What is a no confidence motion?

 Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla accepted the Opposition’s no confidence motion against the Government earlier today (July 26), saying that he will speak to leaders of all parties and announce when the discussion on the motion will be taken up.

The motion was brought to the House by Congress Party MP Gaurav Gogoi amidst the Opposition’s ongoing protests demanding a statement on the situation in Manipur from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary, Congress’s Lok Sabha leader, had on Tuesday (July 25) told the media that the Opposition will be introducing a no-confidence motion in the house.

“Today, it has been decided that we would not have any other alternative but to resort to a no-confidence motion because the government is not accepting the demand of the opposition to have an elaborate discussion with the Prime Minister on Manipur,” Chowdhary said, as per news agency ANI. “He should make a statement on the Manipur violence as he is our leader in the parliament,” he added.

What is a no confidence motion?

In a parliamentary democracy, a government can be in power only if it commands a majority in the directly elected House. Article 75(3) of our Constitution embodies this rule by specifying that the Council of Ministers are collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha.

For testing this collective responsibility, the rules of Lok Sabha provide a particular mechanism – a motion of no-confidence. Any Lok Sabha MP, who can garner the support of 50 colleagues, can, at any point of time, introduce a motion of no-confidence against the Council of Ministers.

Thereafter, a discussion on the motion takes place. MPs who support the motion highlight the government’s shortcomings, and the Treasury Benches respond to the issues they raise. Finally, a vote takes place – in case the motion carries, the government is bound to vacate the office.

Should the government be worried?

No. With the majority mark at the Lok Sabha being 272, currently, the NDA government has 331 members, with the BJP alone boasting of 303 MPs. This means that even if all non-NDA parties come together (which is highly unlikely), the BJP still has the numbers to survive a no confidence motion.
The newly named INDIA alliance has 144 MPs while ‘neutral’ parties such as the BRS, YSRCP and the BJD have a combined strength of 70.

However, the no confidence motion has historically been used as a strategic tool to force a discussion on a certain topic or issue. The Opposition knows that it does not have the numbers but still has moved the motion to force the government to address their concerns about the situation in Manipur.

It was during the third Lok Sabha in 1963 that the first motion of no confidence was moved by Acharya J B Kripalani against the government headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The debate on the motion lasted for 21 hours over four days, with 40 MPs participating.

In his reply, Nehru remarked, “A no-confidence motion aims at or should aim at removing the party in government and taking its place. It is clear in the present instance that there was no such expectation or hope. And so the debate, although it was interesting in many ways and, I think profitable too, was a little unreal. Personally, I have welcomed this motion and this debate. I have felt that it would be a good thing if we were to have periodical tests of this kind.”

Since then, there have been 26 more no-confidence motions moved in the parliament (not counting the latest one), with the last one being in 2018, moved by the TRS against the previous Narendra Modi government.

Source: Indian Express, 26/07/23

The subaltern speaks

 

Late resurgence of Lohiate politics being driven by a changed political economy stifling the economic prospects of both the dominant as well as the non-dominant backward and marginalised castes

V.D. Savarkar is unquestionably the most influential political thinker of the Hindu Right. If Rousseau is considered to be the philosophical founder of post-revolution France, Savarkar now occupies that status for the republic of ‘New India’, guiding the spirit of the new Parliament which is set to be inaugurated on his birthday.

But who is the most influential political ideologue from the side of the Opposition? Arguably, that space increasingly belongs to Ram Manohar Lohia or, more precisely, Lohiate socialist politics. We mean Lohiate politics in a broad, substantive way, in terms of the increasing political viability of a congealed backward caste-class alliance against the upper caste-led and middle class formulated hegemony of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The difference from 50 years back is that Nehruvian “vested socialism” (in Lohia’s words) has given way to Hindu nationalist ‘crony capitalism’ as the dominant pole pushing disparate political actors into this emerging counter-alliance of the excluded.

The Congress’s victory in the Karnataka polls is, after all, what one would call in the Hindi belt a classic Lohiate alliance. There is a remarkably neat caste-class overlap in the Congress’s electoral mandate: an interlocked polarisation of the backward Ahinda communities and poor, less educated voters.

Of course, the Congress’s mandate under P.C. Siddaramaiah builds on the progressive roots of state politics, more specifically, the political legacy of D. Devaraj Urs. Surely, such a progressive coalition seems inconceivable in the Hindi belt where Hindu nationalism enjoys a ‘common-sensical’ dominance of the public sphere.

Admittedly, such scepticism is well-founded. The force of Lohiate socialism as a comprehensive framework had already started to wane in the Hindi belt by the early 1970s. A receding socialist camp was either subordinated or got merged in the mid-1970s into the potent stream of farmer politics represented by the Lok Dal party helmed by leaders such as Charan Singh in Uttar Pradesh and Devi Lal in Haryana. This caste-agnostic farmer politics was the politics of the challenger elite castes of Jats and Yadavs wherein upwardly mobile farmers merely sought to assume the dominance of the old upper caste elite. The socialist space further shrivelled into the narrow Yadav-Kurmi-led caste coalitions of the 1990s in the post-Mandal phase.

Why did Lohia’s aggregative backward class politics fail in UP while broad coalitions of the backward classes succeeded in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in not just capturing power but also transforming the political economy in favour of their constituents?

Firstly, there was a cultural constraint. The political scientist, Prerna Singh, located the answer in subnationalism in a book, which partly argued that a progressive, vernacular sphere allowed challenger elites (such as Nairs and Ezhavas in Kerala, and Chettiars and Vellalars in Tamil Nadu) to forge wider networks of solidarity of the marginalised against the ‘outsider’ Brahmin elite. Although Lohia sought to articulate a similar opposition between subaltern ‘Hindi’ and elite ‘English’, it hardly made a similar impact because of the historical evolution of the Hindi public sphere as a vessel for upper caste-led Hindu nationalism.

Second, there was a constraint of political economy. The challenger elites of South India — the middle peasant castes — had acquired a measure of economic capital by the time of Independence. Therefore, the challenger elites sought to forge broad, pro-development coalitions with the upper segments of middle castes, filling up the urban professional and entrepreneurial base, while the poor mobilised through social welfare. In northern India, the urban professional/entrepreneurial base was monopolised by the (numerically larger) upper castes. The newly rich middle castes of Jats and Yadavs found it more beneficial to establish dominance over the impoverished lower castes than to mount a frontal challenge to the dominance of the upper castes.

If Lohiate politics is seeing a late resurgence, it is being driven by a changed political economy which is stifling the economic prospects of both the dominant as well as the non-dominant backward as well as the marginalised castes, leading to a shared resentment, if not yet a shared agenda.

In fact, the Congress of today seems to have revamped into a neo-Lohiate formation. Three out of four Congress chief ministers belong to OBC castes, the fourth started out as a poor milkman. The Congress stands upfront with the Mandal parties in demanding the caste census and endorses the principle of a fair division of economic resources among communities in line with the share of the population. Mallikarjun Kharge leads the Congress as the third Dalit president of the party. The Bharat Jodo Yatra emphasised the economic anguish of those left-behind from the ‘Adani-Modi’ model of economic development.

But can this socio-economic message work nationally? This week’s CSDS-Lokniti national survey provides some preliminary straws in the wind: 41% of the people claim to like Rahul Gandhi, of which 15% claim to have developed this affinity because of the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Rahul Gandhi has also clearly emerged as the leader of the Opposition with 34% opting for him as the principal national challenger to Modi. The survey also found that the Congress has climbed to 29% of the vote share (an additional 10% from 2014), while the vote share of the BJP remains stable at around 39%, indicating that the Congress is eating into the Opposition space. Some of these votes are probably leached from declining parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Janata Dal (Secular); this is a rare recovery of the Congress’ space.

The massive farmers’ movement of 2021-2022 had first signalled a shift by forging “new solidarities across class, caste, gender, religion and regions” as the sociologist, Satendra Kumar, observed, discursively moving beyond middle-caste farmers and including the concerns of Dalit labourers. After all, the dominant peasant castes of the Hindi belt have been mired in an economic crisis for close to a decade. As Christophe Jaffrelot has shown using Indian Human Development Survey data (2012), the income of the bottom 60% of Jats, Patels and Marathas stood much lower than the average income of the non-dominant OBCs in their respective three states and substantially less than the Dalits (except for Jats of Haryana). Worse, the OBCs and Dalits had made rapid gains in education and salaried jobs as compared to them. The crisis only became worse in the Modi years, seen in both new reservation demands and the dominant caste backlash to the BJP in the assembly elections of Haryana and Maharashtra. Meanwhile the rural wage growth boom of the United Progressive Alliance years has virtually stagnated. As Jean Drèze has documented, the growth rate of real wages between 2014-15 and 2021-22 was below 1% per year for both farm and non-farm workers. Therefore, the class interests of different OBC groups might slowly be coalescing, witnessed in both the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal coalition in UP as well as in the Grand Alliance in Bihar.

The CSDS poll indicates that the 2024 election is still pretty close, with 43% favouring a third chance for the Modi government as opposed to 38% who oppose it. But who are these 38% and what kind of platform can potentially unite these disgruntled voters?

Consider a few more statistics from the same poll. One, only 35% respondents claimed improvement in their economic condition over the last four years. Two, contrary to the aspirational neo-middle class voter captured by the Lokniti survey in 2014 favouring growth over redistribution, today 57% people support subsidies as essential for the poor. Third, 46% believe that the government has failed on farmer issues, 45% on corruption, 57% on price rise, while 36% believe that government policies have only favoured the wealthy.

The Lohiate spectre of bottoms-up subaltern discontent hangs over the Modi regime. This cannot be wished away with the rarefied bluster of vishwaguru or New India.

Asim Ali is a political researcher and columnist based in Delhi

Source: The Telegraph, 27/05/23

Context is key

 India is a pre-modern, pluralist society

At the Tory conference in the United Kingdom (October 2022), the home secretary, Suella Braverman, referred to the “vocal” and the “ethnic minority” creating serious problems for the “law-abiding majority”. This can be understood as scripting an antithesis to the famous thesis by the British liberal philosopher, John Stuart Mill, who cautioned against the “tyranny of the majority”.

Now, while a word or a concept can be used differently from its original usage, the difference must be recognised. Mill, for instance, was reacting to his predecessor, John Locke, who criticised Robert Filmer. Filmer defended the divine rights of kings. Locke, in turn, proposed moving away from earlier forms of feudalism and theocracies, with citizens choosing their leader as their representative. In case of a lack of consensus, Locke proposed, the majority’s decision would prevail over the minority’s. This provided the foundation for representative democracy as a modern form of politics.

The majority and the minority in Locke and Mill comprise unencumbered modern citizens. However, Braverman’s use of these terms differs from that of Locke or Mill. She uses the word, minority, to refer to non-modern aspects such as ethnicity. Ethnic minorities, in her usage, are ‘encumbered’ within a community or region that falls outside that of ‘unencumbered’ individuals. At the least, she uses minority to refer to an overlap between modern citizens and the pre-modern self encumbered within a community. There is thus a difference between using these key terms within and outside liberalism.

Independent India adopted modernistic ideas of individual freedom and liberty, as well as institutions like parliamentary democracy from liberalism. This progressive move by our national leaders put India’s international profile on a par with other modern states. However, there is a difference between modern Western and Indian experiences. Modern Western nations have modern citizens as premises in the public sphere, and their institutions are based on these modern individuals. At least they projected themselves as such, and this is how the outside world perceived them.

In contrast, while the provision of citizenship is enshrined in the Indian Constitution, there is a vast difference between political ideals and social reality. People are entrenched in pre-modern communities, cultures, regions, religions and languages. The words, majority and minority, which are intrinsic parts of representative democracy, do not have an immediate referent in India. Hence, there is a cleavage between what is and what ought to be.

India is primarily a pre-modern, pluralistic society. Forcibly imposing modern liberal political terminology on Indian society can be problematic and misleading. For instance, Indian liberals and secularists use the terms, minority and majority, to refer not to citizens but to religious communities. This difference, if not recognised, can lead to confusion.

In Locke’s concept of liberalism, the majority is constituted first. The minority is then formed by those not included in the majority — in that sequential order. However, secularists and liberals in India claiming to represent modern liberalism not only used these terms to refer to realities that lie outside of liberalism but also inverted the sequence, creating confusion. They designated the minority first and then created a majority still in the making. These concepts were used as if they were predetermined — the past tense instead of the present continuous.

Critics of secularism have now taken on these concepts and embarked on a massive drive to define the majority by highlighting instances of minority appeasement and are steadily gaining followers. The confusing use of these liberal concepts has also taken its toll outside the political domain, beyond the concepts of minority and majority.

In a plural society like India, there are several majorities and several minorities. For instance, a non-Hindi speaker can feel a deep sense of being the minority in the company of Hindi-speaking people. Similarly, a Hindi-speaking person classified under the majority religion may feel like the minority in a non-Hindi-speaking place. And we find numerous such instances all over India.

An essential feature of a pluralistic society like India is that it allows each person to feel like a minority. Many aspects of a plural society are unfamiliar to its people. For example, several languages and cultural practices are unknown. And, when accessed, you are either alone or in a small group. In turn, this feeling in plural societies can sensitise people to similar feelings in others — a unique, yet common, virtue in a pluralist society. The way terms like majority and minority are used today fails to capture this special feature. Within this context, we can mostly use the shifting nature of the majority and minority.

Terms like majority and minority are thus used within the liberal framework by liberal philosophers like Locke and Mill. However, Braverman’s use of these terms and their use in India falls outside the liberal framework. It is imperative to distinguish these and avoid conflating one with the other. Maintaining this difference can lead to clarity.

Braverman’s comments provides the context to re-examine the background of various theories of liberalism, identify the use of concepts such as minority and majority outside liberalism, investigate the misleading nature of their use in India and highlight their unique aspects.

We also need to focus on making pragmatic political decisions that are sustainable in the long run. Since modern liberal ideals are not indigenous to India, we need to understand their history, their background and the complexities associated with the Indian context to utilise them for more effective decision-making.

Source: The Telegraph, 9/01/23

What is the Inter-State Council?

 

It is a mechanism that was constituted "to support Centre-State and Inter-State coordination and cooperation in India". The Inter-State Council was established under Article 263 of the Constitution, which states that the President may constitute such a body if a need is felt for it.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (June 16), asking that at least three meetings of the Inter-State Council should be held every year to “strengthen the spirit of cooperative federalism”.

Stalin also suggested that bills of national importance should be placed before the Council before being tabled in Parliament. He said this was because there is no “effective and interactive communication” between the states and the Centre on issues of common interest.

What is the Inter-State Council?

It is a mechanism that was constituted “to support Centre-State and Inter-State coordination and cooperation in India”. The Inter-State Council was established under Article 263 of the Constitution, which states that the President may constitute such a body if a need is felt for it. The Council is basically meant to serve as a forum for discussions among various governments.

In 1988, the Sarkaria Commission suggested the Council should exist as a permanent body, and in 1990 it came into existence through a Presidential Order.

The main functions of the Council are inquiring into and advising on disputes between states, investigating and discussing subjects in which two states or states and the Union have a common intereThe Prime Minister is the chairman of the Council, whose members include the Chief Ministers of all states and UTs with legislative assemblies, and Administrators of other UTs. Six Ministers of Cabinet rank in the Centre’s Council of Ministers, nominated by the Prime Minister, are also its members.

What issues has Chief Minister Stalin raised?

Mainly, the DMK chief has flagged the lack of regular meetings, saying the Council has met only once in the last six years — and that there has been no meeting since July 2016. Since its constitution in 1990, the body has met only 11 times, although its procedure states it should meet at least three times every year.

Stalin appreciated the reconstitution of the Council, carried out last month. The body will now have 10 Union Ministers as permanent invitees, and the standing committee of the Council has been reconstituted with Home Minister Amit Shah as Chairman. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra, UP, and Gujarat are some of the other standing committee members.

Stalin has frequently disagreed with the central government’s policies on matters of taxation, on the medical examination NEET, and often talked about the rights of states. Highlighting the need for the Council to meet regularly, he said, “What could be settled amicably among the executive branches is often taken to the doorsteps of the judicial branch.”

Tamil Nadu has long advocated the need for a Council. In 1969, Stalin’s father, M Karunanidhi, spoke about setting up an expert committee to study Centre-state relations. Months later, his government appointed a committee headed by P V Rajamannar, a former Madras High Court Chief Justice, which submitted a report in 1971, recommending “the Inter-State Council should be constituted immediately”.

What happened in the last meeting of the Inter State Council?

In 2016, the meeting included consideration of the Punchhi Commission’s recommendations on Centre-State Relations that were published in 2010. At the time, M Karunanidhi had criticised then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for not personally attending the meeting.

The meeting saw detailed discussion on the recommendations. States asked for maintaining the federal structure amid growing “centralisation”. Imposition of Article 356 of the Constitution, which deals with the imposition of President’s Rule in states, was a matter of concern. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was then with the Opposition, demanded that the post of Governor should be abolished.

Written by Rishika Singh

Source: Indian Express, 17/06/22

Quasi-federalism

 

Conscious effort on the part of the framers of the Constitution to ensure flexibility and accommodate diversity renders India’s federalism an original form

The contemporary discourse on federalism in India is moving on a discursive note across multiple dimensions, be it economic, political and cultural, to the extent that one is compelled to regard India to be at an inflection point vis-a-vis Centre-State relations owing to increasing asymmetry. Professor Shawn Rosenberg has argued that without an active and committed citizenry a democracy can devour itself and, in this context, it is worth engaging with India’s federal ethos and the associated asymmetries.

Federal, quasi federal or hybrid?

India consciously adopted a version of federalism that made the Union government and State governments interdependent on each other (latter more vis-a-vis the former) thereby violating the primal characteristic of a federal constitution i.e., autonomous spheres of authority for Union and State governments. Similar other constitutional features include the size and composition of the Rajya Sabha akin to that of the Lok Sabha thereby favouring larger States; Article 3 of the Indian Constitution which allows the Union to alter the boundaries of a State without the latter’s consent, emergency powers, and concurrent list subjects of the Seventh Schedule wherein the Union possesses more authority than the State barring a few exceptions. India’s centralised federal structure was not marked by the process of ‘coming together’ but was an outcome of ‘holding together’ and ‘putting together’.

Ambedkar called India’s federation a Union as it was indestructible which is why the Constitution does not contain words related to federalism. He also said that India’s Constitution holds requisite flexibility to be federal and unitary on a need basis. While the Supreme Court of India held that federalism was a part of the basic structure of the Indian Constitution in the S.R. Bommai vs Union of India case (1994), the Court also held that the Indian variant of federalism upholds a strong centre in the Kuldip Nayar vs Union of India case (2006).

Professor Louise Tillin argues that a conscious effort on the part of the framers of the Constitution to ensure flexibility and accommodate diversity renders India’s federalism an original form which is neither conventional nor reductive.

The reasons for a centralised federal structure

It is worth noting that the Indian National Congress (INC) vehemently opposed the discretionary powers of the provincial governors in the run-up to the 1937 elections and advocated in favour of autonomy. However, following the governance experience, in 1939, Nehru argued otherwise. Therefore, contextualising the choice of the framers of the Constitution provides a much needed insight on the past, thereby helping one understand the present and imagine the future of India’s federal ethos. Tillin presents at least four reasons that informed India’s choice of a centralised federal structure.

First was the partition of India and the concomitant concerns. Anticipating the Muslim League’s participation in the Constituent Assembly debates following the Cabinet Mission plan in 1946, the Objectives Resolution introduced by Jawaharlal Nehru in the Assembly were inclined towards a decentralised federal structure wherein States would wield residuary powers. Further, in his presidential address at the 44th session of the INC, J.B. Kripalani too spoke in favour of maximum autonomy to the States and regarded centralisation to be at odds with liberty. However, after the Partition a revised stand was unanimously taken by the Union Powers Committee of the Constituent Assembly, in favour of a strong Union with residuary powers and weaker States, to safeguard the integrity of the nation.

The second reason pivoted around the reconstitution of social relations in a highly hierarchical and discriminatory society towards forging a national civic identity as argued by Professor Katharine Adeney instead of immediate caste and linguistic identities. Dr. Madhav Khosla shows that Nehru and Ambedkar believed that a centralised federal structure would unsettle prevalent trends of social dominance, help fight poverty better and therefore yield liberating outcomes. The third reason concerns the objective of building a welfare state. Drawing from existing literature, Tillin shows that in a decentralised federal setup, redistributive policies could be structurally thwarted by organised (small and dominant) groups. Instead, a centralised federal set-up can prevent such issues and further a universal rights-based system.

The final reason involved the alleviation of inter-regional economic inequality. The cotton mill industry in Bombay, and the jute mill industry in the Bengal region were subject to a ‘race to the bottom’ or rampant cost cutting practices. The Bengal region saw workers’ rights and safety nets being thwarted by Anglo-Scottish mill owners. The Bombay region had an empowered working class — thanks to the trade unionists — thereby affecting the business interests of mill owners owing to race to the bottom practices in the adjacent cotton belt region mills.

Provincial interventions seemed to exacerbate inequalities. India’s membership in the International Labour Organization, the Nehru Report (1928), and the Bombay Plan (1944) pushed for a centralised system to foster socio-economic rights and safeguards for the working and entrepreneurial classes.

The present and the future

While the aforementioned reasons make a case for a centralised federal set-up, the structure’s effectiveness is solely dependent on the intent and objectives a government aims to achieve. For instance, Tillin observed that linguistic reorganisation would not have been possible if India followed a rigid or conventional federal system. In other words, the current form of federalism in the Indian context is largely a function of the intent of the government of the day and the objectives it seeks to achieve. The majoritarian tendencies prevalent today are subverting the unique and indigenised set-up into an asymmetrical one. Inter alia, delayed disbursal of resources and tax proceeds, bias towards electorally unfavourable States, evasion of accountability, blurring spheres of authority, weakening institutions, proliferation of fissiparous political ideologies all signal towards the diminishing of India’s plurality or regionalisation of the nation — a process that is highly antithetical to the forging of a supra-local and secular national identity that preserves and promotes pluralism.

While it would be safe to argue that our federal set-up is a conscious choice, its furthering or undoing, will depend on the collective will of the citizenry and the representatives they vote to power.

Vignesh Karthik K.R. is a doctoral researcher at King’s India Institute, King’s College London.

Source: The Hindu, 3/05/22

Revisit the Seventh Schedule to improve Centre-state relations

 The Union government recently revoked the orders and guidelines issued under the Disaster Management Act (DMA), 2005. Many of these were issued once the Act was invoked on 24 May 2020, soon after covid came knocking on India’s doors. The DMA has been the backbone of policy interventions to fight covid. However, since health is a state subject, how was something like the DMA passed in the first place to deal with issues related to health, among others?

Any legislation can be passed under an enabling constitutional provision. Article 246 of the Constitution in the Seventh Schedule has Union, state and concurrent lists. Disasters do not figure in any of these lists. So, under which enabling provision was the DMA passed? Before it was passed, the related Bill was referred by the Rajya Sabha to a parliamentary panel headed by the late Sushma Swaraj. One should quote the 115th report of the Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee, Home Affairs, on The Disaster Management Bill, 2005: “The proposed legislation is relatable to Entry 23 (Social Security and Social Insurance) in the Concurrent List of the Constitution. This will have the advantage that it will permit the States also to have their own legislation on disaster management." It was ‘Social Security and Social Insurance’ which enabled central legislation on disasters.

In the early days of the pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the nation to turn the ongoing crisis into favourable opportunities. However, some states cleverly converted it into an opportunity to fill state coffers. States like West Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh legalized the home delivery of alcohol to address a shortfall in tax revenues. Funnily enough, liquor delivery was done under the ambit of the DMA. Ironically, it was invoked for liquor delivery to promote social security and social insurance.

Taxes on alcohol account for a significant share of the total revenue in many states. India’s five southern states cumulatively account for 45% of total domestic consumption, with alcohol accounting for 10 to 15% of state revenues in each. One should probe the correlation between revenue generated from the sale of liquor and good development indicators. That said, whatever might be a state’s stance on prohibition, if a state allows the sale of liquor in its jurisdiction, why can’t it be delivered home?

Apart from political reasons, one reason is the absence of enabling legislation. Now that orders under the DMA have been revoked, unless the states come up with appropriate legislation, they will have to curtail their home delivery of alcohol. The pertinent issue is not the delivery of it, but the impediments that state governments will face in moving such laws on account of inherent issues with the Seventh Schedule.

There are primarily five issues that plague the Seventh Schedule, which is a relic of the colonial past inherited from the Government of India Act, 1935. Why should the same principles be followed even today?

The Constituent Assembly had comprehensively enumerated subjects for legislation in the three lists and expanded them in the Government of India Act, 1935. However, these lists do not reflect the complex realities of India in its 75th year of independence.

There is no dearth of instances in which states shirk their responsibilities for even the subjects covered under the state list. For instance, state highways are often classified as national highways so that they can be properly looked after. Similarly, if the pandemic has taught us something, it is that the Union government should be in a position to legislate more freely on some issues related to health (vaccination, for instance). Another example is of the police. While law and order is a state subject, states often ask for the help of paramilitary forces in times of crisis.

States have also advocated the transfer of some subjects from the Union and concurrent lists to the state list. For instance, entry No. 58 of the Union list is on the manufacturing, supply and distribution of salt by Union agencies; and regulations and control of manufacture, supply and distribution of salt by other agencies. It can be argued that it is unnecessary for the Union to legislate on issues related to salt. States have also criticized the transfer of some subjects from the state list to the concurrent list. ‘

Two key commissions have looked at Centre-state relations, i.e. the Sarkaria Commission and the Punchi Commission. Both advised comprehensive consultation between the Union and state governments before moving anything from the state list to the concurrent list. But neither commission has looked into it comprehensively. N.K. Singh, chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, has time and again argued for reforms in the Seventh Schedule.

Some have even advocated further decentralization of that Schedule by introducing a local government list. This list is especially pertinent in the light of rapid urbanization across countries. While we acknowledge that there are issues with introducing a local body list, the idea is worth a debate.

Thus, there is a need for periodic reviews of these lists—say, after every 20 years. Liquor being linked to disasters is a stark reminder of that.

Bibek Debroy & Aditya Sinha are, respectively, chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister; and additional private secretary, research, at the EAC-PM

Source : Mintepaper, 1/05/22

The significance of Amar Jawan Jyoti, and why it was merged with National War Memorial flame

 

As part of the Central Vista redevelopment project, the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame has been merged with the one at National War Memorial. What was the Amar Jawan Jyoti? Why was it placed at India Gate, and why has it been shifted now?

The government has put out the eternal flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti underneath India Gate and merged it with the one instituted at the National War Memorial in 2019 a few hundred meters away.

The decision kicked off a political row, with Opposition leaders claiming that it was a disrespect to the soldiers who have laid down their lives fighting for the country.

What was the Amar Jawan Jyoti and why was it constructed?

The eternal flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti underneath India Gate in central Delhi was an iconic symbol of the nation’s tributes to the soldiers who have died for the country in various wars and conflicts since Independence.Established in 1972, it was to mark India’s victory over Pakistan in the 1971 War, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had inaugurated it on Republic Day 1972, after India defeated Pakistan in December 1971.

The key elements of the Amar Jawan Jyoti included a black marble plinth, a cenotaph, which acted as a tomb of the unknown soldier. The plinth had an inverted L1A1 self-loading rifle with a bayonet, on top of which was a soldier’s war helmet. The installation had four urns on it, with four burners. On normal days one of the four burners were kept alive, but on important days like the Republic Day, all four burners were lit. These burners were what is called the eternal flame, and it was never allowed to be extinguished.

How was the eternal flame kept burning?

For 50 years the eternal flame had been burning underneath India Gate, without being extinguished. But on Friday, the flame was finally put off, as it was merged with another eternal flame at the National War Memorial.

Since 1972, when it was inaugurated, it used to be kept alive with the help of cylinders of liquified petroleum gas, or LPG. One cylinder could keep one burner alive for a day and a half.

In 2006 that was changed. Though a project that cost around Rs 6 lakh the fuel for the flames was changed from LPG to piped natural gas, or PNG. It is through this piped gas that the flame marking the tribute to Indian soldiers had been kept alive eternally.

Why was it placed at India Gate?

The India Gate, All India War Memorial, as it was known earlier, was built by the British in 1931. It was erected as a memorial to around 90,000 Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army, who had died in several wars and campaigns till then. The inscription on the monument reads:

“TO THE DEAD OF THE INDIAN ARMIES WHO FELL AND ARE HONOURED IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS MESOPOTAMIA AND PERSIA EAST AFRICA GALLIPOLI AND ELSEWHERE IN THE NEAR AND THE FAR-EAST AND IN SACRED MEMORY ALSO OF THOSE WHOSE NAMES ARE HERE RECORDED AND WHO FELL IN INDIA OR THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER AND DURING THE THIRD AFGHAN WAR.”

Names of more than 13,000 dead soldiers are mentioned on the memorial commemorating them.

As it was a memorial for the Indian soldiers killed in wars, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was established underneath it by the government in 1972.

Why was the eternal flame extinguished from there?

There are several reasons that have been mentioned by officials. Since the political controversy broke out government sources have claimed, giving a “correct perspective” that the flame will not be extinguished, but just moved to be merged with the one at the National War Memorial. Sources said that the eternal flame paid homage to the soldiers killed in the 1971 War, but does not mention their name, and the India Gate is a “symbol of our colonial past”.

“The names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial. Hence it is a true tribute to have the flame paying tribute to martyrs there.”

Defence establishment officials said that once the National War Memorial came up in 2019, Indian political and military leaders and foreign dignitaries pay their tributes to the fallen soldiers at the National War Memorial, which used to happen at the Amar Jawan Jyoti earlier. With this change it was felt that two flames were not needed, even though when the National War Memorial was built officials had categorically stated that both the flames will be kept alive.

But another reason is that the Amar Jawan Jyoti was etched so strongly in the emotional psyche of the country that the new war memorial did not get the attention as the government had expected, and the government wants to promote the new memorial it built in 2019. Further, it can also be seen as part of the government’s redevelopment of the entire Central Vista, of which India Gate, the Amar Jawan Jyoti and the National War Memorial are parts of.

Along with moving the flame, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Friday morning that the canopy next to the India Gate will get a statue of the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. The new statue will be 28 feet high. Till the statue is completed, Modi said that a hologram statue of Bose will be placed under the canopy, which he will unveil on January 23. The canopy used to have a statue of Kind George V, which was removed in 1968.

What is the National War Memorial and when was it made?

The National War Memorial, which is around 400 meters from India Gate was inaugurated by Modi in February 2019, in an area of around 40 acres. It was built to commemorate all the soldiers who have laid down their lives in the various battles, wars, operations and conflicts of Independent India. There are many independent memorials for such soldiers, but no memorial existed commemorating them all at the national level.

Discussions to build such a memorial had been ongoing since 1961, but it did not come up. In 2015, the Modi-led government approved its construction, and the location east of the India Gate at C Hexagon was finalised. The final design of the memorial was selected through a competition.

The architecture of the memorial is based on four concentric circles. Largest is the Raksha Chakra or the Circle of Protection which is marked by a row of trees, each of which represent soldiers, who protect the country. The Tyag Chakra, the Circle of Sacrifice, has circular concentric walls of honour based on the Chakravyuh. The walls have independent granite tablets for each of the soldiers who have died for the country since Independence. As of today, there are 26,466 names of such soldiers on these granite tablets etched in golden letters. A tablet is added every time a soldier is killed in the line of duty.

This Veerta Chakra, the Circle of Bravery, has a covered gallery with six bronze crafted murals depicting the battles and actions of our Armed Forces.

The final is the Amar Chakra, the Circle of Immortality, which has an obelisk, and the Eternal Flame. The flame from the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate will be merged with this flame, which has been kept burning since 2019 when the memorial was unveiled. The flame is a symbol of the immortality of the spirit of the fallen soldiers, and a mark that the country will not forget their sacrifice.

Busts of the 21 soldiers who have been conferred with the highest gallantry award of the country, Param Vir Chakra, are also installed at the memorial.

Written by Krishn Kaushik

Source: Indian Express, 24/01/22

Challenging the rise of majoritarianism

 

D Raja writes: This can only be done by renewed focus on the real and concrete issues of dignity, livelihood, health, employment and housing

The widely telecast inauguration of the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor by Prime Minister Narendra Modi displayed the nefarious designs of the ruling regime. The invocation of Hindu symbols and ritualistic practices by the PM in a state function gave de facto official status to the majority religion. These developments throw open numerous questions regarding the relationship between the state and religion in a multi-religious, multicultural country.

While the Constitution categorically proclaims India to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, the current ruling regime willfully ignores this promise. Choosing to stand true to the vision manufactured in Nagpur, this right-wing Brahmanical regime is prioritising intolerance. While direct physical violence by these forces is the most evident, one has to be equally wary of the deep discursive violence inflicted. For a political formulation whose imagination is propped up by religion, the multicultural reality of the subcontinent is unpalatable. While a single definition of secularism has been evasive, modern nation-states have since long grappled with this principle. Scientific socialism since its inception understood the role religion plays in an unequal exploitative society. Marx famously wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”In India, too, reformers constantly tried to do away with the orthodoxy practised in the name of religion and bring our society in conformity with modern democratic values.

While significant energies of our freedom movement were invested in driving away the British, at the same time, our leaders were conscious of how independent India would constitute itself. Secularism was a hallmark of the major participants in the freedom struggle. Gandhi, while proclaiming himself a Hindu, never tolerated religious discrimination. Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and other luminaries were steadfast in their commitment to a future secular state. B R Ambedkar gave the clarion call for the annihilation of caste and initiated perhaps the greatest social reform on this land. EV Ramaswamy Periyar established rationality at the core of Tamil society and Sri Narayana Guru’s calls for the end of discrimination based on one’s birth found many echoes. From the leaders of the Ghadr Party to the Left revolutionaries led by Bhagat Singh, complete unanimity prevailed regarding the role of religion in the independent Indian state: It was to be a private affair with the state keeping equidistance from all organised religions. The republic that was inaugurated was a secular democratic republic with fundamental rights ensuring non-discrimination based on faith. The pro-British minority that advocated for a state religion or a theocracy found few takers among the people.

In India, we saw the rise of the RSS-BJP in the uncertain years after the financial crisis of 2008-09, riding the chariot of Hindutva. The Hindu religion had no institution akin to the church and it remained heavily localised in practice. The RSS and its obsession with uniformity has propelled them to devise monolithic interpretations of certain strands of Brahmanical texts, which they wish to impose on this extremely diverse society. This thought is not only dangerous for communal harmony but it can also push us back by hundreds of years by diverting us from issues of material interest. Certain contemporary developments have been disturbing in this regard. Recently, a few municipalities in Gujarat embarked on a mission to outlaw the public sale of non-vegetarian food. A BJP MP from Gujarat issued an ultimatum to tribals that the benefits of reservation will be snatched away from them if they do not convert to Hinduism.

The elevation of the religion of the majority as the de-facto state religion becomes a real threat. We should be conscious of French thinker Voltaire’s words: “… whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” The rise of religious common sense can be challenged and rejected only by bringing back the focus on the real and concrete issues of dignity, livelihood, health, employment and housing.

The important question before us is: Should we let religion interfere with, or take over, the workings of a secular state or should we resist this deviousness of the Hindu right? The lessons of our independence movement and the sacrifices of countless freedom fighters point us in only one direction.

Written by D. Raja

Source: Indian Express, 30/12/21

How farmers’ movement embodies a politics of hope

 

Indrajit Roy writes: The farmers’ protests remind us that hope is not delusional. It is attentive to the difficulties of the present moment, but appreciates the possibility that something unexpected could arise

The triumph of the farmers’ movements against the unpopular farm laws holds important lessons for those hoping to politically defeat the BJP. After all, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s climbdown on the farm laws represents the most significant political retreat by his government in its two terms, despite its crushing dominance in Parliament. The success of the farmers’ movement is testimony to the audacity of hope.

Hope is, first and foremost, about not giving up. When the farmers’ unions first called for a Bharat bandh back in September 2020, few had expected the government to listen, much less repeal the farm laws at any point soon. But the farmers did not give up. Through the chilly north Indian winter, they persisted in their protests. Despite unfavourable media coverage and hostile state governments in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, they continued their agitation. Harbouring hope is no easy task. It involves struggle. Living in hope means taking the next step despite being confronted by oppression.

The farmers’ protests remind us that hope is not delusional. It is attentive to the difficulties of the present moment, but appreciates the possibility that something unexpected could arise from the wreckage of the present. When sections of the protesting farmers turned violent in Delhi on the eve of Republic Day earlier this year, the movement recognised the danger in which it was. They recognised that the government, supported by a pliant media, would use this opportunity to paint them all as anti-national, seditious and traitorous. Rakesh Tikait, the farmers’ leader, broke down on national television in anticipation of their forceful eviction from the protest sites by the central government. His tears taught us yet another lesson about hope: It accepts the reality of grief, loss and uncertainty.

As we now know, Tikait’s tears turned the tide. The farmers did not give up their agitation, but expanded their footprint to small towns and villages across the country. For example, September saw a massive mahapanchayat in Muzaffarnagar, Tikait’s home ground, in which almost 5,00,000 people participated.

The uncertainty that farmers faced did not prevent them from thinking through and taking action. As the feminist bell hooks reminds us, living in hope is linked with a basic trust in life that motivates the “next step”. It is about believing that our families, cultures and societies are important, and for whom it is worth living and dying. Far from being a hindrance to action, as the philosopher Hannah Arendt feared, hope is about confronting oppression and believing that there’s a way out. The farmers dispersed their protests across towns and villages, often at great peril to their own lives, as the ghastly incidents in Lakhimpur Kheri showed.

Living in hope demands that we carefully and sensitively craft novel alliances that could open new possibilities. Building and sustaining social coalitions was another lesson the farmers’ movement taught us. Without a doubt, the protests originated in the anxieties of the big Hindu and Sikh farmers of the Jat community, dominant castes in their respective villages. These narrow social origins have since diffused to include support from such diverse social groups as the Dalit Army, the Zameen Prapti Sangharsh Samiti and the Khet Mazdoor Unions. Furthermore, the Hindu Jat farmers appear to be seeking reconciliation with their Muslim neighbours in western Uttar Pradesh, almost a decade after communal violence ripped the social fabric of that region.

The alliances demanded by the political practice of hope broadens people’s horizons. Writing in the shadows of Nazism, the historian Ernst Bloch makes exactly this point in his epic three-volume study The Principle of Hope. “The emotion of hope goes out of itself,” he writes, “makes people broad instead of confining them”. Like the protests against the CAA-NRC, the farmers’ movement teaches us the crucial importance of building solidarities across social divides to the politics of hope.

Our world is plagued by crisis, uncertainty and prospects of a catastrophe. Under such circumstances, it is tempting to fixate on collapse rather than focus on repair. A politics of hope is indispensable to confronting the social, economic and political troubles of our time. The farmers’ movement reminds us how we might practice it in trying times.

Source: Indian Express, 7/12/21

Online courses that will help you learn the dynamics of Indian Constitution

 

While the Constitution is self-explanatory, the charter language often confuses aspirants. Various platforms host online workshops as well as courses on key features of the Indian Constitution, which can be a good way to understand it in a simple and jargon-free manner.

On November 26, 1949, the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India, and it came into effect on January 26, 1950. Seventy-two years later, the Constitution of India has added several amendments, sections, and articles.

To spread awareness on various mandates of the Constitution, several bodies that conduct competitive examinations still give high weightage to the topic.

The syllabus of the UPSC Civil Service, SSC-CGL, NDA and other such examinations intensely covers the Indian Constitution in all stages of the test. In recent years, the UPSC preliminary exam has had at least 7-8 questions on the Constitution whereas, in the mains, the topic is largely covered in the GS II syllabus. This makes reading and understanding the Indian Constitution a prerequisite for qualifying the exam. 

While the Constitution is self-explanatory, the charter language often confuses aspirants. Various platforms host online workshops as well as courses on key features of the Indian Constitution, which can be a good way to understand it in a simple and jargon-free manner.

Course on the Indian Constitution – Ministry of Law & Justice, NALSAR Hyderabad

The Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law & Justice, in collaboration with NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, has launched an online course on the Indian Constitution which will be available on the website at legalaffairs.nalsar.ac.in. The registration for this course is free of cost. However, for those who wish to obtain a certificate of appreciation or certificate of merit, a token fee of Rs 100 will be charged, as per an official statement. The online course has 15 conceptual videos and the first video lecture shall be available upon registration.

Constitution of India – Udemy

Udemy, an online learning platform, offers a “Constitution of India” course. The course highlights key features of the Indian Constitution and aims at providing general awareness about the Indian Constitution. Some of the topics are read like a podcast so as to provide learners with the feel of audiobooks. 

Indian Polity and Constitution – Udemy 

Similarly, another programme, “Indian Polity and Constitution’ course at Udemy covers the detailed concept of constitutional framework, system of government, constitutional and non-constitutional bodies etc. The programme is specifically designed for competitive exam aspirants. The course is divided into 51 lectures spanning approximately three hours. The participants are provided with a certificate on completion of the course. 

Constitutional law in 90 minutes – Udemy

If you are short of time and need a fast-track summary of the constitutional framework then ‘Constitutional Law in 90 Minutes’ is the course for you. The course can be helpful for law students as well as students opting for law optional at the UPSC Civil Service exam. This course will give you a “bird’s eye” overview of the entire subject.

The Constitution of India (Part 1) – Finology learn

Finology learn provides an elaborative course to understand the drafting and implementation of important provisions of the Constitution. The course offers 20 modules covering 60+ topics. The modules are provided through video lectures and comprehensive notes and a certificate is provided to studentFundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution – My law

This course provides a detailed understanding of what fundamental rights mean, their purpose in the Constitution, and how the Supreme Court of India has interpreted them.

In addition to unit-wise practise exercises, this course offers a Course Completion Test (CCT). To qualify for the CCT, a learner has to complete more than 90 per cent of the course. The CCT is conducted online to provide maximum flexibility to the learner. Based on the results of the CCT, a learner will be given a certificate, which is recognised by various employers in the legal industry.s on completion of the course. 

Source: Indian Express, 27/11/21