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Political Motives Trump Administrative Reasons: Tracing the History of District Creation in India

While state formation in India has always been a contentious issue, with various communities demanding statehood since independence, there is very little public discourse on district formation within state administration. Public policy and administration rarely address the evolution of the ‘district’ in India.

In 2022, Andhra Pradesh more than doubled its number of districts from 13 to 26 with a single executive order. Similarly, Rajasthan increased its number of districts from 33 to 50 in 2023 alone. Between 1951 and 2011, the number of districts in India surged from 310 to 640. More recently, from 2021 to February 2024, this number has jumped from 693 to an estimated 785.

The population and area of these districts vary significantly, with Dibang Valley housing just 8,004 people (2011) and Thane district surpassing 10 million. Similarly, the Kachchh district in Gujarat spans over 45,000 sq. km, dwarfing the Central district of Delhi, which covers only 21 sq. km as per the Census of India (2011) data. This vast disparity raises several critical questions:

While state formation in India has always been a contentious issue, with various communities demanding statehood since independence, there is very little public discourse on district formation within state administration. Public policy and administration rarely address the evolution of the ‘district’ in India. Why are districts split? What is the basis for creating new districts? Who bears the costs and who benefits? Does creating new districts necessarily lead to better administration?

The State and District Evolution Project, initiated by the Centre for Legislative Education and Research at FLAME University, seeks to address these questions. This project tracks the evolution of states and districts in India from pre-independence to the present day.

Through an analysis of district splits, mergers, and new creations at both national and state levels, this article explores the numerical changes, population, area, and density of Indian districts. Additionally, it delves into the demographic, spatial, and political factors influencing the creation or prevention of new districts.

Tracing the district story: Colonial creation to present

Historically, the district (by whatever name it was called) was created to enhance administrative efficiency and collection of tax. All feudal empires in India, from Mauryan (adhisthana in the North and Kurram in the South, managed by Rajuka’s) to Moghuls (Sarkars, headed by Fauzdar) had a form of decentralised administration at the district level for collection of taxes and implementation of administrative tasks at the local level.

The modern form of the district as an administrative unit came into being under Warren Hastings in 1772. The Office of Collector, set up by Warren Hastings then, had judicial, executive, and revenue powers. The post of Collector was retained as a permanent feature of local administration heading the offices of Revenue Administration, Civil Judge and Magistrate combined.

The same district-level model was taken forward post-independence. To this day, barring judicial duties, the Collector is held accountable for all executive and revenue-related functions and is also tasked with additional duties such as Maintaining law and order, Revenue collection, Land reforms, Planning and development, Excise duty (in some states such as MP ) and the role of the District Election Officer.

Figure 1 : (a) Map of Indian states and their types in 1951 (b) Number of districts under each of the states. Source: Compiled by authors from White Paper on Indian States (1951) and the Administrative Atlas of India (1872-2011)

Back in 1941, India under British administration consisted of British provinces and its districts and numerous princely estates and jagirs. Together they formed 424 larger administrative units – 202 princely states, 42 princely districts, and 180 British districts.

By 1951, efforts undertaken by the Indian government to consolidate these units resulted in 310 districts across 29 states (classified as Part A, B, C, and D). In 1956, administrative divisions in the country were linguistically re-organised as per the recommendations of the State Reorganisation Commission (SRC). The map formed thereafter can be called the foundational map for states of India.

By 1961, the states had achieved a structure resembling the present-day boundaries of India’s states, and since then, state administrative boundaries have remained relatively stable. However, the same cannot be said for districts in the country. Since the integration period, the union and respective state governments have frequently carried out the exercise of splitting the districts, renaming them, and occasionally merging or re-carving new districts.

Between 1961 and 2021, the number of districts in the country increased from 340 to 690, resulting in an average of 60 new districts per decade. In the decade 1991-2001, India saw the creation of 127 new districts, which is the highest since independence. More recently, between 2021 and 2024, 92 districts were added, taking the total to 785 (as of Feb, 2024).

The state governments in the name of ‘strengthening district administration’ have relied significantly on the creation of new districts. Notable cases of district creation in the last few decades include:

  1. Assam between 1981-1991, increased the districts from 10 to 23
  2. Orissa increased districts from 13 – 30 between 1991 to 2001
  3. NCT of Delhi- Post statehood (1992) created 8 new districts
  4. Since its inception in 2014, Telangana has witnessed a threefold increase in its number of districts, growing from 10 to 33 by February 2024.
  5. Arunachal Pradesh, with a modest population of 13.8 lakhs as of the 2011 Census, added two new districts in February 2024, bringing its total to 28.
  6. In Telangana, the districts increased from 10 districts in 2016 to 33 in 2023

 

Figure 1: Illustration of District Splits in Telangana 2024-2021. Source: Analysis of media reports and publications by authors.

Consider this: In Assam, district creation and mergers have been at the mercy of political games by the Chief Ministers in power.  In 2015, under Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, five new districts were created, raising the total from 27 to 32. Majuli was added as a district in 2016. Under the new chief minister Himanta Sarma, Bajali and Tamulpur were created in 2020 and January 2022, respectively.

However, in December 2022, CM Sarma announced the merger of Biswanath, Bajali, Hojai, and Tamulpur with older districts as a temporary measure before the Election Commission’s delimitation process. Yet, on August 25, 2023, the CM reversed this decision, recreating the four merged districts, bringing Assam’s total district count to 35.

Between 1951 to 2024, India’s population has increased close to 4 fold (361 million to 1400 million), while the average district population has indeed increased only 2.2 fold from 1.16 million to 1.78 million, thereby justifying the creation of a large number of new districts in recent times.

On closer examination, however, we find that population has not been the primary criteria for district creation. Unlike parliamentary and assembly constituencies that are delimited based on the population (albeit – age-old 1971 Census data), or the Census definition of Urban areas, (based on population, density and the male agriculture workforce),  the creation of a district does not seem to follow from well-defined criteria.

The Indian constitution does not feature a discussion on the norms for the creation of new districts. The power to create new districts or alter or abolish existing districts rests entirely with the respective State governments. The Centre does not have a role to play in the alteration of districts or the creation of new ones. Typically, the creation of a new district is done via issuance of an executive order in the state gazette or by passing a law in the State Assembly. This gives a free hand for state ministries to bifurcate, split boundaries, and merge districts at will, through a mere notification in the gazette.

Searching for a rationale for district creation: Experts view

District creation is a complex issue and therefore, it is argued that besides the population, density, and area, district creation may be based upon factors beyond population size or density, that aren’t directly related to administrative convenience or efficiency. Often the creation of a district is announced by the state government (through executive/government order of passing law in the assembly) stating ‘administrative convenience’, often masks other underlying motives.

Our interactions with a former bureaucrat (referred to as Mr. X) from Gujarat revealed that the creation of Patan from Mahesana and Banaskantha, and Navsari from Valsad in 1997, under the then Chief Minister, offered no administrative advantages and appeared politically driven. These decisions notably favoured regions linked to influential political figures.

Similarly, the 2013 bifurcation of Bhavnagar into Botad and Bhavnagar was described by the former bureaucrat as having no clear administrative purpose and seemingly carried out to please a minister with ties to prominent industrialists (names withheld on request). Often, identity issues, rather than administrative efficiency, determine the creation of a district.

For instance, Mahisagar district was created by splitting Kheda and adding a taluka from Panch Mahals to prevent the domination of one community by mixing them with tribal groups. The creation of Dahod from Panch Mahals and Chota Udepur from Vadodara, according to the former bureaucrat, was aimed at separating tribal-dominated areas in urban districts.

A former civil servant (referred to as  Mr. Y) from Himachal Pradesh gave us the following insights.  Himachal Pradesh’s districts have remained stable since 1972, but there has been significant division at the sub-district level, with the number of tehsils increasing from around 40 in the 1960s to about 172 today. Local lobbies and interests often prevent the dividing of districts.

Despite possessing a relatively large area or population, some districts resist division due to the local perception of greater clout as a large district. Large districts like Lahaul and Spiti present unique administrative challenges due to their geography.

Separated by a high mountain pass that is impassable in winter, Lahaul is administered from Keylong by the District Collector called Deputy commissioner in HP, while Spiti is managed from Kaza by an Additional Deputy Commissioner with equivalent powers. In contrast, the residents of Kangra district take pride in its large population and the significant influence they wield in Himachal Pradesh’s administration, resisting any attempts to divide the district.

Mr. Y, who has also spent time in the North East in different capacities, says that historical legacy plays an equally important role in the creation of districts in the country. Prior to independence, in North Eastern States (barring current Assam) most land was communally held by tribal groups, and the British did not conduct land surveys or establish tehsils in these regions.

Consequently, many North Eastern states do not have tehsils or a structured land administration system till date. This has resulted in as many as 28 districts (as of February 2024) in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, some with populations as low as 8,000 as a patronage-based response to enable greater access to administration.

In the south, Mahe, a small district within Puducherry Union Territory, is geographically surrounded by Kerala but shares a distinct French colonial history with Puducherry, not Kerala. Despite its small size and population, Mahe’s residents prefer to stay connected to Puducherry, highlighting the importance of historical ties over demographic characteristics.

In Maharashtra, a former civil servant (referred to as Mr. Z), shared the district politics in the state. He believes that splitting districts generally brings people closer to administration but incurs significant administrative costs. For instance, Ahmednagar, one of Maharashtra’s largest districts, has long-standing demands for a split into North and South due to the long travel times to the city centre, yet this demand remains unfulfilled.

The creation of Palghar, announced in the early 2000s and realised only in 2014, was necessary due to Thane’s enormous population and diverse areas. However, many offices are still not established. Pune remains largely unchanged despite proposals, such as the failed Baramati district creation due to potential political dominance by the Pawar family.

Pune’s case for division is strong due to its metropolitan, rural, and tribal areas, yet regional development and fund distribution remain unequal. Cities, having multiple power centres, further complicate administrative decisions. The demand to create the Malegaon district from Nashik is resisted due to its Muslim majority and potential vote bank implications.

All the three bureaucrats opined that creating new districts imposes significant administrative costs, requiring new offices (Offices of collectorate, other admin office, District courts, zilla parishad office etc), additional manpower,  updation of records, and data separation. Although draft notifications on district creation invite objections, most are overruled.

Mr. Y emphasised that the politics of patronage significantly influences all administrative decisions, favouring tangible developments like new schemes and infrastructure over fundamental reforms and structural changes.

While district creation is often justified as a step towards decentralisation, it does not effectively achieve this goal. Instead, district administration remains an extension of state administration, providing more government employment opportunities and prestige for local figures. Mr. Z suggests setting norms for district creation, including assembly voting, district-wide voting across all panchayat levels, and considering factors like geographical area, population, and number of villages.

Need for common, but differentiated norms for district creation

Our analysis of the evolution of districts in India post-independence and interactions with the bureaucrats reveals that there are no clear demographic and geographic norms for splitting and creation of new districts. Commonly, politicians justify the creation of new districts by claiming that smaller districts allow for improved administrative efficiency and better governance. But we have little convincing evidence to prove that smaller districts are necessarily better governed. District splits are often found to be guided by political motives.

This is particularly evident from the sudden expansion of districts witnessed in the states of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana through mere executive orders by state governments with little consultation of people on ground. In the absence of codified criteria for the creation of districts, the solidification of the district identity takes precedence over crucial developmental projects and capacity-building initiatives.

Proposed reforms vis-a-vis district administration 

The modern-Indian district is the link between the centre, state, and the citizens. Located at the bottom rung of the hierarchy, the district continues to remain crucial since the implementation of all developmental programmes initiated by the state and the central governments is carried out at the level of the district.

Although district creation brings state administration closer to the people, it also poses a high cost to the state exchequer. A whole body of state machinery needs to be created at the district level such as the office of district collector/magistrate/commissioner (nomenclature varies from state to state), multiple departments under it, district courts, and new zilla parishads.

Today the role of the District Collector has expanded substantially from the colonial era (although some roles have also been done away with). The District Collector in the present day fulfils multiple positions which include but aren’t limited to – Head of District Administration, District Magistrate, District Development Officer and District Election Officer.

This has resulted in the concentration of responsibilities and power within the hands of the Collector and made the position of the Collector more crucial than it was in the pre-independence era.   Creation of new districts gives the state more arms to pursue its policies and agendas, but it does not necessarily translate into decentralisation, as the third tier of governments (Panchayats at village/taluka/districts, and the urban municipality/municipal corporations) are not empowered along with it.

The three Ds of Decentralization, namely, Deconcentration, Delegation and Devolution refer to different levels of decentralisation. Devolution, which involves a shift of power to the sub-national units, aligns with the true spirit of Decentralization. The concentration of power in the hands of Collectors in the absence of Devolution has led to a trend wherein we are increasingly witnessing District Collectors operating largely as agents of the state and puppets in the hands of political party leaders (as reflected in frequent and arbitrary transfers and shifting departments).

A lack of devolution of powers entrusted with the Collector complicates the situation further as a newly appointed. A collector is burdened with responsibilities that hardly spare time for developmental initiatives that are typically promised every time a new district is created. The deliberative body of Zilla Parishad remains subordinate to the Office of the Collector. Public consultation remains absent, be it the discussion of the district’s development or the concerns surrounding the creation of new districts.

In light of these concerns, we propose few much-needed reforms for managing the fragility of our districts:

  • Devolution of the Collector’s Duties to Zilla Parishad: A better approach to manage district administration would be to devolve functions to the Zilla Parishad, that is an elected body as, instead of burdening the Collector. We need to break away from our colonial legacy of entrusting all powers to the Collector. The Collector’s power needs to be devolved to facilitate capacity building as opposed to arbitrarily splitting districts under the garb of decentralisation and better governance.
  • Codification of Rules for District Creation: The creation of new districts needs to follow common and differentiated criteria, based on a combination of demographic indicators and relevant social and historical parameters as deemed fit. The entity can simultaneously look into the proposals for new districts and decide which ones need to be approved and which don’t. This entity must be held accountable to the public. Public and stakeholder consultation needs to be undertaken before the finalisation and creation of any new district.

This work was supported by the FLAME Centre for Legislative Education and Research.

Mehr Kalra is a former research associate and freelance consultant to the India State and District evolution project. Her areas of interest include gender, public policy, and urban studies. She has previously interned with CPC Analytics, Aajeevika Bureau and the Netherlands-based WageIndicator Foundation. 

Shivakumar Jolad works as an Associate Professor of Public Policy at FLAME University, Pune. His research interests include social policies focused on education, migration, and human development. He also works on local governance, quantitative study of the constitutional and administrative history of India.  

Why Governance Is to Blame for India’s Olympic Drought

Over the years, under a repressive government, we have let mediocrity take over by weakening institutions. Mediocrity could trickle down, prosper at home, occupy vantage positions and rot governance but cannot stand up to international competition. This is what has happened to sports as well. 

It would have been an embarrassingly humiliating Olympic drought for India at Paris but for young Manu Bhaker, barely out of her teens, shooting two bronze medals and missing another by a whisker! She is certainly gold material unless spoiled by flattery from charlatans and fawning by the media. Hope her ever-supportive parents would not allow that to happen!

While so, I am more of a sports watchman than a sportsman. So, I sat glued to the ‘idiot box’ from Day 1 till the end of the Paris Olympic Games. No wonder like all ‘patriotic Indians’, I was also furious at India’s pathetic performance coming at No: 71, which is near the bottom while being top-most in the world in population. I was incensed at the comparative performance analysis floating in the media, particularly these types since I have been hearing from several circles that under the ‘Vishwaguru’ we have already conquered the world in GDP and diplomacy!

I briefly lapped up the version of the ‘de jure’ President of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) P.T. Usha that it is the athletes who are responsible for this pathetic show because it is their job to manage their own affairs and win medals for the country. Isn’t Vinesh Poghat the epitome of such mismanagement? Who asked her to protest against the sexual predators of the Wrestling Federation of India, get dragged on the streets by the Delhi Police, gain weight in the process and get herself disqualified from the gold medal contest?

But, fortunately, the ‘de facto’ President of IOA and International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Nita Ambani had a different take. To her winning Olympic medals is a team work and India would do so in double digits in the Paris Games by giving their best performance. She backed it up by setting up an ‘India House’ at La Villette, and announcing that the day India hosts the Olympics is “not far”. In this she was only backing up Prime Minister Narendra Modi who in October last year had proclaimed India’s bold intent to bid for the 2036 Olympics, pledging to spare no effort to fulfil the dream of 1.4 billion people in the country.

Full of patriotic fervour, Nita Ambani had added: “India has arrived. It is time that the flame that was first lit in Athens must light the sky in our ancient land Bharat. The day is not far when India will host the Olympic Games. Let this be our collective resolve at the opening of the India House.” And she made it a point to be visible on the Olympic Screen much more than all the medal-winning athletes put together! One thought that she was winning ‘gold’ by the hour!

If only money could buy Olympic medals Nita Ambani would have been proven true many times over, because as soon as Manu Bhaker struck bronze, Mansukh Mandaviya, Union minister of youth affairs and sports, claimed that it was because of the government spending Rs 2 crore on the young lady that she won the Olympic medal. He gave the entire credit to Prime Minister Modi’s Khelo India programme and the money spent on her rather than to the inherent talent and grit of the girl.

Impressed by the Union minister’s ‘business’ acumen, I made a quick ‘back of the envelope’ calculation. If only Madam Nita Ambani had spent a fraction of the Rs 5,000 crore she did on the wedding and countless pre-weddings of her son, India would have hauled up more golds than the USA and China put together proving the doubting Thomases that we are the real Vishwaguru! But it was not to be because for the Ambanis ‘shaking of legs’ by the celebrities is more precious than Olympic medals!

Be that as it may, these musings led me to the Olympic Motto which till the Tokyo Olympics of 2020 was ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ meaning “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” Since then ‘Communiter’ (together) has been added highlighting the need for solidarity during difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The motto now reads “Citius, Altius, Fortius–Communiter” in Latin and “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together” in English.

Only by abiding by this motto will our Olympians be able to beat the best in the world and win medals for the country – Gold, Silver and Bronze – and not by indulging in bravados and money-mongering. And the Olympic community is nothing but a microcosm of the larger community which is “India that is Bharat.” And what has this larger community been in nearly a decade?

In what we have become ‘Faster’? – in scandals, scams and frauds including electoral, examination and financial! In what we have gone ‘Higher’? – in unemployment, poverty and inequity! In what we have become ‘Stronger’? – in communalism, corruption and crony-capitalism! As far as ‘Togetherness’ is concerned we have gone in a totally opposite direction of divisiveness and polarisation.

This takes me to the concept of governance and its near-total collapse in almost all spheres. In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power with two battlecries: “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” and ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.” In a democracy as distinct from an autocracy, governance should be ‘society-centered.’ It would include the government, which is its dominant part, but transcend it by taking in the private sector and civil society. All three are critical for sustaining human, economic and social development.

Governments represented by the ruling establishments in the centre and the states create a conducive political, administrative, legal and living environment. The business sector represented by trade, commerce, agriculture and industry promotes enterprise and generates jobs and income. Civil society represented by the voluntary sector facilitates interaction by mobilising groups to participate in economic, social and political activities. It also resolves conflicts. Because each has weaknesses and strengths, governance is brought about through constructive interaction among all three. In short, while governments in India have been reduced to politico-bureaucratic proprietorships, governance is a joint venture. This is a huge difference.

Being a joint venture (JV), governance should adhere to certain functional norms and principles such as the involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making process; transparency and accountability at all governmental and societal levels; citizen’s participation in the process of social and public welfare, economic growth and development; a balanced relationship between all bodies of government and civil society; social auditing of government programs and policies; mandatory establishment of ombudsman institutions and their fearless functioning; civil supremacy over the armed forces and an efficient and non-discriminatory judicial system. Most important of all there should be enough space for the civil society represented by the voluntary sector to freely express its views and opinions on the ‘development’ agenda of the governments without fear or favour.

According to the World Bank: “Civil society…refers to a wide array of organizations: community groups, non-governmental organizations [NGOs], labour unions, indigenous groups, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, and foundations.” The term became popular in political and economic discussions in the 1980s, when it started to be identified with non-state movements that were defying authoritarian regimes. When mobilised, civil society – sometimes called the “third sector” (after government and commerce) – has the power to influence the actions of elected policy-makers and businesses.

Scope of civil society activities includes: holding institutions to account and promoting transparency; raising awareness of societal issues; delivering services to meet education, health, food and security needs; promoting arts, sports and culture; assisting disaster management, preparedness and emergency response; bringing expert knowledge and experience to shape policy and strategy; giving power to the marginalized; and encouraging citizen engagement in matters of government and governance. And every sportsperson and athlete comes from the civil society and not the government.

It is this civil society that India’s national security advisor calls “new frontiers of war, that can be subverted, suborned, divided, manipulated to hurt the interests of a nation… And therefore should be hounded, hunted and shut down.” This has been the policy of the Indian state ever since 2014 which is being meticulously followed and implemented.

In the event civil society and its various voluntary organisations stand completely decimated, drained and incapable of nurturing and promoting excellence in any field allowing the mediocre to take over. And as everyone knows mediocrity could trickle down, prosper at home, occupy vantage positions, rot governance but cannot stand up to international competition. This is what has happened to sports also and hence the Olympic drought.

L’affaire Vinesh Phogat is a standing example. But there is a silver lining. India might not have won gold medals in Paris and faced drought. But this Olympics has thrown up two ‘Diamonds’ from the hinterland of Haryana – Vinesh Phogat and Manu Bhaker. In preserving and promoting the purity and strength of them and their ilk lies the future of India’s Olympic hopes!

M.G. Devasahayam is the founder-president of the Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association and is a former president of the Chandigarh Olympic Association. 

 

India’s Huge Thrust on Petrochemicals Belies its Tall Talk on Sustainable Energy

For a long time, India has been advocating for the end of unsustainable use-and-throw economy. However, in a case of mismatch between its words and action, about 79% of the budget allocated for the petroleum and natural gas ministry this year is meant for expanding the footprint of public sector oil and gas companies. 

In her 2024 budget speech, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned that “PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride) flex banners are non-biodegradable and hazardous for environment and health. To curb their imports, I propose to raise the basic customs duty (BCD) on them from 10 to 25%.”

Basic Customs Duty (BCD) is a type of tax imposed on imported goods in India, which is primarily used to protect domestic industries from competition from imported goods. It also serves as a source of revenue for the government.

Six days later, on July 28, news emerged that the Adani Group had achieved financial closure for its proposed 2000 Kilo Tonnes Per Annum (KTPA) Coal to PVC plant and it would be operational by December 2026. Perhaps this is the real reason for the finance minister to increase BCD on PVC in the 2024 Union budget.

If the material was so hazardous that the government wanted to restrict the import, then why is the environmental clearance for this project, whose emissions are three times more than PVC, made from oil, not revoked?

Ethylene, a major ingredient used in PVC production, is typically derived from petroleum, natural gas or coal, all of which are fossil fuels. This makes PVC a fossil fuel-based plastic. Financial closure signifies that all necessary financial arrangements and funding commitments have been formally made and are in place.

According to PlastIndia Foundation’s 2021-22 report, the demand for PVC in 2021-22 was 2.8 Million Metric Tons Per Annum (MMTPA), which contributed to 18% of the total demand of major plastics in India.

According to the Chemicals and Petrochemicals Manufacturers Association of India, PVC installed capacity, production, imports and consumption in 2022-23 stood at 1,617.00 Kilotonne (KT), 1,493.00 KT, 1,493.00 KT, and 3,679.00 KT respectively. There are a total of five producers of PVC in India, with Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) producing 48% of all PVC.

On the other hand, there is a planned expansion to the tune of 5,457 KT. Out of this, 1500 KT is being planned by RIL. The increase in BCD will benefit the existing producers since a supply-deficit market will surely ensure that prices will remain high. This BCD will also improve the financial viability calculations of Adani’s coal-to-PVC project in Mundra, Gujarat.

Look climate – talk emissions  

A key argument in Chapters 6 and 13 of the latest Economic Survey is around the unfair burden on developing countries to decouple emissions and development, when developed countries have already gained from highly emitting forms of development. It is indeed true that developed countries are first and foremost bound to reduce their emissions and support the adaptation and mitigation efforts of developing nations. However, it is crucial for developing countries like ours to not make the same mistakes that the developed nations have!

Instead, the Union government has repeatedly expressed its intention to expand its oil and gas footprint. About 79% of the MoPNG 2024 budget is allocated to the expansion of the public sector oil and gas companies. In the Exploration and Production Sector, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Oil India Limited and ONGC Videsh Limited are the biggest gainers this year with an increase of 63.38%, 40.52% and 72.81% respectively.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, with a share of 25.80% of the total allocation to public sector oil and gas companies, continues to be a significant recipient of allocations to support its intention of exploration for oil and gas in the existing Krishna Godavari basin and other uncharted areas including the Mahanadi, Andaman Sea, Bengal, and Kerala-Konkan belt.

According to the minister of petroleum and natural gas, the government intends to increase the sedimentary basin under exploration from the current 10% to 16% in 2024. Importantly, much of the regions intended for exploration are eco-sensitive like the Andaman Sea and the Kerala-Konkan belt which forms the Western Ghats.

In the refining and marketing sector, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) has seen a 26% increase from last year’s allocations. Recently, there was news that the Prime Minister had granted Rs. 60,000 crore to set up BPCL’s refinery in Andhra Pradesh.

Representational image for petrochemical plant. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Secl/CC BY 3.0

The biggest increase in budget allocation in 2024-25 in the petroleum sector has been to petrochemicals, which saw a 60% jump from the previous year’s allocation. While the total allocation forms only 9% of the current year’s sub-section budget, it is important to note that 80% of existing refineries are integrated to process crude oil for petrol/diesel and for petrochemicals and that all new refineries are similarly planned. The petrochemical industry in India is seeing massive expansion since the government has made its intention clear to contribute 10% of incremental global demand.

According to the International Energy Agency, emissions from chemicals and petrochemicals amount to around 1.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (GtCO2e), which is 18% of all industrial-sector CO2 emissions, or 5% of total combustion-related CO2 emissions.

While industry argues that this sector emits less compared to steel and cement, what is overlooked is that the carbon contained in chemical feedstocks is mostly locked into final products (such as plastics), and is released only when the products are disposed of or burned.

A recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), on the issue of the production of primary polymers, concluded:

“Under a conservative growth scenario (2.5%/yr), Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from primary plastic production would more than double to 4.75 GtCO2e by 2050, accounting for 21-26% of the remaining global carbon budget to keep average temperature increases below 1.5°C. At 4%/yr growth, emissions from primary plastic production would increase more than three times to 6.78 GtCO2e, accounting for 25-31% of the remaining global carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5°C.”

With India’s aggressive growth of the petrochemical industry, it appears that Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) is invoked as an excuse to pollute, instead of a way to slow down emissions.

Polymers: The oil and gas industry’s Plan B

Chapter 13 of the 2024 Economic Survey intends to arrest overconsumption and revert to sustainable materials and practices like using reusable bags instead of plastic bags, plant-based plates instead of plastic plates in the case of use and throw purposes, metal water bottles which can be refilled instead of single-use plastic bottles etc.

However, a popular argument by the government is the low per capita consumption of polymers and plastics in India. In December 2022, the minister for petroleum and natural gas said, “Petrochemical market size is currently in India about USD 190 billion, whereas the per capita consumption of petrochemical segments is significantly lower, compared to that in developed economies. And this gap offers substantial space for demand growth and investment opportunities.”

About 99% of plastics are made from polymers produced by refining fossil fuels. In India, plastics are largely made from oil with a smaller percentage from gas. While the Chapter pitches reuse and refill mechanisms, the petrochemical and plastics policy adopted in India takes the country on a completely contrarian and unsustainable path.

According to a FICCI report, 59% of total plastics consumed in India are towards packaging (42% flexible and 17% rigid packaging), which are basically single-use plastics! While the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2021 ban 19 Single Use Plastics (SUPs), according to industry reports, these form only 2-3% of total SUPs consumed and have no impact on the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, which are the largest consumers of these unsustainable and avoidable plastics.

It has been evident globally that the shift to renewable energy and electric transportation would not simply shut down the oil and gas industry. The crude oil to chemical business was always the industry’s Plan B and governments are colluding in this shift. Energy security is being peddled as the reason for an increase in refinery capacity in India.

The budget this year has made it crystal clear that India intends to scale up its petrochemical production rather than being responsible and allocate resources for the system change need to shift to alternate materials to replace polymers and to put in place reuse and refill mechanisms as a means to put an end to the unsustainable use-and-throw economy that is currently prevailing.

It is important to note that this push for petrochemicals goes against the basic tenet of “atma-nirbharta” or self-sufficiency. About 87% to 90% of the crude oil used in India is imported. That this will keep increasing our current account deficit, one of the main reasons for the falling value of the Indian Rupee, should be a matter of concern for the government, instead of going bullish on this sector.

Swathi Seshadri is associated with the Centre of Financial Accountability. She is a participant in ongoing international negotiations towards a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty to End Pollution Including in the Marine Environment.

Beyond Food Security: It’s Time India Focus its Policy Efforts on Concerns Over Dietary Diversity

A shift in attention to improving dietary diversity for all can also be a good segue towards a comprehensive food and nutrition policy based on a ‘food systems’ approach.

Although poor nutritional outcomes among the Indian population are a well-known problem, there is not enough discussion in policy circles on what Indians eat.

For a long time, food security was reduced to satisfying the physical sense of hunger. The quality of food that people consume or the drivers of people’s diets, however, has not been given enough attention in either research or policy. With high levels of anaemia on the one hand and the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases on the other, the need to bring policy attention to dietary diversity is urgent.

Even in the case of addressing child malnutrition, along with other factors such as sanitation, creches for childcare and improved child feeding practices, the quality of children’s diets is an issue. According to the NFHS-5, only 11.3% of children in the age group of six months to two years are fed a ‘minimum acceptable diet’ as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This includes frequency of feeding as well as minimum dietary diversity.

Dietary surveys of the kind that are conducted in many parts of the world are also missing in India – therefore, there is not much data on dietary diversity among the population.

The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) of the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) used to conduct dietary surveys but this was stopped around 10 years back. Even when NNMB surveys were conducted, they did not include all the states in the country and had small samples. However, there are reports that a national survey on diets is currently underway.

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) does include some questions on food consumption, but these are not adequate to give us full information on dietary diversity. While we get a sense of which food groups are included in people’s consumption regularly, this survey does not include any data on the quantities consumed. Therefore, even a spoonful of milk added to a cup of tea every day might be counted as milk being consumed daily.

According to the latest NFHS data, 56.2% of men and 49.6% of women consume fruits at least once a week, and 57.8% of men and 45.1% of women consume eggs at least once a week.

The consumption expenditure survey (CES) of the National Sample Survey Office also gives some information on food consumption. The data from the recent household CES (2022-23) is yet to be analysed for estimating calorie or protein consumption; the data from the report show that the per capita consumption of cereals has been reducing over the years 12.72 kgs per capita per month in 1999-2000 to 9.61 kgs per capita per month in 2022-23.

Although there are issues of comparability across different rounds of the survey, this trend of reducing the quantity of consumption of cereals has been a long-term trend. About 10% of the food budget is spent on cereals in rural and urban areas and about 18% on milk. Vegetables, fruits, ‘egg, fish and meat’ account for a similar proportion of the total spending on food in rural and urban areas (around 9% to 11%).

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

What is striking is that almost 21% of the food budget in rural areas and 27% in urban areas is spent on beverages, refreshments and processed food. This needs to be understood carefully given the harmful effects of consumption, especially of ultra-processed foods.

Analysis of the unit data could give further insights into dietary patterns, however, this is not the same as a dietary survey. The survey basically asks questions on expenditure on food items, which is then used to derive nutritional information at the household level. For instance, if rice was used as an ingredient to make kheer at home, then this would show up as ‘rice’ rather than as ‘kheer’. Information on intra-household distribution is also not available from this survey.

What we do know for sure is that there is a great scope for improvement of dietary diversity. Some information is also available on the drivers of poor dietary diversity, although this needs much more granular research.

For example, the report on State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2024 brought out by a group of UN organisations estimates that 55.6% of the Indian population cannot afford a healthy diet. Affordability is determined by both income levels as well as prices. While we know that a large section of the Indian population earns very low incomes, food prices have been more volatile.

In a recent paper in Economic and Political Weekly, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) researchers Sudha Narayanan, Kalyani Raghunathan and Anita Cristopher make an argument for computing the cost of health diets (COHD) along with consumer price indices for food (CPI-F).

They show that while these two are correlated, they do not always move in the same direction. The COHD estimates the cost of purchasing the daily recommended quantities of various foods as recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), from the cheapest source. This would obviously be a better metric to evaluate what people require to meet their health and nutritional needs compared to the CPIs. They could form the basis for calculations of minimum wages, poverty lines and so on.

Along with accurate measurement, policies related to food and nutrition security also need to broaden their emphasis from cereal security to healthy diets. Agriculture policies for food security traditionally focused only on cereals, especially paddy and wheat.

Although there is now some mention of millets, the interventions on pulses and oils are far from adequate. The public distribution system (PDS) also mainly distributes only rice and wheat, although some states have included millets, pulses and/or edible oils.

Even the meals given to children in schools and Anganwadis do not have much diversity in terms of sources of proteins and micronutrients. It is usually rice and dal in some form that children are given across the country, with little addition of vegetables, fruits or animal proteins such as eggs, milk or meat.

On the other end of the spectrum, issues related to the regulation of marketing and sales of processed foods are also important. A shift in attention to improving dietary diversity for all can also be a good segue towards a comprehensive food and nutrition policy based on a ‘food systems’ approach.

Dipa Sinha is a development economist.

Has the Privacy Judgement Made Visible Difference to Our Lives?

The huge effort made by a few amongst us to get a resounding declaration in 2017 from the Supreme Court of our fundamental right to privacy after a long and hard-fought battle should inspire us to emulate it and regain for ourselves, and the generations that follow, a more secure future.

Dr. S. Muralidhar, former Chief Justice of the Orissa high court, former judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court and Delhi high court and distinguished lawyer, addressed the Internet Freedom Foundation’s event Privacy Supreme on August 22, 2024 at the India International Centre, New Delhi. His speech is a masterclass on privacy, data, freedom and laws – and how these overlap in India. 

The following is a transcription of it.

Seven years ago, on August 24, 2017, 9 judges of the Supreme Court of India declared that the right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and is a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

The genesis of the above declaration was a batch of writ petitions filed in 2012 in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the UID (Aadhaar) Project and the January 2009 notification of the central government by which the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was set up. Under an executive notification, government began to collect fingerprints and iris scans of individuals. It had no statutory backing. Among several other grounds, the Petitioners contended that such collection of personal biometric details on a mass scale without prior informed consent violated the right to privacy. Appearing for the central government, the then Attorney General claimed that Indians had no fundamental right to privacy. He contended that the judgments in Gobind (1975), R. Rajagopal (1994) and PUCL (1997) that recognised such a right were contrary to the 1954 judgment of an 8 Judge Bench in M P Sharma v. Satish Chandra and a 1964 judgment of a 6 Judge Bench in Kharak Singh v. State of U.P. Realising that these decisions will have to be revisited, a 3 Judge Bench on 11th August 2015 referred the issue to a larger Bench.

Two years later, the 9-Judge Bench, speaking polyvocally through 6 judges, delivered the landmark Privacy Judgment [Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (I) v. Union of India (2017)]. Nine privacy types merited recognition, among which were communicational privacy which enabled an individual to restrict access to communications or control the use of information communicated to third parties; and informational privacy which enabled an individual to prevent information about oneself being disseminated and to control the extent of access to such information. The Court held that the right to privacy was not absolute but emphasised that ‘privacy is not lost or surrendered merely because the individual is in a public place. Privacy attaches to the person since it is an essential facet of the dignity of the human being’.

Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (‘Aadhaar Act’) as a Money Bill. The Rajya Sabha, which had expressed reservations about some of its provisions, was bypassed.

Soon thereafter, the hearing of the batch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar Act resumed before a 5 Judge Bench. Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act mandated that “individuals must provide proof of their Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar-based authentication to receive subsidies, benefits, or services.” Section 57 permitted private entities to commercially exploit personal data of individuals without their consent. Section 139 AA of the Income Tax Act mandated linking of PAN with Aadhaar. The validity of all these provisions was questioned. Also challenged were the rules and circulars that permitted collection of biometrics of children; that mandated the linking of mobile numbers and bank accounts with Aadhaar. Also on board were contempt petitions arising out of the wanton disobedience by the government of the interim orders in which the Court insisted that Aadhaar should not be made mandatory. This was the first major occasion where the law and the principles enunciated in the Privacy Judgment would be put to test. The Supreme Court quite spectacularly failed that test.

Also Read: The Aadhaar Debate: ‘The State Has No Right of Eminent Domain on the Human Body’

On 26th September 2018 by a majority of 4:1 [Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (II) v. Union of India (2018)] (‘the Aadhaar Judgment’), the Supreme Court substantially upheld the validity of the Aadhaar Act, held that it did not violate the right to privacy, condoned the brazen violations of its interim orders by the central and state governments. It was not a mere coincidence that none of the 4 Judges who constituted the majority were part of the 9 Judge Bench that delivered the Privacy Judgment while the lone dissenting Judge who held the Aadhaar Act and the Project to be unconstitutional was.

A reading of the majority judgment and of the dissent reveals diametrically opposite approaches. The majority accepted the government’s plea that the Aadhaar Act could be passed as a Money Bill, whereas the dissent held it unconstitutional on the very ground that it did not satisfy the basic requirements of a Money Bill under Article 110 of the Constitution. Consequently, while the majority held Section 139 AA of the Income Tax Act mandating the linking of Aadhaar with the PAN to be valid, the dissent held it was not.

As regards Section 7 of the Act which made possession of a UID number a pre-condition to availing social welfare benefits and services, the majority saw it as an issue of ‘balancing of two competing fundamental rights’, the right to privacy on the one hand and the right to food, shelter and employment on the other. The majority held that enrolment in the Aadhaar Scheme “actually amounts to empowering these persons. The scheme ensures dignity to such individuals.” The dissenting judge saw it differently. He held that the inclusion of services and benefits in Section 7 is a precursor to the kind of ‘function creep’ which is inconsistent with privacy and informational self-determination. The broad definitions of the expressions ‘services’ and ‘benefits’ would enable government to regulate almost every facet of its engagement with citizens under the Aadhaar platform. The dissenting Judge asked: “Should the scholarship of a girl child or a midday meal for the young be made to depend on the uncertainties of biometric matches?” and answered: “Our quest for technology should not be oblivious to the country’s real problems: social exclusion, impoverishment and marginalisation.” Further the dissenting judge concluded: “the absence of proof of an Aadhaar number would render a resident non-existent in the eyes of the State, and would deny basic facilities to such residents. Section 7 thus makes a direct impact on the lives of citizens. If the requirement of Aadhaar is made mandatory for every benefit or service which the government provides, it is impossible to live in contemporary India without Aadhaar. It suffers from the vice of being overbroad.” Adverting to the imminent financial exclusion, the dissent noted: “For an old age pensioner, vicissitudes of time and age obliterate fingerprints. Hard manual labour severely impacts upon fingerprints.”

Also Read: Aadhaar and My Brush With Digital Exclusion

Overlooking the UIDAI’s own commissioned studies which spoke of considerable failure rates in authentication, the majority glibly accepted UIDAI’s unverified claim (in a power-point presentation) of 99.76% accuracy of the biometric data. Applying the utilitarian logic, the majority asked: “if the Aadhaar project is shelved, 99.76% beneficiaries are going to suffer. Would it not lead to their exclusion?” This trading off one right against another was a constitutionally untenable proposition. The dissent on the other hand noted that the recorded failures of Aadhar Based Biometric Authentication had resulted in denial of food from ration shops, particularly for the vulnerable groups such as widows, the elderly and manual workers. It had neither failed to reduce quantity fraud or the problem of missing names in ration cards, the identification of Antyodaya (poorest of the poor) households, or the arbitrary power of private dealers. It noted that poor internet connectivity was one of the reasons for authentication failures and eventual exclusion.

On the crucial aspect of data protection, the majority noted that after they had reserved judgment, the Justice Srikrishna Commission had submitted a report in July 2018 containing a draft Personal Data Protection Bill. It hoped that the law would be in place ‘very soon’. The dissent noted that the UID number was being seeded into every database; it had become a bridge across discreet data silos, allowing anyone with access to the information to re-construct a profile of an individual’s life. Also, prior to the enactment of the Aadhaar Act in 2016, the biometric data of several millions of persons had been collected without their consent and handed over by the UIDAI to L-1 Identity Solutions with which it had a contract for managing such data. L-1 Identity Solutions was a foreign entity which specialised in selling face recognition systems, electronic passports, and other biometric technology to the U.S.A and Saudi Arabia. In 2011 it was acquired by Safran, a French multinational aerospace and defence corporation. In the end, the dissent found the wilful violation of the Court’s interim orders by the government to be inexcusable.

The harsh truth spoken with clarity in the dissenting judgment was this: “the linking of the Aadhaar number to different databases is capable of profiling an individual, which could include information regarding her/his race, religion, caste, tribe, ethnicity, language, records of entitlement, income or medical history. Thus, the impact of technology is such that the scheme of Aadhaar can reduce different constitutional identities into a single identity of a 12-digit number and infringe the right of an individual to identify herself/himself with choice.” And yet, ignoring the large tranche of empirical data placed before it, the majority put its seal of approval on an Orwellian dystopia where the people stand exposed to the constant gaze of the State whereas the State remains opaque and unaccountable to them.

The post-script of the Aadhaar Judgment was somewhat disillusioning. Although the Court held that Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act was unconstitutional and mandating the compulsory linking of bank accounts and mobile numbers with Aadhaar was unlawful, the law was thereafter tweaked to permit such linking as long as there was consent. Likewise, while the Court held the collection of biometrics of children to be unlawful, the law was again tweaked to permit it with the consent of parents.

Also Read: Review Petition Filed in Supreme Court Against Its Aadhaar Verdict

That brings me to the central part of this address. What difference has the Privacy Judgment made to our lives? The Privacy Judgment belongs to the species of declaratory judgments (other examples being the Right to Education judgment and the Visaka judgment). These have seemingly longish gestation periods during which they acquire a life of their own and get applied in a variety of contexts. The Privacy Judgment’s recognition of ‘decisional privacy” viz; the ability to make intimate decisions primarily consisting of one’s sexual or procreative nature and decisions in respect of intimate relations, was invoked to read down Section 377 IPC and decriminalise same sex relations between consenting adults in the private sphere (Navtej Johar); to strike down Section 497 IPC which punished adultery (Joseph Shine); to recognise the right of an unmarried woman to medically terminate her pregnancy [X v. Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department (2022)]. It formed the main plank of a PIL in the Delhi High Court challenging the validity of Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 that enables a spouse to seek restitution of conjugal rights. In March 2020 the Allahabad High Court invoked the right to invalidate the decision of the Lucknow administration to place on the street’s banners giving personal details of persons alleged to have indulged in vandalism. In 2022, the Supreme Court agreed to reconsider its earlier view in Reserve Bank of India v. Jayantilal Mistry (2015) mandating disclosure by the RBI of the names of defaulters of loans. The Court now doubted if it was consistent with the fundamental right to privacy. Recently in Ikanoon Software Development Pvt. Ltd. v. Karthick Theodore (2024) informational privacy has been invoked to plead for recognition of the right to be forgotten and to ask for names and other details of persons appearing in reported judgments of the courts to be redacted.

There have been instances, however, where the response of the judiciary to the attempts to enforce the right to privacy has not been encouraging. The outcry in 2021 was a result of an investigative report that appeared in the New York Times that the Indian Government had procured spyware from the Israeli entity Pegasus to target the mobile phones of the leader of the opposition, journalists and even Supreme Court judges. In the PILs that ensued [Manohar Lal Sharma v. Union of India (2021)], the Supreme Court appointed a Technical Committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge to examine the facts. The Committee submitted its report to the Court in July 2022, but the case has not been taken up since. The Supreme Court by a narrow majority (3:2) turned down the plea for legalising the unions of same sex couples (Supriyo v. Union of India (2023)]. The petitioners there drew extensively on the Privacy Judgment to buttress their arguments. The Delhi High Court gave a split verdict in the case demanding criminalisation of marital rape [RTI Foundation v. Union of India (2022]. One of the grounds that weighed with the judge who accepted the plea was based on the right to privacy. He held: “The attempt to keep away the law, even when a woman is subjected to forced sex by her husband by demarcating private and public space, is to deny her the agency and autonomy that the Constitution confers on her.” The case is now in the Supreme Court [Hrishikesh Sahoo v. State of Karnataka (2022)].

Also Read: Pegasus Used to Target The Wire’s Founding Editor, Reporter Working on Adani, Amnesty Confirms

The Privacy Judgment has made little difference to the behaviour of the governments both at the centre and the states, and even municipal bodies and public sector enterprises. Undeterred by the botched authentications by the UIDAI of biometric data, the problems of errors in data entry compounded by the tortuous procedure in having the errors corrected, Aadhaar is insisted upon as the primary identity document not just for availing benefits and services but for a whole range of routine transactions including obtaining a passport or filing a petition in a court. With their biometrics failing routinely, large sections of the poor and vulnerable continue to be deprived of rations, pensions and of basic services including shelter and schooling and even a hassle-free burial or cremation. If you are unable to be verified digitally, you are invisible to the State, to your school, to your university, to your employer and to private entities. You are rendered ‘presenceless’. The poor and disadvantaged face the prospect of being banished to a digital life outside of which they may be denied access to survival rights. In India, cows and buffaloes too have UIDs. It is called Pashu Aadhaar. Each of the bovine creatures is expected to have an eartag with a 12-digit UID. Incidentally, from the e-Gopala portal hosted by MeiTY one can buy live animals, frozen semen and embryos. Then there is Property Aadhaar, linking Aadhaar with property details. There are mutant, and more virulent, variations of the UID project in the states – A.P. and Telangana, for instance. Hospitals store personal medical data with impunity as do shopkeepers and watchmen at housing complexes, who ask for your mobile number (and which many of us unquestioningly give). If you resist being enrolled on the DigiYatra (managed by a private entity), your entry into an airport is deliberately made more difficult. You pay the price for asserting your right to privacy. We live in times where digital stalking and intimidation is commonplace. The adjectives that aptly describe us are ‘helpless’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘gullible’, ‘surveilled’ and ‘manipulated’. Belying the expectation of the 5 Judge Bench that delivered the Aadhaar Judgment, even 6 years later, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 is yet to be made operational. Unfortunately, even this statute exempts from its control, the government which is the biggest aggregator of personal data.

Then there are reports, appearing with fair regularity, of large-scale data theft, data leaks and the ease with which digital big data is sold for being mined by corporate houses or for being crunched by Large Language Models. Neither the provisions of the Information Technology Act or the Telecommunications Act are adequate to deal with such contingencies. We have known for a while, thanks to Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, that data about us is not in our control. It is kept on servers controlled by multinational mega corporations like Meta (earlier Facebook), Alphabet (earlier Google), Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and X (earlier Twitter) [each one of which is an American company, and many of which undertake contracts for the Pentagon]. Their servers are at remote inaccessible locations. Beyond our legal jurisdiction. As every visa applicant knows, our personal data is available not only to our government but to foreign ones as well. It is no longer a matter of doubt that systems, states and corporations know more about us than we know ourselves.

Thanks to Cambridge Analytica we now know that big data, algorithms and AI are deployed extensively to manipulate our choices politically and socially and that we are mere monetizable data points in a larger scheme of international commerce. The drones and satellites hovering above and amidst us have created a glass bubble where we can be seen but we cannot see those seeing us. Our online presence is being monitored not just by the State but non-state actors and machines unknown to us and located perhaps somewhere in dark web. There is no silent space in which one can experience true solitude. Not in the internet-controlled world. As a 22-year-old, I was a fan of the 1983 hit single by Sting: Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make, I’ll be watching you. Not anymore. I realise how darkly sinister and prophetic it was. The digital dystopia is here and now.

Also Read: Facebook-to-Votes Scandal Turns Spotlight on Cambridge Analytica’s India Inroads

The Black Mirror episodes are, sadly, not fiction. We are no longer surprised to hear that there was a deep fake featuring the digitally morphed speaking image of Elon Musk, or that a Mayoral candidate in Cheyenne, Wisconsin vowed, if elected, to run that city exclusively with an AI bot called VIC (Virtually Integrated Citizen). His USP? “AI would be objective. It wouldn’t make mistakes. It would read hundreds of pages of municipal minutiae quickly and understand them. It would, he said, be good for democracy.” These days when I read judgments and lawyers’ briefs, I begin to wonder how much of it is a product of Chat GPT. Ray Kurzweil, an AI evangelist in his latest offering “The Singularity Is Nearer,” prophesises that, by 2029, AI will be “better than all humans” in “every skill possessed by any human.” He expects that in the 2030s, solar power enhanced by AI-driven advances in 3-D printing, will come to dominate the global energy supply, most consumer goods will be free, and the “dramatic reduction of physical scarcity” will “finally allow us to easily provide for the needs of everyone.” He apparently has no problem with allowing the masking of both human mediocrity and ingenuity under an AI generated veneer of synthetic creativity.

It is trite that the internet registers every digital footprint and never forgets. Yet, one wonders whether it is resignation to the inevitable or sheer ignorance that explains our willingly placing our intimate details in the digital domain in the form of Facebook posts, TikTok videos or Instagram images; our being excited about Metaverse and the delusional prospect of assuming different digital persona unmindful of the huge risks that we subject ourselves to. Are we in the throes of a ‘culture of narcissism’ that American historian Christopher Lasch warned us about? We ask for more CCTV and facial recognition devices on roads, public transport and apartments not knowing who is controlling the data and how. The overload of information on the net is inversely proportional to the knowledge it generates. It has made us compulsive scrollers with diminishing attention spans.

In 2019 a remarkable Malayalam film was made. It was called Android Kunjappan. An Indian working in Russia sends a robot to his ageing father living alone in a remote village to be his AI controlled virtual assistant. The movie ends with father being unable to be separated from the android that he has come to depend so heavily on for his emotional sustenance. Six years earlier Hollywood came up with Her, portraying a man’s relationship with his virtual AI assistant personified through a female voice. AI promises to resurrect, for our renewed interaction, digital versions of our loved ones long dead. On 14th August this year OTV, an Oriya news channel, proudly announced the completion of one year of the launch of India’s first ever AI news presenter – Lisa. We seem to be working towards humanising robots and robotising humans.

Renowned sociologist Sherry Turkle wonders what we have become as a result of our interactions with chatbots, robots and programmes like Siri and Alexa? She explains that talking listening machines are comforting because they shield us from encountering friction, second-guessing, ambivalence and the fear of being left behind. Assurance of not being judged and being always validated – things that usually make interactions with other humans messy and complicated. This has led to our expecting more from machines than other humans. To quote Turkle: “These machines promise the pleasures of companionship without the demands of friendship, the feeling of intimacy without the demand of reciprocity. We have begun treating programs as people.” We have enabled the machine to devalue what it is to be human. We need to ask ourselves: Do we want that future?

What should we then do? Can we work towards building internet-free spaces where we progressively reduce our dependence on machines? A more empathetic society that veers away from the pretend empathy of the robots. As the dissenting Judge in the Aadhaar Judgment reminded us: “Dignity and rights of individuals cannot be based on algorithms or probabilities. Constitutional guarantees cannot be subject to the vicissitudes of technology”.

Giving up resisting this overpowering of our selves by the internet and the machines is not an option. The huge effort made by a few amongst us to get a resounding declaration in 2017 from the Supreme Court of our fundamental right to privacy after a long and hard-fought battle should inspire us to emulate it and regain for ourselves, and the generations that follow, a more secure future. A future in which human intelligence will not surrender to AI. A future in which we are able to think, love, eat, talk, joke, pray, sing, dance, act, dress, and be what we want to be without the looming presence of an omniscient internet and the machine. We must work towards a less intrusive State.

This transcript was originally published by the Internet Freedom Foundation and has been republished with permission.

Telegram App CEO Pavel Durov Arrested: A Warning Sign for Global Tech Giants

The arrest might be a warning sign for big global tech giants who are blamed for their unregulated social media platforms, while also being accused of censorship of free speech.

When Pavel Durov arrived in France on his private jet last Saturday, he was greeted by police who promptly arrested him. As the founder of the direct messaging platform Telegram, he was accused of facilitating the widespread crimes committed on it.

The following day, a French judge extended Durov’s initial period of detention, allowing police to detain him for up to 96 hours.

Telegram has rejected the allegations against Durov. In a statement, the company said: “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform”.

The case may have far-reaching international implications, not just for Telegram but for other global technology giants as well.

Who is Pavel Durov?

Born in Russia in 1984, Pavel Durov also has French citizenship. This might explain why he felt free to travel despite his app’s role in the Russia-Ukraine War and its widespread use by extremist groups and criminals more generally.

Durov started an earlier social media site, VKontakte, in 2006, which remains very popular in Russia. However, a dispute with how the new owners of the site were operating it led to him leaving the company in 2014.

It was shortly before this that Durov created Telegram. This platform provides both the means for communication and exchange as well as the protection of encryption that makes crimes harder to track and tackle than ever before. But that same protection also enables people to resist authoritarian governments that seek to prevent dissent or protest.

Durov also has connections with famed tech figures Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and enjoys broad support in the vocally libertarian tech community. But his platform is no stranger to legal challenges – even in his birth country.

An odd target

Pavel Durov is in some ways an odd target for French authorities.

Meta’s WhatsApp messenger app is also encrypted and boasts three times as many users, while X’s provocations for hate speech and other problematic content are unrepentantly public and increasingly widespread.

There is also no suggestion that Durov himself was engaged with making any illegal content. Instead, he is accused of indirectly facilitating illegal content by maintaining the app in the first place.

However, Durov’s unique background might go some way to suggest why he was taken in.

Unlike other major tech players, he lacks US citizenship. He hails from a country with a chequered past of internet activity – and a diminished diplomatic standing globally thanks to its war against Ukraine.

His app is large enough to be a global presence. But simultaneously it is not large enough to have the limitless legal resources of major players such as Meta.

Combined, these factors make him a more accessible target to test the enforcement of expanding regulatory frameworks.

A question of moderation

Durov’s arrest marks another act in the often confusing and contradictory negotiation of how much responsibility platforms shoulder for the content on their sites.

These platforms, which include direct messaging platforms such as Telegram and WhatsApp but also broader services such as those offered by Meta’s Facebook and Musk’s X, operate across the globe.

As such, they contend with a wide variety of legal environments.

This means any restriction put on a platform ultimately affects its services everywhere in the world – complicating and frequently preventing regulation.

On one side, there is a push to either hold the platforms responsible for illegal content or to provide details on the users that post it.

In Russia, Telegram itself was under pressure to provide names of protesters organising through its app to protest the war against Ukraine.

Conversely, freedom of speech advocates have fought against users being banned from platforms. Meanwhile, political commentators cry foul of being “censored” for their political views.

Also read: Telegram, Under the Radar, Remains a Key Source of Hindutva Hate Speech

These contradictions make regulation difficult to craft, while the platforms’ global nature make enforcement a daunting challenge. This challenge tends to play in platforms’ favour, as they can exercise a relatively strong sense of platform sovereignty in how they decide to operate and develop.

But these complications can obscure the ways platforms can operate directly as deliberate influencers of public opinion and even publishers of their own content.

To take one example, both Google and Facebook took advantage of their central place in the information economy to advertise politically orientated content to resist the development and implementation of Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code.

The platforms’ construction also directly influences what content can appear and what content is recommended – and hate speech can mark an opportunity for clicks and screen time.

Now, pressure is increasing to hold platforms responsible for how they moderate their users and content. In Europe, recent regulation such as the Media Freedom Act aims to prevent platforms from arbitrarily deleting or banning news producers and their content, while the Digital Services Act requires that these platforms provide mechanisms for removing illegal material.

Australia has its own Online Safety Act to prevent harms through platforms, though the recent case involving X reveals that its capacity may be quite limited.

The European Union is making content moderation the responsibility of tech platforms. (Representative Image Via Wikimedia Commons/Håkan Dahlström/CC BY 2.0)

Future implications

Durov is currently only being detained, and it remains to be seen what, if anything, will happen to him in the coming days.

But if he is charged and successfully prosecuted, it could lay the groundwork for France to take wider actions against not only tech platforms, but also their owners. It could also embolden nations around the world – in the West and beyond – to undertake their own investigations.

In turn, it may also make tech platforms think far more seriously about the criminal content they host.

Timothy Koskie is a Post-Doctoral Associate for the Mediated Trust project in the School of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. Prior to that, he was working with the UTS Centre for Media Transition, working on projects that include the Valuing News and Wikihistories Discovery projects and the Implications of Generative AI for knowledge integrity on Wikipedia.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Poor and Dying Patients: The Other Side of Doctors’ Strikes

While protest demonstrations by doctors and paramedic staff at our government hospitals help highlight their concerns and issues, they completely overlook the suffering of the poor patients who cannot afford treatment at corporate hospitals.

The date, February 9, 2022, starts haunting me whenever I come across the news of a strike by doctors or para-medic staff as it was on that morning that I had a heart attack. Though I was in great pain, I instructed my family members to rush me to a nearby government medical college hospital and not any private health hub.

Two and a half years later I still wonder what would have happened had the doctors gone on strike at that moment. I was first put in the emergency room, where the same night the patient just beside my bed breathed his last. The hospital authorities repeatedly asked his family members not to weep loudly as it would have a negative impact on the other patient, that is myself. I was lucky to survive but had the doctors gone on strike I, and many others in the hospital, would have died. As usual, there were several hundred patients hospitalised there at that point of time, many of them in critical condition.

After recovery, the next day, I was shifted from the intensive care unit to the ward where another patient died a night before my release on February 14. In the initial 18 months, I used to go for routine check-ups at the outdoor patient department (OPD) of the same government hospital every three months.

Following much insistence from family members and friends, I agreed to seek a second opinion from a reputed doctor whose clinic is not very far away from my home. After further tests, he more or less prescribed me the same medicine.

Enriching experience

My decisions to go to a government hospital after the heart attack and to OPD for more than one and a half years were not appreciated by some of my family friends, because they did not have faith in it.

Apart from other factors, strikes at frequent interval was one of the reasons for their reluctance to get treated in that particular government hospital whose short form is PMCH. But naughty school children would ask their friends its full form. If he or she replies correctly, they would cut in to say: Patients Marna Chahta Hai. (Patients wish to die).

But for me, it was an enriching social experience. In the last two decades, I rarely go out of my house because of my vision problem. Yet my about six days in the hospital and subsequent trips to overcrowded OPD helped me enormously in understanding society once again. It was an eye-opener as I came to realise how much everything had changed since my field reporting days as a journalist.

How is it that lower middle class and poor people throng these government hospitals? They come from hundreds of kilometres with the hope of getting treated. And many of them like me are fortunate.

A north Bengal hospital. Photo: By arrangement.

Corporate hospitals

In this era of corporate hospitals, even those who cannot afford them prefer expensive private treatment. For this, they borrow money on interest or even beg. Till the 1990s, this was not possible as there were very few corporate health hubs, and most of them were situated in metros. Even the millionaires had to go to government hospitals and attendants had to sleep on the floor – like in my case.

Politicians and bureaucrats too would get hospitalised here, though they would get preferential treatment. This would at least provide an opportunity for improvement in the premier government hospitals in the state capitals as well as Delhi – if not elsewhere in the country.

Now all this class of patients have shifted to corporate hospitals. Only in some complicated cases the creamy layer of society goes to prestigious government hospitals like AIIMS.

The tragedy is that even in this era of information explosion the plight of the patients of the government hospitals coming from the low-income group hardly get highlighted – even during the time of doctors’ agitation.

Turning a blind eye

So, when the doctors went on the warpath almost all over India for several days following the horrendous crime committed at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 the worst sufferers were the poor patients. They had to face this enormous hardship and risk their lives for no crime of their own.

There were women in the final stage of the family way, cancer, heart, kidney, liver, lungs, etc., patients. Many died unattended while the disease of others got complicated. At several places, the accident victims were left to bleed to death. They are usually rushed to the government hospital where, on strike days, there is hardly anybody to take care of them.

A friend of mine suffering from a critical disease had to go a third operation within six months. His sugar level was very high and was suffering from blood pressure.

However, when everything got stabilised, August 14 was fixed as the date of the final operation. On  August 13 night, he was administered medicine and given sleeping pills. He slept well. On August 14 morning, he was taken to the operation theatre. When the operation was about to start some resident doctors of this prestigious institute rushed in and disrupted the process as the strike call was given by them. This incident took place not in West Bengal, but in a city in some other state.

Imagine just what would have been happening to the poor patients of government hospitals in West Bengal. My friend finally underwent the operation on August 21, but had to pay Rs 2,500 per day for an extra seven days for the room he had booked in that hospital. He was the local patient of that city. Imagine what would have happened had the patient been from any far away obscure place.

Hardly any electronic media covered this aspect while some newspapers did carry a few stories. The opposition parties and civil society groups were well within their right to back the doctors’ fraternity. But they had to draw a line. Even the Left parties, which champion the cause of the downtrodden, failed to take up their plight. They also failed to expose the fact that private health hubs minted money in these days of nationwide doctors’ agitation.

The Supreme Court, the media, the opposition parties and civil society rightly denounced the vandalism at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 14-15 night. But nobody ever asked the rampaging doctors as to how can they turn away patients from OT or disrupt the treatment of serious patients hundreds of kilometres away from West Bengal. This is also a crime.

This pain of the poor lot can not be understood by our politicians, bureaucrats, judges, media persons and other well-off ladies and gentlemen who rush to five-star health hubs even for normal cold and cough.

The young mothers who died at the time of childbirth because of the absence of timely treatment in about these two weeks of agitation were also women.

The perpetrator of the crime on August 9 in R G Kar Hospital was a civic volunteer of Kolkata police, who was supposed to guard the hospital. And those who hushed up the matter were the same doctors at the helm of affairs there. If it was an inside job then, why were lakhs of voiceless patients made to pay the price?

Soroor Ahmed is a Patna-based freelance journalist.

Kamala Harris: The Colonial Dream in New Garb

Truth be told, Kamala Harris’s rise to political prominence is less a symbol of progress and more a case of tokenism – an attempt to placate calls for diversity and inclusion without challenging the underlying structures that maintain white supremacy.

The Democratic National Convention 2024 in Chicago was a spectacle, a carefully choreographed parade — it has always been a stage for storytelling, a platform where narratives are woven to inspire, to console, and, most importantly, to galvanize a fractured electorate. This year’s convention was no different, with the Democratic Party pulling out all the stops to paint a picture of hope, unity, and resilience against the looming shadow of Donald Trump.

Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s return was a nostalgic balm, survivors of sexual abuse shared their stories, the Exonerated Five brought their hard-won truths, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ fiery speech injected youthful idealism, and Joe Biden delivered a teary farewell. But amidst these compelling stories, the crowning story of Kamala Harris — a Black woman, the daughter of immigrants, and the first woman of colour on a major party’s presidential ticket — was positioned as the heart and soul of the Democrats’ pitch to a divided nation.

But this story crafted to inspire Democrats is more problematic than it appears at first glance.

Sure, Kamala Harris’s story, as presented at the DNC, is one of triumph over adversity, of breaking racial and gender barriers to realise the so-called “American Dream.” But her story is embedded in a colonial framework that remains unchallenged by the very candidate who claims to stand for change. Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both hailing from nations whose histories are marked by brutal colonisation, exploitation, and resistance against imperial powers.

Jamaica’s history, brutalised by British imperialism, is soaked in blood and resistance. The Maroons’ War in the 18th century – where enslaved Africans fought for and won their freedom – stands as a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who refused to be subjugated.

Also read: Kamala Harris Formally Accepts Democrats’ Presidential Nomination

India’s struggle for independence too bears the scars of centuries of colonisation and genocide. While India’s freedom struggle is often romanticised as a Gandhian triumph of non-violence, which it is, yet this narrative in the Western circle conveniently overlooks the parallel armed uprisings, starting with the revolt of 1857, that challenged the British Empire’s hold on the subcontinent. Indian freedom fighters, branded as terrorists by the British Empire (and their enablers, allies, historians), fought them tooth and nail.

These were not just resistance movements.

These are the legacies that shaped Harris’s ancestry – a lineage of defiance against imperial powers and existential battles against a dehumanising force that sought to strip entire peoples of their identity, dignity, and future.

Harris, who has often spoken of her parents’ roots and the struggles they faced, should be acutely aware of the legacy of colonialism. Yet in her acceptance speech and her political stances, there is a glaring dissonance.

Harris’s declaration that she will defend Israel’s “right to defend itself” at the expense of Palestinians’ freedom and right to self-determination is a blatant contradiction to the histories of resistance that shaped her own lineage. What, exactly, is Israel defending itself from?

The Palestinian people, who, like the Maroons and Indian freedom fighters, are resisting their own colonisation, fighting against a 10-month-long onslaught and murder of more than 80,000 Palestinians, including babies, mothers, and elders? Does the Jewish people’s right to live contradict Palestinians’ right to live and self-determination?

The idea that one group’s right to safety and existence should inherently trump another’s is a remnant of colonial philosophy. It assumes a hierarchy of humanity, where the aspirations and rights of one set of people are seen as more legitimate, more worthy of protection, than those of another. This mindset has justified centuries of oppression, displacement, and violence in the name of “security” or “civilization.”

The parallel is hard to ignore, yet it is dismissed in Harris’s rhetoric, which aligns more with the colonial oppressor than with the oppressed. This irony is as obtrusive as it is painful, a betrayal of the very histories that brought her to this moment.

Kamala Harris supporters at 2024 Democratic National Convention. Photo: X (Twitter)/@DemConvention

The “American Dream” that Harris has ostensibly achieved is itself a colonial construct – a storyline masking systemic oppression behind the pretence of meritocracy. It is a dream that demands hard work and perseverance, yes, but one that is also built on the erasure of systemic barriers, the silencing of racial inequities, and the perpetuation of a meritocratic myth. This dream, far from being a beacon of hope for all, is a tool of control, and ensures that only those who conform to its colonial standards – standards set by a white, capitalist, patriarchal order – can succeed, rise.

Kamala Harris’s nomination is not the radical breakthrough as it is being touted. It is a continuation of the status quo, a perpetuation of the same white supremacist systems of power that have long oppressed people of colour, not just in the United States, but worldwide.

The fact that Harris’s candidacy is seen as radical speaks more to the colonial attitudes still pervasive in American society than to any genuine progress. If her story truly represented a break from the past, there would be no need for the cautious talk of whether America is “ready” for a Black, gay or women candidate. The very fact that such discussions are necessary exposes the hollow nature of the so-called revolution Harris represents.

In truth, Kamala Harris’s rise to political prominence is less a symbol of progress and more a case of tokenism – an attempt to placate calls for diversity and inclusion without challenging the underlying structures that maintain white supremacy. It is a gaslighting tactic: a way to blunt criticism by putting a Black face at the forefront of a system that remains fundamentally unchanged.

So, no, Kamala Harris does not represent a revolution.

She is not the embodiment of a new, inclusive United States. She is, instead, a reminder that the colonial dream is alive and well, dressed in the language of progress but entrenched in the same oppressive ideologies that her parents and ancestors fought to escape.

Her presidential nomination, far from being one of liberation, is evidence of complicity — a tale of how the colonial legacy endures, now cloaked in the skin of those it once oppressed. And as the DNC wrapped up, it became clear that the true story of resistance, freedom, remains buried beneath the sanitized rhetoric of a party that promises change but delivers more of the same.

Pius Fozan is a photojournalist and public policy graduate from the Willy Brandt School and Central European University.

Ban Imposed on Bangladesh’s Main Islamic Party by Former PM Hasina Lifted

The government led by Muhammad Yunus said there is no evidence to suggest that Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir involved in terrorist activities.

New Delhi: The interim government of Bangladesh, led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, has lifted the ban on the country’s main Islamic party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government had imposed a ban on them on August 1 under the country’s anti-terrorism law, alleging that they stoked deadly violence during the student-led protests, which eventually resulted in the fall of the Hasina regime.

A gazette notification by the Bangladesh home ministry on Wednesday, August 8, said that “there is no specific evidence of involvement of Jamaat, Shibir, and its front organisations in terrorist activities”, reported Bangladeshi newspaper The Daliy Star.

Invoking Section 18 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009, the Yunus-led government revoked the previous circular that banned Jamaat, Shibir and its front organisations.

With the ban lifted, it would allow Jamaat to participate in the political process of Bangladesh and in the political dialogue for holding the next general election in the country.

The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is an offshoot of another organisation called Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which was established on August 26, 1941, in Lahore, Pakistan. The Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh advocated for an undivided Pakistan. Its offshoot too favoured undivided Pakistan even after Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971.

“Politics will determine the course of our country. We all have tried from our respective positions to address the aspirations of the people. But I want to say respectfully that so far we did not succeed in addressing those challenges,” said the Emir of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Shafiqur Rahman at a press conference on Wednesday, according to The Hindu.

Rahman went on to add that the media must look at the organisation from an “impartial point of view”.

Underlining that Bangladesh is a multireligious country, he said, “Bangladesh is made of Muslims, Hindu brothers and sisters, Buddhists and Christians and other smaller religious groups. I want to say clearly that we all constitute Bangladesh.”

Contrary to Yogendra Yadav’s Dim View, Indian Political Thought is Alive and Thriving

Generating considerable public debate, Yogendra Yadav has recently pronounced the demise of political thought in India to the complete absence of any new imagination in the field of politics.   

Initiating a new public debate in his newspaper column last week, Yogendra Yadav has boldly declared the sudden death of Indian political thought. This week, responding to his critics, Yadav has defined political thought as a normative repository of desired goals which actual politics has to measure itself against and strive to accomplish.

Arguing that the anticolonial movement and early postcolonial India produced many grand, if rival, visions for the future, Yadav pegs the recent demise of political thought to the complete absence of any new imagination in the field of politics since the 1960s. We disagree with the basic premise of his argument that parses apart politics as an ever-present domain of interest and action, from political thought as a lost world of lofty ideas meant to supply the programmatic agenda for the working of the republic. 

Yogendra Yadav. Photo: X (Twitter)/@_YogendraYadav

Whether public life has deteriorated today compared to the founding moment is an open question, but no politics is possible without political thought. Contrary to Yadav’s separation thesis, ideas – good or bad, consciously stated or implicitly assumed – are constitutive of politics. Without discounting the intellectual agency of political activists, it must be emphasised that the historical and philosophical illumination of ideas and their working out in politics is a primary responsibility of the world of scholarship.

The key figures whom Yadav considers as pace-setters for modern Indian political thinking, including Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Azad and Savarkar, were not viewed as such throughout the twentieth century. This was largely because they did not leave behind an intellectual corpus of systematic thought comparable to the classic modern canon of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx.  It is only in the last two decades that Indian political thought as a discipline has come of age and become global.  

‘Political thought in action’

While Yadav reads in the archives a pre-existing tradition of ‘Modern Indian Political Thought’ which has now been lost, the fact is that this discipline has actually been created through careful interpretive efforts. This point is completely unacknowledged in both his pieces.

Addressing the absence of a political thought canon in India, a new body of scholarship has reconstructed political actors into thinkers by interpreting a large variety of texts, ranging from treatises, pamphlets and manifestos to letters, lectures and speeches. To use Shruti Kapila and Faisal Devji’s succinct coinage which has profound methodological and philosophical implications, what is sought to be done without being bogged down by the lack of a well-defined corpus, is to trace and pursue the career of ‘political thought in action’. 

With the centre-staging of human action, the discipline of Indian political thought has moved beyond interrogating different ideologies of world-making such as liberalism, socialism, communism and conservatism. Rather, in a markedly Hegelian way, the intellectual task that it sets for itself is to discern the work of ideas through a careful study of political action. To put it simply, the call is not to focus merely on what political actors say, but more importantly on what they do.  

Who are our political thinkers?

This manoeuvre has made possible fresh reinterpretations of modern political thought in India. Far from drawing upon Western ideas in a derivative manner or departing from them in a purely nativist way, Indian political actors have been recast as conceptual innovators who have remade the language of political modernity for our global age. The rich scholarship that has been produced on sovereignty, subjectivity, violence, truth, ethics, equality and democracy is generative not just for India but speaks to the rest of the world as well. 

One may lament, as does Yadav, that unlike political actors of the past, politicians today have ceased to be reflective of their own actions which has in a way contributed to the decline of the standards of public culture in our times. However, the burden of thought and theory whose ambition is to openly and critically express the silent unconscious workings of politics and society falls much more on the shoulders of academics and intellectuals.  

While list making is a perilous exercise and best avoided, Yadav’s initial all-male inventory of major scholars, though formidable, is grossly inadequate. In the face of criticism on social media, he has supplemented it in his second column with some more names of political and social activists, while giving a miss to the field of scholarship available in the subject. The discipline of Indian political thought has recently been nourished by contributions from Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chris Bayly, Ajay Skaria, Aishwary Kumar and Prathama Banerjee, besides Kapila and Devji. Political theory in India is more well known and has been enriched by the scholarship of Akeel Bilgrami, Uday Singh Mehta, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Gopal Guru, Ajay Gudavarthy, Nivedita Menon, Gurpreet Mahajan, Neera Chandhoke, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Rochana Bajpai and Karuna Mantena. It is regrettable that despite the glowing record of female scholars in these fields, none of them find mention in Yadav’s list. 

On the putative ‘decline’ of political imagination

The expectation of intellectual imagination that Yadav places on the political class is itself misdirected. This is especially at a time when the hegemonic structuring principles of democracy and diversity have replaced debates over all other competing values and ideals. The decade of the 1960s that he identifies as marking the sudden demise of new political thought is strikingly also the moment when multiparty democracy first freed itself from the hold of the Indian National Congress. It subsequently came of age around the questions of language, caste and religion, and thereby gave a fresh lease to new political thinking on these ideas.  

In fact, what Yadav refers to as the ‘poverty of political imagination’ is not a specifically Indian problem but has been a feature of global politics since the end of the World War II. The project of imagining grand utopic futures suffered a serious setback owing to the rise of the security state during the Cold War and has not recovered ever since. For sure, India was insulated from the global pressures of the warring ideologies of capitalism and communism due to its non-alignment policy. Yet, as we have argued elsewhere, the birth of the postcolonial republic tied academic pursuit to the national spirit of developmentalism, making social sciences entirely serviceable to the state and curtailing the space for theory and philosophy. 

Our point is that the decline of utopia in the present age is a question that is being reckoned with by political thinkers across the world. There are many ways of doing political thought and the unavailability of new programmatic visions should not lead us to diagnose the death of the discipline itself. 

India today is primed for new political thinking

The occasion which spurred Yadav to comment on the evaporation of political imagination in India was the Prime Minister’s lacklustre Independence Day speech. Given that this was his first 15th August speech after a third straight victory in the general elections, one could have expected a novel forward-looking vision for the years ahead. But what we got was a rehashing of the well-worn out expression of ‘Viksit Bharat’ or ‘developed India’ that has been in vogue since the 1950s. Rather than signalling a decline of political thought, this could be interpreted as a subdued statement from a leader chastened by a reduced mandate or one biding his time for the next course of action.

It is surprising that such a dim view of Indian political imagination is being advanced at a time when the recent election presented a genuine ideological opposition to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for the first time in a decade. Displaying clarity of thought and vision, the electoral battlelines were drawn between Hindu nationalism and an inclusive politics of love, social fragmentation and caste justice, crony capitalism and joblessness, and temple politics versus the saving of the Ambedkarite Constitution. One may even venture to say that in what is being hailed as the ‘age of consensus’ across the world where governments change without any major shift in the ruling ideology of the state, India has defied the global trend in opening up new possibilities for genuine political contestation. 

During the campaign, amidst predictions of an absolute and overwhelming majority for the BJP which would have further shrunk the space for an already toothless Opposition, Yadav’s was a rare voice of democratic hope. It is disheartening to see him now use the 20th century intellectual aesthetic of declaring the death of one or the other philosophical concept. After the death of God, Enlightenment, Author, Subject, and History, we are now left to grapple with the death of Indian political thought. Yadav reassures in his sequel that revival rather than mourning is the right way to deal with the loss. Even then, he is too quick to declare the premature death of a discipline which is alive and thriving. Whether recognised as such or not, political thought will carry on its work as long as we continue to inhabit a world of political action. 

Salmoli Choudhuri is an Assistant Professor at the National Law School of India University Bengaluru and an incoming Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Humboldt University Berlin. Email: salmoli.choudhuri@nls.ac.in

Moiz Tundawala is a Leverhulme Early-Career Fellow at the University of Oxford and an Associate Professor (on leave) at the Jindal Global Law School, Delhi NCR. Email: moiz.tundawala@law.ox.ac.uk

This article, first published earlier in the day on August 28, 2024, was republished at 4.04 pm with mention of Yogendra Yadav’s second article.