Cracks in the framework

With the systematic weakening of institutions, the government risks pushing all resistance to the streets

The Government of India has reportedly suppressed its own data on current employment, or rather job loss, in the country. It has, thereby, compromised the autonomy and the standing of the National Statistical Commission. This is the latest instalment in the rather sordid story of institutional decay in India, overseen by the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This is not to suggest that previous governments did not undermine institutions. The internal Emergency imposed on the country from 1975 to 1977 initiated the process. The government tried to tame bureaucrats as well as the highest court in the land. Postings and appointments were manipulated to suit the ruling dispensation. The BJP government has, however, earned the dubious distinction of sabotaging the autonomy of several political institutions in rapid succession.

Necessary checks

Institutional decay occasions worry because it affects ordinary citizens in disastrous ways. All governments, even those which have been democratically elected, betray an inexorable will to power. Expectedly, expansion of government power violates constitutional rights to freedom, equality and justice. The only way citizens can be protected against any arbitrary and unlawful exercise of power is by limiting the power of government. Liberal democrats, always sceptical of state power, have tried to contain dramatic surges of power by charting out of constitutions and institutional design. Institutions, as the embodiment of formal and informal rules, assure citizens that the government exercises power according to some norms that enable as well as regulate state capacity.

This makes for good political sense when we remember that most human activity is structured by systems of rules — take the intricate and rule-bound game of chess or cricket. Relationships, households, the economy, society, the games we play and do not play take place and develop within the framework of rules. Human beings are social, but we cannot be social unless we know what is expected of us, and what we should do or not do. Without rules that govern relationships — for example, the norm that friendship is based on trust— we will not know what is worthwhile and what is not, what is preferable and what should be avoided, and what is appropriate and what is expedient.

The Canadian political philosopher Charles Taylor has argued in his famous work, Sources of the Self (1989), that institutions embody ‘strong evaluations’. We learn to discriminate between right and wrong, better and worse, and higher and lower. These evaluations are not judged subjectively by our own desires or impulses. Institutions, which stand independently of us, give us standards that allow us to evaluate. Following Taylor, we can rightly wonder why political power should be exercised, implemented and executed without rules. Assertions of political power adversely affect our interests and our projects. We should be in a position to judge when this power is exercised fairly or unfairly. Rules in a democracy assure us that justice is synonymous with fairness.

Moreover, rules make our worlds predictable. We know what the boundaries of the freedom of expression are, we know that if the police arrests us tomorrow, we have the right to appoint a lawyer and appeal to the judiciary. Without institutions and rules our life would be chancy, unpredictable and fickle. We would inhabit a space empty of certainties, expectations, aspirations and evaluations.

Rules, not whims

In a democracy, individuals are governed by institutions, and not by men. If we do not live in an institutional universe, we will be at the mercy of capricious individuals. Democrats would rather be administered by a system of rules we can scrutinise and evaluate. Of course, rules can be, and are, unfair. But at least we can struggle against rules. We do not have to commit murders to get the ruling dispensation out of power. We might have to carry out a thousand peaceful demonstrations, approach the courts, lobby our legislative representatives, engage in civil disobedience, or withhold our vote. In a world stamped by the decline of institutions and the exercise of arbitrary power, the only way to dislodge a government is through violence.

The present government has tampered with institutions by appointing its own people to positions of authority, and by using the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax authorities, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the police as bulldozers to flatten out any site of opposition. In civil society, human rights organisations have been pulverised by blockage of funds, raids and arrests. The shameful way in which human rights activists have been incarcerated without a shred of evidence testifies to the subversion of the rule of law. The ultimate aim of government action is to dismantle institutions, and the delicate relationship of checks and balances among them. This bodes ill for democracy.

The development contravenes the spirit of the freedom struggle. As far back as the 1928 Motilal Nehru constitutional draft, the leadership of the national movement opted for constitutionalism to abridge unpredictable use of power, and grant basic rights to citizens. On November 4, 1948, B.R. Ambedkar, responding to criticism of the draft Constitution in the Constituent Assembly, clarified that the Constitution provided but a framework for future governments. But: “If things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we have a bad constitution. What we will have to say is that Man was vile.” The Indian Constitution established major political institutions, Parliament, executive and the judiciary, laid out the relationship between them, provided for judicial review, and codified political and civil rights. The constitutional framework does not provide thick or substantive conceptions of how we shall think, and in what we shall believe. It provides us with a thin framework that guarantees constitutional morality, or respect for the Constitution as the basis of political life.

Today the ruling party wants to legislate a thick conception of the good. We are instructed to worship the nation, respect the cow, glorify the coercive arm of the state, and listen on bended knees to leaders. Frankly the discourse is reminiscent of the naïve, and often crude, nationalist scripts authored and acted out by the film star Manoj Kumar in the 1960s. We can avoid watching his films without fear of harassment, but we cannot defy the government without being abused and subjected to violence of the pen and tongue.

Upending the balance

The government arrests civil society activists who engage with policy, and vigilante groups attack individuals who dare transport cattle, legitimately, from one part of India to another. Immediately the sympathies of the police and magistrates, some sections of the media and public opinion swing towards the perpetrator, not the victim. The leaders of our ruling dispensation seem to have no respect for the rule of law, nor for the rules that regulate speech in public spaces.

Ultimately institutionalised power that is subject to regulation, and that can withstand the scrutiny of the political public, is meant to protect citizens. Unfortunately, in the India of today institutions are used to protect the ruling class, and its sins of omission and commission. The people who rule us should know that when the relationship between citizens and the state is governed not by institutions but by individuals, politics takes to the streets. And then a thousand revolts happen. We pay heavily for institutional decline.

Neera Chandhoke is a former Professor of Political Science at Delhi University

Source: The Hindu, 6/02/2019

To clean India, invest in water conservation

The Northeastern part of India is doing well in the Swachh Bharat Mission. But an emerging water crisis in the Himalayas could reduce the gains made

Nagaland is pristine and gorgeous. But one needs a strong heart and a much stronger back to enjoy the Himalayan state. The roads are dirt tracks and tourist facilities are non-existent. The infrastructure-deficit Himalayan state, however, is not a laggard on one count: toilet infrastructure, especially in its rural areas. Recently, rural Nagaland was declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) by the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). In fact, unlike in many other sectors, SBM’s record — not just in Nagaland — but across the Northeastern region (NE) has kept pace with the country’s expanding sanitation coverage. According to the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, five out of seven states are ODF, with Assam and Tripura being the exceptions.

The NE’s good ODF record, experts say, is due to several reasons. First, high literacy levels; second, strong community-based institutional structures (church groups, students’ organisations, youth groups, and village-level water and sanitation committees, which ensure that all members of a community adhere to decisions such as banning open defecation); third, a progressive mindset with a strong focus on an integrated approach covering aspects of water, sanitation and hygiene; and fourth, an absence of any caste-related ritual pollution and purity concerns, which often make people resist the idea of building toilets inside their homes (a problem in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar). The negative impact such pollution-purity issues could have on the pace and success of SBM has been well documented by economists Diane Coffey and Dean Spears in Where India Goes, Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste.

However, the commendable gains made by these Himalayan states (the Centre bears 90% of the cost of building a toilet in these states), despite their undulating topography, may take a hit in the future due to an emerging water crisis, being sparked by deforestation (which will impact rainfall, soil health and consequently water availability), overpopulation (which will put stress on existing natural resources), and climate change (which will also affect water availability, among other things).

The first signs are already here.

“Population has been increasing over the years. Natural water bodies, streams and springs — the region’s core source of water — are getting polluted. Villages already face acute water problem… drilling boreholes is not an option,” explained Assam-based Samuel Therieh, a sanitation expert for World Vision India. “Many Himalayan villages are located on hilltops and in many cases away from the water sources. It’s not always possible to build pipelines due to the topography. If nearby water sources dry up, then people will find it difficult to get water for sanitation purposes.”

The ministry of water resources estimates that each rural household in India needs 40 litres of water every day, out of which 15 to 20 litres are required for sanitation. But as of 2017, almost 19,000 villages in India were yet to have access to piped water supply. Even the ones that do get piped water, getting 40 litres a day remains a distant dream. On an average, a well supplied rural household receives 8-10 litres of water per day. As water is mostly utilised for cooking, drinking and washing, using it for sanitation becomes the last priority. The government has said that it is committed to covering 90% of Indian rural households with piped water supply by 2022.

“A lot of the funds for sanitation came at the expense of water. So while the need for water increased because of toilet usage, the investment in water to augment domestic water supplies decreased. With challenging geography, the situation gets more complex,” says Indira Khurana , water and sanitation expert, and author of Reflections on Managing Water, Earth’s Greatest Natural Resource.

The absence of water resources was also raised by a parliamentary panel in 2018. The panel, headed by Lok Sabha member, Dr P Venugopal, said that going through the factual and ground realities prevalent in the country, it is perplexed as to how ODF can be achieved without the availability of adequate water provisions. The panel recommended that the ministry of drinking water and sanitation prioritise the provision of water availability along with the construction of toilets under SBM and apprise it of actual figures of toilets with water facilities that have been constructed.

Economists Coffey and Spears, however, argue that if social forces against open defecation are strong enough ------ as it is in the NE ------ people without water connections will also be willing to fill buckets to flush their latrines. This momentum must not be lost. To ensure that people keep using toilets, it is not just critical to develop and construct toilets that use less water (such as TATA Trusts rural pans), but also augment water security so that people are not forced to exit the programme. Building pipelines is an expensive and time consuming proposition. It is, therefore, critical to invest in the renovation of traditional wells, rain water harvesting systems and reviving the natural springs that dot the mountain landscape. These efforts can ensure a steady source of water for sanitation in the Northeast, and consolidate the gains of SBM.

kumkum.dasgupta@htlive.com

Source: Hindustan Times, 5/02/2019

Create a research culture for the growth of science in India

Our best can be also be more daring in the questions they themselves address, thinking with more originality and ambition

On January 26, India entered its 70th year as a republic. With our economic and geographical size, and our young population, India shoulders a great responsibility to our citizens and to the world. In this, science has a key role to play.

Today, our planet is in a perilous state. Our route to this precipice started at least a century before 1950. Industrial revolutions and their consequent growth pulled hundreds of millions into the middle class, first in the West, and later, elsewhere. Some analysts have pointed out that health benefits, education, assured food and housing are available to more people now than ever before. In India, primary health and vaccination programmes, education, the green revolution, and liberalisation have moved us from a near-static economy to the world’s fastest growing one. However, the way we, on earth, have grown, has caused climate change, consequent global warming, and major environmental degradation.

The development of new technologies leading up to, and including, the fourth industrial revolution have also greatly sharpened inequalities, concentrating extraordinary wealth and power in the hands of a global elite. If we are to retrieve our planet, we need to address these prevalent threats as well as emerging ones. This needs to be done while satisfying the legitimate demand to take all our people out of poverty. Success requires a new route and meaning to growth. Here, science in India can define this new approach and shape it.

The most important role for our scientists today is in the training of the next generation to make critical thinking second nature and research commonplace. Our best science and technology research environments cater to less than 5% of our students. Quality research, driven by the search for knowledge understanding, must also be done in our state universities, which cater to 95% of our students, and where first generation students enter in the millions. Tomorrow’s global elite will have the exploitative power, not only from material resources, but mainly from the ability to use data. A poorly educated workforce will make India a vassal state, with our rich data parked elsewhere and our population impoverished by the lack of understanding and control over its use. Mathematics, statistics and data science, along with computer science, need to be added to foundational skilling, through language-neutral teaching material accessible in quality across our geographies.

Our best scientists and science institutions are fully up to this task of expanding the footprint of research and excellence. Over the past two decades, the median quality of our researchers has gone up noticeably. From theoretical physics and mathematics to cell biology and health research, more Indians are globally noticed. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Ritabrata Munshi in computer science and mathematics are examples as are Upinder Bhalla, Yamuna Krishnan and Rohini Godbole in neuroscience, chemical-biology and high-energy physics respectively. Yet these, and many other such scientists come mainly from a handful of institutions. These institutions must now lead in the expansion of quality, so that there are more of them.

Our best researchers must be more daring in the questions they themselves address, thinking with more originality and ambition. Currently, with some notable and admirable exceptions, such as the ones named above, our excellent scientists and institutions aspire, at most, to be as good as those elsewhere. While this does not seem a bad goal, it destines us to be followers of moving targets set by others. We should simply aim to address and solve the most challenging problems, fundamental or applied, national or global. If we do this, we can be better than the best in many ways, while others are the best in their own ways. If we focus on trying to be the best by imitation, we may be very good by global metrics but very boring, unimaginative and without national and global impact. Our best will be admired for their ability to fit in and serve imaginative leaders from elsewhere, but rarely for our ability to break new paths.

Our scientific ambitions can and must be diverse, from abstract mathematics to cosmology, and everything basic and applied, in between. Our major sites of investment in intellectual power, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad etc can leap ahead if they form hubs in each city that link to develop spokes elsewhere, locally or thematically. In past decades, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) have been playing nationally transformative roles. Today, these and other institutions must be ambitious again. They have the leadership to do so. The IISc, for example, can and must form a confederation of major institutions in Bengaluru, which keeps intact and enhances their best features and autonomy but links them inexorably in teaching, research collaborations and ambitious projects. This can be done in other cities too, led by each major institution there. Such clusters have been articulated top down in the past few years. But our great scientists and science leaders need to demonstrate bottom-up hunger too. The population of Bengaluru is comparable to that of the Netherlands. With leadership from the IISc and partnerships from the best institutions in Bengaluru, the IT-Biotech engines, the labs of ISRO, DRDO, CSIR, IARI etc., magic can be worked. And, while doing so, this cluster can help transform our state universities.

India can grow rapidly in a sustainable manner. For this to become reality, our leading scientists and institutions need to combine their competence with a comprehension that moves us to firmly address big issues intelligently. With courage and original thinking, a science powerhouse that is different, but as remarkable as those in the UK, Netherlands or Sweden, can bloom in every major hub. This can actively stimulate the spread of a research culture among our students in the spokes. The creation of such a culture is our primary investment for progress and the only insurance against the vagaries of the future.

K Vijay Raghavan is the principal scientific adviser, government of India

Source: Hindustan Times, 5/02/2019

Going abroad for studies? You may’ve to register with govt

Indian students looking to study abroad may soon have to register with the government before they take that flight to their destination of choice for higher studies. The proposal is a part of the draft Emigration Bill 2019 which the ministry of external affairs (MEA) will introduce in Parliament once it has completed the process of feedback which it is seeking from the public. Official sources said though the bill is out in the public domain since January 9, it is not yet final and, depending upon public feedback, several changes could be made. The process of registration/intimation by students is unlikely to be cumbersome as it will be done online, said officials. “The Bill makes mandatory registration/intimation of all categories of Indian nationals proceeding for overseas employment as well as students pursuing studies abroad. Registration/intimation is proposed to be technology/digital platform driven so as to keep emigration a swift, efficient and hassle-free process,’’ says the proposed bill, adding that necessary provisions have been incorporated to exempt certain categories in this regard on a need basis. India had this year made similar registration mandatory for those seeking work in 18 countries — UAE, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand, and Yemen. According to the government, mandatory registration/intimation by students and Indian nationals working abroad are aimed at assisting them in times of distress and emergency and putting in place an “effective emigration management framework”. The bill, it says, aims at optimum utilisation of existing resources and manpower than creating new elaborate structures. The bill further makes mandatory registration of recruitment and student enrolment agencies and also includes provision for their rating. “Sub-agents working with recruitment agencies have also been brought under the ambit of proposed bill,” it says. The government is looking to create with the bill an Emigration Management Authority (EMA). It proposes that the EMA be led by a secretary-level officer from MEA, the nodal ministry for all emigration related matters, and have representatives also from MHA and HRD ministries.

Source: Times of India, 6/02/2019

What is matching hypothesis in psychology?

This refers to the idea that people are more likely to be romantically attracted towards people who are as attractive as themselves than those less attractive. While physical attractiveness can determine the mating preferences of people to a significant extent, social and other non-physical forms of attraction can also determine mating patterns prevalent across various human societies.

Source: The Hindu, 5/02/2019

Wrong on the Rohingya

Deportation of refugees is legally and morally problematic

In Januarys, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for a report from India on the deportation of a group of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in October 2018. India’s repatriation of the refugees contravenes international principles on refugee law as well as domestic constitutional rights.

Global framework

Refugee law is a part of international human rights law. In order to address the problem of mass inter-state influx of refugees, a Conference of Plenipotentiaries of the UN adopted the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951. This was followed by the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1967. One of the most significant features of the Convention is the principle of non-refoulement. The norm requires that “no contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” This idea of prohibition of expulsion lies at the heart of refugee protection in international law.

It is often argued that the principle does not bind India since it is a party to neither the 1951 Convention nor the Protocol. However, the prohibition of non-refoulement of refugees constitutes a norm of customary international law, which binds even non-parties to the Convention. According to the Advisory Opinion on the Extraterritorial Application of Non-Refoulement Obligations, UNHCR, 2007, the principle “is binding on all States, including those which have not yet become party to the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol.”

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. Moreover, Article 51 of the Constitution imposes an obligation on the state to endeavour to promote international peace and security. Article 51(c) talks about promotion of respect for international law and treaty obligations. Therefore, the Constitution conceives of incorporation of international law into the domestic realm. Thus the argument that the nation has not violated international obligations during the deportation is a mistaken one.

Domestic obligations

The chapter on fundamental rights in the Constitution differentiates citizens from persons. While all rights are available to citizens, persons including foreign citizens are entitled to the right to equality and the right to life, among others. The Rohingya refugees, while under the jurisdiction of the national government, cannot be deprived of the right to life and personal liberty.

The Rohingya are “among the world’s least wanted and most persecuted people,” according to a BBC report. In Myanmar, they are denied citizenship, the right to own land and travel, or to even marry without permission, says the report. According to the UN, the Rohingya issue is one of systematic and widespread ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.

Therefore, the discrimination that the Rohingya face is unparalleled in contemporary world politics. In National Human Rights Commission v. State of Arunachal Pradesh (1996), the Supreme Court held: “Our Constitution confers... rights on every human being and certain other rights on citizens. Every person is entitled to equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. So also, no person can be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. Thus the State is bound to protect the life and liberty of every human-being, be he a citizen or otherwise...”

India lacks a specific legislation to address the problem of refugees, in spite of their increasing inflow. The Foreigners Act, 1946, fails to address the peculiar problems faced by refugees as a class. It also gives unbridled power to the Central government to deport any foreign citizen. Further, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2019 strikingly excludes Muslims from its purview and seeks to provide citizenship only to Hindu, Christian, Jain, Parsi, Sikh and Buddhist immigrants persecuted in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The majority of the Rohingya are Muslims. This limitation on the basis of religion fails to stand the test of equality under Article 14 of the Constitution and offends secularism, a basic feature of the Constitution.

The American philosopher Ronald Dworkin argues that if we claim international law to be law, we must understand it as part of the greater morality. In such a conception, the deportation of refugees by India is not only unlawful but breaches a significant moral obligation.

Thulasi K. Raj is a lawyer at the Kerala High Court

Source: The Hindu, 5/02/2019

A national register of exclusion

There are few parallels anywhere else of the state itself producing statelessness in the manner that it is doing in Assam

By requiring long-term residents of Assam to prove their citizenship by negotiating a thicket made up of bewildering and opaque rules and an uncaring bureaucracy, the Indian state has for the past two decades unleashed an unrelenting nightmare of wanton injustice on a massive swathe of its most vulnerable people.

Distressing cycle

The official presumption that they are foreigners has reduced several million of these highly impoverished, mostly rural, powerless and poorly lettered residents to a situation of helplessness and penury. It has also caused them abiding anxiety and uncertainty about their futures. They are required to persuade a variety of usually hostile officials that they are citizens, based on vintage documents which even urban, educated, middle-class citizens would find hard to muster. And even when one set of officials is finally satisfied, another set can question them. And sometimes the same official is free again to send them a notice, starting the frightening cycle afresh.

On February 2 and 3, I was in Guwahati listening to heart-breaking accounts from 53 people from 13 districts of Assam. This was as part of a people’s tribunal on the National Register of Citizens (NRC), along with Justice Venkate Gopala Gowda, Colin Gonsalves, Monirul Hussain and Sanjoy Hazarika. What emerged were numbing stories of unyielding official bias and arbitrariness, of the denial of elementary “due process” and, above all, the complete absence of public compassion. Even old men frequently broke down as they spoke of all that they had endured.

It emerged that the names of many persons were dropped from the draft NRC only because of minor differences in the spelling of Bengali names in English in different documents. We encountered several instances where the variation of a single letter, for example between Omar and Onar, was enough to rule that a person is a foreigner. Likewise, the rural unlettered are typically vague about their dates of birth. A person could be excluded from citizenship if she told the tribunal that she was 40 when her documents recorded her to be 42.

Tougher on women

Women are especially in danger of exclusion from the citizenship register. Typically, they have no birth certificates, are not sent to school, and are married before they become adults. Therefore, by the time their names first appear in voters’ lists, these are in the villages where they live after marriage, which are different from those of their parents. They are told that they have no documents to prove that they are indeed the children of the people they claim are their parents. There were cases of being excluded from citizenship on this ground alone.

Impoverished migrant workers often travel to other districts of Assam in search of work, as construction workers, road-builders and coal-miners. In the districts to which they migrate, the local police frequently record their names as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The police then mark them out as illegal immigrants. They receive notices from foreigners’ tribunals located in districts where they might have worked years earlier, far away from their home districtsthey have to travel to for every hearing, adding further to their costs.

The NRC is not the only institution through which the state challenges them to prove their citizenship. A second process began in the mid-1990s when the then Chief Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan, as a one-time measure, directed officials to identify “doubtful voters” by marking a “D” against their names on the voters’ list. This would temporarily bar them from voting or standing for elections, until an inquiry was completed.

But this temporary measure became permanent. The power was vested permanently with junior officials who could doubt the citizenship of any person at any time without assigning any reason. Those with the dreaded “D” beside their names had no recourse for appeal under the rules, with years passing without any inquiry. The “D” also debarred them from being included in the draft NRC.

A third process empowers the Assam Police to identify anyone it suspects to be a ‘foreigner’. Again, all that the police claim in most cases is that the person was unable to show them documents establishing his or her citizenship. People consistently deny that the police even asked them from documents. Why would they not show them these, when they all know the dangers of not allaying the suspicions of the police?

Opaque processes

All cases referred by the police are heard by Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs). Earlier, retired judges were appointed to these tribunals. The Bharatiya Janata Party government has appointed many lawyers (often members of the ruling party or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) who have never been judges. There are now FTs in which not a single person has been declared an Indian citizen over several months. Many allege that both the police and presiding officers in FTs work to fulfil informal targets to declare people foreigners.

Even if a person finds her name in the NRC, the police can still refer her case to an FT; an election official can even deem her to be a “D”-voter. Article 20 of the Constitution includes as a fundamental right that “no person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once”. But this principle has been waived for FTs. We found that even after an FT had confirmed a person to be an Indian citizen, another FT and often the same FT can again issue notice to the same person to prove her legitimate citizenship once more. A person is never be allowed to feel secure that the state has finally accepted that she is an Indian citizen.

In this way, the sword permanently hangs low over their heads. Who will be challenged before which institution to prove that they are Indian citizens? Will they or their loved ones be stripped of their citizenship rights, and by processes that are opaque, unreasonable and discriminatory?

No person in any one of the testimonies that we heard was given legal aid by the state, which is bound to deploy lawyers paid by the state to fight their cases in the FTs and higher courts. People instead spoke of panic spending, of enormous amounts of money to pay lawyers, as well as for costs of travel of witnesses who they bring with them to testify in their favour. For this, they have had to sell all their assets or borrow from private moneylenders. The large majority of them are poorly educated and very impoverished, doing low-paid work such as drawing rickshaws, or working as domestic work or farm labour.

With the entire burden of proving citizenship on their shoulders and the arbitrary and opaque multiple forums to which they are summoned, people deprived of both education and resources are caught in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic maze from which they find it hard to emerge.

Trapped at the crossroads of history, their destinies depend on institutions that treat them with undisguised hostility and bias. There are indeed few parallels anywhere in the world of the state itself producing statelessness on the scale and in the manner that it is doing in Assam.

Harsh Mander is a human rights worker, writer and teacher

Source: The Hindu, 5/02/2019