jumla

Three Important Leadership Lessons Narendra Modi Could Learn from Rahul Gandhi

Not that he will, but Modi could learn to listen, be humble and communicate authentically from Rahul Gandhi. The rest of us would do well to learn the lessons the last nine years have tried to teach us.

It is foolish to expect that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would ever deign to learn anything from anyone, and least of all from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. But the fact of the matter is that the much reviled “pappu” of national politics is now starting to emerge as a serious counterpoint to the ‘Unvanquishable One’.

Till about a year ago, it was almost easier to criticise Modi on social media than it was to appreciate Gandhi on it. Even those who didn’t think he was such a bad chap thought twice before voicing support for him on social media, knowing fully well the mocking that would follow.

All that is now changing.

Starting with the Bharat Jodo Yatra and then with the Congress’s huge win in Karnataka, the ‘pappu’ label has now fallen off. Gandhi has come across as confident and caring, and as someone much more likely to ‘walk the talk’ than the prime minister. It is now Modi who is becoming the recipient of labels that are less than complimentary.

Modi’s unwillingness to make a move against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is facing serious allegations of sexual harassment by women wrestlers, has seriously dented his image as a protector of the maas and betis in the country. Gandhi, on the other hand, has brought retribution upon himself for daring to talk about the assault and exploitation that women across India face regularly.

Not that he will, but here are three important life lessons Modi would do well to learn from Gandhi at this point in time:

Listening to learn

In a recent speech at Stanford University, Gandhi shared a fascinating epiphany he had during the first few days of the Bharat Jodo Yatra:

“We met what I would describe as ‘the soul of our country’ and very quickly, in a week to ten days, a silence descended on us.

We went from trying to explain things to people – ‘this is why agriculture isn’t working, this is how you should think about education, this is how the healthcare system should look’ etc. – to suddenly becoming silent and instead listening to them.

We came in contact with an intelligence we had never seen – farmers, who many would say were uneducated, were explaining things to us in a way that we could only listen to in stunned silence. We saw this again and again with labourers, small businessmen, everybody. And so we stopped talking and started listening. We heard tales of immense suffering and very clearly saw that there is a huge disconnect between our politics and our people.”

Perhaps Gandhi’s deepened ability to genuinely listen to people on the ground had a ripple effect and played a role in the Congress’s victory in Karnataka. He is right when he says there is power in silence and in empathetic listening.

Modi’s forte, on the other hand, is the monologue. He can also be silent, but usually, it is at the wrong time and for the wrong reason.

Humility

Daryl Van Tongeren, author of Humble: Understand and Use the Quiet Power of An Ancient Virtue says, “Humility is a way of approaching ourselves, other people, and the world around us with a sense of enoughness – an unconditional worth and value – that opens us to the world as it is.”

No amount of ego-boosting, however, seems to be enough for our prime minister and we can count on one finger of one hand the number of times he has actually issued a public apology. Incidentally, the word humility comes from the Latin word humus, which literally means earth or ground. A humble person is, thus, someone who is grounded and down to earth. Modi, with his great love for luxury and grandiosity is now being viewed as anything but.

Brant Parker and Johnny Hart’s cartoon strip The Wizard of Id comes to mind when one thinks of our prime minister. In one particular cartoon, the wizard is peering out into the vastness of space through a telescope. The king asks him what he is looking for.

The wizard replies, “The centre of the universe,’ to which the king replies, “Speaking.”

Gandhi, by contrast, is being seen more and more as a humble and approachable leader who is not afraid to admit he doesn’t have all the answers.

Authentic communication

This might sound counter-intuitive since Modi is supposed to be the better communicator by far. The fact of the matter, however, is that while the prime minister may be a better orator, the actual content of his speeches leaves much to be desired, as they are filled with self-promotion, chest-thumping and disdain for anyone who does not think as he does.

Also Read: The Cost to the Nation of a Perpetually Campaigning Prime Minister

Gandhi, on the other hand, may not be the most eloquent of speakers. His oratory does not soar, but there is no denying that his content calls out to the better parts of human nature – love, solidarity, justice, and egalitarianism.

Those who swore by Modi till even a year ago are suddenly not quite as whole-hearted in their acclaim of their vishwaguru. The loss of employment, the lack of jobs and the brutal suppression of democratic voices do not sync with the prime minister’s lofty rhetoric. Sooner or later, people get tired of the “same old, same old”. It takes time, but substance eventually wins over style.

Modi will most probably never learn anything from anyone (besides, of course, his own role models in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and some of his other autocratic buddies around the world). But the rest of us would do well to learn the lessons the last nine years have tried to teach us.

Rohit Kumar is a writer and educator.

Baroda Triangle: Where Ideas, History and Facts Disappear

Promises made by the BJP, public money, historical facts and several others have all evaporated into thin air. And even though millions of voters are scurrying around looking for them, all they have found so far is a big jumla.

The Bermuda Triangle is an area over the north-western part of the Atlantic Ocean where there have been persistent reports of ships and planes simply disappearing without a trace. The phenomenon has baffled oceanographers and scientists for decades and no plausible explanation has been offered so far by science. Answers range from a magnetic black hole, vagaries of the Gulf Stream current, sudden storms, aliens and “oceanic flatulence” caused by methane gases rising from the sea bed.

There are reasons now to believe that the Bermuda Triangle may have shifted its location and is now lying over the Indian sub-continent; it may soon be christened the Baroda Triangle. The reason for this is the fact that similar disappearances have now started taking place in the Indian landmass, not of ships and planes, however, but of ideas, history and facts.

It started with the disappearance of a university degree of a certain individual: nobody knows if it even exists. Strenuous efforts have been made to recover it, but all evidence of it has been atomised, and we can only speculate where it lies, like the MH 370 plane. It is also dangerous to look for it.

Next were public funds, tens of thousands of crores of public money simply disappeared (and continue to disappear); it is believed that they may have been teleported to other parts of the Atlantic like the Cayman Islands and Saint Kitts, but no one can be sure because no one has actually seen this moolah. The people who had taken this money have also disappeared and cannot be located.

More moneys have simply vanished in funds like the electoral bonds or the PM CARES fund, or what are called NPAs, and no one has a clue about what happened to them. All information about them has also gone into a black hole called the Right to Information (RTI) Act from which light stopped emerging a few years back. It’s the same with another collapsed star, the Election Commission of India (ECI), which has also stopped emitting any light and prefers to cloak itself in total darkness, like a dwarf star.

Criminals and mass murderers also seem to be disappearing into thin air, along with the concept of justice which in any case was tenuous at the best of times. The Hashimpura massacre of 79 Muslims in Meerut district in 1987 by the police is a case in point. After 36 years and 900 hearings, all 39 accused have been acquitted earlier this month. In another mysterious disappearance of criminals, all 68 accused in the murder of 11 Muslims in Naroda Gam, Gujarat, in February of 2002 were acquitted by a judge on April 20. So who killed them: aliens? Flatulence? Magnetism? We’ll never know, because the Baroda Triangle doesn’t give up its secrets easily.

Former BJP leader Maya Kodnani. Photo: PTI

More than 12,00,000 high-net-worth individuals (HNI) have disappeared from India in the last few years, taking their wealth with them, without any explanation by the government. Around 6,50,000 hectares of forest land have dematerialised in the last five years. Thousands of voters regularly vanish from voters’ lists, presumably because they might have voted against the powers that be.

Whatever little information used to emerge from the stygian portals of power about the environmental impacts of big projects has also now disappeared: the Union government last week ordered that the web portal PARIVESH, which used to post such information, shall no longer provide all information. Reason? This is confidential data and can now be accessed only through RTI applications, which, as we know by now, are thrown into dustbins as fast as they are filed.

The latest to disappear into the ether are huge slices of Indian history and science. The Mughals have suddenly vanished from the face of the earth, as have documented facts relating to the antipathy of the right-wing to Mahatma Gandhi, the banning of the RSS, the 2002 carnage in Gujarat, the industrial revolution, the Emergency, the Naxalite movement, popular struggles and movements, references to the caste system and untouchability. Science has not been spared by these mysterious forces either: Darwin’s theory of evolution has been sucked into oblivion, as have issues of the environment, including global warming. Will Newton and Einstein be the next to go, or will it be Orwell and Huxley, or Shakespeare and Steinbeck, or Omar Khayam and Khalil Gibran?

It’s the same with the many promises the BJP had made to come to power in 2014: 20 million new jobs every year, Rs 15,00,000 in every bank account, a US$5 trillion economy by 2024, doubling of farmers’ income by 2022, cooperative federalism, a Congress mukt Bharat. These too have all evaporated into thin air, and even though millions of voters are scurrying around looking for them, all they have found so far is a big jumla. Of the real thing, there is no sign.

The Orient has always been a mysterious place, after all.

PS: The BJP may be a lot of bad things, but it is not stupid. He who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future. This at least is one part of “entire political science” Mr Modi has learnt well, whether or not he has a degree.

Avay Shukla is a retired IAS officer.

A version of this article appeared on the author’s blog, View From [Greater] Kailash and has been lightly edited for style.

‘Is Word Jumla Against PM Proper’: HC Bats for ‘Lakshman Rekha’ for Criticism of Govt

The Delhi high court was referring to a speech delivered by the scholar-activist Umar Khalid in Amravati in 2020, while hearing his appeal against refusal of bail.

New Delhi: The Delhi high court has asked Umar Khalid if it was “proper to use the word ‘jumla’ against the prime minister,” noting that there was to be a “lakshman rekha” or limit, to criticism.

The high court was referring to a speech delivered by the scholar-activist in Amravati in 2020, while hearing his appeal against refusal of bail, LiveLaw has reported.

Coincidentally, the high court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, used the same word – “lakshman rekha” – to express that there has to be a limit to an “individual’s freedom of expression”. This court was hearing a petition by a lawyer who had been booked under the UAPA for allegedly declaring himself a slave in India and alleging a military occupation of Kashmir, The Telegraph has reported.

The Delhi high court hearing Khalid’s appeal had earlier called portions of his Amravati speech against the Citizenship Amendment Act as “obnoxious” and “offensive”.

Khalid was arrested in September 2020 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and charged by the Delhi Police of being part of the “larger conspiracy” behind the Delhi riots of February 2020. The speech was made part of the FIR.

Khalid’s description of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Mahasabha acting as “agents of the British” during the freedom struggle was interpreted by the high court as “giving the impression that only one community was fighting against the British”. This, the bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar, said was “obnoxious, hateful, offensive and prima facie not acceptable.”

Also read: ‘Hateful’ of Umar Khalid to Call Political ‘Ancestors’ of Present Rulers British ‘Agents’: Delhi HC

Senior advocate Trideep Pais had told the court that words used to criticise the government could not amount to an UAPA offence.

In the hearing on April 27, Justice Bhatnagar asked, “This word jumla is used against the Prime Minister of India. Is it proper?”

Pais, according to LiveLaw’s report, said it was not a crime to criticise the government.

The judge also asked ‘What he says about the Prime Minister in the speech? Some ‘changa‘ word was used and after that…’

At a speech in an event called ‘Howdy, Modi’ in the US in 2019, Modi had famously said, “Sab changa si“, which translates to “all is well.” Later, when protests against the CAA spread across India, the phrase was used to sarcastically point out that all was not, after all, well.

Pais too said in court that this use by Khalid was satire.

“583 days in prison with UAPA charges was not envisaged for a person who speaks against the government. We cannot become so intolerant. At this rate, people will not be able to speak,” Pais said.

Justice Bhatnagar then said that there has to be a “line for criticism.”

“There has to be a line for criticism also. There has to be a lakshman rekha,” he said.

The same judge also asked who the “camel” in Khalid’s line, “The camel has come to the foot of the mountains” was.

Pais said that the camel was the government which was unwilling to engage with people opposing the CAA.

Pais also stressed that the speech, while against the CAA, did not have any element that could incite a crowd, referring to video evidence which shows the audience seated.

Justice Siddharth Mridul also asked Pais, “There are two expressions he used. One is inquilab and other is krantikari. What is the takeaway from the use of expression krantikari?”

“It means revolutionary,” Pais responded, according to LiveLaw.

The judge said that Pais’s argument on free speech could not be questioned but once again called Khalid’s speech ‘obnoxious’.

“Nobody has qualms about free speech but what is the consequence of your employing these expressions, offensive as they evidently are. Did they incite the populous in Delhi to come out to streets? If they did even prima facie, are you guilty of UAPA section 13? That is the question before us,” he said.

Pais sought to impress that the speech was not cited by riot witnesses in Delhi, only two of whom had heard it at all.

Khalid’s bail order had been deferred thrice and ultimately delivered on March 23.

Delhi HC’s Order on Kejriwal’s Promise To Pay Rent During Lockdown May Set an Important Precedent

The high court has held that the assurance given by the chief minister is enforceable on the basis of the doctrines of promissory estoppel and legitimate expectation.

On March 29 last year, soon after the coronavirus-induced lockdown was put in place, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asked landlords not to collect rent from tenants for two to three months, if they are unable to pay it due to poverty. He also promised the landlords that if any tenant, who because of lack of means, is unable to pay some of the rent, the government would do so.

On Thursday, Justice Pratibha M. Singh of Delhi high court held that when a senior functionary like the chief minister makes a promise/assurance to the public, which is categorical, unequivocal and unambiguous, inaction by the government to implement it is impermissible.

Applying the doctrines of promissory estoppel and legitimate expectation, Justice Singh held that in a democratic setup, persons who hold an elected office, and especially heads of government, heads of state and those holding responsible positions are expected to make responsible assurances/promises to their citizens, especially in times of crisis and distress.

On behalf of the citizens, there would obviously be a reasonable expectation, that an assurance or a promise made by a senior constitutional functionary, no less the chief minister, would be given effect to, Justice Singh wrote in her judgment, adding that it cannot be reasonably said that no tenant or landlord would have believed Kejriwal.

“As per the normal conduct as also the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, surely there must have been a large number of tenants and landlords, who would have believed the assurance made by the CM. If the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) had actually come out with a policy either deciding to not implement the said promise or assurance on grounds which are legally sustainable, obviously the courts cannot interfere,” the judge explained, after citing several cases decided by both the Indian Supreme Court as well as courts in foreign jurisdictions.

Relying on the recent Supreme Court’s judgment in State of Jharkhand vs Bhrahmaputra Metallics Ltd, Ranchi, the judge endorsed the principle that a reasoned decision ought to be taken on the legitimate expectation of the citizens by the government, for the said decision to be reasonable, non-arbitrary and in accordance with Article 14 of the constitution.

“In the present case, in the backdrop of the commitment made, it is not the positive decision making which is arbitrary, but the lack of decision making or indecision, which this court holds to be contrary to law,” Justice Singh clarified. Once the chief minister had made a solemn assurance, there was a duty cast on the GNCTD to take a stand as to whether to enforce the said promise or not, and if so on what grounds or on the basis of what reasons, she added.

The Supreme Court has recognised and granted relief in the context of commercial matters such as tax exemptions, grant of incentives. In the present case, the nature of rights are of even greater importance as they relate to the right to shelter during a pandemic. In the context of upholding fundamental rights, the principles of legitimate expectation have to be accorded a higher pedestal and the burden on the authority concerned not to honour the same, is even higher, the judge observed.

The doctrine of promissory estoppel also being an equitable doctrine, equity requires this court to hold the GNCTD responsible for the said indecision or lack of action, on the promise/assurance given by the CM, Justice Singh held.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Photo: Twitter/AamAadmiParty

“In the present case, it is not clear as to why the GNCTD chose to completely disregard the promise or assurance given by its CM and not effectuate the same. A statement given in a consciously held press conference, in the background of the lockdown announced due to the pandemic and the mass exodus of migrant labourers, cannot be simply overlooked. Proper governance requires the government to take a decision on the assurance given by the CM, and inaction on the same cannot be the answer”, the judge further observed.

She noted that insofar as the indecision is concerned, the GNCTD needed to answer the question, which it has failed to answer during the hearing. While the courts cannot assume the discretion which exists with the governmental authorities, they also ought to follow the rule of reason. There has to be a reason as to why the government has simply chosen to disregard or failed to implement the promise/assurance given by the CM, the high court held.

Interestingly, the judge made a distinction between a political promise made as part of an election rally, (a jumla, to borrow from home minister Amit Shah) and a statement made by the chief minister, on behalf of his government. His promise was to act as a balm on the wounds of landlords and tenants, who were severely affected as a class of citizens in Delhi. However, the lack of any decision to implement it, or a conscious reasoned decision not to implement it, has resulted in non-decisionem factionem in respect of legitimate expectation of its citizens, the judge explained. “Puffing” which may be permissible in commercial advertising, ought not to be recognisable and permissible in governance, the judge underlined.

GNCTD’s stand

The GNCTD argued that any decision of the government has to be taken in the name of the governor, in consultation with the council of ministers, which was not done in the present case, and therefore, it cannot give rise to a legitimate expectation or promissory estoppel.

In response, the judge held that the decision once taken would have to be in the name of the governor, but what is challenged here is the complete indecision after the CM’s announcement. To the judge, the issue has to be considered from a common man’s perspective, as a citizen would believe that a statement by the CM can be relied upon and trusted. The judge made it clear that an assurance by the CM, in a press conference, that is, a public platform, even without resulting in a formal policy or an order on behalf of the GNCTD, would create a valuable and legal right by applying the doctrine of promissory estoppel. Non-consideration of the same can definitely be tested on the ground of arbitrariness due to the doctrine of legitimate expectation being applicable, she emphasised.

The high court, therefore, directed the GNCTD to take a decision as to the implementation of the promise made by the CM on March 29 last year, within a period of six weeks. It means that the decision may also be taken not to implement the same. However, such decision, the court made it clear, should be taken bearing in mind the larger interest of the persons to whom the benefits were intended to be extended in the said statement, as also any overriding public interest concerns. Once such a decision is taken, the GNCTD would frame a clear policy in this regard, and consider the case of the petitioners as per the procedure prescribed under that policy or scheme, the high court held.

Interestingly, the court was not sure about the bona fides of the petitioners, and therefore, wanted them to be verified. “The pleadings in the present case, especially the rejoinder, also gives an impression to this court that the intention is to sensationalise the issue rather than to actually seek redressal of a grievance,” it noted. The judge, however, did not clarify what would be the consequence of her directions, if the petitioners are not found to be bona fide. Fortunately, she did not make their verification a prerequisite to decide whether their petitions could be heard.

Lessons for ensuring accountability

If the Delhi high court’s direction to the GNCTD is any indication, similar statements made by other constitutional functionaries may also be used to demand accountability and action by their respective governments. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for instance, had made several promises following his government’s move to demonetise the Indian currency in 2016, and later while withdrawing the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the constitution in August 2019. Can the government’s inaction on implementing those promises be challenged on the grounds of promissory estoppel and legitimate expectation? The judgment holds promise to potential public interest litigants who may like to use the law to seek accountability of the Modi government at the Centre.

The Man and the Mob

Is the lynch mob a mere complement to the brutal might of the state – and our leader – or a signifier of the disorder that exists in our society?

Mob is essentially a pejorative word. So is crowd, but with a difference. A mob’s action leads to ‘mobocracy’; a crowd, with its anonymous collective and instantaneous gathering, can become ‘unruly’ – not necessarily but usually so. A crowd, as is often said, ‘gathers’; it appears from nowhere. People, quite literally, creep towards an event; they collect around a person. These are, however, points of finer difference meant for seminar rooms. In the arena of politics, as it is unfolding in spaces ranging from streets to WhatsApp, mob and crowd are synonymous.

Road accidents in India are the best examples of this spontaneous crowd-making. The curious onlookers simply ‘gather’. People start gravitating towards the source of the noise or the shouts of help and scream. Those who are on the move stop to watch, those who watch become privileged witnesses. Some remain passive; others see in these moments an opportunity to intervene.

Representative image: Policemen disperse a mob that allegedly barged into a police station over Ram Navami clashes in Murshidabad. Credit: PTI File Photo

It throws up the option for one to take the lead – to become a leader. He (and it is usually a ‘he’ in such moments) intervenes, commands, mediates and resolves the dispute. The dispute itself can be of any magnificence – from a ‘normal’ slap to a ‘proper’ thrashing.

In South Asian cities and villages, we have all witnessed the enactment of such a ‘scene’. A driver being thrashed for running over someone on the road, a thief caught range-haath, red-handed, in the streets and lynched. Usually, from the same crowd, that leader figure also emerges for rescue and mediation. He does the ‘settlement’. The crowd disperses with some remorse but also glee. The spectacle is over and its spiced-up tell-tales linger on the next days’ streets and bazaars’ rumours and gossips.

The new characteristics

If public beating and thrashing is so common in South Asia as a form of retributive justice or public spectacle, then what is new in the recent epidemic of lynching? Few things can be pointed out straight away.

One, the scale has changed. The gullies, the streets and the bazaars have been replaced by the space of the nation-state. In other words, the nation-state has become the staging ground for the performance of the spectacle. As a result, the retellings are not limited to the word-of-the-mouth reporting and small talk that happens locally. They occupy the centre-stage of national discussion and news channels’ prime times.

Two, the spectacle has become a routine affair. The routinisation of this spectacle has created an ever-downward spiralling of the new normal. The video recordings of killings and thrashings, shared with aplomb and circulated with audacity, have stopped shocking the nation. The nation or a sizeable section of believers either turn their eyes towards the filmi-style extravaganza of the live-telecast of highway inauguration or gaze into the future promise of a thrill ride in bullet trains. If nothing, it rejoices in the coming of an institute of eminence which exists only on paper. Conversely, it either applauds or remains silent on the piecemeal destruction of the existing public institutions.

Three, the combination of the new national spectacle and the new normal has given rise to a new leader. The on-the-spot creation of a leader as it happened in local forms of lynching has been replaced by the leader of the nation-state. Incidentally, at this national stage too, the current leader happens to be a ‘he’.

A cut out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The question then is: is he intervening, commanding, mediating and resolving these series of lynching or is he just a mute spectator to all of this? While being the leader, is he simply behaving as one in the crowd who sees and observes but does not come forward to challenge and mediate? Is this a new kind of a leader unlike the instantly crowd-thrown hero of the crowd who instantly reacts to the situation to acquire momentary fame?

Or, perhaps, it is befitting to ask if he really is mute or simply speaking in forked tongue, the echoes of which are so muddled that they become inaudible and indistinct to separate? Is this new leader strategically speaking and remains calculatedly silent? Is the Janus feature of this auditory intervention craftily presented to address different segments of the society in different tongues?

The forked language

What has happened to the crowd? If the spectacle has changed, the scale has changed, the leader has changed, has the crowd remained the same? It would perhaps be stretching the point a bit too far if we say that the whole nation has become a crowd. This would demean those who watch but do not approve.

And then there are those who approve of one fork of the tongue and remain silent on the other, perhaps just like their leader. Those who get impressed by the weight of the piggy-bag of development, the buzzword of Indian politics – vikas – can take away some brownie points from demonetisation and GST (the ‘glitches’ of the policy can always be blamed on the methods of implementation but the ‘intention’ behind them, as the faithful followers would remind us, was ‘pure like gold’). But they remain silent when human beings are tied and beaten, dragged and burnt in the name of caste and religion.

Has the nation been hijacked by the hollow-meaning, shrill cacophony created around the buzzword of vikas or has vikas itself become the hand-boy of the new national, which brutally silences and discredits the present?

Arguments of change and development are framed around the new taglines of old policies. Schemes such as direct cash transfers, foreign investment and digital India have been packaged in a new form. Of late, school textbooks have also been recruited to advertise the leader’s flagship policies. Arguments shift as goalposts constantly shift, as we witnessed in the case of demonetisation. From cleansing the nation of the counterfeit currencies and ‘black’ money, it changed to making India a ‘cashless’ economy. While the figures of money deposited in the banks made the claim of unaccountable black money seized absolutely hollow, the use of cards for transactions did not require the pretension of ‘surgical’ strike. Since the early 2000s, it was already on its way and would have kept growing without selling a disruptive policy under the label of vikas.

The sound of vikas is part of the loud call given out for change and progress. It is rallied in arguments in TV newsrooms and WhatsApp conversations. Oft-repeated, it is a word which is fast losing its meaning. Like many jumlas coined to ‘showcase’ vikas, vikas itself has become a jumla. It has become a new political vocabulary emptied of any substantial content due to two reasons: first, there is no structured blueprint of how this vikas would come and to whom with a commitment to social equity and inclusiveness; and second, it is fast becoming a tool of legitimation to scare people of not asking uncomfortable questions.

We must, therefore, not raise the issue of toxic deaths due to manual cleaning of manholes. We must not mention the death of women and elderly due to the unavailability of proper health services. Such deaths happened earlier too – did we raise it then, we are asked. If we raise it now, then we are motivated, driven by agenda, unfaithful to the nation, disrespectful to the leader, and not least, divisive in just highlighting the issue of deaths that is part of the long institutional depravity. Such questions betray disloyalty towards the leader and his buzzword of vikas.

We must, in another related instance, participate in the national mission of taking selfies while wielding a jhaadu in our hands. But we must not ask if there have been fundamental changes made to restructure the ways cities are cleaned, the way houses have to deposit their waste. We must not ask if the sanitation workers have been adequately provided for, if their social status through better wages and education are in any targeted manner addressed. We must also not ask for the roadmap to abolish manual scavenging, which would liberate millions from this abominable caste practice.

Even the leader’s followers in various cities of India would recognise that the usual piles of waste stand at the same place where they stood 20 years ago. But they and their idea of nation does not entertain such questions. They are in a hurry to post the jhaadu selfie on their Twitter and Facebook accounts. The leader has set the mark – the nation must follow.

PM Narendra Modi launching the Swachh Bharat Mission. Credit: PTI

Raising the questions of sweepers and waste-cleaners, of the poor and deprived, of institutional change and targeted policies will distract the nation from its merry-go-round journey of happy selfie moments to the feel-good faith systems. These are anyway part of the old-world talks, the problems of the infant nation, the gheesi-peeti baatein. The time has now come to speak about the glazed malls and the eight-lane highways which symbolise the passage of the nation from its infancy to maturity. The social sections left behind in this passage are either to remain silent or unquestionably ‘serve’ the new modernity.

This situation forces one to wonder at the relationship between the nation and the claim of vikas itself. Who has hijacked whom? Has the nation been hijacked by the hollow-meaning, shrill cacophony created around the buzzword of vikas or has vikas itself become the hand-boy of the new national, which brutally silences and discredits the present?

Between the claims of the glorious past and the promises of the shining future, the nation has stopped living in the present. The everyday has lost its meaning in the spectacle of the politics as if the spectacle-ridden performance from sartorial to mimicry has itself become the norm of the everyday. A new mode of political mobilisation has set in which does not speak about the ordinariness of lives. It does not concretely address the growing class hierarchies and income differentials in society or how social outcastes and marginals languish behind in the making of this new nation. The new normal does not allow one to ask normal questions of the present.

Political mobilisation based on time-tested strategies has taken a beating. Class and communitarian forms of politics are finding it impossible to secure a space amongst the lynch mobs. Massive strikes led by farmers, workers and teachers are being reduced to a footnote amidst the spectral violence of the mob. The TRPs of the ‘news shows’ are determined by the decibel level of screams and not by issues of education, job and health.

A groundswell based on a heady cocktail of vikas solely defined by the leader and acts of quotidian violence has become the political norm. Well, the only significant thing the nation has recently done is to stand in the queue for fulfilling the commands of its leader. Those who stood hours and days must honestly ask what they gained by it, and what gains it brought to the system of governance.

The leader and the led

In the mix of these claims, there is something deeper that is changing. Let us return to the mob and the crowd. Is the lynch mob a mere complement to the brutal might of the state or a signifier of the disorder that exists in our society?

Much of the political commentaries have focussed on the bestiality of the acts and the irrational violence that has acquired legitimacy within the current political regime. The ‘sane-r’ voices amongst the believers would claim it to be the act of fringe elements. Whether they truly believe in this core-fringe division or simply gloss over it by reducing violence to the non-core segments is debatable, but many recent investigative accounts have questioned this binary convincingly.

The modern-liberals, on the other hand, would perhaps be content in blaming the leader. Reducing the spiralling scale of violence to the question of impunity runs the risk of not engaging with the changes in the relationship between the leadership and the led.

There is a new architecture of this relationship whose effects are more pernicious than they appear. This is not just limited to the domain of politics – the centralisation of power in the hands of a chosen few or the revamping of important institutions to make them subservient to the current ruling dispensation. It has engulfed the public at large. It is the social which is at stake as much as the political.

Between the claims of the glorious past and the promises of the shining future, the nation has stopped living in the present.

Earlier models explaining the relationship between the leader and the people posited the urban/rural poor as a bunch of misguided souls who were led by agent provocateurs to commit forms of actions that transcended the existing limits of permissible political activity. Here, the figure of the political intermediary, be it the intellectual or the activist, was seen to guide the sadharan janta, the common (wo)man, to an orchestrated political spectacle. This sadharan janta was meant to listen to fiery speeches, assemble in crowds and take darshan, a view, of the leaders.

While this janta was tutored to mimic dominant political tendencies, they could also practice their own brand of politics. They could script their own interpretations. They could do things starkly opposite of what they were asked to. The peasants of the national movement ‘looted’ the shops while chanting the slogan of Gandhi baba ki jai.

Yet this relationship between the leader and the masses was structured within the logic of mediation. Both the acts of mimesis as well as the political dissonances shared the premise of the expert, who would appear in the form of a leader, political broker, television anchor, activist or intellectual and bring politics to our neighbourhoods, mohallas, universities and living rooms. Mediation was as much the necessity as the syntax of the political grammar.

The centralisation of power often leads to erosion of layers of mediators. It could lead to the decimation of the system of mediation. This is clearly visible in the current architecture of power. The new leader is an unmediated leader. Of course, he puts across his mann ki baat to people but from behind a mic, through a script. He reaches out to millions. The millions simply hear his voice.

Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ is a monthly monologue session rather than a dialogue. Credit: www.narendramodi.in

The direct communication is without dialogue. Questions are not asked in the spirit of dialogue and accountability. It is perhaps unprecedented that our leader has not held a single press conference in four years. In rare occasions when questions are asked – through an appointed interviewer – the stage, the medium, the show and the persona, all become a form of spectacle.

The new social

So what are the features of this new social and the new links of the relationship between the mob and the leader?

The new social is bold and brazen. It uses ‘historical wrongs’ to justify the present aggression. A nation whose majority of people are in the age group of mid-twenties to mid-thirties is perhaps bound to be bold, but ironically, the expression of this aggression is based upon the blind worship of fear. The expression of freedom is based upon the practice of instilling fear in others.

The new social is variegated. It is a layered formation whose trajectories are enmeshed, but all its origins are linked either to the words or the silences of the leader. One section of it thrives on social media as trolls, another as vigilantes doing night patrols. The third, as a combination of both, collects and gathers around messages shared on WhatsApp and indulges in the ‘social service’ of lynching. The form of the violence is old, but its organisation and expressions are new.

This new organisation reflects the making of the new social. This is not the sadharan janta or the aam aadmi that requires political tutelage. It is the fusion of the leader and the mob that creates oneness of this constituency. The crowd wearing the mask of the leader is the best visual example of this fusion. The nation’s identity is dissolved in its leader.

This crowd needs no overt political mediation. Of course, we know of the covert ways – the IT cells, the paid news channels and the propaganda machinery churning out memes to feed the hunger for derision and humour of the political opponents and provide justification for the leader’s acts. These memes have become more powerful than editorial columns of newspapers written by experts. The funded mischief and truth fabrication are parts of the same coin.

PM Narendra Modi’s supporters at a ‘parivartan’ rally in Uttar Pradesh. Credit: PTI

It would be wrong to think of this new social as a-ideological. The youth waiting to reap the benefits of vikas, interspersed at different layers of this new formation, are armed with fake news and alternative facts. There are those who often comment that in India the right-wing political dispensation has few intellectuals. We contend that this new social does not require any intellectual. Globally, truth is moving towards post-fact; in India, the social-political life has shifted towards a post-intellectual phase. The janta has reincarnated itself as trolls and crowd, with an army of news anchors to lace them with ‘facts’ and arguments.

The anti-intellectual wave is here to stay. And so is the nature of this new social. The textbook controversies of the previous NDA regime and the Ayodhya dispute required experts to sift through evidence and make claims and counter-claims. The conceptual overturning of secularism into pseudo-secularism was a case in point. It needed publicists and clever, intelligent spin doctors to show the ‘hurt’ sentiments of the majority.

The nation’s identity is dissolved in its leader.

The new phase can thrive without any of these. People are already convinced of the ‘villainous’ nature of the institutions that have nurtured ‘intellectualism’. Opinions are no more required. Those coming from the opposing voices are anyway discredited, the ones from sympathisers have also lost the utility. In general, the janta has outgrown the intelligentsia and come on its own. Propaganda is enough to move people. It seeps into their everyday quotidian existence and connects with existing social tensions like never before, so much so that it acquires a life of its own.

Propaganda has allowed people to connect diverse sets of issues and turn some of them into a lynch mob. The enemies are clearly identifiable, which no amount of historical and sociological analysis can explain. Memes and messages are the new texts of history and sociology.

We do not contend that one has to inevitably return to the older forms of mediation to ensure the business of governance. We also do not contend that the intellectualism of the earlier era was not untouched by shades of elitism. Perhaps, those older forms were also the breeding ground for nepotism and corruption, nurturing a practice of doling out favours to a band of chaaploos, hangers-on.

But the ‘trollisation’ of the society and the ‘organisation’ of the crowd (there is no deviant fringe and pious core, let us be clear) is definitely a new phenomenon, and those who are part of this, either as mask-wearing followers or as ‘argumentative’ Indians who rely on memes and alternative facts, must ask one thing: Do they want to even question their leader on matters they think right or they want to become like him practicing the art of forked tongue?

Nitin Sinha is a senior research fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. He is a historian of early modern and modern India.

Vidhya Raveendranathan is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Goettingen, Germany.

Political Messaging Masks Budget 2018’s Actual Delivery in the Social Sector

Even as schemes have received minimal allocations, this budget signals an important shift in the political narrative. Gone is the focus on jobs, skills, aspirations and empowerment.

Credit: Reuters

Arun Jaitley had a difficult choice to make this budget. Maintain fiscal prudence or respond to growing demands for public expenditure in light of growing rural distress and at the same time keeping an eye on 2019. He did this today with great panache. The budget speech made all the right noises for rural India. Farmers were centre-stage as was the promise of improving rural infrastructure. But he managed to avoid the charge of fiscal profligacy by holding back on budget allocations.

The budget for the Ministry of Rural Development got a mere 4% increase in allocation. Importantly, all key infrastructure programmes – Swacch Bharat, PMGSY (the rural roads programme) and the PMAY, the rural housing programme – saw no real change in allocation. In fact, allocations for Swacch Bharat Gramin and PMAY have fallen by 9% compared to revised estimates of the previous year.

Importantly, the finance minister was silent on MGNREGA. For the last three years, the finance minister has specifically mentioned the MGNREGA – going so far as spuriously claiming that the government had made the highest ever allocations to the scheme last year – didn’t find place in the 2018 budget and importantly the scheme received no changes in allocation. MGNREGA has received an allocation of Rs 55,000 crores this year, which is the same as last year’s revised estimates, despite a backlog of pending payments.

Even the budget show-stopper – the National Health Protection Scheme – has only got an allocation of Rs. 2000 crore. If the programme is indeed to cover 10 crore families, this seems a rather inadequate allocation. Interestingly, allocations for reproductive and child health (part of the National Health Mission) dropped by 30%.

Even as schemes have received minimal allocations, and any hope of much needed reforms to improve the quality public services is now lost, this budget does signal an important shift in the political narrative, when it comes to social policy. As this column has argued before, in 2014, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power, the government set about the task of distinguishing (and distancing) itself from the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) rights-based welfare approach by positioning its approach to social policy and “vikas” more broadly as “empowerment” in opposition to the UPA’s “entitlement” approach. But this budget has firmly shifted the narrative. Gone is the focus on jobs, skills, aspirations and empowerment.

The rural economy is to be revived through greater government welfare interventions. In other words, even in rhetoric (if not in allocations), the emphasis is on government schemes aimed at improving rural infrastructure particularly sanitation, housing, roads, ujjwala (this is the one program that saw a significant bump in allocations – 30% up from last years budget) and the showstopper of this budget: health insurance are the key focus. Achievements against these schemes are likely to frame the political message that the NDA is going to take to the people in 2019. Important here is a clear admission that the primary political promise of this government – better jobs for an aspirational India – has failed.

In the meanwhile, many crucial reforms in social sector financing, particularly the promise to reform Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) the key financing instrument of the central government for social policy have made little progress. In keeping with the political promise of co-operative federalism, early in its tenure, this government had committed to moving away from the one size fit all model that characterized CSS to give states greater flexibility and ensure that they could design schemes in line with their own needs and priorities. The Niti Ayog set up a chief minister’s sub-committee which made important recommendations. However, these have not been implemented and it is noteworthy that the FM (for perhaps the first time since his first budget in 2014) made no mention of “co-operative federalism” in his speech.

Also read: Why the Poor Will Not Be the True Beneficiaries of the ‘World’s Largest Health Programme’

No assessment of this budget will be complete without discussion on the one big idea – the National Health Protection Scheme – India’s very own, ambitious “Obamacare”! To be sure the focus on health policy in this budget is a welcome change. Over the last three years, this government’s approach to health policy has been floundering. However, as argued in this column, we fear that this current approach runs the risk of creating the world’s largest, unregulated public private partnership with limited impact on health outcomes.

This is because key preconditions for an effective health insurance – a strong primary health system that can prevent minor illnesses from reaching hospitals and to ensure efficient referral for those who genuinely need hospital care and an effective regulatory system are not in place.

The push for an insurance based public private partnership is premised on the assumption that a state that has failed to get basic provision right can perform the far more complex task of regulation. To assume that a low capability state like ours can perform a task as complex as regulating private health care – which includes addressing pricing, quality control, especially when existing legislation is weak – is a recipe for disaster.

The first step to improving health care is reforms in primary care and in particular getting doctors to work. Health insurance programmes that are not embedded in a health systems reform effort are unlikely to achieve this.

So in the final analysis what can be said about budget 2018, from the perspective of social sectors – the right kind of rhetoric and good fiscal management but relatively little in terms of actual delivery. Will the new narrative on rural revival convince voters? Only time will tell.

‘Jan Gan Man Ki Baat’ Episode 190: Union Budget 2018

Vinod Dua breaks down the Union Budget 2018.

Also read: Expert Gyan: Is Budget 2018 Really Putting Farmers First?

Opposition Parties Call Budget 2018 a ‘Big Jumla’ and ‘an Assault’ on India’s Working Class

According to the opposition, the budget is mere ‘lip-service paid in the name of the farmers and the poor’ and will not have any real impact.

The Congress said that finance minister Arun Jaitley “failed the fiscal consolidation test”. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: While many touted the Narendra Modi government’s unprecedented thrust on agriculture and healthcare in the current budget as populist measures, ahead of eight assembly elections this year and parliamentary polls early next year, the opposition parties panned the finance minister’s proposals.

Most claimed that the outlay in the two sectors is far from adequate to address the persistent concerns of the rural poor, who have been reeling under distress because of multiple factors.

The opposition was of the view that although the government may believe that its sudden emphasis on the rural sector may help the BJP politically, the poor allocations in several central programmes will not have any real impact as far as generating jobs and rejuvenating the economy are concerned.

‘A big jumla‘

“In the last four years, the level of real agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) and real agricultural revenues have remained constant,” said former union finance minister P. Chidambaram.

He added, “Jobs is the number one issue. Jobs are not being created. Industry – especially MSMEs – create jobs. Industrial gross value added (GVA) growth has declined from 9.8% in 2015-16 to 6.8% in 2016-17 to 2.7% in 2017-18. In the same period, manufacturing GVA has declined from 12.7% to 7.9% and credit to industry 2.1%.”

“In light of the above, the budget proposals should have been bold and radical, and backed by adequate provision of funds. Unfortunately, the budget proposals are a big let down,” he said.

In a press statement, the Congress listed what it called a “list of big disappointments”.

Regarding fiscal deficit, it said, the finance minister “failed the fiscal consolidation test. All deficits have crossed the budget estimates. Against a BE fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 of 3.2, the fiscal number will be 3.5. Similarly, for 2018-19, against a target of 3.0, the finance minister has pegged it at 3.2. Both these slippages will have serious consequences and raise grave doubts about India’s commitment to fiscal consolidation”.

Also read: Budget 2018-2019 As It Happened

It further said that the government has not taken any measures to boost exports and has imposed “additional custom duties to restrict imports”. It added that the prime minister’s speech at Davos (where World Economic Forum was held recently) has already been forgotten.

As far as the government’s promise to increase minimum support price for farmers by 1.5 times the inputs, the party said that there are no details as to how it would do that.

“The Swaminathan Committee has been remembered in the last year of the government’s tenure. Besides Rs 2,000 crore for e-markets and Rs 500 crore for Operation Green (whenever the cabinet will approve the schemes) amount to pittance. There is nothing to indicate that farmers’ real income will rise.”

The party also took a dig at the big government announcement of providing Rs 5 lakh to 10 crore families for healthcare, calling it a “big jumla”.

“Assuming that each family will avail of Rs 50,000 (one-tenth of Rs 5 lakh), the amount required per year will be Rs 5 lakh crore! If the insurance companies will foot the bill, the premium at Rs 5000-15000 per family will require an outgo of Rs 50,000-1,50,000 crore per year. Is the finance minister serious?” it asked.

The grand old party said that the only way the finance minister has environed to increase jobs is the Mudra scheme but if the average size of the Mudra loan is measured, it amounts to only Rs 43,000, an amount which can barely generate more jobs.

It said that the finance minister appears to have given up on private investment completely as there was nothing in the budget to boost private investment or encourage banks to lend or investors to borrow.

Chidambaram said that the budget is a clear dampener for taxpayers, and will impact the middle classes. “Only corporates with income up to Rs 25 crore get a tax relief of 5%. For individuals, standard deduction is back, but long-term capital gains tax is also back. For the middle class earner and saver, one cancels the other. Actually, by way of LTCG and 4% cess, the taxpayers will pay the government Rs 31,000 crore more whereas the gain through standard deduction will be only Rs 8,000 crore.”

Finally, the leader said that social sector schemes like MGNREGA, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, National Drinking Water Mission, Swacch Bharat Mission, National Health Mission, interest subsidy for short term farm credit etc, saw substantial cut in outlays.

‘An attack on people’s livelihood’

The biggest Left party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said that the budget reflects that the government was committed to “serve the interests of foreign and domestic big corporates while mounting further assaults on the vast majority of the working people of our country”.

The budget does not seek to mobilise revenues by increasing direct taxes applicable to the rich, in spite of the fact that the top 1% of the Indian population garnered 73% of the additional wealth generated in 2017. On the contrary, governmental expenditures increasingly rely on indirect taxes which are a burden on the common people. In fact, the proportion of the direct taxes in gross central taxes budgeted to come down from 51.6% to 50.6%,” a statement released by the politbureau of the party said.

It said that although the budget is being presented a pro-poor because of its emphasis on agriculture, rural development and healthcare, most of the schemes dealing with these sectors have received very poor allocations.

“The health care scheme is a mere repackaging of the existing one and no additional allocations have been budgeted. It is clear that this scheme will also be used to give handouts to insurance companies. Experiences have shown that health or crop insurance schemes have resulted in a profit bonanza for corporates rather than benefits to the people.”

The party said that if the total budget estimates are calculated, “the government expenditure to GDP has now reduced further from 13.2% to 13%”.

Also read: The Budget Fails to Grasp India’s Problem is Weak Aggregate Demand

“This is a contractionary budget. This means that there will be further reduction of employment opportunities and social welfare expenditures… The expenditure on agriculture and rural development, as percentage of GDP, is reduced from 1.15% to 1.08%; the total health expenditure has fallen from 0.32% of the GDP to 0.29%; Central expenditure on education has fallen from 0.49% of the GDP to 0.45%; the gender budget has fallen from 0.68% to 0.65% of GDP; allocations for welfare of STs is below 1.6% of the total budget and for SCs, it is 2.32%. This is totally inadequate seen in proportion to the share in population. The allocation for MNREGA has remained unchanged and Rs. 4,800 crores are still owed to state governments from 2017-18,” said the Leftist party.

It said that since the government was unable to meet the fiscal target, it further reduced its social expenditure as a precautionary measure. It said that all the expenditure on central social schemes last year were below the budgeted targets as a result, adversely affecting people’s livelihood. It said the government has pursued the same policy even this year.

It accused the finance minister of misling the people by saying that it has declared the MSP for rabi crops last year as no such thing was implemented. It added that schemes like extended crop loan facility were never realised because the government did not allocate sums for it despite the announcement.

“The allocation for food subsidy and procurement of crops is grossly inadequate to provide either support to the farmers or commitments under the Food Security Act. There is no mention of a loan waiver for the farmers groaning under debt burden who continue to be pushed to commit distress suicides,” it said.

Similarly, it said that the middle classes, too, did not accrue any benefits. “The employees see a reduction in the earnings on their savings. Even the so-called relief of Rs 2 per litre of petrol and diesel is offset by increasing the cess from Rs 6 to 8 per litre.”

Also read: Expert Gyan: Is Budget 2018 Really Putting Farmers First?

Similarly, CPI (ML-Liberation) also said that the budget was high on “big announcements without concrete allocation or measures of implementation”. The party said that while the government talks about implementing Swaminathan committee recommendations and increase the MSP 1.5 times the input cost, “the input cost calculation formula of the government takes only running costs into account without factoring in the fixed costs incurred by farmers.”

It added that the budget is silent about the basic demands of trade unions regarding minimum wages, ho and social security.

“The budget also refuses to tackle the two other major economic concerns of the Indian people – unemployment and mounting inequality. There are no tax proposals for the super-rich even as we know the top 1% claimed 73% of the wealth added in 2017. The budget talks big about healthcare, but instead of strengthening the public healthcare system it only proposes to increase the health insurance cover for the poor which will only benefit private hospitals and insurance companies at the cost of the public exchequer.”

It said that the budget was a mere “lip-service paid in the name of the farmers and the poor”.