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.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
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.
*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.
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.
*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.
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.
*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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
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.
*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.
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-Ã -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.
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-Ã -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.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
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.
*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.
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.
*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.
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.
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.
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.
*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.
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.
*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.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
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.
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.
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