March 2016 Archives

Cynical Use of President’s Rule Exposes the BJP’s Desperation

The use of Article 356 was almost erased from our collective political memory. All the unsavoury institutional memories of a distant past are now being revived with a vengeance by a floundering regime.

The use of Article 356 was almost erased from our collective political memory. All the unsavoury institutional memories of a distant past are now being revived with a vengeance by a floundering regime.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat: outmanoeuvred. Credit: PTI.

On the face of it, it is hard to fathom why the Centre would commit political harakiri by imposing President’s rule in Uttarakhand, which is due for assembly elections early next year. Couldn’t the BJP have waited another 10 months and worked on the anti-incumbency sentiments generated by the Congress government headed by Harish Rawat? Conventional political strategists would have advised that imposing Article 356 would work against the BJP and generate sympathy for the incumbent — which may now turn out to be the case.

Yet the BJP has decided to take that political risk by dismissing an elected government, the way it did in Arunachal Pradesh. Of course, in both cases the Congress showed its weakness by not being able to manage rebels within its ranks. It appears that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP party president Amit Shah have adopted a conscious and cynical strategy of wreaking havoc on a regular basis in the main opposition camp, even if it flies in the face of constitutional propriety. In a way, both of them are thinking in unconventional terms that do not fall into the pattern of received political wisdom.

The BJP seems confident that it can constantly change goalposts and control the political narrative. The party seems emboldened in this respect by its own assessment that it has gained from recent debate generated on the nature of nationalism India must adopt. Of course, all such political assessments will have to be validated by about half a dozen state elections over the next one year, culminating in the all important Uttar Pradesh polls. The trend so far is that the BJP is losing, on average, about 5 percentage points from its Lok Sabha vote share in every state election since.

BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi: playing disruptive politics on ground. Credit: PTI

It is possible that the BJP leadership has internalised this reality and is attempting something wildly different, not hitherto attempted in Indian politics. It appears to have decided that it will play totally disruptive politics on the ground, even if it militates against constitutional morality. There is a clear pattern emerging in the way the Centre has dealt with Arunachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand. In both places, the Centre had the option of letting a conventional floor test happen to decide the majority in the assembly. But it chose not to do so, on one pretext or other. In the process, the Centre is also seriously damaging institutional processes. This is the biggest danger our polity faces today.

In this sense, what happened in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand goes well beyond a mere power struggle between the two main political parties. Important institutions are being subverted in the cause of wanton political disruption by the current dispensation. The raid on Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal’s office must also be seen in this light; it was not just a simple case of the CBI investigating a chief secretary. Whatever happened to that case? The ways in which the BJP works could possibly put Machiavelli to shame.

To witness piety as an afterthought, you only have to hear the narrative of BJP General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargia who was assigned the task of talking to nine Congress rebels in Uttarakhand. He told The Indian Express a few days ago, “I was told by the party to go to Uttarakhand and analyse the political situation there. Some people who wanted the state government to fall approached us and said that they wanted to join the BJP. They gave me documents which showed what the present government is doing there. The forest mafia, land mafia, mining mafia and alcohol mafia, they are all active in the state, and these people approached me with proof of this. So we reached an agreement that during the last session of the Vidhan Sabha, when a money Bill would be taken up, we would demand a floor test, and if they (the Congress rebels) voted in our favour, then the government would collapse.” Have you ever heard of such ‘transparent’ and ‘principled’ deals taking place in politics? Vijayvargia wants us to believe the Congress rebels just walked over because the BJP offered them an opportunity for principled politics!

Truth is it was the BJP’s political machinations which forced the Congress chief minister to “buy back” his own rebels, and he was allegedly caught on camera doing so. It is quite evident that the Congress party is nowhere as efficient or competent as the BJP in dealing with such situations. Moreover, there is hardly any scope for display of morality in such cynical times. Ironically, Kailash Vijayvargia, who was incharge of Uttarakhand operations and spoke of the forest and mining mafia in Uttarakhand, himself comes from Madhya Pradesh where the higher education and public recruitment mafia are still at large in a post-Vyapam scam scenario.

Currently, the BJP is focusing on destabilising the Congress governments. It has also tried to disrupt other opposition governments who have displayed a mind of their own. Barely six months into power at the centre, the BJP made a serious attempt to stoke rebellion in the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) ranks in Orissa. And this after Naveen Patnaik had won unprecedented victories in both Lok Sabha and assembly elections. The BJD legislators closed ranks behind the chief minister.

In another instance, fresh from the Lok Sabha victory, Amit Shah had publicly declared he would throw Mamata Banerjee out of power. However, Mamata further consolidated her votes in local body and panchayat elections last year. In most states, including in Uttarakhand, the non-BJP parties have consolidated votes in local elections over the past year.

This is the main cause of BJP’s frustration. It cannot accept that the party’s vote share had peaked in 2014 and its decline is inevitable. Its economic performance has been below par and most of its big promises in regard to job creation and higher incomes for farmers, among others, are still far from being met. The overall economy too hasn’t taken off yet. Signs are it will remain tepid for another year. It is these circumstances which seem to be driving the ruling party into taking precipitate and risky actions like dismissal of elected governments on one pretext or the other.

Simultaneously, the attempt to force a change in the political discourse via debates on nationalism exposes a weakness rather than strength. There is no evidence yet that the BJP’s narrow nationalism campaign will impress the alienated Dalits and middle peasants of rural India, some of whom voted for Modi in 2014. Even as the ruling party goes about its motion of attempting some wild political experiments, the gravest risk is to established institutions of our federal polity which the opposition and civil society must protect from being damaged. The use of Article 356 was almost erased from our collective political memory. All the unsavoury institutional memories of a distant past are now being revived with a vengeance by a floundering regime.

Perching Birds See Twice as Fast as We Do

Scientists found that blue tits, collared flycatchers and pied flycatchers can notice flickers as fast as 140 Hz. How would a speeding Usain Bolt look for them?

Animals do the most amazing things. Read about them in this series by Janaki Lenin.

A flycatcher spotted in Lawrence, Kansas. Credit: davedehetere/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

My husband leaned against the outside wall of our house, his arm supporting his weight. Just as he changed position, a common kingfisher shot like a bullet through the narrow space between his neck and the wall. We often wonder what would have happened had he not moved at that instant. Would he have been stabbed in the neck by the bird’s dagger-like beak?

When pursued by raptors, fast-flying birds zip through the woods, ducking branches and swerving around tree trunks. Flycatchers and drongos spot erratically flying insects and go after them with speed and accuracy. Not only do they match their prey’s acrobatics without suffering from motion blur, they predict the flight path of insects, and nab them at a point in space where they expect they will be. Rarely do they go out of control and crash headfirst like speeding motorists. Nor do they collide with obstacles that suddenly appear, like the many accidents that occur each year around the world.

Scientists from Uppsala University, Stockholm University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden, investigated the eyesight of three passerine birds. Passerines are a group of perching birds that have three forward-facing toes and one back-facing one. Many of them are songbirds.

Among them are the blue tits, collared flycatchers and pied flycatchers. Why did the researchers pick them? “There was ongoing research on blue tit behaviour at Stockholm University’s Tovetorp research station in Södermanland,” explains Anders Ödeen of Uppsala University, senior author of the paper. They knew the birds could be trained for experimental tasks and that inspired more research. “We chose to work with flycatchers partly because they are more dependent on catching insects for survival, a behaviour that likely selects for high temporal resolution, and partly because after decades of research on pied flycatchers and collared flycatchers, we know the ecology and genetics of these species.”

While blue tits are insectivorous only during the breeding season, collared flycatchers and pied flycatchers hawk insects throughout the year. The scientists looked at the number of changes the birds can perceive per second. The measure is called temporal resolution.

Researchers suspect small, agile birds would have fast vision. Since the birds are small, they can be extremely manoeuvrable. Their high metabolic rates ought to allow fast changes in the photoreceptor membrane of their eyes. The researchers predicted the birds would perceive changes up to 100 Hz.

To test their estimate, the researchers conducted an experiment. They caught 18 birds from the wilds of south-eastern Sweden and Öland island in the Baltic Sea. These birds were trained with rewards to distinguish between a flickering lamp and one that burned steadily.

During the experiment, the researchers increased the flicker rate until the birds couldn’t tell the two lamps apart. This threshold is called the critical flicker fusion rate. The threshold for blue tits was 131 Hz and for collared flycatchers, 141 Hz. The pied flycatcher’s threshold was a high 146 Hz. Their vision was so fast that Usain Bolt’s 100-metre dash would seem like a slow motion stroll. In comparison, the critical flicker fusion threshold for humans is a mere 60 Hz.

“This is great paper,” says Kevin Healy, a PhD student at Trinity College, Ireland. “It’s very interesting to see such high temporal perception values in bird species, especially when considering they measured it using behavioural experiments. As relatively few species’ temporal perception has been measured, studies such as this will add more data and knowledge to our understanding of the evolution of such traits.” Healy wasn’t involved in this study.

The video clip visualises one advantage of the ultra-rapid vision discovered in birds. The almost three times faster refreshment rate of visual input in a pied flycatcher than in a human makes it far easier to track and predict the flight paths of two blue bottle flies. This is most likely a crucial ability for a bird that catches its airborne prey on the wing. Credit: Malin Thyselius

The researchers say the pied flycatcher’s threshold was about 50 Hz above the highest rate for any other vertebrate. The birds’ fast vision exceeded the researchers’ expectations.

“Before this study, most of what we knew about avian temporal resolution came from studies of domesticated, ground-dwelling birds or those that live in rather dim or dark environments,” explains Ödeen. “However, diurnal and airborne lifestyles are very common among birds.” And for this reason, “'[f]ast vision may, in fact, be a more typical feature of birds in general than visual acuity,” said Ödeen, in a press release.

“While there is still much to understand regarding the evolution of temporal perception across species, these results support the idea that a fast paced lifestyle is one of the main drivers of acquiring fast paced perceptual abilities,” says Healy. “While it has been predicted that species that hunt fast-moving prey, such as insects on the wing, would require equally fast paced vision, this is the first time a species with this aerial hunting strategy has been measured.”

Birds of prey, like eagles, have the sharpest vision known. They can spot prey on the ground while they hover high up in the sky. While they have great visual acuity, capable of spotting a number of details per degree in their field of vision, they don’t have the ability to track changes in microseconds. To follow rapidly moving targets, birds have to increase their visual refresh rates. Small birds compromise visual acuity in favour of speed.

Since more than half of all bird species are passerines, Ödeen says, in future, he’d like to test if closely related bird species have fast vision, too. Or is it restricted to insectivorous birds specifically?

“We cannot say how widely distributed fast vision is in the phylogenetic tree of birds,” he says. “That is something that we would like to clarify. We are interested in finding out the ecological driving mechanism behind this trait.”

“These species seem to have temporal perceptions at levels more comparable to some insect species as opposed to most vertebrates,” says Healy. “This suggests that these species go above and beyond the temporal abilities found in other bird species, and it will be very exciting to see how other species with different hunting strategies might fit into the overall picture.”

The results have implications for captive birds’ welfare, says Ödeen. His previous work with chickens’ flicker rate highlighted these concerns. Many low-energy light bulbs, fluorescent lamps and LED lights flicker at 100 Hz. Even if the flicker is invisible to our eyes, captive songbirds, with visions more than twice as fast as ours, are likely to see it. Flickering light can cause stress, behavioural disturbances and discomfort.

Although kingfishers are not passerines, their temporal resolution is likely to rank high. Or at least, I hope so. That may be why the common kingfisher narrowly missed impaling my husband’s neck. The paper was published in the journal PLOS ONE on March 18, 2016.

Janaki Lenin is the author of My Husband and Other Animals. She lives in a forest with snake-man Rom Whitaker and tweets at @janakilenin.

What Tamil Women Want in 2016: Government Help to Realise Their Dreams

Young women are turning entrepreneurs and demanding a leg up from the government to make their dreams come true.

N Chandra is an aspiring entrepreneur who started off small with a women’s SHG in Erode. Credit: Sandhya Ravishankar

N Chandra is a soft spoken lady who tends to ramble, especially when it comes to Mei Wei, the improbable Chinese-sounding name she picked for her modest sweets business in suburban Erode in Tamil Nadu. The 48-year-old is boss to 19 employees at a small godown where her company, Chiki’s World, makes a variety of local sweets like thaen mittai (honey sweet) and ellu urundai (sweet sesame balls) under the Mei Wei brand.

“My son chose the name,” she said when questioned about her choice. “A lot of my clients kept asking me what it meant. I told them I have no idea. Then my son checked on the internet and told me it means arusuvai (six different tastes),” she added.

In just a few years, Chandra has gone from being an employee at a supermarket to owner of Chiki’s World, which clocks sales of 25,000 rupees per day. Born to parents who worked as bonded labourers in a matchstick factory in Bhavani near Erode, she was forced to drop out of school after the third grade due to extreme poverty.

Employees at Chiki’s World making sweets. Credit: Sandhya Ravishankar

Five years ago, Chandra started a women’s self-help group (SHG) amongst the staff at the Nilgiris supermarket where she worked, pooling in 25 rupees per head every week. The sum would be used regularly by the saleswomen to meet additional family expenses. The entrepreneurial bug bit her as she realised that supermarkets needed to stock quality sweets. Out of the 15 women in her SHG, only three decided to take the plunge with her. Investing 30,000 rupees each, the women started Chiki’s World with a single stove and one gas cylinder.

Bank loans soon followed, thanks to the SHG, and Chandra, fighting against the tide, slowly built up the business. Two-and-a-half years ago Chandra’s husband Natarajan passed away. She said there was no support for her from the banks or government during this period of grief and loss, despite being a reliable borrower who repaid her loans on time.

“The government gives us a lot of help but they hit harder when we are down,” she said. “When I am falling, the government and banks don’t say – don’t worry, go ahead, we will give you some more time. I was lost for about a year when my husband died. Banks and government officials were unbearably rude to me despite knowing my position,” she added.

Chandra also says that the state can do more to help aspiring women entrepreneurs, by setting up retail SHG supermarkets in city centres that will enable them to get more buyers. “There is one small shop in Erode but it is on the outskirts and there are hardly any customers. We need space, stalls or something in the heart of the town so that lots of people can buy from these women-only shops,” she said.

Almost 150 kilometres away from Chandra lives A Maniammal, 57, a cook at the ladies hostel in Trichy’s Bishop Hebber College. She took up a steady job a little over a year ago because, she was unable to push her business dreams beyond a point. The head of 10 women SHGs in her area, Maniammal was hoping to start a small canteen to sell food. This was not to be. She alleges that access to credit for SHGs is not easy any longer.

Maniammal exited from SHGs as there is no income in that anymore. Credit: Sandhya Ravishankar

“Earlier we were able to take loans with five SHGs coming together. Now only one group can get a loan, so the amount is smaller. Banks tell us that they are reluctant to disburse loans to women above 35 years of age. As if we won’t be able to repay it if we are older,” Maniammal explained.

“We have lost interest now. That is why I found a job. There is no income at all in SHGs,” she added.

First launched in Tamil Nadu in 1989, SHGs attracted a wave of aspiring women entrepreneurs who wanted to be financially independent. Tamil Nadu is a model for the country in terms of a flourishing SHG presence, especially among women. Since 2012-13 though, the country has shown a steady decline in the number of SHG savings linked with banks, according to the NABARD report of 2013-14 on the status of microfinance in India. Although the southern region fares a little better in the country in terms of non-performing assets (NPAs) relating to SHGs, Tamil Nadu is on the higher side of the list with 11% of SHG-related businesses being declared as NPAs. Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh top the list with 20.07% and 19.31% NPAs respectively. As per latest state government records, there are 6.08 lakh active SHGs in Tamil Nadu with 92 lakh members. NABARD data shows that as of March 2014, the average loan per SHG was 2.54 lakh rupees with a total of 24,280.52 crore rupees worth of loans by SHGS with banks.

Political parties too view the women SHGs as an almost captive votebank and each party in power, whether it is the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) or the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), tries to woo these women. In February, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa promised android smartphones with a special app to around 20,000 SHGs trainers in rural areas under a scheme worth 15 crore rupees, called the Amma Mobile Phone Scheme.

Little access to cheap credit

K Latha of Theni, repairing punctured tyres. Credit: Sandhya Ravishankar

Along the busy truck route in Theni, a row of small shacks do brisk business. These puncture shops – with spellings ranging from ‘puncher’ to ‘panjar’ – are not out of the ordinary, except for one. Forty-three-year-old K Latha runs the little shop and cuts an incongruous picture – a slender lady fixing huge truck tyres from 6.30 am to 6pm every day. She has been doing this for the past 22 years.

Married when she was 18, Latha said she struggled to bring up her daughters and help support her ageing father who was unable to work. “I have two elder brothers, one elder sister and two younger brothers, and none of them chipped in to help take care of father. I thought about what to do. I have studied only up to the ninth grade. The only skill I know is the one that I learnt watching my father – repairing punctured truck tyres. So I decided to set up a shop next to his and help him,” she said.

Latha said she has a debt of three lakh rupees – loans taken from private moneylenders for her daughters’ weddings – which she is struggling to repay on her earnings of 400 rupees a day. “I wanted to expand my business. But I already have so much debt. The Theni collector helped me to get a loan once from the bank. After I repaid that loan, I went back to the bank to borrow some more. The bank refused, saying I had no collateral,” she said. Latha feels that taking loans from private sources is not a good idea – the interest rate is too high and no business can flourish with such high repayments.

Over 200 kilometres away, a young 30-year-old home-maker and mother of one, S Latha, lives in the urban slum of Indira Nagar in Uraiyur near Trichy. Her husband works as a driver in Singapore and rarely visits. She said she has a lot of free time on her hands and is confident of making something of herself.

S Latha says women like her need more of a government fillip in order to be successful entrepreneurs. Credit: Sandhya Ravishankar

“I know tailoring. I just need 50,000 rupees to one lakh rupees initially. I can stand on my own feet if I have access to this money. I have tried asking for loans from banks but they do not give without collateral. I don’t own a house,” she said.

S Latha alleges that government schemes and help from local politicians are available only to supporters of the ruling party in that area. “People like me need government help for such small businesses,” she said. “I have the knowledge but I am unable to do it.”

Lakhs of women in Tamil Nadu aspire to stand on their feet to assert their rights and independence. They are demanding that politicians pay heed to making situations and processes easier for them to help themselves.

Chennai’s Coastline is Choked as Zoning Violations Continue

Rampant violations of coastal zone norms are eating up the city’s coastlines, one illegal road or building at a time.

Rampant violations of coastal zone norms are eating up Chennai’s coastlines, one illegal road or building at a time.

An illegal road near Neelankarai beach. Credit: Sibi Arasu

When the floods wreaked havoc in December last year, Chennai’s seafront and its many fishing villages were relatively unaffected. Many fishermen actually took their boats to help rescue people stranded inland, in neighbourhoods like Saidapet, Velachery, Tambaram, Kotturpuram and Chrompet.

At other times as well, the beaches and the fishing communities living off them have proved to be inherent, inseparable parts of the city. But not everyone in the city thinks so.

Through a series of Right to Information (RTI) petitions, a city-based environmental group, the Coastal Resource Centre (CRC), has uncovered the extent of the threat to Chennai’s beaches, not only from real estate developers but from the Chennai City Corporation itself.

K Saravanan, 33, is a member of the CRC who filed many of the RTIs. “I am from a fishing village called Urur Olcott Kuppam in south Chennai – I have been by the sea all my life,” he said. “It’s not the violations but more the fact that no one cares that disappoints me.”

One reason that many coastal areas stayed functional through last year’s floods was that water escaped to the sea through odais, or natural drainage channels. Areas where odais had been cut off by encroachments, however, were quickly inundated. “But even after facing the tsunami and now the floods, authorities never seem to learn,” Saravanan said.

Through their RTI requests, the CRC have discovered numerous illegal constructions, including beach houses, government institutes, bungalows and resorts, besides at least 15 illegal kuccha and pucca roads, on just the 25-kilometre stretch from Urur Kuppam to Muttukadu.

Zoning out

The Coastal Regulation Zone Notifications of 2011 replaced the original notification of 1991, which classified coastal regions into four distinct zones, based on their fragility and the level of development already present there. Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) I zones are least sensitive, while CRZ IV zones are highly protected — at least according to the law.

“Most of the coastal part of south Chennai falls under CRZ II, while the remainder falls under CRZ III,” says Saravanan. “So to construct here without prior permissions and clearances is a strict no-no.”

Google Maps shot of violation: Urur Kuppam Road

Google Maps shot of violation: Odai Kuppam Road

Google Maps shot of violation: Hare Krishna-Tiruvamniyur Road

Google Maps shot of violation: Valmiki Nagar beachside road

Google Maps shot of violation: Kottivakkam Road

Google Maps shot of violation: Palavakkam Road

Google Maps shot of violation: Neelankarai Road

Google Maps shot of violation: Behind Aquaculture Centre Road

In their report titled, “Road-rolling Laws”, released in October last year, the CRC allege that 5.8 kms of road made using asphalt, cement, red earth and construction debris had been laid as of September 2015.

Walking the 10kms down the beachfront from Besant Nagar to Injambakkam, the width of the beach varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. What’s constant is a single lane road in various stages of development. At some points, the road is nearly complete, with lane markers and street lamps; at other points, it’s barely visible, covered by beach sand, but there nonetheless. Further south, prominent beachfront bungalows, with broad glass walls and painted dazzling white, grow more and more common, fitted into the spaces between the fishing villages.

With most of these areas falling under CRZ II, buildings are permitted on the landward side of an existing road or roads approved in the area’s Coastal Zone Management Plan. “We have discovered that the modus operandi in many cases is for a kuccha road to be built first, and this literally paves the way for buildings and other developments on the landward side of it,” Saravanan said. “In many cases a road that is built only now is shown to exist from earlier, thus making the constructions ‘legal’. The Tamil Nadu State Coastal Zone Management Authority, who is supposed to stop this, either doesn’t know about the violations or if they do, are doing little about it.”

When contacted by this reporter, Management Authority declined to comment.

A double whammy

“These beach houses and roads are taking up the place where we used to keep our bigger nets and some of our boats,” says Harikrishnan Sekar, 58, a fisherman from Injambakkam. “If they keep occupying the beach like this, we’ll be stuck in the middle of big bungalows with no way to fish. Everyone knows about the problems but no one does anything. The village leaders get their cuts and keep silent and it’s only people like us, without any power, who suffer.”

Kuppan R., 50, of Kottivakkam echoes similar sentiments. “Our family has been here for seven generations and we have seen this area change a lot. We aren’t against development. It’s only that it should be for our good also,” he says. “The land just outside our village is grama natham or our livelihood land – it’s the common property of the village. When rich people come and build bungalows there or when roads are laid there, it affects us greatly.”

Apart from eating into the coastline to the detriment of fishing communities, these illegal roads and constructions are also a threat to the Olive Ridley sea turtles – an endangered species that is legally protected in India.

An illegal road near Palavakkam beach. Credit: Sibi Arasu

“The long term effect of all this development is absolutely tragic,” said Shravan Krishnan, 25, a volunteer with the Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN). “You have to understand that turtles have been nesting in these beaches for at least 120 million years. In the last few years alone, with all the development eating up land that they have used traditionally, we’re seeing many nesting grounds lost and turtles being constantly pushed away.” He adds, “If it continues like this and nothing is done to prevent these developments, the future is definitely set to be grim.”

Sibi Arasu is an independent journalist based in Chennai. He tweets as @sibi123.

Experts See Pattern in Imposition of President’s Rule by Modi Government, Others Fault Congress

The Centre should have waited for the floor test to resolve the issue and should have gone to court against the Uttarakhand speaker’s decision if it felt aggrieved, says Prashant Bhushan.

Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat addressing the media outside the assembly in Dehradun on Saturday. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: The imposition of president’s rule in Uttarakhand has not found favour with some constitutional experts who believe bringing down elected governments has become a sort of a trend which does not augur well for democracy. However, there are experts who have also supported the decision – on the ground that the political situation in the state was such that only fresh elections could provide a way out and that is only possible if president’s rule is imposed.

Senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan was candid in his criticism of the imposition of president’s rule in Uttarakhand on Sunday, which happens to be the second such instance – after the Centre intervened in Congress-ruled Arunachal Pradesh – this year. “It shows that the Central government is desperate to get rid of non-BJP governments in the states. Even if they are getting half an opportunity, they are getting rid of them. The standard technique is to get some people to defect and thereafter prevent the use of the anti-defection act and impose president’s rule.”

Bhushan sees a trend in the Centre targeting opposition states. “There are many things which this government at the Centre and the state governments are doing which are unconstitutional. They should have waited for the floor test tomorrow and they should have gone to court against the speaker’s decision if they were feeling aggrieved.”

Prashant Bhushan. PTI

While referring to the March 18 episode, Jaitley had stated that ‘this is for the first time in the history of Independent India that a bill is shown as passed even when it has been defeated’. But Bhushan counters that “if they feel the speaker is doing something illegal, they can always approach the high court or the Supreme Court. But they should not impose president’s rule. Whether the speaker is doing something illegal or not should not be left to the discretion of the Central government which has a political vested interest in the matter.”

Observing that president’s rule is imposed when the government of the state cannot be run in accordance with the constitution, Bhushan said that if there is a state which is a case in point right now it is Chhattisgarh. “The way lawyers, independent activists, researchers and journalists are being attacked in Chhattisgarh and attempts are being made to drive them out of the state, it is a classic case for imposition of president’s rule. It is absolutely clear that the government there cannot be run in accordance with the constitution.”

Coming to the issue of the proposed disqualification of the nine rebel Congress MLAs – to whom show cause notices were served by the speaker – ahead of the confidence vote that was scheduled for March 28, Bhushan said “the speaker’s actions may have been illegal”. He said these legislators could have been disqualified only on two grounds: “one if they had voluntarily left the party, which they had not, and secondly, if they had voted against the confidence motion and violated a whip issued by the party, but that too had not happened yet.”

The noted advocate said ideally the Centre should have waited for the floor test to resolve the issue and should have gone to court against the speaker’s decision if it felt aggrieved.

Senior advocate, Kamini Jaiswal, said, “Through its actions, the BJP has undermined the political system, democratic norms, constitution and electoral process.”

Kamini Jaiswal. Credit: PTI

Insisting that through its landmark judgment in the S.R. Bommai case – and several other orders – the apex court has clearly established that a floor test is the sole yardstick for proving a majority in a house, she said ideally this test should have been allowed to take place.

But since the Centre went ahead with the proclamation of president’s rule, Jaiswal questioned the logic behind the haste. “I hope the Supreme Court will take note of this conduct. They are playing with the constitution. I hope that the courts will come down heavily on such behaviour. They might be accused of judicial overreach. But we cannot allow this subversion of democracy to go on.”

For the BJP, she said, David Headley and rebel Congress leader Vijay Bahuguna are the new heroes. “These days anything these two people say is deemed the gospel truth. I think it is just bad times for the country. If this is the way an elected government is dismissed, then it says a lot. And who is this person who is mastering this move to topple of the government? He is the same former chief minister of the state who was removed by the Congress after charges of inertia and impropriety were levelled against him in the wake of the 2013 floods in the state. But now the BJP is joining hands with him and what else can we expect?”

Jaiswal said she always apprehended that the BJP would go all out to oust the elected governments of other parties in the states. So after Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, would it be Himachal Pradesh next? “Yes,” she replies.

Indira Jaising. Credit: PTI

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising said there can be no justification for imposition of president’s rule a day before the Assembly was to convene for a vote of confidence. Drawing a parallel with the developments in Arunachal Pradesh, she said: “I think they are doing the same thing they did in Arunachal Pradesh, the only reason was to preempt a show of strength on the floor of the house. So they are hoping to repeat what they did in Arunachal Pradesh. It goes against the grain of democracy because it is undeniable that whether a government enjoys a majority can only be tested on the floor of the House.”

On Jaitley’s insistence that the crisis had been precipitated by the actions of the speaker who had declared the money bill as passed when actually it had fallen due to more votes being cast against it, Jaising said, “That is no ground for imposition of president’s rule or for saying that the government has lost the majority on the floor of the House. It could only have been grounds to proceed against the speaker if it was proved that he did not act in accordance with the rules.”

Former Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium too agreed that the Centre erred in not allowing a floor test to take place to determine the strength of the ruling party in the state assembly.

“The first thing is the floor test. The point here is the floor test alone should have been the pearl’s drop. Second, for all parties, i.e, be it the governor or anyone, floor test is the first rule. But, similarly, if someone decides to go before the floor test and pass a money bill, that is not correct. In this case, according to me, both sides ought to have followed a common procedure under the constitution which contemplates a floor test, which did not happen finally.” Subramanium said.

As a professional lawyer, he said, one needs to look at a bit more at the reasons that led to dissolution. “What are the reasons which the governor gave while recommending the dissolution of the assembly?” he asked.

Gopal Subramanium. Credit: PTI

But from what had emerged out of the developments in the Uttarakhand assembly, he said, the important aspect was how the money bill was passed on March 18 “when the passage of the bill is purportedly undertaken in a House without a full majority having voted for it and it is claimed that it has been passed by the house. That is a very serious infraction of the Constitution.”

“Irrespective of who the political party is,” Subramanium said, “the degree of respect which is accorded to the democratic institution of a legislature is that bills have to be properly introduced, they have to be properly carried through – which means they have to be voted upon – and if there is any lack of support, then the speaker has a duty to call for a proper vote and there should be head count or a vote count on the basis of which the bill can be said to have been passed. The transaction of business within a house must be flawless and if a flaw is attached to it, then you forget other grounds, then this ground is enough to be considered (for imposition of President’s Rule).”

On the issue of the anti-defection law, he said it applies as soon as the 10^th Schedule operates – which means you act in a manner contrary to the terms of the schedule and you act contrary to a whip, which is a clear direction to act in a manner.

However, the former solicitor general clarified that casting of votes and disqualification are two different issues. “For the purpose of disqualification, a procedure has to be followed. For voting you have to go by the votes as polled. The speaker cannot say that the Bill is passed because I have disqualified the members without following the schedule.”

The correct procedure, he said, is to first have vote of confidence. “Only after that you can pass a bill, and during that if anybody commits an act of disqualification then he has to be proceeded under the 10^th Schedule.’’

Some constitutional experts – like former Attorney General Soli J Sorabjee and noted constitutional expert K. K. Venugopal – have, in the meantime, said that in the present case the reasons given in his report by the governor in support of imposition of president’s rule are worth looking into. But they have questioned the logic behind imposing president’s rule a day before the assembly was to have voted for or against the continuation of the government.

Sorabjee was quoted as saying that “at this stage it is difficult to comment on the constitutionality of the decision. But, I think they could have waited till tomorrow (Monday).”

On the other hand, Venugopal while observing that “it looks rather strange; first, it was Arunachal Pradesh and now Uttarakhand,” qualified his statement saying that it would not be proper for him to comment without going through the reasons cited by the governor.

Note: This article was edited on March 28 to add the comments of Indira Jaising, Gopal Subramanium, Soli Sorabjee and K.K. Venugopal

Nepal’s Deepening Ties with China Need Not be Bad News for India

If India and China are deepening their economic cooperation by setting aside their geo-strategic concerns, why can’t the two countries cooperate on Nepal as well?

If Delhi and Beijing are deepening their economic cooperation by setting aside their geo-strategic concerns, why can’t the two countries cooperate on Nepal as well?

Zhangmu in Tibet, across the border from the Nepali crossing point of Tatopani. Credit: Bob Witlox/Flickr CC By-NC-ND 2.0

Kathmandu: Nepali prime minister K.P. Oli has just finished a week-long state visit to China, in what was his second state visit after his recent India trip.

While in Beijing, Oli signed a number of bilateral agreements, most notably one on transit facilities through China, thereby ending India’s monopoly over Nepal’s third-country trade. This is being seen in Kathmandu as meaningful as the common perception thus far was that given Nepal’s precarious geopolitical position, it had no option but to rely on India – its unpredictable ‘big brother’ next-door. This limiting belief made Nepali interlocutors defensive in their dealings with their Indian counterparts right from the start.

Thanks to the new transit treaty with China, they are now likely to negotiate with New Delhi with more confidence. At the same time, third-country trade through the rocky terrain of Tibet will cost Nepali importers 2-3 times what it would cost them to import goods via Indian ports. So despite the new transit treaty, the bulk of Nepal’s third-country trade will continue to take place through India. But Nepalis feel that with the new transit treaty, India in the future won’t be able to ‘blockade’ the country again.

There have been other important agreements between Nepal and China during Prime Minister Oli’s visit. According to the joint Nepal-China statement issued on March 23, China has agreed to upgrade two road links between Nepal and Tibet, pledged financial support to build an international airport at the tourist hub of Pokhara, agreed to extend the Chinese railway to Kathmandu and then to Lumbini, and given its nod to a long-term commercial oil deal. Up until now Nepal has imported all its fuel from India.

Myopic hawks

All there are indications, in the eyes of the security hawks in New Delhi, of how China is checkmating India in Nepal. But is that really the case?

One of the reasons India decided to go along with the four-month-long blockade on Nepal was because it felt the Kathmandu establishment was ignoring its concerns, especially on the issue of Madhesi rights. New Delhi felt that while its concerns were being ignored, those of China were amply accommodated in the new charter that was promulgated on September 20, 2015.

But paradoxically the blockade, as we see, has brought Nepal and China even closer.

At this point, it bears reiterating that Oli, in keeping with the Nepali tradition, chose, upon becoming PM, to go to India first. In doing so, he wanted to assure New Delhi that he was keenly aware of the traditionally strong Nepal-India relationship, and that Nepal’s recent overtures to China are not in any way inimical to Indian interests. Oli, moreover, understands that no prime minister in Nepal can stay in office for any length of time by alienating India. And it’s not just Oli who thinks like that.

Even as India remains paranoid about Chinese inroads into Nepal, nearly all top government officials in Kathmandu this journalist has spoken to in recent times maintain that China wants Nepal to always be on good terms with India. Beijing, they say, understands its geopolitical limits in Nepal. Even during Oli’s China trip, the Nepali delegation was clearly told that in the long run Nepal has no option but to have good relations with India.

Given this realisation on Beijing’s part, it is hard for them to understand India’s recent policies.

This is why many people in Kathmandu believe that the four-month-long blockade is the best thing that could have happened to Nepal. They see this as the perfect opportunity to end the state of Nepal’s near total dependence on India. For them, Nepal is a sovereign and independent country and must engage with the rest of the world, just like any other independent country would.

A common line of reasoning heard in the security establishment in New Delhi is that since the Himalayas cannot be shifted, it is useless of Kathmandu to try to play the ‘China card’. “Now, we are not in the comparison business”, India’s external affairs ministry spokesman said on March 22, 2016 when asked about the significance of Oli’s visit to China. “And even if you are, do ask yourself, is there any other country in the world which can have the kind of relationship that Nepal has with India?” If only Indian officials cared to look at developments in Nepal over the past few months they would see that the Nepal Army has been working tirelessly to open new tracks to Tibet. China has also now pledged to build all-weather, multi-lane cross-border roads. If these road projects come through, and when the Chinese railway comes to the Nepal border (and beyond), there will be no need for Nepal to play the proverbial China card against India. The greater presence of the Chinese in Nepal will, in that case, be a reality that India will have to live with.

Alternately, some in New Delhi believe that even though Nepal is keen on deepening its links with China, the Chinese are reluctant as greater engagement with Nepal will mean more traffic, of both people and goods, with Tibet. China apparently doesn’t want that since the border could then serve as a new conduit for Free Tibet activists. This is true, up to a point. This is the reason China has been reluctant to reopen the Tatopani border – heretofore the main trade hub between Nepal and China – that was blocked after the earthquakes in Nepal last year. It feels Tatopani has been misused by Free Tibet activists.

But belying this perception is the new agreement on upgrading of the existing roads in Nepal leading up to the Chinese border and the new rail agreement connecting Tibet with the main cities in Nepal. The Chinese seem to realise that sooner or later they will have to open up Tibet to the outside world; it’s not a matter of if but when.

Of course, all these developments are not at all a bad thing for India. If Nepal starts trading more with China and other countries, it will not have to rely on India so much. This in turn will help reduce anti-Indian sentiments in Nepal, which is at an all-time high following the blockade. India will also get to see that China, its biggest trade partner, has no great designs on Nepal, where, all signs suggest, China accepts India’s sway.

Three cheers

If India and China are deepening their economic cooperation by setting aside their geo-strategic concerns, why can’t the two countries cooperate on Nepal as well? At least China seems comfortable with the idea. Chinese President Xi Jinping broached the topic of making Nepal an economic ‘bridge’ between India and China during his recent meeting with Prime Minister Oli. It’s a wonderful idea, a win-win for all three sides.

For instance there are now proposals for India and China to work together on key hydro projects in Nepal like Arun III, the PDA for which was signed between Nepal and India during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Nepal visit in 2014. Chinese expertise could be used to expedite the on-again, off-again project. When it comes through, Nepal can then sell the generated power, as indented, to India.

But for this kind of trilateral cooperation to materialise, the Indian establishment has to be more comfortable with the idea of Nepal’s greater engagement with the rest of the world. India must accept that the old Nehruvian idea of an exclusive ‘sphere of influence’ is outdated. It must realise that the only way India can improve its relations with its small neighbours is through greater economic cooperation – by allowing the free movement of goods and people across the region, and not blocking their natural flow.

Biswas Baral is a Kathmandu-based journalist who writes on Nepal’s foreign policy. He tweets at @biswasktm.

From Narada to Sharada, Trinamool is Feeling the Sting of Corruption Charges

The big question in the forthcoming elections in West Bengal is — how clean, or otherwise, is the Mamata Banerjee’s party

File picture of Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal. Credit: Wikipedia commons

Kolkata: This is the Swacch West Bengal election. The “From Narada to Saradha” slogan with variations has popped up on boards hanging from the backs of Kolkata’s ubiquitous minibuses, on social media and in graffiti across the city.

The election has been reduced to one simple question – how clean is the Trinamool Congress? The opposition and its voters are asking this in different ways. The choice of candidates in two constituencies, Behala East deep in south Kolkata and Kamrhatty in North 24 Parganas, says it all. These re-nominations add up to a challenge from Mamata Banerjee to voters — believe that the Trinamool Congress is clean.

The infamous 11 of the Rs 65 lakhs Narada sting operation are almost the same as those named as recipients in the Rs 15000 crore Saradha Chit Fund scam. The newest revelations of dirty money secrets in the Trinamool Congress involving an ex-student leader Shankudev Panda, who is very close to Mamata Banerjee’s family, have confirmed perceptions of the connection between the party and dubious cash transactions. Sections of the public posted and shared a cartoon that specifically links Mamata Banerjee to corruption. In one of them she is visualised exclaiming: “That’s a relief. I was not shown!” apropos the Narada viedos.

The buying and selling of influence is the connection between Narada and Saradha. The Narada video footage makes visually explicit what was a written testimony and reported details of Central Bureau of Investigation interrogation in the Saradha Chit Fund scam. It is the difference between seeing and believing and hearing/reading and having doubts.

Till the Narada sting videos surfaced, the nomination of Madan Mitra, in prison because the Central Bureau of Investigation will not let him out on bail in the Saradha Chit Fund case, was her gamble to clear the name of her party from the taint of corruption and abuse of power. It was a daring gambit and it certainly challenged the opposition and the voter when she announced it. After the Narada sting videos surfaced Madan Mitra more than the others of the infamous 11 has become the embodiment of the From Narada to Saradha slogan. The re-nomination of Behala East candidate Sovan Chatterjee repeats the challenge to the voter; he is the man seen in the Narada sting operation wrapping the bundles of bank notes in a towel and heard complaining that he prefers dollars. His name was on the long list of recipients of bounty from the Saradha Group released by its boss Sudipto Sen. As mayor of Kolkata he has been embroiled in controversy over shady deals for purchases, property and procurements.

The Narada videos have converted this election into a test, both of Mamata Banerjee and the gullibility of voters. The TMC leader finds herself daring the electorate to defy her. In doing so, she has made herself both a guarantee of her henchmen’s probity and has put her personal integrity at stake. The petty cash money for favours videos would not have mattered at the beginning of Mamata Banerjee’s term; now, it raises questions about what the Trinamool Congress is all about.

Campaigning in North Bengal ealier this month, in a damage control move, she said, “ Mamata Banerjee is the candidate in all 294 seats” dismissing everyone else as proxies. This is her signal to the voter: Trust in Me. Rattled by the build-up of opposition pressure and the social media-posters-graffiti comments on the connection between the Trinamool Congress and dirty money, Mamata Banerjee has inserted herself into the uproar, as the personification of swacchta and satata, that is, cleanliness and purity. Her jitters are understandable. The Narada-Saradha connect reopens the controversy about the sale of her paintings; the prices at which they were sold, to whom were they sold and what happened to the sale money.

The Trinamool Congress is pulling out the stops to revive the romance between the voter and Mamata Banerjee. In West Midnapore, her nephew and many believe heir, Abhishek retold the old story: she continues to live in a tiled, makeshift room, wears white cotton saris and chappals, is the epitome of sacrifice and selflessness and her “image,” is simplicity itself. By deploying her simple lifestyle as proof of integrity and probity in public life, she and the party are anxious to redirect public attention away from scandals.

The persona of Mamata Banerjee has become the one weapon or protection to halt the spiralling suspicions about the Trinamool Congress and its leadership from gaining strength in the popular imagination and galvanising voters in West Bengal to reject the appeals of the Congress – Communist Party of India Marxist led Left Front combine. She may have got away with even defending the indefensible — distributing testimonials to racketeers and their bully boys, testifying that “not all syndicates are bad,” in an attempt to whitewash the construction supplies mafia, protection and dirty money rackets in real estate, kickbacks and skimming — committed in the past almost five years, except that then Narada happened.

The VC of Hyderabad University Has No Option But to Quit

UoH has now abrogated its right to be called an academic institution of a high level of excellence, by decimating – even criminalising – the space for reasoned dissent by its students and teachers.

UoH has now abrogated its right to be called an academic institution of a high level of excellence, by decimating – even criminalising – the space for reasoned dissent by its students and teachers

Security men taking away students agitating for justice for Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University on Saturday. Credit: PTI

I have followed the recent happenings at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) closely, and I am shell-shocked at the behaviour of the police and the university administration.

I was a university student between 1942 and 1947 when we fought our battle for Independence.

The battle that UoH and JNU students are fighting today is no less grave and important: it is against casteism, religious imperialism, revivalism, denial of the right to dissent, and discrimination on the basis of circumstances of birth, all of which would be sorely detrimental to our country’s real progress.

The barbaric (uncivilized will be too mild a word) treatment of students and supportive teachers – by the police, the imposition of false and trumped-up charges on the students by the university authorities and the police, and the denial of basic facilities such as food, water and electricity to the students by the university management on March 22 for no justifiable reason, are matters of the greatest concern, for they are signs of major cracks in our fabric of democracy, and of their being filled up by the glue of autocracy.

I have been connected with UoH from the beginning – from the time Dr Gurbax Singh, its first Vice Chancellor, came to Hyderabad and looked for an appropriate piece of land for the University.

Its first courses were delivered in my lab of that time (now the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology), and I encouraged him to accept the present land. Dr Gurbax Singh, an outstanding organic chemist, respected dissent for, as a scientist, he knew very well that knowledge progresses through nurturing dissent. He would be turning in his grave, were he to know of the above happenings at UoH.

The role of the vice chancellor of UoH, Prof Appa Rao, in the above process and in the brutalisation of the students and teachers on March 22, makes his position in the university totally untenable. And I believe that he has no option but to quit – or be removed.

I am reminded, by contrast, of the vice chancellors of my time. My vice chancellor at Lucknow University was Acharya Narendra Dev; of Allahabad University, Amarnath Jha; of Benaras Hindu University, S Radhakrishnan; of Aligarh Muslim University, Zakir Hussain; of Andhra University, C R Reddy; of Madras University, Lakshmanswamy Mudaliar; of M S University of Baroda, Hansa Mehta; and of Calcutta University, N K Sidhanta (before him Ashutosh Mukherji). Two of the above became presidents of India. None of them would allow police to enter the university campus. And that was during British rule! They commanded – and not demanded – respect. If the students had a problem, none of them would have hidden in a room (as Prof. Appa Rao did) but would have faced the students squarely and confidently.

I congratulate the students and the supportive teachers of the UoH who are working towards ensuring that Rohith Vemula’s suicide was not in vain. I am 88-years-old and wheel-chair-bound, so I have limitations to what I can do.

I am in solidarity with the students and teachers who are fighting for truth, justice, human rights including right to dissent, and true progress of our beloved country

Dr Pushpa M Bhargava is a former Vice Chairman, National Knowledge Commission, a former member, National Security Advisory Board, and former and founder director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad.

Life and Death for Little Children at the Brick Kilns of West Bengal

West Bengal has around 12,000 brick kilns, which employ an estimated six lakh people. According to the 2011 census, there were 550,092 child workers in West Bengal, a figure which is likely to have increased since.

Credit: Monirul Islam Mullick

Kolkata: On February 14, Chandni Rajbanshi – three years old – was playing catch with her cousin Swapna. They raced through the Teena Brick Works in Pundaooh, in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, where their father Uday Rajbanshi was a labourer. It was Sunday morning and most of the kiln-workers were resting.

Ten-year-old Swapna had caught up with Chandni, and lifted her in her arms, when she stepped on a plastic sheet – the lid of a furnace, which split and dropped both girls into the flames. It required a backhoe excavator to lift out their remains four hours later. All that could be found was a hip-bone. The accident might even have gone unnoticed except for another child playing nearby who saw the two girls fall.

“Had the child not witnessed that, everything would have been brushed off by lodging a missing complaint at the police station,” Uday Rajbanshi, Chandni’s father, told The Wire. “We would have lived in hope that the girls were only missing and would return to us. The endless visits to the police and the apathy of cops would have left us even more frustrated.”

When we met Uday Rajbanshi at Teena Brick Works, a few days after the accident, all he was asking for was a few thousand rupees to go home to Bihar with his wife and two other children. His co-workers said that he had lost an earning member of the family: He and his wife Soni Devi had adopted Swapna, their niece, after her own father died. She would help at work-sites by fetching water or molding the mud.

“The legal system and endless court battles is not for the poor people like us,” Uday said. “Our dreams are limited to arranging a meal a day for the family. I’d rather return home with some money to look after my children than run after justice which I know I will never get.”

A two-member district child protection team had visited the spot and reported to the district magistrate that children were working in hazardous conditions here, with no health or safety provisions. “We wrote to the administration that laws were completely violated – both for adults and children working at the kilns,” said Harik Banik, one of the team members. “We also found that children had no access to education and most of them suffered from malnutrition. The labourers were denied of gratuity and other service-related benefits.”

Soni Devi, Chandni’s mother, expanded on the allegation. “They refuse to make payment unless we use our children to expedite the work,” she said, wiping tears from here yes. “The job is seasonal, so owners want to get maximum bricks manufactured. We and our children worked like slaves, more than ten hours a day in the sun.”

The family’s apprehensions about the justice system seemed to be confirmed by the apathy of the district administration.

Children working at a brick kiln in West Bengal. Credit: Monirul Islam Mullick

Praveen Tripathi, the SP of Hooghly, failed to provide the exact status of the case. “I think the accused has obtained bail from the local court, but I am not sure. I have to check whether the accused has escaped or is out on bail. I will soon get back to you,” he said, before hanging up.

Sanjay Bansal, the district magistrate of Hooghly, said he had written to the Disaster Management Department about compensation for the family, but had not followed up on it. When informed that the family had received nothing yet, he promised to investigate. He has since been moved to another posting.

West Bengal has around 12,000 brick kilns, which employ an estimated six lakh people, many of them migrant-workers from neighbouring districts in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. According to the 2011 census, there were 550,092 child workers in West Bengal, a figure which is likely to have increased since.

Nearly every brick-kiln owner that this correspondent talked to claimed to provide humane living conditions to their workers. “We offer them better living conditions, basic civic facilities, education for their children and health facilities for the workers and their families,” said Kundan Singh, who owns a kiln at Bally in Howrah district. “We ensure that all the laws guarding them have been properly implemented.”

On the ground, however, a different story is visible, of apathy and negligence towards labourers’ conditions. Squalid quarters are nothing more than the four walls devoid of any facilities. Most do not have fans, even though the summer is considered peak season for brick production. Toilets are rare on the premises and open defecation is common. Brick furnaces emit fumes that are toxic to the eyes, lungs and throat, but workers say healthcare is limited to emergency first aid.

In the election season, the labour department is reluctant to look into the issues. “This is not a correct time to talk about the matter as polls are approaching,” said a top official of West Bengal’s labour department, requesting anonymity. “We will discuss it after the formation of the new government.”

G. Arora is a freelance journalist living in Kolkata.

After Journalists and Lawyers, Intimidation Against Social Scientist in Bastar

Bela Bhatia has brought to light several cases of rapes and sexual assaults by security forces

File photo of researcher Bela Bhatia. Credit: Youtube

File photo of researcher and social scientist Bela Bhatia. Credit: Youtube

Close on the heels of the arrest of two Dantewada-based journalists comes news of the mob intimidation of social scientist Bela Bhatia in Bastar. Social scientist Bela Bhatia, who holds a doctorate from Cambridge University, has formerly served on a Planning Commission-appointed panel to look at governance challenges in areas of the Maoist rebellion, and has also been a faculty member at the Tata Insititute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.

In the past weeks, Hindi language journalists Prabhat Singh and Dipak Jaiswal were arrested, the former for a comment against a senior police official on a Whatsapp group. This has drawn the attention of the National Human Rights Commission, which issued a notice this week to the Chhattisgarh state government, asking it to respond within two weeks. There have been other instances of harassment too–in February, a contributor to the website scroll.in, Malini Subramaniam and an all-women legal aid group, Jag-lag were forced to the leave the region, after their landlords and domestic help were intimidated. Last month adivasi rights activist and Aam Aadmi party member Soni Sodi was also accosted at night by two men, who smeared her face with a grease-like substance, and threatened her to not raise the issue of fake encounter killings.

According to Bhatia, who lives in a village called Parpa on the outskirts of Jagdalpur town, a group of close to 100 people with men, women and armed policemen in civilian clothes came to the hamlet on Saturday evening, where her rented home is located. The crowd questioned her landlady and neighbours, and demanded why a “Naxalite terrorist”(aatankwaadi) had been given a room on rent. They told Bhatia’s landlady to “drive her out” (unko bhagaao).

A pamphlet against social scientist Bela Bhatia distributed in Dantewada

A pamphlet against social scientist Bela Bhatia distributed in the hamlet where she lives near Jagdalpur.

The crowd marched through the hamlet, raising slogans of Bela Bhatia murdabaad (“Death to Bela Bhatia”), and distributed a pamphlet slandering her as a “Naxal stooge” and a “foreign stooge.” The pamphlet also criticised the renowned development economist Jean Dreze, accusing Bhatia and “her foreign husband of working with the Naxals to break the country.” Dreze, who was born in Belgium, is an Indian citizen.

Bhatia said she had spoken to Collector of Jagdalpur late on Saturday night, and intended to meet him to apprise him of the violence she was facing.

Rising intimidation

Bhatia has faced intimidation on multiple occasions in recent weeks. In February, the police visited her village home and questioned her neighbours, and photographed her landlord. In November 2015 and January 2016, with visiting women activists and Sodi, she helped bring to light two instances of gang rapes and sexual assaults by security forces conducting anti-Maoist operations in remote villages. In January, when she helped some of these women villagers file police complaints in Bijapur, she and Sodi faced mob intimidation and sloganeering by a crowd of men from the Samajik Ekta Manch who accused them of being Naxals, and of not raising issues of human rights abuses by Naxals.

Bhatia has written her doctoral thesis at Cambridge University on the Naxalite movement in Bihar, studied the state-conflict Maoist in Bastar since a decade, and co-authored a thoughtful report for the Planning Commission on the roots of adivasi and dalit alienation in such areas, and how to address them. Her co-authors included the current National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

More recently, Bhatia wrote detailed accounts of the sexual violence and human rights abuses underway in Bastar. Days ago, in an open letter published in Hindi in the Patrika newspaper in Chhattisgarh, and in English on the Catch News website, she outlined how her decade-long engagement with Bastar had begun, and why she intended to continue with it:

“I had come to Bastar to stay. I will try to remain in the district despite everything that has happened. Democracy is not merely a system of governance. It is also a value system. The consideration for the misery of fellow citizens lies at the root of democracy. It requires an open atmosphere where everybody can live without fear. Democracy aims for a society where there is no oppressor and the oppressed. It means a society where everybody has freedom of speech. I hope we will be able to establish such a democracy in Bastar.”