While the states carry out the deletions on the ground, the Union government’s policy decisions, lack of updated guidelines and failure to address systemic issues make it equally accountable for the crisis. How long will it shift responsibility?
On March 30, 2023, Biddika Nagesh, a 36-year-old Savara Adivasi from Andhra Pradesh, was marked as deceased in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) MIS system.
In reality, Nagesh is alive and unaware that he has been deleted from the rolls – a fate shared by over 9 crore workers who used to be on the MGNREGS registers in the last three years. This is as per the data from MGNREGS portal, run by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India.
Responding to a question by Congress MP Sasikanth Senthil in Parliament about these deletions, Union minister Pemmasani Chandrasekhar said, “The deletion of job cards is a function of the State Government. The Union Government has no role in deletion of job cards.”
The Wire carried a detailed story on the discussion on December 3, 2024.
Adding to the concerns, questions were raised in Parliament about whether the large-scale deletions were linked to the Union government’s push for digitalisation of payment and verification processes.
In response, the government asserted that digitalisation aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and timely payment of wages while safeguarding workers’ rights. Support mechanisms, such as grievance redressal systems, training and on-ground assistance, were highlighted as efforts to help workers transition seamlessly, it stated.
The government also vehemently denied the role of the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS) in deletions. But is it accurate to claim that the government has no responsibility?
The legal and policy framework
TheMGNREGA provides explicit conditions for job card cancellations. Section 3 of Schedule II of the act states:
“The job card issued shall be valid for at least five years, after which it may be renewed following due verification.”
Schedule II, Paragraph 23, outlines the procedure for deleting workers from job cards:
“If the Gram Panchayat is satisfied at any time that a person has registered with it by furnishing false information, it may direct the Programme Officer to strike off their name from the register and require the applicant to return the job card.”
Regarding due process, the provision mandates that the deleted worker, if alive, must be “given an opportunity of being heard in the presence of two independent persons”.
“No job card can be cancelled except where it is found to be a duplicate, or if the entire household has permanently migrated to a place outside the Gram Panchayat and no longer resides in the village.”
Job cards can only be canceled after thorough verification and for the following reasons:
Permanent migration to urban areas.
Duplicate or forged documents.
Migration to a different Gram Panchayat.
Urbanization of the village into a municipality.
The process must involve public notification, independent verification, and updates to the MIS system.
Regardless, on the ground, these guidelines are routinely flouted. Civil society organisations (CSOs) and media reports reveal that workers are deleted without notice, and gram sabhas, which are legally mandated to be part of the process, are completely bypassed.
Shockingly, reasons such as “not willing to work” frequently appear in the MIS, despite there being no legal basis for such deletions in either the Act or the circular.
Union government vs. state responsibility
The Union government has consistently maintained that job card deletions are the sole responsibility of state governments.
While it is true that states execute the deletions at the grassroots level, the larger picture reveals significant central oversight and influence:
Policy Framework and Guidelines
The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) issues overarching guidelines for implementing MGNREGA, including worker verification and job card management.
The lack of updated, clear guidelines on job card deletions has created ambiguity and operational confusion among state officials.
The Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS), made mandatory by MoRD, has inadvertently contributed to large-scale deletions. Workers unable to link their job cards to ABPS were often deleted to showcase compliance, even when they were active participants in the program.
Adding to the complexities, as Chakradhar Buddha and Laavanya Tamang point out in their article on MGNREGS worker deletions in Economic and Political Weekly, the Union government’s push for ABPS – despite its intentions for transparency – has inadvertently incentivised large-scale deletions as states attempt to meet compliance targets without adequate support or safeguards.
Monitoring and accountability
The Union government monitors program implementation, penalises states for lapses, and enforces compliance with various provisions of the MGNREGA Act. It also funds 90% of the program’s budget, which gives it a significant stake in ensuring the scheme’s success.
Despite this, it has not acted decisively on worker deletions, even as the numbers surged alarmingly in recent years.
This raises questions about whether the Union Government is more focused on flagging irregularities in implementation rather than addressing violations of workers’ rights.
The lack of effective intervention in worker deletions undermines the intended protections of the Act, drawing attention to a gap in accountability where the Union Government’s monitoring efforts should ensure not only compliance but also the safeguarding of workers’ entitlements.
Discrepancies and mismanagement
Analysis of the MIS data reveals inconsistencies in the reasons cited for worker deletions.
In the national-level sample analysed by Chakradhar Buddha and Rajendran Narayan, ‘not willing to work’ was the official reason for 71% of the deletions, as highlighted in their article for The Hindu.
Notably, nearly 10.5% of these workers had actively participated in the program during the same year, contradicting the official reason for their deletion. Neither the MGNREGA Act nor the master circular lists this as a valid reason for deletion. Additionally, the MoRD has admitted, in response to an RTI application filed by the author, that it has not conducted any study to analyse the surge in deletions or their underlying causes.
This lack of proactive oversight casts doubt on the intention and robustness of the government’s stated support mechanisms, such as grievance redressal systems and on-ground assistance for workers.
Conclusion
While the states carry out the deletions on the ground, the Union government’s policy decisions, lack of updated guidelines, and failure to address systemic issues make it equally accountable for the crisis.
Questions about the impact of digitalisation on deletions reveal that the push for transparency and efficiency, although well-intentioned, has not been accompanied by sufficient safeguards for workers. The large-scale deletions reflect a troubling reliance on administrative practices that often sideline workers’ rights.
The tragedy of these deletions is not just the loss of livelihood for millions of rural workers but also the systemic failure to uphold the very principles of MGNREGS – a programme designed to provide a safety net for the most vulnerable sections of society.
Rather than shifting responsibility to state governments, the Union government must impose an immediate moratorium on all worker deletions until genuine workers are reinstated.
Additionally, it needs to establish strict guidelines for frontline officials to prevent wrongful deletions, commission comprehensive research to assess the scale of incorrect removals, and launch dedicated campaigns to restore wrongfully deleted workers to the system.
These steps are crucial as deletions continue to threaten the livelihoods of vulnerable workers who depend on MGNREGS for their survival.
Chakradhar Buddha is associated with LibTech India, an action research and advocacy collective dedicated to enhancing the delivery of public services. The opinions expressed in this article are his own.
The pervasiveness of patriarchal notions regarding women’s autonomy and their right to self-determination often insidiously make their way to judicial proceedings and determinations.
Court proceedings are, in many ways, an elaborate performance. The courtroom is the stage, judges and lawyers are the actors while laws and rules of procedure are the tools within the framework of which the script can be written. However, every once in a while, the actors break character.
The script is tossed, the actors succumb to their urge to act with abandon and without the limiting conformations of the script. The case described below was one such instance.
The Bombay high court was hearing a petition filed by the adoptive father of a 27-year-old woman seeking the termination of her 21-week pregnancy. The petition was filed in her name with the father signing the petition acting as her guardian or “next friend”, based on the claim that she was mentally ill.
The order passed on the first date when the matter was heard refers to the pleadings in the petition which clearly stated that the woman did not wish to terminate the pregnancy and the father was therefore constrained to file a writ petition seeking such a direction from the high court.
No person can file court proceedings on behalf of another competent adult, even if they claim to be acting in their interest. The possible harms that could arise from this are so self-evident that they do not need further elaboration.
While the Bombay High Court Rules allow exceptions in the case of minors and persons of unsound mind where a “next friend” can file a petition on behalf of such a person, they also require an affidavit to be presented along with the petition, stating that they do not have any interest directly or indirectly adverse to that of the minor or person of unsound mind.
Further, the person has to be adjudged as being of unsound mind or must be found by the court, upon inquiry,of being of unsound mind.
No such affidavit appears to have been filed in the present case. The father’s interests were clearly adverse to that of the woman since he sought the termination of her pregnancy which she wished to continue. There was no adjudication by any authority that the woman was of unsound mind.
On the authority of a woman
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1981, requires the consent of the pregnant woman to terminate the pregnancy. If the woman is “mentally ill”, which is defined as “a person who is in need of treatment by reason of any mental disorder other than mental retardation”, the consent of the guardian is to be sought.
The Madras high court in V. Krishnan v. G. Rajan alias Madipu Rajan [(1994) 113 Mad.L.W. 89 (DB)] has clarified that this provision is not to be interpreted to mean that the consent of the woman herself is immaterial. Rather, the consent of her guardian is to be additionally sought.
The Bombay high court ought to have dismissed the petition at this stage itself, since it was filed in contravention of the rules of procedure without authority of the person on whose behalf the reliefs had been claimed and further, the MTP Act did not allow the termination of a pregnancy without the consent of the woman.
However, far from doing so, on the first date when the matter was taken up, the court constituted a medical committee to undertake an evaluation of not the woman, but the foetus.
The reason for emphasising this is that it established at this stage itself that the woman’s refusal to file the petition or to terminate her pregnancy, which is specifically noted in the order, did not matter.
The court would decide what was best for the foetus in the womb. Interestingly, this order, and all the ones that followed, refer to the woman as a “would-be mother”.
Perhaps without realising it, during the proceedings in court, the judges referred to the 27-year old woman as a child.
Concerned about the woman’s privacy being violated, the order passed on this date also directed the registry to mask the woman’s name and that she should be referred to as “XYZ, c/o her father (by legal adoption)”.
The report of the medical committee noted that the foetus was healthy and there was no congenital anomaly. As far as the woman is concerned, the report stated that she had a borderline intellectual disability. Curiously, the report then notes that the psychiatry department suggested the medical termination of pregnancy from a “psychiatry point of view”.
The woman’s views about the pregnancy or her consent for the termination of the pregnancy do not find any place in this report.
On the next date when the matter was taken up, after noting the report of the medical committee and several prior medical reports including a psychiatric evaluation, the court observed that the woman only had a mild intellectual disability which did not make her mentally ill or a person with a mental disorder or mental retardation.
The story should have ended here, and the petition should have been dismissed (perhaps even with exemplary costs).
However, the court kept the petition pending and directed the father to have an interaction with the “male counterpart” with whom she had a relationship (which led to her pregnancy) to explore the possibility of marriage.
In exact words, the court directed the father to “initiate some steps to have an interaction with the said man, and find out whether he is already married and if not, whether he is inclined to marry the daughter of the Petitioner”.
Prior to this, the father was chided for filing the petition but not because it was against the express wishes of the woman. The court inquired rhetorically whether a woman with below average intelligence did not have the “right to be a mother” and whether a foetus with a beating heart did not have the right to life.
Note that even at this stage the court was not concerned about the woman’s decisional autonomy and her right to decide what was best for her, but was concerned with her “right” to be a mother and the alleged right of the foetus to survive.
On the next date, the advocate representing the father informed the court that there was a possibility that the woman and the man may marry and accordingly sought instructions to withdraw the petition. The court was satisfied.
The woman would now become XYZ c/o the male counterpart. The court allowed the withdrawal of the petition on instructions.
Reproductive right under Article 21
In the last decade there have been innumerable judgments of various high courts and several judgments of the Supreme Court emphasising the right to reproductive autonomy. This has followed from the recognition of the right to make reproductive choices as a facet of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
The facts of this case also bear a striking resemblance to the first significant judgment of the Supreme Court recognising reproductive rights under Article 21 – Suchita Srivastava v. Chandigarh Administration [(2009) 9 SCC 1].
Nineteen-year-old Suchita Srivastava, who was an inmate in a state-run shelter home in Chandigarh, was pregnant. Although she wished to continue with the pregnancy, the state administration filed a petition in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana seeking the termination of the pregnancy.
The high court directed the termination of the woman’s pregnancy on the ground that the woman was mentally retarded and therefore incapable of making an informed decision on her own. In an appeal against the said order, the Supreme Court observed that the state administration could not claim guardianship of the woman and that the woman’s right to reproductive autonomy is a dimension of Article 21 of the Constitution.
The various components that make up this right, such as the right to bodily and decisional autonomy, have been fleshed out in several judgments that have followed.
Having noted that the woman did not wish to terminate the pregnancy, applying these precedents, the high court ought to have dismissed the petition. Its failure to do so calls for closer scrutiny.
What was the motivation of the court to direct the foetus to be examined? If the foetus was detected with a congenital defect, would the court have directed the termination of the pregnancy? What would have happened if the male partner refused to marry the woman? Would the court have allowed the petition filed by her father?
Where did the woman’s desire about the course of her own life and body figure in all of this?
What underlies these court proceedings and the comments made in open court is that the woman is seen as inherently incapable of deciding what is in her own best interest.
Even though the court notes several times that the woman is not mentally ill and is therefore competent and capable of consenting, she is still seen as a ward of the father, in need of protection and guidance.
However, having declared the father as having failed in his duty (for having allowed the woman to stay out of the house after 10 p.m., amongst other reasons), the court assumes the role of parens patriae, the father-figure.
Once the court was satisfied that the woman would be married and would therefore have a male custodian, it permitted the withdrawal of the petition.
Will precedent be applied, will the provisions of a legislation be strictly or liberally interpreted, will rules be uniformly applied? In what circumstances will the principle of ‘equity’, allowing judges to go off-script if the situation demands, be deployed? Are rules of procedure seen as malleable or as immutable and rigid?
This depends on the end to be achieved. This end, whether consciously determined or not, is invariably to preserve the status quo rather than to effect change. There are innumerable instances of judges using the shield of procedure, choosing to adopt a hyper-technical approach to deny claims for substantive justice.
On the other hand, in instances such as this, which threaten to undermine a person’s constitutionally protected right, rules of procedure are seen as optional.
This is not meant to be a criticism of the particular judges that heard the matter. Judges are ultimately products of the world they inhabit. Nor is it meant to be a criticism of the judge’s misplaced concern for the foetus or the so-called right to life of the foetus – that is deserving of an article of its own (although the patriarchal notions that such a view flows from is worth noting).
It is, rather, meant to be a commentary on the pervasiveness of patriarchal notions regarding women’s autonomy and their right to self-determination and how these views insidiously make their way to judicial proceedings and determinations.
While judges are not insulated from these belief systems, it is crucial that these instances, when they occur, are exposed and scrutinised.
One might argue that no harm was ultimately caused in this matter since the petition was permitted to be withdrawn.
However, proceedings in matters such as this must be examined not for what the outcome was, but for what they reveal about the attitudes of those occupying powerful positions as well as the society of which they are part, and the potential for these attitudes to do actual harm.
Meenaz Kakalia is a lawyer practicing at the Bombay High Court, primarily in the areas of environmental law and reproductive rights.
By focusing on trivial matters and using fear-mongering tactics to distract the public from the real challenges facing the economy, the government has lost touch with the concerns of the people it is supposed to serve.
After a series of statements and policy decisions that have sparked widespread debate, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has found herself amid intense public outrage. While much of the focus, especially on social media, has been on the controversial “popcorn tax,” her broader approach to the economic policy can be described as “fear-mongering” – a deliberate strategy to distract the public from the actual challenges and evolving concerns surrounding the country’s economy. These developments reflect the government’s failure to address more critical issues and resorting to populist measures that harm the common man instead while shielding the government from much-needed scrutiny.
The popcorn-tax controversy
The “popcorn tax” refers to the decision made by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in December 2024, which introduced differentiated tax rates for various types of popcorn sold in India. According to the new tax regime, non-branded, salted popcorn was taxed at 5%, pre-packaged and branded popcorn at 12% and caramelised popcorn at 18%, which fell under the category of confectionery. While this move may seem trivial to some, it has ignited widespread public backlash. The decision can be considered as an example of the government’s inability to connect with the everyday struggles of the common man.
For a country grappling with high inflation and rising costs of essential goods, taxing a simple snack like popcorn at different rates appeared senseless. Consumers voiced their frustration over what they saw as a display of government incompetence, with social media flooded with memes and sarcastic posts. The uproar was not just limited to online forums but also echoed across traditional media, with critics accusing the government of focusing on inconsequential matters while ignoring the real problems plaguing the economy.
The popcorn tax controversy highlights the government’s tendency to adopt policies that appear tone-deaf to ordinary people’s lived experiences. Instead of addressing the pressing needs of the population, such as tackling unemployment, inflation or income disparity, the government is fixated on trivialities. The public’s reaction to this move reflected their growing disillusionment with a government that seemed more interested in maintaining control over minor details rather than solving pressing national issues. These announcements erode consumers and not only affect consumer spending – a vital driver of economic growth – but also create a perception of an out-of-touch government.
A pattern of disconnected tax policies
The popcorn tax is not an isolated incident. Over the past few years, the central government has introduced several tax measures that have raised eyebrows, often for their seeming detachment from reality. For instance, the imposition of an 18% GST on pre-packaged and labelled food items, including staples like pulses and cereals. This policy disproportionately impacts low-income households, further squeezing an already beleaguered population. Similarly, the decision to tax sanitary napkins at 12% was widely condemned, prompting a reversal after considerable public outcry. These instances show a worrying trend in the government’s economic policy, where decisions are made with little regard for the social and economic consequences they may have on the common man.
The government’s handling of the GST system, particularly its application to everyday goods, has been criticised for creating unnecessary complexities. While the goal of simplifying taxation was a laudable one, the current system has only added to the confusion. The categorisation of popcorn – of all things – into different tax slabs is a perfect example of how the government has turned tax policy into a bureaucratic quagmire that only serves to inconvenience consumers and businesses alike. Instead of streamlining the system to benefit the public, these moves seem to be a way of further entrenching the government’s control over economic matters, while ignoring the voices of those who are most affected. The complexity of the current GST system disproportionately affects small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which form the backbone of the economy. SMEs often lack the resources to navigate the intricate tax structures, resulting in compliance difficulties, delayed refunds and increased operational costs, which further exacerbate economic disparities.
Fear-mongering: A distraction from real issues
What is perhaps most concerning about Sitharaman’s statements and policies is the tone of fear-mongering that has accompanied them. Her government’s rhetoric often frames economic challenges in terms of imminent doom, painting a picture of a nation teetering on the edge of financial chaos if drastic measures are not taken. Recall the statements like “the rupee has not weakened but it is the dollar that has strengthened” while speaking to reporters after attending the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. Such narratives are not only misleading but also counterproductive. Further, by focusing on rhetoric and peripheral issues like the popcorn tax, the government diverts attention away from the real and pressing economic concerns that require immediate action.
One such issue is the ongoing slowdown of the economy. In the July-September quarter of 2024, India’s GDP grew at a mere 5.4% year-on-year, a marked slowdown from previous years. Sitharaman was quick to downplay this, calling it a “temporary blip,” but the signs of a deeper crisis are becoming increasingly evident. From a robust GDP growth of 8.2% in 2023-24, the economy has plunged by nearly two percentage points to a forecasted growth of 6.4% for 2024-25, marking the slowest pace in four years. Even the National Statistical Office’s first advance estimate of GDP is lower than the RBI’s projection of 6.6%.
The net Foreign Direct Investment is declining, foreign investors are pulling out and forex reserves are shrinking. The manufacturing sector is struggling, investment remains sluggish and consumer demand is weak. Despite these challenges, the government has failed to implement substantial fiscal measures to rejuvenate the economy, relying instead on superficial policies that barely address the underlying issues.
Sitharaman’s attempt to minimise the severity of the economic slowdown is emblematic of a broader issue – the government’s refusal to engage with the reality of India’s economic challenges. Rather than confronting these challenges head-on, the government has resorted to a strategy of deflection, focusing on trivial matters like popcorn tax that are a supposed improvement in the economy but is not reflected in the lives of most Indians.
A deteriorating economic landscape
In the face of these challenges, the Narendra Modi government’s economic policies have been criticised for their inability to stimulate growth. The manufacturing sector is yet to fully recover from the pandemic-induced slump and investment in infrastructure has been slow. While the government continues to focus on cosmetic reforms, the economy is grappling with systemic issues that require more significant intervention. The rupee makes historic falls and unemployment remains high, with millions of youth unable to find work. The recent trend of mass lay-offs in the tech sector has only added to this sense of uncertainty.
The government’s response has been largely to adopt piecemeal solutions that do not address the core issues. For instance, the GST system continues to be a source of contention, with businesses complaining about the complexity of compliance and the slow pace of refunds. Small and medium enterprises have been particularly hard-hit by these issues. Instead of tackling these structural problems, the government continues to introduce measures that, at best, offer temporary relief or, at worst, create new burdens for businesses and consumers alike. With the rise of the digital economy, the government’s taxation policies need to evolve. The current system does not adequately address the unique challenges and opportunities posed by digital transactions and e-commerce, potentially stifling growth in this vital sector.
The need for constructive economic policy
India needs a comprehensive, long-term economic strategy that prioritises growth, job creation, stabilisation of the rupee and poverty alleviation. The government must focus on fiscal policies that stimulate demand and create jobs, invest in infrastructure development and reduce the regulatory burden on businesses. The focus must shift away from minor distractions and toward tackling the structural issues that have prevented the country from achieving its full potential.
India also needs a tax system that is fair, transparent and easy to navigate. The current GST system, with its complicated tax slabs and frequent changes, is doing more harm than good. A simplification of the tax code, with a focus on reducing the burden on the lower and middle classes, would go a long way toward rebuilding trust in the government’s ability to manage the economy. Economic policy-making should involve strengthening democratic institutions, enabling broader participation in the decision-making process. Engaging civil society, industry experts and the general public can lead to more inclusive and effective economic policies.
Sitharaman’s recent statements and the popcorn tax controversy serve as a metaphor for the broader failure of the Union government’s economic policies. By focusing on trivial matters and using fear-mongering tactics to distract the public from the real challenges facing the economy, the government has lost touch with the concerns of the people it is supposed to serve. For India to progress, the government must adopt a more constructive approach to policy-making – one that prioritises the welfare of its citizens and addresses the deep-rooted economic issues that continue to stymie growth. As we approach another annual budget session, the time has come for the government to look beyond the popcorn tax and focus on creating trust, confidence, and a robust and sustainable economic future for all.
Amal Chandra is the author of The Essential, a policy analyst, political commentator and columnist. He tweets at @ens_socialis.
With a focus on grassroots empowerment, transparency and prioritising the needs of the poor, the AAP challenges the entrenched top-down system that has long dominated Indian politics.
In an unprecedented move on December 26, two departments of the government of Delhi – the women and child development, and health departments – sent out notices warning the public not to register for the “Mahila Samman” and “Sanjeevani” schemes, two schemes announced by Delhi’s elected Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. The first promised a monthly cash transfer of Rs 1,000 to the accounts of allowances for women, and the second free health care for seniors.
In their public notices, these departments called the two schemes “non-existent” because no such schemes had been notified by the Delhi government. Notification of a scheme announced by an elected government is normally a routine matter. In this case, the subjects fell far outside the limitations prescribed in Article 239A of the Constitution, which reserves only three subjects under the jurisdiction of the central government in the union territories of Pondicherry and Delhi – police, law and order, and land.
Why, then, did the two departments insist on a public notification first? The answer is to be found in the unrelenting, no-holds-barred war that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have been waging against the AAP ever since its inception and capture of the national capital territory.
Why is Modi targeting the AAP?
These notices have, however, served a useful purpose, for they have highlighted the fear that the AAP is inspiring in the greatest tyrant that has governed India since the death of Aurangzeb. That V.C. Saxena, the lieutenant governor of Delhi who is perfectly aware of his duties under the Constitution, is willing to violate Article 239A at Modi’s behest, is a measure of the fear that this prime minister inspired in the officials who have the misfortune to serve the Delhi administration.
Why is Modi going to such extreme lengths – willing even to insult the Constitution – to crush one of the smallest national parties in the country?
The answer is an almost feline awareness of what this tiny party stands for; it is the very opposite of what the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is striving to create – an authoritarian government that rules its subjects from the top.
AAP’s vision: Trickle-up, not trickle-down
Modi’s government did not create ruling from the top. This was enshrined in the Government of India Act of 1935. Regrettably, the Constituent Assembly chose to use this Act as the base upon which to create the Constitution. As a result, nearly all the immunities from prosecution enjoyed by civil servants and the police under the British were kept intact.
When the Constitution did not create a legal and justiciable system for financing central and state elections, the criminalisation of politics became complete. Since government sanctions were necessary to implement the decisions of these criminalised legislatures, the corruption of the bureaucracy and police followed closely on the heels of the criminalisation of the legislature.
Over the past 75 years, these initial mistakes have created an inegalitarian, top-down, corrupt and criminalised political system, masquerading as a democracy. That is the political system that Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP is fighting to not merely defeat but eradicate.
It is the AAP’s commitment to create a clean political and administrative system that prioritises the needs of the poor that people have been welcoming in ever larger numbers. This has been demonstrated by the rapid rise of the party in Delhi, Punjab and Surat, in the heart of Modi’s citadel in Gujarat, within 12 years of the party’s inception.
What is Kejriwal trying to do that is evoking such an electrifying response from the people? It is his party’s unswerving belief that good governance must begin with meeting the needs of the poor. Prosperity needs not to trickle down from above, but to seep up from the poor till it palpably improves the lives of the rich.
It is the AAP’s unswerving adherence to this conviction in the face of every conceivable obstacle thrown in its way that explains the party’s meteoric rise from an idea to a ruling party in two states in a mere 12 years. The party’s rapid rise shows how desperately the poor of India have been yearning for this.
The AAP owes its rise to a guiding philosophy that Jasmine Shah, a senior member of the party, has described in a book titled The Delhi Model: A Bold New Road Map to Building a Developed India.
Kejriwal’s first act upon coming to power in 2013 was to set up a helpline for complaints on corruption that the public could convey to the government. That had to be suspended within days because 90% of the complaints it was receiving were against the Delhi police, over whom the state government had no control. When he set it up again upon his return to power in 2015, it took the Modi government only three months to send in the Delhi police, seize the building of Delhi’s anti-corruption bureau and confiscate all its files.
Transforming education in Delhi
But as Modi was soon to find out, Kejriwal had far more ambitious plans for Delhi. Within days, the new government increased the state’s education budget by 45% – taking it to a quarter of the government’s entire spending – and began a teacher training programme, selecting bright teachers from all the government schools, bringing in specialists from abroad to train them and sending the best of them for further educational qualifications to universities abroad.
Kejriwal’s reason for giving education the highest priority was that “if good education is provided to every child in the country, they can eradicate poverty in their families within one generation.” This is the very essence of the difference between the Delhi model of governance, as it has come to be called, and the traditional model of school and college education. The latter is designed for recruiters and managers to serve a “trickle down” model of economic growth. In this model – a quintessential product of private enterprise-led economic development – the rich get the cream while the poor get only the dregs.
In his book, Shah gives a riveting description of the impact that Delhi’s “trickle up” model of governance has made. In the last decade, it has built 22,700 classrooms in government schools. For comparison, 24,700 classrooms had been built in the previous 70 years. The impact of its relentless emphasis on education for the poor has not taken long to become visible. Since 2016, more than 200,000 students have left Delhi’s private schools to join government schools. And since 2016, class 12 students from these schools have performed better than those from private schools.
Addressing basic needs
There have been similar dramatic improvements in health care. The Mohalla clinic initiative has been written about extensively but the number treated is still mind-boggling – over 9 years from 2016 till end of 2024, 540 Mohalla clinics have treated 70 million patients, an average of 60,000 persons per day.
In the provision of water, sanitation and electricity, the AAP has followed a recommendation made decades ago by the World Bank, to provide a “lifeline” amount free of cost. One of its least noticed but most humane enactments has been to allow free travel to women in city buses. One of them who lives outside the city limits told this writer that it had freed 30% of her income – Rs. 3,000 a month earned from cleaning homes in the city – to pay for her children’s school fees.
Shelter is a basic right of human beings but in large cities, it is one that is obtained only by default by the poor. The AAP’s greatest achievement has been to make shelter a central feature of its policies. It has therefore laid 2,100 kms of water pipelines and allowed 20,000 litres of water per month to be provided to each family free of cost. To ensure that the water reaches its consumers, the AAP government has laid over 5,200 kms of water pipelines in unauthorised colonies, giving 99.96% of them access to it.
There are other achievements of this kind listed in the book that will take too long to describe. Among these is making 1,627 industrial units which were using coal and diesel switch to natural gas and plant almost 30,000,000 trees of which a quarter were planted in a single year, 2021.
In March 2017, the Delhi cabinet approved a 36% increase in the minimum wages of Delhi’s five million workers. The legal minimum wage in Delhi now is therefore Rs 17,494 compared to the national minimum wage of Rs 5,340 per month. To sum up the Kejriwal government’s work, it has concentrated upon building human, as against physical, capital to improve the quality of life of its people.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the AAP has become the nemesis of the BJP, the largest national political party. It is also not surprising that Kejriwal has become Modi’s personal nemesis, and that he and his closest advisors have been charged with crimes, repeatedly denied bail and kept in jail for periods of more than two years, without having found a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing on his part.
The Modi government’s animosity is, at least, understandable. But what explains the sustained hostility to the AAP in the Congress party, particularly its Delhi wing? So deep does this run that despite being in some sort of an alliance with the AAP, not one party member has felt it necessary to raise even a murmur of protest against the victimisation of its leaders. If the INDIA bloc loses a general election that it should have won, it has only itself to blame for it. For however small the AAP may be, it offers a future to which the people are able to relate. Since the days of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, no party has been able to do anything of this kind so far.
A clear refugee policy would give refugees the legal status they badly need, access to their rights, clarity on procedures for asylum, and information on how security issues are to be addressed.
The issue of Rohingya refugees in Delhi has become a fierce political confrontation between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last few months. The settlement of Rohingya refugees in the capital is a contentious subject in politics, entwining humanitarian concerns, national security debates, and political manoeuvering. This issue has brought to the fore deeper questions about constitutional obligations, legal responsibilities and approach to refugees, as accusations fly and counterclaims escalate.
The political tug-of-war
The political storm erupted after AAP leaders accused the BJP of playing a double game with regard to the settlement of Rohingya refugees in Delhi. Senior AAP leaders, including chief minister Atishi, MP Sanjay Singh and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, pointed to a tweet by Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri from August 2022 where Puri had celebrated India’s tradition of welcoming refugees. In the same tweet, he also said that Rohingya refugees will be resettled in Economically Weaker Section flats in Bakkarwala, a locality in Delhi.
For the AAP, this was an instance of the BJP’s hypocrisy. When the official rhetoric of the BJP, especially on national security, called for the deportation of Rohingya refugees, Puri’s tweet suggested that the party had actually allowed them to settle. The AAP’s criticism was sharp; they accused the BJP of bringing Rohingya refugees to Delhi under the garb of national security concerns, creating an “us versus them” narrative to rally voters while secretly settling the refugees in the city.
The BJP responded by accusing the AAP of playing politics with national security. Puri specifically accused the AAP of helping the settlement of Rohingya refugees by allegedly helping them obtain voter identification cards. The accusations and counter-accusations are not merely a political fight but represent a larger national debate on how India should treat refugees, particularly in a climate of rising nationalism and security fears.
The legal framework for refugees
The debate surrounding Rohingya refugees also touches on India’s legal obligations, particularly those derived from its Constitution and international commitments. While India does not have a specific refugee law, the Constitution offers certain protections to refugees, particularly under Article 21: the right to life and personal liberty.
The Supreme Court has held Article 21 to extend protections to all persons within the country, not just citizens. This has been reaffirmed in cases involving refugees such as the Ktaer Abbas Habib Al Qutaifi’s case vs Union of India case of 1998, where the court ruled that refugees are entitled to certain constitutional protections, particularly the right to live free from arbitrary detention and deportation. The judgement was in tune with India’s commitment to the larger human rights cause, where it stated that refugees fleeing violence should not be detained or returned to countries where they would be persecuted.
Further, Article 22 protects against arbitrary arrest and detention, which is a major issue when dealing with refugees. The government’s tendency to frame the issue in terms of national security often brings it into conflict with these constitutional protections, as refugees may face detention or deportation without adequate legal safeguards. This constitutional provision ensures that any government action against refugees must adhere to due process, ensuring their right to a fair trial.
The Constitution, thus, provides a good basis for refugee rights even in the absence of a refugee law. The legal protection enshrined in Articles 21 and 22 are designed so that the refugees, just like any other individual in the country, are accorded dignity and liberty.
National security vs humanitarian responsibility
At the heart of the political battle over the Rohingya refugees is the tension between national security concerns and humanitarian obligations. On one side, the BJP has framed the issue as one of national security, particularly focusing on the potential risks posed by the settlement of refugees in sensitive regions like Jammu and Kashmir. The party claims that refugees may become easy targets for terrorist groups to manipulate, hence a significant security threat to the nation. The rhetoric has caught fire among the electorates who rank national security highly, in a climate of growing tension in the geopolitics of the region.
On the other hand, the BJP’s critics argue that India’s tradition of welcoming refugees cannot be abandoned for narrow political gains. They further emphasise that India has been a sanctuary for refugees from various countries throughout history (such as Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils, Afghan refugees, Bangladeshis and many others) and that the Constitution protects fundamental rights such as the right to life and liberty. The settlement of Rohingya refugees should, therefore, be viewed against the backdrop of India’s humanitarian responsibility, more in line with international norms about protection for the vulnerable.
The political narrative, therefore, is divided. On one hand, the BJP uses security concerns to justify its stance on deportation and limiting refugee settlement. On the other hand, opposition parties call for a more inclusive approach, one that respects India’s constitutional values and the broader principles of human rights.
As political parties clash over the issue of Rohingya refugees, the judiciary has played a critical role in safeguarding the rights of refugees, ensuring that they are not unduly punished for their status as displaced persons. The judiciary has historically been active in intervening when government actions potentially violate the constitutional rights of refugees.
A notable example is the intervention of the Supreme Court in the Mohammad Salimullah vs Union of India case in 2021, where the plea sought an order to prevent the deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. Though it did not immediately stop the deportations, the court made a point that India’s constitutional protections have to be reckoned with while deciding on the refugees. The court also emphasised India’s international obligations, particularly the principle of non-refoulement, that prohibits returning refugees to a country where they may face harm or persecution.
In so far as the national security concerns may override international human rights standards, the judiciary has continued to point out the adherence to international standards. This becomes more crucial now with the increased polarisation of political landscapes and the possible temptation of a government to ignore human rights concerns in favour of security. Under these circumstances, the judiciary must act as a bulwark against any possible abuse wherein the rights of refugees are taken away.
The need for a clear refugee policy
One of the crucial concerns raised due to the ongoing political and legal tussles over Rohingya refugees is related to India not having a proper refugee law at its disposal. Even though provisions through constitutional shields and international charters do provide relative protection, India still relies on policies without a sharp and well-instituted plan to deal with refugees.
A clear refugee policy would give a much-needed status to the refugees, their rights, procedures to asylum and how security issues are to be addressed. Such a policy would allow India to manage its refugee issue more systematically and transparently than at present; it would leave less scope for political manipulation and the refugees would be dealt with dignity and respect.
In the absence of a formal refugee law, India is placed in a vulnerable position where issues related to refugees become part of the political discourse rather than being guided by consistent legal principles. A robust refugee policy would not only protect the rights of refugees but also ensure that security concerns are addressed in a balanced manner.
A test of constitutional integrity
The Rohingya refugees have presented an important test to constitutional integrity. They pose daunting questions about commitments on human rights, national security and global duties. While the conflicts between political parties linger on in Delhi, the judiciary’s role will prove to be definitive while protecting these refugees’ rights with no indulgence in exploiting issues of security and national affairs.
This will be a reflection of India’s commitment to justice, equality and the protection of human dignity. In a world where political interests often supersede humanitarian concerns, India has an opportunity to demonstrate that it can balance both security and compassion, staying true to the values enshrined in its Constitution. It remains to be seen whether a comprehensive refugee policy is drafted to ensure protection from national security concerns while upholding its moral obligation as a protector, treating refugees fairly in consonance with international laws and constitutional dictates.
Gunseerat Kaur is a law student at the University Institute of Legal Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
The journalists of Bastar have given their lives to bring an utterly neglected zone to the national consciousness. It’s now for others to ensure that Mukesh’s voice doesn’t fall silent.
New Delhi: He called me dada; I called him bhai. Co-travellers, we learnt our first – and the most enduring – journalism lessons in the jungles of Bastar. I then worked with the Indian Express, the newspaper that had given me a crucial assignment to travel, report and write from Central India. I had a luxurious cushion of “national media;” he was exposed to the daily risks against which I was largely insulated.
But Mukesh Chandrakar always remained an explorer, whereas I, the unlucky one, had to abandon the jungle. If the foundation of journalism is field reporting, the daily grind in the sun and the soil that leaves your body grimy and the soul tanned, Mukesh epitomised it.
His own life experiences greatly contributed to his understanding of the police-Maoist conflict and the Adivasi life in Dandakaranya. He was born in Basaguda village of Bijapur during the early years of the Naxal insurgency. He lost his father early and was later uprooted from his village in the Salwa Judum violence. His mother, an anganwadi worker, shifted to the Basaguda refugee camp before the family was forced to move to another refugee camp in Avapalli. A decade later, he lost his mother to cancer.
He was, thus, naturally predisposed to be a remarkable chronicler, an outstanding interlocutor of the tragic zone that Bastar is. He worked for several Raipur-based media houses for nearly a decade with little salary and multiple editorial diktats before he began considering the YouTube model of journalism.
In April 2021, he and some fellow journalists, including another extraordinary reporter named Ganesh Mishra, secured the release of a commando of the Central Reserve Police Force’s Commando Battalion for Resolute Action unit from Maoist captivity. As the abduction made headlines, the country’s elite paramilitary forces remained helpless before a bunch of young journalists emerged from the jungle in jubilation. Till date, Mukesh’s X handle has the pinned tweet of a few bikers arriving in celebration, with him leading from the front and the released commando riding pillion.
A year later, when I published Mukesh’s profile in Outlook magazine, I quoted him on his decision to change his mode of journalism: “Ganesh Mishra and I played a major role in securing his (the commando’s) release. National channels were taking my bytes. But unfortunately, at my own channel, my editor-anchor hogged the space.”
I go back to our chat history amid an engulfing sadness to find the conversations we had in 2021, the messages and phone calls to discuss the title and format of the new channel.
The channel, Bastar Junction, soon became a credible voice of Bastar. He was among the first to report on the May 2021 Silger incident in which three Adivasis were killed in firing by security forces.
The video genre lent him maximum joy and a sense of fulfilment. He no longer had to send endless story pitches to negligent editors nor was there any fear of his byline getting whitewashed.
Reporting from a conflict zone is always fraught with risks; in Bastar, another tragic component gets added to it. The zone doesn’t have any representative in the national or international media or academia. Kashmir, for instance, has its interlocutors with several reputed media houses and academic institutions. In absolute contrast, Bastar doesn’t even have a voice in state capital Raipur. There is no one to write their stories except a few activists or journalists, who earlier worked in the area, and invested their emotional and intellectual energies into the jungle, but now live with a guilt of having to abandon what they once believed was their only homeland.
I last met Mukesh a few years ago in Bijapur. We spent a morning together and clicked each other’s photographs. My phone still has photographs from that day – of him sitting on a bench in a park, smiling.
Following an uproar over his killing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Chhattisgarh has promised justice. But last August, Mukesh and Sukma-based journalist Raja Rathore co-wrote a news story for The Wire Hindi after four Bastar journalists were arrested in an evidently false case following their reporting on illegal mining allegedly involving BJP leaders. The article suggested that the Chhattisgarh police planted the evidence to frame the journalists.
The next morning, Mukesh sent me the screenshot of a WhatsApp message by a senior police officer, expressing disapproval of the stand he had taken for the imprisoned journalists. “Kuch hoga to nahin na? (Nothing will happen, right?),” he asked me from the other side of the phone, an apprehension in his voice.
A few months later, he was found murdered; the two episodes conjoined by a belief the administration-criminal nexus in Bastar share – that journalists can only survive at their mercy. Soon after his body was recovered from the premises of a contractor, fellow journalists called it the graveyard of journalism in Bastar.
That you can be killed for reporting can discourage many. In Bastar, it can be permanently paralysing. The journalists of Bastar have given their lives to bring an utterly neglected zone to the national consciousness. It’s now for others to ensure that Mukesh’s voice doesn’t fall silent.
Note: This article was originally published in the Indian Express.
As media adviser, I witnessed his quiet resilience, democratic commitment, and moral clarity during the turbulence of his second term. In a time of corporate discontent, media frenzy, and political sabotage, he chose integrity over coercion, embodying the values of a true statesman.
It was just a few days after I had joined the Manmohan Singh PMO as media adviser. June 2009. There a small function at 7,RCR, an award-giving ceremony for the best steel production outfit. All the corporate honchos were in attendance. The ceremony ended, and over tea the steel tycoons were telling the prime minister that ‘something’ had to be done about ‘these Naxals’ who were making their life difficult. After a few minutes of this diatribe, Dr. Manmohan Singh politely observed, “Perhaps many of them [i.e. the so-called Naxals] believe that the system we have is very unfair to them.” Stunned corporate silence.
It was the first glimpse I was to have of how Singh had evolved from the finance minister of the 1991 reformsto a sensitive prime minister, mindful of the great inequalities and deprivations that marred the rural landscape. He had shed, if ever he was attached to it, that ponderous bunkum known as the trickle-down theory.
In retrospect, it is evident that very early in his second term, the corporate bosses had sensed thatSingh was no longer the friendly prime minister they had backed in the 2009 election [against the BJP’s L.K.Advani.] They felt scorned. Soon there was the animated but entirely bogus talk of “policy paralysis.” Many of his own senior cabinet colleagues ended up creating an impression of a regime stranded in confusion and conflict.
It was only a matter of time before the word “corruption” became the screaming headline. Very many forces, outfits and individuals—some well-meaning, some crafty, some cunning and some downright communal—pooled their resources and voices to curdle the national mood against the Manmohan Singh government. But the campaign needed an acceptable mascot. The Bombay-based lalas brought Anna Hazare out of obscurity and “the India Against Corruption movement” was launched. The Ram Lila ground became our version of Tahrir Square. All the leading anchors competed with each other to find virtue and values in the likes of a clutch of Gandhi-topi wearing “crusaders”, with Baba Ramdev thrown into the mix. The aim was to wreckManmohan Singh’s middle-class constituency. Why? Because unless the middle classes were alienated fromSingh’s government, the communal messaging which had been readied for deployment would not get heard across the land.
It was during those trying days that I remember asking the prime minister whether there was anything the government could do to make the corporate-backers of the so-called Anna Hazare movement be reasonable. His response was simple: “There are many ways. They are all ugly ways and I do not want to travel that path.”
Was the weakness on his part? Or, moral clarity.
It requires the greatest of certitude, self-awareness, intellectual broadmindedness and democratic commitment to resist using the coercive powers of the state. Anybody can play the daroga, but it needs a certain kind of strength to spurn the danda.
As prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh had enormous respect for the structures of accountability. His attitude was that whatever the government did or did not do, it had an obligation to explain itself. He thought in a democracy the regime drew its legitimacy from public acceptance and this legitimacy needed to be regularly reinforced and validated. Without public acceptance, the regime is left with a sullen citizenry. And that would not do—because without people’s cooperation and compliance, all the well-meaning schemes come to a grinding halt.
As his media adviser, I always found him respectful of the institution ofthe reporter, the editor and the newspaper. On January 1, 2012 he gone to visit the Golden Temple. Those were the days of the Anna Hazare hysteria. And, all the television channels were out there, catching a glimpse of “the prime minister under siege.” The cameras lingered on two individuals animatedly waving black flags. It was an exercise in disproportionatejournalism.
As media adviser, I was disappointed and I asked the prime minister’s permission to issue a statement—something to the effect that he was entitled to be left alone to pray and that his privacy was unfairly breached. His unmeditated response was a gentle rebuke: “Harish, I have a right to pray and nobody denied me that right; I paid my obeisance. Without hindrance. The reporters have a right to report and why should there be any objection to what they choose to report.” It was aworthy rebuke from a worthy and wise man.
Manmohan Singh was the perfect child of Nehruvian India and it was entirely natural that he should have had such a respectful attitude towards the media fraternity. He knew very many journalists personally, and thought it was unworthy of a prime minister to want to degrade an unfriendly editor.
Neither as prime minister nor after he demitted office did he ever allow himself togive in to bitterness, even towards those who proved unfaithful and disloyal to him. Revenge and retribution was not his game.
Harish Khare, a former Editor in Chief of The Tribune and Resident Editor of The Hindu. served as Media Adviser to Prime Minster Manmohan Singh from June 2009 to January 2012.
On several occasions, Jagdeep Dhankhar has instigated citizens to rise against politicians and activists who are critical of Modi’s functioning, an irresponsible act no other person holding a constitutional post has committed in the history of independent India.
“From being in the fragile five, we became the fifth global economy. It’s unthinkable we will leave behind Germany and Japan soon. Mahatma Gandhi’s dream – that corruption will be eradicated – is about to be fulfilled. There was a time when nothing could be done without middlemen. Middlemen had emerged as a new tribe in society. Corruption was the password for employment, for contract, for opportunities. A big change has occurred in the last decade. Middlemen vanished. The power corridor has been purged. Now decisions are taken with responsibility and transparency. Boys and girls, now you get the most critical advantage that nobody undermines your talent! Patronage has yielded to meritocracy.”
No, this was not an exceptionally articulate BJP spokesperson making exaggerated claims about the Narendra Modi government. Not even a hired propagandist fooling the masses about the imaginary transformation India has undergone. This was Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar addressing students at the convocation of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari, Bihar, on December 7.
Dhankhar, who occupies a top constitutional post, is not expected to speak this language. The government’s publicity is not the assignment given to these apolitical functionaries. Yet, he has outshined every spokesperson of the government.
Speaking at the centenary foundation day of ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai on December 3, he said:
“I have seen India changing for the first time. I am feeling, for the first time, that ‘Viksit Bharat’ is not our dream but our goal. India had never attained this exalted stature. We never enjoyed such clout in the world.”
Why this is important today is because Dhankhar has become the first vice president against whom the opposition parties have moved a no-confidence motion for lack of impartiality that his constitutional position entails. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has said Dhankhar’s extraordinary biases as Rajya Sabha chairperson and his passionate advocacy of the Modi government in and outside parliament have bruised the nation’s dignity.
This confrontation has been building up for the last two years and the opposition parties have been explicitly objecting to Dhankhar’s conduct. They have articulated their concerns about his blatantly partisan handling of the Rajya Sabha proceedings on countless occasions. But Dhankhar did not only suppress opposition voices, he habitually hailed the prime minister and went so far as to question the patriotism of Modi’s critics.
He even instigated the citizens to rise against politicians and activists who are critical of Modi’s functioning, an irresponsible act no other person holding a constitutional post has committed in the history of independent India.
In March 2023, Dhankhar clearly asked people to rise against opposition leaders who defame parliament and create disturbances in both Houses, insisting that only their intervention can redeem the situation. Speaking at the three-day ‘Ayurveda Kumbh’ at the Chowdhary Charan Singh University at Meerut, he said:
“Only people’s intervention can bring these elements (in the opposition) on the right path.”
He argued:
“When India is rising, some people have decided to denigrate the country. They have taken a resolve to defame India. One instance I see in front of my eyes. Somebody goes abroad and says the mic is switched off in parliament. Lok Sabha is a big panchayat. Mic has never been switched off there. How can we tolerate it? How torturous is this experience.”
Contending that microphones were switched off during the Emergency when patriots were dumped in jail, Dhankhar said:
“Such a situation will never arise again. I will earnestly request, entreat and appeal to you with folded hands…You express your views openly. Don’t remain silent about such people. Put forward your views fearlessly. This is your responsibility. Only you can do it. Only common people can do it.”
Members of parliament say microphones are indeed switched off in both Houses when something uncomfortable to the ruling establishment is spoken. However, what has been happening these days goes far beyond the mere denial of technical assistance to voice one’s concerns.
While debates are not allowed on critical issues like Chinese intrusion and corporate loot, any reference to businessman Gautam Adani and his relationship with the prime minister is expunged from records.
Using his chair to target Opposition
Suspension of opposition members has become routine and the presiding officers themselves berate, condemn and ridicule Modi’s critics on the floor of the House. Ruling party members are encouraged to make wild, unsubstantiated allegations but “nothing will go on record” starts blaring when the opposition leaders attack the government.
Dhankhar has used every platform even outside parliament to attack the opposition parties, demonstrating that impartiality intrinsic to his position has little worth.
On December 8, 2024, addressing Gita Mahotsav in Kurukshetra, Haryana, he said:
“We are seeing some unique challenges to the country nowadays. Some forces create a narrative using money power and other mechanism to hurt India in and outside the country. They want to damage our economy, render our institutions defunct. Their sinister design, pernicious object is to taint, tarnish and diminish our constitutional institutions to run down our growth trajectory. We can’t ignore these forces. Our culture suggests that a time comes when such forces have to be crushed. That’s the message of Gita. I want to give a message that the nation is above everything else. Patriotism needs no calculation, it has to be 100%. We will always keep nation first! Some people are a recipe for chaos – they can only be critics, they can’t think in a positive way.”
This certainly doesn’t reflect the widespread concerns in the country about our domestic institutions like CBI, Enforcement Directorate and SEBI (Securities & Exchange Board of India) not acting objectively on the charges of violations of law.
The opposition has steadfastly refused to accept that demanding accountability and implementation of the rule of law falls in the category of anti-national activity. While the Bofors case was thoroughly debated and investigated even as the Rajiv Gandhi government enjoyed a much bigger majority, demands for investigation into cases like Rafale and Adani affairs were dismissed as disruptive and unpatriotic.
Obviously, opposition leaders didn’t sing along with the ‘radical transformation’ tune that Dhankhar wanted to set in the political discourse. He really worked hard to spread that message of magical advancement, rarely acknowledging the oppositional narrative revolving around unemployment, price rise, vendetta politics and toxic communalism.
Persisting with his passion for painting a rosy picture, Dhankhar said on December 1, 2024, speaking at IIT Kanpur:
“India was a different country but now it’s a nation with hope and possibility. Now it’s a nation on economic upsurge, now it’s a nation with phenomenal infrastructure, now it’s a nation whose performance in sea, on land, in sky, or space is getting global accolades. In the past decade, Bharat has witnessed remarkable transformation and innovation. The landscape has been thoroughly revolutionised for the better.”
A Modi ‘cheerleader’
Speaking at the NHRC function on December 10, 2023, he said:
“Our Amrit Kaal became Gaurav Kaal [time of pride] primarily due to the blossoming of human rights and values.”
While ‘Amrit Kaal’ is Modi’s imagination, the opposition’s narrative is about a phase of crisis for human rights and constitutional values.
The vice-president doesn’t stand in between, he chooses to ride the government juggernaut and propagate their ideas. That’s the job of a public relations department, ably performed by the mainstream media these days.
In March 2023, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh bluntly asked the vice-president not to act like Modi’s “cheerleader”.
When Dhankhar attacked Rahul Gandhi for talking about diminishing democracy during his foreign interactions, Ramesh said, “There are certain offices which require us to shed our prejudices, our party allegiances and compel us to rid ourselves of whatever propaganda we may have imbibed along the way. The office of the Vice President of India, an office on which the Constitution bestows the additional responsibility of being the Chair of the Rajya Sabha, is foremost amongst these.”
Describing the Rajya Sabha chairman as “an umpire, a referee, a friend, philosopher and guide to all”, Ramesh said, “He cannot be a cheerleader for any ruling dispensation. History measures leaders not on the zealousness with which they defended their party, but the dignity with which they performed their roles in the service of the people.” Dhankhar smelt a conspiracy to derail India’s growth trajectory, echoing sentiments expressed by the BJP and Union ministers.
“Bharat, now in Amrit Kaal, is the most functional democracy that has evoked global recognition. India is setting global discourse on many issues. All Indians are elated that the country is on the rise like never before and its upward growth trajectory is unstoppable as we are on our way to 2047.”
The “never-before” rhetoric lacked substance because the GDP grew at a higher rate under Manmohan Singh. Dhankhar further said:
“How ironic, how painful! While the world is applauding our historic accomplishments as a functional vibrant democracy, some amongst us including parliamentarians are engaged in the thoughtless, unfair denigration of our well-nurtured democratic values. How can we justify such wanton orchestration of a factually untenable narrative?”
He added:
“And mark the timing of this unwholesome misadventure – while India is having its moments of glory – as President of G20 and there are people outside of the country working in overdrive to denigrate us.”
In a strong posturing that looked like a political assault, Dhankhar declared:
“Such misplaced campaign mode to taint and tarnish our parliament and constitutional entities is too serious and exceptional to be ignored or countenanced. No political strategy or partisan stance can justify compromising our nationalism and democratic values. If I observe silence on this misadventure-orchestration by a member of parliament outside the country which is ill-premised, unwholesome and motivated, I would be on the wrong side of the constitution. It will be constitutional culpability and outrage of my oath of office.”
He went on to instigate a public uprising against the Congress leader, saying:
“I call upon everyone – intelligentsia, media and youth who are our warriors of 2047 to rise to the occasion, expose these forces and neutralise them.”
Little wonder, the BJP government has declared its intent to defend the vice president who talks more like the ruling party’s commander-in-chief with full force.
While Manipur has a history of long-standing tensions between communities, previous governments intervened and stopped them. Why is the current BJP government failing to do the same?
A victim in a Meitei relief camp in Imphal, who lost her family members in the ethnic tensions between Meiteis and Kukis in Manipur that has lasted for 18 months now, told me – “Imagine two kids fighting. Will the father or mother not step in to stop the fight? Now imagine the children killing each other. Will the parents still not step in to prevent the violence? Then why is the Union government not stepping in to stop Manipur state from burning?”
I don’t believe that the Union government needs to parent the people in states. They just need to truly discharge their constitutional duty. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is high on the ‘Modi Ka Parivar’ rhetoric. So, the people of Manipur are asking: is Manipur not part of India? Why has the prime minister not visited it yet?
The Context
As our Indigo flight soared above Manipur, the pilot informed us, “Given the climatic conditions, it will take us another 30 minutes before we land.” With this, we got an additional half an hour of air tour above Manipur. With thick clouds, straight out of a fairyland story, I could see the lush green mountains right under us with small villages perched on hilltops. It was then that the geographical significance of the whole dispute between the Meitei and Kuki communities dawned on me.
Manipur’s capital city Imphal is on relatively flat land surrounded by hills on all sides. While the Meitei community, who follow Hinduism as a religion, live predominantly in Imphal Valley, the Kukis, who follow Christianity, live in the hills. The Nagas, another dominant tribal community who follow a mix of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity, live in the hills too.
Meitei are about 53% of Manipur’s population with the rest as Kukis and Nagas. However, Meiteis are politically more powerful with 40 out of 60 MLAs belonging to the community, while Kuki and Naga communities have 10 MLAs each. The major institutions such as big schools, hospitals, the legislative assembly, the high court etc. are all in Imphal. The Kuki and the Naga have been given the Scheduled Tribe status and the Meitei are also demanding the same.
Manipur is rich in mineral resources and also has an abundance of palm trees (used for palm oil) and bamboo, amongst others. These resources are found in the hills and there is an underlying question of the ownership of these resources. Like all tribal-dominated states, the ownership of land which has resources is a bone of contention with obvious vested corporate interests. At the same time, the ownership of land is determined by the ST status.
Consider this: Land rights of the tribal communities in Manipur have been considerably diluted through recent successive amendments in the laws governing such rights. For instance, Section 158 of the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960, only permits transfer of tribal land to a member of the Scheduled Tribes. However, more and more areas have been classified outside the purview of this section to enable the transfer of land to non-tribals.
Similarly, amendments have been introduced in the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, with the most recent amendment in 2023 wherein 6 critical atomic minerals – lithium, beryllium, titanium, niobium, tantalum, and zirconium – have been ‘delisted’ in order to encourage greater land encroachment by the private sector without adherence to the regulations imposed upon them in the category of atomic minerals. These amendments also violate the Forest Rights Act of 2006, which grants tribal communities the right to dwell on their land, use its produce, and crucially, access its resources. Their rights are being systematically dismantled with these dilutions.
So, in Manipur, on the one hand, through legal amendments, many land/areas with important resources, are being opened up for non-ST status people to own/control, thereby considerably diluting the principle that underlies the general law of predominant ownership by tribals across the country. On the other hand, those land areas which have been cleared off for private ownership may still face resistance from the tribal population if the corporates do come in a big way – Chhattisgarh being a case in point. The government’s stance on the laws, as well as the displacement of people from their villages, all point to a seemingly orchestrated strategy of transfer of resources into a few powerful hands. In this regard, while the government seems to ‘frame’ the conflict in Manipur between the larger Meitei and Kuki communities, it is actually just about securing the interests of a few, with both communities suffering equally in the process.
FILE IMAGE: A candlelight vigil in Churachandpur, Manipur. Photo: X/@AboriginalKuki
Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh’s statements blaming the increase in poppy production and the influx of people illegally entering from Myanmar – which shares the border with Manipur – as part of the reason for the increasing ethnic tensions belies the point. Firstly, on the issue of drug control and poppy cultivation, there are clear commercial interests. Secondly, the international borders are to be guarded by the Union government.
So again, why is the Union government failing to protect the international borders between Myanmar and Manipur and stop the influx of illegal migrants? The government cannot have its cake and eat it too. Either, it is failing to protect the borders and needs to admit so, or stop blaming the illicit drug scene as the major factor in current disturbances caused in the state.
In addition, the ongoing conflict about the demand of Meiteis for ‘ST’ status will have ramifications on reservations in jobs, schools and government offices, amongst others.
This begs the question that if any community which is in the majority in a state gets ST status and its added benefits, will that not set a precedent for populist measures in other states in India? In that sense, it is also a classic dispute between communities for power and status.
The crescendo of the ethnic tensions between Meiteis and the tribes – mainly Kukis and Nagas – was reached on May 3, 2023. The Kukis, Nagas and other tribes which have an ST status in Manipur were taking out a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ in Churachandpur district to protest the demand of Meiteis for the same following the recommendation of the Manipur high court.
When an armed mob attacked the protestors and the police failed to do anything about it, the conflict blew out of proportion. Next thing, Kuki villages were being attacked by Meiteis, and Meitei living in Kuki areas were being driven out by the Kukis.
Today, several relief camps have been set up in both the Kuki areas and in Meitei areas. But here is the thing – you have to see the reality of Manipur to believe it. There are hard lines drawn about what constitutes the Meitei area and the Kuki area. We can’t find any Kuki in Imphal today and no Meitei in Kuki hills. One can only imagine how the high court or the legislative assembly is operating in such a scenario.
The in-between borders are heavily guarded by the security forces, with volunteer groups of both communities further putting up checkpoints to ensure that the ‘other’ is not found in their area. Ironically, it was only possible to drive from one side to the other with a taxi driven by a Muslim person. That too wasn’t easy.
As one person told me in confidence, “Now, both sides are beginning to mistrust Muslims as secret agents for the other side, trading in relevant information.” So, the only person who agreed to drive us to Jiribam from Imphal did not agree easily and also charged an exorbitant fee. He thought he was putting his life on the line.
Is this where we are headed as a country? Imagine a future, with lines drawn neatly amongst different communities, both in their hearts and on the maps. Gujarat is already setting a terrible precedent with the news coming in of the Hindus and Muslims seemingly having clearly demarcated residential areas in most parts, even in the major cities. Manipur presents a much stark and gory reality of this divisiveness amongst communities, making it the new ‘normal’.
The Court
On March 27, 2023, in WP(C) No. 229 of 2023, the Manipur high court heard a petition and disposed it at the admission stage, directing the Chief Secretary of Manipur to “submit the recommendation in reply to the letter dated 29.5.2013 of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India” and further to “..consider the case of the petitioners for inclusion of the Meetei/Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe list, expeditiously, preferably within a period four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order in terms of the averments set out in the writ petition and in the line of the order passed in WP(C) No. 4281 of 2002 dated 26.05.2003 by the Gauhati High Court.”
The high court, in para 3 of the order, states, “The petitioners have filed this writ petition for issuance of a writ of mandamus directing the first respondent to submit recommendation in reply to the Letter No.1902005/2012- C&IM dated 29.5.2013 of the Government of India, Ministry of Tribal Affairs within a period of two months or within a time frame and to include Meetei/Meitei community in the Schedule Tribe list of Indian Constitution as a “tribe among tribes of Manipur”, maintaining the tribal status of Meetei/Meitei existed before 21.9.1949 i.e. before signing of the Merger Agreement as part of the terms and conditions of the Merger Agreement of Manipur into the Indian Union and also direction on the fourth respondent to restore the Scheduled Tribe status of Meetei/Meitei community.”
Further, in para 7, it states, “Despite the letter dated 29.5.2013, the Government of Manipur failed to submit the recommendation to the reason best known to them. In fact, the representation dated 18.4.2022 submitted by the petitioners was forwarded by the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India for necessary action. According to the learned counsel, Meitei community is the one of major/principal tribe of Manipur is not recommended by the State Government. Hence, the petitioners have been advised to file the present writ petition.”
In para 15, the high court further observes, “This Court finds some force in the submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioners, as the petitioners and other Unions are fighting long years for inclusion of Meetei/Meitei community in the tribe list of Manipur.”
It is to be noted that on February 21, 2024, the Manipur HC in Review Petition No. 12 of 2023 set aside a prayer contained in Para No. 17(iii) of the judgment in W.P.(C) No. 229 of 2023.
Whether the court should have interfered in the matter at all and made observations seemingly supporting the inclusion of the Meitei in the ST category, without hearing anyone from the political ‘other side’ is a legal question with both ‘technical’ and ‘moral’ underpinnings.
The political nature of the dispute cannot be neglected and while the courts cannot refuse to hear a matter simply because of its political characteristic, the classic adage of ‘justice should also seem to be done’ is the only anchoring principle for the courts to remember.
When a matter is finally heard at the admission stage, after hearing the state and the petitioners, with no room for objections from the intervenors – people from any community who want to have a say in the matter or be heard are effectively taken away.
Further, the larger political climate in India where a lot of disputes seem to be emerging from an analysis of history – ‘but who actually started it?’, ‘but what was underlying this structure first’, or ‘who began the violence first’ – all tend to mislead on the scope that judicial bodies are empowered to exercise in the first place.
Representative image: Manipur Police conducting a search operation. Photo: X/@manipur_police
Can the courts in India, including high courts and the Supreme Court, actually go into dispute fault lines dating so far back that they have no way to measure up the legal evidence one way or the other, conclusively?
These disputes that pit communities against each other on the basis of a much older history presented and insisted upon as ‘fact’ by both sides only end up destroying the peace at present. Yes, justice precedes peace, and justice ought to be done. However, allowing one-sided, half-hearted or speedy decisions without taking all stakeholders into account does both the people and the confidence in the judiciary a disservice.
This is why there is a separation of powers between the ‘political’ (executive) and the ‘judicial’ (judiciary) questions and disrupting this would mean that the courts are now being used to discharge a political process or an issue which should be contested in the political arena instead of the courts.
This leads to a constitutional issue of creating a ‘slippery slope’, where governments, interested petitioners, or over-enthusiastic persons can ask the courts to do what should ideally be the government’s role.
The recent happenings in Sambhal are a case in point. The case of judicial overreach unfortunately seems to be becoming the new norm, albeit this time with tremendous consequences as seen in the aftermath of the Babri-Ayodhya dispute. The courts, once they begin a process not constitutionally warranted and out of sync with the ‘rule of law’, cannot reverse the hands of the clock. They will also never be able to tell where that influence will stop.
The history of political and ethnic conflict in Manipur can be traced back to the pre-colonial period. As early as the 16th century, multiple wars between Manipur and Burma began the fragmentation of the various communities living within the territory. This dark period saw the annihilation of half the population of Manipur by the Burmese forces. However, the current geopolitical division between the hills and the valley can find its roots in the British invasion of the Indian subcontinent. In the mid-18th century, Raja Jai Singh requested British assistance against the brutal clashes between Manipur and the then Burmese empire. As it was witnessed throughout the country, however, internal disputes within the royal family weakened their reign and allowed the British to gain a stronger hold over the region to favour their trade with China.
Apart from the Anglo-Manipur War of 1891, small forces were formed to rebel against the British throughout the 20th century such as the Kuki Rebellion of 1917, the Zeliangrong Naga Uprising of 1930 or the Nupi Lan – a massive women’s agitation of 1939-40. The inclusion of Manipur within the newly independent Indian territory continued to be fraught with tensions due to which the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958, was enforced. Interestingly, Meiteis and Kukis have not been the only communities in variance with each other. The Kuki-Naga clash of 1992 also led to tremendous loss of life and property, with Nagas claiming their rights as the original settlers of the region. Due to their violent history and the territorial interest of multiple communities, everything from minute policy alterations to larger regime changes have resulted in conflicts born out of cultural and political differences, insurgency, land rights and communal insecurities.
As recent as 2004, the rape of a Manipuri woman, Thangjam Manorama Devi, by members of the Assam Rifles paramilitary had led to widespread protests, including a nude protest by the Meira Paibi women’s association. Tensions had erupted but were soon quelled by the then-Union government.
To be clear, yes, Manipur has a history of long-standing tensions between different communities but the previous governments intervened and stopped them. Why is the current BJP government failing to do the same? Manmohan Singh did visit Manipur after the 2004 tensions, so why is Modi failing to do the same? History answers some questions, but in this case, it also raises some important ones.
We visited Manipur for five days, met several people from both communities and also visited relief camps in Imphal, Churachandpur, Kangpokpi and Jiribam which have seen a fresh spate of violence, with three women and three children’s bodies telling a gruesome tale of violence. Who committed these murders – given that no Kuki organisation has taken responsibility for them yet – is a question whose verdict is still out.
Meiteis and Kukis disagree on almost everything at this point. Both sides blame each other for ‘starting it all’. Both sides affirm that the terror that was unleashed in May 2023 was ‘pre-planned’. Both sides appeal to their ‘values’ and state that it is wrong to commit such heinous crimes against women and children. Yet, they try to justify the killings on the other side by invoking the horror stories committed on women and children on their side. At this point in time, both Meiteis and Kukis also sound convinced that they cannot trust the other side and that the other side is a terrorist organisation.
But here’s what they agree on: the Union government has not done enough to control the escalating tensions in Manipur. It does not want to intervene. Otherwise, why has it not imposed the President’s Rule in Manipur? We have seen President’s Rule being imposed at the slightest political upheaval but here in Manipur, it has been 18 months of non-stop violence without the Union government recommending that the President intervene.
Constitutionally speaking, President’s Rule would mean the need for fresh elections in Manipur in six months. Given that the people of Manipur are now so angry that they are burning down and ransacking the house of BJP MLAs, the palpable anger against BJP in Manipur is not hard to feel. The victory of Congress on both seats in Manipur in the Lok Sabha elections this year makes it clear.
So, the Union government is not imposing President’s Rule in Manipur because it knows that it will have to conduct elections in which it is most likely to lose. However, part of it is also because of pandering to different interests and trying to be politically right. While some Kukis are vehemently calling for a separate Kukiland, others want stronger Autonomous District Councils (ADCs). Others have called for Manipur to be made a Union Territory with separate areas for Kukis and Meiteis. In any of these cases, the elephant in the room is why the Union government has not attempted to take the first step – removing weapons from both sides as a logical precursor to any peace dialogue.
Representational photo of Manipuri armed forces. Credit: PTI
Firstly, yes, AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958) has been imposed. However, AFSPA has always been there in the Kuki-dominated hills, and it has further been imposed in the six police stations in Meitei-dominated Imphal, which are close to the hills, and not in the entire valley. Given that both sides are heavily armed, doesn’t it make sense to ensure equal application of AFSPA to remove the weapons on both sides as first priority? Just to be clear, I am not advocating for the imposition of AFSPA, but if it is done, it has to be done equally and without discrimination to neutralise both sides. In any case, one cannot escape the tragic irony of AFSPA in Manipur.
While the world’s longest hunger striker – Irom Sharmila did a hunger strike for more than 500 weeks, from November 2000 to 2016, to remove AFSPA from Manipur, here we are, again grappling with AFSPA and potential human rights violations in Manipur. It is as if the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Secondly, an attempt has to be made to bring warring groups to the negotiating table to arrive at a resolution. The news about weapons being stolen from the police stations is a story hard to believe. The lack of Manipur’s police intervention on May 3, 2023, is also difficult to understand. All of this collectively points out the criminal culpability and the corresponding lack of intent of both the state and Union governments to contain the violence in Manipur.
Manipur – the far north-eastern state – has become BJP’s political laboratory away from the attention of the people of the so-called ‘mainland’ while the national media chooses to remain silent as the people of Meitei and Kuki community adjust to the new ‘normal’.
It is not as if Manipur hasn’t seen unrest before May last year but never before was it allowed to fester on for so long. This itself brings the Union government to the witness box.
If the Union government does not intervene fast, the complex labyrinth of issues in Manipur will fester on and make it an issue that will last for generations. If the government thinks that it can take political advantage or find ‘opportunity in chaos’, it needs to be reminded that history has shown that when you use hatred as a tool for political benefit, it comes to bite you back.
There seems to be a mix of reasons for the Union government’s diabolical attitude towards Manipur. Yes, it is about the ‘ownership of resources for a few’, but it is also about sending a political signal of what they can do with minorities – Christians, in this case – and also the fear that when they use a majority’s sentiment for political benefit, the same people when they see the government’s true intent, won’t come to support them.
Ultimately, a few can keep the larger set of people fighting over their vested interests but truth always prevails. Love always wins. Above all, people want peace. And so, all regimes learn their lessons in due time. The damage done to people’s lives and the social fabric and turning a blind eye to the egregious human rights violation in the interim is unforgivable.
But for a moment, let’s keep the politics aside. Let’s keep the corporate interests aside. The Union government should intervene because it is not okay for women to be paraded naked. It’s not okay for both Meitei and Kuki women to be raped, tortured and abused. It is not enough for the National Commission of Women to pay a cursory visit and do nothing significant. It is not okay for the BJP to say ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ while turning a blind eye to the plight of women in Manipur. If we Indians stay silent now, we have no right to speak of women and their place in our society. It is time we pay women more than lip service. It is time we stand up for them. This is not a story of just one woman. Women in the Northeast, specifically in Manipur, have been fighting for too long. If the government stands by women and human rights and has still refused to speak up – it should be pronounced guilty.
A version of this article was first published on The Womb.
Avani Bansal is an advocate in the Supreme Court and a national spokesperson for Congress. Parika Singh is an advocate in the Supreme Court.
In the shadow of Kashmir’s decades-long turmoil, the case against Yasin Malik – a prominent separatist leader accused of a 1990 attack on Indian Air Force personnel – has resurfaced, raising critical questions about justice, political motives and the rule of law.
The high voter turnout in the September and October legislative assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir demonstrated that, despite five years of near-total political disempowerment and strict military rule, Kashmiris have not lost their faith in democracy.
However, this fragile trust could be irrevocably shattered if the Narendra Modi government follows through on its determination to execute Yasin Malik, the chief of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), for a crime that occurred 34 years ago. While few Kashmiris may actually like Malik, he commands widespread respect. Among the separatist leaders who emerged from the unrest triggered by the rigged elections of 1987, Malik has been the most steadfast advocate of self-determination through peaceful means—a stance that sets him apart in the region’s turbulent history.
The Rawalpora incident and its alleged perpetrators
The crime for which the Modi government is demanding his death is the killing of four Indian Air Force (IAF) men, and the injuring of 22 others, in an early morning assassination bid by three scooter-borne terrorists at Rawalpora, on the outskirts of Srinagar, on January 25, 1990.
At 7.30 a.m., when some 30 to 40 IAF men were waiting for the bus that would take them to work that morning, three persons on a motorcycle approached them and opened fire with Kalashnikovs, killing four and injuring 22 others.
The CBI filed a report within days of the shooting, claiming that the assassins were Malik, the chief of the JKLF, and Javed Ahmed Mir, also known as Nalka, who were armed with Kalashnikovs; and Mushtaq Ahmed Lone, who was the driver of the motorcycle, armed with a .30-bore pistol. It also identified five other members of the JKLF who had helped to hatch the conspiracy – Ali Mohammad Mir, Manzoor Ahmed Sofi alias Mustafa, Nanaji alias Saleem, Javed Ahmed Zargar and Showkat Ahmed Bakshi.
But although all of these eight have been arrested and imprisoned multiple times in the past 34 years, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court has been forced to release them because of the lack of evidence against them. The Rawalpora case has therefore lain dormant for 34 years for want of evidence. This is the case that the Modi government is now determined to revive.
In March 2020, only months after the Modi government read down Article 370 of the Constitution and turned the entire state into a de facto occupation run directly from New Delhi, it charged Malik and six others with a string of crimes that fell under the headings of criminal conspiracy to commit murder, committing terrorist acts, raising funds for terrorist acts, conspiring to commit such acts, being members of a terrorist organisation, hatching criminal conspiracies, and advocating sedition.
Malik refused to contest the charges levelled against him, so the trial court awarded him life imprisonment and two consecutive 10-year sentences that would ensure that he remained in jail for the rest of his life. But it concluded that the crimes of which he was being convicted did not fit into the category of “the rarest of rare cases” and rejected the government’s demand for a death sentence.
Dubious accusations by Tushar Mehta
This verdict did not satisfy the Modi government because Malik’s refusal to contest the charges had robbed it of the publicity that his trial, in the full glare of the media, would have given it. So a year later, solicitor-general Tushar Mehta came back to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) trial court with the assertion that Malik had to be given the death sentence on two additional grounds. The first was his “attempt to separate one part of the country from the rest of it.” The second was his having personally participated in the attack on the IAF men at Rawalpora on January 25, 1990.
Both these actions, Mehta told the court, fell within the “rarest of rare” cases in which capital punishment was merited. Mehta also accused Malik of pleading guilty to the lesser charges levelled against him only to avoid the death penalty. He argued that allowing Malik to escape the death penalty would set a dangerous precedent, paving the way for other criminals who deserved capital punishment to avoid it and continue living.
To bolster his plea for the death sentence still further, Mehta claimed that Malik had not only committed the “sensational killing of the four IAF officers” in 1990, but “even kidnapped the daughter of then Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed” a month earlier in Srinagar. This, he castigated the court, had led to the release of four dreaded criminals “who masterminded the 26/11 attack in Mumbai in 2008.”
This was an outright lie that banked upon the ignorance of the judges hearing the case to further reinforce his case, for Mehta would have to be both deaf and blind not to know that David Headley in the USA and Tahawwur Rana in Canada, had confessed more than a dozen years earlier that they had been the mastermind and financier respectively, of the 2008 attack on Mumbai by the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, working hand in hand with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Kashmiris cannot have failed to perceive this blatant contempt both for human life and the truth. So a sentence of death upon Malik, coming on top of the sentences passed upon Maqbool Butt (1984) and Afzal Guru (2013) will complete their alienation from India, and give Pakistan the success it has been working towards ever since the Kashmiri insurgency first broke out. If the Modi government succeeds in adding Malik to that list, it will hand Pakistan the victory it has been hankering for since 1947. So the case being built against Malik needs to be examined in the minutest possible detail to ensure that Modi does not score a self-goal for India and help Pakistan’s ISI.
Questionable testimonies and missing links
To target Malik, the Modi government has revived the almost 35-year old case against him by suddenly finding not one, but two, alleged “eyewitnesses” who are prepared to swear that they recognised Malik as one of the assassins at Rawalpora. These are Rajwar Rajeshwar Singh, who sustained four bullet injuries but survived, and Nirmal Khanna, the wife of Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, who was killed in the attack.
Neither witness is even remotely credible. Firstly, neither of them claim that he or she actually saw Malik at the time of the shooting. Rajeshwar Singh, a corporal in the IAF in 1990, has stated that he was amongst the group of IAF personnel waiting for the staff pickup bus at Rawalpora on the outskirts of Srinagar on January 25, 1990, when he saw a man pull out a gun from under his “pheran” and open fire at them, killing four men. He was questioned by the CBI shortly afterwards but said that he had been in too much pain himself to be able to notice anything else.
In 2020, however, 34 years later, his memory had cleared. Deposing before a special TADA court in Jammu, the former IAF corporal said, “I was among the IAF personnel waiting for their bus to get to office.” Pointing to Malik, who appeared in court via video link from Tihar Jail in Delhi, he said, “He had pulled out his gun after lifting the ‘pheran’ and opened fire on us.”
The second witness was Nirmal Khanna who has, for some reason, changed her first name to Shalini. She described what happened thus: “I lived in Rawalpora and our house was just 50 yards away from the crime scene. Amid curfew, I heard sound of crackers that morning. At wit’s end, I went to the roof top and saw some army vehicles and men in uniform. I went there to see what actually had happened and spotted my husband’s briefcase with a bullet mark on it. I realised that something wrong has happened.”
“At a distance, I saw my husband lying in a pool of blood. I saw a bullet injury in his abdomen. Initially, I felt embarrassed thinking that if my husband could not endure a single bullet, then how could our borders be secured,” she added. But she claimed that Flight Lieutenant B.R. Sharma, who was with her husband at the time, told her that Malik was behind the attack. “Malik was leading the attackers and had sought directions for Natipora from my husband,” she told newspersons. “Ravi was giving him directions in a friendly manner when Malik fired the first bullet in his abdomen. Following a scuffle, Malik emptied an entire magazine on my husband’s back.”
Incongruities in witnesses’ accounts
There are profound incongruities in both these accounts that need to be explained. The CBI report stated that there were three shooters who had come on a motorcycle, but Rajeshwar Singh’s account mentioned only one assassin who was on foot when he opened fire. This may be because the shooter had first dismounted and approached the airmen with an incongruous question before pulling out his Kalashnikov from underneath his “pheran.” It could also be that, having been severely wounded himself, he was in no position to know what else was happening.
Nirmal (Shalini), on the other hand never actually saw Malik and relied entirely upon what Flight Lieutenant Sharma, who she claimed had been standing close to her husband, told her. Her account is entirely second-hand. The witness who needs to be found is, therefore, Flight Lieutenant Sharma.
Given the fervour with which the government is pursuing this case, it is surprising that the CBI has been unable to find, and get a deposition, from him. One possible reason is that he does not exist, for there is no mention of him anywhere, by anyone, in the CBI’s files or in subsequent news reports. When I tried to find him through a search of the Bharat Rakshak database of IAF officers, I got the following information: “Flight Lieutenant Baldev Raj Sharma: Service No & Branch 10852 AE(M) (Orig: ARMT); Commissioned: 03 Jun 1967;Died in Service 29 Apr 1973.” Another Baldev Raj Sharma retired as a Squadron Leader in 2002 and died in 2016 but if he was already a Flight Lieutenant in 1990, he ordinarily ought to have made the rank of Wing Commander by 2002.
Despite dying a hero’s death, Ravi Khanna’s name was somehow not included in the National War Memorial for Indian soldiers killed in combat. Shalini (aka Nirmal) Khanna spoke in detail to Open magazine in two stories about this exclusion, and about what she saw in the immediate aftermath of the January 25, 1990 incident. Her accounts were carried on September 12, 2019 and October 23, 2019. The first story appears to have been based on the reporter’s earlier conversations with her, before the trial began that day, where she mentioned her husband’s exclusion from the War Memorial but did not say anything about Flt Lt B.R. Sharma identifying her husband’s killer as Malik. The second story, by the same reporter, drew on her testimony at the trial. On October 6, the government rectified its “mistake” in omitting Squadron Leader Khanna from the war memorial and had his name duly engraved.
Either way, the identity of Flight Lieutenant B.R. Sharma, present or retired, circa 1990, is not clear, nor is it apparent why he ever came forward with his testimony to the authorities at the time or subsequently.
There are two other purely situational reasons for regarding the identification of Malik at Rawalpora by anyone as worthless. The first is that, on January 25, the shooting took place at 7.30 am. But the sun rose in Srinagar at 7.32 am on January 25 so it took place in the pre-dawn twilight, when the landscape is still fairly dark. To get a good look at any person in that pre-dawn light, one would have to be only a few metres away. But Rajeshwar Singh was not close enough to do so, and B.R. Sharma’s very existence is in doubt.
The second is that the minimum temperature anywhere in the world is reached at dawn just before the sun rises. In Srinagar, this minimum is between minus 3 and minus 5 degrees Celsius throughout January. In such bitterly cold weather, is it conceivable that anyone would not have his or her face covered by a heavy muffler while riding on a motorcycle? So for his face to have been seen, Malik would have had to remove his muffler for some reason, and risk being seen.
The inescapable truth is that, for the assassins, it would have been essential to keep their faces covered by thick mufflers not only to avoid recognition and identification but simply to stay warm. So there is no way in which either Rajeshwar Singh or B.R. Sharma, if he exists, could have seen the face of the person who killed Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna.
The final flaw in the case Mehta is trying to build is the way Malik has been “recognised.” Every police force in the world knows that visual recognition is a highly subjective act. The human eye is not a camera. In virtually every situation, people see what they are prepared, or want, to see. That is why police procedures for ensuring that a visual recognition will stand the test of cross examination are elaborate and rigidly specified.
The most frequently used way is to line up a group of persons with similar characteristics, make them turn, bend or speak as required by the witness, and ask them to identify the culprit. A second-best procedure is to show the witness a set of photographs of persons and do the same. But it is apparent from all that has been reported or presented in court that the prosecution has used neither of these methods to recognise Malik. Instead, it seems that the NIA has not required a visual recognition at all, and has relied solely upon “confessions” extracted from other prisoners by the police, or on photographs of Malik that it has shown to witnesses, and asked them whether this is the man they saw.
Neither of these procedures can stand a moment’s examination in a court of law. This is especially true of Malik, whose face has appeared a hundred or more times in newspapers, TV news channels and the internet, so he would be instantly recognisable to the witnesses, but for the wrong reason.
Note: This article was edited at 1625 IST to add references to Nirmal Khanna’s comments in OPEN magazine in September and October 2019.
This is the first of a two-part series on the trial of Yasin Malik.
Prem Shankar Jha is the author of Kashmir 1947–The Origins of a Dispute and a former media adviser to former Prime Minister V.P Singh.
