Home Page of Dr. Saumitra Mohan

2012-02-16T15:46:00.000+05:30

2012-02-08T14:35:00.002+05:30

Promoting Voters’ Education and Elector Participation: Initiatives at Birbhum

By Saumitra Mohan.

As the District Election Officer, the undersigned had a very satisfying stint at Birbhum. As far as management of West Bengal Assembly Election 2011 is concerned, it is said to have turned out one of the most peaceful and orderly elections in the electoral history of this district. The media reports, feedback from various political party functionaries and common people attest to this fact. The same was made possible due to many innovative steps taken by us at Birbhum. Everyone else associated with the management and conduct of election in the district chipped in to support and strengthen the entire exercise. As a student of Humanities from Jawaharlal Nehru University and as someone who has been associated with the conduct of the Parliamentary, Assembly, Municipal and Panchayat elections for quite some time, one always knew that Voters’ awareness and familiarity with the election process and his/her confidence in the fairness of the entire process is a key to the success of the entire exercise.

The need for the same was doubly felt given the surcharged atmosphere preceding the multi-phase Assembly elections in the state where stakes were quite high for all concerned. Hence, right from the beginning our focus was on Voters’ Education and Elector Participation (VEEP). To realize the same, we made a multi-pronged strategy and a foolproof plan for ensuring maximum elector participation predicated on sound voter education. The methodologies adopted by Birbhum were appreciated many times during the multiple meetings taken by the Election Commission of India and Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal preceding the actual election, many of them followed and replicated in other districts as well.

To begin with, we took care to apportion the work among carefully drafted senior officials who were all entrusted with various tasks. We took care to ensure that a particular task was assigned as to the qualification, experience and interest of the officer and staff members concerned. This was important because we wanted to ensure that the basic preparations and groundwork were properly done to realize the objectives as mentioned above. We had preliminary meetings with all the officials concerned at all levels including Returning Officers, Assistant Returning Officers, Block Development Officers, Deputy Magistrates, Sub Divisional Officers, Additional District Magistrates, Designated Officers and Booth Level Officers, not to speak of an army of Group ‘C’ and D’ staff members whose roles were equally crucial in the entire exercise. These meetings provided excellent opportunity to explain specific role to each and every person involved during various stages preceding the actual election. This was followed by a carefully designed training module and calendar for training each and every person involved in the process.

Education, awareness and training of these officials were important as voter awareness and participation depended on an efficient and effective role played by these persons in various capacities. Multi-media tools including frequent video conferencing, power point presentation, demonstration of various processes by Master Trainers, hands-on training and customized reading materials were harnessed for the training purposes to the best effect as borne out by huge elector turnout at the hustings. One of the major ways to ensure wide electoral participation was a clean and inclusive electoral roll as borne out by the fact that in Birbhum, our EPIC percentage was over 99 per cent (which was around 94 per cent at the time of my joining the district), itself a positive sign of better electoral awareness which in turn was an outcome of a hard ground-work. Now the challenge before us was to ensure their actual coming forward to exercise their franchise. For this, all the senior Group A officers, as already mentioned above, along with their counterparts from police, as part of our confidence building measures, made more than 900 visits to different parts of the district, most of them sensitive and vulnerable pockets, to freely interact with the voters, answer to their various queries and instill a sense of confidence among them about freely exercising their franchise.

Be it kindly noted that these visits and interactions were over and above those made by hundreds of lower level officials including those by the Sector Officers, Assistant Sector Officers and Booth Level Officers, which were in thousands. Most of these interactions were also photographed and video-graphed. Based on their feedback, we made special security arrangements including improving our vulnerability mapping for the final deployment of the security forces, digital camera, video camera and web-casting. These interactions were the most effective in ensuring a historically peaceful and fair election in the district. Besides, frequent meetings and interactions with the political parties and having their feedback regarding their inputs in the overall vulnerability mapping and in ensuring improved voter participation also helped better electoral participation. The insights gained from these interactions were factored while finalizing the security arrangements, given the Naxalite extremism in our district.

The sense of confidence we could instill among the voters to elicit their better participation was predicated on a better law and order situation we could ensure by prosecuting and bounding down around 11,000 persons (against 1408 during 2006 Assembly and 1818 during 2009 parliamentary elections) who could have vitiated the electoral process, deposition of 2788 licensed arms against 52 in 2006 and 966 in 2009, execution of around 7,205 NBWs compared to 1594 during 2006 and 1641 during 2009 elections, seizure of 42,000 litres illicit liquor against 1022 in 2006 and 1420 during 2009 elections, seizure of massive arms and explosives, ensuring better law and order by personal involvement to tackle such trouble areas as Md. Bazar, Nanoor, Khoyrasol, Illambazar, Dubrajpur and other Naxal-affected areas, destruction of over 7000 acres of poppy cultivation to preempt drug-money from being channeled into elections and prompt action on political complaints relating to law and order. The inter-state coordination meetings with the districts of neighbouring states also helped our effort.

The left-wing extremism was always at the back of our mind while planning and making our security arrangements. That is why we were always very keen on having feedback from all the corners including those from the common man, the political parties, the media persons and the various experts on the subject. So, our CBM exercises, our interactions with the political parties, contesting candidates, our officers in the field, interactions with the officials from the neighbouring districts and the intelligence reports formed the corner-stone of our detailed security planning. Our efforts were further bolstered, strengthened and fine-tuned by the regular suggestions we received from ECI during specially convened meetings for the purpose.Given the fact that some of our regions including Dubrajpur, Khoyrasol, Rajnagar, Illambazar and a substantial portion of Rampurhat Sub-Division were seriously affected by Naxalism, we were deeply concerned regarding the ‘Fear Factor’ in these areas discouraging the voters against coming out in the open to vote as was experienced in some of the Naxal-infested states during past elections in those states including ours. So with the help of all the resources and inputs at hand, we not only concretized a detailed deployment plan for the central security forces and state police, but we also put in place an effective and over-arching monitoring mechanism which formed the key-stone of our overall election planning. Ours was a resilient mechanism, so we were always fine-tuning the same given the regular inputs received from various quarters including our intelligence agencies. The multiple meetings we had with the District Magistrates, Superintendents of Police, Officers-in-Charge of bordering police stations and other officials of Dumka, Pakur and Jamtara from the neighbouring Jharkhand proved very effective and useful. We not only coordinated our efforts with the relevant agencies of the bordering districts from neighbouring Jharkhand, we also shared intelligence with them almost on daily basis. Many arrests and seizure of arms/explosives followed. The ‘Naka’ or border Check-posts set up in coordination with the neighbouring district authorities helped us not only in checking the illegal movement of arms and ammunition, persons with criminal records, trouble-makers from the neighbouring districts and in effecting seizure of arms/explosives/cash and in preventive detention of many habitual offenders, but also helped us greatly in keeping the Naxal extremism at bay as the supply lines for the latter were effectively cut off. Even though the latter did some threat-carrying ‘postering’ in some areas, the same did not have the intended impact because of the massive ‘Home Work’ done at every level by the election machinery in our district.

Birbhum had been notorious for poppy cultivation and the area under poppy cultivation was always growing and expanding. We were sensitive to this fact, more so because of baneful potential of poppy cultivation in pumping illegal cash into election campaigning as had reportedly been done during the last elections. The involvement of the Naxals in this illegal poppy cultivation further heightened our anxieties, as the spectre of ‘Poppy Cash’ making its insidious incursions into our electoral process always loomed large. Having known this, we set up before us the objective of destroying not only this illegal poppy cultivation, but also making the cultivators and the hoi polloi aware with regards to the socio-political implications of the same. The West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections and the authority coupled with the independence, which flowed from it provided us with an excellent opportunity to eradicate this menace forever. We started some three months before the actual poppy cultivation started. We had meetings with the Central Bureau of Narcotics, the Narcotics Control Bureau, local police authorities, Magistrates, the excise authorizes, representatives of political parties, NGOs, prominent members of the public and elected representatives to sensitize them regarding the problem and also making them aware regarding the negative legal implications of poppy cultivation for the actual farmers.

We organized processions, wall-writing, distribution of specially-written leaflets and miking to inform and sensitize all concerned about the problem. This had significant snowballing impact in terms of reducing the scale of cultivation. The cultivation was also less because of the legal action taken against the cultivators last year including a number of arrests of the people found involved in the poppy cultivation. After this, we set about destruction of the actual poppy cultivation, which was still done notwithstanding all our efforts. We destroyed a massive over 7000 acres of poppy cultivation, something which is said to be a record in the world for a district like ours, if we are to believe the statement made by Sri P Shankar, IPS, the then Zonal Director of the Narcotics Control Bureau, Kolkata.

The undersigned in coordination with the Superintendent of Police personally monitored the destruction. Other senior officials including Additional District Magistrates, Sub-Divisional Officers, Superintendent of Excise, Block Development Officers and Officers-in-Charge of police stations formed part of the many teams formed for the purpose. Our operations spanned over a month and we stopped only when we were convinced that there was no poppy cultivation left to be destroyed. The satellite imageries supplied by the Narcotics agencies helped us in the exercise. Every day’s operation was followed by cases being registered against those found to have committed the offence of poppy cultivation. The total number of cases registered was 44 involving 260 persons of which 94 were arrested. These monumental efforts were greatly instrumental in choking the supply lines for the left-wing extremists which coupled with other measures to tighten noose around their neck helped us in creating an atmosphere which inspired enough confidence among voters to come out in hordes to exercise their franchise.

Our close involvement with the chronic law and order problem in Nanoor, Dubrajpur, Md. Bazar and Khoyrasol helped a great deal in creating an atmosphere, which was congenial for a peaceful and fair election. Our frequent visits to these areas, interactions with all stake-holders including the common voters and holding regular meetings to create confidence and trust among the voters went a long way in inspiring voters to come out and vote in favour of the candidate of their choice without any trace of fear as borne out by the massive turn-outs. There was a communal angle to the problem involving stone-mine quarries at the Md. Bazar Block, which was also effectively tackled with personalized meetings with all the groups including tribal communities involved.

It was indeed a herculean task that we set out to do by trying to ensure a peaceful atmosphere of trust and confidence by having a much better law and order situation than there ever was with cooperation and coordination of all concerned, not to speak of the constant guidance and mentoring received from ECI from time to time. Our effort never went in vain as vindicated by the high turn-out of voters at the hustings.

We made specially designed ‘easy-to-understand’ reading materials for the voters and the same were distributed from the various Voter Assistance Booths and EVM Demonstration Centres set up across the district. These materials were greatly appreciated by the Hon’ble Observers deployed in the district. Voters were also shown specially shot videos to educate them on various aspects relating to EVM and how to cast their vote using the same. There were special Voter Assistant Booths meant only for female voters. Be it kindly noted these voter assistance booths were apart from the booths set up on the day of actual poll to help the voters locate their names in the electoral rolls. Effective distribution of voter slips added another dimension to their increased turnout. The BLOs and other specially trained staff members ensured proper publicity through miking and meetings with the political parties before actually distributing these slips. The distribution of these slips was hundred percent and almost flawless as we had no complaints whatsoever with regards to their distribution. We, however, made it sure to inform the voters that non-possession of these slips was no disqualification for exercise of their franchise as long as their name figured in the electoral roll and as long as they had proper identification documents including EPIC as per ECI guidelines. This became necessary because of some mischief mongers spreading rumours that if voters did not have these slips, they shall not be allowed to vote in spite of them being in possession of statutory identification documents including EPIC.

We also harnessed traditional cultural medium like Baul communities and specially written songs for increased voter education and participation. Street plays (Nukkad Nataks) and street corner demonstration-cum-awareness camps were held for maximizing voter awareness. Besides, specially organized quiz programmes for the voters and elections officials also proved useful. The National Voters Day, as conceived by ECI, was organized effectively with a wide range of activities and had also helped us with our exercise in voter awareness.

We had mobile vans equipped with voter education materials and audio-visual materials for on-the-spot demonstration to the voters in the inaccessible areas. We also had a special Public Grievance Cell including a Help Line to handle various complaints from all corners including those from the voters. The undersigned personally wrote a Blog (www.deobirbhum.blogspot.com) for wider appreciation of various aspects relating to the conduct of election, which was greatly appreciated by all. The use of WEBGIS for electoral management was another effective tool in voter education as it provided various information relating to electoral process including those relating to electoral roll, past election data, information relating to better electoral management, easy report generation and telephone numbers of all the election-related officials up to the BLO level. It was greatly used by all concerned including voters and election officials. Its use by the common man was greatly facilitated by the special information kiosks set up across the district including block, sub-divisional and district headquarters where the voters could go and access such desired information. It was later replicated in other districts of West Bengal as well.

The pre-election shifting of a number of booths also ensured that voters travelled less than they did earlier thereby ensuring their better participation in the electoral process. We had regular interaction with the members of the press (apart from the statutory press conferences) to ensure that the right information reaches the voters in right fashion at right time.

We also saw to it that the voter assistance booths function efficiently and effectively on the poll day, the traffic in the town is smooth and voter related amenities at the polling premises including construction of sun/rain shed, public convenience, medical attention including provisioning of first aid kits and drinking water are provided for all those who come to vote. As we had publicized the same in advance, the voters came in hordes to cast their vote. It was because of the above measures taken by the Office of the District Election Officer, Birbhum that we finally had a voting percentage as high as 87 per cent (compared to 82.7 per cent during 2009 parliamentary election), one of the highest in the state. The voter turnout in many assembly constituencies was markedly high, particularly at Labhpur and Hansan where female voters outnumbered the male voters at the polling booths. This is clearly reflective of effective harnessing of all resources at hand in winning over the confidence of the voters from enrollment till the actual exercise of franchise.

Post-result peace was ensured by consensually deciding postponing the victory processions by winning candidates and political parties in consultation with the latter, something which was followed by other districts as well at the behest of Hon’ble ECI. We could not have achieved the same without the common man i.e. the voter appreciating our viewpoint in this regard and deciding not to come on the streets to celebrate the victory of their beloved candidates. One also feels that the high voter turnout was also an effect of better polling personnel performance whose overall satisfaction was very high because of introduction of online payment of polling remuneration, better training and better polling personnel amenities.

2011-12-06T13:18:00.001+05:30

The Great Indian Family: Some Reflections

*Saumitra Mohan

We have always taken pride in our celebrated Indian family values, asserting their superiority over similar values of any other culture. In fact, asked to define the ‘Heaven’, someone defined it as a life that would include a British house, an American salary, Chinese food and Indian family. Accordingly, the hell was defined to subsume the worst from the same four cultures namely an Indian salary, a Chinese house, the British food and an American family. Whatever that is supposed to mean, the fact remains that still our Indian family system and the cognate family values are deemed to be the best, at least, when we compare them with other cultural values.

But notwithstanding many positive and wholesome attributes of our hoary family values, many negativities appear to have crept into the same over the years or have never been acknowledged to be part of our value system as they represent toouglier or seamier sides of our culture to be accepted.

Lets discuss certain aspects of our family values, which are noticed quite often but simply brushed beneath the carpet. These values have come to be associated with our day-to-day life so much that we do not even realize that many monstrosities have slowly come to imbue our family values over a period of time.

Take, for example, the ubiquitous son preference in our society, a problem also afflicting the Chinese society, which owing to its single child norm has also been facing the problem of sex selection in favour of the male children. The Son preference norm is so strong in our society that people would go to any extent to have a baby boy. If your first child is a girl, your so called well wishers around you including those in your family keep irritatingly reminding you that you should definitely have a baby boy. And many of us often yield to that pressure. That is why,a good number of the people who have a first girl child, generally have a baby boy born to them as a second child. The same is made to appear as normal delivery, but is often the result of resorting to the illegal sex selection techniques. They surreptitiously get the pre-natal tests done to ensure that they do have a baby boy.

But reverse sex selection is rarely seen i.e. those having baby boy as their first child going for sex selection to have a baby girl as their second child. The parents and our supposed near and dear ones often keep up the mental pressure in various ways us to nudge us into having a baby boy.The parents or parents-in-law often target the womenfolk i.e. the daughters or daughters in law to push for a baby boy. And the result of it all this is the skewed sex ratio we have in our society, and the same is also resulting in increased crime against women or forced bachelorhood for many men.

Another value relates to describing a good soul in our society as a ‘cow’, which often means a dumb person and this appellation is often used for our daughters in law. In our society, the dumb daughters in law who serve their in-laws without a murmur are supposed to be the best of their ilk. But educated, smart or quick-tongued daughters in law are often branded as bad specimens. When the Indian parents start the hunt for their daughters in law, they generally scout for such a dumb ‘cow’. A stereotypical ‘Bahu’ (read daughter in law) is in many cases preferred to suit their selfish interests and old age comforts rather than a human being who would be more compatible for their sons. Naturally, such arranged marriages don’t last long as they are predicated on wrong foundations.

It is people of such kind who ask forthe dreaded dowry in the name of various excuses including for securing the future of their children. However, most of them desire dowry as an insurance cover for their own old age. This applies more to the people with low self-esteem, inferiority complex or unplanned old age. That is why, the caste marriages are insisted upon because in inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, the scope for dowry is almost nil. Caste marriages and caste values are, therefore, promoted to put a premium on the marriage worthiness of the menfolk i.e. to jack up the amount of dowry.

Parochial societal notions of religion are also said to be responsible for a blinkered world-view, which together with limited education engender all wrong notions about family and culture. Ergo, universal liberal education is required to reinforce and supplement our family values.This would better equip our culture, whereof our family values are a sub-culture, to be more amenable and open to liberal values of human society and also be ready to adopt better ideas and values from other cultures. The resultant cultural fusion shall also promote better tolerance and understanding among various cultures thereby denting Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilization’ thesis to realize Marshall McLuhan’s concept of ‘Global Village’.

Ours being a patriarchal society, the patriarchal values get so imbibed by the hoi polloi that they become their second nature. The people, of both gender, become great defender of those values. The people schooled in patriarchal values would not like more rights for women or equitable gender relations as they see the same as threats to the dominance of these values in society. The dominance of such family values after having been associated with a convoluted sense of cultural superiority work at various levels to ensure suppressing anyone and everyone who comes forward to challenge them.

Newer, liberal values are perceived as a threat to traditional values, challenging the established notions of various aspects of social life. The redoubtable mothers in law would not like their daughters in law to have more freedom or better status vis-a-vis their husbands or the family as they did not have the same available to them. So the control and restraints exercised over the daughters in law are actually psychological ventilation of delayed retribution against the society, sublimating as atrocities and churlish behavior against the younger women in the same roles.

Some parents, particularly the female one, would do anything to seek attention of their kids, often verging on histrionics to sideline their daughters in law or to keep them suitably in check. It is notable that women in classical Indian families, who are supposed to play a subdued role, come into their own as they become older with a more pronounced role than they played in their younger avatars. Some of these parents are very demanding, so much so that they would not baulk at maligning their daughters in law or playing divide and rule within the family. And all this is done to ensure their dominance or importance in the family.

Such attempts at one-upmanship also result in psychological torture or physical assaults, often reported as dowry harassment cases under 498 A of the Indian Penal Code. In many cases, such shenanigans lead to marital break-ups or dowry deaths as well. These senior family members including parents at times conspire against their own children to prove themselves right. They don’t mind going to any extent to serve their selfish interests as well represented and portrayed in many of those gooey Indian TV soaps including ‘Man Ki Awaz: Pratigya’. Sometimes the entire clan or society comes forward to support such people. It could be very well noticed in many pathological judgments and ‘honour killings’ by the clan Kangaroo Courts masquerading as Khap Panchayats in North India. These are extreme cases, but such stories in one or the other form could well be heard from different parts of our society. These discontents keep simmering all the time in many families. Various stories with poignant details are heard with sickening regularity in a good number of families. Sometimes these coolies of family values go extra mile to break and spoil all relations at the pretext of protecting their wards, which is actually an extension of their own selfish interests.

One another deemed reason for the recurrence of such incidents is said to be non-engagement of some of these people including parents with some productive and ego-satisfying work. As they retire from work or from the active family life, most of these parents stop doing anything or stop reading some intellectually rejuvenating literature resulting in development of a stunted world-view. The same also engenders an inferiority complex resulting in their over-demanding and nagging nature. In their bids to seek attention and importance, they talk nonsense or do such hateful things, which often leads to family discords.

The perception of being neglected forces them to do such things as spoils the healthy atmosphere inside a family thereby making it difficult for many to continue as part of the joint family. Many parents obstruct the marriage of their children to the person of their choice, a la Rizwanur Rahman and Priyanka Todi, resulting in all sorts of problems including dowry deaths, marital atrocities, wife battery and what not leading to broken marriages and broken families. Hence, the breakdown of our celebrated joint family system.

The pathologies of Indian family system shall take a while to go. However, one does feel that these are transitional problems which shall go as Gen X pass on the baton to the next generation as they would be better educated and better equipped to be tied down with the moth-balled values. Hence, healthy relationship within and without family is expected once such people are in charge of our families. However, in the meantime we have to ensure better universal education imbued with liberal values as ought to be practiced in a futuristic society. There is need for a conscious attempt at promoting such humane values as ought to be germane to a modern, liberal society.

*The views expressed are personal and don’t reflect those of the Government.

2011-07-18T10:47:00.001+05:30

Refashioning Our Literacy Programme

Saumitra Mohan

It was John Stuart Mills who had once said that you can not hope to be a great society if the members of your society continue to be dwarfs with no qualities and character. And education, both formal and informal, definitely does that remarkable value addition as is required in this age for the multi-dimensional development of a society. That’s why, every welfare state infused with the ethos of a liberal democracy makes all possible endeavours and essays towards provisioning elaborate arrangements for developing the human resources of their citizenry today. This effort is undertaken to make such societies as egalitarian as possible, without any traces of stratified inequalities. And one key measure of the exercise of human resource development is promotion of literacy among all members of the society with an emphasis on the three ‘R’ i.e. reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmatics.

While in 1971, the percentage of literacy was 22 among women, it was around 46 per cent among men. The figures improved to 39 and 64 per cent respectively among the two gender categories by 1991. And if the latest Census data, as published in April, 2011, are to be believed, the number of people who can read and write in India today is around 74 per cent, with male literacy being 82 per cent and female literacy being 65 per cent.

The Government of India, in keeping with the ‘Directive Principles of State Policy’ as enshrined in Part IV of the Constitution of India, has been formulating customised programmes for various sections of our society to increase the level of literacy in our country. The Government of India in coordination with all the state governments have been conceiving and executing ambitious literacy programmes to take Indian citizenry out of the darkness of illiteracy and ignorance. All these plans have been implemented in synergy and synchrony with the cognate programmes of the state governments with varied success. But notwithstanding all these herculean efforts over the years involving substantive public expenditure, a substantial number of our populace continue to be illiterates.

Be it the National Policy on Education through its various avatars in 1968, 1979,r 1986, 1991 or 2001, the Farmers’ Functional Literacy Projects during the heyday of the Green Revolution during the 1960s and 1970s, the Non-Formal Education for Youth in 1975, the National Adult Education Programme in 1978, the Rural Functional Literacy Project in 1978, the National Literacy Mission as started in 1988, the Continuing Education Programme through the first decade of the new millennium, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan or the extant Sakhshar Bharat Programme, the Government of India has always made concentrated efforts to promote the level of literacy in the country with suitable introduction of changes from time to time as required for the purpose. There have also been popular movements in this sphere duly supported by various Governments and non-government organisations, particularly the literacy movements, noticed in the 1990s, resulting in many districts of our country attaining 100 per cent literacy levels. Ernakulum in Kerala and Burdwan in West Bengal were the first and second such districts to achieve this feat in the country. However, the positive streak and motivation marking our society are no longer visible.

The latest avatar in the form of ‘Sakhshar Bharat’ has also been making steady headway in this direction. However, being associated with various literacy programmes in various capacities, one feels that a Government programme in this sphere would not cut much ice as long as society is not associated therewith. Ergo, the ‘Sakhshar Bharat’ focus on the involvement of the civil society through the instrumentality of voluntary teachers (VT) is very well taken. However, one also feels that this focus needs reorientation to be more effective and successful. As it is very difficult to find motivated volunteers, suffused with an altruistic sense of service, who would serve gratis as voluntary teachers, the new literacy programme is running in fits and starts, thereby running into executional bottlenecks. The huge programme funds, because of non-involvement of motivated volunteers, also seem not to be producing requisite output in proportionate to the financial inputs.

The empirical insights, gained through literacy programme implementation, motivate one to broach an ideational reform in the conception and execution of literacy programmes. One firmly believes that, if rightly implemented and followed through, the same would also result not only in saving huge amount of public money, but shall also make our society better in terms of quality and character. The previous and present avatars of literacy programmes conceive of a huge army of specialised manpower yoked to the task of literacy promotion and the same involved huge government spending to boot. The following proposal shall make use of the already existing structures in the cause of literacy promotion and consequent human resource development.

The proposal involves implementing literacy programmes through our school and college kids in keeping with our literacy slogan of yesteryears i.e. ‘each one teach one (sic)’. While the modality and finer details of actual programme implementation are subject to further debate and discussion, one does feel that involvement of our school and college kids can revolutionise and completely transform the literacy scenario in the country. To start with, the school and higher education departments of respective state governments should make it compulsory for the high school and college youths to participate in a literacy programme. The responsibilities of these youths under able guidance of their teachers could range from organising these literacy camps/classes to teaching the learners themselves.

A school or a college could act as the programme implementation unit (PMU) in their respective bailiwicks. The various funding to the educational institutions including those meant for the literacy programmes could be allotted to such schools/colleges in proportion to their overall performance, to be measured by the parameters set for the purpose. The literacy component could be one of the key factors in such evaluations. The motivation for the school/college kids shall be specially earmarked scores to be awarded to them in keeping with their performance by the teacher/faculty assigned for the purpose of such evaluation. Such scores shall be added to the overall academic performance of these kids. The arrangement of awarding special marks for participation in literacy programme shall not only motivate our youths to participate in a socially productive programme, but shall also make them a responsible citizen. Such a move shall also sensitize them to the sundry problems afflicting our society

There shall also be no need to create or hire additional space for running these literacy camps/classes as the same shall be run at the premises of respective schools or colleges. The involvement of our youths in a community building exercise shall be an enriching and enlightening experience for them which shall also help the cause of ‘nation building’, promoting national feeling among them in a society under attacks from different fissiparous and reactionary forces. This shall also encourage a positive competition among various schools and colleges towards excellence.

With right mentoring, their positive energies shall be channelled properly in strengthening the pillars of our body politic. If implemented in right earnest, the scheme of things as proposed above, is cinch to be a success with little need to spend even a dime. However, the proposal does not mean that all other ways to involve the civil society in such an exercise should not be tried. The above proposal is only one of the very effective ways to involve them. If carried out effectively with suitable monitoring and supervision, such a programme shall definitely be more effective with least of leakage or wastage of resources. It shall also be one of the effective ways to reap our famed demographic dividends.

2011-07-18T10:46:00.002+05:30

Sainthia Train Accident - A Case Study in Disaster Management

Dr. Saumitra Mohan

Disasters keep happening and they happen anywhere in the world and when they happen, there is no prior information. They just happen and then have demands over human faculties of management and coordination to tackle the same. So, once has to anticipate them and be prepared for them in advance. That is what disaster management is all about. Today, disaster management has been perfected as an art by many countries and that is why we often witness clinical rescue and relief operations in many of the disasters. India is slowly joining this elite club with a National Disaster Management Policy and Plan being in place. Today, almost all the government departments, particularly all the district administration across the country have their own disaster management plan in place, something that has proved to be of great help. The disaster management plan and corresponding logistics mechanism in Birbhum district was also of great help when a train accident struck in the dead of the night.

This train accident took place at Sainthia Railway Station (under Sainthia PS of Suri Sadar Sub-Division) on 19/07 2010 at 2.05 a.m. due to collision between 3404 DN Bananchal Express and 3148 DN Uttarbanga Express. As it transpired, the engine of 3148 DN Uttarbanga Express collided and rammed into the rear of the 3404 DN Bananchal Exp, which at the time of the collision was still stationed at platform no. four at Sainthia Railway Station.

Immediately on receipt of the news of the accident, the police mobile van of the local police station reached the spot at 2.25 a.m. The officials belonging to the district and police administration, including myself and SP Birbhum rushed to the spot. We reached the accident site by 3 a.m. along with a big rescue and relief team comprising civil defence volunteers, medical teams, ambulances, big vehicles, dead body carriers, casual labourers, more police forces and fire brigade among others. We started our rescue operations immediately. It was revealed that the last two compartments of 3404 DN Bananchal Exp. were severely damaged and mangled as a result of the accident. The existence of a Disaster Management Plan with the names and contact numbers of all those concerned including the list of ambulances and NGOs proved to be of a great help in mobilization of the entire disaster management team at a short notice.

We could also contact and mobilize a large number of local volunteers belonging to different clubs and NGOs who also assisted us in the rescue operations. Some of them helped us with the relief works at the Hospital as well. More than 50 Ambulances were sent to the accident spot from all corners of the district and the injured, after being rescued, were brought to Suri Sadar hospital. The bodies of the dead passengers were also brought to the morgue of Suri Sadar Hospital. Gas cutters from nearby workshops were also brought in to be used in the rescue operation. And with the help of these cutters, a number of bodies entangled and trapped inside the mangled compartments were taken out. Civil and police administration, with the help of the local people, managed to rescue all the injured passengers by 7 a.m. in the morning.

A total of 96 injured passengers and dead bodies of 61 persons were brought to Suri Sadar Hospital. 54 injured passengers were referred to Bardhaman Medical College Hospital as their condition was found to be critically serious. The others were provided treatment at Suri. New clothes were also provided to all of them. Those in position to talk and having contact numbers of their relatives were helped to contact their relatives in their respective places. Later, two of the referred passengers died at Bardhaman Medical College Hospital, taking the final death toll to 63. It was timely and proper medical attention which kept death toll figures in check. Considering the inadequate arrangement at Suri Sadar Hospital for storing such large number of dead bodies, the district administration, to prevent decomposition of the corpses, immediately arranged for large quantity of ice from all over the district and even from places outside the district like Kandi (Murshidabad) and Asansol (Burdwan) to have in place improvised morgues within the Hospital premises.

Presuming there might be need for more blood later and since we were not sure as to how much units of blood we might need, we immediately contacted and arranged for sufficient blood from the neighbouring hospitals in and around the districts. We also had blood donation camps organized on the morning of the accident to collect more blood. Besides, we had with us the names of over three hundred volunteers ready to donate blood as and when demanded. By the time the injured were brought to the Hospital, we actually had excess blood.

A help line was opened within the hospital premises since 7 a.m. on the same day i.e. 19th July, 2010. The relatives and friends of the injured and dead who arrived at Suri Sadar Hospital since the occurrence of the accident were provided with all kinds of assistance. A round-the-clock Assistance Booth was opened at the Suri Sadar Hospital along with the photographs of the dead and injured passengers to help the relatives identify their near and dear ones, something which worked very well. We could also rope in the local and regional media houses to flash these photos on their TV screens to help the families of the affected passengers. The management of Hospital activities involved with the relief was closely supervised and monitored leading to the best results.

Doctors from other Govt. hospitals in and around districts also assisted in treating the injured and in conducting PM inspections. As per instruction received from the Department of Health and Family Welfare Deptt, some 20 dead bodies were sent to BMCH, Bardhaman the next day for proper preservation, DNA testing and post-mortem (PM). These bodies were also identified and released to the relatives as they arrived. As both the Indian Railways and the Government of West Bengal had announced various benefits to the injured and dead passengers including financial grants and jobs, it was necessary to ensure that the bodies were released to right persons to avoid any complications, noting down the names, contact number and addresses of all the relatives who came down to have the bodies released to them. Almost all the dead bodies were identified by their near relatives and after conducting of PM inspection, all these dead bodies, respectfully wrapped in body bags and coffins, were handed over to them. The arrangements for short stay and dead passengers as and when requested by them. The dead bodies were carefully handed over to the identified and confirmed families of the deceased after receiving proper details and confirmation about the relationship for future reference relating to compensation and other requirements.

The district administration also provided vehicles, when demanded, to the relatives of the dead and injured passengers so that they could carry the bodies to their respective places (Kolkata, Bhagalpur, Sahebganj, Godda et al in West Bengal or neighbouring Jharkhand) for disposal or for treatment.

The entire operation lasted barely three days and it was the first day which was more exacting and demanding in terms of the logistics required. And even on the first day, it was the first few hours which were more crucial. After we could mobile all the concerned people and departments in time, everything fell in place. There was also a 'Planning Group' working during the entire rescue and relief operation which was always thinking hard as to what to do next to make the operation better and then there a 'Core Executing Group' which translated the thinking into action.

But one does feel the need to beef up the disaster inventory i.e. the need to have customized stocks for every envisaged calamity and disaster so as to preempt the need to look for the same in need of hour. Our learnings from the Sainthia Train Accident amply prove the need for an effective disaster management plan and its efficient execution. In this case, the existence of a good information and communication plan did wonders and one is sure, shall remain a key to the success of any such disaster management.

2011-05-10T17:13:00.002+05:30

Rediscovering The Import of Human Ontology

*Saumitra Mohan

The human society has come eerily long way in its march to material progress, much ahead of the times when man used to live in the Hobbesian state of nature with his life being ,’nasty, brutish, poor and short’. Man’s insatiable desire to make his life more comfortable has seen the rapid inventions and discoveries of newer things. But notwithstanding all this progress have we, as human beings, really learnt to live a life of comfort and dignity? Human endeavours fuelled by unrestrained curiosities and desires have been unravelling mysteries of the universe and have also been successful in conquering the various elements of nature. With man scaling newer heights of progress and dreaming to colonise celestial bodies and with people like Stephen Hawking visualizing man’s journey into future, are we really satisfied with what we have? One is reminded of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s ruminations and commentaries on human life.

In the “Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality”, Rousseau described as to how ‘man was living in a past golden age, prompted by conscience, not yet led astray by the harlotries of reason, uncorrupted by that perennial propagator of evil…that great deformer of man which calls itself society’. He speaks as to how man’s self-love creates imaginary and utterly insatiable needs which are so incompatible with man’s instincts of sympathy. Today, we might have made our lives much more comfortable, but with every new discovery and ever new invention, our simple, unsullied and sublime life has become more and more complicated. While all these discoveries and inventions are intended at creating more happiness and comfort for the human beings, the fact remains that our lives have actually become more wretched and unhappy than we ever were. It is this phenomenon that people like Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse and Louis Althusser have theorised as ‘alienation’. They have talked of man having become lost in his self-created developmental maze. Today, man has got so alienated that the real happiness of life has been eluding him for quite some time now.

The Hindu philosophy has long philosophised about the theory of Karma, as enunciated in The Gita whereby one is supposed to keep on doing one’s Karma without any expectations. But we have all been doing exactly the opposite. Man’s thirst for more and more carnal comforts has so dehumanised and alienated him that he has ceased to be a human being at all. Human beings have created societies, states, boundaries, communities, castes, religions, education systems, languages, monetary systems, hierarchies, multiple cultures and what not. And today, man is busy managing the multiple contradictions and paradoxes emanating as a result thereof. We live each day of our life vying for more land, more money, more power and more status, something that we have ourselves created and something which we shall live behind once we complete our transient stint on this Blue Planet. We lose our happiness and comfort in the bargain for whose realisation we cherish those worldly possessions. This is what has been described as the ‘Maya’ in Hindu mythology.

While Rousseau appeared to be at another extreme when he assailed the society (or what Sigmund Freud called ‘Superego’) for artificially creating so many fetters for human freedom, but he forgets that but for those reasonable restraints, human life would have continued to remain ‘nasty, brutish, poor and short’ as Thomas Hobbes referred to life in the state of nature. However, this is also true that humans have increasingly been making their life increasingly more complex. While human craving to make his life more comfortable by way of newer scientific inventions and newer discoveries is very much in sync with his instincts to realise the real evolutionary potential pregnant in nature, still there are many things which have become anachronistic with the march of time and should cease to exist at the earliest possible. One does get a feeling that human emphases have wrongly been on arrogant acquisitions and misplaced pleasures which believe more in snatching and taking than in giving and sharing. We have given too much importance to status and ersatz divisions among humans leading to constant strife and hatred in the society. The result has been the evaporation of the human feelings of shared happiness and corporate living. The delights of empathetic philanthropy and compassion don’t inform our behaviour anymore.

Different cultures, languages, religions, mores, rituals and societies developed because they developed in isolation from each others in different geographical locations. Humans lived separately from each others in different parts of the world without knowing that there might exist any other society similar to them, as we exist in this universe in the sublime belief that we might be the only living planet in the cosmos. So, because of this segregated development of different human communities, we developed different languages to communicate with each other, different religions and culture to regulate our social life and different states to promise a safe and secure life. May be that is how the destiny willed it. After all, all these varieties add colours to our life and make it more pulsating. But how can we justify the insular feelings stemming from these parochial creations. Today, we as a human being, may not be interested in jingoistic patriotism or linguistic chauvinism, but we are supposed to be swayed by the politics informing these notions. Why can’t we just enjoy our life just as a human being without being encumbered by the restrictions or the simulated notions of communalism or nationalism? Why can’t we decide to live anywhere, go anywhere and do anything as long as we don’t impinge or hurt the sovereignty of another homo sapien? This is more so when we know jolly well that our sojourn on this earth is transitory and ephemeral.

While answering the Yaksha’s question about the ‘greatest irony of life’, Yuthisthir, a character in Indian mythology, had famously said that notwithstanding the fact that every human being knows that he is going to die one day, he lives as if he would never die. Really, many of us live as if we are never going to die while most of us die as if we never lived. Many thinkers do detest the baloney of human life which forces a man to live a full cycle of his life desiring newer acquisitions and trying to attain the same at any cost, compromising the quality and peace of life and eventually kicking the bucket leaving them all behind. The man would not baulk at hurting others, snatching from others or conspiring against others in his bid to get ahead in life without thinking for a moment as to what he is losing in the bargain. The man loses a righteous life, a life full of sublime happiness and a life characterised by the values of sharing and caring, something which distinguishes him from other creatures of nature.

Almost all of us develop lifestyle and habits that please our senses, and most of the time we are slovenly happy without any concern for anyone. In fact, some also believe that if we really start caring for others or start getting perturbed with others’ sorrow, we would make our life hell. Not really. Sometimes even others problems, if left unresolved, may affect our own life very negatively, bringing us ruin. Many of us who have ordinary comforts of life available to them forget very easily that we are actually God’s chosen ones whom His Almighty has entrusted with the onus of taking care of the uncared and neglected millions on this planet. Just imagine. We might have been in their places, not having all that we have today. Whatever status or possessions we have is by an accident which could have been different or could be different in our next lives. By not doing our duties honestly and responsibly and by not being moved by fellow human beings’ troubles, we are actually breaching the trust reposed in us by the destiny.

If we notice carefully, then we would find that the world is actually moving with us or moving around us or is actually fixated on us. Has any of us ever thought as to why does this happen? Despite the universe being so huge and there being so many characters and players therein, why is it that the world seem to be fixated on us? As if God were constantly watching us through his spy camera. Why it is not focused elsewhere? This really needs to be followed very closely. This very fact should make us realize that the God has really assigned each of us a separate role on this world stage and all of us are there to play a particular role.

Now, what role do we choose for our self is something that totally depends on us? We wish to play a negative or a positive role is something that we have to choose. But one thing is clear. We definitely deserve and need to lead a life which is superior to the animal life. The life of an animal/a beast does not go beyond the pleasures of the flesh, including eating, drinking, defecating and procreating. God has endowed the human beings with the capacity to think and create. That is why, humans have not only won and survived the existential race, but also dominate the forces of nature, proving their superiority thereby. But we definitely can do much better than we have done so far. While we judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, the others always judge us by what we have already done.

We should never forget the eternal truth that this human existence is ephemeral and transient. All the worldly possessions, we keep fighting about thereby debasing our humanity, are finally to be left behind in this mortal world only. The only thing that survives us and lives forever is our good deeds, our good name and fame. What matters most in life is not what we do for ourselves, but what we do for others. And believe me by doing good to others, we actually do good to ourselves. After all, the good name and fame earned are definitely and solely ours and would survive us even after we depart from the world stage. All the great men we remember is because of what they have done for the others and for the society and not for what they did for themselves and their families. So, let’s make an essay to rediscover our true self and live a life that we ought to live as a human being.

*Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer working as the District Magistrate and Collector, Birbhum. The views expressed are his own and don’t reflect those of the Government.

To, All Returning Officers, SDOs, ADM/OC/BDOs/staff members Counting Cell

2011-04-26T11:58:00.000+05:30

Dear Colleagues,

After having completed a very peaceful and successful election on 23rd April, 2011, we need to focus ourselves immediately on the final leg of the election process i.e. the counting of polled EVMs on 13th May, 2011. While one is sure that you shall accomplish this job also as well as you have done in the past, I just thought to bring the following to your notice for refreshing your memory:

Basic Preparations in the run-up to Counting:

1. ROs/AROs shall check for themselves the arrangements in their respective Counting Halls including PA system, computer, lighting, materials and electric connection.

2. AROs shall familiarize themselves with their counting personnel and verify with them any matter deemed necessary for the conduct of smooth counting process.

3. SDOs shall also coordinate with various Cell-In-charges including those relating to Media Cell, Data Transmission Cell, Nazareth, Material Cell and Control Room for better coordination and optimum output.

4. Statutory Cell shall prepare a ‘Key Person-wise Duty Chart’ (as illustrated below) for convenience.

5. There shall be a Black/White Board in all halls.

6. Meeting with political parties, police and key counting personnel shall be held at SDO levels.

7. Training for counting personnel and Micro Observers should be carefully planned and completed well in advance.

8. Counting details including the number of halls, tables and counting personnel shall be shared with the political parties during meeting with them. A copy of the arrangement could be supplied, if demanded.

9. Counting of all Postal Ballots meant for each AC is to be done in a single Hall

10. Media Cell shall be equipped with a TV with cable connection, a PA system, telephone and fax. Adequate seating arrangements for media persons shall be there.

11. Permitted media-men with identity cards to be allowed inside the Counting Hall in small batches to take photographs of the proceedings inside the hall. DICO/SDICO shall personally accompany them during such visits. However, there shall not be any camera/video camera with pedestals/tripod/fixed stands.

12. There shall be CCTV in each Counting Hall with a common Control Room with monitors to watch the proceedings in all the counting halls.

13. Videography shall be done of the entire counting process including that of opening and closing of the Strong Rooms.

14. There shall be arrangements for generators as additional power back-up with electrician/mechanic being there in the premises during the entire process of counting.

15. Fire Tender shall be requisitioned in advance for being stationed in the counting premises.

16. PA system inside the halls shall be so arranged so that one mike addresses people inside the hall while the other addresses the people outside the hall, as far as the booths of the political parties and Media Cell.

17. RO shall announce results himself using the PA system at the end of every round.

18. The Communication Cell shall be readied in advance for transmission of round-wise results to CEO Office and ECI as per instructions.

19. There shall be specified persons who shall act as go-between for immediate compilation and communication of the results.

20. Medical Unit shall be there at every counting venue for provisioning of any emergent service.

21. Randomization of counting personnel to specific counting tables should be done at 5 a.m. on the dot in presence of Hon’ble Observers. The same could be done manually or through computer software. The entire process should be videographed.

22. The officials, who have not been assigned any table, would form a reserve pool.

23. Reserve Counting Personnel should be at pre-decided space and should not move till the end of counting process.

24. Appointment letter and identity cards should be issued to all counting personnel including Counting Supervisors, Assistant Counting Supervisors, contingent menials, Group ‘D’ staff, Micro Observers and one Additional Counting Assistant for Hon’ble Observers.

25. The Returning Officers shall ensure that all statutory reports are timely sent. Advance preparations shall be made in this regards.

26. Certificate of Election shall be prepared and issued by the District Election Cell for uniformity and conformity.

27. Communication and Transmission Cell shall be properly equipped and trained for timely transmission of all requisite information and reports.

28. The table-wise result shall be countersigned by the Hon’ble Observer before announced by RO/ARO.

29. There shall be dedicated personnel for SMS communication with CEO Office.

30. Counting Kits to be procured in advance and placed on counting table on the day prior to actual counting.

31. Pigeon Holes for postal ballot counting should also be arranged and put in place.

32. Vehicle Permits for counting hall entry should be issued in advance and a list of such permits should be handed over to the police for checking the same.

33. The issues relating to counting personnel randomization, random checking of EVMs, Micro Observer assistance and randomization of staff to assist Hon’ble Observer, Strong Room opening, two additional representative of political parties to be allowed for making food arrangements, mobile use restrictions and such other issues should sorted out with Hon’ble Observers in advance.

34. There shall be a separate arrangement for the counting of postal ballots. The candidates/their Election Agents shall be advised to nominate a separate counting agent.

35. One ARO shall be dedicated to handle the postal ballot counting. The Observer and RO should closely monitor the counting of postal ballots and EVMs simultaneously.

36. Before finalizing the tally of postal ballot counting, the RO shall personally verify the invalid and rejected postal ballots and also verify candidate-wise tally.

37. In case, the victory is being decided only on account of postal ballot counting, there should be a mandatory re-verification of postal ballot counting in presence of Hon’ble Observer and RO.

38. Whenever such r e-verification/re-counting is done, the entire proceeding should be videographed without compromising the secrecy of ballot and the video cassettes/CD should be sealed in a separate envelope for future reference.

Things to Remember on the Day of Counting:

39. Attendance Counters on the day of counting should be adequate in number and suitably manned.

40. There shall be a Display Board with Hall-wise duty chart for counting personnel.

41. The Counting Staff shall have their tiffin outside the Counting Hall in the morning itself before entering the Counting Hall.

42. None shall be allowed to carry food or any beverages inside the Counting Hall.

43. Part II of Form 17-C shall be signed by all concerned including counting agents and counting supervisor after tallying.

44. Signatures of counting agents shall be obtained on round-wise proceedings as drawn for the purpose.

45. Secrecy of Vote shall be maintained and Oath of Secrecy to this effect shall be administered to all before start of counting.

46. 630 a.m shall be the reporting time for all the counting personnel and officers.

47. The Hall-in-Charge shall take his/her seat at 7 a.m in the morning and ensure that other personnel have also entered the Hall.

48. The Counting Supervisor should check their counting materials as per the check-list given.

49. The postal ballots should reach ARO I/C at 7.30 who should start sorting them right away.

50. The opening of Strong Room for taking out postal ballots should also be informed to all concerned in advance.

51. The EVM Strong Room shall be opened at 7 a.m in the morning and EVMs should reach destined halls by 7.40 a.m sharp and EVM for a table should be ready for counting by 8 a.m sharp.

52. Postal Ballot, as usual, shall be taken up first for the counting.

53. EVMs shall be counted after immediately after the postal ballot counting is taken up.

54. List of round-wise EVMs should be with the ARO concerned.

55. There shall be a dedicated official who shall work as a Floor Supervisor and shall monitor the movement of EVMs and supply of 17-C, PRO Diary and Declaration.

56. One officer shall be in-charge of statutory report returns and shall also coordinate with the District Control Room.

57. The Observer shall randomly pick up any of the counted Control Units for checking results.

58. There shall be some randomly selected staff from the Reserve Pool for assisting Hon’ble Observers.

59. Counting Officials/Agents should be pre-informed about parallel checking of two EVMs from every round by Hon’ble Observers.

Strong Room and Sealing:

60. The opening of Strong Room for taking postal ballots should also be informed to all concerned in advance.

61. The EVM Strong Room shall be entered 7 a.m in the morning and EVMs should reach destined halls by 7.40 a.m sharp and EVM for a table should be ready for counting by 8 a.m sharp.

62. Strong Rooms should be properly barricaded to preempt any direct access to the same.

1The candidate, his election agent or authorised representative could be present during the opening/closing of the EVM/Postal Ballot Strong Room and can put their signatures/seal on the sealing material.

63. The Log Book for the Strong Room shall be maintained for movement of EVMs within and without the Strong Room.

64. Sealing of EVMs and other election papers shall continue as the EVMs are counted at the place earmarked for the purpose.

65. Sealing process shall also be videographed.

66. Political parties’ or candidates’ representative shall be allowed to put their seal or signatures.

67. Proceedings of the sealing process shall be made as per standard format.

68. Sealing Agents shall also be there as per instructions.

69. Secret seal shall be put on inside stuff and RO seal shall be there on the outside of trunks.

Security Arrangements for Counting:

1. Utmost order and peace shall be maintained inside and outside the Counting Premises.

2. The entire counting premises should be suitably sanitized.

3. No mobile phone, cigarettes, lighter et al shall be allowed inside the Counting Premises. Arrangements for deposit of such personal effects against token shall be made at the entrance.

4. A senior Executive Magistrate shall be posted at the entrance to identify the staff and officers.

5. Vehicles of only pre-decided officers shall be allowed inside the counting premises

6. A senior police officer shall be in-charge of overall maintenance of law and order within and without the premises. All aspects of security should be checked and verified.

7. The identity cards of all officer and staff members/counting personnel should be carefully checked.

8. Crowd Management outside the Counting Premises should be carefully planned.

9. Booths of principal parties/candidates should be suitably located at a safe distance from each other.

10. Three-tier cordoning system of security should be in place.

11. First Cordon should be meant for checking Photo Identity Cards and proper frisking. Only female constables shall frisk female counting personnel or counting agents.

12. Second and Third Cordons checking should be carefully executed. There shall be no frisking at this level unless felt otherwise.

13. People allowed in Counting Hall include Hon’ble Observers, district election officials and counting personnel with proper identity cards other than police, Micro Observers, Counting Supervisors, Assistant Counting Supervisors, Candidates, Election Agents and Counting Agents.

14. Police officials shall not enter the Counting Halls unless and until called in for assistance.

15. Counting Agents/Election Agents shall be allowed entry only if they produce the second copy of the Appointment Letter after duly completing and signing the declaration contained therein under RO authority.

16. The Counting Premises shall be a ‘No Smoking Zone’.

17. None other than Hon’ble Observers, DEO, RO and AROs shall be allowed to carry their mobile phones inside the counting premises. However, the mobile phones shall not be allowed to be used inside the Counting Hall.

18. Police shall ensure against loitering inside the Counting Premises.

19. Utmost discipline and vigil shall be maintained inside the premises.

20. Proper prior planning and security arrangements shall be made to tackle unforeseen law and order problems in the aftermath of declaration of results. Utmost vigil shall be maintained during the victory processions/rallies of candidates/parties.

21. Vehicle checking for transportation of arms, liquor and cash shall be thoroughly done in the run upto and till the day of counting.

22. A close watch shall be maintained over the activities outside the Counting Premises.

Counting Agents:

1There can be one counting agent appointed by the candidate or his/her election agent for each table.

70. Appointment Letter to the Counting Agent is to be given in Form-18.

71. Identity Cards shall be issued by RO on receipt of names of counting agents along with two stamp size photographs by 10th May, 2011.

72. There could be one counting agent for each ARO’s table as well.

73. Each counting agent shall have a badge indicating the name of the candidate, table number along with counting agent’s full signature.

74. Seating Arrangements for Counting Agents shall have the following order: Recognised National Party-Recognised State Party-Recognised State Party of Other States permitted reserved symbols-Registered Unrecognized Party-Independents.

75. Candidates or his/her election agents are free to move around inside the Hall.

Random Checking of EVM by Hon’ble Observer:

1. There would be a random checking of counted EVM by the Hon’ble Observer.

2. The staff to assist the Hon’ble Observer for this cross-checking would be randomly selected from the Reserve Pool.

3. The Additional Staff who will be randomly deployed by the Observer would be sitting at each of the 14 counting tables. They will be provided with an identity card by the DEO.

4. At the closure of each round, Hon’ble Observer would randomly select any two EVM control units from amongst the Control Units of the concerned round which have been counted.

5. He would then direct the counting staff, specially deployed for this purpose, to independently note down from the control units so selected, the details of the votes polled as indicated by the machine.

6. This Additional Staff shall note down the details of votes exhibited by the EVMs being counted in each round in that table.

7. He will be provided with a pre-printed statement on which there will be space for noting down the CU number, Round number, Table Number, PS number and thereafter the names of all the contesting candidates as they appear in the ballot paper.

8. These details would then be compared with the details provided by the officials in the table-wise result to check for any discrepancy between the two.

9. Care must be taken to ensure that the staff assigned for random checking is not aware of the details provided in the table-wise result.

10. Any staff who is found to have wrongly noted the counting result would be taken off and replaced by another set of staff. Severe disciplinary action should then follow on the erring staff for their willful omissions and commissions.

11. They will put their signature at the end of the statement and shall hand over the statement to the Hon’ble Observer after each round.

12. The Observer/RO will cross-check the figures noted in Part-II of Form 17C as submitted by the counting staff with the additional statement submitted by the additional staff.

Instructions to the Counting Supervisor and Assistant Counting Supervisor:

1. Check polling station number of EVM given along with the flow chart given.

2. Open the case after breaking seal by a sharpener/blade.

3. Show the address tag of EVM to the counting agents.

4. Show the strip seal and open it.

5. Show the paper seal number to agents and allow them to compare.

6. Tear the green paper seal in a manner so that the paper seal number is preserved.

7. Switch on the Control Unit.

8. Press Result-1.

9. Display unit of CU will show result.

10. Part-II of Form 17-C is to be filled up accordingly.

11. In case of discrepancy, if any, the same is to be noted in Part-II of Form 17C.

12. Part-II of Form 17C is to be signed by both the supervisors and agents at counting table.

13. Fill up From A with 17C very carefully, repeat, very carefully.

14. Sending of filled up 17C and Form A to ARO’s table immediately.

15. Ask the ARO to provide the CU of EVM meant for his table for next round.

16. Carry on this system till the last round in his table is completed.

17. Draw the proceedings as per format be given by ARO.

Immediately After Completion of Detailed Counting, RO shall ensure:

i) Preparation of Final Result Sheet in Form-20

ii) Dispatch of one original hard copy and one soft copy of Form-20 to CEO by Special Messenger on 14th May, 2011.

iii) Declaration of Result in Form 21D. One copy (original) of signed 21D to be sent immediately to :

a) E.C.I

b) Union Ministry of Law & Justice

c) The Chief Secretary of Government of West Bengal

d) The Secretary to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly

Two copies (original) 21D to be sent to CEO on 14th May, 2011 by Special Messenger.

iv) One copy (original) Form-21E to be sent to :

a) E.C.I

b) Secretary to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly

Two copies (original) 21E to be sent to CEO on 14th May, 2011 by Special Messenger.

Remember full name of the party must be written in party affiliation column of Form-21E

v) After declaration of election result, following documents are to be sent to CEO:

a) Report on the election by Returning Officer (two-copies)

b) Check Memo (original) ( one copy)

c) One copy of certificate of election (Form-22)

d) Check slip (original) (one copy) for notification

e) Two unused ballot papers (with the words “Cancelled for record in the ECI) written on reverse side of each ballot paper under the seal and signature of Returning Officer).

The above salient points are only illustrative and shall be read with in any other supplementary and subsequent orders issued in this regard by the Election Commission of India.

With best wishes,
Dr. Saumitra Mohan, IAS,

(District Magistrate and District Election Officer, Birbhum).

2010-12-12T11:11:00.002+05:30

Media Trial in Trying Times

*Saumitra Mohan

There has been a lot of debate and discussion in recent times over the phenomenon of so-called ‘Media Trial’. There have been arguments for and against it. There is definitely a need to discuss the various nuances and implications relating thereto before we can pronounce any judgement over it. First and foremost, the question arises as to why has such a thing called ‘Media Trial’ has emerged. Is trial by media a completely new phenomenon or has existed since the inception of the Fourth Estate? One would argue that anything in this world comes into being following a demand for the same. So if trial by media has started, then the reason lies in the perceived failure or dysfunctionality of various institutions of the system, the institutions whose working has not been to the satisfaction of the civil society at large, the clientele media caters to.

As in the human body’s homeostatic system where in case of the failure of an organ, another organ comes to take over the function to carry on the function to maintain a stable equilibrium through sustainable physiological processes to ensure human survival as far as possible. Similarly, at a time when there is a perceived failure of other institutions, media, like judiciary, starts over asserting itself and chips in, in its own way to fill in the vacuum left by the non/under-performance of other institutions. And that is how emerges the phenomenon of ‘judicial activism’ or ‘Media Trial’. And the latter is definitely not a new phenomenon, but has existed for quite some time now. Remember all the famous movements across the world including our own freedom movement when media, even in its early days and when it was tied in multiple fetters, has championed myriad causes. Who can forget the proactive role played by the press during the heydays of emergency in this country? So, today’s media trial is not something surprising.

But media trial or championing is not something which exists in exclusion of other systems rather it exists together with the classical justice mechanism and such other champions of public causes as the civil society, NGOs, various pressure and interest groups. Media often works in association or alliance with some or many such institutions. Media trial is a way to give expression to the largely-felt aspirations or predominant public opinion. Media often comes forward to support or oppose the dominant predilection in a particular judicial trial or to support/oppose a particular decision by the executive in sync with the popular mood. Media just throws its entire weight in support or in opposition of a popular stance in light of available evidence or perceived public interest.

Many of the recent celebrated judicial cases or instances of corruption were brought to public notice after the media took up the cause to nudge the system out of slumber to bring about a particular decision or judgement has thereby also highlighted cases of major irregularities (read corruption). The Jessica Lal Murder Case, the Priyadarshini Mattoo Murder Case, the Rizwanur Rehman Murder Case, Shivani Bhatnagar Murder Case, Ruchira Girhotra Molestation Case, Sukna Land Scam, Adarsh Society scam, IPL corruption case, the historic Nanawati case, the innumerable sting operations and so on. The list of cases, where media has played a proactive role to sway the popular opinion to bear upon a particular executive or judicial decision to successfully overturn it, is endless.

Though most of the time media seems to be on the right side of the justice, in many instances it has also been accused of being partisan, actually championing the cause or the interests of the House it belongs to. It has also been alleged that quite often media’s taking a particular side arises out of its bid to survive the competitive commercialism that that mark journalism these days. So, next time you see some Houses indulging in yellow journalism, you should look for reasons in its political background or its commercial interests. Often, some stories are deliberately planted in keeping with the interests of the House. Quite often, many stories are reflections of a journalist’s individual predilection, his/her own vested interest in cahoots with other vested interests. It is here that it becomes difficult for the unsuspecting and naïve hoi polloi to sift through the truth, to separate the chaff from the grain.

What is shocking is the fact that quite often media goes with the tide and misses the wood for the trees. In stead of judging an incident on merit, its many analyses are imbued with emotionalism or rank irrationalism. Sometimes same incident has evoked different reactions from different media houses. In this country, the media panned a particular state government when one of the legislators belonging to the ruling dispensation was humiliated and man-handled by the local people. The media justified anomic popular reaction on ground of the government’s failure to do anything for the cyclone-affected people. Again, when another legislator belonging to opposition was attacked and man-handled by the local people, then again media criticized the government for failing to ensuring security to the Hon’ble MLA. Like in previous case, here also the media could have justified the anomic popular reaction as an expression of popular anger against the particular legislator. But media came out with two different reactions in the two cases.

However, the truth is that in both the cases the people who took law into their hand by attacking, humiliating and man-handling Hon’ble legislators were wrong, committed a crime by doing so and ought to have accordingly been booked for the act. But media justified one reaction by the public and did not in another case and government was criticized in both the cases. One does expect that in true spirit of professional journalism, the media reaction shall be dispassionate and above board which was not noticed in the two instant cases. It is here that media neutrality or freedom of speech granted to press becomes questionable.

Lord Acton rightly said, ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. If one has a got a license to shoot, it is expected that one would know as to whom to shoot, when to shoot and how to shoot. When one shoots indiscriminately, then it borders on derangement and needs to be regulated. Similarly, media needs to conduct itself with more responsibility while exercising its power to report and opine. An unfettered power without accountability needs to be checked and used with caution.

For someone who has spent considerable time in media, one does know that more often than not, you are directed to carry a particular story or not to carry it or to give a particular tilt/angle to a particular story with a motivation to help a particular faction or some vested interests with whom the House ownership or management identifies. Quite often a media House also desists from carrying a particular story because the subject concerned has been their one of the biggest advertisers. A nexus between media and various vested interests is said to have emerged to endanger the classical neutrality of the media. The l’affaire Barkha Dutt is a case in point.

One basic problem with media trial is the fact that media espouses mostly the celebrated or high-profile cases, but millions of not-so-famous cases just fade away as they have no champions anywhere. But all said and done, media trial still remains a positive development to have happened, something which can be utilized in the better interest of the larger society. Today, in the times of ‘Sting Operations’ and ‘Right to Information’, all the decision makers and government officials are definitely on their toes, knowing very well that they can’t keep on doing things as they have always done. They are definitely more careful today and think twice before doing anything wrong, fearing a proactive and snoopy media. The political class, the bureaucracy, the police and everyone else are definitely more responsible today than ever before.

Earlier, none could think of a Minister being jailed, an IAS/IPS being arrested or a powerful politician being convicted, something which have happened quire regularly in recent times in this country. The conviction of Manu Sharma, Santosh Singh, ex-IGP of Haryana RK Sharma, ex-DGP of Haryana HKS Rathore, arrest and imprisonment of many influential politicians or resignations of high profile office bearers do prove the efficacy and effectiveness of media trial in bringing quicker justice than possible through the conventional justice system. One just hopes that media shall exercise its power with more discretion and responsibility to continue facilitating the conventional justice and decision making system rather than trying to replace the same. Similarly, the watchdog like the Press Council of India should be more than careful to ensure that media never overshoots or breaches its power or freedom.

*The views expressed are of the author and do not reflect those of the Government.

2010-06-28T13:44:00.001+05:30

Right to Information: Some Reflections and Ruminations
Dr. Saumitra Mohan

As they say, information is necessary to 'form, perform, conform and reform'. It is so basic to any aspect of human existence, be it learning or acquisition of knowledge, performance of one's duties or any activity, compliance to any rules or laws and reform in any system subsequent to revelations of deficiencies discovered and changes required. It is subsequent to this realization that Right to Information Act (RTI Act) was enacted way back in 2005 in our country. Since its enactment in 2005, RTI has become a potent tool in the hands of hoi polloi and it has used this Act to further the cause of democracy and democratic rights in this country. Principles of natural justice also subsumes the right to fair hearing which presumes a right to information.
The various powers and rights accruing to common people under the Act have been widely used, with positive implications for effective governance in this country. The government and its sundry administrative wings have literally been on toes in the past few years providing various kinds of information to different classes of people. The war against various systemic evils unleashed in the wake of RTI has been termed as the 'Third War of Independence'. The conservative bureaucracy can no longer hide behind the fig-leaf of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 to deny information to the citizens unless the same could be justified in strict public interest.
Even though RTI came into existence only in 2005 in this country, it is argued that it has always been there an inalienable part of our democratic ethos. The right to information is said to be implied across many disparate rules and provisions of the Representation of Peoples Act, Consumer Protection Act, 1986, Indian Factories Act, 1948, The Constitution of India (e.g. Articles 19, 21 and 22), Indian Evidence Act, 1941, The Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, The Public Records Act and many judgements of the Supreme Court and High Courts. It has also been part of global discourse due to its inclusion in various international Instruments and Conventions including the Universal Declaration of Human Right, 1948 and in the Acts/laws of many developed countries.
In fact, for any law or Act to be effective in a democracy, it is very important that the common public is duly informed about the various aspects and provisions. Not only that, these people should also be conscious and conscientized about the need to use their various rights and powers available under the Act. And RTI is no different. The common people of this country have not only been greatly empowered by the Act, but they are also gradually learning to use the same effectively resulting in more democratization of the system.
With the increased popular participation made possible by the Act, the overall accountability in the system has also increased remarkably. As almost any and every information is now in public domain, the wily government servant thinks twice before doing anything wrong as he/she is aware that tomorrow he/she might have to account for or explain the action/decision taken by him/her. The RTI Act has definitely made the administration more transparent and accountable than it ever was.
The basic features of good governance include transparency, accountability and predictability. After the enactment of RTI, these parametres could clearly be seen to be writ large across the governance system in this country. Still, there is a lot which needs to be done to make this Act further effective.
First of all, voluntary disclosure of information and appointment of public information officers (PIOs) as warranted under respective sections 4 and 5 of the Act by various agencies have still not been done suitably and properly. Section 4, sub-section 2 of RTI Act says, "It shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of sub-section (1) to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information." RTI actually implies the 'Theory of Full Belly' i.e. if someone's stomach is full, he/she would never ask for food. Similarly, if information is provided suo moto, people shall never resort to RTI.
Again, Section 5, sub-section 1 of RTI Act says, "Every public authority shall, within one hundred days of the enactment of this Act [i.e. 21st June, 2005], designate as many officers as the Central Public Information Officers or State Public Information Officers, as the case may be, in all administrative units or offices under it as may be necessary to provide information to persons requesting for the information under this Act." So, it is important that to realise the objective of this Act, the spirit behind these sections are realised and actualised as early as possible.
Notwithstanding the fact that there are approximately 50,00,000 public authorities in the country, still, these SPIOS and ASPIOS (State Public Information Officers and Assistant State Public Information Officers) have not been notified by many of them. And where they have been so notified, they have not been suitably publicised, resulting in confusion and inefficiency in the disposal of the RTI petitions. At many places, there is a single SPIO for the entire Organisation, something which makes the system very cumbersome because of dependence on a lone person. So, the onus could be suitably and conveniently apportioned among many SPIOs for better performance and speedier disposal.
While in the beginning, the public authorities would complain against the paucity of funds to take various measures as required by the Act including voluntary disclosure of information. However, now there is enough contingent funds under different schemes which could be suitably utilised to realise this basic prerequisite to make RTI more effective. As there is always shortage of manpower for such work, it won't be out of place to suggest outsourcing of such works. The massive amount of work required towards voluntary disclosure of information could be better executed by professional agencies skilled in such tasks. The care, however, should be taken to ensure that the information is easy to understand and is provided through suitable linguistic media.
Even though we have come a long way in implementation of RTI in this country, there is still considerable lack of awareness among public and public servants regarding various aspects and provisions of the Act. The ignorance is reflected in the kinds of petitions filed and the responses of various public authorities.
Many of the petitions filed have been found to be motivated. The political parties, as one could say with experience, often use it to literally annoy the local administration e.g. loads of RTI petitions if you don't listen to them or accede to one or the other of their demands. While the brief of the Act is to supply the information available in public domain, people have actually been seeking action and justice under the Act which is not the brief of the Act. Many of the petitions are filed without any purpose or locus standi. More often than not, the way RTI petitions are filed or the way information is sought also creates confusion among the public authorities who themselves are often not clear as to how to deal with such petitions.
Though anyone and everyone could seek any and every information in the public domain, the information not readily available and which involve disproportionate diversion of public resources need not be provided as per section 7, sub-section 9 of the Act. However, such petitioners could seek the benefit of record inspection subject to the payment of requisite charges. Again, many of the public authorities provide information free of cost even to non-BPL people, something which is not advisable as it encourages the non-serious types to file frivolous and motivated petitions. The SPIOs and ASPIOs should invariably desire the RTI petitions to be made along with the payment of the requisite fees as required for the purpose. Not only this, the petitioners should also be asked to fork out the bill for provisioning of information including the inspection charges, Xeroxing charges or charges for providing a CD as applicable.
Sometimes, sending the estimated cost of provisioning information including Xeroxing charges should be sufficient to discourage the non-serious seekers of information to approach public authorities and waste their quality time and energy. In fact, the public authorities could save a lot of their time and energy dealing with such petitions if only they could comply with the directions enshrined in section 4 relating to voluntary disclosure. A good website or kiosk shall do the needful in this regard. The petitioner could just be informed about the website, if one is computer savvy, to access the information required. And for the non-computer savvy ones, the hard copies of such information should be made available in the local libraries.
Many SPIOs and ASPIOs still wait for the approval of their superiors or appellate authorities to finally pass on the information to petitioners, something which delays sharing of information and is completely avoidable. The SPIOs and ASPIOs could right away share information without referring the same to their superiors as should be decided well in advance unless there is confusion with regards to a serious issue or a policy matter. Also, some queries involving lots of manual work could be dealt by requesting or inviting petitioners to come and inspect the records at the payment of requisite charges. The really need shall come forward but the non-serious ones shall never venture forth. But as the burden of providing information within the stipulated timeframe is on SPIO/ASPIO, they definitely should take care to evince enough desire to share the information sought.
There are still many grey areas with regards to implementation of this Act e.g. 'which information is in public domain and which is not' is still not clear to many. The stipulation of provisioning information within 30 days is still very vague as the same is interpreted differently by public and public authorities. As people living below the poverty line (BPL) are exempted from paying charges for information sought, many petitioners have been filing proxy petitions through BPL people to avoid paying charges of accessing information.
Many vague or abstract petitions are often left undisposed for quite some time, even at the expense of inviting pecuniary penalties from the last appellate authority. It would be more advisable to dispose these petitions early by scheduling a quick hearing or by inviting a written clarification from the petitioner. In fact, one needs to be doubly sure before providing information involving some costs. It is, therefore, advisable to hear the petitioner in person in such cases before supplying the same.
The information relating to judiciary and its activities is still out of bounds for the public, something which is still mired in controversy. When we are talking of democracy, people's rights, none being above law, there is no reason why judiciary should be out of RTI ambit. One hopes this tangle is resolved early for making RTI more effective.
Again, there has been a confusion as to whether foreigners or non-citizens could be provided information under the Act. The answer is in the affirmative for the rights admissible to them and for the information available in public domain. While many of the information (as per section 8 of the Act) could not be shared including the information relating to purely personal matters and the information held in fiduciary capacity, but property returns or IT returns of public servants are supposed to be in public domain and could be demanded under RTI. Such petitions should be transferred to the requisite SPIO in time.
The awareness about the various aspects of the Act among public and public authorities need to increase with strengthening of the RTI set up at various levels including provisioning of adequate resources and man power. Given the massive expansion in the welfare state activities, RTI set up is in urgent need of having dedicated officers and staff members to attend to various queries and requests for information from members of the public.
This would definitely make our service delivery more efficient and effective. Those found deliberately skirting or avoiding sharing of information should be duly penalised. But, there should also be action or penalties prescribed against the motivated petitioners. However, the provision for penalties should be applied with lots of care and discretion than arbitrarily as seen in many cases. While there is also a need to clarify and define the role of the competent authorities, some observers feel the need to give more discretionary powers to PIOs and appellate authorities to deal with such situations and cases.

2010-06-15T21:24:00.003+05:30

Development Schemes: Need for a Remodelling
Dr. Saumitra Mohan

The social welfare state to realise an objective of an egalitarian society endeavours to ensure maximum good of maximum number of its people. And in its bid to do so, it tries various measures including launching multiple schemes for the hoi polloi. India also has its share of welfare and development schemes and programmes targeted at different sections of the society. Such schemes are executed and implemented by the huge bureaucratic machine in close coordination with the governments at various levels including the local self governments. The contours of a liberal democratic state could very well be delineated by an overview of the detailed planning and execution of such schemes.
Today, there are numerous such welfare schemes and development programmes being run in our country. Some of them include the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF), Backward Villages Development Programme, Community Development schemes, Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), various region-specific funds e.g. Uttar Banga Unnayan Prakalp (UUP) or Pachimanchal Unnayan Prakalp (PUP) in West Bengal, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Swaranjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), Special Component Assistance for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes-dominated area development (as in SCA to SCP/TSP), Swajaldhara, Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MSDP), Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP), Integrated Watershed Development Programme (IWDP) and various other schemes relating to sericulture, pisciculture, animal husbandry, horticulture and agriculture.
The number of such schemes being directly supervised or implemented through the office of the District Magistrate (DM) or the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) wherein DM has significant role in ensuring proper implementation of these schemes is endless. The multiplicity of schemes by creating various layers of execution often complicates the execution by making the system cumbersome. The same invariably creates problems during the execution of schemes. It is here that one would like to moot a proposal for the integration and consolidation of all such schemes. This proposal, if minutely planned after factoring in all relevant aspects and practical problems envisaged, shall go a long way in not only improving the planning and execution of these schemes but in also reaching their benefits to the targeted beneficiaries in a more efficient and effective way.
To begin with, such integration and consolidation of schemes/programmes relating to construction and creation of permanent assets or infrastructures should all be pooled together to be one overarching programme. However, the entire programme could be suitably sub-divided into different components with earmarked percentage of the total allotment to be spent on particular sectors e.g. for connectivity improvement, for rural housing, for watershed development, for minority-inhabited areas, for agriculture and so on, depending upon the need or weightage as perceived by the government.
These sectors could still be named variously like now, but they should all be an inalienable part of a single programme with uniform guidelines including those relating to fund management and account keeping. Such uniformity shall facilitate better fund management and efficient account keeping, thereby obviating the need for maintaining multiple ledgers and cash books for multiple schemes. Even if the records or ledgers are maintained sector-wise, there shall still be uniformity. The need for opening and maintaining multiple bank accounts shall no longer be there, thereby making accounting relatively simpler than now. This would ensure better account keeping and better financial management. The complexities created by the need for maintaining scores of records and files shall be eliminated.
The NREGA model is a good example to fall back on. The new programme after integration and consolidation of the multifarious welfare and development schemes should function in the same way as NREGA. Even though NREGS visualises an important roles for BDOs, SDOs and DMs, the role and responsibility of the local self-governments shall still be very important and critical as it is the latter that would do the micro-level planning and execution of the programme as done now. As the scheme has enough allowance for employment of surplus/additional manpower and other administrative desiderata, the various NREGA schemes are never constrained at the executional level in the way as many other schemes are marked as they are by delay and sundry executional snags.
Similarly, the new programme should be modelled on NREGS to be able to benefit from the experience gained through its implementation. NREGS, in its short life-span, has proved to be a leader among all the previous and extant government schemes. It has not only ensured more efficient fund utilisation and better creation of community assets, the various measures visualised to ensure executional transparency have also minimised the scope for corruption and leakage. Hence, NREGS model should be the ideal template for modelling this new avatar on.
However, one still feels that the new scheme should be based on NREGS only after making some rectification and modifications in some of NREGS parametres. These include stipulations relating to employment for minimum number of man-days for every household, wage-material ratio, kind of schemes to be executed and permissibility of scheme execution through contractors. One feels that that after all these schemes are merged together, the pool of financial resources available with the government shall be significant enough to allow for demand-based employment throughout the year. Therefore, the NREGA cap of a minimum of 100 days work in an year for a rural household should be removed completely.
Also, the wage-material ratio should be made 50:50 instead of present 60:40, thereby maintaining the material-intensive work at the level where they are at the moment. But pooling other schemes' wage components with the new scheme shall create enough leverage and leeway to provide work throughout the year to a rural household. Also, deviating from the present NREGA norm of not executing any scheme through contractor, there ought to be a little scope for 15 per cent of the total schemes to be executed through contractors. The scheme permissible to be executed through the contractors shall be material-intensive (say those which shall require 80 per cent material) and which shall require to be executed emergently. The decision for selection of such schemes must be left to the discretion of the local self-government.
Similarity and uniformity stemming from the integration and consolidation of many of these ongoing schemes and programmes shall markedly improve monitoring and supervision at the field level. The consolidation of these schemes shall also mean availability of more contingent funds, allowing for engagement of additional manpower and additional supervisory infrastructures as permissible under NREGP now. The transparency norms imported from NREGP shall ensure that the common public remain duly informed and participate at the various levels of planning and execution of the schemes. Also, the manpower now engaged in implementation of different other schemes shall become available and could be pooled together for better supervision and monitoring.
Many of the present schemes require identification of beneficiaries which often become cause of partisan politics and friction. The same not only often results in violent clashes or deadlock in the working of the panchayats or decision-making bodies, but also results in delaying the execution of the entire scheme e.g. IAY. After the new programme comes into being, there shall be no need for beneficiary identification as the new scheme shall not be confined to BPL families only as is the case with NREGS whose benefits are available to all sections of society.
There could, however, be a priority list to be decided by the local self-government e.g. Gram Sabha in accordance with which various individual benefit schemes (IBSs) including low-cost housing or sanitary toilets shall be built. The number and kind of schemes to be taken up under individual benefit schemes could be further diversified to include rural housing, sanitation, kitchen gardens et al to cater to many other perceived needs of the people in the countryside. And the truth remains that present focus of NREGA cannot be sustained beyond a point e.g. we cannot continue constructing water harvesting, minor irrigation or flood proofing structures beyond a point as land is limited.
So, we need to get ready in advance to prepare for future by modifying the way we reach various benefits to the underprivileged sections of the society. As almost any and every scheme could be executed depending on the availability of skilled and non-skilled manpower, there shall not be any need for wasting time in discussing the advisability of a scheme. The local self-government shall have a shelf of schemes which shall be executed in order of priority. This would save a lot of time and cost over-runs would be avoided, thereby improving creation of capital assets in the countryside and thereby also bridging the rural-urban divide.
Whether such a programme shall be extended to urban areas or not shall depend on the decision to merge the schemes executed by the municipal bodies with the proposed programme. But if we do it, it shall not be such a bad idea as it shall give a better fillip to development process in the municipal areas though there could be different programme officer e.g. the municipal commissioners or executive officers could do the needful in this regard.
The above is just a proposal and this author feels that the same needs to be considered, discussed and debated thoroughly before actually going on the anvil. One does feel that such a programme shall definitely revolutionise the way different welfare and development programmes are planned and executed in this country.

2010-06-15T21:24:00.001+05:30

National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme: An Overview
Dr. Saumitra Mohan

National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGA) has been in operation for over four years and is being implemented in all the districts of this country. NREGA has turned out to be one of the most fascinating schemes launched by the State, generating lots of expectations because of the success story it has turned out to be.

Many executional problems and criticisms of certain aspects of the scheme notwithstanding, NREGA is the flagship scheme which has become the principal vehicle for extension of government benefits to the unemployed masses of this country. The changes in the quality of people’s life could be easily noticed in the countryside as also the massive infrastructures created under the scheme. The purchasing power generated has also created positive spin offs and multiplier effects for the economy as a whole.

However, the programme does require some structural and conceptual modifications to be better able to realise its objectives in the light of experience gained during its operation over the years. It is very well known that almost the districts across the country have not been able to harness the scheme uniformally as the performance varies from state to state. Not only this, none of the districts could realise the target of providing 100 days of employment to all the job card holders even though financial allocations for the programme have never been a constraint.

It is argued that NREGA being a demand-driven scheme, the emphasis should be on provisioning of employment to those demanding work rather than on expenditure of fund allotted. But the fact remains that there are still hundreds of thousands of people in need of work in this country. It is felt that the implementing agencies i.e. district administration and various line departments could be and need to be more proactive in reaching out to the people needing work through better ‘information-education-awareness’ (IEC) programme. Many people still do not know that they can rightfully demand work under NREGA and shall be paid an ‘Unemployment Allowance’ in case of failure to provide the same within 15 days of demanding work.

A regional variation in terms of utilisation of allotted amount has been observed as some states have availed of larger amounts compared to many others. Many states including Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have done exceedingly well in terms of fund utilisation and number of schemes executed. The same has resulted in creation of massive purchasing power of the local people in those states, while many other states have also started catching up, West Bengal being one of them.

If still many people do not come forward to do work under NREGA, the reason for the same is said to be the availability of work at higher wages in the private sectors than the one provided under NREGA, resulting in less utilisation of the allotted funds. This explanation may be tenable for the relatively developed states or for the urban areas even in the backward states, but definitely not for the rural and underdeveloped areas in states like Bihar, Jharkhand or Uttar Pradesh. These states definitely should have been able to utilise more money providing more number of employment than they have been able to do so far.

One feels that as the Indian economy grows at the sizzling rate of over seven per cent, there shall be more people attracted to work at the more attractive market wage rates than the minimum wage ranging from 75 to 140 as provided under NREGA. Since no state has been able to provide hundred days of employment to all its citizens, there is definitely a need to take the required corrective measures to reach the said target.

In fact, at this stage of the scheme, it is advisable that we should get more daring and remove the ceiling of 100 days and make it a completely demand driven employment guarantee scheme to be available throughout the year for as many person-days as might be demanded. At least, the individual cap of 100 days per household should be removed. This would allow the individual district to go on providing work to individual household beyond 100 days’ ceiling. It would also enable them to utilise their own projected quota of man-days calculated against the number of existing household for that particular district.

With states unable to realise even 100 days of employment, the drain on government resources is not going to be something beyond its reach. This is more so when more work at higher wages are likely to be available in the private sector in times to come, given the way our economy seems to be performing. With India being one of the demographically young countries, more people are likely to be in the productive age groups meaning thereby they shall all be need to be provided with work. Hence, the need to modify the minimum number of mandays’ stipulations as envisaged in the Act at the moment.

Knowing that employment would be available for asking in the villages itself, the wage labourers will be less motivated to head towards the urban areas for seeking wage employment thereby reducing migration from village to cities. The same shall also reduce pressure on urban amenities and infrastructures. As a result, there is likely to be enough work left for the urban workers. As there shall be less number of persons competing for work in the urban areas, it is likely that the urban wage labourers would get higher and more rewarding wages. It is felt that the same reduces the need for the government to formulate any such wage employment guarantee programme for the urban workers.

The objective of the scheme includes not only provisioning of guaranteed employment in the rural areas to discourage rural-urban migration, but also to create gainful assets in the countryside. It is, therefore, advisable for the government to keep revising the minimum wages from time to time to reflect the market wages as also to diminish attraction of higher wage employment s as might be available in the urban areas. If this does not happen, people would not feel encouraged to stay back in the villages to work for NREGA schemes thereby reducing the opportunities to create basic amenities and civic infrastructures in the rural areas.

It is felt by many that NREGA being a demand driven programme, people should be willing to do the work at the government approved rates, which is the minimum wage sufficient to sustain a household per day. If the people are getting work at higher wages elsewhere, they should go ahead and do it. This would result in saving of government money which can be better utilised for implementation of other ongoing welfare programmes run by the government including NREGA as well as for undertaking more material-intensive schemes.

During rainy season and other such busy seasons which may vary from state to state, people get higher wages in the rural areas itself thereby leaving very few volunteers for wage employment works in the countryside thereby resulting in less utilisation of the NREGA money. But one would say that less or more utilisation of NREGA allotment should not be a criterion to judge the success of the programme. Less utilisation may also mean that there is less demand for such work in that particular area. This should actually be seen as a development indicator as that means people are getting work at higher wages elsewhere, thereby reducing dependence on government to provide such wage employment.

However, one does find it surprising when one sees that work demanded is significantly less even in those areas where people living below the poverty line are more than the usual and are still not demanding work under NREGA. It feels more surprising when such people keep sitting idle without doing any work, while plenty opportunities could be created under NREGA for not only providing them with work, but also for creating productive assets in the countryside resulting in enhancement of basic quality of life for the inhabitants.

So, it does feel that there has not been done enough ground work for creating awareness about the programme. It has been observed that people are still not aware of the fact that they can demand work under NREGA as a matter of their right. Most of them are still not aware of their right to demand unemployment allowance as a result of implementing agency’s failure to provide the work within the statutory fifteen days of the receipt of petition demanding such a wage employment. The necessary allocations for such IEC exercises also remain unutilised in a good number of cases.

Surprisingly, unemployment allowance paid so far anywhere in the country is a very negligible amount of the total expenditure. The reason proffered for the same is provisioning of job within the statutory 15 days which is not the case. Actually, many implementing agencies have mastered the art of refusing unemployment allowance by not issuing the signed receipt for the applications demanding job. The payment of unemployment allowance is not only a charge on the local government, but also means the failure of the implementing agency to provide job within 15 days.

In case of such a failure, the officers and staff members concerned are supposed to be penalised if responsibility is fixed. Hence, the penchant for avoiding payment of unemployment allowances. There have reportedly been regular failures on the part of the many executing agencies to provide the demanded work within fifteen days, thereby defeating the very objective of NREGA. Not only this, no government official has yet been penalised for having failed to realise this programme objective notwithstanding there being the provision for the same.

Under NREGA, there is an in-built mechanism to check corruption and leakage of government money by means of better supervisory and monitoring arrangements. The same is supposed to be ensured by way of regular monitoring, field visits, muster roll checking by public, wide publicity of the details of the work being done or already done through an information board and other social auditing measures by the beneficiaries and other members of the society. The muster rolls are supposed to be publicly read to ward off corruption. However, the same is not being done regularly, thereby giving rise to suspicion of foul play. The provision of keeping an account of job demanded and provided through the specially designed individual job cards carrying photographs of the household members is also supposed to be a major anti-corruption tool.

However, it was believed that these very arrangements were reasons for a general apathy initially among the programme implementing agencies to implement the scheme effectively as there was almost negligible scope for siphoning of government money as was available earlier during the previous wage employment schemes including Swarnjayanti Gram Rojgar Yojna (SGRY) days.

But as they say, human ingenuity knows no bounds. The vested interests immediately discovered newer ways to sabotage the programme and got onto the gravy train. If some newspaper reports are to be believed, not only many fake job cards have come to notice of the monitors, but also there have been many reports where it has been found that implementing agencies or locally dominant factions have got a good number of job cards deposited in their custody and are using the same for nefarious purpose of minting money illegally.

Reports of preparation of cooked-up muster rolls without execution of any work have also come to notice, not to speak of many other known ways of making money. Not only this, employment to job card holders is still being given more as an obligation than as a matter of right. It is complained that the site selection for the schemes is often politically motivated. Usually, those areas are alleged to be preferred for NREGA works which are under control of the locally dominant factions, and not those as are populated by the supporters other than the locally dominant factions. It has also been alleged that the locally dominant party often uses the scheme to oblige its supporters, thereby giving a miss to the workers who are opposition followers.

It has been alleged that by means of fake cards, the vested interests have ensured siphoning of government money by making false entries into the muster roll and the daily attendance sheet. It has also been complained that job cards have not been issued to all those who wanted it and applied for it, but only to those who are loyal to the locally dominant party/faction or could grease some palms. The practice of getting a cut out of the labour wages of workers has also come to the notice and has been reported in the press. With regular monitoring, supervision and participatory social audit, scope for such shenanigans have been reduced considerably.

Also, the wage is supposed to be paid as per the quantum of work done by the individual labourers. However, the same has been noticed to be paid at a flat rate irrespective of the efficiency or work quantum standards in some of the cases, thereby rewarding a hare and a tortoise equally, something which goes against the purported objective of the scheme. The initial idea was that those working harder with higher productivity should be able to earn higher wages under the scheme. At many of the places, officials have pointed to the practical constraint of continuing with the ‘flat rate wage payment’ as differentiated payment creates discontentment among the workers.

Again, the workers have often unfairly refused to work beyond a few hours or at the pre-determined wage on various pretexts. This is simply because NREGA being a government scheme, they would not like to work harder and would like to just have their wages without putting in the requisite labour for a requisite output. At least, that is what has come to be heard by the implementing agencies at some places. But thankfully such instances are only few and far between.

Also, the basic work site amenities as are supposed to be there as per the programme guideline are often not found to be available. The provisioning of a crèche for children of working women, provisioning of the first aid boxes or potable water at the work sites are still not seen at most of the places. The stock argument proffered is that people feel that employment created through such works are less strenuous and villagers object to the fact that some people can earn their wages without putting in any hard labour.

If at all such amenities are provided, they are only to comply with the guideline rather than to fulfil the real spirit behind the provision. What they fail to realise is that such works can accommodate not only the physically handicapped people, but the same works can be rotated among the beneficiaries, if the handicapped or such other people are not readily available.

The signboard giving details of the ongoing or completed NREGA works is also found missing at many of the sites and is often put up without much details. However, the absence of the information board giving scheme details says something about the intentions of the implementing agencies, the motives being pre-empting people to question the quality and quantity of the works done. But such an argument does not stand in this age of Right to Information when any and every information can be accessed by way of the rights created under the said Act.

Several suggestions are being made to modify and improve NREGA further. It is felt by many that the material-wage ratio of 40-60 should be hiked to be 50-50 and this ceiling should be flexible enough to be applicable only at the state level so as to make allowance for taking up bigger and better schemes. The use of machineries should be made more flexible than it is admissible now though the same should be explicitly linked to facilitating the works and without compromising the generation of more mandays under NREGA.

Again, individual benefit schemes (IBS) have been allowed for weaker sections/marginal/small farmers for the permissible schemes under NREGA. Such schemes include conversion of wasteland/uncultivable/undulating land into cultivable land, roof-top water harvesting structures, construction of dug-wells, soil conservation, excavation of pond/water harvesting structures, social forestry schemes, watershed development schemes, construction of irrigation channels and some other schemes.

Many states have done exceedingly well while many other states have a long way to go on this count. One feels that there is a need to move methodically with regards to the implementation of IBS under NREGA as the same shall not only result in creation of more mandays in the under/undeveloped areas, but shall also create productive assets in the countryside. The same is likely to have immense multiplier effects. Timely identification of beneficiaries and creation of model scheme banks shall go a long way.

Again, there is a lot of scope for convergence or dove-tailing of NREGA with other schemes/programmes implemented by the line departments. If converged with other cognate schemes, the same shall help in more employment generation. It shall also result in improvement in the quality of schemes executed as the pool of resources available shall increase manifold through such convergence.

Convergence with Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) shall be another area requiring attention of the policy makers. As is known, TSC is one of the flagship schemes of the Government. However, the same has not been in a very good shape in many parts of the country. Even at the places where sanitary toilets have been constructed, they are not being used by the beneficiaries for different reasons including the one relating to the quality of the toilet constructed if feedback from the beneficiaries are to be relied upon. The main problem against the extant model is need of lot of water for flushing the night-soil which becomes more acute in the water-deficient areas. As the new model envisages use of ceramic pan in stead of a concrete one, water requirement could be greatly reduced.

Now that we are undertaking several individual benefit schemes (IBS) under schemes like NREGA, one feels that the convergence between the two (i.e. NREGA and TSC) can do wonders for both the development programmes, particularly TSC. Since now we allow expenditure upto a maximum of Rs. 150,000 for an IBS under NREGA for the small/marginal farmers, the dove-tailing of the schemes can do wonders to TSC, a scheme critical to the basic health and hygiene in the countryside.

Under the proposed convergence programme, people could be encouraged to contribute their share (Rs. 300/BPL household Rs. 2200 scheme subsidy and Rs. 2500/APL household) and then the rest could be contributed out of NREGA, thereby greatly encouraging people to opt for construction of sanitary toilets in their premises. Such models are not only more durable, they shall also need less water for flushing the night-soil. The total cost of a sanitary toilet under the proposed convergence may be around Rs. 6500. It is hoped that with proper IEC (Information, Education and Communication) campaign, the said convergence can do a world of good to our sanitation programme.

We are hopeful that this model of sanitary toilets when integrated with the IBS under NREGA has the possibility of becoming quite popular and could realize the objectives of the total sanitation campaign. This small piece of change to be effected through NREGA funds (if allowed) could go a long way in ensuring better health and hygiene in our countryside, not to speak of the possibility of unleashing immense opportunities for employment generation.

The administration of NREGA can improve further with a dedicated Programme Management Unit (envisaged, but still not done at many places) at all the levels including districts, blocks and Gram Panchayats. There is also a need for proper utilisation of the six per cent contingency provided for provisioning of the requisite infrastructures and manpower required for better programme implementation. Fund flow to various programme implementing agencies (PIAs) has to improve with proper coordination among the District Programme Management Unit, banks, post offices and all other concerned.

Newer NREGA schemes should be taken up. Such schemes may include solid waste management, more IBSs, drainage system, construction of model houses (of specific value a la IAY), sanitary toilets, kitchen gardens, rural hats, repair and maintenance of government building including construction of boundary walls. Self help groups (SHGs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) need to be involved in a huge way in various ways in implementations of the schemes including monitoring, work measurement and social auditing of the scheme.

Approved and vetted shelf of schemes should be ready for better and faster implementation of the NREGA schemes. Also, there is a need for the proper planning for all the seasons of the year. Still, the focus seems to be on expenditure of maximum money under NREGA but as it is a demand-driven scheme, the focus should be to generate employment for the unemployed to prevent them from emigrating to the urban areas while also creating valuable assets in the countryside.

If NREGA has to be successful in realising its programme objectives, then these concerns and problems, as mentioned above, need to be addressed sooner rather than later. One just hopes that with regular monitoring, social auditing and proper accounting coupled with some positive changes required in the light of experience gained during its operation over the years, NREGA can really become an effective answer to many of the problems for India’s poor masses.

2009-10-26T14:47:00.001+05:30

The Great Indian Nation: Are We Racist?
*Saumitra Mohan

We, as a nation, have been very sensitive to ‘racism’ for a long time and continue to be so. The recent times have seen a lot many issues relating to race and racism hogging media attention. The recent attacks against Indians in Australia have also kept the racism debate alive in this country. It was our own Mahatma Gandhi who had taken up the cudgel against ‘apartheid’, the dreaded racist policies in South Africa of the yore. His first encounter with racial discrimination at the Pieter Maritzburg railway station in South Africa towards the end of 19th century became the symbol of a fight against the colonial powers all over the world.

When India became independent, non-discrimination on the basis of race was included in Article 15 of the Indian Constitution. Later, India also joined and signed various global instruments including the International Convention against Racial Discrimination. But one finds it really surprising when Indians are accused of racism and racist behaviour.

Be it the ESPN advertisement during the Cricket World Cup, the preference for fair complexioned cheer leaders over dark ones during the Indian Premier League cricket matches, the alleged comment made by a Radio Jockey against Prashant Tamang, the Sony Indian Idol or the Andrew Symonds controversy surrounding Harbhajan Singh’s alleged ‘Monkey’ remark against the former, the issue of racism seems to have become a regular part of our intellectual consciousness. Very recently, one very senior and respected politician from North East alleged that he has been butt of racist remarks in this country. Are we, as a nation, really racist?

Is the hoary caste system or the related obnoxious practice of untouchability (now banned vide Article 17 of the Indian Constitution) responsible for the same? Even though caste system and untouchability are still living realities (though with subdued rigour and vigour) in this country, is it that the same has also fashioned our likes or dislikes for a particular community, caste, race, religion or is it just our misplaced fascination with the fair complexion. After all, fair complexion has been associated with the high caste Aryans in this country even though that barrier has long been broken. We have dark complexioned members in any and every caste or community as a result of inter-caste and inter-racial matrimonies. Not only this, we also have differently complexioned members as part of the same family.

Still, the affection for fair complexion subsists and survives in our sub-consciousness and often comes forward to modulate our behaviour towards differently complexioned differently. The Indian perception of beauty is often defined in terms of fair complexion. Aren’t almost all our Gods fair complexioned and all the demons dark complexioned?

Since then, dark complexion is believed to be associated with sins and vices while fair complexion has been associated with piousness, chastity, virtue and beauty. Indians’ craze for the white/fair complexion is borne out by the huge market for the fairness cream and other such cosmetic products in this country. You can sell any ‘damn’ product here as long as you can promise that the same could enhance fairness of the skin. Our matrimonial advertisements also bear out the preference for a fair complexioned spouse. Many males in this country harbour the desire of having a fair complexioned wife, if, at least, to have fair complexioned children. If your kids are fair complexioned, you could be assured of finding a suitable match for them quite easily. This applies more to the daughters than to the sons.

Many African nationals have often alleged discriminatory/racist behaviour by Indians. Being relatively fairer than the Africans, many Indians deem themselves racially superior. There was a time when there was an innate bias in favour of fair complexioned people while selecting air hostesses, TV newsreaders, actors and actresses or, at least, so was alleged. Still most of our successful actors and actresses are not shot with their true complexion. Most of the successful Bollywood actors and actresses, even though not-so-fair-complexioned, are all portrayed as fair complexioned persons. At least, that’s how most of us know them.

Various colloquial appellations with racial overtones are also part of our day to day cant. Words such as Mallu, Chinky, Sardarji, Gujju, Punju, Bihari and so on have become inalienable part of our day-to-day vocabulary. And so have become the jokes based on stereotypical behaviour relating to them. And we all love sharing or cracking jokes based on a Mallu, a Sardarji, a Bihari or a Gujju. But does that prove that we are racist?

One feels that such prejudices are not natural to India or Indians alone, but it is a global phenomenon. Racial, gender or regional typecasting or such prejudices are formed on the basis of our day to day interactions. Such typecasting also stems from some hoary folklore or history. All this slowly becomes ingrained in our subconsciousness and forces us to form a particular opinion about a particular caste or community. We gradually start accepting the same as natural. At least, the hoi polloi does the same.

And that is why a ‘Gujju’ or a ‘Marwari’ is associated with his love for money or a ‘Mallu’ or a ‘Bihari’ is known for his penchant to go anywhere in search of work or a business. The ‘Mallu’ is also ridiculed for his accent and so is a ‘Bihari’ or a ‘Jat’. A ‘Sardarji’ is the perpetual butt of many of our jokes as is a ‘blonde’, or an ‘Indian’ (read Red Indian) or a ‘Pathan’ elsewhere.

One feels that this is all very healthy as long as the same is done and accepted with a sense of humour without making much of it and as long as the same helps us in enjoying a hearty laughter at the expense of each other. This is how societal camaraderie grows and a civilization evolves. Actually, it is our unwarranted and over the top reactions which is responsible for creation of a needless controversy. It is definitely not in the same genre as ‘apartheid’ or the abhorrent ‘slavery’ of the recent past. It is definitely not racism unless and until the same is not said or done with an intent to insult or humiliate someone.

When someone cracks a ‘Sardarji’ or a ‘Mallu’ joke, the idea is definitely not to inflict insult or humiliation on someone as both are supposed to be very successful members of the Indian society. But it becomes a problem once we take the same too seriously and start depriving each other of the deserved opportunities or social goodies or in allocation/distribution of societal values (a la David Easton) on the basis of such prejudiced opinions. The violence stemming from such opinionated prejudices can actually turn out to be serious enough as to break a nation as happened to Pakistan during the 1970s. Thankfully, this is not true in case of Indian society.

If separatism in Punjab could not succeed, one reason for the same is said to be the ‘Roti-Beti Ka Rishta’ (relationship of livelihood and matrimony) between the two dominant communities there. Similarly, as we go along and the society experiences more inter-caste, inter-religious, inter-community and inter-regional marriages, such notions and prejudices shall slowly lose their sting. And then even if cracked or commented, such jokes or remarks shall probably not evoke the same reactions as they do now.

India traditionally has been a very open society, welcoming and accepting anyone reaching its shores. And that is why it has become what it is today, a ‘salad bowl’. A plural, multi-racial and multi-ethnic society often experiences such behaviour by members of the society and it is not abnormal as long as the same is in a good spirit without malice to anyone. One also feels that such conduct or such reactions shall get tempered with time as we go along and become more mature as a society, when our nation building process is complete in all respects, when our society become more egalitarian and when almost all members of our society become relatively more educated and enlightened.

2009-09-24T10:24:00.001+05:30

Changing Climate: Changing Ourselves
*Saumitra Mohan

There is a wide consensus all around that the problem of climate change stemming from the increasing concentration of green house gases (GHG) in our atmosphere is going to be the biggest challenge to the existence of life on this Blue Planet. And if there were any scruples left, the erratic climatic behaviour all over the globe including the Monsoon Deficit in India has disabused the same. It is also agreed unanimously that we would postpone the solution to this problem only at our own peril.

It is believed that the rise of even two degree Celsius shall mean the collapse of the global ecosystem. The global temperature has already risen by 0.6 degree Celsius since the beginning of the 19th century. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that global temperature shall rise between 0.5 and 2.5 degree Celsius by 2050 AD with an estimated rise of 1.4 to 5.8 degree Celsius by 2100 AD. An estimated 10 billion metric tons of carbon is said to be pumped into our atmosphere every year.

Even if we go by the most optimistic scenario, the global temperature, because of the sustained anthropogenic emissions and other cognate reasons, is likely to rise between 1.1 to 2.9 degree Celsius by the end of this century. As a result of crossing this critical threshold of two degree Celsius, it is believed that the same shall result in the global GDP loss between 1-5 per cent. The sub-Saharan countries are likely to be the most affected. Their economies may get devastated as a result thereof.

There is a real apprehension that melting ice cap of the snow-clad mountains and the melting ice sheet at Antarctica shall result into a gradual rise in the sea level. The IPCC assumes a sea level rise between seven to 23 inches by 2100 AD. The same is likely to displace millions of population in the littoral and riparian areas giving rise to the phenomenon of the environmental refugees. It is believed that every one centimetre rise in the sea level results in the displacement of about one million people.

A customized relief and rehabilitation programme needs to be drafted for them to preempt the impending catastrophe that may befall the human race in the times to come. Not only this, the resulting large-scale migration would also mean increased tension and discord among the countries of the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN agency concerned with the refugee matters needs to gear up early to face up to the challenge. The phenomenon of environmental refugees may turn out to be one of the biggest human catastrophes of all time.

The aggravating global warming is also likely to result in erratic climatic behaviour including irregular precipitations as is already visible now in the form of deficient monsoon in this country. The meteorological and climatogenic changes shall herald myriad problems. They would vary from flash floods stemming from abnormal precipitations at certain places to storm surges to drought-like conditions at many others. The rainfall patterns shall change for ever and so shall change the soil composition at many places thereby negatively impacting agriculture of that region.

All the situations shall uniformly lead to crop reduction or crop failures bringing in a food crisis with very serious implications for the nutritional security of world’s 6.75 billion people. Even though it is projected that India may be freed from the clutches of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and would become an environmentally safe country by 2030 AD, we should not forget that there are reportedly about 200 million undernourished and about 300 million people subsisting below the poverty line in this country. One just hopes that our National Food Security Mission succeeds in realizing its objectives and should thereby see through the feared food scarcity.

We shall also be confronting a severe water insufficiency as a result of the erratic rainfall. Abnormally high precipitation shall not mean high water table. Most of this hydrological bounty is likely to be drained out as a result of increased run-offs and also due to reduced holding power of the soil because of reduced forest cover. Melting ice cap or ice sheet shall deprive our rivers of a perennial water source. This would make our rivers seasonal thereby making water scarcity severer.

The dreaded sea level rise shall also mean that brackish water shall not only encroach upon the agricultural land making them unworthy of agriculture, but shall also infiltrate the freshwater aquifers thereby further threatening the source of potable drinking water. The resulting water stress or water crisis is told to be serious enough to engender water-related battles, even wars among nations. There shall, therefore, be a need for water use efficiency and a well-drawn water management policy. The watershed development would require special attention. More than that, there is a need for the end-users to use the water as efficiently and as sparingly as possible.

Besides, a serious health emergency is also awaiting us if we fail to respond to the incoming challenge in time. There shall be grave health-related problems in the form of increased incidence of various kinds of known and unknown diseases. They shall be mostly vector and water borne diseases, not to speak of various dermatological disorders and diseases occurring mostly because of hyper-thermogenic disorders. The climatic changes are also likely to affect our rich bio-diversity and physical geography. It is believed that millions of plant and animal species, many thousands already endangered, shall become extinct for ever.

The poor and the most vulnerable sections of the society are likely to be the worst affected by the climate change. This is because of their limited capacity, capability and resources at hand. There shall, ergo, be a need to find alternative livelihoods for these sections of the society. They shall not only lose their home and hearth first, but shall also be devoid of any resource or capacity to cope with the impending calamity. It is imperative today to ensure that millennium development goals (MDG) including halving the number of global poor by half by 2015 AD are realized will in time.

The provisioning of better hygiene and sanitation, health services, basic education and safe potable drinking water are among other important goals which are intricately intertwined with the problem of climate change. A healthy and better educated human resource can better cope with the problem at hand. After all, poverty is known to be one of the biggest reasons for pollution and global warming. And all round development is supposed to be the best antidote of this Mother of all problems. Famous social scientist John Rawls rightly says that ‘justice consists in maximizing the welfare of the worst off individuals’. Governments all over the world need to coordinate their actions to ensure that a suitable disaster management plan is in place to deal with any such situation.

But herein lies the nub of the problem. Notwithstanding the fact that there has been a series of dialogues to discuss the various aspects of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the developed North and the developing South are still to reach a consensus about the various modalities appertaining the ways to deal with the crisis. While the developing countries including India argue (quite rightly) that since it is the West which has caused the problem, hence, it is West which should share the major burden of meeting the challenge. They believe that the West must clean the Augean Stables it has left behind in its rush to reach to the top of the pecking order.

Even today, the per capita emission in the United States is four times that of China and 20 times that of India though China surpassed the United States in terms of emission of carbon dioxide in 2006 itself. India has proposed a 0.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of the developed countries (reasonably less when compared to the 0.7 per cent recommended by the South Commission during the 1960s) to be contributed to an Adaptation Fund (something like a Green Marshall Plan) to be utilised for the purposes of helping the developing countries in meeting their sundry responsibilities arising out of the climate change problem.

To further curb emission of GHG, there is not only a need to check unbridled consumerism, but there is also a need for increasing production and consumption efficiencies across the board. Our water and energy consumption need to become more efficient. It is widely felt that people should be encouraged to use public transportation more than ever, but before that there shall be a need to make the same more efficient and more people-friendly.

There are recommendations for the impositions of high fuel and car taxes to discourage private car ownership. Tougher energy standards and high user (utility) prices are being suggested for everything to make the consumption more efficient across the board to reduce the ‘Consumption Overload’ on Mother Nature. There is also a need for an intensified education and awareness programme to conscientise our people and to make them appreciate the challenge at hand. Our day-to-day behaviour and consumption patterns also need to be adapted to bring the same in sync with the demands of our environment.

Our buildings need to become more energy efficient. The concept of ‘smart homes’ is required to be adopted in keeping with the changing times. All new constructions need to meet climate vulnerability norms. Our town planning and infrastructural constructions need to integrate the climate change concerns. There shall also be a need to build our infrastructures above the apprehended sea levels. In fact, many countries like Netherlands are already building defenses against the expected sea-level rise. Our weather forecasts shall accordingly be required to become more precise to safeguard the population from the vagaries of nature.

Besides, we need to undertake massive exercises for greening the globe to roll back the damages wrought to the Mother Nature. Hence, there shall be an urgent need to undertake afforestation at a massive scale as part of the humongous geo-engineering which might be needed for the purpose. The concepts of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Emission Trading System under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) can be suitably brought into service.

CDM means carbon offsets offered to rich country firms and institutions in exchange for the financing of emission reduction projects in the developing countries. And emission trading means sale of one’s quota of emission in exchange for financial or other assistance to those who need higher emission caps. There is also a need to build more biological sinks, give requisite tax incentives for adoption of costly but eco-friendly technologies, discovery of clean energy sources, putting in place a system of emission credits, ensuring better energy efficiency and to discourage carbon-intensive energy infrastructures.

Furthermore, we need to give deserved attention to our agriculture. As far as India is concerned, there is a crying need for a second Green Revolution in this country. Still about two-thirds of our net cropped area is under dry land farming and is rain-fed, accounting for about 42 per cent of the total food produce. An effort should be made by all to reduce our dependency on weather by expanding our irrigation network and bringing more areas into it.

We need to strengthen our irrigation capacity further to ward against an erratic monsoon. The proposed river linking project could go a long way towards an improved food security for our country provided the same could be made cost-effective and scientifically more practicable. The related R and D and agricultural extension services need to be suitably attended and undertaken. Climatic stress proof seedlings and saplings need to be discovered and popularized to ensure an undisturbed supply of food grains for us all. Genetically modified food, even though not universally acceptable, can show a way forward provided popular apprehensions could be suitably taken care of.

It is felt that we need more of ‘Rurbanism’ i.e. keeping a balance between the development of rural and urban areas. Even though we already have a National Action Plan on Climate Change in place, we need to see to it that the same is implemented with all seriousness. There is a greater need for building practical partnerships among countries of the world, NGOs, INGOs, United Nations, businesses and all concerned to better face the climate change challenge.

Transfer of technologies from the West to the East is one of the many proposed solutions. Eco-friendly technologies for coal gasification, carbon capture and carbon sequestration apart from creation of an efficient carbon storage mechanism, discovery of low carbon fuels and expedited development of renewable energy sources shall be required to better face the global warming problem. We also need to find and invest in alternative energy sources. There shall be a need to make huge investment in research and development (R& D) efforts for the purpose.

There shall be a need to introduce suitable changes in WTO’s (World Trade Organization) trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) regime to encourage transfer of eco-friendly technologies from the North to the South. There shall also be a need for enough escape clauses in the UNFCCCC to allow the developing countries to be able to strike a balance between the demands for development and the concerns of climate changes. Today, initiatives like International Carbon Sequestration Technology Forum (ICSTF) need to be encouraged more.

Burden-sharing among members of the Comity of Nations is one of the principal solutions doing rounds. A major portion of the same has to be borne by the developed countries because it is rightly felt that it is reckless consumerism and unsustainable life style of the West which has been chiefly responsible for the present climatic conditions. The North need to take a lead in this because of their better endowment in terms of resources and share the same with the developing South as the advantages or disadvantages emanating from a ruined ecology shall unfailingly come to all. The countries of the world shall need to work out a better synergy to face this problem when they meet next at the Copenhagen Summit later this year.

2009-08-27T10:21:00.003+05:30

The Refugee Problem: Need for a Coordinated Response
*Saumitra Mohan

From a population displacement perspective, South Asian region has a unique history. Here, people have been pushed beyond their borders as a result of war or they have left their country of origin on ethnic, racial, ideological or religious grounds. Subsequently, migrations have taken place for environmental or developmental reasons as well. The States of India and Pakistan witnessed massive refugee movements from the time of independence itself. After the 1947 partition, 7.5 million Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan crossed over to India and 7.2 million Muslim refugees from India crossed to Pakistan. It was the largest recorded refugee movement in history.

There was little international assistance in this massive humanitarian crisis. Later, in 1971, 10 million refugees crossed over to India during the war of independence of Bangladesh. In 1979, 3.5 million Afghans fleeing Soviet intervention in their country sought and received asylum in Pakistan of which 1.2 million are still said to be there in the refugee villages. Between 1970s-1990s, Bangladesh has been witness to the influx of over 300,000 Muslim refugees from Rakhine district in Myanmar, of whom nearly 30,000 refugees are still to be repatriated. Similarly, 90,000 Bhutanese of Nepali origin were expelled and a substantial number of them are still located in refugee camps in Jhapa district of Nepal. However, many of them have been recently resettled in third countries by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Sri Lanka has often been described as an 'Island of Refugees' due to external displacement of Tamils and internal displacements of Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslims. Though Sri Lanka is not known as an asylum country, it is well known as a refugee-producing country. Since 1983, Sri Lanka has produced hundreds of thousands of refugees apart from over 500,000 Sri Lankan Tamil 'jet refugees' to the Western world. Major portion of Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu were voluntarily repatriated, but still over 60,000 have remained behind due to the ongoing security crisis in North-East Sri Lanka.

Since 1960s, India has been hosting over 100,000 Tibetan refugees and some 50,000 Buddhist Chakma refugees from Chittagong hill tracts in Bangladesh, some of whom were repatriated recently. India also has permitted UNHCR to assist about 12,000 Afghan refugees on pure humanitarian grounds. Maldives is the only SAARC country, which neither produced nor hosted a significant refugee population.

Despite these past and existing refugee movements and deep rooted humanitarian traditions of asylum, none of the SAARC countries has acceded to the 1951 International Convention on Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, which has been ratified by 136 countries in the world. However, all the SAARC countries, except Bhutan and Nepal, have offices of the UNHCR - the UN agency responsible for the promotion of the Refugee Instruments and marshalling of international humanitarian assistance on behalf of the refugees.

The reasons advanced for the non-accession to the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol by SAARC countries are very similar in content. They argue that they have rich traditions of asylum comparable to international standards, sometimes even better than what is practiced by some of the signatory states to the International Refugee Instruments. Therefore, they would continue to deal with refugee issues on ad hoc bilateral policy basis, but welcome international humanitarian assistance based on burden-sharing (with the exception of India).

SAARC countries further argue that the persecution-based 1951 Convention or 1967 Protocol is inadequate to comprehensively address the current refugee issues in the region, which are mostly the result of internal conflicts and not due to fear of persecution by the states per se. In support of their contention of inadequacy of the International Refugee Instruments, they cite the regional refugee instruments of Africa, the 1958 Organisation of African Unity Convention and the one for refugees in Latin America, the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees which are more comprehensive in their definition of refugees.

Refugee situation in South Asia has become chronic and has affected both national security and inter-state relations due to the reluctance of states to discuss them on pure humanitarian basis. Since all refugees are technically considered illegal aliens, they have no institutional protection or the protection of the principle of the Rule of Law. In this context, a regional Convention or Declaration on refugees by the SAARC countries becomes timely and relevant. A regional agreement on fundamental questions such as the definition of a refugee, the granting of asylum and the exceptions thereto, the cardinal principle of non-refoulement, or the voluntary nature of eventual repatriation of refugees would reduce the room for friction between the state interlocutors. A SAARC Refugee Convention or Declaration would also mean a great step forward in developing a humanitarian regime in the region.

In the case of India, the Superior Courts have addressed certain humanitarian concerns of the refugees on the basis of constitutionally guaranteed fundamental and human rights. But no such developments have taken place in any other SAARC countries. The prevailing political and security preoccupations of each country determines the standards of treatment for the refugees. These standards may differ from time to time and from one country to another.

By developing a regional Convention or Declaration on refugees, the SAARC countries would not only be recognizing and refining the existing traditional humanitarian policies, but will also be developing a set of non-contentious principles, which will enhance the organisational solidarity and its commitment to human rights. Such a Convention or Declaration will not be a document borrowed from outside that is unsuitable for the specific needs of the refugee problem in the region, but a SAARC-developed piece of international law.

There are differing opinions on the advisability of having a regional or a national instrument but, there is definitely unanimity on the fact that there should be a specific legal instrument on refugees in the region to guide the governments in their policy towards refugees. Whether the South Asian governments would like to accede to the existing international refugee regime, or they would like to have a legislation of their own, is something that they need to take a decision about. However, there are certain issues that can be better dealt with within the multi-lateral regional framework.

It is high time the South Asian countries took a stand on the refugee regime issue, rather than dealing with the same through administrative measures. Hence, the South Asian countries should have a specific refugee legislation of their own. Since they have already been accepting and hosting refugees, by having a specialised legislation, they would only formalise and give a concrete shape to the existing practices. This legislation can be specially designed to factor the respective national interests, making it more in sync with the sub-continental reality than the international refugee regime that was drafted in a Cold War context and appears to be out of touch with the ground realities in South Asia.

By doing away with the element of discretion and putting in place an organised structure and infrastructure for dealing with refugees, the new system can be custom-made to regional and national interests. Such a system would make the regional reaction to refugee problem more consistent, coordinated and predictable. It would also help the countries of the region in meeting their international obligation required under the UN system. Drafting of a ‘Model National Law’ and ‘Draft Regional Declaration’ on refugees under the leadership of UNHCR are positive developments in this regard. It is hoped that by taking a positive decision to have a specialised legislation on refugees, the countries of South Asia would live up to their reputation of being a liberal host to the refugees on their shores.

2009-08-27T10:21:00.001+05:30

Creating Newer States: How Desirable?
*Saumitra Mohan

Given the way demands for creation of newer states keep cropping up from time to time, it seems that the reconfiguration and reorganization of the Indian State could go on for ever. One felt that no such political demands centring around creation of a separate state would be put forward after the last such exercise was undertaken in the year 2000. The same resulted in the birth of three new states namely Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal.

The country has witnessed many such demands in recent times as also borne out by the fact that as many as ten such demands are now pending with the Central Home Ministry. These inter alia include demands for a separate Mithilanchal in Bihar, Saurashtra in Gujarat, Coorg in Karnataka, a Harit Pradesh in UP, Telangana in Andhra Pradesh, Gorkhaland in West Bengal, Bundelkhand comprising areas from UP and MP and a Bhojpur carved out of Eastern UP, Bihar and Chattisgarh.

The demands have been raised by disparate political organisations like Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) coming forward for a separate Telangana state and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJMM) pitching for a separate Gorkhaland state. The demand for creation of Bundelkhand comprising districts like Banda, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Lalitpur and Sagar of UP and MP has also been pending with the Home Ministry for quite some time.

The creation of a separate state of Saurashtra in Gujarat, one of the most prosperous states, is said to be pending with the Ministry for several years now. The Centre has also received representations for creation of a Harit Pradesh or a Kisan Pradesh consisting of several districts of western UP. The Central Home Ministry is also said to be in receipt of formal demands for creation of a Mithilanchal or a Mithila state comprising territories in Bihar, Greater Cooch Behar out of parts of West Bengal and Assam, Vidarbha in Maharashtra and a state for the Coorg region of Karnataka from different political and non-political organisations.

Before acceding to or even considering such demands, we should not forget as to how India broke into fragments after the decline and degeneration of the Mughal Empire. Many Ex-Governors of the Mughal principalities called ‘subahs’ declared their independence. And by the middle of the 18th century, there were congeries of ‘rajas’ and ‘nawabs’ who held sway over 600 principalities across the sub-continent. It was this India that Robert Clive defeated and subjugated after the historic battle of Plassey in 1757. This established British Raj in this country that lasted for about 200 years.

What was notable in all this was the fact that Robert Clive could emerge victorious with the help of a faction of army of Nawab Sirajudaullah. These ‘fifth columnists’, not bound by any feelings of nationality, did not deem it an act of treachery to let their Nawab down. This was again repeated 100 years later in 1857 when the English were able to stave off the challenge to their rule from Indian forces by using different factions of Indian forces through their notorious and reviled policy of ‘divide and rule’.

These forces, who supported the English, thought nothing of siding with an alien power as the feeling of Indian Nationhood or an overarching sovereign Indian State was conspicuous by its absence. There were Marathas, Sikhs, Muslims, Rajputs, Biharis and Jats, but there were no Indians. The famed ‘Aryavarta’ or ‘Hindustan’ was nothing but a geographical connotation. Today’s India actually emerged out of the womb of the British Raj. In fact, one of the unintended benefits of the Raj is said to be the integration of India which ultimately gave rise to the extant Indianness.

It was this feeling of Indianness which was responsible for catalyzing our freedom struggle, thereby paving way for the creation of a pan-Indian Nation. It is this Indianness that Jawaharlal Nehru discovered, Mahatma Gandhi nurtured, and Sardar Patel consolidated. We have only been fostering, cherishing and relishing the fruits of a free and sovereign Indian State that our forefathers bequeathed us.

Now, we need to ponder as to whether we can allow this hard-earned unity and nationhood to be dented or destroyed by new parochial demands for creation of smaller states based on ethnicity, culture or linguistic factors. There is also a considered view that creation of new states never means that no such demands would be made in future. In fact, their creation is actually said to be an encouragement to such fissiparous forces who make and pursue such demand if only to grind their own axe.

After the creation of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal, there are still newer demands to further divide these states e.g. the demand for Harit Pradesh in UP and that of a Mithilanchal in Bihar. Once Saurashtra is carved out of Gujarat, there is no guarantee that the Kutchis would not demand their own state. In fact, there is already such a move by the erstwhile Maharaja of Kutch. In Andhra Pradesh, the talk of Telangana has caused uneasiness in the Rayalseema region which wants its own separate state. Muslims in Hyderabad region also yearn for an Urdu state of their own. This is a never ending vortex into which the celebrated Indian Nation might get sucked for ever.

Some observers believe that many such demands are merely political in nature, being made as part of populist politics rather than being genuinely popular demands. Before becoming a reality, such a demand should not only be rooted in a genuine popular desire, but also needs the backing and recommendation of the local state government. No such recommendation has so far been made by any of the concerned state government, without which they remain mere wishful thinking.

However, many argue that some of the Indian states are still very large and need to be broken up into manageable units without being swayed by any consideration of petty politics. They also argue that there is indeed a case for a second State Reorganisation Commission to consider all such demands dispassionately with a view to better governance and faster development of the country as a whole. Without being judgemental about the advisability of newer states, one does feel that any such move for creation of a new state should be predicated on the practical considerations of geographic, administrative and economic viability rather than being rooted only in populist politics.

2009-08-04T14:29:00.003+05:30

Belling the Naxal Cat
*Saumitra Mohan

After making a tactical retreat from Lalgarh in West Bengal following the state offensive, the Maoists were waiting for an opportunity to strike back to make their sinister presence felt. The recent outrage resulting in the killing of 36 policemen including an SP in Chattisgarh was an example of what the Naxals are capable of. This takes the casualty toll to 148 this year in that hapless state falling in the so-called Red Corridor. Indeed, the three almost simultaneous attacks were the deadliest of the extremist violence Chattisgarh has seen in recent times.

The Maoists seem to have struck with lot of precision and planning. The modality and dynamics of the strike are said to be somewhat reminiscent of the early seventies in West Bengal. The worst strike took place in Rajnandgaon, barely 70 km from the state capital of Raipur. This points to the audacity which informs the functioning of the Maoists these days. They appear intent on moving closer to the seat of authority from the forests and tribal areas. If some of the intelligence reports are to be believed, the Naxals are working hard to make forays into towns and cities through recruitment of more and more volunteers.

The slain SP, who was on the Naxal hit-list for quite sometime, is said to have been targeted for his deemed success in breaking the extremists’ urban network in Bhilai city in Madhya Pradesh. The way Naxals could pull off this strike with deadly effect points to the need for further sprucing up our intelligence and internal security apparatus.

Rightly, the Naxalism has been termed as the biggest threat to the national security by none other than the Prime Minister himself. The Union Home Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram has also bracketed Maoists with terrorists for the threat they pose to the internal security. Be it noted that CPI (Maoists) has been declared as a banned Organization by the Centre barely a few weeks ago.

While there still seem to be no consensus on banning the Naxals, the time definitely has come to take the Naxal threat more seriously than has been felt so far. The Union Home Minster Mr. P. Chidambaram rightly believes that the Naxal menace had so far been underestimated which allowed the Left-wing extremists to consolidate and spread their wings. He has promised that the battle against Maoists ultras would be joined in full earnest through sustained efforts and drive.

The ban and the branding of Maoists as terrorists should further convince the skeptics about their insidious design on the Indian Nation. We need to find out better ways of dealing with this internal adversary masquerading as Left Radicals. There is not only need for infrastructural upgradation in terms of better logistics, equipment and arms, there is also need for better and more scientific ways of gathering intelligence. Our police force needs to be better trained and better motivated to face the Naxal challenge. The training needs to be customized to make the force understand the various nuances of anti-insurgency operations. Besides, there is undoubtedly a need for better execution and better targeting of developmental schemes in the Naxal-infested areas to extirpate the grounds of frustration and alienation there as per the recommendation of an expert panel recently.

Even though many of the politicos and observers believe that the so-called ‘liberated’ or ‘compact revolutionary’ zones are nothing but media hype, we need to take the Maoist challenge in its true perspective. This, inter alia, requires a massive overhaul of planning and coordination, along with arming and training of specialized forces. The Naxal threat appears in sharper relief once we look at the latest statistics for this year. The sundry violent incidents involving Naxals exceed those involving terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir and North-East put together. While Naxal-affected states reported 915 incidents, Jammu and Kashmir and North-East witnessed 810 incidents till May this year. Of these, 624 took place in the North-East and 186 in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Government is learnt to have appointed Brigadier D S Dadwal as its military advisor to help out in operational matters. Plans are also being drawn up in close consultation with different state governments. Proper coordination among the affected state governments along with a unified command structure seems to be need of the hour. The Naxal expertise in executing ambushes and mine blasts point to the extent and amount of challenge Naxalism poses to our country.

Brigadier Dadwal, who was so far serving as Deputy GOC with the 11 Infantry Division, is supposed to coordinate among disparate police forces of different states. This is likely to help in tackling the Naxal threat better. He is expected to not only advise the security agencies on specialized training, but is also supposed to help out in operational and logistical coordination. The manner in which our policemen are being repeatedly targeted in ambushes makes it necessary to constantly assess and improve tactics and strategy. The counterforce to Naxals has to be speedier and unorthodox beyond the mundane operating systems.

The truth is that the Naxals are a confused lot, not knowing what they wish to do. They actually do not seem to have any ideological mooring or any vision for the alternative they proffer vis-à-vis the system they seem to be fighting. The Indian democracy gives every ideology ample opportunity to seek popular consent through the first-past-the-post system. But till the time the Naxals do not see reason, an efficient and effective counterforce seems to be the only alternative.

2009-06-22T10:36:00.000+05:30

Protecting the Steel Frame
*Saumitra Mohan

In a recent survey by 1274 experts working across 12 North and South Asian nations, the Indian bureaucracy has been dubbed as the worst and the least efficient in the whole continent, behind Vietnam, China and Indonesia. While the findings are not very shocking and surprising, one has every reason to worry about. After all, the future development does depend on the strength and efficiency of this institution. There is, therefore, an urgent need to grope deeper into the reasons to fix the problem rather than just keep cursing the once famed Steel Frame of India.

Among the various reasons responsible for the present sorry state of affairs of Indian bureaucracy, one principal reason relates to the constant interference with its functioning as well as the power of the political class to transfer or shunt the civil servants to inconvenient or insignificant posts. The transfers are often made for the most absurd of the reasons or sometimes for the alleged or suspected proximity to the opposing political party or faction. More often than not, if a bureaucrat decides to put his/her foot down against illegal orders or just decides to go by the rulebook, he or she often gets the boot. It is against this background that the proposed Central legislation to tackle such irregularities becomes significant.

The Centre is believed to be busy preparing a legislation which shall not only assure the civil servants of a fixed-tenure posting, but is also likely to protect them from mundane political interference in their day-to-day functioning. Not only this, all such appointments, transfers and postings of top civil servants are likely to be subject to parliamentary scrutiny to remove the element of discretion in such orders. If the proposed Bill becomes a reality, the IAS and IPS officers in the country will no longer be at the mercy of the whimsical transfers and postings which seem to be order of the day in many parts of the country.

However, there is a rider to the proposed legal protection against irregular transfers and postings. The government is also learnt to be planning to bring in a new Public Service Code which would lay down a strict performance evaluation regime for promotions and postings of India’s ‘Babus’ (read bureaucrats).

All these provisions along with many other proposals are already on the anvil as part of the proposed Civil Services Bill, 2009 to reinvigorate India’s famed steel frame to prepare it better to deal with the newer challenges of development administration and governance. The Bill is being further fine-tuned and is supposed to be a spruced-up version of the Public Service Bill, 2007, which could not see the light of the day during the previous regime. The various provisions of the Bill are likely to be applicable, first to the IAS and IPS officers and may later be extended to all the other All India Services including the Indian Forest Service.

The Bill, having incorporated sundry suggestions of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, has also envisaged setting up a new Central Public Service Authority (CPSA) at the national level. This Authority will not only supervise the professional management of the premier civil services, but is also expected to be a watchdog to secure the interests of the civil servants and citizens through a system of checks and balances.

If the Civil Service Bill does become an Act, all the civil servants are supposed to get a minimum fixed tenure of three years. And if one is to go by the provisions enshrined in the Bill, a civil servant, being transferred prematurely, shall have to be suitably compensated for the inconvenience and harassment caused due to the same. The top-level appointments including that of the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police in the states are to be made out of a panel of candidates to be screened and drawn up by a State-level Committee comprising the Chief Minister, Leader of the Opposition as well as the Home Minister. As of now, the Chief Minister is the sole authority taking a decision on such appointments.

Usually, such transfers and postings have been the prerogatives of the government in power, with no reference to the Opposition. The proposed Bill fixes this anomaly with due recognition being given to the Leader of the Opposition as well in making a decision regarding such top appointments in the states and at the Centre. So, the Leader of the Opposition is likely to play a crucial role at both the levels. Like the state-level top appointments, the Leader of the Opposition is also to have a say in the appointment of the Cabinet Secretary and other top posts. Like the state level postings, the Cabinet Secretary, too, is likely to be selected from a panel to be drawn by the Central-level Committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Home Minister. If the government decides to deviate from the norms laid out in the Act, it shall have to inform and explain the reasons for the same to the Parliament for doing so.

The performance evaluation of the bureaucrats has also been given adequate attention in the said Bill. The performance parameters of the officers are to be given due importance before being considered for the top jobs. A more scientifically-designed objective system of performance evaluation is proposed in place of the extant practice of Annual Confidential Reports (ACR) which merely takes a panoramic view of a civil servant’s work through the year. The new Performance Management System shall evaluate the bureaucrats on their job-specific achievements and the number of tasks that they perform as a Team Leader in a particular department.

The proposed system is likely to be managed by the CPSA which will supposedly be supervised by a Chairman of the rank equivalent to that of the Chief Election Commissioner. The Chairman, CPSA is to be appointed for five years by a Committee comprising the Prime Minister, a Supreme Court Judge, the Union Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lower House of the Parliament. With the Cabinet Secretary acting as its Convener, the CPSA will aid and advise the Central Government in all matters concerning the organization, control, operation, regulation and management of public services and public servants.

CPSA is also to be the custodian of the Public Service Code for the civil servants. This Code, supposed to replace the current All India Services Conduct Rules, is to be framed with a view to enable the civil servants towards proper discharge of their official duties with competence, accountability, care, diligence, responsibility, honesty, objectivity, impartiality, without discrimination and in accordance with the law of the land. The CPSA, comprising three to five members, will also have the power to recommend action against the public servants who do not adhere to the Public Service Code and public service values. After the Bill becomes an Act, the CPSA will also compile and submit a report to the Central Government detailing the compliance with the various provisions of the new legislation by every Ministry and Department of the Government every year.

One hopes that the necessary spade-work for making this Bill into an Act shall soon be completed to make it a reality sooner than later. However, one does feel the need to hammer out the various implications such a Bill is likely to have for the Centre-State relations in our federal polity.

2009-06-22T10:35:00.000+05:30

Employment Guarantee, Not Employment Subsidy Approach Suits Indian Conditions
*Saumitra Mohan

A liberal welfare state tries to ensure equitable distribution of the development pie by resorting to myriad ways of redistributive allocation of values among its citizens. One of such measures include employment guarantee schemes for the toiling masses to ensure them work for minimum number of days on pre-decided subsistence wages. It is with this objective that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) was launched in all the districts of this country. This follows on the back of various employment generation and food for work programmes including Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), Community Development Programme (CDP) and Swarnajayanti Jawahar Rojgar Yozna (SJRY). NREGS is actually predicated on the experiences and knowledge gained during implementation of all these previous schemes.

Since then, many observers have come up with suggestions and proposals for further fine-tuning of this flagship employment guarantee programme. This author read with interest an article recently which espoused the idea to provide employment subsidies to employers instead of providing guaranteed jobs through state-run employment generation programmes like the NREGS. The underlying assumption of the said proposition was the belief that such an approach would create jobs more efficiently and effectively than done by the present employment guarantee scheme.

Nobel Laureate Prof Edmund Phelps was quoted in the said write-up as saying, “Although such programmes have been substantial in Europe and the US, the working poor remain as marginalized as ever. Indeed, social spending has worsened the problem because it reduces work incentives and, thus, creates a culture of dependency and alienation from the commercial economy, undermining labour force participation, employability and employee loyalty.”

Proposing an alternative, Prof Phelps says, “The best remedy is a subsidy for low-wage employment, paid to employers for every full-time low wage worker they hire and calibrated to the employee’s wage cost to the firm. The higher the wage cost, the lower the subsidy, until it has tapered off to zero. With such wage subsidies, competitive forces would cause employers to hire more workers, and the resulting fall in unemployment would cause most of the subsidy to be paid out as direct or indirect labour compensation. People could benefit from the subsidy only by engaging in productive work.”

It is believed that the employment generated through this alternative scheme that Prof Phelps proposes, shall be an asset for the economy instead of a burden. Prof Bharat Jhunjhunwala of IIM, Bangalore believes that the present approach provides for taxes to be imposed mainly on urban business enterprises while money is spent in rural areas. The urban businesses have to bear the tax burden while the benefits are reaped by faraway villages. The business sector suffers on account of higher wage rates. The availability of some employment in the villages acts as a disincentive for workers to move from labour-surplus to labour-scarce areas because some employment is available locally under the Rojgar Guarantee Scheme. The author bemoans the fact that the business enterprises do not only have to pay higher taxes, but also have to pay higher wages. The author believes that if Prof Phelps’ suggestion is accepted then the taxes paid by businesses are recouped by receiving employment subsidies. The net outgo on wages shall be reduced due to subsidies thus received.

While the author’s suggestion for subsidy to labour-intensive industries does make some sense, but going whole hog for Prof Phelps’ proposed alternative definitely does not, more so in the Indian context. To begin with the beginning, notwithstanding the supposed failure of the employment guarantee scheme in the developed countries, they still have not been able to replace the same with the ‘employment subsidy’ approach as advocated by many including Prof Phelps.

This is notwithstanding the fact that such employment guarantee schemes have been in force for over 50 years in most of these developed countries. Prof Phelps’ proposal is fraught with loopholes and complexities and prone to more corruption than one thinks. Moreover, it also does not promise to increase the job opportunities for the jobless as has been proved to be practicably possible by the present employment guarantee scheme, the many implementational hitches and glitches notwithstanding.

First and foremost problem with this approach is the moral hazard of passing off the extant employment in a firm to claim wage subsidies falsely and dishonestly. The employers led by petty and comprador bourgeoisie, in stead of creating new employment, would try to ingenuously cheat the system for claiming the subsidies. After all, we don’t necessarily have a data-base of employed manpower of all such firms and industries. And such a data-base, even if created and maintained, may not be completely sacrosanct. Our experience tells us as to how such data-base is often tinkered and tampered with, often to the advantage of the high and mighty.

So, any system of working out compensatory subsidies for employers by establishing contrived linkages to employment generation is going to be very complex and is also likely to involve a lot of scope for discretion and subjectivity for the bureaucracy than the extant system. There is definitely no need to compensate big businesses for higher taxes levied on them as there are already multiple government schemes and incentives for performing enterprises and businesses. Moreover, even after paying those taxes, they are still left with decent profit margins to go shopping the world over for acquiring many of the renowned companies even in times of recession. Over the years, our tax and incentives structure have come to be comparable with the best in the world.

The assumed fear that such employment guarantee scheme actually encourages mediocrity and dependence on government is far from the truth. The present system is an incentive-based transparent system where a more productive worker can earn more if she/he gives more output and her/his wages shall correspondingly be higher compared to others whose output is less. The fear that villages unduly gain at the expense of towns is unwarranted, to say the least. The fact remains that towns are always better endowed in terms of basic services and facilities than those found in the villages. The employment guarantee scheme not only ensures assured employment for a household throughout the year (considering 100 days for each adult member of a family including the handicapped), it also envisages creation of basic infrastructures in the countryside.

It is believed that the progressive creation and availability of such infrastructures and employment opportunities in the countryside shall discourage people from migrating to the urban areas where basic infrastructures and services are already feeling pressure of increasing population. It shall also bridge the gap between rural and urban areas in terms of socio-economic indicators which are quite uneven at the moment. It is believed that wages in the urban areas shall go up consequent to reduced emigration and reduced availability of workers from the rural area. With less workers competing for more works, the real wages in urban areas shall go up which would continue to attract a minimal number of workers from the countryside as per changing demand and supply curve. The increased wages for urban workers shall be in keeping with the increased expenses required for urban living eventually enabling them to lead a better life than has been possible otherwise.

The apprehension that reduced availability of low wage workers shall either lead to shut-down of enterprises in the urban areas or relocation of many of them to the rural areas is also unfounded. At a time when we are talking of liberalization and globalization, we definitely should have no reason to think of the industries who shut down as a result of having to pay higher wages to the workers, more so when multiple government incentives are available. The enterprises need to learn to survive the cut-throat competition in the market. They always have the option of shaping up or shipping out. Moreover, such an apprehension remains far fetched as the pool of low wage workers shall still be larger in this unreasonably populous country despite local availability of guaranteed employment in the villages as there still are many push and pull factors which drive people to the urban areas. As such, there is no reason to panic.

Still, if some of them decide to move to low-wage areas which are likely to be under-developed, it is all the better as that would lead to infrastructural and capacity development of such areas and further improvement of quality of life there which eventually may see rise in labour costs in those areas as well. The cycle may go on till all parts of the country are more or less equitably developed. The government can actually think of giving incentives for relocation or establishment of new industries including labour-intensive ones in the backward and underdeveloped areas.

The belief that the current employment guarantee approach reduces labour force participation and employability of a worker is also not true. The experience from all over the country tells us that labour force participation in the economy has only increased as a result of operation of such a scheme and as a result, per capita income has also gone up. The multiplier effect of such a rise has been perceptible in the relatively high economic growth rates and other development indicators of our economy, recession notwithstanding. Besides, an employment guarantee scheme is also immune to the negative impacts of a recession. While the government shall have more reason to persist with such employment guarantee schemes in difficult times like recession, the employers, finding reduced demand and market for their products, would shut down overnight rendering all the workers under their dispensation jobless.

Again, contrary to the belief, the employability of a worker is also not compromised because of in-built incentive structure in such employment guarantee schemes as the worker learns to be more hard working to earn higher wages by giving better output and by being more productive. The various training programmes given to people under the said scheme and under many other schemes do give the workers a choice to decide for themselves as to what do they intend to do. The dovetailing and convergence of many such cognate schemes and programmes further could yield better results with better value allocations among the hoi polloi. The cascading multiplier effects and resultant pay offs for the country as a whole is bound to be better and greater than commonly understood.

The supposed acquisition of newer skills under the employment subsidy approach is quite problematic and is more at the level of assumption than a reality. The belief that the innocent, ignorant and gullible workers would get better jobs and acquire better skills as per their choice and aptitude moving from one industry to another for job-shopping is misplaced and fraught with danger. The danger emanates from the feared exploitation of workers by these enterprises who are likely to take advantage of their helplessness and non-possession of requisite skills by paying low wages and forcing them to work in unhygienic and undignified working conditions.

Most of these enterprises are not likely to be enlightened enough to do a charity by employing an ignoramus and inexperienced worker to teach him/her newer skills to employ him/her later. However, the spirit of the proposal here is well taken and one does feel that the scope and ambit of such employment guarantee scheme needs to be further broadened and diversified. It could also be creatively fine-tuned to offer better wages and better opportunities to the people. But one has to give the scheme some time to evolve naturally and be more promising and better suited to the requirements of the employment-seeking workers.

After all, the Constitutional Right to Work, as envisaged in the fourth chapter of the Indian Constitution detailing directive principles of state policy, which took five decades to be translated into a reality, is likely to be some more time to be better customized to the requirements and needs of the target people. The very fact that NREGS, after being launched selectively in some districts of the country for guaranteed employment in the rural areas throughout the year, has now been extended to the entire country, is itself a big achievement of sorts.

The belief that the alternative proposal is corruption proof compared to the present one is also not true as already pointed out above because of the element of discretion and subjectivity inherent therein. The extant scheme because of the transparent system of job-card, fixed responsibility to provide jobs within fifteen days of receipt of an application demanding work or to pay unemployment allowance in case of failure of the same and the provision of social audit is much better placed to do the needful. The provision of job cards, public hanging of Muster Roll, public notice of details of an on-going works and Muster Rolls and a participatory social and financial audit of all the aspects of the schemes ensure better transparency and accountability than any other scheme. The Right to Information plugs the loopholes and fills the gaps, if any left anywhere.

Yes, one does feel that there is lot of scope for further improvement of the scheme. One is sure that as more feedback from the field is received and fed into the system to further fine-tune it, the extant scheme shall respond better to the tasks and objectives it is supposed to realize. To give some credit to Prof Phelps, his proposal can be tried on an experimental basis in selected areas as a pilot project rather than completely replacing the extant scheme. After all, it is too early to pronounce a judgement on the success and failure of the same. And in any case, an ingenuous and creative mix of the two conceptions rather than an exclusive reliance on any of the one can always be a better idea. One hopes that NREGS would evolve with time in keeping with the objective of realizing and ensuring growth with equity and justice.

Also, with the failure of the invincible capitalist system of economic development as represented by the Washington Consensus, it is all the more accepted and acknowledged that we can no longer depend on market forces for taking up social responsibilities. Rolling back the state completely is no longer an option. The state has to be there as a regulator and disciplining force with minimal responsibilities of maintaining law and order, dispensing justice and building an equitable society. So, the ‘employment subsidy’ approach, as dependent on private enterprises, is just not acceptable in preference to the employment guarantee approach.

2009-06-15T11:40:00.000+05:30

Indo-Bangladesh Relations: Moving Forward
*Saumitra Mohan

Indo-Bangladesh bilateral relations have been through many ups and downs in recent times even though one expected the same to be ensconced in better understanding and appreciation of each other’s problems and expectation. The expectations were predicated on the positive and proactive role played by India in Bangladesh’s liberation. Though, it also helped India by reducing the need to fight Pakistan on two fronts because of the latter’s ability to mount a pincer attack on India from two sides.

This, however, turned out to be pious wishes merely because of the ensuing political games in Bangladesh. Whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that the present state of Indo-Bangladesh relations actually belies the expectations of the initial euphoria immediately in the aftermath of Bangladesh’s liberation.

Now, with a supposedly pro-India liberal government in the saddle, expectations of an improvement in the bilateral ties have naturally soared again. The visit of the Bangladeshi brass to thank India for its neutrality during the recent revolt is another example of a simulated bonhomie. Different issues including bilateral economic ties, illegal infiltration from Bangladesh, sheltering anti-India forces in its territories and disputes relating to border demarcation are among the contentious issues still dogging the bilateral ties.

However, a development, noticed recently as worth recalling and deserving some close attention for the very implications and ramifications the same entail for the Indo-Bangladesh relations. An Islamist Arsenal-cum-Madarsa, masquerading as a British charity organization, has been unearthed in Bangladesh’s Bhola town. It only confirms the level of fundamentalist penetration in that country, more so when we have a supposedly tolerant, liberal and pro-India dispensation. Such a discovery contains very ominous portents for India’s internal security management as this may only be a tip of the proverbial ice-berg.

The very fact that the constituent articles seized from the said religious Seminary included a speedboat gives tell-tale indications of ominous intentions of the operatives there. Had the same not been discovered, many more destructive and disruptive activities must have been in store for India. It also reminds us of the Karachi to Mumbai voyage of another group of militants finally eventuating in the terrorist incursions of Mumbai on 26th November last year. It is quite obvious that the said Seminary as much as the arsenal, arguably covering the dispensation of the military-backed interim administration, were built over time, with clandestine support from the anti-India forces in that country.

Such a development also raises important questions about the role of the UK-based charity organization in this bizarre and senseless export of terror. The involvement becomes still more suspect as the arrested financier of what has functioned under the label of a Madarsa-cum-Orphanage is based in London. What is surprising is the fact that notwithstanding all the hot air regarding curbing terrorist and cognate incendiary activities and infrastructures in the West, one could still find such agencies operating with impunity right under the nose of the British government.

One can very well argue that Faisal, the said Bangladeshi tycoon, fits into Britain’s ethnic profiling of terror, a perception formulated after London’s 7/7 (2006), something which has been rightly resented in the sub-continent for the racist overtones of the same. Still, the unearthing of such activities by the people from the sub-continent, particularly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, does compel one to do a rethink over this ethicizing of terror. The Seminary, with its lucrative offshore connections along with incoming resources and expertise, used the same to run a training centre for the terrorists with evil designs against this country.

It is really quite tragic that even after 38 years of its independence, Bangladesh still stands in unsplendid isolation in terms of geography. Myanmar, the only other country aside from India with whom it shares a land border, has lately reinforced its troops to fence a portion of 270-km border which is just a fraction of India’s over 4000 kilemetre-long frontier with Bangladesh. But given the recent noises emanating from Bangladesh soil, it is increasingly being favoured as a strong-hold for different militant organizations including as a proxy for Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to carry out disruptive activities against neighbouring countries. It is in view of this development that the Mynmarese authorities have pulled out all stops to complete the task of border fencing.

This is in sharp contrast to the Border Security Force’s (BSF) partial border fencing because of strong reservations and protestations from across the border. Unlike the Western flank, India is yet to install the state-of-the-art anti-infiltration obstacle system, fitted with sophisticated alarm gadgets to check illegal infiltration by militants and economic migrants into this country. In absence of the same, guarding and securing our borders would remain quite a tall order as it is just not possible for our security men to guard every point of the difficult terrain along the 4000-kilemetre long Indo-Bangla borders.

We not only need to complete the border fencing immediately notwithstanding objections from our eastern neighbour, we also need to resolve the long-festering problem of the 225 enclaves, in each-others’ adverse possession, still subsisting within the borders of both the countries. The latter would make our borders more manageable and secure. It would significantly reduce, if not totally eliminate the infiltration from across the borders into this country.

It is believed that more than one crore Bangladeshis have entered this country illegally over the years, something which Bangladesh Government stoutly refuses to accept. The Hasina administration, if earnestly committed to its agenda, should not only open multi-level dialogue with India to resolve all the outstanding issues with this country, but ought to make honest effort to discourage illegal emigration into this country. It should also take the British government into confidence to get to the bottom of the sinister operations behind the façade of religious instructions as unearthed recently. The same should be done in right earnest with all seriousness it deserves if Bangladesh really wishes to come out of the trap-door of under-development to promise a better future to its populace. A happy and prosperous neighbour is always a better bet for India’s security.

2009-03-08T05:54:00.000+05:30

Working Out Rehabilitation Package for Land-Losers
*Saumitra Mohan

While the negativism surrounding the land acquisitions for developmental purposes around the country may have hogged newspaper headlines in recent times, a huge land acquisition success story in Darjeeling-Jalpaiguri region for a new township has escaped deserved media attention. The reason for the same seems to be the fact that the entire range of issues relating to land acquisition and rehabilitation of the land losers has been executed and handled too well to warrant salacious banner headlines. Even though the entire land acquisition process here actually started much earlier than the ones at Singur and Nandigram, still the land acquisition process at Kawakhali, Porajhar, Tiknikatha, Boro Potturam, Chhotto Potturam and other adjoining areas at the intersection of these two districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri for the proposed new township by Bengal Unitech Universal Group (BUUG) has been a success story.
Notwithstanding Singur, Nandigram and numerous other hitches and glitches galore on way to final land acquisition, Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA) could actually work out an acceptable rehabilitation package through persistent consultations with all the interested stake-holders including land losers and political parties. It was SJDA which entered into a public private partnership (PPP) with BUUG after the latter succeeded in bagging the project through a competitive bidding process by way of Expression of Interest (EOI) for development of a new township at the proposed site. The sundry details of the rehabilitation process have been very painstakingly worked out through regular negotiations and consultations with all the stake-holders. While SJDA had to agree to whittle down its profits from the project by making the rehabilitation package much more liberal than the one warranted under the hoary but draconian Land Acquisition Act, 1894, it still made social gains in terms of roping in a good financial investment with huge employment potential. To make the rehabilitation package more broad-based and acceptable, BUUG has also agreed to shoulder a portion of the rehabilitation package, which was actually not part of the original Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) entered into between SJDA and BUUG.

It was because of the very fact that SJDA took care and pain to rope in and take on board each and every interested group or faction, almost on their terms, that the entire land acquisition process has gone on for a wee bit longer time than was warranted, but with the hindsight one can say with confidence and satisfaction that given the prevailing mood and circumstances, all this delay or procrastination has been worth its while. The entire long-drawn and complex land acquisition process at the proposed new township site has been completed without much of a problem though minor hiccups and roadblocks have definitely been experienced.

And substantive amount of the credit for this near miraculous feat goes to the local political leadership, though SJDA also took a lot of pain and initiative to work out such an ingenuous package to the satisfaction of all. SJDA constituted a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in the form of a Rehabilitation Advisory Committee with representation from all concerned including land losers and other stake-holders to discuss and work out a detailed rehabilitation package for the land-losers of the proposed new township project. The Committee is supposed to oversee and supervise the various activities relating to rehabilitation.

The selection of land for the proposed township itself was done very carefully. The land selected is the one which has largely been non-agricultural, abandoned and wasteland where no economic activity was noticed for the past several years. A total of 302 acres of land has been acquired for the purpose. Of this 302 acres, 232 acres have been identified for the proposed new township, while about 70 acre land has been earmarked for different socially-productive schemes including rehabilitation of the land losers. These 70 acres include 36 acre land for rehabilitation of the land losers and the rest for construction of educational, health, sports and other socio-cultural-economic infrastructures for the rehabilitated people and also for other local people.

SJDA has agreed to give not only the legal dues as mentioned under the LA Act, 1894, but has also agreed to provide other benefits and compensation as have been mutually agreed among all stake-holders. Not only this, apart from promising a liberal rehabilitation package for the land losers, SJDA has also agreed to undertake the development and upgradation of the necessary physical and social infrastructures of the surrounding hinterland including rural and suburban areas by way of electrification, construction of roads, drainage systems, water supply and school buildings. Much of the promised works has already been undertaken and completed.

SJDA has taken special care to secure the benefits and interests of small and marginal land-holders who had to lose lands for the proposed township project. Many effective, but assured positive benefits have been worked out for the small land-holders. For the people having built houses at more than 10 cottah (one cottah amounts to 720 sq ft in West Bengal) of land, two cottah of developed land with attendant infrastructures are being given without any charges while another three cottah of the same land are to provided at the acquisition price or alternatively, ready flat at subsidized price has been promised apart from compensating for the full cost of the land price as assessed by LA Department.

Those in possession of less than a decimal (435 sq ft) of land are being provided similarly developed land of the same amount without any charges. The families, who have been living on encroached government land for a long time and who supposedly have no legal claims to the lands in possession or to the compensation being offered, are also being provided with two cottah of alternative land or a flat (380 sq ft) without any charges.

Those in legal possession of one to three decimal (less than two cottah) of land are being given one and a half cottah of land free. Those in legal possession of up to five to ten cottah of the acquired land are being given two cottah free land and a cottah at the acquisition price or alternatively a flat (750 sq ft) at a subsidized price. The families being given rehabilitation plots of a size bigger than two cottah would not be charged anything for the first two cottah, but the rest shall be charged at the acquisition price.

All these rehabilitation plots being offered are developed plots and have become prime lands because of the proposed township in the vicinity and also because of the infrastructural works undertaken or proposed to be undertaken by SJDA. The real market value of the offered plots exceeds the original land value of the lost plots by many times over. SJDA has also promised to take necessary initiative for exemption of the land registration charges, if possible or to shoulder the entire financial burden for the same.

Some of the land losers who do not otherwise qualify for allotment of any plot or those willing to take a flat in exchange of a plot shall be given the same at a markedly subsidized rates including 75,000 rupees for a flat of 380 sq ft size, two lakh rupees for a flat of 500 sq ft size and three lakh rupees for a flat of 750 sq ft size. 80,000 rupees as a grant shall be given to those destitute and BPL land losers who have been living on the acquired lands legally or illegally for construction of the house on the rehabilitation plots given.

If the acquired plot is held jointly in two names, then both could be granted a separate plot as per the package prepared for the purpose subject to final approval and satisfaction of the Rehabilitation Committee created for the purpose. Again, all those people who have been holding or possessing government lands illegally shall be compensated with 60 per cent of the land cost as assessed by the LA Department notwithstanding the ‘moral hazard’ problem implied in such a policy initiative.

Again, the acquisition land value is to be distributed in the ratio of 80:20 between those people who have been in illegal possession of such lands as are legally registered in someone else’s land and those who are the legal owners after the two submit an agreement specially entered into between them for the purpose. The compensation for the structures built on the land, being possessed legally, have been compensated as per the LA Act which itself has been interpreted very liberally and to the maximum benefit of the land losers. Those who had built makeshift structures on illegally possessed government land are also being compensated liberally in the range of 5000 to 20,000 rupees apart from the alternative piece of land. The land losers are also being provided with Rs. 4000/- for shifting the household effects to the new site.

Large tracts of lands have already been identified and earmarked at the rehabilitation site for the development and promotion of economic activities including small industries, trades and businesses. Two children from all land losing families shall be given an educational scholarship of Rs. 1500 per annum up to graduation. Scholarships are also being given at the post-graduate level for undertaking any specialized or vocational training including engineering, medicine or MBA. The shops or houses identified till 2007 on the project site have been compensated with provisioning of a built shop at a subsidized rate.

All land losers are also entitled to health benefits including reimbursement for the cost of treatment or medical care. All these social benefits are, however, limited only up to first generation and shall be given only after the same is claimed in writing from SJDA. The land losers’ cooperatives are also major stake-holders in the proposed construction works in the way as they shall be the only authorised agencies who shall be given priority in supplying the required sand, earth and stone chips for the purposes of all the construction works at the proposed new township site or the rehabilitation site.

All the rehabilitation plots are to be registered either in the name of husband or the wife. The plots, given free, shall not be eligible for transfer before ten years. All these plots or flats are being distributed through an open and transparent lottery. Scholarships are also to be provided for any vocational training to the BPL families. Self help groups are also to be provided with training and equipment. The land losers are also to be given priority in any employment opportunities created at the project site. The land losers, over 65 years of age, are being given old age pension.

The land losers are to be issued special identity cards for availing all these benefits. Any special demand or needs of the destitute land losers shall be sympathetically considered by the Rehabilitation Committee. The land losers shall be entitled to an extra 10 per cent of the land value assessed if they willingly consent to the same by way of a Consent Award. An unemployed widow is to be given a two cottah of plot without any charges. Besides, socially marginalised including physically or mentally handicapped, unemployed, unmarried women of over 35 years of age, widow or abandoned women are also to be provided with a shop.

What is significant in all this is the fact that in spite of working out a liberal rehabilitation package for the land losers, SJDA shall still be left with enough surplus funds. All this surplus money is already being ploughed back to beef up the physical infrastructures and public amenities in the Siliguri Jalpaiguri Planning Area (SJPA) which shall further result in positive multiplier effects for the local economy in particular and for the economy of the state in general. Arguably, one should go ahead with such projects even if there are no savings out of such projects because of working out a liberal rehabilitation package. After all, the project itself is a great social pay-off as they not only provide strength to the local economy by way of investment, but by further generation of employment opportunities and the resultant spiral of demand and supply chain. In fine, the successful pulling of any such project is always a win-win situation provided the benefits outweigh or equal the costs involved.

2009-03-08T05:52:00.000+05:30

Tackling Naxalism in West Bengal
*Saumitra Mohan

Amidst so many of our internal security problems, the home-grown naxalism, prodded and abetted by external forces, keeps rearing its head from time to time in the most uglier ways than we can imagine. And all these expressions of their nefarious intent to tear down our painstakingly-built liberal democratic edifice have made it imperative for us to fix this problem right away without wasting anytime. One such expression of Naxal’s evil design on Indian state was the recent attack on the convoy including the Chief Minister and the Union Steel Minister at Salboni in West Medinipur in West Bengal in November last year.

The blowing up of a railway station by the Maoist Communist Centre on the Orissa-Jharkhand border and the relatively less damaging attack on another may are other significant expressions of Naxal fury. Outrage on obscure wayside stations, whether in Bengal’s Purulia or Orissa’s Bhalulata and Chandiposh recently by the naxals point to the audacity of the anti-national elements in carrying out such vandalism with clinical dexeterity. Such manifestations of extremist activity need to be examined in the larger context.

The Chief Minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union Steel Minister Mr Ram Vilas Paswan had a narrow escape when a landmine exploded within minutes of their convoy passing through on NH-60 near Salboni in West Medinipur on November last year. A spare pilot car of the convoy was, however, caught in the explosion, resulting in injuries to six police personnel, including two policewomen. The incident took place at Baroa, 17 km from Salboni, from where the Chief Minister, Mr Paswan, State Industry Minister Mr Nirupam Sen and industrialist Mr Sajjan Jindal were returning after laying the foundation stone for the proposed Jindal Steel Works plant.

The injured including Kartik Maity, Ranjit Mondal, Rabindra Nath Mahato, Yudhisthir Mahato, Fulmoni Mandi and Alaka Chakraborty were rushed to Medinipur Medical College and Hospital with splinter injuries. It is believed that Maoists planted the mine a few days back. The incident was supposedly quite daring in the sense that the same took place notwithstanding the deployment of over 1,200 security force personnel, including, CRPF, BSF and the state armed police to secure the area. It were the Naxals, active in the area, who were behind the attack. They had also blown up a state health department vehicle on 22 October in Belpahari resulting in the death of a doctor and had killed a CPI-M leader the previous day in West Medinipur.
Maoists who were hiding on either side of the highway near the blast site are also said to have fired several rounds towards the convoy. A probe has already been ordered to find out whether there was any intelligence failure. The enquiry team is also supposed to look into whether there was any neglect on the part of the policemen who had conducted anti-sabotage and anti-landmine checking in the area ahead of the CM’s trip.

In another incident on December 23 last year, the Naxals indiscriminately fired upon the policemen to reinforce their presence in the area while the policemen could not retaliate to avoid killing villagers in a busy weekly bazaar. “The perpetrators had merged with the market crowd. Had they been fired at, the bullets would have also hit many innocent villagers,” said Kuldip Singh, Inspector-General of Police (Western Range). Dressed in ordinary clothes in the crowded haat (bazaar), over 30 Maoists had fired at four policemen when they arrived at the construction site of a community hall to relieve their colleagues on the previous shift. Two constables were killed and a third was seriously injured. Their rifles were taken away. There were at least three women among the attackers, who were selling vegetables at the haat before the strike. Within minutes, some men and women got on motorcycles and sped away through the market towards the Jharkhand border. The police had been posted at the construction site after Maoists threatened to blow up the community hall being built by the panchayat six km from the Jharkhand border.

The Naxals are increasingly getting bolder in their acts, thinking ahead and acting smarter than us. This is definitely a time for some soul-searching for us. The incident points to the imperatives of further beefing up our intelligence gathering and processing by the state and the central intelligence machineries. The Naxals have this uncanny knack of picking holes through our security arrangements and make us look vulnerable to their radical motivations.

While the Prime Minister has already termed Naxalism as the greatest internal security threat, we need better counter strategies and mechanism including better coordination and intelligence sharing among the states falling in the so-called Red Corridor where Naxals are said to be active. Along with Purulia and Bankura, West Medinipur is part of the Red Corridor. It is a Maoist bastion contiguous to Jharkhand, the hotbed of Left radicalism. The inter-state border serves as an exit point after every act of dare-devilry by the Maoists.

It is long acknowledged that these districts need more attention in terms of more developmental initiatives. However, what is surprising is the failure on the part of the Maoists to see reason. While the government has been making every effort to ratchet up the developmental process in these under-developed regions, the Maoists are just not allowing the administration to do the needful in the area. With no positive plan of their own, the Naxals are forcing the administration to waste its energy and time by such meaningless act of theirs.

2009-01-30T09:58:00.001+05:30

Understanding Popular Angst Against Politics
*Saumitra Mohan

The attack on Mumbai and its aftermath had resulted in a lot of drama and symbolisms with popular shock and disgust being experienced against politics and politicians. But, it needs no reiteration to say that no country can be run without a leader or many leaders at different levels howsoever they may be. Whatever political system we may have, the leaders shall always be required and so they shall continue to exist. This is more truthful for a democratic country like ours.

While much of this antipathy and revulsion may be seemingly justified, the same is definitely not wholesome for the health of our polity. After all, it is the political class or leadership from which are elected the peoples’ representatives who finally go on to form our government. A country without acceptable and responsible political leadership is actually an invitation to anarchy and chaos of the worst kind. While this revulsion seemed to be against all kinds of political leaders, this was actually targeted against a particular set of leaders who could practically be changed and replaced by the same people who have taken cudgels against them.

Have not the same people chosen and elected the leaders they are protesting against? The politics of a country is actually the reflection of the character of the larger society as our political class is actually a sub-set of the same. We get what we deserve. So, if we are not pleased with a particular set of leaders, it is well nigh in our hands to change and replace the same. The issue at hand is not of finding fault and pointing fingers, but that of finding and ferreting out problems and fixing the same.

This outrage against politicians is also an outrage against politics, but here again, the common man is on the wrong foot because we also cannot do without politics. Someone has rightly said, ‘whatever we may do or say, we may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in us’. And politics is not only about all the wrong things that we have come to identify it with, but it is actually about all the positive things we do not associate it with. Etymologically speaking, politics originated from the Greek word ‘polis’, referring to the ‘city-state’ of Greece. Hence, politics means activities or affairs relating to the welfare of the ‘city-state’. Now the same has come to be identified with the acts and activities pertaining to the welfare of the modern sovereign state. Ergo, politics is the very basis of our lives and we just cannot do without it. It is just so essential to our living.

Politics operates at every level, starting from an inter-personal relationship in a family to a business organisation to the political system as we have come to know it. We just cannot do without it. After all, it provides us the basic life-blood for organizing our community living by instilling a sense of order and regulation throughout our corporate and communal living. In fact, the people busy protesting against politicians, perhaps don’t realise that they themselves are indulging in politics by such acts of theirs. By leading hundreds of thousands of people across Indian cities and towns, they had quietly taken over the role of a political leader. And whether they accept it or not, their act was very much political.

In all this, the ‘Homo Politicus’ or the members of our political class also have to understand the sentiment lying behind these protests and hate campaigns against them. They too have a duty to take their cue and set their house in order. After all, modern liberal democracy is increasingly getting more complex and difficult to handle. Now the means of information and communication have penetrated the civil society so deeply that a citizen even in the remotest village is reasonably informed about the happenings in different corners of the country. Now, s/he is also more capable of culling and processing information and analysing the same to find out the truth in his/her own way. As Abraham Lincoln had said, ‘you could fool some people most of the time or most people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time’.

So, the time has actually come for our political class to come together to not only change the way things happen but to also change the way they have been doing their politics. The time has come to change the way they have been recruiting members for their organisations. Our politics and political culture still do not encourage young and promising men and women to plump for politics as a career. Politics, which throws up political leaders who eventually lead the country, is still not considered good enough to be taken as a career option. Still, the majority of political recruits are those who fail to make a mark academically or in other fields.

The reactions of some members of our political class in the wake of this revulsion and protest by counter-maligning these expressions of protests were also not in order as one would have expected them to be much nuanced and sobered than they actually were. After all, being leaders they are supposed to shape and lead from the front rather than coming out with another set of negatives as a counter to publicly-expressed sense of outrage. Politics, like any other thing, comes in a package. If you have loved the popular adulation and admiration, then you ought to be ready for the kind of revulsion and outrage as were noticed in recent times.

The tendency of a section of our political class to build the war hysteria is also not in order as that may not take us anywhere. It is more than true and established that a neighbouring country has been bent on ‘bleeding India through thousand cuts’. But the fact also remains that if we can set our own house in order, they could never do anything to us. After all, the terrorists who allegedly came from Pakistan came through our sea lanes, walked our roads, entered our hotels and finally executed their appointed tasks. And if they could all do these with ease, do not we ourselves have to blame somewhere.

We have accepted and acknowledged the security and intelligence lapses which happened and we have to guard against the same if we are to ward off their recurrence in future. Our preventive and pre-emptive actions including our intelligence gathering and processing have to be better and more effective than they have been. The proposed setting up of the ‘National Investigation Agency’ and reinforcement of other relevant laws further are definitely steps in the right direction.

While we need to cautious all the times, the terrorist needs just a single opportunity or one oversight on our part to strike all over again. So, we can never afford to lower our guard. But even with all our resources, it is just not possible to man and police each and every inch of the length and breadth of this country. So more than anything else, we need a conscientious and responsible citizen who needs to be careful and cautious all the times. After all, these are not normal times. We can not only blame our political class or the Government and free ourselves of all our responsibilities that devolve upon us as a citizen of this country. After all, it is the people who are the real leaders in a democracy.

One feels that that concept of ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ and ‘Community Policing’ needs to be operationalized more than is done presently. The National Cadet Corps, National Service Scheme and our Civil Defence systems should be further reinforced and be made more broad-based. Their beefing up would mean educating and training common citizens for the purposes of reinforcing our internal security system. Having more watchful and responsible citizens should solve much of our problems. We also need to upgrade the basic security measures. It should be made compulsory for the crowded establishments including markets, malls, hotels, cafeteria, restaurants, hospitals and education centres to put in place basic security measures including installation of security gates, latest metal/explosive detectors, installation of close-circuit cameras and a system of identity check besides building a city surveillance system by the local police.

2009-01-07T06:09:00.001+05:30

New Religion for New Times: Some Reflections
Saumitra Mohan

Even as India grapples with the after-effects of a raging economic recession, one very positive but significant development in the country has gone markedly unnoticed. This relates to the recent declaration and signing of a ‘fatwa’ against terror by the 6000 odd Muslim clerics under the leadership of Darul Uloom Deoband. This has been done with the intent to disentangle and dissociate terror from ‘Jihad’. That is a message for non-Muslims who are driven to a negativism about Islam by their misplaced identification of this faith with terror. This also sends a strong message to those of the faith who are not well up on the scriptures and, therefore, may be led into violence by the twisted reasoning of extremists who identify ‘terror’ with ‘Jihad’.

These 6000 clerics also seem to have taken a conscious decision to establish counselling centres for the Muslim youths to wean them away from terrorism. This act would significantly help tackle the so-called menace of Islamic fundamentalism, if at all such a thing exists. After all, fundamentalism of any genre cannot and ought not to be logically associated with any particular religion as that goes against anything and everything that a religion stands for.

The religious fundamentalism generally stems from a confused communalism which has really been a bane of our times. Here, by communalism one means ‘the tendency to associate oneself with the perceived welfare and promotion of one’s community by any means’, thereby enlarging the scope of communalism to also include casteism, regionalism, linguistic chauvinism and of course, religious fundamentalism among others. It is this pathological communalism of one or the other hue which usually informs the basic contents of politics and politicking of a significant section of the political class in our country. And one really feels that unless and until one can tackle and fix this aspect of our political culture, our nation building process remains endangered, to say the least.

Today, it is religious fundamentalism of one or the other genus which is the major threat to international peace and security as well as visualised by Samuel Huntington in his ‘Clash of Civilizations’ thesis. If Islamic fundamentalism within and without our country has been a major problem, then Hindu fundamentalism as a counter to the former is also no less of a problem to be fixed in time before it shapes up for uglier turns. At least, that is what seems to be the message from the latest revelations into the Malegaon blasts. As a country, we have been witness to the most hideous forms of religious communalism from time to time, be it during the birth of this country, in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 or in 1990, 1992, 2002, now in Kandhamal in Orissa or at other times in the forms of smaller and sporadic conflagrations.

Caste, linguistic or regionalist riots have also been a routine, but cancerous fixture of our body politic which immediately needs to be surgically excised in the better interest of the health of our beloved nation. It is because of this negative, noxious and macabre quality attributed to religion that Karl Marx called ‘religion as an opium of the masses’ which a section of our political class has always found convenient to harness for their petty politicking as a sedative potion to numb the basic senses of hoi polloi to further their nefarious and incendiary agenda.

Philosophically speaking, it is believed by many that multiple mutants of religion germinated and grew in different parts of the world because of the fact that different societies developed in different parts of the world detached from each other. These societies desperately wanting to end the ‘nasty, brutish and poor’ Hobbesian state of nature needed something to regulate and regiment their daily lives with as also to explain the various questions, scruples, doubts and nature’s mysteries. It is to fill this void that religion came to be developed, but owing to absence of adequate means of communications and transportations among different societies, there developed different types of religions. Hence, the existence of multiple religions in our societies. And all these religions have been playing a role since then, often larger than one ever expected them to.

Today, religion has come to suffuse and infuse the major part of human ontology, often playing larger than life roles, really unwarranted for our times. One feels that as human society is more developed now, has resolved many of nature’s mysteries, overcome its many depredations and now that the means of transportations and communications have afforded us an excellent opportunity to cull out the best aspects and features of sundry world religions, the time has come to revise and modify not only the contents of religion, but also the roles it has been playing. It we don’t reinvent the religion to better suit the genius of our times then, it would be sooner than later that religion, which rendered yeoman’s service to humanity at different points of time, would not only prove to be a major impediment in the growth of the human society, but shall actually preside over the destruction of the same.

One really feels that religion has played enough havoc with our lives to deserve further continuance in the form in which it exists and subsists now. The sensible sections of our political class along with equally sensible sections of the religious leaders have a major role to play here. The way religion influences our day-to-day lives today, it is well nigh impossible to uproot and extirpate it completely, but it can definitely be shaped up differently to better suit our needs. The attempts have been made in our very own country by the ilks of Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Kabir, or other great philosophers including Bahaullah the world over, but all have succeeded partially because of one or the other reasons. In fact, all such attempts actually helped spawn more religions than reducing and telescoping different religions into one overarching metaphysical code for the human being.

We need to rediscover the religion, if not reinvent it in the form of a more humane and humanitarian tool to allow the human society to lead a peaceful corporate life. We ought not to allow, any longer, different religions to continue competing with each other for the supremacy and greatness of one or the other, thereby creating powder keg of a situation which could ignite a major conflagration to engulf the relatively young intelligent life on this Blue Planet. One does feel that one can not completely tear religion away from one’s life because of the inability of science to provide many answers and explanations and because of the purgatory and other functional roles it plays. For example, religion has a positive role to play in the way it creates and provides various social occasions for the adherents to come together to celebrate the beauty of human life. Such functional roles are important to promote a corporate and community living as well as to exercise basic regimentation and regulation over more than necessary deviant individualism and bohemianism in human societies.

But beyond this, if we allow religion to dictate and regulate even the secular aspects of our living, then it would start playing the kind of havoc it has been playing for quite some time, hence the need for its rediscovery. One really feels that the existence of numerous religions is not advisable and healthy for our times. We can very well combine and collate the best features of different religions of this world to have a single overarching religion. It would not only banish the need for religious bigotry and incendiary fundamentalism from our midst, but would also fix the many baneful complexities associated with it. However, doing so definitely does not mean immediately removing all the culturally and socially functional features including festivals that have come to be associated with different religions. In fact, they can very well continue in their improved and sanitized adaptations as parts of the new world religion.

2009-01-07T06:08:00.001+05:30

Cooperative Globalism: Need of Our Times
*Saumitra Mohan

The raging economic recession the world over has shown and proven beyond doubts the dilemmas and pitfalls of unfettered globalization. Today, it is very much acknowledged and accepted that closed economy in a globalized liberal world is oxymoronic. So, more globalization is something which has been taken for granted. While all along we all thought that the Indian economy is well placed and inherently strong enough not to be affected by the US recession, but now we know that the complex economic independence a la Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane has grown intense and dense enough as to make it next to impossible to insulate one’s economy completely from being affected by the external factors.

What is surprising is the failure to recognise the fact that today a seemingly nationalist issue or a national crisis is not completely because of some internal factors, but is actually spurred and aggravated by the external factors which are often beyond our ken and control. Such crises provide the best opportunities to get our act together to put up the best policy responses. But the act of shutting one’s economy or closing up on more imports or framing stringent immigration policies is, in fact, prejudicial to the ethos of our times. Having liberalised and globalised our economies, we just cannot go back to the days of narrow nationalism.

The so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ around which the extant economic-financial architecture was constructed has actually been wanting in many respects. Western countries, who have been the principal promoters of the ‘open door’ neo-classical economic policies have themselves never been firm believers in their own ideology as reflected in their befuddled policy responses. While they have strongly espoused free movement of capital, they have always opposed free movement of labour. Again, while they have always promoted transfer of primary goods and natural resources from the South to the North, they have never been true votaries of transfer of technologies, as also reflected in their stringent patent laws. They desire unhindered access to our markets, but would not allow similar access to their markets and technologies, further mirrored in their different tariff and non-tariff barriers.

While they have been busy polluting the earth all these years by way of unsustainable consumerism, they now want the Third World to shoulder the major burden in the proposed ‘clean-up’ act without also wanting to share the requisite technology or financial resources needed for the purpose. Not only that, while they have all benefitted from a reckless and feckless colonial and neo-colonial economic development policy, they now want us to cut our consumption and stop growing without in any way agreeing to lower their stinking consumerism.

The West actually got inebriated at the ideological victory of liberal capitalism in the aftermath of the collapse of the former Soviet Union as symbolised in the theoretical assumptions of Francis Fukuyama namely ‘the End of History’. The West never realised that the capitalism of today is not really the unadulterated capitalism of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, but is actually its more tempered and sanitized self imbibing many features of communism and socialism. The best of the two systems have well harmonised in the form of democratic welfarism or welfare capitalism as it exists now in the so-called liberal capitalist societies. The recent economic crises of South-East Asia and the extant domino-like fall of big financial or industrial houses has further led some observers to point to the failure of the ‘State’ to play the role of an impartial and effective arbitrator to manage the anarchical world system though diametrically contrary views have also been equally stronger.

Today, the globalised world provides ample windows on rest of the world via demonstration effect to afford a comparative analysis and appreciation of one’s situation thereby arousing the sense of dissatisfaction and discontent among the not so privileged sections of the global population. While we have healthy, educated and economically well-off sections of the global society, we also have unenlightened, uneducated and very poor sections of the global majority. This also results in ‘development of underdevelopment’, something which the ECLA (Economic Committee of Latin America) school led by Andre Gunder Frank and his contemporaries identified long back. So, one thing that we all need to realise immediately is the fact that we can no longer afford the continued co-existence of islands of affluence and vast deserts of underdevelopment simultaneously as that opens the door to discords and disaffections. Religious terrorism, Naxalite extremism and separatist violence are examples of the same.

What one means to emphasise here is the fact that today the State is no longer a self-confident, self-reliant unit which can handle all its problems on its own and which can actually provide the proverbial security to all the nationals through its unquestioned monopoly over the use of coercive force. The ‘sovereign’ quality characterising the State has already come under severe attack from different quarters, so the very concept of ‘nation-state’ is on the retreat. Today, we have non-state actors within and without the state boundaries with many features of the State and who thereby severely compromise state’s capacity to secure its nationals, the basic purpose for which the citizens entered into a ‘Covenant’ with the State. Today, the inter-continental ballistic missiles, international organisations, international business organisations, international laws, global finance capital, multi-national and trans-national companies, internet and other sophisticated means of communication and transportation and many such factors don’t recognise national boundaries thereby severely denting the concept of sovereignty.

Against such a background, it is definitely not advisable to be unilateralist while trying to resolve one’s national problems. These problems are global in nature and have their origins in globalised external factors. They need global solutions rather than individualised nationalist approach as reflected in the protectionist behaviour of many countries. The penchant for unilateralist interventions in other countries internal affairs and employing a subservient United Nations to endorse the same is also unwholesome and calls for a change of attitude from those at the top of the international pecking order.

It is really high time that the North and the South got together to identify the core issues and problems facing the world today and come out with uniform approach for resolving the same. We not only have to ensure a sustainable development paradigm for promising a better future to the posterity, but also have to ensure that the same is done without encouraging unhealthy tendencies and forces as might necessitate the prophets of doom like Samuel Huntington to declaim a ‘clash of civilisations’ sooner than later. The West has long battened and fattened through colonial or neo-colonial policies and developed at the expense of the developing and underdeveloped countries. They cannot completely absolve themselves from their responsibility to shoulder the burden of providing the basic level of comfort and development for the underprivileged denizens of the South. Joseph Stiglitz has rightly identified the pitfalls of unfettered globalisation underscoring the need rendering it more humane, simultaneously also halting the dispossession of the poor and the indigent.

The truth remains that in an unequal world with unequal resources in unequal circumstances, we cannot ask different segments of global population to compete on equal footing. We have to guard against this misplaced egalitarianism and promote balanced development of the global society which results in the healthy survival of all without compromising the interests of the fragile environment. The corporate affluence of all shall mean enough purchasing power for all resulting in abundant demand creation and the resultant demand for supplies and thereby growth in employment opportunities. We need to appreciate that development of one is the development of all and the development of all is the development of one. One also feels that the time has come when we go beyond ‘statism’ or parochial ‘nationalism’ and move to genuine ‘internationalism’ in a spirit of cooperative globalism.

2008-11-27T10:06:00.000+05:30

Reaping Demographic Dividends
Saumitra Mohan

Even though all of us everywhere in the country seem very busy discussing and debating the various dimensions and implications of the impending financial crisis, there is something to cheer about which is going unnoticed in all this. This relates to the demographic dividends which India shall soon be reaping notwithstanding all that talk of various kinds of complex problems stemming from an every growing population in the country.
But before we actually start doing so, there are certain issues which would require sorting out otherwise benefits of demographic dividends shall prove to be a mere wishful thinking, a will-o-the-wisp. We definitely have over a billion people and are told to be adding over 10 million more every year. The demographic dividends is said to accrue on account of the fact that very soon, we shall have less dependent population and more economically productive population, thereby spurring our economic growth further. This is more so at a time when many of the countries in the West are actually witnessing a negative population growth.
However, such an idea may remain a mere wishful thinking if we fail to make value addition to our human resources, if we fail to qualitatively improve our human resources to be used as a workforce in different fields for varied economic activities. After all, with small people with small capacities dotting the length and breadth of our country, we can never hope to be a great country. For being a great country and a great power, there shall be need for people with varied skills and capacities led by a visionary and dynamic leadership.
Today, it is believed that India is going to remain a young country for a long time to come, with very positive implications for our economic development. After all, we are going to have relatively very less economically dependent population on our scare resources than we have had all along. Moreover, we are also going to have more economically productive people. We are at such a crucial juncture of our demographic history when we shall have fewer children and less elderly population, who are generally not only economically unproductive, they are also a drain on our resources, at least, so believe some observers. However, in all this we are likely to have a predominant population engaged in different economic activities, much more in number than we have experienced so far, thereby adding further to the value creation.
Having less dependent population would result in substantive savings which could have otherwise been expended on their care. These savings could be used for undertaking more productive activities and making further investments in the economy with substantial multiplier effects. Having a reduced fertility rate for the women and having fewer children also mean that women are going to have more free time, thereby enabling them to join the productive workforce. Women constituting almost half of our population, their release from their conventional chores might prove to be a blessing in disguise thereby adding to the future economic growth of our country.
Not only this, having less population of children and elderly citizens to tend to would also mean availability of additional resources for the government which it was using for provisioning health and basic education facilities. These additional resources can further supplement government’s productive ventures, including putting up sound infrastructures for spurring economic growth. With surplus resources in the economy, many structural and institutional bottlenecks could be removed as supply side expansion takes place.
But for all this to materialise, the necessary software in the form of positive government policy and favourable ambience shall be required. Besides, social norms or ethics shall also play a critical role as Protestant Ethics did to Europe and the United States if venerable social scientist Max Weber is to be believed. Whether our women shall actually join the productive workforce or not, shall depend on the societal values and attitude which would require positive changes. The spirit or motivation to make money shall also be a crucial factor, quite away from the instinct of glorifying poverty which we have been doing all these years. So, the economic growth shall also depend on specific conditions in a particular country. The success of Marwari and Gujrati community in this country can be attributed, to a great extent, to their positive chrometophilic instincts.
It is believed that one-third of the economic growth we see in South-East Asia is because of their abilities to reap the demographic dividends at a right time in a right fashion. The governments in those countries could successfully provide the basic medical and educational facilities to their population, thereby adding quality to their human resources. This enabled the local population to contribute more productively by way of a more diversified economic activities and substantive value creation in their respective countries.
As a result of surplus disposable money with people on account of less spending on elderly and child population, people can actually spend more on their education and health, which would further add value and quality to the human capital. But one also feels that we shall require sustained spending to continuously upgrade our human resources. In fact, quite against the belief that elderly population is unproductive, one can actually utilise the services of elderly population for selective activities which can better suit their age and physical abilities.
Again, one also feels, at the risk of sounding blasphemous, that over obsession with the phenomenon of child labour is not good as it has been experienced that the children freed from different hazardous/non-hazardous activities get into a more piquant situation, with their families finding it hard to even feed or care for them popularly. A balance has to be found between the needs of providing a healthy childhood to our children and their abilities to sustain themselves economically. If a practical approach to child labour is adopted, then economic productivity of our populace might be more than otherwise possible.
The Neo-Malthusian analysis, however, dispute the demographic dividend argument. They believe that dependence of more population on the same resources can not help economic growth. But one disagrees with their argument. After all, our population density is much less than many of the South-Asian, South East Asian or East Asian countries including Japan and we are naturally much more endowed than many or all of them. The Revisionists also feels that population growth is not a hindrance to the economic development.
But it is not the absolute growth of working population, but the relative growth compared to the child and elderly population that creates scope for reaping demographic dividends. It is not that growth of working population only matters for economic growth. Real opportunity occurs due to a higher growth of working age population coupled with slow and even negative growth of dependent population.
Different states in India are at different stages of demographic transition, so the demographic dividends shall also be reaped variously by them, depending on their respective abilities, motivation and specific policies and social conditions in those states. Though, many feel that the positive linkage between economic growth and demographic dividends phenomenon is not conclusively proved. One just hopes that a right mix of policies and motivation may actually help us turning our huge population’s liability into an asset.

2008-11-05T10:24:00.003+05:30

Politics and Politicking: Need for a Change
*Saumitra Mohan

Just when you thought that our state building and nation building processes are proceeding well and we are moving fast up the pecking order in the Comity of Nations, you have a slew of negative developments which shake your confidence. A look around the country presents the picture of a country under siege. Be it floods in Bihar, terrorism and secessionism in Jammu and Kashmir, North-East or elsewhere in the country, communal riots in Orissa, Dera Saccha Sauda bickering in Punjab, land acquisition agitations in West Bengal and elsewhere, simmering Naxal extremism in a good expanse of the country, problem of price rise, frequent resort to ‘bandh’ and ‘strikes’, or the recent terrorist strikes around the country, we seem beset with problems from all around.
In all this, it is the common man who is the actual loser. It is this Homo Ordinarius who is really at loss, but still managing to survive notwithstanding the mess he/she finds himself/herself in. And believe it or not, much of this mess is of our own making. Don’t we support and elect the same feckless Homo Politicus with unceasing regularity who has brought all this suffering to us through his/her political shenanigans and skulduggery. Just have a look at any problem around, it would appear that our political class is bent on suicidal one-upmanship and brinkmanship through which untold misery is wreaked on the hoi polloi.
Does our political class really think that a communal riot is politically rewarding, that it wins rich electoral dividends at the hustings? And even if it does, it definitely does the entire system an irreparable damage. Has not every such communal riot boomeranged and been visited by another reactive communal flare-up and bombings, resulting in huge damage to man, materials and our image as the Salad Bowl of a well-knit Nation?
Notwithstanding the judicial ban placed on the instrumentality of ‘bandh’, the political parties continue resorting to the same putting forth sundry arguments in its favour, the principal one being its being the only potent weapon in the hands of the working class. The recent bandh against price rise actually helped the cause of price rise by stopping production and blocking supplies. Do we really think that we do not have any better means for securing workers’ and citizens’ right but for organizing a ‘bandh’, a general strike, a ‘chakka jam’ or outright vandalism? Are we not hurting the interests of the same commoner in whose name we do all this? Surprisingly, many of these politicos agree and accept that these means are no longer relevant, still they fail to evolve a consensus to discontinue with the same.
Do the secessionists in Jammu and Kashmir, another mutant of our political class, really think that creation of a separate country or merger with Pakistan shall end all their problems? Had that been so, Pakistan should have been a developed and happy state by now. But Pakistan’s failure to be so and her subsequent balkanization proves in stark relief the fallacy of such a conception. Today, with state’s theoretical capacity to regulate and secure its borders steadily going down and when borders themselves are becoming irrelevant with more united regional groupings becoming a reality, we are still busy drawing more lines on the geographical map.
Coming back to the topic, as our next door neighbour has to shun and shed her day-dreaming about bleeding India through thousand cuts in her own better interests (has not it hurt itself more than India), our political class also need to reinvent themselves. They need to ferret out better alternatives to a ‘bandh’, ‘strike’, ‘chakka jam’, or outright political violence either in the shape of a communal riot or in any other form. These means need to be positive and productive which neither hurt nor damage our property or the common citizens’ right to carry on unhindered with their daily lives. They ought not to further sully our image as an emerging nation or twitches at our conscience of being the citizen of a country where such unwarranted and undesirables happen.
However, one still believes that India has been doing reasonably well compared to her many time twins in Asia, Africa and Latin America. After all, many of these countries disintegrated before they could complete their state building processes owing to the failure to resolve their internal conflicts. But India has so far gone from strength to strength to take her state-building and nation-building processes on a stronger footing through a mix of consociational social welfare politics. But we would only pull wool over our eyes if we think we can continue doing so notwithstanding all the self-created roadblocks en route.
Our bloated obsession and fixation with the nine per cent growth rate is already getting deflated in the wake of looming global recession. Our desire to be a super power definitely does not gel with our capacities, motivation and determination to get to that elevated and rarefied space. What China could showcase through the Olympic extravaganza was a sheer delight and one really doubts as to whether we could really replicate the same given an opportunity. The fact is that we have assigned a secondary place to the national pride which make the warp and weft of a great nation.
Our political class takes to street at the slightest hint of a disagreement. That bandh and strikes are remnants from the past and are no longer relevant to the interests of our larger polity is something they refuse to understand. Can we really continue to stage our protest and opposition in the way we have been doing all these years. We should not forget that we are a democracy where every issue could be and should be discussed, debated, negotiated and resolved across the table. But quite contrarily, our legislatures have become an arena for fisticuffs and one-to-one duel including outright sanguinary conflicts coming down to the lowest levels as seen in UP, West Bengal and elsewhere in recent times.
The funny part in all this is that the behaviour of the same political party is different while in and out of power. A stand taken by a political party when in power may not be the same while out of power. Out here, the basic tenet of opposition politics seems to be opposition for the sake of opposition, without delving deep into the merit or demerit of the issue. To them, they are duty-bound to oppose and protest against any policy or idea emanating from the treasury benches.
The fact remains that ethics and values have taken a back seat out here. In their bid to attain their baser objectives, the political class does not mind weakening state institutions using whom they are supposed to tackle state problems. These institutions get weakened due to constant interference and tinkering and lose their capacity to respond in times of need. In fact, some elements of our political class are willing to compromise and do anything that can take them to the seat of power including colluding and conniving with the baser elements of the society be it criminals, terrorists or Naxals. Here, the hoi polloi is always on discount, the interest of the politicking elite is what matters most.
Is not it high time when our political class thought of better ways and means to conduct politics through? How long would we continue with the same antediluvian, horse and buggy methods of doing politics? If the politics is really supposed to be about welfare of the citizens of a polity, then we have got the very conception of politics itself goofed up. And unless and until our political class really does something about mending its ways, we had better stop deluding ourselves to be one of the principal movers and shakers on the global scene. The citizens, too, have a duty to put such irresponsible political class in place. Otherwise, we shall cease to grow as a nation.

2008-11-05T10:24:00.001+05:30

100 per cent FIR: Jalpaiguri shows the way
*Saumitra Mohan

We have long debated the problems ailing criminal justice system in our country with various committees and commissions recommending sundry measures to tone up the system. But of all the measures discussed, it is the police reforms which constitute the core of any such effort without which nothing substantial can be achieved. Notwithstanding the recent police reforms executed at the instance of the Supreme Court of India, there is still a lot which need to be done to enable the police organisation to carry out its duties and responsibilities with much more effectiveness and efficiency.
And the starting point for any police reform remains the way our police station functions as they still remain the cutting edge of the law and order machinery in our country. If our police stations continue to function the way they have always been, all other reforms would come to nought. It is against this background that an experiment made in a remote North Bengal district of Jalpaiguri in Eastern India becomes important.
The law enforcers across the country seem to be unanimous that given the manpower, resources and infrastructure crunch afflicting the police organisation, it is neither advisable nor practicable to entertain all the public complaints at the police station. They feel that all such complaints need to be carefully sifted and sorted before being accepted in the form of an FIR (First Information Report). But the Jalpaiguri experiment, initiated and carried under the able stewardship of the present Superintendent of Police Sri Tripurari, a young IPS officer of 1998 batch, has proved them all wrong.
It was with effect from 01 July 2007 that this experiment kicked off in Jalpaiguri and accordingly instructions were issued to all the police stations to accept any and every FIR without any demur. Instructions were also issued, however, to ensure that no simultaneous arrests be made till inquiry and investigation are completed. Contrary to the fear of burden that such an approach might impose on the system, the entire system has responded very well with surprisingly positive results. Police is no longer shunned or avoided out here nor are the officers and rank complaining of increased work-load. Popular alienation or fear of police has come down, leading to increased public confidence in them.
Selective lodging of FIRs never reflected the true crime picture of the district which has become possible now. Against an average of 3000 cases reported between 2004-06, about 5300 cases were reported in the first year of reforms i.e. in 2007. The projected crime figure for 2008 is likely to be around 14000, quite staggering compared to the figures of the pre-reform period. Usually, a proportionately inverse relationship has been noticed between the cases lodged in the police stations and the court complaints. With police becoming liberal in accepting FIRs, the necessity of people lodging court complaint has come down resulting in reduction of the same. Compared to approx six per cent court complaints of total recorded cases during 2004-06, the figure was down to approx. 0.6 percent in 2007.
While the total crime figures for all the 17 police stations of 33 lakh-strong Jalpaiguri between 2002-06 was an average of about 2700, this figure was a staggering 6800 in 2007. But the projected figure for 2008 is likely to be 14000. While only about 600 cases of theft, on an annual average, were reported during 2004-06, the number was up at 1300 in 2007 and is likely to be upwards of 2000 by the end of 2008. Again, while an average of 550 crimes against women were reported during this period, the figure was more than double for 2007 and is projected to be around 2000 in 2008. The average figure for robbery, burglary and dacoity together were around 40 during the three years preceding the reforms, but it shot up to 60 in 2007 and is likely to be more than 80 at the end of 2008.
The arrest figures have also been greatly impacted. Earlier police were often indiscriminate in its preventive activities and arrests as it had mandatory quota to fulfil. So, the police would indiscriminately haul up people through non-FIR cases, inter alia, under such sections as 107, 109 and 110 Cr.PC and 290 IPC, but the need to cook up the book has come down substantially with police willing to register all crimes being reported in the district. While the persons arrested under section 290 IPC numbered more than 10,000 during 2004-06, the figure was down to around 6000 in 2007 and is likely to be around 2000 only in 2008.
Similarly, the people arrested under section 107 Cr.PC were around 7500 during the pre-reform period, the figure was down to around 6000 in 2007 and is likely to be less than 3000 in 2008. The overall arrest figure for the district which was more than 5000 during 2004-06, was down to 4,500 in 2007 and is likely to be less than 5000. Again, while accused surrender was an average of around 1300 between 2004-06, it was around 3,500 in 2007 and is projected to be around 4,500 in 2008. While the number of persons convicted during 2004-06 was around 125, it was almost unaffected in 2007 at 121, but is likely to improve substantively at over 200 in 2008 pointing to the improved quality of case disposal. This clearly indicates a positive relationship between a responsive police and the local crime figures.
Notwithstanding the registration of huge number of cases and the consequent increase in work for the local police, the case disposal has improved drastically. The case disposal was around 3000 during 2004-06, it was more than 4000 in 2007 and is likely to be more than 6000 in 2008. It amply shows that given a proper orientation, the same manpower can yield better results. Expedited case disposal and 100 per cent FIR registration have also resulted in fewer complaints made to human rights bodies like NHRC, a big relief for the local police. They were a measly 11 in 2007 and are likely to be the same in 2008 against a substantively higher figure for the pre-reforms period i.e. 25 between 2004-06.
With free registration of cases, the process of converting cognizable cases into non-cognizable cases has almost stopped as all such cases are now registered in the first instance itself. Similarly, such a development has also pre-empted the need for the interference with the police work by the local panchayats, political leaders and touts. Having adopted a pro-active and responsive approach to policing, the police itself no longer needs to misbehave or intimidate people for suppression or minimization of cases. It has also reduced the need for bribing police for lodging an FIR though the same cannot be said about an impartial and speedy investigation which is where the demand for more manpower, infrastructure and resources become justified. This experiment has also struck at the root of the nexus among the police, criminals, lawyers and politicos. One does feel the need to replicate similar experiments elsewhere in the country.

2008-11-05T10:23:00.001+05:30

Reforming the Prison Administration in India
*Saumitra Mohan

Of all the reforms required for the effective functioning of our law and justice system, prison reforms form an important part. Unless and until we initiate and take measures to bring our prison management in sync with the times, our law and justice system shall never be able to work to the optimum level required. The various issues requiring our urgent attention include physical condition of the prisons, condition and treatment of prisoners, training and re-orientation of prison personnel, modernisation of prisons, better correctional administration and management.
The Government of India constituted a Committee in December 2005 under the Chairmanship of the Director General, Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) to prepare a draft policy paper on the strategy relating to prison reforms and correctional administration. The said Committee is said to have made many recommendations relating to Prison Reform and Correctional Administration, which if implemented would make a lot of difference to our prison administration and management.
Of the important recommendations, the Committee is believed to have recommended setting up a Department of Prisons and Correctional Services to deal with adult and young offenders. It has also recommended setting up a full time National Commission on Prisons. The Committee believes that the young offenders between 18 and 21 ought not to be confined in prisons meant for adult offenders as otherwise they usually become more prone to crimes while being in company of their more experienced and hardened counterparts. It similarly recommends that the persons arrested for politico-economic agitations for declared public causes should not be confined in prisons along with regular prisoners either. Some observers feel that bracketing the two together is quite unjustified given the fact quite often the latter come to be part of our government system later.
One another important issue relates to the over-crowding of our prisons as most of them are populated beyond their capacity. And the same can be done only by reducing the population of the under-trial prisoners by speedier trials in special fast track courts, Lok Adalats, trials in special courts and via video conferencing. However, it should be ensured that the prisoners should, in no way, be forced to plead guilty in such fast track courts in a hope to get lesser sentence without in anyway appreciating the implications of the same. What is surprising is the fact that many of them keep languishing in our jails long after they are acquitted because of lack of coordination between the court and the prison administration. Modern mechanism of information technology and e-governance should be pressed into service for improvements on this score.
Going by the reformative theory of deviance, the confinement of an offender to the prisons is meant to reform and rehabilitate him/her in the human society as a responsible citizen rather than continue penalising him/her even after marked positive changes are noticed in them. Hence, release of lifers and hardened criminals before their stipulated terms should also be given a serious thought. As far as possible, easier bail provisions, using section 436-A of the Cr.PC and use of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958 should be considered. It would not only reward good behaviour of these prisoners, but shall also take care of the over-crowding of the prisons.

A serious thought should also be given to ensure that the prisoners are not denied the basic right of consultation with their lawyers. It should also be ensured that video conferencing, as proposed, should in no way impede on this basic right. If possible, the constitutional right to free legal aid, as envisaged in Article 39-A of the Indian Constitution, should be fully implemented, ensuring the same to the prisoners. One also feels a greater need for expedited appeal hearings, which could be possible only if the number of judges in the higher judiciary is increased.
Talking about basic amenities within the prisons, there is a lot which needs to be done to ameliorate the conditions in which the prisoners are supposed to live. Adequate sanitation, improved prison wages, all-round entertainment and better health check-up facilities are the minima required inside the jail if we really believe that the prison is a place for reforming and rehabilitating an individual rather than making him further hardened and untouchable for the society.
Group insurance, provisioning of bank loans and employment in government/private industries should also be contemplated as part of an overall rehabilitation package. It should be ensured that the old and sick prisoners do get a special diet as should be the case with the pregnant and lactating women prisoners and their special medical needs. Also, improvement in the modes of communication between the prison inmates and their families should be improved further, giving allowance for more privacy to the conversation between the two.
Also, a thought should be given to ensuring the conjugal rights of the prisoners. After all, penalising an individual for an offence does not mean depriving him/her completely from the very basic human rights including the conjugal rights. Another piquant issue relates to the political rights of the prisoners. It is quite surprising that a convicted person can contest a legislative or parliamentary election, but he/she does not have any voting rights available. Something should be done to remove this discrepancy in the present system.
In light of the recent incursions on our prisons by Naxalites and other such outlawed organisations to liberate inmates, we also need to give some importance to the prison security. Of the various security measures for preventing such jail breaks include the installation of a bio-metric system of access control as recommended for installation in all the nine prisons of the Tihar jail complex by S K Cain Committee formed in the wake of Shamsher Singh Rana’s famous escape from Tihar.
In this system, the fingerprints of all the prisoners and the jail staff are saved into a database. The entry and exit from the complex is permitted only if the fingerprints are matched. This system should be installed in all the jails across the country without any exception. Besides, simple security measures like installation of close circuit cameras, metal detectors and automatic security lock system should also be thought of for better security of our jails and for further pre-empting such daring jail breaks as seen during recent times.
Manpower shortage has been another bane of our prison system which needs to be beefed up for better prison management and security. Apart from reinforcing the manpower, the prison officials and rank also need to be given special training and orientation for further improving the prison security and also for making our prisons a better place, yoked to the cause of reforming and rehabilitating deviant members of the society. Women and juvenile offenders definitely need better and more sensitive treatment than they have got so far.

While better coordination with the police department is required for better prison administration and management, the same should in no way lead us to involve police in prison administration or management as that may have very dangerous implications, at least, that is what some experts feel. We should definitely explore alternatives to imprisonment, at least, for the under-trials. One does feel the need for extensive amendments to the colonial Prison Act of 1884 along with the need for various constituent states of the Indian Union to draft a uniform prison manual if we are to really implement some of the reforms as envisaged here. Also, before going about implementation of Committee’s recommendations, we also need to give a thought to various whys and wherefores of the failure to implement the sundry proposals of the Mulla Committee Report for improving the condition of prisons in India.

2008-11-05T10:22:00.001+05:30

Resolving Development Dilemmas
Saumitra Mohan

The concatenation of incidents at Singur, Nandigram or the recent Amarnath row in Jammu and Kashmir relating to matters pertaining land has amply underscored the dilemma that faces our polity today. However, the fact remains that land is the principal factor for any developmental initiative. This is also a fact that for any developed country, the percentage contribution of agriculture to the national economy seldom exceeds more than 4-5 per cent with the rest coming from secondary and tertiary sectors including industries and services.
In other words, a more than predominant chunk of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has to come from industry and services which could also provide support and sustenance for the primary sector including agriculture and mining, if we really wish to be a developed country. These sectors could never develop if a sizable amount of land is not made available to them for development. But we know very well by now as to how difficult has it become to obtain/acquire land for development in the wake of Byzantine opposition politics surrounding the same.
This has made elected governments all over the country quite loath to use force or strong-arm measures for land acquisition, even if in the name of ‘development’. But what is more problematic is not the attitude of the land owners, but that of the vested interests who in the name of so-called ‘land protection committee’ do everything to sabotage a good project. The situation becomes worse when these vested interests are joined by the opposition to further their petty political agenda.
In a good number of cases, even where the acquisition price and rehabilitation package are very generous, the resistance still remains. And more often than not, this resistance is stage-managed than rooted in genuine public upsurge to refuse land for development in lieu of a good compensation. An agitation or movement around land acquisition is often engineered by these vested interests who have their own axe to grind, either in the form of some petty political advantage or outright financial interests. One has come across many such people while negotiating land acquisition or its possession. These people directly or indirectly seek pecuniary advantage for themselves, without being, in any way, perturbed or concerned about the real interests of the land losers or land owners, both registered and unregistered.
And these land-related problems relate not only to new projects as extension of new-wave agitations and movements, but also to the old, ongoing projects. Many of us in the administration have come across people who, not even remotely concerned with the legally transferred land in question, would demand a share in the pie from the private or public developers. These demands are usually in the form of rights to supply materials for undertaken work, often at bloated prices, jobs or contracts for taking up such work or even outright bribes or protection money to allow the work to go on unhindered.
And all this happens in the name of people, and often under the aegis of one or the other political party, thereby making it difficult for the administration to make a real development on the actual project, as use of force or arrest is no longer an option. This is because of the fact that the locally dominant party or grouping often fears losing or diminishing its support base as a result thereof. And in all this, it is the development which suffers, thwarting further value additions and multiplier effects by way of which extra demands could be generated, which in turn could fuel strong economic growth in that particular region and in the country as a whole.
As the law or rules pre-empt and prevent more than allowed generosity which acceding or accommodating the demands of these vested interests, many administrators, with active blessing from the government, have found ingenuous ways to do the same while working out a rehabilitation package. And, here one potent solution lies in the land requiring bodies (read industries) being made to share the additional burden of rehabilitation which is actually not very bad. But one does feel that the same needs to be further regularised and regulated to pre-empt any scope for foul play.
In states bordering international boundaries, these land acquisitions take on another dimension. One has noticed that the moment a land acquisition plan is announced, one would immediately see vested interests including supporters of different political parties make hordes of people go and occupy the intended land unauthorisedly in a bid to negotiate or extract rehabilitation candies in future. While one can see such attempts as one of the ways of distributive justice, it is definitely not so. What is painful is the fact that in many cases such planted occupiers are illegal immigrants from across the border, without any political rights whatsoever, and who are more than willing to pounce on such opportunities for a consideration. It is these people who are usually the cannon fodder ready to be used for any subversive activities within and without the country, but that is a separate issue altogether.
Reinforcing our ‘Soft State’ image as Gunnar Myrdal would have said, strong arm measures are increasingly becoming out of question for the administration. Opposition is more than willing to fish in the troubled waters. However, the same party, while in power, sings a different tune. One does feel the need for a positive change in our political culture save any destructive or negative politics. Naxalites are another bunch of misguided people sans any ideological mooring and devoid of any positive agenda. They act more as the agent saboteurs of enemy forces than genuine cup-bearers of the poor and deprived.
In all such cases, it is the bureaucracy which is blamed for the goof-ups, developmental deadlocks or even non-utilisation of government money sanctioned for a particular project. But more often than not, things are beyond the ken and control of bureaucracy which often finds that its hands are tied. The vested interests (read political class) do their best to sabotage the project in one or the other way by putting forward resistance or undue demands. And most of such troubles relate again to land related matters. Either it is the proposed land acquisition for new projects or government lands where the work is to be executed, but the same has been profusely encroached through political shenanigans. All such troubles or problems would have to be settled or fixed before undertaking the project.
Today it has become increasingly difficult for the bureaucracy to work as per rules or laws. It is often forced to bend the rules/laws without the political class willing to share responsibility for the same. You either toe the line or should be willing to be shunted or sidelined. Hence, most of the smart-aleck bureaucrats learn very early in their career to be ‘practical’. Populism and reckless politics are making country bleed by way of making developmental sacrifices.
Many feel that too much of democracy is rendering our institutions ineffective and redundant. The constant media attention and interest in such matters and portraying the same in gory sensational details without much attention to the merit of the case also make things difficult for both the political class and the bureaucracy. The media also often indulges in yellow journalism, focusing more on the demands of the protesting mob, without analysing and bringing forth the implications of acceding to such unjustified demands. The spirit or merit behind the project is seldom highlighted.
While we definitely need to be more circumspect with regards to the quality, quantity and kind of land we acquire for development, the truth remains that with weak state, the strong vested interests cannot be tackled. And a strong state shall require rejuvenated and reinforced institutions including that of executive, legislature, bureaucracy and police duly supported by the constructive political culture of a responsible political class who shall not compromise our national interests in a bid to advance their own petty political agenda.

2008-07-09T12:20:00.001+05:30

Do We Need Cultural Policing?
*Saumitra Mohan

There has been a spurt of protests and red-faced expressions against the deemed moral and ethical degeneration in the Indian society in recent times. Be it the uproar over the so-called bawdy on-field shakes of the imported cheer leaders in the just concluded Indian Premier League cricket matches or the ban on bar girls in Maharashtra, the moral policemen, with their holier-than-thou approach, have always been up in the arms to register their protests. What happened to be occasional outpourings seem to have become quite routine and regular, with the Culture Vultures finding more and more causes to take cudgels for as if we have got devoid of the real and basic issues affecting the common man.

Be it Nelson Mandela’s paternal peck on Shabana Azmi, Richard Gere’s Knightly smackers to Shilpa Shetty, sartorial choices of our tennis sensation Sania Mirza, the romantic liberties taken by lovers in Meerut or elsewhere to meet openly in public parks or the annual ritualistic remonstrations against the celebration of Valentine Day, the Moral Brigade has come down heavily against the same to spoil the party. These Talibani tendencies to dictate the basic nuances of culture to the common man definitely do not gel with the broader framework of a liberal democratic society.

What is surprising is the fact that such incidents of cultural policing are being reported with unceasing regularity now a days, quite surprisingly at a time when we are talking of further liberalisation and consequent freedom of choice for the creature called ‘homo sapiens’. One Rizwanur Rahman from Kolkata fell prey to the same prying eyes of a vigilante moral brigade which culminated in his tragic death. The same pathological penchant of the loony fringe ensured the eventual shelving of the impending visit of Carla Bruni, in company of her more celebrated boy friend and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The protocol-related confusions finally had the French President making it all alone.

Such moral pangs take other hues in the form of attempts to ban smoking or drinking scenes on silver screen on the specious plea that the same promotes these vices among the common public, even though there are various other and more effective ways to promote healthy habits among the citizens. One has a sinking feeling that such non-issues emanate from an unwholesome desire to either hog some cheap publicity or to create some controversies in a bid to cater to a select audience for some unseen political advantage.

Since eccentricities and inanities know no boundaries, such cultural policemen could be found throughout the world. So, even artistic freedom of expression exercised by such people as Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Maqbul Fida Hussain, Ashish Nandy and the famous European cartoonist who made a caricature of Prophet Muhammad have not been spared by these skin heads. Many of these people are the so called entrenched interests who try to regain their fast depleting acceptability or social respect by way of such dubious means.

While a section of our political class does batten and fatten on such class of politics, what surprises one is the tacit support extended to them by our intelligentsia by not registering their voice against such erratic, indiscriminate and misconceived curbs on the very basic human rights of the individual. How were one to dress up or who to marry ought to be best left to the sovereign desire of the individual in keeping with the law of the land. The numerous caste panchayats and their illegal fiats seeped in hoary moth-balled mores and customs have seen the execution or cold-blooded murders of many of the innocent men and women, something which should be shocking to the conscience of any civilised society. It is here that the state has to guard against any such incursion on individual freedom.

It is such cultural or intellectual policing that, on a different plane, also seems to dictate our reactions to such disparate phenomena as genetically modified food, human cloning or opening of retail chains. Believe it or not, all such reactions somehow and somewhere seem to stem either from entrenched vested interests or from a desire to bask in the evanescent media limelight to gain cheap brownie points in the political sweepstakes. But by doing so, we are only hurting the discourse of human development by blocking way to a more open and liberal society.

After all, if your motor car stops working or is environmentally polluting, you do not go back to the bullock cart. The best course of action would be to make the motor car more efficient or environment friendly rather than dumping it completely. So, when we have accepted so many other benefits of science and have already been interfering with nature enough, there should be theoretically no pangs to GMOs, cloning or stem cell research if the same could be used to better human life further without hurting the nature or compromising with the basic values. In fact, our ethics and values should also be living entities always evolving rather than being stuck in a time warp.

It is such feeling or tendency to benefit from ersatz popular revulsion or fear that has given birth to such entities as Taliban in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It is the bounden duty of the societal leaders to inform and educate the unschooled masses about the various facets of collective social life. But, an irresponsible section of our leadership is busy wasting popular energies on such futile issues rather than mobilising and channelling the same into productive causes.

One just hopes that such protestations and remonstrations shall only further the debate typical of a liberal democracy, giving way to a more eclectic culture by way of a healthy discourse and paradigm on such issues. This is actually symptomatic of an India still being mired in history if we are to believe the postulates as averred by Francis Fukuyama in his celebrates thesis namely ‘End of History’.

The minatory Delphic predictions by such prophets of doom as Samuel Huntington forecasting a ‘Clash of Civilisations’ may not eventually happen if one were to see the silver lining in the cloud. After all, as they say, every threat or difficulty is also an opportunity. So, such negative expressions should actually further the democratic discourse including the need to debate the amount of freedom to be granted to the common man. However, one does feel that quite often some of these artistic freedoms of expression go overboard. Often such expressions could be easily tempered by the practical considerations of public morality by attempting a balance between the two and by stopping short of turning liberty into license. As John Stuart Mill would have said, ‘Our freedom to move our hand stops where someone’s nose begins.’

That such freedom and liberties reinforced by fundamental human rights, as also enshrined in our Constitution and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should not be completely unchecked and unrestrained is something we all accept. If at all we decide to restrain them in the enlightened public interest, what should be the reasonable limit or curb on the same? But before we can actually see that happening, we have to ensure that the misplaced arrogance of a few does not lead others to react in a way which not only compromises the basic human rights of the silent majority, but can also be more prejudicial to the gradual maturing of human society. However, this is also important for this silent majority to prevent and pre-empt this loony fringe from being able to set the warp and weft of our cultural agenda.

2008-07-09T12:06:00.000+05:30

Growing Naxalism: Need for a Unified Command
Saumitra Mohan

With the recent arrest of a few Maoists in India’s financial capital by the Maharashtra police, it is more than obvious that this menace is no longer confined to the jungles. The Maoists are increasingly penetrating bigger cities, trying to indoctrinate people and collecting funds for the organisation.
If intelligence reports are to be believed, then the Maoists are already ensconced and entrenched in major cities. It is suspected that that the Maoists may strike bigger cities before long as the same provides good publicity for their intended ‘New Democratic Revolution’. A good cache of sophisticated arms, explosives and detonators have often been recovered following the arrests of many of the suspected Maoists from many of the cities.
According to their new strategy, Maoists plan to target important urban centres in India. They seem to have drawn up detailed guidelines for their urban operations, thereby wishing to mobilise disgruntled elements including urban unemployed in favour of their ultimate ‘cause’ of eventual seizure of state power by way of a so-called people’s war. The naxals reportedly have plans to strike in the industrial belts of Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Calcutta and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad to take their battle into the heart of India.

There may be no immediate threat, but the fact remains that Maoists have been steadily working their plans of building bases and finding a foothold in bigger cities. For the moment, they seem to have confined their activities to propagating their ideology, setting up secret cells for frontal organisations and recruiting people. The Maoists have been trying to spread their movement among trade and labour unions, poor people and students.

The recent Naxal attack on police stations in Orissa’s Nayagarh district is the latest wake-up call for India’s security mandarins. The naxals are said to have looted about 1,100 weapons, including pistols, light machine guns, AK-47s, SLRs and INSAS rifles from the district and police training school armouries in Nayagarh. They struck again on Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border resulting in the death of at least 45 policemen belonging to the elite anti-naxal force, ‘Greyhounds’.

With every passing day, the Maoist guerrillas seem to be tightening their grip on the country, claiming some 500 lives every year. In some areas, the situation is so alarming that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described the menace as a “virus” that threatens the very idea of India. He exhorted the states to pool their resources and crush the leftist rebellion once and for all.

It has been known for long that our police force is definitely not as equipped, trained and motivated as their naxal counterparts who are increasingly growing in strength in every sense of the term. The Maoists today are better organised, better armed, better trained and better motivated to execute their sinister agenda.

Now, the Union home ministry is planning to tackle this problem by helping the states raise 35 India Reserve Battalions (IRB) to crush the Maoist rebellion. The Centre is learnt to have decided to take many other serious steps to curb the menace. There are already four layers of monitoring mechanisms. Since these have proved inadequate, the Union government has decided to have a fifth layer - a task force to be chaired by the Cabinet Secretary to promote coordinated efforts across a range of development and security activities so that the Maoist menace can be tackled comprehensively and effectively.

There are some complex issues which need to be resolved before we can expect a better response to the Maoist menace. Since law and order is a state subject, the Centre can not take direct police action in the wake of an incident unless the situation is deemed to be so alarming as to require its involvement under Article 355 of the Indian Constitution. The article relates to central involvement in extra-ordinary cases of ‘internal disturbances’ making it difficult to run the government there in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.

Even though the Centre has provided 33 battalions (over 33,000 personnel) of paramilitary forces to states for deployment in naxal-affected districts, this has proved to be insufficient given the fact that naxalism today affects almost 40 per cent geographical area of this country in one way or the other. Chhattisgarh, for example, has over 13,000 personnel out of the total deployment of central forces, but it has still reported more than 50 per cent of the total casualties (325 out of 601) in 2007.

Andhra Pradesh has shown the way by creating a specialised force called ‘Grey Hounds’ to fight the Maoists and achieved huge success in minimising casualties since its inception almost two years back. The local police, backed by the armed reserve forces, the Grey Hounds and a well-developed intelligence network, have succeeded in controlling the Maoist menace to a great extent.

With Grey Hounds on their heels, the Maoists have been on the run in Andhra Pradesh, but the forces have not been able to take on the might of the Maoist guerrillas effectively in states like Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal where they are still to find an effective antidote to the Maoist threat.

The Maoists easily slip into another state after attacking civilians and security personnel, knowing full well that they can get away with the same. The rebels seem to be taking advantage of the fact that the states still do not have a ‘unified command’ to fight them. Law and order being a state subject, such a ‘unified command’ is theoretically not possible. But one feels that there is now an urgent need to come out with a better coordinated action and strategy vis-à-vis the Maoists even if that means having a ‘unified command’ by somehow getting over the constitutional snag.

Though the number of casualties in Maoist violence has declined in 2007 (601) as compared to 2006 (678), statistics do not tell the entire story. Incidents like the recent jail-break in Chhattisgarh where rebels attacked a jail and escaped with hundreds of their comrades reveal that the Maoists are only getting bolder. The Nayagarh incident only corroborates this assumption.

It is difficult to say if the new strategy by the Centre will be able to check the growth of Naxals in the countryside and their growing influence in the urban centres. In the past, states have failed to coordinate police operations to tackle such issues. But this time, as the Maoists increase their influence, the states have no choice but to join hands.

2008-05-22T10:08:00.001+05:30

Debating the idea of Federal Police Agency
*Saumitra Mohan

The perceived failure of our police machinery to deal with various cases of law and order satisfactorily has often led to demands for CBI inquiry in those cases. This, inter alia, points to the lack of popular confidence in our police and frequent calls to CBI for causing inquiries in matters as may strictly relate to matters in the state domain. This has not only dented the morale of the provincial police, but has also resulted in the central agency being overly burdened to do justice to its original briefs.

It is in this light that there has been mooted a proposal for a Federal Police Agency (FPA) to deal with such issues in state domain which go beyond the normal law and order or which require more specialised attention and investigation. The same shall also have positive pay-offs for our internal security.

The blame game between the Centre and many state governments as seen recently in the wake of critical law and order failures or terrorist bomb blasts is also supposed to be laid to rest by institution of such an agency. After the recent serial bomb blasts in Uttar Pradesh, while the Centre said that law and order being a state subject, it is the responsibility of the state government to be more vigilant, the state government blamed the centre for having not provided it with adequate intelligence inputs to this effect.

However, the Central Administrative Reforms Committee headed by Veerappa Moily has also recommended such an independent Crime Investigation Agency. The performance of this agency is proposed to be monitored by a ‘high powered collegium’ comprising the Chief Minister, Speaker of the Assembly, Chief Justice of the High Court and Leader of the Opposition.

The committee, inter alia, suggested a State Police Performance and Accountability Commission with the Chief Minister as the head, but also with many members from the civil society to review and evaluate the police performance. The Citizens’ Committee has also recommended specific measures for proper supervision of the police force.

The idea of a Federal Police Agency has been on board for a long time and now the Government of India is also learnt to be toying with such an idea. But before we go about this, there are many issues which need to be discussed and sorted out.

When we go about setting up such an agency, we should see to it that the jurisdictions of the state police and that of agencies like CBI and FPA remain clearly demarcated to avoid any duplication or overlapping of functions and duties, as far as possible. It needs to be ensured that inquiries and investigations as entrusted to these agencies become more automatic and systematic than be reactive entrustments to pre-empt any negative reflection on performance of the local police.

It has been noticed in recent past that the state governments or high courts have entrusted enquiries in high profile cases only after there has been a popular outcry demanding the same. The same was seen in Nandigram and Rizwanur Rahman cases where ongoing state police inquiries were discontinued or nixed in favour of inquiries by the central agency. Such an approach often has dampening impact on police morale.
We should also ensure that even while create such a central agency, we should not ignore and forget that there is no substitute to an efficient and effective police force as that still remains the most primary level where the State-citizens interface usually takes place. Hence, the provincial police needs to be spruced up further rather than marginalising it by whittling down its authority or overshadowing it by creation of parallel authorities.

Ergo, increased attention should continue to be paid to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the state police to restore the popular confidence therein. The state police needs to be made more professional and effective than it has been found to be so far. And to ensure this, the police must be allowed to function more independently and autonomously than it has been able to.

It is realising this that the Dharamvira Commission recommended complete police autonomy long back in the 1970s, but till date no serious thought has been given to this recommendation for the simple reason that it suits the interests of our political class. The cosmetic changes effected in police organisation recently consequent to the Supreme Court judgement have not made any substantive and qualitative difference to their service delivery. Proposal of the FPA also points to the dilettantism which informs the police reforms.

It remains a fact that since law and order is a state subject, frequent calls to CBI also results in erosion of the state authority and, thereby, of our federal structure. Even though our founding fathers never meant India to be a true federation as is obvious in the Constitutional appellation ‘Union of States’, centralisation of powers beyond a point is not advisable notwithstanding the centralising tendencies seen in federal countries across the world.

After all, Nandigram has brought to the fore a sinister side of the reality which needs to be addressed urgently for the better management of law and order situation with serious implications for our internal security. Most importantly, we need to realise that we can allow the institution of police to languish only at the peril of our system.

So, even while we go about creating FPA, it should be ensured that police functions remain unencumbered by interference from any quarters including insidious influence by the politicians and political parties. The police force not only needs to be made more professional, but it also needs be better trained and better motivated to deal with various demands and challenges of policing in an anomic society.

2008-05-22T10:07:00.000+05:30

Strengthening Indo-Bangla Relations
*Saumitra Mohan

Notwithstanding India’s attempts to further improve and consolidate bilateral relations with Bangladesh, the latter continues to indulge in hostile acts which actually compromise India’s territorial security and integrity. The unprovoked firing by Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) from time to time resulting in loss of human and animal lives only confirms this.

Notwithstanding the assertions of India’s Border Security Force (BSF), backed by concrete evidence, Bangladesh is not willing to accept the fact that it is playing host to the militants having inimical designs on India. Bangladesh just does not see any such militant camps being run on its territory. But the fact remains that as many as 172 training camps of different insurgent groups including those from Tripura have been operational in Bangladesh for a very long time.

The BSF has been submitting lists of such camps at annual border meetings with its counterparts namely the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) since the late 1990s only to be rebuffed every time by the latter. However, BDR did assure in 2006 to ‘look into the matter and find out’ but did nothing beyond that.

As per the 1996 accord between the two, both the countries were expected not to allow such bases on their sides of the border, but Bangladesh never kept its word as is obvious from the experience to the contrary. In spite of the initial promise, the present interim government in Bangladesh is no different from its predecessors. It is obvious by now that Dhaka deliberately winks at the disruptive activities of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). The latter is out to destabilise India’s North-East as part of its long-cherished desire to bleed India through thousand cuts, dismembering her eventually.

A TV channel’s footage recently of some rebels belonging to the secessionists National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) undergoing training in Bangladesh should leave Dhaka red-faced. Only recently, a Guwahati-based website quoted NDFB commander Ranjan Daimary welcoming and exhorting trained cadets in Bangladesh telling them about their real task starting with the end of their training.

Known as the Bodo Security Force during the height of the Bodo agitation, NDFB took in present avatar in 1995. It teamed up with six smaller ethnic outfits to form an umbrella organisation called the Self-Defence United Front of the South East Himalaya Region. It has links with ULFA and NSCN (IM). Two years after Bhutan busted the NDFB camps, the outfit signed a truce with the Centre in 2005, but it would appear this was merely a ploy to buy some time to be able to consolidate.

Though the Bodos are now masters of their own destiny, the NDFB does not recognise the Bodo Territorial Council under the Sixth Schedule signed by its rival, the Bodo Liberation Tigers. The Centre can not ignore the NDFB’s potential for mischief and must redefine the truce. In all this, Bangladesh’s friendly gestures can go a long way in India’s efforts at fighting such forces as was done by Bhutan a few years back.

Bangladesh’s cooperation on this count would definitely help in tackling the long festering problem of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The fact remains that today millions of illegal Bangladeshi citizens are residing and working in India and it is well nigh difficult for the latter to identify and deport them all for different practical reasons. That is why, there has been a suggestion of completely opening the borders with Bangladesh as is the case with Nepal and Bhutan.

This one measure would not only help in effective monitoring of the inter-border movements of citizens by means of valid work permits for citizens on both sides, but shall also go a long way in improving the bilateral trade between the two countries which is heavily skewed in favour of India presently for the obvious reasons.

And if functionalist theory of international relations is to be believed, then such a bold decision would also pave the way for better political relations owing to the positive spin-offs of the better and improved economic ties. After all, it is a well-known fact that better economic ties have always shown potential to spill over into domain of politics as has shown the experience of the European Community. The same may also help the cause of economic development of India’s North-East.

Though, sceptics may points out that such an act would have its own adverse implications including endangering India’s security and integrity by way of changing the democratic profile of the bordering Indian states. It is believed that India’s stronger pull factor would actually make this inter-border movement one-way, with Bangladeshi citizens encroaching on India’s economic resources including developmental benefits of the Indian citizens.

It may actually make the situation very tense than easing it as is being touted. The bird flue outbreak in West Bengal is also attributed to ineffective border surveillance between the two countries and it is believed that had it been completely open, bird flue situation would have been much more dangerous than has been the case so far.

Doubting Thomases notwithstanding, Indo-Bangla trade ties have only been growing for the better. The very fact that the recently launched bus and train services between the two countries have been taken very well by the two countries and have been functioning very well than the one with Pakistan.

One just hopes that better sense would prevail upon Bangladesh and she would see reason and benefits that better ties with India may fetch her. In fact, the same would have positive implications for the wider regional cooperation as well, making SAARC realise the objectives that have so far eluded the over two decade old organisation.

2008-05-22T10:06:00.001+05:30

A New Gorkhaland State: How Justified is the Demand?
Saumitra Mohan

The famed and famous honeymoon haunt of Darjeeling is again in the news, this time for a wrong reason. The Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) almost barred the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police from entering Darjeeling recently thereby forcing both the DM and SP to cool their heels in Siliguri for almost five days before they were finally allowed in. GJMM’s decision followed skirmishes between the police and its supporters in Siliguri where the latter were demonstrating to press their demand for a new Gorkhaland state.

During the said skirmish, many policemen and GJMM supporters including ex-servicemen were badly injured. The government wisely decided against advising DM and SP to force their way into the district so as not to precipitate things further. The wisdom somewhere also emanated from the way things turned out in recent past in such far flung places as Singur, Nandigram, Cochbehar and Dinhata in West Bengal.

However, GJMM’s decision to bar DM and SP from entering the district has been roundly denounced by all and sundry. One of their key allies in the ongoing movement, CPI (ML) has castigated the GJMM’s barring of DM and SP out of the district. Referring to GJMM’s recent ban on the entry of DM and SP to Darjeeling, Mr. Kanu Sanyal, the General Secretary of CPI (ML) said, ‘This is an entirely irresponsible act’, further adding that such irresponsible moves can actually spoil the statehood movement.

GJMM as a political organisation rose to prominence since its success with an agitation launched in the wake of a Radio Jockey’s indiscretion against Prashant Tamang, the Indian Idol winner. Since then, it has been trying hard to find some issues for its political survival. Another shot in its arm was the dissolution of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) following its successful movement for the same, forcing the redoubtable Subhash Ghishing to step down as head of the Council.

Encouraged by these successes, GJMM led by Bimal Gurung has decided to keep its flock mobilised on one cause or the other to press the Government into accepting its demand for a separate Gorkhaland state. Bimal Gurung, a trusted confidant of Subhash Ghishing at one time fell out with him when the latter demanded and almost succeeded in getting the Sixth Schedule status for Darjeeling.

Bimal Gurung, reading the mood of the people correctly, not only led a successful coup against Ghishing thereby getting the leadership mantle for Darjeeling, but also decided to rake up the long pigeon-holed issue of a separate Gorkhaland state instead of settling just for the Sixth Schedule status for Darjeeling, something which was strongly advocated by Ghishing. In its bid to do so, GJMM has found support from such other disparate outfits as Kamtapur People’s Party (KPP) and Greater Cochbehar Democratic Party (GCDP). They together have found a convenient ground to hog media attention for their long-forgotten causes, more so in an election year. Be it noted that West Bengal is supposed to have its panchayat election in the month of May to be followed by parliamentary election very soon.

But many feel that the present bonhomie among GJMM, KPP and GCDP is not likely to last long because of their conflicting interests. After all, the proposed Gorkhaland, Kamtapur and Greater Cochbehar states for which these parties have been agitating have overlapping areas and in case of the last two, almost the same area. So, the friends today may turn foes tomorrow and may not share the same platform in future as things stand on date unless they agree to redefine and restructure their respective movements.

The electoral factors coupled with incidents in Nandigram, Singur and Cochbehar over the last one year have restrained the government to go for the ‘Big Bang’ approach while tackling the instant Darjeeling crisis. Because of the turbulence and disturbances seen in the last few days owing to the ongoing GJMM agitation in Darjeeling, the developmental work in the DGHC area has been negatively affected, resulting in great loss to the local people for whom the said movement has been launched. The experiment of DGHC would have been better able to provide all that the local people wanted, but if it failed the reasons therefor can be attributed simply to those who had been at the helm of its affairs all these past years.

The fact that Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha has raised a new demand by asking for inclusion of Siliguri and Dooars in the proposed Gorkhaland state has also raised many hackles. Referring to this demand of GJMM, Mr. Kanu Sanyal said that ‘a demand must be based on logic and not merely on emotions’. The CPI (ML), hence supports the inclusion of only adjacent and contiguous areas in the proposed Gorkhaland state. Many believe that such a demand is meant to create a divide between the hills and the plains on ethnic lines which is a dangerous trend. Many observers believe that the demand for a separate Gorkhaland state comprising the three sub-divisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong may have some justification, but that of inclusion of Dooars and Siliguri is not supported by history.

The fact remains that Darjeeling Hills did not have notable Nepalese population until 1865. The Lepchas, a distinct ethnic tribe, dominated the hills in terms of population. In 1865, when the tea estates came into being, ethnic Nepalese began pouring in in large numbers from Nepal in search of jobs in the upcoming tea estates. The number further grew with the introduction of Darjeeling Himalayan Railways in 1880. As far as Siliguri and Dooars are concerned, ethnic Nepalese were negligible in numbers until 1950 when Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty was signed between the two countries. Even now the ethnic Nepali population is not more than 60,000 in Siliguri out of the total estimated population of 70 million.

One does not know as to how much merit is there in such demands for statehood from different quarters, but one thing can be definitely said that there does exist a case for a second State Reorganisation Commission. Instead of a populist and political approach to such demands for statehood, it is advisable that the entire issue of state reorganisation be considered afresh on such grounds as to ensure a holistic economic development and a compact, self-contained geographical entity. The merit of such demands for statehood as Telangana, Vidharbha, Mithilanchal, Purvanchal, Harit Prades, Gorkhaland and Kamtapur should all be considered on objective criteria rather than being subject to such demands pressed through the media of militant movements.

Also, the experiments in our own country with regards to formation of such new states tell a mixed story. While many big states are quite better governed, there are many small ones who continue to languish despite becoming a separate state. One believes that the issue here definitely is not the formation of a separate state, often the desire of the local elite than being rooted in popular demand. What should be important is the fact as to how well the state is administered and how viable can such a new entity be, economically and geographically. In West Bengal, the successful panchayat system did guarrantee the popular participation in the process of governance, still DGHC was created. But as DGHC remained a one-man show devoid of any real popular participation, the experiment naturally failed. So, one has to really tread very cautiously before even toying with the idea of a separate state.

2008-05-22T10:05:00.000+05:30

Caste-based Reservation: Reflection of Systemic Maladies
*Saumitra Mohan

The Frankenstein’s monster of caste-based reservation in government and non-government jobs and academic institutions keeps rising from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix. The issue which needs discussion and reflection is that as to whether we really need such a thing called reservation. Caste-based reservation should have been discontinued within ten years of the proclamation of the Indian Constitution. But if we still have to contend with the reservation demon, the reason lies in our failure to ensure an equitable and egalitarian process of value allocations thereby necessitating the continued existence of the caste-based system.
The truth is that something as obnoxious as caste-based reservation should not have been there at all in the first instance, but as they say a la Aristotle and many others that ‘equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally’. And in a society wracked by myriad societal divisions including those of caste some remedial measures were required for sure to restore the societal balance before each citizen is able to have an equal opportunity for one’s personal growth.
After all, you can not expect those discriminated against for thousands of years to be treated equally with those sections of the society who have dominated the societal pecking order for aeons. If some of us proffer the argument of merit and competence and say that all the sections of the society should be treated equally, the same emanates from the prejudices inherited by us as member of an ossified social hierarchy to which we belong. We may not even be aware of such prejudices, but still we pronounce and advance them convincingly simply because they suit our own vested interests. After all, there is a world of difference between the societal stratum at the top and bottom of the society in terms of competence, social confidence, cultural capital, social surroundings, appreciation of varied societal realities and opportunities, understanding of their own self interests, and even genetic make-up.
So, reservation in the garb of ‘affirmative discrimination’ was needed in the first instance is something beyond doubt, if at all, to facilitate and prepare a level playing field to all sections of the society. But then, its continued existence can be explained only in terms of competitive and populist politics coupled with an innate inability of our political parties to find better issues for mass mobilisation. Had we succeeded in providing the weaker and marginalised sections of our society with all the bare minimum necessities of human existence, the same people would have revolted against such a system or, at least, the issue of reservation would have ceased to matter in Indian politics.
But the fact remains that even today we have not been able to provide the quality education and health services to all, particularly those on the margins of the society. It has created a status gulf in terms of competence and abilities between the privileged and not-so-privileged sections of the Indian society. The weaker section of the society is naturally disadvantaged vis-a-vis the socially dominant not only because of a long historical discrimination, but also because of the systemic biases and prejudices heaped against them. Since we could not ensure quality education and health services to them all these sixty years of our independence whereby they could have competed on equal footing with the historically privileged sections of the society, hence the reservation genie keeps popping out of the bottle.
We know it very well that in a democracy it is the numbers which count. When the weak and underprivileged in an underdeveloped democratic society are left to fend for themselves, they quite naturally fall back on the strength of their numbers. The social demography then starts dictating politics and numbers start doubling up as a resource to be capitalised on for the purpose of improving one’s societal status. That is what has been happening in India for quite some time, seeing the rise of many caste-based political parties and interest groups.
If we take a look at the turn of recent political developments, we would find that political parties have become more specialised, representing more or less their caste constituents and the latter also somehow gives credence to such parties in the hope of getting a better deal. So, democratic expression and representation have taken a grotesque turn in Indian society in the form of caste-based reservation and politics. That is why, India being a plural society of different societal groups is today governed by a coalition government whose constituents are invariably the representatives of different societal groups. Such groups have been feeding and fattening on identity politics which has been on ascendance in recent times.
These are all the signs of a backward and retrograde society. But such parochial thinking shall continue to dominate our political culture until and unless we succeed in promising and ensuring a real level playing field for all sections of the society. Investment in one’s human resources is the first condition for the healthy growth of any society. Recognising this fact, John Stuart Mill had remarked long back, ‘You cannot think of becoming a great country with small men with small capacities, small thinking and dubious character.’
Caste-based reservation, however, also has had a functional role in our social system, negative though it may appear prima facie. Be it noted that many of India’s time twins in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean have fallen by the wayside in their developmental march. But if India has been growing from strength to strength, the reason somewhere also lies in the way India has tried to balance the different societal forces through a consociational system whereby societal values have been judiciously allocated amongst different sections and strata of the Indian society. So, while many of these societies saw bloody revolution resulting either in their break-up or their getting reduced to the status of ‘a failed society’, India has been experiencing a ‘passive revolution’ where positive changes have come gradually, through different pulls and pressures, almost to the satisfaction of all.
The recent Supreme Court judgement to exclude the creamy layer from the benefits of reservation should be welcomed, but the exclusion should also be extended to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, because what is sauce for the goose ought to be the sauce for the gander. The argument which applies to OBCs for exclusion of its creamy layer from the reservation benefits also applies mutatis mutandis to the creamy layer from SCs/STs. However, the concept and criteria of the creamy layer itself suffers from many anomalies and it is advisable to revise and rationalise the same realistically and judiciously.
The Supreme Court observation that graduates be excluded from the reservation benefits does not hold valid given the way graduates in this country are churned out. One would again say that the quality of our education system leaves much to be desired. Recruitment of teachers at the lower and higher levels of our education system is still subject to lots of pulls and pressures, not to speak of the rampant politics which informs our education system. The politicised academic atmosphere often results in the quality of education being severely compromised. Various kinds of interference, pulls and pressures and literally insidious politics have led our education system where we find it today, though there are many exceptions as well. But exceptions are after all exceptions and it is in these exceptional institutions that we need to find out the way to salvation for our pedagogical administration.
Even though caste-based reservation is an anachronism today, but it is part of our social reality and is likely to continue till we can actually claim to have guarranteed the underprivileged and marginalised sections of our society the bare minimum of civic facilities and necessities including quality education and health services. A system of equal opportunities coupled with a reasonably egalitarian and equitable society is what is required before we can hope to hammer the last nail in the coffin of the politics of caste-based reservation.

2008-05-22T10:04:00.000+05:30

The Great Indian Growth Story: Recession in the US might not affect us
*Saumitra Mohan

The recent sub-prime crisis in the United States stemming from the problem of failing home loans and municipal bonds has cast a grim shadow on the economic growth around the world. Stock markets all over the world have taken a beating, following foreign institutional investors’ (FIIs) selling spree due to fear of slowing growth rates. With stock markets nose-diving, hydro-carbon prices sky rocketing and prices of basic commodities including that of food going northward, the fear of an economic recession in the global economy is looming large. Even though it is threatening only the United States for the moment, it is really a moot point today as to what does a country like India need to do if the crisis really deepens further as the same has serious implications for the domestic economy, which so far seems to be doing reasonably well.

As we know very well by now, the global economy is prone to go through cyclical boom and bust. Hence, there is nothing extra-ordinary about the impending recession or stagflation threat. However, the global economic situation is not the same today as was during the 1930s forcing the Roosevelt Administration to come with the famous ‘New Deal’ proposals. These proposals were predicated on Keynesian prescriptions of increasing public expenditures to cope with the raging recession in the US economy. The situation is also quite different from the crisis of 1971 when the fixed exchange rate system collapsed, precipitating the ushering of the extant system (a judicious mix of both fixed and floating exchange rates).

Before we really get down to the brass-tacks, trying to manage recession and its implications, one has to appreciate that the situation is definitely not the same today as it has earlier been. With the deepening and thickening of the process of globalisation, the inter-dependence among the countries of the world has become more complex. The gradual shift of economic balance of power has changed the global realities.

There was a time when the US or the Europe would lead the world economy by their sheer weight and the latter was greatly affected by the negative or positive vibes emanating from either of the two. The global dependence on these blocks through cascading trading ties made it impossible for the world to avoid any development in those countries.

This monopoly situation also made these leading economies quite imperious vis-a-vis the developing/underdeveloped countries often forcing the latter to toe their lines. But the processes of globalisation and liberalisation have afforded a semblance of independence for some of the weaker economies. The emerging complex interdependence of economies has facilitated a diversification of trading ties to the advantage of some of the developing countries. These developing countries, today, have been bandwagoning with each other to better secure their economic interests vis-a-vis the developed world.

That is why the threat of recession to such countries including India and China is not as real as it is made to appear. They are reasonably insulated from the ill effects of the US recession for the simple reason that they are not as overly dependent upon the US as some of the countries are. It is the latter countries, who have skewed economic ties with the United States, are feeling the pinch more. So, countries like Japan or South Korea or some countries in Europe which have deeper economic ties with the United States and don’t have diversified trade profile, should really have genuine reasons to worry. The US recession can really dampen the pace of growth in these countries by way of reduced exports and inflow of foreign exchange.

The countries like India and China should not get panicky as their trading ties are much more diversified. Both these countries, accounting for almost half the world population, have only a small portion of their trade linked to the United States. Of their total exports, not more than 20 per cent go to the United States. Besides, these two countries’ growth has been more or less dependent on a sound foundation of strong domestic consumer market. The middle class in these countries has been growing handsomely to provide a broad-based consumer base with substantive purchasing power capacity. It is the consumption behaviour of this growing middle class that has become the latest target of the United States for the snowballing food crisis in the world.

If these two countries have managed to survive the negative impact of the US recession, the reason lies in the fact that the high economic growth rate of both these countries are propped by a strong domestic consumer base. So, while you had the US or the Europe leading and influencing the world economic growth at one time or even now, the situation may be different very soon with these two countries leading the global growth by the sheer weight of the size of their economies. By being less dependent on the US, now reeling under a mild recession, these economies are better insulated and secure than any other country.

This fact is well realised by everyone else and that is why when the US has been experiencing a recession, countries like India and China have been trusted with more and more investment in the form of increasing FDI, FII, NRI remittances and deposits thereby increasing demand for the Indian rupees. This has resulted in building an upward pressure on the rupee, making it further dearer after appreciation of its exchange rate vis-a-vis dollar and other leading currencies.

The US economy is experiencing recession also because of its inability to cut the production costs. The developing countries with their cheap labour and skilled manpower provide better investment options to industries thereby motivating many of them to relocate and outsource their operations. This has not only resulted in reduced employment opportunities for the Americans, but has also reduced their purchasing power, thereby affecting demand and inducing recession. The fact also remains that so far Americans have been living off borrowed money (parked in the form of US treasury bonds by the developing countries including India and China), made available to them at increasingly cheaper interest rates thereby creating an unsustainable bubble which seems to be bursting now in the wake of the raging sub-prime crisis there.

So arguably, these two countries should have less reason to worry about the US recession as their growth is self-induced than dependent completely on exports. However, such a recession should definitely be seized as an opportunity to further strengthen and streamline their macro-economic financial structure and thereby put their own house in order.

So, at a time when the US Fed has been trying to prime pump its economy by way of reducing the interest rates substantively, countries like India need to be more careful where its central bank has been following a ‘dear money’ policy for quite some time in its bid to contain the ‘inflation demon’. But as we know that it was Keynesian economics of welfarism which saw the US economy out of recession in the thirties meaning thereby that we need to spur public expenditure more than contain it. That is why, a moderate inflation is always said to be healthy for any economy as that is the sign of a growing economy backed by a growing demand.

If inflation has been rising in this country, the reasons for the same have to be found and fixed. If the huge demand for cement and steel for infrastructure strengthening in China for the upcoming Olympic is a reason for growing prices of these commodities, then we need to make policy and administrative interventions to contain their prices including increasing the production. However, applying brakes on cement and steel exports is definitely not advisable. If rising oil prices has had an impact on our economy and inflation, then also we need to find ways to tackle the problem at appropriate level. But raising interest rates and cash reserve ratio (CRR) is definitely not a right approach. Such moves will not only have a dampening impact on the entrepreneurship, but will also discourage investment and further growth. The same would not only result in blocking huge amount of idle money from being utilised for productive purposes, but would also increase the state debt by enhancing the financial burden for servicing those savings by higher interest rates.

This would also make government’s own borrowing dearer thereby further straining the resources available for public expenditure. It would also negatively affect the fiscal situation by bloating our fiscal deficits. Inflation has been rising also because of the growing food prices. It is felt that the tendency to siphon out fertile land for industries or for bio-fuels or decreasing investment in agriculture has led to reduced productivity and production thereby directly fuelling the inflation. One feels that there is an urgent need for a second ‘Green Revolution’ and more public investment in agriculture. One just hopes that the recently launched National Agricultural Development Scheme shall be able to address this problem better.

Last but not the least, the very fact that inflation has not yet resulted in wide scale public discontent and outrage and still continues to be a debating issue confined only to the political class is because of the fact that rising prices have been accompanied with increasing purchasing power capacity of the public. With more demand chasing fewer supplies, it is at the level of supplies that we need to intervene. The government needs to ensure that more investment, both private and public, are suitably made to further produce the basic goods and products for availability to the common public at an affordable price and that itself would take care of the inflation problem. More broad-based investment would not only result in more demand creation, but would also put in place adequate supplies to cater to those demand, thereby spurring economic growth further. Such a step would also keep the dreaded recession at bay.

2008-02-16T07:01:00.002+05:30

Strengthening the Right to Information
Saumitra Mohan

It has been more than two years since the Right to Information Act (RTI) came into force in October 2005. Immediately after its enforcement, a concern was expressed in certain quarters about adequate efforts not being made by all those concerned to implement the Act in its true spirit. It was felt that vested interests were making an all out effort to sabotage the Act.

Lot of hue and cry was heard when there was an attempt from within the government to water down certain portions of the Act by excluding the details of information contained in an official note sheet on the pretext of administrative necessity and for securing the officials against victimisation.

But in this all, people failed to realise that the Act was in its infancy and would take its time before it starts working to its potential. And it was not very late before people actually started realising the import and power of the right emanating from this particular Act. Now they seem intent on using the right enshrined in the Act for anything and everything pertaining to their civil right in democratic India.

While there were very few petitions seeking information under RTI to begin with, today there seems to be a deluge of such requests in almost all government departments and agencies. It has not only resulted in increased confidence among the general public about the utility of RTI in ferreting out information from the government on a subject of their interest, the same has also made the different government departments more transparent and responsible than they had ever been, something which was the real purport of this Act.

The many path-breaking decisions and judgements consequent to sundry appeals for information under RTI by the Central Information Commission and various State Information Commissions, the veil of secrecy hanging over the official records has slowly been lifting, resulting in substantive dilution of the draconian Official Secrets Act, 1923 which had been the last resort of a reluctant bureaucrat for denying even innocuous information to the members of common public on one or the other pretext including the one pertaining to state’s security and integrity and the larger public interest.

Now, several landmark decisions and judgements of the Central and State Information Commissions later, it is reinterpretation of the same ‘larger public interest’, which is being proffered as a ground on which various wings of central and state governments should be sharing the information with the common public of this country. Even though today the right to seek information under RTI has come into its own and has become a powerful tool for exercising one’s democratic rights, one feels that still a lot needs to be done to further strengthen and reinforce this right before it can really become a genuine weapon of popular control exercising benign influence over the different government bodies.

Even though the number of petitions requesting information under RTI has gone up by leaps and bounds, this number could be much more substantial than it is presently. Still, there is a lot which needs to be done to generate awareness among the people about their powers under RTI, though various adverse judgements of information commissions resulting in imposition of pecuniary and disciplinary action against many government servants are also creating enough awareness by way of demonstration effect.

Many government departments and bodies including judiciary have made it costlier for the hoi polloi to seek and access information. The price to seek and obtain information has been made prohibitive by many agencies defeating the very intents and purposes wherefor RTI was conceived. Since it has been left to various state governments and autonomous governments bodies to frame such rules relating to the various charges for information sharing, they have found an excuse in the same by way of making the same ridiculously high.

While these prohibitive costs to seek information do discourage non-serious information seekers, they also repel the many genuine ones who are not well-off enough to be able to foot the bill for the purpose. However, there are specific provisions in the Act about the inadvisability of charging anything from people below the poverty line. But one has to understand that there are many millions others in the country who, even though above the poverty line, are no better. These people are, at least, definitely not so better as to be able to spend a princely sum for seeking and obtaining information under RTI.

Then, there is a practical problem which has come to the fore after the requests seeking information started to flow in thick and fast. The problem relates to the shortage of staff and officers for attending such requests. It is because of this that there has been an overload of pending requests with different information commissions and government bodies.

Since there has been many landmark judgements by now wherein specific pecuniary penalties have been imposed upon many government servants for deemed deliberate failure to provide information in time and since such penalties have to footed from one’s own pockets, government staff and officers are found to be on toes now to attend to such requests and provide the requested information within the statutory 30 days’ period as per the Act.

Today, when many government departments and bodies are already reeling under the shortage of staff and officers in these times of downsizing and rationalizing of the size of the government employees, the normal functioning of these departments and bodies are severely getting hampered. As non-compliance under the Act results in personal financial loss including the fear of departmental proceedings, a government staff or officer is more than keen to attend to RTI requests before anything else.

Some of these problems have arisen also because of the fact that many government departments and bodies have still not put the requisite in-house information into the public domain as they are supposed to do under RTI. This also results in delay or outright refusal in furnishing of the desired information to the petitioners. When a request to furnish information on National Policy and Action Plan on computerization of judiciary under RTI was sent to the PIO (Public Information Officer) in the Ministry of Law and Justice, the response was “the details of implementation of the plan are still being worked out. That being so, it is not possible to give any information in the matter at this stage.”

Not only this, many government departments and bodies have still not notified the Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO), Public Information Officer (PIO) and the Appellate Authority (AA) as warranted by the Act. This has resulted in many such RTI petitions being shuffled around among various government departments and officers on the pretext that one has not been notified as APIO, PIO or AA to be able to entertain such a petition or that the desired information is not readily available in sharable form frustrating the purpose of the Act further.

There is no denying that in order to exercise the freedom of speech and expression effectively, you need an informed public opinion and it is here that the right to information comes into play. The right to information, thus, flows out of freedom of speech and expression. The Right to Information Act, 2005 is not the repository of the right to information. Its repository is the constitutional right to free speech and expression. The Right to Information Act is merely an instrument that lays down the statutory procedure in the exercise of this right. It is, therefore, necessary that all exceptions and denials of the right to information must necessarily conform to the restrictions that bear a nexus to those mentioned in Article 19 (2) and to none others.

So, there is an urgent need to do some further soul-searching as far as implementation of the Act is concerned. All the government departments and bodies should not only put all the permissible information pertaining to their establishments in readily sharable form, they should also immediately notify and properly publicise the APIO, PIO and AA for accessing information relating their offices. Also, it is advisable that such notified authorities should remain in the same office for ensuring better efficiency and accountability.

In fact, it is proposed that as far as possible, a self-contained office should have APIO, PIO and AA in the same premises. It makes the system more efficient and also makes it easier for the common public. For example, if the District Magistrate starts entertaining all RTI petitions pertaining to every office under his/her control and supervision, then he/she would be left with no time to attend to his/her normal work.

So, it is advisable that various authorities to be notified remain within the same premises. Moreover, the central and state governments should make further clarifications to ensure that the cost of seeking and obtaining information under RTI does in no case become prohibitive. Also, the entire process of moving an RTI application has to be further simplified. The phone-in system, as instituted in Bihar, should now be extended to rest of the country. This avoids a common citizens several trips to the government office. E-governance should be utilised to the maximum for the purposes of RTI.

Moreover, there shall also be a need for dedicated staff and officers to attend to RTI requests and also to pre-empt the hampering of the normal functioning of the office by engaging regular staff and officers. There is also a need for grant of specific financial grant to a government office for meeting various expenses required to be incurred for provisioning of information (e.g. xeroxing et al) and for further strengthening and reinforcing the service delivery system under RTI for being able to serve the people better.

If we are able to modify and further refine the Act, one is sure that the powers granted to a common citizen here shall go a long way in strengthening and reinforcing our democratic foundations.
*Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer presently working as an Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly in West Bengal.
(The views expressed here are author’s personal views and do not reflect those of the Government.)
Address for correspondence:
Saumitra Mohan, IAS, Additional District Magistrate, Office of the District Magistrate, Hooghly-712101.
E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com.
Phone: 033-26806456/26802043(O)/26802041(R).
Fax: 033-26802043.
Mobile: 91-9831388803/9434242283.

2008-02-16T07:00:00.000+05:30

Bird Flue: Posing Threat to Economic Security
*Saumitra Mohan

It is the world of complex interdependence among members of the Comity of Nations. Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane told that much earlier. But still when the bird flue spectre was raging in our neighbourhood, we were busy basking in our 9 per cent plus economic growth rate as symbolised by a booming stock market. But it was not long before the monstrous H5N1 virus travelled the distance from South East Asia and Bangladesh to our shores.

What appeared to be a stray and sporadic incident with the bird flue reports from Maharashtra and Manipur in February 2006 and July 2007 respectively has become a grim reality today with West Bengal in the thick of a raging bird flue crisis. The dreaded pestilence is said to have affected different isolated pockets scattered over the fourteen districts of West Bengal.

And, now it seems to have spread its tentacles to other countries of South Asia as well as confirmed cases of bird flue have been reported from Nepal and Pakistan, not to speak of Bangladesh where the disease has been raging for the past one year.

All this has been giving sleepless nights to the governments in these countries as if allowed to spin out of control, this lone disease may take the shine out of a flourishing Asia and may have a very debilitating effect for the entire regional economy. Not only this, it can also deprive millions of people of India and the sub-continent of their livelihood.
Even though such a bird flue of epidemic proportion was first reported from the South-East Asian countries, we remained oblivious to the threat in the belief that our poultry upkeep standards were much higher. But one should realise that these viruses are air-borne and do not recognise geographical barriers.

And now if the dreaded H5N1 viruses have struck our shores resulting in the state of West Bengal reeling under the spectre of bird flue, the usual and sure suspects are the infected migratory and poultry birds from South East Asian countries and Bangladesh. The porous land and coastal borders make the task of border surveillance extremely difficult.

Bird flue outbreak in West Bengal has more to do with the unfamiliarity with a disease of such nature including lack of prior training, resistance from the local people whose birds are supposed to be culled, inclement weather conditions, and failure to effectively seal the international borders with Bangladesh which has more to do with the difficult terrain and geography than any administrative failure.

The bird flue has serious implications for the economy as a whole as it sends negative signals to the outside world about the poor hygiene and sanitation standards obtaining here, with negative portents for our food processing industry. The same could not only take away the livelihood of millions of people in this country, but can also hurt our larger economy in one way or the other.

The epidemic has definitely left certain lessons for us all. There is definitely a stronger case for prior preparations, building better surveillance infrastructure including testing laboratories, easy availability of more sophisticated equipment and bird flue kits, better training and capacity building to tackle such a pestilence. In this instant case, training on the different nuances of tackling the bird flue for the rapid response teams has been organised instantly after the disease has been reported.

Effective border sealing and checking the inter-regional movement of birds from inside and outside the infected zone need to be ensured for better control of the contagion. Last but not the least, the media management has to be more effective as things have often been blown out of proportion. The very fact that reports of bird flue outbreak has resulted in people completely stopping buying and consuming poultry products has also affected the poultry industry despite the fact that well boiled and cooked poultry, even though infected, does not carry any threat for the consumers.

The reaction abroad to the news of bird flue outbreak in West Bengal has, however, been overboard and completely unwarranted. If media reports are to be believed, many countries have prohibited poultry imports from as far flung states as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the states which, by no stretch of imagination, are affected by this spectre. One should realise that India is not a small country, but is a sub-continental entity and as such, bird flue outbreak in one state is not likely to affect the other states. Though precaution is in order, the same should not verge on unwarranted overreaction.

For the moment, the pestilence is well under control. The government has to ensure that the aftermath of the outbreak is well tackled so that the poultry industry comes back to the normal. Media again has an important role to play here. Also, better standards of hygiene and sanitation have to be ensured through better training and awareness among the operators and personnel engaged in the poultry business to prevent any future outbreak of the disease, including its spread to other states for better securing our economic interests. *Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer presently working as an Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly in West Bengal.
(The views expressed here are author’s personal views and do not reflect those of the Government.)
Address for correspondence:
Saumitra Mohan, IAS, Additional District Magistrate, Office of the District Magistrate, Hooghly-712101.
E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com.
Phone: 033-26806456/26802043(O)/26802041(R).
Fax: 033-26802043.
Mobile: 91-9831388803/9434242283

2008-02-16T06:59:00.000+05:30

Securing Our Jails: The Context of Naxal Threat
Saumitra Mohan
Even while the country grapples with the growing law and order problems throughout the country in one form or the other, the naxals have been systematically ratcheting up their fight against a so-called bourgeois Indian state. They have found newer ways to organise themselves and make their presence felt. Today, they are not only better motivated and better organised, but are also better trained and better equipped, vis-à-vis a not-so-well motivated, trained and equipped police force.
The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has termed the Naxalite insurgency as the greatest single threat to country’s internal security. The Central government is already busy coordinating with the affected state governments to work out a synergized policy to deal with the naxal menace including formation of a specialized anti-naxal force. But the naxals seem intent on upping the ante and taking the fight to newer levels as it appears from their recent drive for freeing their comrades lodged in different jails of the country.
There have been a string of incidents in recent times wherein the naxalites have attacked the jails in different parts of the country and have succeeded in freeing a good number of hard-nosed criminals (read Maoists) booked for waging war against the Indian state. What initially appeared to be a one-off incident/accident seems to be becoming a regular feature and definitely reflects very poorly on our prison security system.
While earlier jail breaks used to be examples of dare-devilry by individual prisoners, Maoists seem to be making it a habit and that also in a very well-planned and coordinated manner, pointing at serious lapses in our policing and prison system. This is obvious from some of the most daring instances of jail breaks.
In the celebrated Jehanabad jail break in November, 2005, about 1,000 strong, well-armed naxalites not only successfully managed to set free 341 prisoners lodged in that jail, but also succeeded in killing several Ranvir Sena men and cops.
Again, about 200 armed naxalites raided a jail in Gajapati town in Orissa in March, 2006 and succeeded in freeing more than 40 prisoners after an extended encounter which lasted for over two hours and resulted in killing and injuring of some policemen.
In March, 2007, there was another jail break in Nizamabad in Andhra Pradesh in which 72 undertrial prisoners including naxalites escaped the district jail complex.
India’s battle against Maoist guerillas suffered an embarrassing setback in December, 2007 when almost 300 insurgents and their supporters were freed by naxalites during a mass jailbreak in the state of Chhattisgarh. The Maoists had overpowered the jail guards and personnel at the Dantewada jail, 375km from Raipur before they succeeded in their motive.
Most recently, hundreds of agitating Maoist inmates took control of the inner wing of Patna's high-security Beur jail in December last year, protesting against alleged ill-treatment by jail authorities. It all started when Maoist inmates attacked police personnel on duty inside the jail, forcing them to flee. The inmates freed two top Maoist leaders, including Ajay Kanu, by breaking open the iron door of the cell where they were lodged.

Official sources said over 300 Maoists were lodged in Beur jail. The Maoist inmates found support from hundreds of other inmates. According to jail officials, there are about 2,400 inmates in Beur jail, almost more than double the capacity of the prison. Maoist inmates accused jail officials of failing to provide prompt medical help to their comrades and also began a hunger strike inside the jail to protest against the lack of basic facilities.

That even the most high-profile and heavily guarded Tihar jail has not been immune to this affliction was pointed out by the celebrated jail break involving ‘Shamsher Singh Rana’ under custody for the murder of the then parliamentarian and ex-bandit Phoolan Devi.

Besides, these jail breaks, there have been various reports of recovery of huge cache of cash, arms, mobile phones and other such items as are strictly barred by the jail manuals and if still such things are found in possession of the inmates, the same do point not only to lax security inside the jail, but also connivance and collusion of jail staff and officials.

All these together do point to the ills afflicting our prison system and thereby also drives home the point for taking necessary initiatives and measures for improving not only the security inside our jails, but the need for better training and infrastructure for our prison personnel to be better able to tackle such threats from any quarters including naxalites.

Of the various security measures for preventing such jail breaks include the installation of a bio-metric system of access control as recommended for installation in all the nine prisons of the Tihar jail complex by S K Cain Committee formed in the wake of Shamsher Singh Rana’s famous escape from Tihar. In this system, the fingerprints of all the prisoners and the jail staff have been saved into a database. The entry and exit from the complex will be permitted only if the fingerprints are matched. This system should be installed in all the jails across the country without any exception.

Besides, simple security measures like installation of close circuit cameras, metal detectors and automatic security lock system should also be thought of for better security of our jails and for further pre-empting such daring jail breaks as seen during recent times. Manpower shortage has been another bane of our prison system which needs to be beefed up for better prison management and security.

The prison system is one of the important pillars of our law enforcement architecture and as such deserves more attention that what it has done so far. There is need not only to rethink the security parameters in our jails, but also to introduce the newer and modern methodologies of prison management. If we are really serious about improvement of our law and order and justice system, then we really need to think about it all very seriously before we can think of some really positive outcomes.

2008-02-16T06:58:00.001+05:30

Rehabilitating the Child Labour
*Saumitra Mohan

It is believed that there are more children under the age of fourteen years in India than the entire population of the United States. Children under fourteen constitute around 3.6 per cent of the total labour force in India. Of these, nine out of every ten work for their own family enterprises in the countryside. Nearly 85 per cent are supposed to be engaged in traditional agricultural activities. Less than 9 per cent work in manufacturing, services and repair workshops. Only about 0.8 per cent work in factories.

Child labour is usually a natural consequence of a poor country afflicted by the sundry problems of underdevelopment. Government of India in cooperation with other state governments has been trying very hard for the eradication of child labour. National Child Labour Project (NCLP) is one of the important government interventions towards the realisation of this goal. Needless to say, the project has made significant difference in this regard.

Thousands of child labourers have been rescued and rehabilitated through the special schools run under the Project. These special schools run specially designed bridge courses so that these children can be suitably mainstreamed through consequent admission to formal schools. These children not only learn the three ‘Rs’ in the special schools, but also get some vocational training in the area of their choice. The children receive a monthly stipend of Rs. 100 per month apart from getting regular nutritional and medical support.

Run by NGOs or local self government bodies, these schools have been doing reasonably well towards realisation of the Project objectives. Hundreds of thousands of children have been mainstreamed, but still there remains a lot which needs to be done to extirpate the malaise of child labour from our society for good.

The practical experience in running the Project and the special schools across the country has brought forth many issues which need to be considered, if at all we wish to make a serious dent to this problem.

First thing which baffles one is the age cap of 14 for identifying the child labour. After all, what is the criterion whereby we need to confine our identification of child labour till the age of 14 only, something which is accepted internationally? Do we mean to say that the moment a child becomes 14, he ceases to deserve state attention and care? This is more so when we know that such a child deserves better nurturing to compensate for the poor family background and upbringing he has been getting.

If we stop state support at 14 only, then it is very much likely that the child would relapse to his previous fate. Stopping state support and care at 14 means that the child labourers shall always remain so and would never get out of the morass of an unflattering living standard. Hence, one believes and proposes that the age bar for the identification of the child labour be raised to 18. Consequently, all the relevant government support including monthly stipend, medical care and nutritional support should also continue until the child reaches the age of 18.

As per the extant norms, the stipend is supposed to be stopped once the child is mainstreamed into a formal school. That being the case, there remains no incentive for mainstreaming of the children as they or their parents don’t wish to lose the financial benefit, hence children’s academic performance gets negatively affected. So, one feels that the stipend should be continued even after the child is mainstreamed into the formal education system and the same should be continued till he or she reaches the age of 18.

After all, it is money that drives the poor parents to use their children as additional sources of income. So, some sort of pecuniary assistance should be provided and continued even after the child is withdrawn from the active employment and till he is completely mainstreamed.

Even though envisaged in the overall rehabilitation package, still the parents of the child labourers are not compulsorily entitled to get preferential treatment in allocation of different government benefits or goodies. One feels that there can be a general guideline in this respect so that there can be earmarked quota for such category of people as we already have with respect to SC/ST/OBC, war widows, ex-military personnel and the handicapped.

One another problem commonly faced regarding identification of the child labour relates to age determination. Whatever this project has done, at least, it has generated enough awareness relating to the employment of child labour. Now, every one is aware that employing a child below 14 is an offence.

So, today when one goes about enforcing prohibition of employment of child labour, one is faced with the difficulty that the child himself/herself tells his/her age to be above 14 and the same is told by their employers/parents even though one knows for sure that the child is below 14.

But as there is no way to verify the same, one finds oneself helpless and handicapped to do anything about rehabilitation of such children. These children have not been to schools and their births are also not registered, so they manage to get an age certificate from any corner and proffer the same in support of their age which one is forced to accept for want of any other way to do the same.

One also feels that the exemption given to children working for their parents or in their family workshops/factories also needs to be withdrawn as the same defeats the very purpose of the Project. After all, a good number of such children are employed by their own parents and family members and as such, they start doing so from a very early age which has very negative implications for on their person including depriving them the unadulterated pleasures of an innocent childhood.

Again, there are some flaws in the ways in which the vocational training is supposed to be imparted in the Project-run special schools. As per present norms, while there is provision for the employment of vocational trainer, there is no separate allotment for the capital and recurring cost relating to these vocational training programmes, something without which there shall be difficulty in running these courses successfully.

So, there is also an urgent need to look into this aspect before we can expect to realise the true purpose and benefit of the vocational training. However, one also feels that a good portion of the recurring costs can be recovered if the products manufactured during the course of vocational training in these special schools are properly marketed and sold, at least, at break-even costs. But that depends on the specific Project, the range and quality of products manufactured and the ability of the Project personnel to be able to market the same.

Again, it has come to notice that the process of enforcement against the employment of child labour has been so designed that there has been very less enforcement in the field than expected otherwise. Because of sundry practical problems and the fact that the predominant majority of culprits employing child labour belongs to the poorer sections of the society, there is a general disinclination to arrest them or to penalise them.

Where the employers happen to be very well-off, they somehow manage to get away with the offence. It is here that we need to strike and ensure that the enforcement of the legal provisions of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act does take place so that the real objectives of the Act are realised.

Then, it has also been seen that many of the child labourers rescued are not immediately and suitably rehabilitated resulting in their relapse into child labour, something which should be strongly guarded against. Also, the amount of Rs. 20,000 for rehabilitation of every child labour is too meagre and needs an upward revision to be of any consequence. There has to be centrally designed rehabilitation package/scheme with better financial support, which could be suitably customised at the field level.

Then, it has also come to seen that many state governments hesitate to report more number of child labourers and recommend the requisite number of special schools to avoid attracting stigma of officially having larger number of child labourers as that reflects poorly on their developmental initiatives and performance. This aspect is very important and needs to be addressed urgently as in all this, it is the child labour which suffers, for whom the whole project is designed.

So, if less number of schools are recommended to hide the real picture, then there is also a problem of undertaking more enforcement activities as that would mean more child labourers in need of mainstreaming and rehabilitation, something which shall not be possible in absence of adequate number of special schools and for which, therefore, there does not remain much infrastructure and resources available.

There is not only a need for a renewed thrust towards tackling the problem of child labour, but there is also an imperative need towards making more financial allocation for the Project, not to speak of the need for certain conceptual clarification regarding identification of the child labour and revising certain aspects of the project design. Besides, more coordinated and synergised convergence is required to successfully eradicate child labour from this country.
*Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer presently working as an Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly in West Bengal.
(The views expressed here are author’s personal views and do not reflect those of the Government.)
Address for correspondence:
Saumitra Mohan, IAS, Additional District Magistrate, Office of the District Magistrate, Hooghly-712101.
E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com.
Phone: 033-26806456/26802043(O)/26802041(R).
Fax: 033-26802043.
Mobile: 91-9831388803/9434242283.

2008-02-16T06:57:00.001+05:30

Reforming the Electoral System
Saumitra Mohan

The regularity with which Pakistan keeps going back to martial law shows in stark relief the strength of Indian democracy which appears to be taking newer strides with each passing day. One principal reason for the same lies in the strong democratic foundations which are predicated on a very sound and effective electoral system. And our electoral system has been moving from strength to strength since the time of Mr. T. N. Sheshan, the redoubtable Chief Election Commission of the nineties.

But there still remain many issues that need to be attended to fortify the gains already made for further solidifying our democratic base and one such important issue relates to our electoral system. The task of conducting elections in a billion plus country is really humongous and mind-boggling. It requires extra-ordinary preparations coupled with astute management skills.

This becomes more important because these days elections have to be conducted with increasing regularity given the fact that elections to parliamentary, different state assemblies and local bodies including panchayats keep taking their turns to keep the Election Commission of India (ECI) and its cognate state bodies engaged throughout the year. Hence, there is an urgent need for ECI to keep its machinery well-oiled all the time.

As the ECI works through the instrumentality of district administration across the country, myriad election related activities also keep the latter occupied through the year. And as the ECI takes newer initiatives to further sanitize the electoral system in this country resulting in more works, it has increasingly become difficult for the district administration to devote the requisite attention and energy to sundry more pressing functions of administration and development.

Be it the summary or special revision of the electoral roll, preparation of photo identity cards, rationalisation of polling booths, conduct of actual parliamentary/assembly/local body elections or an emergent by-election, the district administration has to contend with one or the other election related work almost throughout the year. Since election-related exercises are serious affairs, one has to devote more than cursory attention which often makes it difficult for the district administration to do justice to the other pressing concerns of development administration.

This is why, there has long been felt an urgent need for a full-fledged set-up including full-time officers and staff members for manning the election section at the district level. It gets really difficult for the District Magistrate who in his capacity as the District Election Officer also has to do different election related work with his regular officers and staff members who should otherwise be devoting their time and energy to the regular assignments. Since, the district administration does not have adequate number of officers and staff, it is forced to fall back on the officers and staff from the line departments who have become increasingly reluctant to part with their officers and staff for election related works.

Many government departments including education, relief, women and child development, PWD, health, and backward classes development departments have issued specific directions from time to time against engaging their officers and staff members in election works for the simple reason that such engagement tells negatively on the normal functioning and performance of these departments, preventing them to do the very basic work which they are meant to do.

For example, the school education department has the largest number of employees in the form of teachers and when these teachers are engaged in election and other works round the year, their basic teaching job really suffers, more so when they happen to be teachers from a single or double teacher schools. And now that the Supreme Court has completely banned such employment of school teachers, it has become further difficult for the district administration.

The district administration is, therefore, finding it increasingly difficult to rope in the services of line department officers and staff for electoral purposes. Even though some permanent staff members have been provided recently, the manpower crunch is a serious problem and the government really needs to ponder over this issue seriously, more so when many of these district offices are already understaffed.

The district administration has to do some real tight-rope walking in this regard, trying to apportion officers and staff among the various tasks it is supposed to accomplish to the satisfaction of all concerned. Be it the preparation of electoral rolls or the management of various poverty alleviation programmes, it has to accomplish all with the same level of efficiency and effectiveness. The poor District Magistrate, even though over-burdened, is still the most important, if not the only, point of interaction and interface for anyone and everyone in the government and he/she is held accountable for any lapse anywhere.

Being a first-past-the-post system where every head counts, where electoral numbers make all the difference in deciding the fate of a candidate in an election, the political parties have generally taken the populist route in this country in their bid to beef up their vote banks. They have often been found shielding the illegal immigrants/aliens who have somehow managed to get themselves registered as a voter in this country.

If we really mean to cleanse the electoral system in this country, such dangerous tendency among political parties should be discouraged and corrective measures need to be taken in all possible ways. We need to have a clearly laid down policy in this regard to pre-empt victimization of genuine citizens of the country.

There has been a talk of issuing identity cards to citizens in the border areas to distinguish the infiltrators from the genuine citizens. There has also been a proposal to grant citizenship to all such illegal voters and start taking all precaution from now on to effectively tackle the immigration menace in this country. Our border security and intelligence gathering have to be more up to mark to ensure this.

ECI has taken a slew of steps in recent times to ensure free and fair elections. This inter alia includes introduction of electronic voting machines, photo identity cards, employment of central para military forces for curbing electoral mal-practices, posting of external election observers, videography and photography of critical electoral processes and events including activities at sensitive polling booths on the eve of actual voting, setting up of permanent EPIC centres, round the year voter registration and more scientific delimitation of electoral constituencies. But still a lot needs to be done to further sanitize the electoral system in the country.

The very fact that EPIC distribution has still not been cent per cent in the country is a further reason to worry about. As the country gets more developed and internet penetration grows in the country, one should also give a serious thought to the concept of ‘on-line voting’. If we can pull it off, it shall not only be cheaper, but shall also be more effective and efficient as that would reduce the need for incurring huge expenses on making electoral arrangements including the deployment of massive polling personnel and para military forces almost every year.

Though electors’ photo identity cards (EPIC) has to a large extent prevented bogus voting, but it is still far from full-proof. Frequent reports of tampering with the cards and recovery of fake EPICs have given the tell-tale hints of the unholy practice that might be existing. Hence, the need for making the EPIC more tamper-proof than it is now. The proposal of implanting some sort of bio-metric identification feature in the EPIC to reduce any scope for tampering or faking EPIC needs to be given a serious thought.

There is also a need for further rationalising the polling booths. Still, the size of many polling booths is more than thousand and the same needs to be cut down to half to make the booth size more manageable. This would allow the completion of the voting process within the scheduled time during an actual voting rather than extending it beyond the stipulated time which has often come to be noticed.

Also, it should be seen to it that there should not be more than one polling booth in the same premises. Location of more than one booth in the same premises makes the task of security forces difficult in the eventuality of a law and order problem. Moreover, often voters have also been found to be at loss locating their booth at such multi-booth premises.

It is with this in mind that ECI introduced the concept of Voter Assistance Booth (VAB) for multi-booth polling premises in the recent assembly elections. This has been taken very well by the people and was a great help to them. However, it was felt by many that the booth was not set-up properly and was often not visible to people. The people manning them need to be properly oriented and motivated before they are sent to do the job.

Also, one feels that such VAB can also be set up across the constituency at regular distance, irrespective of the number of booths in a premise as that would be of greater help to the voters who are not in a position to get such assistance if the premise comprises only one or two booths.

Introduction of alphabetically arranged electoral roll at such VABs has also been a good beginning and should be continued. Such electoral roll should also be there at the Permanent EPIC Centres which should actually be suitably renamed e.g. as Permanent Voter Assistance Centre.

Further steps must also be taken to completely rule out the spectre of booth-jamming and booth capturing. The alleged practice of such a thing as planting dummy candidates and thereby having dummy election agents within the polling booth should also be guarded against.

ECI has taken a right step recently whereby it has stipulated that the election agents of the contesting candidates have to be from within the same polling booth areas and have also to be a registered voter in that particular area. This step was warranted because of the reported induction of imported goons as election agents by some political parties which would plant dummy candidates to have these goons masquerade as election agents within the booth premises thereby making it easier for them to engage in all sorts of illegal activities in favour or against a particular candidate.

The electronic voting machines are still not used in election to the local bodies which should be started immediately as the local body elections are the base upon which is built the edifice of electoral democracy. ECI should ensure that exemplary punishment is meted out to those who are directly or indirectly found to be involved in aiding and abetting electoral mal-practices.

The very fact that it is easier to find out the voting patterns when elections are conducted through the electronic voting machines need to be given a serious thought as this is a retrograde development vis-à-vis the manual system wherein it was difficult to find out the same as the ballot papers of different polling booths were mixed before counting to pre-empt identification of voting patterns and consequent victimization of the voters.

The Election Commission also needs to further tighten the noose on political parties to ensure that they not only adhere to the model code of conduct including sticking to the allowable electoral expenses during an election, but their accounts are also regularly verified and audited to ward against any ill-gotten money having its influence on our electoral system.

Even though ECI has been trying for quite some time to cleanse the system of people with criminal backgrounds/antecedents, the same should be done more effectively to purge the system from such people or their unwholesome influence. Laying down some sort of minimum qualification and experience for contesting candidates should also be given a thought.

One just hopes that some of these measures, if undertaken in right earnest, shall do a world of good to our fledgling democracy. The more we delay, the more disservice we shall be doing to the people of this country at the expense of the democratic traditions and foundations of this country.
*Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer presently working as an Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly in West Bengal.
(The views expressed here are author’s personal views and do not reflect those of the Government.)
Address for correspondence:
Saumitra Mohan, IAS, Additional District Magistrate, Office of the District Magistrate, Hooghly-712101.
E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com.
Phone: 033-26806456/26802043(O)/26802041(R).
Fax: 033-26802043.

2008-02-16T06:54:00.002+05:30

National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme: How Effective?
*Saumitra Mohan

National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGA) has been in operation for over two years and is being implemented in half the districts of this country. And if the government’s declaration is to be believed, then NREGA is going to be extended to cover all the remaining districts from 1st April, 2008.

NREGA is one of the flagship poverty alleviation programmes of the UPA government and has been taken very well across the country. However, the programme does require some structural and conceptual modifications to be better able to realise its objectives in the light of experience gained during its operation for over two years.

It is very well known by now that almost all the selected districts where NREGA has been implemented have not been able to utilise the financial allotment made for the purpose. Not only this, none of the districts could realise the target of providing 100 days of employment to the job card holders even though funds for the programme have never been a constraint.

A regional variation in terms of utilisation of allotted amount has been observed as some states have availed of larger amounts compared to many others. The utilisation per district has been more than Rs. 100 crore in Rajasthan (115) and Madhya Pradesh (103) and has been reasonably high also in Chhattisgarh (61) and Assam (85). On the other hand, this was less than Rs. 25 crore in Gujarat (14), Maharashtra (18) and Tamil Nadu (25).

The objective of 100 days of employment was not achieved in any state. However, the per district person days of employment and households provided employment were comparatively high in Madhya Pradesh (1.6 lakh households, 68 days), Chhattisgarh (1.7 lakh households, 54 days), Orissa (0.7 lakh households, 57 days) and Rajasthan (two lakh households, 83 days). In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu although three lakh and 1.2 lakh households, respectively worked under the NREGA, they could do so only for 14 and 26 days, respectively. In Gujarat and Maharashtra, only 30,000 and 40,000 households per district availed of the employment guarantee.

The reason for non-realisation of this objective is said to be the availability of work at higher wages in the private sectors than the one provided under NREGA, resulting in less utilisation of the allotted funds. This explanation may be acceptable for the relatively developed states, but definitely not for states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh or West Bengal which are not so developed. These states definitely should have been able to utilise more money providing more number of employment rather than a poor average of 15 to 20 days.

One feels that as the Indian economy grows at the sizzling rate of over nine per cent, there shall be more people attracted to work at the more attractive market wage rates than the minimum wage of Rs. 75 as provided under NREGA. Since no state has been able to provide hundred days of employment, there is definitely a need to take the required corrective measures to reach the said target.

Also, it is advisable that the Central government get more daring and remove the ceiling of 100 days and make it a completely demand driven employment guarantee scheme to be available throughout the year. With states unable to realise even 100 days of employment, the drain on government resources is not going to be something beyond its reach, more so when more work at higher wages are likely to be available in the private sector in times to come, given the way our economy seems to be performing.

Knowing that employment would be available for asking in the villages itself, the wage labourers will be less motivated to head towards the urban areas for earning higher wage employment thereby not only reducing pressure on urban amenities and infrastructures, there shall be enough work left for the urban workers. As there shall be less of them available, it is likely that the urban wage labourers would get higher and more rewarding wages, thereby reducing the need for the government to formulate any such wage employment guarantee programme for the urban workers.

Since one of the objectives of the scheme is not only to provide guaranteed employment in the rural areas to discourage rural-urban migration, but also to create gainful assets in the countryside, it is advisable for the government to keep revising the minimum wages from time to time to reflect the market wages. If this does not happen, people would not feel encouraged to stay back in the villages to work for NREGA schemes thereby reducing the opportunities to create basic amenities and civil assets in the rural areas.

Though the government argues that NREGA being a demand driven programme, people should be willing to do the work at the government approved rates, which is the minimum wage sufficient to sustain a household per day. If the people are getting work for higher wages elsewhere, they should go ahead and do it. This would result in saving of government money which can go in for utilisation in bigger and better schemes rather than on NREGA schemes which are basically earthworks and do not, as such, create permanent assets.

During rainy season and other such busy seasons which may vary from state to state, people get higher wages in the rural areas itself thereby leaving very few volunteers for wage employment works in the countryside thereby resulting in less utilisation of the NREGA money. But one would say that less or more utilisation of NREGA allotment should not be a criterion to judge the success of the programme. Less utilisation may also mean that there is less demand for such work in that particular area, which should actually be seen as a development indicator as that means people are getting work at higher wages elsewhere.

However, one does find it surprising when one sees that work demanded is significantly less even in those areas where people living below the poverty line are more than the usual and are not demanding work under NREGA. So, it does feel that there has not been done enough ground work for creating awareness about the programme. It has been observed that people are still not aware of the fact that they can demand work under NREGA as a matter of their right. Most of them are still not aware of their right to demand unemployment allowance as a result of implementing agency’s failure to provide the work within the statutory fifteen days of the receipt of petition demanding such a wage employment.

Surprisingly, almost no unemployment allowance has been paid any where in the country. There have also been failures on the part of the respective government agencies to provide the demanded work within fifteen days, thereby defeating the very objective of NREGA. Not only this, no government official has yet been penalised for having failed to realise the programme objectives as there is provision for the same.

Under NREGA, there is in-built mechanism to check corruption and leakage of government money by means of better supervisory and monitoring arrangements. The same is supposed to be ensured by way of regular monitoring and muster roll checking. The provision of keeping an account of job demanded and provided through the specially designed individual job cards is also supposed to be a major anti-corruption tool.

However, it was believed that these very arrangements were reasons for a general apathy among the programme implementing agencies to implement the scheme effectively as there was almost negligible scope for siphoning of government money as was available earlier during Swarnjayanti Gram Rojgar Yojna (SGRY) days.

But as they, human ingenuity knows no bounds. The vested interests immediately discovered newer ways to sabotage the programme and got onto the gravy train. If some newspaper reports are to be believed, not only many fake job cards have come to notice of the monitors, but also there have been many reports where it has been found that implementing agencies or political parties have got a good number of job cards deposited in their custody and are using the same for nefarious purpose of minting money illegally. Not only this, employment to job card holders is still being given more as an obligation, than as a matter of right.

It has been found that by means of such fake cards, the vested interests have ensured siphoning of government money by making fake entries into the muster roll and the daily attendance sheet. It has also been noticed that job cards have not been issued to all those who wanted it and applied for it, but only to those who are loyal to a particular political party or could grease some palms.

Also, the wage is supposed to be paid as per the quantum of work done by the individual labourers. However, the same has been noticed to be paid at a flat rate irrespective of the efficiency or work quantum standards, thereby rewarding a hare and a tortoise equally, something which goes against the purported objective of the scheme. Also, the muster rolls are supposed to be publicly read to ward off corruption, but the same is not being done, thereby giving rise to suspicion of foul play.

Also, the basic work site amenities as are supposed to be there as per the programme guideline are usually not found to be available. There have not been any crèche for children of working women, or provisioning of any first aid boxes or potable water as ought to be there. The stock argument proffered is that people feel that employment created through such works are less strenuous and villagers object to the fact that some people can earn their wages without putting in any hard labour. What they fail to realise is that such works can accommodate not only the physically handicapped people, but the same works can be rotated among the beneficiaries, if the handicapped or such other people are not readily available.

It is also being felt by many that the material-wage ratio of 40-60 should be hiked to be 50-50 and this ceiling should be flexible enough to be applicable only at the district level so as to allow for taking up bigger and better schemes, thereby allowing scope for use of machines as well where extremely necessary, rather than being completely banned as is envisaged presently.

If NREGA has to be successful in realising its programme objectives, then these concerns and problems, as mentioned above, need to be addressed sooner rather than later. One just hopes that with regular monitoring, social auditing and proper accounting coupled with some positive changes required in the light of experience gained during its operation for over two years, NREGA can really become an effective answer to many of the problems for India’s poor masses.
*Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer presently working as an Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly in West Bengal.
(The views expressed here are author’s personal views and do not reflect those of the Government.)
Address for correspondence:
Saumitra Mohan, IAS, Additional District Magistrate, Office of the District Magistrate, Hooghly-712101.
E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com.
Phone: 033-26806456/26802043(O)/26802041(R).
Fax: 033-26802043.
Mobile: 91-9831388803/9434242283.