The importance of an independent judiciary
Justice Madan Lokur | Retired Supreme Court judge
Hindustan Times
Justice Lokur begins his column by asking a question, “The independence of the judiciary has been sought to be compromised on several occasions in the past. But it has always bounced back. Will it do so once again?”
He notes that the first few years of our Republic saw a supersession of judges “in the appointment of the Chief Justice of India but the Supreme Court judges stood firm and the thought banished”.
“The Supreme Court took this in its stride and continued to stand as a beacon of hope for many, particularly in matters relating to the recognition and enforcement of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution”, notes Lokur.
He states that the high point of the independence of the judiciary was followed by the Emergency, the institution reached its nadir. Lokur talks about the ADM Jabalpur case and the supersession of Justice Khanna as Chief Justice of India. He states that the second decade saw renewed attempts at containing the independence of the judiciary with recommendation of National Judicial Appointments Commission for recommending the appointment of judges.
Talking about the independence of the judiciary in recent times, Lokur notes, “Only time will tell but admittedly, recent trends are quite disturbing and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting dimmer. Unless these trends are arrested, law students of the future will be studying a different Constitution, with or without a Republic.”
Lifting the pall of fear
Ashutosh Varshney| Director, Center for Contemporary South Asia, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and Social Sciences and Professor of political science, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
The Indian Express
Varshney begins by quoting Jawaharlal Nehru on how Mahatma Gandhi lifted the pall of fear against British rulers from the Indian psyche. He notes that having travelled around the country for the past three weeks, the pall of fear was yet again lifted among the people. He writes, “Instead of Gandhi, it is women and students who have taken charge of protests. And the current rulers, like the British, are not alien, though to India’s 200 million Muslims, they feel like one.”
He talks about the ‘first past the post system’ of electing representatives and contrasts it with proportional representation and writes, “The winners often begin to believe that they have not only won a majority of seats, but also a majority of vote.” He adds that they “think that their parliamentary majority entitles them to making laws, which radically restructure a polity. But what often happens is that a brute assertion of executive or parliamentary power touches off citizen anxiety and protest”.
He writes that while the BJP might be re-elected four and a half years from now, it has lost the dominance and narrative control in the streets. He concludes by explaining the Modi government’s dilemma, “If it cracks down, as it did at Jamia, JNU or AMU, the protests will only grow, and if it does not, then too protests will continue.”
Retrieving the idea of citizenship
Kalpana Kannabiran | Professor and Director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad
The Hindu
“The 70th Republic Day has ushered in lyrical constitutionalism of a kind never witnessed before in the history of independent India”, notes Kannabiran. She notes that discourse around citizenship has brought people together. “It is not anymore that the people of this country falter in their steps towards courts to seek justice; it is courts that even while reciting the Constitution, are unable to take definitive positions, unfettered by governmental dispositions,” she adds. She writes that the possibility of this resistance is deeply moving and transformative and asks, “Will India and Indian-ness ever be the same again?”
Kannabiran explains the cruelness of the Hindu Right and how they are anti-national, citing examples of violence in universities, and the historic experiences in Kashmir and Assam. Talking about freedom as a birthright she notes, “The Constitution itself recognises various levels of azaadi, lest we forget.” Kannibaran concludes by saying, “Resurgent public constitutionalism might help us reclaim the idea of citizenship as birthright and inscribe the constitutional commons by “occupying” them and establishing a shared, collective, inclusive ownership.”
Where are the jobs?
Mahesh Vyas| MD and CEO, Centre for monitoring Indian Economy
Business Standard
Vyas explains that despite the fact that 35 per cent of India’s population is in the 15 to 30 year bracket, their presence in the workforce is declining.
Using Consumer Pyramids Household Survey, Vyas notes that since 2016, overall employment in India has been at a constant at around 406 million and the share of employment for those less than 30 years of age has been falling. In fact, “bulk of the employment” is with those over 40 years of age, he writes. “An ageing profile is least capable of tackling… new technology and an increasingly competitive business environment”.
Vyas explains that “wage earners are shrinking” in both the organised and unorganised sectors. However, entrepreneurs are growing. A look at total employment shows the “count in entrepreneurs has gone from 52 million to 76 million from 2016 to 2019”, he writes. However, this is not the kind of entrepreneurship that creates “salaried employment”, adds Vyas.
Strategic disinvestment does not deserve the criticism it gets
G.N. Bajpai| Former chairman of Sebi and LIC, an author and columnist
Mint
In his piece, Bajpai defends the central government’s decision to sell 100 per cent stake in the state-owned Air India . The “cabinet’s decisions are well justified, and pressure groups should not be allowed to hijack the country’s reform agenda,” he writes.
On the merits of disinvestment, Bajpai takes the example of former British PM Margaret Thatcher who took a “bold step of privatizing her country’s public sector undertakings in the 1980s” to revive the economy. As India faces an economic slowdown, there is similar “clamour for the government to open its purse and help out”, writes Bajpai.
Bajpai then takes the example of public sector enterprises that “went under the hammer under the A.B. Vajpayee regime”. Selling “loss-making enterprises such as Modern Food Industries and Paradeep Phosphates saved the government resources that were deployed elsewhere,” he explains.
Bajpai also warns the government to ensure that it is “not taken for a ride, as in the case of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp. by pinstripe-clad investment bankers.”
Towards a $5-trillion economy?
Ejaz Ghani| Lead economist, World Bank
Financial Express
Ghani explores the optimistic and the pessimistic outlook of whether India will become a $5-trillion economy in 2025.
The optimistic outlook, which takes up a majority of Ghani’s piece, explains how India’s expanding middle class will be “birds of gold” in propelling growth. Since almost “75% of all high-skilled migrants reside in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia…[and] over 70% of software engineers in Silicon Valley are foreign-born”, India will also benefit from a global talent race. Finally, since India is “less exposed to rising global trade disputes” given its growth is rooted in exports and domestic demand, a global financial crisis won’t derail its economy, writes Ghani.
The pessimistic outlook sees “poor physical and human infrastructure” leading India to a demographic “disaster”, observes Ghani. Also, Indian economy continues to be dependent on monsoons, which have been “adversely impacted by a changing global environment”, he writes. It does not help that India is fast becoming a water scarce country, he adds. Ghani states thar “more fiscal federalism and less fiscal centralisation” will help India overcome with these challenges.