Mr X Goes to Court; EC Wades into School Education; Women Will Be Half the 2024 Vote; India's Struggling Opposition Needs 'Productivism'
Onion export ban triggers Gujarat protests, Maldives wants India out of ocean surveys, Maha farmers’ suicides, ED to withdraw masala bonds case, biryani orders belie veg India myth
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 15, 2023
Pratik Kanjilal
Seven months after, the bodies of 64 people who died in the ethnic violence in Manipur were airlifted yesterday for the last rites. This followed from the Supreme Court’s November 29 directive to the Manipur government seeking “decent and dignified” disposal of unclaimed bodies of people killed in the ethnic conflict. Officials said that 60 bodies of people of the Kuki-Zo community were flown from Imphal to locations in Churachandpur and Kangpokpi districts. The bodies of four Meiteis were flown from Churachandpur town to Imphal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet to visit the state. Meanwhile, another Kuki has been killed there.
A relative of Nikhil Gupta filed a habeas corpus plea in the Supreme Court seeking India’s intervention into Gupta’s detention in the Czech Republic, claiming that it is illegal for lack of a formal arrest and for being at the behest of US agents. The petition, intriguingly titled Mr X v/s Union of India and Others, claims that he was apprehended after he had cleared immigration at Prague airport, bundled into an SUV and forced to hand over his phones to US officials who promptly copied his data. The petitioner also claimed that Gupta had to eat beef and pork as the Czech prison authorities refused him the vegetarian diet he wanted. Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti initially said that Gupta would have to approach a Czech court for relief, according to Bar and Bench, but the matter has been deferred to January 4, 2024.
The Enforcement Directorate has told the Kerala High Court it will withdraw the summons issued to former Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac and officials of the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) over ‘masala bonds’ ― rupee bonds issued outside India.
The Centre’s sudden ban on onion exports has triggered widespread protests among farmers and traders in Gujarat — the second largest onion producer in India and the BJP’s ‘model state’. Farmers are taking to the streets and trading has been suspended.
If a foreign government had simply rebuffed Indian judicial requests for cooperation in a corruption probe, Indian TV channels would have been all over the news. But when it is Amit Shah’s Home Ministry which is doing the rebuffing and the request pertains to Rafale corruption, the vast majority of the Indian media has chosen to simply ignore the story. The details of the issue were reported in the India Cable yesterday.
Elon Musk was upbeat after meeting PM Modi, but his government has said that it will not provide the magic potion for a deal ― import duty breaks on electric vehicles. It comes as a surprise, and Tesla gets the bad news in the midst of mass recalls in the US.
Meanwhile, the business of the House is as usual.
The Supreme Court, with a 2:1 majority, has suspended the conviction of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Afzal Ansari under the UP Gangster Act, allowing the restoration of his Lok Sabha membership. Although he can attend House proceedings, he cannot vote or receive perks. He shall not be disbarred from elections while his criminal appeal is before the High Court. If he is elected, it will be subject to the outcome of the first criminal appeal. It also asked the Allahabad High Court to decide his criminal appeal before June 30, 2024. Ansari was disqualified from the Lok Sabha on May 1.
The Delhi High Court has said that the plea to de-register political parties bearing names with caste and religious connotations should be decided by Parliament.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the Mamaji of Madhya Pradesh for 18 years, is not going quietly into the sunset. He has said he “would die... won’t go to Delhi.” What’s his future, then?
'The Bitter Taste of Kiwis', a multi-country investigation series on the plight of Indian labour in Europe by Kusum Arora, Stefania Prandi, Francesca Cicculli and Charlotte Aagaard, has been shortlisted for two awards.
Netflix’s Engagement Report on global viewership is out and Indian content garnered less views on the streaming platform than content from around the world. Only four Indian films/shows made it to the top 1000.
Humiliated woman judge seeks CJI’s permission to commit suicide
A woman judge in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh has asked the Chief Justice of India for permission to end her life, following “abuse” and “harassment” she has endured in her career. The civil judge said that she was writing to her “eldermost guardian” in “extreme pain and despair”. The letter reads, “I joined the Judicial Service with much enthusiasm and the belief that I would dispense Justice to the common folk. What did I know that I’ll be soon rendered a beggar for Justice at every door that I go to. In the short time of my service, I have had the rare honour of being abused (the dreaded Hindi mother curse word) on Dais in open court. I have been sexually harassed to the very limit. I have been treated like utter garbage. I feel like an unwanted insect. And I hoped to provide justice to others. What Naive me! I wish to tell all the working women in India: Learn to live with sexual harassment. It’s the truth of our lives.” The judge calls the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment Act (2013) “a big wholesome lie”. The CJI has sought a report from the Allahabad High Court.
Maldives wants India out of ocean surveys
After calling for the withdrawal of Indian military personnel, the Maldives has conveyed to India its intention to terminate a bilateral agreement that permitted New Delhi to collaborate in a hydrographic survey of Maldivian territorial waters, reports the Maldives Sun. Undersecretary for Public Policy at the President’s Office Mohamed Firuzul Abdul Khaleel said the new government would not renew the bilateral agreement, which expires on June 7, 2024.
“If one party wishes to drop the agreement, the other party must be informed of the decision six months before the agreement is set to expire. According to the terms, the agreement automatically renews for an additional five years, otherwise,” he said. There has been no formal comment from the Indian side. The MoU on cooperation in hydrography was established during PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the Maldives in June 2019. The island nation feels it is in its national interest to use its own army to conduct such surveys, to protect sensitive information. India had been charting reefs, lagoons, coastlines and currents since 2019.
In 2024, women’s will account for half the vote
The gender gap in Indian voter participation will narrow significantly, with women expected to comprise half of the turnout in the 2024 national elections, according to a report by the State Bank of India (SBI). The SBI’s Economic Research Department highlighted the escalating importance of women voters, estimating a turnout of 680 million, of which 330 million are women. The report underscores the impact of increasing literacy and education among women, a crucial decision-making group. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s targeted initiatives towards women have contributed to this shift, yielding dividends for the BJP. CSDS Lokniti found that the BJP did better than the Congress in the recent state elections with women voters but the gap was narrower in rural areas (2%) than urban (11%).
Election Commission wades into education
The Election Commission has written to the Modi government, expressing concerns about “factual mistakes and infirmities” in NCERT social science textbooks, reports The Print. The EC aims to review the content because the existing material inadequately prepares students to take ethical electoral decisions. The proposal, stemming from correspondence since 2016 between the chief election commissioner and the Ministry of Education, includes suggestions for amendments, notably in two chapters removed in 2022. The EC contends that the focus should shift from unnecessary conflict elaboration to fostering citizenship development. The proposal is now with the committee revising the National Curriculum Framework, emphasising the importance of mainstreaming electoral literacy in educational institutions.
The dropped chapter in the Class 6 textbook dealt with equality, justice, apartheid, movements led by Dalits, Adivasis, minorities and discrimination. It pointed out how “religious processions and celebrations can sometimes lead to conflicts”. The EC observed that “instead of conflict and examples of solutions under ‘collective voice’, it would be appropriate to narrate solutions that democracy offers in a legitimate manner”. Based on its scrutiny of the Class 10 social science textbook, the EC has said the chapter ‘Political Parties’ would require the EC’s “vetting” for accuracy and efficacy.
‘Chilling pattern of repression’ in Bangladesh
Bangladeshi courts have convicted more than 1,100 Opposition officials and activists since September, as the Sheikh Hasina government cracks down. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) says that these cases are politically motivated and aimed at suppressing potential alternatives to Hasina’s 15 year rule. The party’s legal head, Kayser Kamal, emphasised that over 1,000 BNP activists and several dozen activists from other Opposition parties were convicted in 69 cases in the past three months alone. The latest convictions, which include 127 BNP activists sentenced to prison on Wednesday, intensify concerns about fairness and political neutrality. Some of the defendants were found guilty of violence during elections in 2014 and 2018. Chief Prosecutor Abdullah Abu says that the trials aim to reduce pendency. Critics see a “chilling pattern of repression.”
The Long Cable
Vanishing middle class and struggling Opposition need productivism
Deepanshu Mohan
The International Economic Association’s global conference at Medellin, Colombia, is grappling with new questions about development economics. The presidential address was delivered by Dani Rodrik. Readers may want to refer to his earlier work on the globalisation paradox, fiercely argued at a time when supply-side, neoliberal economic ideology and a hyper-globalisation wave – built around a need to unconditionally enable cross-border capital movements at the cost of domestic macroeconomic stabilisation, particularly in developing economies – ruled the roost. Rodrik’s work made space for mainstream critical voices among economists and in policy about the limitations of hyper-globalism advocated within the neoliberalism paradigm.
At Medellin, Rodrik offered a new approach as a theory of economic change built around ‘good jobs’, drawing on his recent work . He postulates a new theoretical approach for countries struggling to rebalance policy priorities aimed at a need to globalise (via trade, finance, flexible immigration laws) and also secure a domestic-focused commitment to socio-cultural ‘national priorities’ (often wrapped in an ideological, majoritarian agenda). Much of the populist imagination of the political Right concerns the need to meet these two goals, and they have constantly struggled due to the absence of an alternative theory of economic change.
Rodrik calls this new approach (to the theory of economic change) ‘productivism’. According to him, it can help “prioritise the dissemination of productive economic opportunities throughout all regions of the economy and segments of the labour force.” It differs from neoliberalism in giving governments and civil society a significant role. It puts less faith in markets and is suspicious of large corporations.
Productivism, as a normative and applied policy approach, emphasises
“production and investment over finance, and revitalising local communities over globalisation. It also departs from the Keynesian welfare state – the paradigm that neoliberalism replaced ― by focusing less on redistribution, social transfers and macroeconomic management and more on creating economic opportunity by working on the supply side of the economy to create good, productive jobs for everyone”.And, the paradigm “diverges from both of its antecedents by exhibiting greater scepticism towards technocrats and being less instinctively hostile to populism in the economic sphere”.
Keeping its nomenclature aside from a political economy perspective, Rodrik’s approach combines key policy ingredients:
Safeguard ‘good jobs’ to help the upward mobility of the lower socio-economic class, which failed to get much from neoliberalism, and
Take the ‘productivity’ debate in economic policy back to a labour-intensive sectoral focus, which is critical for the creation of middle-income groups from the upward mobility of the poor. This remained central to the developmental stories (and socio-economic mobility) of post 80s China and post 90s India.
A focus on labour-intensive productivity, not just in manufacturing but also in low-skill services (for India), that enables good employment, rebuilds domestic supply-chains, ensures better working conditions (especially for women), and provides a better redistributive environment in the government’s fiscal choices, can offer a useful ideological approach to the status quo, which are anchored without any theory of economic change by the current government. The issues are not restricted to India.
In the US after Trump, we saw this in the way the Biden administration pivoted its economic policy. According to Rodrik, “The wholesale embrace of industrial policies to facilitate the green transition, rebuild domestic supply chains and stimulate good jobs, the finger-pointing at corporate profits as a partial culprit behind inflation, and the refusal (so far) to revoke Trump’s tariffs against China are some examples.”
In The Vanishing Middle Class (2017), MIT economic historian Peter Temin pointed out that the Lewis model of a dual economy had become increasingly relevant to the US. According to Temin, a combination of forces – de-industrialization, globalisation, new technologies that favour professionals and capitalists, and declining protections for labour – have produced a widening gap between winners and those left behind. Convergence between poor and rich parts of the economy was arrested, labour markets became increasingly polarised between highly educated workers and the rest, and regional disparities widened.
If we look at output-employment growth the last 6 years, particularly from the post-demonetization period (2016), there has been a sharp fall in overall output (if we only look at industrial production levels) and in the aggregate employment rate of the eligible job-seeking population. Even more strikingly, the female employment rate has dropped from 11.88% (2016-17) to 7.96% (2021-22). In urban areas, for women, it has dropped from 10.77% to 5.57% in the same period.
From 2016-2021, the top 20% rich have seen almost a 40% rise in income growth while the middle 20%, lower middle 20% and poorest 20% have all seen negative income growth.
The Temin phenomenon is visible in a vanishing middle class, which hasn’t received a better bargain from the Modi government’s economic policies, and has lost more than it gained in terms of jobs and income growth. Rising inflation in the essentials basket adversely impacts real wages, consumption and demand-supply issues, making the poor worse off.
Productivism can bring economic policy change back to key focal points. An elected government needs to be the guide of change in economic policy, and Opposition politics in India would need to have a good sense of what they want to do, and how.
Earlier policy paradigms, from mercantilism to Keynesianism and neoliberalism, were primarily economists’ paradigms and according to Rodrik, had significant blind spots when it came to key social, cultural and national priority issues (which is what gave rise to an alternative imagination of the political and economic establishment dominated by right-wing strongman politics).
As Rodrik says,
“Our societies are confronted today with vital challenges that require new economic approaches and significant policy experimentation. But those who are looking for a new economic paradigm – or actively trying to develop one ― should be careful what they are wishing for. By the time a set of ideas become conventional wisdom, it is riddled with one-size-fits-all generalisations. Our goal should be not to create tomorrow’s ossified vision, but to learn how to adapt our policies and institutions to changing exigencies. Productivism may be the right approach for today’s challenges. Yet the more successful it is, the less relevant it will become to future challenges.”Opposition politics in India would need to adopt a new economic theory of change, built upon the progressive ideas (and policy approaches) of productivism, focusing on issues vital to a vanishing middle class, while creating an aspirational trajectory of upward mobility for the (low-middle) income groups left behind, in terms of jobs, output production processes, tech skills integration etc.
(Deepanshu Mohan is professor of economics and director, Centre for New Economics Studies, Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, OP Jindal Global University)
Reportedly
Stung by senior members of the Bar raising questions about many cases finding their way into the courtroom of a certain judge, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has been on the defensive and asked why certain lawyers want certain benches. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta tried to say that senior advocates Prashant Bhushan and Dushyant Dave must be ignored, but the CJI could not do that. The issue of master of the roster is not going away so easily.
Prime Number: 2,366 in 10 months
Farmers’ suicides continue unabated in Maharashtra, with 2,366 cases between January and October. That’s nearly 240 farmers ending their lives every month, or seven farmers every day. The highest number of farmers’ suicides has been reported in Vidarbha ― 951 farmers committed suicide in the Amravati revenue division and 257 in the Nagpur division. Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation Anil Patil informed the legislature that 877 farmers’ suicides were also reported in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar division (Marathwada), 254 in Nashik division (Khandesh) and 27 in Pune division (Western Maharashtra).
Deep Dive
The opera Le Roi de Lahore, set in British India, propelled the career of Jules Massenet, one of the foremost French operatic composers. The novelty of its setting rendered failure impossible, and its triumphant staging in 1877 elevated Massenet to sensational acclaim in France and throughout Europe. But in hindsight, the critically acclaimed work is a bit odd. Le Roi de Lahore’s creators were India-blind, unaware of its mythologies, faiths and cultures, says Ajay Kamalakaran.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
Asad Rehman writes: “Rich countries have worked hard to try to get a hollow headline on fossil fuels out of this COP. They are like emperors with no clothes.”
A smoke screen held up a mirror to the running of Parliament, writes Jawhar Sircar.
The trigger for the smoke bomb attack on Parliament was to draw attention to the manner in which the ruling party has ignored issues like unemployment, says Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta.
Indian authorities have used three tactics to suppress support for Palestine at home, Azad Essa writes in his newsletter Militarists and Vegetarians, which explores the relationship between Zionism and Hindutva.
When governments enter the fray, art begins to flounder. The architect Gautam Bhatia writes on the fine line between State support and politicisation.
The Economist says that The New York Times “is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist.”
Listen up
Over the past few decades, India has undergone a significant journey, and KP Krishnan has been along on the ride. On The Seen and the Unseen with Amit Varma, he shares insights from his remarkable life and the valuable lessons he has acquired on the way.
Watch out
Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba’s Breaking the Mould has an economic roadmap and a warning for India. But is anyone listening, asks Akash Banerjee.
Over and out
Biryani is the most-ordered dish on Swiggy for the eighth year in a row, reports Businessline. India ordered 2.5 biryanis per second in 2023. For every 5.5 chicken biryanis, one veg biryani was ordered. So much for the myth of India being a veg nation. A standout Swiggy user from Hyderabad ordered 1,633 biryanis this year (that averages to four biryanis a day).
Moving on from the failed 70 hour work week, NR Narayan Murthy has warned about deepfakes about himself. One is out, promoting a new investing platform in partnership with Elon Musk.
Amitabh Bachhan’s idiosyncratic numbered tweeting style was in the news for trying to respond to rumours about a divorce between his son Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai. The cryptic tweet numbered T 4854 went, “Everything said everything done… so do the done and done the do…”
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you tomorrow, 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.