India Legal - May 31, 2014

ice r P tion 0 a t i Inv `5

NDIA EGAL I L May 31, 2014

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STORIES THAT COUNT

VERDICT 2014

BETTER DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN

ARE THEY? DEMISE OF VOTE BANKS? WHY MUSLIMS ARE NOT SCARED HOPE vs HYPE MODINAMA: BIOGRAPHIES AND COMICS HONEYMOON PERIOD: NO IFs AND BUTs GANGES CATCHES FIRE POLITICO-TOONS

MAY 31, 2014

VOLUME. VII

ISSUE. 18

Editor-in-Chief Inderjit Badhwar Managing Editor Ramesh Menon Executive Editor Alam Srinivas Senior Editor Vishwas Kumar Contributing Editors Naresh Minocha, Girish Nikam Associate Editor Meha Mathur Deputy Editors Prabir Biswas, Vishal Duggal

LEAD / THE NATION / MANDATE 2014

Start of an era Taking Varanasi as the metaphor, INDERJIT BADHWAR delivers a firsthand account of how the ancient city represented the country’s need for change, and made it possible

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No longer a political bogeyman Modi’s election campaign was far less divisive than feared.

INDERJIT BADHWAR contends that the new PM can bring about a fundamental shift in the way the state treats its citizens, including minorities

A tectonic change This election transformed the nation’s political trajectory like never before, making old paradigms redundant. While Modi achieved the unimaginable, GIRISH NIKAM says that the mandate gives him the power to usher in pathbreaking and long term changes on several fronts

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May 31, 2014

The Modi factor aside, what aided the BJP in its march to victory was the effort made by the leadership to rejuvenate the party at the grassroots level. A report by NV SUBRAMANIAN

Ads, booze and cash We just witnessed the most expensive election in Indian history, with leaders logging hundreds of miles of daily air travel and parties launching hi-tech media blitzkrieg and resorting to old ways of distributing cash, writes RAJENDRA BAJPAI

14 20 24 27

ALSO The face that launched a 100 books

30 How CBI botched up extradition proceedings against several high-profile criminals.....56

The Modi phenomenon inspired a score of writers and publishers to produce biographies, including a few critical ones. BHAVDEEP KANG inspects this new market

34 The churning within 42

Internal security, intelligence and parliament’s functioning need immediate attention of the new government. GIRISH NIKAM lists the priority areas

A soul-searching poll season

Far from what the political parties would like to believe, the Muslim community is capable of well-reasoned and politically calibrated responses to the issues that affect it.

MEHA MATHUR talks to a cross-section of Muslims to put their views in perspective

37 Ammanomics

RAMESH MENON provides a visual take on the landmark election that gave the country a government with clear majority after 30 years

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While the Modi model of Gujarat became a major election plank for the BJP, in Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalithaa evolved a development model which, while attracting foreign and domestic investments, never lost sight of the poor. ALAM SRINIVAS predicts how this would impact the future national politics

Does Modi have a world view?

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Will the new prime minister deal with tricky foreign policy issues with the same assertiveness which he has displayed on the home turf? COL HARIHARAN describes the tough terrain he will have to traverse

REGULARS

Now, for the deliverables

Southern states’ misuse of Electricity Act casts a dark spell on north India........60 A new barrier of defenses for the human guinea pig......................65 Policy paralysis and drones business ............68 In Delhi, One man’s waste is another man’s livelihood........................71 Human rights activist Mukul Sinha’s demise...77

Kangana Ranaut proves why she’s a celluloid queen .............80

Ringside….................................................................................9 Letters .............................… ....................................................10 Supreme Court........................................................................12 Is That Legal?..........................................................................76 Wordly-wise .............................................................................81 People .....................................................................................82

Cover Design: ANTHONY LAWRENCE INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / letter from the editor / banaras musings

Start of an era Inderjit Badhwar

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folk refrain floats through my head as I start this copy. It goes: “Bum bum bol raha hai Kashi.” (Kashi hails Lord Shiva). Shiva left his heavenly abode in Mount Kailash and adopted Banaras (Kashi) as his home, welcoming all Indians to do the same. Kashi is Shiva’s very own city. And he knows it. He speaks through every incantation, peers at you from billboards and temple engravings and posters and calendars. You can feel him watching Elections 2014 from the bustling Nadeshan Road that leads ultimately to Mughalsarai, to Chandauli, Ramnagar, Patna and Kolkata. Peeping, Spiderman fashion, from behind gigantic Mulayam Singh, Kejriwal, Modi posters and billboards marked, “Jai Ma Sheetal Drinking Fountain”. Walking with you in Sigri, Lahurabir, Mamoorganj, the Indian version of thoroughfares, where gigantic water tanks compete for height with St Miriyam School, prominently displaying the infant Jesus with his Mother, and a towering MacDonald arch that soars above the Doordarshan relay tower. Navigating past tidal waves of saffron BJP caps and Aam Aadmi topee-clad youngsters passing leaflets in front of glazed Renault and Yamaha showrooms.

Glancing at a billboard, “Angrezi bolna seekho,” (Learn English). Dodging rickshaws, autos, SUVs, sedans, pushcarts, beggars, mounds of filth and putrefying garbage, showrooms with mannequins sporting low cut blouses and saris right out of New York’s Park Avenue. Bowing in Lahurabir, the bustling main market adorned with jewelry shops, to Kashi Anathalaya, the city’s first orphanage for women, to the Poorvanchal Netralaya (eye hospital) right next to a resplendent Hero cycles display store.

And wherever we turn we know that awaiting us will be Banaras’s serpentine, labyrinthine

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gullies studded with stalls, redolent with incense, which alternates with the malodorous whiff of the fatally polluted Ganges to which all alleyways descend through powerful stone-made steps.

We pray that Shiva does not open his Third Eye. We do not want a city, described by Mark Twain as more ancient than civilization itself, a town where poet Allen Ginsberg meditated, turned to ashes. Nor do we want to see this city, which has become the Kurukshetra—the mother of all post-independence wars for a symbolic tectonic transformation through India’s 16th general election was waged here—be destroyed by Shiva’s wrathful eye.

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or everything that’s wrong or right with India is also right or wrong in Banaras.

There is much to be destroyed: poverty, filth, human degradation, sloth, corruption, communal passions. There is a lot to be preserved: poetry, philosophy, communal brotherhood (this is an area of 16 lakh voters, of whom three and a half lakh are Muslims), resplendent architecture, the mellifluous Bhojpuri language, reformists, universities, artists, singers, patience, loud raucous laughter, rock-hewn temples, countless masjids, from where muezzins call out above the ring of rickshaw bells, and the morning and evening aartis—cling-cling-ding-ding-clapclap. Sanskrit, Urdu, the magnificent ghats, the ever burning fire-pit of Manikarnika ghat, from which sparks are taken to ignite the funeral pyres of those lucky enough to be cremated there for, as they say, people come to Kashi, not to prolong life but to attain moksha.

And a river flows through it all.

The mighty Ganges—Ma Ganga—that sustains life and civilization in most of north India.

She is the lifeblood of UP’s Poorvanchal region— Mirzapur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Sonbhadra, Deoria, Azamgarh and Jaunpur—sending 23 members

Photos: Inderjit Badhwar

(of a total of UP’s 80) to parliament and 117 to the 403-member assembly.

The blessed region gave India her greatest saints, musicians and philosophers: Tulsidas, Prem Chand, Gautam Buddha, Guru Nanak, Girija Devi, Bharatendu Harish-chandra, Birju Maharaj, Bismillah Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Kapila Vatsyayan, Rajendra Prasad, Kaifi Azmi, Jaishankar Prasad, Rahi Masoom Raza and Lal Bahadur Shastri.

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mall wonder that the next prime minister of India should want to become part of this lineage. Narendra Modi chose this as his constituency and Arvind Kejriwal chose to oppose him for the same reasons. This was a presidential election. The first India has seen albeit within the framework of a parliamentary system. You win from here in a prestigious fight and you rule the heart of UP and capture the Hindi heartland, which sends the maximum number of members to parliament. It was Modi’s most brilliant tactical move.

One of Banaras’s living legends, Pandit Chhannulal Mishra, who at 78 can mesmerize you with khayyal and thumri, and dadra and folk music, summed it up well when he decided to become one of Modi’s proposers at his nomination. He sang “Votava sabka ho zaroori (every vote counts)”. He tells me, in the confines of his riaaz room: “Mata Ganga ko nirmal karna hai.

Yeh dharma ki larai nahin hai. Yeh karam ki larai hai. (The issue in this election is cleaning up the Ganges. This election is not about religion but about duty and action).”

I firmly believe he was right, having tested his wisdom on the ground. I have covered elections for the last two decades. But except for pockets in West UP, where caste and communal factor played a role, I have never seen an election fought so solidly on issues of governance and corruption.

Perhaps this can be attributed to the youth and women. There were about 10 crore first-time voters this time—thousands of voters between 18-22 years became eligible to vote in each Lok Sabha constituency this year. Nearly 66 percent of the total women electors voted in this general elections as compared to 55.82 in the 2009 polls.

Pandit Chhannulal Mishra’s concern about the Ganges reflects India’s malady. As the Ganges is polluted, so is India—by caste, corruption, a culture of impunity, religious intolerance, disdain

for democratic institutions and the ecology and institutional rot. Cleaning up the Ganges is symbolic of cleaning up India. And the voters, having voted 15 times without success, want to succeed this time in bringing in a leader who they think can do the job. And they believe that leader is Modi.

MICROCOSM OF INDIA (L-R) A resident of Banaras in her traditional setting; the Muslims of Vishwanath gali in the city

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t Lanka Gate, Banaras’ equivalent of Hyde Park, just outside Banaras Hindu University, founded by another illustrious son of Kashi, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, I randomly interview dozens of people from all walks of life. (Remember, too, that Banaras has a huge population of “outsiders”—Bengalis, Gujaratis, Punjabis, Rajasthanis, Tamilians, Malayalis—you name them. In that sense, Banaras is a mini-India apart from being one of the holiest places for Hindus and Muslims—a Vatican and Mecca combined. I will summarize the gist of the consensus that emerged from these interviews as well as others from different parts of Banaras: Was this a communal, Hindu-Muslim campaign? No. It was one of the cleanest and most secular campaigns ever conducted by the BJP. There was no mention of the Ram Mandir or other anti-minority pet peeves.

Do Muslims fear Modi? Why should we?

There are nearly 4 lakh of us here and INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / letter from the editor / banaras musings

CALL FOR A CLEAN-UP Classical music legend of Banaras Pt Chhannulal Mishra, who proposed Modi’s name for PM candidate, wanted an election in the name of duty and action

almost 3 lakh in each Poorvanchal constituency.

There are enough Hindus who look after our welfare. Besides, most of the 60,000 Shia votes will go to Modi. If we become Modi voters, why should he do anything to hurt his own votebank?

What are the main issues? Filthy city, polluted Ganges, political corruption, inflation.

Who will you vote for? Modi, Modi Modi.

Why? Because for the first time, we will be directly electing an Indian prime minister from our city. And we want a strong and stable person at the center, who can clean up the Ganges. A weak coalition government as we have seen cannot do this.

What about Kejriwal? A good man. An honest man. But he ran away from Delhi. And he fell prey to greed by forming a government when he didn’t have the majority.

What about Mulayam and Mayawati? We have seen enough of their caste politics. It has not helped us get jobs or move faster. We are tired of regional parties and coalition governments, not allowing the prime minister to govern.

What if the BJP had selected some other candidate? We would not have voted for him or her because we had Murli Manohar Joshi of the BJP from here and he did nothing for us or this filthy city.

Why would Modi succeed? Because he will become the prime minister from here. This is like a direct election. And Modi has done wonders for Gujarat.

How do you know this? Isn’t this propaganda? (Many voices both Muslim and Hindu):

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We have no power supply here and can’t work our weaving handlooms so our families have migrated to Gujarat, where there is power all the time. Modi government has given us a livelihood.

(Or) We have lived in Gujarat, the roads are better, there is employment, onions are cheaper, the police is less corrupt, our women are totally safe at night, the babus listen to us, there are better bus services and jobs.

What about the 2002 riots? No one can keep living in the past. There have been no killings and more peace in Gujarat since 2002 than other parts of India. The local politicians from Congress, SP and BSP keep trying to frighten us to get out votes. How long can they fool us?

What if Modi is lying and you have taken a wrong decision? We are voting to change not only Banaras but also India. If we have been able to kick all the others out for not performing then we will do the same for Modi and we are sure he is aware of this.

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t becomes obvious that what is new about this election is that Modi has something new to sell—a dream. A dream, yes, but a palpable one, nonetheless, to a new class of voters, who are tech savvy, who are aspirational, who want to go beyond owning cell phones and TV sets, who are fed up with wimps and dynasties ruling with small coteries from the center through a system of doles and handouts, and regional leaders who sell not dreams of better days to come but slogans of poverty.

Let me end with a paragraph from a New York Times blogger, V Mitchell: “It is truly the greatest show on earth, an ode to a diverse and democratic ethos, where 700 million+ of humanity vote, providing their small part in directing their ancient civilization into the future. It is no less impressive when done in a neighborhood, which includes destabilizing and violent Pakistan, China and Burma.”

editor@indialegalonline.com

Aruna

VERDICT The Congress government has also often followed what I can only call the old British policy of communalism. In my view, if it is communalism to pass over and ignore a man with merit simply because he happens to be a Muslim or a Christian or a Parsi, it is also communalism to appoint a person merely because he happens to be a Muslim or a member of some other minority community. It is injurious to the interests of the minorities themselves to have posts and offices filled by men who have no merit, merely because they want representation in high offices. The minorities come to expect that they will get certain posts whether the men deserve to get them or not. It is much better that they learnt to work hard and deserve the post. —Justice Mohammedali Karim Chaghla from his book Roses in December INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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LETTERS

e Prizner Win,000 `1

LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT Middle class woes

INITIALLY I thought of India Legal as a magazine with only legal jargon and therefore shied away from it. But after giving it a shot, reading its interesting story Perverted Midas (April 30, 2014) by Alam Srinivas, I have come to think of India Legal as a very useful magazine for a 17-year-old like me. It not only offers substantial knowledge but also provides in-depth research, which reflects very well in all the stories.

Perverted Midas caught my attention, especially because it involved finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, who has been known for his shrewd economic policies.

How a finance minister, responsible for nine budgets, could intentionally, or unknowingly, help in the generation of black money and its conversion into white, made me curious. The story did not disappoint, with full-proof backing of the allegations, ranging from how import duties on gold were restricted to the Mauritius connection of foreign direct investment.

The government has taken certain actions which have caused a lot of anger and resentment among the regular taxpayers, especially the middle class. The center has always punished the middle class by levying heavy taxes to meet the shortage caused largely due to non-payment of taxes by the lower class and the rich.

The lower class gets huge subsidies to fulfil its basic needs with the full backing of the government, while the rich have a lot of savings to depend on even in case of higher tax

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rates or inflation. The middle class on the other hand has to be constantly on its toes to work and earn and even pay high taxes, with limited subsidies, and no windfall income to fall back on.

I would also like to put forward my opinion about our complex tax structure. An honest individual has to pay taxes on income, entertainment, education, health, consumption, among other things. I feel there is a need to lessen the burden or at least psychologically make people feel so.

And this can be simply done by putting in place the mechanism of a single tax or unified tax structure, wherein all taxes would be deduced from an individual’s bank account.

Kumar Ritwik Gurgaon

Feeling alien in India When I first heard about India Legal, I was skeptical like many of your readers. I was hesitant to pick up a copy because legal lingo is incomprehensive for most of us. Frankly, I must have signed a number of legal documents but could never understand what they wanted to communicate. But the magazine came as a pleasant surprise; I could read and understand all the articles! And I realized that most of the issues surrounding us, whether it is politics, culture, defense, or sports, have a legal tint.

I could specially relate to the article on Tibetans in India (Tibetan Tango, April 15, 2014) as I have been interacting with a lot of them in Manali, Himachal Pradesh. Even after decades of their crossing over to the other side of the Himalayas, they remain a distinct population; just refusing to get integrated with the Indian population, keeping the dream of an independent Tibet close to their hearts. The last sentence of the article says it loudly: 60 years of struggle for freedom is nothing compared to the struggles elsewhere and our own struggle for independence.

Madhu Menon, Ahmedabad

The art of corruption The story on Chidambaram’s policies helping to generate black money (Perverted Midas, April 30, 2014) into the economy was insightful and comprehensive. To me, it was yet another scam perpetrated on the nation by the finance minister, and should be thoroughly probed by the CBI once the Modi regime takes over.

Please continue raking up such issues.

Arun Swarup New Delhi

More from the magazine I am an Indian journalist settled in Vancouver. I have gone through the issues of your magazine and feel that it should have features like senior lawyers’ interviews on their first major case. It would also be nice if a landmark judgment is taken up as a focus study, giving a backgrounder on the case and arguments on both sides, and getting legal experts to write point-counterpoint columns on the issue. I would also like to read pieces on court attire, court etiquettes, magnificent court buildings in India.

Surbhi Bhatia Gogia, Vancouver

Ode to Gujarat model With reference to your edit (Of Spices, Bhangra and Banking, May 15, 2014), I agree, more so being a Gujarati, that the state should claim credit for creating Narendra Modi. A Gujarati model is a creation of free-spirited, centuries-old Gujarati entrepreneurship. Modi smartly made it a natural corollary. The edit was also right in saying that the Gujarat model cannot be replicated in UP, Bihar or elsewhere “unless enormous numbers of Gujaratis are produced and sent forth to colonise these parts...” While at the other end of the spectrum Asoka Mehta, a Gujarati and a socialist, was always looking towards Soviet Union to solve problems of teeming Indians!

Ashok Patel via e-mail

Great reading India Legal is an excellent publication, with outstanding coverage, and well-edited contemporary articles.

Bhushan Punani via email

Please email your letters to: editor@indialegalonline.com Or write to us at: India Legal, ENC Network, A-9, Sector 68, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Noida (UP) - 201309

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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SUPREME COURT

This operation may sting

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ting operations, no doubt, have gone a long way to expose corruption in our system, but can the one who conducts the operation be held guilty in the eyes of the law? Well yes, if the investigation agency establishes that he or she had committed a crime, at least on the face of it, declared the Supreme Court.

The verdict opened up a whole new perspective for journalists and whistleblowers, who could earlier escape criminal prosecution on the pretext of “serving public interest”.

The court order will come into play in cases where the targeted person is offered money or other favors in an effort to unmask him before the public. The bench dealing with the issue, however, made it clear that if a journalist is not found to have a stake in the favor sought in exchange for a bribe, he or she cannot be accused of being a party to the crime.

Illustrations: Aruna

Not judiciary’s cup of tea

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hose who cry foul over the Padma, Arjuna or Bharat Ratna awards on the basis of merits every year and rush to the courts cannot do so any longer. The Supreme Court stated that the judiciary couldn’t arbitrate on the selection of people by the central government for the awards, and the government was within its rights to decide who gets the award.

A bench of Chief Justice RM Lodha and Justices Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph rejected a PIL filed by NGO Navalokam Samskarika Kendram, which challenged the center’s decision to cancel the name of Kerala athlete Renjith Maheswari from the Arjuna Awards’ list after she had taken part in the formalities for the award ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The sports ministry had removed Maheswari’s name after reports emerged that she had taken banned drugs while participating in a championship in Kochi. The PIL said that the athlete was banned for three months despite the report being doubtful, and she went on to win medals for India thereafter. It alleged that the center had erred in dropping Maheswari’s name.

The apex court asked the NGO to question the findings of the dope test in the high court.

LGBT’s battle for rights

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it the iron when it is hot, they say. The LGBT community did exactly the same when it requested the Supreme Court to reconsider its earlier judgment that upheld the legality of Article 377, which criminalises gay sex.

The community got inspired from the court’s judgment that had offered relief to transgenders by giving them social and legal status. And, the curative petition offered a chance to challenge the court’s decision for the last time. The apex court did not disappoint the petitioner NGO Naz Foundation and other LGBT advocates. A three-judge bench took up the curative petition and decided to hear their viewpoints at a later date.

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The call of justice

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hen an accused is given a far lesser punishment than what the crime deserves, it is a travesty of justice. The Supreme Court pulled up the high courts for doing the same in certain cases. Blaming the high courts for killing the basics of sentencing, which takes into account suffering of victims and the need to restore justice in society, a bench of Justices SJ Mukhopadhaya and Dipak Misra made significant changes in a judgment delivered by the Rajasthan High Court.

The high court had reduced a five-year sentence—the trial court had sentenced the accused to five years’ imprisonment with a fine of `50,000—to mere seven days, which the accused had already served, even though it was a case of attempt to murder.

The apex court bench increased the jail term to two years along with a fine of `50,000.

While acknowledging that the judges were well within their rights to decide the quantum of punishment, the apex court argued that the discretionary power could not be used recklessly and fancifully. The reasons for showing leniency towards the accused have to be strong and convincing enough, the court pointed out.

As good as marriage

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ndian society has evolved to embrace the culture of live-in relationships. And the judiciary has played a significant role in bringing about this transition.

While rejecting a petition on the issue by advocate Uday Gupta, the Supreme Court stated that a long live-in relationship is considered as a married one by the judiciary, and children born out of the relationship enjoy the same legal status as those born out of a wedlock.

A bench of Justices BS Chauhan and J Chelameswar turned down Gupta’s petition that objected to the Madras High Court’s perception that it was not mandatory to follow and subsequently solemnize all customary rights related to the married couple, for a marriage to be considered as valid. The petition argued that such a conclusion negated the institution of marriage itself.

The apex court clarified that the high court had taken the stand only in a particular case, and the observations could not be generalized for all live-in relationships. It withheld the high court’s viewpoint and said there were many judicial verdicts in the past that supported such a position.

Weeding out corruption

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I am grateful to the Supreme Court for stating precisely that “trial proceedings in cases of corruption and serious crimes against MPs and MLAs must be completed within a year of the charges being framed.” What is more commendable is that the apex court has also ordered that if trial courts overshoot the one-year deadline, they’ll have to give a written explanation to chief justice of the concerned high court, apprising it of the “special reasons” for the delay. The chief justice may then issue appropriate directions for expediting the trial. The bench also prevailed upon Additional Solicitor General Paras Kuhad to increase the budgetary allocation for the judiciary so that it gets adequate infrastructure.

As many as 76 (14 percent) of the 543 MPs in the last Lok Sabha have serious criminal charges pending against them.

Similarly, 1,258 or 31 percent of the total 4,032 MLAs across India have criminal cases against them, with 14 percent facing serious charges. On specifying additional grounds for disqualifying a lawmaker, the bench said it wished to “tread with caution” so that it did not step into legislative domain, and posted the matter for a later hearing. The court will also deliberate over bringing in amendments in the RPA to make filing false affidavits by candidates a more serious crime.”

Sanjeev Sirohi, advocate, Meerut INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / modi campaign

NO LONGER A POLITICAL BOGEYMAN

soothsayers had predicted that narendra modi’s journey to 7 race course road would be marred by communal disharmony. but despite a flurry of hate speeches, electioneering was peaceful, polling unprecedented, and development issues mattered, not hindutva Pramod Pushkarna

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ll predictions that India’s 16th general elections would be marred by violent conflagrations engineered by terrorists or extremist hate groups designed to sabotage the democratic exercise of the popular franchise have, thank heavens, fallen flat on their faces. Neither the flare-up and spread of Naxalite and Maoist violence, nor the bloody hand of revanchist sentiment fueled by the Muzaffarnagar carnage materialized. The sad exception to an otherwise peaceful voting process was the violence in Assam, where about 40 people died as Bodo militants took out their anger against Muslims for not voting for their candidate.

Narendra Modi, despite niggling doubts about his murky role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, remained steadfastly committed to his attacks on dynastic corruption, the rot within the Congress party, and an alternative model of an economy-accelerating governance.

Modi, the world over, was projected as the darling of Hindu terror,

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Courtesy muslimmirror.com

(whatever that might mean), a man whose inexorable march to power would unleash wave upon wave of jack-booted, saffron-clad crusaders with trishuls emblazoned on their arm bands. But despite some fiery language from all sides of the political spectrum, some hate speeches and endless ad hominem jibes, the voters, who turned out in record numbers, were peaceful, patient and tolerant.

If you think nasty and vulgar remarks are an Indian speciality (see hate speeches story in India Legal May 15, 2014), and Modi’s acerbic references to “shahzaada” and “mabeta” are malevolent, you need look no further than to our sister democracy—the United States—for examples that are truly malicious. Here are some illustrations, new and old, from The New York Times: In one of the first US presidential elections, pitting Thomas Jefferson against John Adams in

1800, a Jefferson spokesman wrote that Adams was a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensitivity of a woman.” In return, Jefferson was called “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

But you don’t have to go back centuries to find such comments, The New York Times said. In 1964, Lyndon B Johnson’s campaign circulated a television ad featuring an adorable girl counting petals on a daisy, and ending with a nuclear explosion, suggesting that Barry M Goldwater, his Republican challenger, would precipitate a nuclear war.

The Johnson campaign also crafted a coloring book, in which children could fill in pictures of Goldwater wearing Ku Klux Klan robes.

Two years ago, Stephen A Schwarzman, the chairman of Blackstone Group, compared President Barrack Obama’s plans to raise taxes on private equity executives to the Nazis’ designs on Europe. “It’s a war; it’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939,” he commented.

Actually, Modi’s campaign has been less divisive than past BJP campaigns,

CHANGING CONTEXT (L-R) The 2002 Gujarat carnage left a big scar on the Muslim mind; in the run-up to the polls, Modi felt the need to reach out to the minority community

Despite niggling doubts about his murky role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, Modi in his campaigns chose to focus on the rot within the Congress and his development model.

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / modi campaign

CAUGHT SLEEPING Mumbai terror attack of 2008 and the numerous blasts that took a heavy human toll call for sophisticated intelligence inputs, not arbitrary arrests

despite his having borne the brunt of combined opposition onslaughts. I am not for a minute forgetting the brutality that overwhelmed Gujarat during his chief ministership in 2002. And I am certain that Modi will have to live with the horror that engulfed his state for as long as he breathes on this earth.

But history will show that his advent on the national stage as a prime ministerial candidate, even while it prompted a “stop Modi” fervor among opposition parties, did not create the kind of backlash as did some of the earlier campaigns of rightwingers like Ashok Singhal, Vinay Katiyar, Pravin Togadia, Uma Bharati, and Sadhvi Rithambara, who seemed to put Lord Rama above the Indian constitution.

In fact, Modi has faced more television cameras in both soft and hard interviews and answered more direct questions than any other prime ministerial candidate in living memory. And the point he has been at pains to stress is that the Indian constitution overrides all other concerns,

The Modi juggernaut was far less divisive than Advani’s; his elevation as a national candidate didn’t create the kind of backlash seen in earlier campaigns.

16

May 31, 2014

including religion. This is a sharp break from the hardline Hindutva thinking.

Today’s liberals shed crocodile tears over the so-called sidelining of Lal Krishna Advani and lament that this represents the death of the moderates within the BJP. Advani may have attracted many westerneducated hagiographers like Swapan Dasgupta, Chandan Mitra, Kanchan Gupta and Sandhya Jain to his side, but as the inventor of modern political Hindutva, its lexicography, the concept of “majority insecurity”—along with the late Pramod Mahajan—he remains unbeaten.

The anti-Modi, pro-Advani spin doctors, who wove the yarn of Advani as a “moderate”, conveniently ignore the events starting in September 1990 when he undertook his ambitious rath yatra—starting from Somnath in Gujarat, traversing central India and with Ayodhya as the intended destination—to “educate” the masses about the Ayodhya campaign, the BJP’s main election plank during the elections.

Two years later, the Advani juggernaut precipitated the demolition of the Babri Masjid, after traversing the country, working up mob fury and religious mania, and creating riots in Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. In his book, My Country My Life, Advani called his rath yatra “an exhilarating period in my political life.” I doubt that Modi would describe the 2002 nightmare in similar terms.

A

nd herein lies a lesson for India and Indian politicians, especially the hawks in the BJP (Advani among them) and other parties, who are calling for a surge in Indian policing activities against terrorist violence. The Indian “surge” would create additional troops, more lethal weapons and draconian curbs on liberty through new legislation. But will it work?

The fear—perhaps unfounded, but perpetrated nonetheless—is that in Modi’s ascendancy the population on the receiving end of this would be Muslims. Why deny that? But a “surged” war on terror could well turn into a war against the Muslim community just as the war against Khalistani terrorists, sadly, turned into a war against the Sikhs in the

UNI

1980s. Sikh militants were able to recruit converts from among moderates and ordinary people as this perception strengthened.

I have repeatedly warned—as I did in the early 1980s when I reported from Kashmir—that when the state is seen as a deliberate oppressor rather than protector of a minority community, the result is anarchy bordering on civil war. Think about it. You may not sympathize with Islam or Quranic teachings, and you have a right to hold on to your views unless convinced otherwise, but from a practical, purely realpolitik standpoint, what is the alternative to secularism in India? The two nation theory? Even the RSS did not support that.

The truth is that more than 170 million (about 14 percent of the total population) Muslims live in India. To treat them as a monolithic Fifth Column, and target “surges” against their youth without adequate due process is to alienate a minority nearly the size of the American population.

Can we afford that? Can we afford a situation where every town and bylane has to be policed against violence and anarchy?

We have avoided this horrible situation— we should all remember partition as a civil war, one of the worst scourges ever to hit humankind—largely because our founding fathers were far-sighted enough to seek political accommodation with Muslims (read security), who had chosen to stay behind and make this country their home, and because a large segment of Muslims in India are not Arabized, they are among the most liberal in the world, given often to Sufi leanings, the mystical union between Vedanta and Islam (in fact, the Muslim begums of Awadh kept alive the tradition of Hanuman worship), and who revel in the cultural fusion and shastriya sangeet that is the soul of Hindustan.

F

rom a purely administrative point of view, I would advise our next prime minister that India does need a “surge” to counter terrorism, but a surge of another sort. I wrote some years ago during a spate of terrorist violence: “All hell is breaking loose in Indian cities.

We watch with helpless horror as motor-

cyclists hurl hand grenades in flower markets and plant bombs and crude explosive devices, almost at will, in bazaars, lanes, and transportation systems. Theories about the perpetrators fly fast and furious. Intelligence agencies and local police departments vie with each other to name the masterminds, lay out elaborate plots and grand designs, speculate about international terror groups, claim victories in shootouts, pontificate on conspiracy theories, and boast about having ‘finally cracked’ the ring.”

The media, too, flits from one theory to another, and politicians join the public in clamoring for speedy death sentences and harsher laws, and complaining about minority appeasement. But the truth is, no one really knows for sure what is really going on. This is not to support or to debunk any theory or point of view. Its focus is on a severe dislocation of governance that directly impacts on the gathering of information, on the basis of which any administration or government in power provides security to all citizens.

THE SILENT SUFFERERS Victims of Bodo-Muslim violence in Assam during a meeting with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi

To treat Muslims as a monolithic Fifth Column and target surges against their youth is to alienate a minority nearly the size of the American population.

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

17

THE NATION / mandate 2014 / modi campaign

Prashant Panjiar

THE ORIGINAL HARDLINER Today, Advani is projecting himself as a moderate, but his Rath Yatra of 1990 created a schism in the society, fanned hatred and ultimately resulted in Babri Masjid’s demolition

Unlike the US, where the new Homeland Security bureaucracy was created to anticipate and prevent terror attacks through careful vigilance, monitoring and counterintelligence post 9/11, India has not even begun to grapple with the subject of modernizing and equipping her services to deal with terror, notwithstanding the parliament attack and the ghastly incidents that have followed with rapid-fire regularity.

T

he Research and Analysis Wing, Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation and urban police departments—created for administrative and policing chores with specific mandates—are simply not capable of dealing with urban terrorism. Encounters and confessions in police custody are not the answer. The critical elements are intelligence and prevention. And, believe it or not, the creation of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) did create the right conditions for the achievement of these twin goals.

At the pure administrative level, the prevention of terror is a grassroots governance phenomenon. In the last couple of decades, this has just about vanished, as district bureaucrats and policemen have been forced to neglect their real duties and perform tasks assigned to them by powerhungry politicians.

18

May 31, 2014

In the old days, the district magistrate and the superintendant of police roamed their districts on foot, in jeeps and on horseback.

They camped for nights at villages. Their headquarters were open durbars for grievance redressal. They were men and women of the people.

Because they were trusted by ordinary folk, in whose interests they slogged day and night, they received valuable information.

They knew where dacoits would be hiding.

They would personally be aware of “bad characters” and bigots and people planning communal violence. They could persuade village elders to take steps to rein in the “badmaashes.” There was a huge two-way communication—this is real intelligence— that could help prevent clashes, prevent violent incidents, and above all, lead to the arrest of the real culprits.

Arresting the real culprits is what gives law enforcement the credibility it needs to win the confidence of people and receive valuable intelligence. Arrest the wrong man, and you create enemies out of people who would be your friends and informants.

That is what has happened in India.

Intelligence that leads to prevention of violence has dried up because the bureaucracy has moved away from the common man.

The common man sees the bureaucrat as an enemy, who serves the political master rather than the interests of the needy.

This is particularly true in cities. As India urbanizes rapidly, there is an almost total disconnect between city administrations and mohallas and colonies. The police have not been modernized to deal with the huge socio-economic problems that accompany the mushrooming of cities.

Dealing with urban terrorism and extremism certainly requires a strong hand.

But the hand can only be strengthened when governmental and police organizations are modernized, reconstituted and decentralized into the neighborhoods where real people live, in order to feel and deal with their insecurities and grievances.

Good governance, which Modi has been talking about, would be the first concrete step against terror. Band aid reactions will not work any more. IL

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z Is Model Modi for real? z Do hate speeches count? z What are the polls missing?

Will the President play a role?

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Do divorced fathers have rights?

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BULLY BRANDS

Justice Mudgal, head of the panel probing match fixing and betting, opens up on BCCI presidents, IPL, and what ails global cricket

Food giants hogging markets 60

KINGFISHER’S MALLYA

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* AAP in UP: Love Without Votes?

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THE NATION/ mandate 2014

/ new prime minister

Burden of Expectations overnight, the country changed its trajectory, making old paradigms of understanding politics redundant. can narendra modi now do justice to the faith people have posed in him?

By Girish Nikam

NDA: in 1999 and 2014

29

73

In Karnataka the BJP’s decision to bring home controversial prodigals like BS Yeddyurappa and B Sriramulu worked.

In Tamil Nadu, NDA’s presence has only dwindled in the last 15 years. The BJP and one of its allies, PMK, won a seat each in these elections.

In Andhra Pradesh, the alliance with Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP failed to reach anywhere near the tally of 1999, shrinking from 36 to 19.

The NDA has not made inroads into Kerala, where Congress-led UDF and CPM-dominated LDF hold sway.

20

May 31, 2014

Seats in 1999 Seats in 2014

Uttar Pradesh

Bihar

In an election dominated

by Modi, besides development debate and corruption issues, voters completely rejected caste as a factor, denying Mayawati’s BSP a single seat and limiting Mulayam’s SP to 5 seats. The BJP won 71 seats, while its ally Apna Dal clinched two seats.

If it was a massive pro-BJP vote, it was also a verdict against the JDU for parting with its long-time partner. This was despite Nitish Kumar’s splendid work in Bihar. Lalu Yadav’s caste equations also fell flat on face.

41* 28 *In 1999 the NDA figure of 41 included 18 JD(U) seats. In 2014, the BJP partnered LJP, which won 6 of the 28 NDA seats

Southern states

10 17 Karnataka

36 19 Andhra

Kerala

0

0

14

2

Tamil Nadu

The BJP-led NDA emerged a clear winner in west and north India. The party swept in Chhattisgarh (10/11), Goa (2/2), Gujarat (26/26), Himachal Pradesh (4/4), Madhya Pradesh (27/29), Delhi (7/7), Rajasthan (25/25), Uttarakhand (5/5) and Uttar Pradesh (71/80).

It failed to impress in West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab and Tripura.

While in 1999 the NDA achieved 41 percent of vote share, it decreased to 38.5 percent in 2014. The BJP on its own got 31 percent votes this time, whereas its vote share in 1999 was 37.06 percent.

O

n May 16, when Narendra Modi reached Vadodara, where he won with a resounding 570,000 votes, the shankhnad (blowing of conch) had already happened at the BJP’s Delhi headquarters and across the country. But that did not stop the new prime minister from blowing his own trumpet. He held the crowd enthralled for more than half an hour, speaking in tones of individual triumphalism and sarcasm against his opponents.

He had every right to do so. He was possibly singularly responsible for pushing BJP’s tally over 272, the first time any party had done so since 1984, and NDA’s close to a two-thirds majority. It was a triumph he was entitled to celebrate, despite some people feeling that he could have toned it down. He rode an electoral wave, a tsunami, like no politician ever had, except for Indira Gandhi in 1971 with her Garibi Hatao slogan.

Already, another political cyclone is building up in the country. A day after the election results, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar resigned, and the BJP clamored for quick fresh elections in Delhi. And, there were rumors that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi may quit their respective posts in the Congress, although the party later denied such as a possibility.

As the India Legal editorial suggests, Modi’s moment may signal the end of an era in Indian politics. Henceforth, while some old prisms may remain, one will need to seek new prisms to understand the country’s polity. “The triumph redrew India’s political map, handing him (Modi) a huge mandate for change,” said Pakistan’s newspaper, Dawn.

The decisive verdict was to the promises made, hopes generated and dreams sold to the aspiring classes, which cut across caste, religion, class, geography (urban-rural) and gender. This was a section that was ironically created and nurtured by UPA I, and lost by UPA II because of policy paralysis, low growth and a series of scams, and wrested by Modi.

The 2009 verdict, which catapulted the Congress from 145 to 206 seats, was an approval by this section, whose heart wanted more. “Yeh dil maange more” rang loud in its ears. As Al Jazeera, a news channel based in

KEY WINNERS

KEY LOSERS

Dr Harsh Vardhan of BJP defeated his immediate rival Ashutosh of AAP in Chandni Chowk. He secured 437,938 votes.

Arvind Kejriwal, AAP founder, and former Delhi CM, lost to Narendra Modi in Varanasi with a margin of 371784 votes.

Gen VK Singh (BJP) defeated actor-turned politician Raj Babbar of Congress in Ghaziabad. He secured 758,482 votes.

Capt Amarinder Singh, former chief minister and Congress candidate defeated Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley in Amritsar.

Shatrughan Sinha, Bollywood actor-turned-politician and BJP sitting MP, won from the Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency. He defeated Kunal Singh of Congress.

Ramvilas Paswan, LJP chief, won the Hajipur (SC) seat defeating his nearest Congress rival Sanjeev Prasad Tony.

Sushma Swaraj of BJP retained her Vidisha Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh by defeating Lakshman Singh, the brother of Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh.

Rajnath Singh, BJP president, surpassed the highest victory margin of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of 2.18 lakh votes, set in 2004. He defeated Rita Bahuguna Joshi of the Congress with a margin of over 2.72 lakh votes.

Kamal Nath of Cong won the Chhindwara seat by defeating his nearest rival candidate Choudhary Chandrabhan Kuber Singh of BJP. Shashi Tharoor retained the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat despite the controversy surrounding his wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death.

He defeated O Rajagopal of the BJP.

Farooq Abdullah, the former minister for new and renewable energy and National Conference leader lost to Tariq Hameed Karra of PDP from Srinagar by a margin of 42,280 votes.

Jaswant Singh who fought as an Independent candidate from Barmer constituency lost to Col. Sona Ram of BJP by a margin of over 87,000 votes.

Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal-United lost to RJD’s Pappu Yadav from Madhepura in Bihar by over 56,000 votes.

Pawan Kumar Bansal of Congress lost to BJP candidate Kirron Kher from Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 69,642 votes.

Syed Shahnawaz Hussain (BJP) lost to Shailesh Kumar alias Bulo Mandal (RJD) in Bhagalpur by more than 9,000 votes.

Salman Khurshid, former minister of external affairs, was relegated to the fourth position in Farrukhabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

A Raja, former telecom minister, lost to Gopalkrishnan C of AIADMK from the Nilgiris constituency in Tamil Nadu by a huge margin of 104,940 votes.

Medha Patkar, social activist and AAP candidate from Mumbai North East, had to contend with the third position. Kirit Somaiya of BJP won the seat.

Gul Panag, model and actor, trailed at third place in Chandigarh constituency. Kirron Kher of BJP won the seat. Panag’s frequent spats with Kher had hit media headlines.

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

21

THE NATION/ mandate 2014

/ new prime minister

Chirag Paswan

DYNASTIC FORTUNES While Sonia Gandhi won from Rae Barelli, son Rahul Gandhi was trailing in initial stages of counting, before being declared winner.

While Maneka Gandhi won from Pilibhit, defeating Congress’ Sanjay Kapoor, her son Varun Gandhi won from Sultanpur, defeating BSP’s Pawan Pandey.

Dimple Yadav

Mulayam Singh Yadav won from Azamgarh, daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav from Kannauj, nephew Dharmendra from Badaun and Akchay Yadav from Firozabad.

Lalu Yadav’s wife Rabri Devi lost to BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy in Saran, while daughter Misa Bharti lost in Patliputra.

the Middle East, said: “The desire for change has been so strong that voters put aside concerns about Modi’s Hindu-centric politics.”

D

o Elections 2014, in which a single party has got a majority after three decades, spell the end of coalition politics? It may be early to pass this judgment, but there are trends that hint at it. Since 2007, several assembly elections in different states— Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and this year in Seemandhara and Telengana—showed that voters wanted stable governments and, therefore, were willing to vote en mass in favor of one party.

The fact that Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party did not win a single seat in UP, Nitish won only two in Bihar, and Mulayam Singh Yadav bagged five, which included his two seats and three of his family members, hints at a decline of regional parties. But, at the same time, three other regional satraps— Trinamool Congress’ Mamata Bannerjee, AIADMK’s Jayalalithaa and Biju Janata Dal’s Naveen Patnaik retained their political clout in their respective states. Patnaik was the most impressive, as his party won 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats.

It is surprising that all these three parties were a part of NDA in the past; in the 16th Lok Sabha, their MPs will sit among the opposition. But the BJP and NDA will need to woo them. With the NDA in a hopeless minority in Rajya Sabha, and the equation unlikely to improve for the next two years, it will need the support from more regional parties to push through its legislative agenda.

This is the reason that even before the election

22

May 31, 2014

Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag made his debut from Jamui, while brother Ramchandra won from Samastipur.

results were announced, senior BJP leaders made noises that their party could join hands with new allies.

One thing is clear. The Gandhi family will find it difficult to bounce back on to the political arena. In fact, a few foreign experts write it off completely. “Gone are the days of the Gandhis. We have not seen people coming here to hug Rahul for the past decade on any of those festivals. That culture is dead and gone, like the Congress Party now,” said the US-based newspaper, The New York Times.

Whatever may be the claims of the BJP about its pan-India presence in this elections and percentage of votes won, the party has a long way to go before it can call itself an Indian party. For example, its presence in south India is restricted to Karnataka.

Although it won 17 of 28 seats in Karnataka, its showing in other states—Andhra Pradesh (3 of 42), Tamil Nadu (1 of 39) and Kerala (0 of 20)—was below par. Of the BJP’s 282 seats, over 50 percent came from four northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.

Another question that arises from BJP’s show is whether the Indian voter has finally rejected pseudo-secularism and ended the ongoing and never-ending debate between secularism and communalism. The majoritarian view, as well as those of most political pundits, is yes to both questions. Since, the voters cut across castes and religions, and supported Modi, they chucked away these issues—forever. But this would be looking at Elections 2014 with tinted glasses.

After the Muzaffarnagar riots, there was a polarization along religious lines in western

Karti Chidambaram

Priya Dutt

Milind Deora, son of Murli Deora and minister of state for IT in the UPA-2, lost to Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena in Mumbai South.

Long-time Congress MP and daughter of Sunil Dutt, Priya Dutt, lost in Mumbai North Central to Poonam Mahajan, daughter of late Pramod Mahajan.

Sachin Pilot, son of late

UP, which benefitted the BJP. Its echoes found its way into eastern UP, though not as overtly.

This is one of the factors that contributed to BJP’s 71 out 80 seats in the state. Such a charged atmosphere resulted in serious concerns among different sections of the society, including religious minorities, about their fate under the new regime. The fear factor surfaced on the day of the election results, as minorities cutting across social strata expressed fears. Some that this writer encountered broke down uncontrollably.

The bolt from the blue came when RSS’ first words on the electoral victory were that the construction of the Ram Mandir was now in the hands of the BJP-led government. As the Singapore’s leading newspaper, Strait Times, said: “The reality remains that there is a huge trust deficit with the minorities… which must be addressed.” To be fair to Modi, he largely refrained from raising communal and related issues during his election speeches. However, if this debate has to end now, the prime minister has the mandate and people’s support to do so. One will need to see whether he has the political will to follow through.

There has never been a situation in India when a new government with overwhelming majority has been welcomed with such apprehensions. Though Modi has made the right noises that he wants to take every citizen along with him, his track record in Gujarat (2002 riots) will continue to be a matter of concern.

How these fears are allayed in the near future will decide whether the issue of secularism versus communalism can be forgotten.

Speculation is also rife about Modi’s style of governance and what he would do to replicate

Rajesh Pilot and minister for corporate affairs, lost his Ajmer seat to Sanwar Lal

Jat of BJP. Karti Chidambaram, son of P Chidambaram, lost in the Sivaganga constituency. He trailed at the fourth slot.

Congress MP and industrialist Navin Jindal, son of Haryana politician late OP Jindal, lost to BJP’s Raj Kumar Saini in Kurukshetra.

the Gujarat model at the all-India level. There is no doubt that Modi will announce a few grand policies, some of which will be included in this year’s Budget. But simultaneously, the new prime minister will be interested in introducing administrative reforms that will enhance governance. This is the critical plank of the Modi Model. He can make the PMO powerful to act as single-window clearance for large projects. This is what he did in Gujarat, when the CM’s office not only facilitated investments but also monitored its progress.

A

nother important ingredient of Modi’s approach will be to improve the coordination between the ministries on mega projects. He will try to ensure that the myriad of clearances, like fuel, environment, and licences, required for a project are hastened. The best way to achieve this is to collapse the ministries, i.e. reduce their numbers.

For example, he can club coal and power ministries, as most of the fuel is used for the latter.

“Modi’s ‘Development for All’ message appeared to have struck a chord with frustrated voters,” said the London-based Guardian.

The cameras are rolling, and the world is watching India’s new prime minister, the first one to be born after the country’s Independence. Over the next year or so, the only proof will be in the pudding, i.e. whether he can efficiently and effectively run this country. Said the US-based newspaper, Washington Post: “What remains to be seen is whether Mr Modi will be the Deng Xiaoping of India or its Vladimir Putin—a leader whose economic ambitions are derailed by nationalism and authoritarian temptations.” IL INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

23

THE NATION / mandate 2014 / grassroot politics

BACK TO BASICS narendra modi’s biggest achievement was to revive and rejuvenate bjp, and generate grassroot support in the party

By NV Subramanian

B

UILDING the party went out of favor with the two national formations, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and contributed to the growth and vice-like grip of regional groups and coalition politics. However, it has made a comeback with Narendra Modi, and the country’s new prime minister is uniquely positioned to take advantage of his diligence and timely action.

When Rajiv Gandhi’s brute parliamentary majority failed to hold, the decline of the Congress commenced, and it was precipitated.

The vacated space was partly occupied by the BJP and the rest by an assortment of regional formations. While the BJP and Congress did form governments at the center, their support

24

Photos: UNI

May 31, 2014

base was growing narrower, which meant a greater dependence on regional formations whose outlook may not always be national or holistic.

This trend meant the inevitability of coalition governments at the center, with the leading party having a weak core of support with all its negative implications. The movement in states was, however, in the opposite direction. Uttar Pradesh, the state with the largest number of Lok Sabha seats, had started to give stable governments, beginning in the recent cycle with Mayawati and followed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav. Other states in north India and those in the east, west (with the exception of Maharashtra) and the south were already on the trend or hadn’t moved away.

The idea was to reconcile the trend in the states with the center, which meant devoting time and energy to party-building.

For all Rahul Gandhi’s lectures, very little party building at the grassroots actually happened for the Congress. There is no great secret why he failed. He didn’t know what to do. Then he chose to be guided by upstarts and academics while scorning the old party leaders. These are people who devoted their life to the Congress. Nobility did not move them because they enjoyed the fruits of power. But they knew the grassroots. Rahul Gandhi, or someone, would

have gained from their knowledge and experience, but both remained untapped.

One might argue that the Congress party was bound to get moribund because of the excessive dependence on the Nehru-Gandhi charisma, which has waned, with Rahul Gandhi, for example, winning by lower votes in Amethi. But there had to be someone to contend that the party had a life (whose absence meant death) outside the dynasty, and that old-fashioned partybuilding had to continue. The Congress structure is such that nothing moves independent of the Nehru-Gandhis. Several seniors did try to correct the distortions, but to no avail.

Indira Gandhi understood politics and so did her father. The later generations of the family are disconnected. The press makes a great deal about Priyanka Vadra. She is not in her grandmother’s class. Blood isn’t everything. And Robert Vadra and Feroze Gandhi are not in the same frame.

Once Lal Krishna Advani followed Atal Bihari Vajpayee into government as his

BURDEN OF DYNASTY It is time the Congress realizes that the party has a life outside the Nehru-Gandhi family

Rahul Gandhi’s efforts to rebuild Congress failed as he was guided by upstarts and academics. Even his sister, Priyanka, is not in the same class as Indira Gandhi.

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

25

THE NATION / mandate 2014 / grassroot politics

GOING FOR THE KILL Modi picked up Amit Shah (extreme left) to resurrect BJP in Uttar Pradesh by taking on established parties like BSP led by Mayawati (center) and SP led by Mulayam Singh Yadav

deputy, the BJP fell into the Congress rut. A succession of party presidents contributed zilch to the party’s growth. In its strange wisdom, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) imposed Nitin Gadkari. But the party’s Delhi durbar conspired with the United Progressive Alliance government and ruined him. After Vajpayee failed to be re-elected in 2004, the RSS advised Advani and other leaders to restore links with the cadre. The plea fell on deaf ears.

The situation of indifferent BJP presidency and cadre neglect would have continued except for Modi’s rise. He decimated the sangh structures in Gujarat, including the RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. He supplanted old party leaders with new faces, prompted by considerations of loyalty and competence.

But Modi never lost touch with grassroots workers and the cadres. Nor did he permit his office to veil him from the grassroots.

This message travelled across the country and led to Modi’s huge and unprecedented grassroots support in the party, which also

Modi decimated the ideological wings, like RSS, VHP and BKS, in Gujarat. He got in new faces, who were loyal and competent.

But he kept in touch with the state’s cadres.

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won him the all-important nomination.

But Modi did not rest on his laurels.

Making the BJP fighting fit in the few months to go for the election was a challenge, and he took it. He drafted his trusted lieutenant, Amit Shah, and the two miraculously empowered the party in just a few months. The two tasks of long-term partybuilding and short-term election preparedness are different but not entirely dissimilar.

But, Modi appears to have drawn a comprehensive blueprint for the party’s revival, and it is being implemented in stages.

According to press reports, Modi has major plans for party-building after May 16, 2014. His aim would be to form a solely BJP government at the centre. He will not break the National Democratic Alliance because the BJP’s ties with Akali Dal, Shiv Sena and other regional parties bring in a lot of credibility to the party. But Modi would want the party to become number one and rid the country of Congress.

Modi will concentrate on good governance and a strong and growing BJP. With him, it is back to the basics. IL

NV Subramanian is editor, www.newsinsight.net, and writes on politics and strategic affairs

THE NATION / mandate 2014 / expenditure

Ads, Booze and Cash FLIGHT OF AMBITION Prime minister Narendra Modi traversed the country by air for his marathon election rallies

Photos: UNI

battle for ballot 2014 achieved a new high in spending, as parties spent huge amounts to allure voters, and leaders logged hundreds of miles on a single day in chartered planes and choppers

By Rajendra Bajpai

I

F the amount of money spent on an election were a measure of development, India would count among the world’s most developed nations. This election season, political parties spent hundreds of crores on the campaign; some count this in the thousands of crores.

There is no way of knowing which of the two national parties spent more money—the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Leaders of both the parties flew across the country in chartered aircraft to campaign for their candidates. Both parties inundated the electronic media with their campaign jingles.

The BJP’s campaign appeared to be sharper and more effective than Congress’, but there is no record of expenses, as no accounting is necessary. Individuals INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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The jet-set jingle PRIVATE business jets are expensive, but it seemed not to matter. A 10-seater jet, flying from Delhi to Mumbai and returning after 24 hours, would set you back by `16,80,000, according to London-based Air Charter Service, which has several offices in India. A four-seater helicopter flying a single person from Mumbai to Pune and returning after 24 hours would cost ` 2,50,000.

Modi alone is estimated to have travelled nearly 400,000 kilometers during the current campaign, which means his air charter bill must have run into hundreds of crores of rupees.

Rahul clocked fewer kilometers than Modi.

So who was spending more money?

Subhash Kashyap, former secretary general of Lok Sabha and an acknowledged expert on elections, says it is impossible to make a good guess, as there is no way of quantifying who is spending how much.“They spend tons of money,” he said.

“One Congress candidate told me that he had paid five crore just to get the ticket to fight the election.”

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are required to keep their expenditure under `70 lakh in larger constituencies and `54 lakh in smaller ones, but how much money the party spends on them does not count.

THE ECONOMICS OF POLITICS On most days, BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi had businessman Gautam Adani’s aircraft and a couple of helicopters waiting for him. Modi clocked tens of thousands of air miles, preferring to return to his home base after the hectic day. Rahul Gandhi, Congress’s prime ministerial hopeful, used a private aircraft of the GMR Group. Both leaders addressed up to half a dozen election rallies a day in remote towns and villages.

Considering the costs involved, all political parties prefer to give tickets to candidates who are millionaires in their own right. More than 80 percent of the Congress candidates are crorepatis. That number is 78 percent for the BJP and the Nationalist Congress Party and 94 percent for DMK. The Associated Chambers of Commerce (Assocham) believes that the total multiplier effect of the election expenditure will be to the tune of `60,000 crore. The industry body thinks that about `15,000-20,000 crore spent on the general elections will create a huge multiplier GDP effect of 3-4 times the figure, giving a shot in the arm of the Indian economy. This means political parties

and candidates spent `1,445 on each person who cast his vote. India has a voting population of 81.4 crore, and around 67 percent voted in this elections. But there is no evidence the huge expenditure has added to the demand side of the economy.

The Centre for Media Studies (CMS), which tracks election spending, estimated that Indian political parties between them spent `300 billion (30,000 crore) in this election, which should make it the world’s second most expensive campaign after the last US Presidential elections.

“I don’t find it hard to disbelieve this,” says Rajiv Desai, a PR consultant and a media adviser to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But he adds it’s a bad precedent because some people with money have decided to sink all their resources to back Modi.

BILLIONAIRE BACKING Desai does not name the businessmen but the Congress has openly said that Mukesh Ambani, the country’s richest businessman, and Adani, who has risen meteorically under Modi’s rule in Gujarat, are among Modi’s top supporters and financiers. Desai says that BJP and Modi spent more money than Congress by a factor of 2 or 3. “It is not that they did not have the heart to win,” he tells India Legal. “But the Congress Party already lost the battle of the media.”

Vijay Chadda, a garment exporter and a

Anil Shakya

Assocham put the electoral spending at `60,000 crore this year.

The Centre for Media Studies estimated it at `30,000 crore. Either ways, it was one of world’s most expensive elections. keen observer of election, says it seemed as if the Congress had already conceded defeat midway, and instead of spending on elections they had decided to pocket the money. “They didn’t even give a decent fight in constituencies where the contests were close,” he says.

LURING WITH LIQUOR Where did all the money come from and where did it go? The CMS feels black money accounts for nearly half of all campaign spending. It includes air time for advertisements on radio and television channels, roadside hoardings and billboards, cash spent on buying alcohol for voters, bribing voters before and after voting and paid news

in print and electronic media.

The Election Commission, which regulates and oversees the polls, had seized `240 crore in cash, 13 million (1.3 crore) liters of liquor and 104 kilogram of heroin. Politicians are notorious for bribing voters and the current going rate is between `1,000 and 2,000. It can add up to a lot of money, considering that the average size of a constituency is 1.3 million (13 lakh).

The voting day is the most expensive.

That’s the day cash is distributed among voters. That is also a party day in slums, when liquor flows freely.

For candidates who have got a return on that investment, the party just begins. IL

COST NO BAR (Clockwise from left) A hi-tech van displaying Samajwadi Party’s message; Congress and BJP billboards dotting the cities; 75 lakh recovered from a car in Amritsar during election campaign; larger-than-life silhouettes of M Karunanidhi at a DMK rally

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / narendra modi / books

Photo Imaging: Anthony Lawrence

The Face That Launched

A 100 BOOKS

as the publishing world chanted the namo mantra, the market was flooded with hagiographies, critical analyses and comics on India’s new pm

By Bhavdeep Kang

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May 31, 2014

T

HE Election Commission will probably compute the BJP’s (ostensible) 2014 election campaign expenses down to the decimal figures. The Congress Party will keep insinuating that its main political opponent used black money to woo voters. But the marketing of BJP’s leader Narendra Modi is beyond money and numbers. His merchandising has spawned—apart from the usual election gimcracks— dolls, chai mugs, mouse pads, apparels, accessories, stationery, pen drives, furnishings and, bizarrely, pain-relief balms.

Bric-a-brac does not, however, build a legend. Books do. And there are dozens of them on Modi, and by Modi. The main thrust of the branding extravaganza has nothing to do with the Modi-for-PM corps; it has been provided by the publishing industry. Even before the 2014 Lok Sabha

election results were announced, five dozen Modi book titles were in print. Most of the books were published in the first four months of this year and 90 percent of them in the past 12 months. From these thousands of pages emerges a hero, and a smorgasbord of sterling virtues—he is an accomplished ruler, a dutiful son, a compassionate social worker, and a fearless freedom fighter. But in a TV interview, Modi said that he had not authorized any of the 250 odd biographies on him.

Diamond Pocket Books—known for pulp fiction, comics and knowledge books in Hindi—characterizes him as Prernamurthi Narendra Modi. It is the latest in the publisher’s pantheon of “Mahaan Bharatiya Mahapurush”, which includes titles on Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jawaharlal Nehru, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Mother Teresa. Authored

by Sangeeta Shukla, the book is priced at `30.

A series of comic books in Hindi and English, Amar Chitra Katha style, depict a brave young Modi, who swims in crocodileinfested waters and rescues a friend. He generously shares his sweets with a Muslim schoolmate, who says: “Wow! One should have a friend like you”. Modi patriotically serves tea and samosas to soldiers bound for the warfront. He dutifully helps his father by selling tea on railway platforms and, undeterred by poverty, keeps his school uniform impeccable, and collects money to build a school wall. He stands up to teachers, aids the sick and observes the Navratra fasts. There is no mention, naturally, of his marriage as a child or the 2002 Gujarat riots in many of the books.

Kishore Makwana, a Modi-bhakt, has authored two books on his hero. He sketches a selfless, committed social worker, who started his public career by collecting funds for flood relief in the 1960s and worked tirelessly for his political guru, the saintly Dr Vasant Parikh.

Pratap Simha parleyed his two Kannada volumes—Narendra Modi: Yarroo Tuliyada Haadi and Modi Muslim Virodhiye?—into a BJP ticket for the Mysore Lok Sabha seat.

Sudesh Verma’s The Gamechanger, which is based on extensive interviews with Modi and his family, offers unique insights. We learn that he wakes up at 4 am and eschews sleep until he has finished his work for the day. He

In one of the comics, Modi generously shares his sweets with a Muslim schoolmate, who says: “Wow! One should have a friend like you”.

carries a scar on his ankle from a crocodile bite when he was 13 and which entailed nine stitches. For those interested in his marital status, Verma tells us that he was never married; Modi skipped the final stage of the three-stage ritual practised by his Ghanchi caste.

Not all the books are adulatory. Some, like those by Bibek Debroy and MV Kamath, are scholarly works, which find a great deal of merit in Modi’s model of governance. Uday Mahurkar’s Centrestage: Inside the Narendra Modi Model of Governance, describes how the Gujarat chief minister applied technology to governance. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay’s Modi: The Man, The Times, Kingshuk Nag’s The NaMo Story: A Political Life and Andy Marino’s Narendra Modi: A Political Biography qualify as balanced biographies that deal with both Modi’s contributions and controversies surrounding him.

ICONIC MOULD A series of comic books in Hindi and English depict Modi as quintessential hero

O

nly a few books are openly critical of Modi. Manoj Mitta’s The Fiction of Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra highlights the glaring gaps in the investigations into the 2002 riots in Gujarat and questions the “clean chit” subsequently given to the chief minister. In some respects, it goes down the same path as Siddartha Vardarajan’s earlier volume, Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy.

Two more, and much-awaited, books are in the works. Modi Demystified by India Legal’’s managing editor Ramesh Menon is a critical analysis of Modi’s politics, style of governance and development model. Saffron Modernity and the Remaking of Gujarat by Christopher Jaffrelot may be more ambivalent.

Then, there are the books authored by Modi himself. There’s Jyotipunj, which profiles the people who inspired him, and includes INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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mostly RSS workers in Gujarat. In it, Modi has included the name of Madhukar Rao Bhagwat, who is the father of the current RSS supremo, Mohan Rao Bhagwat. Premtirth (Abode of Love) is a collection of short stories.

Setubandh is a biography of Modi’s mentor in the RSS, Laxman Madhav Inamdar, better known as Vakil Sahib. Samajik Samrasta is a collection of articles and lectures on social inclusiveness, where he quotes BR Ambedkar, Swami Vivekanand, Mahatma Gandhi and other social reformers.

Modi-the-poet is revealed in A Journey, an English translation of his Gujarati verses. It is a collection of 67 poems on patriotism, love, nature and friendship. One of them, Prem Ke Naam (In the name of love) talks about the pains of separation, which led to speculation that it may be a reference to his separation from his wife, Jashodaben. Modi-the-environmentalist has penned Convenient Action, on Gujarat’s experience in tackling climate change. And Modi transforms himself into a self-help guru in Safalta ke 400 sutra.

Glut of Modi Books Modi: Leadership, Governance & Performance Vivian Fernandes Orient Publishing

The Man of the Moment: Narendra Modi MV Kamath & Kalindi Randeri Vikas Publishing House

Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times Nilanjan Mukhopadhaya Tranqueba

The NaMo Story: A Political Life Kingshuk Nag Roli Books

Modi, Muslims & Media: Voices from Gujarat Madhu Purnima Kishwar Manushi Publications

Narendra Modi: A Political Biography Andy Marino Harper Collins

The Gamechanger Sudesh Verma Vitasta

C

Centrestage: Inside the Narendra Modi Model of Governance Uday Mahurkar Random House India

Drumbeats to Ringtones Bibek Debroy & Radhika Shah Aakhya Media

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Photo: Anil Shakya

May 31, 2014

illustraion: Lalit Khitoliya

an the market sustain the plethora of these books? Sudha Sadanand, managing editor of Westland Tranquebar Press, which set the Modi books rolling with Mukhopadhyay’s biography, says: “It has been one of our biggest titles last year and more than the sales, it’s become a reference point for subsequent books. Academicians, foreign correspondents and media publications that seek in-depth insights pick up this book.”

Narrative non-fiction, as Sudha points out, engages larger number of readers.

“We never dreamt of such responses. We are already in the second edition of some of our publications on Modi,” says Prabhat Kumar of Prabhat Prakashan, the most prolific publisher of “Modi-ture”. It has brought out seven books on him, two booklets of his interviews and four books by him. A set of these publications was recently presented to BJP general secretary JP Nadda. Kumar’s decision turned out to be a smart marketing move. BJP ordered bulk purchase of these books, and distributed them to party office-bearers and managers; the party’s organising secretary, Ram Lal, requested them to read and share the books with others. IL

THE NATION / mandate 2014 / photo essay

TAKE TWO Actor Gul Panag in Chandigarh adapted well to the demands of the political script in her role as Aam Aadmi Party candidate Photos: UNI

Dreams, Anachronisms and Fears W 81.4 crore voters of the country braved the heat to bring about a change through their vote in a soul-searching election.

By Ramesh Menon

E just witnessed the greatest show in the world, of how peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power in a democracy can make the mighty crumble. India had not seen such an electrifying election. There was hope writ large on the faces of hundreds of millions, as they sought change. It was clear that India was no more a country drowning in a thousand mutinies, as VS Naipaul described decades ago. Despite a sagging economy and a fractured political culture, there were INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / photo essay Sipra Das

expectations that the country could rise again and make the world take notice.

With 66 percent of India below 35 years, it is the youngest nation in the world. In the years to come, it is the youth, which will sculpt the future. In 2014, 100 million new voters, most of them young and first-timers, were added to the electoral list. The majority of them were impatient, as they saw life speeding past them. They did not want India to lose the opportunity to emerge as a proud nation. They infused energy and determination in campaigns, and forced the political parties to go beyond narrow confines that they paint themselves in. But it is going to take more than one election for the young to emerge as a force to reckon with.

O

ld political biases of caste, creed and communalism that are embedded deep in the caverns of our mind are not easy to discard. These elections too saw much of it being bandied around, hoping it would pave a less stormy path to victory.

Money power was evident, as the Election Commission seized over `240 crore of currency notes ostensibly to bribe voters. According to the Centre for Media Studies, political parties spent over `30,000 crore. But times are changing. Yeh jo public hai sab jaanti hai. You cannot fool 81.4 crore voters all the time.

Actually, it was a great opportunity to educate scores of illiterate voters on issues of governance, so that they could vote sagaciously.

Like the importance of voting for candidates with clean records, shunning criminals, saying no to money power, not be enamored by slick and sexy advertising and stand up and be counted. Also, how a new India has to embrace inclusivity to get on to the fast lane.

Communal conflagrations only destroy growth. And finally, they were told to have faith in the idea of India.

Predictably, both the media and political parties wasted time and footage on trivial issues. They lowered the standard of debate into slanging matches, where allegations and decibel levels mattered more than real issues that need to be discussed threadbare to be understood. Speeches and discussions were punctuated with bullying and heckling. The

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May 31, 2014

NO REASON TO SMILE: A Congress supporter makes no bones about his loyalties

NO HOLDS BARRED: (Below) Congress president Sonia Gandhi reaches out to masses at a rally in Muzaffarpur

APPEASING THE GODS, AND THE VOTERS (clockwise from left) Money, which was meant to be distributed among voters, lands in the hands of police; Sushma Swaraj and Mulayam Singh Yadav seek heavenly blessings; Muslim women come out in support of Modi

social media had its share of garbage too, most of it trumpeted by political party strategists. The complexity of issues in India and the politics that strangulates it is not the simplest of issues that can be easily absorbed by an average voter.

THE COMIC RELIEF (Below) Rashtriya Aam Partyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founder Rakhi Sawant takes a break from the entertainment business to contest from Mumbai North West

T

his was the time for enlightened voters to demand action on serious issues plaguing the nation. While the aspiring middle class was dreaming of a new life, millions were groveling in exploitative conditions, wondering when their misery would end. In an inflationary economy, which was wracked by slowdown, many were trying to hang on to their jobs as long as it lasted with nightmares of pink slips popping up. Parents were selling land to send their children to private institutes of higher education that ironically were INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / photo essay

CALL OF DUTY (clockwise from top left) Election personnel being transported in the Jorhat district of Assam; a worker handles a roll of cloth to be converted into Trinamul Congress flags; technocrat Nandan Nilekani interacts with voters in a Bangalore bus; Commuters walk past a building decorated with portraits of Indian freedom fighters and political leaders

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short-changing the process of learning and teaching. The educated were looking for jobs that would give them a foothold in the India of their dreams, despite the current political culture. Voters wondered why the country had not cracked down on black money stacked abroad by rich Indians that politicians talked of during elections. Sexual violence was on the rise despite a stringent law. The Naxalite belt was growing every year, as anger among the marginalized grew, as they suffered neglect and were denied justice. Their land had been usurped by land sharks and business magnates. The judicial system was threatening to collapse under the sheer weight of cases that had been unresolved for years. Freedom of speech was attacked by self-styled moralistic morons wanting to stifle independent thought and expression.

It was a soul-searching election.

It is this bleak scenario in Indian politics that helped the one-year-old Aam Aadmi Party to rapidly ascend into the national sphere, encouraging it to contest from as many

as 424 constituencies. It raked up interest especially among young voters and the urban educated middle class holding forth a new hope of a transparent form of governance. Its anti-corruption campaign resonated with millions, who had been victims at some point.

But AAP was not looking to win all these seats; it just wanted to make a dent this time, get noticed and prepare for the next Lok Sabha elections.

A

dding a touch of seriousness, glamour and comic relief were a lot of candidates like technocrat Nandan Nilekani, social activist Medha Patkar, banking professional Meera Sanyal, cricketer Mohammed Kaif, musician Bappi Lahiri, magician PC Sorcar Jr, actors Gul Panag, Moon Moon Sen, Javed Jaafri, Paresh Rawal and Kirron Kher and drama queen Rakhi Sawant.

Some aspects like gender prejudice did not change. As usual, the percentage of women candidates continued to be low. Only Jayalalithaaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s AIADMK ensured 33 percent of

women candidates. AAP had a significant number of high-profile accomplished women candidates, showing it was a party with a difference. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2013 of the World Economic Forum, Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overall rank among 136 countries was 101. The parameters considered were economic participation of women, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.

In terms of legislative participation, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranks Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s record of including women lawmakers, who make up 11 percent of the outgoing Lok Sabha, at 112 among 189 countries. Not something we can be proud of.

Early this month, the Supreme Court remarked that the increasing number of elected lawmakers involved in criminal cases was a cause of grave concern. While those convicted cannot contest elections due to an SC judgment, those who have been chargesheeted can.

However the apex court ruled that trial courts must conclude the case within a year. Elected representatives, who face the possibility of conviction, have a reason to worry. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, as many as 162 out of the 543 MPs had criminal cases pending against them. Some of them were allegedly involved in serious crimes like murder, kidnapping, dacoity and rape.

It is said that people get the government they deserve. It is not true for India. We deserve much better. IL

WINNING POSTURE Narendra Modi thronged by a sea of supporters in Varanasi during his election rally

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / modiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s agenda

Now, for the deliverables

TOUGH TIMES, TOUGH CALLS Serial blasts in Guwahati, Assam, in October 2008, killed 20 people and injured 100 people

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Getty Images

When politicians conduct the business of electioneering, the frenetic pace of vote-gathering and concomitant propaganda often overshadow the issues that impact the country. Although parties release prodigious manifestos—usually compendium of past promises unkept—the issues, even if they are of significance, are rarely raised during the campaigning. The media din on personalities, pitching one imaginary “front runner” against another, trivializes the debate. Election 2014 did not fall completely into this stereotype. Even if the BJP campaign appeared to be Modi-centric, and others seemed to only make attempts to stop the NaMo onslaught, issues ranging from economic models to foreign policy did find inclusion in speeches. Nonetheless, there remained many that found scant mention but which will have to come on the front burner now to move the nation forward at a more lively pace. India Legal looks at some of them.

By Girish Nikam

Maoist problem Internal security threat was a key concern among the electorate in these elections.

Firmness in dealing with terror attacks was a key plank, and so was the state’s effectiveness in handling the Kashmir issue, and insurgency in north-eastern states.

A huge security challenge is Maoism.

Outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described it as the biggest internal security challenge faced by the country. The Maoists, who are found in 60 districts across nine states, have been a challenge to both the security forces as well as the administration. Large tracts of land in states like Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Orissa, are not even accessible to the administration. The government’s Integrated Action Plan of 2009 to deal with the problem in a coordinated manner across these states, has met with limited success.

However, the 2009 plan can provide a good

platform to bring the disparate beliefs and ideas together and to arrive at a consensus. In fact, the then Home Minister P Chidambaram offered a dialogue with the Maoists, with one condition that they lay down their arms, which he diluted to the stoppage of hostilities and violence. Unfortunately, it fizzled out after he was moved out of the home ministry. The new government, which has taken aggressive posture on militancy, may not wish to resume dialogue with Maoists. But it will focus on development of the affected areas to distance locals from Maoists.

Parliamentary reforms One of the biggest concerns in recent years was the deterioration of the standards in the functioning of parliament. The 15th Lok Sabha witnessed the worst performance, with 61 percent of its time being productive. In terms of making laws, it passed 179 bills INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / modi’s agenda

Controlling the Maoist insurgency in central India, checking the arbitrariness of intelligence agencies and bringing order to the Lok Sabha should be on the ‘to do’ list.

RUNNING TO AN EMPTY HOUSE There’s peace on the floor of Parliament only because it’s empty on this day.

Full attendance often meant rowdyism in the 15th Lok Sabha

during its five-year tenure—again the worstever performance. Another dismal fact is that 60 percent of the question hour time was lost in disruptions—a dubious record. And worse, the demands for grants and finance bill of Budget 2013, which amounted to `16,60,000 crore, were voted without a discussion. In 2011 and 2012, 81 percent and 92 percent, respectively, of the total demands for grants for the various ministries were voted on together, i.e. without any discussion.

The last session of the 15th Lok Sabha ended with pepper spray being used by a parliamentarian to disrupt the house. For days and weeks, the unruly behavior of MPs of all the political parties was on display over public news channels.

All this was an indication how the Parliament virtually abdicated its role of being a scrutinizer, as well as a mirror of people’s problems and expectations. How do we overcome this problem? The fact is that a 1997 allparty resolution passed on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Independence, pledging that no member will disrupt the functioning of the house or enter the well of the house, has just remained on paper. Many MPs agree that

time has come for harsher measures. One of the measures is to adopt a football like warning system—where an MP disrupting the house should be warned twice and a third misconduct should lead to suspension and even the extreme step of expulsion. Another suggested measure to ensure proper functioning of the house is to have fixed number days in a year for the sessions. However, the new government may neglect this issue, since the NDA, with its near two-thirds majority, will have the numbers to pass most legislations. A strong speaker can reduce disruptions in the 16th Lok Sabha.

Legislative oversight on intelligence The intelligence agencies, including the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which are not in public gaze, have displayed a behavior which, to say the least, is dangerous. One of the biggest lacunae is that these agencies have not been created through legislations, which has resulted in lack of accountability. IB’s roots go back to the 1947 Central Intelligence Bureau, while RAW was formed in 1968 after India’s wars with China (1962) and Pakistan (1965). Both were formed through executive orders.

In recent years, IB officials were charged with being accomplices in fake encounters with the so-called terrorists, and arrests of youths accused of terrorism, but who were later found innocent. There were ugly turf wars between the intelligence agencies and state police authorities. Cases of human rights violations were also reported.

One of the suggestions of Vice President Hamid Ansari was to set up an oversight body, which could be given access to operational details, so as to ensure effective supervision of the agencies. A task force set up by the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in 2012 recommended the formation of a ministry for national security and intelligence, which could double up as the national security advisor to the prime minister, and which would be responsible to the parliament.

Tax reforms Two major tax reforms initiatives, which have been kept pending for the last 10 years or more, are the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Direct Tax Code (DTC). Not many deny the benefit of implementing them, as

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they could result in better tax compliance and increase in revenues.

GST and DTC are not easy to implement, considering opposition from several states, which included BJP-ruled ones. However, Yashwant Sinha, who headed the standing committee of Parliament on DTC, has pledged his party’s commitment to bring about these reforms. P Chidambaram, finance minister in the UPA government, blamed the BJP for having stalled these two reforms. Now, despite NDA’s overwhelming majority, PM Narendra Modi will have to bring on board the CMs of BJP- and allies-ruled states.

Women reservation Almost every mainstream political party has pledged to get this bill passed in its manifesto in elections since 1996. However, none of the governments has been successful. The bill, which provides 33 percent reservation to women in Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, was passed in Rajya Sabha in 2010. It could not be brought to Lok Sabha due to a lack of consensus among the parties.

However, BJP has consistently supported the move, with Sushma Swaraj having emerged as its biggest proponent. Thus, Modi can push this through easily; the only impediment will be the estranged personal relationship between Swaraj and Modi. One will need to also understand the psyche of PM’s loyalists, who will help set the immediate agenda for the new government.

Genetically modified crops The matter of whether to allow field trials is now in the Supreme Court. All political parties are divided on the issue, with even the BJP and Congress adopting different yardsticks in different states. The need for a regulator has been felt, and in fact the bill was even passed in Lok Sabha. However, since it could not get passed in Rajya Sabha, the bill lapsed. The new government has to bring in a new bill.

Bringing about a consensus to allow field trials of GM crops is not going to be easy.

Though some state governments, including BJP’s Gujarat and Congress’ Maharashtra, allowed them in the past, the opposition against it stems from Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the ideological wing of BJP, as also the RSS. It will be interesting to watch the

dynamics between Modi and RSS; the latter helped his elevation as the BJP’s PM candidate, but given the electoral mandate the PM does not need the ideological wing to push through his agenda. The challenge for the new government will be to manage these contradictions.

Cross-holding in media The almost complete lack of laws or restrictions on crossmedia ownership, both horizontal (across different platforms and genres) and vertical (across the value chain), has led to several problems, like the corporatization of media and the trend of big media houses straddling across media platforms.

Many of them own newspapers, TV news channels, news websites and portals, and radio channels. Within the broadcast arena, they are telecasters as well as owners of distribution channels like cable and DTH (directto-home). They also cut across technology platforms, and own mobile networks.

In 1997, the then Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy sought to bring in legislation to curb cross-media holdings. However, it was successfully thwarted by vested interests.

On February 25, 2009, the telecom regulator (TRAI) gave its recommendations on cross-media ownership. It recommended that broadcasters should not have control in distribution and vice versa and that after working out the required safeguards for horizontal & vertical integration, merger and acquisition guidelines may be issued to prevent media concentration. Later, the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) came up with similar recommendations.

However, the problem is that media conglomerates, including the Sun TV group, Essel Group (Zee TV), Star India, TV 18 and Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group own various media and technology products. So, any restrictions need to force them to exit certain areas, or dilute stakes in them. Being powerful houses with enormous political clout cutting across parties, they are bound to resist any efforts to reduce their fiefdoms. IL

THE ETHICS OF FEEDING A BILLION MOUTHS The issue of genetically modified crops, though not a central election plank, will have to be taken up in earnest

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / muslim psyche

The Churning Within the issues that trouble the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest minority are old, but in the diversity of its responses lies a new hope

By Meha Mathur

M

USLIMS have been a crucial votebank in Indian elections. Political parties desperately try to woo them by raking up issues that affect the community, playing on their fears and anxieties. The reality that even after six decades of Independence, Muslims feel marginalized, insecure, discriminated and stereotyped, provides them enough fodder.

Mandate 2014 accentuated the apprehensions of Muslims in some states. The concern was building up ever since September last year when Narendra Modi was declared the

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prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party. NaMo’s track record in Gujarat, where he had swept assembly polls thrice by partly riding on the communal card, didn’t help matters. Certain Muslims were worried about their fate, after it became clear that Narendra Modi would form the government.

The communal riots in Muzaffarnagar in August-September 2013 were another ominous portent. The feeling of insecurity increased after the BJP leadership in Uttar Pradesh honored two of its MLAs accused of fanning the riots. And even as elections were under way, with the Modi wave unleashing itself across the nation, the north-eastern state of Assam once again witnessed clashes between the Bodos and the Muslims.

India Legal spoke to a cross-section of Muslims to find out about the community’s perceptions on the political developments, its role and position in India, its sense of fulfilment, expectations from the state machinery and judiciary, and worries regarding Modi taking over in New Delhi.

Happily for the nation, the Muslims no longer think en bloc. The community feels far more enlightened, more secure. Opinions and perceptions vary a great deal at individual levels. Responses are well thought out, and not always stereotypical. Reactions range from introspection to anger; from the clamor of assimilation to the plaintive cry for assertion of rights.

The passion to go up the ladder, be a participant in changing times and think independently is almost infectious.

Being typecast as “second class Photos: Anil Shakya

THE BRAVE NEW FACE (Above) Law student Fathima Thahalia at a seminar in Calicut

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / muslim psyche

Muslims should see their interest in national interest, rather than only thinking about the community, feels scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan.

chancellor’s seat, but not Prime Minister’s seat. Our share in important positions in defense or intelligence is insignificant.”

At the time of partition, Muslims loyal to India chose to stay back. Still, our loyalty is questioned and Hindus’ loyalty is taken for granted, says IT professional Tariq Jaleel. citizens,” Muslims are at pains to clarify that their love for the country is as intense as any other community in India.

Says Syed Asghar Wajahat, an acclaimed author and playwright, known for his works like Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya, O Janmyai Nai: “I am an Indian first and a Muslim second.

It’s as clear as that.”

The sense of belonging is further echoed

by Kamal Farooqui, former secretary of Samajwadi Party, when he says: “I am confident about my place in the country, about my constitutional rights.”

Having said that, there is also pain and anguish at being alienated in their own country. Tariq Jaleel, an IT professional and a project manager with IBM, is deeply hurt by efforts that Muslims generally have to make to establish their loyalty for the country. “For the Muslims of India there was a choice to go to Pakistan or stay back. People who were loyal stayed back. Hindu’s did not have that choice. Still, their loyalty is taken for granted, while ours is not.”

Extending his argument further, he points out: “We can get President’s seat or vice-

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RANKLED BY GUJARAT RIOTS Security is a concern among Muslims today, and the violence and injustice experienced in the past riots rankles. Some have internalized the Gujarat riots, and can’t bear the reality that the guilty, especially the high and mighty, have gone scot free.

Two issues in particular perplex the Muslims. One is the role of the judiciary, with the lower judiciary closing most of the cases, and the Supreme Court transferring some cases out of Gujarat on the grounds that free and fair trial would not be possible within the state, but at the same time retaining others within Gujarat. The other aspect is the clean chit given to Modi by the Special Investigation Team (SIT). Aftab Alam, associate professor with Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), laments: “Every time a college or road is inaugurated, the credit goes to Modi.

Why is it that in the case of such a big carnage, the responsibility did not rest with the head of the state?”

However, many understand that the judiciary has a limited role in curbing riots in India. They understand that the courts do not make laws but only interpret them.

Scholars and professionals aver that it is perhaps time that the Parliament enacts laws that would enable harsh punishment to rioters or deter them from igniting violence.

While Gujarat has become a reference point, Muslims are well aware that in some other states of India, the state machinery has handled communal disturbances in an unbiased manner. Syed Qasim Rasool Illyas, member of the Muslim Personal Law Board and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, says that in states where the state machinery is efficient, the law and order is well maintained.

The Muzaffarnagar riots have also rattled the Muslims no end. It came as a shock, as the region had retained its peace in Independent India, with the Jats and the Muslims taking pride in common ancestry.

Other cases that have scarred the community include the Hashimpura violence of 1987, in which the police had massacred 50 people in

cold blood. The case remains unresolved, and the culprits have not been brought to book.

Some of them complain that judicial activism has shown little regard for riots cases by failing to take suo moto notice, which could have provided the healing touch to victims. They point out that in the past 15 years or so, the courts have taken the lead in dealing with issues like environment, corruption, rape, etc but have been rather circumspect to act in cases relating to communal violence. MH Jowher, an Ahmedabad-based rights activist, says that while the lower judiciary may have been communal in the 2002 riot cases, “the Supreme Court also did not act on its own, but only on the petitions of Teesta Setalvad, Mukul Sinha and others.”

The inordinate delay in disposing off riots cases by the judiciary has upset the Muslims.

Professor Sabiha Hussain, faculty with KR Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, says: “Judicial delay causes immense harm in riot cases. It prevents people from coming out of trauma and affects their participation in national development.”

The baggage of “terrorist tag” that Muslims are sometimes forced to carry has caused an irreparable damage to their psyche. To be under scrutiny of law enforcing agencies is excruciatingly painful. Elaborates Prof Aftab Alam: “Muslim youth are arrested after every blast without proper investigation. The arrests are made to satisfy people’s anger. In 98 percent cases, the charges are false and they are later released. In Lucknow a youth was acquitted after 14 years. Who will rehabilitate them?”

MODI FACTOR In this atmosphere of siege, the worry that the Muslim community harbored, as election results came out, was concerns for its safety under Modi rule. Will the politics that was played out in Gujarat be magnified on the national level? Illyas points out: “A leader gets a clean chit when 15 senior officers of his government are behind bars, and on that basis goes on to build up a national ambition.

It will be very unfortunate for the country if he becomes the prime minister.”

Even green horns are able to discern how

Politician Kamal Farooqui has complete faith in the Supreme Court remaining secular, irrespective of whichever party is in power at the center.

Syed Qasim Rasool Illyas of Muslim Personal Law Board is anguished at the clean chit given to Narendra Modi by the SIT. the communal plank may have aided Modi’s political ambitions. Law student Fathima Thahalia says: “The BJP’s inherent nature is to polarize. It polarized the country on the Hindu-Muslim axis. The party knew that at the end of the violence, the communities will split up and thus create a fertile ground for the BJP.” There are also concerns about the country’s institutions buckling under pressure following Modi coming to power. Muslims fear that communalism will percolate and that positions of power will be communalized.

The fear of a government headed by Modi working in a dictatorial manner may be real among some sections, but Farooqui dismisses these fears, saying: “I have complete faith that irrespective of whosoever is in power, the judiciary will remain impartial.”

There is the readiness to analyze Modi’s governance outside the communal prism.

But even then the hype around Modi makes them think. Illyas feels the catchline, “Abki baar Modi Sarkar” implied the party had handed over the reins to him, which was against democratic norms. “Modi’s style of INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / muslim psyche

governance is dictatorial. It’s a one-man show. No other minister has a say and the law and order machinery toes his line.” He also questions Modi’s development model, saying it has benefitted only a few corporates in Gujarat, not the common man.

But Prof Sabiha Hussain of Jamia Millia Islamia has a surprising take: “I would like Modi to be in power. He will ensure that no communal riots take place. He will try to overcome his shortcomings of Gujarat at the national level.”

Others too are in a conciliatory mood.

Nayema Nasir, an MPhil student of gender studies at Ambedkar University, New Delhi, while fearing for safety, says: “We would not like to carry past baggage with us. If corrective action is taken, the community would like to reach out.”

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan in fact chides his community for their negative voting, saying: “You have to see your interest in the national interest. Muslims think only in terms of community interest.”

ARMED WITH EDUCATION Given the divergence in opinions, the issue that unites the community is hunger for education. All Muslims see education as the panacea for all ills and as the only means to break out of present constraints.

Prof SM Azizuddin, historian and director, Rampur Raza Library, feels it’s a vicious

No to Pak advice MAULANA Mahmood Madani, executive member of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, said Indian Muslims don’t need Pakistan’s advice to solve their problems. At the India Today conclave in 2009, Madani made this remark in response to former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s address. He said: “There are more Muslims in India than the entire population of Pakistan.

Indian Muslims know how to solve their problems. We don’t need your advice.

Seventy percent people of the Indian civil society are ready to stand by Muslims in resolving their problems. Don’t try to alienate the Muslims with your remarks.”

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Writer Syed Asghar Wajahat of Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya, O Janmyai Nai and Saat Aasmaan fame voices the sentiments of Muslims when he says that he is an Indian first, and a Muslim, second. circle: “Muslims will have to give importance to education if they want their rightful place in the Indian society or polity. In the absence of education, they are not aware of the avenues that are available to them.”

There’s a tremendous hunger for education at least among Muslims of small towns , with ambitious parents nudging their children into higher studies, and youngsters single-mindedly pursuing astrophysics, biotechnology, remote sensing, physiotherapy, nursing, management, media, and, of course, liberal arts, often taking their education to its logical culmination of post-doctoral. If it requires postponement of marriage, so be it.

This writer met several students who studied in madarsas making it a point to master English language, and burqa-clad women, clueless about careers, still trying to make something of their lives by joining communication classes.

The awareness about education has spread in villages. In fact, the enrolment of children in elementary schools has gone up from 8.3 percent in 2006-07 to 13.15 percent in 2012-13. The dropout rates are high in the middle school, but that, perhaps is the socioeconomic compulsion with all disadvantaged communities, not just Muslims.

There’s also the realization that quality of education in minority institutions needs to

Prof SM Azizuddin, Director of Rampur Raza Library, feels that for Muslims to play a meaningful role in the society, they have to give importance to education.

Prof Sabiha Hussain of Jamia Millia Islamia is keen that Narendra Modi comes to power. She feels he will ensure law and order, and undo his old reputation.

improve in these times of excellence and tough competition. Wajahat says: “Most Muslim institutions are not known for excellence. You can’t compare them with IITs and IIMs. Because of this, the students lose out.”

Should Muslims depend on state support to come out of their educational backwardness, or should they come out of dependency, is a point of debate.

Farooqui admits that a number of initiatives have been launched to benefit the community, like the schemes of a number of ministries which directly help minorities. And he claims that “Muslims don’t want any special favors; only equal opportunities.”

But he expresses anger at the Muslims being denied reservations “as a result of the constitutional fraud played by the Congress in 1950, under Article 341, restricting reservations to the Hindus only”.

Others like Maulana Wahiduddin Khan want the community to stand up on its own.

Khan says: “Muslim institutions work on the wrong notion that Muslims need favor, which works like poison.” And Illyas, as chairman of Afkar Foundation, is spearheading an initiative to successfully run 100 model schools in northern and eastern India, where best possible education would be imparted, and where students would be guided to take up right courses and careers.

Gender studies student Nayema Naseer says Muslims would not like to carry past baggage and would reach out if Modi is ready to take corrective measures.

YOUNG VOICES The Muslim youth, too, has put on its thinking cap. It feels the need to make a greater contribution to the nation. Ahamed Saju, a research student with University of Delhi, feels happy that the prejudices against the Muslims are slowly dying out and the Muslims on their part are mixing with others. Walking the talk, he sought out a Brahmin from Uttar Pradesh for his roommate in his postgraduation days. Saju, coming from Kerala, couldn’t speak Hindi, and the roommate, Padmakar Dwivedi, was not conversant in English, but the two bonded over their career dream to join the civil services.

Graphic designer Zakir Ali feels that Muslims can rub shoulders with the rest of the nation in its progress, and that opportunities are coming to them in all walks of life.

To Nayema Nasir, the very thought of discussing Muslims as a separate entity is an anathema. Expressing her disgust, she says: “The rhetoric on these lines marginalizes the community. I saw a TV debate in which the question being posed was, ‘leading Muslim actors are part of mainstream. Do you think the whole community is part of mainstream?’ This line of thought increases the sense of the other.” IL

With inputs from Renjini Verghese INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 /economic models

as the political debate centers on narendra modi’s development model, tamil nadu’s jayalalithaa and other cms offer possible alternatives

By Alam Srinivas

Getty Images

AMMANOMICS

I

N one of his dramatic election speeches, Narendra Modi said that to create a Gujarat, a leader needs a chest of 56 inches. “Netaji,” he said referring to Mulayam Singh Yadav, the head of Samajwadi Party, “aap Gujarat nahin bana sakte hain (Netaji, you cannot build a Gujarat—in Uttar Pradesh).” By inference, he hinted that only he could replicate the Gujarat model across the country. The majority of Indian voters got sucked in by this logic and the Modi development model. The fact is that Modi’s growth version, which is being lauded by politicians, economists and intellectuals, is neither unique, nor is it the only one that works. Several prime ministers have tried to implement the same economic blueprint in India—with varying degrees of successes and failures. More important, different chief ministers have tried their own models in their respective states in the recent past—with possibly the same degree of success as Modi.

But first, we need to summarize the Gujarat prototype. Like any other economic blueprint, it is

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about investments. Modi wooed private investments—both by foreigners and locals—to spur consistent growth. He forced public investments by the state into infrastructure projects like roads, huge dams and other amenities. The combination created job opportunities, enabled the poor to increase their earnings, and improved the standard of living.

This was exactly the paradigm that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee followed, when the BJP-led NDA was in power between 1998 and 2004. He pushed for growth through reforms, disinvestment and foreign investments. He dreamt of ambitious roads projects, which included the Golden Quadrilateral and ManipurMyanmar-Thailand highway. The latter, as Assocham’s general secretary said, would not only “transport goods but also ideas and goodwill.”

Despite robust growth in 1998-99 (6.7

While Modi focusses on investments to boost growth and create infrastructure, Jayalalithaa combines growth with social welfare schemes to benefit the poor. percent), 1999-2000 (7.6 percent) and 2003-04 (8.1 percent), the Vajpayee model did not work consistently. Growth rates were dismal in 2000-01 (4.3 percent), 2001-02 (5.5 percent) and 2002-03 (4 percent). NDA’s election blitzkrieg—the “India Shining” campaign—flopped with the voters, and Congress-led UPA came to power in 2004. The BJP seemed shocked with the verdict, but its blueprint predictably angered the electorate.

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Like Modi, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Nitish Kumar and Parkash Singh Badal have evolved growth models to cater to their state’s needs, and very effectively.

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lmost 1,900 kilometers away from Ahmedabad, Pratchi Thailavi Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, has charted out a different model from her Chennai headquarters. The first part of her blueprint is the same as Modi’s. Pratchi Thailavi, roughly translated as the great woman leader, believes in doling out incentives to woo private investments to propel growth.

This provides a long-term platform for societal changes.

However, the major difference between Amma, as Jayalalithaa is popularly known, and NaMo (short form for Narendra Modi) is in the manner in which they use public investments to uplift the poor. While the latter believes in the infrastructure mantra, Tamil Nadu’s CM desires direct intervention. She has spent thousands of crores of rupees on dozens of welfare schemes. These target rural and urban poor, and cut across gender and age to reach out to children, young women, and senior citizens.

Amma Unavagams, or Amma canteens, sell breakfast, lunch and dinner at subsidized rates; for example, a plate of idli is priced at `2. “These canteens are clean and the food is fresh. Even mid-level managers queue up at these canteens to buy the meals,” says Kavita Krishnan, a Chennai resident. In his budget speech (February 13, 2014), the state’s minister for finance and public works, Thiru O Paneerselvan, announced the launch of low-priced Amma mineral water.

Connectivity in Jayalalithaa’s lingo implies the introduction of new buses and routes. Of the proposed 6,000 buses, her government inducted over 4,000 during her current rule; these buses ply over 1,000 new routes. In Chennai, 100 small buses ferry people into the interiors of various localities,

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where large vehicles cannot run due to smaller roads. “It has proved to be a boon for the poor and lower classes,” says MS Bharath, a Chennai-based lawyer.

To encourage literacy, the state government provides free text books, note books, four sets of uniforms, crayons and pencils, geometry boxes, school bags, footwear, and even sanitary napkins to the poor. In 201415, it will spend `500 crore on this account.

Till now, free laptops have been distributed to over 2.2 million students. The state hopes to spend `1,100 crore this year to give them to another 550,000 students.

To curtail the number of school dropouts, the state government gives the families of children in Class X, XI and XII `1,5002,000 each. It opens up a fixed deposit of `50,000 each in the name of children, who study in government and government-aided schools and have lost bread-earners in their families. This is to force them to continue studies and not aim to augment the family’s income. Hundreds of Amma Marundagam shops “ensure the sale of medicines at reasonable prices to the public.”

Clearly, Modi’s plank is based on the “pull” strategy, whereby the lower classes can be heaved upwards into the middleclass segment through investments and infrastructure. Growth leads to higher

employment and better living standards; it leads to skilled jobs too. Infrastructure enables the farmers to cut out the middlemen and take their products faster to urban market places. Irrigation schemes improved the crop yields.

Jayalalithaa believes in a balance between the “pull” and “push” strategies.

The latter involves a push to invest in scores of welfare schemes that lessens the daily burden on poor families, until the trickledown effect of economic growth pulls them up the socio-economic ladder. As several governments in India and abroad have realized, economic reforms widen the divide between the haves and have-nots, at least during the initial years.

It is because of “pull” factor that private investments continue to be a critical ingredient of Amma’s economy. Thanks to efforts by both Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK regimes and those of K Karunanidhi, the head of DMK, Tamil Nadu has emerged as the hub for automobiles, telecom and consumer electronics. Leading global car makers, like Ford, Hyundai, BMW and Nissan, have a base in the state. In fact, it is known to be the B-2-B (bicycles to battle tanks) hub.

Just over 40 kilometers from Chennai, Sriperumbudur, where the late Rajiv Gandhi was blasted apart by Sri Lankan militants, houses factories of Nokia and Samsung, apart from a few automobile plants like that of Hyundai. A ride to this satellite city, or town, is fascinating. The trip takes just over an hour by road, even during peak hours. It is dotted by swanky offices, factories and residential areas (which include fancy villas).

Locals told me that Sriperumbudur has dozens of Korean and Japanese restaurants.

“The number of such eating places is more than those that sell south Indian food,” says one of them. Another explains that these eateries cater to the hundreds of Koreans, Japanese and other East Asians, who work either permanently or temporarily in Nokia, Samsung and Hyundai. “Possibly, you can get more authentic Korean and Japanese cuisines here than in the respective countries,” claims a smiling Kavita, who drove me to Sriperumbudur.

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ther chief ministers, such as Bihar’s Nitish Kumar, Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Digvijay Singh, various regimes in Kerala, and Punjab’s Parkash Singh Badal evolved their own development models. Some are similar to Modi’s private investments strategy, but all of them are different in terms of how they use public money. These “other” blueprints have successfully worked for both short and long periods. Modi cannot claim that only he has the economic and governance plan that works.

In the past 5-10 years, Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh overtook Gujarat in annual economic growth. Bihar shed its BIMARU status, an acronym coined earlier for the poor and least-developed states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. In 2013, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh attracted more private investments than Gujarat. The southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka saw higher FDI inflows than Modi’s Gujarat.

When compared to Gujarat, several states performed admirably vis-à-vis human development indicators. Kerala’s infant mortality of 12 per 1,000 births is less than a third of Gujarat. Uttar Pradesh provides safe drinking water to more houses. The Raghuram Rajan report, which was

SILENTLY CHANGING THEIR STATES (facing page) Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan has initiated numerous schemes for economic and social welfare of the people; (above) Parkash Singh Badal government in Punjab has focussed on improving agriculture

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LET NO ONE GO HUNGRY OR THIRSTY (Right) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa distributes low-priced mineral water; (below) the poor getting subsidized food in an Amma canteen

schemes and construction activity formed the foundation of this boom; the latter grew at an average of 47 percent a year, and state’s spending on development projects zoomed to `160,000 crore annually. As columnist Swaminathan Aiyar wrote: “I believe that the economic boom in Bihar is real, (and) not statistical fudge.”

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prepared for the Planning Commission, classified Gujarat as one of the lesser-developed states. It urged that the state should get a larger share of central revenues.

Digvijay Singh and Nitish Kumar rely on empowerment of some of the weaker and exploited sections. Singh initiated policies to improve the lives of Dalits in his state, and provide them with higher economic opportunities to raise their incomes. He said that Dalit-owned businesses would be favored in government’s procurement. Kumar’s decisive decision was to give bicycles to poor girls, which gave them the flexibility to either study or earn extra salaries.

In the past five years, Bihar’s annual growth averaged 11 percent, and touched 14 and 15 percent in two years. Empowerment

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or historical reasons, and thanks to Keralites’ migration to the Gulf, the state emerged as a classic “money order” economy. The families that lived in it received millions of dollars from their sons and daughters, who earned sizeable salaries in foreign exchange. This resulted in high savings rate, enabling the state government to evolve a unique development model. The past governments used the savings to improve social and human indicators.

As per the state’s economic survey, nonresident Keralites pumped in `76,000 crore in bank deposits, which comprised a third of total deposits. These savings doubled between March 2011 and June 2013, thanks to the rupee depreciation during the period.

The state borrowed this money to invest in areas such as education and health. This is evident from the share of small savings and provident funds of the overall state debt, which stood at 26 percent in 2013-14.

Unfortunately, it led to lop-sided devel-

GIRL POWER TO THE FORE Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar visiting a physical fitness infrastructure for girls that the state has provided; girl students of the state get free bicycles

opment. On the one hand, Kerala has the highest literacy rate (94 percent), an impressive sex ratio of 1,084 females to 1,000 males, and poverty ratio, which is lower than southern states and a third of the national figure. On the other hand, despite an impressive 8 percent average growth in the last Plan Period, it lagged behind Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Keralites, who had access to “Gulf ” money had no incentives to boost businesses, especially in a state with strong labor unions.

A study concluded that Kerala’s model “is characterized by spectacular improvements in quality of life, even while growth in income and employment has been lagging behind…. The basic characteristic… is the paradox of social development and economic stagnation.”

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adal’s Punjab was saddled with stagnation in agriculture and power deficit, which further impacted farm production. But he rung in a second green revolution. In 2011, the state achieved record wheat productivity of 51 kilogram per hectare. Once it became power surplus, Punjab managed to boost agriculture through increased tube well connections and better irrigation. Its industries focused on food processing.

The last word on economic models was

said by Sukanya, a house servant who works in Chennai’s Thiruvanmiyur area. “Amma is our real mother. She has done for us what our parents could not even dream of. The state gives a poor girl, who gets married, `25,000 and four grams of gold coin to make the thirumangalyam (mangal sutra).

If she has a degree or diploma, the cash portion is doubled,” she explains.

At the end of the day, governance matters. As long as the leader can implement his or her policies efficiently and effectively, he or she will better the society. This is why Modi, Jayalalithaa, Kumar and Badal stand at the same level. All of them have finessed their delivery mechanisms to help the poor, and perfected decision-making to boost businesses. IL INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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THE NATION / mandate 2014 / external affairs

first take on foreign policy and power projection under the new prime minister

Does Modi Have a World View?

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HE Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under Narendra Modi, was given massive mandate by the people in the just concluded general elections. The party got a majority on its own steam, even without the support of coalition partners. So, Modi enjoys a lot of freedom to shape and execute his policies without depending upon the support of coalition partners. But he has clearly indicated that he would like to carry all parties along with him in furthering his national development agenda.

There is a lot of convergence in the overall foreign policy vision of the Congress party and the BJP. However, Modi’s grammar and articulation of policies will make a difference to the policy dispensation. His assertive leadership style and expression will bring the much-needed clarity in foreign policy pronouncements. His developmental model will offer greater opportunities for foreign countries to expand their economic relations with India, beyond the limita-

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tions of real politick. As Modi is a strong-willed leader; foreign countries like the United States and China, who have been routinely trashing Indian sentiments, would be more cautious in handling sensitive issues.

UNITED STATES George W Bush had laid a strong foundation for getting the US-India relationship on a firm footing. And Dr Manmohan Singh had reciprocated by pushing through the Indo-U.S civil nuclear agreement in the teeth of opposition.

However, President Obama failed to carry it forward and both sides seem to have lost their energy or interest to keep up the momentum for reasons of national policy.

Narendra Modi was singled out for a US boycott after the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002. The State Department withdrew his visa to visit the US. The American foreign office spokesman reminded Indians a few days back that the visa ban was still in force and Modi will have to apply to get it revoked.

So, the importance of President Obama’s warm message congratulating Modi on his success and inviting him to the US has to be viewed in this murky environment already muddied by some of the US policy dispensations affecting India. A good example is the US’ application of intellectual property rights (IPR) norms to haul up Indian pharmaceutical companies competing successfully in global markets against the US companies.

between these two forces, we may not expect any dramatic moves to bring immediate cheers in India-Pakistan relations in the near future.

While improvement in strategic security relations would require improvement in personal equation between the leadership of the two countries, we can expect Modi, being a pragmatist, striving to improve trade and economic links with the US. However, Modi will ensure India is no pushover and the US cannot take her for granted. The US will probably have to walk an extra mile as the prime minister starts implementing his economic agenda.

PAKISTAN While Dr Manmohan Singh was pliable enough to accept Pakistan as a victim of terrorism (of its own making no doubt), Modi is likely to be more assertive without being aggressive.

There is likely to be enough scope for improving India-Pakistan trade relations (provided Pakistan Army sheds its India phobia).

However, Modi is likely to insist upon Pakistan dismantling its terrorist infrastructure across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir and hand over or prosecute terrorist masterminds involved in 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai before reopening substantive high level dialogue between the two countries.

Nawaz Sharif is struggling to talk peace with Pakistan Taliban terrorists, even as they continue to carry out bomb attacks. He is also facing an increasingly restive Pakistan army which finds rapid marginalization of its extra constitutional authority. While he walks the tightrope

CHINA Even before the general elections, China had said it was looking forward to deal with the new government in New Delhi to carry forward its relationship-building process. China’s readiness to invest in India would be welcomed by Modi as it could help his development agenda, particularly in infrastructure building, including power and railway sectors.

However, the new PM has a warm personal equation with Japan, which has appreciated his development model; as a result Gujarat has benefitted from Japanese investment. Besides, China-Japan relationship is perhaps going through its worst phase at this juncture. In spite of such constraints, the entrepreneurial spirit of Modi is likely to nuance India’s relationship with both Japan and China.

At the same time, New Delhi is more likely to reciprocate visibly to China’s mindless pinpricks against India in the name of buttressing territorial claims like stapled visas or denial of visas, though the border talks going on are likely to continue at their own slow pace.

CLARITY, THE NEW BUZZWORD Narendra Modi during his China visit. In voting him to power, the electorate expects him to help India regain the global standing that it lost under UPA-II

SRI LANKA Modi’s success has probably put Colombo in a tizzy. There are good reasons for this. Unlike the earlier Indian prime minister, Modi is a strong, bold leader. So, Sri Lanka will find it cannot take him for granted. He can be more demanding from a relationship. And Sri Lanka probably fears his Hindu nationalist ideology would make him prefer dealing with Tamil Hindus favorably than with Sinhala Buddhists. But they are mistaken because Modi is an admirer of President Rajapaksa and has zero tolerance for terrorism and has no time for the LTTE or its supporters.

Since the center doesn’t depend on Jayalalithaa or the Tamil vote any more, it will follow its independent policies. The BJP leaders have clarified they would stick to the basics of India- Sri Lanka relations: ‘No’ to Tamil separatism, ‘Yes’ to building upon the country-tocountry relationship forward regardless of leadership, and ‘No’ to extremism of any kind— Tamil, Jihadi or Maoist. IL INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

55

PROBE / cbi /extradition matters

The Gang That Couldn’t cbi has botched up deportation of several high-profile criminals due to its inability to understand international laws and internal inefficiencies

By Vishwas Kumar

A

few weeks ago,, England and Wales High Court cancelled the extradition of Ravi Shankaran, the main accused in the highprofile navy war room leak case, to India. The court concluded that India did not have “clinching evidence” to link him with other co-accused in the same case. The two-judge bench of Justices Sir Brian Leveson and Blake said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) possessed only a single piece of evidence against the accused.

The CBI had based its case on the “identity” and “ownership” of an email ID vicbranson@aol.com, which was the recipient of leaked documents by former Commander Vijendra Rana, a co-accused. One of Shankaran’s employees, MP Khushwaha, told the agency that the email ID was used by his boss to receive the documents from India’s naval operations room.

Unfortunately, Khushwaha’s statement, produced by the CBI in the England and Wales High Court, did not carry his signature. The judges concluded that this proved there was no “endorsement of truth, nor indeed any warranty that the witness (Khushwaha) has read and understood the statement”.

Earlier, in June 2010, the London’s district court had refused the extradition because the CBI had “thin facts”. Three years later, the CBI did get a favorable order from Justice Nicholas Evans of the same court, but it was overruled a year later by the England and Wales High Court. It was yet another slap on CBI’s face.

LOW ON LEGAL KNOWLEDGE Time and again, the CBI has goofed up in high-profile extradition cases. Ottavio Quattrocchi, Italian businessman and a friend of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, remained out of CBI’s net for 23 years, until he died in 2013. He was named in the famous Bofors gun case in 1990 for receiving kickbacks, left India in 1993, and despite Interpol’s Red Corner Notice, eluded the agency’s attempts to extradite him from Malaysia (2003) and Argentina (2007). The Indian Supreme Court acquitted him in 2011. It ruled that against the bribe of `64 crore, the CBI spent `250 crore on the investigation and still “has not been able to put forward legally sustainable evidence with regard to conspiracy….” It was, according to the court, “sheer wastage of public money”.

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Shoot Straight Other failures included Warren Anderson, a US national and former chief of Union Carbide, whose factory in Bhopal killed thousands due to a gas leak; Iqbal Mirchi, a smuggler linked to DCompany; and Niels Holck alias Kim Peter Davy from Denmark, accused in the Purulia arms drop case (when arms and ammunition were airdropped via foreign-made aircraft in West Bengal).

The reasons for CBI’s dubious record in extradition matters include inability of foreign courts to appreciate the nuances of the Indian judicial

process, the differences between the various global courts and, obviously, the agency’s apathy towards presenting water-tight cases or understanding the nitty-gritty of international laws.

Says former CBI director Joginder Singh: “Success in extradition cases depends on several internal and external factors. For example, in the Shankaran extradition in the British courts, Khushwaha, the key witness, did not sign the statement he gave to the police because the Indian legal system does not allow it to be produced as Illustration: Anthony Lawrence

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

57

PROBE / cbi /extradition matters

Abu Salem’s extradition from Portugal led to a diplomatic furore between New Delhi and Lisbon. Despite assurances to the contrary, CBI slapped fresh cases on him. evidence before the judges. The police normally collect statements from the accused and witnesses, and prepare a chargesheet. It is the chargesheet which is produced in the court.” In addition, according to Singh, only statements recorded before magistrates are admissible in court.

Moreover, Singh says that different countries have their own judicial systems. “In the Bofors case, the Sweden court gave all the documentary evidence it collected to the Indian authorities. But the Malaysian court turned down our plea to extradite Quattrocchi,” he explains. Singh should know because he personally went to Sweden to pick up the documents.

SPARRING OVER A TERRORIST However, there are no excuses when the CBI itself goofs up its cases. The case of mafia don Abu Salem, who was successfully extradited, still highlights the agency’s callousness in handling super-sensitive issues.

Salem, one of the main accused in the 1993 Mumbai blast case and several extortion cases, was deported from Portugal after a long legal battle in 2005. The credit should

go to the transformed global environment post 9/11 attacks in the United States.

After the CBI got Salem to India, it botched up its case in the Indian courts, which led to a diplomatic furore between India and Portugal. In fact, Portugal’s judiciary accused India of “violating” the “solemn promises” given to it during the extradition process. The matter was resolved only after the foreign ministries of the two countries discussed the issue bilaterally.

The international laws on extradition follow the “Principle of Specialty”, which states that the accused deported under any extradition decree can be tried only for the offences mentioned in the decree. Neither the local (Indian in this case) investigating agencies nor the criminal courts can slap fresh cases on the accused. This principle was violated by the CBI. On May 25, 2003, the Indian ambassador to Lisbon gave a similar assurance to Portugal, whose citizenship Salem had acquired. In addition, New Delhi said that the accused would not be re-extradited to any other country, except India. On January 27, 2005, the Portuguese Supreme Court of Justice granted Salem’s extradition for various offences like criminal conspiracy, murder, and attempt to murder. On November 11, 2005, Salem was brought to India.

After he was produced before Mumbai’s designated court, which heard the 1993 Mumbai blast case, the CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet on March 1, 2006. The

The great escape Abu Salem Country: Portugal Involved in the 1993 Mumbai serial blast case Extradited from Lisbon in 2005, after a considerable procedural delay.

Problem: Salem approached the Supreme Court against the new charges that CBI filed in 2006, which goes against international laws. After a diplomatic and legal tangle, the CBI withdrew the additional charges.

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Warren Anderson Country: US Former chairman and CEO of Union Carbide, wanted in the Bhopal Gas leak case of 1984 He left India four days after the gas disaster, and refused to return. India filed request for extradition only in 2003.

Problem: US rejected the request, saying it does not meet the provisions of the extradition treaty between the two countries.

Ottavio Quattrocchi Countries: Malaysia, Argentina The late Italian businessman was wanted in the bribery charges in Bofors Scandal of 1987 His proximity to Sonia Gandhi led to CBI pursuing the case halfheartedly.

Problem: Not only did India lose the case in June 2007, it had to pay his legal expenses too.

additional chargesheet, which was allowed under Section 173(8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, added other substantive charges against Salem. These allegations, which were under different sections of TADA and Explosive Substances Act, entailed a death penalty. The Portuguese judiciary doesn’t allow death penalty on any accused. Therefore, CBI went against the letter of New Delhi’s assurances to Lisbon.

CEDING GROUND Salem objected to the new charges and, in September, 2006, moved the Supreme Court. He alleged that “time and again the (Indian) authorities abused the process of criminal law by failing to file the orders passed by Portugal courts and by willfully and deliberately violating the solemn sovereign assurance given in extradition decree.”

He approached the Lisbon Court of Appeals and said that he was being tried in India “in violation of Principle of Specialty.” The Court of Appeal refused to intervene.

Unfortunately for the CBI, on December 13, 2007, the Lisbon Supreme Court of Justice asked the Court of Appeal “to enquire whether there has been violation of any condition as alleged by the appellant (Salem).” The lower court held on September 14, 2011, that the “authorization granted for the extradition of Abu Salem ought to be terminated.” It concluded that “…..in the light of the Portuguese legal system, the Indian Union were not considering

Kim Davy Country: Denmark Wanted in the Purulia (West Bengal) arms drop case of 1995 Davy alleged that the Indian government was aware of the operation.

Problem: Just when the CBI seemed close to success, Denmark rejected its request in 2011 owing to India’s human rights record and the possibility of death sentence.

the limits imposed by the Portuguese Republic to the extradition of Abu Salem,” which “violated the principle of Specialty.”

The CBI filed an appeal before the Lisbon Supreme Court of Justice, but the latter dismissed it. It was a huge embarrassment for India. Buoyed by success in Lisbon on September 14, 2012, Salem asked the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs, India, to annul his extradition. On November 19, 2012, he filed a petition in the Lisbon Court of Appeal and urged it to give directions to the Portugal government to take steps for his deportation from India.

Left with no options, the CBI sought permission from the Indian Supreme Court to withdraw the additional charges against Salem. The apex court was caught in a quandary, as it had earlier rejected Salem’s contention that extradition decree was violated by the slapping of the “fresh charges”. Finally, Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice J Chelameswar allowed the withdrawal of the new charges on August 5, 2013.

The Salem case proves that extraditions are tricky, complex and nuanced. To successfully get a criminal deported from another country requires legal knowledge of international treaties, as well as the judicial systems of various nations. Therefore, the CBI and relevant Indian ministries need to be thorough in their knowledge and spadework to improve their past track record. IL

Ravi Shankaran Country: UK Wanted in the navy war room leak case of 2006 CBI based its entire case on the basis of statement of one of Shankaran’s employee, Khushwaha.

Problem: The England and Wales High Court rejected the application because it did not carry the witness’ signature.

Iqbal Mirchi Country: UK The deceased aide of Dawood Ibrahim was wanted in drugs and terrorism charges On CBI request, the Interpol issued a red corner notice against him.

Problem: Extradition request was turned down twice because of lack of evidence.

Scotland Yard also failed to find any evidence.

Babloo Srivastava Country: Singapore Another Dawood aide, charged in murder, extortion and other cases Extradited in 1995. The only case where CBI didn’t face a problem.

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

59

environment / garbage disposal

lack of landfills, shortage of waste-toenergy plants, manual labor, and illegal burning of waste has transformed Delhiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s waste management into an endemic problem. and then there are those who survive on this trade

SURVIVING ON WASTE

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May 31, 2014

W

ASTE management is a growing concern in Indian cities.

Most have heaps of garbage rotting in corners, with flies and mosquitoes swarming around them. With few landfills, the only solution is to treat this waste to generate energy.

But here too, there is a problem. Take Delhi, for instance. While it has four landfills, three are already full. The agencies which look after waste managementâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the New Delhi Municipal Council, Delhi Cantonment Board and othersâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;are finding it difficult to cope with the around 8,000 tonnes of waste generated daily by the city and dumped in these landfills. While there is one waste-to-energy plant in Okhla in south Delhi, it is supposed to convert 2,000 tonnes of waste into electricity, this too is mired in controversy. About 80 doctors

from Holy Family Hospital in Okhla and other hospitals wrote to the prime minister, raising concerns about the emissions from the plant. They said that these emissions could lead to allergies, asthma, cancers and reproductive problems. Already, fly ash from the plant is falling on homes and vehicles of the residents. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee has issued a show-cause notice to the plant in January this year.

At the garbage landfill, rules are flouted with impunity. While there is strict prohibition on manual handling and open burning of waste, these activities continue. This has had a deleterious effect on health and the environment. Garbage landfills contain heavy metals like lead, cadmium and arsenic, which cause cancer, kidney failure, genetic disorders and skin diseases. In addition, there is the danger of diseases such as dengue and chikungunya.

It is estimated that by the end of 2025, the amount of waste generated in Delhi will go up to 12,000 tonnes per day, or a jump of 50 percent. With the United Nations Environment Programme predicting that 60 percent of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population will be living in urban areas, it is time this issue was tackled seriously. But despite the Photos: Anil Shakya

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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environment / garbage disposal

Chaman Ali, a waste collector, spends hours every day to collect bones from the garbage dumped by slaughter houses and restaurants.

He sells the bones to jewelry makers. growing concerns about garbage disposal, there are many who sustain themselves on waste. Their whole lives revolve around it.

LIVING ON WASTE Chaman Ali, 48, is a waste collector. He sits near the open dump site in Batla House in Okhla waiting for the lorry carrying waste to arrive. He picks up bones from the waste, which have probably been dumped by slaughter houses and restaurants. He supplies these bones to a supplier, who passes it on to a plant where jewelry is made.

“I earn `700 daily. It takes me two hours of cycling to arrive here in the morning and three hours at night to reach back home.

Nobody in my family except my wife and eldest daughter know what I do for a living.

People in my town in Mustafabad in Uttar Pradesh think I am a scrap dealer,” he says.

Ali, in fact, wanted to be a sweeper with the MCD, but was asked to cough up a bribe of `1.5 lakh. He blames the corrupt system for his sorry state. “Jhadu lagane keg limey `1.5 lakh doona, is se bethral yah Kama hair,” (Instead of coughing up `1.5 lakh to sweep, it is better I do this work) he says morosely.

Then there

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is Balbur, a temporary sweeper in the MCD. She leaves her house near Kaleyard at 6 am to sweep five streets and the main road of Batla House. “I get a salary of `7,000, and am left with just `5,000 after transportation costs. You can imagine how difficult it is to manage with this meager amount,” she says.

For this widow, who left her home in Uttar Pradesh with her husband soon after marriage, life has been a bed of thorns. Her husband died last year of cancer. With five kids to look after, she leads a hand-tomouth existence. What irks her is that permanent safari karashahrs get a salary between `15,000 to `28,000, along with government benefits. Some have got the job by submitting fake certificates.

Slightly higher up in the hierarchy is Rajahs Kumar Gupta, 30, a dump site supervisor who is on contract with the Delhi Waste Management Limited. He has to supervise the transport of garbage to the dump site in Okhla. “I get paid `9,000 per month and have been allotted a room to stay. But my salary is equivalent to that of a truck driver.

Then, what’s the point of being a supervisor?” he asks.

While his family is back home in Bihar, Rajahs struggles to earn a living in these bleak surrounding. He comes to the site at 7 am and has to make sure that the garbage is picked up on time.

Then, there is GIL Sharma, a sanitary inspector and ward-in-charge at Batla House. His salary is a decent `50,000 a month. “Our job is like a police. We have to be present any time we are called. Either there is an event or there are complaints by residents,” he says.

The government proposes to invest in technology to end manual sorting from garbage. But the moot question is: will it give these workers a dignified existence, or take away their means of livelihood? IL

SOCIETY/ adultery/digvijaya singh

Is Digvijayaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goose cooked?

OPEN ABOUT COMMITMENT While the Congress leader has declared he will marry Amrita Rai, he could still land in legal trouble

the senior congress leader could be charged with adultery under section 497 of the ipc. but it is not easy to prove such cases

I

T was an admission that took everyone by surprise. And it could well land senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh in a soup, despite all parties wanting things to be settled amicably. As the election campaign heated up, videos and photos of Digvijaya with Rajya Sabha TV journalist Amrita Rai were leaked. To everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s astonishment, instead of denying them, Digvijaya accepted his relationship with Rai, while she confirmed she had separated from her husband and would later marry Digvijaya.

Hours after that, her estranged husband, Anand Pradhan, wished her a good life. As matters stand, a petition for divorce by mutual consent has been filed between Rai and Pradhan, and Digvijaya and Rai may well get married.

However, as per the provisions of law, things are more complex. The relationship between Digvijaya and Rai is an issue of INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

63

SOCIETY/ adultery/digvijaya singh

Candid confessions digvijaya singh @digvijayaa_28 I have no hesitation in accepting my relationship with Amrita Rai. She and her husband have already filed a mutual consent divorce case. digvijaya singh @digvijaya_28 Once that is decided we would formalise it. But I do condemn encroachment in our private life. amrita rai (@amrritarai) I have separated from my husband and we have filed a mutual consent divorce papers.

After which I have decided to marry with Digvijaya Singh.

morality, as well an offence of adultery, which is punishable under Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, 1960.

“Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case, the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor,” states Section 497.

From this, we may conclude that only the man shall be punished for adultery. The Section clearly exempts the woman, even though she may be equally guilty as an abettor. In fact, Section 497 is an example of special discriminatory provision in favor of women and protected under Article 15(3) of the Indian constitution. The validity of Section 497 was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Yusuf Abdul Aziz vs State of Bombay case.

It is, therefore, clear that Amrita Rai, being wife (she still holds that status as the divorce petition is pending), is not liable to any punishment, but her husband can take legal recourse, if wishes so. Digvijaya Singh’s conduct amounts to adultery and he could be punished under Section 497 and be either imprisoned and/or fined if action is taken against him.

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It is very difficult to substantiate the allegation of adultery under Section 497 in courts, as prosecution rarely has an eye witness or any direct piece of evidence. One can be punished for adultery only on the basis of circumstantial evidence, but proving it is not so easy.

The Madras High Court in the matter of Dr Dwaraka Bai vs Nainan Mathew observed: “It is unreasonable to expect direct evidence regarding such an act like adultery. It will be almost always committed behind closed doors and without witnesses.

So, circumstantial evidence is all that can be normally forthcoming regarding adultery.

The circumstantial evidence thus produced must, however, be convincing to the court, which should be left in no reasonable doubt regarding the fact of adultery.”

The circumstantial evidence includes video clips or photographs of the woman and the accused in the objectionable condition, proof of staying together in a hotel etc; and it could be corroborated by mobile photographs, SMSs, mails etc. These are, however, just indicative pieces of evidence.

In case Digvijaya is punished with imprisonment of two years or more, as a member of parliament, he will face disqualification under Section 8 (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. He will be disqualified from the date of such conviction for six years after his release.

Earlier, a safeguard was provided in Section 8 (4) of the Act, which said that the disqualification, despite the conviction or sentence, will not have effect until the appeal or revision is decided by the Appellate or the Revisional Court. However, this was declared ultra vires the constitution by the Supreme Court in the Lily Thomas vs Union of India & Ors on July 10, 2013. But that is not so now.

It is likely that there will be no legal action against Digvijaya, as it has to be initiated by the wronged party. Even so, his conduct is a matter of scrutiny by parliamentarians and society at large due to its larger moral implications. IL

(The writer is an advocate in the Supreme Court)

FOCUS/clinical trials Illustrations: Udayshankar

Suffering Experiments global pharma firms have shifted trials to foreign nations, as controversy shrouds testing on humans in India. but india could become an attractive destination with new, stringent and transparent norms

I

T was a shocking headline in a leading newspaper last month: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Row over clinical trial as 254 Indian women dieâ&#x20AC;?. Life in India, it seems, is cheap. If one looks at various clinical trials over the years, what emerges is a callous insensitivity to human life in the chase for markets and profits. This booming industry is pegged at $500 million (`50 crore) in India and is likely to grow to $1 billion (`100 crore) by 2016. But all is not well here.

Till recently, India was an attractive hub for international pharmaceutical companies due to lack of stringent protocols in clinical trials. Not only was it easy to get away without paying compensation to victims, who were often treated as guinea pigs, but the guilty were rarely punished. It is, INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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FOCUS/ clinical trials

Reforms in the offing All stakeholders in clinical trials in India debated the proposals of Professor Ranjit Roy Chaudhury Expert Committee and came up with recommendations. A summary of what they felt: A National Accreditation Council should be constituted soon, comprising of 3-5 independent experts. It will fix a timeline for accreditation of sites, investigators and ethics committees and determine the qualifications of organizations wanting accreditation. No investigator can assume responsibility for more than three trials. The Ethics Committees (EC), which monitor trials, should also be accredited and have sufficient resources. There should be constant education of EC members, investigators and all those involved in clinical research.

Videotaping of the consent process should be limited to special situations for reasons of privacy, confidentiality and practicality, and reserved only for vulnerable populations.

The round-table advised setting up of a national fund to give compensation for injuries. It said that documents related to informed consent should clearly describe known potential side-effects and convey that “adequate compensation” will be provided. Training to determine causality assessment should be commenced immediately, it pointed out, and stated that in order to allow for affordable insurance premiums, the ministry should cap compensation for injury and death at less than the current `73 lakh. The cap should be adjusted every 3-5 years.

Members of the round-table felt that criminal penalties should not be so severe that it deters sponsors and investigators from funding or conducting trials. The penalties should come into play where there is willful misconduct, gross negligence, and/or intentionality.

While making a case for bioethics education, the round-table advocated that it should be given from secondary school onwards till medical college.

Heavy toll: clinically affected Patients who went for clinical trials and had serious adverse affects or died, both due to the trials and other reasons.

17778

18000 14320

Number of patients who had serious adverse affects or died directly due to the clinical trials

600

14000

500

10000

400

6000

Serious Adverse Effects (SAEs)

506

Deaths Total

300 3458

2000

100

0

SAEs due to trials

200 89

89

0

Deaths due to trials Death compensations

Source: Swasthya Adhikar Manch’s affidavit submitted to Supreme Court in March 2013

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Graphics Lalit Khitoliya

May 31, 2014

anyway, a cheap market for trials, with a vast gene pool to test various medicines.

However, the sector is now enveloped in a shroud of controversy and litigations. The above-mentioned row raised questions about lack of stringency on ethicality in a US-funded clinical trial that ran for 15 years for a cervical cancer screening method.

They were part of the 1,40,000 women who were not screened and used to study death rates in unscreened population. It was found they were not given enough information to give informed consent.

It was this flagrant disregard for human lives that drove a health NGO—Swasthya Adhikar Manch (SAM)—to file a petition in the Supreme Court (SC). In response to it, the health ministry had said 80 deaths were caused due to trials between January 2005 and June 2012. But this number was contested by SAM, which pointed out that the number was far higher. The ministry also claimed that 2,644 people died during trials of 475 new drugs from 2005 to 2012, but were not a result of the trials. It also stated that around 11,972 “serious adverse events” were reported from January 1, 2005 to June 30, 2012—of which 506 were said to have been caused due to clinical trials.

The SC had then asked the health ministry to revise laws governing clinical trials in India. The ministry constituted a sixmember Professor Ranjit Roy Chaudhury Expert Committee on New Drugs and Clinical Trials Approvals. Its recommendations were so far-reaching that it made the pharma industry sit up and take notice.

As all these were going on, it delayed decisions on various clinical trials and some pharma companies decided to shift abroad to countries, such as China, Malaysia and Singapore. For example, the executive director, operations, of Serum Institute of India Ltd, Adar Poonawalla, said: “Be it dengue or meningitis vaccine, we are now moving out to other countries in Asia.”

However, Dr Roy Chaudhury, adviser, department of health and family welfare, says that there is nothing to worry, as in another 18 months, things will be set in place and India will once again be the center for clinical trials. However, he believes the

weak point is the implementation of rules.

“Till guidelines are passed by parliament and made into rules, the chink in clinical trials will remain,” he points out.

T

he controversy erupted once again when the Supreme Court pulled up the centre on April 21 for not giving succor even to those suffering serious adverse effects due to clinical trials. It asked the government for details on compensation paid in cases brought up by SAM. The apex court focused on the ministry’s statement that around 506 out of 11,972 serious adverse cases were related to clinical trials.

The bench asked: “Why were patients who suffered serious adverse effects during clinical trials not compensated by the sponsors of the test? They may have endured more suffering than those who died during the clinical trial.”

Arghya Sengupta, research director at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, says the proposals of the Roy Chaudhury panel represent a balanced view on regulating clinical trials. “They adhere to the three principles laid down by the Supreme Court—assessment of risk versus benefit to patients, inno-

vation vis-a-vis existing therapeutic option, and unmet medical need in the country. The proposals will help restart clinical trials in India, while doing so within a regulatory framework that lays maximum emphasis on patient safety and autonomy,” he reiterates.

Meanwhile, the recommendations (see box: Reforms in the offing) were again discussed and sharpened at a roundtable held in Delhi between January 20-21, and attended by leading academicians, investigators, industry representatives and government officials. It was jointly organized by Apollo Hospitals Educational and Research Foundation, Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Centre of Harvard University and AIIMS. While these are stringent proposals, they are also balanced and have provisions which are less severe. For example, Sengupta says that while it is proposed now that videotaping be reserved for vulnerable populations and special situations, earlier, sponsors of clinical trials wanted it for all cases. “There are also detailed guidelines for compensation and causality assessment, which are a significant improvement over the highly stringent government notification last year,” he adds. IL INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

67

SPECIAL REPORT / unmanned aerial vehicles / policy paralysis

FLYING NOWHERE the 2g scam, and lack of spectrum policy and regulation have halted the manufacture of drones in india

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T

HEY can be as tiny as a bee or as large as a jumbo jet, but their business potential is nothing but huge.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be used in virtually every sphere, from defense and agriculture to courier services, weather forecasts and natural disaster alerts.

However, while these remote-controlled aircraft are the focus of research and development in the West, India’s industrial licensing plans for their manufacture have ground to a halt following the scam involving secondgeneration (2G) spectrum allocation.

India does not have a spectrum policy or a civil aviation regulatory framework for drones, thanks to the government’s policy paralysis. Some officials pin the blame on the two main bodies responsible for drafting policy—the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

While the telecom department has dragged its feet on

taking a decision on licensing of radio-frequency for UAVs since the middle of 2011, the civil aviation ministry has opposed the manufacture of UAVs for the civilian sector.

“As air traffic growth in India puts pressure on available airspace, the country’s unmanned aerial vehicle industry is calling for a centralized body to draft regulations and set standards for UAV systems,” says the Unmanned Systems Association of India (USAI).

The facts are telling. The inter-ministerial Industrial Licensing Committee (ILC) has either closed or put on hold around dozen applications for the manufacture or assembly of UAVs by several companies. It deferred a decision on the applications of three firms—Pirmal Systems and Technologies, SasMos HET Technologies and Swallow Systems—last December because there was no response from the DoT. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has repeatedly urged the telecom department to decide on the issue, but the latter has failed to take a decision.

That’s not all. The DIPP sent 15 reminders to DoT between July 1, 2011 and July 2, 2013 on Basant Aerospace’s application. In July 2013, the DIPP joint secretary drew the DoT secretary’s attention to nine proposals for UAVs and airborne avionic systems that were pending approval for want of comments from the DoT. His letter said the matter was discussed in the last licensing committee meeting on June 13,

2013 and the “DoT went unrepresented”.

The letter also requested that a senior official attend a licensing committee meeting scheduled for July 19, 2013. The committee again drew attention towards the DoT’s failure to respond to several reminders.

The DoT has flip-flopped on several other cases. A department representative said it had not received Taneja Aerospace and Aviation’s application, but DIPP officials pointed out the DoT had processed the application and had even sought inputs on operating frequency.

It was then decided that the DoT would consider such cases in the next telecom commission meeting. “In the light of the fact that the policy on the aspect of spectrum usage for UAVs was yet to be framed

by DoT, for which no timeline was available, it was decided to close such applications, including the present case,” said the ILC. The DoT’s wavering came to the fore at an ILC meeting last October. The department’s representative suggested that a committee should be constituted under the DIPP to formulate terms and conditions for granting of industrial licenses for the manufacture of UAVs. The DIPP secretary, who chairs the ILC, said the DoT should have “consistency of stand” and suggested that the department should convey all issues to the DIPP at the earliest.

Interestingly, the DoT had taken a different stand at an ILC meeting in February 2013 where Jubilant Aerospace’s application came up. In this case, the DoT said it had “no objection for the manufacture of UAVs for defense requirement subject to the condition that MoD (Ministry of Defense) has to apply for frequency assessment before putting UAVs to use”.

Photos: US Airforce

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SPECIAL REPORT / unmanned aerial vehicles / policy paralysis

Yet to take off

Post- 2G scam, the Department of Telecommunications has dragged its feet on taking a decision on licensing of radio-frequency for UAVs The inter-ministerial industrial licensing committee has not favored the applications for UAVs’ manufacture or assembly The ministry of defense wanted to take a policy decision on UAVs in consultation with the home ministry, which was uneasy with the idea With no regulations for operation of UAVs in India, the civil aviation ministry opposed the manufacture of UAVs for civil use

Meanwhile, the DIPP’s decision to close old drone applications has inadvertently delayed licensing of some aviation and electronic products because companies had clubbed them with UAVs in their industrial licensing applications.

Basant Aerospace (BE), for example, failed to get a license for four defense products, including airborne avionic systems and aircraft flight and ground simulators, because the government has not drafted a spectrum policy. “We understand that in the absence of a spectrum policy, it may not be possible for you to give us a license for production of UAVs,” the company said in a letter to ILC. Basant Aerospace has requested a license only for the four products, saying they are not dependent on spectrum policy. In December 2013, ILC decided to send the aviation company’s application to the rele-

DoT and several ministries like civil aviation, defense and home affairs have put several spanners. They have either closed or put on hold a dozen UAV applications.

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vant ministries again for fresh comments.

The scenario became even worse for drone licensing in India as problems escalated after the November, 2010 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report that estimated monumental losses in the allocation of 2G spectrum. The February 2012 Supreme Court verdict cancelling 122 telecom licenses further paralyzed the DoT and put the spectrum policy for UAVs on hold.

The first brake on UAVs was applied when MoD postponed the consideration of some applications because it wanted to take a decision in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs, which was uncomfortable with the idea. “As UAVs are airborne devices, their falling into private hands could have security implications and, therefore, their sale needs to be strictly restricted to the defense or government sector, and with the permission of MoD only,” the home ministry said.

The final nail in the UAV licensing coffin was driven by the aviation ministry. “We have no civil regulations for operation of UAVs in India. The Ministry of Civil Aviation, therefore, does not recommend manufacture of UAVs for civil use,” it said. IL

INFRA / power / state monopoly

AN EYE-OPENER The northern grid collapse was a wake-up call for generators and distributors

POWER POLITICS most states, especially in west and south india, have misused section 11 of the electricity act. efforts to amend it have been in vain due to political opposition

By Renjini Liza Varghese

D

ELHI’S blackout in July 2012 proved to be a blessing in disguise for the electricity consumers and distribution utilities (discoms) in various cities and states. The crisis forced the policymakers and regulators to push through key decisions, which included the assurance of coal linkages to power generators, removal of bottlenecks in transmission lines, and strengthening of distribution networks. In fact, the discoms were confident that despite the sharp surge in demand during election

times, they would not be caught unawares.

A representative of a discom points out: “Delhi was a lesson learned by the discoms at a high cost. Since then, the situation improved tremendously. Many discoms spent huge sums to improve their technologies, and took the impact of higher budgets in their stride. They now have a structured procurement process. So, I don’t see these discoms struggling to meet the increased demand during peak hours, this summer.”

Unfortunately, this is only one side of the power distribution sector. Two recent notifications, by Gujarat and Karnataka, INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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INFRA / power / state monopoly Eastern transmission lines also failed, disrupting power supply in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and states on the northeast grid: Arunanchal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim.

Groping in darkness July 31, 2012 The Northern Grid collapsed again at 13:02 IST, due to a relay problem near the Taj Mahal.

JAMMU & KASHMIR HIMACHAL PRADESH PUNJAB

UTTARAKHAND

HARYANA

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

DELHI UTTAR PRADESH RAJASTHAN

ASSAM NAGALAND

SIKKIM

MEGHALAYA

BIHAR

TRIPURA MADHYA PRADESH

JHARKHAND

MANIPUR MIZORAM

WEST BENGAL

ODISHA July 30, 2012 At about 2:35 a.m, the 400 KV Bina-Gwalior line tripped. As this line fed into the Agra-Bareilly transmission section, the station also tripped.

Power failures cascaded through the grid affecting Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Power failure’s origin Blacked-out northern region Affected eastern region

The Northern Grid was brought back to normalcy only at 7:00 p.m.on July 31, 2012

threaten to create a new mess, especially for consumers in west and south India. Gujarat barred high-end consumers from buying electricity from generators based outside the state, and Karnataka asked local generators not to sell to outside buyers. Gujarat’s reason was “transmission constraints”, and Karnataka’s “power shortages”.

Both the notifications are clearly anticompetitive as they limit competition; in Gujarat, it restricts consumer choices and, in Karnataka, it binds the suppliers’ hands.

Both apparently go against the letter and spirit of the Electricity Act, 2003, which advocates “open access” for both sellers and

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buyers of power. In an era, where power sector reforms have reached a new high, the two decisions smack of political interference, as was the case in the 1980s.

T

he former chairman of the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), VP Raja, who spearheaded open access under the Electricity Act 2003 feels that decisions of both the states are not according to the letter and spirit of the existing laws. He says: “What has happened in the two states is, what I would call, the fallacy of competition. What is good for the nation does not appear to be good from the states’ perspective. It is the problem of political economy.”

However, to be fair to the governments of Gujarat and Karnataka, they legitimately invoked Section 11 of the Electricity Act 2003 to exercise their rights to restrict sale and purchase of electricity. The relevant section states that the “Appropriate Government may specify that a generating company shall, in extraordinary circumstances, operate and maintain any generating station in accordance with the directions of the Government” (italics ours).

Extraordinary circumstances were further defined as those which arose “out of threat to security of the state, public order or a natural calamity or such other circumstances arising in the public interest”. In fact, in the recent past, several other states, such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have invoked Section 11. They have, like Gujarat and Karnataka, imposed limits on what the sellers and buyers can do.

Ostensibly, the states’ reason to bring Section 11 into play was to manage the mismatch between demand and supply of power at certain periods in the states. This logic, according to experts, has resulted in situations where the section has become one of the most misused clauses. In some cases, as with Karnataka, the notification mentions Section 11; in others, the regulators took the action without the issuance of an official notification.

“Section 11 was never meant to handle demand-supply situations. It was meant, as

mentioned in the act, only for extraordinary situations—a natural calamity or the need (in public interest) to divert electricity. In the case of Karnataka, which talked about the possible power shortages, the section was misused,” says Raja. Once it is abused, the ramifications on producers, distributors and consumers were huge.

I

n Gujarat, a large consumer cannot procure power from a producer in another state, who may supply power at a cheaper tariff. The state’s notification will force consumers to buy from the incumbent (local) utility at a higher price. “I as a consumer lose out on both options—tariff and hedging. Tariff as I end up paying higher rates and limitations on my ability to hedge.

I buy from a group of sources—utility, power exchanges and captive sources. So, the notification can have multiple effects,” explains Kameswara Rao, Partner (Energy, utilities and mining), PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a renowned consultancy firm.

The fact is that industrial consumers in Gujarat pay an additional Rs 2.75 per unit when they buy power from local sources, rather than import it from neighboring states. According to experts, almost 1,000 MW is imported each year, even as Gujarat’s production of 2,500 MW lies unutilized because of higher tariffs. Indeed, if “transmission constraint” was a real issue, the state should have imposed restrictions on all users. However, the new notification adversely impacts users, who buy power from local and outside sources.

In the case of Karnataka, there are small hydro, wind and other power projects, which could help meet the demand at peak periods to tide over power shortages.

However, its new notification forces the thermal power producers to stop selling to other states, and cater to local demand first.

In short, it curtails competition.

Power is part of the concurrent list in the constitution and, therefore, the center cannot intervene effectively. But given the manner in which Section 11 has been abused, the central regime has tried to amend this contentious section. The new wordings

described extraordinary circumstances as: “Extraordinary circumstances mean those arising out of threat to the security of a state, a public order or a natural calamity, or other circumstances arising in public interest, except for the implementation of open access... (italics ours)” All the relevant stakeholders, apart from a few states, supported the amendment as it brought in clarity. It was discussed at the Forum of Regulators, an apex body of power regulators in the country. The forum concluded that “the Act may be amended to provide greater clarity on the meaning of the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ mentioned in Section 11.” Sadly, the political opposition from the state governments nixed it.

Hopefully, there will be a consensus now that a new government has assumed power at the center. But this is only the first step to sort out problems in the power sector. Most of the discoms are state-owned. To truly “free them from the bear hug of the politicians,” says Raja, “they need to be listed on the stock exchanges to make their decisions transparent.” He adds that the states are not interested in reforms, as is clear from their opposition to the amendment to Section 11.

“They resort to lip service and are not committed to them.” The center must act sooner to ring in transparency in the power sector.

Or else, the state regimes will continue to misuse the Electricity Act. IL

GRID CONTROL Sabarmati thermal power station in Gujarat. The state government has imposed a ban on buying electricity from generators based outside Gujarat

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BOOKS/ donald ray soeken

THEY PAY WITH THEIR PEACE globally, whistleblowers in government, corporate world and ngos were murdered, belittled, discredited and dubbed mentally ill. but they managed to shake up things–sometimes

By Alam Srinivas

R

EMEMBER Satyendra Dubey?

Shanmughan Manjunath? Vijay Pandhare? Or Dinesh Thakur?

Don’t feel bad if you don’t. Apart from Dubey, all of them were little-known whistleblowers in government and India Inc., who exposed corruption and vanished after being in the news for a few days. Two of them were brutally murdered; Dubey, after he spoke about the shenanigans in the Golden Quadrilateral highway project, and Manjunath, when he talked about petrol adulteration.

Pandhare and Thakur, however, were successful in their endeavors. The former blew the whistle on Maharashtra’s irrigation scam that led to the resignation of the state’s deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar. After retirement from the bureaucracy, he joined the Aam Aadmi Party.

The latter’s expose on pharma major Ranbaxy Laboratories led to a ban on sale of the firm’s drugs in the US, and investigations in India.

The US Justice Department gave him a reward of nearly $50 million.

But most of the experiences of whistleblowers, either in India or globally, fall within these two extremes of success and death. As Donald Ray Soeken, whose recent book, Don’t Kill the Messenger! How America’s Valiant

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Whistleblowers Risk Everything in Order to Speak Out Against Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Business and Government, profiles 100 US whistleblowers, says: “The frequent symptoms reported by them and their spouses were increased anxiety and loss of sleep. Most suffered from depression. They went through feelings of isolation and being misunderstood.”

Soeken, a former government psychologist, who provided objective medical testimony to the courts to determine the mental state of the whistleblowers, adds: “Quite often, the plan by the defense (accused government officials and corporate managers) was to discredit the individuals (who complained). The idea was to focus all the problems on the whistleblowers, rather than the truth of their exposure of waste, fraud, or abuse of power.”

It is easy to stereotype the whistleblowers as

According to Soeken, it is easy for the accused, which are powerful institutions in government and corporate areas, to create doubts about the mental behavior of the whistleblowers. “Of course, the problem with the mental tag is that a medical person can be paid to make the expected diagnosis. In addition, the management at a whistleblower’s former job site or office can have plausible deniability, i.e. ‘we had nothing to do with diagnosing the individual as mentally ill’.”

The fact is that a psychiatrist can always find something wrong with another person. He or she can then magnify the problem. This is where the expertise of a government psychologist like Soeken came into play. “My main task was to provide the court… with a true and honest report. In all of the cases (mentioned in his book), it worked, but the government and corporations did score some victories with their bogus reports,” he explains.

Don’t Kill the Messenger!

By Donald Ray Soeken Publisher: Create Space `894; pages: 181

F

Illustration: Anthony Lawrence

mentally unstable men, and those who have lost touch with reality. This was beautifully captured in the movie, The Insider, which was based on Jeffrey Wigand, head of research, Brown & Williamson, then the third largest tobacco company in the US. After he was fired, Wigand went public with “inside information” on how the firm hid research findings against smoking and scuttled moves to make safer cigarettes.

Within no time, he was vilified by Brown & Williamson’s “guerilla public relation”. He was accused of being a “dishonest fraud artist”, old allegations of spousal abuse and shoplifting against him, where charges were never filed, were made public, and he received death threats. He lost his privacy, as these threats were aired on TV news without his knowledge.

Scared of the dangers involved, his wife and kids left him; later, she divorced him.

or people like Soeken, the first step in working with whistleblowers is to “accept the premise that the problems they report are factually accurate”. In his experience, despite the defense’s attempts to challenge their credibility, most of the allegations proved correct. The second step for the counselor is to carefully review the whistleblower’s evidence to continue to earn his or her confidence. “Most whistleblowers observe a personal code of ethics or one related to the government agency or corporation where they work,” says Soeken.

Media can play a major role in this process.

Decades ago, India Legal’s Editor-in-chief Inderjit Badhwar, for instance, helped Soeken and the whistleblowers he worked with. When he worked with America’s legendary journalist and muckraker, Jack Anderson, “he wrote articles about the cases, which helped them in front of Congressional representatives,” explains Soeken. He adds that during this process, when the whistleblower was validated, it turned out to be “a helpfully therapeutic aspect of public exposure of the problems”.

For the whistleblowers to remain sane, confident, and on their path, it is critical for them to believe that they did the right thing. This is the only way they can hang on to their lives, careers, family and friends. And, of course, the cases. IL INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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IS THAT LEGAL?

Hospital harm

Illustrations: Aruna

A woman was admitted in a reputable hospital but was treated in a negligent manner, resulting in permanent damage to her body. What are the options at her disposal?

She has three options, which can be pursued at the same time against the concerned hospital and the doctor. One, she can seek to file a criminal case by registering an FIR citing criminal negligence. Two, she can file a complaint with a consumer forum, as medical negligence falls under the category of deficiency in service which is governed by the Consumer Protection Act. Third, she can file a civil case seeking compensation for damage.

Nuptial age What is the law regarding the age of marriage?

The legal age of marriage in India is 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys. According to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, if a marriage takes place between two persons, one of whom is a minor, then the marriage is voidable at the option of the party who was a minor at the time of marriage.

This has been done so that child marriages, which still take place in the country do not automatically become null and void and the parties, especially the girl, continue to have some rights in the marriage.

In case of Muslims, the age of reaching puberty is recognised as the age of marriage.

Digital burden When we know who the offender is, especially in this digital age, why do we waste time in going through the whole process of court and trial and not just send the person to jail?

The criminal justice system in the country is based upon reformative aspects, meaning that effort should be made to reform a criminal.

Further, a person is presumed to be innocent till proven guilty. Thus the term accused is used till the trial court reaches a finding. Despite having media footage, which catches someone in the act of crime, the

prosecution has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the offense has been committed by the accused.

Till such time that this burden hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been discharged by the prosecution, every accused is presumed to be innocent.

During the trial, the accused is given ample opportunity to defend oneself and also to explain the reasons why charges have been made against him or her. Fair trial mandates that every accused is given a proper opportunity to prove oneself not guilty. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Compiled by Anubha Rastogi

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OBITUARY/ mukul sinha / human rights activist

Loss for Human Rights departed activist mukul sinha had painstakingly worked to ensure justice for the victims of gujarat riots

By Ramesh Menon

I

T is a loss that thousands will feel and miss. Thousands of riot victims, human right activists, lawyers and social workers in Gujarat will not forget how, for over a decade, Mukul Sinha, lawyer and activist, relentlessly fought the state government to bring justice to riot victims.

About a year ago, he was so fit that he worked seven days a week, poring over piles of documents, trying to decipher the truth. Then cancer struck. He went through numerous sessions of chemotherapy but it only kept getting worse.

Even when I met him in July last year, while researching for my book on Narendra Modi, he was in great spirits. He wanted to be back in court to see his numerous cases come to a logical end. But it was not to be. When he breathed his last on May 12 at a hospital in Ahmedabad, the petition of Gopinath Pillai, father of Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai who was killed in an alleged fake encounter, was being heard.

Personally, it hurt to see him go as I had known him for the last 37 years. He was just 63.

As a bumbling cub reporter, I remember how he helped me understand the trade union movement and human right issues way back in the late seventies.

Even in death, he stood out with his magnanimity. After his friends and admirers paid their last respects, his body was handed over to the

Gujarat Cancer Research Institute as he wanted it to be donated for research.

He had founded the Jan Sangharsh Manch to give succor to helpless victims of the 2002 riots, families of those who fell to alleged fake encounters like Ishrat Jahan.

Graduating from IIT Kanpur, he taught for a while in Bilaspur and then joined the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) at Ahmedabad in 1973. When it sacked 133 employees, Mukul metamorphosed into a trade unionist to fight for them. His wife, Nirjhari, a scientific assistant at PRL, joined him in his pursuit for justice. He studied law and joined the bar in 1989, taking up cases of extremely marginalized sections like slum dwellers and factory workers. Later on, his son, Pratik Sinha, joined him in collecting data along with Nirjhari to fight numerous cases related to the Gujarat riots. Their analysis of call data records led to the arrest and conviction of former minister Maya Kodnani for her role during the riots that left over five dozen people dead in her area. They also could use their analysis to show conversations between minister of state for home Amit Shah and the police officers who were involved in encounters.

What worries many now is what would happen to the numerous cases that Mukul was investigating and fighting for. It is a legacy that another lawyer will find difficult to fill. IL INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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CONSUMER WATCH

News briefs on how buyers can enforce their rights and seek remedial measures Calling bankerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bluff THE CONSUMER is king. Queen, actually, if it is the case of Arjuna awardee Dipika Pallikal. The squash champion went through a humiliating experience at a hotel in Rotterdam in 2010, when her transactions through her Axis Bank debit card failed.

Pallikal avoided embarrassment with the help of friends, but when she later contacted the bank for an explanation, all she was told was that there were errors.

Axis Bank, Chennai refused to accept that it was at fault. This was despite the fact that Pallikal had more than ten times the transaction amounts in her account at the time.

The bank cited technical error, claiming that it was a case of force majeure, which brings forth disclaimers, such as a natural and unavoidable catastrophe or an act of god, beyond oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s control. Adding insult to injury, the bank , on another occasion, returned a cheque of `1

Illustrations: Aruna

lakh, issued by the government as an award to Pallika. The reason, given this time too, was technical error.

Pallikal did not give up and filed a petition before a consumer court in Chennai, citing humiliation and loss of reputation.

The court found Axis Bank guilty of deficiency in service and directed it to pay Pallikal a compensation of `5 lakh, and `5,000 for expenses incurred by her in filing the case.

Fair punishment SEVERAL fair price shops used to charge more, deliver less, open late and never provide receipts for the food grains purchased by the consumers. The rude behavior of the shopkeepers made matters worse. These were the rotten apples within the public distribution system, breeding mismanagement and corruption.

The law finally caught up with 10 such fair price shops in Mandy (Karnataka), following several complaints in the past two months.

The district food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department found the shop owners guilty and cancelled their licenses. Mandy has 727 fair price shops.

Now, the authorities have ordered all fair price shops in the district to remain open from 8 am to 8 pm from the first to the tenth of every month. This allows the consumers to remain updated about the arrival of new ration stock. It also enables the gram panchayat president and members to know the availability of food grains in wholesale godowns and fair price shops on their mobile phones.

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SENDING STERN MESSAGE

Credibility restored IF your name is up on the defaulters’ list of the Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (CIBIL), it means your credit worthiness is bad.

Your best effort should be to clear the dues and emerge clean again.

That, presumably, does not always happen, as a Delhi resident Vinay Chola found to his dismay.

In his complaint, filed before the New Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum , Chola alleged that his credit status with CIBIL showed him as a defaulter even after he had cleared his card dues with Hong kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).

He claimed that he had reached a settlement agreement with the bank and, accordingly, had paid `25,000 to it in three separate installments. The last of those installments was collected late by the recovery agent, and this was the one that showed up as outstanding in the bank’s books, and also on the CIBIL list.

The bank defended, saying that the customer had not paid the settlement amount within the agreed timeframe, so it failed to effect the change on time.

The forum, however, found this argument vacuous and rejected it, observing that the recovery agent was late in collecting the last payment from the customer.

The consumer forum, presided by CK Chaturvedi said: “We hold opposite party (HSBC bank) deficient in service in not informing CIBIL of settlement of all outstanding dues of complainant ....”

Apart from ordering for removal of the shameful listing removed, the forum also ordered HSBC to pay Vinay `25,000 as compensation towards litigation charges and for the harassment caused to him.

The bank has been further directed to issue a no-dues certificate to the customer and reconsider a fresh credit card for him.

THE CONSUMER electronics sector sees hundreds of unaddressed complaints about post-sales snags that develop in equipment.

Solan resident Kaushik had bought a Sony Xperia Z C 6602 cell phone for `37,000 from Bansal Enterprises, Chandigarh. In its exuberant sales pitch, the company claimed that this phone would function functioning even after staying under water for 30 minutes; that it could withstand water; and the everyday spills and dust on it could be easily cleaned.

Later, Kaushik was in hospital, and tried to call his wife, but she could not hear his voice. A closer inspection revealed water droplets inside the handset’s lenses that had rendered the phone dysfunctional. Released from hospital, he complained to the dealer and the company; the latter said that the phone was beyond repair.

It offered him a new handset with 25 percent discount.

Feeling cheated, Kaushik filed a complaint with the district consumer forum in Chandigarh. The forum found Bansal Enterprises and Sony India guilty of deficiency in service and ordered them to provide him a new handset, along with a compensation of `37,000, besides 9 percent interest from the date of purchase.

INDIA LEGAL May 31, 2014

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ART & ENTERTAINMENT/ films / revolver rani

QUEEN SPARKLES AS

RANI

K

another splendid performance by kangana ranaut shows she can carry a film alone

angana Ranaut is one actor to watch. After an impressive role in Queen, she returns to virtually shock audiences with an antithesis of a role in Revolver Rani. One moment she is balancing herself on a speeding SUV with bullets flying out of her two revolvers, and moments later, you see her clutching a teddy bear with tears welling in her eyes. She is fearless and cannot be intimidated. She is uninhibited as an overtly aggressive lover, and Rohan, her toy boy played by Vir Das, is almost exhausted in bed and begging for more time to get recharged!

Amid the violence and blood streams, there is humor too. Revolver Rani insists on talking in English in a television interview, saying she loves “phasion”, “phun” and “ghun”. Don’t miss the sarcasm directed at the frivolous sensational media.

The Timangshu Dhulia film directed by Sai Kabir is a black comedy that typical Indian audiences may not appreciate. Do not look out for a hero dominating the antics in the dreaded Chambal of Madhya Pradesh that has enough folklore on dacoits to last for generations. There is no hero. It is Kangana’s film all through to the last frame.

Incidentally, you do not miss the hero as Kangana who plays Alka Singh executes her role with the kind of perfection few can in Bollywood.

Alka Singh took the gun to avenge the murder of her honest hardworking father and never looked back. She never wanted to hold a gun, but life plays tricks. Her scheming and ambitious Balli Mama played adroitly by Piyush Mishra, introduces her into politics as he thirsts for power. Her target is to fight corrupt politicians who will do anything to stay in power and pander to their narrow interests. In election season, the audience completely empathizes with her as they see how politicians do nothing for anybody but themselves.

Even her Balli Mama is ready to sacrifice her when she wants to give up everything just to return to womanhood and a life of peace and happiness that a baby promises to bring. But, in the ugly world of politics there is no space for such sentimentality. Like typical politicians who change colors, he sides with her rival, Udaybhan Singh played by Zakir Hussain. Another well essayed role.

Despite being grievously wounded, the baghi (rebel) in her reverberates back to life. The audience can imagine what is going to follow. Her search for herself will continue but maybe, that can wait. The bad guys have to be dealt with.

You will forget the film in a few days after watching. But Kangana’s performance will stay to haunt.

She is destined to go places. IL

Rating: *** out of ***** REVOLVER RANI DIRECTION & SCRIPT: Sai Kabir ACTORS: Kangana Ranaut, Piyush Mishra, Vir Das, Zakir Hussain, Zeeshan Qadri, Kumud Mishra, Pankaj Saraswat

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WISE

have fun with english. get the right answers and play better scrabble

1. A word which has two opposing meanings.

A: Antonym B: Contronym C: Eponym D: Anagram

8. You are suffering from ………… if you have fear of solitude.

A: ergophobia B: autophobia C: homophobia D: astraphobia

2. Which of the following is spelt correctly?

A: Gazzette B: Gazete C: Gazette D: Gazzete

9. When an American writer calls Obama a “square-shooter”, he means the President is ……. .

A: miserly B: arrogant C: hot-tempered D: honest

3. A painter uses a ............ .

A: palette B: palate C: pallet D: pallette 4. What do you understand by the word “cachet”?

A: Corner B: Prestige C: Bat D: Basket 5. The .......... murder of his brother shocked him.

A: gristly B: grizzly C: grisly D: greasely 6. “Mint”, “overprint”, “watermark” and “perforated” are terms used in ……. .

A: philately B: photography C: painting D: geology

Aruna

7. “6y” is an internet slang for ………. .

A: 6 yards B: 6 years C: sexy D: six youths

10. What is meant by a shaggy-dog story?

A: A long joke with a silly end B: A horror story C: A story for children D: An incredible story 11. What would you call a government run by a small group?

A: Monarchy B: Autocracy C: Oligarchy D: Plutocracy 12. If you are ready to believe, you are …. .

A: credible B: credulous C: footloose D: crackbrained 13. In the SMS lingo, 4YEO means …. …. …… ….. .

A: for your employees only B: for your eyes only C: for your employees & officers D: for your employer only 14. Which word among

SCORES

ANSWERS

0 to 7 correct—You need to do this more often.

8 to 12 correct—Good, get the scrabble board out.

Above 12—Bravo!

Keep it up!

the following does NOT mean “drunk”?

A: Electrified B: Bombed C: Varnished D: green-eyed 15. Which one is a correct proverb?

A: Fine feathers make fine friends B: Fine birds make fine feathers C: Fine friends make fine feathers D: Fine feathers make fine birds 16. When collegian Mohan said “drop dead!”, he meant … … ……. .

A: go away B: kill him C: doze off D: keep quiet 17. “Firewater” is another word for ….

A: sweat B: blood C: whiskey D: panipuri 18. To recriminate is to ………..

A. accuse in return B. kill again C. act again D. describe again 19. He is as right as ….. .

A: rhythm B: rainbow C: rain D: Ram 20. Which word is nearest to the word “diatribe”?

A: dialogue B: invective C: argument D: defence

1. Contronym 2. Gazette 3. palette 4. prestige 5. grisly 6. philately 7. sexy 8. autophobia

WORDLY

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9. honest 10.A long joke with a silly end 11. Oligarchy 12. credulous 13. for your eyes only 14. Green-eyed 15. Fine feathers make

fine birds 16. go away 17. whiskey 18. accuse in return 19. rain 20. invective

PEOPLE / rituals Photos: UNI

PRICKLY DEVOTION Devotees roll on thorny bushes to reach a temple during the Danda festival in Khurda, Odisha.

FOOT THERAPY A holy man uses his foot to bless a girl during the Gajan festival in Kolkata.

NO QUESTIONS IN FAITH

(Above) Women lie on a road during a ritual while worshipping Sheetala Mata, the Hindu goddess of smallpox in Kolkata; (below) a woman with fires simmering in earthen pots performs another ritual.

PLAYING WITH FIRE Devotees walk on burning coal during a ritual in Odisha.

DANGEROUS STUNT A Muslim devotee on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti for Urs, performs a stunt during a procession at Ajmer in Rajasthan.

STRANGE CELEBRATION A family helps bury a boy in sand at a beach to celebrate Easter Sunday, near Manila Bay in Cavite province.

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