Frontline Magazine (The Hindu Newspaper)

January 06, 2018 - January 19, 2018 (Volume 35, No. 01)

Volume 35 - Issue 01
Jan 06, 2018 - Jan 19, 2018
VOLUME: 35
ISSUE: 01
ISSUE DATE: 19-01-2018

Contents
COVER STORY
The great telecom swindle
POLITICAL IMPACT Silence of the crusaders
THE VERDICT Questionable acquittals
CONTROVERSIAL REPORT An audit gone awry?
OTHER CORRUPTION CASES Scam chronicle
INTERVIEW: REBECCA JOHN, ADVOCATE, SUPREME COURT' What was the case about?'
INTERVIEW: SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY 'A case of internal sabotage'
INTERVIEW: ANAND GROVER 'Disappointing judgment'
INTERVIEW: KANIMOZHI 'I hope to unravel the facts one day'

THE NATION
JAMMU & KASHMIR Mission without mandate
On authoritarian populists
MIGRATION Journey to despair
REPORTS Widening gap
THIS FORTNIGHT Silence on thermal plants
THIS FORTNIGHT Relief for Ashok Chavan
AWARDS Inquilab's revolution
ESSAY Our swadeshi McCarthy
THIS FORTNIGHT Polarisation game
Mission possible
NAMAMI GANGE Murky waters

POLITICS
TAMIL NADU Byelection shocks
INTERVIEW "The seeds of revolt are present in many places"

COLUMNS
C.P. CHANDRASEKHAR
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES The Airtel-Aadhaar fix

SOCIAL ISSUES
COMMUNALISM Living in fear

ARTS & CULTURE

ART
PUBLIC ART Revitalising city spaces

1
WORLD AFFAIRS
Collage of Rohingya testimonies
UNITED STATES The military route
JERUSALEM A resounding no
REFUGEE CRISIS Escape from terror

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TECHNOLOGY Next-gen displays
GENETICS Turning plants into lamps
GENETICS Why some sleep more, some less
GENETICS 'Editing' out faulty gene responsible for hearing loss
HEALTH Fruits reduce lung damage

BOOKS
Perspectives on Kashmir
Precious tales
Zone of strife

OTHER
DATA CARD
INCOME INEQUALITY Land of unequals
LETTERS
LETTERS Letters to the Editor

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/the-great-telecom-swindle/article10008167.ece
COVER STORY
The great telecom swindle
V. SRIDHAR
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

DMK leader and former Union Telecom Minister A. Raja and his party colleague and Rajya
Sabha MP Kanimozhi arrive at Chennai airport on December 23 after their acquittal in the 2G
spectrum allocation case by a special court. Photo: PTI

Judge O.P. Saini.

Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka of DB Realty, both accused in the 2G case, at the Patiala
House Courts complex in 2013. Photo: PTI

Sanjay Chandra, managing director of Unitech Ltd, leaves the Patiala House Courts complex in
New Delhi in 2011. Chandra was acquitted in the 2G spectrum allocation case. Photo: PTI

Bollywood producer Karim Morani, who was acquitted in the 2G spectrum case, at the Patiala
House Courts complex in New Delhi on December 21. Photo: Ramesh Sharma

2
The narrow focus on political corruption, targeting individual politicians or bureaucrats, has
distracted attention from the wholesale rigging of Indian telecom policy in favour of large
corporations.
IT WOULD APPEAR THAT SPECIAL JUDGE O.P. Saini’s order in the 2G spectrum case is
paradoxical: a theft of gigantic proportions without a thief in sight or of a massive scam without a
swindler to pin it on. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, India’s dalliance with
mobile telephony, masked by the impressive speed of its pan-Indian rollout in the last two
decades, reveals a can of worms.

It also demands a broader understanding of the notion of political corruption. The popular
narrative that corrupt practices arise from individual politicians holding office and having access
to the levers of policy is clearly inadequate. This understanding of corruption as a random
occurrence triggered by the avarice of individual politicians is obviously inadequate because
what is called the Great Spectrum Swindle is just one in a long series of episodes where the
government allowed dominant industry players to dictate the key elements of policy.

The main disadvantage of the popular narrative is that it is blind to the fact that what is being
termed as “corruption” is actually policy capture or regulatory capture, which confers substantial
benefits to key industry players. This notion of corruption is not just naive, it actually hides the
true beneficiaries of policy capture from the public eye.

In the case of the telecom industry, one must look beyond the spectrum scandal to get an idea
of the magnitude of the larceny and understand how licence terms were tweaked and re-
tweaked, how operators were allowed to change the fundamental terms of service after being
awarded the licences, the manner in which the government looked the other way even when it
knew that the licence holders had foreign investment above the prescribed caps, and how the
government reined in public sector companies while blatantly favouring private players.

Policy capture
India’s telecom policy over the last two decades may seem to have been ad hoc and irrational,
but in every single case the arbitrary tweaks yielded huge dividends to the powerful incumbents
in the business. Seen from this perspective, the riddle of an apparent commission of a gigantic
fraud without a perpetrator in sight appears to yield a solution. But in order to obtain this
perspective, it is necessary to recall key episodes in the last two decades, which suggest a
systematic capture of Indian telecom policy by large private companies.

Interwoven in this narrative of capture is also the plight of the Indian public sector telecom
service providers, most notably BSNL, which were systematically run down, thereby diminishing
competition in the sector. In terms of the political aspect of this policy capture, it is interesting to
note that a continuum existed irrespective of whether the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) was at the helm in New Delhi.

In fact, one of the first instances of an egregious tweaking of policy occurred in 1999 during the
short-lived Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, which, despite its caretaker status, made the
outrageous decision to change the terms of the telecom licences awarded to companies (
Frontline, August 14, 1999). In effect, it made the decision much after it had been reduced to
“caretaker” status when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lost its majority in Parliament.

Under relentless lobbying by the winners of the telecom licences, the government decided to
change the terms from a licence fee-based regime to a revenue-sharing arrangement. This
violated every canon of law, apart from conveying to the bidders that the government was

3
amenable to pressure. Indeed, the very modification of the terms of the licences, after having
awarded them, mocked the sanctity of the auction process, apart from significantly diminishing
competition.

Significantly, one of the winners was found to have bid in collusion with Sukh Ram, who was
Telecom Minister in the Congress government under P.V. Narasimha Rao and later convicted
for having accepted bribes. And Jagmohan, the Telecom Minister in the Vajpayee government,
was shunted out because he had opposed the shift to a revenue-sharing regime after the
bidding process was over.

Later, after the BJP established itself in power on a more secure basis in Parliament, the
government allowed two major telecom players—Reliance and the Tatas—to offer full-scale
mobile services even though they had won licences only for offering “limited mobility” services
with what was then known as Wireless in Local Loop (WiLL) technology. In both cases the
companies managed to convert their licences and establish claims over scarce wireless
spectrum after paying a relatively paltry licence conversion fee. Even more galling was the
conduct of the government and the regulator when Reliance got away with egregious conduct
by routing and landing international calls which masqueraded as calls emanating from within
India ( Frontline, December 18, 2004 and March 12, 2005).

The public sector service providers BSNL and MTNL suffered losses then estimated at Rs.1,300
crore, although Reliance paid less than half the amount as a fine and escaped unscathed. The
then Telecommunications Minister, Dayanidhi Maran of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(DMK), which was part of the NDA government, refused to cancel Reliance’s licence, arguing
that this would “cause huge suffering” to the operator’s subscribers.

There were other means by which telecom operators were favoured. At least two Indian
operators, Aircel and Hutchsion Max (later Vodafone), were found by multiple Indian regulators,
including the country’s central bank, to have foreign investment above the prescribed caps on
Indian companies in the telecom sector. Both companies got away scot-free.

In the case of Vodafone, which acquired Hutchison Max, the foreign investment was 89 per
cent, 15 percentage points above the legally set cap on foreign investment ( Frontline, May 5,
2007). Incidentally, this acquisition and the capital gains that Hutchison Max made on the sale it
made to Vodafone have been the subject of prolonged litigation in which the government has
clearly exhibited indications of succumbing to pressure from powerful lobbies.

The manner in which the UPA and the NDA calibrated policy, or rather signalled their
willingness to adjust policy to the fait accompli presented by telecom operators, set the stage for
the establishment of a set of incumbents, the most notable of which were Bharti Airtel, Reliance
Infocomm, and the Tatas, and to a lesser extent Hutchison Max and Aircel.

The most glaring omissions from this list were BSNL and MTNL (the latter restricted to the
Mumbai and Delhi metropolitan areas). In effect, the private incumbents were allowed to
establish their presence in the initial years without having to contend with the countervailing
influence of the public sector companies. By the time the “calling party pays” regime came into
effect in 2003, which actually sparked the significant lowering of telecom tariffs in India, the
incumbent private operators had benefited significantly from being the early movers.

In most telecom circles, BSNL was allowed to enter only as the third or fourth operator, but even
then it was severely restricted despite setting a blistering pace of customer acquisition. In fact,

4
BSNL’s unique selling point in those years was its offer of “billing integrity” in an industry that
customers widely perceived to be notorious owing to the non-transparent billing practices of
private operators. However, BSNL could not keep pace with the private operators because it
was systematically denied government permission to ramp up its network infrastructure in order
to cater to the needs of a fast-growing subscriber base. Mass desertions by subscribers were a
natural result of the negligent attitude of the government to its own company.

Spectrum squatters
By 2007, as the Indian mobile subscriber base grew, the incumbent operators aimed to
establish a stranglehold by using access to wireless spectrum as a barrier to entry and,
therefore, competition. In fact, the seeds of the spectrum scam can be traced to this period. The
critical issue was that scarce spectrum was made available on a first come, first served basis. It
soon became evident that the incumbents were squatting on excess spectrum simply to prevent
the entry of rivals into the space.

As industry lobbies whipped up fears of an impending shortage of spectrum, and even as the
regulatory agencies did precious little to ensure that the incumbent operators deployed
technologies that resulted in more efficient use of their spectrum, an unprecedented number of
applications were filed for mobile telephony service licences. The Department of
Telecommunications, flooded by 575 applications from nearly 50 companies for licences in 23
telecom circles, abruptly closed the window for applications. Uproarious scenes were witnessed
at Sanchar Bhawan, the seat of the Telecom Ministry in New Delhi, where executives in suits
climbed over gates and engaged in fist fights with rivals.

Among the applicants were companies only remotely connected with the telecom business—
real estate and construction companies and several others obviously acting as proxies of the
incumbent players. Naturally, there was apprehension that the policy vacuum provided
spectrum squatters an ideal opportunity to make a quick buck by trading the resource if and
when they won a licence.

Once it became clear that the incumbent operators had made windfalls from the spectrum they
were allotted as part of their licences, and as criticism mounted, they changed tack, arguing that
this policy had actually made the mobile revolution possible in India. Advocates of the policy,
who are also the same set of people who argue that there was no spectrum scam, argued that
cheap mobile telephony services would not have been possible without such a policy.

A senior executive who worked for two of the top four mobile phone companies during that
period told Frontline that both of them made “significant profits from the spectrum they had
gathered at throwaway prices”.

“Even if this was the conscious objective of government policy in order to provide cheap telecom
services, it ought to have been done in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner,” he
added.

Congress politicians have been gloating that the Saini judgment implies that the government
incurred no losses. They have attempted to rubbish the notion of “presumptive” losses of
Rs.1.76 lakh crore estimated by former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai. However,
although one may quarrel with the estimate itself, there is nothing fictitious about a “notional
loss”. Indeed, in economic parlance the comparative postulate would be that of the opportunity
cost that the government incurred, also notional, by not leasing spectrum after a price discovery
through an auction.

5
A telecom industry veteran explained it thus: “If you have just sold your house for Rs.100 crore,
after purchasing it for Rs. 50 crore, but missed an offer of Rs.120 crore, you incurred an
opportunity cost of Rs.20 crore although you actually made a net profit of Rs.50 crore.” The
mere fact that only a notional loss can be computed on such a deal does not render the loss
fictitious, he added. “Indeed, you would be well advised to take such a loss seriously.”

The BJP, which swept into office in 2014 on the promise of a scam- mukt Bharat, has done
precious little to alter the perception that the Indian telecom industry is game for match-fixing. Its
failure to prevent Reliance Jio from using its spectrum, which was acquired in an atmosphere
vitiated by the elimination of competition, is a clear indication of the continuum in the policy
regime it inherited from the UPA ( Frontline, September 30, 2016). The manner in which the
spectrum was acquired, the manner in which the licence terms were tweaked after the auction,
and the lower costs that Reliance incurs vis-a-vis competition are clear indicators of the
continuity in the permissive environment large companies are allowed to operate in.

Policy making and corruption

Most of the attention on the 2G spectrum scam has been focussed on politicians, bureaucrats
and some lesser-known executives of private companies, all of whom were exonerated by
Justice Saini in his recent order. In contrast, the string of scams that the Indian telecom industry
has seen in the last two decades since the Indian telecom revolution took root has received
much less attention in the media as well as in popular imagination. This arises from a narrow
understanding of political corruption as mere private gains made by politicians at the expense of
the public exchequer.

This simplistic perception of corruption arises from the abject failure to appreciate that politicians
who “fix” deals can only pocket a fraction of the benefits they provide to those who benefit from
such tainted deals. Therefore, it stands to reason that the major beneficiaries are not the
politicians themselves but those who benefit from their actions, which are often recklessly
arbitrary, as the Indian telecom policy has been for most part of the last two decades.

From this perspective, the playground of policymaking offers a much larger field for political
corruption, which is characterised not so much by individual acts of corrupt practices but by a
wholesale rigging of policy that favours large corporations. The fact that they result in a loss of
public revenues, the burden of which falls on ordinary and hapless citizens, makes the rigging
all the more reprehensible.

The key takeaway from the Great Indian Telecom Swindle, a show running for the last two
decades, is this: the ground for scams of much bigger proportions is prepared in the realm of
economic policy and regulation. Shades of what happened in the case of the telecom sector can
also been seen in the oil industry, the power sector, and many other areas of the economy
where policy is held hostage by powerful vested interests. That this happens in the name of
“liberalisation” of policy is the irony of our times.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/silence-of-the-crusaders/article10008269.ece
COVER STORY
POLITICAL IMPACT
Silence of the crusaders
VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN
PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI

6
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Narendra Modi releasing the BJP manifesto in April 2014, ahead of the general election. Photo:
RAVEENDRAN/AFP

Kapil Sibal, Senior Advocate and Congress leader. Photo: PTI

The verdict in the 2G spectrum case seems to have undermined the BJP’s propaganda blitz
about corruption during the United Progressive Alliance regime.
IT WAS KAPIL SIBAL, SENIOR Congress leader with the record of having served as Union
Minister of Telecommunications and of Law and Justice, who came up with the most objective
assessment of the political dimensions of the December 21 verdict in the 2G spectrum
allocation case. “With this judgment, the Congress may claim a moral victory but it cannot
reclaim what it lost.” However, his other statements on the case, including his reiteration of his
contention in 2011 that the scam caused “zero loss to the exchequer”, have been characterised
as extreme and sensational and continue to be perceived even in Congress circles as being
counterproductive. There is little doubt that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s virulent
campaign on the perceived illegalities in the 2G spectrum allocation and the presumptive loss of
Rs.1.76 lakh crore it was supposed to have caused to the exchequer was one of the main
factors that led to a massive anti-incumbency mood against Manmohan Singh’s United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and its humiliating defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha
elections. Even Narendra Modi’s elevation as Prime Minister-designate in the run-up to those
elections had a direct relation to this campaign; he was more sharp-tongued and opprobrious
than most other senior BJP leaders when it came to castigating the Congress leadership on
issues, including the 2G case.

Indeed, the BJP campaign for the 2014 general election revolved around three Gs; “CWG, 2G,
jijaji” (Hindi for elder sister’s husband, here referring to Robert Vadra, Rahul Gandhi’s brother-in-
law). The reference was to the Commonwealth Games scam, the 2G scam and alleged land-
grabbing by Robert Vadra in Haryana, respectively. The entire BJP leadership built up this
campaign in an orchestrated manner through the last three years of the UPA II goverment, but it
acquired new teeth and bite after Modi was anointed the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in
September 2013. BJP insiders, including senior leaders, admit that it was Modi who took this
campaign to such a crescendo that the entire nation saw nothing but truth in it. As a result, the
UPA II government was viewed as the most corrupt government ever in independent India’s
history and this contributed immensely to the BJP’s sweeping victory in May 2014.

Even after assuming power at the Centre in May 2014, the BJP and the National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) led by it continued to benefit from the popular perception of the Congress as a
cobweb of corruption. This was reflected in the electoral setbacks that the Congress suffered
over the past three and a half years, in one State after another. Modi also used this propaganda
handle to attack the generally soft-spoken Manmohan Singh. From time to time, he described
the former Prime Minister in terms such as “mauni baba” (silent old man) who just kept watching
as corruption scams were mounting.

When Manmohan Singh made use of uncharacteristic words such as “organised loot” and
“legalised plunder” to describe demonetisation in early 2017, Modi made disparaging
innuendoes about his predecessor. He said: “For the past 30-35 years, Manmohan Singh ji has
been directly associated with financial decisions. There were many scams around him, but his
own image remained clean. Dr Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a

7
bathroom with a raincoat on ( Bathroom mein raincoat pehenke nahana sirf doctor saab jaante
hain).” The overt suggestion, which was once again cheered lustily by sections of the BJP
leadership and its rank and file, was that Manmohan Singh was complicit in these scams. In
terms of political tactics and strategy, this was an attempt to enlarge the use of corruption
charges as a political weapon against the Congress, bringing in hitherto untargeted persons into
the ambit.

Shaken edifice
The December 21 verdict has certainly put a dampener on these attempts. The strong words
used by O.P. Saini, the Special CBI Court judge, asserting that there was “nil evidence” to
suggest either criminality or corruption in the 2G spectrum allocation should undoubtedly
moderate the BJP’s attacks on the Congress over alleged corruption scandals. More so
because the three and a half years of the Modi government have not seen investigations
leading to conviction in any of these cases. Saini observed: “For about seven years now, on all
working days, summer vacation included, I religiously sat in the open court from 10 a.m. to 5
p.m., awaiting someone with some legally admissible evidence in his possession, but all in vain.
Not a single soul turned up. This indicates that everybody was going by public perception
created by rumour, gossip and speculation. However, public perception has no place in judicial
proceedings.” The judge talks about the prosecution side’s laxity in the past seven years. The
BJP has been in power under Modi for half of that period. It is in this context that senior BJP
leader Subramanian Swamy evaluates the verdict as “potentially a big setback for Modi”.

Of course, the official response from BJP spokespersons is that this is not the final verdict and
that it will be appealed against in higher courts. But there is grudging admission, even among
the higher leadership, that the edifice of the anti-corruption campaign against the Congress has
been shaken. Modi’s own reaction has been predictable. Iterating his standard reaction when
confronted with difficult political challenges, the otherwise hyper-voluble Prime Minister has
slunk into silence, offering no comments at all on an issue that virtually catapulted him to power.

Congress response
The Congress leadership, too, has sought to highlight this muted response of the BJP.
Manmohan Singh’s first reaction was that he “respected the court judgment” and that it had put
“propaganda to rest”. The more vocal Sibal claimed that his claim of “zero loss to the
exchequer” had been upheld. Former Union Minister M. Veerappa Moily accused former CAG
Vinod Rai of having been hand in glove with the BJP in his projection of Rs.1.76 lakh crore as
the presumptive loss caused by the alleged scam and demanded an apology. He said: “Bofors
is an example. The BJP was harping on allegations which were not based on any evidence. But
we had to pay a price. We lost our government and it did irreparable damage to Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi’s excellent image. Now, who will compensate us for that? Similarly, in the 2G
case, the BJP churned out a campaign based on falsehoods and it used the then CAG Vinod
Rai in its conspiracy. Vinod Rai was appointed CAG by our government. But he was unhappy
for certain reasons, he wanted to become the Cabinet Secretary but could not, and he was
nursing a grudge against us. Never before had a CAG ventured into calculating ‘presumptive
losses’, but he did that and the BJP went to town with this.”

Moily also said that the country would give a befitting reply to the BJP, now that “the falsehood”
had been exposed. “They will certainly give the reply in the next general elections.” His
optimism was shared by senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahamed, who said that the party and
other UPA constituents would reach out to the people to highlight the salient features of the
verdict.

8
Evidently, these sections of the Congress leadership expect that the political resonances of the
December 21 verdict can be kept alive for a long time through sustained campaigns and
interactions with the people. Sibal’s comment emphasising the moral victory and admitting that it
will not bring back what is lost seems to be the most realistic. This is also in keeping with the
history of political corruption cases in India. A study of this record shows that while the
allegations themselves generate decisive political impacts, the tardy and time-consuming legal
proceedings, including the partial judgments that come up from time to time, dilute them.

Of course, the climate created by the judgment does provide an opportunity for the Congress
leadership, particularly for Rahul Gandhi, who was recently elevated as party president, to
launch a nationwide campaign to revive the party.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/questionable-acquittals/article10008197.ece
COVER STORY
THE VERDICT
Questionable acquittals
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

A. Raja, former Telecom Minister, garlanded by his supporters outside the Patiala House Courts
after he was acquitted by the CBI Special Court on December 21. Photo: PTI

DMK MP Kanimozhi leaves the Patiala House Courts after the verdict. Photo: PTI

Siddhartha Behura, former Telecom Secretary, after the verdict. Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Dayanidhi Maran, former Telecom Minister. Photo: PTI

R.K. Chandolia, who was Raja’s private secretary. Photo: PTI

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressing the media on the verdict at Parliament House. Photo:
PTI

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Photo: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

The CBI Special Judge’s acquittal of all the accused in the 2G spectrum allocation case shows
how criminality involving the corporate-politician nexus is beyond the reach of the law.
“Thus, some people created a scam by artfully arranging a few selected facts and exaggerating
things beyond recognition to astronomical levels.”

That was how the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge, O.P. Saini, concluded
his 1,553-page judgment on December 21, 2017, in the 2G spectrum allocation case after six
long years of trial. The conclusion was bizarre because in 2010 the Supreme Court considered
this very case serious enough to merit comprehensive and coordinated investigation by the CBI
and the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE) without any hindrance.

9
Judge Saini acquitted all the 17 accused, holding that the prosecution had failed miserably to
prove any of the charges made in its “well choreographed charge sheet”.

The CBI filed its charge sheet in 2011 on the basis of the case it registered in 2009 against
unknown officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), unknown private
persons/companies and others for criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct read with
offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), in respect of allocation of spectrum in
2008 by the Centre. Among the accused was A. Raja, the then Union Minister for
Communications and Information Technology (C&IT).

The Supreme Court observed in 2012, while quashing 122 spectrum licences granted to mostly
ineligible persons: “The material produced before the court shows that the Minister of C&IT
wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the Public Exchequer.” The court then went on
to specify the steps taken by Raja for the purpose.

Among these was Raja’s decision to introduce the cut-off date as September 25, 2007, for
consideration of the applications received for the grant of Unified Access Services (UAS)
licences and spectrum, though the DoT had on September 24 issued a press release fixing
October 1, 2007, as the last date for receipt of applications.

“This arbitrary action of the Minister of C&IT, though appears to be innocuous, actually benefited
some of the real estate companies who did not have any experience in dealing with telecom
services and who have made applications only on September 24, 2007, that is, one day before
the cut-off date fixed by the Minister of C&IT on his own,” the Supreme Court bench of Justices
G.S. Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly held on February 2, 2012.

The cut-off date, decided by Raja on November 2, 2007, was not made public until January 10,
2008. The first come, first served principle, which had been followed from 2003, was changed
by him on January 7, 2008, and the decision was incorporated in the press release dated
January 10, 2008.

The first come, first served principle meant that the applicant that applied first would be
allocated the Letter of Intent (LoI), licence and spectrum first. This existing procedure was also
described, almost correctly, as Alternative I in the DoT letter dated October 26, 2007, addressed
to the Ministry of Law & Justice, which was approved by the Minister (Raja) himself. The
prosecution alleged that Raja unilaterally changed the policy to benefit select companies.

This, the Supreme Court found, enabled some of the applicants who had access either to the
Minister or the officers of the DoT to get their demand drafts, bank guarantees, and so on
prepared in advance for compliance with the conditions of the LoIs, which formed the basis for
the determination of seniority for grant of licences and allocation of spectrum.

An LoI signifies a serious commitment from one party to another. It is generally used to clarify a
transaction or mutual understanding before a full contract is drawn up. The first come, first
served principle was implemented by the DoT in a manner that resulted in wrongful gain to
certain companies. Further, there were allegations that suspect DoT officials had selectively
leaked information regarding the date of issuance of the LoI on January 10, 2008. In the LoI, an
arbitrary condition was incorporated: whosoever deposited the fees first would be the first to get
a licence. The applicants to whom the information was leaked were ready with the amount and
were able to deposit the fee earlier than others.

10
The Supreme Court further held:

“The manner in which the exercise for grant of LoIs to the applicants was conducted on January
10, 2008, leaves no room for doubt that everything was stage-managed to favour those who
were able to know in advance the change in the implementation of the first-come-first-served
policy. As a result of this, some of the companies which had submitted applications in 2004 or
2006 were pushed down in the priority and those who had applied between August and
September 2007 succeeded in getting higher seniority entitling them to allocation of spectrum
on priority basis.”

While making the above observations, the Supreme Court made it clear that these would not
affect the pending investigation by the CBI, DoE and other agencies or cause prejudice to those
who were facing prosecution in the cases registered by the CBI or who might face prosecution
on the basis of charge sheets which might be filed later by the CBI.

“The Special Judge, CBI shall decide the matter uninfluenced by this judgment. We also make it
clear that this judgment shall not prejudice any person in the action which may be taken by
other investigating agencies under Income Tax Act, 1961, Prevention of Money Laundering Act,
2002, and other similar statutes,” the Supreme Court held in the 2012 judgment.

Reading Special Judge Saini’s judgment could make one realise that although the Supreme
Court, in 2012, did not want to influence the pending investigation and trial with its conclusions,
the criminal intent of the accused in this case was clearly intertwined with the larger issue of
manipulation of the spectrum allocation policy pursued by Raja in 2007-08. While Judge Saini
was free to decide the case before him, uninfluenced by the Supreme Court’s previous
observations against the accused, prudence required him to take note of the nexus between the
two cases. His judgment shows that he did not do that.

Major allegations
The prosecution alleged that Raja had entered into a conspiracy with other accused persons
and companies with a purpose to issue UAS licences to Swan Telecom Private Limited (STPL),
which had already applied, and companies promoted by Unitech Limited, which were yet to
apply. This he did allegedly by manipulating the priority list on the basis of LoI compliances
instead of existing guidelines/practice of deciding on applications on the basis of the date of
application according to the availability of spectrum.

It was further alleged that Raja adopted the revised procedure for the grant of UAS licences in
conspiracy with the other accused, namely, Sanjay Chandra, managing director, Unitech
Limited, and Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka with an intention to favour Unitech Wireless
(Tamil Nadu) Private Limited, and STPL.

Siddhartha Behura, who joined as the Secretary (Telecom) in the DoT on January 1, 2008, was
named as another conspirator, along with Raja and his private secretary, R.K. Chandolia.

The next step was to get the stamp of legal approval to the revised procedure by securing the
consent of the then Solicitor General (SG), the late G.E. Vahanwati. The SG testified that the
issues regarding new LoIs were not before any court and that what was proposed was fair and
reasonable. The last paragraph of the draft press release, shown to the SG, read: “However, if
more than one applicant complies with LoI condition on the same date, the inter se seniority
would be decided by the date of application.”

11
It was alleged that after the SG cleared the draft press release, Raja struck out the last
paragraph and inserted the words “press release appd [approved] as amended”. This was to
portray to the DoT that the amended draft had the consent of the SG. This amendment in the
press release helped to redefine the concept of “first come, first served” on the basis of priority
in submission of compliance to the LoI against the established practice of priority in the order of
receipt of applications. The amended press release was issued to the public on January 10,
2008.

Judge Saini found Vahanwati’s deposition contrary to record. The SG had deposed that he had
approved only the draft press release.

Saini also accused Vahanwati of recalling facts according to his convenience: While he could
not recollect if he had seen the words “Press release appd. as amended”, he could recall that
there was no deletion from the press release when he saw it. “It is a case of deliberately
denying and disowning the official record,” Judge Saini observed.

Raja deposed that the deletion in the press release took place before the file was sent to the
SG. The deleted portion, he further claimed, did not tally with the decision taken in the
department and communicated to the Prime Minister.

He also said that the earlier procedure of “first come, first served” was unfair because some
people were not complying with the LoI and were seeking extension of time, thus blocking the
way of others. Judge Saini found Raja’s answers in the cross-examination cogent, clear and
categorical.

Curiously, the judge at one point found A.K. Srivastava, the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of
C&IT, an unreliable witness, but when his deposition helped to exonerate Raja, he relied on it.
Thus in Paragraph 896, he relied on Srivastava’s statement to conclude that owing to the large
number of applications, the earlier procedure was no longer the best option as people would
collect LoI but would not comply with it. However, in 2007, the situation was unprecedented as
575 applications were pending disposal. This, according to the judge, established that the
change in procedure followed for “first come, first served”, prioritising the date of payment, was
contemplated by the department itself and that Raja only conveyed it to the Prime Minister.

The earlier procedure of sequential processing was deemed undesirable in a situation where
575 applications were pending, the judge reasoned.

Corporate veil
The prosecution alleged that after the allocation of spectrum, both STPL and the Unitech Group
Companies offloaded their shares.

Thus, Etisalat (Mauritius) Limited subscribed to STPL’s shares for a consideration of about
Rs.3,228 crore on December 17, 2008. Genex Exim Venture Private Limited also subscribed to
STPL’s shares for Rs.380 crore. Dynamix Balwa Group, promoted by Shahid Balwa and Vinod
Goenka, thus earned about Rs.2,818 crore, as Tiger Trustees Limited held by them was holding
90 per cent equity of STPL.

The Unitech Group Companies offloaded shares to Telenor Asia Private Limited, which agreed
to infuse extra equity in the companies for a 66.5 per cent stake. The promoters of the Unitech
Group Companies thus earned Rs.2,342 crore, the prosecution said.

12
The judge reasoned that offloading of shares or issue of fresh equity was not prohibited by any
rule or guideline. There was no lock-in period prescribed at that time by any rule or guideline, he
said. The prosecution, however, alleged that these stakes were sold by the said companies
even before the rollout of services by them. The estimated loss to the government caused by
the grant of licences to these two companies alone came to Rs.7,105 crore. On a pro rata basis,
the estimated loss for all 122 UAS licences issued in 2008 was more than Rs.22,000 crore, the
prosecution alleged in the charge sheet.

The prosecution further alleged that STPL was fully funded by the Reliance ADA group out of
the funds drawn from various companies of the group to make out its equity and net worth. In
order to obtain GSM spectrum, the Reliance ADA group filed applications for licences in 13
service areas and for that it used STPL as a tool, it was alleged.

The defence, on the contrary, argued that on the date of filing of applications, STPL was a
company of the DB group and, as such, there was no concealment of the actual owners of
STPL.

But Judge Saini refused to lift the corporate veil and examine how STPL was funded, saying it
was irrelevant. The corporate veil can be lifted only in case of impropriety by a company with a
view to avoid legal liability, he held, and accepted the defence’s claim that on the date of filing of
applications, the DB group, and not Reliance ADA, was in control of the company.

Implementing the change in the policy involved establishing four counters to distribute LoIs, in
the committee room of the Ministry of C&IT, on the second floor, of Sanchar Bhawan. This
subverted the system of “first come, first served” in letter and in spirit. In this design, it was
possible to avoid compliance with the requirement that only after the first batch of four
applicants had been issued the LoIs, the second batch be called, thus benefiting the accused.

On January 10, 2008, another press release was issued by the DoT in the afternoon, asking the
representatives of all applicant companies to collect the LoI at 3:30 p.m. that day from the four
counters. It was alleged that the distribution of LoIs in this fraudulent manner resulted in a
reshuffling of the priority of applicants from the date of application to the time of compliance,
which had differences of a few minutes. This completely changed the priority to the benefit of
STPL, which got first priority in Delhi where spectrum for one licencee only was available.
Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Private Limited got the priority for other circles where spectrum
was not sufficient to accommodate the last applicant.

Under the ill-conceived design of distribution of LoIs and receipt of LoI compliance/entry fee,
applicant company representatives were required to rush to the reception area of Sanchar
Bhawan, where the Ministry of C&IT functions. Thus STPL was the first to submit compliances
for Delhi and Mumbai circles, and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Private Limited was able to
get priority in all circles over many other applicants who had applied much before it. This
desperate race to the reception area led to chaos, which resulted in a situation in which the
physical fitness of the representatives became the main deciding factor for priority in submission
of compliance of LoIs and entry fee, making a mockery of the “first come first served” principle.

The prosecution alleged that this change in the design benefited those in criminal conspiracy
and led to incidental gains/losses to others. The whole process of allocation of LoIs and licences
was thus vitiated and was arbitrary in nature, it said. Both STPL and Unitech had prior

13
knowledge of the ill-conceived design and had kept the demand drafts ready to ensure
compliance with LoIs, it was disclosed.

Fee revision
The revision of the spectrum fee for the dual technology entry fee was another contentious
issue. The Finance Ministry strongly recommended revision as it felt that the rate of Rs.1,600
crore, determined in 2001, could not be applied for a licence given in 2007 without fresh
valuation. The Law Ministry suggested referring the issue to an Empowered Group of Ministers
and obtaining the Attorney General’s view. Raja allegedly ignored all suggestions to consider
auction or revision of entry fee and gave away licences at the 2001 fee, in criminal conspiracy
with the other accused. Thus, it was further alleged, he deprived the government exchequer of
possible revenues that could have accrued, even if a level playing field was retained for new
operators. The latter argument was a specious plea that Raja and the DoT used to justify the
adoption of the 2001 fee, the prosecution said.

Examining the evidence at length, Judge Saini held that there was no material on record
indicating that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended a revision of
the entry fee for 2G spectrum and that there was enough material on record to show that it was
a conscious decision of the part of the DoT to not revise the entry fee.

Cut-off date controversy

Judge Saini, in his judgment, unquestioningly agrees with the defence argument that the cut-off
date was fixed on account of the receipt of a large number of applications and inadequate
availability of spectrum.

The cut-off date was suggested by the Joint Secretary in the Ministry, A.K. Srivastava, and was
agreed to by senior officers and finally approved by Raja, the judgment reads. There was no
conspiracy at all in fixing the cut-off date, and it was a pure and simple routine administrative
exercise undertaken to streamline the processing of applications and to discourage speculative
players—so goes the argument. In his deposition before the trial court, Srivastava, a
prosecution witness, shifted the onus for fixing the cut-off date to Chandolia. During cross-
examination, he said that he did not mention Chandolia’s name in the official note
recommending the cut-off date because Chandolia, the Minister’s private secretary, had
influenced him not to mention his name.

Judge Saini, however, disbelieved Srivastava and remarked that he tried hard to shift the blame
to Chandolia by citing pressure as a reason for recording the note. He even said that the
possibility of Srivastava himself suggesting the date of October 1, 2007, as the revised cut-off
date could not be ruled out. The judge then said that Srivastava’s deposition did not inspire
confidence and was contrary to the official record. He also said that another prosecution
witness, K. Sridhara, then a member of the DoT, contradicted Srivastava by saying the note on
the cut-off date had been put up after discussion between them, in view of the large number of
applications. Srivastava’s deposition, therefore, was highly suspect and liable to rejection,
Judge Saini said in his judgment.

A press release was issued by the DoT on September 24, 2007, which appeared in the
newspapers on September 25, 2007, mentioning that the new applications for UAS licences
would not be accepted by the DoT after October 1, 2007, until further orders. However, only
applications received up to September 25, 2007, were considered, which was against the
recommendations of TRAI that no cap should be placed on the number of Access Service
Providers in any service area.

14
Even if what Judge Saini found is true, was it not expected of Raja to have applied his mind to
the proposal to advance the cut-off date and reject it because it would be discriminatory? The
judge has no answers to this in the judgment. After all, a civil servant’s proposal is not binding
on the Minister, and the latter could have recorded the reasons for rejecting it in writing to make
the whole decision-making process transparent.

Chandolia, in his deposition as a defence witness, disowned responsibility for the cut-off dates,
saying that decisions on those were taken independently in the department, and denied that he
was a party to the decisions. According to him, the cut-off date of October 1, 2007, was for
receiving applications for UAS licence and September 25, 2007, was the cut-off date for
processing the applications received up to October 1, 2007. Judge Saini accepts Chandolia’s
deposition as reasonable as it matches with the official record, which is deemed to be correct in
the eyes of law.

Relying on a 1981 judgment of the Supreme Court, Judge Saini says that defence witnesses
are also entitled to equal weight. “Quite often they tell lies, but so do the prosecution witnesses,”
he quoted the Supreme Court as having observed in that case.

Very often, the Supreme Court makes observations that are relevant only to the facts of a
particular case, and they might not even have been relevant to the decision in those cases.
Courts below ought not to rely on them as binding unless there is reason to believe that such
observations are not obiter dicta. As Special Public Prosecutor Anand Grover makes it clear in
his interview, relying on the evidence adduced by the accused as defence witnesses has its
own risks.

Judge Saini mentions that the prosecution did not quiz Raja on whether he entered into any
conspiracy with STPL and Unitech to help them in the matter of UAS licences and allocation of
spectrum, and uses this as a reason for ruling out any conspiracy. Judge Saini, who asked Raja
1,718 questions under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), does not explain
why he himself could not have posed the question to Raja. (Section 313 deals with the power to
examine the accused during the trial. It says that the court may at any stage, without previously
warning the accused, put such questions to him as it considers necessary, for the purpose of
enabling the accused personally to explain any circumstances appearing in the evidence
against him.)

Judge Saini says on Raja’s behalf that the date of October 10, 2007, or October 1, 2007, would
not have made any difference to the Unitech Group of Companies which filed applications on
September 24, 2007, or to STPL, which had applied as early as March 2.

Why did Raja advance the cut-off date to September 25, 2007? Again, there are no convincing
answers in the judgment; there are only denials or assertions that it was decided after due
deliberations within the department to meet an emergent situation caused by a steep rise in the
number of applications.

After a lengthy discussion on the evidence, the judge concludes that the blame for the cut-off
date of September 25, 2007, cannot be laid at Raja’s door alone. Then he leaps to the next
conclusion that there is no material on record to show that the date of September 25, 2007, was
fixed unilaterally, arbitrarily and without due deliberation by Raja in conspiracy with the accused
companies. Therefore, the judge concludes, the prosecution has failed to prove that it was the
result of any conspiracy.

15
Raja’s defence has been that there was a cartel force wanting to stop the legitimate efforts of
the DoT to boost the tele density and reduce the tariff by way of injecting competition, which are
the main objectives of National Telecom Policy-1999, and he claimed to have disclosed to
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh how pressure was put on him through legal and other means
to restrain himself from these efforts. It is not clear from the judgment whether Judge Saini
agrees with this view.

The money trail

The issue relating to the suspicious transaction of Rs.200 crore from STPL to Raja through shell
companies appears to be an open-and-shut case. It was alleged that Shahid Balwa and Vinod
Goenka, both directors of STPL, paid illegal gratification of Rs.200 crore to Raja, which was
accepted by Kalaignar TV (P) Limited, as a reward for grant of licences and allocation of
spectrum to STPL by Raja, in conspiracy with the other accused, namely, Kanimozhi and
Sharad Kumar. The amount was routed through Dynamix Realty, a partnership firm of DB
group, which transferred the money to Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables (P) Limited, a company
in which Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal were and still are directors.

This company further transferred the amount to Cineyug Flms (P) Limited, in which Karim
Morani was and is one of the directors, and this company ultimately transferred the money to
Kalaignar TV (P) Limited, in which both Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar were directors. The
prosecution alleged that this circuitous route was adopted to conceal the real nature of the
transaction.

The prosecution had given the details of the cheques, the amounts and the dates when the
money was transferred. Various documents such as share subscription and a shareholder’s
agreement dated January 27, 2010, between Cineyug and Kusegaon and between Cineyug and
Kalaignar TV were executed later on to show that the transaction was a bona fide one. Later,
when Raja was summoned for an examination by the CBI on December 24, 2010, Kalaignar TV
started refunding the amount to Cineyug, which, in turn, paid it back to Kusegaon, which again
returned the same to Dynamix Realty.

The prosecution alleged that this amount was not properly reflected in the balance sheets of the
companies, and no collateral securities were taken when the money was transferred from one
company to another. The companies involved claimed that it was a loan transaction, but the rate
of interest was below the market rate.

Judge Saini agreed that the transactions took place but found no evidence to suggest that they
amounted to illegal gratification. The prosecution pointed to the speed with which the money
was transferred from one entity to another.

But Judge Saini held that the mere movement of money, whether fast or meandering, did not
make a transaction corrupt as people conduct their business according to their own business
sense and acumen. The speed of money is an important characteristic of modern commerce, he
held.

Judge Saini further reasoned that these transactions per se were not illegal. To make out a case
of illegal gratification, these documents would have to be linked to a public servant, which was
not the case, he held. He also referred to the prosecution’s failure to ask the witnesses from
these four companies whether these transactions amounted to illegal gratification or to suggest
that they were.

16
While the prosecution attacked the documents and transactions by way of arguments across the
bar, no question was put to any witness in this regard when he was in witness box. Such
questioning might have presented them with an opportunity to explain the transactions, Judge
Saini reasoned. But he did not explain why he could not have posed the questions himself to the
witnesses under Section 313, CrPC. Prosecution sources, however, say that such questions
were indeed asked, but the witnesses did not have any answer.

Judge Saini pointed out that the prosecution did not suggest to Raja during cross-examination
that the circuitous route for the transfer of money through the four entities was adopted at his
instance, and documentation undertaken in this regard by these entities was bogus. No
suggestion was put to him as to how and why this transfer of money was linked to him, and on
what basis, Judge Saini said, without explaining why he did not put the question to Raja under
Section 313.

Indeed, Judge Saini agreed with the prosecution that in a case of political corruption, no direct
evidence would be available. But he reasoned that the witnesses could have easily explained
the facts if they had an opportunity to do so. The prosecution did not afford an opportunity to
them to explain the deficiencies in the documents; it remained silent and was now endeavouring
hard at the bar to condemn the witnesses and documents executed by them, behind their back,
Judge Saini asserted.

People cannot be held guilty without evidence that is legally admissible, Judge Saini concluded.
The high-profile nature of a case cannot be used as a ground for holding people guilty without
legal evidence; lack of commercial prudence in execution of documents cannot be used as a
ruse to hold people guilty of corruption, he further reasoned. He ignored the strong
circumstantial evidence against Raja.

The judgment may offer lessons to those who indulge in political corruption by ensuring that
there are no direct links between illegal gratification of a public servant, and the public servant in
question. The problem with Judge Saini’s judgment is that it rationalises such gratification as
normal, because the public servant, who is sought to be gratified illegally by the beneficiary of
his decision, can pretend to have no links with the final beneficiary of the money trail, despite
strong circumstantial evidence pointing to it. Others may consider Judge Saini too naïve for
justifying such overt transactions.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/an-audit-gone-awry/article10008334.ece
COVER STORY
CONTROVERSIAL REPORT
An audit gone awry?
AKSHAY DESHMANE
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

At a protest in New Delhi by Congress workers, led by Ajay Maken (centre), against the BJP
after the trial court’s verdict in the 2G spectrum case. Photo: THE HINDU Archives

Vinod Rai, former CAG of India . Photo: PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP

17
The verdict in the 2G spectrum case was just what the Congress needed to turn the focus on
Vinod Rai’s controversial audit report and away from the scams in the UPA regime.
Whether by coincidence or by design, Vinod Rai, the former Indian Administrative Service (IAS)
officer, best known for his stint as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, has
continued to feature in the national news at frequent intervals over the past decade.

On December 21, when Special Judge O.P. Saini of the CBI Court passed what many felt was
an astonishing verdict in the 2G telecom spectrum case, the former CAG’s name resurfaced in
the country’s political discourse. Particularly, the judge’s strong remarks in his order about how
“some people created a scam by artfully arranging a few selected facts and exaggerating things
beyond recognition to astronomical levels” turned popular attention once again towards Vinod
Rai and the findings in his controversial audit report.

Estimate of ‘presumptive loss’

Tabled in Parliament on November 16, 2010, the report estimated the maximum “presumptive
loss” to the national exchequer due to the manner in which the 2G licences were granted at
Rs.1.76 lakh crore. This estimated figure gave the decision to allot the 2G licences to private
businesses the unenviable distinction of being called “independent India’s biggest financial
scandal”.

The report presented a range of four estimates which could be classified as the total
“presumptive loss” to the national exchequer, from Rs.57, 666 crore to Rs.1, 76, 645 crore. But
the bigger figure endured in public memory. In his book Not Just an Accountant, which was
released in late 2014, Vinod Rai dwelt upon this aspect at length.

Explaining how CAG officers had computed the “astronomical figures”, Vinod Rai wrote, “The
formula applied for computing the loss was used after requisite deliberation, and based on a
logical understanding of tax laws in India and abroad. The other option before the audit team
was to use mathematical or econometric modelling. Such models are premised on certain
assumptions, which may or may not hold true in real life market situations and would thus be
vulnerable to criticism. Hence, the modelling methodology was given the go. Audit was also
aware that too much was at stake for far too many important and influential people, and it could
not take the risk of having its computation being vulnerable to the intense examination it was
bound to be subjected to. It was thus decided to use data and other indicators which were
already in the public domain.”

And for the specific figure of Rs.1.76 lakh crore, the data from the public domain that formed the
basis for calculations were the rates which were discovered for the 3G spectrum after its auction
in mid 2010. Since the 2G spectrum which was being auctioned, according to a Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India report of 2010, was comparable with the 3G spectrum, the former
CAG wrote, the national auditor used the rates discovered by the 3G auctions.

However, as Judge O.P. Saini’s written remarks in his December 21 order showed, a lack of
consensus about the exact “presumptive loss” from the 2G auctions persists among informed
circles.

Notwithstanding these technicalities, the politics of the 2G scam took a sharp U-turn following
the court order. On December 21, it emboldened the Congress party, which trained its guns at
both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the CAG. Kapil Sibal, who succeeded A.Raja as
Telecom Minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and who had been
mocked for claiming that there had been “zero loss” in the award of 2G licences, was among the

18
first Congress leaders to pounce upon the opportunity. Speaking soon after the verdict, he told
reporters, “Today, my argument has been proven right. There was no corruption and no loss. If
there is a scam, it is a scam of lies peddled by the [then] opposition [BJP] and Vinod Rai. Today,
Vinod Rai should apologise to the nation.”

Another former UPA Cabinet Minister Manish Tewari, who was also a member of the Joint
Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which looked into the matter, joined the chorus. He tweeted,
“Mr. Vinod Rai Former C&G [sic] must apologise to the nation for throwing presumptive
sensational corrosive numbers into public discourse. He was author of imbecile 1.76 thousand
crore [sic] loss theory that I had destroyed during my cross examination of Rai in JPC. Court
has affirmed JPC Report.”

It was not the first time that the former CAG was being attacked by senior members of the
Congress party. While serving as the CAG from January 2008 to May 2013, he had faced the
heat several times from senior Cabinet Ministers. Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had
even compared Vinod Rai to T.N. Chaturvedi, the CAG during Rajiv Gandhi’s prime ministerial
tenure and who had raised questions in his report about the Bofors deals. On retirement from
service, T.N. Chaturvedi joined the BJP, which made him a Rajya Sabha member and Governor
of Karnataka.

But the accusations were not confined to the political realm. In fact, on at least one occasion,
the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh publicly upbraided the CAG. Speaking with a group of
editors in June 2011, less than a year after the 2G report, Manmohan Singh said, “Well, I think
the CAG also leaks. It is not the function of the CAG. It has never been the case that the CAG
has held a press conference as the present CAG has done. But nobody is commenting on all
this. It is not right for the CAG to go into issues which are not the concern of the CAG [sic], it is
not the CAG’s business to comment on policy issues. I think they should limit themselves to the
mandate given under the Constitution. We are now a permissive society, I think if the media can
get away with murder, so can the CAG.”

Characteristically, in his two-page letter written in response to Manmohan Singh’s criticisms,

Vinod Rai denied all charges and asserted that both he and the office of the CAG had followed
all norms and proprieties. This quality of assertion and visible participation in public discourse by
engaging with the media and common citizens through interviews, lectures and talks marked
Vinod Rai’s five-year-long tenure. He revamped the national auditor's engagement with the
news media, took up headline-generating topics for audits and generally seemed to be aware of
the pulse of the nation. Analysts believe that his active public profile was facilitated by the fact
that it was a time when both the Union government and Parliament had fractured power centres,
which created an opportunity for the courts and institutions such as the CAG to fill in the
vacuum.

In the ongoing tenure of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, however, the
former CAG’s engagements in the public sphere have not been as frequent and vocal. This is
significant because he has now taken over two new responsibilities which are in sync with his
self-described role in his book as the “nation’s conscience keeper”. The new responsibilities
pertain to reforming the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Banks Board
Bureau (BBB). When this correspondent contacted him for his comment on the court order, he
was unresponsive. A few months earlier, when Vinod Rai briefly met this correspondent at a
public event, he politely expressed his inability to grant an interview. Clearly, reticence has
taken over a once media-savvy public official.

19
Notwithstanding this reticence, however, Vinod Rai continues to feature in the national news on
account of him being referred to either by the politicians, the courts (the Supreme Court
appointed him to the BCCI) or the government, which gave him the task of leading the BBB. His
silence in response to fresh criticisms and questions raised about his controversial audit report
following the 2G verdict has, thus, been uncharacteristic.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/scam-chronicle/article10008368.ece
COVER STORY
OTHER CORRUPTION CASES
Scam chronicle
DIVYA TRIVEDI
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Indira Gandhi with President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed during the Emergency in 1975. Indira
Gandhi was arrested briefly on the charge of official corruption in 1978. Photo: The Hindu
Archives

Jayalalithaa and her confidante V.K. Sasikala were sentenced in the disproportionate assets
case. Photo: K. PICHUMANI

B.S. Yeddyurappa was indicted in the mining scam.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was cleared by the CBI in the Vyapam
scam. Photo: A.M. Faruqui

Rajiv Gandhi. The Bofors case impacted his political career. Photo: V. SUDERSHAN

Glaring cases of corruption involving those in the upper echelons of power have cropped up
time and again, only to be dismissed subsequently.
IN December 2017, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh issued
orders to the District Magistrate of Gorakhpur to withdraw a case against Chief MinisterYogi
Adityanath, filed in 1995, for violating prohibitory orders. This might be an instance of blatant
abuse of power by a politician to escape punishment, but it is definitely not the only case in
which politicians have misused their influence to clear their names of wrongdoings, especially
corruption and fraud. A look at some of the important cases in which politicians exposed in
corruption scandals got away without punishment speaks of the workings of the justice delivery
system.

In 1975, in the Indira Gandhi vs Raj Narain case, the Allahabad High Court convicted Indira
Gandhi of electoral malpractice and banned her from politics for six years. In response, and in
complete violation of the court order, she declared the Emergency. The period remains
infamous as a mockery of democratic processes when political opponents were arrested en
masse and several freedoms were curbed, including the freedom of the press. The political
impact of the case was the defeat of the Congress in the 1977 elections and the emergence of
the Janata Party-led coalition as the first non-Congress government at the Centre. In 1978,
Indira Gandhi was arrested briefly for official corruption, but in 1979 she was elected back to

20
power. The charges against her were dismissed eventually. The Janata Party coalition split and
this led to the creation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In his book The Case That Shook India, Prashant Bhushan maintains that twice in the history of
post-independent India, the BJP won the general election and came to power at the Centre on
the crest of anti-corruption movements. Bhushan states that although the BJP won only two
seats when it contested its first election in 1984, in the 1990s the party “stirred up the Ram
Janmabhoomi campaign, and riding on its back it won a substantial number of seats, which
paved the way for its eventual victory in 1996”. He points out that both Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s and Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s rise is
attributable partly to the anti-corruption movement (Jan Lokpal movement) that captured the
people’s imagination in 2011-12. “It was the momentum created by that movement that was
used by Modi to demolish the Congress with the promise of ending corruption, graft and black
money. Arvind Kejriwal also did the same for coming to power in Delhi. Unfortunately, neither of
them has appointed a Lokpal yet.” He says the Modi government did not work to strengthen
anti-corruption institutions such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Central
Vigilance Commission (CVC), and legislation such as the whistle-blower law and the Prevention
of Corruption Act (PCA).

Bofors scandal
The defining scandal of the late 1980s was the Bofors deal between the Swedish arms
manufacturer and the Indian government, with insinuations of bribery against several persons
on both sides. In the deal signed for the supply of 410 155mm howitzers, the Swedish company
paid Rs.640 million ($10 million) in kickbacks to Indian politicians and key defence officials, it
was reported. Exposed through investigative journalism by The Hindu’s N. Ram and Chitra
Subramaniam, the case is symptomatic of how corruption cases are buried with little trace
despite immense media attention. However, the case impacted Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s
political career and he lost the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. Years later, former chief of the
Swedish police, Sten Lindstrom, who led the investigations, revealed that he was the one who
leaked the information. Although he admitted that the investigating team did not find anything to
suggest that Rajiv Gandhi had received payments, Rajiv Gandhi was definitely aware of what
was going on and knew about the kickbacks. Not taking any action was tantamount to being
guilty. The other players, however, escaped with much less. Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian
businessman who was considered the middleman for the Bofors deal, was repeatedly allowed
to slip through the investigating agency’s fingers.

“But the CBI under the UPA [United Progressive Alliance] government was not going to extend
itself to get the Italian businessman extradited even if that were possible. It failed to produce the
necessary legal documents in court, lost the case, and subsequently withdrew all charges
against him. With Quattrocchi’s death from a stroke in July 2013, the Bofors corruption case
reached its natural end,” states Ram in his book Why Scams Are Here To Stay.

In 2011, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court in Tis Hazari, Delhi, discharged Quattrocchi in
the Bofors case. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government lifted the ban on Bofors in
1999 during the Kargil war against Pakistan.

The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India is held in some esteem for its
indicting reports, but the verdict in the 2G spectrum scam case has dented its credibility. Its
case of a notional loss to the government exchequer to the tune of Rs.1.76 lakh crore, which led
to a political churning, the brunt of which the Congress is still facing, now stands invalidated and
speculative. An External Peer Review conducted by an international team led by the Australian

21
National Audit Office, which had representation from the Supreme Audit Institutions of Canada,
Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States, covered Performance Audit reports presented
to Parliament or a State legislature between April 2010 and March 2011. It noted that there was
variability in the CAG’s adherence to applicable standards of professional practice across the
performance auditing function. It felt that there was “scope for around half the reports reviewed
to have been more balanced in content and tone”. The CAG needed improvement in the “extent
and quality of evidence and documentation supporting performance audit findings and
conclusions”, the review said.

Nevertheless, the CAG’s 2014 report caused another flutter in the Manmohan Singh
government when it accused it of inefficient allocation of coal blocks between 2004 and 2009.
The report was picked up by the BJP. Its Members of Parliament, Hansraj Ahir and Prakash
Javadekar, filed a complaint with the CVC, which ordered the CBI to probe the matter. It
became a huge embarrassment for the Manmohan Singh government, with its top bureaucrats
and leaders being named in the scandal. Big businessmen, such as Naveen Jindal and
Kumarmangalam Birla, were also accused of wrongdoing and possibly bribery. The CBI later
closed the case against Birla and former Coal Secretary P.C. Parakh. The entire episode came
to be known as Coalgate. Here too, as in the case of the 2G scam, a presumptive loss of
Rs.10.673 lakh crore was marked against “windfall gains” to the allottees but later brought down
to Rs.1.856 lakh crore. Manmohan Singh rebutted the submissions of the CAG report in
Parliament and called them disputed.

A Special CBI Court found former Coal Secretary H.C. Gupta, former Joint Secretary for Coal
K.S. Kropha and former Director in the Coal Ministry K.C. Samaria guilty of abuse of public
office, securing pecuniary advantage without public interest and criminal conspiracy under the
PCA and the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and sentenced them to two years in prison. Madhu
Koda, former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, was also convicted of similar charges and sentenced
to three years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs.25 lakh. R.S. Rungta and R.C. Rungta,
Directors of Jharkhand Ispat Pvt Ltd, Rathi Steel & Power Ltd and Kamal Sponge Steel & Power
Ltd, were the others convicted in the scam. In September 2014, in response to a public interest
litigation (PIL) petition, the Supreme Court quashed the allocation of 214 coal blocks.

While the BJP used the Adarsh Society and Delhi Commonwealth Games scandals against the
Congress establishment to gain political mileage, its leaders were also involved in high-profile
corruption cases. Karnataka’s first BJP Chief Minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa, was convicted by the
State Lokayukta, N. Santosh Hegde, for illegal profiteering from land deals and profiteering from
granting illegal mining licences to companies. Yeddyurappa was forced to step down as Chief
Minister and Member of the Legislative Assembly. He was arrested and he spent over 20 days
in prison. He resigned from the BJP and launched his own political party, the Karnataka Janata
Paksha, but later merged it with the BJP. Subsequently, he was cleared of most of the charges
and the first information reports against him were squashed. “The prosecution has become
unsuccessful in establishing the guilt of the accused, not only the offences made under the
provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, but also under the provisions of the IPC, and hence
this court acquits all the accused in the case,” said the special CBI judge in 2016 while
acquitting Yeddyurappa, his two sons, son-in-law and nine others in the case of illegal mining in
Bellary involving a bribery of Rs.40 crore. Yeddyurappa has been reinstated as the president of
the BJP State unit.

One of the longest cases pertaining to corruption, involving among others the late Tamil Nadu
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, came to its logical conclusion after several twists and turns with the
conviction of her close confidante V.K. Sasikala and the latter’s close relatives, Ilavarasi and

22
V.N. Sudhakaran. The disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa was abated as she
passed away in 2016, but Sasikala and the other accused were served a sentence of four years’
imprisonment and fines. Jayalalithaa had to step down as Chief Minister under the
Representation of the People Act, 1951, the same Act under which Indira Gandhi was
disqualified in 1975.

The most high-profile case in 2017 pertained to BJP president Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah’s
business dealings, which came under public scrutiny after the news website The Wire reported
in an article titled “The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah” that his firm Temple Enterprises Pvt
Ltd’s turnover increased by up to 16,000 times after the BJP came to power in 2014. While the
Congress demanded a time-bound judicial probe into what it termed as “crony capitalism”, Amit
Shah defended his son, saying there was no question of corruption. Meanwhile, Jay Shah
slapped The Wire with a Rs.100-crore defamation suit and gagged it from publishing anything
against him or his firm. The Ahmedabad civil court later set aside its injunction and allowed the
news website to publish any content pertaining to Jay Shah or his firm barring the use of the
words “Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister/elected Prime Minister” in relation to any
debate on the original article.

Vyapam scam
While the Radia tapes, the Saradha chit fund scam and the Augusta Westland scam were high-
profile cases that captured the imagination of the public in recent times, the sheer scale of the
Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, involving everybody from top politicians to officials to
businessmen, makes it stand out. Apart from the all-pervasive nature of the admission-cum-job
racket, the mysterious deaths of about 45 people associated with it, including whistle-blowers
and journalists, left an ugly and dangerous mark on it. While the CBI recently cleared Chief
Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s name in the Vyapam case, he has not been completely
absolved and the cases have not been solved. Senior lawyers Kapil Sibal, K.T.S. Tulsi and
Vivek Tankha, who represent the complainants Digvijaya Singh and Prashant Pandey, a
whistle-blower, called the CBI Compromise Bureau of Investigation and alleged that it had
tampered with evidence to save Shivraj Chouhan.

Even as old corruption cases are yet to see any resolution, new ones keep cropping up with
alarming regularity. Recently, Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel,
Public Grievances and Pensions and the Prime Minister’s Office, stated that the number of
cases registered under the PCA were 617 in 2015, 673 in 2016 and 339 up to June 30, 2017.
The number of corruption cases under trial in 2015 was 6,663; in 2016 it was 6,502; and up to
June 30, 2017, it was 6,414. Meanwhile, the number of convictions under the PCA remained
low at 434 in 2015, 503 in 2016 and 199 until June 30, 2017.

Going by the sheer numbers of cases against MPs and MLAs, the government submitted a
scheme before the Supreme Court to set up special courts to deal exclusively with these cases.
The court was hearing a civil writ petition filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, a lawyer and Delhi
BJP leader, seeking life-time debarment of convicted politicians. In doing so, he challenged the
provisions of the Representation of the People Act, which bars convicted politicians from
contesting elections for a period of six years after serving a jail term. Hearing the petition, a
Supreme Court bench headed by Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha ordered the setting
up of 12 fast-track courts by March 1, 2018, at a cost of Rs.80 crore.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/what-was-the-case-about/article10008263.ece
COVER STORY

23
INTERVIEW: REBECCA JOHN, ADVOCATE, SUPREME COURT
'What was the case about?'
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Rebecca John. Photo: The Hindu ARCHIVES

Interview with Rebecca John, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court.

The verdict in the 2G spectrum licence allocation case, pronounced after six years, has come as
a surprise as it virtually exonerates the accused in the high-profile corruption case on which the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) built its entire campaign against the United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Rebecca John, Senior Advocate,
Supreme Court, and counsel for the Unitech group of companies and Kanimozhi, spoke to
Frontline on why the judgment was sound and based on the evidence brought before the court.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), she emphasised, had abandoned its own theory of
loss. Excerpts from the interview:

What is the logic of the verdict? The CBI court found no criminality in the spectrum allocation
and observed that there was lack of clarity in the policies and guidelines that added to the
confusion. The Supreme Court did cancel 122 licences. Was this an erroneous decision?

I think this is based on a complete wrong understanding of the jurisdictions under which both the
courts operated. The Supreme Court was looking at the case of cancellation not from the angle
of any individual criminality but at the impropriety in the grant of licences. There is a difference
between impropriety and criminality in law. Things can be improper and therefore there can be
civil consequences. Things can be culpable and therefore people who are directly involved with
that criminal offence must be punished in criminal law. The jurisdictions are completely different.
This attempt to overlap the decision of the Supreme Court on the decision of the special CBI
civil court is completely erroneous and based on a wrong understanding of different jurisdictions
under the law. The order of the Supreme Court did not at any point enter into the question of
whether there was any criminal conspiracy to commit an offence to distribute licences to the
different licence applicants or whether A. Raja had in a criminal manner distributed these
licences. That was not an issue before the Supreme Court at all. In fact, the last line of the
Supreme Court judgment very clearly said that the observations made in that order would have
no impact on the criminal trial pending before the special court.

The judgment deals especially with the alleged ineptitude of the prosecuting agencies, the kind
of questions asked and the way the witnesses were examined—for example, the observation
that the prosecution was hesitant to ask questions, kept beating about the bush. Dr
Subramanian Swamy has more or less alleged that law officers were responsible for the
acquittal and that honest law officers could have made a difference. Also, the acquittal of
Jayalalithaa by the Karnataka High Court and the subsequent conviction by the Supreme Court
is being made a case in point to illustrate that the case can be taken up at the highest court.

The case of Jayalalithaa is quite different from that of the 2G case. Theoretically, it is quite
possible that an order passed by a sessions court is overturned by the High Court and the order
by the High Court is then overturned by the Supreme Court. But again we cannot impose the
facts of one case on another case. In Jayalalithaa’s case, there were very elementary arithmetic
errors made by the High Court and these were corrected by the Supreme Court. I don’t think
this is a case of parity at all. I do not want to personally respond to anything that Dr Swamy has
said. But I want to highlight the fact that everything as far as the case was concerned was

24
monitored by the Supreme Court. The Special Court was appointed by the Supreme Court; the
charge sheet before it was first submitted to the Supreme Court, which is unprecedented in law
as the charge sheet has to be filed only before the trial court. But in this case the Supreme
Court saw the charge sheet before it was filed. The Special Public Prosecutor was appointed by
the Supreme Court. I may have a problem with the manner in which the CBI conducts itself in
most of the cases, but I as an officer of the court would never say that there was anything
dishonest in the manner in which law officers conducted themselves. What is the dishonesty
involved? They argued a case; they lost it; we argued a case; we won it.

Of the two Special Public Prosecutors appointed in the case, one has become a judge of the
Supreme Court and the other is a counsel of great eminence. One can criticise the CBI, but to
criticise the officers who conducted the trial and personalise it is a bit too much.

The judgment raises many doubts—whether there was a scam at all or not, whether there was a
loss to the exchequer or not, and whether the wrong persons were implicated.

Whether there was a scam or not is something that Judge Saini has said almost towards the
end of his order. It is a nearly 1,500-page order in which more than 1,450 pages are devoted to
extracting the evidence brought on record, that is extracting statements of witnesses and
correlating them with the documents of the DoT which the CBI itself brought on record and then
marshalling that evidence, one comes to a finding. Judge Saini did not make that finding out of
thin air. He went by the evidence brought on record by the prosecution agency, and files which
were part of the DoT. I have been hearing all kinds of strange statements by CBI officers that
their evidence was beyond reproach and only the evidence of the accused was considered.
What the court considered were the files, the contemporary records of the DoT, which were
created as the files were moving at a time when there wasn’t even a whiff of a scam, that is
2007-08—they were all spontaneous file notings—and compared them with the statements of
the CBI’s witnesses, who were also cross-examined by the defence.

What is the CBI’s allegation about how the court went about addressing the case? The
observations made by the judge in the last paragraphs of the order are based on the evidence
that was placed before it. The judge went about it in an unimpeachable manner. He has not put
any personal opinion there. His finding is based on the evidence presented before him. It is not
a personal, arbitrary, fanciful, opinionated finding. He said from this material, “I cannot sense a
scam.” That is perfectly legitimate.

There were multiple allegations of the ineptness of the prosecuting agencies: of the CBI not
asking the right questions and that the witnesses were evasive and the prosecutor was hesitant
to ask a question.

That is at a later stage. He looks at the case against each of the 17 accused persons, and that
is the structure of the judgment. There were many issues before the court: Whether the licences
were issued in an improper or criminal manner; whether there was any conspiracy between the
public servants and private players; whether the cut-off date was tweaked to help any private
player; whether the first come, first served policy was tweaked to benefit some players as
against other players; whether the companies were eligible to get the licence in the first place;
and, lastly, whether there was any loss caused. Judge Saini looked at each issue and the
evidence placed in each case and concluded that the charges were not justified on each count.
He looked at the charges against each of the accused and at the end of it he found that he
could not uphold that there was any scam.

25
In February 2012, the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licences observing that the then Telecom
Minister wanted to favour some companies and the way LoIs [letters of intent] were granted to
applicants left no room for doubt that everything was stage-managed to favour those who had
advance information. Basically, this pointed to favouritism.

What the Supreme Court did in the cancellation of licences in a writ petition was attributing civil
liability and enforcing a civil wrong against people. What the Supreme Court itself did by
appointing O.P. Saini as a special court judge to try the offence was to say, “Now find out
whether the charges are justified.” The ultimate conviction of these people would depend on a
criminal wrong. These were two different areas completely. It is arguable that a stray
observation here and there may be looked at. Clearly it was looked at, but a civil court decision
cannot overpower a criminal court. Why have a criminal trial at all? That’s the end of the matter.
Everyone would go to prison after the cancellation of licences if it were as simple. The Supreme
Court’s cancellation of licences happened years ago. If that was the end of the matter, why did
the court ask the CBI to file a charge sheet, appoint a special court to hold a criminal trial, and
go through the exercise for six years? Not only that, Raja and others should have been taken
into custody forthwith. That is not the scope of jurisdiction. The lie that is being perpetrated by
senior people is that the matter ended with the Supreme Court’s cancellation of licences. That is
never the law.

The evidence placed before the CBI court was not placed before the Supreme Court. The
Supreme Court was looking at it in a very prima facie manner. There were no 15,000
documents or 50,000 pages of evidence before the Supreme Court. It was not required at that
stage. But whatever be the merits of the Supreme Court’s decision, a criminal case is not
predicated on the findings of a civil court. The Supreme Court by cancelling the licences was
acting in a civil jurisdiction.

The judgment overruled the possibility of any conspiracy and found no criminality in the acts
committed, including those relating to the “first come first, served policy”, stating there appeared
to be a lack of clarity in the policies and guidelines that added to the confusion. Was this also
the defence’s line of argument?

As officers of the law, we work according to the evidence brought on record by the prosecuting
agency. I don’t have any special skills to see whether there was a conspiracy or not. From the
evidence brought on record, the CBI miserably failed to prove a conspiracy of any kind. The
CBI’s own documents had a counter-argument that went to the defence of the accused. It said
that the Unitech group of companies made its application for an LoI on September 24, 2007,
and that Raja’s ultimate cut-off date of September 25 was designed to favour Unitech. The
company was able to prove that its application was moved on September 21 and it was not the
last group to apply.

The last to apply was Shyam Saxena, which was not prosecuted for reasons best known to the
CBI. Two companies in fact, Shyam Saxena and Selene Infrastructure, filed their applications
post the Unitech application. We did not create any records; they are all DoT records. The
allegation that the cut-off date was tweaked to suit the Unitech group of companies fell flat. In
this way, almost every allegation has a counter-argument based on DoT records. People cannot
be held culpable on the basis of random charges. The other charge was that the Unitech
company had prepared a demand draft way back in October, indicating that it had advance
knowledge of what the Department was going to do in January. Companies that made the
demand draft right at the end were the ones with insider knowledge. The company that does it
right at the end is out of the scope of any investigation. If one had inside information, one would

26
make the demand draft on January 8, not in October. One loses interest on that amount. Many
of the allegations were devoid of any basic merit.

One agency that needs to be prosecuted is the CAG [Comptroller and Auditor General of India].
The CAG report said the notional loss amounted to Rs.1,76,000 crore, while the CBI gives a
different figure, Rs.22,000 crore. The CAG report was never placed on record before the court.
Not a single prosecution witness talked of loss. The then RBI Governor, the then Secretary to
the DoT, the head of TRAI, were witnesses in the case; none of them spoke of a loss suffered
by the Government of India. The theory of loss was abandoned by the CBI. No one came to
testify. Someone has to come to court and say that someone caused grievous injuries! Criminal
trials are based on evidence. Someone has to say that the Government of India suffered a loss.

What was the case about? They were not able to connect the so-called illegalities with loss, and
then the loss was notional; there was no way they could have proved it. They abandoned it
perhaps out of a sensible thinking of the case. There was a diametric difference between the
public perception of the case and the CBI’s case over six years. Wrong decisions are made all
the time. In August 2007, in response to a question by the DoT, TRAI, headed by Nripendra
Mishra, came out with a report that said there should be no cap on 2G applications. What did
we mean by no cap? There were a huge number of applications. A cut-off date had to be
imposed by Raja as there was a flood of applications. First he imposed a cut-off date and then
imposed a processing date. Secretary D.S. Mathur sends notes to Raja saying too many
applications have come. I can’t conjecture on whether there was any hanky-panky going on.

It appears evident that the order will be challenged and the CBI will go in for an appeal. Without
drawing any conclusions at this stage, would it be possible to expect the prosecution to find
fresh evidence in order to make the charges stick?

There is no question of anybody finding any fresh evidence. The order has to be challenged on
the basis of the existing evidence brought on record. The trial is over. The prosecution has to
use the very same evidence to argue that the findings made by the special judge were
erroneous. They can’t bring any fresh evidence.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/a-case-of-internal-sabotage/article10008340.ece
DISPATCHES
OBITUARY: Arun Jaitley-A man for all seasons
India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission ends in a crash-landing
A book on marriage in modern times
An admission row in the University of Madras
Veteran Congress leader Om Prakash Mishra joins Trinamool
In Kolkata, houses collapse during Metro tunnelling work
Congress workers in Karnataka protest D.K. Shivakumar’s arrest
Mamata announces Rs.70 crore for Durga Puja committees this year
Bengal Assembly passes landmark anti-lynching Bill
India-Israel partnership finds an ideological link
OBITUARY: Arun Jaitley-A man for all seasons
India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission ends in a crash-landing
COVER STORY
INTERVIEW: SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY
'A case of internal sabotage'
PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI

27
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Subramanian Swamy. Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Interview with Subramanian Swamy.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy was the first one to allege corruption in the
allocation of 2G spectrum. He took the matter to the Supreme Court, which, in 2012, quashed
the allocation of licences, directed the auctioning of spectrum and ordered trial of the accused.
Excerpts from an interview he gave Frontline:

Why have you taken the Modi government to task for this judgment?

The BJP was nowhere in the picture when I approached the Supreme Court in 2008 for
quashing the licences and ordering an investigation. It was on my petition that the Supreme
Court gave the historic judgment quashing all licences, ordering auction of spectrum and a
proper investigation by the CBI. If the judge has said that the prosecution failed to produce any
evidence then it reflects poorly on the government. The law officers did not do their job properly.

So, the CBI did not take this high-profile case seriously?

I am not commenting on the CBI Director, he is a fine officer, a man of integrity, but the junior
officers definitely did not take their job seriously. I can say with responsibility that the junior
officers in the CBI actively worked to provide relief to the accused.

At whose behest?

Obviously those in the BJP itself. There are people, I will not name them at this point, but I know
for a fact that they helped the accused. This is a case of internal sabotage. Take the AG
[Attorney General], Mukul Rohatgi, for example. His appointment was wrong in the first place
because he had represented some of the accused. I had written letters to Modi at the time of his
appointment. Rohatgi handled the case for three years and botched it up. Even the Special CBI
Court judge has said that after some time the prosecution seemed to have lost interest in the
case.

But this was a politically sensitive case, on which Prime Minister Modi had based his entire Lok
Sabha campaign. Do you think anybody could afford to mess it up deliberately and get away
with it?

They have done that. They never thought the government would appeal. But they will not get
away with it. This is a case based on rock-hard evidence, which the CBI judge deliberately
ignored.

But the judge said there was “nil evidence” of any criminality in either allocation of spectrum or
in advancing the cut-off date or in fixing the price. What rock-hard evidence are you talking
about?

There are [several pieces of] rock-hard evidence of criminality. One, the spectrum was allotted
at the 2001 price which was one-tenth the prevailing price then. It is also a fact that some of the
allottees sold their spectrum either partially or fully at eight times higher prices to foreign
companies like Systema, DoCoMo, Telenor, etc., immediately after getting it, though there was

28
a two-year time bar for them. This resulted in huge profits for them without working for it even
for a single day.

Second, the first come, first served policy had been declared a “bad policy” by the Delhi High
Court in 2008 when some parties that had been denied spectrum approached it for relief. One of
them was Aircel owner [C.] Sivasankaran. The Delhi High Court had then quashed the policy.
Although Sivasankaran later withdrew his appeal, the judgment remains unaltered even today.
The CBI judge made a grave mistake by ignoring this judgment.

Third, the Supreme Court judgment of 2012, which came after I filed a petition and which
remains valid even today, was also ignored by the CBI judge.

Is this a setback for the government, especially Prime Minister Modi, who made this the theme
of his Lok Sabha campaign?

It is potentially a big setback for Modi. But not for long because it is bound to be dumped by the
higher courts.

If you look at the collection after the auction, it was only Rs.30,964 crore, nowhere near the
“presumptive loss” of Rs.1.76 lakh crore as announced by the then CAG Vinod Rai.

I don’t care what Vinod Rai has said. When I filed the complaint, Rai was nowhere in the picture.
All I am saying is that a massive corruption had occurred in allotting spectrum and that should
be fairly investigated and the guilty should be punished.

Do collections for 3G and 4G spectrum corroborate the charge of corruption in 2G spectrum?

I don’t care about 3G or 4G collections. What I have said is based on rock-hard evidence and
that is why I call this a bogus judgment.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/disappointing-judgment/article10008210.ece
COVER STORY
INTERVIEW: ANAND GROVER
'Disappointing judgment'
V. VENKATESAN
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Anand Grover. Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

Interview with Anand Grover, Special Public Prosecutor in the 2G case.

Anand Grover, Senior Advocate, is well known for his contribution to landmark cases involving
the right to shelter, safe environment, the right to health, and LGBT rights. His work in the field
of patent law, opposing the grant of patents for essential life-saving drugs, is equally well
recognised. A founder member of the Lawyers Collective, a non-governmental organisation
(NGO) campaigning for the rights of vulnerable groups and against discrimination, Anand
Grover was the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to health from August 2008 to July 2014.
He was the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and
the Enforcement Directorate (ED) before the Special Court that held the trial of the accused in
the 2G case. In this interview, he shares his concerns over the judgment delivered by the trial
court acquitting all the accused.

29
Overall, what is your view about the judgment?

It is, of course, very disappointing. In my opinion, the judgment is wrong. But it won’t be
appropriate to speak about the merits of the judgment. That will be a matter for appeal.

But I think I have to speak about the remarks made about the prosecution and me. It is
unfortunate that the learned judge has made such remarks. He has, by making statements
about me, which are not correct, damaged the institutional integrity of the court and the judicial
system. Every officer of the court, a judge, a lawyer, and even a litigant, has to always maintain
the dignity of the institution by respecting all players. No judge, or a lawyer or a litigant, should
ever resort to stating something that would damage the institution. That is what I strived for in
the 2G case before the learned judge. I may have a different point of view. But I want to use the
legal system in a constitutional manner to help people. I respect the institution. That is why I am
a lawyer. The learned judge’s remarks, to say the least, are inappropriate, and in the long term
will damage the institution.

The judgment is very harsh on your role. The judge says initially the CBI was very enthusiastic,
and eventually it became directionless.

I took over as SPP in the middle of September 2014. The trials in the Raja case and in the Loop
case were completely over by then. So there is no question of me directing any trial-related
matters. All I had to do was to present the final arguments in these matters. However, I did
supervise and conduct the Raja money-laundering trial, but the judge has practically not
commented at all about that case. It is therefore unfortunate that the learned judge has made
such remarks.

The judge says that the charge sheet is orchestrated. What do you have to say?

I am not going into the merits of the case. As I said, that will be gone into in appeal. But it is
interesting that the judge now, after six years, says that the charge sheet was orchestrated.

Firstly, the Supreme Court had vetted the charge sheet. Only after that it gave the go-ahead to
the CBI to file it. The charge sheet was then filed before the Special Court. It contained all the
documents and the statements, which were later to be proved in the trial. The matter was
argued for framing charges by the prosecution and for discharge by the accused. Arguments on
framing charges and discharge took nearly three and a half months. The learned judge, after
hearing the parties, framed the charges. He obviously did that because he saw substance in the
case of the prosecution. He could have discharged the accused at that time if the charge sheet
was “orchestrated”, as he now suggests. But he did not do that.

The prosecution then led all its evidence. He obviously saw that the prosecution had a case.
Therefore, as the law requires, under Section 313 CrPC, he put the case of the prosecution
against each of the accused to each of them. He had to frame questions for that. Against Raja
alone, there were nearly 1,800 questions, all starting with the phrase, “This is against you.” Why
were these questions put if he did not see any case against the accused?

To the questions, all the accused gave their explanations. If the learned judge was satisfied with
the explanation of the accused, he need not have allowed the defence to lead its own evidence.
But both Raja and Chandolia [Raja’s private secretary] led evidence in their own defence, which
is rarely ever done in India. They deposed themselves. If there was no case against the

30
accused, the learned judge could have said, “There is no case against you, there is no need to
lead any defence evidence.” That was not done. Thus it is clear that at all stages the judge was
satisfied that there was a case against the accused. Now, he can’t go back to the charge sheet.
The prosecution is a very convenient alibi to blame. There is always a scapegoat to be found.

But the judge says arguments at the Bar are not the only thing, and that there is need for legally
admissible evidence. Is the judge blaming your predecessor (Uday Umesh Lalit), who was the
SPP in the case, before his appointment as the judge of the Supreme Court?

As I said, these comments are inappropriate.

The other point the judge makes is that written submissions are not signed by you.
Designated Senior Advocates don’t sign any pleadings or applications. They can’t sign any legal
notices either. They can’t draft anything. They can only settle pleadings. That is the practice of
Senior Advocates. Moreover, there is no practice of signing written submissions. Written
submissions are not pleadings. They are only to assist the court. Even then I signed them
because the learned judge wanted me to. I asked, “What about the defence? They are not
signing them.” They agreed to do that later. But the judge took umbrage only at my protest.

The learned judge also takes issue with you not signing applications.
As I said, Senior Advocates are not allowed to do that. So I could not sign the applications and
as SPP, I requested the investigating officer (IO) to sign them. There is nothing wrong with that.
The IO is authorised. In any event these issues are totally irrelevant to the main decision, on
which it is not appropriate to comment at this stage.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/i-hope-to-unravel-the-facts-one-
day/article10008233.ece
COVER STORY
INTERVIEW: KANIMOZHI
'I hope to unravel the facts one day'
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Kanimozhi. Photo: S. SIVA SARAVANAN

Interview with Kanimozhi.

JUST a few years after you entered politics, the 2G scam broke out. You were not a Minister in
the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime. You were not a party official at that time. How did
you get involved in this? Do you think that it was because of the conversations that you had with
somebody like, say, Nira Radia, which were leaked?

If my conversations with Nira Radia were the basis, then what about the thousands of people
who speak to her? Nothing happened to any of them. Except some political gossip, there was
nothing much in my conversations with her. And, she was not an accused, she was a
prosecution witness. So what was wrong in talking to her? I have had this kind of conversations
about politics with journalist friends and with other politicians. Meeting a politician became a big
crime in my case. Even today, I go and meet Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] politicians in their
offices, and sometimes at their residences to talk about issues.

31
So how did you get involved, or why did the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) think that you
were involved in this? Is it because you were a Chief Minister’s daughter and, hence, could be
influential?

The CBI will have to answer that because I was not even a director of Kalaignar TV. I was
director for two weeks when they were setting up the place. After that I resigned. All my papers
were given to the RoC [Registrar of Companies] to be filed, and I have never attended a single
board meeting after that. No important decisions were made during the two weeks I was there
except for basic, mandatory things. After that I have not even attended an AGM. I did not even
have an interest in finding out what programmes were being aired. Commercial television is not
my cup of tea. The CBI knew there was documentary evidence to prove that I did not participate
in the so-called meeting that decided about the loan or whatever it was. My name does not
figure in the list of people who attended the meeting. But it still claimed that I was there at the
meeting. Aseervatham Achary [formerly secretary to A. Raja, and a prosecution witness who
later joined the BJP] said that I was the “active brain”. Based on all this, a case was filed against
me.

It would have been easy to have a discharge petition moved and you could have got out of the
case. After all, the UPA was in power, the Congress was your ally, and your father was Chief
Minister. But, instead, you went to jail. Were there vested interests within the Congress and the
DMK which wanted you in jail?

Obviously. I don’t want to say where the interests were. But there were people with vested
interests who wanted to see me behind bars. I cannot deny that.

You went to jail as an accused. You and Raja became the face of corruption in India. Why is it
that the politicians have to take a large share of blame for scams and not corporate India?

That’s how it has always been. You just choose to hate some people. After the verdict too,
some people said, “It’s a huge amount. How can you say it is not there anymore?” In Tamil
Nadu, a few pages of the [mining baron] Sekar Reddy’s diary were leaked, which contained
names of politicians. Later, a list containing journalists’ names was circulated in WhatsApp
groups and the claim was that this list was also from Sekar Reddy’s diary. It was said that this
list was created by the IT wing of a political party. Just because there was a sheet of paper with
journalists’ names and numbers next to it, does it mean that all of them have taken money from
somebody? We can continue believing it even after it was proved to be a fake.

The truth [in 2G] is that it is a notional loss. And we love to blame politicians for it. Leave alone
the 2G case, if there’s a case of a politician taking money from a company, what happens to the
company that gives the money? Who questions them? And what happens to the bureaucrats
who allow the file to be passed?

Your father was Chief Minister, your party was in power at the Centre, and the Chief Minister’s
daughter had to go to jail. Did the CBI or the government decide to arrest you when the party in
power was dependent on the DMK’s support? It does not add up.

It does not add up for me too. But it happened. Unfortunately, I am a non-believer and, hence, I
really can’t say it was fate. In politics, there are a lot of forces at work, there’s a lot of bartering,
and there’s a lot of other things that happen. I can’t point my fingers at anything clearly. One day
I hope to unravel the facts.

32
The other strange thing is that even though a raid was going on in Anna Arivalayam, the DMK
headquarters, on the ground floor, the Congress and the DMK were having discussions on an
electoral alliance. How could the government of the day use its own Income Tax Department to
search a premises when they were negotiating with the same party that was being raided?

I really can’t explain it and that’s the truth. Maybe the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate work
on their own, without any political interference. Today, we are against the BJP government. We
still got a good verdict. I should give it credit and say that there was no interference [from the
government].

The court proceedings went on for seven years despite it being a daily trial monitored by the
Supreme Court. How did that affect the legal process itself and your career?

It [the Supreme Court] took away a lot of our rights. We could not appeal to the High Court. We
had to go to either the trial court or the Supreme Court. One entire arm of the judiciary was off
limits for us. Was that fair? How can a case be monitored by the Supreme Court every step of
the way, where the charge sheet had to be shown to them and everything had to go through
them? Is that fair and just to anybody? Because this was considered a scam, people might not
bother. But is this a right example? Is it right? I think it is injustice. The Supreme Court
appointed the prosecutor and they asked the High Court to appoint the trial court judge.

The CBI left out Karunanidhi’s wife, Dayalu Ammal, from the charge sheet though she was a 60
per cent shareholder in Kalaignar TV and, according to one statement, she was being briefed
about the company on a daily basis. How can this happen when two shareholders who hold, or
held, 20 per cent of shares feature in the charge sheet?

Because she did not speak English and she had given a letter that she could not actively
participate in the decision-making process.

The judgment talks about a media trial and that the media had already convicted the accused.
But the media were only reflecting what was happening at that point of time.

You are talking about some good old days when the media just reported news. We are not there
anymore. We need our TRP ratings, we need to engage people, we need to grab their interest. I
know a senior TV journalist who kept repeating that I was a director of Kalaignar TV, and how I
was instrumental in Kalaignar TV getting Rs.200 crore from 2G scam-related money laundering
when these had nothing to do with the truth. And after I was back from jail, and in the courtroom,
she met me and told me: “I heard that you were not even a director in Kalaignar TV.” This is
how it is. I am not saying every media organisation does this. She is an important, well-
respected journalist with a well-respected channel with high TRPs.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/mission-without-mandate/article10008392.ece
THE NATION
JAMMU & KASHMIR
Mission without mandate
SHUJAAT BUKHARI
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Dineshwar Sharma (right), the Centre’s special representative to Jammu and Kashmir, meeting
local people at Anantnag in south Kashmir on November 28, 2017. Photo: PTI

33
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, separatist leader. Photo: Nissar Ahmad

The funeral procession of Tanveer Ahmed, a militant killed in a gun battle with the troops at
Batmurran Kellar village in Shopian on December 19, 2017. Photo: TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP

An activist of the Awami Ittihad Party detained during a protest against human rights abuses by
government forces in Srinagar, on December 10, 2017. Photo: Mukhtar Khan/AP

The government’s current interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir is unlikely to achieve much as he
does not even have a mandate. New Delhi, which has a history of appointing such interlocutors
and refusing to act on their reports, is yet to understand that the Kashmir conflict needs to be
approached politically and not militarily.
THE appointment of Dineshwar Sharma, former Director of the Intelligence Bureau (I.B.), in
October 2017 as the Government of India’s interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir came at a time
when hard power was a foregone conclusion as far as the government’s approach towards the
State was concerned. Sharma’s appointment came as a pleasant surprise though it did not hold
much promise for breaking the political deadlock. Nevertheless, many people in the State,
particularly in Kashmir Valley, which is the centre of political dissent, responded positively to this
“gesture”.

Sharma has made three visits to the State so far and talked to many people, including those
who do not challenge the State’s accession to the Indian Union. They are leaders from
mainstream parties such as the National Conference, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the
Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Besides his engagement with the “usual
suspects”, Sharma travelled to south Kashmir, the hotbed of anti-India uprising, and met the
youths.

His latest visit, which began on December 23, focussed on north Kashmir and Jammu. He
repeatedly stated that he was open to talks with anyone and that he wished to bring back peace
in the State.

The constant refrain of the people he met was that the daily grind of humiliation and intimidation
should end. The other repeated demands were the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers
Act and an end to blatant misuse of the Public Safety Act (PSA). Sharma would have to take
these sentiments into account in shaping the road map for peace in Kashmir.

When his name was announced as interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir, Sharma sounded out
of touch with reality although the I.B. he had headed knows the ins and outs of the State and is
perceived to be largely responsible for the Kashmir mess. He talked about not allowing Kashmir
to go the way of Syria and also preventing the youth from getting radicalised. To Kashmir
watchers, this sounded amusing as there could be no comparison between Syria and Kashmir,
given the government’s claim that there is normalcy in the valley.

Radicalisation of youths on the basis of religion is a much-hyped expression which immediately

gives one the impression that Kashmir is a franchise of the Daesh, or the Islamic State.
However, two months after his appointment, meetings with a cross section of people have
perhaps convinced him not to focus on issues that do not have an international linkage.

34
After his meeting with the people of Pulwama, Sharma told reporters: “I met a lot of people and I
am satisfied with my visit. I am sure I can call the visit a positive one.”

However, meeting delegations that raise issues for which the State government have to find a
solution may not be a satisfying situation for him. What can be termed as a significant outcome
of his visit thus far is the general amnesty granted to 4,500 youths. Chief Minister Mehbooba
Mufti said the cases against the youths would be withdrawn under a general amnesty, which is
seen as a recommendation by Sharma. In 2016, the police booked nearly 11,500 youths under
different categories, following the six-month-long unrest which claimed 100 lives. The affected
families see the decision to withdraw the cases as a positive step, but politicians from the
separatist and mainstream camps do not think so. At the same time, people are sceptical about
the implementation of the amnesty decision since the State’s credibility as an institution is at a
low ebb. In 2010, Omar Abdullah’s National Conference government announced amnesty to
arrested youths, but the decision was not implemented fully on the ground. The amnesty may
give Sharma scope to further create the space to reach out to the people, but that space has
been narrowed to such an extent that an individual who has baggage of the past may not be in
a position to manoeuvre.

Sharma is conscious of his past association with the I.B. and that is why he told the Press Trust
of India on November 5 that he would like to be judged by his actions.

“Nothing has changed since I was there for the first time. Kashmiriyat, which means compassion
and brotherhood, has not changed even an iota. Therefore, I am hopeful that I will be at least
able to contribute towards a new Kashmir, a peaceful valley where prosperity will be the order of
the day,” he said, adding, “I do not have a magic wand, but my efforts must be judged with
sincerity and not through the prism of the past.”

Notwithstanding the assertions of both Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Sharma that the
interlocutor was free to meet anyone and as such there was no precondition, Sharma’s mandate
is still missing. The terms of reference mentioned in the order issued by the President of India
giving Sharma the rank of Cabinet Secretary are yet to come. Not only does his mandate lack
clarity, but a section of the BJP leadership, including a vocal Minister in the Narendra Modi
government, limited the scope of Sharma’s work by maintaining that there was no issue called
Kashmir.

That is why the impression that gained ground was that the appointment of an interlocutor was
yet another half-hearted initiative by the Government of India and that its timing was linked to
United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to India. Since the U.S. has expressed
concern over the deteriorating bilateral relations between India and Pakistan and sees Kashmir
as a factor in this, the nudge to begin talks must have come from Washington. Otherwise, what
was the hurry to appoint Sharma as interlocutor 24 hours before Tillerson’s visit?

A political analyst said: “It certainly was to ward off the pressure from the U.S. and send it a
message that New Delhi was talking to the Kashmiris.” Since Modi had been facing pressures
on the domestic front over demonetisation, Goods and Services Tax and much more, his
government could not afford to have Kashmir as another front. Otherwise, the engagement with
both the Hurriyat Conference and Pakistan is part of the Agenda of Alliance (AoA) the BJP
agreed upon with the PDP in the State in 2014 and it should have started since then.

35
It is interesting to note that the exercise is aimed at understanding Kashmir and its problems.
Even after 70 years of Independence and that too after the people of Kashmir have starkly
demonstrated what they want, New Delhi is struggling to see what the problem is. New Delhi
has failed to understand Kashmir as a conflict that needs to be approached politically with the
aim of finding a solution. In the past three years of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rule at
the Centre, every effort has been made to make Kashmir look like a security problem that can
be handled only by using military power. At one point of time, Kashmir certainly looked like it
was caught in a war-like situation as the number of local militants continued to increase and
encounter killings became a routine. Even now, there has not been any let-up in armed conflict
although the government maintains that there are only 282 militants active in Kashmir. What is
more alarming is the social sanction the armed struggle has received in the past few years, and
this is evident from the fact that thousands of people attend the funerals of militants.

Although militancy is the ground reality, its political reason cannot be ignored. Continuous denial
of this reality has exacerbated the interest of the young in militancy. Sharma’s appointment,
irrespective of whatever the result, is an admission by New Delhi that hard power alone cannot
work in dealing with Kashmir. Even if this realisation has been thrust upon it, there is no other
way out. However, lack of serious efforts to reach out to the separatists has made this initiative
somehow irrelevant. Asking them to come if they want to talk is not perhaps the way conflict
resolution processes are dealt with the world over.

Engagement with the Hurriyat Conference, which represents the political dissent, is needed to
lend credibility to such a process. But before that, the government unleashed a war on it by
arresting most of its middle-rung leaders under the National Investigating Agency’s “war on
terror funding”.

It looked as if the Government of India wanted to force them into submission and hold the
dialogue under duress. When the NDA government in 2004 initiated dialogue with the Hurriyat
Conference, it was under a framework and was not an open invitation. That dialogue also could
not survive the vagaries of conflicts of interest, but the process looked dignified. In the present
situation, the interlocutor has not devised any specific road map for dialogue with those who
matter.

Certain quarters are advocating dialogue with even the United Jihad Council headed by Syed
Salahuddin on the pattern of the process seen in Nagaland and Mizoram.

Hurriyat dilemma
If New Delhi lacks sincerity and seriousness in the political engagement, the Hurriyat
Conference, led by the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz
Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, too, lacks the acumen to deal with the situation.

The trio outrightly rejected dialogue although they talk about the need for it day in and day out.
With no proper invitation to sit at the negotiating table, they rejected an appointment with
Sharma. Kashmiris have been asking for dialogue, so representing the people in finding a
solution should be the main task of the JRL and not indulging in rhetoric, which has been the
case for long. Here, the influence of Pakistan is not ruled out.

Many believe that Islamabad holds the key to any decision taken by Hurriyat leaders. Although
not verified, on the face of it there is hardly any doubt that Pakistan plays a role in Kashmir. It is
a fact that New Delhi has not come out with a mature approach to Jammu and Kashmir’s
political problem. The challenge for the Hurriyat Conference is how to fit itself in the process.

36
There are already fissures in the leadership as Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat, a former chairman of the
Hurriyat Conference, has given the impression that he is interested in dialogue. A national daily
reported he had met Sharma. Bhat denied this. But he faced ouster from the Muslim
Conference, an ally of the Hurriyat Conference faction led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Bhat’s
“willingness” to hold talks makes a dent in the stand of the JRL on dialogue with New Delhi.

Another leader, Javid Mir, who was part of the Mirwaiz faction has quit the party. He did not cite
the dialogue as a reason, but it is believed that he also wanted to test the waters. In case New
Delhi moves forward by pushing measures such as amnesty to the arrested youths, it might
help change the atmosphere.

The JRL would then have a difficult task on hand. If some sources are to be believed, at least
two leaders in the group of three are willing to engage in dialogue but one holds the veto.

Broken promises
Why does Sharma not get a warm response from even those who strongly believe in the
process of dialogue? An answer to this can be found in the history of New Delhi’s interlocution.
Ever since 1947, New Delhi has appointed point men and made promises to Kashmir that have
been only broken. The long list of broken promises and betrayals has disillusioned the people of
Jammu and Kashmir so much that they hesitate to repose trust in the process.

When friction started between India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Jammu and
Kashmir’s Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah in 1953, Nehru sent his Education Minister, Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad, to broker peace with Abdullah. But soon Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed and
jailed.

In 1964, when the Holy Relic of the Prophet Muhammad was stolen from the Hazratbal shrine,
Nehru sent Lal Bahadur Shastri and subsequently I.B. Director B.N. Mullick to defuse the crisis.
In 1970, Indira Gandhi sent the diplomat G. Parathasarthy as her emissary to Sheikh Abdullah
to broker the Indira-Abdullah Accord of 1975. Power was restored to Sheikh Abdullah, but
nothing was done to restore the eroded political autonomy.

Again, in 1984, Indira Gandhi dismissed Farooq Abdullah as Chief Minister and replaced him
with his brother-in-law G.M. Shah. It took J.D. Sethi to broker peace between Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah, bringing the latter back to power in 1986. After an armed
rebellion broke out in 1989, Kashmir went into unprecedented turmoil. George Fernandes and
Rajesh Pilot made forays to win over Kashmiris.

The A.B. Vajpayee government appointed K.C. Pant in 2001 and Arun Jaitley in 2002 as
interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir. Nothing came out of that exercise. They were followed by
N.N. Vohra, the current Governor of the State, who established contact with various groups but
no tangible movement was witnessed. During Vajpayee’s tenure, however, a breakthrough of
bringing separatists to the negotiation table was achieved, with former Research and Analysis
Wing chief A.S. Dulat as his point man. With India-Pakistan relations hitting a new low after the
2008 Mumbai attacks, whatever was “achieved” went down the drain.

What has, however, been questioned off and on is the implementation of the reports of the five
working groups set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (2004-09 and 2009-14), which were
aimed at addressing both the internal and external dimensions of the problem. Not a single
recommendation of these was taken up. The last one was in 2010 when a three-member team

37
of interlocutors, comprising Dileep Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and M.M. Ansari, was set up.
The team laboured to prepare a report, which has been consigned to some cupboard in the
Home Ministry.

In fact, New Delhi has buried its credibility under a mound of reports and a long list of
interlocutors without implementing any of their recommendations. Sharma has a stupendous
task on hand as he carries this baggage. Without having a clear political mandate, he may not
even reach the level of reporting on how the problem infests the situation. As of now, the
initiative lacks political direction. That is why the refrain in Kashmir is do not do anything to fail
Sharma because New Delhi is known for failing such processes in the past.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/on-authoritarian-populists/article10008461.ece
THE NATION
On authoritarian populists
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-
IN an opinion piece titled “The Real Coup Plot is Trump’s” in The New York Times (December
20, 2017), Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard, has the following to say about
“authoritarian populists”:

“This is the same strategy that authoritarian populists have long used to attack democratic
institutions. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, for example, has spent the past year
calling journalists criminals, terrorists and coup-plotters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India
recently accused Manmohan Singh, a former Prime Minister, of being in league with Pakistan.
And Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has portrayed his opponents as pawns in the
billionaire philanthropist George Soros’s supposed scheme to use refugees to subjugate his
country (a claim that is increasingly being echoed on the farther reaches of the American Right).

“The rapid degeneration of the public sphere in Turkey, India and Hungary can teach us two
important lessons: First, up can become down and legitimate investigations can turn into
supposed coups only if a few politicians and journalists are shameless enough to repeat blatant
lies over and over again. Second, and more important, these lies can justify a power grab by the
executive only if many more politicians and journalists are willing to stand by instead of calling
those outrageous calumnies what they are.”

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/journey-to-despair/article10008610.ece
THE NATION
MIGRATION
Journey to despair
R.K. RADHAKRISHNAN
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

At the Visakhapatnam International Airport in August 2017, stranded workers who had not been
paid salaries for several months in the Gulf countries on their return home. Photo: C.V.
Subrahmanyam

At a construction site in the Gulf. In 2016, as many as 5.5 lakh workers migrated to the region in
search of jobs. Photo: R.K. Radhakrishnan

38
Gulf returnees, mostly female domestic helps, narrating their tales of woe during an interaction
organised by the Telangana Development Forum and the Migrants Rights Council on the
International Workers’ Day, which was observed as Gulf Martyrs’ Day. A 2013 photograph.
Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

The number of people circumventing the legal route to go abroad for domestic work and
unskilled jobs has increased. Without the help from the host countries, there cannot be a
solution to the problem of trafficking, and exploitation, of migrant labourers.
SITTING in a barely comfortable cubicle at the immigration counter, an officer can almost
always figure out if the traveller standing in front of him or her is a tourist or a labourer on a
tourist visa. But mere suspicion does not provide grounds to deny a traveller the stamp of
approval to travel abroad. “There’s a moral question, and then there is a legal question. Which
should take precedence?” asks an officer who has managed such a desk in the past. “Morally,
yes, we have to prevent this kind of exploitation and potential trafficking. But legally, we can’t do
much,” he adds.

What is the pressing legality that prevents officers from acting? If a traveller has a valid
passport, a return ticket and proof of accommodation, there is nothing an immigration official
can do. No official count is available for the number of people who take this route in search of a
better life, but if agents, activists and immigration officers are to be believed, there appears to
be a few thousands who take off via each international airport in India in search of their dreams.

“Legally we have to allow this person to travel. Yes, we can figure out from his or her
demeanour and dress that this is not a person who can go on tour to a foreign country. But
that’s a loaded judgment, and immigration officers have been in trouble for acting on their own
in such cases,” says the officer. A major destination for all these labourers is West Asia. Indians
number over 8.5 million in the region, and the vast majority of them are labourers. In 2016
alone, as many as 5.5 lakh workers migrated to this region in search of jobs; almost all of them
have minimal skill sets. There is no count of irregular workers.

A combination of lack of awareness of their rights, ignorance of the nature of the employment
contracts, a near-zero familiarity with local customs and regulations, inability to speak Arabic,
and the kafala (sponsorship) system makes sure that the migrant labourer has next to no rights
in these countries. For those employed in domestic work and in small enterprises, issues
relating to iqama (resident permit) are a major concern.

While these problems begin after landing in the host country, trouble for potential migrant
workers begins even before the worker has left his or her own country. Hundreds of
unscrupulous agents approach people in distress and make tempting promises. These agents
are particularly active soon after a disaster or a tragedy in the family, says Sr Lissy Joseph, who
runs the National Workers Movement (NWM), Hyderabad.

An officer in Chennai narrated an incident he had first-hand knowledge of. A woman who was
on a tourist visa was constantly talking to someone over the phone as she stood in the
immigration queue. This raised the suspicion of the staffer monitoring the queue, and he alerted
his colleagues to check if there was anyone in the visitor’s area who was speaking on a phone
too. A quick survey of the visitor’s enclosure revealed that a man there was also on the phone.
After ascertaining that the woman in the queue was in conversation with this person, both were
picked up for questioning. The woman revealed that she was going for domestic work in a West

39
Asian country. She had no idea of the formalities; she was nervous, and hence was talking to
the agent who was in the visitor’s enclosure.

Travel agents like him specialise in finding vulnerable women who want to somehow escape the
poverty here and make a living. He revealed to the immigration authorities that he had
connections in a few cities in West Asia, and sent women to these cities. The agent was
produced before a local magistrate.

Though he narrated details of his operation to the immigration officials, he changed tack once
he met the local magistrate. The travel agent demanded the services of a lawyer. The
magistrate acceded to his request. The agent did not spend a day in jail. Instead, he initially
asked for the name of the officers who apprehended him, and when this was not forthcoming
from the immigration department, he filed a complaint against “unknown officials of the
immigration department” for torturing him. The case is still on.

Who are these agents?

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the police and immigration officials helped put
together the profile of an unscrupulous agent. Some of the agents are returnees from the Gulf
countries or Malaysia. Some of them have families abroad and send people on demand from
the host country. Usually, it is an educated person who is in the know of things and has another
person or a few persons working with him. Sometimes it is a husband-wife team. Sometimes the
team includes a relative or someone from the native village. Most of these agents have a link in
the country they send the trafficked person to.

In the case of a slightly more sophisticated operation, the women who are recruited as domestic
helps are taken from India to the destination country under total secrecy. Even the travel kits,
passport and documents are handed over to them only at the airport—at the last possible
moment.

Once the victims land in the host country, they are shepherded to the agent’s contact. From
here, the contact of the agent allocates them to different local agents. These local agents place
the women in various homes as demand arises. Some are trafficked for sex work. All NGO
representatives this correspondent spoke to in south India had many such case studies to
share.

The tourist visa route to travel abroad for work is not cheap. Across south India the rates have
come down from around Rs.70,000 to Rs.20,000-30,000, say activists. Kerala is an exception in
this regard because of the awareness campaigns and because migration from Kerala to the Gulf
countries began many decades earlier. But in the rural areas and urban slums of Andhra
Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, families do not even share with their neighbours details of
where the women are headed. Examples from Hyderabad and nearby Cuddapah show that
even after a domestic worker had come back after undergoing significant trauma, the
neighbours were not aware of it. This works to the advantage of the unscrupulous agent. Many
organisations try to connect communities together so that the same problem does not recur in
the community. The NWM’s initiative in this regard is called “Break the Silence”.

There are 41 registered agents in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The vast majority who roam
the villages in search of recruits are unregistered agents. “They work on mobiles. That’s their
office,” says Sr Lissy. “They [the agents] prey on vulnerable people. Earlier, they were operating
in Kerala. Then they moved to Tamil Nadu. Now they have shifted to Andhra Pradesh and they
target the desperate, especially women.”

40
Often the women are at the mercy of the agent and their employers once they leave home. This
is because female domestic workers are not covered by labour laws in Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) countries. “The problem is acute with respect to women travelling on tourist visas and,
subsequently, getting these visas converted to housemaid/employment visas on arrival at the
destination country,” says a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) backgrounder titled “Issues
relating to migrant workers including appropriate legislative framework and skill development
initiative for prospective emigrants”.

The moral versus legal dilemma has occupied many conferences of the Foreigner Regional
Registration Officers (FRROs), the primary agency that regulates Indian nationals travelling
abroad and movement of foreigners into India. Some FRROs take the stand that the burden of
immigration officers should not be increased by making them moral custodians of citizens
travelling outside—mainly because their primary job is to secure the country and keep tabs on
syndicates and cross-border criminals. This job is getting tougher by the day, and getting
entangled in moral questions would be a needless distraction. There are others, retired and
serving from the Indian intelligence community, who feel that such a narrow view of a person
being trafficked goes against the very ethos of the organisation that they serve.

“The major problems of migrant workers, including female Domestic Service Workers, as
reported by the Missions are ill-treatment and harassment; long working hours; false allegations
or charges by local sponsors to the police authorities; non-provision of free food, improper
arrangements for boarding and lodging and physical or mental harassment/assault, etc.,” says a
note by the External Affairs Ministry.

That is the reason for the many restrictions for people travelling with Emigration Clearance
Required (ECR) passports to countries in West Asia for employment as domestic help: only
women of age 30 and above can travel (not applicable for nurses) to these countries for
employment; the foreign employer has to deposit a bank guarantee of $2,500 at the local Indian
Mission; the embassy has to attest all such direct recruitment candidates; the implementation of
the e-Migrate system (to register before they proceed for employment in listed countries) should
be ensured; and emigration clearance has to be given only through selected agencies.

Drop in numbers
But have these been effective? The MEA data are revealing. For instance, in 2013, as many as
21,521 women emigrated to the Gulf countries to work as domestic workers through proper
channels. In 2014, this number dipped to 14,962. After the e-Migrate system and multiple
checks came into being, the numbers came down considerably: 1,783 (in 2015) and 6,076
(2016). In 2017, up to the time MEA statistics are available (end October 2017), this was 3,883.
Most NGOs say that this only meant that more women were taking the tourist visa route to West
Asia—only to be exploited in multiple ways.

According to the MEA, “since the order to make recruitment of female domestic service workers
mandatorily through State government recruitment agents was issued only in August 2016, no
study has been made to gauge the impact of this mechanism on exploitation of female workers”.

Initially, the recruitment of Indian nurses for ECR countries was done through the identified
State government recruitment agents only—the NORKA Roots and Overseas Development and
Employment Promotion Consultants (Kerala), Overseas Manpower Corporation Limited (Tamil
Nadu), the Uttar Pradesh Financial Corporation, Overseas Manpower Company Andhra

41
Pradesh Limited, and Telangana Overseas Manpower Company Limited. This was done after
repeated complaints of harassment from nurses who went abroad and their families.

Later, since this recruitment was too big to be handled by just these few organisations, private
recruitment agents were allowed to recruit nurses for hospitals in ECR countries. Nurses still
need to obtain emigration clearance, and so far 7,190 nurses have used this route to get to
West Asia.

Agents find multiple ways of circumventing the system. If they find that at one airport the
immigration checks are becoming stricter, they choose another airport nearby. More often than
not, they choose lean days to fly out a labourer because of the cheaper fares. The drastic drop
in those using the e-Migrate system indicates that the agents are using other methods to get the
labourers across borders.

When it was introduced in September 2014, e-Migrate was touted as the solution to prevent
worker exploitation and trafficking. The project was rolled out in all the 10 offices of the Protector
of Emigrants. For the MEA, this formed the one-stop database of emigrants, recruiting agents
and foreign employers.

According to the MEA, as many as 1,20,101 foreign employers had registered on e-Migrate to
recruit Indian workers until end October 2017. The rate at which foreign employers are
blacklisted is disheartening: despite complaints, only five were put in the prior approval category
in 2014, three in 2015, none in 2016 and 11 in 2017 (as of end October).

M. Bheem Reddy of the Migrants Rights Council says that the Government of India’s policy is
not clear on allowing unsuspecting workers to travel to stations where their life and liberty are in
danger.

“On the one hand, they are allowing people on visit visa without any restriction. Anybody can go
to any country, particularly to these six [GCC] countries. For employment visa, there are many
restrictions such as for housemaids [the age of] 30 years limit for women and the $2,500 bank
guarantee and there’s a contract. For this reason, the employers are violating it. Not many are
paying this deposit. Women are going on visit visa. The Government of India is not stopping
them. They know very well. They are not restricting,” he said.

Asked if this was because of lack of coordination among the agencies involved, he said: “In my
experience, always the government is letting them go. Because here they are unable to provide
employment and they are taking a lenient view. If they want to, they can stop it in 24 hours.
They go through airports. Again they are going on visit visa. Actually the Government of India
and the State governments should have some coordination. Right now there is a lack of
coordination because they are not sharing information.”

At the other end of the spectrum is the lack of any legal recourse for migrant labourers,
especially women, when they are harassed or denied payment. “The entire process of going
through the legal formalities is hostile to the migrant labour, whether it is in the country or
abroad,” says Sunitha Krishnan, co-founder, Prajwala, an anti-trafficking NGO.

Filing a complaint is just one small step ahead of a long and difficult process. The labourer often
has no support system, and he or she has to be present for evidence and cross-examination.
The chances that a labourer lasts this process and gains out of it are remote. “By coincidence, if
an NGO like us get involved, we take care of them,” she adds.

42
Hence, it is considered a success if a stranded or distressed worker is brought back home.
“There are success stories. This year we filed 200 cases on Madad [a portal]. We file cases, try
to contact the women when they are in distress and also approach the Indian Embassy,” says
Sr Lissy. Since a major catchment of domestic workers is Andhra Pradesh, the NWM follows up
on each of the cases with the non-resident Indian cell of that State.

Despite all the problems surrounding the conditions of work abroad, there is no dearth of dream-
seekers. “Annually, earlier we had a Memorandum of Understanding with the Protector of
Emigrants here [in Hyderabad]. We used to go on Mondays and Thursdays for [conducting pre-
departure] orientation. There used to be 300 to 500 women on Mondays and 150 to 300 women
on Thursdays,” says Sr Lissy.

That works out to a conservative 5,000 women every month going out of the Hyderabad airport
alone. Going by all accounts, these numbers are only going up, though the government’s
statistics do not reflect this trend. It appears that unless the host countries stop looking the other
way, there cannot be any immediate solution to the problem of migrant labourers being
trafficked and being forced to work under inhumane conditions.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/widening-gap/article10008772.ece
THE NATION
REPORTS
Widening gap
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
Print edition : January 19, 2018

A pavement dweller in Coimbatore. Inequalities in society are worsening as the rich get richer
and the poor remain trapped in poverty. Photo: K. ANANTHAN

A family with its meagre belongings at a bus stand in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. Photo: V.
RAJU

A worker waits for marble slabs to be unloaded from his truck at the entrance of the 27-storey
Antilia, the newly built residence of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, in Mumbai on
October 19, 2010. Photo: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP

The latest World Inequality Report underscores the importance of economic policy in
addressing the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, especially in developing countries
like India where the top 10 per cent of earners account for 55 per cent of the national income.

THE latest report from a project tracking global inequality warns that if such inequality is not
monitored and addressed with shifts in major economic policies, the consequences can be
nothing less than catastrophic in political, economic and social terms.

The 300-page World Inequality Report (WIR), a collaborative effort of more than a hundred
researchers, jointly authored by five academicians, one of whom is the economist Thomas
Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, aims to contribute to what it calls the
global democratic debate on economic inequality with the help of data. Economic issues, the
authors write, “do not belong to economists, statisticians, government officials or business

43
leaders. They belong to everyone and it is our chief objective to contribute to the power of the
many.”

WIR 2018 is part of the World Wealth and Income Database project, launched in the 2000s.
Using available data sources, the report makes a strong case for public investment in health,
education, well-paying jobs and environmental protection. According to it, education by itself will
not be able to tackle inequality unless it is accompanied by well-paid jobs, healthy minimum
wage rates and worker representation on corporate governance bodies.

Many countries, the authors write, do not even make public micro and macroeconomic
inequality data. The report assumes the inevitability and existence of a certain level of economic
inequality and also that there is no “single scientific truth about the ideal levels of inequality”.

Yet, it underscores the centrality of policies and institutions in “shaping inequality”—that is,
policies and institutions have a major role in determining the level and the degree of inequalities.
It argues that countries with similar levels of development show different levels of inequality,
which points to the crucial role that specific policies and institutions play in determining those
particular trends and levels of inequality.

Marshalling the services of nearly a hundred researchers spread across the world, WIR 2018
found that income inequalities were the lowest in Europe and the highest in West Asia, and
quite high in sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and India. The share of the top 10 per cent of income
earners in Europe was 37 per cent compared with 61 per cent in West Asia and 55 per cent in
sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and India.

The exponential growth in inequality post-1980 marked “the end of the post-War egalitarian
regime”, especially in North America, China, India and Russia. The report focusses on the
period from 1980 onwards as that decade was a turning point in inequality and redistributive
policies worldwide. The early 1980s marked the trend of rising inequality and shifts in
redistributive policies, led by Reaganomics in the United States and Thatcherism in the United
Kingdom, while new economic policy regimes began emerging in India and China with
deregulation at the core.

In the countries that were under any such egalitarian regime in the post-War period, like
countries in West Asia, Brazil or sub-Saharan Africa, the levels of inequality have remained
stable at “extremely high levels”. The kind of policies and trajectories that economies adopted
determined the level of inequality. In the post-War period, the policies of “egalitarianism”
included the development of social security systems, public education, health, social and labour
policies and progressive taxation. This gave rise to a patrimonial middle class (Piketty refers to
this in his seminalbook when he says it is this class that could be a stabilising factor in a
situation of severe inequality leading to social conflict) and a general decline of inequality in
Europe.

The rise in inequality was abrupt in Russia, presumably after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
moderate in China and gradual in India—an indication of the “different types of deregulation and
opening up policies pursued over the past decades in these countries”. After a historical decline
from the 1920s until the 1970s, income inequality was on the ascent. In the Soviet Union, for
instance, the abolition of private property, land redistribution, massive investments in public
education and strict government control over the economy via five-year plans (a feature also
seen in India) spread the benefits of growth from the 1920s to the 1970s.

44
Likewise, in India, which did not have a communist regime but pursued policies that were
socialist in nature, inequalities were reduced in the same period. The economic elite, therefore,
captured a much smaller share of economic growth in the late 1970s than it did in the beginning
of the century. In India, the top percentile income share decreased from 20 per cent in the
colonial period to 6 per cent in the early 1980s; post-deregulation and the opening up of the
economy, this percentile is now at 22 per cent, a little more than what it was in the era
preceding Independence. In contrast to Russia, China’s economic transition was less abrupt
and more gradual.

The connection between inequality and the economic regime adopted by nations became
apparent. Inequality surged in economies that were hitherto regulated; in Russia it was
“steepest” as the transition to the market economy was abrupt, according to the authors.
Interestingly, western Europe and the U.S. had similar levels of development in the 1980s and
similar levels of concentration of wealth, but inequality rose much more sharply in the U.S. post
the 1980s up to 2016.

Ownership of capital
The authors say that “massive educational inequalities, combined with a tax system that grew
less progressive despite a surge in top labour compensation since the 1980s and in top capital
incomes in the 2000s”, accounted for the massive inequality in the U.S. Continental Europe had
less wage inequality and a better progressive taxation system.

In terms of gender, income inequality between men and women had more or less declined in
both areas but remained high at the top levels of distribution. The benefits of economic growth
did not translate into better incomes for most. The report puts it plain and simple: economic
inequality is driven largely by the unequal ownership of capital, which is either private or public
owned. It acknowledges that a lot of transfer of wealth from the public to the private occurred in
the 1980s, and public wealth now in rich countries is almost to the level of zero. This, the
authors contend, has serious ramifications for wealth inequality among individuals because as
countries became “richer”, governments became “poorer”.

The sum of private and public wealth is equal to national wealth. The authors observe that since
1970, there has been a general rise in net private wealth in most rich countries, from 200–350
per cent of national income in 1970 to 400-700 per cent today. (Net private wealth is equal to
private assets minus private debt.)

The transition from communist to capitalist or quasi capitalist regimes, in particular Russia and
China to an extent, resulted in private income levels matching those seen in the U.S, the U.K.
and France.

Worryingly, net public wealth has declined in all countries since the 1980s, limiting the ability of
governments to regulate the economy, redistribute income and mitigate rising inequality. Public
assets, the report says, continue to be substantial in China, unlike in most Western countries.
They have further strengthened since the 2008 economic and financial crisis.

The overall exceptions were oil-rich countries with “large sovereign funds”, such as Norway. The
only consolation the authors offer is that wealth inequality levels have not declined to the levels
of early 20th-century Europe or the U.S. Yet, they warn, a “business as usual” approach cannot
continue, because if it did global inequality would only increase. The authors say that if
countries follow the inequality trajectory followed by the European Union between 1980 and

45
now, there would be a moderate decline in global inequality in all countries. Conversely, it would
increase if they followed the model pursued by the U.S.

Tax reforms

Important tax reforms like progressive taxation, the authors argue, have proved to be effective in
combating income and wealth inequality at the top. By doing so, high-income earners would be
less incentivised to “capture higher shares of growth”. “Tax progressivity” was sharply reduced
in rich countries from the 1970s until the mid 2000s. Inheritance tax as an important tax reform
was also non-existent in emerging economies. In India, for instance, it was abolished in 1986
and opinion on its reintroduction is sharply divided.

The report also acknowledges the wide prevalence of tax havens and the multiple ways of tax
evasion, which were exposed in the Panama and Paradise Papers leaks. The wealth held in tax
havens has increased exponentially since the 1970s and accounts for nearly 10 per cent of the
global gross domestic product (GDP).

In India, income inequality has reached historically high levels, with 10 per cent of the top
earners accounting for 55 per cent of the national income. The report underscores what
economists on the Left have been saying for long—that the opening up of the economy has led
to greater inequality. The authors express concern at the “temporary end to the publication of
tax statistics between 2000 and 2010”, which, they argue, highlights the “need for more
transparency of income and wealth statistics that track the long-run evolution of inequality”.

One of the running themes in the report is the lack of availability of tax records and data from
governments on sources of income. Such income and wealth data will lead to a more informed
democratic debate on inequality and inclusive growth in India. The economic reforms ushered in
from 1991 to 2000 were the “first set of reforms”, a continuation of the mid 1980s policy shift,
which “placed the private sector at the heart of the economic policies”. They were implemented
“both by the Congress government and its conservative successors”.

These reforms were “concomitant with a dramatic rise in income inequality by 2000”. By 2014,
the richest 10 per cent had 56 per cent of the national income. The top 1 per cent of earners
comprised fewer than 800,000 individuals in 2014, in sharp contrast to the 389 million
individuals who comprised the bottom half of the adult population.

The final chapters of the report discuss methods to tackle inequality and level the “superstar
effect”, one where technological change and globalisation make it easier for some to have a
bigger share of growth. Owing to this effect, “tiny differences in talent can translate into very
large income differentials”.

The authors make a strong argument in favour of progressive taxation as such policies reduce
post-tax income inequality at the top of the distribution through their highest marginal tax rates.
Also, the “reduction of inequality can be further enhanced if the public spending from this tax
revenue is spent on fostering equitable growth”.

The report also says that educational and employment policies are key to reducing income
inequalities. It quotes International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports as saying that the share of
labour in aggregate income has continued its long-term decline in the last five years and that
“80 per cent of workers are paid less than the average wage of the firm in which they work”.

46
Likewise, minimum wages and labour market regulation are critical in “tackling income
inequality”, say the authors.

Equality of opportunity or the lack of it is also a growing feature. In the U.S, out of a hundred
children whose parents fall in the bottom 10 per cent of income earners, only 20-30 ever make it
to college. The comparative figure is 90 for children of parents who are in the top 10 per cent of
earners.

Of equal concern is the decline of the share of public wealth in national wealth in several
countries. In France, Germany and Japan, it is almost zero, while it is negative in the U.S. and
the U.K. (Net public wealth is public assets minus public debts.) These low levels of public
wealth would make it difficult to deal with either present or future income inequalities because
governments would not possess the funds to invest in education, health or even the
environment. Although the report does not say so, it clearly calls for more public investment and
more government intervention and expenditure in public utilities to improve access to
opportunity.

In short, it recommends short-term and long-term policy measures and is sharply critical of
those policy measures that have resulted in giving more space for the private sector to enter in
what ought to have remained a public domain. The concentration of wealth and the concomitant
inequalities, economic or social, could not have arisen in a policy vacuum, but have been the
outcome of a deliberate policy shift from the 1980s onwards.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/silence-on-thermal-plants/article10008828.ece
THE NATION
THIS FORTNIGHT
Silence on thermal plants
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-
ON December 7, one month after concerns resurfaced about the national capital becoming a
“gas chamber” owing to air pollution, a group of civil society organisations wrote to Union
Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Dr Harsh Vardhan, reminding him about a
deadline his Ministry had set for thermal power plants to abide by the latest pollution standards.
It was the last day of the deadline for implementing the new standards, which were notified on
November 7, 2015, and the thermal plants had not even begun preparing themselves to adhere
to the new standards.

The civil society organisations wrote, “We write to you on behalf of more than 1,35,000 Indians
who demand strict action from MoEF & CC to implement the emission standards for coal-based
power plants and achieve breathable air quality across the country. These emission standard
norms were announced two years ago, however we have not seen any action; instead we have
witnessed intense lobbying by the power sector to (make) the norms appear redundant. We’re
at a critical stage, either we can be leaders or laggards in combating air pollution. On one hand,
we have ambitious targets for producing renewable energy, but we must address the air
pollution crisis simultaneously and urgently.”

Calling it a “national crisis of monstrous proportions”, the letter mentions an annual death toll of
1.2 million Indians and costs of 3 per cent on the GDP annually on account of air pollution.

In the debates about air pollution in north India, particularly the National Capital Region (NCR),
crop burning in Punjab and Haryana appeared to be the villain and the contribution of thermal

47
plants to air pollution had been either ignored or understated. A report prepared by two
professors of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur for the Delhi government in 2016 lays bare
the sources of all pollutants that contribute to air pollution in the NCR. As per this report, thermal
power plants located in and around 300 kilometres of Delhi are one of the significant sources of
nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2)—two pollutants that contribute to the
formation of fine particles (PM 2.5) which have the potential to cause serious heart and lung
diseases.

The report states, “NOx emissions are even higher than PM10 emission ~ 312 t/d. Nearly 52%
of emissions are attributed to industrial point source (largely from power plants) followed by
vehicular emissions (36%) that occur at ground level, probably making it the most important
emission. DG sets contributes 6% to NOx emission and is followed by Aircraft emission (2%).
NOx apart from being a pollutant itself, it is (an) important component in formation of secondary
particles (nitrates) and ozone.” About the SO2 emissions, the report observes, “SO2 emission
load in the city is estimated to be 141 t/d. Industrial point sources account for above 90 per cent
of total emission; most of the emissions are from power plants. It appears there may be a need
to control SO2 from power plants. SO2 is known to contribute to secondary particles (sulfates).”

According to a study cited in the Economic Survey for 2016-17, the health costs of coal
combustion, a process involved in thermal power production, are the following: “The health
impact of coal combustion is manifested in the form of negative impact on the respiratory
system, cardiovascular diseases, neurological effects, etc.... The annual number of deaths
linked to coal based power plants pollution is estimated to be around 115,000 and the total
monetary cost is around US$4.6 billion.”

The MoEF & CC-notified new standards seek to govern two specific aspects of thermal power
production: a) extent of water consumption; b) quantity of hazardous pollutants, NOx, SO2 and
mercury, that the plants can emit in the atmosphere.

The standards ran into rough weather with power producers, who cited large costs as reason for
either not upgrading their plants or delaying the deadline. Power Ministry officials even had long
discussions with MoEF & CC officials explaining the concerns of the power producers. RTI
applications revealed lobbying carried out by some power producers in government ever since
the notification was filed. It appears that these efforts bore fruit because the MoEF & CC
recently amended the notification to ease the quantity of water permitted for consumption by
power plants. The Power Ministry also prepared a road map that essentially gave thermal power
producers, who contribute two-thirds of the total power produced in the country, more time to
adhere to the watered-down norms.

Evidently, the government had chosen to not act on its own decision of regulating the thermal
power sector. In fact, Ministry sources said that on account of the strong resistance from power
producers to postpone the deadline for adhering to the new standards, the government had
yielded to this demand, too.

It is little surprise then that in one of its concluding paragraphs the citizens’ groups wrote, “Along
with these 1,35,000 Clean Air Nation campaigners, we are calling on the Government of India to
take strict action on the power plants which are in violation of the law and to immediately come
up with a time bound plan for implementation of emission standards for each and every power
plant in the country.” In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on December 13, the MoEF & CC
cited the Power Ministry’s road map for power producers and informed the court that the new

48
standards would be implemented by 2022. The Supreme Court is expected to hear civil society
groups’ submissions on January 8.

Akshay Deshmane

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/relief-for-ashok-chavan/article10008829.ece
THE NATION
THIS FORTNIGHT
Relief for Ashok Chavan
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Congress leader Ashok Chavan. Photo: VIVEK BENDRE

ON December 22, 2017, the Bombay High Court set aside the sanction granted by Governor C.
Vidyasagar Rao in November 2016 to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to prosecute
former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in the controversial Adarsh Housing Society case.

The CBI had presented material based on a report by a Commission of Inquiry headed by
Justice J.A. Patil, former judge of the Bombay High Court, in 2013 and a 2014 order issued by
the same court to persuade the Governor to grant sanction.

A Division Bench of Justices Ranjit More and Sadhana Jadhav said the sanction was issued
based on the “same material” and therefore could not be converted into evidence.

Former Governor K. Sankaranarayanan had refused sanction to prosecute Chavan in 2013, but
his successor, Vidyasagar Rao, referred to the report by Justice J.A. Patil to reopen the case
and give the CBI the go-ahead. The bench said, “Neither the extract of Justice J. A. Patil
Commission Report nor the order dated 19 November 2014 passed by the learned Single Judge
of this Court in Criminal Revision Application No.136 of 2014 are admissible in evidence or
capable of being converted into evidence and therefore the same cannot be considered.”

In response to the CBI’s contention that review of a sanction order was permissible, the bench
agreed and said: “If the fresh material is collected by the investigating agency subsequent to the
earlier order, then, the earlier sanction order can be reviewed or re-considered.” The bench
went on to state that the material presented by the CBI was not permissible as evidence.

The CBI told the High Court that if Chavan’s petition was allowed, it would be equal to acquitting
him. Chavan had challenged the Governor’s order in the High Court, saying it was “arbitrary,
illegal and unjust” and passed with “mala fide intentions”.

The case dates back to the period when Chavan was Chief Minister of Maharashtra from
December 2008 to November 2010. His tenure ended abruptly when the party high command
asked him to step down after he faced corruption charges in the Adarsh case. Chavan is now
president of the State unit of the Congress.

The CBI claimed that Chavan endorsed additional floor space index for the Adarsh Society in
return for two flats in the building in the names of his relatives. His involvement, according to the
CBI, goes even further back.

49
In his earlier tenure as Revenue Minister, Chavan allegedly allotted 40 per cent of the flats to
civilians in Adarsh Housing Society, which was meant exclusively for defence personnel.

The December 22 judgment also has a detailed timeline of events that led to the granting of the
sanction. It clearly marks certain facts, such as the change of government in 2014 from the
Congress to the BJP-headed coalition with the Shiv Sena.

Referring to this sequence of events, the court cautioned against an independent sanctioning
authority succumbing to the influence of “opinion” and said: “The sanctioning authority is an
independent body that cannot allow itself to be influenced by anyone’s opinion.”

Lyla Bavadam

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/inquilabs-revolution/article10008785.ece
THE NATION
AWARDS
Inquilab's revolution
ILANGOVAN RAJASEKARAN
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Inquilab, a 2014 photograph. Photo: V. GANESAN

The Sahitya Akademi honours posthumously the Tamil poet Inquilab, known for his biting
criticism of governments, but his family, deferring to the views that he held dear, refuses to
accept the award.
“Virudhugal gowravapaduthum, pinamaga vazhnthal enpondorai…” (Awards will honour me if I
were to live like a corpse.)

–The Tamil poet Inquilab

These anguished words of the poet Inquilab, who died last year, on December 1, in Chennai at
the age of 72, justify his family members’ sentiments when they refused to accept the Sahitya
Akademi Award announced for him this year. Inquilab was selected for the award on December
21 for his collection of poems “Kaandhal Naatkal”.

“We are content that Inquilab’s writings have reached the common people. That is the biggest
recognition a writer can boast of. Therefore we do not want to accept this award in honour of his
views,” the family and the Inquilab Trust said in an email to the Akademi. The email sent
recently to the Secretary of the Akademi concludes with the lines of the poet quoted in the
beginning.

Calling him “the voice of the voiceless, oppressed, underprivileged and backward people”, the
letter continues that recognition for a person like him “is to remain a people’s poet”. It further
explains that Inquilab had his own views on such awards and felicitations. He has written: “I
don’t write expecting awards and felicitations; instead I foresee opposition, condemnation and
repulsion.”

In his lifetime Inquilab faced a lot of such antagonism. “That did not stop even after his death.
The face of the government may change, but the mask remains the same. He refused to accept
such awards from governments even during his lifetime. Today, oppressive forces of hatred

50
such as casteism, communalism and religious fundamentalism are dancing. At a time when the
voices of dissent are getting smothered, it is not proper to accept the award as it would amount
to a betrayal of the writings and life of Inquilab,” the letter notes.

Inquilab’s daughter Ameena Parvin told the media that her father had spurned awards and
shunned any recognition from agencies that were not in sync with his ideology.

He returned the Tamil Nadu government’s “Kalaimamani” literary award, which he received in
2006, in protest against the State government’s failure to save innocents in the ethnic strife in
Sri Lanka. He, in a letter, pointed out that the award “pierces him like a thorn”. In one of his
poems he said that these State government establishments would recognise those who lived
and those who were dead and those who “live like the dead” [referring to himself].

Though associated with the “Vanambadi poetry movement” of the 1970s which was known for
infusing social and Marxian elements in poetry and gave little importance to literary flourish in its
initial phase, Inquilab maintained the lyrical quotient in his poems. This Marxian leaning could
be discerned easily from his work “Kanmani Rajam”, which strongly criticised the moral
bankruptcy of politicians.

Inquilab (1944-2016) was born into an orthodox Muslim family as S.H.S. Sahul Hameed at
Keelakkarai in Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu. He chose Inquilab, meaning revolution,
as his pen name. True to his name, he revolted against the social evils that he observed around
him. At the age of 12, he wrote his first poem, on the harassment of a little girl who had been
abandoned in a dargha as a mentally ill child.

Taking up Tamil as the main subject of study in school and college, he taught the language at
New College in Chennai. He was in relentless pursuit of an ideology—from Periyar’s Dravidian
nationalism to Tamil nationalism to Marxism-Leninism—that would put an end to the different
kinds of oppression in society. In one of his works, he pointed out that his pen was operated by
“the eyes reddened by the heat of honesty; trembling lips that demand rights and raising hands
against cruelty”.

D. Ravikumar, writer and the general secretary of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), said
that had Inquilab been alive, he would have attached no importance to such awards. And with
just one poem, Ravikumar said, he had made the underprivileged to stand up against
oppression.

Like many other youth of his time, the poet too joined the Dravidian movement. “But the silence
of the Dravidian leaders who were ruling the State over the Keelavenmani massacre of 44 Dalit
farm workers and their families pained him and forced him to lean towards communism,” he
said.

“Manusangada… naanga manusangada,” (Human beings, we are human beings), his signature
poem referring to the Keelavenmani massacre and the class and caste oppression, is one such
fiery expression of his anger against the massacre. It talks about the anger and anguish of the
people on the margins and has since emerged as the “freedom song of Dalits”.

The poem powerfully flags the social exclusion of Dalits, the arrogant dominance of caste
groups that operated in league with the State government. He also mentions in the poem an
incident that happened in the 1980s, in which four Dalit children from Kolappadi, a village in

51
Perambalur district of Tamil Nadu, were allegedly murdered for drinking water from a common
well.

The poem goes like this:

“Kolappadi kinathu thanni pullaya suttathu;

Thanniyum theeya suttathu;

Intha andaigalin sattam entha mirasai thottathu;

Sathaiyum, elumbum neenga vacha theeyil veguthu;

Unga sarkarum, courtum athula ennaiya oothuthu.”

(The water in the well at Kolappadi burnt the child;

The water too burnt like fire.

Which mirasdar was touched by the law of the rulers?

The flesh and bones are steaming in the fire you lit;

Your government and court pour oil on it.)

Inquilab strongly believed that his pen would play a role in ushering in a change that would one
day ensure a society he was dreaming of. The virulence of his poems was almost infectious. His
works primarily carried the victims’ voices, surprisingly strong and bold. “Can any poet transform
words into burning pieces?” Ravikumar asked. Though he could be compared with many of the
writers and poets of the Left, the immediate comparison with him would be another Tamil
lyricist, Pattukottai Kalyanasundaram. “He continued to write on women’s liberation and Dalit
emancipation, which the Dravidian rulers who came after Periyar forgot,” Ravikumar said.

While Inquilab sang on casteism, Pattukottai sang on class struggles. “Manusangada”

poignantly portrays the sufferings of the oppressed, while Pattukottai talks about the world
where man eats man, suggesting the exploitation of the poor. It is no wonder that people called
Pattukottai “Makkal Kavignar” (People’s bard) and Inquilab “Makkal Pavalar” (People’s poet).

The rationalist poet did not allow his political ideology to curtail his views on other issues. He
criticised the Tamil Nadu government’s stand in the celebration of the 1000th birth anniversary
of King Raja Raja Chozhan. The king, he believed, was an exploiter of human beings.

Almost all his works, which won laurels and rave reviews from across the world, talk about
society and its inequality. “Kanmani Rajam”, one of his famous poems, criticises the moral
emptiness of today’s politicians. “Avvai” was his first modern Tamil drama, in which the mythical
old woman poet “Avvaiyar” was portrayed as a bold and young bard. His other works include
“Manimekalai”.

Inquilab, as Ravikumar pointed out, would live in the memories, “singing the song of humanism”,
until his dream for a casteless society is realised.

52
https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/our-swadeshi-mccarthy/article10008456.ece
THE NATION
ESSAY
Our swadeshi McCarthy
A. G. NOORANI
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses an election rally ahead of the second phase of the
Gujarat Assembly elections, in Nadiad on December 11. Photo: REUTERS/AMIT DAVE

U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who alleged during the Cold War in the 1950s that communist
spies and sympathisers had infiltrated American institutions and carried on smear campaigns
against them. Photo: THE HINDU ARCHIVES

Mani Shankar Aiyar with Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri (left) during a conference on the evolution of
India-Pakistan relations, in New Delhi in 2011. Their friendship goes back decades. Photo: PTI

Modi with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a function to pay homage to security
officials who lost their lives in the 2001 attack on Parliament House in New Delhi, on December
13, 2017. Photo: AP/Manish Swarup

Chinmaya Gharekhan, who rose to a high position at the U.N., one of the other guests at the
dinner that Modi did not mention. Photo: V.V. Krishnan

K. Natwar Singh, former diplomat and Minister for External Affairs, one of the other guests at the
dinner that Modi did not mention. Photo: R.V. Moorthy

T.C.A. Raghavan, former Ambassador to Pakistan, one of the other guests at the dinner that
Modi did not mention. Photo: Vijay Bate

Sharat Sabharwal, former High Commissioner to Pakistan, one of the other guests at the dinner
that Modi did not mention. Photo: V.V. Krishnan

K. Shankar Bajpai, former Ambassador, one of the other guests at the dinner that Modi did not
mention. Photo: Sandeep Saxena

Salman Haidar, former Foreign Secretary, one of the other guests at the dinner that Modi did
not mention. Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

53
General Deepak Kapoor, former Army chief, one of the other guests at the dinner that Modi did
not mention. Photo: PTI

Modi’s divisive politics and hateful rhetoric during the final phase of the campaign for the Gujarat
elections have profound legal, moral and political implications.
IF Prime Minister Narendra Modi could go on such a ravage of slander in the last week of the
election campaign in Gujarat, to what depths will he not stoop in the Lok Sabha elections in
2019? His campaign, it is accepted by all, averted the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) defeat,
but it could not inflict a humiliating defeat on the Congress. The campaign over, the
commentariat has gone back to its trade in trivia, neglecting the grave issues he has raised. His
speeches as Chief Minister of Gujarat reeked of communal hate. Muslims of India were freely
linked to Pakistan with the title “miya” applied freely.

The old Adam did not improve. Modi has been electioneering ever since he became the Prime
Minister—in Delhi, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. But Gujarat was qualitatively and fundamentally
different, a fact which is overlooked. There, our swadeshi McCarthy levelled charges of
conspiracy to kill him and to overthrow his government with Pakistan’s aid. He named specific
persons—such as a former Vice President, the former Prime Minister and a former Cabinet
Minister—and deliberately distorted speeches reported by reputed correspondents, all in just
four days before the final phase of voting.

This has profound legal, moral and political implications. Modi flouted the law, told palpable lies
and spewed hateful, divisive rhetoric. The record of his speeches should make our submissive
and supine commentators sit up and ponder.

Mani Shankar Aiyar’s (hereinafter referred to as Mani) friendship with Pakistan’s former Foreign
Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri goes back a good few decades when they were together at
Oxford. Kasuri, a man of high integrity, is known for a strong desire to improve relations
between Pakistan and India. He gave ample evidence of this when he was Foreign Minister
(2003-07). A Delhi-based think tank, Ananta Centre, invited him to deliver a talk titled “The
Current State of India-Pakistan Relations” on December 7, 2017. Such invitations are not sent
at short notice. His friend Mani was also invited. That he, in turn, hosted a dinner in honour of
his friend was but to be expected. Invitations were sent a month earlier for dinner at Mani’s
residence on December 6. Among the guests were former Vice President Mohammad Hamid
Ansari; former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; former Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor,
who retired in March 2010; former Indian diplomats who had either served in Pakistan as High
Commissioners—K. Natwar Singh, K. Shankar Bajpai, Sharat Sabharwal and T.C.A.
Raghavan—or had dealt with Pakistan in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), former Foreign
Secretary Salman Haidar and Chinmaya Gharekhan, who was in Rajiv Gandhi’s PMO and rose
to a high position at the United Nations; and, of course, Pakistan’s High Commissioner Sohail
Mahmood.

That the dinner meeting was fully covered by the Intelligence Bureau (I.B.) was par for the
course; else, Modi could not have revealed that it lasted three hours. The subject was no
secret—India-Pakistan relations. It is doubtful if the menu was.

Modi addressed election rallies in Gujarat, specifically on December 8 and 10. He began with
Mani’s infamous remark on December 7 that Modi was a “ neech a a dmi” (a lowly character),
for which his party awarded him his just deserts. But Modi distorted it to mean allusion to a
caste; The Hindu of December 9 quoted Mani to have spoken of a neech a a dmi. It reported

54
that Modi “labelled the Congress a casteist party”, its dissociation from Mani on his remark
notwithstanding.

But Modi had not come to dole out such trifles as distortions of fact. He was in the big business
of charges of murder and virtual treason. Speaking at Bhabhar in north Gujarat, Modi accused
Mani of visiting Pakistan to arrange his supari (contract for killing).

He said: “After I became Prime Minister, this man (Aiyar) went to Pakistan and met some
Pakistanis. All these things are available on the social media. At that meeting he is seen
discussing with Pakistanis that ‘ jab tak Modi ko raste se hataya nahi jata’ (until Modi is removed
from our path), the India-Pakistan relationship cannot improve.” Modi added: “Someone tell me
what the meaning of ‘ raste se hatana’ is. You had gone to Pakistan to give my supari, you
wanted to give Modi’s supari.” He added: “This conversation took place three years ago. The
Congress Party had tried to suppress this episode. ...They did not take any action against him
for the last three years. ... Maa Ambe is protecting me.” Mani had made the remark in 2015 at a
talk show in Pakistan ( The Telegraph, The Hindu, December 9, 2017).

Do you believe that Narendra Modi himself believed in this palpable falsehood, bluntly, a lie?
The questions it raises are obvious. Suparis are not announced on TV or on social media. He
was the Prime Minister in 2015. What action did he take on this public threat to his life delivered
in a foreign country on TV? Did he even ask the Congress to discipline Mani? Even Donald
Trump will not misconstrue it as a threat to his life if an Iranian politician were to tell the BBC, in
a talk show in London, that Iran’s relations with the United States will not improve as long as
Trump remained President and that he needed to be removed before they could be put right. To
arouse people, Modi capped his lie with a religious invocation to “Maa Ambe”.

In this category fall other falsehoods—the Congress’ rejoicing when Hafiz Saeed got bail;
Pakistan’s support to Ahmed Patel (a typical old Modi ploy of identification of Indian Muslims
with Pakistan); and Rahul Gandhi “embracing” the Chinese Ambassador during the Doklam
crisis. In a democracy, politicians, scholars and journalists openly meet envoys of countries with
whom their own country’s relations are under strain. They should.

This brings us to the crowning piece in the record of mendacity—the dinner. Speaking at
Palanpur on December 10, Modi said: “A Pakistan delegation meets at Mani Shankar’s house
and the next day he disrespects Gujarat’s society, its pachat (backward) society, its poor and
Modi. Don’t all these things raise questions and concern? The Congress has to answer” (Ritu
Sharma, The Indian Express, December 11, 2017).

Her report continued: “You must have read in newspapers, you must have seen on TV, a
debate yesterday, that at Mani Shankar Aiyar’s house in Delhi, ‘Didn’t he disrespect you (Modi),
disrespect Gujarat?’ Pakistan’s High Commissioner, former Foreign Minister, India’s former Vice
President and India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh all met at Aiyar’s house, for three
hours, and then the next day, Mani Shankar calls Modi neech. This is a serious and sensitive
issue, being a meeting with the Pakistan High Commissioner. Also, what is the reason for such
a secret meeting amidst Gujarat elections?”

At his rally in Sanand later that day, Modi repeated his claims against Aiyar and of support for
Ahmed Patel from across the border, but this time identified “Rafiq” as “a former chief of
Pakistan army”. “Does that not create a suspicion in the mind of the nation?” Modi asked the
huge audience. “Does it not cause worry for India’s sovereignty?”

55
In Vadodara, Modi said, “Did you [Aiyar] inform the government of India that during tension
between the two countries, Pakistani officers were visiting you? When I was the Chief Minister
of Gujarat, I used to inform the Manmohan Singh government about any foreign delegation
coming to meet me.”

Every Chief Minister reports to New Delhi when he meets a foreign visitor. There is no such
obligation on a private citizen in an open society. Dinners are held in homes or restaurants; not
in public parks. Selection of guests is the host’s prerogative. In the instant case, the choice was
impeccable. Modi complained: “No Indian official was present during the meeting and the
government was also not intimated later” ( DNA, December 11, 2017). Is he, indeed, as utterly
ignorant of the social life that lies at the heart of the diplomatic process as he pretends to be,
three and a half years after he became Prime Minister? Regardless, the malevolence is patent
and it emerges clearly from his speech itself. The I.B. “covered” the dinner, as it usually does.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval reports to the Prime Minister, who, thus, came to know that
the dinner lasted for three hours and who all were present. Why then did Modi single out just
four names for public mention—Pakistan’s High Commissioner, its former Foreign Minister
Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and, to establish a McCarthyite guilt by association, former Vice
President Hamid Ansari and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh— studiously omitting all
others because their presence would have exploded his falsehoods sky high.

There the matter would have rested. Liz Mathew (of The Indian Express) did a service to the
truth by revealing the names of their dinner companions—they were a former Army Chief, four
former High Commissioners to Pakistan, a former Foreign Secretary, and a universally
respected former diplomat who rose to high positions at the U.N. Why did Narendra Modi so
calculatedly omit to mention their names while loudly publicising at an election rally two Indian
figures along with two Pakistani figures? Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India took up his post
only recently, with all the hopes and expectations of a diplomat in a new post. This is no way to
treat him, surely?

Sustained campaign
Can or should all these disgraceful tirades be forgotten as being of no consequence and as a
“stunt”? That is all right for a cynical political operator like Ghulam Nabi Azad. In a people
addicted to sub chalta hai (everything is tolerable). That would be a shame. Modi’s smear
campaigns have been sustained over a period of time. There was no solitary outburst. In recent
weeks, the attacks were on named persons’ patriotism and loyalty to India. They have been
divisive and blatantly communal. There is no criticism or debate on policies, foreign or domestic.
The nation has been calculatedly split. The people’s gullibility is systematically exploited. Were it
not for their consequences, Modi’s rallies on December 10 would make one laugh. Little does
Modi realise that it is his own credibility which now stands diminished.

Consequences
This is the moral consequence of Modi’s behaviour. But he is not above the law. His conduct
and speech have legal consequences and, what is more, grave and deep political
consequences as well. The legal route none at the dinner will take and waste time in our courts
pursuing cases of defamation against Modi. The election law is defective. Section 123(4) of the
Representation of the People Act, 1951, makes it a “corrupt practice” for any person to publish,
with the consent of the candidate, “any statement of fact which is false, and which he either
believes to be false or does not believe it to be true; in relation to the personal character... or in
relation to the candidature which is reasonably calculated to prejudice” his prospects. This is too

56
narrow. In the U.S., formerly, there were non-partisan NGOs which kept track of false and hate
speeches. We have none.

There remains the criminal offence and civil tort of defamation. It is instructive to trace these
routes even though none will take them. Modi’s speeches fall pat within the definition of
defamation in Section 499 of the Penal Code. He will be compelled to establish that his
statements were true or that his opinions were expressed “in good faith”. But Section 52 defines
“good faith” as something “done or believed” after “due care and attention”. The burden of
proving that falls on the accused.

As for the civil remedy, the U.S. Supreme Court carved out an exception in the case of a “public
figure”. The one who attacks him will be liable only if he spoke with “actual malice” or “with
knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not”. Any and all
of these three fit Modi’s utterances perfectly ( The New York Times Co. vs Sullivan; 401 U.S.
265 [1964]).

On October 7, 1994, the Supreme Court approved that rule as good law in India in the
Nakheeran case ( R. Rajagopal vs The State of Tamil Nadu [1994) 6 S.C.C. 632 at page 649).
But the U.S. Supreme Court clarified that its ruling was not a licence for defamation. In 1979, in
Herbert vs Lando (441 U.S. 153), it prescribed rules akin to the definition of “good faith” in our
penal code. In this case, the plaintiff was allowed access to the media’s editorial proceedings to
establish lack of care.

The defendant will have to prove what steps he took to ascertain the facts. The petitioner,
Anthony Herbert, was a retired Army officer who had extended wartime service in Vietnam and
who received widespread media attention in 1969-70 when he accused his superior officers of
covering up reports of atrocities and other war crimes. Three years later, on February 4, 1973,
Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (CBS), broadcast a report on him and his accusations. The
programme was produced and edited by Barry Lando and was narrated by Mike Wallace. Lando
later published a related article in The Atlantic Monthly magazine. Herbert then sued Lando,
Wallace, CBS, and The Atlantic Monthly for defamation in Federal District Court. He alleged that
the programme and the article falsely and maliciously portrayed him as a liar and a person who
had made war-crimes charges to explain his relief from command, and he requested substantial
damages for injury to his reputation and to the literary value of a book he had just published
recounting his experiences.

The court held (6-3) that, “To be liable, the alleged defamer of public officials or of public figures
must know or have reason to suspect that his publication is false. In other cases proof of some
kind of fault, negligence perhaps, is essential to recovery. Inevitably, unless liability is to be
completely foreclosed, the thoughts and editorial processes of the alleged defamer would be
open to examination.

“It is also untenable to conclude from our cases that, although proof of the necessary state of
mind could be in the form of objective circumstances from which the ultimate fact could be
inferred, plaintiffs may not inquire directly from the defendants whether they knew or had reason
to suspect that their damaging publication was in error.”

Knowledge of the facts as well as belief about the truth of the utterances must be disclosed in a
civil suit in pre-trial discovery proceedings. “There is no constitutional value in false statements
of fact.” The Court added: “Our cases necessarily contemplate examination of the editorial
process to prove the necessary awareness of probable falsehood, and if indirect proof of this

57
element does not stifle truthful publication and is consistent with the First Amendment, as
respondents seem to concede, we do not understand how direct inquiry with respect to the
ultimate issue would be substantially more suspect.”

The U.S. Supreme Court amplified: “The President enjoys no immunity. The President, for
example, does not have an absolute privilege against disclosure of materials subpoenaed for a
judicial proceeding ( United States v s Nixon, 418 US 683, 41 L Ed 2d 1039). In so holding, we
found that although the President has a powerful interest in confidentiality of communications
between himself and his advisers, that interest must yield to a demonstrated specific need for
evidence.” The same applies to a Prime Minister.

Discussion of the law illustrates the gravity of the matter. That no legal proceedings will be taken
is no reason for ignoring it. For, there is a yet graver issue—lies by the head of government.
McCarthy was only a Senator. Hitler needed Goebbels. In combining in his person Hitler and
Goebbels, Modi presents a dire warning—the spectre of nascent fascism—complete with
fawning Cabinet colleagues, a supine media, subversion of the Cabinet and the civil service and
the sedulous spawning of an atmosphere of hate and intimidation.

No one went to the roots of McCarthyism with such deep insight as the great Prof. Hans J.
Morgenthau did. The people were not victimised; they were “proud to play however minor a part
in the farce. The very refusal to look the facts in the face even in retrospect, to acknowledge the
ignoble part most of us played in different ways, and to stand trial before the bar of history
points to an answer to our question more profound and more disquieting than those commonly
suggested. The answer must be found in the very nature of American society.

“While it is obvious that McCarthyism was thoroughly un-American in its standards of judgment,
which were destructive of individual freedom and of the equality relevant to it, it is less obvious
how profoundly American it was in its impulse and modus operandi. Far from being alien to the
essence of America, McCarthyism was, as it were, its illegitimate offspring, a bastard but
nonetheless the child of the same mother who had borne and nourished the true purpose of
America. McCarthyism was a corruption in the Aristotelian sense, a perversion of what is good.
It sprang from an impulse that, as we have seen, has been endemic in American society: the
primordial anxiety about its ability to survive, the fear of losing its reason for being, its identity,
itself.” This is Hindutva in India.

McCarthy targeted F.D. Roosevelt. Modi targets Jawaharlal Nehru and all he stood for. Both
traded on fears of treason, spreading smears. “The intellectual failure is comprised in the
complete misunderstanding of the actual nature of the threat and in the complete
inappropriateness and the self-defeating results of the measures taken to meet it. The moral
failure consists in the corruption of the American purpose, a corruption so thorough as to
amount to its destruction” ( The Purpose of American Politics, 1963, pages 145, 146 and 156).

McCarthyism was nihilistic; so is Modism. Veneers began peeling off before the Gujarat
Assembly election results and they alarmed him in a sphere where he felt his embraces had
won him kudos abroad to compensate for criticism at home.

The Economist’s lead editorial on June 24, 2017, summed it all up accurately:

“As Prime Minister, Mr. Modi has been just as careful to court militant Hindus as jet-setting
businessmen. His government recently created havoc in the booming beef-export business with
onerous new rules on purchases of cattle, in deference to Hindus’ reverence for cows. Yogi

58
Adityanath, the man he selected to run Uttar Pradesh, is under investigation for inciting religious
hatred and rioting, among other offences.

“The fear is that, if the economy falters, Mr. Modi will try to maintain his popularity by stirring up
communal tensions. That, after all, is how his Bharatiya Janata Party first propelled itself to
government in the 1990s. Mr. Modi himself was Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002 when rioting
there killed at least 1,000 people, most of them Muslims. To this day, he has never categorically
condemned the massacre or apologised for failing to prevent it.

“Under Mr. Modi, debate about public policy, and especially about communal relations, has
atrophied. Hindu nationalist thugs intimidate those who chide the government for straying from
India’s secular tradition, or who advocate a less repressive approach to protests in Kashmir,
India’s only state with a Muslim majority. One of the few media companies that dare to criticise
the government has been raided by police on grounds that would not normally attract such
heavy-handedness. Mr. Modi himself has become the object of a sycophantic personality cult.
The Prime Minister may intend all this as a way to keep winning elections. But it is not hard to
imagine it going disastrously wrong.

“Mr. Modi’s admirers paint him as the man who at last unleashed India’s potential. In fact, he
may go down in history for fluffing India’s best shot at rapid, sustained development. And the
worries about a still darker outcome are growing.”

Since then Modi’s fortunes have declined, not prospered. Wait for more slanders. Give it a
thought. What effect will it have on Modi’s credibility? Who will believe him hereafter?

Do you remember the report by a diplomat in the British High Commission in New Delhi on
Modi’s performance in the Gujarat pogrom? It was leaked by WikiLeaks. Each mission of a
major state has political counsellors backed by a good staff to report on India’s politics. They are
read by their foreign offices. It does not require much imagination to guess what they think of
Modi’s conduct and utterances.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/polarisation-game/article10008832.ece
THE NATION
THIS FORTNIGHT
Polarisation game
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-
IN the context of the Gujarat election campaign, a few political commentators observed that
every time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) felt that it was on the back foot, it resorted to a
communal campaign. In Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi resorted to rhetoric that hinted
at religious polarisation. Assembly elections are due in Karnataka in early 2018. The BJP,
weakened by factionalism and devoid of any serious issue to target the Congress with, has
started preparing the ground for a communal campaign. A series of events by the party make
this clear.

Datta Jayanthi row

On December 3, thousands of cadre of Hindutva groups such as the Bajrang Dal and the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad gathered at the Sri Guru Dattatreya Bababudan Swamy Dargah in the
hills of Chikkamagaluru for a Datta Jayanthi programme. The dargah is a syncretic shrine

59
whose status has been disputed over the past few decades after Hindutva groups claimed that it
was only a Hindu place of worship.

The event saw the largest turnout over the past few years, with several BJP leaders, including
party MLA C.T. Ravi, present. According to a press report, Ravi told the audience that they were
“fighting for justice and in the Kurukshetra war, only those with truth and justice will win. In a
democracy, we will not fight the war with bullets, but with the ballot.” His reference was to the
delay in handing over the shrine to Hindus.

Soon after, the surcharged crowd broke through the barriers and uprooted tombstones in the
burial ground in clear contravention of the Supreme Court order that prevents anyone from
entering the area. In the past, the shrine has been referred to as the “Ayodhya of the south” and
the BJP has used this status to polarise Hindu and Muslim communities in the hill districts,
which also has a spillover effect in coastal Karnataka from where a vast number of Hindutva
cadre are drawn.

On the same day, Pratap Simha, BJP MP representing Mysuru-Kodagu, violated prohibitory
orders in Hunsur town. The district administration had designated a certain route for the
Hanuma Jayanthi celebrations while the MP insisted on violating it. In a widely circulated video
on social media, the MP is seen threatening police officials and barging through the barricade in
his car. His rash action nearly injured police officials on duty while also leading to stray
communal incidents in the area.

On December 6, a communal scuffle broke out in the town of Honnavar in Uttara Kannada
district after the decomposed body of a youth, identified as Paresh Mesta, was found in a tank.
Fuelled by rumours on social media, it mutated into a larger riot between two communities and
spread to other towns such as Sirsi and Kumta in the district. BJP leaders were quick to claim
the youth as one of their cadre and alleged that he had been tortured and murdered. Mesta’s
father stated that his son had had no political affiliations.

The Uttara Kannada parliamentary constituency is represented by Union Minister of Skill

Development and Entrepreneurship Anant Kumar Hegde, who has, in the past, made
controversial statements against Islam. Shobha Karandlaje, the BJP MP from Udupi-
Chikkamagaluru, also persisted with her claims that Mesta had been tortured and murdered by
“jehadis”. The doctor who conducted the post-mortem stated that Mesta had not been tortured.

A few days after Mesta’s death, a rumour that a teenage Hindu girl had been assaulted by
Muslim men reignited tension in Honnavar. While this was proved false, this did not stop
Shobha Karandlaje from tweeting: “Jehadis tried to rape and murder a girl studying in 9th std
near honnavar. Why is the govt silent about this incident? Arrest those who molested and
injured this girl. Where are you CM siddaramaiah?”Honnavar police registered a first information
report (FIR) against the MP under various sections of Indian Penal Code, including section 153,
153A and 505.

Parivartana rally

On December 21, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath participated in the BJP’s
Parivartana Rally in Hubballi. Reports in the media said he accused Chief Minister
Siddaramaiah of trying to convert Karnataka, “the land of Bajrang Bali”, into “a land of
worshippers of Tipu Sultan”. Addressing the audience, Adityanath said: “It is now left to you to
decide whether you want it to be a land where saints, spiritual leaders, and gods and goddesses

60
are worshipped or a land of worshippers of Tipu.” Adityanath’s reference was to the State
government’s commemoration of the eighteenth century ruler’s birthday on November 10 as
Tipu Jayanthi for the past three years.

With senior leaders of the BJP in Karnataka, including several MPs, resorting to aggressive
communal posturing, it is clear that the party lacks a clear agenda with which to challenge the
Siddaramaiah-led Congress government. In all probability, the BJP’s communal pitch is only
going to get shriller.

Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/mission-possible/article10008612.ece
THE NATION
Mission possible
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Navdeep Suri, Indian Ambassador to the UAE. Photo: By Special Arrangement

THE United Arab Emirates (UAE) is home to around 2.8 million Indian nationals, of which 60-70
per cent are blue-collar workers. The UAE has the second largest community of Indians, after
Saudi Arabia. But the exact number of Indian blue-collar workers there is not available as the
UAE authorities do not share such data with the Indian Embassy.

“Our endeavour is to see that all persons who are coming to the UAE—broadly in the ECR
category—come through e-Migrate,” Navdeep Suri, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE, told
Frontline, at the Indian Consulate in Dubai recently. “That needs more work at both ends, in
India and in the UAE. In India, we still need to do more to regulate the unscrupulous travel
agents who take people for a ride, and here in the UAE, part of our conversations is to see if we
can minimise the issue of visitor visas which can be converted into work visas. That’s part of an
ongoing conversation,” he added.

Despite its pitfalls, many, including Ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
countries, say that e-Migrate is a good initiative to prevent exploitation. “We are getting good
results out of e-Migrate, but there’s still a large category of people who come from outside the e-
Migrate system,” said Suri.

Such large concentrations bring in associated problems too: that of incarceration, death on the
job, harassment and torture, and non-payment of wages. As of end October, there were about
900 Indians incarcerated in UAE jails. The Mission provides free legal counselling at the Indian
Workers Resource Centre to Indians in need. It also gets consular access from the local
authorities to meet Indian inmates in Abu Dhabi jails. It has a provision for legal assistance
through the Indian Community Welfare Fund to Indians in most deserving cases.

As many as 294 Indians have died in the UAE in 2017 because of reasons other than natural
causes (as of end October). These include worksite accidents, suicides and road accidents.
There were two cases of murder too.

On the question of workers being exploited across the region, Suri said that the Embassy was
working closely with a range of organisations to help labourers in distress. “The Indian
Community Welfare Fund gives us a very important instrument to address the needs of the

61
Indian workers’ community in the UAE. What I would like to say is that even though we do
encounter a number of cases on an ongoing basis of people losing their jobs, people not getting
salaries in time or other cases of difficulty, it is a broad trend; it is that the UAE government is
aligning its laws with the global practices. It sees the importance of being a caring host for guest
workers and one of the most important developments in the recent weeks is the decision to
move the category of domestic workers—maids, chauffeurs, cooks—from the Ministry of Interior
to the Ministry of Labour so that they can now get redress in labour courts unlike in the previous
system. To me that is a very concrete example of progress in the right direction,” he said.

R.K. Radhakrishnan

https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/murky-waters/article10008438.ece
THE NATION
NAMAMI GANGE
Murky waters
AKSHAY DESHMANE
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Diving for coins and gold in the highly polluted waters of the Ganga in Allahabad after the
Kumbh Mela festival on April 2, 2013. Photo: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP

Narendra Modi offers prayers with priests during the launch of Namami Gange in Varanasi in
2014. Photo: PTI

Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, the chief priest of Sankat Mochan temple and professor of
electronics at Benares Hindu University. Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

A special CAG audit report reveals the abysmal failure in the implementation of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s flagship river clean-up programme, Namami Gange.
A DAY after the historic Lok Sabha election results in May 2014, Narendra Modi stood on a
stage erected on the Dashashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi. Bathed in bright yellow lights and
facing saffron flags attached to wooden arches near the stage on the riverfront, known for its
evening “Ganga Aarti”, Modi was speaking for the first time after the election results.

Addressing a gathering of supporters who had arrived to witness his victory celebration, the
soon-to-be Prime Minister said: “In his diary, Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the
moon, wrote, ‘When I was going to the moon, I was an astronaut. But while I return, I do so as a
small part of the universe, a human being.’ I, too, feel that when I was reaching Varanasi, I was
coming as a candidate. But as soon as I filled my form as a candidate in this sacred land of
Mother Ganga, on that same day, I became the son of this land. ‘Mother Ganga has called me’
[referring to his pronouncements on the day of filing nomination as a BJP candidate] were the
words that came from deep inside me. Perhaps they were not even words but a verbal
expression of a spiritual process inside me. And today, as I have come to the feet of Mother
Ganga, I am experiencing it [spiritual process] in a deeper way.”

Further, he proclaimed, the job of cleaning the river was a job “decided by Mother Ganga”
herself for him and one which he would do. Modi said: “Brothers and sisters, the results of these
elections, your apparent and substantial love, Modi posters in alleys and colonies [of Varanasi],

62
they cannot make me yours; Mother Ganga has made me yours. Perhaps these opportunities
and good fortune do not come in the life of everyone. That is why I say that Mother Ganga has
decided some tasks for me. And as Mother Ganga guides me, I will perform those tasks.
Brothers and sisters, from her source to end, Mother Ganga is wailing, ‘Let any of my sons
come and rescue me from this filth’.”

More than three years since that evening in Varanasi, the government presided over by Modi
has seen two different Ministers and a new structure of government bodies at the State and
Central levels tasked with the job of implementing an ambitious river clean-up programme called
Namami Gange (Obeisance to the Ganga).

Drafted as a programme that integrates both old and new efforts to tackle pollution in the river,
Namami Gange was cleared by the Cabinet in May 2015. A new body called the National
Ganga Council (NGC), headed by Modi himself, was set up to plan and supervise the river
clean-up effort in October 2016, replacing another body created by the United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) government.

The council’s implementation arm is the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG).The flagship
programme has been allocated a budget of Rs.20,000 crore for five years ending in 2020. This
is a massive, fourfold jump from similar exercises in the past. According to an official statement,
Rs.4,000 crore has been spent on cleaning the river since 1985 when the then Rajiv Gandhi
government, for the first time, prepared a Central scheme.

Notwithstanding these efforts, evidence gathered by the government’s own auditor about
Namami Gange’s implementation has confirmed what was known so far only by way of
anecdotes. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that in the past three years the
Modi government had failed miserably in implementing the clean-up plan on the ground. The
CAG’s findings, presented in a comprehensive report, were placed in Parliament during the
winter session.

The CAG’s key findings are broadly related to the following aspects of the Namami Gange
programme: financial management, planning, pollution abatement, ghat development, rural
sanitation, conservation of flora and fauna, maintenance of ecological flow, human resource
management and monitoring and evaluation.

Poor financial management

The most significant aspect in the report concerns the poor record of utilisation of allocated
funds by the NMCG, which is tasked with the implementation of the programme. This is critical
because the Modi government, while announcing the programme, had emphasised the fourfold
hike in the allocated budget.

But allocation of an impressive budget was not matched with good planning and execution. The
report points to the “slow pace of execution of works during 2014-17 and hence low utilisation of
funds”. Records cited in the report show that in 2014-15, the NMCG could spend only 8 per cent
of the revised estimates of the budgeted sum, while for 2015-16 and 2016-17, the
corresponding figures stood at 37 per cent and 63 per cent respectively.

By March 31, 2017, the NMCG had received Rs.3,633 crore from the government in three years
although it was eligible to receive Rs.7,387 crore, and managed to utilise only Rs.1,836.4 crore.
There are three different figures here because while the government planned a specific
budgeted amount, it also set certain conditions for releasing the money to the NMCG. Funds

63
were released depending on the NMCG’s ability to meet those conditions in the given time
frame. Clearly, the NMCG fell short of meeting all the conditions for disbursal of the entire
budgeted amount for three years.

Considering that these three financial years account for more than half of the programme’s total
timespan, the record reflects poorly on the NMCG. In the report, the CAG said: “The low
utilisation of funds indicates poor implementation of the programme.”

The genesis of this poor implementation lies in the absence of systematic planning as well as
far-from-satisfactory monitoring of the works being implemented. The report noted that the
NMCG “has not finalised the Ganga Rejuvenation Basin Management Plan for initiating long-
term intervention on the Ganga. Approval of DPRs [detailed project reports] suffered from
inordinate delays”. The basin management plan is essentially a detailed blueprint. The national
auditor has recorded the fact that the government did not finalise the draft of an existing
blueprint prepared by a consortium of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) during the second
UPA government.

The lack of monitoring of this state of affairs further compounded problems. The existing
monitoring bodies, created by the UPA, did not meet as per desired frequency and the newly
proposed “Ganga Monitoring Centres” (GMCs) were not functional. As the report records, the
GMCs were “still in planning and conceptual stage”.

Worsening water quality

Worryingly, the report describes in some detail the worsening water quality in Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar and West Bengal, where the water was not clean enough even for “outdoor bathing”. In a
comparative study of water quality for 2012-13 and 2016-17, the auditor found that in “six cities
of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, DO [dissolved oxygen] declined from 2012-13 levels.
BOD [biochemical oxygen demand] was higher than the prescribed limit in Kanpur, Allahabad
and Varanasi. During 2016-17, TC [total coliform] levels in all the cities of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar
and West Bengal were very high, ranging between six to 334 times higher than the prescribed
levels. Thus, water quality in eight out of 10 towns (except Rishikesh and Haridwar) did not
meet the standards for Class ‘B’ or outdoor bathing class on all parameters.”

While DO is a measure of the total oxygen dissolved in water, BOD measures the quantity of
oxygen consumed by microorganisms. Total coliform denotes the quantity of bacteria formed in
human and animal waste, soil and surface water. All the three are measured to get a sense of
the biological health of a river. In the case of the Ganga, it appears from the records that its
health is worsening in the above-mentioned stretches.

Experts with long years of experience in working on river rejuvenation broadly concur with the
CAG’s findings and criticise the Modi government’s record in cleaning up the Ganga. One of
them is Dr Rajendra Singh, who is known worldwide as the “Waterman of India” and who served
as a member on the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), which was set up by the
second UPA government and was replaced by the NGC in September 2016.

Speaking to Frontline, he said: “Until he [Modi] became Prime Minister, the Ganga was his
priority. But after becoming Prime Minister, it is no longer a priority for him. Initially, with the
setting up of a Ministry and allocation of significant funds, I thought there would be some work
on cleaning up the river. But if it were a priority, three and a half years are enough to have
something to show. They seem more interested in interlinking rivers than cleaning them. The

64
previous Prime Minister spoke less but did more for cleaning the Ganga compared with the
present one.”

Prof. Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, chief priest of the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi, was
consulted by the CAG while preparing the audit report on Namami Gange because of his long-
standing work on cleaning up the Ganga through the Sankat Mochan Foundation. He told
Frontline that the condition of the Ganga in Varanasi continued to be worrisome. For instance,
he pointed out: “At the Rajendra Prasad Ghat, where Shinzo Abe participated in a programme
with Modiji recently, we found the faecal coliform [bacteria present inside warm-blooded
animals] count to be 50,000 per 100 ml when the ideal standards say that it should be less than
500 per 100 ml.”

According to him, there is a lack of transparency in the implementation of Namami Gange. He

cited the example of the refusal by the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam, the nodal body for
implementing the scheme in Varanasi, to reveal what technology was being used for the
sewage treatment plants being set up.

Responding to the criticisms made in the CAG report, NMCG Director General U.P. Singh told
this correspondent that the momentum of project implementation had picked up in the current
financial year. “The CAG report covers the period until March 2017. The momentum of
implementation of Namami Gange has picked up after March 2017. I don’t think it is such a big
issue because these are non-lapsable funds. A significant amount of funds have now been tied
up,” he said.

While the government tries to play down the significance of the revelations made in the CAG
report, it cannot escape responsibility for the fact that it will not be able to meet its own deadline
of July 2018 for cleaning up the river to a significant extent. The five-year programme might
have to be extended and the wailing of “Mother Ganga”, which Modi so eloquently described on
that May 2014 evening in Varanasi, will continue for many more years.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/byelection-shocks/article10008369.ece
POLITICS
TAMIL NADU
Byelection shocks
R. K. RADHAKRISHNAN
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

T.T.V. Dinakaran pays his respects to M.G. Ramachandran, the founder of the AIADMK, on the
occasion of the latter’s 30th death anniversary on December 24, 2017, even as reports
indicated that he was comfortably positioned to win the R.K. Nagar byelection. Photo: Bijoy
Ghosh

Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami (right) and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam at
the AIADMK’s headquarters in Chennai on December 25. Photo: PTI

M.K. Stalin, DMK working president, with Marudhu Ganesh, the party candidate. Photo: M.
Karunakaran

65
The R.K. Nagar byelection result exposes the chinks in the DMK and the people’s lack of
confidence in the ruling AIADMK, and serves as a rude shock to the BJP. A massive political
churning is on the cards in Tamil Nadu.
Rarely does an innocuous byelection end up changing the contours of politics in a State in such
an unrecognisably drastic manner. The December 21 byelection to the seat once held by former
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar (R.K. Nagar), was not billed to create any
ripples in Tamil Nadu politics: after all, there was no Chief Minister candidate in the fray, no
other tall political leader seeking to return to the Legislative Assembly, and the All India Anna
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government had a comfortable majority after the
Assembly Speaker disqualified 18 MLAs.

But it ended up as an election that will be discussed for some time. It threw up a new leader in
T.T.V. Dinakaran, exposed new chinks in the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) armour,
laid bare people’s lack of confidence in the ruling AIADMK, and served as a rude shock to the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which fancied itself as the alternative party of choice in Tamil
Nadu.

To begin with, by all accounts, the byelection was expected to be a walkover for the DMK. In
Tamil Nadu, the DMK is seen as the single largest party because of the troubles within the
AIADMK after the demise of its supremo Jayalalithaa on December 5, 2016. There was no other
serious contender in the fray barring the tainted former deputy general secretary of the
AIADMK, T.T.V. Dinakaran, who was being repeatedly hounded by various arms of the Central
enforcement and regulatory agencies. The “new” AIADMK, led by Chief Minister Edappadi K.
Palaniswami (EPS) and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam (OPS), had fielded the party’s
former presidium chairman, E. Madhusudhanan, a local resident.

Against all odds

Dinakaran, who was contesting as an independent candidate, had spent more than a month in
Tihar jail after the Delhi Police arrested him on charges of trying to bribe the Election
Commission (E.C.) to allocate the two leaves symbol for his faction of the AIADMK. He was part
of V.K. Sasikala’s clan and hence people’s anger at her was directed at him too. Dinakaran had
literally nothing going for him from the day he announced his candidature. He wanted to contest
on the same symbol, hat, which he had chosen for the byelection in the constituency that was
scheduled for April, but the E.C. refused to give any assurance in this regard. Also he had fallen
foul of the ruling party, whose leader had thrown his weight behind him last time. The E.C.
cancelled the April 10 byelection on the grounds that the situation in the constituency was not
conducive to holding elections.

Dinakaran approached the Delhi High Court and drew a blank there too. Also, Dinakaran was
not a leader who people could relate to though he was part of the AIADMK at one point and was
the party treasurer under Jayalalithaa. She had also made him an MP. But, about five years
before her death, she threw the entire “Mannargudi” (Sasikala and her extended family also
wielded enormous clout in the Jayalalithaa regime) clan out. On the eve of her incarceration on
February 15, 2017, Sasikala hurriedly brought him back into the party. So, Dinakaran had no
legitimacy among the cadre of the party, had a slew of cases against him, and affected people
were talking openly in the media about the high-handed ways of the Mannargudi clan.

Heroes stay away

The big heroes of Tamil filmdom, including “superstar” Rajinikanth, were threatening to enter
politics, but they too shied away from the byelection battle. Rajinikanth was issuing statements
since May 2017, and they were modified and altered many times over. At one point, he said that

66
he had already entered politics in 1996—the day he made the observation against Jayalalithaa
(that if Jayalalithaa was elected to power a second term, even God could not save Tamil Nadu).
He also said that God would decide his entry into politics. As this issue of Frontline went to
press, he said he would announce his decision on December 31.

The other big star who said that he had already taken the political plunge was Kamal Hassan.
After being active in news television and on social media platforms and holding forth on the
scourge of corruption for many months, he went silent after November 30. His last political tweet
was on the safety of fishermen after Cyclone Ockhi. Though there were demands from a section
of his supporters that he contest the R.K. Nagar byelection, Kamal Hassan made it clear that
the shooting schedule in the United States for his new movie was his priority. He left for the
U.S., taking leave from active politics. For over a month, there has been neither a political
statement nor a condolence message for those who died following the cyclone.

In the absence of these two much-touted “alternatives”, the contest narrowed down to the DMK,
which had a smooth internal transition of power, and a factious AIADMK. Without a party
symbol, and without party backing, Dinakaran did not stand a chance to trump these two.

A host of parties were supporting the DMK—the Congress; both the Communist Party of India
and the Communist Party of India (Marxist); the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK); and the
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK). The factionalism within the AIADMK had
come to the fore at the time of deciding the candidate, and this process had to be put off a few
times before the party announced the name of E. Madhusudhanan.

The DMK had polled 57,673 votes against Jayalalithaa in the constituency in the May 2016
Assembly elections. Another 20,000 votes—if it could get them this time—would have given the
seat to the DMK. From the beginning, many political analysts were of the view that this was a
race for the second spot since the winner had been spotted much before the election process
began. But as campaigning progressed, it became clear that money power would play a
seriously big role in deciding the victor.

The DMK faced another problem in early December. A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)
court in New Delhi announced that it would pronounce its decision on the “2G scam” case on
December 21, the day of voting. Two DMK seniors, former Union Minister A. Raja and the
party’s parliamentary party leader Kanimozhi, were among the accused in the case. There was
apprehension in the party that if the decision went against the accused, the DMK might suffer an
electoral setback. One DMK leader, who spoke to this correspondent in R.K. Nagar, said it was
unfortunate that the day of the verdict was also the day of polling: the DMK did not even have a
chance to explain to the people the “facts of the case” in the event of a “bad” verdict.

As expected, it appeared that people were waiting for the verdict before they got out to vote. For
more than a year after the hospitalisation of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on September
22, 2016, cable news television viewership data showed that the people of Tamil Nadu had
been watching Tamil news television like never before. December 21, the day of the 2G verdict,
was no different. All the channels had made elaborate preparations for the event, with leading
television personalities from Tamil Nadu landing in the nation’s capital for their special
coverage. The verdict, which acquitted the two DMK leaders, seemed to be working in favour of
the party.

The first hour of polling saw just 7 per cent of voters turning up at the booths, and by end of the
third hour, this inched up to 23 per cent. Soon after the court verdict, polling picked up, and by 3

67
p.m., 59 per cent had cast their votes. At close of poll, a record 77 per cent had voted—a new
high for the constituency.

Dinakaran wins
But on counting day, conventional wisdom was turned on its head by Dinakaran. For the first
time in the history of Tamil Nadu politics, an independent won a byelection, and for the first time
since 1967, the DMK lost its deposit in a city constituency. Dinakaran’s tally was greater than
that of the AIADMK and the DMK combined. If Dinakaran had come in at second place in the
byelection—in the event of the DMK winning the election—that would have still proved to the
people that he was better than the “official” AIADMK. But Dinakaran went for broke; and even as
complaints of electoral malpractice flew thick and fast, Dinakaran steadily made inroads into the
AIADMK bastion.

“We were given the symbol just three weeks before the election. Everyone—the State, the
Centre, the E.C.—was against our leader. Still, our leader proved to be much smarter than the
leaders of the AIADMK and the DMK combined,” said P. Vetrivel, a former MLA and Dinakaran
supporter.

Brushing aside allegations that it was money power that sealed the issue, Dinakaran supporters
insist that he destroyed the myth that the people blindly voted for the two leaves symbol. It
depended on who had that symbol. They also point out that Dinakaran managed to win despite
the official machinery being at the disposal of the ruling party. His supporters firmly believe that
what is coming next is more important than this electoral victory: “Just wait and see. He will take
control of the AIADMK,” another supporter said.

He was not wrong. On the night of the victory, one MLA visited him at his residence. Minister
Sellur Raju, gave, true to style, a comic explanation: “We asked for votes for two leaves [the
AIADMK symbol],” he told a television channel. “We never told people not to vote for cooker
[Dinakaran’s symbol],” he added.

Dinakaran’s supporters claim that there are many who want to cross over from the “parent”
party, but Dinakaran has asked them to wait. “I mentioned about sleeper cells earlier. It is very
much there in the AIADMK,” claims Thanga Tamil Selvan, a former AIADMK district secretary,
who has been staunchly behind Dinakaran from the beginning. It appears that Dinakaran does
have significant support within the ruling AIADMK. If he does not end up in legal tangles over
the bevy of cases against him, Dinakaran is set to take over the AIADMK at some point in 2018.
Asked about this, Dinakaran said his first priority was to “send this government home in three
months”. But a more realistic and possible future will be for Dinakaran to take over both the
party and the government, and throw out the leaders who went against him.

AIADMK’s strategy
In an attempt to rein in their flock and to put Dinakaran on the back foot, Palaniswami and
Panneerselvam issued a joint statement after the election, condemning Dinakaran for colluding
with the DMK to win the election. While this might seem like an innocuous line of attack for a
person not well versed in Tamil Nadu politics, the import of this should not be lost: the highest
form of treachery in the AIADMK is collusion with the DMK.

During Jayalalithaa’s tenure, Tamil Nadu was perhaps the only State where senior members of
the ruling party did not attend social functions hosted by the opposition and vice versa. The
DMK patriarch studiously stayed out of the Tamil Nadu Assembly every time Jayalalithaa’s

68
AIADMK was in power, and Jayalalithaa too attended the Assembly only a few times when the
DMK was in power.

Many well-wishers of the EPS-OPS combine are upset with the manner in which Dinakaran
won. Some, such as the Thuglak Editor S. Gurumurthy, have been candid and critical of the
AIADMK leadership. He went to the extent of calling them “impotent”, which led to a war of
words for the first time, with Gurumurthy on one side and Ministers on the other. The impotent
imagery went on and on, with Minister D. Jayakumar using the word in a context that he thought
was correct, and Gurumurthy later clarifying on social media why he used the word. He also
said that there was more than one meaning for the word “impotent” but did not offer an apology
as demanded by the Ministers.

The biggest reality check in R.K. Nagar was reserved for the BJP. The party received about a
1,000 votes fewer than NOTA (None of the Above option), and soon became the butt of jokes in
Tamil Nadu. Even the Naam Tamilar Katchi, which lost some ground from the May 2016
elections, managed a better show in R.K. Nagar.

All was not well in the State BJP from the beginning. As soon as the byelection was notified, the
BJP candidate for the April byelection (which was rescinded), music director Gangai Amaran,
made it known that he was not interested in contesting the seat again. He later clarified that he
was not well and hence would not be able to withstand the rigours of a campaign. Gangai
Amaran was a BJP top catch and his withdrawal from the scene did affect the morale of the
party.

The DMK had the biggest shock in the byelection. Smarting from the sting, DMK working
president Stalin blamed it on the E.C., which, he said, had failed to check the massive
deployment of money power. Stalin made it known that he would not resort to money
distribution by the DMK in this election. This came as a shock to many leaders, and even cadre.

For a party credited with inventing the “Tirumangalam formula” of money distribution ahead of
elections, fighting an election in a principled manner was too much of a risk to take. Three
leaders in the party opined that a better strategy would be to withdraw from the race, citing the
massive distribution of money by the two main rivals in the fray. “If we had withdrawn, it would
have saved us a lot of embarrassment,” said a DMK leader, after the DMK suffered a
humiliating deposit-losing defeat. Explanations notwithstanding, Stalin has set up a committee
to analyse the election result.

Lessons for the DMK

Soon after the loss, former Union Minister and Stalin’s elder brother M.K. Azhagiri called into
question Stalin’s leadership and told the media that as long as he was in charge, the party
would not win a single election.

His analysis was based on the fact that Stalin made all the calls during the 2011 Assembly
elections, the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the 2016 Assembly elections. For the first time
since 1984, the AIADMK won successive Assembly elections in 2011 and in 2016. Since 1987,
after the demise of M.G. Ramachandran, the DMK and the AIADMK had alternated as the ruling
party. That changed in 2016, and Azhagiri said that this happened because of Stalin’s inability
to lead the party.

Hence, there has been a rash of reactions. But the fact remains that leaders do make mistakes
in strategy. Many point out that if M. Karunanidhi had not publicised the letter of resignation

69
written by Jayalalithaa in the late 1980s, there possibly would not have been a phenomenon
called Jayalalithaa. Even later, in 1996, if Karunanidhi had refrained from arresting Jayalalithaa,
the course of Tamil Nadu politics would have been different. (Technically, he arrested her after
the High Court asked why she was not arrested.) Also, from 1977 to 1987, Karunanidhi lost all
the general elections to MGR. Despite this, he was not seen as a leader who had lost it.

Party seniors point to two serious flaws in Stalin’s leadership though: his over-reliance on his
tech-savvy son-in-law V. Sabarish, and his inability to tolerate dissent. In Karunanidhi’s DMK,
dissent, debate and deliberations were a way of life. In Stalin’s DMK, there is a dearth of
debates; there is more reliance on data and interpretation of data. Karunanidhi’s DMK believed
in powerful regional satraps who would hold a region together; Stalin’s DMK demands loyalty
over all else. It was Stalin’s idea to double the number of district secretaries in the State.
Though this was done when Karunanidhi was running the party, the move effectively reduced
the powers of a district secretary.

The churning within the DMK will take some time to play out. A new narrative will emerge within
the party once the process of reconciling old ways with the new is completed. Until such time,
the DMK too will witness a series of struggles, just as the State tries to make sense of the
rapidly evolving political scenario in an age without a Karunanidhi and a Jayalalithaa.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/quotthe-seeds-of-revolt-are-present-in-many-
placesquot/article10008399.ece
POLITICS
INTERVIEW
"The seeds of revolt are present in many places"
JIPSON JOHN
JITHEESH P.M.
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

John Bellamy Foster.

U.S. President Donald Trump. "The Trump phenomenon is about the crisis of liberal democracy
in the U.S. and throughout the world capitalist core," says Foster. Photo: MIKE
THEILER/BLOOMBERG

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders greets supporters during a demonstration against the Republican-
led tax reform outside the Capitol in Washington on December 13. Photo: ALEX
EDELMAN/AFP

Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn works a shift on the Change Please coffee cart to
raise awareness of homelessness, in Borough Market, London, on December 14. Photo:
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/AP

People carry a "Black Lives Matter" banner during a students' protest against Donald Trump,
then the President-elect of the U.S., in Seattle on November 14, 2016. Photo: JASON
REDMOND/AFP

70
In this May 4, 2006, photograph, (left to right) President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina and his
counterparts Evo Morales from Bolivia, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from Brazil, Hugo Chavez from
Venezuela, in Iguazu. The leaders met at an emergency summit after Bolivia announced
nationalisation of its energy industry on May 1 that year. Photo: ENRIQUE
MARCARIAN/REUTERS

Mao Zedong, in May 1968. Photo: AP

Interview with John Bellamy Foster, Editor of Monthly Review.

JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER, Editor of the internationally reputed Monthly Review published from
the United States, and Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, is one of the leading
Marxist thinkers in the world. Best known for his contributions to Marxian ecology, Foster’s other
areas of interest and scholarly engagements include writings on political economy, Marxist
theory, capitalism, socialism, and environmental sociology. Before turning his focus on Marxian
ecology, his primary engagement was with analysing the capitalist economy and its crisis.
Monopoly Capital, a classic Marxian work on capitalism by Paul M. Sweezy and Paul Baran,
had a profound impact on Foster in his early years. In 1986, he published The Theory of
Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy on the basis of his PhD
dissertation.

Foster’s association with Monthly Review began in 1989 when he became a director of the
Monthly Review Foundation Board and a member of the magazine’s editorial committee. In
2000, he became its co-editor along with Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff. Since 2006, he has
been its Editor.

Founded in 1949 in New York, Monthly Review is an independent socialist magazine renowned
for its analysis of capitalism and political economy. As Foster says, “ Monthly Review was
initially established as a kind of holding action for the Left in a time of defeat after defeat” in the
U.S. With the publication of works such as The Political Economy of Growth by Baran,
Monopoly Capital by Baran and Sweezy, The Age of Imperialism by Magdoff and Labor and
Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman, Monthly Review became a centre for the economic
critique of the system. In the last couple of decades, it has become known for its contributions to
eco-socialism also. Today Monthly Review attracts contributions and attention from some of the
most outstanding critical thinkers across the world and is widely revered for its “uncompromising
resistance to the status quo” and “unswerving support for the revolutionary struggles of
humanity”.

Apart from numerous articles and essays, Foster’s most notable published works are Marx’s
Ecology: Materialism and Nature (2000), The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and
Consequences (with Fred Magdoff, 2009), The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration
of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition, 2014), and The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War On
The Earth (with Brett Clark and Richard York, 2010).

In his first full-length interview to Jipson John and Jitheesh P.M., independent journalists based
in New Delhi, Foster speaks on a wide range of topics that are significant for our times—
contemporary U.S. politics and the Trump phenomenon, Bernie Sanders’ emergence and the
state of Left movements in the U.S., the decline of the U.S.’ global hegemony, Latin American
socialist experiments, the Chinese development model and socialism, lessons of the Soviet

71
socialist experiment, contemporary capitalism, the relationship between Marx and Engels, and
the relevance of the concept of imperialism. In the second part of the interview (to be published
in the next issue), he speaks on Marxian ecology and metabolic rift, Marx and Romanticists on
nature, capitalism and climate change, technology as a solution to climate change, the gravity of
climate change and climate change deniers, nation states and the sharing of the responsibility
for climate change, Gandhism and hopes of sustainable development, imperatives of a
sustainable and socialist alternative, capitalism and increasing inequality, the emergence of
right-wing forces all over the world, the transcendence of capitalism and the possibilities of
revolution, the legacy of the October Revolution, and the contemporary relevance of Marxism.

What is this Trump phenomenon all about in the U.S.? Now Donald Trump occupies the
presidential post of the world’s most powerful country. How does his rule affect the domestic
and international political landscape?

The Trump phenomenon is really about the crisis of liberal democracy in the United States and
throughout the world capitalist core. This is a product of the structural crisis of capital in our
time, evidenced by stagnation, financialisation, and monopolisation, and by the activation of all
of capital’s absolute limits, most clearly with respect to the environment. The structural crisis,
which has been building for decades, has now evolved to the point that we are seeing crisis of
the liberal-democratic state. Neoliberalism, which has reached its limits, is giving way to neo-
fascist tendencies, which threatens liberal democracy itself. In the U.S. these conditions are
worsened by the decline of U.S. hegemony in the world economy.

Trump’s political base, as in all movements in the broad fascist genus, is the result of an
alliance between an enraged, reactionary, predominantly white lower-middle class (or petty
bourgeoisie) and the very top echelons of monopoly (today monopoly-finance) capital. The alt-
Right political phenomenon, as it is called, is now in its early phases, though it occupies the
White House. It was aggressive in its early months, with Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief
strategist, but experienced a push-back from liberal elites and the deep state. It has been
stabilised in recent months with Bannon out and generals such as John F. Kelley taking charge
of who has access to Trump. Trump himself, though, is volatile, acting with impunity, and not
easily controlled by Kelley or anyone else.

Bannon, as head of Breitbart News, together with elements on the extreme or neo-fascist Right,
is now organising, quite successfully, to drive the less extreme, traditional Republicans out of
office and to put in place outright neo-fascists/white supremacists like Roy Moore in Alabama. In
a recent defence of Moore, Trump listed the military, the police, border guards, and the Second
Amendment (the right of individuals to carry arms) as his four reasons, all pointing toward
repression. All of this is shaking up the U.S. body politic.

The effects of Trump’s rise on the mode of operation of U.S. imperialism are not huge, given
that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been a very hawk-like one. U.S. imperialism today
is governed almost exclusively by strategies aimed at increasing U.S. geopolitical power as a
way of countering its diminishing relative economic power in the world. Clinton was tied to what
is called a “neoconservative” strategy directed principally at expanding U.S. power in the Middle
East [West Asia] and along the perimeter of the former USSR [Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics]—a policy first articulated in the George H.W. Bush administration and pursued by
both Democrats and Republicans to the present day. This has led to increasing conflict with
Russia and a New Cold War. The initial, distinctive strategy of the Trump administration was to
create a kind of detente with Russia and to move away from the war in Syria and probably the
conflict over the Ukraine, while going after ISIS [Islamic State], and then focussing on what was

72
to be Washington’s real object: China, the growing economic power of which was considered
the main objective threat to U.S. hegemony. This represented a shift in the U.S. global posture
and a weakening of the Atlantic Alliance with Europe. It was for these reasons that Trump came
under heavy attack for so-called Russia-gate (mainly from those who opposed any detente with
Russia), and it was the conflict over this that has mainly put a check on his power. There are
two things that are especially noteworthy here: (1) This is to be regarded as a conflict within the
imperialist elites in the U.S.; (2) the Trump emphasis on a detente with Russia (a strategy that
seems to have been developed by associates of Henry Kissinger, some of whom were
connected to the Trump administration) with the goal of concentrating U.S. forces for a struggle
with China—an issue that lies below the surface in present conflicts within U.S. foreign policy.

Trump is, of course, more nationalist in his approach to trade, explicitly supporting
protectionism, and more extreme in his attack on immigrants. All of this, though, was already
present in neoliberalism and simply takes a more explicitly nationalistic form in Trump’s neo-
fascist stance. The greatest worry at present is a growing irrationalism with Trump’s finger on
the nuclear button.

Sanders & Corbyn

Bernie Sanders’ emergence in the U.S. political scene and the popular support he has got are
attributed to the growing discontent against the capitalist economic policies and the popular
support for alternative economic policies. This is generally ascribed to be a chance for the
growth of left-wing politics in the U.S. What is the state of the Left or movements with
communist orientation in the U.S.?

Bernie Sanders certainly symbolises the potential power of working class dissent in the U.S. He
advocated social democratic politics of a kind reminiscent of the New Deal and associated, at
least until recently, with the Scandinavian states. It is due to his influence, more than any other,
that socialism is seen as preferable to capitalism by many young people in the U.S., and this
extends to some inchoate belief in state regulation and even planning. The truth is there is a
real hatred of capitalism among the younger working-class population in the country (the
millennials), mainly due to the hardships they are experiencing directly: unemployment, low
wages when employed, virtually no prospects for buying a home, a kind of debt peonage for
those seeking higher education, inadequate and increasingly unavailable health insurance, the
destruction of the education system as a whole and the greatest inequality ever seen in the
country—with three men now having as much wealth as the bottom half of the population.

Since the U.S. is democratic in form, plutocratic in reality, there is very little opportunity to
translate any of this into radical politics within the electoral sphere. Sanders constituted a threat
to the established elites through a re-emergence of a New Deal style politics. The ruling class
was completely taken off guard by his campaign, and it took a while to shut it down, since the
usual corporate media control was partly circumvented by social media. Eventually, the
Democratic Party leadership was able to undermine Sanders’ campaign. The real crimes in the
2016 election, in this sense, were carried out by the Democratic Party on behalf of [Hillary]
Clinton, not by the Trump campaign. All of this, though, has a kind of “legitimacy” within the
plutocratic system. There is no possibility of legal redress against such actions taken by one of
the two political parties. Political parties in the U.S. are not movement parties as in many parts
of the world, but structures of power controlled by political elites and the ruling class, resembling
Max Weber’s notion of the Honoriatorenpartei.

73
Sanders, it should be noted, is a very different kind of politician from Jeremy Corbyn in the
United Kingdom. Setting aside all the institutional differences, what divides the two is that
Corbyn has an unimpeachable anti-imperialist record, while Sanders has always sided with U.S.
imperialism and the U.S. military (though he is not completely uncritical). He cannot therefore be
considered a true radical in global terms.

There are, of course, anti-capitalist and socialist movements, even some of a revolutionary
character, in the U.S., of various kinds, but they are small. Occupy Wall Street was one such
movement. There is also an emerging eco-socialist movement called System Change Not
Climate Change, which has a small but growing influence within a radicalising grass-roots
environmental struggle. There is the recent rise of the anti-fascist movement directed at
stopping the growth of fascism. There are also other organised struggles taking place like Black
Lives Matter. But there is nothing like a socialist mass movement or Left party in the U.S. at
present. Probably the main “third party” is the Green Party, but it cannot even get on the ballot
in probably the majority of States.

Indeed, one cannot speak of movements with a “communist orientation in the United States”,
given the long history of repression and crushing of such movements, particularly in the
McCarthy era. There is an emerging Left, but it has no political clout in terms of “representative
politics” and exerts its influence mainly in the other politics or the social movements. None of
this should be downplayed, however. There are a lot of radical ideas developing in systematic
ways and much of this is giving rise dialectically to radical praxis. The seeds of revolt are
present in many places. People, as Fidel Castro once said, are volcanoes. There is no doubt
that there will be growing revolts in the U.S., taking all sorts of forms, and what exists right now
in the interstices of society may help engender a wider movement for the reconstitution of
society as a whole. We also have to remember that because the U.S. is the centre of the world
empire—“fortress America”—radical dissent in the U.S., and anti-imperialist struggles
specifically, whenever they occur, weigh very disproportionately in the world as a whole. They
give hope to peoples in the periphery of the system. Anti-imperialist struggles in the U.S. have in
the past slowed down or blocked U.S. imperialism and are felt as enormously liberating in the
rest of the world; because it is understood that if there are revolts at the centre of the system
(what Jose Marti referred to as “inside the monster”), it means that the centre likely cannot
hold—and cannot hold on to the periphery.

United States’ descent

Do you think that American global hegemony is on the decline? Do you see a change in the
world political landscape towards a multipolar world?

The relative decline of the U.S. as a global economic power is clear and can be seen in the
numbers. No one is inclined to call the 21st century an American century as they did for the
20th. But the U.S. descent is a slow one and carries all sorts of unprecedented dangers for the
world. The U.S. definitely is in a less powerful position than previously with respect to
production, but it is still successfully siphoning off much of the economic surplus (or surplus
value) created in the periphery, via the actions of its multinational corporations and its
hegemony over the global financial architecture. With respect to U.S. financial dominance, the
key issue becomes continuation of the dollar as the hegemonic currency—which is threatened
today mainly by the rise of China. Needless to say, the U.S. has by far the biggest military in the
world and is capable of essentially destroying all of humanity. It controls, largely through the role
played by its military sector in technological development, the most advanced technologies in
the world. But all of this is slipping, and there is no likelihood of a smooth transition to a

74
multipolar world in these circumstances. Periods of hegemonic instability in the capitalist world
economy in the past have always been periods that gave rise to world war. We are in what is in
many ways an unprecedented period globally, but it would be an enormous error to play down
the dangers, which could be catastrophic for humanity. Already we are seeing a situation in
which a race for accumulation and economic power is negating any attempts to combat climate
change—even though this threatens the continuation of civilisation (in the broad sense) and
human life itself.

How do you locate the Latin American socialist experiments that began earlier in Cuba, later in
countries like Venezuela? What made possible such experiments? How “socialist” are they in
character? Is a counter-revolution now happening in these countries?

The revolutions in Cuba and Venezuela occurred in very different periods and under very
different conditions. But they are both revolutions against imperialism and capitalism and both
have been subjected to fierce counter-revolutionary actions supported by Washington. Both are
genuine socialist revolutions. Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy in their Cuba: Anatomy of a
Revolution were the first to declare that Cuba, following its revolution, would go socialist. My
views on Venezuela are evident in an article that I wrote on “Chavez and the Communal State”
for the April 2015 issue of Monthly Review. Also significant is Bolivia’s movement toward
socialism, and the leadership of Evo Morales. Monthly Review in responding to such revolutions
adopts the C. Wright Mills principle, enunciated with respect to Cuba, in his Listen, Yankee, we
do not worry about such revolutions, and we worry with them. The presence of counter-
revolutions is inevitable wherever revolutions take place, and in Latin America the flames of
counter-revolution are always stoked by the U.S., which seeks to retain its centuries-long hold
over the region.

The Chinese model

There are a number of debates on what constitutes the Chinese model of development. The
Chinese system has been called market socialism by a number of economists. A number of
liberal intellectuals attribute the economic success of China to the capitalist road it has chosen
since 1978. Is China really on the socialist track?

It is possible to take a number of different approaches to China from a socialist perspective

since the conditions that it represents are so entirely unprecedented. The situation in China is a
product of the Chinese Revolution, and its evolution combined with the accelerated globalisation
of the capitalist economy in the 1990s. Those who want to attribute the economic advance of
China to capitalism, in the usual sense in which this is understood, are forgetting a number of
things, namely (1) how capitalism, via imperialism and unequal treaties, held China back for
centuries; (2) the Chinese Revolution under Mao Zedong, which was an absolute necessity; (3)
continuing restrictions on the alienation of land, giving a different role to agriculture in China and
stabilising the society; (4) the continued rule of the Communist Party, and (5) a still large state
sector with a considerable role for planning in the economy. What has made China’s success
possible thus far is the fact that it has broken out of the usual imperialist trap and is able to chart
a national course of development.

The economic leap forward and the infrastructural basis for what happened were established in
the Mao period. The later shift toward the so-called “capitalist road to socialism” meant a vast
development of private property (rooted in the confiscation of state property), and huge
inequalities in society. This was a kind of counter-revolution within the revolution, but what
resulted was a unique path. It required as its basis an alliance of sorts with global capital,

75
making China the world hub for the global labour arbitrage of multinational corporations, which
shifted their production platforms to China in particular in order to exploit low unit-labour costs
coupled with huge economies of scale. Meanwhile, the Chinese state has used its share of the
proceeds to promote urban development at a frenetic pace and to provide infrastructural
development that benefited multinational corporations doing business there. China’s huge
migrant labour population has provided a reserve army of labour that has kept wages low.

Where all of this will end, I don’t think anyone knows, and rather than talk simply about
capitalism or socialism, though this remains crucial, Monthly Review has shifted to trying to
understand the specificities of the Chinese model with all of its contradictions within
contradictions. If China, which is indisputable, has taken what it has called the capitalist road to
socialism, one is nonetheless forced to ask, as one would of other societies, what remains
distinctive about the Chinese social formation, and what contradictions could lead to change in
directions not now anticipated? It would be absurd under present circumstances to say that
China is on the “socialist track”, given the deep hold of the capital system on its economy and
the growing inequality. China would thus need a further popular revolutionary movement aimed
at the reconstitution of society as a whole if it were to move closer to socialism, given its present
levels of class inequality and the commodity structure of society.

Still, one thing that is clear is that there is a lot of ferment at the bottom in Chinese society. It is
a society on the move. Revolutionary change lies in its past and may reappear in its future. Nor
can we anticipate the effects of larger global factors such as the developing geo-political
struggle between the U.S. and China—China’s “One Belt, One Road” and the U.S. effort to re-
establish a unipolar world. Such global struggles inevitably have domestic ramifications. The
present as history is as complex in relation to China as it is with respect to the U.S.

Decline of the Soviet Union

The decline of the Soviet Union was a big blow to socialism in theory and practice. What were
the reasons for the decline? What does this decline teach or what is there to learn for not
making the mistakes again in new versions of socialist experiences in the new century?

The USSR was the product of a genuine socialist revolution based on a proletarian-peasant
alliance and led by the Bolsheviks. It represented in many ways a major historical advance. It
took place, however, in a largely underdeveloped country surrounded and invaded by advanced
capitalist powers in its early years and subjected to a hostile Cold War in its later years. The
revolution, partly due to these unfavourable circumstances, was undermined from within,
beginning in the Stalinist period. What emerged out of that phase, in my view, was what could
be called a post-revolutionary society that was far removed from the classical socialist goal of a
society governed by the associated producers. In the end the society entered a period of
economic stagnation, partly brought on by the slowdown in the world economy as a whole. The
ferment that this generated could under certain circumstances have opened up social forces
from below and a reconstitution of society. Instead, it was the nomenklatura class at the top that
decided the matter in the Mikhail Gorbachev period. Its aspiration was to reconstitute itself as a
capitalist class with the help of the West. The result was a destruction of the entire system in
which the population played almost no role and was betrayed. State property was expropriated
in what was undoubtedly one of the greatest instances of theft in all of history. Meanwhile, at the
instigation of the West, led by the U.S., shock therapy was introduced, destroying the entire
economic infrastructure and massively reducing the economy even of Russia to only a fraction
of itself. The USSR itself was broken up into a number of separate states. It was a great victory
of the capitalist West over its greatest historic challenger.

76
The worldwide consequences of the dissolution of the Soviet Union were enormous, allowing an
expansion of the U.S. empire and weakening revolutionary movements and states around the
world. One of the most serious consequences was the loss of planned economies, since these
might have taken a leading role in the worldwide effort to combat climate change—something
that capitalism has proved itself incapable of doing. The Russian Revolution today has many
positive (as well as negative) lessons to teach. It represents the first great socialist revolt in a
centuries-long movement toward socialism. Just as capitalism itself took numerous centuries to
develop, it is now clear that the movement towards socialism is a long struggle, with historic
victories, followed by heartbreaking defeats, leading to a renewal of the struggle.

Marxist political economy is a major area of your interest. How do you define the nature and
character of contemporary capitalism? Has capitalism reached a dead end as argued by
economists like Prabhat Patnaik?

Since 2006 I have been arguing that we have entered a new phase of the monopoly stage of
capitalism, namely monopoly-finance capital, or global monopoly finance capital, in which the
main countervailing factor to stagnation in the core of the system is financialisation, which
necessarily results in financial bubbles that eventually burst. This was the argument in The
Great Financial Crisis published by Fred Magdoff and myself in 2009, two months after the
collapse of Lehman Brothers. The argument was extended three years later in The Endless
Crisis, which I wrote with Robert W. McChesney. Samir Amin and Prabhat Patnaik, whom I
consider the greatest living theorists of imperialism, argue essentially the same thing. The whole
line of argument is the product of a theory of capitalist development that goes back to Paul
Baran and Paul Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital. Today, as Sweezy declared in 1997, the political
economy of the advanced capitalist states is characterised by stagnation, monopolisation and
“the financialisation of the capital accumulation process”. Moreover, we are seeing a new phase
of imperialism with the operation of the global labour arbitrage where multinational corporations
site production facilities in countries with the lowest unit-labour costs, thereby increasing the
overall rate of surplus value globally, and disarticulating the economies of the Global North
(which are no longer auto-centric) as well as those of the global South. On top of this, adding to
the instability is the decline of U.S. economic hegemony, promising increasing global-scale
conflict between descending and ascending capitalist powers in a global thermonuclear age.

Marx, Engels & Lenin

Some thinkers point out that though Marx and Engels were close, both personally and
intellectually, they differed in their epistemological edifice. They point out that Engels was more
positivist in approach, and so differed from Marx. How do you look at their intellectual world?

Marx and Engels were, of course, close collaborators in all their adult lives. They had different
abilities. Marx was obviously a more penetrating thinker, who saw deeper and further, as Engels
himself noted. But Engels, too, was an extraordinarily brilliant theorist and writer to whom we
need to give more attention today. Without him it is doubtful that Marx would have had
anywhere near the influence that he attained. It is absurd in my mind to associate Engels with
positivism. And a Marx stripped of and purified of his association with Engels—and of all the
ideas they shared—becomes only a shadow of him. Terrell Carver, who has made a career of
separating Engels from Marx, has actually gone so far as to claim that Marx himself was a
“liberal”. All of this is absurd. I recently wrote a piece called “The Return of Engels” (published in
the March 2017 Monthly Review), in which I argued that today we need many of Engels’ insights

77
particularly with respect to the dialectics of ecology. The mistakes made by Marxism in its later
years cannot be reasonably attributed to Engels, as some have tried to do.

When Lenin was formulating his theory of imperialism in the 20th century, colonialism,
interimperialist war, and so on, were acute in character. But today we don’t have colonialism
where a country directly controls another country; and a world war is not on the horizon. Has the
concept of imperialism become obsolete as claimed by people like Antonio Negri? If it hasn’t
become obsolete, then how does it work? What is its nature?

Obviously, a lot has changed in the century or so since Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest
Stage of Capitalism, but his work still remains an important guide to the present. It is true that
when Lenin wrote, political colonies still existed in much of the world. But he wrote of neo-
colonies or dependencies in the context of Latin America where informal imperialism existed
under U.S. hegemony within the region. Economically, his analysis focussed on the rise of giant
industrial and financial capital and the connection of this to the geopolitical struggle for
hegemony of the world. He defined imperialism “in its briefest possible definition” as the
“monopoly stage of capitalism”. He wrote of hegemonic transitions for control of the world. He
developed a multidimensional theory of imperialism focussing simultaneously on factors such as
control of the world’s strategic raw materials, export of capital, expropriation of surplus,
international finance, geopolitical struggle and war. All of this is relevant today.

New forms of imperialism

Imperialism today is taking new forms. Nevertheless, international expropriation of the surplus
from the Global South has not ceased and is being carried out by multinational corporations
(what Amin calls generalised monopolies) based largely in the centre, and able to exploit the
global labour arbitrage, leveraging their entrenched positions in the wealthiest countries and the
monopolies of finance and technology. In terms of whether world war is on the horizon I tend to
look at it in terms of Istvan Meszaros’ contention that we are faced with the “potentially deadliest
phase of imperialism”. The U.S. is still the hegemonic power in terms of its military, finance, and
technology, but not in production as such today, and its relative economic power is ebbing.
Along with all of these other elements, U.S. geopolitical strategy in what Richard Haass,
president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has called the “Thirty Years War” is designed to
gain so much power over strategic regions such as the Middle East [West Asia] and parts of
Eastern Europe and Central Asia, moving into the vacuum created by the disappearance of the
USSR from the world stage, that it is able to so entrench itself as to ensure a unipolar world—or
a dominant U.S. empire for decades to come. Washington has reinforced this strategy by
building up the Triad of the United States/Canada, Europe and Japan in what is sometimes
called a “sheriff and posse” strategy for world control. None of this, however, changes the fact
that the hegemony of the U.S. and that of the Triad as a whole is in question since the U.S.,
Europe and Japan are all experiencing deepening stagnation and a decline in their relative
economic positions. The main reason that this should concern us is that all periods of
hegemonic instability have led to world war, while a world war today would be a global
thermonuclear war. What is undeniable is that the U.S. and NATO [North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation] as a whole have been resurrecting a New Cold War in Europe while increasingly
threatening China. In these overall global circumstances, the views that Lenin presented are
unfortunately more and more relevant. The worst thing we could do then is to adopt a view of
equanimity. In U.S. strategic circles (I know this from my own academic training in international
political economy and international relation theory), they still study Lenin’s Imperialism.

78
Jipson John and Jitheesh P.M. are associated with People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) and
contribute to various regional (Malayalam), national and international publications, includingThe
Indian Express , The Wire and Monthly Review . Their writings have been republished in various
international publications across the world. The latest published work is a long interview with the
renowned historian Irfan Habib. The writers can be reached at [email protected] and
[email protected].

https://frontline.thehindu.com/columns/C_P_Chandrasekhar/the-airtelaadhaar-
fix/article10008384.ece
COLUMNS C.P. CHANDRASEKHAR
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES
The Airtel-Aadhaar fix
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman, Bharti Enterprises, at the launch
of Airtel Payments Bank in New Delhi on January 12, 2017. Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Shashi Arora, who stepped down as CEO of Airtel Payments Bank. Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

Sign outside a store in Mumbai. Photo: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

DESPITE its clear violation of the law, telecom major Airtel appears to have been let off lightly
by the government. And that story, though reported, has neither led to adequate punishment nor
has it received the extent of media attention it deserves. The story is that Airtel used its position
as a dominant mobile services provider to strengthen its new role as a “payments bank” by
exploiting a loophole in a system created through the decisions of multiple agencies. The
company not only opened a large number of payments bank accounts in the names of its mobile
subscribers without their knowledge, it also transferred direct benefit payments due to them
under the LPG subsidy scheme to these new accounts as against those previously specified by
them. The scale of the scam is large given the relatively short period for which it could have
been operative. The cooking gas subsidy due to 4.7 million customers totalling around Rs.167
crore was reportedly diverted to Airtel Payments Bank accounts over a period of two months.

Once the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) detected the malpractice, it sought to
conceal its own culpability by (i) declaring it a violation of the Aadhaar Act, 2016; (ii) requiring
Airtel to deposit an interim penalty of Rs.2.5 crore with the UIDAI; (iii) obtaining an assurance
that the bank will immediately return Rs.190 crore that had been transferred to unsolicited
accounts out of the LPG subsidy due to its mobile clients; and by (iv) announcing that Airtel and
its payments bank will not be able to use the UIDAI’s Aadhaar-linking system to either verify
mobile subscriptions or open new bank accounts.

However, the last of these penalties has proved temporary and extremely short-term. Under the
current dispensation, the abrogation of the right to verify mobile subscriptions was perhaps the
only penalty of significance imposed on Airtel because all unverified subscribers would have to
be disconnected from the Airtel network by February 6. That would have been a significant
setback for Airtel in the current competitive mobile telephony market. But it would also have put
the government’s push to make Aadhaar-linking mandatory for all mobile subscriptions in

79
jeopardy. So, within a few days the UIDAI decided to allow Bharti Airtel Ltd to resume Aadhaar-
based electronic know-your-client (e-KYC) verification of telecom subscribers until January 10.

There was wrongdoing implicit in Airtel’s act of creating unsolicited bank accounts and
transferring to them subsidies due to the clients. While opening an Airtel account is free, there is
an implicit charge as the account cannot be closed without paying a “set off balance” of Rs.50.
Moreover, once funds are deposited with Airtel Payments Bank, withdrawals are subject to a
charge. Airtel’s clients did not know that they would have to pay to access their own money, just
as many had no knowledge of the accounts opened in their name.

After it was discovered to be in violation of the law, Airtel returned the money it had “virtually
stolen”, paid a small penalty and expressed its contrition by finding a fall guy. Airtel Payments
Bank’s chief executive, Shashi Arora, resigned, although the company attributed that to a
personal decision, unrelated to the scam. What is surprising is that the mainstream media,
which would have sensationalised any scam of this magnitude, chose to give it limited
coverage, as if it were news that was marginal. No strident opinion here, expressing the voice of
the nation.

There are at least four possible reasons for the government being so lenient and for the
mainstream media almost ignoring the issue (despite some exceptional coverage by online
news portals). First, the scam reveals weaknesses and dangers in the government’s Aadhaar or
unique identity number programme, which the government has pursued with missionary zeal,
although the scheme has been challenged in court.

Second, the incident makes it clear that the scam was facilitated by an initiative of the
government to force-link mobile phone connections and Aadhaar card numbers.

Third, the scam involved the manner of implementation of two other of the government’s pet
programmes—the direct benefit transfers scheme for reaching subsidies to beneficiaries and
the push towards greater digital financial transactions through a number of routes, in this case,
the use of payments banks.

Finally, news of the discovery was perhaps partly suppressed since it involved a major
corporate such as Airtel.

Disturbing details
The details of the “scam” are disturbing. Airtel is licensed to launch a payments bank, which it
did on January 13, 2017. “Payments banks” are allowed to accept deposits of up to Rs.100,000
but cannot provide loans. Further, 75 per cent of the deposits accruing to these banks have to
be invested in low-yielding but safe government securities. This means that while these banks
compete with commercial banks to mobilise deposits and have to pay high interest rates to
attract deposits, a large share of their funds would be locked in low-yielding government
securities. Airtel chose to go aggressive and offered depositors an interest rate of 7.25 per cent,
much higher than the 4 per cent offered by Paytm Payments Bank and the 3.5 to 6 per cent
offered by commercial banks.

Since payments banks cannot lend, their revenues to cover costs and generate profits have to
be based substantially on incomes from fees derived from deposit holders. This makes
payments banks uncompetitive, so much so that only a few of the original 11 licensees have
chosen to pursue the business. Airtel set high fees to partly cover its high interest rate offer to
depositors. Withdrawals from an Airtel account exceeding Rs.100 are charged a fee that rises

80
with the size of the withdrawal, and touches 0.65 per cent for transactions above Rs.4,000.
Transfers of more than Rs.1,000 from Airtel Payments Bank to any other bank are charged 0.5
per cent of the amount involved. The strategy possibly was to attract depositors, impose high
fees and then move interest rates downwards, to extract a profit.

The interest would have been initially paid out from new deposits in a Ponzi-like scheme. But
once depositors became aware that they would be charged for all payments excepting those
that were extremely small or were transacted within Airtel Payments Bank, they were unlikely to
bank with the mobile operator. Clearly, Airtel’s high interest offer to depositors was not
sustainable in the long run. To address this problem, Airtel worked out a scheme to generate
deposits without the knowledge of the depositors themselves. This it did by exploiting the
government’s decision based on a Supreme Court order in Lokniti Foundation v s Union of
India, that for “security” reasons the government must put in place a scheme to verify holders of
all mobile subscriptions within a year of February 6, 2017. Since the government’s plea was that
this was being done by using biometric information attached to Aadhaar numbers for new and
renewing prepaid subscribers, it interpreted the Supreme Court’s order as amounting to making
e-KYC verification based on the Aadhaar database mandatory for holding a mobile phone
subscription after February 6, 2018. Since subscribers were being constantly warned of the
prospect of disconnection, despite a case in the Supreme Court questioning the government’s
claim that Aadhaar linking of mobile numbers was mandatory, a rush to do this followed. Linking
requires subscribers to validate their biometric information at the mobile service provider’s
premises by connecting to the UIDAI database.

One possibility is that Airtel chose to collect biometric information more than once from its
subscribers (by claiming failure to validate). Only one of those instances of collection was used
to link mobile and Aadhaar numbers. The other was used to create the Airtel Payments Bank
account, link it to the Aadhaar number of the client and in the process override earlier
preferences of the bank account to which direct benefit transfers were mandated. The result
was a large inflow of deposits to those accounts without the consent of the deposit-holders,
who, in most cases, did not even know that the accounts existed.

This occurred not only because Airtel chose to misuse the system but also because the
ecosystem surrounding Aadhaar and its use as a surveillance device in multiple circumstances
is deeply flawed. An analysis by Anand Venkatanarayanan and Srikanth Lakshmanan in the
news portal, The Wire, argues that Airtel was aided by the acts of commission or omission of
three other players: the Central government, “which pushed ahead with its direct benefit transfer
scheme and mandated the Aadhaar-based re-verification of mobile phone subscribers”; the
National Payments Corporation of India, which handles digital payments and settlement
systems; and the UIDAI, which created the e-KYC framework.

It is because of this joint responsibility, which shows up Aadhaar to be a deeply flawed project,
that Airtel has been able to get off lightly. But that is in keeping with the special rules that the
behemoths created by neoliberal, market-friendly policies enjoy the world over. In fact, the Airtel
scam is similar to what Wells Fargo was charged with in the United States a little more than a
year ago.

The Financial Sector Protection Bureau (FSPB) of the U.S. discovered that more than 5,000
employees of the bank had, over five years, opened more than a million new banking accounts
and half a million or so credit card accounts in the names of its customers without their
knowledge, in order to meet sales targets. The customers were charged a fee before the
accounts were closed. Thus, through fraudulent “cross-selling”—the selling of new products to

81
existing customers—and fake outcomes, employees met their targets and enhanced their
incomes.

The fraud was either missed or ignored by senior management for a very long time. But even
there the settlement for ending the investigation into these violations required Wells Fargo to
pay a fine of only $185 million, and set aside $5 million to compensate clients who were
charged fees on accounts they had no knowledge of. Relative to the net profits of more than
$20 billion that Wells Fargo was expected to record in 2016, the fine was not really much
damage. On the other hand, more than 5,000 employees lost their jobs on charges of fraud,
while senior management went scot-free.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/social-issues/living-in-fear/article10008394.ece
SOCIAL ISSUES
COMMUNALISM
Living in fear
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Policemen and Special Task Force personnel on guard in front of a mosque at Hussaini
crossing, Rajsamand. Photo: T.K. Rajalakshmi

Mohammad Afrazul.

Shambhu Lal Regar, who killed Mohammad Afrazul.

Police in action against demonstrators at a rally taken out despite the surcharged atmosphere
that prevailed in Udaipur on December 14. Photo: PTI

Gulbahar Bibi (second from right), the widow of Mohammad Afrazul, with their three daughters
at Kaliachawk in West Bengal. Photo: Soumya Das

The entrance to the Regar colony, where Shambhu Lal’s family lives. Photo: T.K. Rajalakshmi

The rented house in Doyinda Kasbah in Rajsamand where Afrazul lived along with other
workers. Photo: T.K. Rajalakshmi

Civil rights activists staging a demonstration at Gandhi Circle in Jaipur on December 8, 2017,
demanding Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s resignation over the brutal murder of Mohammad
Afrazul. Photo: Rohit Jain Paras

The series of attacks on Muslims in Rajasthan, including the latest one, the murder of a migrant
worker in Rajsamand, have created a climate of fear and anxiety in the minority community.

82
“You know, the atmosphere in Mewar was different earlier. We have seen some good times. Ab
sukoon khatam ho gaya hai [There is no peace of mind now],” said 77-year-old Manzoor
Hussain Haji, sitting cross-legged at the Hussaini mosque crossing in Rajsamand town. Haji did
not spell it out, but his anxiety was palpable. He was referring to the recent brutal murder of a
migrant worker in Rajsamand and the insecurity that minorities have begun to feel in Rajasthan.
Personnel of the Rajasthan Police and black-uniformed members of the Special Task Force sat
on vigil near buildings and residential areas of minorities.

On December 6, Shambhu Lal Regar hacked to death Mohammad Afrazul, a labourer from
Malda in West Bengal, in broad daylight. It was a premeditated murder. He lured Afrazul on the
pretext of having some work for him at a construction site. As Afrazul moved towards the site,
Regar struck him from behind and then repeatedly hacked at him until he died. He then burnt
the body and got the entire act videographed with the help of his nephew, a schoolgoing minor.
Rajsamand had never witnessed such barbarity in recent times. The video, shot on a phone,
was uploaded and widely circulated. Even small children seem to have seen it. Not stopping at
murder, Regar justified his action, citing the attack as a reprisal for “love jehad”. He warned that
all love jehadis would meet a similar fate.

“It is impossible to see the video. It is a heartless murder. I felt angry. I cannot imagine anyone
doing such a thing,” said Madhavi Kumawat, a student from Doyinda Kasbah, the locality where
Afrazul stayed with a group of fellow Bengali labourers. “They say that these Bengali labourers
used to kidnap local girls and take them to Bengal. It is all nonsense.” A neighbour of Afrazul
told Frontline that he was a “good man who kept to himself”. No woman was ever seen visiting
the rented house where he lived. “His landlord is a Brahmin. He wouldn’t have given his house
on rent to these men if they were indulging in such activities. Ten of them used to stay in one
house. They cooked rice,” said the neighbour, requesting anonymity. All the migrants have left
the kasbah. “They observe a 40-day mourning. Maybe they might return, maybe not. Things are
not normal. This was a very bad thing to happen,” she added.

Was this a random killing or was there a motive? Was Regar deranged or was he influenced by
the malignant discourse on minorities and driven to kill an innocent man who pleaded for his life
all the while? These were some of the questions that were thrown up in the aftermath of the
incident. Regar definitely seemed influenced by hate speeches against minorities and the
propaganda surrounding love jehad, a term Hindutva groups use to allege that Muslim men lure
Hindu girls with marriage with the ultimate objective of converting them.

Frontline learnt that the victim of the alleged love jehad, a young girl, was someone he knew,
but it transpires that she had developed affection for one of the Bengali workers. Police sources
said that Regar was on the lookout for another worker, also from the minority community, who
had taken the girl with him to West Bengal, partly on her volition. She was from the same
community as Regar and lived in “Regar Mohalla”, the locality inhabited by members of the
Regar caste, a subgroup in the Scheduled Caste category.

“I don’t want to recall all that now. I went to Bengal in 2010. This man Shambhu Lal Regar and
others are using me as an excuse. I returned on my own. He may have taken money from my
mother to bring me back, but I did not return with him. My reputation is being ruined by all this,”
the girl told Frontline. In her early twenties, she worked in a beauty parlour, while her mother
was a construction worker. The element of coercion seemed to be distinctly missing from her
narrative.

83
“This was a shocking incident aimed at vitiating the atmosphere. Clearly, the man was
brainwashed and tutored. The girl has repeatedly denied being involved with Shambhu Lal
Regar. We have formed a multi-community peace committee here in view of the prevailing
tense atmosphere,” said Shakuntala Pamecha, founder and head of Mahila Manch, a
Rajsamand-based women’s organisation.

Meanwhile, the gruesome video went viral on social media. A day or two after the murder,
almost everyone all over the country had seen the unedited version. On December 8,
organisations representing the minority community took out a protest march in Udaipur city.
Around 3,000 Muslims marched peacefully, submitting a memorandum to the District Collector
and demanding that action be taken against the accused. Not a stone was thrown. Within 24
hours, a message appeared mysteriously on social media that a mosque had been set on fire.
The administration swung into action and shut down Internet services. “We were clear. No one
will be allowed to take the law into his or her own hands,” Bishnu Charan Mullick, District
Collector, told Frontline. He played an audio recording in which he had issued a warning to
people not to fall prey to rumours.

Things were still simmering when Hindu outfits called for a rally in Udaipur and Rajsamand on
December 14 in support of Regar. Funds also started pouring into a bank account held by
Regar’s family. The account was later frozen by the administration. The administration also
declined permission for the “support rally” in both the districts, imposed prohibitory orders under
Section 144, and shut down Internet and mobile services. Interestingly, despite these
precautionary measures and the imposition of Section 144, Hindu outfits assembled in various
parts of Udaipur city, congregated near the Sessions Court premises where one of the
protesters climbed up the roof and installed a flag with a Hindu religious symbol on the building.

Shockingly, several lawyers also supported this protest. There was a clash between the police
and the protesters during which policepersons, including senior officials, sustained injuries. The
police had earlier detained some leaders in Jaipur; some of them had given the call for the
protest and circulated vituperative and communal videos on the Internet. “One Updesh Rana,
who was detained in Jaipur, has many Facebook followers. Cases have been registered against
him and two others, Kanhaiyalal Bagru and Lakhanpal Rana, for spreading hate messages.
They also gave a call to their followers to assemble in Udaipur on December 25,” Rajendra
Prasad Goyal, Udaipur Superintendent of Police told Frontline. He added that the situation was
“peaceful”.

Protesters violate Section 144

Yet, the situation was far from normal. As the police arrested and detained more than 200
persons for the incident in Udaipur on December 14, there was a demand from Hindu outfits to
arrest members of the minority community who had allegedly raised inflammatory slogans on
December 8. “It was clearly an afterthought. Had the police found anything objectionable in what
some may have said, they would have booked them then and there. It was only after cases
were registered against those who violated Section 144 that a demand to arrest members of our
community began. And, shockingly, the police obliged them. They took into custody 10 of our
people,” said Haji Mohammad Baksh, president of the Muslim Mahasangh.

The Hindu outfits accused minority community members of raising “anti-national slogans”. A
young banker, Mohammad Zuber Khan, told Frontline that the Hindu outfits had always raised
slogans like “ Hindustan mein rehna hoga to Jai Shri Ram kehna hoga” (If you want to live in
Hindustan, you have to chant Jai Shri Ram), but they had never been booked for such

84
utterances. He accepted that it was possible that some youths may have raised slogans but
said they were not inflammatory. “We feel genuinely anxious, scared and upset by what is
happening. Things have never been like this before,” he said.

The rumour that a mosque had been burnt was circulated by non-Muslims, and the community
was thankful to the administration for taking preventive measures. “We would like the
government to ask these outfits what they want. It is not possible to live like this in fear, day in
and day out. Kul mila ke rajniti bahut gandi chal rahi hai [politics has become very dirty],” said
Mohammad Siddiqui, secretary of the Muslim Mahasangh. A “peace” rally called by the Left
parties and to be led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was not allowed to proceed. “It
was shocking to see lawyers participating in the protests on December 14 despite prohibitory
orders,” said Rajesh Singhvi, former corporator and district committee member of the CPI(M).

Rumour mills were active despite the measures taken by the administration. There were
rumours that a Hindu outfit was going to organise a protest rally on December 25, Christmas
day. Though no organised protest took place, young men on bikes assembled at various places,
including Chetak Circle, a prominent landmark in Udaipur. The purpose was to intimidate the
minority community. Bike-borne youths accosted three young men who had gone for a photo
shoot near a scenic site, asked their names, and beat them up.

Four autorickshaws were vandalised and Isaq Mohammad, one of the drivers, was grievously
hurt. “I have been an autorickshaw driver for the last 25 years and use the same route every
day. Never did I even dream that I would be attacked in my own city. In all these years, I have
never had an argument with anyone. They could identify me [as a Muslim] as I had a beard.
One of them tried to stab me with a glass shard from my own autorickshaw. It was then that I
realised that they intended to kill or injure me. I ran for my life. Today is the third day after the
attack and I have not earned a single rupee,” he told Frontline. The same day in Gogunda tehsil,
Hindu outfits disrupted a prayer meeting in a missionary-run school, alleging that conversions
were taking place. In Vagpura, near Rajsamand, someone installed an idol in a graveyard,
leading to tensions. Hindu outfits took out a rally in Kakroli tehsil, forcing shops to shut down.
“Things are far from normal. Many rumours are floating around. People are creating a wedge
between the locals and ‘outsiders’,” said Susheela, a social activist from Mahila Manch.

The Regar colony

Caste-based segregation in residential areas of urban centres is becoming a common

phenomenon, dividing people and communities even more. Mixed populations are becoming
rarer by the day. The Regar colony in Rajsamand town is one such caste-specific colony where
the Regars live. It is difficult to find caste Hindus living here. Shambhu Lal Regar lived in one of
the many lanes of the colony with three brothers. His parents are in Gujarat where they work as
stonecutters. Money is not easy to come by.

There are also two mentally disabled children in the family, one of whom is Shambhu’s
daughter. She had accompanied him along with her teenaged cousin that fateful day. For the
last one year, Shambhu has had no work, his family said. “He watched a lot of news on
television. Of course, he knew about love jehad, especially the case involving the Kerala girl and
the other instance in Kolkata. Shayad uska dimaag ghoom gaya [maybe he got mad after
seeing such reports],” conjectured Sonia, his sister. Her son, who videographed the murder, will
be tried under juvenile law.

85
“We have no idea what happened. He looked pretty normal that day also. My son had an NCC
class, so Shambhu offered to take him to school. How was I to know what would happen next?
When he went to Bengal to get that girl back, none of us knew about it. He said the Bengalis
were threatening him, so he changed his SIM card,” said Sonia. On asking why he took interest
in the case, the women in the household said that he was asked to do so by the girl’s mother.
But they also said that there was another instance of one of the girls from their community
eloping with a Muslim. “That was 10 years ago. Her family told her to go away. The matter was
hushed up. Then three girls were taken to Bengal. The police got them back. We stopped
renting out homes to Muslims thereafter,” Prakash, Shambhu Lal Regar’s brother-in-law, said.

None of this was confirmed as true by either police sources or other individuals Frontline spoke
to. Ram Lal Regar, Shambhu Lal’s father, mostly stayed in Anand district in Gujarat. “How else
will the family eat if I do not work? There is not much work here. The wage rates are also low. I
have no idea how this happened. There are small children to feed. The police have frozen the
bank account where people had put in money,” he told Frontline, weeping. Even though the
Regars belong to the Scheduled Castes, there are hardly any of them in government
employment.

Located around 63 kilometres from Udaipur and known for the famous Nathdwara temple,
Rajsamand district, according to the Rajasthan government’s portal, is the largest marble-
producing area in the country. The marble trade is controlled by the local people, a significant
number of whom are Muslims. As in other parts of the country, migrants constitute a good
proportion of the working population in the district.

“Bihar ka labour na aaye to kaam kaise chalega. Biharis mehnti hotey hai [If Biharis do not
come, how will work get done? They are very hard-working],” Prakash told Frontline.

Yet, the feeling vis-a-vis migrants has now undergone a change. People Frontline spoke to
related stray instances of migrants getting into trouble over “women” issues. The local people
did not like “their women” mixing with the Biharis or the Bengalis. Vested interests are exploiting
local tensions to further their agendas, economic and social, as in the case of Shambhu Lal
Regar.

Wall of suspicion

A wall of suspicion is now in place. Migrants are seen as troublemakers. “There has always
been a Hindu-Muslim issue here. But this was too much. Had it been a local person who was
killed, who knows what the repercussion would have been?” a local preacher told Frontline.
There has been a spate of attacks on minorities in the State, beginning with dairy owner Pehlu
Khan’s lynching by cow vigilantes on April 1 this year. It is for the same reason that members of
the Muslim community do not see Afrazul’s murder as a random, isolated attack. With the
Assembly elections scheduled for later this year, and the main opposition Congress party
ambivalent about taking on Hindutva outfits in the State, the sense of growing trepidation and
anxiety appears justified, and with good reason.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/arts-and-culture/art/revitalising-city-spaces/article10008611.ece
ARTS & CULTURE ART
PUBLIC ART
Revitalising city spaces
LYLA BAVADAM

86
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Built in 1875, the Sassoon Dock is still in use and is Mumbai's primary fishing dock. Located in
Colaba towards the southern end of the city, the dock is home and livelihood to thousands of
people. St+art Mumbai 2017 decided to make it a part of the lives of other Mumbaikars too with
its Sassoon Dock Art Project. This public art project was visited by more than 27,000 people in
its very first month. Photo: PRANAV GOHIL

"Inside Out" by the photographers Akshat Nauriyal and Pranav Gohil celebrates identity. The
portraits are a celebration of the Koli community and an invitation to viewers to enter their world.
After the first few weeks, the portraits gradually gave way to the elements, peeling, tearing and
coming unstuck. They were not replaced since public art accepts that it, like its environs, is
transient by nature. Photo: PRANAV GOHIL

A mural of Mahatma Gandhi by the Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra at Churchgate station
dominates its surroundings in much the same way that the Mahatma strode tall in his time. The
location was specifically picked because the Railways played an important part in spreading the
message of an independent India. Photo: AKSHAT NAURIYAL

Psychedelic colours brighten the dockyard as artists Do and Khatra amplify colours that seem to
be drawn from the ocean and sunrise and wrap them around the facade of the warehouse. Life
at Sassoon is an amalgamation of colours. The illustrative mural on the facade moves from
figurative design and transforms itself into abstract shapes that are contextual to the elements
from the dock. The duo also used three-dimensional objects found at the site to add specificities
on the mural. Photo: PRANAV GOHIL

Jindal House boldly passes on the message "All You Need Is Love". At night the pink heart
shimmers, evoking mixed emotions of delight at the happy colours, laughter at the obvious
cliche of the design, and a quickening heartbeat at the deep undeniable truth of the message.
Photo: PRANAV GOHIL

Jindal House boldly passes on the message "All You Need Is Love". At night the pink heart
shimmers, evoking mixed emotions of delight at the happy colours, laughter at the obvious
cliche of the design, and a quickening heartbeat at the deep undeniable truth of the message.
Photo: EMMANUAL YOGINI

Artist Tan Zi Xi worked with over 400 kg of plastic to create Plastic Ocean. Her inspiration was
the Mumbai coast struggling with plastic waste. In this installation the viewer becomes part of
the art, experiencing a milder version of what ocean life forms are suffering. Mirrors help in
amplifying the impact. The aim is to reflect on, question and change one's lifestyles. Raising
awareness and tackling issues is fundamental to public art practitioners. Photo: PRANAV
GOHIL

87
The artist Guido Van Helten spent days photographing local women at the docks and settled on
these three. Their vast portraits grace the warehouse where people like them have carried on
their traditional business for the 142 years of the Sassoon Dock's existence. An element of
stillness and grace pervades these and prompts reflection of times that have past. Photo:
PRANAV GOHIL

Faizan Khatri's "Sassoon Dock Dog" is typical material for public art installation. The literal in
terms of the skilled wire mesh sculpture and the figurative in terms of the message come
together seamlessly in this art form. Photo: PRANAV GOHIL

Mundane elements like this water tank, integral to the dockyard, are magnets for public art
artists who are drawn to them because of their pivotal role in their environs. The artists Ella and
Pitr depict a dock worker resting after work. Photo: PRANAV GOHIL

Public spaces in Mumbai are redefined by public art installations that nurture a heightened
awareness of the city’s environs.
EIGHTY-ONE feet high and 54 feet wide, the mural is stupendous. It depicts Mahatma Gandhi
alighting from a train, dressed in his trademark dhoti, with stick in hand, and predictably from a
third class compartment. But what really holds the viewer’s attention is not so much the content
as the execution. The perspective is astounding since the Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra has
exploited the corner edge of Churchgate station in Mumbai. The ensuing 3D effect is
mesmerising.

At another location in Mumbai, a curtain of colourful designs formed by hoops of fabric linked
together moves gently in the breeze, covering the entire frontage of Jindal House on Peddar
Road. In passing it seems like a design frippery, but at night it takes on another character
altogether when it comes alive with delightful whimsicality as a shocking pink heart boldly lights
up in the centre.

Conceived by the quirky designer Manish Arora, it is just one more example of a trend of
making buildings and streets into canvasses, thereby bringing to life that well-worn line of taking
art to the people or, to give it its proper name, public art.

Wikipedia says: “Public art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the
intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all.”
Both those examples are initiatives of St+art India Foundation, a social organisation that fosters
public art. Giulia Ambrogi, one of the five co-founders of St+art India, says public art is done in a
particular context and surroundings and with the aim of offering new ways to rediscover the city.
It sets out to involve people, to become a part of the environs, enhance them and reflect their
culture. It is a democratic idea and one that brings together art and the common man in a way
that wall-bound galleries often cannot. It also, as is very obvious in the case of the Gandhi
mural, proclaims a message that is relevant to the times.

While the Gandhi mural has instant associations with peace, the Jindal House installation is one
of love. “All we need is love... we forget love in this aggressive world,” says Giulia Ambrogi. The
1,440 fabric hoops hung in 53 strands at Jindal House are also a tribute to Mumbai’s textile
history.

88
But there is an even larger, more ambitious project—the Sassoon Dock Art Project which has
reintroduced Mumbaikars to the city’s 142-year-old Sassoon Dock. Though the dock is open to
the public, it is visited only by those who have business there. But St+art Mumbai wanted to
change this and bring the life of the Kolis, or the fishing community, to the forefront. They
wanted the space to be “transformed into a public art exhibition that will delve deeper into the
various layers of the city, and the multilayered contexts of the dock”. And so they invited more
than 40 artists from India and abroad to express themselves in the old warehouses, the
dilapidated buildings and even a rusty old water tank in the docks. The results were stunning.

The old warehouses were an ideal location and were hung with art that ranges from Koli sarees
that are draped from the roofs to murals and written stories of the docks to sculptures and photo
images. They all reflect the energy of public art and go a long way towards enhancing the efforts
of the Mumbai Port Trust, which is responsible for the docks, at revitalising and restoring
Sassoon Dock. Giulia Ambrogi, who has curated this project, says over 27,000 people have
visited the Sassoon Dock project over the last one month.

So is this just gentrification and a convenient canvas and not public art? In all fairness, it has to
be said that it is a serious effort at public art. As for the looming accusation of gentrification, it is
business as usual in the rest of the warehouses, and visitors can go only when the main work of
the dock is over. “Gentrification is always around the corner,” says Giulia Ambrogi. “But that is
not what we want to trigger.” Instead, what counts the most, she says, is to “gather people,
change people’s perceptions of spaces and make art more accessible”.

The art has not interfered with the daily business at Sassoon Dock. The dock is Sheilabai’s daily
workplace. Her genial response to the new look of a place where she has been trading in fish
for three decades is a <FZ,2,0,30><FZ,1,0,38>mild “Yes, it’s nice and colourful”. A tea shop
owner has a more practical response: he says his sales have gone up. The project has clearly
passed the test by integrating into the existing culture, highlighting it and bringing the place to
the notice of others. The “no logos, no advertising” rules are also strictly followed and though
the corporate sponsor is Asian Paints, there is no sign of its name anywhere.

The transient effect of public art is integral to its definition. It makes a point and moves on. Like
mandalas—the Buddhist sand drawings—that are wiped out at the end of the day or the life-size
chalk drawings of religious and public figures that were so common on Mumbai’s streets until
the early 1990s, public art, too, fits in with the ebb and flow of its surroundings.

The huge photographic portraits of Kolis that are pasted on the Sassoon Dock warehouses are
already peeling off and the sea air will soon eat away at the painted murals, and rust and
brickwork will reassert themselves through the paint. But Giulia Ambrogi is fine with all that.

It strengthens what she calls the “real power of urban art… about it being all about the
process… the actual doing and the memories and most importantly, the sense of belonging it
generates”.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/article10009683.ece
WORLD AFFAIRS
Collage of Rohingya testimonies
0

89
Every morning hundreds of refugees arrive in Shahpori island at the confluence of the Naf river
and the Bay of Bengal. United Nations officials have identified the Rohingya influx as the
"fastest-growing" refugee crisis in the world in 2017.
1/16

At Shahpori island, in the south-east of Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees carrying a patient. More
than 600,000 refugees have arrived since August 25.
2/16

After entering the mainland of Bangladesh, many refugees are found stranded on roads. Sabera
Bibi, 35, found accommodation after waiting for three days by the roadside.
3/16

Refugees carrying bamboo poles to start a new home. Md. Arshad, 30, says he has changed
his home six times, five times in Myanmar. "Every time I set up a house, it was looted or set on
fire. Once I came to Bangladesh but was sent back to Myanmar. This is the sixth time I am
setting up a house. But this too is a temporary one," he says.
4/16

The living conditions in the new camps are abysmal. The camps are set up on the steps of hills
inside forests that have been cleared. The camp dwellers must walk through ankle-deep slush
to reach their quarters.
5/16

The size of the camps keeps growing.

6/16

The refugees carry all their belongings in two or three large-sized bags. They pay between $30
and $80 in Myanmar currency for each person, other than children below 10, to the boatman to
cross the river. Often the money is arranged by their relatives from Bangladesh or by
international support groups. This family paid 50,000 Myanmar kyat (about $37) to cross the
river. The young girl, behind her father, Nur Kaida, paid 25,000 kyat (about $19).
7/16

Sitara, 27, in Kutupalang camp showing her family photograph. Half of her family members have
been either killed, raped or have disappeared.
8/16

Each family in the camp produced a whole lot of identity cards given to them by the Myanmar
government. The Rohingyas refused to accept the one which identified them as Bengalis and
not as Rohingya. This family, which came during an earlier influx, shows various identity cards,
with no defined nationality. Its members indicated that their parents were Myanmarese nationals
in the 1950s. But the Emergency Immigration Act and the National Registration Certificate
diluted their citizenship.
9/16

Ismat Ara (right), from Sein Dee Pran at Buthidaung in north-west Myanmar, said her thatched
house was destroyed by a missile fired by a rocket launcher. Her 13-year-old daughter died
when the hut caught fire. Rehana Begum (left) "lost touch" with five of her daughters. Another
daughter was born and died in the Naik-Kon Dia beach in Myanmar, while she was waiting to
reach Bangladesh.

90
10/16

Rezwan, 11, carrying a bag of rice. He walks up and down several times between his house in
the Thangkhali camp and one of the food distribution points. More than 50 per cent of the
Rohingya refugees are children.
11/16

The World Food Programme and Medecins Sans Frontieres play a significant role in addressing
the crisis, observers said.
12/16

A section of Bangladesh civil society said that it expected India to play a more "friendly role".
Professor Imtiaz Ahmed of the University of Bangladesh said the Indian Prime Minister missed
an opportunity to emerge as a world leader.
13/16

The other points of entry to Bangladesh from Myanmar are the openings on the land border.
Many thousands are waiting in Tamru land border in Bandarban district, adjacent to Cox’s
Bazar. They are in the no man's land between Bangladesh and Myanmar waiting for the
administration's nod to enter the country. An official of Border Guards Bangladesh posted in the
area said that food access was not restricted. "They are also allowed in small numbers every
day to enter Bangladesh," he said. Myanmar has put up a barbed wire fence.
14/16

Gholapara in Shahpori island, where boats carrying refugees from Myanmar land. An outpost of
Border Guards Bangladesh on the edge of the Naf river was created to stop the boats from
anchoring.
15/16

The boats, shaped a bit like the letter "C", are used to ferry Rohingya Muslims from mainly
north-west Myanmar to Shahpori island.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/the-military-route/article10008463.ece
WORLD AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES
The military route
VIJAY PRASHAD
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Donald Trump at a “Make America Great Again” rally in Youngstown, Ohio, in July 2017. Photo:
SAUL LOEB/AFP

A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor touches down at Gwangju Air Base, South Korea, on December 2.
The two countries launched joint military exercises in December, a week after North Korea said
it had tested its most advanced missile. Photo: U.S. Air Force via Getty Images

U.S. Army General John Nicholson at a military exercise in Logar province, Afghanistan, on
November 30, 2017. Photo: REUTERS

91
A homeless woman sleeps on the street on December 22, 2017, in Los Angeles, California.
Census data show that 40 million Americans—one in every eight Americans—live in poverty.
Almost half that number live in what is known as “deep poverty”. Photo: FREDERIC J.
BROWN/AFP

Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Photo:
REUTERS

The National Security Strategy, a 55-page document that calls for an America First strategy,
offers privileges to American corporations and sees the U.S. military force as the salvation for
U.S. power.
On December 18, the Donald Trump administration released the United States’ National
Security Strategy. This document, like its predecessors, pledges to protect the privileges
enjoyed by the U.S. That has been the enduring theme of these strategy documents since they
first began to appear after the U.S. Congress (Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986) mandated that
the President had to produce a vision for the maintenance of U.S. security.

In keeping with the general tenor of the Trump political project—encapsulated in the phrase
“Make America Great Again”—this 55-page document called for an America First strategy. No
other U.S. document has so obsessively used the adjective “American” as this. The strategy is
to “protect the American people, the American way of life, and American interests”, or “A strong
America is in the vital interest of the American people”. It is almost as if the constant repetition
of the word “American” would somehow make America great again.

The strategy’s tenor is that the U.S. cannot be strong if the country’s economy is weak. To
rejuvenate the economy, the Trump administration promises to harness innovation and
entrepreneurship through low taxes and low regulations. A stronger economy would allow the
U.S. to have a larger military, which, after all, is the basis for U.S. power in the world. A strong
military is necessary to prevent any global rival from threatening the U.S.’ role as the sole
superpower in the world. America First means, therefore, to put nationals of the U.S. first in any
planning and to make sure that the U.S. remains first in an unequal world.

Economic Security
Trump’s entire economic agenda is premised on a bet. The strategy document recognises that
U.S. corporations are holding back from investing in the U.S. They are hoarding trillions of
dollars rather than putting that money to productive use. Since the global financial crisis of 2008,
the strategy document notes: “Risk aversion and regulations replaced investment and
entrepreneurship.” Trump’s economics team has bet that reduced taxes and reduced
regulations would encourage firms to invest in the U.S. and improve the fortunes of ordinary
Americans.

Evidence for such a “trickle-down” policy is weak. All encouragement to U.S. corporations
towards investment over the past decade has failed. Low interest rates have allowed
corporations to borrow money from the government. But this money has not been converted into
productive investments and then mass employment generation. Instead, firms are investing in
sectors where high productivity rates and automation have discouraged job growth. Sections of
the U.S. population devastated by outsourcing and by productivity growth have not seen any
revitalisation.

92
Extreme poverty
No wonder that Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and
human rights, produced a gut-wrenching report on poverty in the U.S. in the same week that
Trump released his strategy document. Alston’s report reads, at times, like a poetic indicator of
the hopelessness in sections of U.S. society: “I met with many people barely surviving on Skid
Row in Los Angeles. I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of homeless
people to move on but having no answer when asked where they could move to. I saw sewage
filled yards in states where governments don’t consider sanitation facilities to be their
responsibility. I saw people who had lost all of their teeth because adult dental care is not
covered by the vast majority of programmes available to the poor. I met with people in the South
of Puerto Rico living next to a mountain of completely unprotected coal ash which rains down
upon them bringing illness, disability and death.”

Census data show that 40 million Americans—one in every eight Americans—live in poverty.
Almost half that number live in what is known as “deep poverty”. Alston read the tax bill that the
U.S. Congress has now passed and finds that it “stakes out America’s bid to become the most
unequal society in the world”. Reverend William Barber, a Protestant minister and political
leader from North Carolina, is now on the road with a new Poor People’s Campaign, raising
awareness about poverty and the moral collapse of the U.S. state and society. As Reverend
Barber puts it, there can be no economic security in a country if the poorest are utterly marginal
from all such visions.

What is the real threat to the citizen of the U.S.? Is it North Korea or is it the dire threat of
poverty and hunger? Trump signals that he cares for the well-being of the citizens, but, in fact,
the strategy document suggests that ordinary Americans should worry about North Korea while
the government provides for its most powerful corporations. The Trump administration’s policies
“allow families to live without fear, and permit markets to thrive”. That is the most honest line in
the document. Americans need to worry about North Korea, while large corporations will benefit
from tax cuts.

‘Revisionists, Rogues, Jehadists’

Who are the ghouls that the Trump administration points towards? The Trump administration
sees the world exactly as every previous administration has since the end of the Cold War. In
fact, they use the same terms to define the threats—“revisionist powers” (Russia and China)
seek to prevent U.S. hegemony; “rogue states” (North Korea and Iran) need regime change;
“jehadist terrorist groups” need to be pummelled by the full force of U.S. power. There is nothing
strikingly original about the enemies seen by the Trump administration.

Previous administrations, at least since the time of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have
understood that there has been a decline in U.S. power. They have tried to assert U.S. power
through use of its military force—through the endless “War on Terror”—and through the use of
multilateral trade agreements. Obama pushed hard for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to prevent China from having a role in writing
trade rules. The consensus in the U.S. is on hardening intellectual property laws and using anti-
piracy rules to constrain China’s attempt to move from a labour-intensive manufacturing hub to
a high-technology-driven industrial powerhouse. Both Bush and Obama struggled to assert U.S.
power against China. Both ended up where Trump is currently at, namely the strategy to use
U.S. military power as a way to intimidate countries such as China into acceding to trade
regimes that benefit the U.S. over any other country in the world.

93
Trump’s strategy calls upon the U.S. government to “improve American influence” around the
world and to strengthen the military so that “American superiority endures”. Just as this report
came out, the U.S. government made the ill-advised decision to call for the shifting of its
embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This angered many countries around the world,
notably staunch U.S. allies in the Arab world. A resolution sponsored by Egypt went to the U.N.
Security Council, which the U.S. vetoed, and then a resolution sponsored by Turkey and Yemen
(with Saudi Arabia and the UAE backing it) went to the U.N. General Assembly, where it passed
with a large majority. Most of the countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America voted against the
U.S. resolution, despite the attempt by the Trump administration to threaten countries that voted
for the Palestinians. This was hardly going to “improve American influence”. In fact, with the
U.S.’ withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and from the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), U.S. influence is at its weakest in a generation.
With the U.S. government cutting its expenditure on diplomacy, it is likely that “American
influence” will wane even more.

What is left is war. The strategy document mirrors the U.S.’ budgetary decisions. In both, it is
the U.S. military and military force that is seen as salvation for U.S. power. Trump has
aggressively increased expenditure on the U.S. military, already the most well-funded military
force in the world. The U.S. military is better funded than the eight next best funded militaries
combined (this includes China and Russia). The increase in U.S. military spending by Trump is
itself the total amount Russia spends on its military in a year. “We must convince adversaries
that we can and will defeat them—not just punish them if they attack the United States.” This is
a powerful line in the strategy document—that the U.S. aims to build up its military so that it can
defeat its adversaries. To even consider the U.S. at war with Russia or China—two nuclear
powers—is bizarre; to believe that one could defeat them is hallucinogenic.

India as an ally
For the past two decades, the U.S. has attempted to knit together alliances with countries that
would be hostile to Russia and China. India is one such country. The new Trump document
says that the U.S. should “deepen our strategic partnership with India” and help “South Asian
nations maintain their sovereignty as China increases its influence in the region”. It says baldly
that the Indo-U.S. relationship is premised on American anxiety over Chinese influence. India is
merely a pawn in the game. It is much the same case with Europe, where the U.S. seeks allies,
particularly in Eastern Europe, to “counter Russian subversion”. In the Western hemisphere and
in Africa, it is China and Russia that are the threats, and alliances are in order to hold them
back. Countries are not seen for what they are but for how they can help the U.S. maintain its
role as the singular superpower. If India, Argentina, Rwanda and Poland wish to deliver
themselves as doormats for American power, then they will be welcomed by the Trump
administration as friends of the U.S. Their own agendas are meaningless. There is no room for
them in this strategic vision.

To put “America First” seems, at best, to offer privileges to American corporations and to the
U.S. military, both of whom are now tasked with undermining other countries to the advantage
of U.S. business. There is even a suggestion that U.S. government agencies must “improve
their understanding of worldwide Science & Technology trends and how they are likely to
influence or undermine American strategies and programs”. These trends, gained through
espionage of one kind or another, are to be handed over to American enterprise. This is how
Trump understands free markets. The U.S. government and U.S. military are at its service, as
long as American business comes out ahead.

94
https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/a-resounding-no/article10008608.ece
WORLD AFFAIRS
JERUSALEM
A resounding no
JOHN CHERIAN
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Muslim worshippers assemble in front of the White House for the Friday prayer on December 8
in Washington, D.C., to protest against President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as
Israel’s capital. Photo: AFP/ERIC BARADAT

Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, applauds the result of the vote on
Jerusalem in the General Assembly hall at the U.N. Headquarters in New York on December
21. Photo: AFP/EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ

Nikki Haley, United States Ambassador to the U.N. She took the unprecedented step of writing
to the governments of many countries that the U.S. President was taking “this vote personally”.
Photo: AFP/EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ

Despite the arm-twisting tactics employed by the Trump administration, the U.N. General
Assembly votes 128 to 9 against the U.S.’ recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The massive vote in the United Nations General Assembly in favour of the resolution against the
decision of the United States to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is an illustration of
the international community’s indignation. The resolution, sponsored by Yemen and Turkey,
cited various United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on the status of Jerusalem
and urged member states “to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions” in the city,
which is considered holy by all the three Abrahamic faiths. Pope Francis, in his Christmas day
speech, spoke about the need for a negotiated settlement between the Palestinians and the
Israelis and prayed for a two-state solution to end the conflict. The Pope, who has not hesitated
to raise his voice for the downtrodden, had earlier called for the status quo to be respected in
Jerusalem. “We see Jesus in the children of the Middle East [West Asia] who continue to suffer
because of the growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians,” the Pope said in his
Christmas address.

The U.N. General Assembly voted 128 to 9 in favour of the resolution on Jerusalem. A
consolation for the Trump administration is that 35 countries chose to abstain on the vote and
another 21 countries chose to absent themselves from the vote. Canada and Mexico were
among the surprise abstentions. These two countries are involved in important negotiations on
the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the U.S. Trump has been
threatening to leave the grouping. If Trump carries out his threat, it could adversely impact the
economies of the two countries. There is a strong Jewish lobby in Canada which wields
disproportionate influence on domestic politics. But the new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is
not an unabashed supporter of Zionism unlike his predecessor, Steven Harper.

Trump’s threats
The U.S. issued threats against those planning to vote for the resolution, resulting in a higher
level of abstention this time. A day before the vote, President Trump personally issued threats to
countries that were determined to vote in favour of the resolution. Trump said that he was
closely watching which way countries that get American aid were voting. “All these nations that

95
take our money and then vote against us at the Security Council, or they vote against us
potentially at the U.N. General Assembly, they take millions of dollars and even billions of
dollars and then they vote against us,” he said. “We’ll be closely watching those votes,” he
added. “Let them vote against us; we’ll save a lot. We don’t care.” Nikki Haley, America’s chief
representative at the U.N., took the unprecedented step of writing to the governments of many
countries that the U.S. President was taking “this vote personally”.

Speaking before the voting began, Nikki Haley said that the U.S., as the biggest funder of the
organisation, had “a legitimate expectation” that its goodwill would be “recognised and
respected”. The U.S.’ Ambassador to the U.N. had threatened to cut funding to the U.N. earlier
too if the organisation did not bend to the U.S.’ will. Interestingly, many of the countries that
either voted against the resolution or abstained were those having U.S.-backed authoritarian
regimes, or small island states such as the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Micronesia and Palua.
These four countries, in fact, voted against the resolution. One country that sided with the U.S.
was Honduras. The U.S. has recognised the results of the fraudulent elections in that country.
Most of Latin America has refused to give credibility to the rigged elections held there, but the
Trump administration did not waste much time in recognising the results. Israel has been
providing arms and training to the security forces in Honduras and Guatemala. These two were
the only South American countries to side with the U.S. on the resolution.

It is not known whether India was also a recipient of threats from the Trump administration.
Under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, India has now started abstaining from
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) resolutions condemning Israel.
Arab countries have observed that India has not condemned or even mildly criticised the Trump
administration’s decision to recognise Jerusalem. Ambassadors of Arab countries in New Delhi
have conveyed their misgivings to the Indian External Affairs Ministry on the issue. Many in the
BJP, including parliamentarians, had urged the government to side with Israel, describing it as a
“true friend” of India. It would have been difficult for India to abstain, given the fact that very
close allies of the U.S. such as the United Kingdom and France voted for the resolution moved
in support of the Palestinian position on Jerusalem. The Pakistani Ambassador to the U.N.,
Maleeha Lodhi, told the media that “despite the threats we have received from Washington in
recent days”, Pakistan remained loyal to the Palestinian cause at the U.N. Pakistan is among
the leading recipients of U.S. military aid.

To be fair to Trump, he is not the first U.S. President to try to arm-twist the U.N. into submitting
to its will. The U.S. had threatened to cut off funding for the U.N. after it passed a resolution
comparing Zionism with racism in 1975. The U.N. General Assembly, under pressure from the
U.S., repealed the resolution 16 years later. The administration of George H.W. Bush had also
threatened to cut funding. Today, Israeli society is even more racist than it was three or four
decades ago. It openly replicates the apartheid-era practices that were prevalent in South
Africa. In 2003, President George W. Bush chose to wilfully ignore the UNSC and launched the
war on Iraq. When his father was President, the U.S. cut off all aid to impoverished Yemen
because the country dared to vote against a 1990 UNSC resolution sponsored by the U.S.
authorising the first Gulf War.

As the results showed, Trump’s threats had very little impact on the voting pattern in the U.N.
Anyway, since taking office, the Trump administration has already slashed its foreign aid
budget. It has announced plans to cut the foreign aid budget for 2018 by 28 per cent. All the
same, Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. The Trump administration plans to hand
over $3.1 billion to Israel in 2018. The Palestinians in the occupied territories will have to make
do with $251 million in U.S. aid for 2018. Other countries in the region get even lesser amounts.

96
Therefore, the Trump administration’s implicit threat to cut assistance to countries voting against
it did not carry much of a punch.

In the end, it was a resounding defeat for the U.S. that will have long-standing political and
diplomatic ramifications. The U.S. had, in the third week of December, vetoed a UNSC
resolution drafted by Egypt demanding the withdrawal of the Trump administration’s recognition
of Jerusalem. All the other 14 Security Council members had voted in favour of the resolution.
Egypt is one of the biggest recipients of U.S. aid. It receives more than a billion dollars in U.S.
military aid every year. This did not, however, deter Egypt from spearheading the UNSC
resolution on Jerusalem. Trump and the authoritarian ruler of Egypt, Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, also
profess to share a close personal rapport.

The U.N. General Assembly resolution on Jerusalem was sponsored by Turkey and Yemen.
The government of Yemen that is recognised by the U.N. is a virtual proxy of Saudi Arabia, a
close ally of the U.S. Many in the Arab world believe that Trump would not have taken the
decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital without the tacit approval of the Saudis.
Before the U.N. General Assembly vote, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Al
Khalifa, had tweeted that Arab countries should not focus on “side issues” and pick up
unnecessary fights with the U.S. “It is not helpful to pick a fight with the U.S. over side issues
while we together fight the clear and present danger of the theo-fascist Islamic republic.” The
Minister was implying that Jerusalem was “a side issue” and that it was Iran which posed a
greater threat to the Arabs. The Trump administration, along with the Saudis and the Israelis,
has been trying in vain to convince the international community that Iran poses a threat to the
region and the wider world. The Arab street, however, has refused to endorse this stance
despite the best efforts of the U.S. and its allies in the region to widen the sectarian gulf.

Turkey’s initiative
In recent months, Turkey has distanced itself from the U.S. In fact, it was Turkey—which does
not have good relations with Saudi Arabia these days—that took the initiative to take up the
Jerusalem issue expeditiously in international forums. It hosted an “extraordinary summit” of the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the second week of December in the wake of
President Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem. Speaking at the summit, President Tayyip
Recep Erdogan characterised Israel as “a state of terror”. He said that the U.S.’ recognition of
Jerusalem had been rejected by the international community. “It is null and void—no country
except Israel has supported this.” The OIC passed a resolution calling on the international
community to recognise the state of Palestine with “East Jerusalem as its occupied capital”.

The Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, speaking at the OIC summit, reiterated
his stand that after the decision on Jerusalem, the U.S. had “disqualified itself” from any role in
future peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis. “We shall not accept any role of
the U.S. in the peace process. They have proven their full bias in favour of Israel,” the
Palestinian leader emphasised. The OIC summit was attended by 20 heads of states. Saudi
Arabia and some of its close allies such as the United States Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain sent
only senior foreign ministry officials to the summit. The Saudis tried to pressure allies such as
Jordan to send low-profile delegations without success. According to Rashid Khalidi, the
Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies in Columbia University, the Trump administration has
indulged “in self mutilation of a much abused U.S. role as a mediator”.

Palestine’s chief mediator, Saeb Erekat, said the U.N. General Assembly resolution
acknowledged the importance of the rule of law. He said that Palestinians appreciated the
majority of the international community, which stood by them “in spite of the threats and

97
intimidation of the U.S.”. The Iranian Foreign Minister said that the U.N. vote was “a resounding
global no to the Trump regime’s thuggish intimidation”.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/escape-from-terror/article10008265.ece
WORLD AFFAIRS
REFUGEE CRISIS
Escape from terror
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Every morning hundreds of refugees arrive in Shahpori island at the confluence of the Naf river
and the Bay of Bengal. United Nations officials have identified the Rohingya influx as the
"fastest-growing" refugee crisis in the world in 2017.

At Shahpori island, in the south-east of Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees carrying a patient. More
than 600,000 refugees have arrived since August 25.

After entering the mainland of Bangladesh, many refugees are found stranded on roads. Sabera
Bibi, 35, found accommodation after waiting for three days by the roadside.

Refugees carrying bamboo poles to start a new home. Md. Arshad, 30, says he has changed
his home six times, five times in Myanmar. "Every time I set up a house, it was looted or set on
fire. Once I came to Bangladesh but was sent back to Myanmar. This is the sixth time I am
setting up a house. But this too is a temporary one," he says.

The living conditions in the new camps are abysmal. The camps are set up on the steps of hills
inside forests that have been cleared. The camp dwellers must walk through ankle-deep slush
to reach their quarters.

The size of the camps keeps growing.

The refugees carry all their belongings in two or three large-sized bags. They pay between $30
and $80 in Myanmar currency for each person, other than children below 10, to the boatman to
cross the river. Often the money is arranged by their relatives from Bangladesh or by
international support groups. This family paid 50,000 Myanmar kyat (about $37) to cross the
river. The young girl, behind her father, Nur Kaida, paid 25,000 kyat (about $19).

Sitara, 27, in Kutupalang camp showing her family photograph. Half of her family members have
been either killed, raped or have disappeared.

Each family in the camp produced a whole lot of identity cards given to them by the Myanmar
government. The Rohingyas refused to accept the one which identified them as Bengalis and
not as Rohingya. This family, which came during an earlier influx, shows various identity cards,

98
with no defined nationality. Its members indicated that their parents were Myanmarese nationals
in the 1950s. But the Emergency Immigration Act and the National Registration Certificate
diluted their citizenship.

Ismat Ara (right), from Sein Dee Pran at Buthidaung in north-west Myanmar, said her thatched
house was destroyed by a missile fired by a rocket launcher. Her 13-year-old daughter died
when the hut caught fire. Rehana Begum (left) "lost touch" with five of her daughters. Another
daughter was born and died in the Naik-Kon Dia beach in Myanmar, while she was waiting to
reach Bangladesh.

Rezwan, 11, carrying a bag of rice. He walks up and down several times between his house in
the Thangkhali camp and one of the food distribution points. More than 50 per cent of the
Rohingya refugees are children.

The World Food Programme and Medecins Sans Frontieres play a significant role in addressing
the crisis, observers said.

A section of Bangladesh civil society said that it expected India to play a more "friendly role".
Professor Imtiaz Ahmed of the University of Bangladesh said the Indian Prime Minister missed
an opportunity to emerge as a world leader.

The other points of entry to Bangladesh from Myanmar are the openings on the land border.
Many thousands are waiting in Tamru land border in Bandarban district, adjacent to Cox’s
Bazar. They are in the no man's land between Bangladesh and Myanmar waiting for the
administration's nod to enter the country. An official of Border Guards Bangladesh posted in the
area said that food access was not restricted. "They are also allowed in small numbers every
day to enter Bangladesh," he said. Myanmar has put up a barbed wire fence.

Gholapara in Shahpori island, where boats carrying refugees from Myanmar land. An outpost of
Border Guards Bangladesh on the edge of the Naf river was created to stop the boats from
anchoring.

The boats, shaped a bit like the letter "C", are used to ferry Rohingya Muslims from mainly
north-west Myanmar to Shahpori island.

“IF this isn’t genocide, what is?” asks Aaron Jackson, an American doctor with Planting Peace,
a non-profit organisation. He is not a novice at disaster relief. He was in Haiti in the aftermath of
the earthquake in 2010. But what he witnessed in the past two months around the villages south
of Cox’s Bazar in south-eastern Bangladesh is something that he “hasn’t come across in such a
big scale”. He is talking about his experience as a doctor among the Rohingya refugees who are
crossing from Myanmar into Bangladesh; more than 600,000 of them are now packed into
shanty-like refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

99
Whoever has visited the Rohingya refugee settlements—health professionals, diplomats,
journalists and aid agency workers—is alarmed by the scale and depth of the tragedy. Every
refugee has a story that borders on the absurd, “implausible even”, says Jackson.

But after a thorough and rigorous documentation to ascertain the truth, what emerges is a
horrific collage of testimonies that are “implausible” but true.

Eight-year-old Md. Taiyub unties his lungi with little hesitation. He has done that many times in
the past month, he says. The penis was swollen, with a yellow bulb formed around it. Taiyub
says members of the Myanmar junta hit him with a sharp object. “It pains a lot to relieve myself,”
he says.

Shahjan Begum, a 50-year-old mother with eight children, is housed in the same temporary
settlement camp as Taiyub in Thangkhali, south of Cox’s Bazar town. In early September, “days
before Bakrid”, her house in Rathedaung near Myanmar’s coastline was brought down.

“The house was set on fire using guns that throw fire from a distance,” she said. Bangladesh’s
Army officials confirmed that rocket launchers were used to bring down Rohingya houses with
roofs made of bamboo and plastic in three coastal areas—Maungdaw, Rathedaung and
Buthidaung. “Two of my sons who were sleeping in the room died; the rest of us ran out of the
room,” she said. What she failed to mention was that she got burnt severely. As proof of her
ordeal, Shahjan Begum passed on a paper to this writer.

The surgery unit of “250-bed District Hospital [of] Cox’s Bazar” had certified that Shahjan
Begum was “treated” in the hospital between September 12 and 23 for the “burn over whole
body”. Singed and unconscious, she was carried by her neighbours for two weeks through
forests and over hills to the Naik-Kon Dia beach in Maungdaw. “I was taken to the hospital.
Doctors said that the burn has thankfully not gone deep,” she said. She lost touch with her
husband.

Flies hovered over the right hand of Zubair, 33, from Ashika Para (Poung Zar in Myanmarese).
His hand was covered with a ghamcha, a traditional red-and-white cotton towel. He removed the
towel to show the chopped tops of his index finger and thumb. A metal strip was inserted to
keep the fingers in place. “Lost my fingers to bullets,” he said. He lost his family and house to
the Myanmar military’s attack.

Why the hatred?

The United Nations Human Rights Office claimed that “more than 600,000 have fled to
Bangladesh since August 25, when Myanmarese forces began the so-called clearance
operations”. Such attacks on Rohingyas have been going on for more than four decades, since
19781.

It, however, remained unclear as to what triggered so much of hatred against Rohingyas. There
are many interpretations but none sounds convincing. Some historians say that Rohingyas
sided with the British at the time of Myanmar’s (previously Burma) independence in 1948, when
Myanmar joined Japan to oppose Britain. This, they say, triggered a misunderstanding about
Rohingyas. Some say that the demand of a section of Rohingyas in 1947 for accession to East
Pakistan is the key reason for their persecution. This angle is debated, too. Another section of
observers do not see an anti-Muslim agenda behind the ethnic cleansing as “Muslim ethnicities
both in [the State of] Rakhine and the rest of Burma were granted full citizenship”.2

100
Rohingyas were indeed considered an indigenous race in 1947 and had a representation in
Parliament from 1948 to 1961. But the situation changed in 1974, when the National
Registration Certificate was introduced. Rohingyas started “steadily losing their existing rights”3,
and eventually their status as citizens was thoroughly diluted. In 1977, the Nagamin (Operation
Dragon King) campaign was launched to identify “foreigners”. The first exodus took place in
1978 when “200,000 more Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh”.4

“Since then [1978], on five occasions refugees have arrived in Cox’s Bazar but never before in
such large numbers” as now, said Nurul Islam, the Reuters correspondent in Cox’s Bazar.

Bangladesh shares a 271-kilometre border with Myanmar, of which 54 km is a riverine border

on the extreme south-eastern edge of Bangladesh between the river Naf and the Bay of Bengal.
The Bangladesh government identified 11 points on this border through which refugees entered
Bangladesh. Unofficially, however, there are more entry points, and the country is expected to
receive another 200,000 refugees over the winter, if the persecution does not stop. Bangladesh
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina noted on the floor of Parliament on November 15 that more than
one million Rohingyas were now staying in Bangladesh, including the 400,000 who had entered
the country previously.

The latest round of exodus began after August 25 when a Rohingya retaliatory group, the
Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), “with knives and home-made bombs attacked more
than 30 police posts in northern Rakhine, the government said”.5 A European diplomat tracking
the developments in south-eastern Bangladesh, however, told this correspondent, on condition
of anonymity, that it “seems improbable that a very small team of [ARSA] insurgents is powerful
enough to mount attacks on more than 30 [police] camps”. Following the alleged attacks, the
Myanmar Army launched an all-out attack on Rohingyas in the north-western areas of the
country, killing “around thousand” Rohingyas, said Yanghee Lee, U.N. Special Rapporteur on
Human Rights in Myanmar in early September. The attack resulted in the disappearance of 288
Rohingya villages, according to Human Rights Watch, while the U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights described it as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Life in camps
The impact of the “ethnic cleansing” was evident during a drive further south from the port city of
Cox’s Bazar. Thousands of refugees were seen along the road connecting Cox’s Bazar to
Teknaf, a sub-district, waiting for accommodation in one of the 12 refugee settlements. The
members of families that had been allotted space to make their temporary homes were seen
carrying bamboo poles, with their children following them. It takes three to four days after their
arrival to get accommodation.

Waiting along the road to Cox’s Bazar was Sabera Bibi, 35, and her family of eight members
who were allotted space. “We arrived three days ago from Buthidaung and have been living
under this tree,” she said. In Myanmar, such families are routinely kept outside the
government’s health care or family planning programmes, and almost every family ends up
having many children. “At least they [the children] can help their fathers build the new house,”
said Sabera.

The “new houses” made of bamboo slips, plastic sheets and mud, built on the steps of an
undulating terrain carved out of the muddy hillocks, are hardly livable during the monsoon. Even
a slight shower can give the area the look of a pigsty, with human waste floating in the drains
between the makeshift shacks. The stench is unbearable and so is the sight. Half-naked or

101
totally naked children drink from freshly installed tubewells that pump out yellowish water, which
often leads to severe dysentery and death, mainly among children.

When asked about the condition of the children, Jackson pulled out a video from his colleague’s
laptop. A child, two to three years of age, with a swollen belly and an open wound on the back
of his head was lying on a plastic sheet in one of the many shacks on the steps of the hills.
Jackson explained that his conversation with the child’s family revealed that the security forces
had hit the boy with the butt of a rifle. What is “more worrying” is the presence of ringworm.

“All the children here are filled with worms—tapeworm, ringworm, hookworm. That is more
dangerous than any other ailment as worms are silent killers. Twenty to 30 per cent of the food
is consumed by the worms, leaving the child severely malnourished and underweight,” said
Jackson.

Disappointment with India’s role

From the gloomy slums of Nayapara on the edge of the Bay of Bengal to the plush dining room
of one of the oldest private clubs of the subcontinent, the Dhaka Club, the discussion was
animated but centred mostly around the problem of the Rohingya influx. A powerful official in the
Prime Minister’s Office refused to comment when asked about India’s role in the crisis. His
friends said that the civil society in Dhaka was not particularly happy about India’s role in the
Rohingya crisis.

“For the past 10 years, India has projected itself as a friend of Bangladesh and the relationship
has developed, but when we are going through the worst crisis, Delhi has backed Myanmar, the
key opponent of Bangladesh,” said a senior official of the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Office
referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Myanmar visit in September 2017. There was no
mention of the Rohingya influx in the joint statement issued during Modi’s visit. This clearly
annoyed many in Cox’s Bazar and Dhaka.

Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor of international relations in the University of Dhaka, expressed his
displeasure succinctly: “I would say, Prime Minister Modi missed an opportunity to emerge as a
world leader. Unlike in the 1970s or the 1990s, world leaders have now accepted that Myanmar
is resorting to ethnic cleansing, thanks to technology and awareness at various levels. What
perhaps Delhi needed was to isolate [Myanmar’s] State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi from the
military, but Mr Modi somehow missed the opportunity.”

There are many explanations floating in Dhaka as to why the two Asian giants, India and China,
are going soft on Myanmar. While there are many arguments in favour of and against India’s
and China’s position on the Rohingya crisis, the most plausible one came from experts such as
Azeem Ibrahim, a senior fellow with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a
professor at the U.S. Army War College. In his 2016 book, in which he predicted a downright
massacre of Rohingyas, Ibrahim connected “the [Rohingya] genocide” with the “discovery of
large offshore gas and oil supplies” which has engaged “leading companies… from China, India,
Australia and South Korea” and ensured “exploration licences from the state-owned Myanmar
Oil and Gas Enterprise”.6

With more reports, commentaries and analysis pouring in, the situation on the ground has not
changed much as the influx completed three months on November 25. Thousands of videos,
shot on mobile phones, and photographs, originating from Rakhine State, are a ghoulish
reminder of the continuing violence in Myanmar. The refugees are hoping against hope, as
Myanmar and Bangladesh formed a 30-member Joint Working Group in late December to

102
evaluate a memorandum of understanding (MoU) they signed on November 23 at Nay Pyi Taw
to repatriate Rohingya Muslims, whose numbers have crossed 650,000. India has signed an
MoU with Myanmar to “build prefabricated housing in Rakhine State”.

However, identifying over half a million Rohingyas who arrived recently will take time. Whether a
child like Taiyub or a sickly person like Shahjan Begum will survive the cold weather and return
to their village in Myanmar after the identity verification is completed remains to be seen. The
MoU suggested that Myanmar would take back the refugees who came after October 2016 after
signing an agreement finalising the logistics over the next few months. However, one of the
points in the document keeps Rohingyas and observers in Bangladesh on tenterhooks. It says
that “the final decision regarding verification [of the identity]” of the refugees will be made by
Myanmar. Moreover, given that such repatriation resulted in more tragedies for Rohingyas in
1993, very few are willing to leave Bangladesh. Hafiz Nazir Hussain, a 63-year-old refugee who
can recite the Quran, says: “Going back is not an option [as] we would get the [namaz-e] janaza
[the funeral prayer] here [Bangladesh], but thrown in the marshes there [Myanmar].”

The ethnic cleansing of the past four decades has so deeply divided neighbouring societies that
it will be an uphill task for Bangladesh to send the refugees back to their own country.

Suvojit Bagchi is Chief of Bureau,

The Hindu, Kolkata.

REFERENCES
1, 2, 3, 4. Ibrahim, Azeem (2016): “A short history of Burma to 1948” and “From Independence
to Democracy (1948-2010)”, in The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide, London:
Hurst & Company.

5. http://www.bbc.com/news/
world-asia-41082689 (On the web as on 16.11.2017).

6. Ibrahim, Azeem (2016): “From Independence to Democracy (1948-2010)”, in The Rohingyas:

Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide, London: Hurst & Company, p. 47.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/nextgen-displays/article10008513.ece
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
Next-gen displays
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

The next generation of TVs may be powered by graphene and quantum dot technologies. In the
picture, a quantum dot TV. Photo: Bloomberg/David Paul Morris

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru have created a novel hybrid of
two remarkable materials called graphene and quantum dots in a breakthrough that may inspire
highly efficient and controllable next-generation displays and LEDs.

Quantum dots are semiconductor nanocrystals with the potential to revolutionise diverse
technologies, from photovoltaics and medical imaging to quantum computing. They can absorb
ultraviolet (UV) light and produce sharp, bright colours, making them especially attractive for

103
TVs, smartphones and LEDs. They are extremely tiny particles with properties vastly superior to
conventional semiconductors. When activated by UV light, they can produce visible light in
different colours depending on their size. Small dots produce blue light, for example, while large
ones radiate red.

Quantum dots absorb light very well, but they are poor electrical conductors; quantum dot-
based devices that convert light to electricity are, therefore, not very efficient.

Graphene, on the other hand, is almost transparent to light, but it is an excellent electrical
conductor. When the two are combined, graphene could, in principle, quickly pull the absorbed
energy away from quantum dots—cutting down energy loss—and convert it to an electrical
signal, for example. This makes it possible to create devices such as photodetectors with
extremely high efficiency. Adding graphene would also confer the ability to tinker with the output
even after fabrication, or turn the device on and off at will.

Although the combination works well for photodetectors and sensors, it is practically useless for
displays and LEDs because quantum dots lose their ability to emit light when fused with
graphene. By modifying some experimental conditions, the IISc scientists have found a way to
eliminate this effect and create a highly efficient and tunable hybrid material. The results of the
study were published in ACS Photonics.

“You get the best of both,” says Jaydeep Kumar Basu, professor of physics at IISc and lead
author of the study.

Compiled by T.V. Jayan

https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/turning-plants-into-
lamps/article10008510.ece
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
GENETICS
Turning plants into lamps
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

A nanobionic light-emitting plant used to illuminate books. Photo: The Hindu Archives

After designing plants that can detect explosives and give out an early warning of an impending
water shortage, a research team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United
States has found a way to create plants that glow.

Chemical engineers led by MIT professor Michael Strano embedded nanoparticles into the
leaves of an edible aquatic watercress plant to make them glow, just enough to give off dim light
for four hours.

According to Strano, their goal is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp—a lamp that
does not need to be plugged in. The light is ultimately powered by the energy metabolism of the
plant itself. The technology could be harnessed to provide low-intensity indoor lighting or
transform trees into self-powered street lights, said the scientists, who published the study in the
journal Nano Letters recently.

104
Strano’s laboratory has been doing some pioneering work in the area known as plant
nanobionics. Last year, they turned spinach plants into detectors that can detect landmines and
other explosives. Last month, another study from Strano’s team reported how ultra tiny sensors
can be printed onto leaves so that they can warn of a water shortage, helping farmers find a
way to ensure judicious use of water in farming.

To create their glowing plants, the team turned to luciferase, the enzyme that gives fireflies their
glow. Luciferase acts on a molecule called luciferin, causing it to emit light. Another molecule
called “co-enzyme A” helps the process along by removing a reaction byproduct that can inhibit
luciferase activity.

The scientists packaged each of these three components into a different type of nanoparticle
carrier. The nanoparticles would help each component get to the right part of the plant. They
also prevent the components from reaching concentrations that could be toxic to the plants.

The next logical step for the MIT scientists would be to find how the new technology can help in
lighting, which accounts for about 20 per cent of worldwide energy consumption.

Compiled by T.V. Jayan

https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/why-some-sleep-more-some-
less/article10008504.ece
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
GENETICS
Why some sleep more, some less
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-
Scientists have identified differences in a group of genes that might help explain why some
people need a lot more sleep —and others less—than most. The study, conducted using fruit fly
populations bred to model natural variations in human sleep patterns, provides new clues about
how genes responsible for sleep duration are linked to a wide variety of biological processes.

Researchers said a better understanding of these processes could lead to new ways to treat
sleep disorders such as insomnia and narcolepsy. The study, led by scientists at the National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), in the United States, was published in the journal
PLOS Genetics on December 14.

“This study is an important step toward solving one of the biggest mysteries in biology: the need
to sleep,” said study leader Susan Harbison, an investigator in the Laboratory of Systems
Genetics at NHLBI. The scientists said that the involvement of highly diverse biological
processes in sleep duration might help explain why the purpose of sleep has been so elusive.

Scientists have known for some time that, in addition to our biological clocks, genes play a key
role in sleep. and that sleep patterns can vary widely. But the particular genes controlling the
duration of sleep and the biological processes that are linked to these genes have remained
unclear.

The scientists artificially bred 13 generations of wild fruit flies to produce flies that were either
long sleepers (18 hours each day) or short sleepers (three hours each day). They then
compared genetic data between the long and short sleepers and identified 126 differences
among 80 genes that appear to be associated with sleep duration. They found that these

105
genetic differences were tied to several important developmental and cell-signalling pathways.
Some of the genes identified have known functions in brain development and roles in learning
and memory, the researchers said.

“What is particularly interesting about this study is that we created long- and short-sleeping flies
using the genetic material present in nature, as opposed to the engineered mutations or
transgenic flies that many researchers in this field are using,” Susan Harbison said. “Until now,
whether sleep at such extreme long or short duration could exist in natural populations was
unknown.”

Compiled by T.V. Jayan

https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/editing-out-faulty-gene-responsible-for-
hearing-loss/article10008607.ece
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
GENETICS
'Editing' out faulty gene responsible for hearing loss
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Promising gene-editing technologies can prevent hearing loss in young animals. Photo: Getty
Images

In a major feat that could go a long way towards treating hereditary hearing impairments,
researchers have, for the first time, found a way to “edit” out the faulty gene that causes
progressive hearing loss, using a promising gene-editing technology called CRISPR-Cas9.

It is also called molecular scissors because the enzyme Cas9 has the ability to snip strands of
the DNA double helix, which can ultimately disable a gene.

Researchers in the United States, led by David Liu, professor of chemistry and chemical biology
at Harvard University, showed that in mice, molecular scissors can disrupt the mutant version of
a gene called Tmc1, which is important for the growth of inner ear’s hair cells, which help detect
sound. A single spelling error in this gene can trigger progressive hearing loss in humans as
well as in mice.

The findings, announced in the prestigious journal Nature on December 20, are clinically
significant as genetic factors are responsible for nearly half of all deafness cases.

Liu and his colleagues designed a lipid-encapsulated Cas9–guide RNA complex that can
specifically target a deafness-causing genetic mutation in a mouse model of human deafness. A
single treatment involving injection of the genome-editing complex can prevent hearing loss in
young animals.

One of the challenges encountered by the scientists was directing Cas9 to target only the bad
copy of Tmc1, and not the good one. This can be tricky because the two copies differ by just
one DNA letter. But the scientists managed to do so by using an RNA guide to lead Cas9 to the
mutant copy of the gene.

After eight weeks, hair cells in treated ears resembled those in healthy animals—densely
packed and tufted with hairlike bundles.

106
The scientists are not sure whether it would work in humans. “We hope that the work will one
day inform the development of a cure for certain forms of genetic deafness in people,” Liu said.

Compiled by T.V. Jayan

https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/fruits-reduce-lung-
damage/article10008466.ece
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
HEALTH
Fruits reduce lung damage
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

Lycopene, a phytonutrient abundant in tomatoes, can boost lung health. Photo: K.K. Mustafah

Ex-smokers take heart. Tomatoes and other fruits such as apples may help reduce the damage
caused by tobacco.

A study by researchers at a public health institute in the United States found that the natural
decline in lung function was slower among former smokers who had a diet rich in fruits,
especially tomatoes and apples. The researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health, who published the results of the study in the European Respiratory Journal
recently, followed the study participants for 10 years.

Studies in the past have shown that lycopene, a phytonutrient abundant in tomatoes, can boost
lung health.

The researchers found that adults who, on an average, ate more than two tomatoes or more
than three portions of fresh fruit a day had a slower decline in lung function compared with those
who ate less than one tomato or less than one portion of fruit a day, respectively. The protective
effect was observed only in fresh fruit and vegetables, not in processed food preparations.

“This study shows that diet might help repair lung damage in people who have stopped
smoking. It also suggests that a diet rich in fruits can slow down the lung’s natural ageing
process even if you have never smoked,” said Vanessa Garcia-Larsen, assistant professor in
the Bloomberg School’s Department of International Health and the study’s lead author.

“The findings support the need for dietary recommendations, especially for people at risk of
developing respiratory diseases such as COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease].”

For the study, the team assessed diet and lung function of more than 650 adults from three
European countries—Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom— in 2002, and then repeated
lung function tests on the same group of participants 10 years later. The participants completed
questionnaires assessing their diets and overall nutritional intake. They also underwent
spirometry, a procedure that measures the capacity of lungs to take in oxygen.

Among former smokers, the diet-lung-function connection was even more striking. Ex-smokers
who ate a diet high in tomatoes and other fruits had around 80 ml slower decline over the 10-
year period. This suggests that nutrients in their diets were helping to repair the damage done
by smoking. The total lung capacity of an average healthy adult is said to be six litres.

107
Compiled by T.V. Jayan

https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/perspectives-on-kashmir/article10008345.ece
BOOKS
Perspectives on Kashmir
SHUJAAT BUKHARI
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

CRPF jawans stand guard in downtown Srinagar on December 22 during restrictions imposed in
view of protests called by separatists against civilian killings and the continued use of pellets by
security forces. Photo: NISSAR AHMAD

The book offers perspectives on political realities on the ground over a wide geographical area,
from Kashmir to Jammu to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
DISCUSSING Jammu and Kashmir in the current environment of narratives and counter-
narratives is a challenging task. Since the Kashmir valley generally denotes the State of Jammu
and Kashmir to the outside world, the other areas are less focussed on in academic and
scholarly works. However, a recent book, Kashmir: History, Politics, Representation, edited by
the historian Chitralekha Zutshi and published by Cambridge University Press, offers scholarly
essays on all parts of the State as it existed before August 14, 1947. The in-depth pieces by
academics and journalists on the contemporary political, economic and cultural issues are rich
in content. From Kashmir to Jammu to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (known as Azad Kashmir)
and Gilgit-Baltistan, the book offers perspectives on political realities on the ground over a wide
geographical area. However, it misses out on the strategically important region of Ladakh, which
borders China.

With 14 chapters, the book starts with a long introduction by Chitralekha Zutshi, who herself has
two important works on Kashmir to her credit. She beautifully weaves the history of Kashmir
from the early times and connects it with present-day politics marked by conflict. She states that
Kashmir is not just a geographical entity but an idea. Looking at various chronicles to define
Kashmir, she analyses them and shows how Kashmiris have been fretting about their losses at
the hands of foreigners. For example, she notes: “At the same time, the jeremiad that
characterised Persian narratives such as Bagh-i-Sulaiman, written in 1778, captured Kashmir’s
frustration at their inability to protect their mulk (nation) from the depredations of outsiders, as
Kashmir was incorporated into the Afghan empire.” This struggle in fact started in 1586 when
Kashmir’s last sovereign ruler, Yusuf Shah Chak, lost power to the Mughal emperor Akbar and
was subsequently banished. What followed was the tyranny shaped by autocratic rulers such as
Afghanis, Sikhs and Dogras. They, however, could not reposition Kashmir as a polity. In the late
1940s, Kashmiri nationalism struck root and the unique identity was articulated through the
expression “Kashmiriyat”.

Chitralekha Zutshi, however, is worried that Kashmiriyat is under fierce attack now as, according
to her, “in the context of the contemporary conflict, especially between India and Kashmir,
Kashmiris seek to distance themselves from India and claim greater identification with the
Islamic world, defined increasingly in West Asian rather than South Asian terms”. But that may
not be the correct interpretation of the threat that Kashmiriyat faces. While religion plays an
important role in today’s political struggle, the problem with Kashmiriyat is also about how the
government of India has owned it and how the conflict between Srinagar and Delhi plays out.

108
Mridu Rai’s essay on “Kashmir and Archaeology” unravels how the British empire forced the
Dogra rulers to create the Department of Archaeology in 1904. Sadly, it was used by them to
protect the monuments and temples of Hindus, and Muslims continued to be discriminated
against. She quotes Francis Younghusband, British Resident in Kashmir, as reporting that the
durbar plainly did not “care to throw money on Muhammadans” or to restore their mosques or
tombs. The Pathar Masjid built by the Mughal empress Nur Jehan in the 17th century became
the rallying point for agitations by Muslims for their rights when Partap Singh ordered its
conversion into an orphanage dedicated to the Hindu deity Hanuman. Such was the blatant
display of partisanship. However, she argues that while the colonial state endorsed Dogra rule,
it did not shy away from correcting its archaeological excesses to demand protection for Muslim
subjects and their sites.

Discord Within

“Contesting Urban Space” is an important essay by Chitralekha Zutshi that brings out the
discord within the Muslim community as rivals fought for the space in shrines. The Muslims
were divided into two groups led by Hamadanis and Mirwaizs; while the former was pro-shrine,
the latter followed the Wahhabi ideology, which does not give much importance to shrines. But
the contestation continued as it was about occupying political space in society. The fight even
led to the Governor of Kashmir passing an order in 1888 banning the Mirwaiz (the family now
represented by the Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq) from preaching at 22 shrines. Though
the political narrative around these shrines has changed now and the slogan “we want freedom”
reverberates from all groups alike, the fight was a prolonged one. The traditional rivalry between
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and the Mirwaizs was well known, with the Sheikh extending
official patronage to the Hamadanis. The Dogra rulers’ position of not interfering in the religious
matters of Muslims was belied by the government making the differences official. “It was giving
legal sanction to the divisions within the community. Not only were these divisions now
sectarian and hence irreconcilable, but Kashmiri Muslims had to strictly adhere to the decisions
of the state in the resolution of the disputes,” notes the author. According to her, the Code of
Tribal Customs in Kashmir was also the result of interference in the religious matters of Muslims
as there was no parallel body that could hear the litigants. “At the time when shrines had
become terrains of battles over influence and power such a code only served to add fuel to the
only blazing fire.”

Nehru & the Sheikh

Andrew Whitehead’s fascinating essay is about the “Rise and Fall of New Kashmir”, the
ambitious concept that Sheikh Abdullah had put on paper to make Jammu and Kashmir a
different, rather independent, identity that could fit into the larger realm of Indian nationalism.
Almost borrowed from the communists, “New Kashmir” was a progressive idea of partnership in
the political and economic uplift of the people who had suffered immensely. Whitehead
underlines the basic rift in two concepts of Kashmir’s subnationalism and India’s nationalism.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the main player in Indian nationalism, did not respect the sentiment of his
“friend” Abdullah, whom he eventually ditched and even arrested. Nehru, he says, wanted to
maintain an element of hierarchy in the relationship while Abdullah was for equality, and that is
where the friction began. An enduring settlement between Kashmir and Indian nationalism, he
says, has remained elusive because New Delhi has always interfered in Kashmir.

The idea of freedom

109
Shahla Hussain’s essay is an important piece of scholarship that revolves around the idea of
“freedom”. It is significant against the backdrop of the questions being raised essentially from
New Delhi on what Kashmiris mean by freedom, in view of the pressure that emanates from the
strong anti-India sentiment that has strengthened in the past one decade. But to ask what it
means is relevant and freedom cannot be achieved if its essence and the practical way to
achieve it is not known. She has done in-depth research from the early days and maintains that
Kashmiris were taunted as cowards and that is why they took the straight step to challenge the
state in such a fashion. She quotes Muslim scholars who shaped this idea, mostly sitting in
Lahore; and then, after 1947 when things did not go well with Indian rule, the manifestation of
the frustration became evident in late 1989. It continues, although Pakistan, she argues,
abandoned the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and projected pro-Pakistan militant
organisations. Criminalisation in militancy (quoting Victoria Schofield) made life unbearable for
Kashmiris. The author notes that Kashmiris borrowed the idea of freedom from ancient texts
and the mystical culture of Kashmir while at the same time remaining open to new international
ideas that could improve human relationships and lay the foundation for a strong society.
“However, there was not a single united vision for freedom, since schisms within and between
communities and classes added complexities to the Kashmiri discourse on freedom.”

“Azad Kashmir” and Gilgit-Baltistan are the two areas which are discussed less in the context of
Kashmir’s protracted conflict. However, two essays by Christopher Snedden give a complete
background to the ups and downs of this region in terms of the political relationship with
Pakistan and the rest of the state. Maintaining that both “Azad Kashmir” and Gilgit-Baltistan are
not de jure part of Pakistan, Snedden, who has written two critically acclaimed books on the
subject, states that this region has suffered because economic development did not happen
despite the region’s three major assets, people, water and forests, because of the heavily
militarised Line of Control to its east, which comprises a restricted zone. His piece speaks about
the intense influence Islamabad has despite the area being called “Azad Kashmir” and having a
President, a Prime Minister and a Supreme Court of its own.

Martin Sokefeld gives an interesting account of the reasons for Gilgit-Baltistan not being part of
the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. Tracing its history, he says, Gulab Singh annexed it, but it
always remained at a distance. That is why, he says, it declared “Independence” in November
1947 and became part of Pakistan. Though most of its people are for full integration with
Pakistan, the region’s status remains unresolved for various reasons. Now with the China-
Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) crossing its path, the issue has become more complicated.
“The overall perception in GB [Gilgit-Baltistan] is that it has been held hostage by Kashmir
dispute.”

Women and children are believed to have borne the brunt of the conflict in Kashmir. Against that
backdrop, the essay “Law, Gender and Governance in Kashmir” by Seema Kazi makes a
significant addition. She discusses in detail how the security forces have committed atrocities
against women in an “institutionalised” manner. She gives two horrible examples—the mass
rape in Kunan Poshpora in 1991 by soldiers and the rape and murder of Asiya and Neelofar in
Shopian in 2009. According to her, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Public Safety
Act have mauled civil liberties. “Rape of Kashmiri women by security forces is representative of
the extralegal nature of the Indian counteroffensive in Kashmir: it is equally representative of the
state’s resort to extralegal means to inscribe political dominance on a recalcitrant ethnic minority
through the sexual humiliation of ethnic minority women,” she writes, and concludes that women
in Kashmir continue to pay a high price for a governance system usurped and dominated by the
military. She takes a dig at the judiciary, too, and laments the lack of judicial accountability. She,
however, is silent on atrocities against women committed by non-state actors.

110
Pandits’ plight

Haley Duschinski has made a significant contribution by discussing the plight of Kashmiri
Pandits and brings to the fore how they made the issue of survival their politics after 1990. He
discusses the politics within the community in detail but does not say how the migration took
place. The essay brings out how the hatred against Muslims became the “thumb rule” for
Pandits’ demand that they should be able to return.

Caste politics in Jammu has hardly been discussed and the discrimination on the basis of caste
remains an untouched subject. But in a well-researched essay, Mohita Bhatia exposes the
unimaginable level of discrimination against Dalits and Balmikis in Jammu region. Rita
Chowdhari Tremblay’s essay on politics in Jammu and Kashmir is worth a read as it raises the
question whether governance can help counter political ideology. It does not, she says, because
there is no proper approach to addressing the question of dignity and justice. Vanessa Chishti
has in a way brought out an apolitical issue—Kashmir’s shawl economy. She tries to place it in
the context of how it fitted in with European and British imperial imagination and found a place
on the global map. The shawl economy changed according to the changing patterns of
European production.

In the representation section, there is Dean Accardi’s essay on two important mystics of
Kashmir, Lal Ded and Sheikh ul Alam Sheikh Nooruddin, and how they came to represent
Kashmiri identity. Kashmir’s spiritual landscape is identified with them.

Ananya Jehanara Kabir looks at Kashmir in popular cinema from the 1960s, though after the
1990s it disappeared from popular cinema, barring a few exceptions. That representation also is
somehow linked with the conflict and not the beauty of the region. In his essay “Witness of
Poetry—Political Feeling in Kashmiri poetry”, Suvir Kaul looks at how poets made their craft a
medium for political expression. Poetry has become a powerful means of resistance to talk
about dispossession, discord and sense of loss. He records the works of a few poets to bring
home the point that they have reflected the political desperation in their work.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/precious-tales/article10008339.ece
BOOKS
Precious tales
INDU K. MALLAH
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

The collection of short stories is a sensitive, creative collaboration between writers, translators,
editors and publishers, bringing out a wellspring of emotions.
OPENING this book is like opening a gift-wrapped pack of 12 books in a book case. If placed
side by side, the stories in the book would make for a mosaic of the map of India, spanning
history, geography, culture and language, embodying as they do, the literatures of Kashmir to
Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Punjab to Bihar, Odisha and Sikkim, and including the life and
literatures of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

But whether they are set in a village in Odisha, in the city of the Golden Temple, along a
sinuous river by a nalukettu house redolent with nostalgia and magic, or in a basti in Andhra
Pradesh, the connecting link between the stories is the raw emotion—love, lust, yearning, fear,

111
grief—though the themes range from superstition, to exploitation, poverty, hunger, violence and
corruption.

There is a lucid introduction by Mini Krishnan, who has edited this collection, which is an
excellent backdrop of the history of translation against which these stories are placed. Her name
has become almost synonymous with translation from Indian languages into English, thanks to
her dedication and considerable achievement in that area, as Translations Editor, Oxford
University Press, and series editor of a pioneering list through Macmillan India 20 years ago.

Exploitation of Adivasis

“Seed”, set in Bihar, is vintage Mahaswetha Devi, dealing with the exploitation of Adivasis at the
hands of the so-called upper classes and landowners who fleece the workers but donate “108
pure-silver bael leaves” and “a golden cobra to crown the Shiva idol in Hanuman Mishra’s
temple”. Originally published in Bengali in 1979, it has been expertly translated by Ipsita
Chanda.

The excesses of the Emergency are evoked graphically:

“Where has Karan gone?

And Bulaki?

Why is there no news of them?

They are lost in the police files.”

“Who has stolen the sleep from Dulan’s eyes?

His sleep is lost in the police files.”

The language draws upon the metaphor of agriculture very appropriately, starting with the title of
the story.

“He returns to the patch of land, digging into the depths of his mind, with the pick-axe of
anxiety.”

At the end of the story, Dulan, the chief protagonist of the story, reflects with poignant irony: “I
have turned you all into seed. To be a seed is to be alive.”

Partition memories

“Signs” by Nirmal Verma, has been impeccably translated from the original Hindi by Pratik
Kanjilal. It is a delicate water colour about Partition, unlike the gory, lurid images one has come
to associate with it. An ageing resident of Delhi receives a letter from a magazine editor
requesting him to write for a special issue about the city at the time of Partition. He travels down
memory lane to his childhood.

His memories are as mellow as the gentle November sun slanting through the public library, his
place of refuge. This is a nuanced wash of a story, with a subtext as sensitive as the author. Is

112
his mind subconsciously avoiding all associations with Partition as he wonders whether what is
alluded to in the letter is the Partition of Old Delhi and New Delhi?

There is just a hint to suggest that he is a retired journalist—a tint of a tender friendship nipped
in the bud because of Partition.

Days of mourning

“Period of Mourning” is the story of young Mehrunissa whose mother dies when she is a year
old and whose father remarries. She is forced to work in a beedi factory and also look after her
stepsisters, in addition to doing all the household chores. Her father is too weak to stand up to
her cruel stepmother. When Mehrunissa is 15, her father passes away and her stepmother
loses no time in arranging her marriage to a widower who is 25 years older than her and owns a
provision store. He pampers his nubile young wife with all the material comforts, as though to
make up for what he cannot give her.

Mehrunissa is inevitably attracted to his young assistant Samad. When her husband dies not
long after their marriage and Mehrunissa is in iddath (the days of mourning), reading the Quran,
she has all the time to reflect on her situation, and also to dream.

Quotations from the Quran add to the irony of her situation. In fact, the narrative is bracketed
with two quotations. On the last day of iddath, she waits eagerly for the housekeeper to come
and collect the keys to the shop from her and draw her into normal life again, but she does not
come. She hears Samad talking to the housekeeper in the verandah. The front door opens and
closes and Mehrunissa is surprised. Where could Samad have gone?

An emotionally leashed story by Bolwar Mahamad Kunhi, sensitively transcreated from the
Kannada by Keerti Ramachandra.

Meticulous observation

“Bulbuls” (translated from Kashmiri by Neerja Mattoo) is about the tender relationship between
an old man and a family of bulbuls. The reader is struck by the meticulous observation of the
author, Habib Kamran, as also his sensitivity to the birds. He is overcome by guilt and grief
when one of the bulbul chicks gets lost as he tries to protect its family from a cat and the rain.
Suddenly, from the leaf dump emerges the mother bulbul… its wings spread out as if wanting to
fly, but unable to do so. “Is this what is meant by broken wings? I wondered.”

It comes close to him, and begins to writhe in pain, in a dance of agony, as though attempting to
annihilate itself, and it seems to assume a human face. “It was sorrow in an excruciating form, a
mourning and an appeal. But it was not a loud wail, it was a silent weeping.”

Mesmerising

“The Deepest Blue” is as mesmerising as the metaphor of the snake, which is its central trope.

Set in Kerala, it tells the story of a simmering wife of 13 years and mother of two daughters, who
is yearning for a love across lifetimes. She persuades her husband to help her buy her dream
house, which is a replica of her nalukettu childhood home. When she sees her dream house,
she is enchanted by it.

113
The author’s description of the house with the parijatham and njaaval trees, the central
courtyard with the tulasi plant, the sacred grove, all cast an eerie spell, as reality and illusion
blur. This ambience is the prelude to the inevitable magnetism that draws the woman and the
ascetic who owns it together and holds them in an inexorable thrall. Here we have the author
K.R. Meera at her most evocative. It is to the credit of the translator, J. Devika, that the narrative
does not read like a translation from the original in Malayalam.

Tour de force

“Jumman” tells the story of a callous man against the backdrop of blind superstition. Perhaps,
Jotya, the protagonist, becomes hardened by his soul-destroying occupation of skinning dead
animals. When he came home tired from his day’s work, his wife and children would look fearful.
Women and children in the neighbouring houses would wait impatiently for their menfolk to
return, but in Jotya’s case it was different. Though he has many children, he had never once
caressed them, and the word “love” did not exist in his vocabulary. His wife and children die one
after the other, and then a little goat kid enters Jotya’s lonely life. His desperate need for
companionship, even with a goat kid, is touching, and though he had never carried any of his
children in his arms, he carries the goat kid on his shoulders wherever he goes.

The rest of the story charts the roller-skate quality of Jotya’s life with the kid as it grows up, and
the villagers’ reaction to it. The build-up to the ending is a deeply moving tour de force. This is a
finely crafted story by Shripad Narayan Pendse and is smoothly translated from the Marathi
original by Shantha Gokhale.

One is used to reading about the Hindu-Muslim conflict, but the Hindu-Sikh conflict is not so
common. “The Fourth Direction” by Waryam Singh Sandhu (translated by Nirupama Dutt) is set
at the time of the Sikh separatist movement of the 1980s and derives its title from a folk tale with
the same name. The story opens with two cousins on a journey in Punjab.

They need to reach Amritsar to attend a family wedding in the morning. There is a build-up of
tension and fear as well as of local colour, with the cousins reminiscing about visits to the
Golden Temple and about the folk tale with the same name which their Dadi/Nani used to tell
them, with all of them tucked under a warm quilt. It is a story about a rajkumar who found
himself at a crossroads once. On making enquiries, he is advised to take any of three directions,
but not to take the fourth direction, because it is perilous.

Nonetheless, curiosity and courage spur the rajkumar in the fourth direction, and he returns
home safe, bringing back with him something priceless—no one is able to tell whether it is
wealth or wisdom, or something that gives him happiness.

The eponymously named story has an equally heart-warming denouement.

Two themes

The “Witch” is a “two-in-one tale” about witchcraft and police corruption. This is not a serious
treatment of both themes, but a racy, even ribald in places, account of an “investigation” into an
instance of witchcraft in a village in Odisha. The narrative is laced liberally with local colour and
tongue-in-cheek humour. Good teamwork between the author Kamalakanta Mohapatra and the
translators Leelawati Mohapatra and Paul St. Pierre.

Special appeal

114
“Hunger” is the only story in this collection about a child, which perhaps gives it its special
appeal. No one reading this story could have experienced the raw, gnawing hunger described in
the narrative: “Her belly smouldered sleeplessly like a haystack on which an ember has fallen
accidentally.” It speaks not only for the author, Kolakuri Enoch’s imagination, but also for his
empathy. His language has been flawlessly translated from the original Telugu by C.L.L.
Jayaprada. The story opens with a common enough scene on an Indian road—a frog has been
run over by a vehicle. The reader cannot help but be disturbed by the detailed description of the
gruesome incident.

This is a story about seven-year-old Chinni, who is as pretty as a flower, notwithstanding her
grimy face and tattered clothes and her family of five—a father who goes in search of work
wherever it takes him and not returning for days, a heavily pregnant mother, her 10-year-old
sister and her challenged two-year-old brother. The utter destitution of the family is described
graphically. But they are rich in caring and concern. The mother scrapes the bottom of the rice
pot and gives a few handfuls to her elder daughter without keeping anything for herself; the
sister gives her share to her two younger siblings and Chinni gives her share to her little brother
and the mother tells her elder daughter:

“See! The little one has also grown to be like you. Have you seen her giving food to her little
brother without keeping anything for herself? It doesn’t really matter whether we have anything
to eat or drink. Your affection for each other is enough.”

After three days of starvation, hunger gnawing her stomach like a rat, little Chinni lies awake.
She reminisces about that period when, as though by a quirk of fate, her family had feasted on
bread, eggs, butter, jam, oranges, apples, bananas, grapes. The author’s descriptions of food
are sensuous, and highlight Chinni’s hunger by contrast. “When she ate bread and eggs, her
tongue had felt like a garden blossoming with luxuriant colourful flowers…. When she ate
bananas of different varieties, centuries of hunger seemed to just disappear…. When she ate a
laddu, it tasted like ambrosia from the crumbling foundations of heaven itself….”

She wonders what she can do to help her family. Towards dawn, the answer flashes across her
tender mind. She gets up and goes and sits under the tamarind tree outside their hut. It starts to
rain, as though in a pathetic fallacy, but Chinni continues to sit, waiting…. Pablo Neruda’s lines:
“In what language does rain fall on tormented cities?” (read villages) flash across one’s mind, as
the story moves to its gut-wrenching ending, and the wheel turns full circle, in a masterly sleight
of the author’s hand. In this string of pearls, this story stands out like a priceless black pearl, for
more reasons than one.

Tell me along, long story is a sensitive, creative collaboration between writers, translators,
editors and publishers. As one closes the book, one finds that not only have one’s horizons
been widened but one’s wellsprings of emotions have been deepened. The stories continue to
resonate, long after one has finished reading them. One is struck afresh by the interconnectivity
between man, animal, bird and nature as this mosaic portrays. More strength to such
collaborations.

Indu K. Mallah is a writer, poet, literary critic and social activist. Several of her short stories have
been broadcast on the BBC, two of her screenplays have won national awards. Her novel,
Shadows In Dream-time, has won wide critical acclaim.

115
https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/zone-of-strife/article10006444.ece
BOOKS
Zone of strife
LYLA BAVADAM
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

The book ably documents the combat zone that is the daily life of Kashmir’s women and
children.
BEHOLD, I Shine: Narratives of Kashmir’s Women and Children is a remarkable book
constructed almost entirely through narratives. It comes alive in story after story told by the
women and children of Kashmir. It is a record of history, it is learning for the future and,
possibly, it was cathartic for many of the women who spoke to the author, Freny Manecksha.
She is an independent journalist and had formerly worked with The Times of India and The
Indian Express. She has reported extensively from Kashmir on human rights and development
issues, and her book reflects her years of experience and involvement with the subject.

Because the region has been so gripped by upheaval and political machinations, it would have
been easy for Freny Manecksha to slip into the trend of solutions and judgments. Instead, her
book is an unpretentious presentation of facts as lived by generations who have grown up
knowing that the day-to-day turmoil they encounter is wrong but yet know no other way of life.
The average Kashmiri’s fight is a slippery one since it involves issues of statehood, nationality,
religious identity and other such weighty matters that should not have to be confronted on a
daily basis. The result is defiance, frustration, chaos and disorientation.

Freny Manecksha presents a strong point of view— that of the Kashmiri women who live with
“the presence of strangers holding guns and grenades, in their own fields and orchards”, the
women who contend “not only with the physical presence of the military but also the process of
militarisation”, or the women who say: “I will go to any corner of the world to get justice; I will die
fighting.” The author’s voice is clear: she is with these women.

Freny Manecksha explains the title of the book in the preface: “Most of all, I saw women who
refused to remain victims; who, despite the trauma they lived through, had the faith and courage
to echo the songs of the 16th century Kashmiri Muslim poetess Habba Khatun:

‘The one who dazzles—have you seen that one?

Upon him look!

A sleepless stream in

search of him I run,

A restless brook.

In far off woods, a

lonely pine, I stood

Till he appeared,

My woodcutter, and

116
came to cut the wood.

His fire I feared,

Yet though he burn my

logs, behold, I shine,

My ashes wine.’”

It is in the context of this “lol” that this book must be read. (A “lol”, roughly the equivalent of the
English “lyric”, is poetry that expresses one brief thought. Habba Khatun introduced this form to
Kashmiri poetry.) Bereavement, loss and trauma pervade the stories, and yet, there is little to do
but bear it all. Kashmiris are like refugees in their own land—their culture torn from them, their
history morphing because of political conveniences and the future shrouded. Their choices are
few. Perhaps those who can leave do so. But the majority cannot. And in any case, to leave
would be to bear the loss of being torn from one’s roots. And so, clinging to old cultures they are
forced to develop new ones.

Traditionally, as the keepers of culture, women have the responsibility of ensuring continuity, a
hard task when many of them have grown up in a zone of strife. They are witness to loss at
various levels: their daily environment, their personal safety, the abduction and death of their
men, their art, their recreation… the list encompasses all the small and big things of life from the
destruction of the yaarbals, or washing ghats, where women would gather to clean laundry and
exchange news, or the vanishing badamwaris, or groves, where families would picnic.

Then there are the women who have taken on the fight and are facing the consequences. Freny
Manecksha talks of Munawara Sultan, whose husband was shot at close range four months
after their marriage while Munawara was carrying their child. The story is a common one in
Kashmir. There is a mine blast or similar violence, Border Security Force (BSF) or Army
personnel are killed, the area is cordoned off, local male citizens are made to line up for an
identification parade watched all the while by troops and mukhbirs, or informers, who sit hidden
inside a vehicle. Some men are picked out and are then either never seen again or their bodies
are found and they are branded militants.

Munawara said: “To my mind, my husband made one fatal mistake. He had spotted a tap and
bucket, and began offering water to men who had been waiting in a line since 4 a.m. without
food or drink. This led to an altercation with the jawans who objected to his ‘crime’ of offering
people water.” He was taken away in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses, and four hours later
they heard three gunshots. A while later her husband’s body was brought to the police station
with bullet wounds. “It wasn’t one person who died that day in this family, but three,” she told
Freny Manecksha.

‘Saga of untruths’

It was a fortnight before Munawara was able to file a first information report and that was
possible only because of the intervention of a chief judicial magistrate. In the meanwhile the
BSF had lodged a case saying Munawara’s husband had attacked a search party and been
killed in retaliatory firing. “A saga of untruths” followed, and from 1983 when her husband was

117
shot until 2006 when the State Human Rights Commission stated that her husband had been
killed in custody, Munawara continued to fight a “case that remains stuck in a cruel impasse”.

This daily grind of frustration is something Freny Manecksha shines a blinding light on. In an
attempt to analyse and portray this she writes: “The French philosopher Michel Foucault states:
Since memory is a very important factor in struggle (really, in fact, struggles develop a kind of
conscious moving forward on history), if one controls people’s memory, one controls their
dynamism. And one also controls their experience, their knowledge of the previous struggles.
Kashmir seems to have absorbed the significance of this observation—as I found when I visited
Shopian. The town… stands testimony to the ways in which Kashmir has resisted all attempts to
alter or erase its experiences.”

While writing about the infamous case in which two young women, Asiya and Neelofar, were
found dead in the Rambiar river, Freny Manecksha describes the seething frustration of the
women of Shopian. They knew, but could not prove, that the girls had been raped and
murdered. The women feel a tremendous sense of kinship with the girls and express it by
something as simple as their memory of seeing one of the victims at a tailor’s shop. This simple,
very domestic image of the dead girl collecting her clothes from a tailor just days before she was
killed somehow strengthens the rage the women feel at the injustice of the deaths. They
express it by organising demonstrations and participating in protests, but as one of them told the
author: “Justice is yet to be done.”

Collective psyche

With decades of such examples, it is inevitable that conflict will pervade Kashmir’s collective
psyche. It is expressed in different ways by different people. The poet Arshad Mushtaq in his
“That’s why I threw stones” wrote: “When they left Lal Ded naked, on the banks of the Rambiar,
When they killed Yousuf before Zooni’s eyes, That’s when I threw stones”—a reference to the
Shopian murders. Then there are the rap singers M.C. Kash and Shayan Nabi, the author
Shahnaz Bashir, the film-maker Iffat Fatima, the journalist Shazia Yousuf and the artist Malik
Sajad. There are also the designers Mahum Shabir and Suhail Mir whose shawls depict barbed
wire and Kalashnikovs instead of the traditional chinar leaves and flowers.

The book tells Kashmir’s stories through children as well. Unable to take her three sons with her
from one detention camp to another as she searched for her husband, Tahira placed her three
boys in separate orphanages. “When they returned to stay with her, they were bitter and angry,
unable to make sense of why their mother had abandoned them. One of her sons brusquely
asked, ‘Was I an orphan? If my father has died, why do you still search for him?’” Then there
are the toddlers who had seen violence which they have internalised so deeply that the trauma
expresses itself in severe speech problems as they grow up, children who pick up live
ammunition thinking it is a toy and lose their lives or limbs, children who are dragged into an
ugly adult world when authorities bribe them with 10-rupee notes to make them bear false
witness, children whose fathers have disappeared leaving their wives as “half widows”—a term
that denotes a woman who does not know whether her husband is dead or alive—these are the
experiences that are shaping Kashmir’s children. And the “total absence of psychiatric care or
emotional counselling” makes it impossible to treat the thousands of such trauma cases.

Afshan, a young student of media studies, told Freny Manecksha: “My mother’s generation
believed that death was foreshadowed by a red line in the sky. My generation has seen so
much death that the sky should carry permanent red daubs.” Behold I Shine ably documents the
combat zone that is the daily life of Kashmir’s women and children.

118
REFERENCES

Khatun, Habba (2011): “Lol of the Lonely Pine”, translated by Nilla Cram Cook, in Tariq Ali, Hilal
Bhatt, Angana P. Chatterji, Habba Khatun, Pankaj Mishra and Arundhati Roy, Kashmir: The
Case for Freedom, London: Verso, page 73.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/other/data-card/land-of-unequals/article10008779.ece
OTHER DATA CARD
INCOME INEQUALITY
Land of unequals
RAMESH CHAKRAPANI
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-

India figures among countries with rapidly increasing income inequality, a problem that urgently
needs to be addressed through systemic transformations.
INCOME inequality worldwide has been widening at an alarming rate as a result of economic
policies that favour the accumulation of private wealth to the detriment of public wealth,
according to the World Inequality Report 2018, a collective effort published by the World
Inequality Lab which harnesses the work of more than a hundred researchers scattered across
the world.

One of the key findings of the report is that since 1980, income inequality has increased rapidly
in North America, China, India and Russia and grown moderately in Europe.

In 2016, the share of total national income accounted for by the top 10 per cent of earners was
37 per cent in Europe, 41 per cent in China, 46 per cent in Russia, 47 per cent in the United
States and Canada, and around 55 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, and India. West Asia
was the world’s most unequal region according to the report, with an estimated 61 per cent of
the national income captured by the top 10 per cent.

For 2014, India’s national income distribution saw the bottom 50 per cent of the adult
population, numbering nearly 40 crore, account for just 15 per cent of the total national income,
while the top 10 per cent numbering close to eight crore captured 54.2 per cent. The top 1 per
cent earned 21.7 per cent, an indication of how skewed the earnings profile of working Indian
adults is.

While the average annual income (converted from 2016 purchasing power parity euros) was
Rs.1,42,600, it bears to mention that the bottom 50 per cent made only Rs.43,700 a year while
the figure for the top 1 per cent was nearly Rs.31 lakh.

https://frontline.thehindu.com/other/letters/letters-to-the-editor/article10008835.ece
OTHER LETTERS
LETTERS
Letters to the Editor
Print edition : January 19, 2018T+ T-
Gujarat elections

119
IT was a pyrrhic victory for the BJP in Gujarat for it caused immense damage to the secular
credentials of the country (Cover Story, January 5). Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted
divisive politics to get the votes of those disgruntled with his policies. The campaign reached an
abysmal low when he said that Pakistan was keen to establish Muslim rule in Gujarat. He
wantonly failed to foresee the damage it caused to the social fabric of the nation.

However, the people of the State have resurrected the Congress with their votes. Although the
party did not win enough seats to form a government, it can play a positive role in the
opposition.

S.S. Rajagopalan, Chennai

THERE was no anti-incumbency factor in Gujarat. The BJP has ruled the State for over 22
years non-stop. Some people wanted a change. Some businessmen did not like the
implementation of GST, so there was a shift of some votes to the Congress. The impact of
Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani was less than expected.

Mani Shankar Aiyar’s comments about the Prime Minister in a speech and Kapil Sibal’s
suggestion in court that the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid case should be put on hold were
responsible for the swing in votes in favour of the BJP.

Sravana Ramachandran, Chennai

ALTHOUGH the BJP secured its sixth consecutive victory in Gujarat and wrested Himachal
Pradesh from the Congress party, the latter has made inroads into the so-called impregnable
fortress of the BJP. The Gujarat result may be called a win-win situation for the BJP and the
Congress. It is the first time since 2014 that the Congress has succeeded in presenting the BJP
with a meaningful challenge, and it can now look forward, with confidence, to taking on the BJP
in forthcoming elections to State Assemblies, including those in BJP-ruled States.

Unlike in Gujarat, in States such as Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the Congress
has efficient leaders who can project themselves as credible faces before the electorate. It will
be difficult for the BJP to stave off the anti-incumbency factor in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan
and Chhattisgarh. Impudence has become the hallmark of the BJP leadership in the last few
years.

Buddhadev Nandi, Bishnupur, West Bengal

THE BJP’s projections that it would comfortably win 150 plus seats in Gujarat and at least 50 in
Himachal Pradesh proved to be wrong. Although it retained its Gujarat bastion, the fight was not
as easy as the BJP might have thought it would be.

Rahul Gandhi almost single-handedly took on the BJP brigade, which was led by the Prime
Minister himself. The BJP now has to ponder over how to take on the Congress more
effectively, and the Congress has a lot to rejoice for given the fact that it has had a great
comeback after successive debacles since the last parliamentary election.

Gwshad Basumatary, Kokrajhar, Assam

THE BJP’s victory in Himachal Pradesh and its retaining power in Gujarat ensure its dream run
and the ruthless roll of the Modi juggernaut. These can be attributed to the unabated popularity

120
of Modi and to the party’s high-voltage campaign, which the Prime Minister led from the front
and which was supported by party president Amit Shah and a battery of Union Ministers. The
credit for the twin victories undoubtedly goes to the Prime Minister, whose personal charisma
resonated with the electorate, especially in Gujarat.

It was creditable that the BJP was able to buck the anti-incumbency factor in spite of the
formidable challenge posed by Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani. The election
was a virtual referendum on the policies of demonetisation and GST, and even though the BJP
came out with flying colours, it needs to take note of the resentment exhibited by the voters.

There are lessons from the Gujarat elections for both parties. The BJP cannot afford to be
complacent and look to the Prime Minister for electoral victories in future Assembly elections.

B. Suresh Kumar, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

THE article “Gujarat’s battle lines” (December 8) gave a true picture of the situation in the State.
The claims about “development” of the State are sheer propaganda. Any southern State is far
above Gujarat in many aspects in terms of development. The BJP is creating a north-south
divide in the country. There is too much emphasis on Hindi, and development projects are
mainly initiated in the north of the country. The southern States provide ample labour
opportunities to people from the northern States. If there is no uniformity in development in a
country like India, then fissiparous tendencies will arise.

G. Neela Megham, Bengaluru

Aadhaar

AADHAAR is against privacy and is not worth the risk to people’s personal financial security
(“Obscenity of hunger deaths”, January 5). It is being unconstitutionally forced on people and is
proving to be the source of much harassment, particularly for senior citizens. In fact, the
government’s insistence on Aadhaar means that it feels that common people are untrustworthy.

Aadhaar cannot be considered as legal in any democratic country. The Supreme Court must be
presented with all the facts to date relating to the misuse of Aadhaar by even reputed
companies. Also, a referendum should be conducted where citizens should be allowed to state
whether they are for or against it.

M. Kumar, New Delhi

Rahul Gandhi

THE more than a century-old grand old party has got a comparatively young president in Rahul
Gandhi as there was no other internal challenger to his leadership (“Long road ahead”, January
5). This is his opportunity to revive the Congress as the party has reached its nadir, losing one
State after another.

The Gujarat Assembly elections have proved that Rahul Gandhi can mobilise not only his party
but other like-minded parties and leaders to take on the BJP. He has to convince people that his
party is a viable alternative to the BJP. For that to happen, it should highlight people’s issues
with constructive criticisms and suggestions. Mere “Modi bashing” will not help his party get
support.

121
D.B.N. Murthy, Bengaluru

Bitcoin

BITCOIN has been making news since it came into being (“Making merry on bitcoin”, January
5). But can it be banned? Is it a commodity or something else? For the first time in the economic
history of the world, governments are facing a threat to their control over their own currencies.
Central banks in different nations are yet to accept a definition of the virtual currency. Japan,
Estonia and Australia, among other countries, have recognised bitcoin. Belarus wants to
become a global cryptocurrency hub by giving tax incentives on bitcoin trading. Some banks in
the U.S. are planning to set up cryptocurrency trading desks.

Deendayal M. Lulla, Mumbai

Ockhi

THE article “Waves of grief and anger” (January 5) was an empathetic account of the impact of
Cyclone Ockhi on the fishermen and their dependents in Kanyakumari district and of the callous
attitude of the authorities. It is appalling that even now both the Centre and the Tamil Nadu
government are not able to say how many fishermen died and how many are missing. In
contrast, the Kerala government has categorically placed on record the number of victims from
that State.

The experience of Indian fishermen, who rely on traditional methods and sea vessels, is
completely different from that of fishermen in other countries.

There is no separate government Ministry for the fishing sector.

It is inhuman that fishermen were not given enough advance warning. The interregnum of seven
years, which is based on British-era laws, between a person going missing and being declared
dead and survivors being eligible for compensation must be scrapped.

Perhaps, families of victims that cannot be traced should be given some interim financial aid
against official registration, and after a calendar year, the civil authorities must issue a purported
conditional death certificate so that the heirs can get the total compensation amount.

B. Rajasekaran, Bengaluru

IT is sad that so many fishermen are still missing in the aftermath of Cyclone Ockhi.
Unfortunately, the government machinery does not seem to be serious in addressing the issues
arising out of the cyclone. To date there is no report to show that aerial search operations were
carried out to look for the missing fishermen. The cyclone also caused great damage to rubber
and other crops in Kanyakumari district. The protests of the fisherfolk, especially from
Kanyakumari, against the lethargic attitude of the government have gone unheard.

Proper warning systems and safety measures should be in place to deal with cyclones. And
serious efforts need to be made to repair the roads and other infrastructure damaged by the
cyclone in Tuticorin, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari. The Central government and the Tamil Nadu
government should take all possible steps to help those affected.

122
P. Senthil Saravana Durai, Mumbai

Russian Revolution

FRONTLINE deserves kudos for the Special Issue on the centenary of the Russian Revolution
(December 22). The “Ten days that shook the world” will be always remembered and cherished
by mankind towards its journey to a humane world, which will be established on the grave of
barbaric capitalism.

The socialist USSR had black spots, which can be attributed to a deviation from the spirit of the
revolution. The clarion call of the revolution will surely usher in many more throughout the world
in newer and better forms. The inclusion of some articles discussing the break-up and
dismantling of the USSR would have enriched the Special Issue.

Purushuttam Roy Barman, Kawsik Nath and Pradyot Maishan, Agartala

THE Special Issue revealed the thirst innocent people had for freedom and the hardship they
underwent to get it while the whole of Europe was under despotic capitalist governance.

Amidst all the inequality and injustice, the October Revolution sent shock waves across Europe
and brought capitalists to their knees.

Muhsin Sha Mansha, Kollam, Kerala

Khilji

THE article “Khilji as villain” (December 22) gave the real history of Alauddin Khilji, which is now
being talked about in the country because of the film “Padmavati”. The article critically analysed
the unwarranted move by fascist elements against the film and the vilification of Khilji. It is
crystal clear that the purpose of the protest was to get the film banned.

Muhammed Adil Edayannur, Kannur, Kerala

123