‘Trial Was One-Sided From the Start’: Ishrat Jahan’s Mother on Discharge of Murder-Accused Cops

“We haven’t got justice and the killers are being set free. This is nothing new. These are their people, their law and their verdict,” Shamim Kausar tells The Wire.

Mumbai: On the day when a special CBI court discharged three police officers accused in the 2004 alleged fake encounter case, the mother of Ishrat Jahan, the woman killed in the firing, said she had expected this.

“This has been happening for the last 17 years,” says Jahan’s mother, Shamim Kausar.

Jahan was 19 years old from Mumbra when she was killed with three others in an encounter alleged to be fake near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

Special CBI judge V.R. Raval allowed the discharge applications of IPS officer G.S. Singhal, retired police officer Tarun Barot and Anaju Chaudhari. The CBI court observed that the officers had acted within the purview of discharge of official duties.

At Jahan’s house in Mumbra’s predominantly-Muslim Rashid Compound, there is fresh gloom. When the verdict came out in the morning, police cover was provided to the family – which they asked to be withdrawn.

The building in which Ishrat Jahan lived in Mumbra. Photo: Prashant Narwekar

For Jahan’s family, news like this has marked the last 17 years.

For the accused it may be a victory but for Jahan’s family and friends, this is hardly news. Her mother is the one person who continues to speak about her. For the rest of her relatives Ishrat is now nothing more than a memory. 

Also read: No One Killed Ishrat Jahan: All Police Officers Accused of Murder by CBI Now Discharged

“No one talks about her. Though we live in the same compound we just know that a girl existed who was killed in an encounter. She has been forgotten now, except to her mother and close relatives,” says one of the neighbours, requesting anonymity.

Abdul Ahad, another neighbour, says Jahan is remembered as a bright student by her teachers. “When I was in school, our teachers used to talk about her. They remember her fondly,” he says, adding that he does not know if the accusations of terrorism against her are correct or not.

Ishrat Jahan. Photo: File

Police claimed that those killed in the encounter – Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar – were terrorists working with Laskar-e-Taiba and had planned the assassination of then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The Gujarat police had claimed that they had received intelligence inputs regarding the group, and based on that, the operation was carried out.

Ishrat’s family has consistently claimed she is innocent and was killed as a part of a conspiracy by the policemen involved. An investigation by the SIT set up by the Gujarat high court established that the encounter was staged. The Supreme Court later handed over the case to the CBI, which filed a chargesheet against several Gujarat police officers for their involvement in the crime.

Jahan’s mother Shamim says the trial was one-sided from the start. “I had hopes when the Special Investigation Team filed its report stating that the encounter was fake, but as events progressed, I was left shocked and broken,” she says.

Also read: The Many Deaths of Ishrat Jahan

“We haven’t got justice and the killers are being set free. This is nothing new. These are their people, their law and their verdict. What else can be expected?” she added.

Shamim feels that the ground is prepared for the encounter to now be called a genuine one. As The Wire has noted in its report, “A fake encounter is illegal no matter who it is conducted against, and the murder charge against police officers is not dependent on the identity of the victims” – i.e. whether they are terrorists or not.

“They said she was a terrorist and now they say even the encounter was genuine. But then, why did the SIT earlier say that the encounter was fake? Clearly the SIT in its report had stated that it was a cold-blooded murder and not an encounter. When the government can over rule this report then it became obvious that one day the accused will walk free,” Shamim says.

In 2019, Shamim had filed an affidavit in the Ahmadabad special CBI court saying that she was too tired to keep the fight on and was distancing herself from the court proceedings.

“I had never given up on the case. I was just too tired of all the travelling. No one was listening to us. We weren’t given a fair hearing at all. Then what was the point of me travelling all the way to Ahmadabad for the hearings? I am old now and have health issues. That is why I distanced myself from the court proceedings,” says Shamim.

Shamim feels that she is ready to take the fight up again.

“Right now I am very disturbed by all this but I will take this up again. I will be consulting my lawyers and doing the needful. We have still not got any justice. I don’t intend to give it up at all,” she says.

Watch | Mamata Banerjee’s ‘Ma Canteen’ That Feeds the Poor for Rs 5

The canteens are now open in 100 locations in West Bengal, and each one of them caters to at least 300 people on a daily basis.

On February 15, 2021, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee started a ‘Ma Canteen’ in the state to provide a meal at a nominal cost of Rs 5. The meal consists of rice, dal, a vegetable and egg curry.

The concept of a community kitchen in India is not new, but the credit for bringing it to the fore goes to the late chief minister J. Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu.

Currently, the Ma Canteen is operational in about 100 locations in West Bengal. About 300 to 400 people avail themselves of this service at each stall every day.

‘Why No Police Complaint Against Anil Deshmukh?’: Bombay HC Asks Param Bir Singh

‘You were duty-bound to register a complaint against any wrongdoing. Despite knowing that an offence is being committed by your boss, you remained silent.’

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Wednesday, March 31, asked former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh why he did not lodge a police complaint against Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh if he was aware of alleged wrongdoing being committed by the minister.

Singh recently claimed Deshmukh asked police officer Sachin Waze to collect Rs 100 crore from bars and restaurants. The minister has denied any wrongdoing.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G. S. Kulkarni asked Singh why he did not lodge a complaint with the police first, and said without a first information report (FIR), the high court cannot intervene or direct for an independent agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to carry out an investigation.

“You (Singh) are a senior police officer. You are not a layman. You were duty-bound to register a complaint against any wrongdoing. Despite knowing that an offence is being committed by your boss, you (Singh) remained silent,” Chief Justice Datta said.

The HC was hearing a criminal public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the high court on March 25 by Singh, seeking a CBI probe against Deshmukh.

The bench further noted that Singh cannot convert the high court into a magistrate court.

Also read: Former Mumbai Top Cop and Maharashtra Home Minister in Open War, Trade Grave Charges

“The proper and appropriate course of action would be for you (Singh) to first lodge a complaint with police. If the police do not lodge an FIR, then you have the option of filing an application before the magistrate,” the court said.

Singh’s counsel Vikram Nankani said his client wanted to avoid this “chakravyuh” (labyrinth). The high court, however, noted this was the procedure laid down in law. “Are you saying that you are above the law?” Chief Justice Datta asked.

Nankani argued that he did not have any other option than to approach the high court, as the complaint and allegations were against the “very head of the state administration”.

The court further asked Nankani if any statement, as alleged by Singh in the petition against Deshmukh that he had asked police officers to extort money, was made by the home minister in Singh’s presence.

“Was any of these statements made by the home minister in Singh’s presence? Otherwise, this is nothing but hearsay,” the court said.

The high court further said there is also no affidavit submitted by any of the police officers who were allegedly called by Deshmukh to his residence, supporting the allegations levelled by Singh.

The bench said without an FIR it cannot pass an order directing an independent agency to investigate the matter. “Our prima facie opinion is that without an FIR, this court cannot order investigation. Your prayer seeking a direction to the CBI to investigate appears to be harsh in the absence of an FIR,” Chief Justice Datta said.

Also read: SC Says Param Bir Singh’s Allegations ‘Quite Serious’, Tells Him to Approach Bombay HC

The court further asked if a PIL is maintainable when the issue pertains to a service matter. Advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, appearing for the Maharashtra government, sought dismissal of the petition with an exemplary cost, and claimed the plea was filed with a personal vendetta.

“The PIL is not filed in the public interest but is riddled with personal grievances and interests. The petitioner has come to this court with dirty hands and dirty mind,” Kumbhakoni said.

Singh in his petition claimed Deshmukh had asked police officers, including suspended assistant police inspector Sachin Waze, to collect Rs 100 crore each month from bars and restaurants.

Waze was arrested earlier this month by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the case of bomb scare near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence in Mumbai.

The PIL filed by Singh also raised the issue of alleged corruption in police transfers and postings in the state. Singh was shifted from the post of Mumbai’s commissioner of police to the home guards department on March 17.

Watch | How Has India Responded To The Crisis in Myanmar?

Happymon Jacob and Siddharth Varadarajan analyse the situation in Myanmar and India’s response to the crisis.

India was among only eight countries that chose to send a representative to attend the Myanmar Armed Forces Day military parade in Naypyitaw on March 27, a day that saw the country’s military shoot and kill at least 90 civilians, with some reports putting the death toll at 114.

Weeks of demonstrations and a deadly crackdown have roiled the nation since the February 1 coup brought back full military rule. The death toll before Saturday’s bloodbath was estimated at more than 400.

As news about the participation of foreign missions at the official parade emerged, there was immediate condemnation from pro-democracy protestors on social media.

Additionally, the Manipur government issued an order on March 26, barring district administrations and civil society organisations from opening shelters or providing food to refugees from Myanmar who may have crossed the border in the recent days, as the military intensifies violence against those protesting against the coup. As widespread criticism followed, the Manipur government on March 29 withdrew the earlier order. Issuing a fresh notification, the government said the “contents of the [earlier] letter have been misconstrued” and the “state government continues to provide all aid”.

The Wire analyses the situation in Myanmar and India’s response to the crisis. Happymon Jacob, founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, offers his take on the response made by the government so far.

Siddharth Varadarajan, a founding editor of The Wire, also highlights the attempt of the Indian government to appease Myanmar’s military and its attitude towards the refugees that are making their way to the country.

It Can’t Be Business As Usual for the State, ‘Employers’ in the Case of Gig Workers

Gig workers in India have reached a tipping point, as they are taking to the streets demanding better pay and working conditions. The government and managements can remain aloof to their existence but to their own peril.

Recent media reports indicate that Amazon India’s ‘delivery partners’ (read: workers or employees) are planning to call for a 24-hour strike across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Delhi-NCR region.

This is in order to protest against “the e-commerce company’s decision to lower delivery fees”. Protesting workers are also demanding insurance cover for all contract workers. It was also reported on March 15 that the delivery personnel in Pune had organised a protest after Amazon India reportedly lowered the delivery fees.

According to the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT), a trade union body representing gig workers, “…on 15 March, Amazon India had issued a policy saying that delivery personnel will now earn Rs 10 on delivering small packages and Rs 15 for deliveries made through tempos”.

Also read: Swiggy Delivery Executives Strike in Chennai and Hyderabad Over Reduction in Payment

Prior to the changes in the policy on March 15, the staff would make Rs 35 on deliveries. Prior to the lockdown last year, the staff was able to make around Rs 20,000 a month, but that has come down to Rs 10,000. IFAT’s demands include payment of Rs 70 to Rs 80 for every parcel delivered through vans and Rs 20 for smaller parcels. There are other issues involved too. IFAT quoted a delivery personnel as saying: “….If we do not deliver the parcel on time, we have to work overtime and deliver the parcel”.

Photo: Reuters

Gig and platform workers

Workers like these ‘delivery partners’ of Amazon are referred to as gig workers or platform workers. There is also no data available with the Centre on how many gig workers are currently operating in India, some independent estimates put the number near 130 million workers.

According to journalist Niranjan Hiranandani, in the present scenario, India stands to lose around 135 million jobs due to the pandemic. Industry bodies have been conducting several studies on the gig economy and just before the outbreak of the pandemic had predicted India’s gig economy to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 17% to touch $455 billion in the next three years.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the gig economy has been growing exponentially in size and importance in recent years and its impact on labour rights has been largely overlooked. It is still difficult to estimate the exact number of workers, as businesses are sometimes reluctant to disclose the data. It is rather complicated to draw an estimate, since workers might be registered with more companies in the same month, week, or day.

However, available estimates range from 0.7% to 34%. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reported in 2017 that 55 million people in the US are “gig workers”. This accounts for approximately 34% of the US workforce, projected to increase to 43% in 2020.

The terms ‘gig workers’ and ‘platform workers’ are, relatively speaking, new terms used in discussions on labour or the economy, though it has been a very prevalent concept in the West. It has also crept into the newly-minted labour codes that replaced 44 labour laws that had been slowly and painstakingly crafted by the tripartite machinery of the government, the employers and labour, through their trade unions and through very difficult and heroic struggles.

Representational image. Photo: Reuters

The new Code on Social Security, 2020 replaces nine legislations that provided social security to the employees like Maternity Benefit Act, Employees’ Provident Fund Act, Employees’ Pension Scheme, Employees’ Compensation Act, among others, and includes for the first time in India, sections of workers called ‘gig’ workers, platform workers and unorganised workers.

The 2020 Code defines the term gig worker as, “a person who performs work or participates in a work arrangement and earns from such activities outside of traditional employer-employee relationships”. A gig worker refers to someone who takes on hourly or part-time jobs in everything from catering events to software development. The work is usually temporary and completed during a specified time under a nonstandard work arrangement.

Also read: Indian Labour in the Time of COVID Is One of Changing Perspectives and Disappearing Identities

The new Code on Social Security hold that a platform worker refers to “a person engaged in undertaking platform work”. Platform work is defined as ‘a work arrangement outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services or any such other activities which may be notified by the Central Government, in exchange for payment’.

The term platform worker, in general, is said to refer to a worker working for an organisation that provides specific services using an online platform directly to individuals or organisations. For example Uber, Ola, Zomato, etc.

Unorganised workers are those who work in the unorganised sector and include workers not covered by the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, or other provisions of the code, for example, provident fund. This also includes self-employed workers.

New labour codes and gig workers

According to Rudra Srivastava and Aman Gupta, the formal recognition of gig worker is the need of the hour as the definition provides an umbrella to a large group of temporary workers. One can even be a part-time professor and fit into the gig economy. Some common names include contingent workers, freelancers and independent contractors, etc.

The Code also mandates for compulsory registration of both gig workers as well as platform workers on an online portal to avail benefits under the Code which shall be specified by the Central government. However, this registration is subject to fulfilment of certain conditions in terms of age, the number of days worked and possession of certain documents like Aadhar card, which may be totally unfair and also possibly illegal.

The Code enables the Central government to frame welfare schemes for the workers like life and disability cover, accidental insurance, health and maternity benefits, old age protection, crèche facilities, among others.

The jurisdictions of the state and Central governments seem confusing and seem to be one of the many aspects of the Codes that have not been thought through. The other crucial aspect is the manner of funding of these schemes and the monitoring of these.

Yet, the fact that the existence of unorganised workers as well as of gig and platform workers is acknowledged in Labour Codes may seem a move forward as earlier these sections of workers, like the majority of workers in countries like India were almost invisible. However, there is a huge caveat.

For one, all these changes are being brought in at a time when there has been a pandemic of huge proportion accompanied by an ill-planned, hastily declared lockdown. This is a country where it is well documented that over 90% of its people find their livelihood in the informal economy. The term informal economy refers to a situation of complete insecurity, where one is able to put food on the plate only on the day you have been able to find work.

Secondly, these changes were brought in without any consultation with the people whose lives will be drastically affected by those. In fact, they were bulldozed through a voice vote, when the opposition had staged a walkout from the parliament over ramming through of the farm laws.

File photo of Swiggy delivery partners protesting in Chennai. Photo: Twitter/@Senthil80076789

Thirdly, as one knows from the experience of more than two centuries and the logic of capital itself, managements and employers make utmost attempts to increase their revenues and profits. They spend less on workers to increase their profits.

Whatever advances that one sees in the enactment of the 44 laws that were scrapped in order to get these four codes, each one of them was the result of protracted and bitter struggles by workers and employees. Whether you take the Bonus Act or the Minimum Wages Act or the 8-hour working day, that is under challenge too, each of them bears the unmistakable imprint of these struggles.

Outstanding issues

That is why one needs to look at all the four codes together. The Codes are extremely complicated, with a great deal of internal unresolved contradictions. We will look at just a few aspects of the Codes to the extent they are relevant for the argument at hand.

The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 has several very crucial clauses that make it much harder than earlier for workers and employees to assert their rights. One is the idea of the Fixed Term Contract. This puts paid to any notion of job security and permanent employment, the bedrock of the trade union movement. It is common sense that if your contract is for two years and the extension of it depends on the opinion the supervisor or management has about your behaviour, and you would not dare show him the rule-book. Only a secure job and your stakes in it will prompt the commitment to organise and fight for your rights.

As argued by labour lawyers Jane Cox and Sanjay Singhvi, “It is common knowledge that workers, under threat of unemployment, are forced to enter into contracts for a ‘fixed term’. In 1977, Maharashtra implemented changes requiring all workers with 240 days of continuous service to be made permanent. But now a fixed term contract has statutory recognition.”

This is likely to be a race to the bottom in terms of wages as well as working conditions, including health and safety issues. A series of articles that interviewed women workers in different industries in different cities has quoted a woman worker from Gurugram Welspun unit who lost her employment during the pandemic saying, “We’re willing to work at a lower salary. Getting our job back is important.”

Such situations are likely to proliferate in the coming future and the victims are more likely to be the most marginalised and disadvantaged sections of workers – women, Dalits, the disabled.

Also read: Why Gig Workers Should Find a Space in India’s Labour Rights Movement

The third aspect is that the Code takes away a very important right, the only one that puts some power into the hands of the workers vis-à-vis the employers. That is the right to strike. There cannot be a legal strike unless a notice of 14 days prior to the strike is given. The Labour Commissioner is supposed to admit the dispute into conciliation upon receiving the notice of strike and no strike can begin once it is admitted into conciliation, thus in effect prohibiting strikes. And then, if a strike is judged to be illegal, the union registration of the union that led the strike will be cancelled. No such provision exists if a lock-out is ruled illegal!

There are several other draconian, unjust aspects to the Codes that almost sound the deathknell of the trade union movement as we know it now. How one can challenge these Codes and how one can meet the challenges these Codes have posed to the labour movement is something that is still being worked out. The Codes are scheduled to come into force in April 2021.

It has often been argued that these are basically the signs of the times. When the 44 labour laws and many others were enacted, those were the times when the workers in India as well as globally were in an assertive mode, capital was being relatively speaking reined in. Globalisation and financialisation of capital had not reached the levels they now have, whereby with a click of the computer capital deserts a nation-state whose policies do not please it, where technology and productivity have reached such levels that much less labour power is needed than is available all over, where the reserve army of labour, globally, has reached humungous proportion.

It is interesting that it is in such a global political ecosystem there have been attempts to form alternatives.

One of the earlier attempts was in Tennessee in the US in the year 2005 when the Association of Pizza Delivery Drivers was formed. There have been many attempts over the years. In the year 2016 was another such formation of Dominos’ drivers, when Dominos quickly raised the wages of its workers in order to stop them from organising.

Out of the many countries that have seen such organising, two countries where workers in such situations have tried to organise and unionise are Japan and South Korea. In Japan, it is the trade union, Tokyo Young Contingent Workers’Union and in South Korea, it is the Youth Community Union that is organising, mainly young, workers working in the gig economy.

Two delivery-men arrange food packets for online customers during the nationwide lockdown imposed to fight the coronavirus pandemic, in Kolkata, Friday, March 27, 2020. Photo: PTI.

There are also attempts to try and build an international force that would bring all these national or local organising together. Yanis Varoufakis, a well-known economist and the ex-finance minister in the Syriza government of Greece talks about the need and urgency for a global organisation like the Progressive International. In order to be able to deal with global giants, there is an absolute need to organise and build global organisations with a progressive vision.

The Progressive International (PI) is a global initiative bringing together progressive left-wing groups, politicians and intellectuals, including Varoufakis, Noam Chomsky and Bernie Sanders, and UNI Global, a trade union federation representing 20 million workers including the UK’s GMB union. PI had called for a one-day global boycott of Amazon on November 27, 2020. This boycott was supposed to include “not even visiting the website” of the company.  At one point the company was making sales of $11,000 every second. This was totally at the expense of the workers working in Amazon, who do so for a pittance in extremely oppressive working conditions.

According to Casper Gelderblom of Progressive International’s campaign lead: “Trillion-dollar corporations like Amazon have too much power and are too large for a single government, trade union or organisation to rein in. That’s why workers, citizens and activists are coming together across borders and issues to take the power back.” This of course is not just about Amazon or any particular corporation alone. It is a question of corporate power and even more a question of the joint power of the gargantuan state machinery fusing its power with corporate power.

The situation today may seem too bleak to feel optimistic about such ventures. However, situations change, sometimes radically and suddenly. One needs to be prepared for such a change and also work towards it.

Several beginnings are being made in several countries and this will surely not be a simple forward march, given the immense powers that people are up against, as is being evidenced in the many struggles of working people in different sectors taking place all over the world. The latest star in the galaxy being the heroic and unprecedented farmers’ struggle in India that has just finished a four-month long sit-in on the various borders of the country’s capital and is giving the powers-that-be a proper run for their money.

Sujata Gothoskar has been researching and organising on the issues of gender, work and organisational processes for over 30 years. 

Mamata Banerjee Writes to Several Opposition Leaders on ‘Assault on Democracy’ by BJP

Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, M.K. Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav and Uddhav Thackeray are among those to whom the letter is addressed.

New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written personal letters to non-BJP leaders highlighting the “assaults” by the BJP and its government on democracy and constitutional federalism of India.

Ahead of the second phase of polls in the state, Banerjee’s letter, which was released by the TMC on Wednesday, seeks to drum up support from opposition leaders by stating how non-BJP states have suffered due to the saffron party led Centre’s actions.

“I am writing this letter to you, and to several leaders of non-BJP parties, to convey my serious concerns over a series of assaults by the BJP and its government at the Centre on democracy and constitutional federalism in India.

Also read: Mamata Extends Support to Delhi CM in Opposing Central Bill Giving More Power to L-G

Referring to the passage of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill by the two Houses of Parliament, she said that it is an “extremely grave” development.

“With this law, the BJP government at the Centre has snatched away practically all the powers of the democratically elected government of Delhi, and vested them in the hands of the Lt Governor, a nominee of the Centre. The Lt Governor has been made the undeclared Viceroy of Delhi, acting as a proxy for the home minister and the prime minister,” she said.

The three-page letter has been addressed to Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi, NCP’s Sharad Pawar, DMK’s MK Stalin, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray among others.

Supreme Court-Appointed Committee on Farm Laws Submits report

The committee held 12 rounds of consultations with various stakeholders and submitted its report to the apex court on March 19, 2021.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court-appointed committee to study the three new controversial agricultural laws has submitted its report to the apex court on March 19, 2021 in a sealed cover, one of its members said on Wednesday.

Farmers have been protesting seeking repeal of the three contentious farm laws on the borders of New Delhi for the last five months now. The Supreme Court had, on January 11, 2021, stayed the implementation of the three laws till further orders and appointed a four-member panel to resolve the impasse. The committee was given two months to study the laws and consult all stakeholders.

Also read: Supreme Court Stays Implementation of Farm Laws, Sets Up Committee for Talks

“We submitted the report on March 19 in a sealed cover. Now the court will decide the future course of action,” one of the members of the committee, Pramod Kumar Joshi, told PTI.

As per the committee’s official website, the panel held total 12 rounds of consultations with various stakeholders, including farmers groups, farmer producers organisations, procurement agencies, professionals, academicians and private as well as state agriculture marketing boards. The panel also held nine internal meetings before finalising the report.

Apart from Joshi, Shetkari Sanghatana president Anil Ghanwat and agri-economist and former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices Ashok Gulati are other members of the panel. The fourth member, Bhartiya Kisan Union president Bhupinder Singh Mann, had, however, recused himself from the committee before the work began.

Watch | COVID-19 Surge: Need To Limit, if Not Rule Out, Large Indoor Events

In an interview to The Wire, professor Ashish Jha says this year’s growth data compared to that of the first spike last year shows “the speed of growth is faster”.

One of the world’s most highly regarded public health experts has said that he fears the second coronavirus spike in India could be worse than the first. Professor Ashish Jha says: “This is a concerning situation. The speed at which infections are rising suggests exponential growth, particularly in Maharashtra”. He says this year’s growth data compared to that of the first spike last year shows “the speed of growth is faster”. In the US and Europe, second waves were uniformly worse than the first. India seems to be following suit.

In a 35-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, professor Jha, who is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and before that was professor of global health at Harvard University, told The Wire that India’s genome sequencing “is woefully too little”. The government has confirmed that India has only done 11,064 cases of genome sequencing which has been calculated as 0.1% of the total cases in India. Jha said “5% is the right number” and added “0.1% is way off”.

In the interview, Jha spoke in detail about the “double mutant strain” discovered in Maharashtra. The government has confirmed that 15-20% samples from Maharashtra sent for genome sequencing are of this strain. Jha explained to The Wire that there are two types of mutations. First, mutations that make the virus more infectious and, second, mutations that make the virus better at escaping vaccines and immunity. Jha said if the double mutant has both these “it would be very worrying and very concerning”.

Although we only have limited information about the double mutation strain, Jha said we need to urgently investigate further to establish whether the two vaccines used in India are effective against it. He said his concern is that Covishield, which is the main vaccine in India, does not seem to work well against the South African variant. It is, therefore, theoretically possible it may not work well against the double mutant strain.

Jha told The Wire that India should not take much comfort from the fact that so far in the second coronavirus surge, the incidents of severe illness and death are considerably lower than the first spike. As he explained, at the moment, the surge is infecting younger people in larger proportions than the first. However, after a lag of a couple of weeks, many of them are likely to infect the elderly members of their family. When that happens, after a further lag of a couple of weeks, serious illness and deaths will go up. He warned India “must not lull itself” with false beliefs.

Asked what advice he would give the government in tackling the second surge, Jha particularly stressed on the need to limit, if not completely rule out, large events held indoors. As he put it: “The virus spreads when people gather indoors without masks. That’s when most spread happens. Therefore, large gatherings indoors are very risky. Without masks they are extremely risky”. Jha’s advice was to restrict indoor activity and, in particular, weddings. He specifically said indoor weddings should be banned in Maharashtra.

However, Jha said he would not advise a national lockdown. He says “they are too aggressive”. Instead, he said, local lockdowns could be considered.

Asked about the fiercely fought election campaigns in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry and the shahi snans beginning in April at the Haridwar Kumbh Mela, where tens if not hundreds of thousands will gather without social distancing, Jha said “everyone must wear a mask at rallies or snans”.

Jha also advised the government to substantially ramp up vaccinations. He specifically said it should “launch a campaign to build more confidence in vaccines”.

However, when asked, Jha indicated he was not in favour of opening up vaccination to every adult over 18 at this stage. The priority, he said, was vaccinating the elderly and those in most danger because of comorbidities. Only after that and if there are sufficient vaccines should the government consider opening up vaccination to every adult over 18.

In the interview, Jha also spoke briefly about the coronavirus situation in the rest of the world.

Speaking first of the US, he said he was “particularly concerned about the next month or six weeks”. The number of cases could rise substantially during this period. However, he pointed out that he is not worried about deaths and hospitalisation. This is because the number of people who have already been vaccinated and the speed at which that is increasing in the US. Already, around 145 million people have got jabs and, he said, the number is increasing by 1% of the US population every day.

A doctor holds up a sign to signal his station needs more vaccine doses in Seattle, Washington, US. Photo: REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

Speaking about Europe, Jha said the difference between the UK and the rest of the continent is substantially explained both by higher levels of vaccine hesitancy in mainland Europe and the fact that the European Union was slow in making arrangement to acquire vaccines. The UK – alongside the US – was quick off the mark and is today benefitting with a far higher level of vaccination.

Speaking about the fact the year began with vaccines rolling out and many believing that we were poised to beat the virus, Jha said three months later it does seem as if that optimism was a little premature. He said: “There was a sense we had beaten the virus and the pandemic was over and that caught us flat-footed”.

Finally, Jha said he was concerned that not enough is being done to get vaccines to poorer countries in Asia and Africa. At some point, possibly this year, Europe and the US could be fully vaccinated but in the rest of the world, the disease will still remain a potent threat. Jha said not only does this raise ethical and moral problems but the virus does not respect borders and can travel back and the spread can restart in Europe and the US.

More importantly, Jha said if the virus keeps circulating, the chances of new and worrying mutations happening will keep increasing. It’s possible that such mutations could lead to a strain that is vaccine-immune and if that happens, the security that the US and Europe believe they have achieved will have been lost. Therefore, it’s essential that everyone all over the world is vaccinated as quickly as possible.

As he put it, “No one is safe until everyone is safe”.

The above is a paraphrased precis of professor Ashish Jha’s interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire. Although recounted from memory, it is not inaccurate. However, please see the full interview for a better understanding of Jha’s arguments. He is a fascinating speaker, easy to follow and full of rich details. There are very few people better than him at explaining things, particularly technical or complicated issues.

Lessons for Modi From Xi Jinping’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ Battle in China

The Chinese president has made over 80 visits to rural areas in eight years to inspect his anti-poverty campaign. How many villages has Narendra Modi visited in seven years?

On a visit to China in early 2017, my wife Kamaxi, a public health specialist, and I went to Yunnan province in the south, which has close historical links with India’s north-east. For example, the Ahom kingdom, which ruled Assam for many centuries and gave Assam its name, was established by a prince born in this part of China 800 years ago.

We had a young, well-educated and articulate Chinese interpreter and guide taking us around. A member of the Communist Party, he was working at the foreign relations department of the Yunnan government. As we were travelling on a long and meandering mountainous road, I asked him about the nature of his work. “I work as a translator in my office when I am not taking foreign guests around. But for two months in a year, I am sent to remote and poor villages to work on our government’s anti-poverty programme.”

Surprised, I said, “Do you like the work?” “Of course,” he replied. “China has become rich. But it still has many poor people. President Xi Jinping has declared China’s resolve to get rid of extreme poverty before the end of this decade. The most committed, hard-working and skilled party workers are sent to serve on this mission.”

Nearly four years later, on February 25, Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), declared: “China has secured a complete victory in its fight against poverty. With absolute poverty eliminated, China has created another ‘miracle’ that will go down in history.” In the past eight years, nearly all the remaining 10 crore rural poor have been lifted out of extreme poverty, and 130,000 villages have been removed from the poverty list. (Poverty is defined by China as anyone in rural areas earning less than about $2.30 a day. The World Bank’s poverty line is $1.90 a day.)

Since Deng Xiaoping ended Mao Zedong’s dogmatic socialist system and introduced pro-market economic reforms in the late 1970s, China has liberated 80 crore people from poverty. To know how poor China was at that time, consider this: China’s per capita GDP, just over $200, was comparable to India’s in 1980. Today, at $10,000, it is five times bigger. Indeed, the World Bank has acknowledged that China is responsible for over 70% of the global reduction in poverty over the last four decades. No country has been able to lift so many people out of poverty in such a short time.

Migrant workers Wang Qin (L) and her sister Wang Jun eat lunch during a break from collecting scrap materials from the debris of demolished buildings at the outskirts of Beijing, China October 1, 2017. Picture taken October 1, 2017. Reuters/Thomas Peter

“End poverty in all its forms everywhere” is the very first among the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to be reached by 2030. China has reached this goal 10 years ahead of schedule. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has acknowledged China’s success by calling it “the most important contribution” to the cause of global poverty reduction.

Unfortunately, there has not been much debate on this subject in political or media circles in India. The tragic clash at Galwan Valley on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) last year has created a widespread anti-China sentiment. China certainly has to do a lot to reduce the trust deficit it suffers in its relations with India. Nevertheless, we in India should not be blind to China’s successes on multiple fronts.

Also read: India and China: Lessons on How Not To Tackle Inequality

Three reasons behind Xi Jinping’s anti-poverty drive

Soon after taking over the reins of China in 2012, Xi Jinping made ‘Garibi Hatao’ his top political priority. He did so because of three inter-connected reasons — national, party-related and personal. China, despite its spectacular economic growth in the post-Mao period, suffered from steep wealth disparities. Even today, the income divide is very stark. The glitzy skyscrapers in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and even mid-sized cities in China outshine those in the United States and Western Europe.

However, as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang himself revealed in May last year, nearly 600 million people in China still earned only about 1,000 yuan ($155) a month. Therefore, improving the living conditions of the people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid has become a national necessity for a country that calls itself socialist and is ruled by a communist party. Xi Jinping has repeatedly stated that removal of poverty is one of the “three tough battles” China must win, the other two being preventing financial risks and tackling pollution.

For China’s communist rulers, continuation of poverty was politically risky because it would undercut its legitimacy to rule. Indeed, the party could even lose its monopoly over power. However, it would be a mistake to surmise that the CPC made ‘Garibi Hatao’ one of its paramount goals simply for its own survival in power. Rather, the party contextualised it as an important immediate-term objective within a far more ambitious long-term plan for the development of China, as it marches towards its two centenary milestones — the Chinese Communist Party celebrating its centenary in 2021 and China celebrating 100 years of its revolution in 2049.

Xi Jinping elaborated on this in his three-and-a-half hour speech at the 19th congress of the CPC in October 2017, laying out his vision of achieving “socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era”. China would achieve its “first century goal” of building a “Xiao Kang society” — meaning, “a moderately prosperous society in all respects” — by the end of 2020. (“Xiao Kang” was a term popularised by Deng Xiaoping when China first set out on the path of modernisation in 1979.)

In specific terms, the “first century goal” required China to double the gross national product and average per capita income in urban and rural areas in comparison to the numbers in 2010. By 2035, China would complete basic socialist modernisation to reach the level of moderately developed countries, 15 years ahead of schedule. Thereafter, by 2050, marching towards its “second century goal”, China would be built as a leading world power, a “great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful”.

Even though these future milestones in China’s journey create a lot of national pride among the Chinese, Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasised that China cannot become a “Xiao Kang” society without ending poverty in rural areas and without ensuring that “no one is left behind”.

For Xi Jinping personally, the anti-poverty drive has both an emotional and political motive. Even though he was regarded as a princeling — his father Xi Zhongxun was a top first-generation party leader and the country’s vice-premier — he experienced poverty first hand during his youth. When his father was persecuted and imprisoned by Mao during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Xi had to live in a cave in Liangjiahe, a poor and remote village in the hills of Shaanxi Province for seven years (1968-75).

As a young communist party worker at the grassroots, he had seen China’s backwardness and the agony of its people. He had worked among farmers trying to increase farm and non-farm incomes of villagers. Therefore, when he became the country’s top leader, eradication of the last remnants of poverty became his personal passion. Moreover, success in this mission has further strengthened his power within the party, enabling him to continue in office beyond the second term, which comes to an end in late 2022. He has now decreed that rural incomes must grow faster than those in urban China.

Also read: Wanted: A Nuanced Strategy To Engage With China

China’s lessons for India

The method China adopted to eliminate poverty has some important lessons for India, even though the political and governance conditions in our two countries are vastly different.

First, no historic transformation can ever be achieved without a combination of strong political will at the highest level, organised and united effort of the people and the government, and innovative strategies backed by the power of new technologies. Xi Jinping mobilised the full force of the CPC and the government to launch an anti-poverty campaign on a scale unseen anywhere in the world. He himself made nearly 80 inspection visits, many of them to remote villages. Readers can watch videos of those visits on YouTube. (A pertinent question: how many villages has Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited in the past seven years?)

Second, China invested requisite financial and human resources for implementing its resolute plans. As much as $250 billion were invested into poverty alleviation over the past eight years. More importantly, over 30 lakh committed party cadre were sent from cities and towns to villages to fight poverty “on the front lines”. They included agricultural experts, doctors, specialists in small industries using local resources, and government officials, such as my young interpreter in Yunnan, who said to me that his work in rural areas gave him his “highest job satisfaction”.

Representative image. Photo: Reuters

Xi felicitated such model workers as “national heroes”. He also regularly warned against “bureaucratism” in the anti-poverty work and the habit of presenting “false poverty alleviation” reports. He spoke against corruption in poverty alleviation schemes. The party has taken action against thousands of dishonest officers.

Third, what contributed greatly to the success of the campaign was the “targeted poverty alleviation strategy”. It not only identified poor villages, but also, more importantly, accurately targeted poor families and individuals. A ‘national poverty registration system’ was established to track, manage and monitor every poor household. Using data analytics and other digital technologies, local leaders were asked to plan and implement programmes based on improvement of agricultural, local and home-based industries, assured investment and market support, medical insurance and medical aid, education, skill development and provision of minimum living allowances.

The central government asked provincial governments to create different policies to suit different regions. Furthermore, local authorities were given the freedom to design plans and programmes tailored to local needs and resources. This decentralised approach, coupled with effective central monitoring and guidance, made a big difference.

In India, the Central and state governments often work at cross-purposes in designing and implementing their own different — and differently named — anti-poverty programmes. Political considerations play a major role in determining where funds are deployed and utilised. States and constituencies that are represented by opposition parties are routinely neglected. Furthermore, there is inadequate attention paid to synergising various developmental schemes to benefit poverty-afflicted households in a targeted, data-driven and 360-degree manner.

Fourth, wherever necessary, Chinese villages in far-off mountains and ecologically fragile regions were relocated to areas closer to the cities. This was not easy. After all, people who had lived in their native places for centuries would not easily consent to be shifted to new habitats. Therefore, authorities had to build attractive housing colonies with modern facilities, and make apartments available at very low prices, benefiting over 10 million people.

More importantly, they had to create sustainable employment and livelihood opportunities in nearby areas. China has not yet fully overcome this challenge. Another formidable challenge is providing equal opportunities to ethnic minorities for future development after ending their impoverishment.

Fifth, unlike the diffused, ill-directed and ill-monitored utilisation of funds under the corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy in India, China has evolved a far more effective and targeted approach to channelling the resources of its business organisations into its poverty alleviation campaign. These resources are deployed in ways that synergise the overall plans designed by the provincial and local authorities.

For example, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has turned hundreds of poor villages into “Taobao Villages” — Taobao being the name of Alibaba’s hugely successful online shopping website. These villages have become rural e-commerce hubs to which Alibaba provides logistics support and training, so that villagers can engage in online sales of farm produce and other local produce to urban consumers. Over 60,000 private enterprises have enrolled themselves in the government’s anti-poverty campaign.

Sixth, after achieving the primary goal of lifting indigent people from abject poverty, Xi Jinping has now asked the government to focus on comprehensive “rural vitalisation”, so that vulnerable people do not fall back into poverty. For this, China has created a new government body called the ‘National Administration for Rural Revitalisation’.

Also read: The 1970s Indian Economy: A Period of Growing Strains and the Nation’s Fight Against Poverty

50 years after Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ campaign

It is of course necessary to keep in mind that there is some exaggeration in the anti-poverty propaganda by the Chinese government, which has a tight control over the media. We do not get to read much about failures, setbacks and problems encountered by the people and authorities, nor do we know about the divergent views of Chinese scholars on the subject. However, even after making allowance for this factor, any unprejudiced observer of the developments in China and those who visit Chinese cities and villages would agree that our neighbour has achieved something important not only for itself but also for the entire humanity.

Poverty and deprivation are a systemic curse on any human being, irrespective of country, colour, caste or community. Being able to live without having to worry about the basic necessities of life is indispensable for human dignity and justice, and a fundamental human right. True, China is not a democracy — and that is its biggest shortcoming. Nevertheless, in less than a half century, it has come a long and commendable way from being a poor nation to becoming the world’s second wealthiest nation with little or no poverty.

This success is all the more remarkable because the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a lot of people into poverty in many countries, including in the US. A recent World Bank report has acknowledged: “For more than two decades, extreme poverty was steadily declining. Now, for the first time in a generation, the quest to end poverty has suffered its worst setback”.

According to a Pew Research report, the coronavirus crisis has shrunk India’s middle class by 32 million, and pushed 75 million into poverty in 2020.

Clearly, we Indians should hail China’s success. And we should learn lessons that are suitable to us in our own battle against poverty, which began with Indira Gandhi giving the ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan in 1971 and has still not been fully won in 2021.

Sudheendra Kulkarni served as an aide to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and is the founder of the ‘Forum for a New South Asia – Powered by India-Pakistan-China Cooperation’. He is the author of Music of the Spinning Wheel: Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet Age. He tweets @SudheenKulkarni.

As Pakistan Lifts Ban on Sugar, Cotton Imports From India, Qureshi Notes ‘Positive’ Sign

The Pakistan foreign minister said that the fact that India had not pointed fingers at its neighbour at the ‘Heart of Asia’ meet was a productive development.

New Delhi: As Pakistan lifted its ban on import of cotton and sugar from India, the country’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that it was a positive sign that his Indian counterpart had not raised a finger at Pakistan in an international forum.

Pakistan Cabinet’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on Wednesday permitted the import of sugar and cotton from India, which will partially rollback the suspension of trade ties by Pakistan government following India’s move to change Kashmir’s constitutional status in August 2019.

While trade ties may be slowly reviving, Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers did not hold any meetings or short ‘pull asides’ at the ‘Heart of Asia’ ministerial conference in Tajikistan, where both were in attendance.

On Tuesday night, Qureshi told Pakistani media said that the revival of the LoC ceasefire agreement, the Indian prime minister’s letter on Pakistan Day and the fact that Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar did not criticise Pakistan at the ‘Heart of Asia’ Conference, as he had on previous occasions, were “positive and productive developments”. 

At the last ministerial conference in December 2019, Qureshi had left the hall when Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh had started his speech.

Also read: As Ties Thaw, India and Pakistan Must Avoid Maximalist Positions for Lasting Kashmir Solution

On the possibility of a meeting with his Indian counterpart in the Tajikistan capital of Dushanbe, Qureshi said that neither was such an encounter scheduled nor had he received any such request.

Dawn reported on Wednesday afternoon that Pakistan Finance Minister Hammad Azhar has announced that the private sector will be allowed to import 0.5 million tonnes of white sugar. Besides, Pakistan will also import cotton from India from June, to meet the shortage of raw materials that has hobbled a key export sector.

Following the reading down of Article 370 in August 2019, Pakistan had downgraded ties with India and stopped all trade links. Last year in May, Pakistan lifted the ban on import of medicines and raw material from India in order to meet any exigencies during the COVID-19 pandemic.