Sadhguru on Citizenship Amendment Act

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev has given a lucid explanation on the noble motives of Citizenship Amendment Act in response to a question to him. He has urged the protesters to read and understand the act rather than fall for the malicious propaganda that has been going on over it.

His entire explanation can be seen here.

Unfortunately the same journalists who have been spreading misinformation on CAA have started questioning Sadhguru's statement as factually incorrect by nitpicking on irrelevant points rather than understanding the thrust of his argument.

I clear the air here and explain how Sadhguru is absolutely correct and those questioning him are engaging in dishonest journalism driven by prejudice and mala fide intent, which can also be gauged from the disrespectful tone and tenor of their statements against a respected religious figure like him.

1) The religion census of Pakistan was not released since 1998. There is no doubt that there has been drastic decline in percentage of Hindus in these Islamic countries. In West Pakistan the bulk of (>90%) Hindus reside on Sindh. Of which majority are in princely state of Amarkot which was a Hindu majority state which joined Pakistan after Independence. In rest of Pakistan Hindus have been nearly wiped out. Some people are nitpicking over the number of 23% as population of minorities in whole of Pakistan(East + West) at the time of independence, this figure may be accurate if one looks as pre- partition population before migration induced by partition.  In fact in West Pakistan the percentage of Indian religions had reduced from 16% in 1901 to 1.68% in 1991. The thrust of Sadhguru's argument was correct that there is reduction due to persecution & violence.

2) Sadhguru cites an incident of his visit to Jwala Mata temple in Baku where he met a Hindu whose wife had been abducted, converted to Islam and married to someone else on same day. He mentioned in context of this incident that Pakistan did not recognize Hindu marriages which is why this man had no legal case to protect his wife. This was an incident in past not recent. In 2016 Sindh province passed a Hindu marriage act and in 2017 rest of the provinces got a Hindu marriage act. But this in no way changes what Sadhguru said. This is a clear case of persecution of Hindus in Pakistan. Even the current law of Pakistan is being criticized for its annulment clause which causes the marriage to be annulled if any spouse converts to Islam. This is a loophole that can be exploited to abduct and convert even married Hindu women. . There are several cases of abduction of Hindus girls reported from Pakistan.So Sadhguru's example of persecution of Hindus stands valid.

3) A propaganda is being spread that the Citizenship Amendment Act does not mention persecution hence it is not about religious persecution of minorities in Islamic countries in subcontinent. Fact is that in the statement of objects and reasons of the act it is clearly mentioned that religious persecution is the reason. There are associated government notifications on Passport Act and Foreigners Act of 2015 which clearly mention exemption based on religious persecution or fear of religious persecution. When there is overwhelming evidence of an obvious religious persecution based on state discrimination in these countries then such media propaganda is condemn able. Sadhguru in fact says that discrimination in these countries is state defined by law, because of the Islamic nature of these states. So he is again absolutely correct.

4) Sadhguru mentioned that police response has been relatively restrained compared to the kind of riots taking place. He is absolutely correct on this point. One need not go to far back in history just compare this with how 36 people were shot dead by Police after Baba Ram Rahim's followers rioted in Haryana in 2017. Now consider at the Police action in Jamia Milia Islamia university. Sadhguru mentioned that if students pelt stones then won't police enter the university to control the crowds. A lot of noise has been created in police action in Jamia Millia. It must be noted that even courts have not entertained such motivated arguments of police excesses. It is interesting to note that police has sought access to the CCTV footage from the University which has still not been provided to them. What's the justification for this denial? What is there to hide? Sadhguru is again correct in saying that police action was going to happen when there is rioting and even innocents will unfortunately get caught in this action.

5) Sadhguru is correct when he says that rumour are being spread that Muslims will lose their Citizenship because of CAA. This is a malicious propaganda that many people including students have fallen for. If they simply read the act they will know this is not the case. Thus act simply provides a faster path to citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from 3 Islamic states. Does not affect ant Indian citizen. Does not adversely affect anybody's case for seeking citizenship of India under existing process.

6) Sadhguru was asked about NRC so he responded with his views about it how every nation needs to know who its legal citizens are. It is obvious this is needed. He mentioned that for proving citizenship by birth several documents can be accepted. People are arguing they don't have documents. So he question who are these people who have no ID documents. How is it possible for people in this day and age to have no documentary proof. He further states that people who don't have documents can produce witnesses. The possible list of documents can clearly be deduced based in Assam NRC. Spokesperson of home ministry has recently tweeted that witnesses may be considered for illiterate people who don't have documents and a process around that be created. So Sadhguru's entire reply to the question on CAA-NRC is absolutely correct. Those trying to nitpick are dishonest and reflect the same kind or media propaganda journalism that has spread disinformation on CAA in the country.

Information War on Citizenship Act

In the past couple of weeks, the kind of reporting we have seen in Indian and in world media backed by several motivated academicians and politicians on the recent amendment to Indian’s Citizenship Act, can only be described as an Information War, that has been unleashed on the Indian state. It is well known that the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party is seen as a right-wing nationalist party. In India it is seen as a party with primarily Hindu voter base. In international media it is often described as a Hindu nationalist party which in their eyes is a negative portrayal. The ideological opposition to BJP is well entrenched in the left leaning English media in India and also in similarly inclined western media. In general, western media has a negative view of India as a result of cold war dynamics of the past, but off late with the political rise of BJP in India, they have a particularly negative view about India under BJP government.

Various reasons can be attributed to this entrenched opinion. Political positions viewed as right wing are automatically disliked by self-described left liberal media. Influence of Christian evangelical organizations on western and even local Indian media is another factor, since these organizations see the BJP as a less conducive to their evangelical project in India. Similar motive can be attributed to media organizations under influence of Islamic evangelical organizations and Islamic countries. When such motivations are at play then its is almost impossible to expect reasonable analysis of events in India from these media organizations. Their criticism however is often cloaked in the language of liberalism, pluralism, women’s rights, democratic values etc.

There is also a set of Indian urban population which has primarily grown cut off from the civilizational ethos of India under the influence of an education system that specializes in turning the mindset of people away from anything that is culturally Indian in general and Hindu in particular. There is a belief in this population that being less Indian, less Hindu is somehow being more modern. This population has long considered itself to be the guardian of “Indian secularism”. A term which is as difficult to define if not more, than the term Hindutva or Hindu-ness which BJP espouses. In this scenario those who consider themselves anti-Hindutva also consider themselves to be the sole guardians of secularism in India. This group is most turned off by the “Hindu nationalist” image of BJP and views every action by BJP with suspicion. They are also most easily influenced by the western media being English speaking themselves. Many among them consider themselves global citizens who happen to hold an Indian passport.

This urban Indian population especially students of humanities discipline in Indian universities have been under influence of certain ideological groups namely Ambedkarites, extreme Marxist, Islamists and to a lesser degree evangelical Christian groups. The influence of last of these is most subtle since it is not explicitly in Christian fundamentalist terms in most Indian universities but instead in the language of western universalism. This student population has seen BJP as antitheses of what they understand should be the future direction of India. With rise of BJP and loss of political space in electoral democracy to these ideologies they have chosen to combine forces in campus politics by projecting their most extreme form on impressionable college students who are easier to mould towards these ideologies due to a fertile ground created by absence of civilizational knowledge and cultural awareness. In short due to a lack of emic perspective in the humanities education in India these students are most prone to be turned towards these ideologies that are often described as breaking India forces (read Breaking India by Rajiv Malhotra, Aravindan Neelakandan) since they see the cultural underpinnings of India and the mainstream culture as oppressive and worthy of being thrown out.

Some of the recent political decisions by the BJP government like the law banning Muslim practice of triple divorce, curb on foreign funding of Indian NGOs which either work for evangelical purposes or influencing Indian political process, the revocation of article 370 which gave a separate constitution to the J&K state and the judicial decision on Ayodhya Ram temple case which went in the favour of Hindus, left these ideological groups completely shattered. It was unexpected by them that these important issues on which they had staked their entire existence had gone out of their hands completely. They were confident that no Indian government will be able to change the constitutional status of J&K, that their case on Ayodhya Ram temple was undefeatable and that no government will be able to touch the Muslim personal laws. They considered these issues to be the touchstone of Indian secularism and set back on these issues hurt their cause greatly.

Under this back drop one must see another issue that these forces see as important which is the status of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in India. Whether you look at the liberal left, or the Islamist both see that inaction by GOI in the problem of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants is the happy state of affairs. No government in past had been able to deal with this problem even when there was a widespread movement in Assam to deal with this problem of forced demographic change in north eastern states especially Assam. One of the reasons for this inaction was the difficulty of dealing with this problem without also affecting the Bangladeshi Hindu population which had come to Indian since the 1971 genocide of Bengali Hindus. It is now well known that 80% of the 10 million refugees of the Bangladesh war that came to India were Hindus so were the approximately 3 million victims who were killed in East Pakistan by the Pakistani army. It would not be wrong to say that it was genocide particularly of Bangladeshi Hindus which is easy to see if one compares the census figures of Bangladesh from the pre and post war periods. 

The recent change to the citizenship act which was done by the BJP can be seen as an attempt to solve this conundrum. How to protect the population of religious minorities from Bangladesh living in India from any legal action for deportation back to Bangladesh, where they are vulnerable, but at the same time be able to act on the illegal economic migration from Bangladesh, which has changed the demographics in North eastern states in particular, but has also led to creation of settlements of Bangladeshi populations in several cities in rest of India? This law which provides a faster path to Indian citizenship to religious minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh and prevents their deportation on grounds of illegal entry or lack of valid documents of entry is a safety net to protect this population for any future state action against illegal economic migrants living in India. A vast majority of such migrants are Bangladeshi.

This distinction between refugees escaping religious persecution a majority of whom happen to be Hindus and the illegal economic immigrants a majority of whom happen to be Muslims does not go down well for the self-described liberal secularists in India. Thus, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the expected national register for citizens which would follow was seen as the final nail in the coffin of secularism by them. They first argued that the CAA is not permitted in Indian constitution which is secular. When it is pointed out that the same constitution permits special consideration to religious minorities when its comes to freedom of operating their educational and religious institutions which Hindus don’t get, or how it is permitted for the state to provide special scholarships and run state funded educational institutions which provide reservations based on religion, how it can run a special minorities affairs ministry and can tolerate separate personal laws, these inconvenient questions are completely avoided by them. The question of legality of this law has been challenged by them in the courts, which has for now refused to stay the act and given the central government one month to respond to the objections.

Without waiting for the court decision to arrive they immediately cried foul of the motive of the government in bringing the CAA in conjunction with yet to be announced pan India National Register for Citizens. While their concern is that with the difficulty of Bangladeshi Hindu refugees being resolved by CAA the illegal Bangladeshi economic migrants now become vulnerable to state action in any future NRC, they chose to project the CAA and NRC exercise being somehow against Indian Muslims. Their weird argument was that Hindus and other religions except Muslims are protected by CAA safety net in any future NRC. Which is completely wrong since CAA is for foreign refugees not for Indian citizens. No Indian will ever choose to apply for naturalization using the CAA route just because his or her name is missed in any future NRC due to lack of any required documents. Naturalization is a longer process and will require clearance by intelligence agencies etc. If such an application is rejected that this person will be left in the lurch despite being an Indian citizen for several generations. It would be utterly foolish for an Indian national to do this rather than produce a community certificate or witnesses from the community in lieu of government issued ID. This was also clarified by spokesperson of the home ministry.

On this rumour that NRC+CAA combine will disenfranchise Indian Muslims in particular they ran a nation-wide campaign against CAA. In this media war the central government of India was projected as being of fascist intent that wishes to put Muslims in detention camps also called in some circles as concentration camps. Such absurd claims and hijacking of the movement by radical Islamists lead to large scale rioting in several urban centers of the country with higher concentration of Muslims. The international media outlets have carried front page articles, editorials and oped criticizing the Citizenship Amendment Act as a “Muslim ban”. When the reality is that it simply provides a faster path and easier process for naturalization to persecuted religious minorities from 3 Islamic countries in the subcontinent. It does not take away any opportunity for anyone no matter what their background on seeking Indian citizenship by naturalization etc by the existing process. What they have described as an action being taken by India for the first time is also not correct. While there was no law as such, it has been the policy of GOI to give special consideration to religious minorities from Pakistan in particular for providing then Indian citizenship by registration or naturalization. It has been seen a commitment by post partition India to provide a refuge to people escaping the Islamic state created in India after partition. This was provided specifically to the non-Muslim communities coming from Pakistan. One is not able to fathom how the executive action remains in the realm of secularism even if favours a particular religion but a legislative action is suddenly a threat to the secular principles of the state.

Given the level of misinformation that is being spread on this issue in India as well as world over, one is struck by the vulnerability of the Indian state to information war of this kind. No matter how many clarifications are given by several quarters, whether state institutions or private individuals, the rumour and the fear mongering around it refuses to die. Riots and protests by university students against the CAA continue unabated. Several lives have been lost, corers of rupees of public property has been damaged and India’s reputation abroad is tarnished in the campaign which has flimsy factual grounds. While one would have understood the academic disagreement on the approach or the legal questions raised on the Law which could have been discussed and resolved in rational manner, the irrational public outrage at display has every marking of an information war that the Indian state needs to better prepare itself for and be able to pre-empt and counter in future, through appropriate communication strategy. The grip of combined breaking India forces on Indian universities is also a cause for worry and the long-term security risk for India that needs to be solved by introducing the emic perspective in Humanities education and making it the mainstream perspective rather than the fringe perspective it currently is. It is only though giving primacy to civilizational knowledge systems in humanities education can this be done. Which is of course another battle ground for the “secularists” who will resist it at every level in the name of it being Hindu.

Citizenship Amendment Act 2019

We have witnessed a sea change in the approach of National Democratic Alliance government since the 2019 election towards addressing issues that have been long in the election manifesto of BJP, compared to the previous five years. Many people were expecting that 2019 general elections will produce a much reduced mandate in the backdrop of the state assembly results in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan which were held just before the general elections. But the mandate received by the NDA was much bigger than last term. We have seen that not just in Lok Sabha but also in Rajya Sabha NDA has been able to muster a majority with the help of parties which are not in formal alliance with BJP, like Biju Janata Dal and AIADMK.

With this stronger mandate from the people of the country, BJP has found itself in a position to implement the long held promises in its manifesto. We have seen the long awaited scrapping of Article 370 which was seen as unexpected in terms of the swiftness with which it was executed. While the dust had not yet settled on Article 370, NDA went ahead and addressed another difficult problem of what to do about the crores of refugees from neighbouring states who have been living stateless in India for decades. Since partition of India in 1947 and the further splitting of Pakistan in 1971 after a mass genocide of East Pakistan population by Pakistani Army and its supporting militias, an overwhelming majority of whom were Hindus, there have been several waves of immigration of religious minorities from Pakistan into India.

There is almost daily news on the persecution that religious minorities face in the self declared Islamic countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. There are hardly any Sikh and Hindu citizens left in Afghanistan since the advent of Taliban. The Population of religious minorities has seen a steady decline in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Even in the population which was left after the initial population exchange at the time of partition, there has been reduction of more than 50% among the Hindus in these countries. It is no body's case that religious minorities enjoy any semblance of religious freedom in these three Islamic countries. Abduction of Hindu, Sikh and Christian minor girls and forced conversion after marriage is a common occurrence in Pakistan's Sindh province where majority of Hindu population of Pakistan lives. In Bangladesh also restrictions on Durga Puja, destruction of temples and forced occupation of property of Hindus is very common. All these of these countries are constitutionally Islamic states which discriminates against religious minorities by Law.

Religious minorities from these three countries in the subcontinent are estimated to be close to 2 crores and are living in India stateless for decades. India has given citizenship to such refugees in past via executive orders. Some of these instances have been cited during the parliamentary debate over the citizenship amendment bill. While the refugees from Pakistan have been absorbed as citizens in batches, the most contentious issue has been about the twin problem of refugees and illegal economic immigration from Bangladesh. It is no body's case that the majority Muslims from these countries can claim state oppression based on religion. The qualitative difference has to be understood that while some citizens who happen to be Muslims may face oppression because of political activism or other reason but the religious minorities face discrimination by state and by the community in large simply for "existing".

Government of India has an obligation towards its citizens to secure its borders and keep a check on illegal immigration. However it is well known fact that over the years GOI has been terribly lax in this effort. Out borders are porous and movement of people and smuggling of goods takes place with impunity. This is a result of a weak state with lopsided priorities. The primary function of the state is internal and external security, but India's spending on this is woefully low. While the socialist welfare state spends its resources and energy in running inefficient loss making public sector companies in areas where the state should simple not operate like running airlines. As a result of this lack of attention wilful or otherwise the borders have been left unsecured and a huge population of illegal migration primarily from Bangladesh has resulting in change of demographics primarily in the norther eastern states, but also in several other parts of the country.

This gordian knot which is as complex as or perhaps even more complex than article 370 had to be cut and it has been cut by the twin actions of Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) and the Nation wide register of citizens. This nation wide NRC is already part of the Citizenship Act which was added to the act in 2003 in article 14A of the act but it has not been implemented yet. The CAA 2019 essentially provides a one time amnesty to the illegal migrants who have been persecuted in these three Islamic countries in the subcontinent on the bases of their religion and form a minority population their. As has already been mentioned before there isn't much data required to be presented to prove this the religious census in these countries clearly establishes the dwindling populations of religious minorities there, in contrast with flourishing population of religious minorities in India. In fact the population of Hindus is in steady declined in India under the twin pressures of relatively slower birth rate and mostly unethical targeted religious conversion which is directed primarily towards the Hindu population. In Bangladesh in particular there has been large scale targeted persecution of Hindus. It has been established by other sources which I cite here 80% of the 10 million refugees who came to India in 1971 and 80% of estimated 3 million killed in the genocide perpetrated by Pakistan army in then East Pakistan were Hindus.

Under this backdrop of 71 genocide and the partition of the country on religious lines which left a number of religious minority populations in these Islamic states it was and continues to the be responsibility of Indian state to provide refuge to these people who were stuck on the wrong side of the border for no fault of theirs. While it is not in the interest of the Indic civilization that Indic population goes extinct in these states which were once flourishing centers of the civilization. But at the same time India cannot turn its back on these populations who have sought refuge in India and are living here as stateless and send them back to their source countries. There has been recent news of how 500 Hindus who were deported from Rajasthan to Pakistan were en-masse converted to Islam.

In treatment by the Indian state in grant of citizenship or otherwise they should not be considered at par with the illegal economic migrants. While both have entered India illegally one group has entered under threat of persecution based on religious lines and the other for economic benefit. It has been reported in 2014 that as much as 6% of the GDP of Bangladesh is the amount of remittance that the Bangladeshi workers send back home from India. They prefer India because of ease of entry and low cost of migration since they don't need to procure "Passport" etc to come to India. This number is four times of the remittance they receive from Saudi Arabia. This clearly points to the enormity of the problem of illegal immigration from Bangladesh and loss of employment opportunity to own  population in the low end labour market of India.

CAA makes this clear distinction by giving these refugees twin guarantee that they would not be deported if they belong to 6 religious minority population of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh as defined in the Act and by reducing the wait time for their naturalization from 12 years to 6 years of aggregate period of stay in India. This is all that the act does it gives a fast track process for application of citizenship of India by registration or naturalization by these refugees and protection against deportation. It does not take away any right from any one else whether Indian Citizen or a foreign national applying for the citizenship of India or seeking asylum on any grounds. It has to be understood that the refugees need to apply for citizenship. So it is possible that their application may be rejected and they may be denied citizenship. But my interpretation of the CAA 2019 is that they will still enjoy protection from deportation if they belong to religious minorities from these 3 countries as defined in CAA 2019.

Many arguments have been made that this act is against secular principles. Claims are being made that it is unconstitutional. The fundamental logic that such arguments don't answer is that if Indian state can give special rights to religious minorities in India,w can it not give special rights to the religious minorities of these countries in the process of seeking citizenship of India. How can one act be secular but other cannot be secular. The definition of word secular it self is not very well defined. Indian state regularly interfears in the matter of religious activities of Hindus who happen to be national majority but not necessarily regional majority in every state of India. So I do not quite understand how this act fails the secularism test. The individual Muslims from Af-Pak and Bangladesh can still apply for Indian citizenship via the normal process. That right has not been denied to them, only a certain section of population from these countries has been given easier process as against the usually more complex process of acquiring Indian citizenship. Various aspects of the legality of this act have been mentioned by lawyers like Harish Salve.

Some people have argued that a combination of CAA and nation wide NRC is discriminatory towards Muslim Indian citizens since compared to say a Hindu who is rejected in NRC and a Muslim who is rejected in NRC the Hindu will not be expelled but a Muslim would. This is far from the truth and stems from incorrect understanding of Citizenship act and the process of naturalization after CAA and the process of national ID both of which are part of the Citizenship act. As has been explained by home minister several time the NRC process will not look at religion of a person at all. CAA will look at religion only for foreign nationals who apply for naturalization under the new process because of religious persecution in these 3 countries. It would be a weird argument to make that a Hindu who gets excluded in NRC will not be expelled if found to be a foreigner. Only a foreigner from these three countries will logically apply for naturalization under CAA. Why would a Hindu Indian citizen whose several generations have lived in the territory of India claim to be Pakistani and then claim persecution for claiming naturalization? Why would he risk his application being rejected and ending up being truly stateless? This logic is beyond belief. But this is the main argument made by the people who oppose CAA and protest on streets.

People are rioting, op-eds are being written, placard wielding students including law student are protesting over this supposedly unequal treatment that Muslims will get since they cannot claim this illegal way of getting citizenship by naturalization and a hypothetical hair brained Hindu can. Any such attempt will only make the case weaker for such a person and the process more complicated since it will trigger more scrutiny by Intelligence Bureau and may result in a rejection of claim when a perfectly legal way of resolving this issue of lack of documents could be found if not via the executive branch of the government then by approaching judiciary.  IB director had told the JPC on Citizenship Amendment Bill that the immediate beneficiary of this act will be around 31,000 refugees who have already applied for citizenship based on religious persecution. But any future claim while not disallowed will require enhanced enquiry by both Internal and External Intelligence agencies of India.

Now that some groups have challenged the act in court we await the judgement of the Supreme court of India to see whether the Act stays as is, parts of it are struck down or all of it is struck down. But the series of violent riots that have taken place across the country and the student protest in certain colleges where they have blocked normal functioning of the colleges shows that these people are not in line with the principles of constitutional democracy and the duty of a citizen to remain peaceful during public demonstrations etc. These actions also amount to putting pressure on the courts which are hearing this matter currently. Such activities should be avoided and court should be allowed to make a judgement on all aspects of this law.

Political Decentralization - Panchayati Raj v/s State Autonomy

Abstract: Political decentralization and political autonomy are sometimes used interchangeably in arguments asserting the need for greater devolution of power in India. In this write up I argue that such linkage or casual interpretation is not in favour of healthy political discourse in India. I assert that we need to use the term Panchayati Raj and only that term when talking about grass root democracy which is desirable. But we should not look at state autonomy as a solution to some of our governance problems. State autonomy I assert is of negative consequence and leads to a nation within a nation sort of discourse which I call a kind of Satrap system not suitable for a large diverse democratic nation like ours which is unique in the world.

One of the issues at stake in our national discourse today is that of political decentralization and political autonomy which are sometimes used interchangeably. Mahatma Gandhi was a proponent of political decentralization, what he called Gram Swaraj. I do not claim to know what Gandhiji really meant by all that he said, but herein you find a statement which is revealing “the 7 lakh villages should be self sufficient as village republics”. From this statement one can draw an intuitive understanding of a model of democracy that includes the people in deciding what is best for their immediate needs, rather than one that separates the state from the people and create a situation where people are dependent on a hierarchical system of governance even for their basic needs.  

This idea is what was called Panchayati Raj and strengthening of this institution was made a part of directive principles of state policy in our constitution at the time of framing of the constitution. The 73^rd amendment of the constitution changes were made in '92 to overcome some of the reasons why Panchayati Raj Institutions(PRI) were not functioning as expected, like absence of regular elections, insufficient representation SC/ST and women, inadequate devolution of powers and lack of financial resources. As per this amendment a 3 tier system of village, block and district level panchayats are setup.  However more than 20 years after this amendment which was considered historic at that point of time the Prime Minister still had to make a speech recently urging center and states to “strengthen the panchayats” rather than be able to proudly commend them on their achievements in last 20 years. These issues are variously cited as to why the system is still not considered effective:- 

a) State governments are not devolving enough responsibilities and the center cannot force the state governments because these fall is states domain.

b) Members are not sufficiently trained and do not know their powers and responsibilities sufficiently.

c) Elected women are being represented by their husbands.

d) Non cooperation of bureaucracy

e) Major projects are implemented by the state government without involving the PRIs.

This is a short list of issues but I am sure people who are actually involved with PRIs know much better. 

Whenever I hear about the term decentralization of India being uttered especially in foreign academic circles (Sugata Bose et al) I hear it being accompanied with the term ‘autonomy’. This ‘autonomy’ is being pushed as the magic pill that will solve all of India’s problems. So for Jammu and Kashmir there is an autonomy solution, for Nagaland there is an autonomy solution and there is a domino effect of this demand in all the insurgency affected and even some non-insurgency affected states where on and off demand for autonomy are raised. Late Jyoti Basu former CM of West Bengal was a known supporter of ‘greater autonomy’ to the states especially to J&K. The greatest affront which I find in these arguments is a selective use of history to make a sweeping statement that India never had a ‘Unitary’ state and was instead always ruled as autonomous units. There are certain assumptions in this statement. The first assumption, which is incorrect, is that India today has a unitary form of government. The truth is that we are a federal state not unitary. The second assertion that India always had autonomous units is being used as a suggestion that it is good to have autonomy at state level, where the states have internal autonomy for everything and the center is limited to the triad of ‘Foreign Affairs, Defense and Finance(currency)’.  This extreme arrangement is something most people will have serious exception with. Such an arrangement with article 370 like provisions is what I would call division of India into Satraps, since this kind of autonomy is a question of sovereignty rather than governance. This leads to the notion of nation within a nation. It smells of an argument for creating various levels of sovereignty which is logical path to choose only for an outside power ruling over foreign land, the characteristic of which is leaving autocratic governors for the Satraps for indirect rule and extraction of tribute to keep the top most sovereign relevant. But this arrangement is entirely unsuitable for integration of a democratic nation. The sovereignty of the elected government of a democracy has to be absolute no only to be able to serve the interest of the people internationally but also to keep the movement of wheel of progress continuous in the entire nation as per the collective will of all the people of the country. This wheel like our notion of Dharma Chakra includes everything good that people desire in their lives. No one should be deprived of such progress which is something that can never be guaranteed in a structure with such autonomous satraps.

Autonomy has been variously proposed in the past, say with the cabinet mission plan of 1946 which was in my view rightly rejected, in J&K where we have seen the result and is being demanded today by NSCN/IM insurgents. It is considered by some as the root cause of alienation in J&K rather than the other way round as proposed by some others. It is logical to see that when such an arrangement is made, then the first thing the state government tries to do, is to limit migration to the state and turns itself into more of what I call a ‘hermit state’ within the Indian union. Citizens of the country can migrate to another country and become legal foreign nationals but can never migrate to such states within the country itself. Economic and cultural delinking of the state with the rest of the country then follows. In J&K for example the residents of the other states were referred to as Indians while the Kashmiri’s would give their regional identities more importance long before any whiff of insurgency was felt in J&K.  We have seen an incomplete integration of J&K or rather gradual separation since independence which has lead to such identity issues as we see among some Kashmirs today. There are few other states where various degrees of state subject laws apply like Nagaland, Mizoram and Sikkim. I do not think any such migration restrictions applied to India in historical times otherwise we would not have such a diverse culture and diverse population which exist in the country today. You can find many ethnic minorities in each and every state of the country which have been living in that state for centuries, where as, they may be represented as ethnic majority in some other state. This is true even in these autonomous or semi-autonomous states that we have today.

The kind of political autonomy to the states which is being talked about increasingly in foreign and also Indian ‘intellectual circles’ as a way to go forward in my view will not lead to better governance for the people. What it will lead to is autocratic state governments, regional identity politics at the cost of nationalism and national interest, marginalization of and attacks on ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious minorities of the state as has happened in J&K, strong feeling of separatism, opportunity for foreign intervention and perhaps a complete balkanization as happened to a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia. India of course is not Yugoslavia we are certainly hugely better integrated. Our integration is civilizational not just political and has occurred over several millennia. There are several threads that tie the various beads of India together; perhaps the beads themselves are made of the thread that ties them.  Using a term which Rajiv Malhotra has made famous I would say that we perhaps truly have what will be called an Integral Unity. In my view it is not possible to separate the beads without completely changing the character of India itself. Trying to break down India is a never ending exercise because there can be no two views which will match on what would constitute a truly independent and separate or autonomous part of India. You can literally break down into thousands of separate identities not just 10-15 hence balkanizing India is not going to bring any peace or prosperity for the people of the nation. Autonomy similarly will not bring any lasting peace or prosperity to the people. Even in a state like Sikkim which does not have any outside migration and has been largely successfully integrated into the Indian union we have elements of majority minority tensions existing though not very pronounced, certainly not like the kind which exists in J&K.

The political integration of India after independence done by the states ministry under Sardar Patel was the single most important political exercise in the history of post partition India. In modern times this exercise and the enactment of the constitution is what would be termed as the emergence of a Chakravartin in India. The Dharma Chakra in the tricolor is not bereft of the symbolic importance of this Chakravartin for our national integration and rule of law within our nation’s boundaries. For me the Ashoka Chakra has always been the most important symbol in our tricolor. The constitution is what guarantees that the wheel of law can move freely without interruption in our great country. This is why changes to the constitution which will make our savior and protector weaker is something we should always guard against. I am all for Panchayti Raj which I would say is a non translatable term for our kind of decentralization but I am certainly not in favour of state autonomy which will perhaps lead us back to the time of Western and Northern Satraps of historic times and the wheel of law will be found wanting in the country and leave us vulnerable to outside intervention and control.

Personal Tragedy V/S National Tragedy

When a man commits an illegal act and gets caught, it is no doubt a personal tragedy for him and his family. I am sure most people regret that they erred in their judgement. They would certainly not like to be in jail and would wish that the past act would never have taken place. Unfortunately the legal process in our country has its own pace. The under trial has to go through a long trial in the courts. For an innocent person such a trial can itself be the punishment on the other hand for the guilty it may even be an act of buying time. The Bombay blast case has gone one for 20 years. The victims of the blast have waited 20 years for justice which is still elusive because the masterminds of the blast are still beyond the reach of law.

Sanjay Dutt was convicted by the supreme court for illegal possession of banned weapons and sentenced to the minimum sentence prescribed by law. Then he along with some other accused punished for similar crime were given 1 month to surrender. Today Sanjay Dutt got another reprieve to surrender after another 4 weeks. He wanted to finish his films before going to jail to serve his sentence for which he wanted 6 months reprieve. So the court in supposedly "humanitarian grounds" gave him 4 weeks with no further extension and he accepted. All in all this whole episode gives the appearance of a bargain for delay rather than humane gesture. If the producers have money locked in on Sanjay Dutt then the question here is of money not of "humanitarian grounds". A mother who has a child appearing for his school exams probably deserves more humanitarian gesture for month delay rather than a movie actor who wants to finish his films so that he and his producers do not suffer a loss.

Whatever be the real truth, in the end this case gives an impression of deliberate delay to keep a rich, politically connected celebrity out of jail for as long as possible, rather than one of delivering justice where justice is due. Mr Dutt's claiming suffering due to inordinate delay does not cut the bill; after all Mr Dutt did not spend his years out of jail, since he was first arrested, doing national or social service to deserve a reprieve. He was busy making money, living the good life and working for entertainment of his movie loving fans. It does not quite cover for the loss that the victims of the 93' Bombay blast had to suffer. Given the circumstances under which he has been found in illegal possession of banned weapons, he has knowingly or otherwise been linked with the entire bombing episode which he should have certainly avoided.

Whatever be Sanjay's personal tragedy it does not cover for the national tragedy which people of India have collectively suffered. The court seems to have erred, but people are not pleased and the politicians along with the government of Maharashtra should be forewarned, not to act on Sanjay's mercy plea in a way which will lead to dissatisfaction among the people of Bombay, because they are in no mood to forgive.

Kashmir’s unsettled business - Don't tinker with the constitution

This post is in response to editorial "Kashmir’s unsettled business" that appeared in The Hindu of March 14, 2013. I do not agree with the conclusion of the editorial that solution to violence in Kashmir lies with what the editor has called implementing "sensible measures" in the interlocutors' report. The measures from interlocutors' report mentioned in the editorial are in my view not sensible at all. The interlocutors were sent to build bridges with population of J&K and what they are suggesting is raising even higher walls between the J&K and rest of India. One gentleman amongst them was recently quoted in Kashmiri media saying that "Kashmiris hate India like rats hate cats". The inherent contradictions in that statement not withstanding, it reflects a keenness for dramatics rather than responsibility. Such irresponsible people have come up with the most irresponsible suggestion of making article 370 permanent rather than leave it as temporary as it exists currently.

How can economic growth in J&K happen without more economic interaction with other parts of India? Would any of our larger metro cities be the engine of economic growth for us had they disallowed migration from other parts of India? The constitution of India sustains the "Idea of India". There is no peace and prosperity possible in India without this idea of India which thrives on tolerance for the other and interaction through mingling of diverse population of India is essential for experiencing the Idea of India. The root cause of alienation among the youth of J&K is that they have not experienced the meaning of what it is to be an Indian. Unfortunately the constitutional provisions given to J&K and the retrograde state subject laws are responsible for the degeneration of the politics of J&K to a communal and identity based politics. Let there be no doubt in the mind of anybody that the movement for separation in J&K among the separatist is not a movement for freedom it is a communal movement for separation and the minority population of Kashmir were the first victims of this movement. The nation within a nation concept is responsible for this movement to have gathered momentum as it did in '89 and allowed Pakistan to exploit the weakness exposed to them. 

There is good reason why article 370 was agreed to after great disagreement only as a temporary provision by the founders of our Nation. It was expected to only lead to greater integration in course of time unfortunately the integration process was not pursued vigorously and the State degenerated towards greater communal politics and regionalism. The root cause of the violence in J&K is the existence of machinery in Pakistan to wage a proxy war against India and that is the cause of disturbance in J&K ever since JKLF came into existence. We have been shying away from this root cause and have no strategic vision on how to coerce Pakistan to stop this activity. If insurgency in J&K and the destabilization that has occurred there has to be cured then the source of the arms supply and the source of training and motivation for insurgents should be neutralized first. Separatists can only be marginalized when violence and the international support including that from western countries which they get comes to an end. They cannot be marginalized with any kind of appeasement in the form of greater autonomy to the state. They have never asked for it for settlement and that will only lead to legitimizing their cause. It would be seen as step closer to eventual separation. There is no reason why Indians should start doubting our founding principle of tolerance and unity in diversity which are the basis of the Idea of India. There is everything in the constitution which guarantees equality before law and government to every citizens and nothing in the constitution that tramples on the instinct of self preservation of any individual, family or community. Political autonomy of the kind that was given in article 370 is a slow poison that has caused great stress to our integrity and political unity. There is no "sensible measure" in consuming arsenic in a panic reaction out of an unfounded fear that the only alternative is consumption of cyanide.

Kashmir - Is more autonomy the solution?

When one reads about the clamor in media for implementation of more autonomy proposal from GOI interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir one wonders if more political autonomy is a solution. The real question to ask about solution for Kashmir is to ask what are the steps that need to be taken to ensure that the Kashmiri minority which has had to escape the valley and is living like internal refugees be able to return to the valley and live in peace?

There was an article published in the Greater Kashmir newspaper published in J&K under the headline "Kashmiris hate India like rats hate cats." about a statement made by one of government appointed interlocutors. There are many contradictions in those statements and the headline in the newspaper. Saying "Kashmiris hate India" is a suggestion that India and Kashmir are separate entities. Then the generalization that Kashmiris hate India is far too casual. The interlocutors could not have met each and every Kashmiri nor would they have thoroughly analyzed all the reasons and aspects of their dislike or hatred to come to the conclusion that they hate 'India' or is it that they are filled with hate thanks to certain events of their life post 1989 cycle of violence and what is needed to get them on board is 'truth and reconciliation' not appeasement by promises of autonomy which is path to further alienation and drift from the national mainstream. What exactly about India do the ones who are filled with hatred hate? Is it that India is a secular, democratic, republic which by its constitution guarantees equal rights to all irrespective to his or her background? I doubt if any Indian can hate an India built on as noble and progressive ideal like that.

When even culturally and civilizationally independent countries of world are moving closer to each and removing barriers by creating EU and APEAC, we in India who have inherited an Idea of India which was bold and unique for its time and lead to the creation of a multi-cultural pluralistic multi-religious, multi-ethnic, secular and democratic republic for the people of the subcontinent, who are tied to each other by history of coexistence and civilizational ties over several millennia are unfortunately drifting apart due to petty regionalism and communal divisions. I am in no way a so called 'Hindu Nationalist' nor am I sympathizer of a reactionary  ideology of majority domination. I am sold to the "Idea of India" as any as might exist and with the force of those credentials I have exceptions to some of the suggestions of the interlocutors report created by the team. The most exceptional was on the Idea that Jammu and Kashmir needs more autonomy. I agree to the Idea of more decentralization of governance but not more autonomy of the kind that are contained in some of the provisions of article 370 which are so divisive and so against the Idea of India that the great makers of our constitution who under grave misgivings agreed to it only as a temporary provision. I am making an assertion that if the people of J&K are alienated today it is not because of removal of autonomy it is due to the sense of separation which was unfortunately built by the existence of such a provision for a 60 years. It does not take long to see what might happen say if you apply this article 370 to any part of India. The population of that part will forever be hostage to the regional and communal strife and identity politics rather than be on path of economic prosperity. If no outsider is allowed to become a Kashmir and adopt Srinagar or Jammu or Rajauri as home because of the retrograde state subject laws that exist there then what ties with the other regions of the country do we expect. It is 60 years of drift that had to be corrected not create a recipe for more drift. If it was the partition of Bengal and the separate electorate on the basis of religion that sowed the seeds of India's partition on religious lines then it is also the kind of constitutional provisions that were created for J&K with lead to growth of separatism in the valley.

The extermist forces in Kashmir will assassinate every voice of reason and are responsible for many a deaths including that of Maulana Showkat who had raised his voice against stone pelting by youth in 2011. There is a constant propaganda  regarding various aspects of Afzal Guru case that goes on in the local Kashmir media. While it is true that his abrupt hanging and denial of the right to his family to meet him for the last time was cruel and I second some arguments about jumping the queue but I am not sure if we can sit in judgement about the merits of the pronouncement of death sentence to him. I am not sure if not executing Afzal Guru for political reasons would serve the image of justice and law in our country either. Can we trust nothing in this country not even the highest court? Can we go on delaying carrying out court judgments for political reasons? How do we propose to fight extremism? By cowing down to it or by addressing the reasons for it.

Finally I would like to say that any solution to the difficulties in Jammu and Kashmir lies in more integration not less. Sikkim  has been successfully integrated in India and is today not only showing high economic growth and lower poverty levels but is peaceful and comfortable both in its regional and national identity. The reason why the Moists extremists of Nepal were not able to fan the flames of the Greater Nepal movement is a testament to its successful integration. I am in no way expecting that the entire article 370 can be abruptly removed but giving more autonomy to the State government is certainly a step in the wrong direction. More decentralization can be attempted and the state gov can be encouraged to implement some of the panchayat governance reforms which are clearly helpful in winning the hearts and minds of the people which is quite evident from the assassination of the sarpanchs by extremist forces. We should be doing everything that the extremist forces do not want us to do while keeping in mind that we do not wish to take steps that lead to less integration.

As a thought experiment I would say what are the steps that need to be taken to ensure that the Kashmiri minority which has had to escape the valley and is living like internal refugees be able to return to the valley and live in peace. We don't need to heed to divisive forces but answer to the steps that lead to improvement of the lives of ordinary citizens and marginalize the very vocal separatist and extremist forces. In a talk show organized by noted Pakistani progressive writer and editor Tahir Gora has given a forum to Kashmiri minority and Kashmiri Muslim participants to discuss the problems of the minorities and what is the reason they feel has lead to this alienation in Kashmir. There in lies the real solution unfortunately no one in India is listening.

The Idea of India and Kashmir

The separatists in Kashmir valley which gain publicity with every disturbance in Jammu and Kashmir reflect a sense of alienation which is very real in the valley. Yet every time the valley erupts a common Indian wonders why the Kashmir valley is in such a turmoil and exactly which freedom did the Kashmiris not enjoy in their history since independence that any other Indian did enjoy. In my view there have been two over lapping trends of alienation in Jammu and Kashmir. The first trend is the pre-89' trend and the second trend is the post-89' alienation. In order to exploit the pre-89 trend and the unfortunate event of the 1987 elections which were widely believed to be rigged the Pakistani establishment used its lessons from Afghanistan to engineer conditions for destabilization in the valley. When militant and terrorist activity increased and the state government appeared to be incapable of dealing with the disturbance on its own it lead to a response from central security forces and the army which unfortunately has lead to the conditions of post-89' alienation where the population of the state has begun to see themselves living under a police state with several alleged incidents of human rights abuses by the security forces which have gone unpunished.

The violence in Jammu and Kashmir and the failure of our institution to restore peace without excessive use of force leads to incidents of police shootings of protesting mobs and a cycle of violence which erupts once in a while even to this day. There have been various claims by the human rights activists in the state of events where torture, disappearances and civilian killings in crossfire have taken place. Allegation of rapes have also been made against the security forces. But these are part of the post-89' alienation. I would like to address here what has lead to this unfortunate end in the first place. This is a story of 40 years of alienation of the state and particularly the valley which became a happy hunting ground for communal extremism and Pakistan sponsored terrorism. Since independence the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been governed by a different set of laws compared to the rest of India. The fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizen of the country do not apply to the state the regressive state subject laws deny the right to 99% of Indian citizens which are not permanent residents of the state from acquiring property in the state and migrating to that state. A woman marrying a permanent resident of J&K becomes a permanent resident of Jammu and Kashmir but no other citizen of India except those born to permanent residents of the state can become state subjects.

Right to property of the state subjects only leads to a situation where very few Kashmirs in the valley have experienced growing up with people from the rest of India as neighbours. The Idea of India where every citizen of India can live with dignity and right to life and property requires that all citizens are treated equally before the law. The citizens of various states with varying ethnic, religious, linguistic upbringings share their future in the Idea of India in which tolerance for the other and respect for various religious and cultural traditions is a must. The Idea of India has a  natural resonance for the subcontinent which is the most diverse in the world. India is a unique country to call itself home for such a diverse groups of people. People of India have a history of coexistence over a millennia. A coexistence which has been brought about by migration and  contact over thousands of years. The republic of India has been built around this Idea of India and it forms the spirit of India.

No human is born a Muslim or a Hindu or Christian every human child has to be raised as a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian. Similarly while every child born in India to either parents being Indian citizen acquires the citizenship of India by law however he or she confers to the Idea of India when he is raised as an Indian. The child has to experience the Idea of India to be raised as an Indian that experience comes from growing up with the friends and neighbours with different background. By going to school where the Idea of India is both experienced in the form of the diversity experienced in India and also this Idea of India is taught by teachers who belong to diverse backgrounds. This is the most essential experience that when a child is deprived of, then the Idea of India does not take root in his or her mind.

Since Independence in Jammu and Kashmir the retrograde state subject laws have been perpetuated. This law was create by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir in 1927 to disallow non state subjects from purchasing property. After independence the same law has resulted in denying other state residents from acquiring property in Jammu and Kashmir. In the 70's a  law was created by state government to allow resettlement of Pakistani citizens of the region of erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan's control back to the Indian state of J&K, but at the same time high walls have been created to disallow residents from other states of the country from acquiring property in the state of J&K. This highly discriminatory law has lead to a situation where an entire population of Jammu and Kashmir has been denied the experience of the Idea of India and the entire population of other states of India have been deprived of the right to become residents of J&K and participate in the economic and cultural growth of the state.

Such divisive laws and a constitution of Jammu & Kashmir which give rise to communal and identity divisions in the state have resulted in extremist forces taking over the erstwhile secular traditions of the state. Root cause of the alienation of the youth of Kashmir valley is the denial of the Indian experience of unity in diversity to them not the devolution of autonomy as is being projected by some political parties in the state.

Justice, Laws and The Normal

In any society there is a common understanding of what is just. That definition may not always be written down in law. But it is understood to be the way it is. That common understanding of delivering justice, the way things have been accepted to be is what I am calling The Normal. The normal is different for different societies. What is acceptable in one society is not acceptable in another. The same society also evolves (or devolves?) and then establishes a new normal.

What is written down in law may have been debated and discussed and with application of mind and what is called jurisprudence may have been incorporated in the law. But the society will change. Depending on how well the law is honoured or how well it is implemented the law will have an effect on the society or it will loose its effect on the society and become irrelevant. But the society will always have a normal, it will establish a new normal. This is what is explained in the scriptures when the scripture define the Yugs,  Sat-Yug, Treta Yug, Dwapar-Yug, and the Kal-Yug. Every Yug had its own normal. What is acceptable in one Yug was not acceptable in a previous Yug. The Sat-Yug was supposed to be an ideal, something that is always aspired but can never be achieved again, every subsequent Yug is a result of devolution of values.

In modern society, law is supposed to have evolved and got better with time. The murderous society of a war torn African country with people living in an environment of ethnic strife, or the country of Afghanistan, has a different normal from the normal of a peaceful society. To an outsider it does not have a rule of law. But is always has a normal of how to get justice in the day to day life of the people. Because justice is separate from law. Law is supposed to deliver justice but law is not justice. Law comes from outside from deliberation, from application of mind, from conventions, from an understanding of justice which people writing the law have. Justice comes from within. Each one of us is born with inherent sense of what is just and a sense of victim hood comes from being denied that justice. Individual seeks justice despite what is the rule of law. 

Even a child has a sense of just and unjust what changes is his acceptance of just and unjust and that acceptance comes from the understanding of the normal. The child as he grows comes to know the normal. What is the normal is taught to the child. The society teaches it. Many a times the child sees a contradiction between what is being taught and what he sees really exists as the normal. The child also has his sense of justice within. That inherent sense evolves as the child grows.That leads to conflict and confusion. The child chooses his convictions as the child discovers the world. To progress like a river the child chooses his contours. But the child always has to work within the normal. Child grows into a man with a full understanding of what is the normal in the society he is part of.

The written law is separate, its effect on society is varied, the normal is the reality, justice is separate. When man faces injustice then man will seek justice within the normal. If the normal follows the written law the man will follow the written law if normal is different from written law man will still follow the normal. Justice is sought within the normal. It is a separate matter that justice may not be achieved by someone because seeking justice within the normal is beyond his means and so the person lives with injustice. But if justice has to be sought in that society then it has to be sought within the normal else there will be no justice received because the laws if they exist may be separate from the normal. So in Afghanistan if normal is to use gun violence and justice has to be sought then gun violence has to be used there is no rule of another law.

Question arises what is the normal in our country? What is the effect of written law on the country's normal? If the normal is to pay bribes as a matter of convention to get things done then the normal will have to be followed. Justice here involves exploitation as bribes. This is the normal and this normal will be followed. It is not deniable that the limit of justice served is defined by the limit of the justice that exists in the normal. A person's possession is stolen the normal is to pay some bribe to get the possession back then justice here within the normal is the stolen possession minus the bribe. That justice may not be perfect but that is the justice as best it can be. Let me remind again normal is separate from law.

Is the normal just is a question for individual, because let me repeat justice is separate from the normal which is separate from the law. How can normal change? Society can evolve or society can devolve. Devolving is easy, if simply let be it will weather and devolve. When power accumulates within sections and individuals the society devolves because the justice is denied to the weak and a new normal is formed. Or when unjust convention replaces law and widespread agencies implementing law fail then societies devolve and form a new normal. How do societies evolve? When laws are written and improved and the improved laws are delivered and implemented then the normal evolves. The normal also changes when there is disruption. The disruption by definition is abrupt, evolution by definition is gradual. The disruption can be peaceful or the disruption can be violent. But when to change the normal evolution is not working may be disruption is required. 

What is our current normal in India? How just is it? Justice will be sought by an individual, because sense of justice is inherent to an individual. Justice will be sought, either within the normal or if normal is still unjust then the normal will be disrupted. In order to achieve a better normal the process of evolution should deliver. That process is the legislature. The effectiveness of the implementation by the law enforcement (police and judiciary) is how best the normal emulates the written law. Improvement in enforcement evolves the new normal, corrosion in enforcement devolves the normal. Openness in a society raises red flags when the normal is devolving. Openness in society shows the gap that exists between the normal and the written laws. 

If the usual process of evolution fails then disruption of the normal has to be achieved through a different path. Peaceful we hope in the Indian context because, justice comes from within, and every person seeks justice.

WAL-MART - Something's Not Right

The day following Thanksgiving Day which is popularly called Black Friday is the day on which retailers in USA log there biggest single day sales. Huge discounts are customary, shops open in the wee hours of the day and shopper queue up all night in front of the stores for them to open in order to be the first to take advantage of the limited stock available on discounts.

Having witnessed the craze first hand myself, I know how packed the stores can be on this day and how difficult it becomes for the staff to cope up with the rush of customers. Living in India I would have never imagined that people could queue up all night simply to shop but then USA is not India. But guess what who is potentially likely to be a big looser on this shopping festival come November 23rd this year. It is the biggest retail of the world of our times and human history. WAL-MART has been threatened with a nation wide strike on November 23rd by its workers protesting low wages and questionable labour practices.


Labour unrest against WAL-MART has been brewing in the USA for a long time now. I had earlier written on my post about the public protests that WAL-MART's business practices have invited even in the developed countries where WAL-MART has a big presence. The latest episode of unrest has the potential to cutoff WAL-MART from the years biggest single day shopping festival in the USA. 

Both The Hindu and The Economic times carried stories on this threat issued by the workers of WAL-MART. The story was released by PTI but guess what caught my eye. The same PTI story had also appeared else where ad verbatim on NDTV website but the economic times article which never appeared on the print version at least I could not find it. My apologies if it appeared but I missed it. It may have been an honest mistake but let me reproduce the portion missing from ET report.

"Hector Sanchez, executive director of the Labour Council for Latin American Advancement alleged that as the largest employer of African Americans, women and Latinos, Walmart, through its low wages, lack of benefits, and discriminatory employment policies, is eroding the foundation that the middle class was built upon.

In another statement, “Our Walmart” said that workers from stores throughout the Dallas area, went on strike on Tuesday in the first-ever Walmart Associate walk-out in Dallas, protesting attempts to silence, and retaliate against workers for speaking out for improvements in the job.

Walmart workers from stores in Miami, the DC-area, Sacramento, Southern California and the Bay-area are also walking off the job, it added."

So the report is saying that a labour council head is alleging discrimination against the economically weaker sections of the society by employing them on such low wages that it denies them economic progress. WAL-MART does not recognize labour unions of its employees in the USA and has been accused of using hard tactics to prevent unionization of its labour force. There is also a statement from "Our Walmart" a Walmart workers group not recognized by WAL-MART that worker had already gone on strike in Dallas area against attempts to block them from raising working condition issues.

So that's the story of note about WAL-MART as it is unfolding in the USA. In India meanwhile a different story is emerging, one which potentially involves the government. Let me give you some back ground on it. I had written in a previous post about the Delhi High court notice to the government in July this year in response to a PIL filed by Ms Vandana Shiva a noted environmental activist alleging FDI norm violations by WAL-MART. FDI in multi-brand retail was allowed only subsequently in September this year. After the union government's decision to allow FDI Ms Vandana Shiva withdrew the PIL on 3rd October. Recently CNN IBN has reported on the same story on 10th October raising a question whether WAL-MART and Bharti violated the FDI norms as they existed then.

The alleged violation is that Cedar Support Services(earlier known as Bharti Holding Ltd) which operates multibrand retail for Bharti under Easy Day brand changed its charter of operation in 2009 to enable it to provide real estate consultancy services. Since consultancy services businesses are allowed foreign investment up to 100% via the automatic route the CNN IBN report alleges that roughly USD 100 million were invested by WAL-MART in Ceder Support Services in the form of debenture convertible to equity. The conversion date was earlier Sep 2011 and it was extended to Sep 2012 i.e. the same month and year when multi-brand retail FDI policy was changed by the government. On conversion WAL-MART will as per the report own 49% stake in the company. Figures of interest to note here as per the CNN report USD 100 million which is about same as the GOI policy on Multi brand FDI, it may be a mere coincidence but WAL-MART looks like got the figures just right . Ceder is also reported to have invested the entire proceeds in Bharti Retail.

CNN report raises suspicion that WAL-MART and Bharti have used circuitous route to get around the policy as it existed then and only ex post facto policy changes have made it legal for them to have done so. That begs the question whether companies can use questionable business practices to get an edge on their competition by flouting legal norms in anticipation of a subsequent change in law which will allow their business competitors to enter the market. 

Yesterday I raised an email query to Ms Vandana Shiva as to what prompted here to withdraw the PIL I got a reply from her stating "Our case was based on FDI in retail not being allowed. Now it is allowed. And we need to reframe the case for the new policy context.". As a concerned citizen I hope she is able to 're frame' her PIL and submit it, although I doubt it will happen. Today ET reported that PMO has asked DIPP under the commerce ministry to probe into the alleged violations. This appears like a clear case of passing the buck by the Prime Minister; if he was really serious of a probe then he should have ordered it when the PIL was filed and the issue was brought to his attention by his parliament colleague M P Achuthan, not after the FDI norms were already changed in favor of WAL-MART. The same commerce ministry which is probably involved in the murky affair will now probe its own dealings. 

In the same article ET mentions "According to its balance sheet for the year ended December 2011, Cedar Support had a capital of Rs 899.15 crore that included share capital of Rs 443.15 crore from Bharti Ventures and a Rs 455.80-crore CCD investment by Walmart. Almost the entire amount (approx Rs 862 crore) had been invested in the Bharti Retail through investments and loans, the documents show."

The same company has been recently caught red handed trying to hush up a bribery scandal involving its officials in Mexico. Something is really very fishy here and I doubt if we will have any closure on this. WAL-MART it appears has successfully managed to impose itself on the people of this country when there was no popular support to Retail FDI and by manipulating the system it appears to have beaten its competition in the race to enter the country. This whole affair gives me another reason why I don't support Retail FDI.

Cost of Pranab Mukharjee’s presidency - FDI and Tax Avoidance

The exit of President Pranab Mukharjee from the Finance Ministry had wider implications that just making sure that Congress could get its own candidate installed in the Rashtrapati Bhawan. We have a situation now that government finds itself in a position to bring about a change in several proposal brought about by the Finance Ministry under Mr Mukharjee since he is out of the picture and Mr Chidambaram is on the helm.

The relation between Mr Mukharjee's exit and the push for reforms, and the push to revert some of the Tax Law changes that the same government had introduced in the first place is not lost on anyone. This points to the fact that the economic policies which are made in our country are not made simply based on logic and are not made just with the best interest of the country in mind, but there is a constant tug of war between various lobbies and interests groups which drive their creation and implementation. Is it the case that we are being governed by an immature polity that does not deliberate the implication of any government policy in a non partisan manner without the influence of self interest? Are we not making policies which are the 'common good' of the citizen of this country? That is what a democracy should be about.

One of the changes to Tax Laws which Mr Pranab Mukharjee had introduced was the retrospective amendment to India's Tax Laws to plug a loop hole which had allowed foreign companies avoid paying capital gains tax on sale of Indian assets. This was introduced to ensure that foreign tax havens cannot be used the avoid paying tax in India. A lot of hue and cry was raised by Vodafone, foreign investors, Indian industry and foreign governments. It seems there would be attempts made by the new dispensation in the government to make further amendments in the next parliament session to address the concerns of these bodies.

For me the question is not whether tax laws were amended retrospectively to increase the tax liability of a foreign entity which would be termed unfair and hence 'hurt' the investment sentiment. The question to me is whether loop holes in tax laws were deliberately exploited for tax avoidance in past. Then the question is whether tax laws should have been amended retroactively to correct a past wrong. If a wrong has been committed in the past and parliament has power to correct it then it sends a signal that unintended loop holes should not be exploited to avoid tax. If it leads to discouraging investment from entities which will only invest if such exploitation is possible then so be it. We are not a tax haven. We are a welfare state with duties towards our citizens. We have a policy to tax the rich more than we tax the economically weaker sections of our society. So was a past wrong done, that is the question, not 'sentiment' of investors who want to avoid  tax which is due, a sentiment which is only short term anyway. What is the length to which we are willing to go for FDI?

The second issue is about General Anti Avoidance Rules that were introduced in the Direct Tax Code by Mr Mukharjee. The new dispensation has managed to change that also. A committee was established by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to look at the GAAR provisions since the investors were not satisfied with it.The committee headed by Mr Pathasarthi Shome has recommended in September this year that GAAR be deferred by 3 years as against the deferment which was already provided by Mr Mukharjee till 2013 to allow for 'training of tax officers'. The fact that GAAR is necessary to weed out the tax evasion which is being perpetrated via Mauritius and other tax havens is not lost on anyone. The tiny country of Mauritius is the single largest investor in India. It has been reported in past that many companies which invest in India from Mauritius have only nominal presence there. Hence the recommendation of the committee to remove the 'genuineness of residency' guideline from GAAR will only lead to continued exploitation of Mauritius root simply for tax avoidance. The committee even recommended abolishing capital gains tax in listed securities and replacing the loss of tax income by increasing STT. In my understanding this will clearly lead to passing the burden to smaller investors and short term traders while providing a great way for existing investors to avoid paying any tax.

Inviting FDI in sectors we need it in is well justified, but encouraging tax havens not only means that foreign investors will avoid tax when it is genuinely due, but in many cases black money earned in India itself would be invested back in India via these havens. At least  that is my understanding about these issues. But then the current dispensation seems to be driven by different motives than the previous dispensation. The policies in our country are personality driven and affected by pressures from self interest groups rather than driven by other nobler motives. I read a scathing criticism of these Shome committee recommendation in the Hindu editorial of 2nd September 2012.