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Monday, December 17, 2018

How the Indian voter has changed in recent years

Which way the Indian voter will swing and what would drive their choices? In recent years, the Indian voter has flummoxed pollsters, journalists, and even the most seasoned political observers. Gone are simple tropes and stereotypes about voters who only care about their ascriptive identities (read caste, region and religion) and exchanged their votes for some cash and alcohol. This election affirmed that the voter exhibits carefully reasoned political preferences, weighing complex issues of jobs, inflation, and agriculture

In the aftermath of the election results, much of the analysis has focused on trying to understand the nature of the verdict in five states and its implications for the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The big question on everyone’s mind is: Which way will the Indian voter swing and what will drive their choices? In recent years, the Indian voter has flummoxed pollsters, journalists, and even the most seasoned political observers. Gone are simple tropes and stereotypes about voters who only care about their ascriptive identities (read caste, region and religion) and exchanged their votes for some cash and alcohol. This election affirmed that the voter exhibits carefully reasoned political preferences, weighing complex issues of jobs, inflation, and agriculture. Thus, it would be prudent to assess what we have learned about the Indian voter after this latest round of elections and what this means for the future of Indian politics.
First and foremost, Indian voters are turning out to vote in larger numbers than ever before. Not only has the gender gap in turnout declined, there is enough evidence to suggest that most social groups are turning out in equal proportions. The turnout gap between reserved and unreserved constituencies has become virtually non-existent. Lower turnout in metropolitan areas still remains a concern, but compared to most democracies around the world, voter turnout in India remains fairly high. The concerted effort of the Election Commission of India in this regard through various voter awareness programmes must be duly acknowledged.
Second, it is now becoming increasingly evident that voters are holding their leaders accountable for economic performance. Despite a popular narrative that paints the Indian voter as largely driven by identity issues, field reports consistently showed that voters were most concerned about agricultural prices, delivery of public goods, jobs, and corruption — all issues that can be associated with incumbent government performance. Emerging research in this area has not only demonstrated a positive relationship between the incumbent government’s electoral outcomes and economic growth at the state level, but also a positive correlation between voters’ assessment of their own economic condition (pocket-book voting) as well as the health of the national economy. This trend is likely to become more apparent as the size of urban and middle-class population increases further.
Third, the Indian voter is more informed than ever before. As campaigns are becoming increasingly sophisticated in reaching the voter — through WhatsApp and Facebook for instance — so too has the Indian voter diversified her sources of political information. When there is a political misstep, be it the Mandsaur firing in Madhya Pradesh or an incendiary remark, the voter is sure to find out. This diversity of political information also allows voters to make sense of their personal situations. For instance, a citizen concerned about local corruption or poor job creation in her village will understand it to be a more general phenomenon upon which to hold the incumbent accountable if similar reports stream in from across the state.
Fourth, emerging research suggests that women voters are displaying independent political preferences that defy basic stereotypes and may shift electoral outcomes. Politicians across the board are making great efforts to court the female constituency. For example, the Modi government has aggressively advertised its performance on certain central schemes, like the Ujjwala scheme guaranteeing LPG cylinders to homes, specifically targeting the women voters. Analysis of the time-series survey data also shows that women voters are increasingly making independent preferences at the polling booth and are more likely to participate in the electoral process as canvassers.
While identity issues are important predictors of whom an individual will support politically, this relationship is not axiomatic. In the past few decades, both India and its voters have undergone profound changes. The rapid changes in India’s political economy and informational environment is being manifested through significant electoral consequences and thus necessitating an examination of the “changing” Indian voter. The scale of the BJP’s victory in the 2014 election came as a surprise to many observers of Indian politics. As the campaign for the 2019 election gains momentum, researchers and observers of Indian politics face the formidable task of interpreting and analysing the verdict of 2019 elections. Understanding India’s changing voter is key to understanding the country’s democratic trajectory in the long term.
Neelanjan Sircar is assistant professor, Ashoka University and visiting senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research. Rahul Verma is a fellow, CPR. This is the third in a series of articles for the CPR Dialogues starting shortly in New Delhi. Hindustan Times is the print partner for the event.
Source: Hindustan Times, 16/12/2018
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Only together can we fight climate change

With 98% urbanisation, Delhi already has the highest urban cover in India. It may be located far away from the melting glaciers and the surging seas, but it still faces the threat of climate hazards such as storms, floods, drought, heat waves, smog, groundwater depletion and outbreak of vector- and- water-borne diseases.

As global warming was hotly debated over the past two weeks in Poland’s Katowice, experts agreed that much of the responsibility of fighting climate change rested on cities that together contribute to over 70% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
A ‘Summary for Urban Policymakers’, released in Katowice last week, emphasised that changes to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius must be made not only by national governments and the private sector but also by cities and its citizens. The report sought interventions in the use of energy, land and ecosystems, urban infrastructure and industry.
With 98% urbanisation, Delhi already has the highest urban cover in India. It may be located far away from the melting glaciers and the surging seas, but it still faces the threat of climate hazards such as storms, floods, drought, heat waves, smog, groundwater depletion and outbreak of vector- and- water-borne diseases.
Studies have shown that during 1991-2013, high-temperature days in Delhi increased by 6.3 days per decade and that, since 1990, there was a consistent increase in the night temperatures in the city, leading to an overall warming. Researchers blamed rapid urbanisation and over-concretisation of land surfaces for turning Delhi into a heat island. This is aggravated by machine heat generated by vehicles, generators and air-conditioners.
After a long wait, the Delhi government says it has formulated a five-year climate change action plan, which it will soon submit to the Centre for approval. Like all other state plans, this one, too, will have to be revised next year to include the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions and the targets of the Paris Agreement. But an official involved in drafting the plan said the broad contours based on seven national missions — solar power, energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, water, greening, agriculture and strategic knowledge — will remain the same.
The biggest threat that Delhi faces, according to the official, is water stress. The NITI Aayog has already warned the city could effectively run out of groundwater by 2020. The natural sources have shrunk and the Yamuna water is over-extracted, leaving little to maintain the minimum flow required to keep the river alive.
Demand-side management and investment in recycling and reuse of water will be the key measure in Delhi’s climate change action plan, said the official. But no such plan can be complete without reviving the Yamuna, which remains the city’s best bet for long-term water security.
Methane fumes damage the climate, and according to the United Nations Environment Programme, waste reduction and management can cut global emissions by 20%. But garbage management is perhaps the most challenging aspect of Delhi’s climate action plan.
Three of the city’s four landfills ran out of space a decade ago but only one has been sealed for reclamation. In two of these, trash emits harmful methane and frequently catches fire. Landfills should anyway be the last option for waste management. Recycling reduces the trash load sent to dumpsites but is yet to take off across the city. Instead, municipalities have been installing waste-to-energy plants, which experts say, release toxic pollutants.
Coal-fired power plants are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide. To decarbonise the grid, Delhi’s draft climate plan seeks to increase the share of renewable energy, mainly solar and wind. Right now, Delhi has only 3% of its power sourced from the renewables while at least 62% comes from coal.
Having shut down its coal-fired Badarpur plant, the government says it is making efforts to reduce dependence on older, inefficient thermal units located outside the city. It also set a target to source 18-20% of Delhi’s electricity from renewables by next year. This shift and schemes to augment local generation will be necessary to power the electric vehicles that the government aims to roll out soon.
Promotion of energy-efficient buildings, green streets and pavements, non-motorised transport and increasing tree cover etc are some of the other key priorities spelt out in the city’s climate action plan, the official said. But the real test will be on how quickly and efficiently it is implemented.
In a city where basic governance suffers due to multiple authorities, getting all agencies on board will be a task. At the same time, the plans chalked out by the neighbouring states may or may not mind or address the challenges of the National Capital Region. As we finally brace to meet the challenge, let’s remember that climate change follows no boundaries — administrative or political.
Source: Hindustan Times, 17/12/2018
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When Ego Dies, A Noble Human Is Born


Is it possible to attain a state where the ego actually dies? Well, i’ve met one or two people in my life in whom it appeared that this had occurred – the ego had literally dissolved. But in those rare cases, i don’t think it was a result of the individuals’ own choice or effort – it was more like a spontaneous combustion, an act of grace. So i do believe that death of ego is possible, but i don’t think it is an attainable goal. If something like that is going to occur, it’s beyond our control, and it’s extremely unlikely for most of us. I don’t personally think it’s possible for anybody, through the power of their will alone, to eradicate the ego completely. But the point is, it doesn’t really matter. If you are willing to face and take responsibility for your ego’s self-centred motives, conditioned responses, and often irrational impulses to such a degree that you are able to choose not to act on them, they might as well not exist. lf you don’t act on them, the world is never going to know about them. There won’t be any karmic consequences. And that is a reasonable, realisable, attainable goal. So i am convinced that, in this way, it is possible to transcend ego to a profound degree, simply through the power of one’s own awakened intention to do so. First, recognise that you actually have an ego and begin to understand how it functions, and second, become deadly serious about transcending it in a way that is significant. But, getting a modern, narcissistic individual, to take seriously for more than a brief moment, the possibility of actually transcending their own ego, is a difficult task. That notion is just not part of our culture. But if it’s not going to happen as an act of grace, the individual has to want to achieve that more than anything else. Indeed, to take that kind of responsibility for oneself and one’s own enlightenment, is the ultimate challenge for any human being, and for most of us it’s just too demanding. Because we have been immersed in conditioned reactions and responses and ways of thinking for a lifetime, there is a very powerful momentum within all of us that doesn’t stop or die, simply because we decide one day that that would be a good idea. But if we want to evolve beyond ego, if we care deeply enough about the impact of our actions on others and the world around us, we can always choose, right now, not to act on any of it. At times it will be extremely difficult, emotionally and psychologically, but it is possible. That’s the high road. That’s the real spiritual practice: the inspired choice to cease to act out of ego, over and over again, at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. In my understanding, that would be as significant as the death of ego, if not more so. That would give birth to a noble human being, who has inherent self-respect, dignity and self-confidence, simply because he is being true to a higher intention in the face of the temptation to do otherwise.

Source: Times of India, 17/12/2018 
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Art for all: TISS offers its stage to Bahujan artistes


 First Bahujan Art Festival at TISS to promote marginalised communities, Odisha-based Dalit rapper Sumeet Samos and poet Dhiren Borisa among participants from 10 states

The stage was awash with blue light as young rap artist Sumeet Samos belted out the lines, “All you know is five words/Dalit, merit, caste, Ambedkar, reservations.” The 26-year-old Odisha-based Dalit rapper, purportedly the first one from a marginalised community to rap in English, wrote the lines in response to caste discourses on campuses getting confined to these five words. Sumeet was among the 30 Bahujan artistes from 10 states who had gathered at TISS on Sunday for the first Bahujan Art Festival. They represented communities such as the SC, ST, OBC, VJNT and minorities “The festival aims to promote and amplify voices from the marginalised communities. It was important to host this festival on the campus. This is because, you get space for elections and movements at educational institutions, but not for art and artistic discourses and access to artistes,” Aroh Akunth, cultural secretary of TISS Students’ Union, told Mirror. The TISS quadrangle and main campus was abuzz with filmmakers, writers, singers, poets, painters who consciously create art from an anti-caste perspective. “Today, we clearly identify our politics and don’t want to narrate the victim’s story. We have content which is global, which upper caste filmmakers do not have. We will tell our own stories,” said documentary filmmaker and TISS student Somnath Waghmare, whose documentary ‘Battle of Bhima Koregaon: An Unending Journey’, was made much before the January violence. Filmmakers at the fest also underscored the challenges that came with a lack of access to resources and supportive community networks. “We are telling stories that have never been told before. Narratives have always been with the upper castes,” documentary filmmaker Jyoti Nisha said. Poet Dhiren Borisa recited his verses that placed experiences of love and gender within the frame of anti-caste politics. According to him, bahujans, through their art, had “weaponised their fears and memories”. Kadubai Kharat, an Aurangabad-based singer who croons songs of Ambedkar and has become an Internet sensation of sorts among bahujan netizens, also took the campus by storm with her robust contralto notes sung to the ‘dotara’ (a string instrument). Well-known names such as Marathi writer Urmila Pawar and poet Usha Ambore were also a part of the festival. An assortment of paintings by Warli artists and other painters, photographs chronicling occupational inheritance, books and an array of merchandise were the other draw.

Source: Mumbai Mirror, 17/12/2018
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Friday, December 14, 2018

Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents


Vol. 53, Issue No. 48, 08 Dec, 2018

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Is it time to abolish the death penalty?


The death penalty is error-ridden, arbitrarily imposed and unfairly targets the poor

As a punishment, the death penalty makes no sense: how does killing a person who has killed a person show that killing is wrong? Most of the civilised world has abolished it. India certainly does not need it as it serves no purpose. No study has shown that the death penalty deters murder more than life imprisonment. The evidence is all to the contrary. For deterrence to work, the severity of the punishment has to coexist with the certainty and swiftness of the punishment. The death penalty has not deterred terrorism, murder or even theft. For over a century, stealing attracted the death penalty in England, where spectators at public hangings often had their pockets picked!
Problems with death penalty
The death penalty is error-ridden. Between January 1, 2000 and June 31, 2015, the Supreme Court imposed 60 death sentences. It subsequently admitted that it had erred in 15 of them (25%). Can this system be trusted to take a life? And that too based on evidence collected, or fabricated, by a police force not known for its probity or efficiency?
The death penalty unfairly targets the poor and marginalised. Those without capital get the punishment. Penurious prisoners on legal aid get it the most, while others with private lawyers remain untouched.
The death penalty is impossible to administer fairly or rationally. The Supreme Court has repeatedly admitted that it has arbitrarily imposed this most extreme punishment. Executions occurred in 5.2 cases for every 1 lakh murders. Such a selection cannot but be freakish. It depends overwhelmingly on the adjudicator’s personal beliefs. Judges opposed to it never gave a death sentence; those in favour doled it out. Abolitionist Presidents (S. Radhakrishnan and A.P. J. Abdul Kalam) refused to reject mercy petitions, while others, differently inclined, readily denied clemency. Should the killing of a human being depend on the philosophy of a particular individual?
Abolishing the death penalty will ease, not enhance, the tax-payer’s burden. The annual cost of maintaining a prisoner is about Rs. 30,000. The hangman is paid more, and we also save on the protracted litigation that death cases involve.
Constitutional, legal and policy issues cannot be determined by the victim’s understandable hunger for revenge without leading to a frenzy where the death penalty is demanded, as it often is, for wholly inappropriate cases (accidental deaths, cheating, etc.). If life imprisonment sufficed for the 99.99% of victims’ families, why not for the minuscule fraction in whose name the death penalty is demanded?
Punish, yes, but why in the same cold-blooded, premeditated and brutal manner as the prisoner killed his or her victim? Punishment should not imitate crime. We do not rape rapists, or maim and disfigure those who have done this to others. Why do we have to kill killers?
A safer country
India’s murder rate has declined continuously since 1991 and is at present the lowest in our recorded history except for 1963. Fearmongering aside, we are safer today than our parents or grandparents ever were. And this is not thanks to the death penalty whose infrequent and arbitrary implementation has made no real difference. It may as well have not been there. Studies show that a more equal sex ratio has more to do with declining murder rates than killing murderers.
Nobody wants to undergo the trauma of administering the death penalty — not the higher courts and not the hapless prison staff who have to see a human being die gasping at the end of a rope. Governments kill prisoners to show that they are tough on crime. There is nothing muscular or tough about killing a man who is at your mercy.
Source: The Hindu, 14.12.2018
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Economic Graffiti: The anti-argumentative Indian

More disappointing than the attacks on Amartya Sen is that leaders in government have not countered the chant of abusive trolls.

Amartya Sen is an iconic world figure. In that treacherous space between economics and philosophy, he may well be the most famous living personality, having published papers in the world’s best philosophy journals and the most highly-regarded economics journals. When he got the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998, it did not come as a surprise to anyone in the profession. I have a confession though. That year, I was visiting the World Bank and there was a Nobel lottery among the staff. Having taken a bet on Sen the previous two year’s and lost, I decided it was time to change my guess. And I lost my money again.
I was fortunate to do my PhD with Amartya Sen. In fact, it was his lectures at the London School of Economics in the mid-1970s in jam-packed auditoriums, with students spilling over on to window sills, that made me change my life-long career plan to be a lawyer.
I first met Sen, fleetingly, in Delhi, when I was a student at St Stephen’s College, and he was a professor at the Delhi School of Economics. But I got to know him properly in London in 1972 when I joined the London School. I did my PhD with him, when he was at the height of his career, working mainly on social choice theory, mathematical logic and moral philosophy.
There is no surprise, then, that Sen has been a major influence on me, and that I often cite his works in my writings. What has been a shocking experience in the last three or four years is the amount of trolling attacks unleashed on Sen whenever he is cited in popular writings; these come almost entirely from India. The attacks do not have any substance. Clearly, those crafting the attacks, if crafting is the word, do not have the capacity for serious debate. So what they unleash is merely a volley of completely fact-free name calling. Sen, they scream, is an agent of the Congress party, he is a slave of the West, a brainless puppet and they go on, using language so crude that it is not worth repeating.
What is sad for India is not that a few people may want to shout invectives at him, but that the leaders in government have not said anything to counter this crazy chant of abusive trolls.
I am not saying that the trolling should be banned. People should have the freedom to express their opinions no matter how inchoate, but we need leaders, even those who oppose Sen’s views, to signal their disapproval of this kind of uncouth character assassination directed at one of the most celebrated intellectuals of our time.
I have known Sen long enough to know not just about his outstanding mind, but that he is totally without prejudice against groups — caste, religion, race. Like Nehru was, he is an atheist, who respects other people’s religion; he is totally secular.
Though Sen has openly said that he does not support the present BJP government, he belongs to no party. In fact, the only time he has been a member of any political party, it was that of the left, when he was an undergraduate student in India, at Kolkata’s Presidency College.
What is ironic about these politically-inspired attacks on Sen is that they come from the very Hindutva groups that are perennially pointing out how Indians do not recognise the contributions of Indians to science, philosophy and scholarship. What they do not realise is that whether or not that has been true historically, their behaviour provides evidence in favour of their own thesis.
Not for a moment would I say that Sen’s ideas must not be challenged, contested and rejected if one is so persuaded. It is through arguments and contestation that democracy thrives. These troll attacks on Sen are unfortunate because they are attacks on the very matters on which India, despite being a poor country, stood out and commanded respect around the world. It is a tribute to Nehru and his self-confidence that he nurtured scientists, philosophers and intellectuals, including those who were openly critical of Nehru’s politics.
If I take my own field, economics, it is a remarkable fact that there are few nations outside America and Europe that are so well represented in the frontline as India. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the talent that came out of India was quite astonishing. There was, of course, Amartya Sen but even apart from him it was a string of personalities who started out in India and were doing cutting-edge research in economics. K N Raj, Jagdish Bhagwati, Sukhamoy Chakravarty, T N Srinivasan, A L Nagar, and if we were to go to a slightly younger cohort, Avinash Dixit and Partha Dasgupta stand out among them.
For a nation’s progress, nothing is as important as the nurturing of science, philosophy, literature, and mathematics. Economics is a relatively young science that is now critical for a nation to navigate today’s complicated, globalised world. And in assessing the power of ideas, we must realise that ideas must be assessed for their own worth. Doomed are societies in which people, after hearing about Pythagoras’ theorem, want to know Pythagoras’ political party affiliation in order to decide whether the theorem is correct.
Source: Indian Express, 14/12/2018
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