Saturday, July 30, 2016

A law against children

The amended act legalises the bulk of child labour while claiming to do the opposite.

written by Harsh Mander | July 29, 2016

Of the many injustices that have scarred India, the most unconscionable are those of unequal childhoods. The law in the country has permitted children to be confined to work instead of being in schools and at carefree play. India’s child labour law, until the recent amendments passed by Parliament, barred child work until 14 years only in officially designated hazardous employment. There was no bar on the employment of children between 14 and 18 years.
On the face of it, two major amendments to India’s child labour law seem welcome. These amendments prohibit all work, hazardous or otherwise, for children under 14, who now also enjoy the constitutional right to free and compulsory education. And for adolescents between 14 and 18 years, whose labour was entirely lawful until now, the law prohibits their employment in work scheduled as hazardous.
Yet on closer scrutiny, we discover the same pattern as many other pronouncements of this government vis a vis the poor: The reality of what is being offered is the reverse of what appears on paper. The ban on hazardous adolescent work is accompanied by changes in the schedule of hazardous work in the statute, bringing these down from 83 prohibited activities to only three. Apart from mining and explosives, the law only prohibits processes deemed hazardous under the Factories Act 1948. In other words, the amended law prohibits only that child work which is considered hazardous for adult workers, without recognising the specific vulnerabilities of children.
More damaging is the caveat in the amended law that permits even children under 14 years to now work in non-hazardous “family enterprises” after school hours and during vacations. The family is defined to include not just the child’s parents and siblings, but also siblings of the child’s parents. And a family enterprise includes any work, profession or business in which any family member works along with other persons.
In effect, this proviso accomplishes the very opposite of what it claims to do. Instead of ending child labour, it actually makes lawful once again a large part of child work that was earlier unlawful. It is estimated that around 80 per cent of child labour is in work with family members. This is in farms, forests, home-based work such as bidi rolling, carpet weaving, making of bangles and handicrafts, home-based assembly tasks, domestic work, eateries, roadside garages, and street vending. Child rights activists had fought long and hard to compel governments to include many of these occupations in the statutory list of hazardous occupations. But by the double whammy of legalising child participation in non-hazardous “family enterprise” work and drastically trimming the list of hazardous occupations, in effect the government has again legalised the bulk of child work.
Reopening the flood gates for child labour by these amendments is part of a larger package of weakening labour protections for enhancing labour market flexibility to facilitate higher corporate investments. The quarter century of economic reforms has witnessed the steady dismantling of factory floor manufacture by organised adult workers into a preference for unorganised migrant, adolescent and child workers and contractual and home-based production systems.
Home-based work absolves the owners and managers of global supply chains from any legal obligations of fair wages, healthy work conditions and social protection to the actual end-line workers who labour in isolated home-based units. Economist Archana Prasad points to the surge of home based work from 23.3 million (1999-2000) to 37.4 million workers in 2011-2012. Of this, 16 million were women home-based workers. Nearly 32 per cent of total women workers outside agriculture are home-based workers. Around 73 per cent of these women engage in home-based manufacture, in sectors such as apparel, tobacco products and textiles. Once work is undertaken within the four walls of a home, children routinely (but up to now unlawfully) assist their mothers for long hours to complete and maximise their “piece-work” orders. What these amendments accomplish is to render this child labour lawful.
The argument that has long held sway is that child labour, however unfortunate, is inevitable as long as households remained poor. Only after parents escape poverty will their children be able to enter school. What these claims ignore is that the reverse is far more true. That child labour is indeed a major cause of persisting poverty. That if a child is trapped in labour instead of being able to attend fully to her schooling, she will never be able to escape the poverty of her parents. The child of a sanitation worker, rag-picker, domestic worker or casual labourer is likely to be trapped in the professions of her parents unless she is able to access quality education. And also, for every child in work is an adult denied the same work, an adult who could have ensured that her children could be in school. We may argue that working with one’s hands is integral to a full education. But in that case, the opportunities and the obligation to work must surely lie with children of privilege as much as it does with children of disadvantage?
Children enrolled in schools but rising from disadvantage face many barriers. They may be poorly nourished; be first-generation learners; have no place for study in their homes; and be unable to afford tutors. It is they who would be further disadvantaged by this amendment.
Those who defend this amendment applaud the opportunity it would provide for children to learn the trades of their parents. This argument is a thinly disguised defence of caste, because it is only the caste system that envisages the “natural” transition of children into the professions of their parents. Why should the child of a potter learn to be a potter, and not a poet; the child of a sanitation worker not a doctor; and the child of a leather tanner not a philosopher? These amendments are one more spur to India’s ancient tradition of unequal childhoods.
Mander is a human rights worker and writer

Everything you need to know about Child Labour Amendment Bill

What is the bill all about?
In 1986, Parliament enacted a law to protect children from forced labour and exploitation, putting a blanket ban on employing children under the age of 18. It triggered several protests and even trade unions cited practical difficulties, especially for poor families. Later, in November 2012, the UPA government proposed amendments to the law to allow partial relaxation. The current bill is a modified version of the UPA’s proposals.
What does the new bill say?
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill prohibits employment of children below 14 years of age in all occupations. But it allows adolescents (those between 14 and 18 years of age) to work in non-hazardous occupations and processes. They can work in family-run establishments like a grocery store but can’t work in a chemical factory.
How does the new law take care of education for children?
The new law, while giving some relaxation for employment, makes it mandatory that the child can help one’s family and a family enterprise only after school hours or during vacations. During school days, no family can employ its children for job.
What if a family or an employer is found violating the law?
In case of violation, only the employer will be held responsible. He may pay up to Rs 50,000 as penalty and face imprisonment between six months and two years. For subsequent offence, the penalty will be imprisonment between one and three years.
What happens when a child is rescued from forced labour?
It will be the responsibility of the state government to rehabilitate the child. The government will give Rs 15,000 and add the fine from the employer to help the child’s rehabilitation.

Pranab Bardhan, Economist, on What the Modi Government Has – and Hasn’t – Done So Far

By Jahnavi Sen on 26/07/2016

Economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley Pranab Bardhan spoke to The Wire about global discontent amongst the working class, the Modi government’s policies, the need for employment generation, the controversy around Raghuram Rajan and more.


What would you say are the economic reasons for the anti-establishment political forces we’ve seen coming up, from different sides of the political spectrum, in the US and Europe?
There are many things happening in the world, but the ones I suppose you are referring to are the recent, unexpected rise of (Donald) Trump in the US, the triumph of Brexit in Britain and in general the rise of a lot of right-wing parties in Europe. Everybody is saying that there are several factors involved.
One is the consequence of globalisation. From globalisation, a lot of people have benefited. Certainly owners of capital have benefited, owners of technology have benefited. People like you and me who are more flexible because of our education and can move around the world, we have also benefited from globalisation. Even some poor people, like the young women in the garment export industry in Bangladesh, have benefited. But many other members of the working class have not, particularly in Europe and the US. A lot of workers in manufacturing industry there have lost their jobs because many of the industries have moved production to China and other countries. So those workers are dissatisfied and it is not an accident that both in Britain and in the US they have expressed their sympathy for those kind of causes. So that’s one factor – globalisation. Not just globalisation, the unequal benefits flowing from globalisation.
Second, even if globalisation were not there, this tremendous technical change that’s going on has to be reckoned with. Globalisation has also interacted with technology, but even if there was no globalisation, technological change would have caused job losses of various kinds. That would have increased dissatisfaction, particularly of workers who do not have much skill or education to take advantage of the new technology. So there’s dissatisfaction because of that. Automation, for example. In the West, already robots are taking away jobs in some sectors. Robots can easily take jobs in relatively routine type of work. That’s why many unskilled workers who are losing out are worried. That’s factor number two.
Factor number three. For quite some time, for various reasons including the first two reasons that I mentioned, labour movements in the world are getting weaker. By labour movements I particularly mean those led by trade unions. Trade unions are getting weaker, so as a result labour is struggling. Workers’ causes have suffered. There are not that many movements taking up the cause of the disgruntled worker, that’s factor number three.
Factor number four, which is very important in the US and western Europe, is immigration. Even if these other factors were not there, just because of immigration, there would have been discontent. Immigration is related to globalisation in some sense. Globalisation is free movement of goods, free movements of people, free movements of capital–of these the free movement of people is immigration. And immigration has this special issue, which may not be in the first three factors that I mentioned. For the first three factors that I mentioned, their effects are largely economic. The fourth, immigration, is not just economic. Of course immigration has economic consequences but it also affects cultural relations and the social fabric. Quite often, local people do not like (whether for right or wrong reasons) the new culture that the immigrants are bringing – new religious beliefs, morals and cultural practices, for example those with respect to women and to liberal values in general. So that causes some resentment. And the other issue related to culture is that the old community bonds of those societies are frayed.
I think if you combine these four factors, there is a lot of disgruntlement particularly among the poor and particularly among the older people. Older people voted largely for Brexit, for instance. Of course in numbers the older people vote more than the young so it comes out in the votes much more. But older workers who are used to some types of technology, culture and social issues feel threatened. Also, younger people can adjust more easily to take different types of jobs, older people don’t have that. Those, I think, are the fundamental factors behind this phenomenon.
And would you say this disgruntlement is a serious threat to mainstream economic orthodoxy?
As I said, it’s not just economic, it’s cultural and social too. The answer to your question would depend on what you mean by economic orthodoxy. If you mean by economic orthodoxy the idea that free movement of goods and capital is good, obviously this is against that. However, there’s a different aspect of orthodoxy, what you would call macroeconomic orthodoxy, and this is a matter of the big dispute in the West. The economic orthodoxy which emphasises restraining the government and the macroeconomic policy of austerity. If you regard Keynesianism as non-orthodoxy (in some contexts Keynesian policy is already a part of the othodoxy), that is a big dispute. Countries which have taken the policy of austerity have not been successful in creating jobs. So obviously this increases disgruntlement.


The other thing is, and I don’t know if you can call it orthodoxy or not, in many Western countries, macroeconomic policy that gets prominence is monetary policy, interest rate policy. In a sense Keynesians say that monetary policy is not enough, we have to do fiscal expansion, etc. But fiscal expansion means also raising more taxes and that is what the right-wing quite often in the US and in Europe are resisting. So those disputes are related to the economic orthodoxy issue.
To move a little bit to the specifics of India, since 1991, India has been going in a certain direction in terms of economic policy. Would you say this has been good for the country? Also, would you say there’s been some difference in economic policy between the Congress and the BJP, or in the way they package their policies?
I’ll not have a simple answer to this. Do I support the movement towards economic liberalisation that started with the delicensing in the mid-1980s my general answer is yes. Because when don’t allow market forces to work, and this used to be true for the license permit raj, what happens is that those licenses and permits go to only some politically favoured groups like the case of earlier licenses and permits mainly going to the monopoly business houses. I am generally in favour of opening up of opportunities for more people. It is also important that this economic liberalisation has coincided with a social phenomenon in India, which is often not commented on. It is also in this period that through democracy, gradually the lower castes and in general the weaker sections of the population( of course only some of them not all of them) have been able to come up and benefit from these new opportunities.
I’ll give you an example. Particularly in South India and West India, peasant castes (not the really low but in the middle ranks), became gradually not only more economically prosperous, but in general socially more assertive. Take the case of garment industry around Coimbatore; the main entrepreneurs there are often from a caste group called Gounder, a peasant caste. They did well in agriculture, got some money and they invested the money in this. These are not from established business houses like Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis, they are the new entrepreneurs.
So I’m just saying along with economic liberalisation, this has been a period in which some limited amount of social transformation has occurred, largely because of our democracy. So these new entrepreneurs have been able to take opportunities opened up by liberalisation. A lot of people say there are a lot more even Dalit entrepreneurs now, but one should not exaggerate. The phenomenon is observable more for the middle castes.
So in general my answer is yes, but that does not mean I am wholeheartedly in favour of liberalisation, unless some corrective measures are taken to curb its adverse effects. Everybody would recognise that when you open up markets, just as opportunities open up for people, the benefits are unequally distributed, particularly because initial endowments and available social and infrastructural facilities are different for different people . So yes, I gave you some examples of lower groups coming up, but in general inequality has been increasing all over the world, including in India. So market reform has to be accompanied with measures to correct those inequalities.
That’s where the Congress-BJP issues come up, because I think in the UPA I regime in the 2004-2009 period there were some attempts in response to this problem of inequality, some efforts were taken to improve welfare of common people. The National Advisory Council (NAC) that Sonia Gandhi created had some effect. For example, MGNREGA, the rural employment guarantee, came in that period pushed by the NAC, even though the idea of employment on public works as a safety net for poor people is quite old in India. Similarly, a very important measure was the Right to Information Act. That also grew out of a movement which was there earlier. The Forest Rights Act, which by the way is yet to be fully implemented, came as a way to stop the long dispossession of tribal people from their land and rights to use forests.
These are in a way in reaction to forces of inequality generated by market reform. So you might say those are positive aspects of the UPA regime. But there are many negative aspects of the UPA regime too. But let me go on to the BJP. Has BJP taken different policies? I think BJP’s difference in these matters is often more in rhetoric than in actuality. BJP, has not got rid of the programmes that I just mentioned. Even though they were very much opposed to MGNREGA, it’s ironical that the BJP is now taking credit for it. So that’s good. Earlier Modi came out with lot of things against NREGA, saying that ‘we’ll keep it as a monument to the failures of the Congress’. And now his ministers are claiming credit for that. That doesn’t mean that everything is fine with NREGA, there’s still lot of corruption and leakage in NREGA . The government is not helping matters, as in many cases, I understand that wage payments have not been made for several months. This is very serious, not only because it is hurting the poor. The whole idea of NREGA is that if I as a landless worker demands work, the government guarantees work. If I find that when I work I’m not paid for six months, the next time I will not demand work. So in a sense there is a self-fulfilling aspect to its failure. In any case, it is not true that wherever work was demanded it was given. There’s a lot of unmet wants in NREGA. There are a lot of other problems in NREGA, but even with all that that I would say NREGA has been a major positive step in India.
Similarly, the other thing that the UPA regime did which BJP has not discontinued is the National Food Security Act, which now in rural areas is to reach around 75% of the people. In fact people have not commented on this – in West Bengal I find, on of the platforms on which Mamata Banerjee won was the programme of Rs 2 per kg of rice. That was very popular. What Mamata never mentioned, and I’m surprised opposition didn’t mention much either, is that this is part of the central government scheme. Mamata expanded on it a little bit, but it is largely an impact of the Act.
In general I would say on many of these welfare measures which UPA started, BJP, whatever the rhetoric, has more or less continued. I would not say that there is a big difference.
One difference for BJP I should comment on here. Modi in the 2014 elections, said that we have to have a new approach. The UPA approach was “giving doles”, he said. We’re going to create jobs instead, so that is a different approach. First of all, he has not created enough jobs and I don’t think by 2019 the job situation is going to change very much, I don’t expect much of a dent on the enormous and alarming problem of not enough good jobs for the young people. The other day, in one interview Mr Modi has said, yes jobs are being created, but they’re as yet invisible. We have a whole statistical machinery, very soon these jobs should have been captured in the statistics! We don’t see that. In fact the Labour Bureau now collects a few times every year job data for eight industries, eight relatively labour-intensive industries. And if you look at them, if anything it’s getting worse. So where are Mr Modi’s invisible jobs?
This new approach of job creation, I think it was basically a hoax on the electorate. The BJP before coming to power gave the impression that ‘we are going to create jobs, look at the Gujarat model’. The Gujarat model is not a model for creating jobs! Gujarat is a state where the economic growth rate was high, but not necessarily job creation. Economic growth rate was high partly because Modi as chief minister gave a lot of capital subsidies to the large companies, run by the Ambanis, Adanis, and Essar. They are primarily in capital-intensive industries like petrochemicals, petroleum refineries, etc. And if you disaggregate Gujarat’s growth, a large part of the growth was in these sectors. So Gujarat is a model of high growth but not of jobs. These two have been mixed up in the election campaign in 2014.
But going back to doles, just now I told you that Modi’s model, the Gujarat model, was based on capital subsidies. What is that? That’s dole to the capitalists. Even on a national level if you look at the data and check how much of our subsidies go to the better off people, it’s a very substantial sum. In fact, there are some estimates which show that of our total subsidies that the government gives both in the Centre and the states, the amounts that go to the better off exceed 10% of GDP. So why do you object to doles to the poor when you are giving a much larger amount to the wealthy (a few times larger than our total anti-poverty programmes)?. Modi or anybody has no ground to stand on when they talk disparagingly about doles to the poor.
What would you say the government could be doing differently in terms of employment generation and anti-poverty programmes?
Employment generation is a very difficult subject. Employment is not that easy to generate, that’s why I’m pessimistic about the prospects. Yes, there are some things that can be done in the long run. For example, suppose you are a small producer. Like the majority of producers in India you are in the informal sector, you have a little shop, a little household enterprise. So what are your main problems? Main problems are quite often things like electricity. Suppose you are in the garment industry, which is highly labour-intensive and creates lots of jobs. At the moment you employ say 5-6 people, an informal household enterprise. Now you are thinking of expanding to hire 50 people.
Quite often in India it is said, jobs are not being created because of labour laws. Because in India the labour laws tell you that if you hire more than 100 people and if you want to sack somebody, you need government permission. So that restricts hiring. But let me go back to this concrete example. This guy who was hiring 5-6 people now is thinking of expanding to 50, labour law is not a problem. Labour law kicks in when you have 100, right?
When I’m thinking of expanding to hire 50 people, a little larger size, what are my binding constraints? Electricity is a major one, because at the moment the only use of electricity I probably have is a little light bulb. Now, maybe I will need tailoring machines or other kinds of power equipments. So then I have to worry about whether I have a regular supply of electricity. Even if I have regular supply, does the voltage fluctuate? With voltage fluctuations these machines are going to burn out. So those issues to me are concrete issues. So what we do about electricity is very important.
To be fair to Mr Modi, he’s done a good job about electricity in Gujarat. But now that he’s prime minister of India, he has to do it to the rest of India. I’ve not seen many signs of that. Electricity reform, to me, is a very important part of reform, which neither UPA nor the current administration has done much about. Electricity is a major input needed for people to expand jobs. Many people regard UDAY, the programme the government has introduced for financial restructuring of the heavily-losing state electricity distribution companies is more like ‘kicking the can down the road’.
Similarly, roads. Roads improve connectivity. I understand that one of the areas in which this government has done reasonably well is in building roads. I hope that continues. So in the long run electricity and roads are extremely important for creating jobs, much more important in my judgment than labour laws. If labour laws are reformed, I have nothing against it. But I don’t think that is major constraint. That is one of 20 other constraints. But people give too much emphasis on labour reform.
There’s something that I would suggest for employment generation in the short run, which I don’t find people suggesting. Currently, in order to encourage investment, the government gives subsidies to capitalists. So essentially you come with your capital and you’ll get a subsidy, a tax holiday or other facilities in a Special Economic Zone, these are all parts of capital subsidies. When you subsidise capital, it is not a surprise that people will use capital-intensive technology and not many jobs will be created. So that immediately suggests to me an opposite policy, wage subsidy. Why don’t you start a policy that says to the capitalists, if you create more jobs instead of introducing automation, machines etc., for each new person you hire the wage that you have to pay will be subsidised by the government. To me there is a great deal of scope for converting at least a part of the large capital subsidies into wage subsidies.
In our country now bulging with young people, the employment situation is potentially a big social problem. Already in parts of India it’s happening. In West Bengal, I see this all the time. In fact in West Bengal if you get a car and drive around the state, you’ll be stopped in many places. Young people will come and stop your car and say you have to pay money. They will of course tell you ‘this puja, that puja’ etc. It’s just that they don’t have jobs, essentially they’re collecting their forms of taxes. This will happen more and more in other parts of north India. In large parts of West Bengal now, if you want to build, you have to buy materials from these particular young people who will charge a much higher price and for inferior material. Otherwise gundas will come and not allow you to build. So where are these people coming from? As they don’t have jobs, they are into criminal and semi-criminal occupations.
On poverty alleviation, I’m in general in support of many of the poverty alleviation policies. NREGA I am very much in support of. But, there are some subsidies I’m against, I think I’m in general in favour of phasing out the fertiliser subsidies which is at the moment is costly financially and environmentally. Similarly, I’d in general phase out the policy of support prices given to producing rice and wheat. Rice is a water-intensive crop which is often grown in unsuitable areas (like Punjab), depleting the water table. The other thing it is doing, apart from damaging the environment and costing a great deal of money, it focusses attention on two cereals rice and wheat. Agriculture has to diversify, we should go much more into fruits, vegetables and dairy products, livestock products in general. One constraint that we have is that for products like fruits, vegetables, dairy and livestock products, we need cold storage. So I would suggest lot more investment in cold storage and roads.
If in India if you can reduce large parts of what I called before the subsidies to the better off, you’ll be able to give what is called a basic income to everybody. In my scheme any citizen of India will get, every month, a certain amount of money, no questions asked. I have made calculations that if the subsidies to the better off are given up in India, then you can afford to give every person in India Rs 10,000 a year. If you have a family of four, that’s Rs 40,000. That’s a big change to poverty. You don’t need fresh taxation, the only thing you need is to get rid of the subsidies to the better off. But suppose, in the beginning you cannot get rid of all the subsidies to the better off, well get rid of as many as you can but meanwhile you need taxes. I think there’s great deal of taxable capacity in our real estate sector. The real estate sector is a sector in which values are off and on going up in every city, even small cities. But the government is not getting enough out of it, much of it going into the so-called black economy.
One area in which I would say both the UPA regime and particularly the Modi regime is guilty of not doing anything is health. This is big deficiency of Indian policy.
People often do not know that in health expenditure, India is not just third world but fourth world. India’s health expenditure as proportion of GDP is lower than in many other poor nations. Secondly, most of the expenditure is not in public health. Most of the diseases in India are because of public health and sanitation problems. That’s where the emphasis should be. The Swacchh Bharat campaign for sanitation (which is a continuation of the UPA Nirmal Bharat campaign) concentrates on toilet building through contractors, without looking into why the toilets are often malfunctioning, why they are not used by many. The issues of public education toward better habits of personal hygiene can be handled better by social activists and NGO’s than by bureaucrats, but this government is unduly suspicious of NGO’s in general. Thirdly, there was some talk in the last few days of the UPA regime and the first few days of the Modi regime of a move towards universal health care. I find now the Modi government is going in the opposite direction. There is a NITI Aayog document suggesting that we go away from universal healthcare towards subsidised private health insurance. That’s the US model – a highly defective and prohibitively expensive model. This is not the right model for us. Of course it is not easy to construct a service like the National Health Service in the UK or a similar system in France. But you don’t have to look to UK or France. A neighbouring country, Thailand, now has a universal health service. Study that case and see what they have done. It’s not that expensive to do. In health, it seems like we’re going in the opposite direction.
In the Indian context that we’ve been talking about with the critical employment problem and increasing inequality, what do you make of initiatives like Make in India or Smart Cities?
I’m not as enthusiastic as the current government is about the Smart Cities programme. If there are no other constraints then it’s okay, but it seems to me that most of the emphasis in the Smart Cities programme is on digitisation, IT etc. But most of our cities are not liveable at the moment. Make it liveable for the majority of the population, that is where the real smartness lies, digitisation is not the real smartness.
Make in India, I’m not even sure what it means. If Make in India means something should be produced in India, not elsewhere, that goes back to the old protectionist regime. If that is the case then I’m not sure I’m in favour of it. But in general if you want to encourage manufacturing, I’m all for it. There are many constraints, I’ve already mentioned some kinds of constraints. For Make in India, you need a great deal of reform in electricity and other infrastructural facilities. You also need a great deal of private and public investment.
At the moment, there is a big stagnation going on in private investment because of the bank debt problem. Wilful defaulters have not paid back huge loans, so the banks are in trouble. Therefore, the banks don’t want to lend, so there is a debt overhang and stagnation in the field of private investment in India now. This means all the more that public investment has to go up. The problem with public investment is twofold. One is where is the money going to come from? Now I would not be against even increasing fiscal deficit to spend on public investment, but there both the UPA government and the current government have an external problem.They’re worried that international credit rating agencies will lower our rating if the deficit increases. Now what is the cost of lowering rating? A lot of portfolio investment by foreign financial institutions will suffer. But I am not sure this volatile part of foreign investment should be encouraged. It may also affect FDI. But as yet foreign investment is not coming to fields which will create many jobs. So I think I’d worry less about foreign investment. I’m generally in favour of foreign investment, but not at the expense of domestic public investment. So that’s one problem.
The other problem is that for quite some time we have followed the mode of public private partnership (PPP), that did not work. In fact in many cases there has been corruption in PPP. The whole modality of PPP has to be re-thought, has to be made transparent and less corruption prone. There is a tendency, whenever one thinks about reforming PPP, that when the business is doing well, private people make money, but when it’s not, there is pressure for renegotiation of terms and the losses are on the public sector. This peculiar principle – privatise the profit and socialise the losses is not the way to run a PPP. So I think PPP’s, which otherwise I’m in favour of because the government does not have enough money, has to be re-thought of and reorganised.
One of the other big things that Modi talked a lot about in his campaign was federalism and increasing power to the states. But a lot of people have argued that in his tenure what he has actually done is increase centralisation. Would you agree with that?
I largely agree. Everybody know that power has been centralised into PMO, the Prime Minister’s Office. In fact that has sometimes made difficult to make quick decisions, which goes against two of the government’s objectives, that of easing business and of federalism.
Similarly, before the Bihar elections, Modi went to a big election rally in the state and announced a special package for Bihar and the way he went about it was very interesting. In front of thousands of people, he said how much money will be given to Bihar (without any consultation with Bihar officials) He said, “50,000 crore! Nahi, 80,000 crore! Nahi, 1,20,000 crore!” It was like a public auction. This is not federalism. This is what I call ‘federalism Modi-style’. To me it’s the king giving largess to his subjects. But more substantially, yes some money has been transferred to the states. But that is not Modi’s doing, that has been done by the Finance Commission, which is a constitutional body, and its dispensations are constitutionally mandated for the government to follow, whether it be Modi or anyone else.
Another to notice, also true for the UPA regime, is that in recent years, in the budget, there are a lot of new cesses. Education cess, Swacch Bharat cess, etc.. An interesting thing about a cess is that you don’t have to share it with the states. This is not good for federal finance.
And lastly, one institution which could have played a creative role in federalism is the NITI Aayog. Now the problem with NITI Aayog as I see it is that unlike the Planning Commission, it does not have any financial powers. Planning Commission could at least decide how much money states would get for some centrally-sponsored schemes, so chief ministers used to take it seriously. But now that power has been given to the finance ministry. So that is centralisation, not decentralisation. So the NITI Aayog has mainly policy suggestions powers, no financial powers, and therefore many non-BJP chief ministers don’t take NITI Aayog seriously. Second, in Niti Aayog meetings discussion is on an agenda pre-selected by the Central government, which do not suit the states. Third, if it is the job of NITI Aayog to coordinate with the states, there is already a pre-existing body called Inter-state Council which has been in existence since the 1990s. It did not meet for 10 years until recently. In fact I have heard that officers posted in the Inter-state Council see it as a punishment posting, because nothing happens there. That’s the organisation created to have inter-state coordination. I hope NITI Aayog postings don’t get a similar reputation soon.
There is a debate among economists about how independent the central bank should be. If they are too independent, the charge is that they serve as the handmaiden of private banks and are not accountable to the people. But if they are not independent of government, it becomes hard for them to make tough decisions when those are sometimes needed. How should a country like India strike a balance, especially in the context of the controversy that Raghuram Rajan’s tenure and imminent departure has triggered?
It’s really sad about Raghuram Rajan, who is such a bright and wise person. India had a rare opportunity to have someone like him as the central banker, not many countries have this opportunity. We wasted this opportunity. Having RSS attack dogs out to get him and Mr. Modi remaining silent, and opening his mouth to utter some platitudes only after Mr. Rajan resigned – this is scandalous, in my judgment.
In Rajan’s case something else may have happened. He was not very popular with the wilful defaulters on bank loans, many of whom are crony capitalists. I am sure from behind the scene they must have out pressure, because Rajan has come out with very strong strictures against them. He called them ‘freeloaders’, since it is essentially taxpayers money that they have taken and are defaulting on. I think that’s also behind it, not just RSS pressure but also these tycoons and crony capitalists who were quite uncomfortable with the stringent policies Rajan was following.
I also find the current way of doing things problematic. There should be much more public debate and discussion on the issues and the different policy opinions of the candidates . But once you appoint , don’t interfere. I am generally in favour of central bank independence subject not to day-to-day scrutiny but periodic review. Policies every 3-5 years should be discussed in public, in parliament, everywhere. But no day-to-day interference.
Rajan has recently come out with a statement that the governor’s tenure should be at least five years, not three. I agree with that. But like I said, every three years, parliament and the public should have a discussion on the policies being followed in the last three years.
In any case, going back to something I mentioned before, there is too much focus on monetary policy. I think it should be much more balanced, both on fiscal and monetary policy. Our governments are always scared of what international credit rating agencies would think if they talk about fiscal expansion even for long-term investment.
Should India be seeking more trade and investment deals that integrate more fully with other economies? Should we focus on mega deals like TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) that is currently being negotiated or can they work against us?
Generally I would say yes, India should integrate much more. These days, without integration you cannot succeed. It’s not like the old days, when someone was good at producing something so they sell it in the world market. What has changed is the predominance of a global value chain. Different countries have different locations on the chain. If you can’t find your own niche on the chain, then you’ve lost it. The Chinese have done a very good job at finding this niche and over time also moving up the ladder to higher value. They are now moving out of labour-intensive exports to more skill-intensive exports. So most laptops, smart phones, etc. are now produced in China. We have no alternative but to integrate – become part of the global value chain.
That’s my general principle. It’s a different issue when it comes to the TPP or the RCEP. I’m not sure whether some of these trade agreements are helpful. TPP will probably help Vietnam, because they have many things to sell to the US. But I am not sure in general that the gain from TPP is that much. These deals vary from case to case.
What I don’t like is that India, at the world forum, often takes a holier-than-thou economic-nationalist attitude. I don’t think that’s the right attitude. Then people laugh at us, they know India isn’t a big power in the economic world. They can do without India. Even the one sector where we were big, the software sector, is now gradually going elsewhere, to the Philippines for instance, to Israel. So if it comes to that, the world might say okay go ahead, bye. We don’t have that much bargaining power, so we shouldn’t take that attitude.
Speaking of China, why do you think they have been able to grow so rapidly, move so many people out of agriculture and reduce poverty so much faster than India?
I have a book about this (‪Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India‪). To give a two-minute answer, the Chinese have succeeded at something that we have not. And that goes back to something that I’ve mentioned before, about labour-intensive industrialisation. That’s where poor people’s jobs are. The reason we have a job problem is because we haven’t solved this problem. We think of the IT sector, we think of Smart Cities – these aren’t going to create jobs for poor people.
I also mentioned before the need for roads, electricity, etc. to create jobs – this is where the Chinese’s major success lies. Infrastructure is the major dazzling success in China. The first time I went to China was in 1989 and since then I go quite often. It’s just breath-taking. And we are nowhere near that.
There are things that they can do that we can’t do as easily. If they need to acquire land, they just do it immediately. We can’t do that, there’s a whole process. So there are things they can do because of the political system that we can’t. But it’s not just that. Going back to health and education, it’s really tragic that India today is where China was in the early 1970s. Even before the reforms, during the Maoist period, they improved health and education immensely. As a result, Chinese workers are healthier and more educated than ours. That in itself increases productivity. Health and education should be improved no matter what, but Chinese workers are more productive simply because of these reasons. Secondly, is the physical infrastructure– roads, electricity, etc.. Physical and social infrastructure together create a base for labour-intensive industrialisation. The groundwork was carried out in China in the socialist period and accelerated post-reform.
This area, social and physical infrastructure, I’d say is a major economic failure of India. And that has its effect on jobs and labour-intensive industrialisation. That has a substantial effect in reducing poverty.
Our poverty has also declined, but nothing like in China. They have raised above the poverty line nearly half a billion people within a short span of time

Friday, July 29, 2016

History may be reduced to anecdotes’ under BJP rule.

  • Vikas Pathak

Irfan Habib on the current challenges to history-writing and to India’s scientific, secular temper

Irfan Habib, eminent historian and former professor at Aligarh Muslim University, says the current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has abandoned reason and rationalism, and that this puts a heavier burden on Opposition parties to forge a combined front. Excerpts from the interview:
How do you compare the present National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre with previous governments?
The obvious difference is that this government is very divisive in its approach on religious, caste and communal considerations, much more than the first NDA government. But this government, and particularly the ruling party because of its majority and the RSS connection, is raising throughout the country questions about caste and religion, directly or indirectly. You beat up Dalits under ‘Gau Raksha’. You are... similarly raising issues against Muslims.
The second difference is that no previous government had abandoned rationalism and reason to the extent that this government has. I can’t imagine even [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee saying that Lord Ganesh shows that we knew transplants and plastic surgery, or introducing the issue of flying vehicles at the Science Congress. An attack on reason and rationalism is usually what fascism does. Throughout the history of fascism, [we see] these two major elements — divisiveness and attack on reason — in the name of national glorification.
They also have a conviction that India should be a land for big business. An ordinary citizen sees development in terms of roads, connectivity, and employment. But this is not their perception. Other governments were also capitalist-oriented, they had also some kind of populism. But this government is abandoning these policies.
Any strengths?
These are not weaknesses. These are all strengths from their point of view.
What should the Opposition parties do in the present context?
One obvious advantage that the Opposition parties have is that they control many State governments. This provides them a limited degree of dual power. That puts restrictions on the operations of the Central government. Despite their differences, Opposition parties in power in various States should try to stop the divisive and communal activities of the BJP and the RSS. There should be stronger punitive action against BJP leaders who are inciting people on communal lines.
Do you think the Congress, the Left, etc. should forge a united front wherever possible to combat the BJP?
I think this should be considered. And particularly when you are dealing with State governments, there is a possibility of agreement on many issues even if one disagrees on the issue of socialism. On public welfare measures, there can be agreement with parties that are not committed to secularism but believe in some sort of a welfare state. The possibility of such alliances should be explored. Though the Left is not strong in most States, it can contribute 2-3 per cent of votes and in the first-past-the-post system with small margins, it becomes very important.
The Left should also understand its responsibility and not do anything that harms this front. In my opinion, we should not make an issue that the Congress should not be a part of the front.
But the Left Front fielded candidates separately in Bihar without joining the Mahagathbandhan.
That was, I believe, a great mistake.
What do you think about the changes made by the Central government to the writing of history? What are your views on the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR)?
The major complaint [regarding ICHR] was that the bulk of the new people had no reputation as historians. They were put there not because they were right-wing historians but because they were RSS nominees. The difficulty in history that the RSS has is that the kind of history they want to project is not accepted by the most right wing of serious historians.
R.C. Majumdar used to write for Organiser. Then Organiser printed an article that the Taj Mahal was built by Man Singh. And Majumdar wrote to them that they should not publish such nonsense. So they wrote back to him saying we believe in liberty and free expression. So Majumdar wrote to them that my freedom dictates that I should never write for your paper. And they printed his letter.
The type of history they are trying to sell is not just fantasy but extremely dangerous. This time they may go much further and reduce history in schools to anecdotes.
Can one’s nationalism be defined in terms of what one says or does? Can people be disciplined to behave in a particular way which alone is seen as nationalist?
No, nationalism had a particular meaning during the freedom struggle. The particular psychological problem with the RSS is that they were nowhere there. The RSS was founded in 1925. What was their nationalism for those 22 years? So, they can’t have any national heroes. Now you are great nationalists!
So, what according to you should nationalism mean today?
The nation is now safe. It is independent. There is no use now growling and shouting about the nation. Nationalism now means doing something for the welfare of the people. That includes the people of Kashmir.
You made a statement comparing the RSS with the Islamic State (IS). There are people who disagree and say they are not the same.
I didn’t say that they are parallel or they are the same. I said they [the RSS] talk like the IS.
Should all forms of communalism be equally condemned?
There were various forms. There were communal elements in the Congress too, but they were civilised. Communities demand greater representation at times. This is different from denouncing other communities. A Muslim or Dalit leader may say we need greater representation, but that is different. The second one is closer to semi-fascism. When you run someone down, you allow them no space in the polity. Golwalkar said as much — Muslims shall have no rights whatsoever. The Pakistani Right said as much about Hindus and Sikhs. So, it is about degrees. Rajendra Prasad opposed the Hindu Code Bill but would you call him communal? Adjustments are always possible with such people.
Corrections & Clarifications:
This article has been edited for a factual error

MAHASWETA DEVI 1926-2016
She gave voice to those on the margins
Aruti Nayar
 


Mahasweta Devi wrote with a crusader’s zeal to document histories of tribals.
MAHASWETA DEVI, the 90-year-old eminent writer-activist who passed away yesterday symbolised writing for life's sake. As she herself said, "It is my conviction that a storywriter should be motivated by a sense of history that would help her readers to understand their own times. I have never had the capacity nor the urge to create art for art's sake. Since I haven't ever learnt to do anything more useful, I have gone on writing. I have found authentic documentation to be the best medium for protest against injustice and exploitation." 
Mahasweta was no ivory-tower writer, a crusader's zeal propelled her. Be it her involvement with the Singur agitation in West Bengal or welfare of tribals of Bihar, Orissa, Bengal and Madhya Pradesh that won her the Padamshri in 1986, she chronicled the struggles of the subaltern classes. She fought for the rights of the landless and peasants, taking on corporate and politically entrenched interests. The recipient of the Jnanpith Award for 1996, explored motifs in modem Indian life through figures and narratives of indigenous tribes of India.
Born in 1926, she was reared in a Dhaka family whose bread-winner, a lawyer, chose against all odds to fight the imperialists. As she said: "My grandfather had to suffer a lot for fighting the cases of freedom fighters. But right from childhood, I was brought up in an atmosphere where compromise was taboo...". Her father, poet Manish Ghatak, uncles Sachin Choudhury, the founder-editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, and Ritwik Ghatak, a n avant garde filmmaker were dominant influences. Her mother and grandmother too wrote. In fact, the women in the family had a lively relationship with books. In 1948, Mahasweta married the legendary playwright Bijon Battacharya of IPTA, the author of Navanno.
Mahasweta studied literature but loved history and experienced life in varied ways — be it as a teacher or during a stint at the office of the DAG Posts and Telegraphs, assignments as a roving village reporter of the Bengali daily Jugantar. All these combined to hone the social realism that characterised her fiction. Besides 42 novels, 20 collections of short stories, five books for children, a collection of plays and translations, she also co-authored a book in Hindi — Bharat Mein Bandhua Mazdoor.
Mahasweta created a span of history, allowing individuals to evolve through their interactions with the historical process. While chronicling history, she captured tones of oral narratives, in the raw idiom of everyday speech, often drawing words from several sources simultaneously.
She was aghast at the casual way in which peasant up risings had been dismissed by chroniclers of India's freedom movement. By documenting the lives and times of folk heroes, Mahasweta felt she was lending voice to the voiceless sections of society. Winning the Sahitya Akademi award for Aranyer Adhikar (1977) was a personal triumph. She had reconstructed the career of Birsa Munda, leader of a millenarian tribal revolt at the turn of the century. Her first published work, Jhansir Rani (1956), was a fictional reconstruction of the career of feudal chieftain Laxmibai, who fought against the British for her rights. For this, Mahasweta delved into archival records and travelled through the desert villages and plateau where the queen had lived and fought more than a 100 years ago.
With painstaking care, she collected scraps of legends and folk ballads treasured in the collective memory of the region. Some of her other works are Not, (1957), Ki Basantj Ki Sorate (1958), Amrita Sanchay (1964), Andhar Manik (1967), Hajar Churashir Ma (1974), Aranyer Adhikar (1977), Agnigaritha (1978)  and Chotti Munda o Tar Teer (1979). Besides this, Sunghursh, (1968) Rudaali (1993), Hazar Churasi Ki Ma (1998), Maati Maay (2006) and Gangor were  movies made on her stories.
From the late 1970s, the subjects of her stories became the subjects of her life and she got more and more involved with her work with tribals and underprivileged communities in the districts of Mednapur, Purulia, Singhbhum and Mayurbhanj. She set up several voluntary organisations for their welfare and helped bring their grievances to the view of an indifferent bureaucracy. With the funds sent by her translator Gayatri Spivak, she set up five schools in the tribal heartland of Purulia.
While working with the tribals, Mahasweta noticed the peculiar paradox of tribal women's life — their almost superhuman lifestyle and their fierce independence. From this flowed greatest short stories — Standayini, Draupadi, Douloti and Gohuinni.
She was surprised at, the red-carpet treatment given to her when she visited Delhi to receive her Sahitya Akademi Award in 1979. All those who listened to her, at the India International Centre  were struck by her sharp manner. No glib urban sophistication. After all, she came to Delhi very often and made the rounds of offices to collect funds for her cause. This time it was in the air-conditioned confines where she was being questioned about feminism  For a woman with a cause, her preoccupations transcended boundaries of gender and facile generalisations.
Two classes of characters dominate Mahasweta's stories The first are mothers bearing the brunt of social and political oppression and resisting with indomitable will. The other are sensitive individuals, initially apolitical, bound to the community with strong ties As the individual absorbs the dehumanising experience of exploitation, he grows to the role of a leader. Mahasweta's Bashai Tudus, Chotu, Mundas and Mastersaabs are products of exploitation, direct and inhuman. Right from Chandi, cast out by a superstitious community in Baoen (1971) , to the tribal Naxalite Draupadi in the story named after her, Mahasweta's mothers are too earthy and emotion-charged to bear overtones of any mystical, mythical or archetypal motherhood.
The most famous novel, Hajar Churashir Ma (Mother of 1084) is set against the climactic phase of the annihilation of urban Naxalite movement and its aftermath. Sujata,the mother of corpse number 1084, can find a moral rationale for her son Brati's revolt only when she can piece together, exactly two years after his killing, part of her son's life she had never known. She can see in , Brati's revolt an articulation of  the silent resentment she has against her corrupt but respectable husband, her other children, their spouses and friends.
Urvashi o Johnny, the story about the relationship between a ventriloquist and his talking doll, is just about the Emergency. The cancer of the throat of the doll is a metaphor for the suppression of democratic rights. The shock, pain and utter helplessness which the Emergency plunged Indian sensibility is captured in this strange story.
In an age where books are more about hype and market-savvy tricks, writers like Mahasweta are rare. Digging a well is a leitmotif in her stories and that is what she did even in life — digging away and carving out an existence for the people whom she had given herself to. In an era of liberalisation and, fast-changing beliefs (if any), the much-awarded writer embodied the triumph of substance over style.
arutinayar@gmail.com