THE HINDU EDITORIAL- MARCH, 14, 2022

 

THE HINDU EDITORIAL- MARCH 14, 2022

Unguided missile Pakistan’s demand for a joint probe is unwarranted, but India must get to the truth   The accidental firing of a missile by India into Pakistan could have led to serious, unintended escalation of tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries, but, fortunately, that did not happen. The Government of India has said the incident, on March 9, happened in the course of routine maintenance, due to a technical malfunction. India has ordered a high-level Court of Inquiry. The Charge d’affairs of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad was called twice by Pakistan to convey its concerns. Pakistan has alleged that the incident “indicates many loopholes and technical lapses of a serious nature in Indian handling of strategic weapons”. Islamabad, which termed the inquiry as ordered by India as insufficient, has demanded a joint probe. It has also sought the involvement of the international community to promote “strategic stability in the region”. As it moved closer to India in recent years, the U.S. has suspended its fixation with the conflict between the two neighbours, but the fear of nuclear escalation in the region is very deep in Washington’s strategic thinking. India’s global image of being a responsible nuclear power has been built over decades of restrained words and thoughtful action. The security of its nuclear command and technical capabilities has never been in doubt. This incident frays that reputation and measures must be taken to restore the confidence of the international community in India. There has been no official word from India on which missile was involved, which Pakistan has said landed 124 km inside its territory. The description by Pakistan – that the missile was travelling at three times the speed of sound, at 40,000 feet, and is a surface-to-surface missile – has led to speculation that the accident involves the BrahMos Supersonic cruise missile which is now in the inventory of India’s three Services. India became a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime in 2016, an acceptance by major powers of India’s status as a reliable defence partner that is capable of handling its strengths and contributing to global security. India is developing more missile systems, including a hypersonic variant. The handling and the launch of any such missiles are highly regulated with checks and balances to avoid accidents. This accident also has echoes of another incident in February 2019. A day after the Balakot air strike, as fighter jets of India and Pakistan were engaged in a dogfight near the LoC, an Mi-17V5 crashed in Budgam shortly after take-off from Srinagar killing its personnel onboard and a civilian on the ground. The Court of Inquiry confirmed that it was shot by an Israeli-origin Spyder surface-to-air missile system of the IAF. India must leave no scope for any doubts about its capacity to handle nuclear and other military assets. That objective can be achieved without a joint probe with Pakistan or any international involvement, but the objective must be achieved nevertheless.   Murderous pride Sentencing of convicts in a caste murder case in T.N. is rare blow for substantive justice   The recent sentencing of the leader of a caste outfit to life-long imprisonment has brought some closure to the horrific killing of a Dalit youth in western Tamil Nadu in 2015, purportedly committed to uphold the pride of a dominant caste. Unlike most emblematic cases of such ‘killings for honour’, the murder of V. Gokulraj, an engineering student, was not done by or at the instance of the family of a girl belonging to the dominant caste. Rather, it was by a gang led by S. Yuvaraj, who ran his own caste outfit and did not know either the victim or his friend, but had chanced upon them engaged in a conversation in a temple. It was likely that he sought to create a sense of awe among his own community’s youth by seizing on the opportunity to punish a man from downtrodden community. After a quick interview to ascertain their caste status, he sent away the girl, who belonged to his own community, escorted by a couple from his own group. In a chilling sequence of events, Yuvaraj and his accomplices abducted the youth in their vehicle and devised a plan on the fly to kill him and make it appear to be a suicide. They forced him to talk about taking his own life and recorded it on a phone, and even dictated a ‘suicide note’ to be planted later on his body. After strangling him to death at an isolated spot, Yuvaraj severed his head and tossed the torso on a railway track and the head nearby. Yuvaraj, who ran a group called Cheeran Channamalai Gounder Paravai, emerged as a key suspect after CCTV footage near the temple showed him and his accomplices leaving the temple with Gokulraj. Over the next few weeks, it was clear that Yuvaraj was after popularity, as during the three months he was absconding, he made public recorded messages and even appeared in a television discussion. Ultimately, this chutzpah proved to be his undoing, as he confirmed on air that he had confronted the couple at the temple but claimed he had left them there. The law, however, went by the principle that the accused with whom a slain victim was last seen, must explain his absence satisfactorily. The investigation saw some setbacks, when a DSP probing it died by suicide, while during trial, several witnesses turned hostile. The victim’s mother, V. Chitra, who obtained an order from the Madras High Court to transfer the trial from Namakkal to Madurai, special Public Prosecutor B.B. Mohan and investigators who compiled technical and forensic evidence deserve plaudits for the successful prosecution. In a State where prosecutions under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act often flounder, the sentencing of 10 persons, all for the remainder of their lives, is a rare blow for substantive justice.

No ovation for India’s stand on the Ukraine war Refusing to take a firm line on the invasion while continuing to see itself as the world’s teacher is not credible PULAPRE BALAKRISHNAN Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has placed considerable moral responsibility on India, both as one of the world’s largest countries and its most populous democracy. However, at the United Nations (UN), India has refused to condemn the violation of the rights of the Ukrainian. It has, instead, put out a homily that speaks of resolving differences through dialogue. It has moved with alacrity to save its citizens without expressing compassion for the people of Ukraine who face an onslaught from a much larger military power than them. It would be natural for observers to equate the actions of the state in a democracy with the will of the people. So, as we are a democracy, the Indian government’s abstention in the UN Security Council vote on Ukraine is sure to rebound on Indians in their interaction with the rest of the world in the future, unfavourably. No commitment to principle Arguments justifying India’s stance in the UN have emanated from the erstwhile grandees of India’s diplomatic corps and current members of the national security community. The first of these is that in international affairs, a country must be guided by its national interest and not some abstract principles. What these principles could be is left unspecified, but what India’s interests are have been stated with clarity. Of the later, it is pointed out that due to the very high dependence of India on the Soviet Union for defence equipment and the likely need of support on the Pakistan issue in the Security Council, India must not offend Russia by condemning the invasion. The result is that India makes statements that convince no one, only drawing attention to its lack of commitment to principle in international affairs. Actually, interests and principles are not that apart. If a people’s principles are their most deeply held beliefs about how the world must be ordered, then their interest lies in ensuring that their principles prevail in international relations. Thus, if India does not want to see itself to be the victim of territorial aggression in the future, it must communicate strongly on the world stage that it condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The difference now Those in charge of India’s foreign policy must reflect on its choice to be on the same page as China – a habitual violator of the norm of peaceful coexistence – on an issue of unprovoked aggression against a sovereign state. At a time when India’s abstention on the Russian invasion of Ukraine is being likened to its abstention in the UN on the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 it would do to recognize the difference. In the 1950s the West was clearly unsympathetic to India, playing its card openly on the Kashmir issue at the UN as early as 1947. On the other hand, the Soviet Union, the precursor to the present-day Russian state, had rescued India several times by exercising its veto in the UN Security Council. Now, close to 75 years later, the situation has changed Public opinion in the West does not favour unconditional support of Pakistan vis-à-vis India while Russia encourages Pakistan. Moreover, we know by now that some limited support at the UN matters little, as taking the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council has not go Pakistan to withdraw from the territory, it need not rely on any particular country that is a permanent member of the Security Council to support its future plans. The defence supply argument Now on the matter of reliance on the Russians for defence equipment. It is indeed correct that India relies on the Russians for such equipment and their spare parts. At the same time there is a global market for arms. It is not evident that anything withheld by the Russians cannot be sourced from that market. We have in the past bought guns from Sweden, ships from the U.K. and aircraft from France. It is the unpalatable truth that there is considerable spare capacity in the production of weapons in this world, and ready money is sure to get you to the goods you seek. For India to base its public stance on the Russian invasion of armaments is to really drag ourselves down to the bottom of the pit terms of ethics. As an east-west conflict A second response from India’s security establishment has taken the form of a rationalization of the decision to abstain on grounds that the Russian invasion and the West’s reaction, that has not included war so far, is a conflict between the east and the west, and India should stay out of it. While the argument about our need for defence equipment has at least a Kautilyan veneer, this position is contemptible. To avert one’s eyes from unprovoked aggression towards an independent country by one 10 times stronger would be to reveal a total lack of moral fiber. To say that this is just another east-west conflict from which India should stay out is tantamount to seeing the Russian invasion and the brave defences of their country by the Ukrainians as a mere marital squabble. If there is a maxim that conveys an ancient belief of Indians, it is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, implying that the world is a family. Families do not usually tolerate the bullying of the weak by those stronger among them. If India and allowed this principle to fall by the wayside in 1956 when it refused to condemn the Soviet invasion of Hungary, its action today is much worse. At that time, Jawaharlal Nehru was only concerned with propagating the Five principles of peaceful coexistence, christened Panchsheel. Today, empowered by its economic ascent over the decades, Narendra Modi talks of India being the ‘Vishwa guru’ or World Teacher. By continuing to see herself as the world’s teacher while refusing to take a stand on the invasion of Ukraine, India mocks her chosen self-image. A teacher is granted respect for speaking truth to power. The invasion of Ukraine, rather like Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, is a once-in-a-century event. India’s foreign policy establishment seems to have missed its significance for the world. India must take a long view of how it wants to engage with it. Its actions so far leave it in the company of Russia and China. These are not democracies as understood; indeed, most of their recent actions militate against that description. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have ensured that they will have unusually long tenures as leaders of their states. Reminiscent of the fascists in Europe, they make expansionist claims based on ethnicity, persecute their own people based on religion or sexual orientation, and exude an ethnic chauvinism. Most Indians abhor these practices. The final word India is democracy, even if a somewhat diminished one of late. Moreover, it has not officially discarded Panchsheel as yet. It cannot took away from the violation of widely accepted norms contained in the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine for fear of losing access to is supply of armaments or of reciprocal support in the UN on matters of concern to it. Nor does it have the option of playing the ostrich, as suggested by some, for that would fool no one else. Standing up for what you believe in brings with it the possibility of encountering hardship. But then, sticking to its principles is not just in India’s nation interest, it is also its own reward.         The mandates, voter messages, political takeaways A welfare-plus-development combination has struck a chord with voters, who now back the ‘change-makers’ VINAY SAHASRABUCCHE Mandate always have a message and it depends upon how the recipients read the same. This is true with the recent round of Assembly elections. In India, electoral verdicts have always underscored the fact that continuity and change always go together, and this round of elections is no exception. Voters have continued with the change-makers and sought to change-makers and sought to change those who wanted to continue with the status quo. Voters speak There are four lucid aspects from the clear and loud message from the voters. First, the Uttar Pradesh results in particular have shown that voters have graduated and risen above caste and community considerations and voted resoundingly in favour of a welfare-plus-development combination. From the V.P. Singh era onwards, the political discourse has been dominated by political engineering effected through smart social coalitions or social engineering. Now, democratic polity has been taken to a different level and the effective management of aspirations has replaced social engineering. People prefer a party that delivers on the ground than parties that ask for votes in the name of caste and community. Also remarkable is the fact that the decimation of the Bahujan Samaj Party in the State is indicative of the fact that Scheduled Castes have refused to be bracketed with a single community-based party. No thumbs up for dynasties The second important message is that the days of dynastic demigods are over. Voters have rejected dynasties one after the other, from the Badals to the Yadavs to the Banerjees, and above all, the Gandhis. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had all along on the campaign trail cautioned voters about Parivarvadi parties, and they seem to have paid heed to his appeal. In an aspirational democracy, people have realized that supporting the leaders of dynastic parties is like endorsing birth-based discrimination, something that our Constitution-makers had rejected lock, stock and barrel. Parties where the leadership is reserved for families have no glorious future any more, and the sooner dynasts listen to this message, the better it is for their survival. Let us hope that parties such as the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Shiv Sena, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) pay heed to this message seriously. Make no mistake; the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is not, per se, a dynastic party although it is being run on the same lines almost single-handedly. Nonetheless, the victory in Punjab is also a clear rejection of a traditional alternative that has been a dynastic party. Focus on performance The third message is about the politics of performance. Parties that ensure that their government delivers in governance, ably convert anti-incumbency into pro-incumbency. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has proved this several times in Gujarat, in 2019 in Maharashtra, in 2020 in Bihar, in 2021 in Assam, and now in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa. The BJP’s victory in all these rounds of elections was not simply thanks to a weak Opposition. In fact, the Opposition in U.P., Goa, Uttarakhand, or earlier in Gujarat or Maharashtra cannot be described to be weak at all. And yet, if people have unequivocally shown their preference for the BJP in these elections, it is a clear indication of pro-incumbency. Curiously, anti-incumbency had become the rule, a kind of status quo; now, this rule clearly stands changed. The fact that the BJ: has increased its vote share in most States also underscores what the Prime Minister has described as ‘an endorsement of the BJP’s pro-poor, pro-active governance’. The leader does matter Lastly, the verdicts in 2022 also underscore that national leadership always matters no matter how small or big a State is. There have been many times in the past where political pundits have said that verdicts in national elections mirror aggregation of State politics. Today, the verdicts in 2022 remind us that State verdicts too reflect national aspirations. These elections happened under the shadow of COVID-19. Also, when voting rounds had actually begun, the shadow of the Ukraine crisis was looming large as thousands of Indian students were stranded there. Whether it was the novel corona virus pandemic or Ukraine, the way the Government faced these challenges seems to have gone down well with the people across the country. This also indicative of the fact that people all over India believe that the nation needs Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership for many more years. The State verdicts reflect this feeling. These election results are also important for democracy. As mentioned in the latest Pew Research Center survey report on satisfaction with democracy. ‘The global pandemic has, if anything intensified perceived political and social divisions. Across the 17 advanced economies we surveyed in 2021, a median of 61% say that their country is more divided than before the outbreak’. And in India, in the first major elections held after three waves of COVID-19, people from diverse regions and far-off States seem to be speaking in one voice. Clearly, the Prime Minister has emerged as a unifier par excellence, across States, castes and communities. Having mastered the art of implementation, he has established that liberal democracy can go hand in hand with efficient state craft, making democracy deliver. All said and done, the 2022 verdicts are as much about credit going to the Prime Minister as they are about the BJP’s periodically galvanized organization and its ideology-driven cadres.

 

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THE HINDU EDITORIAL- MARCH, 12, 2022

 THE HINDU EDITORIAL- MARCH 12, 2022

 

Mood for change AAP will require more than just a reliance on populism to succeed in governance   When an electorate is tired of the ruling parties both at the Centre and at the State level during are opponents – the chances that people will vote for a fresh alternative are high. But this does not always happen in Indian elections. Parties professing to be an alternative to the established ones take time to emerge, even if they are the product of social or political movements Electoral success is achieved only if they cross a high threshold of competitiveness that is made possible through messaging and organization besides peoples’ yearning for change. The Aam Aadmi Party’s spectacular triumph in Punjab – winning 92 of the 117 constituencies – needs to be tempered with the fact that it won 42% of the votes in what was largely concentrated in the southern Malwa region. This time, in 2022, its vote share (47.2%) was the highest in Malwa. It also managed a credible 30.2% and 36.8% in the Doab and Majha regions, respectively, helping it sweep the State. Of the three major losing parties including the BJP, the Congress looked to be the best placed a year ago. Strongly mobilized opposition to the BJP government’s farm laws had caused the BJP-SAD alliance to break up. While the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government had not fully lived up to expectations, the party had little to lose from the agitations and could have capitalized on the public mood by seeking to implement its promises made in 2017. But an ill-conceived move by its high command, forcing out Capt. Amarinder and empowering the ruble rousing, party-hopping former cricketer, Navjot Singh Sindhu, to take over the reins of the Party created unnecessary tumult. Even the Party’s last minute promotion of the new Chief Minister, Charanjit Singh Channi, was not enough to shift the mood of the electorate, which had lost patience with the party, now riven  by internal bickering. The electorate’s dissatisfaction with the Centre and the Congress regime in the State is evident in the CSDS Lokniti Survey: a net negative satisfaction of -44 and -52 points, respectively. With grievances and anger over the corruption under the previous SAD regime still fresh, AAP emerged as the default alternative. Its promises of clean governance and populist measures in health, education and power supply – already implemented in Delhi – were able to sway a large section of a disenchanted electorate. But it is one thing to succeed in governance in what is largely a municipality by eschewing ideological perspectives and focusing on just populist measures. It will be a challenge to effect this in an important border State such as Punjab. AAP has its task cut out.   Skies wide open The resumption of regular international flights should help the travel and hospitality sectors   The Government’s decision to allow scheduled commercial international flights to resume operations from later this month will come as a big relief to the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors, which have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. The International Air Transport Association estimates that the global aviation industry suffered about $201 billion in losses between 2020 and 2022 due to COVID-19 and the accompanying curbs on overseas travel and domestic mobility. The tourism and hospitality industry largely feeds off the aviation sector for its earnings and jobs growth, evident from estimates that in 2020 – the year of lockdowns – India’s foreign exchange earnings from tourist arrivals from abroad plummeted 76% from the previous year, to 50,136 crore rupees. Official data show that in just the nine months ended December 2020; 21.5 million jobs were lost in tourism. However, the decision to open up international travel has coincided with the intensification of sanctions on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, which in turn has set oil prices soaring on fears of disruptions to global energy supply chains. The price of crude oil has zoomed close to historical peaks. As a result, aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices have also jumped by almost 60% year-on-year. This month, India’s state-owned oil marketing companies raised ATF prices for the fifth time this year, and this was before crude soared to near record highs. Fuel costs typically constitute about one fifth of a global airline’s operating expenditure and multiple price increases are certain to hurt airlines’ margins and viability. The conflict in Ukraine has also triggered a sharp jump in a wide range of commodity prices that is potentially set to quicken inflation across the globe. This is bound to seep into the cost of overseas travel as well, with travelers needing to budget more for food and entertainment. Airlines will find it a challenge to fill seats profitably, given the combination of rising costs, economic uncertainty triggered by the conflict in Eastern Europe and the residual fear among travelers of new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Strict regulations as various parts of the world cautiously open their borders to visitors will only add to the burden of the aviation and the hospitality industries. And, with the pandemic and restricted mobility having steered corporate to conduct business online effectively, getting business-related travel back to pre-pandemic levels will be a tough ask. Restoring visitor confidence through enforcement of COVID—19 protocols and widening vaccination coverage alone may not be enough. Estimates show that indirect taxes take away 21% of airlines’ revenue, hobbling the sector. Lowering ATF prices by cutting duties is an option the Government must weigh. Everything must be done to woo back more tourists.

Shutdown this misguided energy policy The vulnerabilities of reactors and their high costs are strong reasons why India must cancel its nuclear expansion plans SUVRAT RAJU & M.V. RAMANA Nuclear technology is hazardous. The world was reminded of this on March 3, when a fire broke out near the Zaprizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine (Europe’s largest) during the course of military battle. Had the fire affected the cooling system, the plant’s power supply, or its spent fuel pool, a major disaster could have occurred. Luckily, this did not happen. Eleven years ago, the people of Japan were not as fortunate. On March 11, 2011, multiple reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered severe accidents after an earthquake and a tsunami. Those reactors were quickly “shut down” following the earthquake. But their radioactive cores continued producing heat and eventually melted down because the tsunami knocked out the cooling system. The aftershocks of the Fukushima disaster were felt beyond Japan and led to a slump in nuclear energy in most of the world. Yet, some policymakers insist on expanding nuclear power, ostensibly in response to climate-change concerns. On December 15, 2021, the Indian government informed Parliament that it plans to build “10 indigenous reactors… in fleet mode” and had granted “in principle approval” for 28 additional reactors, including 24 to be imported from France, the U.S. and Russia. Given the post-Fukushima global and national trends in the nuclear industry, such a policy seems misguided; nuclear power is neither an economical source of electricity nor a viable route to meeting India’s climate goals. Nuclear power plants are capital intensive and recent nuclear builds have suffered major cost overruns. An illustrative example is the V.V. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina (U.S.) where costs rose so sharply that the project was abandoned - after an expenditure of over $9billion. In contrast, renewable-energy technologies have become cheaper. The Wall Street company, Lazard, estimated that the cost of electricity from solar photovoltaic and wind turbines in the U.S. declined by 90% and 72%, respectively, between, 2009-21. In 2020, the International Energy the “new king of electricity”. This contrast has stymied plans for expanding nuclear power. In 2008, the U.S. government projected an expansion of nuclear capacity to 114.9 gigawatts by 2030; in 2021, it predicted that capacity would contract to 83.3 gigawatts. This mirrors a global trend: in 1996, 17.5% of the world’s electicity came from nuclear power plants; by 2020, this figure had declined to just around 10%. India has also had to drastically cut its nuclear ambitions after fukushima. In 2008, then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, projected that India would have 650GW of installed capacity by 2050; his successor, Srikumar Banerjee, predicted in 2010 that capacity would reach 35 gigawatts by 2020. Installed capacity today is only 6.78GW. Unviable imports Such targets were based on the expectation that India would import many light-water reactors after the India-U.S. civil nuclear deal. But, the deal has not led to the establishment of a single new nuclear plant, over 13 years after it was concluded. The worrying part of the Government’s recent parliamentary submission is that these plans for imports have not been cancelled, as is widely believed, and still remain on the books. Of the 24 foreign reactors with “in principle” approval, six are of the VVER (water-water energetic reactor) design that has had multiple operational problems at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. The cumulative load factors for the Kudankulam-1 and two reactors in 2020 were just 53% and 52%, respectively. Twelve reactors are proposed to be imported from the U.S., including at least six AP1000 reactors – the same design that was abandoned in South Carolina. Elsewhere in the U.S., the Vogtle project comprising two AP1000 reactors has escalated from an initial estimate of $14 billion to over $30 billion. The remaining six are of the EPR design that France has been unable to successfully complete in its home country. The single EPR plant being constructed in Flamanville in France has been unable to successfully complete in its home country. The single EPR plant being constructed in Flamanville in France is now estimated to cost €12.4 billion, four times what was forecast when construction started in 2007. We estimated in 2013 that had the six planned EPRs at Jaitapur in Maharashtra been constructed on schedule, electricity from these reactors would cost at least 15 rupees per unit excluding transmission costs. Given recent cost escalation, this is most likely an underestimate. The figures from Vogtle suggest that the proposed AP1000 reactors would produce power that would similarly be costly. Compare that figure with recent low bids of 2.14 rupees for solar-wind hybrid projects; even in projects coupled with storage, bids are around 4.30 rupees per unit. If nuclear electricity is to be sold at a competitive rate, it would have to be greatly subsidized by the India government, which operates all nuclear plants through the Nuclear Power Corporation of India. Understanding risks Safety concerns following the Fukushima accident have led to protests against each planned reactor. Vijay Rupani, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, admitted in the State Assembly in March 2018 that “locals turned against” the Mithivirdi nuclear project after the Fukushima disaster. Contrary to the condescending opinion held by some nucleaocrats, peoples’ concerns are not based on an irrational fear of nuclear energy. In a densely populated country such as India, land is at a premium and emergency health care is far from uniformly available. Local citizens understand that a nuclear disaster might leave large swathes of land uninhabitable – as in Chernobyl – or require a prohibitively expensive clean-up –as in Fukushima, where the final costs may eventually exceed $600 billion. Concerns about safety have been accentuated by the insistence of multinational nuclear suppliers that they be indemnified of liability for the consequence of any accident in India. Under pressure from multinational manufacturers, India’s liability law already largely protects them. But the industry objects to the small window of opportunity available for the Indian government to hold them to account. The message to local citizens is simple: manufacturers do not really believe in their own claims about how safe their reactors are. If they did, they should have been willing to accept responsibility for any failure rather than insisting on special legal arrangements. Not available to any other industry. Climate concerns Climate change will increase the risk of nuclear reactor accidents. The day after the fire at the Zaprizhzhia nuclear plant, a wildfire approached the Hanul nuclear power plant in South Korea and President Moon Jae-in ordered “all-out efforts” to avoid an accident at the reactors there. In 2020, a windstorm caused the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in the U.S. to cease operations. The frequency of such extreme weather events is likely to increase in the future. Therefore, nuclear power is not the right choice to “adapt” to climate change, which requires resilience in power systems. It is also not the appropriate choice for mitigating India’s carbon emissions since it cannot be deployed at the necessary scale. The resources spent on nuclear plants will yield quicker results if they are redirected to renewable. Given the inherent vulnerabilities of nuclear reactors and their high costs, it would be best for the Government to unambiguously cancel its plans for a nuclear expansion.     The AAP gale wind that swept through Punjab The scale of its victory is reflective of the hope that it could be the right party to solve the State’s burning issues ASHUTOSH KUMAR The 16th Assembly election in Punjab, in 2022, is a watershed election for the State, also marking a political deviation from the past. The most notable feature is the verdict itself – a landslide, after a long time. A certain percentage of Punjab’s voters have always voted for the three parties – i.e. the Bharatiya Jana Sangh/Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Akali Dal. The average vote in the past five Assembly elections for the Congress and the Akali Dal-BJP alliance, respectively, has been 36.94% and 39.65%. But in this election, electoral bipolarity, a feature of the political system in the State till the 2017 election, seems to have transitioned to a four-party system. Even the BJP, in fourth place in this election with two seats, is most likely to chart its own course; it has never gained from alliances especially with the Akali Dal (1997-2020), winning only a 6.9% vote shares in the last five Assembly elections. In the case of similar parties, they have never fared well while contesting on their own. Nor have they been of much help to their allies. The Bahujan Samaj Party, with one seat this time, has had a 4.33% vote share in the last five Assembly elections. The Congress’s gamble The second notable feature has been the dismal failure of the Congress’s gamble to line up behind the leadership of Charanjit Singh Channi (after the ouster of Captain Amarinder Singh) in the face of stiff opposition from Navjot Singh Sindhu, President, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. It was a desperate but bold move by the party high command which sensed a sentiment of anti-incumbency and was also aware of the intense internal wrangling within the Punjab Congress. In choosing Mr. Channi, a Dalit Sikh, the party defied, in a way, the age-old asymmetrical social basis of political power in the State that has been in favour of the numerically strong, landowning Jat Sikhs. Most of the State’s Chief Ministers since the formation of Sikh majority Punjabi Suba. The Congress leadership might have factored in that Dalits, who constitute 31.94% of the State’s population, would help it win. Dalits constitute more than 30% of the population in 55 out of 117 (34 reserved) Assembly constituencies in the State. But even here, religious and caste divides among Dalits were an obstacle in the way of en masse voting in favour of Mr. Channi. Interestingly, other parties such as the Akali Dal – which promised a Dalit Deputy Chief Minister – were also looking at the Dalit vote. Rural Sikh votes also remained elusive for the Congress, mainly because of the party’s failure to bring relief to farmers. These votes did not go to the Akali Dal either. AAP may have gained votes as its government in Delhi was seen to help protesting farmers at the Delhi border when they were demanding a rollback of the farm laws. The Congress’s second strategy, i.e., to blame the leadership of Captain Amarinder Singh for misgovernance/non-performance, did not find any takers. Even though there was an attempt to portray the government under Mr. Channi to be a new one, public perception was that it was essentially the same old party-government. Moreover, the Channi government had hardly any time before the election to show results for three crucial issues that haunt the State; drugs, sacrilege and the sand, transport, cable mafia. The Channi government made tall promises and big announcements. The Channi government also spent much of its time and energy dealing with inner party challenges and accusations leveled against it by its own party leaders, Navjot Singh Sindhu included. Striking a chord AAP’s stunning victory – 92 out of 117 seats – is reminiscent of its victory in the Delhi elections in 2015. The sheer scale of its victory, in terms of seats and vote share (42%), shows its widespread support across casters and communities. There are 39 constituencies in the State where Hindu voters constitute more than 50% of the electorate and AAP has won most of them. So, it is not only rural Sikhs who have extended their support to AAP. How does one make sense of the landslide? The first factor has been huge anti-incumbency against the Congress and the Akali Dal, the two parties that have shared power at various times in the State over 25 years. This has been the period that saw a shift in the political narrative – from ethno-religious issues to better governance and development. Ironically though, the State has seen a deceleration in terms of economic growth; the first Green Revolution has run its course while the promise of a second one remains on paper. There have been frequent failures of cash crops in the State leading to immense distress for farmers; the Akali Dal, the self-proclaimed ‘farmers party’, has been unable to find satisfactory solutions. There are only 20 urban constituencies, the rest are overwhelmingly rural. This explains the importance of farmers and the issues related to them in the State. Core issues in the State Small- and medium-scale industries that once flourished in Ludhiana and Jalandhar have relocated to power-surplus and better governed neighboring States such as Himachal Pradesh. The farm sector crisis in what is essentially a one-sector economy State has resulted in massive unemployment. There is also a social crisis, with synthetic drugs ruining the youth. There have been serious allegations about the complicity of politicians in the sand, transport, cable, liquor and drug mafias. While parties that have come to power have all promised a cleaning, in reality the situation has only worsened. The famed State police force which took on militancy is compromised and politicized. Punjab today is a pale shadow of its former self, when it was one considered to be the ‘model State’ in terms of governance and progress 9especially during the Partap Singh Kairon days). All these developments have also led to youth losing faith in the future of the State. There is a huge rush among youth to migrate overseas, with many taking huge risks. A failing education system is also making many unemployable when it comes to white collar jobs. The before, these burning social and economic issues may have also influenced women voters and the youth to consider voting for AAP this time. Women voters have outnumbered male voters in these and even the last Assembly election. Pitching the ‘Delhi model’ However, the massive scale of AAP’s victory, while a reflection of the anger and the dissatisfaction with the congress and the Akali Dal, might be more a yearning for change and hope that the AAP leadership would be the right party to cleanse the system – a promise it has made since the 2014 Lok Sabha election. This was also a party marketing its ‘Delhi model’ with a promise of reforms in the health and education sectors, in turn possibly making even the cynical voter take note. AAP made course corrections after its blunders in the 2017 elections such as bringing in “outsiders” from Delhi for leadership roles. This time, the party not only projected Bhagwant Mann, a two-time Lok Sabha member and a Jat Sikh, as its chief ministerial candidate but also kept its distance from the Punjabi Sikh Diaspora, suspected to be radicals by a segment of voters. Also, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal seems to have won acceptability as a leader in command in the Punjabi Suba, unlike the last time.

 

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THE HINDU EDITORIAL- MARCH 11, 2022

THE HINDU EDITORIAL- MARCH 11, 2022 

The winning formula Mobilization on caste and regional identities was no match for the communal polarization politics of the BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has retained power in all the four States it held, of the five that went to the polls between February 10 and March 7, while the Congress lost the only one it had, Punjab, to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The BJP overcame the fatigue and popular disenchantment it had accumulated over five years in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur, while the congress collapsed in Punjab. The popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who remained the central figure of the BJP campaign, contributed significantly to the party’s victory; for the Congress, the leadership of the Gandhi family has become more of a burden going by its moves ahead of the elections that contributed directly to the party’s Punjab debacle. The resounding victory of AAP in Punjab opens new possibilities for the emergence of a national alternative to the BJP, but, at the moment, the latter’s electoral appeal appears unassailable. A combination of identity appeals, welfare promises, and strongman rhetoric helped the winners – the BJP in four States, and AAP in Punjab. The potency of a caste-oriented social justice plank as a mobilization strategy is at a low ebb as the collapse of its Samajwadi Party (SP) version in U.P. and the Congress version in Punjab shows. Dynastic politics can be taken as having received a definitive drubbing – the leadership of many of the parties on the losing side is controlled by families over generations – the Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). Mr. Modi and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal were quite possibly seen by their supporters as subaltern raiders of elite citadels. The U.P. Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, has risen as a formidable vote catcher for BJP in the Hindi heartland. His brushes with controversies only add to his popularity, the results suggest, and a new Modi-Yogi iteration of Hindutva politics has reinforced the BJP in U.P. The voters had appeared anguished with inflation, stray cattle menace, poor COVID-19 management, and unemployment, but not enough to vote out the BJP government. A protracted agitation of farmers had minimal impact on the polls, as the BJP won many seats in its epicenter of west U.P. It appears that the non-Jat and non-Muslim votes considerably consolidated behind the BJP in the face of the aggressive campaign of the SP-RLD alliance. Several backward caste leaders switched from the BJP tent to the SP camp, but ordinary voters did not follow them to an extent that could have threatened the BJP. The SP more than doubled its tally of 2017 but it still fell short. It could not wash off its image of being a party that provides protection to criminals and favours Yadavs and Muslims. The election saw a decimation of the Bahujan Samaj Party, helping the BJP more than the SP. The Congress only helped in creating an atmosphere for the SP alliance, and barely opened its account. Punjab’s voters have given a decisive mandate for an ‘alternative politics’ promised by the AAP, which won 92 out of 117 seats. AAP, which has been in power in Delhi for seven years, has built a reputation for its welfare schemes, particularly in health and education – two sectors that voters care a lot about. That reputation stood AAP in good stead in Punjab, while the Congress and SAD were done in by the burden of their past sins. The projection of Bhagwant Mann as Chief Minister helped AAP, while the Congress seemed to have gained little by advertising the Dalit identity of Charanjit Singh Channi, who was appointed Chief just five months ahead of the elections. The decimation of SAD signals the diminishing appeal of ‘Panthic’ or Sikh religious politics. The Sanyukt Samaj Morcha (SSM) – an amalgamation of 22 Punjab-based farmer outfits that spearheaded the agitation that forced the Centre to withdraw three controversial farm laws that it had enacted – failed to make any political impact. In Goa, the BJP retained power, though the Congress put up a spirited fight. Goans can breathe easy, now that the State is not heading to yet another round of skullduggery to form a government. The BJP was also helped by the division of votes by players such as the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), the Trinamool Congress, and AAP. The BJP’s strategy of selecting candidates on the basis of ‘maximum win ability’ yielded rich dividends for the party. Manipur did not escape the general trend in the northeast, where people tend to vote for the party or coalition in power at the Centre since the States are dependent on Delhi for funds. The BJP emerged on top and the Congress cut a sorry figure, behind smaller parties such as the Naga people’s Front. The election was bereft of emotional issues, and the BJP gained from its development rhetoric. The demand for Scheduled Tribe status for the Meitei’s, the community that dominates the Imphal and Jiribam valleys comprising 40 of the State’s 60 seats, failed to get traction. Neither did a controversial demand for greater autonomy to the tribal councils straddling the 20 constituencies in the hills. In Uttarakhand, the BJP retained power despite setbacks it had to deal with, while the Congress squandered its chances, getting bogged down in internal power tussles. But the defeat of its Chief Minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, is a serious embarrassment for the BJP. A fresh face would mean a fourth person as Chief Minister in a little over a year. The BJP and AAP have gained huge momentum ahead of 2024. AAP’s durability as a viable national alternative will be put to the test. So far, it has not shown either the organizational strength or the political vision to be a national level player. Indeed, there is no one party that can challenge the BJP. A loose coalition of regional and Left parties, with or without the Congress at the head, might not inspire confidence among voters.

Five State polls, their messages and implications Countering the idea of Hindu nationalism will require much more than smart electioneering or tactical plays SEEMA CHISHTI State elections should never be confused with sporting nomenclature of ‘semi-final’, but in all significant State elections, it is imperative that we draw clear lessons. What must leave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chuffed is that the elections from disparate States around India have resulted in its bettering its performance – and by a significant margin. The BJP era appears to be in top gear and cruising. The BJP gains In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party (SP), up from its meager seats in 2017, led a robust campaign and enthused those who saw the election to believe that it had the momentum. But the message was clear when the votes were counted. Any spring in its feet from the boost it secured from emerging as the sole Opposition pole was no match for the BJP that kept its enormous advantage in the urban and semi-urban seats. Even more, the BJP has gained in vote share from 2017. The decimation of the informal economy in U.P. has consequences that hurt the poorest. Youth unemployment is among the highest in the country and has grown in the past five years, with 16lakh fewer people employed in the State in 2022than they were in 2017. The much lower growth in the State’s GDP, when compared to the 2012-17 phase, and the meteoric price rise, impacting the food basket, are all matters of statistical record. NITI Aayog ranked U.P. at the bottom of the multi-dimension poverty index. But the incumbent Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, was returned to power, in a first since 1985. So, in the face of deep economic distress, the Centre and State taken together with a nearly eight-year incumbency at the Centre and a full majority in Lucknow, one must look at the implications of when the voter does not factor her/his own well-being when making electoral choices. The ‘something else’ that has driven Mr. Adityanath back to Mukhya Mantri niwas must concern us. Campaign’s focus Mr. Adityanath was careful to pursue his campaign with a single-minded focus on Hindutva. From the ‘separateness’ argument of preferential treatment of ‘Kabrastan’ versus ‘Shamshaan’ under the then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, made prominently by the Prime Minister in 2017, Mr. Adityanath and the new 2022 campaign took things to another level throughout his tenure. The treatment meted out to anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protesters (mostly Muslim) was unprecedented, and a key legislation enacted in the middle of the novel coronavirus pandemic was the anti-conversion law known to provide legal cover for mobs wishing to attack inter-faith couples, mostly where the man was Muslim. The shutting down of abattoirs and tanneries had a communal slant as it attacked the economic backbone of several Muslims. And then during the campaign, an analysis of 34 publicly available speeches over three months (between the first week of November and the first week of February), found “100+ Instances of Hate Speech, Religious Polarization, Hindutva Supremacy”. There were bulldozers as campaign pieces placed outside rallies of the incumbent Chief Minister and the anti-Muslim stance of several MLAs, some of whom even went as far to speak of “tearing beards off faces of Muslims”. A Chief Minister, also a head priest in Gorakhpur, in India’s most populous State, who made no bones about standing for what he did, gets back with a comfortable majority. This has national implications as it suggests that a significant section of the people here have bought into a sharply divisive idea of a Hindu Rashtra. The BJP’s confidence in pushing for similar actions, making States theatres of a show of aggressive Hindutva – like Karnataka, Assam and Madhya Pradesh – would get a fillip. It had been believed after the elections in the Hindi heartland in the winter of 2017 that Narendra Modi could sway voters nationally, but the BJP was consistently losing States. That ‘jinx’ on the BJP has gone away with this round, as these elections were in States all around India, and with varying social complexions and political cultures. The BJP has managed to retain power across the board. If the BJP finds no electoral pushback to its economic policies, of simultaneously keeping big business (via privatization) as well as the extremely poor (in its labaarthi, or beneficiary logic) on its side, there would be no problems with raising the price of petrol even further, or re-introducing farm laws. Watch in economic policies unfold, in the face of mounting challenges in the next two years, would be a fascinating exercise. AAP’s gains The remaking of the Opposition space is a key message in these elections. The only Opposition party that has succeeded is the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab. The losers would include, other than the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Akali Dal. The full kaleidoscopes of parties with connections with old India, who thought of themselves as progressive or linked to social justice in some way, have been turned out. AAP, a party which came into its own in the post-2014 world, after the Congress-era had waned fully, is the only one tasting success. AAP having as many Chief Ministers as the Grand Old Party, and parties such as the SP and others unable to mount an electoral challenge to the BJP, signals a blow to the whole universe of how politics was done before 2014, at least for the moment. When this winter, the absence of case census was a serious issue with smaller Other Backward Classes and several prominent leaders leaving the BJP and joining the SP, there was hope that there could be burgeoning social justice and welfare model akin to the Dravidian model. A BSP unwilling to fight appeared to be a positive. But as results have come in, it is clear that merely trying to use another social fault line as a counter to the Hindutva fault line will not work at a time when so much political, institutional and monetary power is concentrated in Hindutva. It would need much more in the mix to mount the challenge. To think of a resurgent ‘post-Mandal’ to take on Hindutva would be foolhardy. U.P. is miles away from a Dravidian model. Mounting a challenge It is not clear if the challenge to the dominant narrative can be met with just electoral tactics. If anything, these elections have proved that to counter the idea of Hindu nationalism or ensure that voters are enthused by harmon, or even a 21st century version of Indian nationalism, would need much more than smart electioneering or tactical plays. For the moment, these verdicts have provided the justification of the ‘popular will’ that the ruling party in Delhi needs to implement policies which it may have hesitated to until now – for example, to bring back the farm laws or push more aggressively towards a Hindu Rashtra, by law.     A demonstration of a durable political phenomenon U.P., much like Gujarat, is now a State where Hindu majoritarianism is deeply embedded in the political common sense ASIM ALI Uttar Pradesh has entered a new political era. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has romped back with a two-thirds majority: the first incumbent to return to power in over three decades. The project of the Samajwadi Party (SP) to transcend its Muslim-Yadav social base has come a cropper. The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress have been virtually annihilated. Mandate as a meta narrative The triumph of the BJP is not surprising, even if its scale was largely unanticipated. A common theme of the reportage from Uttar Pradesh has been the existence of a wave-less election. The antennae of journalists neither caught strong sentiments of pro-incumbency nor a widespread sentiment of anti-incumbency. What then explains the decisive mandate given to the BJP? Decoding a political mandate is a complicated affair. There are several components that go into the making of a political majority. Some pundits have read into the mandate a validation of the governance achievements of the Yogi Raj, particularly welfare provisioning and tough law and order: a ‘rashan’ and ‘shasan’ mandate. Others maintain that the BJP was saved from a sticky wicket by its structural advantages: organizational machinery and media management. There is some truth in both the explanations, yet, they both miss what is essentially the ideological driving force behind the mandate, which is Hindu majoritarianism. This was the meta narrative of the BJP campaign, in reference to which all the smaller narratives were stitched together. The principal challenge facing the BJP in these elections was keeping together the sprawling social coalition of Hindu voters it had assemble over the last decade: the upper castes, non-Yadav backward castes, and non-Jatav Dalits. This task was made even more daunting by the prevalence of multiple sources of discontent, which had also hurt the BJP in previous State elections. These include the usual litany of unemployment, price rise, stagnant incomes and rural distress, coupled with a particularly disastrous impact that the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown had wrought in the State. To say that an expanded provisioning of rations outweighed the combined effects of all these governance deficits stretches credulity. It is hard to think of an Indian electorate in the third decade of the 21st century being swept off its feet with bags of food grains – something they have come to expect from the government for at least half a century. More than just welfare      Cash transfers for a variety of welfare schemes – farmer income support, toilets, houses, schools bags, etc. – present a stronger case. Though, here too, analysts reading an election-swaying effect need to tread with caution, for two reasons. One, welfare transfers on their own did not save the BJP from a voter backlash in recent State elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. And two, neither survey data nor journalistic accounts indicated a whirlwind of public enthusiasm that could explain such a huge mandate. In fact, two months before the election, a survey finding highlighted the ambiguous nature of the public mood: while more than two-thirds of respondents claimed to be broadly dissatisfied with the State government, a slim majority still wanted it back in power. Clearly, something else was also in play. And that decisive factor is Hindu majoritarianism, which has forged an emotional bond between the BJP and Hindu voters, barring the Yadavs and the Jatavs. The political activist, Yogesndra Yadav, reported from his travels in Uttar Pradesh the existence of a political and moral ‘common-sense’ shared by Hindu voters of the State. This ‘common-sense’, borne out of what he calls the ‘Hindu-Muslim divide’, led them to excuse material suffering and misgovernance because they wished to stay on their ‘own’ side. BJP versus SP Make no mistake, this was primarily and ideological clash between the BJP and SP, waged mainly over non-Yadav backward caste voters. With the rest of the voters – upper castes, Muslims, Yadavs and Jatav Dalits – firmly in different camps, backward castes (and to a lesser extent, the non Jatav Dalits) were supposed to decide the fate of the election. They were the fulcrum of Akhilesh Yadav’s campaign, who leaned heavily on the Mandal lexicon of ‘haq’ (due rights) and ‘hissedari’ (equal representation), promising a ‘revolution of the backwards’. How did the BJP then manage to keep its backward caste voters from falling under the sway of the SP’s Mandal politics? Or in other words, how did Hindu majoritarianism reinforce the Hindu political identity of the backward castes that made them indifferent to Mandal politics? There are two aspects to this. The first aspect is providing the backward castes with a sense of physical security – the law-and-order pitch of the Yogi government, symbolized by bulldozers and encounters. Under the Hindu umbrella, they are safe from the depredations of the Yadav and (even more so) Muslim criminals. The securitization of communal prejudice has reached its highest form in Uttar Pradesh. There was an explicit conflation of ‘mafias’ with Muslim strongmen such as Mukhtar Ansari and Atiq Ahmad; rioters with Muslim anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protesters; and anti-social elements with Muslim cow smugglers and love jihad conspirators. For instance, more than a third of all National Security Act (NSA) detentions by the U.P. government (2018-20) have been against cow smugglers. Thus, the law-and-order pitch of the BJP largely comprised converting Muslims into a security threat and then making high-pitched demonstrations of taming that threat. Many journalists who reported the absence of overt Hindu-Muslim tensions on the ground missed the potency of the communal assumptions that have become normalized among wide swathes of the electorate. Economic security The second aspect is providing the backward castes with a sense of economic security – without reference to their caste identity. The latter part (mechanism) here is as politically crucial as the former part (delivery). As I have argued in a previous article in The Hindu, “In Uttar Pradesh the crux of welfare politics”, historically, Mandal and Dalit politics had gained ground in Uttar Pradesh by turning caste mobilization into a pathway for greater access to public goods. The welfare regime instituted by the BJP, where provisions are made in a universal and programmatic manner, cutting out the middlemen particularly through cash transfers, dilutes the political salience of caste identity. Thus, this type of welfare politics works in tandem with a Hindu majoritarian discourse towards the political transformation of Dalits and backward castes into Hindus. We must also consider why the Mandal strategy of the SP party failed in disturbing this Hindu political majority. In another article in The Hindu, “Re-establishing ownership of the Mandal space”, my argument was that it was an enormous challenge to resurrect Mandal politics in the space of an election campaign. On the eve of the election, the SP engineered defections from the ranks of the BJP of prominent backward caste leaders such as Swami Prasad Maurya and Dara Singh Chauhan. This was meant to underline the dissatisfaction of backward castes under the Yogi regime, and make backward caste assertion a central theme of the election. As it turned out, most of these leaders did not have a hold on their own caste beyond their constituencies, and their record of opportunistic and transactional politics did not fit well with their pious ideological refrains. These efforts of the SP were, in short, too little too late. Formulating an alternative As this writer had mentioned previously, to make a serious effort to revitalize the Mandal space would require a longer term organizational and ideological revamp, and to contend with a new, flexible form of Hindutva. The BJP’s Hindu majoritarian campaign is carried out through the year, every year, through an active organization and friendly media channels. It cannot be effectively challenged through an alternative ideological gambit that barely lasts more than three months. Mr. Adityanath had framed this election as an 80 versus 20 elections: an ill-concealed reference to a Hindu versus Muslim electoral competition. In hindsight, this framing did carry more than a grain of truth. Muslims duly consolidated behind the SP, while the BJP carried along with it the majority of the Hindus. The Hindu political majority that the BJP had constructed over the last three elections has now been demonstrated to be a durable phenomenon. Uttar Pradesh, much like Gujarat, is now a BJP-dominant state where Hindu majoritarianism is deeply embedded in the political common sense.

 

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