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Modi remains evasive New Navy Chief |
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Political overreach by RBI Governor
Yes, she turned a writer at 70!
Indian democracy vibrant, but flawed
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Modi remains evasive No
matter how hard he tries, Narendra Modi cannot easily escape the horror of 2002. In an interview with ANI Modi has said: "Hang me in the street if I am guilty". This is not the language expected from a PM hopeful. He could have been a little more sober and cleared public misgivings about his role. After all, 1,000 precious lives had been lost. As Chief Minister, Modi has to own moral responsibility, at least. The law is taking its course, albeit slowly. In 2012 the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) cleared him of charges of complicity. In April the court rejected a review of the SIT report. The Nanavati Commission, probing the 2002 pogrom, is yet to submit its report despite 21 extensions. Modi might have won the legal battle but in public perception he is yet to be declared innocent. The language Modi uses may be clever but he remains evasive. His justification of Amit Shah's hate speech in Uttar Pradesh negates all his positive signals, including the assurance of safety to the minorities and the vow that he would not be vindictive if voted to power. When Time magazine called Manmohan Singh "an underachiever", the BJP went to town with it. Now The Economist, The Guardian and New York Times have questioned Modi's human rights record. The USA has denied him a visa. His own utterances tend to deflect. "I have said what I had to say. Now I am in the people's court". When Dr Manmohan Singh had cited the logic of "people's verdict" in 2009 to rubbish charges of impropriety, the BJP was merciless in its criticism. Modi talked about special courts to dispose of cases of MPs facing criminal cases in a year. Why did the BJP not field taint-free candidates? Asked about campaign funding, Modi dared the UPA to take action, knowing that there was no legal bar on poll spending by political parties. A little more honesty and a little less obfuscation, a little more team play and a little less self-glorification would do him no harm. |
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New Navy Chief After
much deliberation and dilly-dallying lasting almost two months (50 days to be precise), the government has appointed Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Rabinder Kumar Dhowan as the next Chief of Naval Staff. Dhowan had been officiating as the Navy Chief ever since his predecessor, Admiral Devender Kumar Joshi, resigned on February 26 in the wake of an accident on board INS
Sindhuratna, a Russian-made Kilo Class submarine, in the Arabian Sea. Joshi's resignation, the first by a Service chief, on the ground of moral responsibility had been hailed as an act of honour in keeping with the finest traditions of the military. Admiral Dhowan will have the major task of improving the morale within the Navy and possibly taking a re-look at training and the quality of manpower while refurbishing the image of a service that has taken a beating following a spate of accidents that occurred in quick succession. The most serious was the sinking of INS Sindhurakshak, another Kilo-Class submarine in August last year while docked in Mumbai following an on board explosion, which is considered unprecedented in the world's peacetime naval history. The Navy is paramount to India's security, power projection and international diplomacy alike. Moreover, in the event of a nuclear war, the Indian Navy would be banked upon to launch counter-strikes from indigenously made nuclear-powered submarines that, however, are yet to be inducted. But the morale and image of the Navy cannot possibly be the responsibility of the Navy Chief alone. The government, notably the Ministry of Defence (MoD), too has a major role to play. The key issues afflicting the Navy are still at play - antiquated submarines, ships and other equipment, delays in induction and shortfall in the officer cadre to name a few. Admiral Dhowan has a major task ahead and a lot will depend on his leadership, contribution and his relationship with the political executive and the civilian bureaucracy.
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Thought for the Day
High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead. —
Christopher Morley
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Apprenticeship for law graduates
WRITING about the Patna University Committee's scheme of legal education the Calcutta Weekly Notes welcomes the suggestion that law graduates must serve two years' apprenticeship with some practising lawyers of no lower grade than a Barrister or a Vakil or a graduate Pleader authorized by the High Court to take apprentice. Our learned contemporary frankly says that the mere passing of an examination in law should not furnish a passport to practise in the law courts and that certificate to practise should be given to apprentices after they have passed such test as may be prescribed by the High Court in the practice of law. Indian remedy for English disease
AN Indian police officer, retired and settled in England, is evidently disgusted at the manifestations of disorders in the British political world. He has been anxious to recommend some of the unfailing Indian remedies to English and, possibly also, Ulster disease. With reference to the suffragette follies, he has written to the London Times with the confidence of those who are sure of their patent prescriptions. "Why not pass a short Act" he asks, "to be known as the Family Responsibility Act? Under it make all members of a family, within a certain degree of kindred, jointly and severally responsible for the good behaviour and actions of a member out of goal under the Cat and Mouse Act." This is no doubt swift and sure work, but it is apparent that the writer himself should first become the Home Minister to pilot the proposed Bill through the House of Commons, which is, unfortunately for him, not in the least as docile as Councils in India.
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Political overreach by RBI Governor It was only in 2011 that the UPA government, known to be under big corporate sector pressure, announced, though in low key, a policy for new banks in the budget but did not dare seriously follow it up. The Reserve Bank Governor, who evidently is a follower of the Chicago school of economics of unadulterated private sector economy, was keen to go ahead with
privatisation, but the Ministry of Finance opposed it, even Mr. Chidambaram opposed it. But the Governor nevertheless referred this matter to the Election Commission. One would have expected an immediate curt negative response from the Election Commission for the obvious reason that bank nationalisation was one of the most explosive political decisions and which only an elected government was competent to modify. By under what logic the Election Commission has permitted the Reserve Bank the liberty to take a decision independent of the government on such a delicate financial, economic and political policy is beyond comprehension. The RBI Governor has ventured the unacceptable proposition that granting bank business is not in any way a political process. This stand is totally unacceptable both in principle and in law. The
R.B.I. can only move in after the Central government has taken a political decision to allow private banking. Such a change in policy requires a full-fledged debate not only in legislatures but also in political circles. It cannot be done quietly at the bureaucratic level. The unexplained hurry shown by the Governor in issuing two private bank licences defies logic. It is not as if service by private banks is helping the needy. Statistics show that 27 state-run banks account for 75 per cent of the total deposits and 73 per cent of the total credit. If analysed in depth, the private banks serve their own private clients and have no public purpose. As a matter of fact in the last couple of years, even in the USA big banks like the Bank of America were saved from bankruptcy by the US government lending huge amounts of money to them. A fallacious argument in favour of privatisation of banks that they are less likely to default and therefore are a less burden on the public finance has been authoritatively rejected by the International Monetary fund
(I.M.F.) which has warned that the world's biggest banks still get a total of about $590 billion in subsidies from their governments. In that light this action of giving licences for private banks by the Reserve Bank Governor is mystifying. This decision has already been adversity commented upon by members of Parliament and they have warned that the
R.B.I. should have waited, as a decision had to be made by the new government after the general election and they have warned that “they would revisit the issue of new bank
licences”. Bank nationalisation is a matter of government policy — the Supreme Court in the bank nationalisation case (1970) specifically refused to consider the argument of private bankers that under the scheme of social control exercised by the Reserve Bank of India, the commercial banks had achieved impressive results, comparing favorably with the performance of the state banks of India. The Supreme Court said thus: “This court is not the forum in which these conflicting claims may be debated. Whether there is a genuine need for banking facility in the rural sector………..whether administration by the government of the commercial banking sector will not prove beneficial to the community and will lead to rigidity in the administration, whether the government administration will eschew the profit-motive, and even if it be eschewed, there will accrue substantial benefits to the public… and whether the policy followed by the government in office or the policy propounded by its opponents may reasonably attain the national objectives are matters which have little relevance in determining the legality of the measure. It is again not for this court to consider the relative merits of the different political theories or economic policies…. This court has the power to strike down a law on the ground of want of authority, but the court will not sit in appeal over the policy of Parliament in enacting a law. The court cannot find fault with the Act merely on the ground that it is inadvisable to take over the undertaking of banks which, it is said by the petitioner, by thrift and efficient management had set up an impressive and efficient business organisation serving large sectors of industry.” I feel strongly that the RBI Governor should immediately withdraw the permission so as not to create unnecessary lack of confidence and want of rapport between the
R.B.I. and the new government. Already there is a bias against the public sector. This is clear from the fact that none of the major political parties, though at each other's throat in their election offensives, has even remotely praised the public sector; rather all are promising to encourage the private sector - ironically forgetting the compulsion for socialism highlighted in the
Preamble to our Constitution. The writer is a former Chief Justice of the
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Yes, she turned a writer at 70! For a while I was totally blanked and then started recollecting the events. Last month I had fractured my hip bone and was advised to be on the bed for three months. The very idea of restricted movement horrified me. But my mother told me to be brave. She mentioned that she had fractured her leg three times and was hospitalised for several months, but she took it sportingly. As if it was not enough, her last decade saw her suffer from acute osteoporosis which restricted her to wheelchair or to bed. This happened when she was about to leave for Varanasi that the catastrophe stuck her weak and fragile bones. But I could not remember if ever I saw her complaining. Despite suffering from acute osteoporosis, she was full of life. She jokingly used to say that my father was a "manglik" and therefore these injuries were bound to happen. I lost my father 24 years ago when I was in the midst of my career and my children were growing. Yes, he indeed left a void, but I had my mother by my side and she never made me feel that father was no more. I knew that she missed him the most, but she kept herself occupied in something or the other. And at 70, when for most of the people it is the time to wind up, she discovered her flair for writing. Drawing inspiration from her husband, she carried forward his legacy, and entered the field of literature with bold and realistic colours. She went on to bag the prestigious Haryana Sahitya Akademi award in 2001. She penned down 13 books, of which four came after 2004 when an acute osteoporosis had restricted her to the bed. Her work mainly revolved around women empowerment. In accordance with her wishes, her last rites were performed by her granddaughters Sangeeta and Deepika. For us, she exemplified courage, strong willpower and became a living inspiration by converting emotions and grief into something constructive and creative, when life seemed difficult to grasp. Even deteriorating health did not come in the way of her passion for writing, and her take on life itself has been a lesson. Yes, she was full of life!
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Indian democracy vibrant, but flawed The
In India, in ever so many ways, this is the best of times. Our democracy is blossoming. While in countries around us, democracy has taken bruising and even battering, our elections are in progress. Millions are participating in the proceedings. They know how to re-endorse earlier verdicts; equally, how to reverse them. We are a democracy with a powerful monarch – the voter. And our media is the monarch’s security guard.
And yet, our democracy is deeply flawed. Size and scale do not in themselves validate a democracy. Quality is must. The voter is powerful but his power is subverted by blandishment. Money is at our democracy’s throat. It originates either legally, through licit company donations, or comes from myriad sources which go back to our natural resources such as mines, forests and land. Illegal transactions in all these yield harvests of black cash and this is disgorged on people in ‘jhopad-pattis’. It is on these that politicians descend at election time, laden with cash and hooch, to buy votes. Dr Ambedkar had spoken of how this India may well explode and blow up our constitutional edifice. There is a quote from Mark Hanna: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is”. The second thing is bullying. Certain kinds of services are co-opted near election time by candidates. These are ‘goonda’ services. ‘Goondas’ are a part of society. They are a floating resource, and their skill is intimidation. Their wherewithal, via money and narcotics, is the illegal firearm. By an estimate, there are 40 million illegal small arms floating around all over the land.
The money game The Election Commission has to be congratulated for being fearless despite all this. Our uniformed services, headed by the police and various paramilitary agencies, need to be saluted for keeping law-breakers in check. But who is to check the collapse of true, far-sighted leadership and its degeneration into ‘leaderbaazi’? We are seeing the blooming of an election. But there is a strange stillness in the air. Marine geographers have a word for it – the doldrums. The word signifies a stupor, in which everything is listless, stagnant and immobilised. Dictators have been wafted up by people voting democratically. The ballot box can receive the faith of innocence and emit a genie. It can receive trust unseeingly, disgorge its betrayal unblinkingly. That receptacle, now a machine, is neutral to the ethics of its arithmetic. It is concerned only with numbers. Sections of the media have become trumpeters of what they see as the coming change. We had heard of paid news. But this is free advertising. The high noon of the free Press in India makes its own eclipse-by-ink and through the small screen. So, this best of times for democracy can become the worst of times for democracy as well. Our economy is startling if you do not want to see its other side. If you see that side, you will see it is schizophrenic. Corporate greed has crossed all bounds, as has corporate tastelessness. We used to talk of black money as a parallel economy and so it continues to be. Who is to ask why, in such a situation, farmers commit suicide, dispossessed rural poor migrate across the country, why infant mortality, malnutrition, childbirth-related deaths and foeticide remain stubborn ogres? Yes, the mobile telephone is a fantastic asset. But while we make the calls, someone makes the money. 2G Spectrum is a description that arouses deep pride, and deep distrust.
Science policy opaque And as for science, something is missing. I believe there is, and it is called a transparent and accessible science policy. Today, science policy is seen as something of a mystery, a state-secret, almost. Its nurturing is as if in an SEZ, a privileged area, gated and cordoned off. This is unfortunate because science has worked wonders for us, reduced drudgery, enhanced ergonomic ease, improved productivity and saved lives. Transparency apart, I wonder why it is that Indian science is yet to make an impact on what Nehru used to call the scientific temper. Superstition has increased exponentially. Such are the guilty consciences and insecurities of our political class that next to lawyers, the expertise most consulted by politicians is that of astrologers.
Ethical drought Our classical and folk arts command respect worldwide. But India has the foulest reputation for the way its men in the national Capital, particularly, gawk at, grope and molest women visitors from overseas. This is another manifestation of the way huge numbers of our men are pre-dispositioned vis-à-vis the female body. If a single artist from India were to experience anything like that in Paris, New York or Berlin, all hell would break loose in India. We are going through an ethical drought, a desertification of the finer sensibilities of civilisational living. Some decades ago, there was the odd Dhirendra Brahmachari and Chandraswami as godmen. Now you find them everywhere. One of the great blessings of our Republic is the freedom and stature of our judicial system. The independence and high calibre of our judiciary is something to be proud of although sometimes it can shock us by turning the clock back by judgments like the one on Section 377, IPC. One area of utter darkness is our prisons. Changing their name to correctional homes is a right step but it can be self-fulfilling. Our correctional homes are bursting with under-trials, many of who may well be not guilty. I would have thought some of our VIPs who have spent spells of varying duration in these homes would have come up with innovative ideas for reform. But no, their priorities are obviously different. Under a recent amendment to the CrPC, certain categories of undertrials can be enlarged on a personal bond, ‘Can be’ is one thing, ‘have been’ is another. Why should this provision not be used? We may be the land that has given birth to the Buddha, Mahavira and Gandhi. But let us not deceive ourselves into believing that we are a non-violent people. Every city and town has jails, ‘thanas’ and lock-ups. Torture seems to be part of an entrance ritual. This is a blot that can only go if the police establishment comes up with the leadership needed to stop it. The issue of undertrials and of torture cannot be taken up in isolation without acknowledging a major fact. A major wedge of the eclipse over India’s noon is the debilitation over the criminal justice system. It has all but collapsed. Attempts to preserve the legitimacy of the system, however, have produced ironic phenomena such as scapegoating. Another side-effect of panic legitimising, namely, the tendency towards social control and control of political differences through the use of criminal law is deplorable. This is the single-most misuse of an instrumentality, which makes null and void all claims for democratic dissent and institutional independence.
CBI autonomy The result is there is the CBI where the police cannot work, the SIT where the CBI is also feared to be compromised Or, narco-analysis where routine investigation has lost its way and so the ghoul called torture and the impunity that sanction gives to agencies of state remain as they are.And too much action by reaction — too much store being placed on social latencies, as distinct from judicial discrimination. How much is an Aarushi verdict or an Afzal hanging influenced by yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s possible headline? Every village in India has heard of the RTI and, what is more, it has used RTI, sometimes frivolously, sometimes perversely but, in the main part, transformationally and cleansingly. The RTI-trained public is no longer going to take corruption as a standard feature of the administration. It will expect, prod and make the CBI an instrument of change. It is important that the CBI establishes a partnership with the people. The CBI is clothed in opacity, then ornamented by secrecy and finally perfumed by mystery. For a short time, the CBI came under the RTI Act. The heavens did not fall during that time. But the triple wrappings of opacity, secrecy and mystery made it move to be taken out of the purview of the Act. The CBI is about investigations into corruption and certain crimes. It is not a security or intelligence agency. And even if some aspects of its investigations need protection against disclosure, there are enough provisions under the Act’s exemption clauses to have come to the CBI’s aid. Especially when the CBI has to contend with the politically powerful, it can only gain by having an overarching partnership with the ultimate rulers in a democracy, the people. This is where the question of its autonomy comes in. It should not be under the government, for then it would have no autonomy. But it should be accountable to the Republic. It should be under the Lok Pal, just as the Army is under the Defence Minister. The CBI Director should be a phenomenal instrument, not a self-operating robot. On the apprehension that an autonomous CBI could become reckless, all political incumbents of office are on the same page. The fear is not unfounded but is given currency to evade the issue of autonomy. The India which could speak its mind to Indira Gandhi’s Emergency and defeat her is not going to let a police official who grows too big for his halo get away with it. The CBI investigations are often directed against very senior government officials and politicians who wield great influence. They have to be handled judiciously and without fear or favour. This is why the CBI requires autonomy and an assurance of protection against the capriciousness of highly placed individuals. Unfortunately, successive governments have been reluctant to sanction it autonomy. But thanks to Supreme Court interventions, the CBI has come to have a certain modicum of autonomy in operations. And yet there are anomalies like the single directive which requires government permission to conduct preliminary inquiries against officers of the rank of Joint Secretary and above, government sanction for prosecution and government permission to prefer appeals against court acquittals. Whether to settle personal scores against political adversaries or to force independent civil servants to fall in line with an unscrupulous executive, pressure does get to be exerted over the CBI. No political party is a saint in this matter. But the CBI must resist the unethical overtures. In the transition between today’s CBI and a truly autonomous CBI under a Lok Pal, the CBI should be able to say ‘no’ to politicians. The CBI has to be the nation’s inner monitor. What I am advocating is true autonomy with accountability to the Republic, not to the power centres of the day. CBI officers need to be respected, not held in awe or fear. There have been complaints of lack of integrity among officials themselves. Disciplinary action has been taken against delinquent officials, but this has had only limited impact.
Right and wrong
— Excerpts from a lecture titled “Eclipse at Noon: Shadows over India’s Conscience” delivered by the writer, a former Governor of West Bengal, at the 15th DP Kohli Memorial Lecture in Delhi on April 15.
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