness and that reducing it is

bountiful.

Not always a perfect measure

While a sound fiscal policy is highly desirable, the magnitude of the fiscal deficit is

not always and everywhere — think here of the state of the economy — a good

measure of soundness. First, the fiscal deficit reflects the overall imbalance in the

Budget. Embedded in the accounts of the government is the revenue account which

is a statement of current receipts and expenditure. A fiscal deficit may or may not

contain within it a deficit on the revenue account, termed the “revenue deficit”. The

possible embeddedness of a revenue deficit within a fiscal deficit muddies the

waters somewhat. For movements in the overall, or fiscal, deficit by itself tell us

nothing about what is happening to the revenue deficit. Why should we worry, one





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might ask. We worry because it is the balance on the revenue deficit that indicates

whether the government is saving out of its income or spending more than it

receives as current revenue. A revenue deficit implies that the government is

dissaving.

A fiscal deficit co-terminus with a revenue deficit is to be frowned upon as it implies

that at least some part of the borrowing is to finance current consumption,

something a government ought prudently to avoid, at least for long. Therefore,

unless the revenue deficit is kept explicitly in the picture, we cannot deduce the

soundness of economic management from a mere reduction in the fiscal deficit. In

fact, in the Budget for 2019-20, while the fiscal deficit projected is marginally lower

than earlier, the revenue deficit is projected to rise. Even though the magnitude of

the changes is minuscule, their direction calls into question the Finance Minister’s

claim that the government is committed to fiscal discipline. It is yet another instance

when the fiscal deficit can end up being no more than window dressing. While a

pathological adherence to a revenue account balance is itself avoidable, a steady

revenue deficit as the fiscal deficit shrinks makes a mockery of fiscal consolidation.

Worse still it is open to the interpretation that the exercise is ideological in that it

aims only to shrink the size of government, fiscal prudence be damned.

Rewards yet to be seen

A detour through history would help bring some perspective here. A revenue deficit

of the Central government is relatively recent, having been virtually non-existent till

the 1980s. After that a rampant populism has taken over all political parties,

reflected in revenue deficits accounting for over two thirds of the fiscal deficit such

as the case today. Revenue deficits have become structural in India by now. This has

three implications: that the public debt is only bound to rise; we are permanently

borrowing to consume, and leaving it to future generations to inherit the debt. While

the populism referred to is not the monopoly of any one political party, it is

particularly stark in the case of the present one which relentlessly flags its virtue in

lowering the fiscal deficit.





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We can see the hollowness of the claim that fiscal consolidation or the shrinking of

the fiscal deficit is always and everywhere prudent, for the issue is what is happening

to the revenue deficit. Now onto the former Finance Minister’s claim that “it

rewards” economies. This government has lowered the fiscal deficit alright, though

not as much as the United Progressive Alliance government, but the rewards are yet

to be seen. Export growth has slowed and the unemployment rate has risen. Even

private investment has not soared, an outcome predicted following the claim that

government borrowing “crowds out” private investment.

International borrowing

Of late an entirely new dimension has been added to fiscal management, but here

again the appropriateness of conducting economic policy by reference to the

magnitude of the fiscal deficit remains the issue. In the last Budget the government

has signalled its intention to borrow in foreign currency from the international

market. This is an innovation alright as the Government of India has so far never

borrowed in the international markets, leaving it to public sector organisations and

the private corporate sector to do so.

In the Budget speech of the 17th Lok Sabha, the Finance Minister justified the move

in terms of the very low share of foreign debt to GDP. The proposal has received

criticism, some of it focussing on the consequences of exchange rate volatility.

Benefits have been flagged too, such as that Indian sovereign bonds will attract a

lower risk premium because the price of the foreign-currency-denominated

sovereign bond will now be discoverable. This though ignores the biggest lesson

from the global financial crisis of 2007, that the market cannot be relied upon to

price risk correctly. And, both arguments overlook the foreign exchange constraint.

Dollar-denominated debt has to be repaid in dollars. Right now our reserves are

fairly high but this could change. Oil prices could go back to where they were, the

trade war initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump holds little prospect for faster

export growth, and portfolio investment may flow out. While these are only

possibilities, they point to the need to ultimately base your borrowing plan on





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expected dollar earnings. The opportunity offered by low global interest rates right

now is not matched by the likelihood of robust export growth.

In the final analysis though, it is not the risk of exchange rate depreciation or

stagnant exports or even capital flight that is the issue; it is the rationale for

borrowing. With revenue deficits the overwhelming part of the fiscal deficit, we

would be borrowing to finance consumption. Dollar denominated sovereign debt is

just a matter of shifting this borrowing overseas. That is the real issue.

30-JULY-2019

A STRAIGHTFORWARD LESSON ON RESOLUTION

By not sorting out conflicts between themselves, India and Pakistan are

effectively outsourcing the role to third parties

U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim last Monday that Prime Minister Narendra

Modi had asked him at the G-20 summit in June in Japan to mediate between India

and Pakistan on the Kashmir question may, for the moment, have been deftly

handled by the two foreign policy establishments, but this is not a question that is

likely to go away all too easily. Given that Mr. Trump made this rather out-of-the-

blue statement during Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to the United

States, it has fuelled further speculation about what it implies.

A mixed bag

To be fair to the Indian establishment’s traditional logic, third party mediation

in Jammu and Kashmir might not be a useful idea simply because third parties

typically come with their own agenda. Second, it might do more harm than good in

an age of hypernationalism and frenzied media attention on anything to do with

Kashmir. In a milieu where bilateral diplomacy on Jammu and Kashmir itself comes

under intense scrutiny from domestic political forces, third party mediation is almost

impossible to even consider. More so, past instances of third party mediation have

had mixed results.



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And yet, Kashmir is likely to be on the great power radar and will continue to attract

international attention for a variety of reasons, not least because New Delhi refuses

to invest in bilateral diplomatic measures to resolve Jammu and Kashmir.

Simla and after

Historically, New Delhi has had a love-hate relationship with third party mediation

in Jammu and Kashmir in 1948. However, much of this overt third party intervention

in Kashmir ended with the Simla agreement of 1972 which stated, at New Delhi’s

insistence, that Kashmir will be a bilateral issue thereby ending the United Nations

Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan’s (UNMOGIP’s) peacekeeping work in

Kashmir, de facto, if not de jure. The current UNMOGIP involvement in Kashmir is

neither encouraged nor recognised by India, something Pakistan continues to do.

New Delhi believes that its UN experience vis-à-vis Kashmir has been an unsavoury

one which partly explains the current distaste in India for any third party mediation.

Then there is India’s status-linked indifference to external opinion that comes with

being a major economy and military power whose deep pockets and growing

markets are of significance to those potentially desirous of talking about Kashmir.

So theoretically, New Delhi has consistently, and successfully, blocked all third party

mediation in Kashmir, except when it wants to let others play a role. And if anyone

indeed makes a reference to Kashmir which New Delhi disagrees with, it either

ignores it or strongly disapproves of it.

That is, in practice, there has historically been a great deal of third party attention

on the larger Kashmir question some of which has been encouraged by India.

In order to understand this argument better, let us make a conceptual distinction

between conflict resolution and crisis management. While both involve some

amount of mediation, the former is focussed on a specific issue — Kashmir in this

case — and seeks to address and resolve the root causes of the conflict. The latter

involves mediation during an ongoing crisis with a potential for escalation. Crisis

mediation unlike conflict resolution does not seek to resolve the political or root

causes of a conflict.





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Management and resolution

New Delhi has traditionally been averse to mediation in the form of conflict

resolution while accepting more than once third party mediation during crisis

events. Kargil is an example when India accepted third party mediation by the

Clinton Administration in the U.S. This was also evident during the post-Pulwama

military stand-off in February this year. While both Kargil and the February stand-off

were directly linked to Kashmir, mediation by the third party did not seek to address

anything beyond the immediate diffusion of tensions. Then there are other

instances where third party crisis mediation took place even though they had no

direct links to Kashmir such as the post-26/11 terror attacks.

For sure, crisis management is different from conflict resolution. And yet even when

the focus is on crisis management, the larger conflict, which has given rise to the

crisis comes into focus and become part of the conversations between the mediator

and the conflicting parties. This is precisely what seems to underlie the current

American interest vis-à-vis Kashmir. So even though New Delhi accepts crisis

management, and not conflict resolution in the context of Kashmir, it is not easy to

separate the two either during a crisis or when the conflict is crisis prone.

Put differently, given that crisis, at least in this context, is the function of a pre-

existing conflict, crisis management by third parties and the attendant focus on the

broader conflict is not easy to avoid.

More so, while New Delhi is loathe to having third party discussions on Kashmir,

especially on the human rights situation, it actively seeks third party attention on

terror emanating from Pakistan as well as the latter’s sponsorship of violence in the

Valley. While this might be a desirable distinction to New Delhi’s mind, it is not easy

to get a third party to focus on one part of the problem and ignore the other. In

other words, New Delhi’s efforts at getting other countries to condemn Pakistan’s

sponsorship of terrorism in Kashmir while at the same time disparaging the reports

of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

on the human rights situation in Kashmir is a difficult balance to maintain.



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Impact of regional geopolitics

The unfolding developments in regional geopolitics could also have implications for

third party interest in Kashmir. The U.S.’s desire for a deal with the Taliban in

Afghanistan, in which Pakistan is key, is already beginning to have an impact on the

frosty relationship between Washington and Islamabad. Besides Washington,

Beijing, and Moscow, the European capitals will also eventually start courting

Pakistan. This will invariably increase, albeit marginally, the global focus on Kashmir

either at Pakistan’s insistence or because third parties might see a link between

Kashmir and regional instability. As a matter of fact, several people have in the past

made a direct link between instability in Afghanistan and the Kashmir conflict. Such

voices could potentially become sharper now. More so, if the rising concerns about

the Islamic State’s influence in Kashmir turn about to be not-so-misplaced, the heat

on Kashmir is only going to increase.

What further ensures third party involvement in Kashmir is the lack of a conflict

resolution process between India and Pakistan. The less the two sides talk on

Kashmir, the more there is are likely to be crisis situations between them which

would invariably lead to more third party involvement in the whole Kashmir

quagmire. In other words, by not resolving conflicts between themselves, India and

Pakistan are effectively outsourcing crisis management, and thereby conflict

resolution, albeit in a limited manner, to third parties. The lesson then is a

straightforward one: if you do not engage in a dialogue with Pakistan to resolve the

Kashmir issue, third parties will continue to meddle.

31-JULY-2019

PADDING UP FOR THE NEXT UNSC INNINGS

India must give exceptional weightage to how all Security Council issues

have an impact on the subcontinent

Despite the fact that India has served as a non-permanent member of the United

Nations Security Council (UNSC) more often than any country other than Japan from



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the Asia-Pacific Group, it is a matter of satisfaction and a tribute to Indian diplomacy

that the Group unanimously decided this year to support India for an eighth second-

year term. The elections are to take place in June next year. This means that India’s

election is assured and its term will run in the calendar years 2021 and 2022.

Fast-changing dynamics

To anticipate what issues will arise during India’s tenure two and three years down

the road, in the highest decision-making organ concerned with peace and conflict in

the global organisation, is clearly problematic. The dynamics of international politics

are fast moving.

The Washington consensus of the post-Soviet era, if it ever truly existed, has

unravelled in the wake of three factors: tensions between major powers; proxy wars

in West Asia, and widespread and scattershot use of threat and economic sanctions

by the United States which pursues a militarised foreign policy with a military and

intelligence presence in 150 countries, and 800 bases in 70 nations.

The rise of China and the bogey of Russian aggression are resisted through military

and economic measures by Washington, which urges its usually reluctant European

allies and others to follow suit. The race is on for supremacy in artificial intelligence,

high technology and 5G which will have strategic significance in future decades. In

this variable world of incessant jockeying for greater influence among big and

medium powers, and where the centre ground for concepts such as strategic

autonomy and equidistance has shrunk with rising polarisation between the major

powers, there are nevertheless some constants. Whether or not the U.S. President

Donald Trump is re-elected , the ‘America First’ doctrine will endure in some form

since it has the support of a sizeable constituency in that country. This makes U.S.

foreign policy more transactional, which in turn will generate less traction to the

reform process within the UN and the expansion of permanent membership of the

UNSC to which India aspires.

India can use its term as a non-permanent member to enhance its credentials as a

constructive and responsible member of international society, but an upgrading of



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its status will have to wait until an indeterminate future date. It may be noted in

passing that the inclusion of India, Japan, Germany and Brazil in the UNSC, to which

package India is formally committed, will create an even greater imbalance in favour

of the West versus the Rest in world affairs.

India is one of the world’s biggest economies, which even the pessimists cannot

deny. Accordingly, its voice resonates and is capable of making a significant

contribution during its tenure by emphasising and strengthening multilateralism as

a means of making the world safer.

Multipolar focus

India needs to uphold the objective of a multipolar world and counter existing trends

towards unilateralism, ethno-centrism, protectionism and racial intolerance. It

should seek to protect the World Trade Organisation from American attempts to

undermine it, since the WTO’s dispute mechanism is a resource for developing

countries, as is the work of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization, the UN Human Rights Council and other UN bodies despite the U.S.

and a few other countries withdrawing support to them. India should attempt to

make progress on the non-discriminatory elimination of weapons of mass

destruction, protection of the environment against global warming, safeguarding

outer space from weaponisation, and enhancing respect for diversity and plurality

in world politics. India should underline the validity of Article 2 of the UN Charter

that provides for state sovereignty and safeguards countries against outside

interference in the domestic affairs of other states. In upholding respect for a rules-

based order in international society, India should underline the sanctity of treaties

such as the multilateral accord with Iran endorsed by the Security Council and the

Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Among country-specific topics that are likely to re-appear before the UNSC are the

‘frozen’ disputes of Cyprus, Palestine, Ukraine and North Korea. On each of these,

India has taken a balanced position that needs little reset. Kashmir remains on the

UN agenda and if the situation in the Kashmir Valley deteriorates, the issue may be



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revived in the UNSC by Pakistan, although third parties have no enthusiasm for

involving themselves in India-Pakistan disputes. If reports are true that Mr. Modi is

seeking to normalise relations with China during this term in office, it will greatly

strengthen India’s position.

Pakistan and the terror angle

It bears repetition that the growth of India’s economy and its democratic system are

our best insurance policy; witness what China has been able to get away with in

respect of the Uighurs. New Delhi’s preoccupation with Pakistan finds its articulation

in the subject of international and cross-border terrorism. Although the context is

normally couched in general terms, no one is in doubt that the Indian reference is

to Pakistan. The question of an international convention against terrorism has been

under discussion in UN committees for many years, and the UNSC will not be the

forum for headway on this. India could use its presence on the UNSC’s sanctions

subcommittee to proscribe Pakistan-based militant groups and individuals. But

experience shows that this is frankly of dubious benefit when weighed against the

effort expended.

New Delhi will feel in the next few years that its time has come for a major role on

the world stage, but big player status will be difficult without India being pivotal in

the South Asian region. In this respect, India’s regional status is insufficiently

credible. Accordingly, on all issues before the UNSC, India must give exceptional

weightage as to how they will have an impact on the Indian subcontinent.

Demosthenes in Fourth Century BC Athens stated that diplomats had “no battleships

at their disposal... their weapons are words and opportunities”. India’s presence on

the UNSC will present opportunities to enhance the country’s reputation. American

policies in India’s near-neighbourhood towards West Asia, Russia and China present

challenges that can be met only with great skill and delicate balance. India should

aim to end its eighth term on the Council with its merit- and legality-based

judgments intact and widely respected.



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THE HINDU IMPORTANT EDITORIALS OF JULY · 2019-08-02 · ACHIEVERS IAS ACADEMY +91 8880120120, [email protected] #1360, 2ND FLOOR, 100 FEET ROAD, 9TH BLOCK, JAYANAGAR, BANGALORE

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