THE HINDU EDITORIAL - MAY 26, 2022

 

THE HINDU EDITORIAL – MAY, 26, 2022

 

Communal clouds Kerala and its government must mobilize opinion against communalism of all hues The slogans raised by a child at a rally in Kerala’s Alappuzha on May 21 were chilling not merely for the death threats that they make. The fact that an innocent child could be indoctrinated and tutored such that he could call for violence portends a communal storm that is making landfall in the State. Organizers of the rally, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), disowned the slogans, but not in any reassuring manner. The Islamist group’s claim that its rally was to save the republic does not cut ice, considering its track record and the threatening posturing that it has engaged in, in recent years. It is merely using the democratic space and the prevailing environment of Hindutva upsurge to advance its dangerous, nihilistic communal agenda. At least five people have been killed in Kerala in SDPI-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) rivalry in the State in recent months. In April, in Palakkad, an SDPI worker and an RSS worker were killed within a span of one day; in December 2021, a State Secretary of the SDPI and a Bharatiya Janata Party OBC Morcha State Secretary were killed in Alappuzha in a similar pattern. This was preceded by the murder of an RSS worked in Palakkad, in November. All these killings were brutal in nature, and added an unmistakable communal hue to violence in Kerala unlike the occasional clashes between the RSS and the CPI(M).    The latest incident is not an isolated one. Muslim angst is being harnessed by extremist organisations that dismiss the Indian Union Muslim League, a constituent of the Congress-led United Democratic Front, as a futile political platform for the community. The BJP and the RSS are pushing hard to expand their presence in the State. A toxic cloud of communalism is enveloping the State, as Hindu, Christian, and Islamic groups, and devious politicians are trying to profit from disharmony. The Opposition Congress and the BJP have condemned the Alappuzha incident and criticized the ruling CPI(M) for its disturbing ambiguity on the issue. The Kerala police have filed an FIR in connection with the provocative slogans, but what is missing is a political message. Both in words and action, the Kerala government and the ruling Left Democratic Front led by the CPI(M) must make it clear that any call or mobilization for violence is unacceptable in the State. Political expediency must not be a determinant in responses to communalism. Along with strong administrative measures, Kerala must shore up all its inherent strengths through popular mobilization against communalism of all hues – Hindu, Christian or Muslim. The government must take the lead. Unending tragedy The U.S. must impose a ban on assault weapons, expand checks for gun ownership The U.S. once again faced the grim consequences of its unwillingness to tackle gun violence at its source when a man shot dead at least 19 children and two adults, including a teacher, at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The shooting marks the worst such attack in the U.S. since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack in 2018, when a former student of the school in Parkland, Florida, opened fire, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others. A similar major shooting that led to outrage yet saw no permanent reform in guns laws occurred at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, in which 20 first graders and six school employees perished. The Uvalde tragedy has also shaken the nation for it comes scarcely 10 days after a shooting at a supermarket store in Buffalo, New York, which officials described as a racist hate crime, claiming 10 lives. Overall, there have been at least 26 school shootings in 2022 alone and at least 118 incidents since 2018, according to reports that have tracked this statistic over the past four years. Last year witnessed 34 school shootings, the highest number during this period; there were 24 incidents each in 2019 and 2018 and 10 in 2020. Addressing the nation after the Uvalde attack, U.S. president Joe Biden made an urgent plea for common-sense gun control reform, saying, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?.. I am sick and tired of it. We have to act… these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen elsewhere in the world… It’s time to turn this pain into action.    Yet, it would be unrealistic to hope for meaningful change in the U.S.’s view on the Second Amendment, which assures citizens of the right to bear arms. Several Presidents, mostly Democrats, have tried and failed to get even basic gun control laws passed through congress. Former President Barack Obama, for example, came away frustrated after Capitol Hill rejected no fewer than 17 attempts by his White House to bring common-sense gun control to the floor of Congress. While conservative lawmakers seek to score political points by fiercely defending the constitutional right to bear arms, it is common knowledge now that at the heart of the U.S. Congress’s refusal to stamp out gun violence in schools and other public spaces is shadowy lobbying on Capitol Hill by the deep-pocketed and well-networked National Rifle Association and, along with them, the entire gun manufacturing industry. If Mr. Biden genuinely wishes to clamp down on this violence, which has ripped into America’s soul for several generations now, he may have no choice but to follow in Mr. Obama’s steps and use his presidential power of executive actions to enforce gun control measures. These should, at a minimum, include an assault weapons ban, expanded background checks for gun ownership and boosted funding for federal enforcement agencies regulating gun proliferation.   Driving the Balkanisation of India                          There is an ascendancy of a political ideology with little understanding of the idea of India as a coalition of the willing PULAPRE BALAKRISHNAN One of the reasons for celebrating the completion of 75 years of India is that it has survived as long. At Independence there had been skepticism whether it would. The chief doubter was Winston Churchill, who claimed that India was no more than a geography, the peoples of which the British had helpfully brought under one umbrella through conquest. But as we celebrate India’s journey, it would do to recognise that today forces are at work that weaken its unity. In particular, two projects that appear to have the blessing of the present political dispensation at the Centre have the potential to actually destroy it. The Gyanvapi issue First, we watch with shock and awe the developments related to the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi. The court has been petitioned to allow Hindus to worship at what has for centuries been a mosque. Impartial observers state that there is incontrovertible evidence that the mosque was once a temple that was demolished at the orders of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Now, we have the Places of Worship Act of 1991 that disallows a change of status of a religious structure. This ought to be sufficient to protect the mosque concerned from the threat of a change in its status as a site of worship for Muslims. But should we see this solely in legal terms? Should, if it comes to that, Indian Muslims of today be asked to vacate a mosque based on an act in the distant past that they are not responsible for? Should India’s Hindus not rise to a magnanimity that would reconcile them to the injustice done to their ancestors, heart-rending as it is even to imagine? Not only are they the overwhelming majority of this country now but they also have plenty of places to worship in. From another democracy Last year, the United States President, Joe Biden, even if he now enjoys a diminished popularity globally, made an important speech at Tulsa, Oklahoma. U.S., where he had gone to commemorate the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. He had said, “We do ourselves no favors by pretending none of this ever happened or it doesn’t impact us today, because it still does impact us today. We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know, and not what we should know. We should know the good, the bad, everything. That’s what great nations do. They come to terms with their dark sides….” Mr. Biden was suggesting that while Americans must remember, they must also move on without hoarding grievances. This message is valid for both the Hindus and the Muslims of India, depending upon the context.    There is something incomplete in the project of singling out Muslim rule in north India for a record of violence in our history. Though it is yet to be established whether the decline of the great Dravidian settlements of northern India was due to Aryan expansion or environmental causes such as drought, we have reason to believe that this expansion was not without violence. After all, verses in the Rig Veda invoke Indra, the Pre-eminent Aryan god, as the slayer of the “dasyu”, literally “the enslaved” inhabitants of India. All over northern India, there was still quite recently a pride expressed in the subjugation of the local population by the Aryans upon their arrival. But Hindu nationalism sits uncomfortably with such exultation, for it renders the Aryans foreigners in this land, without the legitimacy to define its cultural norms. The pattern of settlement in India whereby the Adivasi have been corralled into inaccessible spaces such as mountains or banished to the extremities of villages suggest that this was the result of a concerted move to exclude them from social life. This could not have been possible without the threat of violence. Another project, of language Speaking of the destruction of religious icons, there is evidence that the Aryans may not have been so ecumenical after all. Archaeologists who participated in the excavation on sites of Harappan civilization in western India have pointed to the deliberate destruction of remnants of the phallic symbol carved in stone. Admonition of the worship of shishnadeva, literally phallus god, may be found in the sacred literature of Vedic Hinduism. So, the destruction of the religious icons of conquered peoples in India is not confined to Islamic rule in north India. For some Indians, it dates back into our pre-history. This is not to even suggest a moral equivalence, for violence against any defenseless people is cowardly, but it does serve to bring some perspective into the debate about retributive justice related to the injustices of the past. It is the Adivasi amongst us who are least likely to have blood on their hands.    Aligned to the project of isolating the religious minorities of India is Hindu nationalism’s second project – that of establishing Hindi as the dominant language in the country. Purely a reflection of the will to dominate, it cannot be rationalized as the pursuit of retributive justice, and, unlike the other project, has unabashed state support. The issue has remained dormant in the country after a very mature settlement of it in the 1960s, whereby it was agreed that English would be used in the communications of the Government of India so long as the southern States want it.    Since 2014, we have seen a renewed thrust being given to Hindi by the Central government. The attempt to impose Hindi on the rest of the country is both insidious and predates the present. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being disingenuous when he speaks of the equal importance of all Indian languages while his Home Minister does not miss an opportunity to remind the country of the special status of Hindi. Far too much time and resources of Central government institutions are wasted on promoting Hindi when all its functionaries understand English perfectly well. Nothing but linguistic chauvinism keeps this pursuit alive. Even the so-called socialists of north India are not above it, as revealed by Mulayam Singh, then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, writing in Hindi, in the 1990s, to his counterpart in Kerala, a politician with a far longer tenure in public life. Sadly, the sentiment that Hindi should prevail is quite widespread in India, as seen in the recent comments of Bollywood actors. These purveyors of mostly costume drama may aspire for Hollywood status but do not have the large-heartedness of a Marlon Brando, who championed the rights of native Americans.    The relentless thrust to impose Hindi came close to succeeding in the mid-1960s, but it took arson and self-immolation in Madras State to fend it off. Today, the moment is less propitious for the Hindi chauvinists. The south is far more advanced than the Hindi heartland in terms of both social and economic progress. In fact, it serves as a beacon of hope for north Indian workers in search of a livelihood. Even the ordinary southerner sees Hindi as the language of the most backward part of the country, one where Muslims are bullied, women are subjugated and politicians are treated as minor feudal. So, why would south Indians agree to be ruled in the language of a region they view as unworthy of emulation? It is not even necessary for them to recall that Hindi is the language of the most recent migrant to this ancient land. They simply reject the majoritarian grounds on which it is deemed to be the national language.    A diverse peoples Constitutionally, India is a union of States. Its founders crafted an entity that has so far held out under great adversity. But India is also a coalition of peoples that are diverse in terms of their histories and culture. For it to hold together requires leaders with large hearts and not merely big chests. We see today the ascendancy of a political ideology with little understanding of the idea of India as a coalition of the willing. Incapable of winning hearts and minds, it has spawned a divisive politics which has the potential of wrecking a union put together with great care. Only a determinedly active citizenry can avert this outcome.   India must shift the discourse on abortion rights It is not just a family planning and maternal health issue, but also a sexual health and reproductive rights issue SONALI VADI & SUMEGHA ASTHANA As two women public health practitioners who have studied and worked in India and the United States, we voice our solidarity with women in both countries at this precarious moment for abortion rights.   Our public health journeys started with witnessing maternal deaths in India. One of us, on her first clinical rotation, saw a woman die of sepsis, infection in the blood, due to an unsafe backstreet abortion. And the other, during her rural health internship in Uttar Pradesh, witnessed a pregnant woman die on a wooden hand-pulled cart because she was unable to reach the hospital in time. The images of these two women with their swollen abdomen and pale, dying faces still haunt us, as we reflect on the privileges we enjoy as women belonging to a certain class and caste in India. The facts Woman, pregnant people and transgender persons in India struggle every day to exert their choice about birthing and their bodily autonomy. Yet, despite this bleak reality, netizens on social media in India claim that the country is more progressive than the try is more progressive than the U.S. on abortion rights because we have the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (“MTP Act”). Such a self-congratulatory attitude in neither in good faith not is it factually correct.    According to the World Health Organization, six out of 10 of all unintended pregnancies end in an induced abortion. Around 45% of all abortions are unsafe, almost all of which (97%) take place in developing countries. As per a nationally representative study published in PLOS One journal in 2014, abortions account for 10% of maternal deaths in India.    The recent round of the National Family Health Survey 2019-21, shows that 3% of all pregnancies in India result in abortion. More than half (53%) of abortions in India are performed in the private sector, whereas only 20% are performed in the public sector – partly because public facilities often lack abortion services. More than a quarter of abortions (27%) are performed by the woman herself at home.    In another a fact-finding study published in The Lance in 2018, 73% of all abortions in India in 2015 were medication abortions, and even though these may have been safe – many of these are illegal as per the MTP Act, if they occur without the approval of a registered medical practitioner. Another 5% of all abortions were outside of health facilities with methods other than medication abortion. These risky abortions are performed by untrained people under unhygienic conditions using damaging methods such as insertion of objects, ingestion f various substances, abdominal pressure, etc. A recent study found that sex-selective abortions in India could lead to 6.8 million fewer girls being born between 2017 to 2030.    Many may be unaware of these disturbing statistics and facts. But we all know of at least one adolescent girl among our family or friends or networks who had to travel to another city in order to find a ‘non-judgmental’ obstetrician or who had to arrange money to access abortion in the private sector. Or, we may have heard of someone who has aborted a female foetus because the family wanted a son; or know of a mother who escaped the pressure of such forced abortion because she did not want to lose her pregnancy. Obstacles The MTP Act, first enacted in 1971 and then amended in 2021, certainly makes ‘medical termination of pregnancy’ legal in India under specific conditions. However, this Act is framed from a legal stand-point to primarily protect medical practitioners because under the Indian Penal Code, “induced miscarriage” is a criminal offence. This Premise points to a lack of choice and bodily autonomy of women and rests the decision of abortion solely on the doctor’s opinion. The MTP Act also only mentions ‘pregnant woman’, thus failing to recognise that transgender persons and others who do not identify as women can become pregnant.    Moreover, the acceptance of abortion in Indian society is situated in the context of population control and family planning. But, most importantly, after more than 50 years of the MTP Act, women and transgender persons face major obstacles in accessing safe abortion care.    These are seven examples: First, they may not even be aware that abortion is legal or know where to obtain one safely; second, since the MTP Act does not recognise abortion as a choice, they need the approval of medical professionals even in the first few weeks of the pregnancy; third, unmarried and transgender people continue to face stigma and can be turned away from health facilities, forcing them to resort to unsafe care; fourth, mandatory reporting requirements under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill (POCSO), 2011 law against child sexual offences, impact privacy and hinder access of adolescents to safe abortion services; fifth, many are still coerced into agreeing to a permanent or long-term contraceptive method as a prerequisite for getting abortion services; sixth, health-care providers may impose their own morality by insisting on ‘husbands’ or ‘parental’ consent for abortion. Even women seeking abortion care in health facilities are often mistreated and not provided medications for pain relief; seventh, despite laws prohibiting sex determination, the illegal practice persists. The mushrooming of unregulated ultrasound clinics in India continues to facilitate the illegal practice of sex determination, resulting in unsafe abortions and female foeticide.    It is a testament to class and caste divides when netizens talk of being ‘progressive’ when, 50 years after the MTP Act, women continue to die due to unsafe abortions. Passing one law and assuming the job is done is far from “progressive” when so many face a lack of access, systemic barriers, social norms and cultural preferences, and even criminal liability. One law is insufficient There is an urgent need in our country to shift the discourse on abortions from just being a family planning and maternal health issue to one of a sexual health and reproductive rights issue. The situation in India shows that one law alone is insufficient and we must raise the bar on reproductive justice. We must improve our health systems to ensure good quality and respectful abortion care. As the focus on abortion rights in the U.S. rages, we call upon all to self reflect and to stand in solidarity with people in the U.S. and other places where reproductive rights are in jeopardy. Reproductive injustice anywhere is a threat to the lives of people everywhere.

 

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THE HINDU EDITORIAL - MAY 25, 2022

 

THE HINDU EDITORIAL – MAY 25, 2022

 

Caution and clarity The IPEF in its nascence relies more on promise than prospect of tangible outcomes In a sudden decision not previously intimated, India became one of a 13-nation economic initiative led by the U.S., on Monday, as President Joseph Biden unveiled plans for an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). The initiative is touted as a substantial step by the U.S. as part of its decade-old “pivot to Asia”, and an attempt at putting some “economic heft” into Indo-Pacific presence that has been on the decline after its decision to quit the Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement, the CPTPP, in 2017. Officials say the IPEF framework has four “pillars”: supply-chain resilience; clean energy, decarburization and infrastructure; taxation and anti-corruption; and fair and resilient trade. Mr. Biden’s visit to Japan and South Korea, attendance at the Quad summit and helming the IPEF launch is also aimed at reassuring the Eastern hemisphere about the U.S.’s focus. India’s joining is an equally strong statement of commitment to Indo-Pacific goals and to broadening regional economic cooperation, particularly after it walked out of the 15-nation RECEP. It is significant that all IPEF members, other than India and the U.S., are a part of the RCEP free trade agreement, and yet have chosen to be part of the U.S.-led initiative.   Despite the strong signaling from all sides, however, there are many aspects to the IPEF that bear further scrutiny. Monday’s launch only signals the willingness of the 13 countries to begin discussions on the contours. Much will depend, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed, on how inclusive the process is. Second, U.S. officials have made it clear that it is not a free trade agreement; nor will it discuss tariff reductions or increasing market access, raising questions about its utility. Shorn of the rhetoric of Indo-Pacific cooperation, there must be more clarity on its framework. The four pillars also lend themselves to some confusion, drawing into question whether there is enough common ground among the 13 countries that are part of very different economic arrangements, as well as outliers (the U.S. and India), to set standards together, or be open to issues that vary for each country. The U.S.’s statement that the IPEF is essentially focused on “American workers” also raises questions on whether increasingly protectionist global trends will chafe. Each of the IPEF countries has considerable trade interests in China, with most having large trade deficits. So, it remains to be seen how much they will be willing to sign on with the IPEF. Already three ASEAN countries, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, have decided to stay out of the framework’s launch. Above all, given the fact that the U.S.’s previous initiatives (the Blue Dot Network and the Build Back Better initiative) have made little headway in changing the region’s infrastructural needs, the IPEF faces a credibility challenge. Negotiators will need to move with both caution and clarity before making any big promises on its benefits for the region.   Serving those who serve Health workers need better remuneration and safety guarantee, not just awards Recognition very often goes to those at the top of the pecking order, and stays there. Credit seldom trickles down to the worker at the bottom. The World Health Organization’s act of recognizing India’s ASHA (accredited social health activists) and the polio workers of Afghanistan is an attempt to right that wrong. It is a rare, and commendable doffing of the hat for workers at the very bottom of the rung, and gives credit where it is due. When WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the names of six Global Health Leader awardees at the opening session of the World Health Assembly, over one million ASHAs and eight volunteer polio workers found themselves being counted amidst people leading from the front. The other awardees are Paul Farmer, co-founder of the NGO Partners in Health, Ahmed Hankir, a British-Lebanese psychiatrist, Ludmila Sofia Oliveira Varela, a youth sports advocate, and Yohei Sasakawa, WHO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. Dr. Tedros who picks the awardees himself, said that the award recognises those who have made an outstanding contribution to protecting and promoting health around the world, at a time when the world is facing an unprecedented convergence of inequity, conflict, food insecurity, climate crisis and a pandemic.    The ASHAs were honoured for their “crucial role in linking the community with the health system, to ensure those living in rural poverty can access primary health care services…” These workers, all women, faced harassment and violence for their work during the pandemic, well documented in the media. While the pandemic rewrote the rules, creating danger where mere routine existed, it must be stressed that in general, their job, which takes them into difficult-to-reach places and hostile communities, confers a measure of privations. Even as they contribute to better health outcomes, this workforce continues to protest across the country, for better remuneration, health benefits and permanent posts. The eight volunteer polio workers of Afghanistan (four of them women) were shot and killed by gunmen in Takhar and Kunduz provinces in February 2022. Their work was crucial in a country where wild polio virus type 1 is still circulating, WHO recorded. Clearly, certain kinds of basic public health work are fraught with perils in several continents across the world. It is the duty of the governmental agencies that employ them to ensure their welfare, safety and security. While cheerleading about the award is rightfully reaching a crescendo, what matters is how the Indian government serves its last mile health workers who are its feet on the ground, once the dust raised by their unexpected recognition has settled down.   A new road for India’s fiscal federalism After the ‘Mohit Minerals’ judgment, states will now be free to exercise independent power to legislate on GST SUHRITH PARTHASARATHY On May 19, in Union of India vs Mohit Minerals, the Supreme Court of India delivered a ruling which is likely to have an impact far wider than what the centre might have imagined when it brought the case up on appeal. At stake was the validity of a levy imposed on importers, of Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) on ocean freight paid by foreign sellers to foreign shipping lines. The Gujarat High Court had declared the tax illegal. The Supreme Court affirmed the ruling through Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s judgment and held that the levy constituted double taxation – that is, that the importer, which was already paying tax on the “composite” supply of goods, could not be asked to pay an additional tax on a perceived “service” that it may have received. Just recommendations In making this finding, the Court proceeded on a technical reading of various laws, in particular the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act. That reading, in and by itself, has limited implications. But the Court also made a slew of observations, which, if taken to their logical conclusion by State legislatures, could potentially transform the future of fiscal federalism in India. It held, for instance, that both Parliament and the State legislatures enjoy equal power to legislate on Goods and Services Tax (GST), and that the Goods and Services Tax Council’s recommendations were just that: recommendations that could never be binding on a legislative body.    Reacting to the ruling, the Union Ministry of finance has claimed that it “does not in any way lay down anything new”, and that it “does not have any bearing on the way GST has been functioning in India, nor lays down anything fundamentally different to the existing framework of GST”. But a close reading of the judgment belies this suggestion. Until now, governments across India have treated the GST Council’s recommendations – even where they disagreed with them – as sacrosanct, because they believed that this was indeed the law. What Mohit Minerals holds, though, is that State governments, on a proper construal of the Constitution, need to hardly feel circumscribed by any such limitation. As such, according to the Court, State legislatures possess the authority to deviate from any advice rendered by the GST Council and to make their own laws by asserting, in the process, their role as equal partners in India’s federal architecture. Advent of Articles When, in July 2017, the Union government introduced the GST regime through the 101st constitutional Amendment, it did so based on an underlying belief that tax administration across India needed unification. ‘One Nation, One Tax’, was the mantra. To give effect to this idea, many entries in the State list of Schedule VII of the Constitution were either deleted or amended. No longer could State governments, for example, legislate on sale or purchase of goods (barring a few exceptions, such as petroleum and liquor) through the ordinary legislative route. Instead, a power to legislate on GST was inserted through a newly introduced Article 246A. This provision over-rode the general dominion granted to Parliament and State legislatures to bring laws on various subjects and afforded to them an express authority to make legislation on GST.    In addition, the 101st Amendment also established, through Article 279A, a GST Council. This body comprises the Union Finance Minister, the Union Minister of State for Finance and Minister of Finance from every State government. The Council was given the power to “make recommendations to the Union and States” on several different matters. These include a model GST law, the goods and services that may be subjected to or exempted from GST and the rates at which tax is to be levied. In framing the manner in which the Council’s votes are to be reckoned with, the Union government was granted a virtual veto.    As I wrote in these pages when the Amendment was first introduced, there was some amount of confusion on whether the Council’s decisions would be binding. The use of the word “recommendations” suggested on the one hand that its decisions would be advisory, at best. But, at the same time, the fact that Article 279A directed the establishment of a mechanism to adjudicate disputes between governments on decisions taken by the Council suggested that those governments would, in fact, be bound by any advice rendered to them. If the former reading was to be deployed, the purpose behind the introduction of a common GST would be in jeopardy. But the latter interpretation effectively entailed a destruction of the well-laid plans of the Constituent Assembly. Fiscal responsibilities that had been divided with much care and attention between the Union and the States would now stand dissolved. Not a symmetrical compact In its judgment in Mohit Minerals, the supreme Court has provided what ought to be seen as the final word on this conundrum. Although States had until now proceeded on a tacit belief that the GST Council’s recommendations were binding, such an approach, in Justice Chandrachud’s words, would run counter both to the express words of the Constitution and the philosophical values underlying the language deployed. Out federal compact, the judgment holds, is not symmetrical, in that there are certain areas of the Constitution that contain a “centralizing drift” – where the Union is granted a larger share of the power – and there are other areas where equal responsibility is vested.    Article 246A, which was introduced by the 101st Amendment, is one such clause. The provision provides concomitant power both to the Union and to the State governments to legislate on GST. It does not discriminate between the two in terms of its allocation of authority. Tat allocation, according to the Court, cannot be limited by a reading of Article 279S, which establishes a GST Council, and which treats the Council’s decisions as “recommendations”. “If the GST Council was intended to be a decision-making authority whose recommendations transform to legislation,” wrote Justice Chandrachud, “such a qualification would have been included in Articles 246A or 279A.” But in the present case, no such qualification can be found. In perspective The Court’s ruling does not mean that a legislature – whether Parliament or the States’ – cannot through statutory law make the Council’s recommendations binding on executive bodies. Indeed, insofar as the laws today make such a mandate, rulemaking by the executive would necessarily have to be bound by the Council’s advice. But a constitutional power, in the Court’s ruling, can never be limited through statute. Such curbs must flow only from the Constitution. And in this case, in the Court’s analysis, no restrictions on legislative power can be gleaned on a meaningful reading of the Constitution.    Today, because of the ruling in Mohit Minerals, State governments will be free to exercise independent power to legislate on GST. It is possible that this might lead to conflicting taxation regimes, with the idea of ‘One Nation One Tax’ rendered nugatory. But as the Court puts it, “Indian federalism is a dialogue between cooperative and uncooperative federalism where the federal units are at liberty to use different means of persuasion ranging from collaboration to contestation.”    GST was conceived as a product of what some described as “pooled sovereignty”. But perhaps it is only in an administrative area, animated by contestation, where we can see synergy between different sovereign units, where our nation can take a genuine turn towards a more “cooperative federalism”.                                  The executive seems more fragile than hurt sentiment There seems to be an increased use of Section 153A IPC and Section 295A IPC, going by data and anecdotal evidence SHRUTIKA & MAYANK YADAV In yet another brute show of power, Dr. Ratan Lal, a Dalit academician, was arrested for an ‘objectionable’ post on the Gyanvapi mosque row. He is alleged to have promoted disharmony or enmity between religious groups (Section 153A in the Indian Penal Code) and intentionally and maliciously hurt religious sentiments (Section 295A in the IPC). His arrest adds to the trend of increased use of the two provisions.    The latest annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau records more than four jumps (458%) of cases registered under Section 153A since 2014; it almost doubled in the last two years. This does not necessarily mean hurtful comments surged all of a sudden, as conviction could only be secured in merely 20.4% of cases. Though no separate data is available on Section 295A, anecdotal evidence suggests its increased use by the executive. Legislative history The increased use of these penal provisions draws our attention to the circumstances in which they were enacted. In 1927, when Section 153A was already in existence, Section 295A was brought on the demand of a religious minority community which alleged that a pamphlet titled ‘Rangeela Rasul’ published objectionable content against its founder.    The Legislative Assemble debates at the introduction of Section 295A expressed concern about its subjectivity that could be misused. The rationale behind the provision was to deal with intentional insults to religion or outraging religious feelings. As best, the Assembly members found it a temporary remedy for a temporary aberration, not one that would be in active use a century later.    A more direct measure was incorporated through Section 295A, which would not require proving that the speech promoted enmity or hatred between classes; now, a hurt sentiment would be enough. It can be argued that it safeguarded the spirit of tolerance amidst religious diversity. But its enhanced misuse raises the question: safeguard for who and against what?    The debates sensed and cautioned against a looming threat over free speech. It was anticipated that it could be misused to suppress honest, candid, and bona fide criticism, and hinder historical research towards social reform. If individuals were allowed to register complaints about a hurt religious sentiment, the courts would be flooded with frivolous cases. Then there would be a sweeping class of offences, where it cannot be objectively adjudicated if a crime has been committed. Some safeguards However, there were statutory safeguards that required deliberate intention and malice; and judicial rulings that needed looking at – words used, intent, and effect to ascertain criminality. Only a deliberate and aggravated form of religious insult would attract the rigor of the provision.    The judiciary laid down two ways to measure the effect – one by establishing a link between speech and public disorder, and by measuring the effects from the standards of a reasonable man, and not from one who fears all hostile viewpoints. However, no attempt was made to translate the safeguards into practice, which could have shielded the dear ethos of free speech. A half-hearted attempt left us with a law that cannot be enforced appropriately and is being let loose to chase and dissenter. Element of subjectivity Unlike bodily harm that can be verified, sentimental hurt cannot be tested against strict measures. The element of subjectivity over-rides it as a sentiment’s vulnerability could widely vary, every among those of the same religion.    A critical inquiry of orthodox practices and superstitious beliefs encourages social reforms. The need for an intelligent counter is required much more amid the aggressive assertion of religious beliefs by the socio-political hegemon. Even the 1927 Joint Select committee appreciated the argument that a religious insult inflicted in good faith, with the object of steering reform, would bring the follower’s required attention to the critique.    India’s Constitution celebrates diversity with the guarantee of free speech. With that aspirational pledge, should not the answer to hurt religious sentiment be tolerance, and not rampant criminalization? This may be an unreal expectation in times of widespread hate and disharmony. It is anomalous for a pluralistic, democratic, and secular nation that runs on counter-discourses to criminalize speech for hurting fickle religious sentiments.   Even the statutory safeguards of ‘deliberate intention and malice’ cannot be objectively determined. The police do not get into the legislative nuances before registering a criminal case or making an arrest. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum critiqued the law by saying that it invites thugs to suppress speech on anything they dislike; she added that given India’s political climate, several would take up this ugly invitation. A hazy legal paradigm criminalizing hurting religious sentiment facilitates the ruling dispensation’s strategy to stifle all dissent and use the law to fuel divisive politics.    On raging criminalization of free speech, senior advocate Indira Jaising said that repeated use of law to stifle dissent reflects state policy. “It is not a ‘misuse’; it is being used the way the enforcement agencies want it,” she added. The executive is seemingly more fragile than a citizen’s hurt religious sentiment. It sends out a clear message that be it a stand-up comic script, a remark on the belief of walking barefooted in reverence, or taking beef to school, India is no longer the country to hold and express opinions challenging the state-backed majoritarian rhetoric.

 

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THE HINDU EDITORIAL - MAY 24, 2022

 

THE HINDU EDITORIAL – MAY 24, 2022

 

All hands on deck After Centre’s duty cut, States must do the same with their taxes The Union government’s decision on Saturday to cut the excise duty on petrol and diesel by 8 rupees and 6 rupees, respectively, is a belated acknowledgement that April’s multi-year highs in inflation were spurred in significant measure by high fuel prices. Coming more than six months after its last duty reduction – on Deepavali eve – the latest cut is a welcome step to ease the burgeoning cost burden on producers and consumers. With the price of the Indian basket of crude oil having risen by more than 33% since November, and with a bulk of the surge coming in the wake of the Ukraine war in February, state-run oil marketing companies had raised retail fuel prices sharply over a 16-day period starting March 22. Largely as a result of the higher fuel prices and quickening food costs, inflation based on the Consumer Price Index accelerated to a 95-month high of 7.8% last month, while wholesale price gains soared to a multi-decade high of 15.1%. S&P Global’s April PMI surveys showed that both services and manufacturing companies had in fact flagged the surging input costs as a potential dampener of demand. A desperate RBI decided to stop waiting for Government intervention to cool the supply-side factors fanning inflation and opted instead to raise interest rates earlier this month.    The extent of concern about the inaction on the part of the Government was reflected at the Monetary Policy Committee’s two-day meeting earlier this month where a member observed: “Government supply-side action can also reduce future rate rises, output sacrifice and borrowing costs. Both central and State taxes are buoyant… giving them space to cut taxes on fuels.” Now that the Centre has acted to ease some of the inflationary pressure emanating from the high excise duty component in fuel prices, the onus is on the States to sink their political differences over the Government’s past approach to taxing fuels and help reduce the burden on the common man by paring their respective State taxes as well. With the war in Europe showing no immediate signs of easing, the economic fallout, particularly on global energy and food costs, remains highly uncertain and continues to point to the rising risks of faster inflation coupled with slower growth. In such a volatile scenario, fiscal measures that help cool price pressures and leave an extra rupee or two in the consumer’s pocket can only aid to undergird vital consumption demand in the economy. Ultimately, all States must realise that the best way to safeguard their revenue interests would be to ensure that the growth momentum in the economy as a whole remains well supported. This is a moment that calls for all hands on deck. The sooner policy-makers at the different levels of government, and of all political hues, realise this and act in concert, the better.   Grand slam ATP and WTA did the right thing by stripping Wimbledon of ranking points Moves by the ATP and WTA – governing bodies of men’s and women’s tennis tours – to strip Wimbledon of its primary currency, the all-important ranking points, for the 2022 edition represent the harshest rebuke to the autonomous overreach by the oldest Grand Slam event in declining entries from Russian and Belarusian players. The ATP, on Friday, said the move was to protect the “integrity of the sport”, which was built upon “merit-based tournament entry” (through rankings) and a level playing field. The WTA concurred, basing its decision on its foundational principle of equal opportunity, championed by the legendary Billie Jean King. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) followed suit by removing points from the Junior and wheelchair competitions. As a result, the most coveted tennis tournament in the world is set to be reduced to an exhibition event, barring a rethink from the feuding parties. A large-scale player drop-out may not materialize, for Wimbledon holds too much allure, both in terms of prestige and prize money. But the saga is sure to upend the sport’s pecking orders. Tennis rankings work over a rolling 52-week period, updated by adding points earned in the previous week and subtracting those from the equivalent week in the previous year. Now, World No.1 Novak Djokovic’s 2000 points for winning the 2021 edition will be removed without any addition this year, causing severe disruptions in the upper echelons of men’s tennis.    More broadly, the fiasco is likely to end up leaving everyone bruised. Wimbledon has rightly been penalized for triggering the controversy by unfairly targeting Russians and Belarusians for the actions of their political leaders, despite the likes of World No.2 Daniil Medvedev and World No.7 Andrey Rublev publicly calling for peace. But the pushback by the ATP, WTA and ITF will unfortunately inflict collateral damage on scores of players, especially those in the lower rungs, otherwise eligible to earn points. While the ATP has correctly stressed that an acceptable solution could have been found if Wimbledon had not chosen to act unilaterally based on “informal guidance” from the British government, it is a fact that tennis’s seven governing bodies – ATP, WTA, ITF and the four Majors – mostly work at cross-purposes and act in self-interest. The ATP itself has not walked and talk, continuing to hand out a disproportionately high number of ranking points to its flagship multi-nation team competition ATP Cup despite the tournament being a closed-door event. Wimbledon has, for now, stopped at expressing its disappointment and reserved its position, with the ongoing French Open providing fans with a welcome distraction. But any attempt to further this powerplay by driving another wedge, instead of charting out a progressive path, will only splinter the sport more.   A far more dangerous moment now than in 1992 The opening up of Gyanvapi is not about history; it is about reclamation and is central to a larger supremacist project SEEMA CHISHTI Exactly 30 years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the Gyanvapi mosque dispute offers less déjà vu and more striking contrasts in the two scenarios. Like architecture distinguishes clearly between rubble and ruin, we must look clearly at the differences between the Ayodhya matter then and the dispute over Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque in 2022 now. The differences are stark. There is an Act now The first dissimilarity is the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 which did not exist when the political movement for Ayodhya caught steam. Also, Ayodhya was out of its ambit. The Supreme Court verdict in 2019 went on to underline the importance of the 1991 Act in 10 pages (pages 116-125) and how it “protects and secures the fundamental values of the Constitution”. Agreeing with the rationale of the law, the five-judge Bench said; “The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution.”    In not framing the matter in the latter and spirit of its own order just three years ago, and instead, trying to ‘balance’, the law and its interpreters are enabling a significant and worrying change in India. It is not a Babri moment, as Babri was to be an exception with the law applicable to all other such matters. If this goes on, it will open a Pandora’s box. Similar and multiple cases are bound to begin mushrooming; the plea to remove Mathura’s shahi Idgah and dig around the Qutub Minar have reached the courts.  As Sarvepalli Gopal writes in the introduction to Anatomy of a Confrontation, such conflicts bring into “sharp focus since 1947, a sickness which free India has not been able to shake off”. If the idea of the 1991 Act was to insulate the Republic from the implications of Babri, allowing the Varanasi issue gain momentum suggests exacerbating the “sickness”. The intention was to draw a line under 1947 and bring quietus after the Ayodhya dispute. Thirst years on, despite witnessing the ruptures that Babri led to, if Gyanvapi is allowed to fester, it would signal that India is re-opening issues that the Constitution had settled. That can only signal more upheaval. An institutional collapse What also distinguishes the present moment from Ayodhya is the State of India’s institutions. What separates democracy from a mobocracy is the presence of modern institutions. It is only through their independent functioning that the promise of the Constitution is honored. The job of independent institutions in a democracy is to keep asking question of the executive and ensure that it acts in accordance with the Constitution it has sworn by. But India has seen a dramatic decline in institutional independence. This decline underlies India’s sharp democratic backslide. India is classified as an ‘electoral autocracy’ (V-Dem Institute), ‘partly free’ (Freedom House), scores ‘at the level of 1975’ when a formal emergency was in place (International IDEA) and it is now among the 30 worst countries of 180, as for as freedom of the press goes (RSF). The World Values Survey and the Pew Research Centre tell us that it is India that support for civil rights as a feature of democracy and even democracy has fallen the most, since 2015. In such times, if Gyanvapi was to be a start of something else, then there would not even be counter-pressures from institutions like 30 years ago. The Justice J.S. Verma report, (when he was National Human Rights Commission chairman) about violence in 2002 is unimaginable today.    Another difference from 1992 is that economic liberalization had yet to play itself out then. It was an ‘old India’ if fans of liberalization are to be believed. There was a view that altered economics would help destroy India’s regressive social mores. This was touted as the big change – post the Berlin Wall and post the Soviet Union – that general economic uplift would deal a death blow to old identity issues and liberate its people. But 30 years on, the promise of quick economic progress has not been able to fell identity politics. Considerable academic research would nudge us in the opposite direction. A hardened and narrower understanding of identity politics has gripped the world. Today, well after liberalization has resulted in more economic inequality and record levels of concentration of wealth and cronyism, India finds itself asking fraught questions with ferocity. The economic crisis facing India today, apart from steep and widening inequalities, also has grim unemployment figures to reckon with. None of the expectations that the 1990s held for India – whether imagined or real – are now in the air. Gyanvapi being fanned now would do so in a world where the hopes of economic liberalization as a panacea re behind it and the fortuitous global conditions of the early 1990s are not there. Ideological, not just political There was a strong political incentive behind the mass movement and the Rath yatra that propelled the Ayodhya issue onto centre stage in the late 1980s. It yielded durable benefits to the political party which led it. Currently, to see it as mere instrumentalism would be missing the significance of what 2022 is about. With two successive electoral majorities, this is not about distracting the voter from the state of the economy or noise to garner support for elections. This is part of a core ideological belief of the ruling dispensation. Ideally, it would want courts to just award it to majoritarian mobs, minus a mass movement or mobilization. For the ruling regime, this path is not seen as a crisis but as apart of a desired end. So it is unlikely that the government in office will feel compelled to tell off mobs and people who are raising issues, long thought settled.    The opening up of gyanvapi is not about history. Indian history is too complex to be reduced to a two-dimensional Hindu versus Muslim framing. For thousands of years, India has been witness to a spectrum of stories of both coexistence and conflict; Shaivites facing off with Vaishnavites, Brahmins making a case against Shramans, Buddhists and Jains versus everyone else and disputes across many more lines. Events here were not very different from how medieval Christianity and Islam played out. The Gyanvapi dispute is about reclamation and is central to the larger supremacist project. This cannot be divorced from frenetic name-changing, the anti-conversion and cattle laws lynchings, changes in official history, amped up hate on mass media and other bids to scrub out Muslims and distort India’s rich past.    Well before Islam found its way to Kodungallue (Kerala) or came across the Hindukush, India was a place with complex inter-community ties between various sects and people who called it home. It is an established historical fact that multiple migrations made India. As Firaq Gorakhpuri (also known as Prof. Raghupati Sahay) said: “Sar zamin-e-Hind par aqwam-e-aalam ke, Firaq, Kafile aate rahe aur Hindustan banta gaya (Many caravans came into these parts and went onto constitute India)”. The year 1950, with Indian composite nationalism at the centre, was a far-sighted attempt at drawing a line under a million mutinies, especially after 1947.    India’s Constitution offered everyone emancipation. Ideological predecessors of the present regime made no bones about not sharing those values and believed in India as a nation-for-Hindus only, in the mirror image of what Muslim separatists managed to secure with Pakistan. Eight years after 2014, It has been hard for the Government to claim brownie points globally for being ‘exceptional’, as bad news of events on the ground have been hard to keep hidden. As ‘exceptionalism’ gets sucked out and India unspools into being known as another South Asian ethnic supremacist venture, it can only shrink the India story, and certainly not help it achieve ‘greatness’. A road versus alley It is possible that because we now have the benefit of hindsight from 1992, we choose differently. But that would mean for the ruling party and followers, to jettison Golwalkar’s objective for non-Hindu; “claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s rights” (Golwalkar, We, or Our Nationhood Defined, 1939: page 62). Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin, Godse’s hate and violence, must be loudly denounced again by those who have political power. The path of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Sunni Muslim nationalism in Pakistan, Sinhalese supremacism or Myanmar’s journey must serve as a warning and not a manual for India. Gyanvapi, which means the ‘found of knowledge’ or wisdom, offers a choice now. We could pull back and take a long sip. Thirty years after Babri Masjid, we know the dark alley the other option leads to. It may be far too narrow a path for India to quickly reverse out of.   A Harvard branch in India, prospects and challenges It will be worthwhile for policymakers to look at the experience of other countries for positive and negative lessons PHILIP G. ALTBACH & ELDHO MATHEWS India, after half a century of keeping its higher education doors closed to foreigners, is on the cusp of opening itself to the world. The traditional orientation to swadeshi that has characterized much of Indian thinking, at least in higher education, is changing. The wide-ranging National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 promises higher education reforms in many areas, and internationalization is prominent among them. Among the underlying ideas and institutions from abroad to stimulate reform and show “best practice”, and in general to ensure that Indian higher education, for the first time, is a global player. New thinking An example of the new thinking was part of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s April 2022 visit to India, which featured a visit to the innovative Gujarat Biotechnology University and strengthening the United Kingdom-India academic collaboration. The Gujarat Biotechnology University is an example for new models of international academic partnerships emerging in India. It was established by the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of Gujarat in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, which assists the Gujarat Biotechnology University in developing strategies with regard to teaching, learning, research and innovation, and quality assurance, among others. This is a unique model in the present Indian academic context as there are many regulatory hurdles that still exist in the country with regard to international academic partnerships, which includes the operation of international branch campuses.    Currently, India does not allow the entry and the operation of foreign university branch campuses The NEP 2020 was a turning point for the entry of foreign universities as it recommended allowing foreign universities ranked in the “top 100” category to operate in India – under somewhat unrealistic conditions. In February 2022, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech, announced that “world-class foreign universities and institutions would be allowed in the planned business district in Gujarat’s GIFT City” (or the Gujarat International finance Tec-City) and they would be free from domestic regulations to facilitate availability of high-end human resources.    The Minister’s statement was a marked departure from the NEP 2020 recommendations that allow only the “top 100” category to operate in India. A similar accommodating stance could be observed in the (written) reply given by the Minister of State for Education, Dr. Subhas Sarkar, in the Lok Sabha in March. He noted that two foreign institutions, from France and Italy, had expressed interest in setting up campuses in India. However, the Italian institute “Istituto Marangoni”, is not a university. It was reported that in April 2022, the University Grants commission (UGC) formed a committee to draft regulations to allow foreign institutions in the “top 500” category to establish campuses in India – realizing that more flexibility was needed.    Establishing branch campuses of top foreign universities is a good idea as this will bring much-needed global experience to India. But is this practical? And will overseas universities be interested? Globaly, branch campuses, of which there are around 300 now, provide a mixed picture. Many are aimed at making money for the sponsoring university – and this is not what India wants. And some have proved to be unstable. A recent example in this regard is the ending of the decade-long partnership between Yale University and the National University of Singapore in running the Yale-NUS College in Singapore. Current initiatives There has been modest growth of various forms of partnerships between Indian and foreign institutions. The joint PhD programmes offered by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay-Monash Research Academy and the University of Queensland-Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Academy of Research (UQIDAR), both with Australian partners, are some examples. Another example is the Melbourne-India Postgraduate Academy (MIPA). It is a joint initiative of the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur with the University of Melbourne. MIPA provides students with an opportunity to earn a joint degree accredited both in India and Australia: from the University of Melbourne and one of the partnering Indian institutions. These partnerships suggest that India could offer opportunities for international branch campuses as well.    International branch campuses, if allowed, could function as a structurally different variant of Indian’s private university sector. The establishment of foreign university branch campuses would encourage competition mainly between existing private universities and foreign branch institutions, but would have less impact on the public universities. Branch campuses, if effectively managed, could bring much needed new ideas about curriculum, pedagogy, and governance to Indian higher education – they could be a kind of educational laboratory. Practical challenges On the positive side, India is seen around the world as an important country and an emerging higher education power. It is the World’s second largest “exporter” of students, with 4,61,792 students studying abroad (according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics). And Indian has the world’s second largest higher education system. Foreign countries and universities will be eager to establish a “beach head” in India and interested in providing opportunities for home campus students to learn about Indian business, society, and culture to participate in growing trade and other relations.    Still, it will not be easy to attract foreign universities to India and even more difficult to create the conditions for them to flourish. Many of those top universities are already fully engaged overseas and would likely require incentives to set up in India. Further, there are smaller but highly regarded universities outside the ‘top 500’ category that might be more interested. Universities around the world that have academic specializations focusing on India, that already have research or faculty ties in the country, or that have Non-Resident Indian (NRI) in senior management positions may be easier to attract. What is most important is to prevent profit-seekers from entering the Indian market and to encourage foreign institutions with innovative educational ideas and a long-term commitment. Many host countries have provided significant incentives, including building facilities and providing necessary infrastructure. Foreign universities are highly unlikely to invest significant funds up front. More hurdles to cross A big challenge will be India’s “well-known” bureaucracy, especially the multiple regulations. If bureaucratic hurdles cannot be drastically cut, there will be no success in attracting branch campuses. In addition, a recent study underlined the fact that apart from allowing home institutions to repatriate surplus funds after tax clearance, a new accreditation mechanism, flexible visa rules for foreign students and faculty, financial incentives to offer programmes is priority areas should also be considered.    Branch campuses would be helpful in addressing skill requirements and providing examples of different approaches to higher education. It will be worthwhile to look at the experience of other countries for both positive and negative lessons. After examining national experiences elsewhere, clear policies can be implemented that may be attractive to foreign universities. Once policies are in place, the key to success will be relationships among universities – and not grandiose government schemes.

 

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