Mahua Moitra, Kangaroo Courts, Food Hyperinflation, Zoram People’s Alliance, Samant Goel, Religious Pluralism, Hinduphobia
Supreme Court roster issue continues, air pollution toxic but not poll issue, less than 10% of SC judges women, mountain climate change ignored, PM launches ‘Wed in India’ movement in all seriousness
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal
Snapshot of the day
December 8, 2023
Pratik Kanjilal
Accepting the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee’s controversial conclusion that TMC MP Mahua Moitra’s conduct as an MP was “immoral and indecent” in the so-called cash-for-questions matter, House Speaker Om Birla held a vote which the ruling BJP ensured led to her expulsion. The Congress and the TMC had sought more time to study the report. Moitra was not allowed to speak for the TMC in the debate. The Opposition walked out, and she maintained that there was no evidence of cash changing hands. ‘I am 49 years old and I will fight you for the next 30 years inside and outside parliament’, Moitra said outside.
Janata Dal (United) MP Giridhari Yadav attacked the Ethics Committee’s report, asking why it never cross-examined the businessman who is alleged to have paid Moitra to ask questions. He also said he himself did not know how to use a computer and thus his questions were put up by someone else. Speaker Birla’s response – "I request all members to prepare their own questions. This is against the norms. I can take action against members who do not prepare their own questions" – was itself a telling comment on the extreme punishment being meted out to Moitra.
India’s democracy relies on the separation of powers, but the bulk suspension of Opposition party MPs suggests that the executive, which should be answerable to the legislature, has acquired more power over the House in the last 10 years. The functioning of Parliament was noted by analysts at V-Dem, IDEA International and Freedom House, which had downgraded India to the status of “electoral autocracy” that is only “partly free”.
A constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud is scheduled to pronounce on Monday its judgment on the challenge to the abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution, which gave special privileges to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is believed that the CJI and Justice Sanjay Kaul have authored two separate judgements for the bench, reports the Hindustan Times.
Sikhs on both coasts of the US are coming to terms with the news that a separatist was targeted for assassination in the US. “The community for a long time has understood that their dissenting voices have been silenced,” Kiran Kaur Gill, executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund in Washington told the New York Times. “But to see the fears of the community realised in such an extreme way with the allegations of the potential assassination against a Sikh American is deeply traumatising.” Some community leaders are self-censoring public communications about India. One is relying on American-style self-defence: a gun.
The Economist surmises that the most acceptable end to India’s assassination debacle would be to blame it on former RAW chief Samant Goel, who was in office when the plot is alleged to have been hatched, and who retired in June. It would absolve PM Modi of the matter.
Two members have resigned from the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission, complaining that the Eknath Shinde government is pressing it to “ascertain existence of exceptional circumstances and or extraordinary situations in the context of Maratha community justifying exceeding of the limit of 50% reservation as laid down in the judgements of the Supreme Court.” The Supreme Court had struck down reservations exceeding 50% of positions in May 2021, but the Shinde government had promised to revisit the issue after protests broke out.
The RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee has kept key interest rates unchanged and retained its inflation projection for this year at 5.4%, but raised its GDP growth projection for 2023-24 to 7%, up from 6.5%. Stock markets rose to new heights.
Rs 200 crore in cash has been recovered in income tax raids from premises linked to Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dheeraj Sahu in Jharkhand.
Reuters was forced to take down a story investigating an alleged hack-for-hire operation run by an Indian IT firm after a Delhi court found it defamatory in a preliminary order. The targets included prominent persons around the globe, including politicians, military officials and business executives. Reuters will contest the ruling.
As agricultural growth slows down, 2024 is projected to be a year of hyperinflation in food, after years of high food inflation. The price of lentils, the main source of protein for vegetarians, has jumped 21%. Thalinomics needs to be on election manifestos, says Indra Shekhar Singh.
While the BJP seems to be in no hurry to appoint chief ministers in the states it has won ― they were won in Modi’s name, so it doesn’t really matter ― in Telangana, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has already signed off on two files, beginning action on election promises. “With a Reddy as chief minister and a Dalit as his deputy, the Telangana Congress appears to have resolved internal conflicts to put together a caste-diverse cabinet which included two Dalits, one Adivasi, three Reddys, one Velama, one Kamma, two OBCs and one Brahmin,” says The News Minute. CM Reddy also had imposing security arrangements outside the Chief Minister’s Camp Office in Hyderabad removed and opened the building to the public.
The listing of cases in the Supreme Court is increasingly controversial. The Print lists the cases affected, including one argued by Dushyant Dave, who wrote an open letter to the Chief Justice of India. Among others are the bail plea of Umar Khalid and a plea of the Foundation of Media Professionals. Prashant Bhushan has now written to the Supreme Court Registry, pointing out the “arbitrary” listing of cases to the court of Justice Bela M Trivedi, which should have gone to the CJI. Not to be left behind, Supreme Court Bar Association president Adish C Aggarwala has also written to the Chief Justice of India, expressing “shock” at a senior member of the bar writing an open letter, and urging him to ignore “such malicious, motivated and dubious attempts” that are “self-serving attacks on the independence of the judiciary”.
Delhi University’s academic council could not discuss a strategic plan for the next 25 years because the 52-page document was found to be heavily plagiarised from numerous plans of other universities from around the world. The registrar, however, said that only 8% of the document was plagiarised. Sections were lifted from the literature of Ohio State University and the University of Sheffield.
The Haryana State Commission for Women wants an FIR to be filed against Prof Sameena Dalwai of OP Jindal Global University at Sonepat for trying to force third year students to make a profile on the dating app Bumble to better understand a course module named ‘Gender, Sexuality and Desire’, which “dealt with the intricate interplay of caste, class and various other social identities in ‘shaping and influencing our experiences of desire’.” When they were reluctant to use their own identities, she wanted them to use a photograph of Rahul Gandhi, which they said was an impersonation. She also got them to open the app, which they read as an invasion of privacy, reports The Tribune. Dalwai is in the system’s cross-hairs because of a teach-in she organised on the Israeli war against Palestine.
Yet another RTI about an IIM-SBI study into the social impact of ‘Mann ki Baat’, which PM Modi had cited, has drawn a blank. Undeterred, at the Uttarakhand Global Investors Summit 2023 in Dehradun, he launched the ‘Wed in India’ movement, a child process of ‘Make in India’.
China has killed pollution while India chokes
Asia’s fastest-growing nations India and China have both struggled with overpowering air pollution, which has historically been a consequence of rapid growth. China has managed to scrub its air clean, while India still breathes an airborne soup. As temperatures and wind speeds fall with every winter, the entire breadth of north India is under a poisonous pall. In 2022, 39 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities were in India. This November, Delhi’s air had 14 times more particulate matter than that of Beijing. “India’s pollution crisis is conspicuously absent from its climate and environmental ambitions, both on the world stage and at home. It also remains far from the top of the agenda of a coming national election that observers widely expect will sweep Prime Minister Narendra Modi into a third term. That’s despite a study last week showing air pollution killed an estimated 2.18 million Indians per year,” says Bloomberg.
Internet growth in decline in cheapest data market
India’s internet growth continues to decline. From a double-digit growth rate from 2016 to 2020, it fell to about 4% in 2021 and 2022, according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data. Internet growth in the first quarter of 2023 increased by only 1.7% compared to the last quarter of 2022. The ongoing decline in entry and mid-level smartphone sales in India remains the biggest reason for the decline in Internet growth. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), smartphone sales in 2022 have declined 10% compared to 2021. This year, the decline has been in low single digits. An IDC release said India is now almost back to the 2019 levels of smartphone sales. This explains why growth in both Internet and broadband users has been slow. According to comScore data, the number of regular Internet users has held at 510 million since December last year. That’s about 78% of the 65 crore Indians who own a smartphone.
Chhattisgarh would have voted BJP even without Modi campaign
Lokniti has published the results of its Chhattisgarh voter survey. Like in other election-going states, voters thought prices (81%) and corruption (68%) had risen in the last five years. Almost half of respondents (47%) thought the Bhupesh Baghel government could not tackle unemployment. While 81% were satisfied with the Union government, 71% were satisfied with the state government, and a majority thought the BJP is doing more to fight corruption (50%). The BJP enjoyed greater support among male, female, upper caste, OBC and ST voters – as well as among voters of all education levels, age groups and classes (except “lower class”) – than the Congress, which was the preferred party of Dalits and Muslims. Most BJP voters said they would have voted lotus even if Modi wasn’t the face of the party’s campaign in the state.
Mountain climate change needs attention
In a stark warning, the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) unveiled a report highlighting “catastrophic loss” to Himalayan glaciers, even at a 2°C temperature rise, surpassing the Paris Agreement limit. Released on the eve of the world breaching pre-industrial levels by 2°C on November 17, the report finds the 1.5°C goal to be imperative. According to the new report, the Hindu Kush Himalayas face severe consequences, with irreversible damage to glacial areas threatening millions. “The heavily populated HKH and the ten basins of the Himalayan rivers will face drastic hydrographic changes in such a scenario of global warming,” Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, told The Third Pole. Many researchers and NGOs working in the Hindu Kush Himalayas believe mountains do not get the attention they deserve at global climate negotiations.
The Long Cable
Where the Zoram People’s Alliance in Mizoram is coming from
Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty
On December 8, with the swearing-in of a new chief minister, Mizoram formally records the blossoming of a new regional entity, the Zoram People’s Alliance (ZPM). In ZPM’s rise, Northeast has also added a new chapter to its protracted sub-nationalist political history.
At 74, the new chief minister and ZPM founder, Lalduhoma, may seem a little too old to lead a state, but he was the youngest among the Mizo leaders vying for the chief minister’s post in the November 7 elections.
Zoramthanga, whom he unseated, is 79. Lalsawta of the Congress, who would have become the chief minister had the grand old party got the numbers on December 4, is 77.
Among the top Mizo leaders since Mizoram became a state in 1987, only Laldenga’s chief ministerial run was cut short at 63 by lung cancer. After C Chhunga, the first chief minister of Mizoram as a union territory, Laldenga was undoubtedly its tallest leader; the founder of Mizo National Front (MNF), and a signatory to the Mizo Accord of 1986 which brought down the curtain on its insurgency and made the UT India’s 23rd state.
It was that invincible MNF that ZPM has shown to the door in a clean sweep in these elections. Since Laldenga’s death in 1990, MNF had been led by Zoramthanga.
ZPM, an alliance of six regional entities, hinged on Mizo sub-nationalism. It has risen to power now, but its electoral presence was seen with interest by political observers back in 2018. With the anti-incumbency of a two-time Lal Thanhawla-led Congress government (He was cumulatively the longest serving chief minister of Mizoram) then riding high, both MNF and the BJP strived to make Mizoram Congress-mukt, like other Northeastern states.
ZPM had jumped into the fray, too. However, since it was born only in 2017, its fundamentals were not in place. It didn’t have a party symbol recognised by the Election Commission. Its candidates in 35 of the 40 constituencies where it contested had to fight as independents. Eight of them, led by Lalduhoma, were elected. Though ZPM became the second largest party, without a party symbol, it couldn’t be the largest Opposition party.
In 2018 too, the three-decades-old tradition of Congress and MNF sharing power in Mizoram alternately may have continued, but the tally indicated an implicit public sanction for a new regional party.
That this indication was seen as a threat by the ruling MNF could be assessed from the fact that Lalduhoma was disqualified from the Assembly in 2020 for having moved to ZPM formally after the Commission recognised it as a political party, without resigning as an independent MLA.
For Laldhuhoma, an IPS officer of the 1974 batch, it was, however, a second disqualification under the anti-defection law. Interestingly, if a state satrap like Zoramthanga saw in him a political threat, precipitating his disqualification on technical grounds, he was also thrown out of Parliament back in 1988, after resigning from the Congress following a power tussle with another satrap, Lal Thanhawla. Lalduhoma thus became the first Lok Sabha MP to be disqualified under that law.
Lalduhoma’s entry into politics from the bureaucracy owed to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ― she noticed him when he was in charge of her security. Her government utilised him in the Mizo peace process with Laldenga.
However, that lateral entry from New Delhi into Mizo affairs was not taken lightly by chief minister Lal Thanhawla. He was sidelined in the state Congress, ultimately leading to his exit.
A regionalist at heart, Lalduhoma went on to form a new party, Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP); became a ZNP MLA too but failed to grow it into a power to reckon with, until it consolidated itself into ZPM. His 25 years of waiting to become an alternative to the MNF and Congress finally bore fruit.
Soon after ZPM’s win, he reiterated his commitment to Zo unification, a stitching together of the Zo-Kuki dominated areas of Manipur into Mizoram, a demand that Laldenga had raised with the Rajiv Gandhi government. He failed due to the Centre’s unwillingness to balkanize Manipur.
Since 2018, Lalduhoma has kept good relations with BJP. Though the state BJP had expressed its willingness to be part of the government, Lalduhoma has not conceded to it. More importantly, it remains to be seen whether that closeness of the ZPM with the BJP can also convince the Narendra Modi government to help deliver that tall Zo unification promise which Laldenga couldn’t make good on.
Prime Number: 8.82% women
Less than a quarter of Supreme Court judges are SC/STs, OBCs and other minorities. And as for the sex ratio, the three women judges make up 8.82% of the count, says Ashish Tripathi in Deccan Herald. There’s no social justice. (Link)
Deep Dive
In a London School of Economics blog article titled, ‘Why are you not doing research in your home country?’, Ilaha Abasli and Ahmed Elassal look at the experience of “being researchers from the Global South working on the Global South from institutions in the Global North”. Work on Africa is mostly authored by researchers in the US and EU, and “examples of Global South researchers conducting fieldwork in the Global North are rarer still”. The absurdity of this asymmetry was exposed in a recent debate sparked when the Journal of African Cultural Studies “published a satirical scenario about a Tanzanian researcher undertaking fieldwork on the sexual practices of academics in North Oxford”.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
Hartosh Singh Bal says that the bureaucracy is too hierarchical to venture into assassination without clearances from above. Why would India risk so much for so little?
Mahua Moitra’s expulsion from Parliament reeks of political vendetta says CPI(M) MP John Brittas.
As it tries to position itself as the voice of the Global South, India’s foreign policy in the neighbourhood is in bad shape. Most South Asian states are now sceptical of India’s primacy, writes Happymon Jacob. “It is time India made a mental switch and acknowledged that South Asia and its balance of power have changed fundamentally. Old South Asia where India enjoyed primacy no longer exists.”
Analysts who have toted up the total votes the Congress got across all four major states which went to the polls recently to make the case that the party has done well are missing the point, says Shivasundar, joining issue with Yogendra Yadav.
Shinjinee Majumder traces how the Indian right wing spearheaded disinformation and propaganda about the conflict in Gaza.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index exaggerates the NDA’s success in fighting deprivation, say Radhika Aggarwal, Vani S Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha. “Not only does the MPI exaggerate the NDA’s success in fighting deprivation but also, perhaps more seriously, obfuscates conventional measures of it which may unravel a contradictory story of poverty.”
Jyoti Punwani takes note of what states lose when the BJP wins them: peace of mind. Maharashtra has seen the rise of hate campaigns and Rajasthan got a taste of it during the campaign and directly after it. But when the BJP lost Karnataka, plans to contain hate followed.
Accusations of Hinduphobia in the US are an easy way to silence critics of Hindu nationalism. Challenging this agenda requires both active condemnation of the Hindu right and active compassion and support for diaspora Hindus who experience discrimination, say Sravya Tadepalli and Sunita Viswanath.
Listen up
On ‘Grand Tamasha’, Dipankar Ghose and Sunetra Choudhury break down the recent state Assembly results. What went wrong for Congress? What went right for the BJP? And what are the implications for the 2024 race? Listen here.
Watch out
Manu S Pillai spoke on the history of religious pluralism in India in the Extramural Lectures series at IIT-Madras.
Over and out
On The Smart Set, Sudipto Sanyal contemplates the strangeness and sublimeness of Shehan Karunatilaka, who blends into the decadent Kolkata scene like a native and believes that he has just a few months more than Maali Almeida to live the life of fame.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.