लोकतांत्रिक संस्थानों का विस्तार भी भिन्न तरीके से हुआ है। कुछ देशों में एकल संविधान के साथ केवल केंद्रीय संसद और केंद्रीय सरकार निर्वाचित होती है। प्रांतीय और जिला स्तर पर प्रत्यक्ष रूप से निर्वाचित सरकारें हो सकती हैं अौर नहीं भी हो सकतीं। कुछ मामलों में निम्न स्तर पर भी प्रत्यक्ष रूप से निर्वाचित सरकारें होती हैं। भारत में संविधान ने केंद्रीय एवं प्रदेश स्तर पर निर्वाचित सरकारें मुहैया कराई हैं, लेकिन यह जिला और निचले स्तर पर निर्वाचित शासन उपलब्ध कराने में नाकाम रहा है। हमारे देश के कई हिस्सों में स्थानीय स्वशासन की समृद्ध परंपरा रही है, लेकिन इसे समान नागरिक संहिता की तरह राज्य के नीति निर्देशक सिद्धांतों में रख दिया गया और चूंकि ये अनिवार्य नहीं थे तो बरसों तक अमल में नहीं लाए गए। बेशक इस अवधारणा के महात्मा गांधी, जयप्रकाश नारायण और राम मनोहर लोहिया जैसे प्रभावशाली समर्थक थे। महात्मा गांधी की 30 जनवरी 1948 को हत्या हो गई और जयप्रकाश और लोहिया अपनी बात नहीं मनवा पाए। 73वें और 74वें संविधान संशोधनों ने इस अवधारणा को संविधान में जगह दी, लेकिन ये संशोधन 1992 में जाकर हुए। पंचायती राज संस्थाओं और नगर निगमों की संरचना व कार्यप्रणाली के कई ब्योरे तय करने के लिए राज्य सरकारों पर छोड़ दिए गए। हालांकि, संविधान में स्पष्ट रूप से प्रावधान है कि ये संस्थाएं अपने संबंधित क्षेत्र में आर्थिक विकास और सामाजिक न्याय के लिए योजनाएं बनाएंगी। माना गया कि राज्य विधानसभा इन संस्थाओं को स्वायत्त सरकार के रूप में कार्य करने के लिए जो भी अधिकार व सत्ता जरूरी होगी, वह इन्हें देगी।

इस प्रकार आज हमारे यहां पांच स्तरों पर प्रत्यक्ष रूप से निर्वाचित लोकतांत्रिक संस्थाएं हैं- केंद्रीय, प्रांतीय, जिला, ब्लॉक और पंचायत या शहर व कस्बे के स्तर पर। स्पष्ट है कि विभिन्न स्तर पर लोगों की विकासात्मक आवश्यकताएं अलग-अलग होंगी। पंचायत स्तर पर यह बहुत ही स्थानीय होंगी। ब्लॉक एवं जिला स्तर पर इसका थोड़ा वृहद दृष्टिकोण होगा। इस तरह अाज विभिन्न स्तरों पर विभिन्न जिम्मेदारियों वाले प्रतिनिधि हैं, जिनके पास लोग अपनी विभिन्न समस्याअों के निराकरण के लिए जा सकते हैं। मसलन, यदि वे कुआं खुदवाना या सड़क को पक्का करवाना है या हैंड पम्प स्थापित करना है अथवा ओल्ड एज पेंशन जैसी सरकार की विभिन्न कल्याणकारी योजनाओं की सूची में नाम दर्ज करवाना चाहते हैं, तो उन्हें पंचायत प्रमुख के पास जाना होगा। वे प्राथमिक या माध्यमिक विद्यालय अथवा नदी पर पुल या लंबी सड़क बनवाना चाहते हैं तो उन्हें ब्लॉक प्रमुख के पास जाना होगा। अपनी टीम के साथ जिला परिषद अध्यक्ष अधिक बड़ी और महंगी विकास परियोजनाओं के लिए जवाबदार है, जिसमें पूरा जिला आ जाता है। फिर विधायक होते हैं, जो राज्य स्तर पर काम करते हैं और सांसद हैं, जो केंद्रीय स्तर पर प्रतिनिधित्व करते हैं। इन सारे प्रतिनिधियों की जिम्मेदारियां और कार्य स्पष्ट रूप से परिभाषित हैं। दुर्भाग्य से व्यापक स्तर पर लोगों को जागरूक नहीं बनाया गया है। कई बार खुद जनप्रतिनिधि ही इस बारे में जागरूक नहीं होते। इस अज्ञान ने विभिन्न स्तरों पर लोकतांत्रिक संस्थाओं के सुचारु संचालन में काफी असमंजस पैदा कर दिया है। इससे हताशा पैदा हो जाती है, जिसे टाला जा सकता है। जब मैं 1995 में रांची से विधानसभा का चुनाव लड़ रहा था तो चुनाव प्रचार के दौरान मैं एक शिक्षित, अंग्रेजी बोलने वाली महिला से मिला, जिन्होंने मुझसे उनके घर के सामने के बिजली के खम्बे पर लगा बल्ब फ्यूज होने की शिकायत की। मैंने उनसे बड़ी विनम्रता से पूछा कि क्या उन्होंने क्षेत्र के नगर निगम के वार्ड कमिश्नर से इसकी शिकायत की है। जब उन्होंने नकारात्मक उत्तर दिया तो मैंने कहा कि मैं नया बल्ब लगवाने की पूरी कोशिश करूंगा, लेकिन वास्तव में यह काम नगर निगम का है। इसी तरह एक अन्य रहवासी इलाके में लोगों ने ड्रेनेज का पानी उनके घर के आंगन में जमा होने की शिकायत की। जब मैंने ड्रेनेज को जाकर देखा तो पाया कि यह हर किस्म के प्लास्टिक के कचरे से जाम है, जिसे स्थानीय रहवासियों ने लापरवाही से फेंक दिया था। मैंने मदद का वादा किया, लेकिन ध्यान दिलाया कि उन्हें नगर निगम से इसकी शिकायत करनी चाहिए थी।

जनता के प्रतिनिधित्व के दशकों के अनुभव से मैं कह सकता हूं कि निर्वाचित प्रतिनिधियों की जिम्मेदारियों के बारे में जागरूकता न होने से लोग एक ही समस्या की शिकायत इलाके में अाने वाले सरकारी अधिकारी सहित हर किसी से करते रहते हैं। उन्हें पता नहीं होता कि अपनी समस्या के निराकरण के लिए वे किसके पास जाएं। मौजूदा असमंजस के लिए निर्वाचित प्रतिनिधि भी उतने ही जिम्मेदार हैं। चुनाव प्रचार के दौरान वे लोगों को पलक झपकाए बिना कह देते हैं कि एक बार चुन के तो आने दीजिए, वे उनके क्षेत्र में विकास की गंगा बहा देंगे। खासतौर पर विधायक व सांसद ऐसा वादा कर देते हैं, जिनके पास कोई प्रशासनिक सत्ता या अधिकार नहीं होते। कार्यकारी शक्तियां तो पंचायत प्रमुख, नगर निगम प्रमुख, ब्लॉक और जिला परिषद प्रमुख के पास होती हैं जैसे कि राज्य व केंद्र स्तर पर कैबिनेट के पास होती है। हमारी व्यवस्था में स्थानीय क्षेत्र विकास निधि के रूप में थोड़ी राशि सांसद व विधायकों को विकास के लिए मिलती है, इसके अलावा लोगों की जरूरतें पूरी करने के लिए संबंधित अधिकारियों के पास जाने के अलावा उनके पास कोई और रास्ता नहीं है। वे चाहे आपकी शिकायत सुने या न सुने।

संसद का वरिष्ठ सदस्य होने के बावजूद मेरे रिकॉर्ड में कामयाबी की बजाय नाकामियां ही ज्यादा हैं। मैं बहुत मेहनत करता हूं, लोगों की समस्याओं को सुव्यवस्थित तरीके से उठाता हूं। उन्हें सर्वोच्च अधिकािरयों के ध्यान में लाता हूं, लेकिन क्या मुझे सफलता मिलती है? शायद उतनी नहीं, जितनी मैंने चाही थी। इस बारे में जनता को शिक्षित करने और उन्हें सक्षम बनाने की जरूरत को अतिशयोक्ति नहीं कहा जा सकता।

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The haze thickens

As Punjab’s government denies the gravity of the problem, drugs take a growing toll in the once prosperous state.

Punjab’s drug problem is no secret. The malaise is so widespread that any government’s first response should have been to take steps to choke the supplies, and second, to implement health policies to address the high prevalence of addiction to a range of narcotic substances. The Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state did carry out a crackdown. But as a special investigation by The Indian Express using 6,500 FIRs obtained under the RTI Act has established, the exercise could not have been more flawed. There were few arrests of suppliers at the top of the food chain. The focus was on addicts, or small-time peddlers, found to be in possession of minuscule amounts of drugs. Thousands were stuffed into overcrowded jails whose medical infrastructure was so hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the sudden influx of drug-dependent inmates that 174 people died in jails through 2014 and 2015, at the shocking rate of one every four days. Not just that, the jails are themselves retail points for drugs, as seen from the rich hauls of narcotics and syringes during periodic raids. Meanwhile, supplies of a range of drugs have continued to flood the state — from Pakistan, and other Indian states. While the Punjab government is right to point to this, it is clear that without well-entrenched networks, these supplies cannot continue to enter the state and get distributed with such ease. So while Punjab demands that the Border Security Force do a better job and asks other states to clean up their act, as a border state, it must urgently take its own steps to address the situation.

It is unfortunate that the SAD leadership chooses to deny the seriousness of the problem, viewing any discussion on it as a political campaign against it by its opponents ahead of the 2017 elections. The party has launched a counter-campaign to “protect” the youth of Punjab from what is being described as a conspiracy to defame them. This can only fuel the speculation that the party has something to hide, whereas in fact, the Congress can hardly point a finger at the present ruling combine, as it has to take equal responsibility for letting the problem grow unchecked during its terms in power.

It is clear from the staggering numbers of arrests – nearly 30,000 in two years — that drug dependency is not isolated to a few pockets. Drugs are claiming a huge social cost in Punjab, once counted among India’s most prosperous states. Not only has the government not yet seriously attempted to assess the problem in its entirety, as farming becomes less and less profitable, the absence of initiatives to help youth in a largely agricultural state equip themselves with education and non-farming skills is worsening the situation. It is still not too late. The next government, regardless of the party in power, must give top priority to the issue.

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Date: 13-06-16

Why India should keep an eye on Europe

Mohit Rao

A pre-consultation paper on Net neutrality is now floating around, with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India seeking comments by June 21. This follows on the heels of asking for stakeholder views on over-the-top services, differential pricing for data services, and on other issues related to Net neutrality.

The buzz surrounding Net neutrality is not confined to Indian shores; the ripples of an unexpectedly successful campaign for Net neutrality in India have caused ripples in Europe too.

As the European Union embarks on a public consultation process on Net neutrality, the response of Indian citizens to zero-rated apps — the concept of certain applications, such as Facebook’s Internet.org, being provided free to customers — has emerged as one of the talking, even rallying, points for a similar campaign in Germany.

This month, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) has launched a public consultation to interpret the new Net neutrality law passed in October 2015. Activists have called the current law an “ambiguous” one with “crucial loopholes” that could undermine the concept of a level playing field online.

“The law is neither with the telecom companies nor with the activists. It has been overcomplicated and could be interpreted either way,” says Thomas Lohninger, an activist who is a part of the savetheinternet.eu campaign which has nearly 22 digital rights organisations across Europe under its ambit.

Corporate response so far

The ambiguity of the existing law has already spurred telecom companies to offer special services. In April, Telia, a Swedish state-owned telecom company, began offering zero-rating with Facebook services. The heads of major Swedish media houses issued an open letter condemning the agreement. They wrote: “We’ll suffer from a loss of diversity in media, and we’ll risk losing the right to publish ourselves… Many users will surely jump at the offer. It may seem like a bargain in the beginning. But if the price is that our public discourse is regulated from Menlo Park, California, then that price is far, far too high.”

In Germany, Deutsche Telekom, which is partially state-owned, stirred up a storm when its CEO Timotheus Höttges said days after the EU passed the law: “Start-ups need special services more than anyone in order to have a chance of keeping up with large Internet providers… By our reckoning, they would pay a couple of percent (of their revenue) for this.”

Statements such as these make the process of public consultation “critical” to ensure an implementable and fair set of guidelines, says Mr. Lohninger.

Surprisingly, though Internet penetration in Europe is nearly 80 per cent (around 35 percentage points above the world average), the drafting of the legislation began only a couple of years ago. The process culminates in a public consultation that is being held at the moment, between June 6 and July 18. By the end of August, the guidelines will be published and enforced. This may well be a marquee point in the global Net neutrality debate.

Unlike the Indian consultations which focussed only on zero-rated applications, the EU law is comprehensive in tackling two other major challenges of Net neutrality: specialised services, which enable faster access to certain applications which have tie-ups with Internet providers, and traffic management, which allows Internet providers to peruse data and decide which Internet traffic is important and which is not, rather than the current system of equal distribution.

Where India comes in

At this year’s Re:publica, one of the largest conferences on digital rights in Europe, held in Berlin in May, the Indian campaign as well as the U.S. guidelines featured prominently as the “new hope for Europe”.

The emphatic ‘no’ heard in Indian public consultations for zero-rating — which was marketed as giving the poor ‘some Internet’ instead of ‘no Internet’ — is a lesson for Western politicians who are “worried” about stopping free zero-rated services, says Barbara van Schewick, Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, whose research has shaped the U.S. response to Net neutrality.

“The Indian response is remarkable, because they saw this as affecting their start-ups and local voices,” she said at the meet. “There was a huge mobilisation, and in the end, the Indian regulatory came up with a nuanced version of zero-rating legislation. It is a model for what we can do here.”

This is also the rallying cry for the SaveTheInternet campaign, which is travelling across the EU to gather support. It is following a strategy similar to that adopted by Indian activists. Instead of a ready-made template, which is helpful in India where awareness of digital rights is still nascent, the Europe campaign has the option of answering a few questions about Net neutrality. Based on the responses, a template will be generated and sent to BEREC, the EU, or member states.

The number of responses in India was big (2.4 million) and even more so in the U.S. (4 million), but this may not be possible for the inherently-fragmented EU. Activists hope for “hundreds of thousands” of comments.

Global impact

If the Indian zero-rating guidelines can be a model for Europe, then faulty European guidelines can set in motion a worrying global domino, particularly in the Global South.

“[Hitherto, in terms of digital rights and data protection], the EU has been setting standards far beyond its own regional reach, especially in places where democracies are still in the process of elaborating their constitutional and legislative systems. If the EU can’t abide to high standards, why should others make a fuss about it,” asks Cathleen Berger, programme lead for London-based Global Partners Digital and an advisor on digital rights. If the EU falters, it would give many governments of Africa and Asia that seek control over the Internet a leg-up, she says.

Moreover, EU remains a major trading partner for most regions, and an adverse Internet law could affect fair competition and establish monopolies.

Mr. Lohninger explains: “This is why we are looking to countries such as India to be involved in these consultations. For, if the Internet is not neutral, then Indian start-ups, for instance, will struggle to enter the European market, and we potentially lose out on the services of a half a billion users of the Internet.”

India, which figures on top in the plans of Internet companies which are scrambling to “connect the last billion”, may well have to learn from the European legislation. Discussions on specialised services and Internet traffic management are yet to be resolved. Only the first few battles have been won, making it prudent for India to keep an eye on Europe over the coming months.

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Date: 13-06-16

A case for cutting out the censor

GAUTAM BHATIA

Pahlaj Nihalani, the censor board chairperson, is in the news again — this time for his ham-fisted, tone-deaf treatment of Anurag Kashyap’s Udta Punjab, a film about the drug problem in Punjab. Mr. Nihalani’s bizarre claim that the film “defames” Punjab, and his alleged insistence that all references to the State be excised from the film, and a disclaimer added acknowledging the government’s efforts at controlling the drug menace, all sound more in tune with a fervid political campaign than with the level-headed deliberations of a film certification board.

In the aftermath of the controversy, it has become tempting to cast the censor board chairperson in the role of the comedy villain, the sinister yet dull-witted censor taking up his blunt cudgels against art and expression. Such a description is not entirely inaccurate. However, framing the issue in terms of the actions of one individual — no matter how arbitrary or erratic — risks confusing the symptom for the disease, and blinding us to the real problem: today, a Nihalani is made possible because of the existing legal framework, and nearly half-a-century of judicial discourse around it.

Regime of pre-censorship

The censor board (actually, the Central Board of Film Certification) is a statutory body under the Cinematograph Act 1952. The Cinematograph Act creates a regime of pre-censorship — or, in technical terms, a regime of “prior restraint”. Before a film can be released for public viewing, it must be cleared by the censor board. The board is tasked with ensuring that the content of the film does not fall into any of the categories of “reasonable restrictions upon free speech” that are set out under Article 19(2) of the Constitution. Article 19(2), however, consists of a set of abstract phrases such as “public order”, “decency or morality”, “defamation”, and so on. To aid the censor board in its task, the government is authorised to frame concrete guidelines. These guidelines have been changed from time to time, and at present, stipulate (among other things) that “dual meaning words as obviously cater to baser instincts are not allowed”, “visuals or words which promote communal, obscurantist, anti-scientific and anti-national attitudes are not presented”, and “human sensibilities are not offended by vulgarity, obscenity or depravity.”

One glance at these “Guidelines” should be enough to establish that they not only allow, but positively invite, arbitrary censorial action. Instead of clarifying and cabining the scope of discretion under Article 19(2), they expand it, creating a broad and vague field within which the Censor Board can operate. And Mr. Nihalani’s treatment of Udta Punjab, in fact, is not an isolated act of a rogue official running wild, but simply one particularly egregious application of a repressive legal regime.

Legal opinion

However, it didn’t have to be this way. Forty-six years ago, the film-maker K.A. Abbas challenged the constitutionality of the pre-censorship regime established by the Cinematograph Act, as well as the Guidelines framed under it. Abbas’s argument was that pre-censorship was too draconian to be a “reasonable restriction” upon free speech under Article 19(2). This was especially so because other media of communication, such as print, were not subjected to pre-censorship. In any event, he argued, at the very least, the Guidelines were entirely vague and arbitrary.

However, it was Abbas’s misfortune that his case came to be heard before a bench led by a judge who had not only shown himself to be hostile to the freedom of speech and expression, but also fancied himself as an art and culture critic — a lethal combination. Five years before, Chief Justice M. Hidayatullah had upheld a ban on D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover by dismissing its artistic qualities as worthless, and had adopted a 19th century legal test for obscenity focussed on preventing moral “depravity” and “corruption”. After that, he had held that the politician E.M.S. Namboodiripad, in suggesting that the judiciary was an instrument of class oppression according to Marx, had failed to understand Marx, and had committed contempt of court. Now, in writing the court’s opinion on film censorship, he not only upheld the Act and the Guidelines, but also embarked upon a psychological analysis of how the medium of cinema, with its “versatility, realism (often surrealism), and its coordination of the visual and aural senses” was able to “stir” people much more deeply than written words could, and, therefore, had to be subjected to a more stringent regulatory regime. Strangely, Chief Justice Hidayatullah’s reasoning in K.A. Abbas was strongly reminiscent of the “argument from colonial difference”, used by the British to deny Indians civic freedoms and the right to self-governance for the longest time. The British had regularly invoked the emotional, mental and political immaturity of Indians to justify both their rule, and the necessity of imposing a repressive censorship regime upon the press and the arts. Independence had come, and a new Constitution, but the same Indians who were now considered politically mature enough to govern themselves and choose their own leaders, could still not be trusted by the Supreme Court to watch films without the prior approval of the government.

Moralising, patronising discourse

K.A. Abbas was an unfortunate judgment because it not only upheld the Cinematograph Act and its vague guidelines but also created a judicial discourse around films and the freedom of speech that is defined by its moralising, patronising, and paternalistic character. A little over a decade-and-a-half later, in S. Rangarajan vs P. Jagjivan Ram, the Supreme Court observed that pre-censorship of films was necessary because cinema audiences were not as “discerning” as newspaper readers. Nearly a decade later again, in the Bandit Queen case, the Supreme Court permitted some scenes of violence and frontal nudity on the ground that they served a larger social purpose of creating, in the minds of the viewers, a revulsion towards such actions — and that the scenes were no longer and no more detailed than was strictly necessary to serve this purpose. And vestiges of this approach continue today: it was reported that the Bombay High Court remarked, during the hearings on Udta Punjab, that multiplex audiences are now “mature” enough.

It is not clear in what context and for what purpose the High Court made this observation. What should be clear, however, is that it is high time that this discourse of “maturity” and “immaturity” (whether of multiplex audiences or otherwise) was jettisoned from our constitutional discourse. Our Constitution, the culmination of a decades long struggle for political independence and civic freedom, is premised upon the belief — and the faith — that citizens are autonomous individuals, who make their own choices and take responsibility for them — whether it is in the political arena while exercising their right to elect their representatives, or in the cultural arena, in deciding which gods to worship, whom to associate with, and what to see, speak, or here. The Cinematograph Act, its Guidelines, and the censor board, by making the government the arbiter of what films are fit or unfit for citizens to see, on the assumption that the “wrong” kinds of films might lead them to form the wrong kinds of views or take the wrong kinds of actions, are fundamentally at odds with our constitutional vision.

The Court’s sanctification of this legal regime has been an error. It is, however, an error that need not be further compounded. It is time not only for Mr. Nihalani to go but also for the regime of film censorship to be swept away along with him, unlamented and unremembered.

Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based lawyer.

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Date: 14-06-16

Wildly off on wildlife

Himangshu Watts

Boselaphus tragocamelus sounds like a frightening tongue-twister. Actually, many perceive it to be much worse. For the farmer, this creature, better known as the nilgai, is a marauding menace that plunders his fields and gets away with state protection. Last week, the animal twisted the tongue of women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi who publicly lashed out at her Cabinet colleague, environment minister Prakash Javadekar, over the killing of nilgais in Bihar.

Perhaps her patience ran out two days earlier when another Cabinet colleague, water resources and river development minister Uma Bharti, threatened a hunger strike if concerns for a “few tigers and vultures” block a river-linking project that can transform the lives of millions of impoverished, drought-stricken people.

What is happening? Industrial projects are no longer being blocked indefinitely by green clearances. Influential people say a bunch of vultures are not more important than a few lakh farmers. And state-sponsored shooters are culling the ubiquitous nilgai. Shocking? What is more shocking is that people who oppose killing the omnipresent antelope have not loudly offered to pay instant compensation to farmers for the crops gobbled up by nilgai in return for protecting the animal.

Farmers are not the only ones at risk. Drive down the Yamuna Expressway from Greater Noida to Agra and you will find numerous boards warning motorists that they are entering a ‘nilgai-prone area’. This animal has caused many road accidents, some fatal. While there is absolutely no doubt that India must step up efforts to expand its forests and protect its animals, it is foolish to ignore the concerns of farmers. It is cruel to let herds of a species — who are not endangered by any stretch of imagination — plunder the fields of farmers already devastated by two droughts.

It is time the environment-protection dialogue moves from holier-than-thou pontification to a more realistic endeavour where the common man participates. Not compensating the farmer and then telling him that he can’t get rid of the menace eventually does serious damage to the cause of protecting forests and wildlife.

Farmers are not exaggerating the damage. A committee headed by M S Swaminathan, one of the ‘fathers’ of the Green Revolution, said in October 2006 that wildlife laws must be relaxed as farmers are threatened by the increasing population of monkeys, wild boars and nilgai, which are “playing havoc with the agricultural and horticultural crops”. The panel suggested monkeys should be declared “vermin” under the Wildlife Act so that they could be culled.

Indian wildlife laws give such sweeping powers to authorities and contain such comprehensive provisions that it is easier to kill a human than to capture a wild animal even if the latter poses serious danger to people. Today, dogmatic environmentalists appear to be monsters in the eyes of the impoverished villager. From his point of view, the nilgai often gets more effective state protection than villagers who are easily robbed, raped and murdered without a ministerial outcry.

Tiger conservation faces similar threats. The hand-to-mouth existence of villagers does not give them the luxury to feel good about conservation. For them, losing a cow to a tiger simply means devastation.

Anybody who has been to forests and interacted with local people knows that villagers are terrified of the process of getting compensation from the government for a cow killed by a tiger. It involves bureaucratic procedures, verification and corruption. Often, it’s easier to simply poison the tiger’s kill to permanently tackle the threat so that other farm animals are protected.

At times, villagers face the threat of man-eating tigers. They also see loud campaigns against hunting down the predator who killed a human. The campaign is based on solid reason because it is virtually impossible to pinpoint the tiger that has become a man-eater. However, such campaigns, almost always led by city slickers, alienate villages around tiger reserves and makes conservation a much bigger challenge. Ironically, the biggest advocates of conservation are the hotels and lodges because the biggest threats to their business are deforestation and poaching.

Many villagers in states such as Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh live close to leopard habitats. In the Junar forest in Pune district, leopards attacked a human once every two weeks before many predators were captured and shifted to other areas, where they attacked humans again.

With such widespread human-animal conflict, conservation needs to adapt to the growing anger of vulnerable villagers. Animal-lovers would serve their cause better if they make sure they don’t make an impoverished farmer feel smaller than a vulture, monkey, wild boar, leopard or a nilgai.

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Date: 14-06-16

Orlando shooting: Price of zealotry on gun control and LGBT

Orlando in Florida is famous for its theme parks. Disney World contains Mickey and friends. Omar Mateen modelled himself on Terminator, a character whose promise that he will be back menaces you at the Universal theme park. Armed with an assault rifle and a pistol, the New York-born son of an Afghan immigrant attacked a nightclub for gay people and killed 50, staging the worst mass shooting in the US ever. He also claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, in a call he put through to the police, before being shot down by policemen. Donald Trump was quick to claim prescience: he had called for a ban on Muslims entering the US, hadn’t he? Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama made responsible statements, condemning the terror attack and calling for a full investigation into the incident.

Should we in India get exercised over the killing, once we have expressed our anger and sorrow? India is one of the worst sufferers of terror in the name of Islam, and has much at stake in how the US responds to the attack. Blaming Muslims in general is senseless, as are bans (ban Muhammad Ali?). But blaming ideologies of hatred and intolerance would be spot on. Such fostering of hatred towards a minority identity gets reinforced by Trump’s rants against Muslims. Republican-backed opposition to gun control is another factor in the killing. It is legal in Florida to buy assault weapons. People can legally carry concealed weapons. That did not, contrary to Republican theology, prevent 50 innocent people being shot dead by one man who could freely buy an assault rifle, despite being probed twice by federal agencies for terror links but let go for want of evidence.

Whipping up or endorsing hatred towards minority groups of any kind carries dangerous consequences in public life. There is no sane alternative to intelligent policing and an inclusive polity in a globalising world.

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