The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Hobbled by lobbies
Minister owes an explanation

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas M Veerappa Moily’s statement that successive petroleum ministers have been thwarted from taking decisions that would help in cutting down the import of petroleum products by petroleum lobbies is a serious charge. By refusing to name anyone, the minister has fuelled speculation which will only cause further confusion. Mr Moily has proposed raising the domestic liquefied natural gas price from the current $4.2 per million British thermal unit to $6.775, a 60 per cent hike.

The minister’s contention is that “Oil and gas imports will keep on rising if domestic production is not incentivised through the right pricing policy.” He says that he has been trying to attract investments in oil and gas exploration to decrease the dependence on foreign fossil fuels. The proposed gas price hike has been vociferously attacked by CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta and others. It is obvious that the debate will continue for some time as the proposal is discussed further.

Considering that India imports about 80 per cent of its oil, there is every reason that domestic production of oil and gas should be encouraged. The minister may well be right in maintaining that bureaucratic and other hurdles have impeded the hydrocarbon exploration efforts. There is no doubt that the minister faces a challenging environment, but, as the person in charge, it is for him to identify the hurdles and streamline the functioning of his ministry. Every major economy depends on hydrocarbon products to fuel itself, and India has emerged as one of the largest importers of oil in the world. Every possible method should be exploited to explore the natural resources in the subcontinent, including fracking, which has allowed the US to drastically increase its internal production. The nation needs to know why the minister made the lobbying allegation. In any case, he must ensure that no lobbyist comes in the way of making India as self-reliant as possible in this vital natural resource.

Anish Kapoor
The maximum artist receives Knighthood

India born sculptor Anish Kapoor, knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, never believed in minimalism. His installations dominate the space without intimidating it. The deceptive simplicity of his world-famous installations like ‘Cloud Gate’ and ‘Sky Mirror’ changed the way art is viewed. His works create a narrative and the viewer adds his or her own narrative to it and in this way he has radicalised public art. Kapoor took art beyond the ‘art world’, beyond galleries and its specialized domain. His works of ‘mythical proportions’ offered the common man an experience of art that came by direct interaction with the works, and not just by viewing it. Most of his sculptures de-construct the way sculpture was created by his predecessors; in terms of image, symbols and materials. He recreated a fresh visual vocabulary by creating domes of heaven or tunnel ways to infinity.

Whether it is the sublime terror of complete darkness or the infinity experienced by standing before metallic mirrors to the exhilaration of colours that no other artist would have dared to use in sculptures – cobalt blues, crimson reds, impenetrable blacks – his art manipulated the viewer. It offered a primal experience created by his ability to capture the void and letting the viewer have a look at the great mystery of being. This amazing reality, though, is created by geometric manipulation of space, which has a kind of mathematical logic to the form. All this art requires deconstruction of the accepted visual norms not only at the level of conceptualisation, its execution is equally unusual. For example, to get the ‘Cloud Gate’ installation in Chicago right, 200 men assisted Kapoor for seven long years. It also involves huge funds.

His only show in India in 2011drew art lovers in hordes to NGMA, Delhi, and later to Mumbai. Kapoor also expressed his willingness to install a work in India, though obliquely. By claiming him as one of us, we expressed our appreciation, but lack of presence of his works here has deprived Indian art of a radical influence.

Thought for the Day

They're only truly great who are truly good. — George Chapman

ARTICLE

Pricing of farm commodities
Time-tested system shouldn't be tampered with
by S.S. Johl

For a long time, farmers' pressure groups have been questioning the cost of production estimates considered by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) in deciding the minimum support prices (MSP) for agricultural commodities. Probably under this pressure, the Government of India has constituted a committee to review the system of minimum support prices for agricultural commodities. The cost of cultivation is going to occupy a central place in this review. As a background, the cost of cultivation of agricultural commodities and MSP estimation methodologies were discussed and finalised in prolonged meetings by a large number of well-known economists, agriculturists and policy makers extending over two days before the system was implemented in India. The cost of cultivation is only one input, though the most important one, in arriving at the minimum support prices. Others are the stock position (of foodgrains), the projected demand, international (border) prices, the wholesale price index, etc. The CACP consults all the related ministries, state governments and other stake holders before recommending MSPs for agricultural commodities to the government.

The basic objective of providing minimum support prices for agricultural commodities (focus being on foodgrains) was and is to provide assured prices to the producers through the government being in the market as a buyer of the last resort so that the market price does not fall below a support price level. This is done in order to keep the producer in business in the situation of price slumps created by gluts in the market and/or due to the connivance or cartels developed by buyers. It is a concept of free market to be operated with prices above the support price provided by the government. The government’s obligation is to lift any quantity or volume of the commodity offered by the producers at the support price. It is a statutory obligation and the government cannot decline to buy the commodity offered.

Since it was the support price to keep the farmer in business in adverse circumstances of market slumps in the post-harvest period, it was supposed to cover all costs except managerial costs. In professional cost calculations, the costs considered are of seven types: A1=all actual expenses in cash and kind, including depreciation; A2=A1+ rent paid in leased in land; B1 =A1+ interest on the value of owned capital assets, excluding land; B2= B1+ rental value of the owned land and rent paid for leased land; C1=B1+ imputed value of family labour; C2= B2+ imputed value of family labour; C3=C2+ 10 per cent of C2 on account of managerial functions performed by the farmer.

These costs are used for different purposes. In deciding upon the MSP, in principle, the costs to be considered are C2 costs, which include all but the imputed value of managerial costs. It is the procurement prices that take care of the managerial cost and profit margins. The cost of production of different crops is worked out by the state agricultural universities in their respective states through the cost accounting method, wherein for clusters of farmers supervisors are permanently employed, who record the inputs used, functions performed and activities of selected farmers on about nine thousand farms selected randomly in the country.

These figures are tabulated at the universities and provided to the Economic and Statistical Advisor, Ministry of Agriculture of the Central government. Based on these data, the average costs of production of different crops are works out and supplied to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. Normally, there is a lag of two years in the estimation of costs. The commission scientifically extrapolates these estimates to catch the costs for the current year for consideration in the estimation of minimum support prices. The commission is manned by top-level professional economists and farmers’ representatives, who use their informed judgment in arriving at the minimum support prices to be recommended to the government

These minimum support prices are supposed to be announced before the planting seasons of the rabi and kharif crops start so that farmers can plan their production programmes keeping in view the minimum prices they would receive in the market. Yet, depending upon the need of the government and also to provide remunerative prices to the producers, the concept of procurement prices was developed at which the government purchase agencies would buy the produce from the primary markets. These prices are supposed to be announced before or at the time the marketing season starts.

The procurement price cannot be below the MSP. Yet, in principle, this is not a statutory price and the government is not obliged to lift the entire commodity offered in the market at this price. In this system, there is a sort of synergy between the two prices, one to assure the producer of the minimum price in adverse market circumstances and the other to buy at a remunerative market price depending upon the prevailing market conditions to meet the requirements of the government. The system was perfect in its nature, yet through time the boundary lines of the concepts of minimum support prices and procurement prices got blurred. It was in 1988, when I was the chairman of the CACP, when the commission decided to abolish the system of the procurement price and included all the costs and profit margin for the farmers in the MSP itself and started recommending the MSP as the purchase price for the government. This had statutory nature and the government could not decline to lift any volume of the commodities offered by the producers in the primary market. Hence the procurement prices lost their relevance.

Even today the procurement price does not have any relevance because once the price is announced, de facto it becomes obligatory on the government to lift the entire commodity offered in the market. Some pressure groups of farmers have been pressurising linking the MSP with the wholesale price index. If this is accepted, the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices becomes irrelevant. One simple part-time computer assistant is enough to do the job. It is to be realised that the objective of pricing policy is three-fold: to provide for remunerative prices to the farmers to insulate them against price uncertainty with efficient market clearance; to keep in mind the interests of the consumers; and to promote adjustments in the cropping/production patterns to match with the changing consumption patterns in the country.

The system is perfect and time-tested. However, the government has been fiddling with the system too often to gain political mileage with pressure groups of farmers, and in the process distorted the price structure of different agricultural commodities. Dr Swaminathan panel suggested 50 per cent profit margin over the cost of production (Cost C3). This does not carry much sense. It seems there was no economist in this panel. If there was one, he did not know economics.

The system of support prices in India is a one-way traffic. Prices can move up, but cannot be brought down in our political system. It is, therefore, suggested that the time-tested system should not be fiddled with to appease some political denomination, and the relevance of the highly professional commission should be maintained in the interest of the overall economy of the country.

MIDDLE

Legal eagle of a different kind
by Gauhar Vatsyayan

Being the eldest among the grandsons of the family, I am fortunate to remember glimpses of moments spent with my maternal grandfather before he passed away suddenly when I was just five. We used to enjoy considerable hospitality at his house during the summer vacations. This is the reason why even a mention of my maternal house invokes a sense of immense pleasure in me.

Born at Jammu, 10 years before Partition and coming of a family of Purohits of the Dogra rulers of Jammu and Kashmir, he didn’t enjoy a carefree childhood. Due to the early death of his mother and domestic issues, he was brought up by his widow aunt, who had to work as a domestic help in a vaidya’s home. Blessed with strikingly sharp features, light eyes, a fair complexion and a splendid intelligence, he got noticed by the vaidya, who also became his initial tutor.

He was adopted by the vaidya’s elder daughter and was sent to Delhi for further studies. Not to be a burden on her, he started knitting beaded chairs during the day and used to study under the streetlight, which became my first lesson on self-respect and dignity. As a highly principled man with a heavy voice, my mother used to narrate his reprimands while teaching maths.

After completing his graduation in arts he had a short stint in the railways. He, however, left the government job soon, saying that it didn’t suit his temperament. Due to his continued pursuing of knowledge and hard work, my maternal grandfather happened to be among the first five to obtain a masters degree in law in the country. He became an advocate. For a few years he taught in the Law College of Delhi University and my heart is filled with pride that some of today’s senior lawyers of the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India are, in fact, students of Shyam Lal Sharma. His zeal to gain and impart knowledge became the hallmark of the usual instructions given to me by his daughter during my academic career. Though he died at a relatively young age of 52, it was his sheer sense of commitment that he used to attend court even after going through a session of kidney dialysis in the morning.

Having grown up listening to the stories of people’s lives and their settlements during the turbulent and toughest period of our history, I realise that the generation born and grown up before partition of country was more hard working and sincere in its pursuits. The rising India of today is the fruit of their sweat and perseverance. That was the era when simplicity was not stupidity, and honesty and hard work were immensely respected. Anyway, stories of achievers of a modest background are always a source of inspiration for all.

OPED — Society

Why the rise in horrendous rapes?
When the Delhi High Court recently directed the authorities to find out the root cause of the spurt in cases of brutal rapes, it echoed the concern of the common man. The rise may be attributed in large part to challenges arising out of social dynamics in contemporary India
S.L. Sharma

Incensed over the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl, an exasperated Delhi High Court asked recently: “What is happening in Delhi. Something is wrong. Are people going mad?” It directed the authorities to find out the root cause for the spurt. The common man is as much baffled and is asking the same question.

Not confined to Delhi, the problem of rape is widespread across India and is on the rise. Going by the figures of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there is a steep rise of 873 per cent in rape cases from 2,847 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011. As such, rape has emerged as “India's fastest growing crime”. Some attribute it to increased reporting, media hype, and some to the recent social mobilisation against rape in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case. The figures indicate a definite trend of increase in reported cases. The reported cases nevertheless represent only the tip of the iceberg, as is well known. The actual incidence is estimated to be several times more. The fact remains that a large number of cases go unreported for fear of loss of family honour, stigmatisation, public ridicule and, above all, the dubious practice of the police to avoid registering FIR.

More worrisome than that is the gathering trend of horrendous rapes, i.e., brutal, child and gang-rapes. Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), based on NCRB figures, shows a startling 336 per cent rise in child rape cases in the past one decade from 2,113 in 2001 to 7,112 in 2011. It further brings out that 1 in 3 rape victims is a child and 1 in 4 is a girl child. Add to this the fact of worst forms of sexual abuse of the missing children. According to a report of the National Human Rights Commission titled Action Research on Trafficking, published in 2005, in any given year, an average of 44,000 children are reported missing. Many of them are subjected to terrible forms of sexual abuse.

Psychological profile

For its explanation, psychologists have explored psychological profile of the rapists. They contend that a rapist is a differently wired person, a psychopath having an anti-social personality disorder which is manifested in aggressive, perverse, criminal or amoral behaviour, without empathy or remorse. In a study of 600 inmates of Tihar Jail, Delhi, all accused or convicted of rape, Rajat Mitra found them low on traits such as intimacy, closeness, depth in relationships, loyalty, empathy and self-control. In a more recent study of 242 inmates of Tihar Jail, Swachetan, an NGO found 70 per cent of the accused repeat offenders, with a history of multiple rapes, on an average at least four, before they were caught.

It often happens in the mind of the rapist before it happens “out there”. Probing into the rapist's psychology, Rajat Mitra says that he chooses his victim as well as venue with care, generally preys on the submissive, does not go after an assertive person, assails shy and non-assertive children, commands full control over the victim, and feels more excited and powerful with her shrieks and screams. Focussing on the psychology of child rapists, Manju Mehta from the AIIMS, Delhi, reportedly observes: “A child sex abuser is a different entity from other rapists and non-sexual criminals. He suffers from a very specific psychopathology, a fixation for children, and has a deep-rooted inferiority, an ‘avoidant personality’, is unable to deal with adults on equal footing, and hence preys on children”. Some others say that a child rapist generally targets lonely, neglected and submissive children. Psychiatrists relate it to pent-up anger, especially self-anger of the weak and powerless who takes it out on a vulnerable child. More recently, however, several psychiatrists have contested the view of typical personality of a rapist or of there being anything psychiatric about him. They maintain that a rapist is a plain criminal or a social deviant. We need to locate causes for the spurt in rapes in the social context.

Social context

Indian patriarchy is distinct from its counterparts elsewhere. In other parts of the world, it signifies a system that assigns lower status to woman vis-a-vis man. Here it takes on a cultural dimension by means of which it strips woman of personhood and reduces her to an object of pleasure for man. As psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar observes: “In a society that has traditionally defined a person through her relationships rather than her individuality, a woman is certainly a person when she is a mother, a daughter, a sister or a wife. Any woman who does not fit into these mental categories, is a female, a stree, a bhog ki cheez” (an object of enjoyment).

According to available reports, around 45 per cent rapes are committed in domestic custody by the relatives, 90 per cent of child rapes under 12 by relatives and friends of the family, and 32 per cent of children between 2 and 10 are reportedly raped by people close to them.

Further, our caste-ridden social structure provides cultural sanction for sexual excesses on low-caste women by high-caste men. The trend of rapes of Dalit women by dominant caste men is more of an assertion of the same caste-ridden patriarchal standard than of any psychopathic personality.

Rapes are not just acts of passion but also of power. This is not to underestimate the role of passion in instances of rape. In some cases passion may be too overpowering a drive behind rape. But in many cases rape is indeed an act of power. What is more, in a large number of cases it is a statement of power. This applies to rapes in domestic custody, caste custody and institutional custody. That is also true of rapes in situations of war and terrorism. In much the same way, child and gang rapes as well exemplify the instances of rapes as a statement of power. The gang rapes are an expression of both patriarchal mindset and the group-oriented character of our traditional social structure. In the context of the ongoing social dynamics, they may be viewed as desperate attempts of men to use their collective male power to assert their domination over women.

Changing scenario

The emerging trend of deadly rapes is symptomatic of a deeper malaise caused by some recent processes of socio-economic and cultural change. Three of them are of crucial relevance: globalisation, urbanisation and rapid expansion of pornography by means of information-cum-communication technology. All of them have led to further commodification of woman and her increasing vulgarisation in films, media and leisure industry.

Globalisation has ushered in an era of market society in India. Market has entered into all our social spheres, in a big way. Little wonder that it has led to commodification of everything, including nature, culture, relationships and especially women. This is corroborated by the reckless use of vulgarised images of woman in advertisements, films and porn, etc., wherein she is often debased to a mere sex object. Urbanisation too has its seamy side. Much of our urbanization is known for its haphazard and messy character. It is marked by terrible overcrowding, proliferation of slums and squatter settlements, and an atmosphere of alienation anomie and anonymity. The dark underbelly of urban centres is populated by the ever-swelling population of migrants, especially male migrants, separated from their families and hence susceptible to sexual stimulants, including drugs and porn. It serves as a breeding ground for sexual looseness driving some of the sexually starved persons towards sexual misdemeanours.

Add to it, the startling spread of pornography as a result of its dissemination by means of information-cum-communication technology (ICT). The spectacular advances in ICT, especially internet and cellphones and their phenomenal penetration into not only urban but also rural areas and across various sections of society, have greatly increased the access of people to pornography, obscene videos and cheap sex sites. Not surprisingly, porn has invaded all sections of society. According to a Max Hospital survey, as many as 47 per cent students, both male and female chat about porn everyday. The porn addiction among the people of lower socio-economic strata seems to be no less pervasive. Porn tops the list of cyber crimes, as observed by NCRB. It whips up sexual urges, fantasies and pervasions of the sexually deprived, resulting in the rise of rapes.

Insensitive criminal justice

There is insensitivity of the agencies of our criminal justice administration towards cases of rapes. Since these agencies comprising police, prosecution, judiciary and prison, are manned predominantly by males with deep-rooted patriarchal mindsets, their personnel often deal with such cases with biased apathy. Accordingly, the police is known for avoiding to register an FIR. Many police personnel hold that a large number of the reported cases of rape are often instances of consensual sex. When caught, the woman calls it rape, they contend. The personnel of other agencies fare no better: the prosecution is known for attempting secondary victimisation of the victim, the judiciary for delivering remarkably low conviction rate in rape cases and prison personnel for their attempts of rape on the inmates. These observations are validated by the fact that while the incidence of rape has gone up, its conviction rate has gone down, falling from 41per cent in 1971 to 26.4 per cent in 2012. Only 18 per cent of the accused finally undergo sentence. The rest manage to escape punishment by taking advantage of the weakness of our criminal justice system.

The causes for the ineffective performance of criminal justice administration lie also in the shortage of staff, inadequate training of the personnel in gender sensitisation and the prevalence of sub-culture of corruption. We have roughly 140 police personnel per 1,00,000 population against the U.N. norm of 350. Similarly, we have only 13 judges per million people against developed countries’ norm of 100. In addition, deficient anti-rape legislation and political interference in the working of enforcement agencies also play a crucial role.

Efforts have been made in recent months to streamline the criminal justice system, in the wake of the horrifying Nirbhaya case. However, these have focused more on rationalising the anti-corruption legislation and making it more stringent than on enhancing the capacity building of the enforcement agencies. More reliance is placed on the severity of punishment than on certainty of it. Severity of punishment, in the absence of certainty of it, does not serve as an effective deterrent. The history of criminology provides ample evidence of it. In the past, there was a provision of death penalty in full public view in Italy for pick pockets. It is recorded that the petty crime used to be committed right in the crowd gathered to watch public hanging. Therefore, there is a need to accord as much attention to certainty of punishment.

The rise in the incidence of horrendous rapes may be attributed in large part to the challenges arising from social dynamics in contemporary India. They may be attributed to the emerging challenges to patriarchy and to caste hierarchy. Contributory factors are further commodification of women, pernicious spread of pornography and gender-insensitive and ineffective system of crime control. There are no empirical studies on the socio-economic profile of rapists or case studies on the socio-economic background of rape victims. Empirical studies on the social psyche of violent rapists are a must. Social scientists should pay serious attention to the study of rape cases.

— The writer is former Chairman, Department of Sociology, Panjab University, Chandigarh