In defence of Indian secularism
Yamini Aiyar | President and chief executive, Centre for Policy Research
Hindustan Times
Aiyar writes that the “protests erupting across India since the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are a testament to the centrality of secularism as the foundational principle that binds the country together and holds the key to India’s survival as a nation”. The “deathly blow” that CAA and NRC have “delivered to secularism threatens the foundation of India’s plural social fabric”, she argues.
Aiyar states that the “full import of CAA can only be understood when viewed in conjunction with the promise of implementing a nationwide NRC”. She explains that while the CAA deals “with the question of migrants and their claims to citizenship, the nationwide NRC will open up the issue of citizenship for all Indians” and together, they “amount to no less than a State-sponsored project of ‘othering’ that strikes at the heart of India’s secular ethos”.
Secularism “allowed India to both celebrate its many identities and defend them, when threatened,” writes Aiyar and argues that “this is the lesson that home minister Amit Shah and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ought to learn.” The “real challenge that protests and resistance to the CAA and NRC face today is that they are bereft of a vocabulary to defend secularism’s cause even though it is the threat to secularism that sparked these protests,” she writes. Aiyar urgently calls for the need to “wrest and reclaim secularism, anchoring it in a new vocabulary that redeems its credibility”.
How will J&K Unfold?
Vivek Katju | Former secretary, Ministry of External Affairs
The Times of India
Katju argues that the various walkouts by Pakistan’s ministers on international platforms such as the UN, to protest against the revocation of Article 370, count for very little diplomatically. Moreover, he writes, “no major country has wanted the UN Security Council to concern itself with this development”.
Katju argues that “Pakistan has obviously geared itself to try to prevent any normalisation of the J&K situation through a package of calibrated approaches”. Furthermore, Pakistan “is nursing the hope that when restrictions on electronic data are lifted in the Kashmir Valley such large scale and violent unrest will occur, that it will draw in international players to pressure India and bring about a new dynamic in its flavour”.
He writes that the Indian government is “aware that the concept of normalcy is vastly different in the present digital age of instant data exchange from what it was earlier”. However, the restrictions in electronic data in the valley has led to the “alienation of international liberal opinion” and “international criticism will grow the longer” the restrictions continue, concludes Katju.
Time to defend India’s secularism
Pinarayi Vijayan | Chief Minister of Kerala
The Hindu
Vijayan argues that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act must be rejected for three reasons. First, “it is against the letter and spirit of our Constitution”. Second, “it is divisive, deeply discriminatory and violative of human rights”. Third, “it seeks to impose the politics and philosophy of Hindutva, with its vision of a ‘Hindu nation’, on our entire people and on the basis structure of our polity”.
According to Vijayan, “it is not surprising that the threat to those parts of our Constitution that defend secularism, democracy, social equality, federalism, and individual and social diversity, should come from that section of the polity that did not participate in the freedom struggle”. He adds that “Kerala’s struggle for secularism and social equality has much to teach us”. The “peaceful satyagraha held in Thiruvananthapuram on December 16, attended by political parties, religious leaders, and cultural leaders is a symbol of our united determination to uphold constitutional values and basic human rights, and to oppose discrimination”.
In conclusion, Vijayan maintains that “we cannot postpone our protest and united resistance against this assault on secularism and democracy”.
Caste barriers still play a big role in our economic choices
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha | Academic board member, Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics
Mint
Rajadhyaksha cites excerpts from B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation Of Caste and recent studies to arrive at the conclusion that “caste continues to be a central fact of Indian economic life”.
A Columbia University experiment found that workers in rural Odisha were unlikely to take up work not traditionally associated with their own caste “despite being offered 10 times their daily wage”, writes Rajadhyaksha. They were also not “keen” on joint tasks with other castes, particularly with those lower than them in the caste hierarchy, he adds. This reflects the “Ambedkarite insight that the caste system is not just a division of labour, but also a division of labourers”, argues Rajadhyaksha. He adds that caste networks, especially in real estate businesses, have also “hindered the necessary migration of people to cities”.
Affirmative government action has helped caste mobility in the years after independence but it hasn’t done enough, he writes. “It will be many generations before income and consumption are equalized across caste groups,” explains Rajadhyaksha, quoting Kaivan Munshi, an economics professor at Cambridge University.
Stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime
Chandra Bhushan | CEO, iFOREST
Financial Express
The COP25 talks at the UN’s climate change convention in Madrid failed due to “petty and inconsiderate” negotiations, writes Bhushan. He suggests “abandoning UNFCCC and creating multi-sectoral, multi-regional platforms to cooperate on climate change”.
This year’s conference was meant “to frame the rules for the carbon market under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement” but countries couldn’t reach a deal and negotiations were pushed to next year’s COP, he explains. Bhushan writes this was the result of developed countries like Australia wanting to do as little as possible and developing countries like India and China who were more “interested in making quick money from the carbon market” through the sale of their carbon credits.
The COP25 showed the “ridiculous disconnect between the realities of the climate crisis and the willingness of the countries to do something about it”, writes Bhushan. However, this is unsurprising since developed and developing countries have continued to disagree with every passing year, he concludes.
Building trust is a process…
R. Gopalakrishnan | Corporate advisor & distinguished professor, IIT Kharagpur
Business Standard
Gopalakrishnan explains that start-ups need to be publicly accountable if they are to be sustainable, credible and trusted by the public. He writes that “public scrutiny is tough but valuable” and a CEO of a listed company knows this better than a CEO of an unlisted company.
“Some listed companies fail the tests of disclosure and governance, but that is all the more reason for governance and transparency,” writes Gopalakrishnan. He adds that the “WeWork IPO fiasco in early October”, where the nine-year-old coworking company faced many financial and leadership issues when it attempted to go public, showed that “IPO-worthiness is a litmus test for any company”.
The “toughness” of transparency and scrutiny is also applicable to public governance, he explains. Several political decisions have left the public disturbed and confused such as “lynchings, Ayodhya, Kashmir and now the CAB”, he adds. “On the economic front — hazy outcomes of demonetisation, the continuous amendments to GST, shifting rules in IBC… Even the announcements on electric vehicles and the implementation of FASTag have caused confusion and anguish,” concludes Gopalakrishnan.
Yamini Aiyar states “ The CAA offers fast-track citizenship to a specified list of non-Muslim migrants living in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, justified on grounds of experienced or fear of “religious persecution”.”
This is factually not correct. It only applies to those undocumented migrants who are already in the country and have come before or by year 2014.