Madhav Godbole takes issue with Citizenship Act, Amish supports it, Alagh on data errors

The best of the day’s opinion, chosen and curated by ThePrint’s top editors.

Representational image of anti-CAA protest | Photo: Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

A law that offers citizenship only to non-Muslims sidesteps the real issues for political mileage

Madhav Godbole | Former Union home secretary and secretary, justice

The Indian Express

Godbole writes that no other legislation has met with such a strong reaction from different sections of society than CAA. Citing the example of Mamata Banerjee, he writes if state governments decide to not implement NRC, it will be nothing less than a breakdown of the Constitution.

While the Modi government’s invocation of Partition, Nehru-Liaquat pact and Jinnah’s two-nation theory is untenable for the implementation of CAA-NRC, the Congress should also not forget its invidious role in facilitating the same.

Godbole further classifies migrants in different groups: refugees, legal migrants, illegal migrants and infiltrators, adding that the main problem is of the last two. Yet the answer to dealing with them is not “making only non-Muslims eligible for citizenship”. Furthermore, “it was not necessary to name any country at all in the Citizenship Act”. 

“Let the issue not be left to the Supreme Court to decide, for these do not pertain merely to the constitutionality of the Act. This is an opportunity to show the world that India is a mature democracy and can address such complex issues wisely and in a democratic way,” he adds.

Time to understand the CAA, with reason

Amish | Award-winning bestselling author

Hindustan Times 

Amish writes that “heightened emotions” around the Citizenship Amendment Act “are ripping asunder social compact” and that CAA should be considered calmly. 

The new law only accelerates the path to citizenship to minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan and does not close the door on Muslim majorities in these three republics. This amendment is necessary due to the “extinction-level persecution” faced by minorities in these three countries. And while India has held up its obligations under the Nehru-Liaquat pact, Pakistan has not, he writes. 

 “To criticise India for this amendment would be akin to criticising those countries that specifically took in Jews in the mid-20th century to save them from extinction, by claiming it as an anti-Christian act,” he adds.

State results no indicator of decline in BJP’s popularity

Sanjay Kumar | Director, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

The Hindu

Kumar writes how this year brought “both good and bad news” for the BJP. He writes about the ruling party’s support base and the huge mandate it won in the Lok Sabha elections. Yet, the party’s defeat in multiple assembly elections along with the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests could point to a different reality.

“The truth is that the verdicts at the State level do not give any indication of the BJP’s declining popularity at the national level,” he writes. However, if the anti-CAA protests continue they can have a negative impact on the ruling party. 

Kumar concludes by saying that voters’ choices are diverging at the state and national level and while the party does face a challenge with both the Delhi and Bihar polls in 2020, “at the moment, the saffron party is stronger than its political opponents at the national level”.

Indian banking: Challenges in the new decade 

Tamal Bandyopadhyay | Consulting editor, Business Standard

Business Standard

Bandyopadhyay notes that the RBI “will conduct the second phase of Operation Twist by simultaneous buying and selling of government securities” Monday. Operation Twist “manages bond yields, brings down the cost of borrowing for the government and saves banks from treasury losses”. However, banks can make money trading bonds but “nobody knows how long the RBI could continue the exercise and how much it would buy”. This is where the challenge lies for the banks, writes Bandyopadhyay. 

He argues that the “government went all out spending money and the RBI followed an ultra-loose monetary policy, flooding the system with liquidity and bringing down the policy rate to its historic low”, sowing the seeds of the problems that plagued the financial sector for an “entire decade”, he writes.

Unlike in the past when only the banking sector bore the brunt, the problem has “spread across the financial system” — to NBFCs, mutual funds and rating agencies. He maintains that the Indian banking story has remained “unchanged for decades”. At some point, “there won’t be anybody to lend barring the government” and this would end up being the “classic story of debt stagnation and fiscal dominance”.

Strange concealment 

Yoginder K. Alagh | Former Union minister 

The Hindu Business Line

Alagh writes this was a year of “unconvincing statistical practices”. He was perturbed by the Statistical Office “putting the latest Consumer Expenditure Survey of the NSSO under wraps”.

The discrepancy between “aggregate consumption estimates from the NAC (National Accounts) and NSS (National Statistical Office), and the statistical controversies around them, go back almost half a century”. While NSS estimates have “errors” and the “report itself reports errors”, NAC estimates “have big errors in income of the unregistered sector and output estimates of items like vegetables, fruits, animal husbandry products and so on”. It may be argued that the government feels that it is “difficult to take the view that errors have increased”. Although that doesn’t seem to be the case because the government has been “quick to release estimates showing a slight improvement in quarterly estimates of employment”. 

Alagh suggests a “more sensible position would be to argue that statistics are subject to error, but assessments have to be made with the available data”.