Article 19: February 2020

Mute Spectator : Fund Sharing

Mute Spectator February 27, 2020

The fifteenth Finance Commission(FC) laid down its report on February 1^st in Parliament and has received criticism from several stakeholders, especially from the southern states. FC is a constitutional body which is set up every five years as per article 280 of the Indian constitution. The report is supposed to give recommendation to the government, among other things, on the devolution of central funds to the states for a period of five years. The interim report published this year however deals only with the year 2020-21 and postpones the full report to the next year on account of the abrogation of article 370 and disintegration of J&K state into two Union Territories: J&K and Ladakh. We’ll look at the main takeaways from the report through this post.

Formula of Separation

Devolution of Central funds is always done through two ways; Vertical and Horizontal. Vertical devolution deals with the sharing between the Union government and all State governments put together while Horizontal devolution deals with the formula for sharing among the States. The 15^th FC recommends 59% of the funds to the Union while the remaining 41% is allocated for the States. The states see a 1% decrease from the previous (14^th FC) formula but this decrease essentially comes from the disintegration of J&K and does not provide for any significant change in the total corpus for States.

The Horizontal sharing among the states differ from commission to commission based on basic metrics like income distance, population, tax effort among others. These criteria can be clubbed under four divisions for further understanding; they are Needs to run the government, Equity among states, Efficiency of governance and Fiscal Performance. This report drafted its formula based on the 2011 census thereby deviating from previous FCs which primarily took 1971 census as their base.

Question of Incentives

The use of 1971 census data in previous FCs were rationalized on the account of uneven demographic performance among the states. They opined that if there is reduction of funds to states that took decent strides towards reducing population would be like incentivizing poor performance and disincentivizing good performance. But the obvious flaw in the argument is that it is out of touch with reality. As population grows, States with more population need more funds just to provide basic amenities to each individual. It forgets that the unit of measurement at the end of the day is of the individual and governments should provide comparable services at comparable tax rates to every individual irrespective of the state she is in. The 15^th FC report however affirms its commitment to reality by using the 2011 census and also appreciates performing states with a special weightage on demographic performance; i.e, if states have reduced their fertility rates, they have an additional 12.5 % weightage in the formula.

The other problem of incentives deals with special sectoral grants which the FC recommends to each states on different sectors. The report recommends a special grant of Rs 7,375 crore on nutrition for 2020-21 and intimated that the full report will have other special grants for health, pre-primary education, judiciary, rural connectivity, railways, police training and housing. These incentives for states to spend on specific sectors has two problems; it is reminiscent of the central planning which the country is trying to forget where a central entity drafts the plan for the entire nation in an one size fits all approach and it has a big follow-up problem. The FC is not a permanent body therefore it would not be able to record and review the performance on such grants. This move towards sectoral grants is an unfortunate deviation from the 14^th FC which abstained from such planning.

Winners and Losers

Five major states: Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Uttar Pradesh were named losers in all major news headlines. As mentioned earlier, the 41% is shared between the states with respect to the criteria discussed above; after such consideration, to compensate the states with poor performance and to satisfy the quest for Equity, some states get more and some get less. This is unavoidable in a diverse unevenly developed country like India. Let’s take the example of Karnataka and Bihar; Karnataka’s share has reduced from 1.98 out of 42% in the 14^th FC to 1.49 out of 41% in the 15^th FC, while that of Bihar’s has increased from 4.06 to 4.13 respectively. Now we’ll have to compare the perCapita income of both states; while PCI of Karnataka stands at Rs 1,78,12, PCI of Bihar is as low as Rs43,822. Considering the individual as the metric of comparison, individuals residing in Bihar should receive comparable services at comparable tax rates but they do not. So there should be equity of sharing, at least for now, to move towards a more equal society.

The concern of the ‘losing’ states, especially the southern states, are however very well justified. It seems like they are being punished with less funds for good performance. Although under-developed states must try to increase growth rates, blaming the FC for considering equity concerns is a zero sum game. Instead the 59% of the funds which is allocated for the Union government should be reduced and shared among the states. The Vertical formula must be revisited to give more power to states thereby putting money where the mouth is, otherwise the winner is always the Union and the losers- all the states put together.

Way Forward

There are a whole slew of Centrally Sponsored Schemes(CSS) which essentially deals with subjects on the State list and the Concurrent list. These schemes mostly overlap existing schemes in the states and are not required for the Union to step in. If the Union government has a moral obligation for the betterment of the society, let it give grants to the state as per article 275 of the Indian constitution rather than pushing political agenda on states. Direct Benefit Transfer is hailed as a successful measure for two reasons- empowering individuals to use their money in ways that they seem fit and reducing corruption; the same applies for grants straight to the states rather than CSS which is in a way, an antithesis to DBT.

The governments should oblige the FC and disclose all off-budget borrowings in order to properly arrive at the real value of fiscal performance. To review and follow up the recommendations, the FC should be made a permanent body with efficient members of judicial and economic proficiency. Looking towards the future, the FC should encourage and check the working of State FCs which decide on devolution of finances to local governments. The devolution to the local governments is much more important than state devolution because ultimately the individual is the basic unit of measurement and local governments are the closest to the individual.

By Benolin

Mute Spectator is the primary series of the blog where we express our thoughts on current affairs.

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Mute Spectator : Why Reservation in Private jobs is a bad idea

Mute Spectator February 19, 2020

The bandh called by several pro-Kannada groups on February 13^th in Karnataka, asking the government to reserve jobs for locals in private companies, seemed to have not struck the chord with the public as the day was usual apart from stray incidents in some parts by the group members. This demand for reservation in private jobs however has struck the chord among political parties and pressure groups alike as we can see them taking center stage in states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra with Andhra Pradesh even passing a bill to provide reservation in private jobs for local residents.

The issue of reserving seats in public institutions is a conundrum and is out of the scope of this article, so here we will deal only with the issue of reserving jobs in private companies. The argument against such government intervention is two-fold; moral and practical.

Elephant in the Room

Government is an institution which has been given the monopoly on violence over individuals as long as such coercion is just and reasonable. The power to coerce is always at loggerheads with liberty and freedom of the individual, so it is desirable that a government finds a balance between coercion and individual freedom in order for a just society. Such balance is achieved by using the power to coerce only where there is an absolute necessity and abstaining from unnecessary interventions however noble the ends might seem to be, because if you use force to effectuate, good or bad, there is going to be a loss of freedom and liberty. As economist Milton Friedman says “a society which aims at equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty”.

The moral case against reservation in private jobs stems from the cynicism against this government coercion. As we all know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, each advance made by the government to increase its power should be met with cynicism. This reservation policy essentially puts a gun on the head of private companies owned by individuals to recruit locals just because they belong to a specific geographical sub-locality irrespective of merit. Thus making the lawmakers, using their coercive power as government, decide on how to run a private company. This flies in the face of freedom and liberty to conduct one’s own business in a free country. To quote Milton Friedman again, it is like A and B deciding what C shall do for D. Citizens should be vigil and aware of such coercion and stop being apologetic and realise the dangers of unnecessary government intervention and coercion which has grown and grown with arbitrariness since independence without being checked and confronted.

Sons of Soil

The government should try to end discrimination in all forms and kinds rather than legislating in effect to discriminate against people of different sub-locality within the same country, even so when nobody can definitively arrive at the question of who a local is. Research and studies show that Indian society is an evolving organism and has never stopped absorbing people into its fold. People migrated within the sub-continent continuously throughout history and in modern times, so it is quite a feat to identify which group belongs where with precision, this is without considering individual migration.

People professing the sons of soil theory are either misinformed or just plain evil. Although closed groups existed in the subcontinent, civilizations have evolved only through different cultures coalescing together in harmony. A legislation against such merging of different people in harmony is against the grain of modern evolution. Let’s take the example of the small group of migrants from Iran into western India, the Parsis. They are probably the smallest community in the whole world but they have an outsized contribution in shaping modern India. From India’s first articulate economic nationalist, Dadabhai Naoroji to arguably the most prestigious business conglomerate of India- the Tata Group and so many others in various fields like Sam Manekshaw in Defence, Homi Bhabha in science, Zubin Mehta in music and Nani Palkhivala in law among others were all from the Parsi migrant community. Are they not the sons and daughters of this land? Studies about migration show that occupation and persecution are the twin reasons for global migration, especially inside the vast land of the subcontinent. Communities move from one province to the other in search for better life and standard of living thus, legislating in effect to curb such movement of free people of the country goes against moral values of the constitution.

Every time an Indian origin person living abroad achieves something significant, there is considerable celebration among Indians. From Nobel prizes to government positions, every feat of achievement receives at least ten forwards on Whatsapp. From neighbouring South-East Asia to the Americas in the other side of the world, Indians have migrated en masse and achieved considerable stability in their respective fields so much so that the Indian Diaspora could be a separate country in the size of some European nation. For instance Chinmay Tumbe, in his book India moving, talking about the Patel community, narrates a story of a local cricket match in Bradford in 2001 where all twenty two players on the field and the scorekeeper were Patels. The score card read Patel c. Patel b. Patel, Patel b.Patel, Patel run-out Patel, and so on.

Considering all that, it seems a little (no! a lot) dishonest and hypocritical that we are legislating to curb movement of people of the same country and race to travel between states for livelihood. Political parties that support such laws to stop others from migrating and stealing away their jobs are banking on the tribal fear of close-knit societies where small dilution from orthodoxy equals to loss of culture. The tribal instinct of othering people of even the slightest difference, although engrained in our sub-conscious, is detrimental to the modern world based on the shared morality and rule of law.

What is Justice?

I’ll end the moral argument with a Thirukkural as is the trend nowadays:

ஓர்ந்துகண் ணோடாது இறைபுரிந்து யார்மாட்டும்
தேர்ந்துசெய் வஃதே முறை.

Enquiring, favouring no one, being impartial,

Consulting and rendering justice is Just rule.

As Thiruvalluvar says, being impartial and favouring no one are the ingredients for a Just rule. Justice must not only be done but also to be seen as done and the body of government should make sure of it. This legislation essentially favours a group of people over the others thus making it clearly unjust and moreover the government is seen as the villain safeguarding and executing that unjust rule. The flip side of the argument is that it is in interest of the local people of the specific states thereby trying to be moral but we will have to realise that these exclusionary legislation only help in giving teeth to hatred. Consider the plight of the Chettiar community when they were made to leave Burma following government persecution or the Tamil community from Sri Lanka before and after the civil war. All racial persecutions were the result of such discriminatory legislation by governments.

One cannot achieve anything desirable through discrimination. Although increasing job opportunities for local residents seem desirable, exclusionary legislation like these is not the way to go because the bad means corrupt the good intention. When you try to use bad means to achieve good intentions, the outcome is likely to be that the badness of means will triumph over the goodness of the objective.

Build the Wall

It is a known fact that since globalization the Indian economy has grown in all aspects from drastically improved GDP to decreased poverty levels. This is because of India’s assimilation into the global market rather than operating in silos towards self-reliance. The world has become a much more connected place thereby making tussles and wars costly thus providing for a relatively stable and peaceful world. Deviation from this stability can have adverse effects on the world order as can be seen in the case of China-USA trade rifts. Protectionism, among other things, would increase hostility between nations and reduces predictability which is the most important feature for a peaceful world. Reservation policy for locals in private jobs is one such protectionist measure to favour one group over the other. The first practical case against this policy is that protectionism is more harm than good, especially within states of the same country.

Let’s take the example of Andhra Pradesh’s policy. The Act proposes 75% reservation in factories and industries for locals and allows the government to invite penalty if such reservation is not made. In the case of deserving candidates not present, the onus is on the private company to train candidates for three years in collaboration with the government. Let’s imagine an entrepreneur who has a factory in Andhra Pradesh. Due to government coercion, the factory has to recruit 75% from the locals irrespective of other meritorious candidates from elsewhere. So, there is a compromise in quality. Now, the law asks the industry to train candidates thereby giving bad educational institutions a free pass. So, there is increase in the factor cost of output because there is an added cost of educating the non-meritorious. Therefore if an output product of the industry had costed ten rupees earlier, it could cost twelve rupees now, that too for lesser quality. This will eventually make that factory noncompetitive in the global market. Even if the state then compels the public to buy from the same factory by increasing import duties (also Protectionist), each buyer has to spend two more rupees from her pocket for the same product with probably lesser quality when those two rupees could’ve been put into something useful like food, health services, creating other products, etc. Thus we can see that these protectionist policies cater to a small concentrated group of receivers by punishing a large diffused set of consumers.

This policy also lacks industrial knowledge; when most of the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in industries are being done away with the advent of automation, reserving industrial jobs doesn’t seem significant. It would be interesting if the government decides that factories must use robots and automated systems manufactured only from the state.

Ripples of Failure

Private companies are dynamic in their working which makes them competitive, failure to realise this character of the private sector is the second practical case against reservation. Policies like reservation may be suited for public institutions where permanent jobs are available irrespective of performance but private companies have no moral obligation to hold on to an employee if she is bad. This reservation policy would make letting go of a person complicated for the company. It might also lead to suit against the company thereby making firing a person very costly. The private players would be pushed into the judicial machinery like a pinball which is pushed and bounced away by random cogs eventually going under and thus out of business. If at all there is smooth removal of a person, filling that vacancy would become another headache because recruitment should again be based on government prescribed order. This may also ripple towards reservation for locals in promotions in the future, which is abhorrent to say the least.

The policy also does not take into account the incentives for people and companies. More regulation means companies have no incentive to invest more. One has to realise that one state, say Andhra Pradesh, is not an isolated silo, so existing companies have the liberty to move campus or invest elsewhere where there is less regulation. This ripple effect could be detrimental to the economy and also to the protected locals who may not have a job altogether. New companies would obviously pick to invest in a place where the government is not breathing down their neck watching every step of business. As far as workers are concerned, more meritorious workers would prefer not to migrate to that state because why try hard to secure a place in the 25% when you can compete for the entire 100% elsewhere. Then the company has to offer more money in order to woo in meritorious workers from other states thereby again increasing factor cost thus making the company unviable. This artificial curb of migration could potentially make the industry slow and out of touch with others outside where there are no restrictions on recruitment policy.

Even if everything is justified somehow, does the Indian state have the state capacity to follow through each company and industry in every recruitment and dismissal? A big No!

One Nation One Market

The buzz word for growth nowadays is Ease of doing Business, Indian economy has made decent strides in making business easier to operate. From being 142^nd in the Ease of doing Business index by the World Bank in 2014, it has improved to 63^rd in 2020, thanks to optimal usage of technology. Even though there is tremendous room for improvement, the efforts by the government in relatively freeing the businesses from bureaucratic red tape should be commended. But policies like reservation for locals stand a full 180 degrees opposite of such efforts. This is the final practical argument against the policy.

The Goods and Services Tax was rolled out, albeit hastily, for furthering the idea of one nation one market. It made sense that a single country should have a rational single tax system thereby making it easy for businesses to operate between states without much hustle. The single window e-way billing system for cross-state trade was also a move in that direction. Throwing all useful freedom-oriented ideas to the bin and moving towards regressive reservation policies would only end up stifling the market thereby reducing growth. Researchers from the Takshishila Institution, in a paper titled Reducing Poverty in India: Role of Economic Growth, argue that for every 1% additional GDP growth, poverty is reduced by 0.78%; or 1.7 million people will get out of poverty. So it is incumbent upon us do things that would get the economy growing faster; and reservation in private jobs is definitely not one of it. When economists are advocating for labour reforms in order to ease regulation on labour, one more additional regulation by the government does not seem to be advisable in the slightest.

The society should try to emulate inclusiveness and reduce hatred in irrational ways. The government should realise the unintended consequences of its intervention and the impact it has on peoples’ lives. It should not give way to pressure groups with their narrow simplistic thinking of economics. It should also understand that the end consumer should be the one who benefits rather than concentrated special groups which seem to have the loudest voices. It is important to remember what the great economist Adam Smith said while discussing protectionist policies “in every country it always is and must be in the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it the cheapest. The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it nor could it ever have been called in question had not the interested sophistry of merchants (pressure groups) confounded the common sense of mankind; their interest is in this respect directly opposite to that of the great body of people”, and realise that reserving jobs for locals in private jobs is a bad idea.

By Benolin

Mute Spectator is the primary series of the blog where we post our thoughts on current affairs.

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Mute Spectator : Swach Politics

Mute Spectator February 18, 2020

Criminalisation in politics has always been a bone of contention in our political eco-system. It has reached a point where candidates with criminal record, money power and the ability to swing the polls in the parties’ favour are given advantage in elections in both the state and the centre. In these circumstances, parties are shunning their moral responsibilities to come up with a clean face and are looking for short sighted electoral victories.

Political and electoral reforms have not been given the importance it required in our diversified political strata. Further, parties look at ways of sabotaging progressive ideas taken up by the Election Commission of India or the Supreme Court or other such interested organisations. On the contrary, every political party shouts to the heights of Himalayas for reforms in electoral politics and the need to shun criminalisation in politics. This double speak of intent and interest clears the air of the level of hypocrisy of our political parties.

To begin with, I am quoting the statements made in the past by the Prime Minister of India, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Supreme Court on the criminalisation of politics. The above three have been selectively chosen as the current Prime Minister is the most powerful in present India, the Aam Aadmi Party for being the only entity to defeat the Modi- Shah duo for three consecutive times and as always the Supreme Court which stands as the guardian of the Constitution of India.

Here goes the statements made by the above three. The Prime Minister in April 2014 said, "Our aim is 'Apradh Mukt Rajneeti.' We need to end the atmosphere of criminalisation of politics that was started and encouraged by Congress." In Feb 2014, the Aam Aadmi Party stated that, "It will make corruption, criminalisation of politics and dynasty politics as its major poll plank in the then Lok Sabha elections" and assured of no room for criminals in politics. In March 2017, the SC said that the most serious problem our country faces is corruption and the extensive criminalisation of politics. In sept 2018, the same Supreme Court on the criminalisation of politics said, "time has come for parliament to keep criminals away".

Intent to Interest

Now let's look at the intent to interest conversion of the current Prime Minister and the Aam Aadmi Party. PM Modi steamrolled almost all media enterprises in justifying the candidature of Pragya Singh Thakur for the seat of Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency. The lady is one of the prime accused in the Malegaon blast case of 2009 and is also better known for her patronisation of Nathuram Godse. Today, she is a Member of Parliament.

The newly elected MLA from Aam Aadmi Party, Amanathullah Khan has a total of 12 criminal cases against him under which 11 cases are of serious nature and has multiple cases pending. The much talked about clean politics of the AAP has also dissolved in the pollution of Delhi which is evidently shown by numbers which we will look later.

What constitutes criminality?

It is important to understand what constitutes criminality in electoral politics under IPC as the entirety of criminalisation of politics lies solely based on it. It includes any crime on which the maximum punishment is of 5 years or more, a non- bailable offence, electoral offence, offence related to loss to the exchequer, offences that are mentioned in the Representation of the People Act (Section 8), offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, crimes against women and crimes related to assault, murder, kidnap and rape-related. Now, let's look at the numbers.

Number's talk

The present parliament has 43% Members of Parliament with pending criminal cases which numbers to 234 MPs and 46% of MPs have criminal records. The 17th Lok Sabha has 29% of its MPs with serious declared criminal cases. As a matter of shame, the ruling party has 116 MPs i.e 39% of their total seats with criminal cases, the opposition Congress party has 29 MPs i.e 57% of their total, Janata Dal (United) has 13 MPs i.e 81% of their total, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has 10 MPs i.e 43% of their total, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has 9 MPs i.e 41% of their total and so on.

In the recently concluded Delhi elections, there is no difference between these numbers. Out of the 70 MLAs, 43 MLAs i.e 61% MLAs have criminal cases against them, 37 MLAs i.e 57% MLAs have serious criminal cases against them and 9 MLAs i.e 13% MLAs have convict cases against them. The winning party AAP has 38 (61%) out of 62 MLAs with criminal cases. The losing party BJP has 5 (63%) out of 8 MLAs with criminal cases against them.

Supreme Court- the Guardian

The Supreme Court has always stood its ground in the matter of criminalisation of politics. It has shown both "intent and interest" on this issue. The landmark judgement of the Supreme Court delivered on 13 March 2002, upheld the judgement of the Delhi High Court to publish candidate’s vital information as a mandatory to stand elections and declared the ordinance brought in by the sitting government to sabotage the SC ruling as "to be illegal, null and void."

The recent ruling of the SC to declare the criminal records of their candidates within 48 hrs of their selection and to explain why candidates with criminal cases where selected is a welcoming step to clean up the criminalisation of politics. The judgement as quoted in the Hindu says that the candidate’s information on criminal antecedents should be detailed and include the nature of offence, charges framed against him, the court concerned and the case number. Further, the judgement tends to make the political party to explain to the public through its published material how "the qualifications or achievements or merit" of a candidate charged with a crime, impressed it enough to cast aside his background.

Though it's visibly clear that political parties show poor or no intent to clean up the electoral politics of the country, it becomes the responsibility of the SC, ECI and other interested organisations such as ADR to do the job. It is ironic that undertrials and convicts cannot vote in our elections and at the same time a candidate with serious criminal case under IPC can be a representative in both the state and the centre. Hail the rationality of our political parties. Intent and interest do matters.

Youngsters to Youngstars

Another thing that can curb or lower the present level of criminalisation ratio in my opinion is by bringing in the 33% reservation of women in both parliament and legislative assemblies along with additional 7% reservation for youngsters under the age of 35 irrespective of their gender. Thereby, political parties are left only with 60% of seats for other candidates in which they can go for merit based candidature selection and radically reduce the participation of heinous criminals in electoral politics.

In times of youngsters being highly skeptical about the reservation system which they want to do away with and look towards merit based system, this idea may seem to be outlandish. Once the plea for reservation of women is understood, the idea may seem to have a point.

Reservation for youngsters in politics could make tremendous turn around in the current way of politicking. Students who show early interest in political activity and social studies can be nurtured. Graduation in political science and further studies in the subject in the early 20's can truly provide leaders of the future. Along with it, national student political organisations like National Students Union of India (NSUI), All India Students Union (AISU), Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and multiple state students’ organisation can utilise this space for positive career growth rather than the regular rabble rousing that these organisations engage in. This 7% of youngsters can learn from the experience and the knowledge of the remaining 93% and learn the practicality of governance in their own eyes rather than of someone else’s. Once performance becomes the sole matter of contention, then political parties will practically move away from candidates of criminal records to candidates of knowledge, talent and performance records.

JAI HIND.

By Sathish TK

Mute Spectator is the primary series of the blog where we express our thoughts on current affairs.

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Excerpts : In the memory of Pulwama's Martyrs

Books February 14, 2020

Eleven days earlier, at 9.30 a.m on February2019, the chiefs of the Indian Armed forces and intelligence agencies, top ministers and the National Security Advisor arrived at Delhi's leafy 7, Lok Kalyan Marg compound where the Prime Minister of Indialives and sometimes operates from. It was far from a routine weekly meeting for the Prime Minister to take stock of the national security.

Eighteen hours earlier, 800 kilometres north, in the Lethapora area of Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, a vehicle packed with explosives and driven by a young man named Adil Ahmed Dar, had managed to snake between vehicles of a large comvey of srinagar- bound trucks carrying 2500 troops from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and rammed it. The explosion killed forty troops, spattering the highway with their blood and body parts. Minutes after the blast, a stream of pictures of the mangled vehicles and sickening carnage taken from mobile phones of locals and first responders flooded social media.

With the Pakistan- administered JeM group claiming responsibility for the attack, the Prime Minister had convened the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) solely to access how India could respond. Forty minutes later, the meeting was finished. Asked if air strikes on a terror target were a viable option, IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa responded in the affirmative, also briefing the Cabinet Committee that the country's jets would be ready to strike with confirmed targets in a matter of days. He was given weeks.

From 16-20 February, the IAF worked with intelligence agencies at the operations room in Delhi's Vayu Bhawan. With National Security Advisor Ajit Doval receiving a daily update on proceeding, the deliberations were honed by satellite imagery, human intelligence from the ground in Pakistan and PoK, and photographs from a group of Heron drones flying daily missions along the Line of Control (LoC).

On 21 February, the IAF presented a classified set of 'targets tables' to the government via the National Security Advisor.

The first in the list of seven separate target options was a JeM terror training compound that sat on a hill called Jabba Top outside the city of Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The IAF recommended Balakot, just 100 km Pakistan's capital Islamabad, since it was a secluded target with the lowest probability of non-terrorist casualties. The two other 'viable' targets presented to the government were in PoK- Muzzafarabad, 23 km south-east of Balakot, and Chakothi about 70 km away. But these two, along with Bahawalpur, carried not just the risk of collateral damage, but a slightly higher chance of being hindered by Pakistani air defences. Among the remaining options was Murikde, north of Lahore, the city that held the headquarters of that other dreaded India- focused terror group, the Lasker-e-Taiba (LeT). This too was deemed a highly risky target to consider.

By midnight on 22 February, a highly controlled chain of command decided that the Indian jets would strike the first target in the list- the one outside Pakistan's Balakot. Every man and woman in the secret chain was aware that if such a mission went through, it would be India's first air strike on Pakistani soil since the 1971 war. What amplified the mission ahead was the two countries weren't at war in 2019.Could such a mission change that?

Salutations to the brave martyrs.

JAI HIND.

This is taken from the book India’s most Fearless 2 by Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh

Excerpts is a series where we post thoughtful passages from different books that provide for a quick and easy reading.

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Excerpts : Crossing the Kaalapaani

Books February 12, 2020

Overseas indentured migration from India was initially overwhelmingly male –dominated, and it came to a point where colonial officials had to forcefully mandate laws on gender-balanced voyages in the 1840s. This led to just a slight improvement as the share of female emigrants rose from next to nil to around 25 per cent. Women and men on indenture would be dubbed ‘coolies’, a word whose origins could either lie in the Tamil word ‘kooli’, which means ‘wages’, or the Turkish word ‘Quli’, which means ‘slave’, or even the Chinese words ‘ku’(bitter) and ‘li’(strength). Indentured migration would start with a recruiter, known as the arkati, scouting ‘markets, carnavanserais, railway stations, bazaars, temples and urban centers’ for likely candidates who could be persuaded to embark on the long journey. In the first few decades of indenture, this would often include extreme coercion, if not outright kidnapping, as the concept of overseas travel was still new to the labourers. To overcome this, the entire process of emigration was brought under legislation with lasting legacies. In the 1840s, legal provisions introduced a ‘protector of immigrants’ at the port of disembarkation and a ‘protector of emigrants’ at the port of embarkation. The latter now survives as a department in India’s ministry of external affairs. As per an act of 1844, the protector of emigrants would ensure that ‘no emigrant shall embark without a certificate from the Agent, countersigned by the Protector’ leading to a curious phrase that is now imprinted in Indian passports as ‘Emigration Check Not Required’. After frequent protests and a long-protracted debate led by Indian political leaders, indenture was abolished to give way to the emigration act of 1922, which was again replaced in 1983 to govern contemporary labour emigration.

In the late 19^th century, with better regulations and word of mouth advertisement of returning emigrants, indenture transformed into a kith-kin based system of migration that would be the hallmark of the Great Indian Migration Wave. It is also worth emphasizing that indentured migration formed less than 10 percent of all work-related migration during its period of existence. Indenture has been seen as a ‘new system of slavery’ by some but was also an escape from an older system of slavery or domestic bondage induced by Caste, and other pressures. This is why the abolishment of the system did not stop migration from the key recruiting districts as they continued to supply migrants to different places for another 100 years.

This is take from the book India Moving : A History of Migration by Chinmay Tumbe

Excerpts is a series where we post thoughtful passages from different books which provide for a quick and easy reading.

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Mute Spectator : Dealing with No-detention

Mute Spectator February 06, 2020

The Tamil Nadu government has withdrawn its decision to conduct public examination for classes V and VIII. This decision comes in response to the severe criticism from several quarters- from academicians to students, claiming that Public exams and the No-detention policy may act as deterrent for children from attending school. Although this argument may seem convincing, like everything else, education in India is much more nuanced and through this post we will try to understand, at least a small part of, the behemoth called the Indian education system.

Understanding No-detention

The rationale for No-detention comes from various committee reports since the British period like the Hartog Commission (1929) to Kothari Commission (1964-66) and various Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee reports among others. The committees deemed detention to be ‘Wastage’ of early years that pushed children out of schools. So, in the pursuit of inclusive education, the government passed the Right to Education act (RTE) in 2010. This act among other things banned schools from detaining children in the same class up until class eight, i.e, a school cannot fail any child for poor performance, taking it further, no exams up until ninth standard.

The basic argument stems from the fact that failure discourages and demotivates thereby pushing children out of school, especially in poor areas. This argument bore fruit when drop-out rates of primary schools plummeted from 30.3 during 2009-10 to 4.13 in 2014-15. More children became students, i.e, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) increased up to 99% in 2014-15. All these improvements are in a way the direct result of RTE and the No-detention policy advocated by it. But as always in case of government intervention, there is a huge area of uncharted territory where the unintended consequences loom large.

Perfect is the Enemy of Good

As mentioned earlier, the primary drop-out rate for the year 2014-15 is 4.13 but the rate increased exponentially to 17.16 for secondary school, i.e, when they reach class nine. Children find it difficult to cope up with sudden examination when they reach the ninth grade and thus drop out of school. Thus the perfect legislation for making education inclusive, in essence, has only pushed children from dropping out of school by three years. One might still consider the legislation a success because at least it provided elementary education for all. Well, no!

Elementary education is the basis of any developed economy but in India, it is in tatters. The quality has been compromised so much so that in 2016, 58% of children in class III were unable to read class I level text. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), in 2019, 50.8% of children in class III were not able to read class I level text but almost 90% of children were enrolled in some kind of educational institution. This provides for a paradox where increasing number of children are going to schools but they don’t seem to learn better.

As Madhav Chavan, the president of Pratham Educational Foundation which releases ASER, writes:

Just when it seemed like the ASER results were getting repetitive, the Right to Education Act was passed (in 2009) and suddenly things began to change. In ASER 2010, we first noticed that the proportion of children in private schools was growing and learning levels had begun to decline. But the Ministry of Human Resource Development officially neither recognised ASER nor did it accept its findings as far as learning levels were concerned.

In search of the perfect silver bullet to rid the entire education system of its flaws, the government clogged the system with more problems which can only be resolved by structural review of the system with hard facts and data.

Inputs and Outcomes

Governments are reluctant to reform, their cobweb bureaucracy and intense political rhetoric wouldn’t let them. So when they go back on their previous arrangement, it means things are really bad. These changes are to be really studied rather than just flying out the most basic argument against it. No-detention policy does not work, period! It creates an environment suitable for stagnation and irresponsibility, prerequisites for a dysfunctional bureaucracy. There is no incentive for teachers to teach and no incentives for students to learn because there are no consequences for poor performance. One thing we learn from public choice theory is that people won’t do anything until there are right incentives. So as governments, it should provide them the necessary incentives to reach the desired goal. Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee puts it perfectly: The public education [system] is a system for the teachers, by the teachers and in the interests of the teachers. This is a system which essentially does not want any metric of performance.

Measuring outcomes rather than inputs. The existing system focuses only the inputs- enrollment ratio, money invested, syllabus completion, food provided among others. Let’s assume there is a Paati who makes vadais. She can invest and cook many vadais continuously but if she doesn’t taste it, she can’t know if it really tastes good and if people will like it. Now, taste may depend on many factors- salt, pepper or the flour but the only way to find it is to taste the outcome, simple as that!

Outcomes of the education system can be effectively measured with exams thereby making them absolutely necessary. Vivek Kaul in his book India’sBig Government, reports an interesting incident in Rajasthan. Parents met the then Chief Minister Vasundra Raje during her outreach programme and suggested that the ban on exams was not in the best interests of children. A September 2014 news report suggested that the state was considering exams in Standards III, V and VIII.

Testing times

Exams in India has become a societal problem due to the pressure applied on the students to score more marks. The reason for making examinations, especially public board examinations, pressurizing has many factors but the factors are beyond the scope of this article. But the problem of primary testing is rather easy to solve. If a government wants more people to pay taxes, it lowers the tax slabs and does not cancel taxation altogether; likewise for more people to get basic education, testing and exams have to be made simpler instead of cancelling the exam altogether. Primary results could be declared separately for each class, exams could focus more on basic skills, arrear based approach are some of the suggestion to make exams less intense for primary school goers.

Due to continuous mismanagement and ill-performance, government schools are being deserted in favour of private ones. ASER reports that parents are enrolling boys increasingly in private schools while girls are left back at public schools. The private schools too are being strangled by ‘good intentions’ through legislation like RTE making them comply with unnecessary regulations. People must stop making silly arguments like students of bureaucrats and politicians should be allowed only to public schools and start addressing the structural issue of education and consequences of government intervention in India.

India houses the highest working age population, something economists call the Demographic Dividend. To exploit this and propel India into higher growth, primary education is a prerequisite. As the future is moving towards skill based rather than degree based recruitment, it is necessary to develop basic foundation without which India might also miss the Fourth bus for growth. One must understand that these no-detention policies and cancellation of exams only give the Right to Schools and not Education. Schools does not mean Education the same way that growth does not mean development.

By Benolin

Mute Spectator is the primary series of the blog where we express our thoughts on current affairs.

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Mute Spectator : Desh ke Gaddaron ko

Mute Spectator February 05, 2020

"Desh ke gaddaron ko, Goli maaro saalon ko". This literally means "Those who have been traitors to the nation, shoot them dead". This is exactly what the sitting MP- Anurag Singh Thakur (Minister of State for Finance) said in a Delhi election rally. Another member of the ruling regime, Parvesh Verma flared up an inflammatory speech saying that the protesters in Shaheen Bagh will repeat the same as the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits of 1989. As the National Capital is already polluted to alarming levels, these representatives are adding poison to it through their venomous speech. Though the Election Commission banned them for 72 hrs and 90 hrs respectively, it's completely insufficient to stop these speeches.

The subsequent chain of events are astonishing. The normalcy of brandishing of guns in the Capital and the reaction by the Delhi Police is a cause of worry. The first of such events happened on Jan 30 when Gopal, a 17 year old, fired and injured a protester at Jamia. Bapuji was shot dead exactly on the same day in the National Capital some 72 years ago. There seems to be an underlying message that unlike voices will be suppressed by means of a barrel. Though Bapuji pardoned his shooter, he never wanted this nation to travel in this direction.

Another matter of immense concern is the action of the Delhi Police. An activist named Saket Gokhale wrote a letter to the Delhi Police seeking permission for conducting a peaceful protest under the slogan of "Desh ke gaddaron ko, Goli maaro saalon ko". He further explained that the actions of the police will clear the air whether the slogan is allowed under the law or not. If the permission is denied, then they need to take action against the MP. If the permission is given, then such disgraceful slogans are completely normalised. Shockingly the Delhi police granted permission.

Further, A pro- CAA rally was carried out yesterday with participants shouting the same slogan "Desh ke gaddaron ko, Goli maaro saalon ko". While these events have been normalised, the level of a compassionate society has certainly saturated. Words such as kind, gracious, humble, generous, benevolent, altruistic, accommodative, benign, magnanimous, compassionate and humanitarian are nowhere to be seen in our political culture. Rather words such as termites, traitor, terrorist, perfidious, goons, thug, sanghi, libtard, tukde tukde, bhakt and so on have taken the center stage.

Meanwhile, the other end seems to be no less. Sharjeel Imam, the initial organiser of the Shaheen Bagh protest brought disgrace to the dedicated efforts of the women bearing the chills of the winter. In Spite of having a good education, Sharjeel shunned his knowledge for hatred. His derogatory speech in Aligarh Muslim University calling for one particular religion to cut off Assam from the rest of India and further instigating them is pathetic. On Feb 03, another group of people raised slogans such as "Sharjeel tere sapno ko hum manzil tak pahuchaenge” meaning “Sharjeel, we will convert your dreams into reality”. This legitimacy or recognition for hatred by many shows were we stand in our moral compass.

Making children shout abusive, offensive words at tender ages is nothing but sowing the seeds of hatred. Going to the extent of making them say 'I will finish off the Prime Minister and Home Minister’ is exactly not the way we should nurture our kids. It might seem attractive and complacent but it's mutative and destructive in the long run. Using children as a tool of effective messaging and propagation in a negative mode shows that hatred belittles rationality and humanity. Hate speeches act as an ignition for the underlying hatred within our society. Once it is flared, it's no easy for any extinguisher to stop it soon.

Compassion and hatred has always been a bone of contention in our country. Compassion is the underlying fibre that stitches this country together and hatred is the scissor that is always ready to cut it off. We have remained the same in the subject of "assent and dissent" through all these years. Self-pride and the unwillingness to listen to the voices of the other side has been bleak.

Events such as Marichjhapi massacre of 1979, Anti- Sikh riots of 1984, Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits - 1989, demolition of Babri Masjid - 1992, Chamba Massacre of 1998, Gujarat riots of 2002, Muzaffarnagar nagar riots of 2013, Saharanpur riots of 2014 are all due to the hatred within the society. It's times our representatives take the lead and act responsibly in establishing a society of compassion and not that of hatred. Budget can be allocated to clean the polluted air in our cities but no budget can be allocated to clean the hatred in the hearts of these despicable people. I haven't taken any data to show the case. Hatred is very much prevalent in one form or the other and it needs to be acknowledged.

Hatred destroys whereas compassion creates. Hatred is exclusive whereas compassion is inclusive. Hatred narrows the mind whereas compassion broadens the mind. Societies will breakdown due to hatred whereas societies will evolve due to compassion. But both hatred and compassion are mutative thus utilising it in the right way lies in our hands. Hatred in any form is a disgrace to a maturing democracy.

I wish there would be a Hatred Index for our representatives in future in both the state and the centre on which nominations should be accepted to represent the people. Anyone willing to be a representative of the people should shun hatred in every form. Hatred is no way forward for prosperity and civility.

Remember we reap what we sow.

JAI HIND.

By Sathish T.K

Mute Spectator is the primary series of the blog where we express our opinions on current affairs

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Pages

Article 19

Mute Spectator : Fund Sharing

Mute Spectator : Why Reservation in Private jobs is a bad idea

Mute Spectator : Swach Politics

Intent to Interest

What constitutes criminality?

Number's talk

Supreme Court- the Guardian

Youngsters to Youngstars

Excerpts : In the memory of Pulwama's Martyrs

Excerpts : Crossing the Kaalapaani

Mute Spectator : Dealing with No-detention

Mute Spectator : Desh ke Gaddaron ko

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