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Date:27-03-19

Victory For Bhoot

SC does well to overturn Mamata’s unofficial ban on a satirical movie

TOI Editorials

Striking another blow for freedom of expression, the Supreme Court has directed the Bengal government to ensure the smooth release of the film Bhobishyoter Bhoot. This Bengali language satirical film reportedly takes subtle digs at various political parties, including what many perceive as policies of the Trinamool Congress. After its release on February 15, theatres in Bengal started pulling the film due to apparent pressure from Mamata Banerjee government. In fact, the joint commissioner of police, Kolkata, asked the producers to arrange a private screening on the ground that the film’s content could hurt public sentiments and lead to law and order problems. SC has directed the withdrawal of this communication.

Notably, despite the earlier interim order of the apex court on March 15 for unhindered screening, only a few theatres outside Kolkata were screening the film, indicating that Mamata government had declared an unofficial ban on the film. This is patently unconstitutional and SC is right in pointing out that once a film has been certified by the Central Board of Film Certification the state is duty-bound to protect public access to it.

It’s ironical that a party like Trinamool is touchy about a film when it has quite a few actors and artistes in its fold. Though Mamata positions herself as a patron of the arts, evidently she doesn’t take criticism well. Recall that she had previously got a Jadavpur University professor arrested for sharing a cartoon about her. But freedom of expression isn’t a one-way street. And Mamata’s attempt to make it so exposes her own hypocrisy and proves her love for the arts to be questionable. Authoritarian politicians cannot be allowed to use state machinery to silence satire.

Date:27-03-19

Looking Beyond Election Fever

Here’s how the next government can tackle jobs, health and farm crises

Pranab Bardhan , [ The writer is Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. ]

Since the pre-election code of conduct is now in force governments cannot announce new policies. Yet elections often provide the opportunity for the rest of us to think about new directions for the country. I’ll take this opportunity to suggest a small selection of economic policy directions which cry out to be adopted, and to which most political parties have not paid enough attention.

First, take the issue of agricultural distress to which politicians have responded with desperate short-term sops, like raising support prices for a handful of crops and institutional loan waivers (both of which mostly help better-off farmers) and some income support for small farmers, leaving out vast numbers of landless workers (in any case it is difficult to identify small farmers in many states where the land records are poor) – these are all at best palliatives.

The long-term solutions are well-known but neglected: drastically reducing the current input subsidies which mostly go to the better-off, apart from causing serious environmental damage (power subsidies depleting water tables, chemical fertilisers polluting water and soils, etc), and investing in rural infrastructure like roads, irrigation, warehousing, cold storage, etc (these are particularly important for Indian agriculture shifting to high value produce like fruits, vegetables and livestock products). Policies to open up all marketing channels for farm products, thus disabling the current cartelised markets, and to facilitate the formation of farm companies and cooperatives to stem the adverse effects of declining land size are increasingly imperative.

The main reason nearly half of India’s labour force is trapped in low-productivity agriculture is the lack of productive job opportunities in non-farm occupations. The false hope the current government gave to our bulging young population on the employment front and the pathetic attempts to hide the data now should not detract our attention from the fact that productive employment has been a problem for many decades. The relaxation of labour laws in several states has not particularly helped.

The job crisis is so severe and potentially so explosive that some measures like wage subsidies or tax credit for hiring new workers and some form of urban employment guarantee on public works and civic programmes, somewhat similar to MGNREGS, are immediately called for. Also, the rural MGNREGS by law should be, but actually is not, an on-demand programme; currently in most states there is a large unmet demand for this programme, apart from delays in wage payments dampening the demand. Over time our whole secondary education system has to be largely restructured and channelled to a mass-scale vocational training programme; otherwise many of the job-seekers will remain unemployable.

Like the employment problem there are looming severe problems in environment (water scarcity, air pollution, soil erosion, etc) and in crumbling urban infrastructure and congestion – yet these are hardly ever election issues. Another area where life-and-death issues have strangely evaded electoral concern over many decades is that of public health, in a country groaning under one of the world’s largest disease burdens. The current government is pushing Ayushman Bharat, an under-funded and over-hyped programme of insurance for hospital indoor expenditure for the poor. This is in some way a scaled-up form of old insurance schemes like RSBY, with a great deal of perverse incentives for unnecessary medications and surgeries, and in any case they had not taken off in many poor north Indian states. In general India has yet to debate seriously at the political level why a subsidised private insurance model to cover only about 40% of the population and that too not for their more substantial expenses on drugs and outpatient visits is to be preferred to other models of universal healthcare with larger risk pools bringing down costs (as say in Thailand or Australia).

For far too long our welfare politics has been pre-occupied with anti-poverty programmes, but large numbers of people even above the poverty line face all kinds of brutal risks in life (weather, health, or market-related risks). To provide some minimum economic security against such risks, apart from boosting the autonomy of women in the family (three quarters of adult women in India having no outside income), the idea of an unconditional basic income supplement has been proposed.

All of the proposals above will cost large sums of money. The funding will necessitate a large-scale reform of our current subsidies (much of which are enjoyed by the rich and middle classes) and direct taxes (with under-taxation of property values and capital gains and zero-taxation of wealth, inheritance and agricultural incomes).

Finally, there are two non-economic policy matters seriously impinging on the economy. Both the current and the preceding prime ministers quite early in their rule had promised administrative reforms without delivering on them. Power remains over-concentrated in the PM’s office, choking decision points and making a mockery of the oft-repeated rhetoric of ‘cooperative federalism’; political loyalty and seniority rather than performance dictate promotion of bureaucrats; public sector enterprises and regulatory bodies for private sector operations remain ‘independent’ only on paper; effective decentralisation from the state level to the village and municipality levels remains weak, and so on.

The other non-economic issue relates to the general atmosphere of hate and intolerance that the current regime has fostered, eroding the trust and cooperation on which the successful operation of any modern economy and the thriving of enterprise at all levels crucially depend.

Date:27-03-19

Science and Sensibility

Tarun Khanna & K Vijay Raghavan, [ Khanna is director, Mittal Institute, Harvard University, Massachusetts, US, and Raghavan is principal scientific adviser, GoI ]

In a piece in these pages last year, we had discussed the mutual incomprehension of Indian science and industry to the detriment of both, as well as to the nation. Apart from sometimes labouring in limited infrastructure situations, scientists in India further handicap themselves by erecting perceived barriers that get in the way of cooperating with industry and society at large.

And industrialists return the favour by assuming, incorrectly, that it’s not worth the time to engage with Indian science. Or, if one must engage with science at all, it is expedient to go directly to science in the West.

Don’t Lose Scientific Temper

We are convinced that strengthening the clusters of Indian science is definitely part of what it will take to shake up this system productively. To this end, on April 4, an open event on ‘Science and Society’ will be convened at Vigyan Bhavan in Delhi. This gathering will be bringing together scientists from the US and India with three overarching and concrete purposes, all directed to strengthening the intellectual ties that bind scientists to one another, and science to society.

The first purpose is to shine a spotlight on intellectual clusters, so that India can accelerate the exchange between talent and these clusters. There is already a life sciences cluster in Bengaluru, a cluster related to information technology (IT) and informatics in Hyderabad, one for medicine in Delhi, and one for automobiles and mobility in Pune.

Each cluster has, at its core, a set of collaborating universities and research centres. These provide examples on which much more can be built. This is more than an empty exhortation to collaborate. There are concrete measures to make it easier for scientists and students to engage with each other.(One of us lives in the densest such clusters in the world, in Boston, and even getting to a workshop from Harvard to the neighbouring Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is hard. So we are not naïve about the behavioural barriers here.)

The benefits of clusters, beyond intellectual ferment, are getting close to critical mass. Otherwise, our individual centres are often too sub-scale to be relevant on the world stage. As industry gets on board, we will see bridges being built from science to industry via these clusters. The second purpose to bring together Indian and US scientists on one platform is to build collaborative bridges between science in India and in the West. It is utterly foolish — even downright impossible — to try to engage in scientific research in isolation. It’s like competing with your hands tied behind your back. And even though we start this event with the purpose of setting up collaborative bridges to science in the West, the intent is to connect to science anywhere else in the world.

There is, for instance, fabulous work on oceanography and space going on in Japan, on water conservation in Israel, and on plant genomics in Brazil. Why not access all of this and contribute to them? Now, there are already some mechanisms in place for collaborations. There is, for example, the Indo-US Science & Technology Forum (IUSSTF). And there are new institutional structures coming up all the time.

Take the Tata Trusts, which have recently funded an ambitious effort with University of California scholars in Bengaluru, thereby setting up a connection to US science. India’s ministry of science and technology has funded post-doctoral researchers’ stints in the US and for international scholars in India precisely for these bridge-building purposes.

Playing Devil’s Advocate

The third reason behind the India Annual Symposium on ‘Science and Society’ on April 4 pertains to an issue often neglected in the developing world: the contribution to a culture of science literacy in the country. By ‘science’ here, one means triggering enthusiasm for a scientific mindset —to inquire, experiment and change one’s mind when confronted with evidence against one’s position. This is not something limited to ‘scientists’, but it is a mindset from which we can all learn something.

Here as well, there is nascent but high-quality work already underway in India. Outreach programmes by our science institutions have recently scaled up admirably. It is also happening in India’s non-English languages. The Atal Innovation Mission at NITI Aayog has aggressively pushed this forward, with the opening of Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in thousands of high schools across the country, where kids — even those interested in the arts, humanities and social sciences — can indulge their scientific curiosity and cultivate science literacy through educated play, building gadgets and devices through which they complement traditional book-learning.

There will soon be 5,000-odd ATLs across India. There is no reason why we should not have 20,000. Each is plugged into a volunteer mentor corps of sorts, which then creates additional bridges between science and society.

One hopes to trigger conversations about strengthening linkages relevant to these three levels of goals: strengthening the country’s science clusters so that these are accessible and relevant to all in society; linking our efforts in science and technology to those globally so we can learn from each other; and fostering a culture of scientific literacy writ large.

Date:27-03-19

Time for Some EC Initiatives on Spending

ET Editorials

In these elections, the Election Commission (EC) should run pilot projects in each state to capture data from the ground on poll expenditure by different candidates and parties, instead of waiting for these worthies to file their ridiculous understatements with it. Deploy a number of phone cameras to record posters and hoardings, people marshalled into rallies, leaders travelling in to speak, cars plying, microphones hired, party foot soldiers and mercenaries scrambling around, and use bigdata analytics to estimate the cost of campaigning. These estimates, in turn, can be correlated with the candidate’s claims to check their veracity.

The EC has capped poll expenses. But with every passing election, costs have ratcheted up as campaigns are becoming bigger and more competitive. Some estimates suggest that 20-30% of unaccounted money mobilised by candidates is spent on items such as materials for rallies, vehicles and posters, apart from gifts and cash allegedly being showered on voters. An on-the-ground check can include, say, gathering information on payments received by printing presses churning out campaign material.

The need is to scrutinise expenditure independent of the accounts filed by candidates and political parties, and then ask them to show the source of income for the expenditure incurred. It makes sense for India to follow the UK that allows scores of campaign activities to be registered, making the reporting system of poll expenses transparent. Every candidate and partymust disclose spending at each level beginning from the polling booth to the national level. The claims should be open to challenge by watchdog bodies, rival parties and the media. Technology and the use of big-data analytics will help the EC firm up actual spending.

Date:27-03-19

अव्यावहारिक योजना

संपादकीय

कांग्रेस के राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष राहुल गांधी ने वादा किया है कि देश के सबसे गरीब 20 फीसदी परिवारों के खाते में प्रतिमाह 6,000 रुपये की राशि जमा की जाएगी। यह राजनीतिक दलों द्वारा की जाने वाली लोकलुभावन कल्याणकारी योजनाओं की पेशकश का सबसे नया ताजा उदाहरण है। प्रस्तावित न्यूनतम आय योजना (न्याय) के तहत तकरीबन 25 करोड़ लोग या औसतन 5 करोड़ परिवार लाभान्वित होंगे। प्रस्तावित योजना पार्टी द्वारा पहले पेश की जाने वाली योजना से अलग है जिसके तहत गरीब परिवारों की आय को बढ़ाकर कम से कम 12,000 रुपये तक लाने की बात शामिल थी। इस टॉप-अप योजना से इतर नया प्रस्ताव यह है कि अगर किसी परिवार की आय 12,000 रुपये से कम है तो उसे साल में 72,000 रुपये का भत्ता दिया जाएगा। व्यापक अनुमान है गरीब से गरीब परिवार भी महीने में कम से कम 6,000 रुपये कमा ही लेता है। यानी अगर सरकार की ओर से 6,000 रुपये की सहायता उपलब्ध करा दी जाए तो ऐसे परिवार गरीबी के दायरे से बाहर आ जाएंगे। आश्चर्य नहीं कि कांग्रेस की मुख्य प्रतिद्वंद्वी पार्टी सत्ताधारी भारतीय जनता पार्टी (भाजपा) ने ‘न्याय’ योजना को खारिज किया है। राजनीतिक दलीलों से इतर भी ‘न्याय’ एक बेहद खराब नीतिगत उपाय है।

मिसाल के तौर पर सबसे गरीब 20 फीसदी परिवारों के चयन की बात ही गलत है। विश्व बैंक ने गरीबी का नया मानक 3.20 डॉलर प्रतिदिन (क्रय शक्ति समता के आधार पर) तय किया है। 12,000 रुपये का आंकड़ा यहीं से आया है। परंतु वर्ष 2011 में हमारे अपने अनुमान के मुताबिक आबादी का 21.9 फीसदी हिस्सा गरीबी रेखा के नीचे था। यानी आज यह आंकड़ा तकरीबन 15 फीसदी होगा। यह संकेत दिया जा चुका है कि यह भुगतान कुछ मौजूदा योजनाओं को प्रतिस्थापित करके दिया जाएगा। लेकिन यह योजना कतई अच्छी नहीं है क्योंकि इससे मतभेद पैदा होगा और इसका विरोध भी होगा। विरोध इसलिए क्योंकि लाभार्थी पूरी तरह विभिन्न योजनाओं का अतिव्यापन नहीं करेंगे और इसलिए कुछ लोगों को नुकसान उठाना पड़ेगा। योजना के लिए कृत्रिम ढंग से कट ऑफ सीमा का निर्धारण करना समस्या पैदा कर सकता है क्योंकि इसके दायरे में आने वालों में भेद करने की गुंजाइश बहुत कम है और कई ऐसे दुर्भाग्यशाली लोग भी होंगे जो इसके दायरे महज कुछ ऊपर हों। उदाहरण के लिए अगर कोई व्यक्ति 11,000 रुपये कमाता है तो उसे 6,000 रुपये मिलेंगे लेकिन अगर कोई 12,000 रुपये कमाता है तो उसे कुछ नहीं मिलेगा। ऐसे में बाहर रह जाने वालों के नाराज होने की पूरी गुंजाइश है। लाभार्थियों की पहचान करना भी समस्या होगा क्योंकि इसका कोई खामी रहित तरीका नहीं है।

परिवार के आकार में भी अंतर हो सकता है और शहरी और ग्रामीण परिवार दोनों में कोई भेद नहीं किया गया है जबकि इन परिवारों के जीवन स्तर और खर्च में काफी अंतर होता है। सबसे बड़ा सवाल राजकोषीय व्यवहार्यता का है। कांग्रेस का दावा है कि इस योजना पर सकल घरेलू उत्पाद (जीडीपी) का 1.2 फीसदी व्यय होगा। परंतु यह आकलन अति आशावादी है। मौजूदा जीडीपी दर के आधार पर यह उसका तकरीबन 2 फीसदी होगा। आर्थिक वृद्घि के साथ तीन वर्ष पश्चात यह विस्तारित जीडीपी का 1.5 फीसदी होगा। परंतु 1.2 फीसदी के अतिरिक्त व्यय पर भी न्याय राजकोष पर भारी पड़ेगा। ऐसे तमाम प्रस्ताव एकीकृत मूलभूत आय (यूबीआई) के विचार से उपजे हैं। यह विचार भी अव्यावहारिक है। अर्थशास्त्री चाहे जो भी कहें लेकिन हकीकत यह है कि कोई भी सरकार मौजूदा लाभ समाप्त नहीं कर सकती। लागत कम रखने के लिए चयन प्रक्रिया के साथ यूबीआई में विसंगति आती है लेकिन इससे चिह्नित करने की ऐसी समस्या खड़ी होती है जिसका हल आसान नहीं है। इसका असर क्रियान्वयन पर भी पड़ता है।

Date:27-03-19

न्याय का तकाजा

न्याय का तकाजा यह कहता है कि जब तक आरोप साबित न हो जाएं तब तक किसी को दोषी नहीं माना जा सकता लेकिन न्याय का यह तकाजा तो सब पर लागू होता है।

संपादकीय

वीवीआइपी हेलीकॉप्टर घोटाले से जुड़े मनी लांड्रिंग मामले में प्रवर्तन निदेशालय की ओर से एक और व्यक्ति की गिरफ्तारी यही बताती है कि इस घोटाले की जड़ें कहीं गहरे तक फैली हुई थीं। फिलहाल यह कहना कठिन है कि हेलीकॉप्टर घोटाले की जांच-पड़ताल कब पूरी होगी, लेकिन इसमें दोराय नहीं कि विशिष्ट व्यक्तियों के लिए हेलीकॉप्टर खरीद में घोटाला हुआ था। हैरानी यह है कि राहुल गांधी राफेल सौदे को लेकर तो बहुत कुछ कह रहे हैैं, लेकिन हेलीकॉप्टर घोटाले पर कुछ भी नहीं कहना चाह रहे हैैं। वह बीते सात-आठ माह से राफेल सौदे को तूल देने में लगे हुए हैैं, लेकिन अभी तक यह नहीं स्पष्ट कर सके हैैं कि इन लड़ाकू विमानों की खरीद में किस तरह की गड़बड़ी हुई और कैसे देश का पैसा इधर-उधर हुआ ?

उनके पास ले-देकर यही कहने को है कि मोदी जी ने अनिल अंबानी की जेब में तीस हजार करोड़ रुपये डाल दिए। वह इस आरोप के पक्ष में भी कोई सबूत नहीं दे पा रहे हैैं। कभी-कभी तो ऐसा लगता है कि वह राफेल सौदे पर बिना किसी प्रमाण चौकीदार चोर है का नारा इसीलिए जोर-शोर से उछालने में लगे हुए हैैं ताकि देश का ध्यान हेलीकॉप्टर घोटाले समेत उन अन्य अनेक घोटालों की ओर न जाए जो मनमोहन सरकार के समय में हुए थे। अगर इस तरह की नारेबाजी सही है तो फिर हेलीकॉप्टर घोटाले में किसे चोर कहा जाना चाहिए?

मनमोहन सरकार के समय के न जाने कितने घोटाले हैं जिनकी जांच-पड़ताल यह बताती है कि उस दौरान सार्वजनिक कोष के धन को जमकर लूटा गया। कुछ घोटाले तो ऐसे हैैं जिनमें खुद कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष और उनके परिजन जांच के घेरे में हैैं। आखिर यह एक तथ्य है कि नेशनल हेराल्ड की संपत्ति को अनुचित तरीके से अपने स्वामित्व वाले ट्रस्ट के हवाले करने के मामले में राहुल गांधी जमानत पर हैैं। इसी तरह प्रियंका गांधी वाड्रा के पति राबर्ट वाड्रा जमीनों के संदिग्ध सौदों के कारण प्रवर्तन निदेशालय के दफ्तरों के चक्कर काट रहे हैैं। कुछ ऐसे ही चक्कर कार्ति चिदंबरम और पी चिदंबरम को काटने पड़ रहे हैैं।

न्याय का तकाजा यह कहता है कि जब तक आरोप साबित न हो जाएं तब तक किसी को दोषी नहीं माना जा सकता, लेकिन न्याय का यह तकाजा तो सब पर लागू होता है। आखिर राफेल सौदे को लेकर राहुल किस आधार पर प्रधानमंत्री को चोर कहने में लगे हुए हैैं? पता नहीं वह इस तरह की राजनीति कब तक करते रहेंगे, लेकिन जांच एजेंसियों के लिए यह आवश्यक हो जाता है कि वे अपना काम तेजी से करें। सुप्रीम कोर्ट के लिए भी यह आवश्यक है कि जिन मामलों की वह सुनवाई कर रहा है उनमें यह देखे कि उनका निपटारा तय समय में हो। यह ठीक है कि गत दिवस सारधा घोटाले में सीबीआइ की प्रगति रिपोर्ट देखकर सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने यह कहा कि जो तथ्य उसके सामने रखे गए हैं वे बेहद गंभीर हैं और उनकी अनदेखी नहीं की जा सकती, लेकिन इस सवाल का जवाब भी सामने आना चाहिए कि इस तरह के घोटालों की जांच कब तक होती रहेगी?

Date:27-03-19

Date:27-03-19

क्या है जनप्रतिनिधियों की संपन्नता का राज

निरंकार सिंह , (लेखक राजनीतिक विश्लेषक हैं)

दौलत आसमान से नहीं टपकती है, लेकिन यदि आप पार्षद, विधायक, सांसद और मंत्री बन जाते हैं तो देखते ही देखते मालामाल कैसे हो जाते हैं? इसका कोई संतोषजनक जवाब हमारे नेताओं के पास नहीं है। ऐसा नहीं है कि सभी नेता भ्रष्ट और बेईमान होते हैं। कई ऐसे भी हैं जिन्होंने सार्वजनिक जीवन में मिसाल भी पेश की है, पर इनकी संख्या बहुत कम है। इसी संदर्भ में सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने केंद्र सरकार से पूछा है कि जनप्रतिनिधियों की संपत्ति में बेतहाशा बढ़ोतरी पर नजर रखने के लिए अब तक कोई स्थायी निगरानी तंत्र क्यों नहीं बना? उसने अपने पिछले वर्ष के आदेश पर अमल के बारे में कानून मंत्रालय और विधायी सचिव से जवाब भी मांगा है।

सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने यह आदेश गैर सरकारी संगठन लोक प्रहरी की ओर से सरकार के खिलाफ दाखिल अवमानना याचिका पर सुनवाई के दौरान दिया है। मालूम हो कि सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने पिछले वर्ष 16 फरवरी को आदेश दिया था कि चुनाव लडऩे वाले उम्मीदवारों को नामांकन भरते समय हलफनामे में स्वयं की ही नहीं, बल्कि अपने जीवन साथी और सहयोगियों की संपत्ति का स्नोत भी बताना होगा। आम आदमी के खाते में चंद पैसों की आमद भी बैंकों के लिए तहकीकात का कारण बन जाती है, लेकिन हमारे माननीयों की संपत्ति में हो रही बेतहाशा वृद्धि खबरों में भी जगह नहीं पाती। हालांकि संपत्ति में बढ़ोतरी निजी मामला है, लेकिन अगर किसी जनप्रतिनिधि की संपत्ति कुछ ही वर्षों में लाख से बढ़कर करोड़ रुपये हो जाए तो यह आंकड़ा अचरज में डालने वाला है। एक आम आदमी कैसा भी व्यापार करे उसे हजार को लाख में बदलने में वर्षों लग जाते हैं, जबकि हमारे माननीय महज एक बार के प्रतिनिधित्व में लाख को करोड़ में बदलने का माद्दा रखते हैं। 2014 में लोकसभा चुनाव में जो 168 सांसद दोबारा चुनकर आए, उनमें से 165 की औसत संपत्ति 12.78 करोड़ रुपये थी, जो 2009 की उनकी औसत संपत्ति से 137 फीसद ज्यादा थी। संपत्ति बढ़ाने का यह सियासी फॉर्मूला न तो उन्हें पता है और न ही वे इसका इस्तेमाल कर सकते हैं, जो बेरोजगारी और गरीबी की मार से जूझ रहे हैं। भारत में इस समय करीब 5 करोड़ लोग रजिस्टर्ड बेरोजगार हैं। बेरोजगारी एवं गरीबी भी उन मुद्दों में से प्रमुख है, जिनका राग अलाप कर लोग राजनीति में आते हैं। सेवा के नाम पर की जा रही सियासत जिस तरह से भारी मुनाफा देने वाले उद्योग में बदलती जा रही है, उससे राजनीति के साथसाथ लोकतंत्र की सार्थकता पर भी सवाल खड़े होते हैं।

लोक प्रहरी द्वारा सुप्रीम कोर्ट में दायर की गई याचिका के मुताबिक दूसरी बार चुने गए 25 सांसदों और 257 विधायकों की संपत्ति 5 साल में 5 गुना बढ़ गई है। वहीं ऐसे सांसदों और विधायकों की संख्या भी सैकड़ों में है, जिनकी संपत्ति में 100 से लेकर 500 फीसद तक की बढ़ोतरी हुई है। इस फेहरिस्त में कई नामचीन हस्तियां भी शामिल हैं, जिनकी संपत्ति में 500 फीसद से ज्यादा की बढ़ोतरी हुई है। विधायकों की संपत्ति में बढ़ोतरी की बात करें तो वे इस मामले में सांसदों से भी आगे हैं। ऐसा भी नहीं है कि यह बढ़ोतरी किसी एक राज्य के किसी एक विधायक की संपत्ति में हुई है। मध्य प्रदेश के विधायकों की औसत संपत्ति में 290 फीसद, हरियाणा के विधायकों की 245 फीसद, महाराष्ट्र के विधायकों की 157 फीसद और छत्तीसगढ़ के विधायकों की औसत संपत्ति में 147 फीसद की बढ़ोतरी हुई है। मध्य प्रदेश और छत्तीसगढ़ के 70 फीसद विधायक तो ऐसे हैं, जिनकी संपत्ति एक करोड़ रुपये से ज्यादा है। सांसदों-विधायकों की संपत्ति में यह बेतहाशा वृद्धि इसलिए भी सवाल खड़े करती है, क्योंकि एक जनप्रतिनिधि के रूप में इनकी कमाई उतनी नहीं होती, जिससे इतनी बढ़ोतरी हो सके। हमारे सांसदों की बात करें तो सैलरी के रूप में इन्हें हर महीने 50 हजार रुपये मिलते हैं। वहीं जब संसद सत्र चल रहा होता है तो प्रत्येक सत्र के हिसाब से 2 हजार रुपये का दैनिक भत्ता  मिलता है। इसके अलावा हर सांसद को निर्वाचन क्षेत्र भत्ता  के नाम पर 45 हजार और कार्यालय खर्च भत्ता  के नाम पर 45 हजार रुपये हर महीने मिलते हैं। यानी सैलरी के रूप में एक सांसद को एक महीने में कुल एक लाख 40 हजार रुपये मिलते हैं। हालांकि इसमें फायदा यह होता है कि उन्हें आम लोगों की तरह इस सैलरी से घर का रेंट, बिजली-फोन का बिल और यात्रा के लिए खर्च नहीं करना पड़ता है। आजादी की अद्र्धशतादी पर लोकसभा के विशेष अधिवेशन में विपक्ष के तत्कालीन नेता की हैसियत से अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी ने कहा था कि ‘लोकतंत्र को सबसे बड़ा खतरा भ्रष्टाचार से है। भ्रष्टाचार का दानव आज हमें निगलने जा रहा है। …इंदिरा गांधी ने एक बार कहा था कि यह (भ्रष्टाचार) अंतरराष्ट्रीय परिघटना है। उन्होंने गलत नहीं कहा था। जहां जहां लोकतंत्र है, वहां भ्रष्टाचार पनपने लगता है। हमने अपनी आंखों से देखा है। अमेरिका के एक राष्ट्रपति को त्याग पत्र देना पड़ा और उपराष्ट्रपति को पद छोडऩा पड़ा। जापान के एक प्रधानमंत्री को जेल जाना पड़ा। कोरिया के एक राष्ट्रपति या प्रधानमंत्री को मृत्युदंड दिया गया। इटली में मंत्री जेल गए हैं। हालांकि भारत में भी भ्रष्टाचार के खिलाफ कुछ कदम उठाए गए हैं, लेकिन धीरे-धीरे उठाए गए हैं।

सत्ता के समीकरण पर उसका या असर होगा, यह पूरी तरह से आंकते हुए कदम उठाए गए हैं। देखा जाए तो यह राष्ट्र की अस्मिता को बचाने का सवाल है। इसके लिए यह सुझाव भी आया था कि राजनेता अपनी संपत्ति का पूरा यौरा दें। सब कुछ लोगों के सामने आना चाहिए। अपने रिश्तेदारों की संपत्ति का विवरण देना भी बहुत जरूरी है, क्योंकि जब कोई राजनेता चुनकर आता है तो थोड़े ही दिनों में उसके सगे-संबंधी मालदार बन जाते हैं। सवाल है कि अगर राजनेता निष्कलंक नहीं होंगे, अगर राजनेता का जीवन पारदर्शी नहीं होगा तो कैसे काम चलेगा? ऐसे नेताओं के विरुद्ध कार्रवाई होनी चाहिए, लेकिन इससे वह नैतिक बल नहीं आएगा जिस नैतिक बल से समाज बदला जाता है, व्यवस्था बदली जाती है। यह केवल कानून बनाने का मामला नहीं है। लोकतंत्र एक स्वच्छ वातावरण की मांग करता है। लोकतंत्र एक नैतिक व्यवस्था है और आज यहां लोकतंत्र दांव पर लगा है।’

Date:26-03-19

The point of having democracy

Public policy must launch an assault on capability deprivation and rising unemployment

Pulapre Balakrishnan is Professor, Ashoka University, Sonipat and Senior Fellow, IIM Kozhikode

As the general election approaches, we are reminded of the observation by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that while raisins may well be the better part of a cake, “a bag of raisins is not a cake”. For, while elections may be an integral part of democracy, surely they cannot be its end. The end is the demos, or the people, and the content of their lives. However, going by the actions of political parties when in power and their pronouncements when they are not, the end of democracy gets overlooked in the political process in India.

Nationalism, secularism

In the run-up to the present, indeed through the greater part of the past five years, two constructs have repeatedly been projected by the main political formations in the country. These are nationalism and secularism, associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, respectively. As are raisins to the cake, so we might say these two ideals are to Indian democracy. But unlike the fruit which, given to us in a natural state, is not malleable, the concepts of nationalism and secularism have proved to be quite that in the use to which they are put by India’s political parties. This by itself may have proved to be less disappointing if they had not in addition privileged these constructs over everything else.

Actually, it is possible for nationalism and secularism to be part of state policy even in the absence of democracy. Thus both Iran under the last Shah and Iraq under Saddam Hussein ran a secular state, though they were both dictators. The People’s Republic of China is so nationalist that even its socialism is said to be imbued with ‘Chinese characteristics’. Its state is not just secular but avowedly atheist. However, it is not a democracy. What is at stake here is that democracy is meant to be something more than just nationalism and secularism. None of this suggests that these two concepts are unrelated to democracy. Indeed they are of it.

Take nationalism first, once we have imagined ourselves as a democratic community we must defend our national interest. Threats to India come from two sources. There are authoritarian regimes in the region that are hostile to India. Second, the western powers have captured global bodies to promote their economic and political interests, for which think of the multilateral agencies that attempt to prise open India’s market without yielding the West’s to migration.

Take secularism next. Based on first principles, we would say that a democracy cannot allow any religious influence on the state’s actions. However, there is a reality in India today that requires a contextual understanding, and this would require the secular state to go beyond this limited brief to protect religious minorities. The relevance of this is brought home by an incident that took place on Holi day when a gang of hoodlums, attacked without provocation, a Muslim family including young children with iron roads in broad daylight in Gurugram outside the national capital. The video, uploaded on the Internet, makes for horrific viewing. It should leave every thinking Hindu raging with anger that terror is directed at innocent Indians in his or her name.

Political responses

To accept the relevance of both nationalism and secularism to Indian society does not, however, entail agreement with the use made of these constructs by India’s political parties. We have just completed five years during which a toxic nationalism has been unleashed. In the BJP’s hands, nationalism or national pride has shown itself to be a means to establish Hindu majoritarian rule, a project with potentially destructive consequences for the country. A substantial part of India views this with trepidation. For its part, over the past 30-plus years the Congress party has often resorted to a sham secularism, the high mark of which came in the form of its response to the Supreme Court ruling on the Shah Bano case. Many citizens, including Muslim Indians, were deeply demoralised. In the State of Kerala, the Congress routinely shares power with sectarian parties while proclaiming its secular credentials. Nobody is fooled.

Of all the leaders India has produced, it is Jawaharlal Nehru who has been the most clear-eyed on the goals of Indian democracy. When asked by the French writer André Malraux as to what he considered his biggest challenge Nehru had replied: “creating a just state by just means [and] creating a secular state in a religious country.” The significance of this was that Nehru saw these goals as challenges to be overcome. Not for him the thought that these tasks were done merely by stating “acche din aane wale hai” or publicised visits to mahants and imams. Some years earlier, at the moment of the ending of colonial rule, Nehru had stated that it was an opportunity to create a “prosperous, democratic and progressive” India. He had read the aspirations of his compatriots astutely. Prosperity was not considered second to progressive thinking, even if the latter meant nationalism and secularism.

Just society by just means

In the close to three quarters of a century since, the goal of Indian democracy had been articulated prosperity is not in sight for the vast majority. On the other hand, a section of Indians has surged ahead economically. Not just the very rich but the middle classes too are now much richer than they were. For the rest of the country, however, it is an ongoing struggle to earn a living. A just society must seem far away to these Indians. But a just society by just means is no longer a pipe dream, it is entirely feasible, and in our times at that. The pathway to it lies in adopting the right public policies, and it is in the hands of India’s political parties to do so.

To address the economic hardship of the majority of Indians, public policy should now shift gear to launch an assault on the capability deprivation which underlies India’s low human development indicators. The poorly educated millions are helplessly caught in the eddies of a market economy. Their skills do not match what is required for them to earn a decent living. Overcoming this requires two actions to be undertaken. It would require committing resources to education and training and then governing their use. In fact, we elect and then maintain a political class to govern the system. Instead, it acts as if its sole task is to lecture the public on either nationalism or secularism, as the case may be, leaving the task of governance entirely to the bureaucracy. This empowers the bureaucracy in an undesirable way, amounting to its not having to be accountable.

The second task of public policy in India at this moment is to raise the tempo of economic activity. Jobs are an issue. The government cannot create jobs directly but it can create the preconditions. It does so through public investment and macroeconomic policy. For about a decade now, the latter has been conducted unimaginatively. Amateurish economic management is responsible for rising unemployment. India’s political parties cannot say that the pathway to the ends of democracy has not been shown to them. If they fail to take the country there, they must assume responsibility.

Date:26-03-19

Balancing work

More women can be a part of the workforce only if men share the burden of unpaid care work 

Garimella Subramaniam , [ The writer is a Deputy Editor at The Hindu in Chennai]

The underlying gender bias in unpaid care work is a critical factor contributing to gender inequality, says the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) latest report. The ILO’s 2017 global sample survey established that 70% of women were eager to be in paid employment outside their home. But an ILO study last year found that only about 45% of women had jobs. This underscores the gap between their desires and reality.

The report, ‘A quantum leap for gender equality: For a better future of work for all’, which was launched earlier this month, shows that unpaid care work posed the biggest impediment to women’s employment. Some 21.7% of women of working age are engaged full time in caregiving without pay, says the report. Only 1.5% of men fall in this category.

The impact of unpaid work on women manifests itself at many levels. There is motherhood penalty (which means that mothers in the workforce experience additional disadvantages compared to women who are not mothers). This is more acute for women with children in the 0-5 age group than among those with older children. In addition, there is also the parenthood employment gap that unfairly privileges fathers. The ILO reports an increase in both these groups in several countries that were surveyed. More starkly, there is a wage penalty associated with motherhood, as opposed to a wage premium linked to fatherhood, over an entire career span. This translates into a leadership penalty. Only about 25% of women with young children are said to occupy managerial positions. This contrasts with some 75% among fathers in comparable situations.

A skewed distribution of unpaid work yields unequal dividends from educational attainments. Gender enrolment gaps were said to have closed by 2017 in secondary and tertiary education. But women make up over 69% of youth who are not in employment, education or training. These numbers should explain why the bulk of women drift into unpaid care activities. In most of the developing world, even when they are engaged in paid work, it is predominantly in the unorganised sector.

Among adults with a university degree, 41.5% of women are either unemployed or outside the labour force, compared to 17.2% among men. But those who manage to break through barriers are better qualified than men and rise to the top even faster. Across the world, over 44% of women managers hold an advanced degree, as compared to 38.3% among male counterparts.

A rebalancing of current roles is critical to expand the arena of paid work for women and reduce the long working hours for men. That may also be the answer to promoting women’s participation in the workforce.