Anarchy, our and theirs
Mani Shankar Aiyar | Congress
The Indian Express
Aiyar writes that it “takes some chutzpah” for PM Modi “to proclaim his horror of violence in student demonstrations and ‘anarchy’ on the streets directed at a duly elected government when he himself was a product of one of the most violent student protests known to India after Independence.” He refers to the “student agitation that grew into the Navnirman Movement in Gujarat in 1974, in the course of which Modi cut his political milk teeth”.
Aiyar writes that during these protests, they ensured that “mayhem ruled India”. Narendra Modi — “the same one who is now denouncing arson, looting and all the destruction of government property it would appear was unfazed” by these damages then. Aiyar cites Inder Malhotra’s work and states that “for more than ten weeks, the state (Gujarat) was a virtual anarchy”. At one time, he writes “a curfew had been imposed in Ahmedabad and 105 other cities and towns. Looting of shops, burning of buses and government property and attacks on the police became routine.”
Despite this, Aiyar points out that PM Modi “has the gall to tweet” that never has “damage to public property and disturbance of normal life has been a part of our ethos”. Finally, he questions whether the “‘arson and loot’ of the Navnirman Movement and the ‘anarchy’, now deplored, which was engendered then, an aberration from our ‘ethos’?
When defection is a mere detour for an MLA
S.Y. Quraishi | Former chief election commissioner and author
The Hindu
Quraishi states that the “Karnataka by-election results have widely put to display the ineffectiveness of the Anti-Defection Law”. Furthermore, he writes, “not only did this set of events lay down a well-structured framework to sidestep the law, it even set a dangerous precedent for neutralising the consequences of the law altogether”.
The law defined three grounds of disqualification of MLAs — “giving up party membership, going against party whip; and abstaining from voting”. Resignations “as MLA was not one of the conditions” and the 17 rebel MLAs in Karnataka exploited “this loophole,” he writes. This act “aimed at ending the majority of the ruling coalition and, at the same time, avoiding disqualification”. A recent judgment “enabled the judiciary to become the watchdog of the anti-defection law, instead of the Speaker, who increasingly had become a political character contrary to the expected neutral constitutional role,” adds Quraishi.
The main issue is “that the defectors treat disqualification as a mere detour, before they return to the House or government by re-contesting”. Quraishi suggests that “this can only be stopped by extending the disqualification period from re-contesting and appointment to Chairmanships/Ministries to at least six years”. In conclusion, he maintains that “almost every political outfit has been party to such devious games, with hardly any political will to find a solution”.
All for one
Prabhat Patnaik | Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, JNU
The Telegraph
Patnaik writes that the “last few days have been a real eye-opener,” not just for the BJP but also their critics. He writes that the revocation of Article 370 was a “dress rehearsal”, which emboldened them to legislate the Citizenship Amendment Act. The “mass resistance” against the CAA has come “as a bolt from the blue for the government,” he writes.
Patnaik argues that the government has “beaten a temporary retreat, claiming that it had never mooted” the NPR, and that it has nothing to do with the NRC. However, the retreat “is only temporary” and the “BJP’s world-view does not admit making enduring concessions to the popular mood,” he writes.
On the question of damage to public property, Patnaik maintains that “apart from the element of reification it involves, namely that the people’s freedom must be made subservient to the task of preserving property, this argument is also reminiscent of colonial times”. These developments bring out two important points, he writes — first, “democracy requires not just decision-making on the majority rule, not just ‘government by discussion’, not just a set of universal and justiciable political and social rights, it requires all these, but above all it requires collective action for its defence.” Second, “individual rights can be enjoyed through collective action” and this “collective alone can be the means of ensuring the individual’s freedom”.
A faulty service delivery system could thwart any rural stimulus
Himanshu | Associate professor, JNU & visiting fellow, Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi
Mint
If the government seeks to provide stimulus to the rural economy, it needs to fix its “broken” delivery mechanism on welfare and development schemes, writes Himanshu.
While the government has bold claims of increasing transfers to the rural economy in the last five years, “consumption expenditure declined by almost 10% in rural areas, where most of the schemes were implemented”, he explains. NSO reports suggest the problem is “a broken delivery system and exaggerated claims of transfers by the government”, writes Himanshu. He cites the decline in consumption of LPG cylinder refills under the Ujjwala scheme or how less than one-fourth of farmers received full amounts of cash transfers under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana as examples.
Major schemes suffer from “lack of financial and administrative support,” which means “fixing that delivery mechanism should be as big a priority as the need for increased spending through a rural stimulus package”, concludes Himanshu.
Back to the public sector?
Rathin Roy | Director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy
Business Standard
Roy criticises the National Infrastructure Pipeline Report (NIP) recently released by the Ministry of Finance. The report is similar to a five-year plan that lists development projects and fiscal targets, however, “a lot of groundwork and hard analytics” is necessary if the report is to be viewed as credible, he writes.
“Of the Rs 102 trillion to be deployed through to FY25, 78 per cent is to be mobilised by the public sector and 22 per cent by the private sector,” explains Roy. This is a “major policy reversal” from the “realistic” public-private partnerships that existed earlier, he writes. It reflects a “Nehruvian aspiration” that does not regard the private sector as a dominant player and makes the government responsible for executing “investments at a far higher level of timeliness and efficiency than is presently the case”, he writes.
Also, the monitoring framework is “very general …[and] vague” with no clear picture of “how the states and the private sector will finance their part of the NIP”, writes Roy. The report seems to fall into the tradition of “indicative planning”, he concludes.