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Challenges before CJI
Failure of justice |
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BJP, RSS misreading public response
A strange celebration of democracy
Time to shift focus on family farming
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Challenges before CJI The
tenure of the new Chief Justice of India, Rajendra Mal Lodha, will be only for five months. His predecessor, P Sathasivam, occupied the prestigious office for just nine months. This has raised the question whether a fixed tenure is desirable for the chief justices of the Supreme Court and high courts. CJI Lodha is not very enthusiastic about the idea because "the legitimate expectations of other judges would be taken away". Well, the judiciary is expected to fulfil the expectations of not only judges but also of people who seek quick and affordable justice. Besides, the judiciary faces numerous challenges, including a huge backlog of cases, shortage of judges and infrastructure. A chief justice can show results only if he has sufficient time to act. The issue of appointment of judges too has come up for debate lately. The present collegium system has been found to be inadequate since there is no transparency. “No principle is laid down, no investigation is made, and a sort of anarchy prevails”, as Justice Krishna Iyer puts it. Chief Justice Lodha, however, has expressed himself in favour of the current system, though calling for wider consultations outside the collegium with judges and prominent lawyers. In 2013 the UPA government introduced a Bill in Parliament to bring in a Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) in place of the collegium system. The next government at the Centre will decide on its fate now. Judicial activism or overreach is another issue that requires attention of the new Chief Justice. There are judges who have crossed the line and stepped into executive territory at times. The new CJI feels that judges should operate within their sphere. Justice Lodha is known for taking a tough and liberal stance on crucial issues — be it the allocation of coal blocks, operational freedom of the CBI (remember his comment “a caged parrot” about the CBI?), dismissal of petitions seeking a ban on the film “Jolly LLB” and hate speeches in the ongoing elections. Maintaining judicial independence may be a major challenge for him if an authoritarian political executive assumes office.
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Failure of justice A court in Minya, 150 miles south of Cairo, became the scene of a sentencing that has shocked the international community. Judge Said Youssef may have stuck a bloody blow to the Egyptian judicial system when he took eight minutes to sentence 683 supporters of the ousted President Mohamed Morsi to death for their alleged involvement in an attack on a police station that resulted in the death of a policeman. The summary trial was short on evidence and harsh on the sentence imposed on the accused. Many governments have stated their disapproval at the manner in which the regime, backed by the Egyptian Army, is railroading supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organisation which won elections last July. In a trial held in March, the same judge had sentenced 529 defendants to death, a punishment which he has now reduced to life imprisonment for all but 37 of them. The sentencing is a further indication of how threatened the military-backed regime feels about the Muslim Brotherhood and its popular support. The organisation has been banned as terrorist, even as it demonstrated its adherence to peaceful and democratic means during its recent struggles. Other bodies that oppose the present regime have faced a similar fate. Egypt has a long history of authoritarian rule, which was punctuated by a brief dalliance with democracy. It is a strategic ally of the US, which has kept up its supply of military equipment even as it has voiced disapproval of the latest sentencing. It must exert its influence on Cairo to strengthen democratic forces, which is supported so vociferously not so long ago. The Arab Spring brought down a dictator, but he was eventually replaced by another, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew the democratically elected Morsi in a coup on July 3 last year. Morsi distrusted his country's judiciary. Judge Youssef has shown the world how right Morsi was.
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Thought for the Day
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it. —
Andrew Jackson
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School strikes Indian and foreign
IN the matter of school strikes, the Indian students, it must be admitted, have only tried to imitate Europe and America, though it is not quite plain how this western spirit was introduced and by whom. In India itself the teachers and the taught have from time immemorial recognised the supreme virtue of discipline and never has there been an instance of the students complaining against their gurus. There were doubtless bad gurus, harsh gurus and incompetent gurus in the purely Hindu Pathalas. But whenever the students were dissatisfied, they consulted some elders and followed their advice. It is not impossible to maintain the same standard of respect and concession to feelings at the present day. But there is a fear that modern discipline tends to take the form of military discipline and personal idiosyncrasies and apparent unfairness are defended on the score of prestige. American advice to the Indian National Congress
anglo-Indian opinion of the "friendly" section has more than once suggested that Indians should discontinue the holding of the annual session of the Indian National Congress and concentrate their energies on the more solid kind of work in the Legislative Councils. But Indians have never once wavered as to their duty in this respect, and the proceedings of the Legislative Councils have amply justified their nation. It is interesting to note that the well-known champion of the rights of Indians, the Rev. J.T. Sunderland, is entirely at one with Indians in thinking that the continuance of the Congress work is necessary for uninterrupted progress.
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BJP, RSS misreading public response True, most opinion polls give the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the BJP and Modi, a clear majority. But their tally is unreliable because there is not even a ripple, much less a wave, in favour of Modi in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Odisha. Even in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where regional parties sway the voters, the BJP's showing may be poor. As for the other parts of the country, the intemperate language used by certain leaders, blessed by the RSS, is alienating the intelligentsia and those sitting on the fence. It has become a fashion in election rallies to threaten the Muslims and then saying that the leaders have been misquoted or that their remarks have been picked up out of context. It was good to see the BJP expressing strong disapproval of the party's provincial leader who said that those who did not support Modi would be sent to Pakistan. The party would have earned credibility if it had ousted the leader from its organisation. However, the comment by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah that he would rather go to Pakistan than stay quiet against Modi is immature in nature. Moreover, the BJP and its mentor RSS are misreading the people's response. They do not want to be divided into Hindus and Muslims. Society does not want a person whose politics is divisive and whose thinking may well be authoritarian. I believe that Modi would not be able to disturb pluralism whatever the RSS and the BJP may say. His complicity in the anti-Muslims riots in 2002 cannot be hidden even though a magistrate court in Gujarat has given him a clean chit. As the state's Chief Minister he is overall responsible and has certain obligations to fulfill. The security of the minorities is important. He even refuses to say sorry, much less seek forgiveness. A few days ago when he had an opportunity to express regret, he refused to do so. Still there is every possibility that a pro-Hindutva person heads India. Modi's speeches, however jingoistic, have not mentioned Pakistan. But he continues to use development as a cover to hide his communal agenda. Some believe that Modi may face the reality of the country's diversities and turn out to be another Atal Behari Vajpayee, the most popular Indian leader in Pakistan. Whatever is Modi's agenda, he cannot afford to be on bad terms with the neighbouring Pakistan. He may well initiate the talks which have not moved after the terrorists' attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Modi and the BJP, whatever their rhetoric, realise that a working relationship with Islamabad is in the interest of New Delhi. Pakistan, where the shadows of fundamentalism are lengthening, is in the midst of attack by extremists on the media. Hamid Mir, an independent journalist, was injured by bullets fired by fanatics. However, the people are increasingly feeling that normal relations with India will give a fillip to democracy and liberal thoughts. A Pakistani student from Oxford met me at my residence a few days ago. He had visited Pakistan and felt no hesitation in suggesting that Islamabad should normalise relations with India. This was the only alternative his country had because of the menace of the Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. His regret-and mine too-was that even known liberals preferred to remain quiet. I told him that India was also a prey to that. A soft Hindutva was contaminating more and more people, I said in reply. We both agreed that there was no go from good, amicable relations between the two countries. My disappointment is that a democratic and pluralistic society in India is not playing its role in the region. There is too much of tit for tat. Our Foreign Ministry has officials who have a particular mindset on Pakistan and take the narrative to the partition days for their chauvinistic stance. Youth are especially bewildered. They want employment or openings in business that a big country like India can provide. What hampers progress in that direction is the enmity between the two countries. People are not to be blamed, the establishments and intelligence agencies are. The few callers from Bangladesh did not doubt India's secular credentials but the prospects of Modi's success made them unhappy. Despite the growth of Jammiat-i-Islami in their own country, the Bangladeshis have seen how secularism during the liberation days has got eclipsed. They have never imagined that the fundamentalists, who were against the liberation of Bangladesh, would one day be so brazen faced that they would destroy Hindus' temples as it is happening in Pakistan. I think that the revival of religion, which is taking place even in the West, is bound to be duplicated in the subcontinent. India is a target of Hindutuva forces. They would want the country to be a "Hindu rashtra". But this is not possible because the people of different faiths have lived together for centuries. Hindus and Muslims have shared the land for more than one thousand years. Regretfully, there have been communal riots. The recent happenings in Muzzafarnagar in UP remind us that we live on the edge. The victims have returned home and the business is as usual. All realise that they are Indians first and Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs later. The feeling of Indianness binds the North with the South and the East with the West. The spirit of accommodation and the sense of tolerance are lessening because of parties like the RSS-BJP and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Yet the Constitution has brought about unity. The current Lok Sabha elections testify the faith of Indians in parliamentary democracy. One has to see how strong this feeling remains if and when Pakistan and Bangladesh come to be dominated by the fundamentalists. Modi's supporters are aping them. Those believing in a pluralistic society should realise that their fight will begin if the country takes a right turn.
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A strange celebration of democracy As
citizens of India we are currently part of the world's largest exercise to elect a representative government of, for, and by the people. In contrast, what we witness in our country today is a hurly burly of intolerance, fury and venom, bluster and personal invective. The scene is depressing. All parties and candidates are determined to vilify and insult their adversaries in the political arena. They make appeals to caste, religion, region and community, and also hold open threats to the very existence of different groups. If all the charges hurled at public figures are perceived as the truth, would not the voter be convinced that the political class as a whole is devious, unprincipled and unpatriotic? Would he, or she, not fear that, in the hands of such leaders, the very unity and integrity of the nation faces threat? Perhaps the Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, no democrat himself, had India in mind when he coined the dictum that politics is war without bloodshed. And if all is considered fair in the political battle, allegations of criminal activities and corruption fly thick and loose. Intemperate language classifies rivals as rats and goons, who deserve to be driven out of the country, or into the sea. In the past the charged atmosphere of election activity inspired satire and lampoon of figures shown as larger than life, bellowing on stage. India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, took in his stride witty as well as vitriolic projection of his foibles, at times disarming his cartoonists with a laugh. The modern political hero brooks no such attacks; he replies with a sledge hammer. We do see some instances of good humour and repartee. A political wit expresses fear that a rising 'wave' in favour of a political party, acclaimed as a storm, a tsunami of voter's approbation, could well transform into a national calamity. A distinguished candidate dubs his rival's actions worthy of a stage comedian. One recent cartoon shows figures representing the issues of the day, prices, scams, nepotism, crime, hate, unemployment, hunger, illiteracy etc., who state with relief, “Thank God they don’t fight against us.” In today’s turbulence such comic relief is, unfortunately, rare. By and large, though, both the print and electronic media, considered the fourth pillar of democracy, sensationalise the day’s debate, and pander to the descending level of political discourse. English writer Oscar Wilde was perceptive when he wrote, “The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, supplies their demands.” Is all this mere play acting amid the election fever? Will normalcy return? We must wait for two weeks to know.
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Time to shift focus on family farming
The
United Nations high-level political forum on sustainable development, created during Rio+20 Conference (the short name for the UN conference on sustainable development that took place in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012), emphasised that the “practice of sustainability provides the only real bridge from our past to our present and our future, and from our planet to our peoples and our prosperity”. The UN General Assembly endorsed the document, “Future We Want”, in which the importance of farming, small /marginal farmers in sustainability was recognised stating, “We recognise that farmers, including small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists and foresters, can make important contributions to sustainable development through production activities that are environmentally sound, enhance food security and the livelihood of the poor invigorate production and sustained economic growth”. In the 66th general session of the UN, 2013, the year 2014 was officially declared as the “International Year of Family Farming”, (IYFF).
Most vulnerable population
By choosing to mark the year 2014, the FAO Director-General said that UN recognises, the “family farmers as leading figures in responding to the double urgency the world faces today: improving food security and preserving natural resources. But strangely enough, they are among the world’s most vulnerable populations, remain highly susceptible to poverty and hunger andrequire genuine public support which is non-existent in most of the countries”. The definition of family farming is usually interchangeable with that of small and marginal holders. However, it is not about the size, but the way a family manages the multilayered characteristics of the land they own, primarily with the help of the family members, having limits of the possibilities to make a living, aspire to achieve a decent life by investing the family resources, work with dedication, passion and hard work to develop and improve the farm, ensure livelihood of the family and the farm continuity.
Inter-generational continuity
A family farm is not only a place of production, but also a home to the farming family, linking past, present and future through inter-generational continuity, embodying self-respect and pride as a way of life, a wider network of culture and agricultural practices evolved over the period, that contribute to conserving biodiversity and sustainability. Thus family farming is a linked and co-evolving unit that combines economic, environmental, social and cultural functions. (FAO, 2013) and is a predominant human lifestyle in the world.
Business model
At present, due to lack of proper policies, family farmers are failing to make positive contributions even to themselves and the inter-generation link is collapsing. In addition, the development policies are propelling it towards a business-like model for better profits’ as the only way to keep young people in agriculture. This is implying that it should be less “peasant like”, more “entrepreneurial” and should be subjected to the process of modernisation that will, however, turn the family farm into a mere supplier of labour, compromising all other features of sustainability inherent in it. But the underdeveloped countries continue to implement the industrial developmental model, for better economic returns from agriculture and the global integration, marginalise the family farmers. In Mexico, from 1992 - 2002, the number of agricultural households fell by 75 per cent, causing a significant increase in migration from rural areas by small and marginal farmers, depleting the rural countryside and the human resources. From 1994 - 2004, the labour force in the country grew approximately by one million annually. Today Mexico imports food from the USA and exports farmers and agricultural labour. In India, even in the agriculturally progressive southern and northern states, farming became economically unviable for small and marginal farmers. The escalating input costs, cost of degrading natural resources (soil nutrients and water) and decreasing margins led to an increasing farm debt, resulting in farmers’ suicides and a long-drawn agrarian crisis.According to the official data,16,6304 farmer committed suicides in India from 1997-2006, and the farmers declined by 9 million from 2001 to 2011, the first absolute decline of the agrarian population since 1971. This population had formed the backbone of Indian economy for centuries. The Punjab story
In Punjab, over 2 lakh peasants (mostly marginal and small farmers), left farming between 1991 and 2005. The number of small farmers was around 5 lakh in 1991 and got reduced to around 3 lakh in 2005. About 22 per cent of those who left farming as profession, were working as daily-wage labourers in cities. The small and marginal farmers were unable to pay back even short-term loans, the mounting vicious web of the debt trap, leaving no alternatives but to sell or mortgage the land. The humiliation due to the distress exit from farming, at times forcing them to take the “extreme” step of suicides.These developments culminated in the loss of interest in farming among the rural youth and inter-generational continuity is the causalty.
Exodus from rural areas
The rural populations are abandoning their lifestyle in search of employment to the cities, this alienates them from creative survival and renders them destitute. In India this means about 50 per cent of its population. They are moving out of a situation where they were paid in kind, from a survival economy, ensuring food, nutrition and a home in the complex rural set-up. In Punjab, the rural children devoid of skills and opportunity, are idle, taking to drugs, crime or wanting to migrate to foreign lands in search of greener pastures,wherein at times they get into worst situations. The plight of the small and marginal farmers has also worsened even in developed countries. Those in the food business appear to be cashing in on the crisis. Douwe van der Ploeg, an agricultural engineer who specialised in agrarian sociology of non-western countries, in his book The Stolen Future, elucidated “The impressive and multi-dimensional heterogeneity of the traditional agriculture and how heterogeneous re-moulding of nature was expressed in fields, animals, plant varieties, food, and a complex inter-relationship developed between society at large and the farming population in particular”.
Future of agriculture
Based on an extensive new line of research in rural sectors of Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Kenya and the United Kingdom, he postulated that “crop production has an endogenous development potential and rural development is not simply a question of political programmes or rhetoric, but a promising widespread phenomenon based on farmers practice”. His vocal public debate on the “future of agriculture”, gained momentum, for “developing (practical) new alternatives to the reigning model of ongoing scale-increase and further industrialisation of agriculture”. In his next book, The Virtual Farmer, he argues that “farming knowledge as accumulated and that produced by modern expert systems was increasingly at odds with reality and not a true representation of the way forward. At a very fundamental level this was a disastrous reshuffling of the inter-relations between past, present and future. Whereas the need to produce more food and the capacity to produce enough is an integral part of food sovereignty and the peasant agriculture has the best credentials for meeting this challenge and satisfy the (many) objectives of the society at large”. The accumulated scientific knowledge and sociological analysis thus emphasise, that family and small-scale farming are inextricably linked to world food and nutritional security, traditional food products, agro-biodiversity and environmental sustainability.
Repositioning the farm
The goal of the IYFF is to reposition family farming at the centre of agricultural, environmental and social policies in the national agendas by identifying gaps and opportunities to promote a shift towards a more equal and balanced development. The IYFF aims to: Highlight the potential of family farming and its crucial role towards sustainability, environment, biodiversity, food/ nutritional security and reduction of poverty. The goal is also to raise the profile of family farming by focusing world attention on its role in alleviating hunger, poverty, improving livelihoods, while protecting the environment and biodiversity. The belief is that family farming is more than a professional occupation, it is instead a “lifestyle based on beliefs and traditions about living and work family values of solidarity, continuity and commitment”. In economic terms, family farming is identified with specific entrepreneurial skills, business ownership and management, risk behaviour, resilience and individual achievement. The goal is also to increase knowledge and public awareness about the vital role that family farmers play in sustainability, their potential and the constraints that they face and help in the development of policies that will foster the sustainable family farming. These aims have been detailed in the IYYF website of the FAO.
How to save the farmer
Family farms the world over
— The writer is Former Dean Postgraduate Studies,
Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
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I
GET many telephone calls almost every day from Pakistan and a few from Bangladesh to inquire about the polling in the Lok Sabha elections. Their fear is that Narendra Modi might be India's next Prime Minister and destroy the democratic polity which they envy. I hope Modi does not head the next government.
Sadly, our parties are not engaged in any spirited debate on economic policies and political belief. Little mention is found of strong institutions to deliver good quality of public service and welfare, for which any government exists. The philosopher Voltaire, who inspired the French Revolution of 1789, extolled the virtue of tolerance in a democracy: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
