Farm bills are seen by farmers to deliver freedom — not to them, but to private capital

Written by HIMANSHU 

On Friday, September 25, farmers’ organisations across the country gave a call for a bandh to protest the three bills passed by Parliament. These bills, namely the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 (FPTC), the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 (FAPAFS), and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 were passed amid protests by the Opposition parties, without discussion in Parliament. Even the government’s allies, such as the Shiromani Akali Dal, have raised apprehensions, lending their voice to the farmers’ demands.

Projected as historic reforms, the government promises freedom to the farmers from the “villainous and exploitative” Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) mandis and from the middlemen who charge commission from trade in these mandis. Most farmers would agree that the functioning of the mandis is inefficient, opaque, politicised and often controlled by cartels. The attempt to reform the functioning of the mandis is not new and has been in process for the last two decades, starting from 2001 when the expert committee on agricultural marketing submitted its report. Since then, three different model APMC acts have been proposed by previous governments (in 2003, 2007, and 2013) and in 2017 by the current government, none of which led to the kind of protests that have been witnessed over the last two weeks.

Rather than welcoming the freedom from mandis, this time farmers are on the streets fighting for restoring the primacy of the mandis in agricultural trade primarily because APMC mandis are an essential part of the agricultural trading ecosystem. While they may have a confrontationist attitude to the functioning and administration of mandis, they also share a symbiotic relationship with the middlemen and the mandis extending beyond matters of transaction in agricultural produce. The middlemen are a source of information, inputs, and sometimes credit without collateral.

The anger against the bills is not just about restoring the primacy of the APMC mandis but also over the manner in which the bills were thrust upon the farming community. Not only the farmers’ organisations, but even state governments and allies have not been consulted. Secondly, all the earlier attempts at reforming agricultural marketing respected the constitutional separation of powers. While the Centre proposed the model acts, these were implemented by state governments. And most of these proposals were actually acted upon by state governments with waves of reforms in the functioning of the APMC in most states.

Out of 36 states and union territories, 18 states have already enacted reforms allowing for establishment of private market yards/private markets, 19 states have enacted reforms allowing for direct purchase of agricultural produce from agriculturists by processor/bulk buyer/bulk retailer/exporter, 20 states have enacted contract farming acts. Kerala and Bihar do not have APMC mandis and Tamil Nadu has a different system. Most states have exempted levy of taxes and fees on sale of fruits and vegetables. Most of these reforms were enacted by the state governments and rules were framed with farmers welcoming these changes, even though the changes were suggested by the Centre.

On the other hand, the current reforms completely bypass the state governments and weaken their ability to regulate agricultural markets even though it is a state subject. Further, unlike earlier reforms where the focus was on strengthening the functioning of APMC mandis while allowing for greater private market access and participation, the current FTPC bill bypasses the APMC altogether, creating a separate structure of trading. In any case, mandi trade accounts for less than one-fourth of the total agricultural trade with the rest accounted for by private markets/traders. The absence of regulation and exemption from mandi fees creates a dual market structure which is not only inefficient but will also encourage unregulated trade detrimental to the primary purpose of providing market access to farmers for better price discovery and assured prices.

Most farmers realise that the FTPC Bill is not about delivering on the promise of freedom to farmers but freedom to private capital to purchase agricultural produce at cheaper prices and without any regulation or oversight by the government. Farmers also realise that this will eventually lead to shifting of trade from regulated APMC mandis to private markets without any commitment to investment in infrastructure and regulation from government. With unequal and differentiated terms of engagement, the decline and disappearance of the APMC is only a matter of time.

The fight to retain the APMC despite its shortcomings is also a fight to extract a commitment from the government on maintaining state support to the agricultural sector. With government investment in agriculture declining in real terms and rising input costs and declining subsidy, farmers fear the withering away of the last remaining instrument of state support in the form of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime. While MSP based procurement did not benefit the majority of farmers and only a few states contributed to the procurement operations of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), it did work as a lifeline for the farmers in those states. Its effectiveness was only in two crops, wheat and paddy, among more than 1,000 crops grown, but it did provide the assurance that the state was willing to step in when required. It also contributed to revenue to the agricultural marketing boards which was partially utilised in improving infrastructure in the mandis.

These fears are compounded by the contract farming bill and amendments in the essential commodities act. Apart from the fact that the provisions of these bills are highly skewed in favour of private capital, with no limits on stockholding and restrictions of government interventions, there is limited recourse to any independent grievance redressal mechanism.

What has also angered the farmers is the deep divide between the rhetoric of the government and its actions on the ground. Even while enacting these reforms and promising greater freedom to farmers, the government has moved swiftly to ban the export of onions and reduced, increased and again reduced import duty on masur in a matter of three months. Agricultural terms of trade have moved against agriculture with rising input prices (with the government increasing diesel prices despite the collapse in international prices) and declining farm gate prices.

The last three years have seen a collapse in prices of major agricultural products. At a time of general demand deflation and the economic slowdown, promising the farmers a bumper increase in agricultural prices through a free market is as good as the promise of “achhe din” by the party that came to power in 2014.

The writer is associate professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, Delhi

Delhi riots chargesheet invents conspiracy and enemy, as per script

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

The idea is not just to deflect attention from violence and discrimination, it is to declare any critic of the government a potential subversive

Delhi’s Police’s investigation against students and activists in connection with the Delhi riots is pushing the Indian state into a long dark night of tyranny. The riots are a serious matter. All perpetrators must be credibly identified and subject to the law. But instead, we are witnessing a project designed to crush civil society. If our freedom is to be saved, we need to understand what is at stake in what is happening in Delhi.

Normally, in a society constituted by the rule of law, we should let the investigation run its course before pronouncing judgment. But we are living in a world where the state, in partnership with the media, does not subscribe to this restraint. In case after case, it runs nightly media trials, destroying people’s lives and reputations. The state uses investigations, leaked evidence, chargesheets as pretexts for establishing narrative dominance and to intimidate. It is not interested in guilt or innocence. It is interested in demonstrating that it can destroy your life with impunity.

It can declare you a terrorist, it can declare you a drug lord, and it can charge you under UAPA. In the Delhi chargesheets, dozens and dozens of students and distinguished academics are facing exactly this prospect. “The law will take its own course”, the state wants to say. But, in the meanwhile, let us show you what we can do to you. How we can make an example of you so other intellectuals dare not speak. The law should take its own course when the state is interested in law. But when the state is using law as an instrument of ideological and physical intimidation, the phrase “let the law take its own course” becomes a cover to subvert our constitutional values.

What does the pattern of filing chargesheets suggest? It is following a script. The whole purpose is to argue that there is a liberal, left, Islamist conspiracy to embarrass and subvert the Indian state. The political class repeats this, the media parrots this and the police, as if on cue, frames the issues this way. The idea is not just to deflect attention from violence and discrimination, it is to declare any critic of the government a potential subversive. It is to invent an enemy of the people, in students and intellectuals. The state has diabolically shifted the emphasis away from investigation of the riots to delegitimising the anti-CAA protest.

The Indian police has, in the past, a patchy record in riot investigations. Just think of 1984. But there is something distinctive about the current conjuncture. Usually, the police botch up investigations to protect powerful perpetrators. This was often the pattern during Congress times. Sometimes there is pressure to produce results. In the process, the police can sometimes round up some usual suspects. But what is happening in Delhi is of a different order. It is the use of police to round up or send signals to critics of the government. It is an ideological witch hunt. This is being done by erasing the distinction between ideological positions and conspirators. The general trend now seems to be that mere thought, or a speech advocating a position, can make you part of a conspiracy to incite. This modus operandi was perfected in the Bhima Koregaon cases. There also the focus became not on the event, but targeting alleged ideological foes like Anand Teltumbde or Sudha Bharadwaj.

Opinion | When the state is silent, it becomes the citizen’s duty to speak up and express dissent

The second is to erase the distinction between legitimate protest and conspiracy against the state. Any democratic society allows for peaceful protest. You can also, at the margins, disagree about particular tactics. But the act of organising and coordinating a protest does not amount to subversion of the state. In the Delhi case, democratic protest is being deliberately confused with riots and subversion of the state. Organising a protest is being confused with organising a riot. Third, there is a novel theory of instigation at work. If you strongly argue that a particular policy was a subversion of constitutional values, and some incident carried out by someone else follows, you are responsible. But if ministers and politicians instigate a chorus of “goli maaro saalon ko” it is some kind of allegorical defence of the rule of law. The definition of incitement is partisan beyond belief.

If you read the alleged confessions of students and unidentified witnesses, it will remind you more of Mao’s China than a democratic republic. There is pressure on students to name and denounce their supposed ideological inspiration so that it can be presented to the world that the violence was the product of an ideological cabal. It is to deflect attention from the direct incitement provided by several BJP politicians. Think of the appalling human costs. Dozens of young people, whose politics you may not agree with, but whose only crime was to believe that this country could be better and risk something for that belief, will now be charged as if they were terrorists. It does not matter whether it is Sharjeel Imam or Umar Khalid or Devangana Kalita. It is a trap to think about the differences between them at this point, when the state has declared that thought is a crime, protest is subversion. The point is to send every young person a message: Choose between democratic protest, thinking or your life. The message is chilling.

I happened to be reading Professor Apoorvanand’s incandescently brilliant forthcoming book on Prem Chand, a deep meditation on the meaning of being human, when I heard he has been named in the chargesheet. He is one of India’s finest scholars of literature. He has been associated with the Left, but is a deeply Gandhian figure. His politics has been devoted to the pacification of violence. He also has a kind of absolute unconditional concern for others that Gandhi demonstrated. In a climate where even decent liberals run away from Muslim political figures, contortedly trying to find the right kind of Muslim to assuage their conscience, he openly embraced Umar Khalid as someone who was like his son. His concern for students is exemplary.

The idea that he can be interrogated by Delhi Police, named in a riots chargesheet and the shadow of UAPA hangs over him (like many others) should disconcert you. It should disconcert you that Kapil Mishra can tweet “In Delhi Umar Khalid, Tahir Hussain, Khalid Saifi, Safoora Zargar, Apoorvanand type people planned and murdered. They engaged in a 26/11 type terrorist attack. These terrorists, killers, should be hanged. Congratulations to Delhi Police.” Whose script is being followed? And congratulations indeed, Delhi police. Those who really incite roam free. But all of us who saw the Constitution as a site of hope are potential terrorists now.

This article first appeared in the print edition on September 25, 2020 under the title ‘You dare not speak’. The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express

What is the basis of MSP? How is it fixed, and how binding is it?

Indian Express Explained 

A mere sentence, to the effect that nothing in this Act shall stop the government from announcing MSPs and undertaking crop purchases at these rates as before, might have blunted any criticism of the new law being “anti-farmer”.

What does the law say about MSP?

The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill does not give any statutory backing to MSP. Forget making it a legal right, there isn’t even a mention of either “MSP” or “procurement” in the Bill passed by both Houses of Parliament last week.

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has said the new legislation has “nothing to do with MSP”. Instead, its objective is simply to grant farmers and traders the freedom of choice to sell and buy agricultural produce outside the premises of APMC mandis. MSP and procurement, according to him, are entirely separate issues: “MSP was not part of any law before. Nor is it part of any law today.” The minister isn’t wrong.

The National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), passed by the previous Congress-led UPA government, provides a legal basis for the public distribution system (PDS) that earlier operated only as a regular government scheme.The NFSA made access to the PDS a right, entitling every person belonging to a “priority household” to receive 5 kg of foodgrains per month at a subsidised price not exceeding Rs 2/kg for wheat and Rs 3/kg for rice. Priority households were further defined so as to cover up to 75% of the country’s rural population and 50% in urban areas.

MSP, by contrast, is devoid of any legal backing. Access to it, unlike subsidised grains through the PDS, isn’t an entitlement for farmers. They cannot demand it as a matter of right.

What is the basis of MSP then?

It is only a government policy that is part of administrative decision-making. The government declares MSPs for crops, but there’s no law mandating their implementation,” explained Abhijit Sen, former Planning Commission member and chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP).

The Centre currently fixes MSPs for 23 farm commodities — 7 cereals (paddy, wheat, maize, bajra, jowar, ragi and barley), 5 pulses (chana, arhar/tur, urad, moong and masur), 7 oilseeds (rapeseed-mustard, groundnut, soyabean, sunflower, sesamum, safflower and nigerseed) and 4 commercial crops (cotton, sugarcane, copra and raw jute) — based on the CACP’s recommendations.

But the CACP itself is not any statutory body set up through an Act of Parliament. This, despite its coming to existence in 1965 and MSPs being announced since the time of the Green Revolution, starting with wheat in 1966-67. The CACP, as its website states, is just “an attached office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India”. It can recommend MSPs, but the decision on fixing (or even not fixing) and enforcement rests finally with the government.

“The government can procure at the MSPs if it wants to. There is no legal compulsion. Nor can it force others (private traders, organised retailers, processors or exporters) to pay,” Sen noted. The government does buy wheat and paddy at their MSPs. But that’s more out of political compulsion and the need to supply the PDS’s foodgrain requirements, more so post the NFSA.

The only crop where MSP payment has some statutory element is sugarcane. This is due to its pricing being governed by the Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966 issued under the Essential Commodities Act. That order, in turn, provides for the fixation of a ‘fair and remunerative price’ (FRP) for cane during every sugar year (October-September). But even the FRP — which, incidentally, was until 2008-09 called the ‘statutory minimum price’ or SMP — is payable not by the government. The responsibility to make FRP payment to farmers within 14 days of cane purchase lies solely with the sugar mills.

Has there been any move to give MSP legislative backing?

The CACP, in its price policy report for the 2018-19 kharif marketing season, had suggested enactment of a legislation conferring on farmers ‘The Right to Sell at MSP’. This, it felt, was necessary “to instil confidence among farmers for procurement of their produce”. That advice, predictably, wasn’t accepted.

The ongoing farmer protests essentially reflect a loss of that very confidence. Is the dismantling of the monopoly of APMC mandis in wholesale trading of farm produce the first step at ending even the present MSP-based procurement programme, largely limited to wheat and paddy? If APMCs were to turn unviable due to the trades moving outside, how will government agencies undertake procurement that now takes place in mandis?

These questions are playing in the minds of farmers, particularly in states such as Punjab, Haryana and MP that have well-established systems of governmental MSP purchases. For them, freedom to sell to anyone, anywhere and anytime has little value compared to the comfort of assured procurement at MSP.

What has the government done to address these questions?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on September 20, tweeted that the “system of MSP will remain” and “government procurement will continue”. The Agriculture Minister , too, has pointed out that past governments never thought it necessary to introduce a law for MSP. So why even talk about MSP, leave alone incorporate guarantees relating to its continuance, in an apparently unrelated law?

It remains to be seen whether these finer points would go down well on the ground. By announcing the MSPs of rabi crops for the ensuing planting season on September 21 (this was last year done on October 23) and kickstarting kharif procurement from early next month, the government may hope to counter any major farmer backlash.

Farm Bills will give farmers greater choice. Opposition must rise above partisan politics

Bhupender Yadav

In 1947, when India gained Independence, the urban-rural income ratio was estimated to be 2:1. That ratio now stands at about 7:1. The decline came even as farm production grew to the point that India became self-sufficient in food production and also kept exporting some food crops. For 60 long years, governments kept ruling in the name of poor farmers and ensuring that they remain stuck in poverty.

Even as India attained surplus growth in agro commodities, our policies remained anachronistic and did not factor in the variety of post-production activities. No thought was given to processing, value-addition or marketing, and trade of farm produce to make the Indian farmer self-sufficient. Less than 5 per cent of India’s food and agriculture produce is processed in contrast to over 50 per cent in developed countries.

Over 50 per cent of India’s population, directly or indirectly, depends on agriculture, which contributes about 12 per cent to GDP, a fact that our budgetary allocations have chosen to gloss over in the Congress era of governance. Public investment in agriculture has been below 5 per cent resulting in low capital formation and low private sector investments, leading to poor agri infrastructure. No policies were drafted to allow farmers to market their produce and earn the profits that an open, competitive market would have allowed them to make.

It is against this backdrop that the government has pushed for the 

 (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill. Together, these three pieces of legislation will create a system in which farmers and traders can sell and buy agri products outside mandis. The Bills provide for a system that encourages intra-state trade and reduces transportation cost. The Bills formulate a framework on agreements that allow farmers to engage directly with agri-business companies, exporters and retailers for services and sale of produce. All this will be achieved by giving the hardworking farmers of India access to modern technology.

India’s agricultural markets restrict farmers from selling directly to retailers and getting the right price for their produce. Also, the existing system forces farmers to pay undue commissions. The Opposition has misinformed people saying the Bills open the road for corporates to exploit farmers. In fact, these pieces of legislation bring uniformity into contractual farming rules and provide a framework for trade agreements on farm produce. Farmers cannot be forced to enter into any agreement. They will be free to choose who they want to sell their produce to and a regulatory framework will protect them.

Concerns over contract farming are also misplaced. Contract farming is not anti-farmer by its nature. As much as 66 per cent of poultry business in India is under contract farming. Once contract farming is mainstreamed, agribusinesses will be able to pool farmers, invest in their land and make the latest agri technology available to them.

The Bills are part of the Narendra Modi government’s commitment to double farmers’ income and follow its credo of minimum government and maximum governance. They are designed to free the farmers from the hold of government-controlled markets. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill makes provisions for the removal of items such as cereals and pulses from the list of essential commodities and attract foreign direct investment in the sector. Some sections have raised the fear that this will compromise on food security. They must know the Food Corporation of India will continue to stock essential commodities such as wheat and rice, ensuring that India’s food security isn’t hit. Also, traditional mandis will stay. The proposed pieces of legislation will only remove trade barriers and allow digital trading of farm produce.

A lot of misinformation is being spread about the Minimum Support Price (MSP). A fear psychosis is being created amongst farmers by telling them that with the passage of the Bills, MSP will be done away with. Parliament has repeatedly been assured that MSP will stay. Those opposing the bills have either not read them or are just worried that an empowered farmer doesn’t fit into their scheme of vote bank politics.

During 2009-2014, the budget allocation for agriculture increased by a meagre 8.5 per cent. From 2014-2019, the Modi government took it much higher – an increase of 38.8 per cent. Today, the parties that are responsible for the poverty of those who feed us are questioning our commitment to farmers.

Agriculture sector badly needs high-end technologies, digital tools, entrepreneurs and farmer organisations to provide services to farmers. The Modi government has already created 2,000-plus Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) and 10,000 more are in the works with a budgetary allocation of Rs 5,000 crore. Over 1,000 agri start-ups, driven by young technology graduates, have been created and over 20,000 agri clinics have been made possible by agriculture graduates. None of this can grow if reforms don’t happen.

India has given the new-age farmer internet access. Nobody should now try to stop this empowered farmer from using the same internet to access markets to sell his produce. The Modi government will do everything to empower this new-age farmer; we owe this to the people who feed us. I hope the Opposition will rise above partisan politics for this cause.

This article first appeared in the print edition on September 22, 2020 under the title ‘Power to new-age farmer’. The writer is national general secretary of BJP and Rajya Sabha MP

It’s a no green signal from the farm world

Himanshu

In a virtual rally, the Prime Minister blamed the Opposition parties for misleading farmers about the three Bills on agriculture, in Parliament. While the Opposition may have taken up the cudgels recently, the fact is that farmers have been protesting against the Bills ever since it was promulgated as ordinances in June. These are The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The resignation of Food Processing Industries Minister (and Shiromani Akali Dal MP), Harsimrat Kaur Badal, from the Union Cabinet, and dissenting voices from various mass organisations affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh suggest that the opposition to the Bills may not be politically motivated; rather, it may be a reflection of the genuine concerns of farmers.

In brief, the Bills aim to do away with government interference in agricultural trade by creating trading areas free of middlemen and government taxes outside the structure of Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) along with removing restrictions of private stockholding of agricultural produce. Attempts to reform the APMC are not new and have been part of the agenda of successive governments for the last two decades. Most farmer organisations also agree that there is excessive political interference and there is need for reform as far as functioning of mandis are concerned.

No consultation

Several reforms at the level of the central government as well as at the State level have been introduced and welcomed by farmers. However, in this particular case, the issue is not about the Bills; it is also about the process of their introduction. As was pointed out by Ms. Badal, the government has failed to have or hold any discussion with the various stakeholders including farmers and middlemen. This is also true when it comes to consultation with State governments even though the subject of trade and agriculture are part of subjects on the State list. The attempt to pass the Bills without proper consultation adds to the mistrust among various stakeholders including State governments. While the lack of consultation has certainly added to the element of mistrust between the government and farmers, some of the issues raised by farmer organisations are also genuine; recent trends in agricultural prices and incomes have only confirmed these fears.

While farmer organisations see these Bills as part of the larger agenda of corporatisation of agriculture and a withdrawal of government support, the immediate concern has been the attempt to weaken the APMC mandis and eventual withdrawal of the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) guaranteed by the government. Although the government has clarified that these Bills do not imply withdrawal of procurement by the State at MSP, there is a genuine fear among farmers about the true intentions of the government. The mistrust is not unfounded given the track record of this government on many issues including demonetisation of 2016, the introduction of Goods and Services Tax and so on. There may not be direct evidence of crony capitalism, but the entry, in a big way, of two of the biggest corporate groups (Adani and Reliance) in food and agricultural retail and the timing of the Bills have not gone unnoticed.

Reflects poor understanding

The idea of allowing greater participation of traders and farmers outside the APMC has already been in place in different form. Even otherwise, APMCs account for less than a fourth of total agricultural trade. But APMCs do play an important role of price discovery essential for agricultural trade and production choices. The vilification of APMCs and the middlemen who facilitate trade in these mandis is a poor reflection of the understanding of functioning of agricultural markets. The middlemen are a part of the larger ecosystem of agricultural trade, with deep links between farmers and traders. Most farmers are familiar with the functioning of mandis and see it as an essential part of agricultural trade despite shortcomings. While the proposed Bills do not do away with the APMC mandis, the preference for corporate interests at the cost of farmers’ interests and a lack of regulation in these non-APMC mandis are cause for concern. The absence of any regulation in non-APMC mandis is being seen as a precursor to the withdrawal of the guarantee of MSP-based procurement.

The Bihar example

The dominant concern in this regard has been expressed by farmers in Punjab and Haryana. Farmers in these States have genuine concern about the continuance of the MSP-based public procurement given the large-scale procurement operations in these States. These fears gain strength with the experience of States such as Bihar which abolished APMCs in 2006. After the abolition of mandis, farmers in Bihar on average received lower prices compared to the MSP for most crops. For example, as against the MSP of ₹1,850 a quintal for maize, most farmers in Bihar reported selling their produce at less than ₹1,000 a quintal. Despite the shortcomings and regional variations, farmers still see the APMC mandis as essential to ensuring the survival of MSP regime.

While retail prices have remained high, data from the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) suggest a deceleration in farm gate prices for most agricultural produce. This has happened despite increased procurement through the MSP-based regime for paddy and wheat. Decline in basmati rice prices by more than 30% and despite higher international prices suggests the limitation of market intervention in raising farm gate prices. For most crops where MSP-led procurement is non-existent, the decline has been sharper. Even cash crops such as cotton have seen a collapse in prices in the absence of government intervention. With rising input costs, farmers do not see the market providing them remunerative prices. At the same time, ad hoc interventions by government such as raising import duties on masur and a ban on onion exports also raise suspicion about the intent of the government to leave the price discovery mechanism on the market. The protests by farmers are essentially a reflection of the mistrust between farmers and the stated objective of these reforms.

Himanshu is Associate Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Current crisis has exposed limitations of central banking framework

Ishan Bakshi 

Over the past few months, the Reserve Bank of India, along with the monetary policy committee, has undertaken a slew of measures to arrest the economic slowdown, and address the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, their actions, guided by multiple considerations — inflation and growth management, debt management and currency management — have inadvertently exposed the limitations of and the inherent contradictions in the central banking framework in India.

Take the monetary policy function. The MPC is guided by the goal of maintaining inflation at 4 plus/minus 2 per cent. Since February 2019, the MPC has, and rightly so, attached primacy to reviving growth, lowering the benchmark repo rate by 250 basis points. However, in its August policy, despite dire growth prospects, it chose to maintain the status quo. This decision was driven, in part, by elevated inflation which continues to average above the upper threshold of the inflation targeting framework. This raises the question: At the current juncture, should the MPC be driven by growth considerations or should short-term inflation concerns dominate?

That there is considerable uncertainty over the trajectory of inflation is beyond debate. But at its core is a question: Is COVID inflationary or disinflationary? Will it be inflationary in the short run (retail inflation is elevated largely due to supply dislocations) but disinflationary over the medium term (with demand falling)? Or does the MPC believe that it will remain inflationary over the medium term with supply-side disruptions outweighing the effects of a fall in demand?

In large part, the current rise in inflation (CPI had fallen from January to March) is driven by supply-chain dislocations owing to the lockdowns. This is evident from the growing disconnect between the wholesale and consumer price index. Since April, while WPI has been in negative territory, CPI has been elevated, indicating, excess supply/low demand at the producer/wholesale level but excess demand/low supply at the retail/consumer level, suggestive of dislocations in the intermediate supply chain. Accepting this implies that the spurt in retail inflation will be temporary, and it will begin to trend lower as these disruptions ebb.

Monetary policy is supposed to be forward looking. So, if on balance, COVID is likely to be disinflationary over the medium term, although this will show up with a lag, then there is a case for looking beyond the current spike in retail inflation. And given the collapse in the economy and that the transmission of rate cuts takes time, it tilts the balance in favour of further easing. Worries of lower rates translating to higher future inflation may prove to be misplaced considering the extent of the fall in demand, the idle capacity in the system, and the little pricing power of producers.

Considering that the MPC expects inflation to trend lower in the second half of the year (presumably due to easing of supply side disruptions), its stance in the August meeting was puzzling. The MPC’s mandate is to deliver stable inflation over long periods of time, not just a few months. Yet, it would appear as if it is more concerned about elevated inflation in the short run. Will a few more months of data end its uncertainty that this is not a cyclical deviation but a structural downshift? Perhaps. Unless the current MPC believes that it has approached the limits of conventional easing.

One could also argue about the inefficacy of monetary policy at the current juncture, and thus the limited options before the committee other than to hold, and keep the power dry. But this argument is driven more so by the absence of policy levers available to the committee other than the repo rate. Expanding the range of policy levers available to it may well render this argument void.

Equally puzzling is the refusal to provide any firm projection of future inflation. While there is considerable uncertainty over economic conditions, surely, the committee members are basing their decisions on some expectation of future inflation and growth. These should have been publicly disclosed. While it is possible that the minutes of the MPC meeting shed light on their expectations, ideally, all MPC members should provide their individual estimates of inflation and growth.

This growth-inflation conundrum is just one part of the story. The current crisis has also brought to the fore the inherent contradictions between the MPC’s operations, and the RBI’s debt and currency management functions, pointing towards a larger structural challenge.

As manager of the government debt, the RBI is tasked with ensuring that the government’s borrowing programme sails through smoothly. To this end, it has carried out several rounds of interventions popularly known as operation twist. These interventions involve the RBI buying longer-dated government bonds, while simultaneously selling an equivalent amount of shorter-dated securities — pushing down long-term Gsec yields, and exerting upward pressure on short-term yields as a consequence. In doing so, the RBI ended up doing exactly the opposite of what the MPC was trying to achieve by cutting short term rates, well before it reached the lower limit of its conventional policy response.

Further, the RBI’s interventions in the currency market — intervening in order to prevent the rupee from appreciating — have constrained its ability to carry out open market operations as these would have led to further liquidity injections into the system. Put differently, its debt management functions have run up against its currency management functions. Underlining the complexity of all this is the talk of sterilisation — the opposite of injecting liquidity in the system.

The central bank must develop a clear strategy on what to do. At the one end, it is legally bound to an inflation target. Yet, at this juncture, there is a strong argument to look past the current spurt in inflation, and test the limits of both conventional and unconventional monetary policy. At the other end, while it may want to intervene to prevent the rupee’s appreciation, in doing so, it is constricting its debt management functions which will have its own set of consequences. There are no easy answers.

This article first appeared in the print edition of Indian Express on August 19, 2020 under the title ‘RBI’s dilemma’. ishan.bakshi@expressindia.com

National Education Policy 2020: What is needed is a new kind of thinking

Written by Shyam Menon
One thing struck me as a major difference between the new National Education Policy and its predecessor. The previous policy, National Policy on Education 1986/1992, presented itself as an attempt to consolidate and build on all the earlier efforts, particularly NPE 1968. The new policy, NEP 2020, on the other hand, is very keen to establish that it is different (even in its name!) from everything of the past.

Nowhere in the policy does this attitude come across as starkly as it does in the section on higher education, which begins with a credo that “this policy envisions a complete overhaul and re-energising of the higher education system…” (p. 34). The policy starts with listing the problems currently faced by India’s higher education. The listing may be comprehensive, but there is no diagnosis of the underlying maladies. It is as though there is nothing to understand about what has made it possible, historically, for some of the current institutions, arrangements and practices to succeed even within the general gloom, and some successful ones of the past to have regressed into mediocrity.

The vision for higher education itself is quite wordy, and at places somewhat repetitive (for instance, the term “multidisciplinary” comes up repeatedly in the document and despite so much articulation on the subject, one is still left wondering what it is really all about), but comes across fairly clearly about how the higher education ecosystem will be by 2040. By that time, if the policy has its way, the Indian higher education ecosystem will be populated with higher education institutions (HEIs) comprising universities and colleges, public as well as private, all of which will be “multidisciplinary” and each populated by more than 3,000 students, at least one “in or near every district” (p. 35).

Universities will do research as well as postgraduate and undergraduate teaching, some research intensive and others teaching intensive, while colleges will be largely teaching at the undergraduate level, a number of them having “medium of instruction in local/Indian languages or bilingually” (p. 35). The colleges may manifest in clusters around universities as constituent colleges, or may be stand-alone autonomous ones. Ideally, all HEIs will eventually become “independent self-governing institutions” (p. 49) with considerable “faculty and institutional autonomy” (p. 34), having complied with a series of regulatory exercises that are “light but tight” (pp. 34, 47) operated by a large number of private accreditors overseen by a new set of regulatory institutions at the national level. By 2035, India’s higher education system will have doubled the Gross Enrolment Ratio to 50 per cent. The doubling of enrolment will be made possible by larger student strength in each HEI, a large number of new HEIs mostly in the private sector, by a refurbished Open and Distance Learning system and through the use of technologies including online modes.

While the vision is laid out pretty elaborately, the fact that we are starting not with a tabula rasa, but with existing imperfect institutions, both HEIs as well as the regulatory structures, the policy does not clarify how we will get there in two decades, indeed how we will accomplish the promised “complete overhaul and re-energising of the higher education system.” What the policy envisages is to build the edifice of an entirely new ecosystem of independent self-governing institutions with considerable autonomy for teachers from the debris of a “fragmented ecosystem” of “low standard teaching,” “lesser emphasis on research,” “suboptimal governance and leadership” and “ineffective regulatory system” (p. 33). No clear roadmap is laid out in the policy for this complete makeover.

The problem, as I see it, is that much of the mediocrity in the system that the policy rightly identifies stems out of a culture of mistrust and control, the seeds of which are in the very DNA of our larger system, not confined to higher education. So, it is a bit disappointing that the policy employs structures and mechanisms that are built out of the same genetic material to engineer the structural transformation of the entire ecosystem of higher education that it envisions.

When the policy envisages a set of national level regulatory institutions, it is willy-nilly giving in to centralisation and imposition of a uniform template. In fact, the NEP 2020 itself is an exercise of imposing uniformity and standardisation along a single axis of control and power, which is paradoxical given India’s size, population, diversity and constitutional federalism. The “light but tight” approach (whatever that means) in the regulatory processes is obviously well intentioned. But, from past experiences we know that these are mostly subverted by the deeply entrenched bureaucratic culture that will pervade any new institution created within the larger governmental ecosystem. One old institution may mitotically divide into four new ones, but the genetic material out of which these are created remains the same, and so does the institutional culture.

What is needed, perhaps, is a new kind of thinking, more along the lines of the “rhizomatic” model for social organisation and culture that Deleuze and Guattari (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, 1980, A Thousand Plateaus, Translated by Brian Massumi. London and New York: Continuum, 2004) have propounded. It is important to recognise that institutions are organic entities with their own histories and rooted firmly in, and engaging dynamically with, specific social and cultural contexts. Creation of a new ecosystem cannot be engineered through top-down fiats. Drawing an instance from ancient India, as the policy time and again does, Nalanda and Vallabhi did not reach their pinnacle of glory by complying with fiats that sought to prescribe their curricula and regulate their scholarship.

In fact, each of the ancient universities was unique; they were not cast in the same mould. They flourished in an environment of trust and freedom in which they themselves determined what their scholarly pursuits and teaching would be. Their patrons simply trusted their wisdom to carry out their work and supported them without breathing down their necks.

This article first appeared in the print edition on August 8, 2020 under the title ‘NEP 2020: The new old’. The writer is professor, Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi and former vice chancellor, Ambedkar University Delhi

Poverty, not age of marriage, is responsible for women’s poor health indicators

Written by Mary E John
We know only too well that India is usually near the bottom of the international rankings on gender indicators. India also has the largest absolute number of girls who marry below the age of 18. Therefore, raising the age of marriage to 21 could well be seen as a step towards gender equality that also addresses the health problems of young mothers and their infants. But unfortunately, this reasoning is both unsound and unwise.

The topic of “child marriage” in contemporary India has not received the attention it needs. Public discussion is confined to the occasional coverage in the media where child marriage and trafficking are often carelessly conflated. The periodic National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) provide an internationally-recognised measure of child marriage, namely, the proportion of those in the age group 20-24 years who married before reaching 18 years of age. In the latest survey, NFHS-4 of 2015-16, this proportion is 26.8 per cent, down from 47 per cent in 2005-06. This is a significant decline and the Census shows a similar trend between 2001 to 2011. Along with such impressive declines, NFHS-4 shows that only 6.6 per cent were marrying below the age of 15. In other words, the problem in India today is no longer of child marriage but late adolescent marriage, and a declining one. It might interest readers to know that there are no differences between Hindus and Muslims in these trends.

There is an almost global consensus on 18 years as the age of social adulthood. A common threshold for voting rights, driving privileges and much else (with employment and sexual consent at even younger ages), it is also the most common standard for marriage across the world. Scientists have recognised it as the age when the female body reaches full development, such that a healthy woman with adequate ante-natal care can be expected to have a healthy baby. It is already the legal age of marriage in India, so why the hurry to raise it above the international norm?

The best answer would probably go something like this: Raising the age of marriage will raise the age of motherhood, and thus the probability that mother and child will be healthier. It will also lower the fertility rate. But this answer rests on a partial truth that is dangerously misleading. Our health indicators on young mothers and their infants are as bad as they are because poorer (and therefore more malnourished) women are marrying at younger ages compared to their wealthier counterparts. If poor women continue to remain poor and malnourished, raising their age of marriage by a few years will change very little. Much of the same problems will recur when they marry at 21 years. This fact is confirmed by carefully disaggregated statistical analyses.

Moreover, fertility rates in India have been declining sharply. Demographers have been pleasantly surprised by the decline even in states like West Bengal and Telangana, which have high rates of early marriage. Poor families today are having small families. Little is gained by pushing them to have these children three years later.

On the other hand, if the legal age of marriage for women were raised to 21, and the trend shown in NFHS-4 holds, then 56 per cent of Indian women in the 20-24 year age group (who married below 21) would be without legal protections and whose families would be liable for punishment under the new law. This number shoots up to 75 per cent for those in the poorest 20 per cent of the population. Even in a progressive state like Kerala, famous for high levels of education and excellent health services, one-third (of women between 20-24) marry before they are 21. Remember that these numbers are under-estimates since they do not count those women currently in the 18-20 age group who might also marry before 21. How will it help to render such women without legal recourse by going beyond the international norm of 18 years?

There is so much else that must be tackled first. Numerous studies show that parents are investing in their daughters’ education (with near gender parity even in higher education), but our education system is failing the young. With few avenues of gainful employment for young women, a home-bound school drop-out becomes a source of anxiety, and marriage the only viable prospect. Well-intentioned conditional cash transfer schemes by state governments rewarding families who obey the law are popularly known as “dahej” (dowry) schemes. Instead of tackling gender inequality, they reinforce the belief that girls are a burden relieved only by marriage. To bring genuine change, we need free education beyond schooling for girls, coupled with job guarantees, especially for those from rural areas and vulnerable social locations. This would make it genuinely possible for girls to have some say as to whether, how or when they wished to marry.

This article first appeared in the print edition on July 31, 2020 under the title ‘Taking the easy way out’. John is a researcher at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies and author of the upcoming Child Marriage in an International Frame.

Reading the New Education Policy 2020

Written by Ritika Chopra

What purpose does an NEP serve?

An NEP is a comprehensive framework to guide the development of education in the country. The need for a policy was first felt in 1964 when Congress MP Siddheshwar Prasad criticised the then government for lacking a vision and philosophy for education. The same year, a 17-member Education Commission, headed by then UGC Chairperson D S Kothari, was constituted to draft a national and coordinated policy on education. Based on the suggestions of this Commission, Parliament passed the first education policy in 1968.

A new NEP usually comes along every few decades. India has had three to date. The first came in 1968 and the second in 1986, under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi respectively; the NEP of 1986 was revised in 1992 when P V Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister. The third is the NEP released Wednesday under the Prime Ministership of Narendra Modi.

What are the key takeaways?

The NEP proposes sweeping changes including opening up of Indian higher education to foreign universities, dismantling of the UGC and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), introduction of a four-year multidisciplinary undergraduate programme with multiple exit options, and discontinuation of the M Phil programme.

In school education, the policy focuses on overhauling the curriculum, “easier” Board exams, a reduction in the syllabus to retain “core essentials” and thrust on “experiential learning and critical thinking”.

In a significant shift from the 1986 policy, which pushed for a 10+2 structure of school education, the new NEP pitches for a “5+3+3+4” design corresponding to the age groups 3-8 years (foundational stage), 8-11 (preparatory), 11-14 (middle), and 14-18 (secondary). This brings early childhood education (also known as pre-school education for children of ages 3 to 5) under the ambit of formal schooling. The mid-day meal programme will be extended to pre-school children. The NEP says students until Class 5 should be taught in their mother tongue or regional language.

The policy also proposes phasing out of all institutions offering single streams and that all universities and colleges must aim to become multidisciplinary by 2040.

How will these reforms be implemented?

The NEP only provides a broad direction and is not mandatory to follow. Since education is a concurrent subject (both the Centre and the state governments can make laws on it), the reforms proposed can only be implemented collaboratively by the Centre and the states. This will not happen immediately. The incumbent government has set a target of 2040 to implement the entire policy. Sufficient funding is also crucial; the 1968 NEP was hamstrung by a shortage of funds.

The government plans to set up subject-wise committees with members from relevant ministries at both the central and state levels to develop implementation plans for each aspect of the NEP. The plans will list out actions to be taken by multiple bodies, including the HRD Ministry, state Education Departments, school Boards, NCERT, Central Advisory Board of Education and National Testing Agency, among others. Planning will be followed by a yearly joint review of progress against targets set.

What does the emphasis on mother tongue/regional language mean for English-medium schools?

Such emphasis is not new: Most government schools in the country are doing this already. As for private schools, it’s unlikely that they will be asked to change their medium of instruction. A senior ministry official clarified to

What about people in transferable jobs, or children of multilingual parents?

The NEP doesn’t say anything specifically on children of parents with transferable jobs, but acknowledges children living in multilingual families: “Teachers will be encouraged to use a bilingual approach, including bilingual teaching-learning materials, with those students whose home language may be different from the medium of instruction.”

How does the government plan to open up higher education to foreign players?

The document states universities from among the top 100 in the world will be able to set up campuses in India. While it doesn’t elaborate the parameters to define the top 100, the incumbent government may use the ‘QS World University Rankings’ as it has relied on these in the past while selecting universities for the ‘Institute of Eminence’ status. However, none of this can start unless the HRD Ministry brings in a new law that includes details of how foreign universities will operate in India.

It is not clear if a new law would enthuse the best universities abroad to set up campuses in India. In 2013, at the time the UPA-II was trying to push a similar Bill, The Indian Express had reported that the top 20 global universities, including Yale, Cambridge, MIT and Stanford, University of Edinburgh and Bristol, had shown no interest in entering the Indian market.

Participation of foreign universities in India is currently limited to them entering into collaborative twinning programmes, sharing faculty with partnering institutions and offering distance education. Over 650 foreign education providers have such arrangements in India.

How will the four-year multidisciplinary bachelor’s programme work?

This pitch, interestingly, comes six years after Delhi University was forced to scrap such a four-year undergraduate programme at the incumbent government’s behest. Under the four-year programme proposed in the new NEP, students can exit after one year with a certificate, after two years with a diploma, and after three years with a bachelor’s degree.

“Four-year bachelor’s programmes generally include a certain amount of research work and the student will get deeper knowledge in the subject he or she decides to major in. After four years, a BA student should be able to enter a research degree programme directly depending on how well he or she has performed… However, master’s degree programmes will continue to function as they do, following which student may choose to carry on for a PhD programme,” said scientist and former UGC chairman V S Chauhan.

What impact will doing away with the M Phil programme have?

Chauhan said this should not affect the higher education trajectory at all. “In normal course, after a master’s degree a student can register for a PhD programme. This is the current practice almost all over the world. In most universities, including those in the UK (Oxford, Cambridge and others), M Phil was a middle research degree between a master’s and a PhD. Those who have entered MPhil, more often than not ended their studies with a PhD degree. MPhil degrees have slowly been phased out in favour of a direct PhD programme.”

Will the focus on multiple disciplines not dilute the character of single-stream institutions, such as IITs?

The IITs are already moving in that direction. IIT-Delhi has a humanities department and set up a public policy department recently. IIT-Kharagpur has a School of Medical Science and Technology. Asked about multiple disciplines, IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao said, “Some of the best universities in the US such as MIT have very strong humanities departments. Take the case of a civil engineer. Knowing how to build a dam is not going to solve a problem. He needs to know the environmental and social impact of building the dam. Many engineers are also becoming entrepreneurs. Should they not know something about economics? A lot more factors go into anything related to engineering today.

National Education Policy 2020 needs a close scrutiny, a full debate, for what it says and what it doesn’t

Kumkum Roy
The National Education Policy, an ambitious and complex document, laying down a road map for the next two decades, has been adopted in the midst of a pandemic and a lockdown, which renders discussion and debate difficult. Nevertheless, it requires closer scrutiny, in terms of its implications for the marginalised, disciplinary spaces, autonomy, and constitutional values, among other things.

What are its implications for the majority of those covered under the acronym SEDGs (Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups) in the text? Absent in the document, as far as I could see, is any mention of the term “caste”, apart from a fleeting reference to Scheduled Castes. Also absent is any mention of reservation in academic institutions, whether for students, teachers, or other employees. Reservation, necessary but not sufficient, is the bare minimum required in terms of affirmative action in the highly differentiated socio-economic milieu in which we exist. The silence of the document on this issue is troubling, to say the least.

Equally disturbing is the passing reference to educational institutions in tribal areas, designated as ashramshalas (NEP 1.8) and envisaged as part of the Early Childhood Children Education programme. What, one wonders, will be transacted in these institutions. While there are sections of the document (for instance, NEP 14.4) that describe ways in which SEDGs are supposed to gain access to higher education institutions, there is no time-frame that is specified. This is particularly crucial as the document visualises increased “benign” privatisation of education, attempting to distinguish this from commercialisation. In a situation of growing privatisation and the near collapse of public institutions of higher education, how these policies will be implemented is a matter of concern.

One of the buzz words in the document is multi-disciplinarity — an apparently attractive and flexible proposition, allowing learners to experiment with a variety of options. We learn (NEP 11.7) that “Departments in Languages, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Indology, Art, Dance, Theatre, Education, Mathematics, Statistics, Pure and Applied Sciences, Sociology, Economics, Sports, and other such subjects needed for a multidisciplinary, stimulating Indian education and environment will be established and strengthened at HEIs across the country.” While the list is unexceptionable, it is worth flagging what is missed out — fields of studies such as Women’s Studies or Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Dalit Studies, Studies of Discrimination and Exclusion, Environmental Studies and Development Studies, all of which have developed over the last three or four decades. Many of these have engaged with multi-disciplinarity/inter-disciplinarity in exciting and disturbing ways, bringing to the fore issues of diversity, difference and identity. That these developments are ignored in what purports to be a forward-looking document is intriguing.

While there is a running refrain of autonomy and choice in the document, this is circumscribed at crucial junctures. For instance, the selection of vocational subjects in middle school is described as a fun choice. At the same time, it is to be exercised “as decided by States and local communities and as mapped by local skilling needs” (NEP 4.8).

Further up in the scheme of things is the National Testing Agency (NEP 4.38) which, we learn “will serve as a premier, expert, autonomous testing organisation to conduct entrance examinations… in higher educational institutions.” This is expected to be a means of “drastically reducing the burden on students, universities and colleges, and the entire education system.” That instead of an overarching centralised agency, an innovative educational policy would attempt to create space for context-specific and diverse modes of evaluation for different fields of learning is a possibility that remains unexplored.

Overall, HEIs will now be run by a Board of Governors (NEP 19.2), backed by legislative changes where required. Further centralisation is envisaged through the setting up of “the National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA)… to regulate in a ‘light but tight’ and facilitative manner, meaning that a few important matters — particularly financial probity, good governance, and full online and offline public disclosure of all finances, procedures, faculty/staff, courses, and educational outcomes — will be very effectively regulated, while leaving the rest to the judgment of the HEIs (NEP 20.4).” What, one wonders, remains in “the rest”.

While we have been hearing a great deal about the benefits of being atma-nirbhar, the policy explicitly facilitates the presence of foreign universities within higher education. Also, and perhaps more intriguing, these universities are held up as ideals to be emulated. So “MERUs (Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities) will be set up and will aim to reach the global status of, e.g., the Ivy League Universities in the US.” (NEP 11.10)

Several universities and HEIs have evolved and sustained democratic mechanisms, including academic and executive councils. These formulate, discuss, and implement policies, courses and other institutional matters. What has made them vibrant institutions is the presence of faculty and students, elected, as well as on the basis of seniority and rotation. Jettisoning these structures, norms and practices for a linear top-down mode of administration, as envisaged, will deprive members of HEIs of an opportunity to engage with the challenges of democratic functioning.

Also worrisome is what happens with the Constitution — while an assortment of values are identified as constitutional, including “knowledge and practice of human and constitutional values (such as patriotism, sacrifice, non-violence, truth, honesty, peace, righteous conduct, forgiveness, tolerance, mercy, sympathy, helpfulness, cleanliness, courtesy, integrity, pluralism, responsibility, justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity)” (NEP 4.23), and there is an occasional mention of fundamental duties, one searches in vain for any allusion to fundamental rights. Are these to be erased from the memories of future generations?

It is to be hoped that beyond the immediate excitement that the announcement of the implementation of the NEP has generated, there will be opportunities to examine its long-term implications, and, if necessary, revisit it, before it is actually implemented.

The writer is professor, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU. She has been involved in developing textbooks and

Where’s our George Floyd?

Suhas Palshikar
Will there be a George Floyd moment in India’s public life? Surely, it is not merely about outrage over an act of injustice. It is about comprehending the urgency of aligning with the victim; it is about realising systemic bias against the marginalised; it is about crossing the threshold of “we” and “them”. Above all, it is a moment of citizen initiative. Of late, India seems to have lost that urge to consistently relate to injustice as an assault on democracy.

For the past two months, all media is abuzz with images of the suffering of migrant workers. Two things about this suffering have been striking. There was no public outcry over this human tragedy and the victims themselves chose to mostly suffer in silence. They may have grumbled, or cursed under their breath, but our democracy does not seem to have encouraged them to really assert or demand their rights. Not just migrants, minorities too have been subjected to the untold misery of being excluded from the idea of the public. And more routinely, women, rural poor, Dalits and Adivasis have been objects of humiliation.

This begs the question: How does India’s democracy afford to victimise large sections and manage to ensure that victims will remain docile? This docility of India’s democracy needs to become a subject of introspection and examination. Three sets of answers can be imagined — answers that are generic about democracy; answers that are historical about the nature of the Indian state and answers that take us to the contemporary moment.

The practice of democracy has the notorious tendency to become paradoxical. It begins in the name of the “demos” but goes on to construct the demos rather narrowly; oftentimes, sections of the population manage to ensconce themselves as “the people”, they count as the public, their ideas masquerade as the people’s ideas. This inevitably produces a layered citizenry. Democracy also starts off by investing agency in the individuals but sooner or later divests them of that agency as interference by the ignorant. Democracy inspires ideas of rights but allows the taming of rights for purposes of order. In short, it is these tensions between the elite and the masses, between active citizens and obedient citizens, between rights and order, that mark the life of democracies. This is not merely about the distance between theory and practice, between concept and its concrete life. It is about imagining that the course of democracy is predetermined. Democratic politics needs to be carved out with effort, rather than believing that adopting formal democracy automatically ensures vibrant democratic practice.

The approach of the Indian state to citizen participation has always been based on arrogance. It is also informed by overemphasis on the rhetoric of law and order. The former leads the state to believe that citizens are not, and should not be, active agents. This means that citizens must wait for leaders to mobilise them and guide and supervise their actions. Similarly, citizens must depend on the largesse of the state in deciding what is good for them. This gives rise to the syndrome of government as caretaker/parent and leaders as political chaperons. The Indian state also privileges the idea of law and order. If a parental state negates the idea that people have agency, the emphasis on law and order legitimises that negation. Thus, the discourse of rights and individual dignity becomes permissible only if it is subservient to the statist idea of “order”.

Legislative imagination, judicial interpretation and public perception are all stacked against the idea of the citizen as protestor. In contrast to the legacy of the freedom movement, democracy and popular participation are seen, both theoretically and legally, as inconsistent with, and often even opposed to, an orderly society. Whether it be the AK Gopalan case (1950) or the many legal monuments against individual liberty such as the currently infamous UAPA, the emphasis has been twofold: That the state knows, the state is right, the state must be privileged, and that citizen action is suspect, potentially disruptive and liable to punishment.

It is in the backdrop of this subdued rights discourse and de-legitimised agency of the people that the current moment has unfolded wherein criticism is almost seditious, claiming rights for marginalised sections can be termed as waging war against the state and empathising with victims of social injustice is ridiculed or forbidden. The current regime has converted the penchant for sub-democratic state action into a fearsome art.

Since we are discussing this in the month of June, one cannot but forget the somewhat amateurish takeover of the entire state apparatus by the government in 1975. A much more concerted and systematic mechanism of silencing citizens is underway today. But it is not the repressive aspect of the state apparatus unleashed on protesting citizens that adequately answers why citizens choose to remain quiet in moments of acute injustice to “someone else”.

This might appear ironic, but in spite of a comparatively higher degree of repression, the lack of popular protest is more because of the success of the regime in constructing and popularising a narrative that not just delegitimises but simply denies the existence of suffering, injustice and victimhood. This is the narrative of subverting reality into its opposite.

In this world of alternative reality, the victim is the offender (as in case of Muslims), suffering is sacrifice if not ill-informed exaggeration (as in the case of migrants’ plight) and marginalisation or exclusion are outcomes of past politics (as in the case of Dalits or Adivasis). This narrative posits two contrasting social camps. One is the nation. It represents unity, progress and a possible millennium. All else is fragmentary and divisive. So any voice speaking of a particular group’s suffering becomes a hurdle in the march of the nation; any coalition of the marginalised by definition assumes an anti-national tenor.

Such is the power of the narrative that the facts of suffering, humiliation or injustice lose their evocative potential; they cease to scandalise, they are unable to evoke a moral response. Democracy can thus afford the co-existence of multiple injustices and a quiet citizenry when such narratives are able to reconstruct facts and convince the masses of the validity of that reconstruction. The silence today is a result of the popular acceptance of reconstructed reality and adherence to an alternative morality.

When US president Donald Trump says that George Floyd “is looking down” and saying (decline in unemployment) “is a great thing… happening to our country”, he represents the subversion of the fate of Floyd, he is rewriting the grammar of democracy. Not the killing of Floyd but the small decline of unemployment is the significant fact of the moment; Floyd would not be angry at his murderer, he would be angry at the economy; what needs to be fixed therefore, is not institutional bias against a community but the dishonour caused by the protests.

A careful reading of this response should tell us that India is truly living in its own Floyd moment.

The writer, based in Pune, taught political science and is currently chief editor of Studies in Indian Politics