Protecting the Steel Frame
*Saumitra Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indo-Bangladesh Relations: Moving Forward
*Saumitra Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Working Out Rehabilitation Package for Land-Losers
*Saumitra Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tackling Naxalism in West Bengal
*Saumitra Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding Popular Angst Against Politics
*Saumitra Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Religion for New Times: Some Reflections
Saumitra Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cooperative Globalism: Need of Our Times
*Saumitra Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.