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The Mamata effect |
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Illegal sand mining
Rise and nosedive
Judges speaking in public
A potpourri of time
The PDS is not failing or ailing
A case for uniform and universal system
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The Mamata effect
West
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s penchant for throwing tantrums is well known. It is small wonder then that even when she puts her foot down on perfectly legitimate grounds, it is viewed with skepticism. Her latest — pulling out of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s official delegation to Bangladesh at the last minute in protest against the final draft of the Teesta river water agreement — may have put the agreement in jeopardy and embarrassed India greatly, but a fair share of the blame for this must lie with the Central government. By all accounts, Mamata Banerjee had agreed to give Bangladesh 25,000 cusecs of water from River Teesta. The decision to raise this in the draft agreement was evidently taken unilaterally by the Central government. It was indeed wrong on the Centre’s part to take Mamata for granted and to let her know of the enhancement of Bangladesh’s share on the eve of the Prime Minister’s visit to Dhaka. It is undeniable that the visit of Dr Manmohan Singh to Bangladesh, the first by an Indian prime minister in 12 years, has been robbed of some of its sheen by Mamata’s decision not to accompany him.The redeeming feature is that four other chief ministers—of Assam, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya—have gone with Dr Singh and a host of agreements are being signed in Dhaka. It would be in the fitness of things if the Teesta agreement is not put on the back burner and an agreement is soon worked out which is a symbol of the spirit of accommodation between the two countries and in which the interests of West Bengal are duly addressed. The Mamata protest follows the embarrassment Indian diplomats had to suffer when the “off-the-record” comments made by Dr Manmohan Singh on some “not-so-friendly forces” in Bangladesh found their way to the front pages of Bangladesh newspapers a few months ago. With China pursuing the ‘string of pearls’ doctrine under which India is surrounded by hostile neighbours, Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina has been steadfast in India’s support. One can only hope that the positivity in the Indo-Bangla relationship would be enhanced with Dr Singh’s visit despite some straws in the wind.
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Illegal sand mining
With a boom in the construction industry, the demand for sand and gravel has shot up, leading to a jump in illegal mining and quarrying in Punjab. The situation is worse in Haryana, where the Punjab and Haryan High Court frequently intervenes to save the fragile Shivalik and Aravalli hills from the mining mafia. Frequent bans in Haryana step up mining activity in Punjab to meet the shortfall. As the case of the notorious Reddys of Karnataka shows, illegal mining cannot flourish without political support. There are many mini Reddys engaged in the thriving business in Haryana and Punjab as also elsewhere in the country. Like transport and cable network, mining and construction businesses flourish in Punjab with politicians’ blessings. Though the two northern states are not as rich in minerals as Karnataka, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the essential construction items like sand and gravel are much in demand. These are dug up from river/canal beds and hills by contractors and supplied to builders at prices of their choice. Since builders, like contractors, also enjoy political patronage, some have diversified into illegal mining and quarrying, denying revenue to the state exchequer. The state forest and industries departments, which are supposed to stop any such illegality, seem to be actually hand in glove with the mafia. Reports indicate some builders have set up check-posts in Ropar district to collect royalty from each passing truck carrying construction material. According to one media estimate, this illegal activity in Punjab generates soft minerals worth Rs 3 crore every day compared to a daily business of Rs 50 lakh from the legal sites. The state government unveiled its mining policy recently, putting a cap on sand and gravel prices and introducing e-auction of sites. But the truth is the government delays auctions to save the existing operators from paying additional lease money, levies entry tax on building items from other states and gives the reckless miners the freedom to ransack natural resources, disregarding the damage to the environment.
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Rise and nosedive
If
politicians are a despised lot today, it is thanks to men like former Karnataka Tourism Minister Janardhana Reddy, who has been finally arrested by the CBI for his multi-crore mining racket, along with his brother-in-law B.V. Srinivasa Reddy. The action should have come much earlier but was stalled because of the political clout of the infamous Reddy brothers — Karunakara, Janardhana and Somashekar. As the Karnataka Lokayukta’s report points out, they did everything that is not permitted in the rule books. Yet, the administration treated them with awe and respect. The entire administrative system for governing mining was drastically changed to suit them. The Reddy brothers used government officials to force other mining companies to share their produce with them. When companies or miners did not cooperate, they were refused permits. Not only that, the mining mafia led by them used its muscle power to trespass into the mines owned by others. This mafia allegedly smuggled over Rs 1,800 crore worth of iron ore out of the country illegally while the Reddy brothers moved from mopeds to helicopters. How strong the mafia-politician links are can be gauged from the fact that the Reddy brothers at one time enjoyed the backing of the then BJP Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa in Karnataka and that of Congress Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. Even after being removed from the ministry, Janardhana Reddy managed to keep the CBI at bay for so long. One hopes that now that action has finally been initiated, it will be taken to its logical conclusion without fear or favour. There is need to probe the links of such men with even central leaders. The allegations of their long ties with Mrs Sushma Swaraj and Mr Venkaiah Naidu should be looked into objectively without any witch-hunt. If the extreme mistrust among the public about the politicians has to be reduced, it is necessary to ensure that no leader is able to escape the clutches of law on the strength of his influence. There is no dearth of people who have gone from rags to billions through the political route. All of them need to be made to pay for their sins.
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Life is a long lesson in humility. — James M. Barrie
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Judges speaking in public The
judiciary has always been recognised as one of the co-equal institutions of a state along with the executive and the legislature. But in the recent past, the public has magnified its stature manifold — some may feel disproportionately; no doubt, a great tribute. But then this means that the judges must be prepared to suffer a closer scrutiny of their actions. It is a hoary tradition that even when an active politician accepts appointment as a High Court or Supreme Court judge he is automatically expected not to comment on political issues which are being publicly debated — no doubt, he is fully entitled to and many judges do express their views strongly both during the hearing in the court and then, more thoughtfully but soberly, in their judgments. But this established restraint was regretfully ignored recently when Justice
Ganguly, a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, at a book release function, commented on the current debate among political parties and civil society and opined that the Prime Minister should be covered under the ambit of the Lok Pal legislation. This debate at present is in the political field, but it is possible that it may land in courts. The learned judge will obviously recuse himself for the simple reason that he has expressed his views on this matter already in a public forum but it cannot be denied that this may cause some embarrassment to his colleagues who may be hearing the matter (though, no doubt, the decision will be given uninfluenced by what Justice Ganguly has said) — would it not have been better if such a situation had not been allowed to arise. In this connection it is good to remember the cautionary words of Baron De Montesquieu “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body there can be no liberty because apprehension may arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to enforce them in a tyrannical manner………...Were the power of judging joined with the legislature, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor.” Montesquieu saw this predicament and himself added that there can be no liberty if the power of judging is not separate from the legislative and executive powers. The Supreme Court has accepted that it is open to anyone to express fair, reasonable and legitimate criticism of any act or conduct of a judge in his judicial capacity or even to make a proper and fair comment on any decision given by it because “justice is not a cloistered virtue and she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken, comments of ordinary men.” But it does not follow that judges have a similar right to question any government policy in a public forum. There are certain self-imposed limitations on the public activities of the judges which cannot be crossed without endangering the impartiality content of the judges. The judges cannot purport to declare the finality of an issue outside the courts — it can only be within the precincts of the courts and only then will it be final and binding. The faith of the public in the fairness and incorruptibility of judges is a matter of great importance. This receives a blow if sitting judges comment on political matters outside the courtrooms and that too without hearing the opposite view. That is why the judges have on their own accepted the need to be governed by a code of ethics. Bacon in his inimitable style
emphasised, “Patience and gravity of hearing is an essential part of justice; and an over-speaking judge is no well tuned cymbal.” Justice Frankfurter of the US Supreme Court said, “All power is of an encroaching nature. Judicial power is not immune to this human weakness. It must also be on guard against encroaching beyond its proper bounds and not the less so since the only restraint upon it is self-restraint…...” Similarly, the US Supreme Court, in Baker vs. Carr, said that the court’s authority ultimately rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction. Such feeling must be nourished by the court’s complete detachment, in fact, in appearance, from political entanglements and by abstention from injecting itself into the clash of political forces in political settlements. Our founding fathers and mothers, when framing the Constitution, were aware of the warning given by Baron Montesquieu and deliberately refused to enthrone the judiciary both inside the courts and outside where political questions are to be decided by the “civically militant electorate”. It must also be accepted that there is nothing judicially more unseemly nor more self-defeating than for the courts to make interrorem pronouncements, to indulge in merely empty rhetoric. No, I am not saying that judges are to behave like coy brides when speaking in public. My comment refers to avoidance on political questions. Of course, the judges must and are expected to speak in public on matters connected with the judiciary. I for one will fully endorse a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to speak, even harshly about the delay in filling vacancies in the High Courts and the Supreme Court, (284 vacancies out of 895 sanctioned) leading to the cumulative pendency of 42,17,903 cases in High Courts and also telling the public whether the delay is because of the apathy of the government or the judiciary itself. Sitting judges should also publicly debate the failed exercise of appointing an outside Chief Justice of a High Court, and the not-so-logical transfer of judges. Certainly, this will also partly involve self-criticism of the judiciary itself along with that of the political government. But this open criticism will be for the betterment of the judiciary which the judges alone can advance. The only caveat is that judges, even with good intentions and actuated by a public purpose, may not venture on the political field prohibited to sitting judges. Judges must always be conscious of the warning given by a former Chief Justice of India, who reminded them that though “our function is divine; the problem begins when we start thinking that we have become divine.” If I sound a bit harsh, I can only invoke the caveat of Justice Holmes of the US Supreme Court, who said, “I trust that no one will understand me to be speaking with disrespect of the law, because I criticise it so freely… But one may criticise even what one reveres…. And I should show less than devotion, if I did not do what in me lies to improve
it.” The writer is a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Delhi.
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A potpourri of time
Last
week I received a mail from one of my US-based distant relatives who is going to taste motherhood at 43. She is among the growing number of New Yorkers, who believe experiencing love and motherhood is important to a woman’s evolution, while the noise factor of marriage is avoidable. As a successful architect she has had a good life and was now willing to take up the role of mothering a child. In the absence of the commonly elusive Mr Right crossing her way after about 50 dates, the only option left to fulfil her motherhood dream was to adopt a child, or, to go shopping for a father through sperm banks. She chose the latter. The dream-father for her dream-child was found on the website of a sperm bank selected after a year-long search. He is an ‘open donor’ of Afro-Asian origin from the paternal side and his mother’s family comes from Latin America. He is tall, she is short. He is handsome, she is passable. He is a technocrat who had been to MIT. She has mailed the web-link to friends and family to familiarise them with the ‘would be’ father, while she is ‘trying to’ fall in love with his web-picture for sound emotional health of the baby. By a strange coincidence, I happen to be reading the Mahabharata these days, and find the narratives of the women of the dwapar yuga rather fascinating. Women of this yuga choose men outside their marriage to father healthy, valorous children, under the sanction of dharma. They are ambitious, but, since the power rests with either the kings or the rishis, and both happen to be men, they manipulate both through marriage or by begetting their children- to play an active role in the power game. All the great rishis seem to be breaking their vows of celibacy to fall in love with apsaras and beget illegitimate children, while apsaras abandon their children as insouciantly as the rishis drop them. Fantasy runs wild in these tales, making J K Rowling’s imagination appear rather lazy and tardy. Placed in the middle of these texts — of the high-tech yet-to-be born baby selected through a website and the children of Kunti and Madhavi, daughter of king Yayati, who makes sons for four different kings, I feel outdated and obsolete like a cave woman. The kind of upbringing of kaliyuga, which befell me as my karma, rested so much on the predictability of everything — from the inheritance of physical features to religion, caste, class, education, politics, marriage and god knows what all baggage of middle-class dos and don’ts. This child with a potpourri of genes breaks the lineage of time to shatter so many barriers by one stroke of technology, which so many social reformers failed at. I am clueless about the kind of narratives this child will weave for the
future.
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The PDS is not failing or ailing
Kotri
is a mid-sized village in Desuri block (Pali district, Rajasthan), about 15 kilometres away from the nearest large bus stand and market place. We walked to the dusty outskirts of the village to meet an old man on our list of sample households. His blind wife squatted outside their hut, emaciated, worried and in a state of constant confusion. In the background their young son peered out from a picture on their wall, with a withered garland around his neck. Looking at this skeletal couple, living off their old age pensions and monthly supply of government-subsidised grain, you got the impression of a tenuous hold on life. The landscape is expectedly dry and arid, dotted with neem and prickly babool trees. The main occupation is agriculture and animal husbandry, but among the people we met, the few who owned some agricultural land shrugged when asked about their reliance on it. It was 'saawan-khet', dependent on the recalcitrant monsoon, and therefore unreliable. Previous reports on the PDS in Rajasthan provided a pretty dismal report card, like the 2009 report of the Justice Wadhwa committee, which pointed to large-scale diversion of PDS grain and serious bottlenecks in the delivery system. So we were pleasantly surprised to see how well the state welfare programmes were working in Pali. Most families we met had worked for a hundred days at MGNREGA worksites, and almost all Below Poverty Line (BPL) cardholders were receiving their 'full quota' of 25 kilos of wheat, at Rs.2 per kg, every month from the PDS. The changes in the PDS are primarily because of significant reforms introduced in May 2010. Under the "Chief Minister's Anna Suraksha Yojana", the price of grain was reduced to Rs.2 per kg, and Fair Price Shops were directed to stay open for a fixed period of seven days every month, from the 15th to the 21st. Importantly, the commissions for PDS dealers were increased from Rs.8 to Rs.20 per quintal, substantially reducing incentives to cheat. Earlier, the low commissions meant that there was enormous pressure to cheat just to recover costs, and this was also used as a convenient excuse to justify any amount of cheating.
Problems persist
There are still problems in the system: the quality of PDS grain left much to be desired, with many respondents complaining that their monthly wheat ration came with 2-3 kilos of stones and chaff. The availability of items other than wheat (e.g. rice and sugar) was uncertain and irregular. Although the Rajasthan state government was supposed to distribute sugar, it frequently failed to even lift the entire sugar quota released from the Centre. So, despite being entitled to half a kilo per member at subsidised rates, BPL families could not count on getting this every month. The same applied to the occasional apportionment of cooking oil and rice, when these commodities were supposed to be given. This irregularity also indicated the power of information: because these 'additional' PDS entitlements were not clear to the recipients or even to the dealers, and allocations were subject to vagaries down the supply chain. Some dealers even said that they were asked to pay bribes to godown officials to get any 'extra' quota of rice or sugar. Other lacunae include missed opportunities to modernise the system for increased efficiency and transparency. Although we saw fairly well maintained sales and stock registers at the Fair Price Shops, no one was checking the sales register and there was minimal checking of stock registers. No electronic weighing scales had been provided anywhere. It was also unclear what recourse people had for genuine grievances. While the PDS was of great help to vulnerable households in meeting their food requirements, this support was restricted to those fortunate enough to be on the BPL list. There have been problems with the BPL list both at the policy and implementation levels. In 2002 a new 'scoring' approach was used to identify BPL families, with scores given on thirteen socio-economic criteria. This replaced a previous identification system based on income and expenditure, used in the 1997 The BPL list is a dubious way of ensuring that the entitlements of the most vulnerable are met, especially in areas where disparities in standard of living are relatively small. Getting onto the list often requires some clout, defeating the purpose of the exercise. This is particularly so since the centre caps the number of BPL households for each state, and the state has to adjust its 'poor' into this figure. This leads to situations where limited BPL cards are used as a means of reward and punishment. For instance, we heard of cases where BPL cards had been arbitrarily taken away from some families and given to political supporters of the village sarpanch. Another significant reason for preferring food was the thought of having to cope with the all-too-likely possibility of a drought. Pali district, although slightly better off than the drier regions west of the Aravallis, expects a drought every three to five years. Reliance on the government increases drastically during a drought, and the government often releases larger amounts of food grain through the PDS at such times. One respondent, a 50 year old woman from the Meena tribe, pointed out that in such a situation, money is of little help as the cost of food spirals upwards and the availability of food grains dwindles. All these reasons led to an overwhelming preference for the known, functional and simple option: food. For most women it was an obvious choice - one simply pointed at her alcoholic husband, while another laughed when we gave her the alternatives, and said "Kya mein paisa khaa sakti hoon?" It is clear from the gains made over the last few years that the PDS system in Rajasthan is not, as is commonly believed, a failing and ailing animal. It is showing clear signs of revival, and has to a large extent been made more efficient and leakage-proof. It has evolved to play an important role in people's lives. This has been achieved by the state government realising that fixing the PDS system can lead to significant political gains.
Cash transfers
A crucial question we posed to our respondents was how they would feel if the PDS were replaced with an equivalent system of direct cash transfers. Their experience with money transfers is, for example, the Indira Awas Yojana, a scheme wherein the government gives eligible rural families money to build a house. It has wizened them to sarkari calculations, and taught them to think in 'percentages' which have to be paid as bribe to different levels of the administration to get their money. People aired their misgivings over fluctuating market prices (misgivings about how the state would index cash transfers), the high risk of delays in payments (commonly experienced in MGNREGA payments, and hard to cope with when it was the question of day-to-day sustenance), how much money they would spend going to the bank (which were often far away), how many days' wages would be wasted withdrawing the money and then buying their rations (markets too, were often not in the same village), and so on. The concern with transaction costs is particularly relevant in Rajasthan where the PDS system reinforces a tenuous market infrastructure. The writer is a Law student in Delhi University
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A case for uniform and universal system Both Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have a well-functioning Public Distribution System (PDS), in contrast with many other Indian states. However, there are interesting differences between these two states in the way the PDS works. Himachal Pradesh has a "differentiated" PDS in the sense that everyone is entitled to subsidised food, but "Below Poverty Line" (BPL) households pay lower prices than "Above Poverty Line" (APL) households. Additionally, the state also runs the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY - for the poorest of the poor) and Annapoorna Yojana (for elderly persons without a pension). While these distinctions might add to the brittleness of the system (as is evident in other states), Himachal has achieved relatively low errors while identifying BPL households. On the other hand, Tamil Nadu has a simple universal system, without differentiation - a model worth replicating, given the efficiency with which it functions. Every family (including my own) has a ration card. Cards are of two different colours, green (eligible for rice and other commodities) or white (eligible only for sugar and other commodities; no rice), but people can choose between the two. In this way, the entire population is covered and there is no discrimination of any sort. The universal approach has helped prevent corruption and leakages, since everyone has a stake in the integrity of the system. In fact, this applies in Himachal Pradesh as well. While the disparity between BPL and APL prices in Himachal is significant, Tamil Nadu's uniform entitlements resonate the spirit of 'food for all'. In terms of quantity per household, PDS entitlements are somewhat lower in Tamil Nadu (up to 20 kgs per month, compared with 35 kgs in Himachal), but spread over the entire population. In Tamil Nadu, the field survey suggests that the quality of rice varies a great deal. On the other hand, the people of Himachal are quite happy with the quality of PDS grains. I would go as far as to say that the quality of grains from the Fair Price Shops is almost on par with a commercial provisions store. In Himachal Pradesh, food grains are lifted by the State Civil Supplies Corporation from FCI godowns and then transported to the Fair Price Shops. The Fair Price Shops are managed by one of the following: cooperative societies, Gram Panchayats, State Civil Supplies Corporation, Mahila Mandals and private dealers. In Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, cooperative societies and the government itself take care of the entire delivery system. With ample support from women's self-help groups, villages in Tamil Nadu have Fair Price Shops that are not only close to corruption-free but also answerable to informed consumers. In Himachal Pradesh, formal checks and balances seem to be weaker. As we found out, the Fair Price Shop manager has opportunities to manipulate the consumers. Yet, in spite of this lack of formal checks and balances, the PDS in Himachal Pradesh seemed to work really well and to be free from the large-scale embezzlement that has plagued the PDS in many other states. In terms of access, Himachal Pradesh has definitely done a commendable job. Despite the difficult terrain, the Fair Price Shops are very well distributed and access is not an issue at all. In Tamil Nadu also, the opening of part-time Fair Price Shops in remote places (in addition to the full-time ones in main villages) has ensured high levels of accessibility. A striking feature about Tamil Nadu is the high level of awareness among the people as to what they are entitled to. They answer questions with supreme confidence and this awareness empowers them to fight should they be subjected to injustice. They are not shy to demand their rights, increasingly including (for better or worse) free goodies. Decades of populist policies by the government have sure had their effect. Both Himachal and Tamil Nadu offer interesting case studies with their well-functioning PDS. Numerous lessons can be learnt from them, notably about the importance of universal entitlement and the possibility of putting in place effective checks and balances. The writer is a student at the College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai
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