LETTERS

Issn 0012-9976
Ever since the first issue in 1966,
EPW has been Indias premier journal for Hunger in Tea Gardens dependents of permanent and regular
comment on current affairs
workers are not entitled to draw their
and research in the social sciences.
It succeeded Economic Weekly (1949-1965),
which was launched and shepherded
by Sachin Chaudhuri,
who was also the founder-editor of EPW.
T his is with reference to Living Condi-
tions of Tea Plantation Workers by
Sharit K Bhowmik (EPW, 21 November
rations from those shops. They are
entitled to draw their rations from the
nearest regular FPSs set up under the
As editor for thirty-five years (1969-2004)
2015). Indeed, it is a cruel irony that, on the West Bengal PDS (Maintenance and
Krishna Raj
gave EPW the reputation it now enjoys. one hand, starvation deaths are reported Control) Order, 2003, provided they
editor
in India, and on the other, we have abun- possess ration cards. But a majority of
C Rammanohar Reddy dant foodgrains. Indias overall record in them do not possess ration cards.
EXECUTIVE Editor eradicating starvation and malnutrition The Central Vigilance Committee on
aniket Alam seems to be quite terrible. A dreadful Public Distribution System, headed by
Deputy Editor
endemic hunger stalks surreptitiously Justice D P Wadhwa, visited some tea
Bernard DMello
CHIEF COPY Editor
across the country. The images of the gardens in West Bengal in 2010 and
KAUSHIK DASGUPTA poor having protruding bellies, sunken observed that workers were at the mercy
Senior Assistant Editor faces, peeling skin and sparse hair of garden management; even the ration
Lina Mathias hardly arouse visual empathy and sym- cards of the workers were taken away and
copy editors
pathetic outburst. It surfaces into our kept with the management. Scales of dis-
Prabha Pillai
jyoti shetty consciousness only when there is a tribution prescribed by the government
Assistant editorS troubling media report of starvation were not followed. Workers were badly
P S Leela deaths, the most dramatic manifestation deprived, and were kept in the dark. The
lubna duggal
of pervasive, deeply-entrenched and biggest anomaly the committee noticed
Assistant editor (web)
Anurag Mazumdar chronic hunger. was that the distribution of PDS foodgrain
editorial Assistant However, our politicians, at the helm of is linked to the management as a wage
ABHISHEK SHAW power, hotly deny the reality of starvation component. However, the Wadhwa Com-
production deaths and shamelessly propagate that the mittee strongly recommended delinking
u raghunathan
s lesline corera deaths of starving people have nothing to the PDS for tea garden workers from tea
suneethi nair do with starvation. In the words of Harsh garden managements, and linking it
Circulation Mander, a bureaucrat-turned-social acti- to the mainstream PDS network. But
Gauraang Pradhan Manager
B S Sharma vist, Most claim that the deaths results the recommendation has not yet been
Advertisement Manager from illness, or heat, or cold, or substance adhered to.
Kamal G Fanibanda abuse; some even quibble that people were In the Judicial Colloquium on the Right
General Manager & Publisher just chronically hungry or malnourished to Food, organised by the Human Rights
K Vijayakumar
but not starving (Ash in the Belly: Indias Law Network (August 2005), the then
editorial
edit@epw.in Unfinished Battle against Hunger). chief justice of the Allahabad High Court
Circulation Very few people are aware of the hard emphatically remarked that in a country
circulation@epw.in
fact that tea gardens in eastern India are where there is plenty of food, every child,
Advertising
advertisement@epw.in brewing starvation. To ensure food security woman and man dying from hunger is
Economic and Political Weekly among tea garden workers, the Govern- assassinated. Undeniably, indifference
320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate ment of West Bengal, with the approval is a powerful weapon, rather more power-
Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel
Mumbai 400 013
of the Government of India, introduced ful than any firearm, to assassinate a
Phone: (022) 4063 8282 a systematic public distribution system powerless and hapless citizen. And,
FAX: (022) 2493 4515
(PDS) under the West Bengal PDS (Special denial is the defence mechanism that
EPW Research Foundation Provision for Tea Gardens) Order, 2006. the administration resorts to.
EPW Research Foundation, established in 1993, conducts Licences to run fair price shops (FPSs) West Bengal and Assam tea production,
research on financial and macro-economic issues in India.
under the order have been issued to the still following a colonial-era labour struc-
Director
J DENNIS RAJAKUMAR respective tea garden managers. Perma- ture, is trodden by corporate greed and
C 212, Akurli Industrial Estate nent/regular workers and their eligible faulty trade unions. Violations of human
Kandivali (East), Mumbai 400 101
Phones: (022) 2887 3038/41 dependents (below 18 years) are entitled rights are widespread. The crippling pov-
Fax: (022) 2887 3038 to draw ration commodities from those erty among tea garden workers is the
epwrf@epwrf.in
shops at above the poverty line (APL) manifestation of deep-rooted and long-
Printed by K Vijayakumar at Modern Arts and Industries,
151, A-Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg,
scale. And the workers of tea gardens term exclusion from development pro-
Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013 and closed/abandoned, as declared by the cesses. In all respects, they are victims
published by him on behalf of Sameeksha Trust
from 320-321, A-Z Industrial Estate,
labour department, are eligible for the of the process of systematic marginali-
Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013. Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) scale. Non- sation, which has excluded them from
Editor: C Rammanohar Reddy.
workers, casual workers, and ineligible access to participation and entitlements
4 january 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

guaranteed by legislations. Here lies
the answer to alleviate the woes of tea
garden workers.
Jaydev Jana
Kolkata
Strategies to End Tuberculosis
I ndia ranks 17th in incidence rate among
the 22 high-burden tuberculosis (TB)
countries in the world and according to
World Health Organization (WHO) Global
TB Report, 2015 accounted for 2.2 million
cases of TB patients in 2014.
The International Union against Tuber-
culosis and Lung Disease held the 46th
World Lung Conference in December
2015 at Cape Town, South Africa. It wit-
nessed nearly 200 research papers being
presented from India on different as-
pects of this disease.
The subjects ranged from publicprivate
strategy, zoonotic TB, role of surgery in
the management of TB, management of
maternal and perinatal TB to empower-
ing women and children through a right-
based approach to TB, counselling associ-
ated with improved adherence to early
phase treatment for multidrug-resistant
(MDR) TB and so on. There were interest-
ing discussions on the cost of identifying
TB patients in a community setting in
India, identification of missing private TB
patients, media-communication and TB,
analysis on systematic expansion of drug-
resistant TB service on treatment initia-
tion, India-specific analysis on MDR-TB,
drug-resistant (DR)-TB, TB-diabetes, TB
notification and private practitioners and
publicprivate partnership in HIV and TB
dominated the discussion.
Most of the policy recommendations
suggested in this global conference, if
executed can help in addressing the TB
problem in India, which carries 26% of
the world burden. The discussion on
Indias TB problem focused on the core
aspect of TB service providers and their
knowledge level to address this at their
respective community setting. It showed
how this knowledge is low and other
potential players such as retail private
pharmacists can systematically pitch in
to help the programme if the govern-
ment and the national policy can work
out strategies to tap their potential in
Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 16, 2016
both rural and urban settings. Enforcing
regulatory monitoring of TB drugs sales
under schedule H1 to check the indis-
criminate use is urgently needed to pre-
vent MDR-TB. Looking at the catastrophic
expenses and long treatment period for
both drug-resistant and drug-sensitive
TB, outpatient care must be included in
mainstream health insurance schemes.
Novel TB diagnostics are required across
all health sectors to reduce the time the
patient spends seeking diagnosis after the
onset of infectiousness. Non-standardised
diagnostics and inappropriate treatment
regimen by private providers are major
challenges for TB control and cause for
drug resistance. Increasing the frequency
of mobile clinic services and strengthen-
ing the community health workers are
possible options. The directly observed
treatment, short-course (DOTS) therapy
must be accompanied by professional
counselling, nutritional supplementation
and an individualised approach.
The community case finding interven-
tions have shown remarkable success in
providing access to diagnosing TB patients
and decreasing initial defaults in margin-
alised and vulnerable communities in
India. In many cases, poor implementa-
tion of standard infection control and
workload were frequently identified as
contributing factors to their perceived
risk of TB. Yoga as a new tool improves
pulmonary functions in patients with
pulmonary impairment after TB, said a
couple of researchers at the conference.
The widespread public sector drug sus-
ceptibility testing with Xpert MTB/RIF
appropriately linked with treatment could
substantially affect MDR-TB in India.
The main reason for patients seeking
private facilities is lack of knowledge
and the free DOTS treatment while the
stigma and lack of awareness continue
to be a factor. Awareness generation and
Web Exclusives
The following articles have been published in the past week in the Web Exclusives section of the EPW website.
They have not been published in the print edition.
(1) Political Intolerance in BengalDebatra K Dey
(2) Third Gender and the Crisis of CitizenshipAnzu Augustine
(3) Prosecution as PersecutionMurali Karnam
(4) Reading into 25,000 Crore LossAnkur Sarin, Aditi Thakur
Articles posted before 9 January 2016 remain available in the Web Exclusives section.
vol lI no 3
LETTERS
stigma redressal components must be
part of initiatives against TB control pro-
gramme. Most importantly, default in
tribal area is deep-rooted with issues of
migration/poverty, knowledge gap, poor
health-seeking behaviour and systemic
gaps in counselling, follow-up and barrier
management. Tribal TB control needs
an integrated style with policy/strategy
for migrant, additional human resources,
fund, administrative commitment and
linkages mechanism.
Many researchers linked TB with mal-
nutrition and outlined suggestions to
align the TB control programme accord-
ingly. India is home to 194.6 million under-
nourished people according to the State
of Food Insecurity while 1,000 TB-related
deaths take place almost daily in India.
This data itself shows that poverty is
found to be the common denominator
between protein energy malnutrition and
TB. As per the WHO norms, a TB patient
requires about 2,000 calories a day
while the normal food intake contrib-
utes only about 900 calories. This is why
patients with TB, who are given nutri-
tional support, should in principle receive
treatment for both macronutrient and
micronutrient deficiencies.
Many experts believe that TB is a social
disease with medical implications as
severe malnutrition delays sputum culture
and hence the risk of transmission is longer
and higher compared to a well-nourished
MDR patient. Treatment success is almost
halved and death rate doubled in severely
malnourished MDR-TB patients as com-
pared to the well-nourished ones. It is
hoped that like the successful polio eradi-
cation programme, the end TB strategy
too will achieve its objective.
Sachi Satapathy
International Union against Tuberculosis and
Lung Disease,
New Delhi
5
LETTERS
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6 january 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

 january 16, 2016
Unprecedented Decline
As exports collapse, the government has shown little initiative to reverse the trend.
I
ndias exports are currently going through an unprecedented
decline which should be a cause for serious concern for
policymakers. During the first 11 months of 2015, exports
were lower in every single month as compared to the corre-
sponding months of 2014. The figures for November 2015 should
be particularly disconcerting for they show exports declined
to just about $19 billion, a level that has not been seen since
November 2010. Exports have fallen precipitously by more
than 27% in November 2015 when compared to November 2014.
Thus, in the first eight months of the current fiscal, exports
have been lower than during the same period in 201415 by
over 18%.
Indias exports to every major region of the world declined
during AprilNovember 2015 year-on-year. Exports to Africa
have been hit the most, the fall being by over a quarter. India
has been making consistent efforts to diversify its export mar-
kets by reaching out to Africa, including through institutions
like the IndiaAfrica Forum Summit. These export numbers
should, therefore, be quite disappointing. But it is the decline in
exports to its largest markets in Asia by more than 20% that has had
the largest impact. Exports to ASEAN (Association of Southeast
Asian Nations) slumped by over 25% during AprilNovember 2015
year-on-year, while exports to the three North Asian countries,
namely, China, Japan and South Korea, contracted by more than
20%, essentially due to a steep fall in exports to China (22%).
The fall in exports to China implies that Indias trade imbalance
with its largest trade partner, which was more than four times
its exports in 201415, could increase even further since imports
from China have increased marginally in the current fiscal.
For nearly a decade, Indias exports have been driven by two
commodity groups, namely, petroleum, and the category of
gems and jewellery. Since the beginning of the current decade,
these commodity groups have been accounting for more than a
third of total exports. The peak was reached in 201213 when the
combined share of these two commodity groups in the total ex-
ports was nearly 35%. At the same time, the share of Indias core
manufacturing sectors, including chemicals, metals, textiles and
clothing, machinery, including electronic equipment, and transport
equipment, fell to below 50%, which was followed by a stagna-
tion in their share at around 45%. There have, thus, been clear signs
that Indian manufacturing was losing its competitive edge.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
Exports of petroleum products and gems and jewellery have
declined in the AprilNovember 2015 period year-on-year: the
former by more than 50%, the latter by 9%. The share of petro-
leum products in total exports was 18% in 201415, down from
its high of 20% in 201314. But during AprilNovember 2015,
the share of petroleum exports declined to below 13%, its low-
est level in nine years. These exports have suffered not just be-
cause of the slump in prices of petroleum products in the global
markets, they have been equally affected by declining export
volumes. Each of the three products in this group, namely, high
speed diesel, other spirits and aviation fuel, which accounted
for nearly 80% of the export earnings from petroleum, saw its
volumes fall by almost two-thirds as compared to the level
seen last year. This seems to be a bigger problem because
Indian firms appear to be losing their shares in international
markets.
One of the mainstays of agricultural exports, namely, rice,
has seen a fall in AprilNovember 2015 of nearly 25% as com-
pared to the corresponding period in 2014. However, exports of
the core manufacturing sectors during AprilNovember 2015
show some interesting trends, to which policymakers must pay
serious attention. Several subgroups of the machinery, textiles
and clothing and chemicals sectors have gone against the gen-
eral trend and have recorded either positive growth in exports
or nominal declines. It is therefore important to ensure that
these sectors are able to beef up their existing capacities to meet
the challenges they currently face from the global integration of
the Indian economy.
It is interesting that the machinery subgroups, including ma-
chine tools and industrial machinery, which were among the
more vibrant segments of the industry in the past, have avoided
the export slump. Equally interesting is the export growth
registered by some segments of the garment industry at a time
when the overall industry is facing stiff competition in the global
markets. In recent years, these high employment sectors were
unable to keep pace with their competitors, and were overtaken
by Bangladesh and Vietnam. The automobile industry, which
had seen some expansion in exports until September 2014, was
unable to maintain the momentum thereafter.
Finally, exports of chemicals have been propelled by the
pharmaceutical sector, in which the generic industry has
7
EDITORIALS
continued its strong export performance despite the constant
regulatory threats in the advanced countries, in particular the
United States. Since the early 2000s, generic firms have been able
to increase their presence in Western markets by meeting the
growing demand for affordable medicines in these countries.
The export performance of the manufacturing sector has an im-
portant lesson for the government and the export agencies: they
must consider providing strategic support to these better-performing
8 january 16, 2016
sectors. All examples of strong and resilient manufacturing
sectors around the world show the presence of effective policy
support. The Government of India could take this much-needed
step. Unfortunately, the government has not shown the seri-
ousness that this unprecedented fall in exports requires. Dare
we say an unusual policy paralysis seems to afflict a govern-
ment which took office in June 2014 with a decisive mandate
and promised proactive policies.
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
EDITORIALS
Urban Invisible
Governments and civil society have abandoned the urban homeless.
E
very year winter brings with it, especially in the northern
states of the country, severe cold and dense fog which
spread respiratory diseases, mess up transport and kill
numerous people who have inadequate protection against the
cold. Needless to say, it is the urban homeless and those who are
forced to be outdoors for their daily livelihood who are affected
the most. In most other seasons too, the homeless suffer the
vagaries of nature and an unjust society. Indias urban homeless
are predominantly those who have escaped from rural destitution
and oppression, and provide all forms of labour to the urban econ-
omy without having any protection for their body or dignity.
According to the 2011 Census, India has 9.38 lakh homeless
persons in urban areas and 8.34 lakh in rural areas. With 18.56%
of the total number of homeless, Uttar Pradesh (UP) has the
highest number and proportion, followed by Maharashtra (11.9%)
and Rajasthan (10.2%). And, yet, the record of both UP and
Maharashtra in providing shelter to the homeless has been
abysmal. Maharashtra does not have a single functioning shelter
for the urban homeless.
The government has a plan to address this under the National
Urban Livelihoods Missions (NULM) shelter for the urban home-
less (SUH) scheme. The centre is supposed to bear 75% of the
total cost of constructing shelters for the homeless. In April
2015, the Supreme Court whilst pointing out that only 208 houses
had been built despite the centre releasing Rs 1,078 crore to all
states for constructing nine lakh urban homes said it is a big
scam...where has the money gone? This single fact displays the
apathy that governments have towards the homeless.
Media reports detail how the homeless prefer to remain on
the streets rather than avail of the shelters. In Delhi, the Aam
Aadmi Party government has launched a drive this winter to
get the homeless into shelters. However, the horrible living
conditions, the lack of dignity and the absence of facilities to
keep their sources of livelihoods make these places unattractive
and require the coercive machinery of the state to get the home-
less inside them. In other cities, many of these shelters are lying
unused or are rented out illegally or serve as storage for goods.
Often those living near the shelters do not want them in their
midst. This situation brings to mind the state of beggar homes
in our cities which are shunned because beggars prefer to
remain on the streets rather than enter these places.
8 january 16, 2016
The NULM came into effect in 2013 covering 790 cities and
was meant to ensure permanent shelters for the homeless with
basic amenities like water and sanitation. When a petition
before the Supreme Court pointed out that the objectives were
not being fulfilled, the centre said that the truant states and
union territories would be pulled up, a monitoring scheme
would be set up and the states would be asked to send monthly
reports. As yet, none of the governments have shown the will
for follow-up action. Activists in Delhione place where the
government has made some efforts, even if in the mode of 19th
century sharp philanthropysay that the citys 245 shelters
are packed beyond safety and personal health norms and the
deficit (of homeless shelters to the number living on the
streets) is over 80% if one goes by the apex courts orders based
on the 2021 Master Plan for Delhi. According to the plan, there
must be one shelter for every 1,00,000 of the population and each
of the shelters should be 1,000 sq ft. The NULM stipulates that
each resident of the shelter should have 50 sq ft along with basic
amenities and facilities.
There is no dearth of surveys and suggestions, should the
governments make up their minds to address homelessness.
For example, the Supreme Court had in 2012 directed a team of
commissioners appointed by it to prepare a draft handbook
and manual on the subject. Accordingly, such a handbook
for policymakers has been drafted and contains meticulous
details. Similarly, the commissioners came out with The
National Report on Homelessness for the Supreme Court
Review of Compliance of State Governments with Supreme Court
of India Orders up to December 31 2011. This is a treasure trove
of facts, data and concrete examples of the situation in each
state. Going by the Courts admonishment late last year, per-
haps our central and state governments are using these only
as doorstoppers.
It is clear from the attitude and actions of the various authori-
ties that the homelessmany are not even registered as voters
are in no way a people of concern to policymakers. So it is easy
to dismiss their humanity and their contribution to the urban
economy. They are invisible as the commissioners report
says. When the state and civil society have shown themselves
incapable of addressing something as basic as homelessness in
urban India, aspirations for smart cities are castles in the air.
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 Saving our Children

We need better implementation, not more stringent laws.

Barbaric punishment for barbaric crimes: we hear this

demand repeated each time there is a horrific crime. It was heard again in the case filed by the
Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association in the Supreme Court, asking for a tougher law to deal
specifically with sexual assaults on children between the ages of two and 10. One of the demands
was for chemical castration of convicted rapists. The petitioners argued that even if this is
considered barbaric, it is justified. While the associations plea before the Court reflects the horror
felt in society as sexual assaults on little children continue to be reported every day, the response of
the Court, the lawyers who have filed the plea and the media remains trapped within the fallacious
belief that stringent punishment lowers the crime rate.

To deal with sexual assault on a child, defined as a person below 18 years of age, there are
provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and, specifically, in the Protection of Children from
Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) 2012. This law, enacted in response to India signing the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, lays out detailed provisions on penetrative sexual
assault and aggravated penetrative assault, including assaults on children under 12 years of age.
It also has provisions dealing with sexual harassment, trafficking, child pornography, etc, and the
punishment under each head. For penetrative sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault, the
punishment is a minimum of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment extending to life and a fine.

What is more significant, apart from the language of the act and the detail it contains, is the fact
that it also lays out the procedure for prosecuting such crimes, including recording of evidence. For
instance, special courts at the level of a sessions court would try these crimes and the trial has to
be in camera. The government is required to appoint a special public prosecutor for the trial. The
investigation of the crime must ensure that when the child is questioned, a parent or person the
child trusts is present and that the police personnel questioning the child are not in uniform so as
not to intimidate the child. These and other specific provisions have been outlined to ensure that
the child does not have to go through additional trauma. Further, one of the important provisions in
the law to protect the identity of the child victim, which is often violated by the media, specifies
that this includes the identity of the childs family, school, relatives, neighbourhood or any other
information by which the identity of the child may be revealed. As in the case of rape survivors,
the media adheres to not naming the victim but makes no effort to hide other details that give away
the identity. The importance of this provision in terms of the long-term rehabilitation of the child
victim need hardly be emphasised.

What we should be discussing is not just why the number of rapes of small children under 10 is
increasing and to what extent, but whether POCSO is being implemented if and when people do
come forward to report crimes. One must remember that a large number of the sexual assaults
against small children take place in the home or by people known to the children. Such cases go
largely unreported. Where cases are reported, even a reasonably good law like POCSO is not
implemented either because of the casual approach of the law enforcers or because people are not
aware of their rights under the law.

Instead, we are witness to demands of more stringent laws to deal with heinous crimes. Even the
Supreme Court has taken the same line with the caveat that any change in the existing law must be
discussed in Parliament and is not the job of the Court. What is surprising in this instance is that
the Court did not point out that POCSO already exists with fairly stringent provisions and that its
implementation was the imperative that ought to be pursued with seriousness rather than tinkering
further with existing laws.

Apart from the law, what we need to examine is why such crimes are increasing. Is it only because
the perpetrators perceive the laws to be weak? Are there changes taking place in societal mores
and norms that have made those who are vulnerable even more so? How much do economic
pressures on poor families, who are compelled to leave young children unattended, contribute to
the increase in these crimes? And, finally, given that a substantial percentage of these crimes take
place within families and known neighbourhoods, to what extent is a lack of confidence in the law-
enforcing machinery, evident from the low conviction rate, responsible for low reporting of these
crimes? These are some of the questions that we ought to be asking and addressing, rather than
raising the debate to the hysterical pitch where hanging or castrating rapists is seen as the only
way out.

First Published in 1966
To mark 50 years of EPW, each week in 2016 will
present an extract from our archives.
The Economic Weekly stopped publishing end-December
1965, and EPW was launched in August 1966.
Vol IV, No 3, JANUARY 18, 1969
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS
Sikkim: Cold War in
the Himalayas
In the wake of New Delhis recent announcement
that it would take the initiative to start talks with
Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 16, 2016
Peking, a visit to Nathula the border post be-
tween India and Chinese-occupied Tibet, where
Indian and Chinese soldiers stand facing each
other in the Himalayan cold has some signifi-
cance. Of all the fronts, it is here that the Chinese
have their eyes focused, because Nathula opens
the direct route to the Siliguri corridor... This is
also a sensitive area. For, while Chinese military
experts are said to be situated in Tetulia, East Pa-
kistan, some 12 miles east of Siliguri, there is also
said to be a batch of Chinese guerilla experts
near Bhadrapur of Nepal which is hardly 16
miles west of Siliguri.
... Here then, at Nathula, in the Himalayas,
are two major Asian countries confronting each
other. Sitting in his cemented bunker, with his
singleness of thought, purpose, and command,
and with the almost crushed Tibetan hinterland
vol lI no 3
EDITORIALS
behind him, the Chinese soldier must feel the soil
more solidly under his feet. Nathula is the worst
post to guard. Here it is either cold or wet, because
the area has only two seasons, the rains and the
snow, all year round, and notorious howling
winds that come from the tableland of Tibet at
temperatures that plunge down to 20 degrees be-
low zero fahrenheit. The Indian Jawan faces, be-
sides all this, tension, boredom and loneliness...
Sitting in their poorly constructed bunkers in the
freezing cold, neither the Jawan nor his officer re-
alise that they are the target also of the resent-
ment of the Sikkimese population as well as the
so-called defence line of Tibetan labourers who
work along the unreliable, narrow, steep road
from Gangtok to Sherathang, with road-making
materials in their hands and the Red Book of Mao
tucked away under their long stinking Bakus.
9
COMMENTARY
The Paris Agreement
Deepening the Climate Crisis
T Jayaraman, Tejal Kanitkar
The Paris Agreement has set
targets for limiting temperature
rise due to global warming which
will be virtually impossible
(1.5C) or very difficult (well
below 2C) to realise. It ignores
the fact that these targets require
a strict limit on global cumulative
emissions in the future. Allowing
all countries, especially developed
ones, to do what they feel able
to, rather than what is necessary,
sets the world on a dangerous and
inequitable path to the future.
T Jayaraman (tjayaraman@gmail.com) and
Tejal Kanitkar (tejal.kanitkar@tiss.edu) teach
at the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute
of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
10
T
he 21st Conference of Parties
(COP21) of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) held at Paris between
30 November and 12 December 2015,
culminated in a spirit of bonhomie and
mutual congratulation that has rarely
been witnessed at climate summits over
the past several years. Subsequently, the
Paris Agreement, the final outcome of
the conference, has been hailed by world
leaders, without exception, as a critical
step forward taken by all nations in facing
the challenge of global warming. This
would certainly appear to be welcome
news for a world made weary by con-
stant reports of the lack of progress in an
annual succession of climate summits. But
the logical question that follows is how the
seemingly insurmountable divisions that
existed earlier were overcome and what
has been done with respect to the main
issue: the need to reduce the emissions
of greenhouse gases sufficiently rapidly
to ensure that the physical security of
human society itself is not threatened.
Unfortunately, a closer examination of
the outcomes of COP21 at Paris provides
no reassurance that global climate nego-
tiations have come any closer to grap-
pling with the crux of the problem. On the
other hand, the world appears to have
been set on a course that brings the dan-
gers of global warming closer than before,
even while setting the stage for an even
more acrimonious and contentious round
of global climate negotiations. Perhaps
the most dismaying feature of the Paris
Agreement is that it has set a global target
for climate action that is close to being
virtually impossible to meet. Setting
such targets carries with it the consider-
able danger of freezing the world into
inaction as the realisation of the inevita-
bility of missing the target sets in. How-
ever, if the climate goal that has been set
JANUARY 16, 2016
is to be achieved, then it will be at the
cost of the bulk of the nations and popu-
lations of the Third World, whose future
economic options, particularly in terms
of energy, will be sharply curtailed for
the medium- and long-term future.
What is the basis for such a negative
assessment that flies in the face of the
global political approval of the agreement?
The first is the stark evidence that the
Paris summit, in contrast to Bali (2007) or
Durban (2011), refused to face up to the
results of climate science. The second,
related to the first, is that it has not set any
target for global emissions reduction that
is commensurate with the urgency of
dealing with the climate danger. The third
is that the text of the Paris Agreement,
while allowing frequent references to
equity and the principle of common but
differentiated responsibilities in dealing
with climate change, has not spelt out any
basis for the operationalisation of equity.
Wilful Neglect of Climate Science
One of the striking results of the Fifth
Assessment Report (AR5) of the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) is the conclusion that cumulative
emissions are the key indicator in deter-
mining how emissions are related to the
maximum increase acceptable in global
average temperatures due to warming of
anthropogenic origins over a specified
period. Thus, if the global average tem-
perature rise above pre-industrial levels
by the year 2100 is to be below 2C, with
a probability of 50%, then the cumulative
emissions of carbon dioxide from 2012 to
2100 cannot cross 1,300 billion tonnes. A
5050 chance is hardly a comforting
margin in terms of keeping temperatures
below 2C. A 66% probability of keeping
temperature increase below 2C, a safer
margin certainly, will allow only a cumu-
lative emission of 1,000 billion tonnes of
carbon dioxide emissions by 2100.
If the temperature increase is to be res-
tricted to the even lower level of 1.5C, then
the limits on cumulative emissions are
stricter. For a 50% probability of keeping
temperature rise below 1.5C, the cumu-
lative emissions limit is only 550 billion
tonnes of carbon dioxide from now until
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

2100. For only a 33% probability of restrict-
ing temperature increase to 1.5C, the cu-
mulative emissions limit is approximately
850 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
How difficult will it be to limit cumu-
lative emissions to these levels? Follow-
ing the mandate of COP20 held at the
Peruvian capital, Lima in 2014, the sec-
retariat of the UNFCCC was given a man-
date to put together a synthesis report
on the aggregate effect on emissions of
the various Intended Nationally Deter-
mined Contributions (or INDCs) that
were submitted by governments as part
of the run-up to COP21 at Paris. This syn-
thesis report examined, among other
matters, the net effect of the mitigation
efforts that were promised by different
countries. The report, released just prior
to Paris, noted that including the prom-
ised emission reductions, the world
would emit 542 billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide between 2012 and 2025, and 748
billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between
2012 and 2030. Hence by 2025, it would
be clearly impossible to maintain a 50%
chance of not crossing 1.5C, and by
2030, only 100 billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide would be available for the next
70 years to maintain even a 33% chance
of not crossing this temperature limit.
Clearly, to move from continued emis-
sions at the given levels for the next 15
years to such drastic reductions for the
next 70 years would require nothing
short of a miracle. In sum, the possibility
of restricting temperature increase to
1.5C has well-nigh passed into history.
Even to limit the temperature rise to
2C seems quite substantially difficult,
since a 5050 chance of achieving this
would require that the reduction required
in emissions after 2030 should be res-
tricted to 550 billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide, less than what would be emitted
in the next 15 years alone. Climate model-
ling of restricting temperature increase
to 2C suggests that even this target
would require the deployment of nega-
tive emission technologies, that would
enable the extraction and sequestering
of carbon dioxide that is already in the
atmosphere, or create a cooling effect to
counteract the warming effect of green-
house gas emissions. Such technologies
are nowhere near realisation, let alone
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
large-scale deployment, while several of
them are likely to give rise to unknown
side effects that may render the cure
worse than the disease.
Article 2.1 (a) of the Paris Agreement
calls for restricting temperature increase
to well below 2C and further pursue
efforts to limit the temperature increase
to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Nev-
ertheless, nowhere does the agreement
acknowledge the restriction on cumula-
tive emissions that climate science calls
for if we are to achieve this target. On the
contrary, under the agreement all coun-
tries (including the developed countries)
are allowed to declare what they will do
by way of emissions reduction, and this
is accompanied by exhortations calling
on countries to enhance their mitigation
commitments on a voluntary basis. It is
not even required of countries to ensure
that the commitments made in their INDC
will be what they will finally commit to
in the agreement. In short, the Paris
Agreement wilfully ignores the impera-
tives of climate science, with the addi-
tion of the statement on 1.5C being
something of a cruel joke.
We use the term wilfully, quite delib-
erately. Indeed, in a preliminary draft of
the accompanying decision dealing with
the implementation of the agreement, it
was noted clearly that the aggregate
effect of the INDCs was not sufficient to
meet the temperature increase goal that
was desired. However in the final ver-
sion, that was accepted, this gap was
further elaborated upon (indeed the
synthesis report of the UNFCCC is explic-
itly referred to), but only in terms of the
reduction in annual greenhouse gas
emissions. It did not acknowledge that
in the current scheme of things the cu-
mulative emissions would rise to an ex-
tent that the temperature targets would
be increasingly difficult to reach (1.5C
becoming impossible), a fact that the
synthesis report itself had noted, and
undoubtedly well known to the scien-
tists of developed nations, who were
present at COP21 in substantial numbers.
Dictated by US Imperatives
Not only does the agreement ignore the
physical imperative of limiting cumula-
tive emissions, it also does not provide
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
the wherewithal to implement this in the
future in any serious manner. Periodic
reviews have been promised, as well as a
call on countries not to reduce their
commitments in the future, but only
increase them. The global stocktake,
though, which will most likely be the
first serious review of the adequacy of
mitigation commitments will not take
place until 2023, a good seven years away.
It is worth emphasising that the Paris
Agreement turns the clock back on the
original intent of the Durban Platform that
sought to develop a protocol, another
legal instrument or an agreed outcome
with legal force under the convention
applicable to all parties. Even if an ade-
quate mitigation commitment was not the
explicitly stated purpose of this legally
binding commitment alluded to here,
that was clearly the intent. And the Paris
Agreement does not pay heed in practice
to the Durban Platforms call to ensure that
the process shall raise the level of ambi-
tion and shall be informed, inter alia, by
the Fifth Assessment Report of the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change.
From the progression of events in 2015,
in the sphere of global climate negotia-
tions it is clear that the outcome of Paris
was the product of the control, indeed
veto, that the United States (US) exer-
cised over the terms of any potential
agreement at Paris. Early in 2015, the US
had made it clear that it would not
accept any legally binding agreement on
the actual quantum of emission reduc-
tions, especially by developed countries.
While the European Union (EU) was
ostensibly not in agreement, it neverthe-
less had no option, as is clear in retro-
spect, but to acquiesce. Much has been
written about the Barack Obama admini-
strations difficulties with the US Congress,
but this is a superficial reading of the
larger unwilligness of the US polity
(with the active support of countries
such as Canada, Australia and Japan,
and the tacit complicity of the United
Kingdom) to agree to any serious mitiga-
tion action commensurate with the global
limit on cumulative emissions.
China played its cards asutely, freez-
ing its commitment well ahead of Paris,
through the ObamaXi Jinping statement
in 2014. It agreed to a modicum of
11
COMMENTARY
differentiation in its mitigation commit-
ments, promising to peak its emissions
by 2030, and perhaps earlier if possible.
However, it was careful not to specify
either the peak value of such emissions
or the subsequent rate of decline, thus
maximising its potential cumulative
emissions, the key indicator as we have
noted. In early November 2015, China
also ensured in a joint presidential state-
ment with France, the host country for
COP21, that its core concerns on differen-
tiation in other respects would be pre-
served. It simultaneously ensured that
textual references to equity and common
but differentiated responsibilities would
also be adhered to in any agreement,
thus assuaging developing country con-
cerns at least in form, if not content.
The Paris Agreement and the accom-
panying decision reflects these moves
and stances in explicit fashion, though
some details had indeed to be worked
out at the summit itself. One source of
potential difficultythe demands of the
small island states and least developed
countrieshad of course to be dealt
with. The developed country bloc sought
to use this to corner India and China in
the negotiations by putting together the
so-called high ambition coalition with
a large number of smaller nations that
were less concerned with mitigation
than with adaptation, and using this
coalition to push for the inclusion of the
1.5C target. However, this was unlikely
eventually to seriously perturb China
and India, or other major emerging econ-
omies, as there was no provision in any
case for binding emissions reduction
commitment to back this target.
Perhaps the most serious implication
of the inclusion in the Paris Agreement
of the unachievable 1.5C target is that it
will misdirect adaptation. Whatever
may be lacking in terms of a scientific
understanding of the impacts of a 1.5C
rise in temperature on various vulner-
able nations, it is obvious that it will
be less than the impact of a 2C rise in
temperatures above pre-industrial lev-
els. Climate change adaptation directed
at a 1.5C rise, however, seriously risks
misstating or understating the actual
adaptation requirements that will be
necessary.
12
Appropriating the Global Commons
The great merit of the cumulative emis-
sions perspective is that it makes clear
that the world has a global carbon budget
within which it must manage to avoid
dangerous global warming. This clearly
provides a scientific and, indeed, a precise
quantitative formulation of the general
idea of the atmosphere, and the Earth
system as a whole as a global commons,
with respect to fossil fuel use and conse-
quent emissions. Hence, since greenhouse
gas emissions are also a short- to medium-
term necessity for developing countries,
the nub of the issue of equity is an equi-
table distribution of the available cumu-
lative emissions among different countries.
In this regard, the Paris Agreement
constitutes a major setback for the deve-
loping nations, particularly India (with
China having managed to maximise its
gains as noted earlier). By not putting any
serious, ambitious and binding restrictions
on the developed countries, the agree-
ment has sanctioned the continuing
appropriation of the global commons by
the developed countries, over and above
their historical appropriation which has
been well above their fair share by any
reasonable reckoning. This erasure of
the question of historical responsibility
from the climate negotiations consti-
tutes the biggest gain for the developed
countries. But it is also future appropria-
tion that is at stake here.
India mounted a late effort, in the run-
up to Paris, to argue for an equitable
distribution of global carbon space and
managed to maintain this position in the
negotiating text during the first week.
However, as the final text emerged from
the French presidency, this position was
quietly dropped. It is clear that India
paid the price for years of not articulating
an explicit pro-active position on equity
and of hiding behind US inaction to shield
its own inability to face up to its responsi-
bilities in terms of climate action.
Indeed, the wording of Article 4 of the
agreement indicates again the deliber-
ate refusal of the developed countries to
consider the cumulative emissions or
global carbon budget approach. The text
of Article 4 declares that countries
would work to achieve global peaking
of emissions at the earliest. It also
JANUARY 16, 2016
implicitly recognises that individual
countries must also peak at the earliest.
Apart from the unique case of China (a
large emitter among developing nations),
this attempt to force peaking on devel-
oping nations, without allocating indi-
vidual countries a budget is again tanta-
mount to an attempt by developed coun-
tries to acquire an even greater share of
carbon space for themselves.
It is clear that in the working out of
the details of the review processes,
promised in the Paris Agreement and
decision, the question of the cumulative
emissions limits which will be a scientific
imperative, and its sharing will return.
And when it returns, there will be sig-
nificant pressure on countries such as
India to tighten their belts further. The
industrial future of many smaller devel-
oping nations has already been compro-
mised through developed country pres-
sures, along with promises of climate
finance, to tailor their INDCs in a manner
that leaves them little room for future
essential carbon space. The last resort
for India, however, is the possibility of
still declaring its claim on carbon space
unilaterally, based on carefully reasoned
arguments that takes account of both
global adequacy as well as India's deve-
lopmental imperatives, while preparing
for significant effort at both climate mit-
igation and adaptation.
Difficult Road Ahead
It is clear that Paris signals an even more
difficult road ahead for developing coun-
tries. Their access to adequate carbon
space has shrunk significantly. The energy
costs of their development, in particular,
are set to rise significantly. In the event
that the cumulative emissions limitthe
global carbon budgetdoes not return to
the centre stage of the global climate agen-
da as the benchmark for adequate global
action, the prospects are equally grim,
since it implies global warming that will
seriously breach the 2C limit. The brunt of
the serious negative impact that will follow
will be borne mostly by the vulnerable
populations across the world, the bulk of
whom are in the developing world.
We have always sought to avoid an
apocalyptic view of the problem of global
warming. However, post Paris, it is clear
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

that the world is headed towards a climate
crisis, comparable, as Noam Chomsky has
noted, only to the dangers of nuclear
weapons, especially at the height of the
Cold War. However, while inaction in
some form was a possible recipe for
mitigating the nuclear danger, the
climate crisis will not brook such a re-
sponse. The greater difficulties with the
climate crisis also stem from the fact
that under the rule of global capital and
its domestic counterparts, collective ac-
tion of any kind to manage the global
commons becomes even more of a chal-
lenge. Much of the tortuous nature of
global climate negotiations can be
traced, we claim, to the inherent con-
tradictions of equitably and rationally
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
managing natural resources in the cur-
rent economic, and consequent social
and political order.
At the very least, the current trends in
global climate negotiations cannot be
reversed without a corresponding global
movement that calls for taking the global
emissions constraints seriously and
demands a fair and equitable resolution
of how these constraints are to be met.
Currently, the initiative for such move-
ments have emerged only from the civil
society organisations and movements of
developed nations. However, they have
still to appreciate the specific needs of
developing countries, and the double bind
in which they are placed by the problem
of global warming. Environmental and
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
climate movements in developing coun-
tries have been rightly concerned with
the challenge of moving along a trajectory
of development that is respectful of envi-
ronmental constraints. But this alone
will not do to deal with the peculiarly
global challenge that the climate crisis
presents. Without forcing the developed
nations hand in some fashion, without
highlighting their responsibility through
global action, the increasing burdens on
developing countries will risk leaving
their developmental processes stalled in
a low-level equilibrium that perpetuates
the deprivation of the majority of their
population over the long term even as
they bear the brunt of adapting to a
changing climate.
13

Bihar Elections 2015
and the Left
A Short March to Nowhere
Chandanathil P Geevan, Aditya Nigam
The left decided to go it alone
in the elections to the Bihar
Legislative Assembly, ignoring
the perils of such a stand-alone
strategy. It ignored the fact
that a fragmented secular vote
had worked to the Bharatiya
Janata Partys advantage in the
parliamentary elections in 2014.
This article dissects the vote
shares of parties and alliances
in the parliamentary and Bihar
elections and finds that though
the lefts strategy resulted in an
increase in its vote share, it also
benefited the BJP.
Chandanathil P Geevan (cpgeevan@gmail.com)
is an independent researcher based in
Ahmedabad and Aditya Nigam (aditya@
kafila.org) is with the Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies, Delhi.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
T
he results of elections to the Bihar
Legislative Assembly throw up im-
portant questions, coming as they
do in the wake of an unprecedented
victory for the Modi-led National Demo-
cratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2014 Lok
Sabha elections. The questions pertain
both to the interpretation of electoral
data and vote swings, as well as politi-
cal strategy in relation to the longer term
survival of a democratic India.
Analysis of electoral data has tended
to focus mostly on changes in fortunes
of the major players and does not often
take into account how many smaller
players, especially those on the left,
have tended to play an influential role,
both in shaping political discourse and
affecting outcomes, far beyond their
numerical electoral footprint. However,
since the 2014 elections, the left parties
have failed to play a major role on both
counts, having detached themselves
from major alliances. Growing anti-
democratic trends across the social and
political landscape and the urgent need
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
for a broader democratic mobilisation
rightly prompted many political rivals
to forge new alignments in the Bihar
elections.1 These elections also offered
the left an opportunity to contribute its
bit to political electoral debates, in terms
of the prioritisation of issues and active
intervention but more importantly, they
provided it a rare chance to find both its
voice and feet.
The elections took place against the
backdrop of increasing uneasiness with
the Modi government and amidst the
growing perception that it tacitly approves
incidents of violence and intolerance
across the country, not to mention its dis-
mantling of environmental protection
frameworks, meddling in the functioning
of institutions and blatant interference
in academic bodies. While the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA ran an aggres-
sive campaign, the electoral topology
saw major realignments with the forma-
tion of three more coalitions. The four
coalitions in the electoral fray were: (i) the
Mahagathbandhan2 (Grand Alliance),
(ii) the Left Front (LF),3 (iii) the Secular
Socialist Morcha (SSM)4 led by the Samaj-
wadi Party, and (iv) the BJP-led NDA.5
Even in the face of a possible far right
win, foretold on 247 news channels,
the electoral strategy of the left betrayed a
lack of appraisal of the seriousness of the
threat. It was patently clear that an NDA
victory would lead to a massive increase
in violence and communal mobilisation
13
COMMENTARY

across the countrynot to mention target-
ing of political opponents through blatant
misuse of the administrative apparatus.
So, it was imperative that the left parties
leveraged their limited electoral strengths
to promote a convergence towards build-
ing a secular and democratic unity. They
did not do so. We analyse the electoral
data from the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2015
Bihar Vidhan Sabha elections to examine
the role played by the relatively small
electoral strength of the left in shaping
the victories and losses of the BJP.
Behind the Vote Share Statistics
Inter alia, though, the question of whether
there is any evidence of a saffron wave
may surface. We do not examine that
aspect explicitly. The fact is that, with or
without a wave, the BJP won a large
parliamentary majority with a historically
low national vote share of 31%. Both these
aspects merit some discussion based on
electoral data since they can significantly
influence how those at different points of
large swing in votes, it is the possibility
of anomalous seat gain under the first
past the post (FPTP) system that helped
BJP to gain a large number of seats with
merely 31% vote share. Under FPTP, at
times an election can hand out a seat-
bonus. Nevertheless, the bonus of the
2014 elections ought to have made the
losers sit up and take notice. They should
have noticed from the electoral data that
the wins with about 30% votes had more
to do with the fragmentation of the
remaining 70% votes than any large wave
or swing in favour of the winner. If,
indeed, the losers had imbibed some key
lessons from the 2014 debacle, that should
reflect in their electoral performance in
the 2015 Bihar assembly elections. The
total vote share7 of BJP declined by 5
percentage points from 29.4% in 2014 to
24.4% in 2015 (Table 1). However, it
must be noted that BJP contested 65% of
the seats in 2015 compared to 75% in 2014
and the decline in vote is mainly because of
this. In contrast, the contested vote share8
multi-cornered fights. The Left Front
decided to contest all the 243 Vidhan
Sabha seats. It was an unusual decision,
given the past record of the left parties
(most of them) of practically dissolving
their identities in alliances, even when
not much was at stake. What is more,
there were 261 candidates contesting
228 seats.
The biggest gainer is the CPI-ML (Liber-
ation) that won three seats (Table 2). The
CPI-M was the runner-up in one seat,
trailing by a large margin. In terms of
total votes polled, the CPI-M made a
huge gain by more than doubling the to-
tal votes it got in 2014 with the increase
coming from contesting 43 seats as com-
pared to the 98 seats each of CPI-ML (L)
and CPI (Table 3).
Table 2: Seats Won by CPI-ML (Liberation)
Seats Won by CPI-ML(L) Votes Earned Runner Up Margin
1 Balrampur 62,513 BJP 20,419
2 Darauli 49,576 BJP 9,584
3 Tarari 44,050 LJP 272
Source: Based on data abstracted from the Election
Commission of India website.

the political spectrum devise their strategy (CVS) of BJP fell by a mere 1.4 percentage Both CPI and CPI-ML (L) improved the
and mobilise votes. Since in the run-up to points from its big win in 2014 (38.8%) to number of votes earned by over 25%
the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the media its rout in 2015 (37.4%). The data shows compared to 2014. The other partners
blitzkrieg had projected an advantage to that with contests confined to less num- performed badly in comparison to 2014.
the NDA, one would have expected the left ber of seats having a higher likelihood of For the Left Front, total vote share in-
to make that factor a critical element in success, the CVS for other parties like creased by 0.8 and contested vote share
their electoral strategy. The ability of the RJD and JD(U) increased dramatically.9 by 0.2 percentage in 2015 compared to
NDA to register a large win in 2014 with a low Table 1: Vote Share (Total and Contested) of 2014. Given the low electoral support
vote share was due to fragmentation votes Major Parties in Bihar for 2014 Lok Sabha and the left commands in most constituen-
2015 Vidhan Sabha Elections
of the opponents. Learning their lesson, the Contested (%) Total (%) Share of Seats cies, the average number of votes earned
rivals Janata Dal (United)(JD(U) and Contested (%) per candidate of the left was about 5,200
Party LS2014 VS2015 LS2014 VS2015 LS2014 VS2015
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) buried their BJP 38.8 37.4 29.4 24.4 75.0 64.6 (Table 4, p 15) compared to nearly
quarrels to form the Mahagathbandhan. RJD 30.1 44.2 20.1 18.4 67.5 41.6 69,300 for RJD (from nearly 7 million
On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party JD(U) 16.7 40.5 15.8 16.8 95.0 41.6 votes of 101 RJD candidates). Of course,
and a few other small parties, potential INC 27.8 39.3 8.4 6.7 30.0 16.9 this also raises the question of whether
partners of the Mahagathbandhan, decided LJSP 37.0 28.7 6.4 4.8 17.5 17.3 it made any sense to spread resources so
to contest as a separate bloc in all the RLSP 32.1 27.4 3.0 2.6 10.0 9.5 thin. Some sort of purposeful seat ad-
LS: Lok Sabha; VS: Vidhan Sabha.
seats.6 The alliance of six left parties too Source: Based on data abstracted from the Election
justments with the Mahagathbandhan
decided to contest all the seats without Commission of India website.10 would have resulted in much better
seeking even informal adjustments to The formation of the Table 3: Comparison of Left Parties in the Left Front in 2014 and 2015
counter the BJP. The elections became Mahagathbandhan was Elections
Left Front (2015) LS-2014 VS-2015 Change
primarily a direct contest between NDA a clear recognition that All India Forward Bloc 12,179 6,936 -43.0%
and Mahagathbandhan, sharply perturbed failure to consolidate the Communist Party of India 4,13,347 5,16,699 25.0%
in several constituencies by two more fragmented votes would Communist Party of India (Marxist) 1,06,297 2,32,149 118.4%
alliances that had little to lose. The two spell doom. The elect- Communist Party of India
smaller alliances could swing the results oral statistics indicate (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation) 4,63,045 5,87,701 26.9%
Revolutionary Socialist Party NA 3,045 NA
in 20 to 30 constituencies if they stub- that the left parties did
Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) 16,143 11,621 -28.0%
bornly avoided any sort of understand- not make any special
Total votes earned 10,11,011 13,58,151 34.3%
ing to defeat BJP/NDA. effort to nullify the ad-
Total vote share (%) 2.8 3.6 0.8
The voting pattern in the parliamen- vantage the NDA had in Contested vote share (%) 3.1 3.3 0.2
tary elections indicates that more than a several hotly contested Source: Based on data abstracted from the Election Commission of India website.

14 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

 COMMENTARY

performance by focusing on less num- the fragmentation of anti-BJP votes by institutions seems inconsistent with
ber of seats and by the additional votes the stubborn push for increasing vote stated strategic objectives of the left.
from the Mahagathbandhan. share by the left and the SSM (Table 5). There may be lessons in the way in
Table 4: Performance of the Left Front in 2015 at The highest victory margin for BJP in which the alignments changed in round
a Glance these 16 seats was nearly 15,000 votes two of the French elections held recently,
Left Front (2015) Candidates Seats TVS CVS Votes per
Won (%) (%) Candidate
while the maximum votes gained by the in order to checkmate Marine Le Pens
AIFB 9 0 0.0 0.5 771 Left Front and SSM were almost 19,000 National Front.
CPI 98 0 1.4 3.4 5,272 and 41,700 respectively. Out of these 16
CPI-M 43 0 0.6 3.3 5,399 seats, in seven, thirteen and three seats NOTES
CPI-ML(L) 98 3 1.5 3.8 5,997 the votes of left, SSM or left and SSM 1 In a broader sense, encompassing quest for
combined (respectively) exceeded the social justice, we include in this the coming
RSP 3 0 0.0 0.6 1,015
together of the two main OBC parties, the
SUCI 10 0 0.0 0.7 1,162 victory margins of BJP. JD(U) and RJD in the face of an unprecedented
Total After the elections, with the NDA routed, upper caste consolidation behind the BJP.
(for 243 seats) 261 3 3.6 3.3 5,204 2 Mahagathbandhan: RJD, JDU and Indian National
the left parties happily issued statements Congress.
Source: Based on data abstracted from the Election
Commission of India website. congratulating the people of Bihar for 3 Left Front (LF): (1) Communist Party of India,
rejecting communal forces. The election (2) Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
Liberation, (3) Communist Party of India-Marx-
BJP Wins with Some Help: data, however, indicates that this defeat ist, (4) All India Forward Bloc, (5) Revolution-
2014 and 2015 of the communal forces took place de- ary Socialist Party, and (6) Socialist Unity Centre
of India (Communist).
The somewhat under-reported story of spite the best efforts of the left, which 4 Secular Socialist Morcha (SSM): (1) Samajwadi
the 2014 elections is about the role of the effectively helped the dreaded commu- Party, (2) Jan Adhikar Party, (3) Nationalist Con-
left in crucial seats where the left vote nal forces snatch victory from the jaws gress Party, (4) Samras Samaj Party, (5) Sama-
jwadi Janata Party-D, and (6) National Peoples
played a decisive role. The BJP won of certain defeat in many constituencies. Party.
While the CPI-ML(L) 5 National Democratic Alliance (NDA): (1) Bharati-
Table 5: Vidhan Sabha Seats Won by BJP Where Votes of LF and SSM Are ya Janata Party, (2) Hindustani Awam Morcha
Nearly Equal or More Than the Victory Margin has achieved a major (Secular), (3) Lok Jan Shakti Party, and
Seat Won by BJP Victory Votes Left Contestant(s) electoral gain, mak- (4) Rashtriya Lok Samta Party.
Margin Left SSM (Left+ SSM)
ing its presence felt in 6 Given the background of the SPs role in the
1 Chanpatia 464 10,136 2,523 12,659 CPI Muzaffarnagar communal violence and its
2 Chainpur 671 2,573 12,802 15,375 CPI-M
the Bihar assembly by aftermath, however, this was perhaps for the
3 Banmankhi 708 3,745 7,552 11,297 CPI winning three seats, better, for in its present incarnation it would
have been a liability. Here, of course, we are
4 Biharsharif 2,340 1,526 12,635 14,161 CPI-ML(L) it will be good for the concerned more with the potentiality of the
5 Patna Sahib (*) 2,792 4,305 409 4,714 AIFB, CPI-ML(L), RSP left parties to engage situation rather than its actual shape.
6 Pipra 3,930 8,366 6,581 14,947 CPI-M in some collective soul 7 Total vote share (TVS) is the percentage of
votes earned by a party out of the total votes
7 Parihar 4,017 2,405 10,827 13,232 CPI searching. While the polled in the state, irrespective of the number
8 Chiraia 4,374 0 13,731 13,731 - NIL - need for a left alliance of seats contested by the party.
9 Jale (*) 4,620 6,879 7,582 14,461 CPI & CPI-ML(L) 8 Contested vote share (CVS) is the percentage of
itself is not in ques-
votes earned out of total votes polled from the
10 Gurua 6,515 1,872 7,989 9,861 CPI-MLL tion, it seems almost seats contested by the partys candidates.
11 Lakhisarai 6,556 4,536 3,034 7,570 CPI-M 9 RJD and JD(U) contested 42% of seats in 2015
comical that such an
12 Goh 7,672 18,951 6,063 25,014 CPI compared to nearly 68% and 95% respectively
alliance bereft of any in 2014.
13 Pranpur 8,101 873 41,673 42,546 CPI-ML(L)
14 Kalyanpur 11,488 4,657 26,430 31,087 CPI
substantial electoral 10 Data sources: Assembly polls, Bihar 2015:
base should opt to http://eciresults.nic.in/PartyWiseResult.htm
15 Hisua 12,239 4,902 14,188 19,090 CPI(M) (accessed 15 November 2015); General Elections
16 Katihar 14,894 1,247 18,856 20,103 CPI-ML(L) contest all the seats. 2014: http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/ElectionSta-
(*) Seat with more than one left candidate. There are no docu- tistics.aspx (accessed 15 November 2015).
Source: Based on data abstracted from the Election Commission of India website.
ments in the public
three Lok Sabha seats (Begusarai, Patali- domain about any self-critical reviews, if Obituaries
putra and Ujiarpur) with margins of be- any, undertaken by the left parties
tween about 40,000 and 60,000 votes. after 2014 Lok Sabha and the 2015 The EPW has started a monthly section,
The votes polled by the left range be- Bihar assembly elections. Obituaries, which will note the passing of
tween nearly 60,000 and 1,92,600. In Electoral participation should help the teachers and researchers in the social sci-
many ways, the 2015 strategy of the left left parties, which certainly have an ences and humanities, as also in other areas
was a continuation of that adopted in important contribution to make to the of work.
2014, which was to have singular focus national and local politics, to enhance The announcements will be in the nature of
on maximising vote share. BJP won their role in the larger political battles. short notices of approximately a hundred
merely 53 out of the 157 assembly seats it But electoral participation with excessive words about the work and careers of those
contested in 2015 compared to 22 out of or even singular focus on bolstering vote who have passed away.
the 30 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. Little no- share without making sound tactical Readers could send brief obituaries to
ticed is the fact that the BJP bagged 16 moves to counter even the imminent edit@epw.in.
out of the 53 seats it won only because of danger of a rapid erosion of democratic
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 15
COMMENTARY
Beyond the Politics of Platitudes
On the Intolerance Debate
Ankit Kawade
Hegemonic ideologies not only
provide a desired frame of
action, but also a desired frame
of dissent. The environment of
hate against the minorities and
a section of dissenters and their
responseinvoking the Idea of
India as tolerant, diverse and
inclusivecaters perfectly to the
needs of Hindutva as a hegemonic
ideology. This article attempts a
diagnosis of this stalemate.
Ankit Kawade (ankitkawade@hotmail.com) is
studying in Fergusson College, Pune.
16
P
rotests by academicians, artists,
film-makers, scientists, etc, grew
after a Muslim man named
Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched on
rumours of having beef in his house in
Dadri, Uttar Pradesh. Similar protests
had occurred when religious mobs had
silenced Perumal Murugan or when
Wendy Donigers book Hindus: An
Alternative History was pulped by her
publisher. These protests have broadly
taken the form of returning state-
conferred awards. The statements issued
by these dissenters have, perhaps with
the exception of Arundhati Roy, invoked
the Idea of India as a tolerant, inclusive,
diverse nation against Hindu nationalists
trying to mould India into an intolerant,
exclusive and uniform nation.
There are many who are questioning the
supposed hypocrisy and biases of these
dissenters, which has broadly taken three
forms: (i) terming the Dadri lynching and
murders of rationalists like Narendra Dab-
holkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi
as being stray incidents, (ii) questioning
the timing of the protests and saying that
such incidents happened as frequently dur-
ing previous governments, and (iii) pan-
dering to the minorities by remaining
silent when Muslim extremists committed
similar acts of violence or intolerance.
What follows does not intend to
examine whether India is becoming
intolerant or not. It is an attempt to ana-
lyse a politics that has labelled recent
happenings as manifestations of grow-
ing intolerance. It seeks to question an
epistemology which interprets these as
problems of intolerance.
What One Sows
This debate clearly has a global context.
The post-Cold War era has witnessed the
rise of political parties based on a combi-
nation of religious nationalism and
neo-liberal economics. Identity politics
and multiculturalism have created new
JANUARY 16, 2016
ways in which a polity mediates between
and among minority and majority social
groupscreating the ground for parties
like the National Front in France, the
United Kingdom Independence Party, the
Golden Dawn in Greece and the Republi-
can Party in the US (especially looking at
the antics of Donald Trump). These
parties get their support from manipulat-
ing the anxieties of the white, mostly male,
Christian middle class in their respec-
tive countries who feel they are losing
politico-cultural ground to blacks, Muslims,
feminists, queer groups, etc.
Indian politics has been on a similar
track, with some differences. Since the
1990s, the central government has essen-
tially been a game of exchange between
the two main national partiesthe
Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP)with their respective allies. The
compulsions of neo-liberal globalisation
are such that political parties cannot
afford to differ much in their economic
policies, although one of the political
parties has represented a more muscular
version of neo-liberal globalisation, parad-
ing strength, stability, and good govern-
ance. The other party is, of course, found
wanting in the above-mentioned virtues
of firmnessthis is particularly visible
in the way it handles the minorities.
The only differences afforded in these
times are cultural ones. Hence the right/
left or reactionary/progressive bandwagon
has limited itself to questions of minority
rights, art, religion, education, and such
like. The former party tends to advocate
and seems to embody revivalism, authori-
tarianism, majoritarianism and the latter
diversity, plurality, tolerance. The eco-
nomic muscularity gives an edge to the
former party in this climate and thus one
can say that it is neo-liberal globalisation
which is creating ground for such acts of
intolerance to flourish. These acts range
anywhere from terming the critics of
Modi to be anti-nationals, calls for
them to be sent to Pakistan, a general
hatred of the lifestyle of religious minor-
ities, curbs against freedom of expres-
sion of writers, artists, etc.
Clearly what we are witnessing should
not be shocking given the forces which
led to the BJP-led National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) victory in the 2014 general
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

elections. There are three predominant
segments without whom the NDA could
not have won with such a huge margin:
(i) Corporate capital, which bankrolled
the advertising frenzy. This groups main
grievance was over the delays in industri-
al projects under the Congress rule.
(ii) The middle class which felt a general
despondency under Congress rule found
a saviour in Narendra Modi. (iii) The
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs (RSS)
Parivar which provided the groundwork
of election campaigning through its cadre.
These three segments have their own
agendas in supporting the government,
and these are often irreconcilable. One
can still see some commonality of agendas
between the middle classes and corporate
capital, but the Sangh Parivar has become
the bone of contention here. It is repeat-
edly termed as the fringe by supporters
of Modi and we are reminded that a vote
for Modi was a vote for development,
not these violent hoodlums. International
credit rating agencies are stressed over
India becoming a less preferred location
for investment because of growing intol-
erance, Moodys report being an exam-
ple. The argument is that such acts are a
hindrance to growth and development
itself, and Modi should be more vocal
and active in ensuring social harmony,
the statements of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
and Narayana Murthy being cases in
point. The middle class and corporate
capital want Modi to focus more on the
economy and has few ideological affilia-
tions to the cause of a Hindu Rashtra.
The RSSs economic agenda is also
counter to that of the BJP and, conse-
quentially, of corporate capital. Its labour
wing, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS)
and the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM)
openly opposed the Land Acquisition
Ordinance, foreign direct investment (FDI)
and also the labour reforms instituted by
Modi. It is not that Modi does not realise
this; he is simply stuck with the RSS cad-
re which won him the election. He can-
not wish them away. The prodigal son
does return to his father ultimately.
The vandalising of the places of worship
of Christians and Muslims, the campaigns
of Ghar Wapsi, moral policing, appointing
Hindutva sympathisers in institutional
positions, etc, are the core agenda of the
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
Sangh Parivar and shall continue to hap-
pen. Narendra Modis job is to balance
the demands of the three segments in a
politically sustainable manner. So we
(hopefully) will not see large-scale riots,
but we shall not see an end to the hateful
statements of Yogi Adityanath and
Mahesh Sharma either; nor may we see
an end to blackening the film posters of
an Aamir Khan or a Shah Rukh Khan.
Modi, even if the entire world wants him
to curb the Hindutva fringe, can only,
for lack of a better word, tolerate them.
We, however, must not tolerate such
acts. That is why the protests against
these by all writers, artists, film-makers,
scientists are welcome and justified.
However, my concern is to exhibit the
limits of a politics which limits itself to a
vocabulary of diversity and tolerance.
Interrogating Diversity
and Tolerance
It is worth wondering, going against the
dictum of Goebbels, whether saying some-
thing ad infinitum actually makes it appear
false. Howard Zinn attributed Marx in
his play Marx in Soho saying, The
English are admirable in their tolerance
and insufferable in their boasting about
it. One feels the same when repeatedly
hearing the statement India is a diverse,
inclusive and tolerant country.
Diversity and tolerance are the biggest
holy cows in todays global political voca-
bulary. The rise of new social movements
with their insistence on the politics of
recognition came along with the dissolu-
tion of the traditional left. With its dis-
solution also vanished the use of a lan-
guage of class struggle and justice. India
has followed the same pattern. It is not
expected of intellectuals to restate the ob-
vious ad nauseam. It is never simply
enough to say India is diverse. One must
ask what is it which sustains this diver-
sity? The conclusions one reaches when
asking this question should also be put
straightforwardly, even at the risk of
hurting long-cherished beliefs.
In the words of Ashis Nandy (2007: 2),
Diversity cannot survive without some mod-
erate forms of exclusion, without a vague
belief that ones own way of life and core val-
ues are superior to those of others the in-
tellectual challenge of our times may well be
to identify the meansthe institutional
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
structures and personality resourcesthat can
reconcile diversity with exclusions that are not
destructive, demeaning or driven by hatred
One must begin by asking how moder-
ate indeed are these forms of exclusion
which sustain diversity. The Indian
subcontinent is home to some 60,000
castes and sub-castes, and the caste system
has been a living reality in India for several
centuries. Its political economylack of
access to property ownership to the lower
castes and its sociocultural counterpart
of restricting intermarriagehas survived
for so long. The occupation, skill sets,
property, distinct customs and rituals
can pass on to successive generations
only when marriages take place within
the caste group. This, in effect, means a
perpetual control of womens sexuality.
The plurality of the system masks uni-
form domination. Endogamy ensures the
floating plurality of the caste system.
Obviously we do not celebrate the caste
system because of its evident diversity,
because we are well aware of the noxious
implications it has had on freedom and
equality. However, other forms of diver-
sity are not so innocent either. Ultimately,
the communities inhabiting a common
geographical location retain their distinct
identity through means of exclusion
moderate or otherwise. A recent example
brought to light is that of the Jiyo Parsi
(Long Live Parsi) campaign which is a
joint effort of the Parzor Foundation,
Bombay Parsi Panchayat, Tata Institute of
Social Sciences (TISS) and supported by
the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Govern-
ment of India. It aims to arrest the decline
in population of the Parsi Zoroastrian
community in India.1 The reasons cited
for this decline are late marriage, not
marrying at all, fertility decline, emigra-
tion and marrying outside the commu-
nity (Mascarenhas 2015). The solution
includes counselling the Parsi youths for
early marriage, conceiving at the right
time and detection of problems and
fertility treatment for married couples
(ibid). Mention must be made that this
applies only to married Parsi couples or
couples where the male member is a Parsi
(because of a patrilineal family system).
This Panda syndrome not only afflicts
the Parsis, but many other communities
anxious about their dwindling numbers.
17
COMMENTARY
It is not unjustified to wish for the survival
of ones community; however very often
the first solution offered for this very sur-
vival is to ensure that Parsi women do not
marry outside the community and Parsi
men marry. This campaign, behind the
concerns for the dwindling numbers of
Parsis, actually offers an incentive to con-
trol and reduce the marriage options
and the option of marriage itself, of Parsi
women. The mutual coexistence and even
material success of the Parsi community
is a window to Indias culture of tolerance
and diversity; as also the layered patriar-
chies of inward-looking endogamous com-
munities that maintains this very culture
although there is nothing distinctly
Indian about it. It is a global malaise.
Girish Shahane (2015) is absolutely
right when he says admirable though
our tradition of religious tolerance is, it
18
has never extended to a respect for hu-
man rights as a whole and also for recog-
nising that there is a parallel tradition
of abuse, especially casteist abuse, that
needs to be incorporated into any com-
plete picture of our society.
In Conclusion
The perspective offered by the politics of
diversity and tolerance is a horizontal
one. It offers a politics of social harmony.
For the Hindu nationalists, social justice
translates into samarasta, which is
Platonic justice by another name, as the
naming of Ambedkar Jayanti as Samar-
asta Divas shows. To counter Hindutva,
what we need is a politics which goes
beyond the liberal idea of multicultural-
ism and harbours Ambedkarite social
justice as its core value. The Congress
Party, historically and presently, has
JANUARY 16, 2016
been anathema to such a politics and the
BJP is no exception. Can the left fill the
void here? It is difficult to be an optimist
these days.
note
1 Quoted from Jiyo Parsi website http://www.jiyo-
parsi.org/jps.htm, last accessed 2 January 2016.
References
Mascarenhas, Anuradha (2015) : Parsi New Year-
Jiyo Parsi Delivers towards Revival of Race: 30
Babies in 2 Years, 11 on the Way, Indian Express,
available at http://indianexpress.com/article/
cities/pune/parsi-new-year-jiyo-parsi-delivers-
towards-revival-of-race-30-babies-in-2-years-11-
on-way/, last accessed 2 January 2016.
Nandy, Ashis (2007): The Return of the Sacred:
The Language of Religion and the Fear of Demo-
cracy in a Post-Secular World, available at
http://www.soscbaha.org/downloads/
mcrl2007.pdf, last accessed 2 January 2016.
Shahane, Girish (2015): Shades of Grey: How India
Is Both a Tolerant and an Intolerant Society,
available at http://scroll.in/article/771636/sha-
des-of-grey-how-india-is-both-a-tolerant-and-an-
intolerant-society, last accessed 2 January 2016.
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
COMMENTARY
No Childs Play
Kishore Jha
Childrens right to play depends
on their access to parks, grounds
and open spaces. Delhis open
spaces are becoming increasingly
inaccessible to children as they
are being converted to dumping
or parking sites and residents
associations prohibit children
from playing within the housing
colonies. Meanwhile, the number
of vehicles in the capital keeps
increasing rapidly.
Kishore Jha (kishor.delhi6@gmail.com) works
with Terre des Hommes Germany India
Programme and is based in Delhi.
18
T
he right to play was first recognised
in the United Nations Declaration
of the Rights of the Child in 1959.
It was further strengthened in 1989 by
the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC). Article 31 of the CRC mentions
the right of the child to rest, leisure, play
and recreational activities. Besides being
the states legal obligation as a signatory
to the convention, playing is crucial for
the overall development and social inte-
gration of a child. It enhances creativity,
skills, physical health and the overall
quality of childhood.
Accessibility to open spaces is crucial
in ensuring childrens right to play. Chil-
dren use playgrounds, fields, lawns,
gardens, verandas, backyards, aangans
(courtyards), pavements, streets, etc, as
playing spaces. However, these spaces are
shrinking as a result of rapid urbanisation
and our current model of development.
Children have reported this problem
both in rural and urban areas but I will
focus on urban spaces taking Delhi as an
example and look into the reasons why
spaces for playing and sports are shrinking.
JANUARY 16, 2016
I will also look into the hurdles faced by
children in accessing open spaces.
With parks being turned into orna-
mental spaces and roads where it is too
dangerous to play, children do not know
where to go. Not only does their right to
play get undercut in everyday life, it also
does not get due space in urban plan-
ning. Delhis Master Plan (2021) deals
with 18 aspects of urban planning in-
cluding trade, transportation, environ-
ment, etc, but does not take into account
places for play and sports.
No Sport Allowed
Delhi has approximately 14,000 parks
under the Municipal Corporation of
Delhi (MCD) but only 126 have dedicated
playing facilities for children (Business
Standard 2014). The Delhi government
also has the Delhis Park and Garden
Society with the Lt Governor of Delhi as
its patron to manage and coordinate
16,500 parks under the MCD, Public Works
Department (PWD), Delhi Development
Authority (DDA) and the Central Public
Works Department (CPWD). Officially it
has 10 objectives for their management
but none is related to play and sport.1
The government plans to have one
childrens park in each ward and sports
academies in the corporation schools,
but the plan is yet to roll out. There are
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

sports complexes and swimming pools
in several localities but these remain out
of bounds for children living in slums or
on the streets. While these complexes do
serve to promote sports, they cannot be
a substitute for open spaces where a
spontaneous spirit of play is nurtured.
A number of parks have been converted
into garbage dumping stations or en-
croached upon by religious institutions, es-
pecially around the resettlement colonies
in the city. According to the interviews
conducted with 34 children by Srishti
Childrens Club in Holambi Kalan, outer
north Delhi, phase I of the colony has four
parks, one of which is encroached upon
by a temple and the other three are full of
garbage and serve as defecation grounds.
These parks are also used for consuming
drugs and gambling. In phase II, there
are nine parks, six of which have been
usurped by religious institutions.
Children in Khicharipur and Sunder-
nagri in east Delhi also reported similar
conditions. In these and other such locali-
ties of the capital, they are forced to play in
extremely unhygienic surroundings. Play-
ing on the streets not only angers residents,
it also puts the children at physical risk.
In the interviews, children mentioned
two accidents that took place when they
were playing on the streets.
There are parks such as the Jagdish
Anand Vatika in Tagore Park, north Delhi,
where the noticeboard at the entrance
reads, No sport allowed inside the park
by order Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
Ironically, the same authority rents out
parks for weddings and parties.
The pathetic condition of the city
parks was well described by Justice Kurien
Joseph of the Supreme Court. In his letter
dated 12 April 2014, to the acting Chief
Justice of the Delhi High Court, he said
conditions of the city parks were a serious
violation of human rights of children as
it was their right in their tender times
to have a decent environment to play
and frolic around. The high court
treated the letter as a public interest liti-
gation (PIL) and issued notices to various
civic agencies in April 2014. A division
bench of acting Chief Justice B D Ahmed
and Justice S Mridul directed the citys
municipal bodies, DDA, PWD and urban
development ministry to file status reports,
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
with pictures, within two weeks on the
childrens parks being run by them.
The court had also appointed Nidhesh
Gupta, senior advocate, as the amicus curiae
to assist the court and invited suggestions
from him. Gupta visited parks in different
localities of Delhi, such as Vasant Vihar, Lodhi
Colony, R K Puram and Sarojini Nagar, and
submitted a report in October 2014. He
described some of the facilities as death
traps. Not only were the swings broken in
a few parks, construction material had
been dumped in the playing areas and at
some places, the parks were waterlogged.
Gupta submitted photographs of some of
the parks to substantiate his report.
No Culture of Sports
The absence of proper decentralised
planning in cities is also robbing children
of places to play. The pressure of support-
ing a growing population often results in
unplanned bastis and slums. Such settle-
ments lack open spaces because of limited
availability of land.
A few decades ago, football was played
in many parts of the city, including in the
areas surrounding Delhis walled city.
However, the disappearance of these fields
some in the name of beautification
and others falling to developmenthas
choked the game in old Delhi. Old-timers
give many accounts of footballs glory
years in these areas some 40 years ago.
Syed Shaheen, a portly man in his
50s, remembers the days when the avail-
ability of a ground was not among a
footballers worries. Football was played
at Irwin Hospital, Crescent and Mughal
grounds. One could play at the Parade
ground too which faced the Red Fort.
Now, these grounds have disappeared.
Where will people play? laments Shaheen,
the owner of the old Delhi-based club,
Moonlight. He says,
The Ramlila Maidan, for long the site of a
thousand different games, now attracts
publicity only when a sadhu is tackled by the
citys policemen (Hindu 2013).
Teams like Young Men, City and Indian
National were formidable outfits once. City
became the Senior Division champions
many times in the 60s, relying on a steady
flow of quality footballers from its feeder
Anglo-Arabic School. State-level players like
Sabir Ali and Aziz Qureshi made the switch
from the educational institution to City FC
and achieved great success (Hindu 2013).
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
The residents welfare associations (RWAs)
too are increasingly prohibiting children
playing within their colonies, saying the
games pose a danger to other users, window-
panes and cars. Two years ago, a con-
cerned citizen had to knock on the high
courts doors against an RWA decision to
prohibit children from playing. The court
upheld the childrens right to play in its
2011 verdict. However, little has changed on
the ground. Despite the courts order, the
RWAs continue to ban games in colonies.
Recently, a child died whilst trying to
enter a park that had been fenced off by
the RWA. The 14-year-old was electrocuted
while trying to step over a barbed wire
that elders in the society had tied across
the entrance to keep dogs out. The
three gates of the park had all been
locked to deter children from playing
ball games (Times of India 2014).
Children of homeless families are the
ones most deprived especially with re-
gard to the right to play. They do not have
any access to playing spaces. There are
52,765 homeless families (as per the
Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan) living on foot-
paths and dividers on the streets of Delhi.
They are often seen playing in hazardous
conditions on footpaths and roads full of
moving traffic. Children living here hardly
have any option other than risking their
lives. Ragpickers and street children are
often chased away from parks by police or
gardeners. According to Chandni, presi-
dent of Badte Kadam, a forum for street
children in Delhi, these kids are often
beaten or chased away from parks on
the pretext of preventing crime.
As per the testimonies of 34 children on
sports facilities in six schools of the A, B
and N blocks, Holambi Kalan phase I and B
block in phase II, the children play on their
own during the sports period and no
equipment is provided to them. Neither
do sports teachers guide or coach them.
On many occasions, they are not allowed
access to the school playground in order
to keep the noise levels down and there are
many instances of the sports period being
used to teach some other academic subject.
Experts in this field recommend at
least 200 square feet of outdoor play
area per child but not many schools in
the capital adhere to it. Numerous private
schools are built without any space to
19
COMMENTARY
play. A number of them have centrally
air-conditioned rooms equipped with
online teaching tools but do not have
open spaces for sports. There are no
regulations making sports facilities
mandatory in schools.
Rising crimes against children and
increasing vehicular traffic in the city
also deter parents in allowing children
to play in lanes in front of their houses.
The parents fears in this regard are real,
as the number of vehicles in metropolitan
cities such as Delhi and Mumbai has
increased several fold in the past 10
years. Registered cases of crimes against
children too went up by 379% between
2011 and 2012 (10,814 cases in 2001 and
38,172 cases in 2012: NCRB). It is impor-
tant to emphasise that this data is only
for registered cases.
Making Way for Vehicles
Playing spaces are also shrinking as
more and more open space is occupied
by vehicles. Delhi registered a 135.59%
jump in the number of vehicles between
19992000 and 20112012 (Business
Standard 2013) and 1,400 cars are added
every day in the city (NDTV 2014). Parking
has consumed nearly 10% of the citys
urban land, inevitably encroaching on
open spaces. In stark contrast, the share
of the capitals forest cover is just 11%
Rural Elites and the Limits of Scheduled Caste Assertiveness in Rural Malwa, Punjab
Structural Change in Bihars Rural Economy: Findings from a Longitudinal Study
Explaining Village-level Development Trajectories through Schooling in Karnataka
Changing Characteristics of Villages in Tamil Nadu: Dalit Mobilisation and Faction Politics in Rural Andhra Pradesh
Everyday Life of a Dalit NGO and Agricultural Labour Union
320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel,
20
(Hindustan Times 2014). A number of
parks and other spaces have been
converted into parking lots in the past
two decades. Parks in Hauz Khas, South
Extension, Paschm Vihar, Kamla Nagar
and Model Town II are just a few exam-
ples of these spaces being converted into
parking lots.
The Delhi municipal corporation identi-
fied 24 parks for multistorey parking in
2009 (CNN-IBN 2015). In 2012, the Delhi
government agreed not to convert public
parks into parking lots. The government
took this decision following the recom-
mendations of the Environment Pollu-
tion Control Authority. Prior to this deci-
sion, a committee appointed by the Su-
preme Court under environmentalist
Bhure Lal had recommended a ban on
construction of underground parking lots
over public parks, arguing that the step
would damage the citys few remaining
green lungs beyond repair (Mail Online
India 2012). However, there are numbers
of parks such as Naharpur and Shiva
Market (at Madhuban Chowk) in north-
west Delhi that have been converted
into parking lots illegally. The obligation
to fulfil any right includes creating a
conducive environment to exercise it. The
state has the obligation to provide access
to spaces and playgrounds to ensure
childrens right to play as a signatory of
Review of Rural Affairs
December 26, 2015
For copies write to:
Circulation Manager,
Economic and Political Weekly,
Mumbai 400 013.
email: circulation@epw.in
JANUARY 16, 2016
CRC. However, in reality, such facilities
are being priced and made accessible
only to certain sections of children.
note
1 Delhi Parks and Garden Society, http://delhi.
gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/doit_dpg/DoIT_DPG/
Home/Organization+Setup, accessed on 4 Oct-
ober 2015.
References
Business Standard (2013): 74.53 Lakhs Vehicles in
Delhi: Survey, PTI, 19 March.
(2014): No Facilities in Childrens Parks in Delhi:
NGO to HC, IANS, 13 August 2014, available at
http://www.business-standard.com/article/
news-ians/no-facilities-in-children-s-parks-in-
delhi-ngo-to-hc-114081301135_1.html, accessed
on 4 October 2015.
CNN-IBN (2015): Choking Delhi: MCD to Convert
Parks into Parking Lots, Devika NalikCNN
IBN, 7 January, http://www.ibnlive.com/vide-
os/full/india/parks-for-parking-305617.html,
accessed on 25 September 2015.
Hindu (2013): Delhis Shrinking Spaces and Flagging
Football by Priyansh, 29 July.
Hindustan Times (2014): Delhi: Cars Everywhere
Just no Place to Park by Darpan Singh, 22 Au-
gust 2014.
Mail Online India (2012): No Parking Under Parks:
Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Accepts Green Pan-
els Proposal by Subhash Munshi, 16 Septem-
ber 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/india-
home/indianews/article-2204259/No-park-
ing-parks-Delhi-Lieutenant-Governor-accepts-
green-panels-proposal.html, accessed on 20
September 2015.
NDTV (2014): Delhi: 1400 Cars Added to Citys Roads
Every Day, Ketki AngreNDTV, 13 February 2014,
http://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/delhi-1400-
cars-added-to-citys-roads-every-day-550647, ac-
cessed on 1 October 2015.
Times of India (2014): RWAs Barbed Wire at Park
Entry kills Boy by Maria Akram, 10 July 2014.
Nicolas Martin
Alakh N Sharma, Gerry Rodgers
Suraj Jacob, Balmurli Natrajan, Indira Patil
A Vaidyanathan, R Srinivasan
David Picherit
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

Questions on the Technologies
of Fascism
Making the Modi Effect
Santhosh S
The phenomenal rise to power
of Narendra Modi illustrates
how his imagemediated by
technologywas shaped and
reshaped. Some facets of Modis
fashioned persona are scrutinised
in the article. The internet,
particularly the social media,
which was expected to revitalise
the public sphere to bring about
a new civic culture, has instead
allowed for the selective return of
the written word in support of
fascist ideology. The cyberspace,
along with the mass media, has
enabled the coming together of
many virtual participants to
hurl masculinist abuse and silence
their opponents.
Santhosh S (santhoshs@aud.ac.in) teaches
at the School of Culture and Creative
Expressions, Ambedkar University, Delhi.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
S
ince the 2014 Lok Sabha elections,
political and social scientists, in
general, have struggled to enumer-
ate and explain the multiple factors that
distinguish the present government led
by Narendra Modi from any of the
preceding ones. This article takes as its
object of enquiry the primacy of techno-
logy and visuality in the maintenance of
this regime of power. This involves
undertaking a critical scrutiny of the con-
struction of the iconic image of Narendra
Modi, exploring its functional efficacy by
means of setting it up in a mimetic rela-
tion with other images, analysing the role
of oratory masculinity and the techno-
logical mediation behind the production
of the cultic figure, and lastly, engaging
with the role of social media in the pro-
duction of an (enforced) consensus.
Technologies of Visuality
Historically, we know that technologies of
visuality have contributed to the produc-
tion of, what the influential British cul-
tural theorist Paul Gilroy (2004: 147)
termed, the glamour of fascism. The
attractiveness of fascism, Gilroy noted,
was not reversed with the defeat of Hitlers
Nazism and their allies. On the contrary,
he observed, [t]races of the Nazis are
omnipresent, and fleeting images of
them supply flimsy moral markers in a
harsh world that often appears to be de-
void of political ethics (Gilroy 2004:
147). It is keeping this broader relation-
ship between technology, visuality, and
fascism in mind that I begin with what
has been a useful entry point for many
analyststhe specific characteristics of
the 2014 Lok Sabha elections campaign.
As has been widely acknowledged, it was
one of the most intensely televised elec-
tions in Indian political history. It also
marked the crucial role played by social
media in the consolidation of opinions in
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
and its allies (collectively the National
Democratic Alliance or NDA). Excessive
media coverage of stories of ethical deg-
radation (of politics and governance) in
the form of exposing large-scale corrup-
tion scams and the branding of political
classes in general as morally degener-
ate during the previous United Progres-
sive Alliance (UPA) regime contributed
significantly to the emergence of Modi as
a decisive figure in the national political
scape. This moral lacuna in turn paved the
way for the resurgence of neo-fascism
through the plank of developmentalism
and decisionism (Pandian 2004).
Visual Regime of Fascism
Against this backdrop, it becomes critical
to analyse various strategies that have
been used for the construction of the iconic
image of Modi (with their selective associ-
ations and dissociations with other images
and signs). The analysis that follows can
be thought of as an attempt at tracing the
technologies of visuality that operate in/
through the politics of fascism. In order
to unfold this story, we have to locate the
construction of the image of Modi through
the evocation of him as: (i) supernaturally
capable and (ii) a highly disciplined ruler
with a very distinctive fashion sensibility.
We know that fascism represents a spe-
cific form of brutal power constituted with
a heavy, transgressive and erotic charge
(Gilroy 2004: 147). This, in other words,
indicates the affective dimension of politi-
cal life. But this construction in the case of
Modi has not been an easy task, given his
alleged involvement in orchestrating the
genocide against the Muslim community
in Gujarat in 2002, which would have to be
partially buried in order to cultivate his
after/alter-image. The latter was to some
extent achieved, as was evident when,
even the many liberal-minded public
figures and voters who supported Modi
in the 2014 elections argued that despite
his controversial past, Modi was keen to
distance himself from past accusations
as well as the fanatic elements within
his party or his larger parivar.
However, a close scrutiny shows a much
more complex picture. Surely, there has
been a concerted effort to distance his
image from past deeds. But this should not
21
COMMENTARY
be misunderstood as the making of a new-
image. In fact, I argue, the new icon has
also been produced through the refashion-
ing of the past (or by retaining the evoc-
ative potential of it) rather than distanc-
ing from it. This strategy of double-bind is
crucial in the efficacy of the iconic image
of Modi which catered both to an existing
mass base, as well as a new constituency
of potential followers who were seduced
into the dream world of developmental-
ism and decisionism.
Twinning Effect
Let us look at the image of Modi and his
close-aide and current BJP President,
Amit Shah. The latters proximity to
Modi is generally understood as a marker
of parochial loyalty and the personal
bond that both have shared over a long
period of time. More than these obvious
narratives, the fact that when taken
together, they are perceived as a compact
political powerhouse, is a result of their
images being carefully craftedone that
is based on the power of the interrelation-
ship between mimesis and alterity.
Semiotically, I would argue, Shah
represents the past-Modi in present and
future tense. As mentioned before, what
Modi retains from the past within his pre-
sent image is a distant alter-image, but also
a distinctive resemblance. In that sense,
one may observe that Modi is more true to
himself in the image of Shah. And anything
that the new image of Modi is unable to
utter is now performed through the non-
crafted image of Shah (and many oth-
ers).1 Further, like the signature Modi
masks which are a stand-in for him among
his followers, the new image of Modi is
itself constructed through the masking of
immediate/affective history. And the expe-
riential lacuna created by this masking is
filled with the evocation of the history of a
golden past. For instance, the recent invo-
cation of the grand wisdom of ancient
India (from aeroplane to plastic surgery)
by both Modi and his cabinet colleagues
illustrates on the one hand the larger cultural
agenda of the Parivar. However, on the oth-
er hand, these attempts can also be under-
stood as clever deployments in order to
alienate oneself from the immediate/con-
temporary history. The liberal belief is that
these selective invocations of the past
22
exemplify the irrational attitude/side of
the ideology of the Parivar. Instead, one
might read them as extremely rational de-
ployments, wherein it is precisely the func-
tional ignorance and unverifiability of
these claims that constitute their strength.
It is in this sense that Shah is the
reminder of the possibilities of the revis-
itation of the brutal past in the present
and the future. Not only this, he is also
an assurance to the core constituency of
the foot soldiers that the real Modi can
return to his original self. This deploy-
ment of the pair of ModiShah image is
a clever mechanism based on the power
of mimesis. Mimesis is not used here to
denote imitation but is understood more see, has capitalised on the symbolic
in terms of a living family of concepts
(similar to Wittgensteins definition of
family resemblance). The mimetic fac-
ulty carries out its suturing of these
images whereby the copy is granted the
character and power of the original; and
representation, the power of the repre-
sented, and vice versa (Taussig 1993).
Misogyny and the Mother
Similarly, it is important to analyse some
of the ways through which Modi main-
tains his cultic image of the virile man
without completely exposing his mis-
ogynistic traits. There is no dearth of
instances to illustrate the latter. For ex-
ample, there is the case of his estranged
wife, his alleged role in spying on a
woman ( la Snoopgate), and many more
which are widely described as proof of
his gender trust deficit. In 2015, Modi
caused outrage when he praised Bangla-
deshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas
tough stance on terrorism as a significant
achievement of hers, despite being a
woman. Such slippages or traits are, I
argue, ably concealed through the pro-
duction of images of a strong and
demonstrative attachment to his mother.
We know that the mother as a metaphor
has long lineages within all forms of
nationalistic politics in India. The evoca-
tion of Mother India and the construction
of images of Bharat Mata during the
freedom struggle were central in mobi-
lising people against the colonisers. The
appropriation of the image of Bharat Mata
to date in different forms by the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its allied
JANUARY 16, 2016
organisations also need to be noted here.
These genealogies are central in examin-
ing the implication of Modis evocation
of this metaphor (immediately following
the 2014 elections) through the declara-
tion of his party (BJP) as the mother, and
his duty to serve the party-mother, there-
by, also Bharat Mata. This illustrates the
currency of this image and the symbolic
potential it had accumulated in the social
psyche. Interestingly, from the beginning
itself (for instance, Abanindranath Tagores
painting of Bharat Mata), the image of
the mother-nation has been represented
largely through the desexualised figurine
of a chaste woman. And Modi, as we can
potential of the image of this mother-
figurine by evoking a detached attach-
ment towards his own aged mother.
Tech and Oratory Masculinity
We can also see that Modis political
capital itself heavily depends on his
oratory masculinity (at least in the
Gujarati and Hindi linguistic spheres). His
progression from regional to a national
leader coincided with the reduction of
print culture as a source of connected-
ness, and the subsequent revaluation of
speech as a medium for the acquisition of
common consciousness. If we look at the
way in which Modi emerged as the satrap
of Gujarati asmita (pride), it was the
speeches and rallies that took prece-
dence over the power of the written word
from the very beginning. And in these
heavily orchestrated events, the body
and personality of him have not been
the only focal point. Rather, the theatri-
cality of these political events produces
a sensory-scape where ordinary viewers
both discover and dissolve themselves in
the rapturous, ecstatic unity of the many.
It is critical to bear in mind the affec-
tive dimensions of these contemporary
political programmes and processes. In
this regard, we need to take into account
at the least three forms of the production
of sensory or affective unity through
technological mediationradio unity,
television unity, and cyber unity. Histor-
ically, radio unity2 was fundamental
to Hitlers initial emergence as the leader/
author of a single audience. The under-
lying idea of this initiative was that
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

hearing as a sense could not be as easily
shut down or closed off.3 It may not be
mere historical coincidence that one of the
earliest and significant moves initiated
by the office of the Prime Minister was
to begin the radio programme Mann ki
Baat in October 2014 where Modi address-
es his subjects in homogenous time.
Similarly, film or television has also
produced new ways of establishing the
all-powerful leadership in novel ways.
Initially, contrary to his public address
at mass rallies, Modis performance in
the television studio spaces had been far
from impressive.4 However, his election
managers surpassed this insufficiency
by means of a media-coup. In the words
of senior television journalist Sandeep
Bhushan, [a]s reporters took a backseat,
it was anchors all the way as studio shows
with familiar faces migrated to the Ganga
Ghat in Patna and the Dashashwamedha
Ghat in Varanasi, among other places
(2014). Even after being elected Prime
Minister of India, Modis official speech-
es at various venues (mostly on foreign
soil) have repeatedly come under severe
ridicule by his opponents. And unlike
his public speeches where he displayed
his oratory masculinity, he seemed to
have lost his fluency (mostly in Eng-
lish) in the official speeches. But we will
note that in each of these instances, he
has attempted to retrieve his oratory
masculinity by addressing public rallies
organised under various banners.5
Stylistic Dimension of Fascism
The 2014 elections and the role of the
media in ensuring Modis victory also
illustrate the fact that in our so-called
post-ideological era, it is almost impos-
sible to distinguish between politics and
style. Gilroy (2004: 14849) has pro-
phetically observed that
fascist political culture remains somehow
still pending, partly because of a continuing
stylistic appeal...affiliations to it have to be
approached as rewarding and pleasurable
experiences for adherents, devotees, and,
more recently, mimics.
This means that the difficult task of ana-
lysing the pleasure and passion of fas-
cism cannot be accomplished unless we
focus on the important technological in-
novations in the field of visual culture.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
These were central to the rise of fascist
movements and still help us to define the
nature of their particular allure. And it is
crucial for us to analyse the importance
of the rise of digitally mediated informa-
tion technologies and their claims of de-
mocratising knowledge dissemination.
For instance, in his clever critique and
exposition of the fascist modernisms of
Ernst Jnger and Leni Riefenstahl, liter-
ary scholar Russell A Berman identifies
elements of a distinctive approach to
aesthetics in their work. In particular, he
describes their common commitment to
a displacement of verbal by visual
representation in which the power of
the image renders scripture obsolete
(Gilroy 2004: 15556). Berman suggests
that this feature is one of the most impor-
tant keys to what is specific in the way
that fascism addresses its celebrants
turning spectators into participants. With
the rise of social media websites, a new
sensorial experience is produced and
heightened by the spectral unity of the
aural, visual and the written. It is not to
argue that there is an equilibrium of the
senses in this form of unity. On the con-
trary, like many scholars have noted, the
distinctive qualities of fascist political style,
particularly its enthusiastic and strategic
employment of communicative techno-
logies and cultures, has long been asso-
ciated with the enhanced power of visu-
ality. My suggestion is that the so-called
social media exemplifies the apotheosis
of this visuality.
Social media works effectively through
free access to various kinds of informa-
tion and the wider distribution of visuals
in multiple formats. It produces the im-
pression that the users have more con-
trol of the information they access, than
in other forms of dissemination like print,
radio or television. This particular aspect
of a sense of ownership and the multiple-
sensory experience of partaking in world
affairs in real time (thereby virtually
transgressing the boundaries of time
and space) along with a sense of ano-
nymity, makes social media one of the
most powerful political tools today.
From the 1990s onwards, writers in the
West have believed that networked com-
puting would revitalise the public sphere
and bring about a new civic culture. And
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
even though the cyber public sphere is not
devoid of the various constraints which
afflict the bourgeois public sphere (such
as conversational constraints, lack of parity
in participation, etc), by virtue of the
possibility of being a virtual participant,
it has managed to convey a sense of par-
ticipation, thereby creating the impression
of the transgression of these constraints.
In this indistinguishability of the real
and/as virtual, most of the foot soldiers
of Modi in social media platforms in
particular, and in the cyberspace at large,
experience a sense of empowerment and
togetherness by the sharing of masculin-
ist abuses against their opponents. This
in turn establishes a cyber/virtual unity
through what is in fact a form of func-
tional illiteracy. And following this, one
can argue that along with its democratic
potential, cyberspace has also allowed for
a selective return of the written word
in the service of the fascist ideology.
notes
1 Even though Shah is the quintessential figure
of this semiosis, what one generally terms the
fringe groups and individuals associated
with the Sangh Parivar (such as the Sri Ram
Sena, Mahesh Sharma, Uma Bharti, Pravin
Togadia, etc) also contribute to the efficacy of
this process. This is one of the major reasons
behind Modis silence on the activities of these
fringe elements. For instance, in the recently
concluded American tour in September 2015,
Modi proclaimed non-violence as the greatest
religion. He however has refused to condemn
or publicly distance himself from the violence
unleashed by various Hindu extremist groups,
like in the case of the murder of M M Kalaburgi
(former Karnataka University Vice Chancellor),
and the brutal lynching and killing of Moham-
mad Akhlaq in Dadri by a Hindu mob alleging
that his family had consumed beef.
2 I draw upon the idea of radio unity from Gilroy
who discusses it in the context of fascism. For
more, see Gilroy (2004: 159).
3 The famous speech of Charlie Chaplin, transmit-
ted through the public radio in his legendary
movie The Great Dictator (1940) is a classic
instance of a sort of countermove against this
radio unity envisaged by Hitler.
4 The most well-known example was his infamous
walkout within 5 minutes from Karan Thapars
interview-based programme The Devils Advocate
on the English news channel CNN-IBN, aired
on 20 October 2007.
5 In most of his visits to the developed world,
apart from official meetings and speeches, Modi
has always addressed the widely attended
public meetings organised by his NRI supporters
in fluent Hindi. His speech at the Madison
Square Garden in New York on 28 September
2014 is one such well-known instance.
References
Bhushan, Sandeep (2014): How the Television
News Industry Scripted the Indian Elections,
Caravan, 15 May, http://www.caravanmagazine.
in/vantage/television-scripted, viewed on
16 October 2015.
23
COMMENTARY
Gilroy, Paul (2004): Between Camps: Nation, Cul-
tures and the Allure of Race, London and New
York: Routledge.
Jha, Prashant (2013): Reporter Claims Modis
15,000 Rescue Figure Came from BJP Itself,
Hindu, 28 June, http://www.thehindu.com/
news/national/reporter-claims-modis-15000 -
rescue-figure-came-from-bjp-itself/article485-
24
7739.ece, viewed on 16 October 2015.
Pandian, M S S (2004): Decisionism and the Cult
of Narendra Modi, Economic & Political Weekly,
Vol 39, No 25.
Soondas, Anand (2013): Narendra Modi Lands in
Uttarakhand, Flies Out with 15,000 Gujaratis,
Economic Times, 23 June, http://economictimes.
indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/
narendra-modi-lands-in-uttarakhand-flies-
JANUARY 16, 2016
out-with-15000-gujaratis/articleshow/
20724044.cms, viewed on 16 October 2015.
Taussig, Michael (1993): Mimesis and Alterity: A
Particular History of the Senses, New York and
London: Routledge.
Telegraph (2007): Quizzed on Riots, Modi Walks
Out, 21 October, http://www.telegraphindia.
com/1071021/asp/nation/story_8458254.asp,
viewed on 16 October 2015.
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
COMMENTARY
Child Marriage Law and
Freedom of Choice in Bangladesh
M Niaz Asadullah, Zaki Wahhaj
While the Government of
Bangladesh seems to be genuinely
concerned about the social
challenges caused by the practice
of child marriage and the laws
governing such a marriage, its
approach to the issue seems
confused and may ultimately be
counterproductive.
The authors are co-investigators in a project on
The Role of Secondary Schooling and Gender
Norms in the Long-term Opportunities and
Choices of Rural Bangladeshi Women, funded
by the Australian Development Research
Award Scheme.
M Niaz Asadullah (nasadullah@gmail.com) is
Deputy Director, Centre for Poverty and
Development Studies, Faculty of Economics
and Administration, University of Malaya;
Zaki Wahhaj (z.wahhaj@kent.ac.uk) is a Senior
Lecturer in Economics at the University of
Kent, United Kingdom, with a research focus
on early marriage, female education, and
gender norms.
24
C
hild marriage is a global problem
affecting about 15 million girls
every year. The United Nations
General Assembly Committee of 193
nations passed a resolution in November
2014 asking all member countries to pass
and enforce laws banning child marriages
(Reuters 2014b). Some member countries
responded promptly by adopting new
laws to bring an end to child marriage.
However, the Government of Bangladesh
is presently contemplating a move that
would permit girls to marry at 16 with paren-
tal consent and/or approval from courts
(Sahos 2015). If the law is passed, it would
mark the first occasion that girls are legally
permitted to marry below the age of 18 in the
Indian subcontinent since the Child Mar-
riage Restraint Act came into effect in 1929.
The Paradox
South Asia has the highest incidence of girls
marrying during childhood or early adoles-
cence (Raj, McDougal and Rusch 2012) and
Bangladesh the third-highest rate of child
marriage anywhere in the world.1 Accord-
ing to a recent estimate, 39% of Bangla-
deshi girls are married before they are 15,
and 74% before they are 18. Over 20% of
those who are brides before reaching 15
years become mothers of three or more
children before they are 24 (UNICEF 2014).
The reductions in girl child marriage in
Bangladesh have occurred largely due to
marriage delay among younger adoles-
cents. By contrast, the prevalence of mar-
riage among 16 and 17-year-old girls has
actually increased (Raj et al 2012).
The high incidence of early marriage
is paradoxical for several reasons. First,
JANUARY 16, 2016
there has been a significant decline in
household poverty in recent years which
is commonly identified as a key determi-
nant of child marriage. Second, gender
equality has been attained in educational
access, which is supposed to give young
adolescents voice and say. Many consider
education as the most effective means of
reducing girl child marriage (Myers and
Harvey 2011; Brown 2012; Raj et al 2014).
Yet substantial improvements in girl educa-
tion in Bangladesh have not translated into
equivalent reductions in child marriage
(Raj et al 2014). Third, Bangladesh has
been described as a development outlier in
popular commentaries for exceptional pro-
gress in social indicators (Mahmud et al
2013). This has been attributed to expand-
ing opportunities for women and non-gov-
ernmental organisation (NGO)-led initia-
tives that place women at the forefront in
service delivery (Asadullah et al 2014).
These changes have arguably increased the
economic value of women.
Really a Matter of Law?
Similar to the Prohibition of Child Marriage
Act of 2006 in India, there is a law mandat-
ing a legal minimum age of marriage of 18
years in Bangladesh. However, the current
law forbidding the marriage of minors (be-
low the age of 18 for girls and 21 for boys) is
frequently ignored and rarely enforced
(IRIN 2011). Nevertheless, the Bangladesh
government has argued that denying par-
ents the legal mandate to marry off their
daughters can, paradoxically, lead to a
higher incidence of child marriage and
create further social problems. The logic
rests on the idea that with an increasing
number of adolescent girls attending sec-
ondary school in rural areas and working in
the industrial sector, they are more likely
to encounter situations where they may
be taken advantage of by men, pressured
into sexual relationships or persuaded to
elope. In traditional society, marriage pro-
vides social protection to girls against
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

these threats and, therefore, the reasoning
goes, denying parents the legal right to mar-
ry off daughters before 18, not only under-
mines parental agency but also increases
the vulnerability of adolescent girls. A junior
health minister remarked in 2014 that the
governments proposals to modify the ex-
isting child marriage laws were a response
to an increased tendency to elope among
girls, and pressure from rural areas.2
The Bangladesh Minister for Women
and Childrens Affairs, Meher Afroz
Chumki, is convinced that a lower age
limit, combined with a harsher punish-
ment for breaking the law would be easier
to enforce and, ultimately, be beneficial
for women. The bill under consideration
would increase the maximum penalty
from two months to two years in jail.
The financial penalty for forcing chil-
dren into marriage will be increased and
changing the brides official age using a
notary public will be prohibited.
This is not the first attempt by the
Bangladesh government to amend child
marriage laws. In 2014, a bill was intro-
duced in parliament to lower the legal
minimum age of marriage for women
from 18 to 16 (Reuters 2014a).3 Following
strong opposition from both local activists
and international organisationsinclud-
ing Human Rights Watchthe Bangla-
desh government announced in October
2014 that the legal minimum age of mar-
riage for girls will remain at 18 (Daily
Star 2014). The modified bill currently
under consideration was also criticised
by human rights activists in Bangladesh
on the occasion of International Womens
Day in March (Dhaka Tribune 2015).
These repeated attempts to amend the
law suggest that Bangladeshi lawmakers
are genuinely concerned about the social
challenges caused by the practice of child
marriage and the laws governing such
marriage. At the July 2014 Girl Summit
in London,4 the Bangladesh government
made a commitment to revise the Child
Marriage Restraint Act 1929 by 2015 and
eradicate marriage by girls below the
age of 15 by 2021, which places it under
added pressure from the international
community to act on this issue.
Yet, its approach to and reasoning
around the issue seems confused and
may ultimately be counterproductive.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
COMMENTARY
It is important to recognise that low- consequences of an exogenous change
ering the legal minimum age of marriage in the timing of marriage of Bangladeshi
removes a constraint on individual choice women. Using this variation, we investi-
which, according to basic economic theory, gate how lowering the legal minimum
cannot make a person worse-off. However, age would affect the agency of women
parental preferences about the timing of regarding their own marriage and their
marriage for their daughters may be in cognitive development.6 These out-
conflict with those of their daughters. And, comes capture different factors that, ar-
in the presence of such conflict, parents are guably, should be valued for their own
likely to be in a strong position to marry sake in evaluating policy or legal chang-
off their daughtersespecially when they es that will have an impact on the life
are economically dependentaccording choices of women.
to their own preferences. In these situa- We estimate that a one-year delay in
tions, a constraint imposed by law can marriage increases schooling by 0.68
protect children from marriages to which years for girls. Furthermore, for each
they do not consent. Parents and law- year that marriage is delayed, the age of
makers can nevertheless argue, as they first childbirth increases by 0.84 years. We
have done during the ongoing debate in also find (though not reported in Table 1)
Bangladeshthat parents know best that women who marry later (as a conse-
what choices would be most beneficial quence of delayed onset of menarche)
for their daughters in the long-run. Only report a higher ideal age of marriage for
an experimental change in the law, com- girls and they are less likely to agree with
bined with information on the long-term statements articulating a traditional gen-
outcomes of women affected by it, can der normfor example, that good nutri-
provide a comprehensive answer to the tion, education, outdoor sports are less
question whether this is true. important for girls than for boys. Shifts in
these beliefs are significant as they can
New Evidence from the Field shape the choices that these women
In 2014, we conducted a nationwide make for their own daughters, and conse-
survey of over 7,500 married women aged quently the human capital development
between 20 and 39 years living across of the next generation.
Bangladesh. Table 1 reports selected social These estimates indicate that there is
indicators by early marriage status of a range of positive outcomes associated
women (that is whether the respondent with delayed marriage. Legislation which
was married by age 15/18). Consistent with makes it easier for parents to marry off
the recent Demographic Health Survey their daughters early may undo these
(DHS) for Bangladesh, 76.9% of our re- positive effects.
spondents were married before their 18th
birthday.5 Our survey data, although non- Governments Narrative
experimental, provides a unique perspec- About 83% of the married women in our
tive to the debate as we can exploit a study had their marriages arranged by
marriage-related social norm in Bangla- their parents or other relatives; 38% were
desh. The norm in question forbids the married by the age of 15, and 77% by the
marriage of girls be- Table 1: Women in Early Marriage by Background and Outcomes
fore they have at- (2039 Year Olds)
Married by 15 Married by 18 Not Married at 18
tained puberty. The Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
prevalence of early Panel A: Family background
marriage among girls Schooling (Yrs) 3.96 3.43 4.74 3.64 6.90 3.82
Fathers schooling (Yrs) 2.49 3.62 2.76 3.78 3.57 4.12
in Bangladesh means Mothers schooling (Yrs) 1.25 3.10 1.48 3.27 2.19 3.11
that this constraint is Father in low-paid job ( = 1) 0.23 0.42 0.22 0.41 0.18 0.39
often binding. Eldest among sisters ( = 1) 0.47 0.50 0.46 0.50 0.41 0.49
Panel B: Marriage-related outcomes
The variation in the Arranged marriage ( = 1) 0.88 0.33 0.86 0.35 0.60 0.49
onset of menarche Consanguineous marriage ( = 1) 0.09 0.28 0.08 0.28 0.06 0.24
among girls consti- First birth by age 19 ( = 1) 0.75 0.43 0.64 0.48 0.06 0.24
tutes a natural exper- Observations 2,383 (37.8%) 4,842 (76.9%) 1,451 (23.1%)
SD refers to standard deviation.
iment to study the Source: 2014 Bangladesh WiLCAS.
vol lI no 3 25
COMMENTARY
age of 18. In response to the question what
was the most important reason for the
marriage?, only 3% mentioned parental
concern about my physical safety. By con-
trast, 72% answered that their parents
felt it was too good a proposal to refuse.
Only 14% of women in our sample met
their husbands without arrangement by
their parents. These women were less
likely to marry by age 15 (32%) than
those who had arranged marriages
(39%); and less likely to say that they
would have preferred to delay their
marriage (32%) than women who had
arranged marriages (40%).
If we focus on women from more
impoverished backgrounds in our sam-
plespecifically those whose fathers
owned less than half an acre of land and
were either day-labourers or artisans
the patterns are very similar: a similar
proportion met their husbands without
the arrangement of their parents; these
women were less likely to marry young
and less likely to say that they would
have preferred to delay their marriage.
These figures contrast sharply with
the narrative of the Bangladesh govern-
ment that parents tend to marry off their
daughters early out of concerns for their
safety. Rather, it suggests that women
who make their own choice of partners
which access to education and employ-
ment opportunities makes possible by
providing increased social contactare
prone to marry later, and are more satis-
fied with their timing of marriage.
Looking to Developed Countries
In justifying the present bill, the Bangla-
desh government has pointed out that the
legal minimum age of marriage in most
developed countries is below 18 years.
But it is important to recognise that in most
of these societies, arranged marriages are
not the norm and the age of marriage is
not dictated by social custom. Therefore,
children and parents have greater capacity
to exercise their agency on the issue. At the
same time, functional courts, transparent
birth and marriage registration system,
life skills training at school, a culture of
dialogue at home and child rights pro-
tection agencies at the community level
further provide check and balances to
ensure that the legal right to marry young
26
is not abused. In this setting, the legal
sanction of early marry does not infringe
on the human rights of adolescents.
These preconditions and institutions
do not exist in Bangladesh. The country
is consistently ranked at the bottom in
cross-country ranking in terms of rule of
law index (Asadullah et al 2014). Lack of
governance has undermined the cred-
ibility of all institutions, including those
that are supposed to provide checks to
the practice of child marriage.
The Way Forward
Our figures and reasoning suggest a dif-
ferent approach to the issue. Any changes
in child marriage law should aim to im-
prove the capacity of adolescent girls to
exercise their own choice rather than
circumvent it. It is not lack of parental
agency, but the lack of agency among
adolescent girls themselves which is the
main source of their vulnerability. In-
creased agency among adolescent girls
regarding marriage decisions is likely to
translate into delayed marriage. Further-
more, it is an important goal in its right,
consistent with Amartya Sens view of
development as freedom. In this con-
text, NGO-led initiatives such as the Ado-
lescent Development Programme of BRAC
and BALIKA (Bangladeshi Association for
Life Skills, Income, and Knowledge for
Adolescents)7 can play an important role.8
notes
1 See http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-
and-figures.
2 For evidence on the significance of parental
concern about the safety of their daughter, see
Caldwell (2005).
3 See http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/
foundation-bangladesh-childmarriage-idINKC-
N0I21M420141013.
4 See https://www.girlsummit2014.org/Commit-
ment/Show.
5 Using DHS 2011 data, Islam et al (2014), 77.7%
women married before the age of 18 years and
65.4% women married as children gave birth
before the age of 18 years.
6 Following this approach, Field and Ambrus (2008)
and Sekhri and Debnath (2014) find that delay
of one year in the age at marriage of the mother
significantly improves maternal human capital
in Bangladesh and India, respectively.
7 Amin et al (2014).
8 For evidence on the effectiveness of this approach
in delaying early marriage, see Bandiera et al
(2015).
References
Amin, Sejeda, Akter F, Alam M M, Hossain M I,
Ahmed J and Rob U (2014): From Evidence to
Action: Results from the 2013 Baseline Survey-
for the BALIKA Project, Populaton Council.
JANUARY 16, 2016
Asadullah, M Niaz, Antonio Savoia and Wahiduddin
Mahmud (2014): Paths to Development: Is
There a Bangladesh Surprise?, World Develop-
ment, Vol 62, pp 13854.
Bandiera, Oriana, Niklas Buehren, Robin Burgess,
Markus Goldstein, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul
and Munshi Sulaiman (2015): Womens Empow-
erment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized
Control Trial in Africa (mimeo).
Brown, G (2012): Out of Wedlock, into School:
Combating Child Marriage through Education,
London, England: The Office of Gordon and
Sarah Brown.
Caldwell, K B (2005): Factors Affecting Female
Age at Marriage in South Asia: Contrasts
Between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Asian
Population Studies, Vol 1, pp 283301.
Daily Star (2014): Dont Lower Age of Marriage:
HRW, 13 October, accessed on 27 December
2015, http://www.thedailystar.net/dont-lower-
girls-minimum-marriage-age-hrw-45472.
Dhaka Tribune (2015): Speakers for Scrapping Draft
Child Marriage Restraint Act, 8 March, accessed
on 27 December 2015, http://www.dhakatribune.
com/bangladesh/2015/mar/08/speakers-
scrapping-draft-child-marriage-restraint-act.
Field, E and A Ambrus (2008): Early Marriage,
Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling
Attainment in Bangladesh, The Journal of
Political Economy, Vol 116, pp 881930.
Islam, Mohammad M et al (2014): Child Marriage-
Related Policies and Reproductive Health in
Bangladesh: A Cross-sectional Analysis,
Lancet, Vol 384, S8.
IRIN (2011): Bangladesh: Parents Still Not Heeding
Child Marriage Warnings, 6 April, accessed
on 27 December 2015, http://www.irinnews.
org/report/92375/bangladesh-parents-still-
not-heeding-child-marriage-warnings.
Jensen, R and R Thornton (2003): Early Female
Marriage in the Developing World, Gender and
Development, Vol 11, 919.
Mahmud, Wahiduddin, Asadullah M Niaz and Anto-
nio Savoia (2013): Bangladeshs Achievements in
Social Development Indicators: Explaining the
Puzzle, Economic & Political Weekly, XLVIII(44).
Myers, J and R Harvey (2011): Breaking Vows: Early
and Forced Marriage and Girls Education,
London, England.
PLAN International (2013): Child Marriage in
Bangladesh: Findings from a National Survey,
http://plan-international.org/files/Asia/publi-
cations/national-survey-on-child-marriage-by
-plan-bangladesh-and-icddr-b.
Raj, A, L McDougal, J G Silverman and M L Rusch
(2014): Cross-sectional Time Series Analysis of
Associations between Education and Girl Child
Marriage in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and
Pakistan, 19912011, PLoS One, 9 September,
Vol 9(9).
Raj, A, L McDougal and M L Rusch (2012): Chang-
es in Prevalence of Girl Child Marriage in
South Asia, The Journal of American Medical
Association, Vol 307, pp 202729.
Sahos (2015): Age of Marriage 18, But 16 with
Parental Wish, 7 March, accessed on
27 December, http://www.sahos24.com/eng-
lish/2015/03/07/3617.
Sekhri, S and S Debnath (2014): Intergenerational
Consequences of Early Age Marriages of Girls:
Effect on Childrens Human Capital, Journal of
Development Studies, Vol 50, No 12, pp 167086.
Reuters (2014a): United Nations Members Resolve
to End Child Marriage, 24 November, accessed
on 27 December 2014.
(2014b): Girls at Risk as Bangladesh Mulls Lower-
ing Age of Marriage, 13 October, http://in.reuters.
com/article/2014/10/13/foundation-bangladesh-
childmarriage-idINKCN0I21M420141013.
UNICEF (2014): Ending Child MarriageProgress
and Prospects.
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

Indias Rare Earths Industry
A Case of Missed Opportunities
S Chandrashekar, Lalitha Sundaresan
The creation of knowledge in
the rare earths domain in
India is confined to a few
government-run complexes with
no major links to commercial
industry. With interaction
between the research community
and industry non-existent, Indias
position as a player in the global
rare earths ecosystem is bound to
be weak. Further, in the absence
of a cohesive national strategy
for moving the country up the
value chain in rare earths into the
intermediate and final product
space, India continues to be a
low-cost raw material supplier to
the global rare earths industry.
S Chandrashekar (chandrashekar.schandra@
gmail.com) is a former ISRO scientist and
faculty at the Indian Institute of Management
Bangalore. He is currently a visiting faculty
at the National Institute of Advanced Studies,
Bengaluru. Lalitha Sundaresan (sundaresan.
lalitha@gmail.com) is a former ISRO scientist
and a visiting faculty at the National Institute
of Advanced Studies.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
G
lobal and Indian interest in the
role of hi-tech materials such as
rare earths for crafting strategies
that further a countrys development
and geopolitical interests has been on
the increase lately. This renewed interest
has come about due to various actions
taken by China to establish a dominant
position in the global rare earths industry
and to leverage this position to further its
global interests (Mancheri et al 2013).
Because of their unique position in the
periodic table, rare earth elements have
many desirable properties that find use in
a variety of high technology applications.
Apart from their use in a number of
well-established industries, rare earths
are particularly important for the manu-
facture of key intermediates that go into
a number of green energy products such
as hybrid cars, energy efficient lighting,
windmills and fuel cells. These new high
growth industries are likely to fuel an
increase in global demand for rare earth
materials and products.
The value chains of the various rare
earth elements and their connections with
various intermediate and end use indus-
tries for an advanced economy such as
the United States (US) or Japan have
been well studied and mapped. Some of
the major intermediate industries that are
significant users of rare earths are the
glass industry, permanent magnet indus-
try, phosphors used in lighting and dis-
play devices, catalysts for the oil refining
industry as well as oxygen sensors, bat-
teries and catalytic converters for use in
automobiles. Major sectors linked to
these intermediates include consumer
electronics, petrochemicals, transporta-
tion and green energy that include the
new emerging industries of efficient CFL
(compact fluorescent lamp) and LED
(light-emitting diode) lighting (Chan-
drashekar 2013).
Rare earths are also key materials for
use in a number of military and strategic
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
systems. Rare earth permanent magnets
are needed in several defence and space
devices. Neodymium-doped Yttrium Alu-
minium Garnet (Nd YAG) lasers are used
in range finding applications that are
part and parcel of any advanced weapon
system. Yttrium Iron Garnets as well as
Yttrium Gadolinium Garnets are needed
for building microwave components that
go into advanced communications and
radar facilities. Terfenol D, an alloy of
terbium, iron and dysprosium, has unique
properties that is used in sonar and other
acoustic applications.
Historically, India was one of the early
countries to recognise the importance of
rare earths. Specific organisational and
institutional arrangements were set up
to regulate, manage and develop rare
earth resources in the country. Over a
period of time, global developments in
rare earths coupled with Indian inertia
may have significantly eroded Indias
competitive position vis--vis other coun-
tries in the management of a valuable
national resource.
Given Chinese actions and renewed
global interest in rare earths, it may be
necessary for Indian decision-makers to
take stock of where India is today with
respect to the global rare earths industry
and decide on an appropriate plan of
action. This requires a deeper under-
standing of the various value chains in
the global rare earths ecosystem and
Indias position in these knowledge-
based value chains. Hopefully, such an
analysis will also shed some light on the
components of a national strategy for
the management of this resource. These
issues will be addressed in this article.
India and Global Industry
Rare earth resources are predominantly
found in China, US, Australia and India.
India occupies fourth position, with 1.3
million tonnes of rare earth oxide (REO)
content. The Department of Atomic
Energy (DAE), however, estimates the
total rare earth reserves in India at 10.21
million tonnes. This would put India in
the third position above Australia (Min-
istry of Mines 2012). India has also been
engaged in mining and extraction activ-
ities for more than five decades. This
makes it possible for India to become an
27
COMMENTARY
important player in the global rare
earths industry.
In India, monazite is the principal
source of rare earths. It occurs in associ-
ation with other heavy minerals such as
ilmenite, rutile, zircon, etc, in the beach
sands and inland placer deposits (Minis-
try of Mines 2012). Monazite also con-
tains thorium and uranium. Because of
the presence of these radioactive ele-
ments, mining of monazite sands is
carried out only by a government body,
the DAE.
Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL), an
autonomous body under the DAE, is the
sole producer of rare earth compounds
in India. IREL has been in existence since
1949 in its current form and has also
been exporting rare earth compounds
for several decades. Even though IRELs
name suggests that it is largely focused
on the development and use of rare
earths, most of its income is derived
from the production and marketing of
the other minerals that are contained in
the beach sands such as ilmenite, rutile,
sillimanite and zircon.
More recently, even the limited produc-
tion of rare earths has been decreasing.
In 201314, India produced less than a
tonne of rare earth materials and sold
about 4.2 tonnes mainly from its inventory.
The absence of a domestic market and
the fall in exports because of low-cost
Chinese production have been the causes
of this decline.
Most of the products using rare earth
materials are currently imported into
India in finished form. In spite of the fact
that India was an early entrant into the
mining and processing of rare earths,
there has been no major effort within
the country to go up the rare earths
value chain (Parliament Question 2015).
Currently there is no manufacturing
facility in India for any of the intermedi-
ate rare earth products. In addition, sep-
arating out the various rare earth frac-
tions into their individual elements and
then converting them into the metal
form for use in the making of products,
increases the value addition to the raw
material significantly (Shanghai Metals
Market).
India and China started mining rare
earths almost at the same time. In fact,
28
Figure 1: Rare Earth Industry Life Cycle
The RE product/industry life cycle
Incubation
18801950
Growth
197090
Industry size (number of units)
Diversity
195070
C metallurgyphosphorscatalystsmagnets
B
A
Time
Time
Source: Generated by the authors.
there is a reference to the availability of
monazite and rare earths in Southern
India in a book published in 1915
(Johnston 1915). For a long time, India
and Brazil were the only suppliers of
rare earths; though at that time, many
of the applications of rare earths were
still to be discovered. China started
mining rare earths in 1959. While China
went ahead in building a strong domestic
rare earths ecosystem, India has been
primarily a supplier of rare earth raw
materials and some basic rare earth
compounds.
The story of how China has established
a near global monopoly over rare earth
raw materials and almost all intermediate
rare earth products has been recounted
in detail elsewhere (Mancheri et al 2013).
Chinese behaviour in using their mono-
poly position in the rare earths eco-
system as a component of its geo-
political strategy is also becoming
increasingly self-evident.
In 2010, China had cut off supplies
of rare earths to Japan over a conflict
between China and Japan in the East
China Sea. Although there are different
views (King and Armstrong 2013) as to
whether China cut off supply to spite
Japan, many political thinkers thought
that China was using economic levers
for geopolitical purposes.
JANUARY 16, 2016
Maturity 1990
Decline ? Substitutes
New DriversGreen
Technologies China-Led
E
Technology cycles linked to
D product cycles 1990 onwards
slowdown in US
Gas lightingflintglassoptical glass polishing
garnetscatalytic convertersfibre opticsceramics
Chinas export of rare earth materials
also came down significantly in the fol-
lowing years. These export curbs were
meant to move production of high value
addition rare earth products from around
the world into China. This was the first
instance where the world saw the impact
of the dominant position occupied by
China in the global rare earths industry.
These Chinese actions have evoked con-
cerns across the developed world about
how to safeguard the supply of rare
earth materials that play such a critical
role in the continued development of
their economies.
These Chinese moves and counter-
moves by the more advanced economies
of the world provide a new set of potential
opportunities to kick-start the moribund
rare earths industry in India. In order to
frame a suitable strategy for India, we
must first look at the relative competitive
positions occupied by the major players
in the global rare earths ecosystem.
Current Competitive Positions
The use of evolutionary approaches exem-
plified by the use of S curves has been
well-studied in the business world. As
industries move from incubation into
diversity, growth and maturity, the focus of
strategy shifts from technology to products
into markets and finally into production.
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

Figure 2: Global Rare Earths Industry in the 1990s
Relative Competitive Position RE IndustryUS and China Early 1990s
Incubation
Growth
Diversity
Industry size (number of units)
China
Time
Source: Generated by the authors.
These connections between technologies,
products, markets and industries and how
they respond to competing and cooperat-
ing forces within any business environ-
ment provide a framework within which
we could position the different players in
the global rare earths business ecosystem
(Chandrasekhar 1996).
An overview of the evolution of the
global rare earths industry that links the
various technology breakthroughs for
product development with the evolution
of an industrial ecosystem is provided in
Figure 1 (p 28). This diagram is based on
our study of the various technological
breakthroughs as well as the intermedi-
ate and final products that resulted from
them (Mancheri et al 2013).
Figure 2 shows the relative positions of
China and the US in the early 1990s, when
the global rare earths industry was in the
early stages of reaching maturity. The US
not only created most of the technology
breakthroughs using rare earths but also
pioneered the commercialisation of these
breakthroughs. It was the world leader in
rare earths with a complete well-connected
rare earths industrial ecosystem.
Figure 3 shows how the relative com-
petitive position between China and the
US had shifted by about 2005. From
being a laggard in the early 1990s, China
has moved to hold a dominant position in
the global rare earths industry. This has
been accompanied by significant erosion
in the capabilities of the US, Europe and
Japan, whose industrial capabilities in
critical rare earth value chains had
declined alarmingly.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW
Figure 3: Global Rare Earths Industry after 2000
Competitive Positions 2005Global Rare Earths Industry
Incubation
US Decline
Diversity
Maturity
Industry size (number of units)
Source: Generated by the authors.
Available data on Indian capabilities,
especially in the development of rare
earth permanent magnets for use in the
space and missile programmes, would
seem to suggest that India was possibly
in the early diversity phase.
These developments in the global rare
earths industry led to a renewed interest
in the development of the industry
in India. A number of initiatives were
undertaken by different entities within
the country. One of them was a National
Conference on Rare Earths Processing
and Utilisation (hereafter, REPUT 2014)
organised jointly by the Indian Institute
of Metals (Mumbai Chapter), Rare Earth
Association of India (REAI), and the Materi-
als Research Society of India (MRSI)
(Mumbai Chapter).
The papers presented in the confer-
ence provide us with empirical evidence
on the kind of research currently going
on in India in the field of rare earths.
They can therefore be used to assess the
current status of research and develop-
ment (R&D) in rare earths. These re-
search initiatives can also be linked to
the various components of the Indian
rare earths value chain. These connec-
tions (or their absence) between the
content of R&D and the current status of
rare earths value chain in India will
enable us to make inferences about the
relevance of rare earths R&D to the
current Indian situation. It may also
shed some light on the organisational
and institutional bottlenecks that in-
hibit the development of an Indian
rare earths ecosystem similar to those
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
Growth
China
Decline
Maturity Co
m
pe
te
US
Europe
Japan
201013
Time
of the more advanced countries of the
world.
The Indian Rare Earths Industry
Value Chains
We examined the abstracts of the
papers presented at the REPUT 2014
conference to make a critical appraisal
of the R&D conducted within India on
rare earths and the relevance of this
R&D for Indias position in the global
rare earth value chain.
A number of entities under the DAE,
led by the Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre (BARC), accounted for 32 out of
the 46 papers presented at the conference.
These included 26 papers from BARC,
two papers by IREL and one paper by the
Atomic Minerals Division, the entity
that is responsible for exploration activi-
ties within the DAE.
Eight papers were from the various
Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research (CSIR) laboratories. These in-
cluded five papers from the National
Institute for Interdisciplinary Science
and Technology (NIIST), two papers from
the Central ElectroChemical Research
Institute (CECRI) and one paper from the
Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI).
The Defence Materials Research Labora-
tory (DMRL) had one paper and the uni-
versities accounted for five of the papers
presented at the conference.
The research in rare earths is domi-
nated by the DAE and the various entities
(especially, BARC) that function directly
under it. Other players include CSIR labo-
ratories and a single defence laboratory, all
29
COMMENTARY

of which come under the ambit of the sci- Figure 4: Papers under Different Categories
ence and technology sector of the country. R & D Focus Areas from RE Papers
As we can see from the data, there 60

was not a single paper in the conference

50%
that came from the private industry in 50
Total papers 46
India. There could be a multitude of rea-
sons as to why this is so. Irrespective of 40

No of papers (%)
the specific reason or reasons for this
28%
state of affairs, the evidence from the 30

conference proceedings suggests that

the creation of knowledge in the rare 20

earths domain is confined to a few govern- 11%

ment-run complexes with no major links
to commercial industry.
If we were to classify the papers on
the basis of which part of the value chain
they fall under, based on their content,
an interesting story emerges. This is
shown in Figure 4.
There were 23 papers (50%) that dealt
with rare earth products, covering a large
number of products and industries span-
ning the spectrum from the more tradi-
tional industries such as pigments,
refractories, catalysts and alloys to more
modern industries such as lasers, magnets,
phosphors and other hi-tech products. This
focus on products and their use is consist-
ent with an Indian position in the diver-
sity growth portion of the global S curve.
A closer scrutiny of the data however
does raise a number of concerns regarding
10
4%
0
Exploration & Mining
Source: Generated by the authors.
such an inference. The absence of any
papers from industry in the conference
indicates that industry in India is either
not aware of rare earths-based product
possibilities in the many established
industries or is not interested in research
related to rare earths for the products and
services that it currently offers.
The knowledge creation part of the
value chain takes place largely within
the confines of the major public sector
technology-oriented mission organisa-
tions. This is not connected in any way
with industries which are the potential
users and beneficiaries of this knowledge
7%
REO Production RE Separation RE Application Environment
Focus Area Related
creation process. Unless this gap between
the production of rare earth materials
and their use in various products is
bridged, the relevance of much of the
product-oriented rare earths research
becomes questionable.
The papers in the seminar seem to
suggest that while there is academic inter-
est in rare earth-based products, there is
a total absence of any kind of industrial
linkage in all these efforts. Most of these
R&D efforts, therefore, are not likely to
result in any kind of tangible economic
benefit arising from industrial activities.
Based on a simple count of the papers, at

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least 50% of the R&D effort will be wasted.
It would therefore be more appropriate to
move the Indian position in the global
rare earths industry into the earlier less
developed incubation phase.
The data from the papers presented at
the conference also reveal a total absence
of collaboration between the various sci-
ence and technology departments and mis-
sion organisations that function directly
under the government. There are no
joint papers between any of the units oper-
ating under the DAE, CSIR and DRDO.
In 1996, the DMRL and Ministry of
Defence transferred the technology of
making Nd-Fe-B (Neodymium-Iron-Boron)
permanent magnets to Mishra Dhatu
Nigam (MIDHANI). This indigenous devel-
opment was supported by the Technology
Information, Forecasting and Assessment
Council (TIFAC) functioning under the
DST. It is interesting to note that MIDHANI
was not represented in the conference.
The TIFAC has also brought out a report
Handbook on Rare Earth Occurrences,
Production & Application in 2002. Ob-
viously these efforts did not kindle any
interest in the Indian industry.
Recognising the growing importance
of Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets, IREL
decided to establish a facility at its Rare
Earths Division unit called PRYNCE (Pra-
seodymium-Yttrium-Neodymium-Cerum)
to produce 135 tonnes per annum of neo-
dymium oxide (>95% pure) suitable for
manufacture of Nd-Fe-B magnets (Nair
2001). The fact that the production of
rare earths by IREL has witnessed a steep
decline in recent years suggests that this
initiative too has not been very successful.
The speaker from DMRL, however, did
say that the organisation has been col-
laborating with the Department of Space
(DOS). In an earlier report (Sundaresan
and Chandrashekar 2014), we had men-
tioned that one of the successful collabo-
rations that took place within the Indian
science and technology government sector
was the development of rare earth perma-
nent magnets by the DMRL and Vikram
Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) for use in
Indian rockets and satellites. Though the
magnets were developed and flown,
they used imported rare earth material
rather than the material processed and
supplied by IREL. This seems to suggest
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
COMMENTARY
the absence of any kind Figure 5: India in Global Rare Earths Industry 2005
of coordinated activity be-
tween the various govern- Incubation Growth China
ment science and techno-
Diversity Decline
logy establishments, espe- Co
Industry size (number of units)
Maturity m
pe
cially in an area that is eco- te US
nomically and strategically Europe
Japan
important. 201013
In 2011, a rare earth pro-
cessing plant called Toyotsu
Rare Earths India was set up
in Andhra Pradesh. This is
a joint venture between
India
IREL and Toyota Tsusho Time
Corporation (TTC), a sub- Source: Generated by the authors.
sidiary of Toyota Corpora-
tion. The plant is set up by Toyotsu Rare the current research efforts associated
Earths Orissa (TREO). IREL will supply with rare earth materials. As a conse-
monazite to this plant after thorium, tita- quence, India does not have any major
nium, zirconium and uranium are re- presence in the global rare earth ecosys-
moved. The plant will produce the ox- tem except as a limited supplier of basic
ides of lanthanum, cerium, praseodymi- rare earth materials.
um, neodymium, and cerium carbonate
to be exported to Japan (Toyotsu Rare Indian Position in the Global
Earths India). Since the prices of rare Rare Earths Industry
earth oxides are much less than the prices Figure 5 shows the Indian position in the
of rare earth metals, the benefits to India global rare earths industry. The absence
are substantially lower than what they of any real links between research and
could have been. use and the total absence of any kind of
Thus, there is no clear national strategy rare earth-based product industries in
that connects the capabilities and needs the country places the Indian rare earths
that exist in different organisational industry within the incubation phase
entities that function within the science in Figure 4.
and technology sector of the Indian The need for various rare earth-based
government. Even within the confines of products is likely to grow for some time
government-run mission organisations, globally and this offers a lot of value addi-
there is a visible disconnect between tion opportunities in the product space for
various users such as the DOS, DRDO and rare earth materials for India. However,
the potential materials supplier IREL. there are a number of structural problems
This is clearly evident from the conference within the Indian rare earths ecosystem
proceedings which show no indication that have inhibited the evolution of a
whatsoever of any kind of collaborative well-connected industry that spans the
research between these entities. spectrum from exploration and mining
Research pursued in rare earth mining, to the production of rare earth materials
rare earth separation and production of and various products based on rare
different rare earth materials (37% of earths. The US achieved such a capability
the papers) appears to be relevant and in the 1970s and China achieved such a
could add value to IRELs output. Unlike capability in the early 1990s.
the case of product development research, The challenge of moving from the
this research may help IREL realise incubation into the growth and mature
more money from its outputs. However, phases is not a trivial one and requires a
these capabilities do not find a place in substantial change in direction and strat-
the joint venture between IREL and TTC. egy. In other words, India still has to go
The analyses also substantiate earlier up the S curve if it wants to be a global
findings (Chandrashekar 2013) that there player in the rare earths ecosystem and
is an absence of a strategic direction in this needs to be done sooner than later.
vol lI no 3 31
COMMENTARY

32 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly


If India can put together a national
strategy for rare earths and bring about
relevant coordination between research
entities, the mission organisations and rare
earth product producers in industry, there
is still some hope that India can become a
player of substance in the global rare
earths industry. This will take some time
to achieve and will require considerable
investment in money, time and effort.
This will also require significant improve-
ment in national managerial capabilities
that cut across mission organisations.
There is also a need for strong leadership
in these organisations to put these ele-
ments together. If India is not able to put
together and implement such a national
strategy, it runs the danger of continu-
ing to be a low cost supplier to the global
rare earths industry. Given its poor track
record of linking research with products,
it seems most likely that India will con-
tinue to supply rare earth raw material
to the global rare earths industry.
A closer scrutiny of the recent joint
venture between India and Japan will
show that India continues to be a mere
supplier of rare earth materials without
any value addition in terms of high value
materials or products. Even negotiating
the implementation modalities of this
arrangement took India more than two
years given that a memorandum was
signed by the DAE and the Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of
Japan on cooperation in the field of rare
earths on 16 November 2012.
Although there is a statement made by
IREL that they will be collaborating with
the Ministry of Defence and Department
of Space to make rare earth permanent
magnets, this will probably cater only to
the strategic needs.
If, and that is a big if, India wants to be
a player in the global rare earths industry,
it is time that steps are taken sooner than
later to identify the kind of intermediate
products that need to be manufactured in
the country and a clear manufacturing
policy evolved. Only such an approach will
maximise the economic pay offs coming
out of the exploitation of a scarce resource.
Conclusions
There seems to be two distinct compo-
nents of the Indian rare earths ecosystem
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
that appear to be unconnected with each
other. The first component of this Indian
rare earths ecosystem relates to the DAE
activities for producing basic rare earth
materials that go into various downstream
industries. This includes all activities
from exploration to the production of
REO as well as various rare earth metals
and compounds. This component of the
Indian rare earths ecosystem is directly
linked to the global rare earths industry
as a low-cost supplier of rare earth materi-
als. It is largely exercised through IREL
exports to the global marketplace. It is
unconnected to the needs of the Indian
strategic community and is also uncon-
nected to any users in Indian industry.
The second component of the Indian
rare earths ecosystem comprises a lot of
product-oriented R&D both within the
DAE and some science and technology
public sector mission organisations. The
available evidence suggests that even
within this R&D ecosystem the connec-
tions between raw material production
and the use of such materials in products
required by the strategic sectors are
weak or non-existent.
One would assume that the value
addition of rare earths would begin at IREL
and significant R&D both in rare earth
separation and rare earth downstream
materials production would emerge from
there. This does not appear to be so.
Most of the knowledge generated for
rare earth separation and downstream
materials production is taking place
within various BARC labs. One could
postulate that with a proper strategy in
place such research would move into IREL
leading to value addition. The evidence
from the papers as well as public knowl-
edge about IREL suggests that this is not
happening. This is indicative of funda-
mental structural problems in the DAE,
BARC, IREL relationship that could come
in the way of any value addition activities.
DMRL, a unit of DRDO, has developed
the technology for Nd-Fe-B permanent
magnets. Samarium Cobalt (Sm Co) mag-
nets, the second generation permanent
magnets, have been developed for use in
the space programme by joint teams
from the DMRL and VSSC. Starting from
the PSLVD 3 flight of 1996, over 5,000 of
them have flown on Indian satellites and
vol lI no 3
COMMENTARY
rockets. However, these magnets used
imported rare earth material.
These fragmented capabilities that
exist within the mission organisations of
the national security complex in both rare
earth material production and the produc-
tion of magnets could be integrated and
then transferred or scaled up for use in the
civilian sector. This is an opportunity that
could give a fillip to the emergence of new
rare earths ecosystem within the country
starting with this intermediate product.
The major missing component in the
current rare earths ecosystem is of course
the absence of any real linkages between
the rare earth research community and
Indian industry. As long as this situation
is not remedied, India will continue to
be a low cost supplier to the global rare
earths industry. If these fundamental
structural issues are not addressed,
focusing R&D on the development of
products will also be a wasted effort
with no real economic benefits.
References
Chandrasekhar, S (1996): Technology and Business:
the Missing Link, IIMB Management Review,
AprilJune, pp 4151.
Chandrashekar, S (2013): Does India Need a Na-
tional Strategy for Rare Earths, International
Strategic and Security Studies Programme
(ISSSP), National Institute of Advanced Studies
Report R-182013, www.isssp.in.
Johnston, S J (1915): Rare Earth Industry, London:
Crosby Lockwood & Sons.
King, A and S Armstrong (2013): Did China Really
Ban Rare Earth Exports to Japan?, East Asia
Forum, Economics, Politics and Public Policy in
East Asia and the Pacific, http://www.eastasiafo-
rum.org, viewed on 26 July 2015.
Mancheri, Nabeel, Lalitha Sundaresan and S Chan-
drashekar (2013): Dominating the WorldChina
and the Rare Earth Industry, International
Strategic and Security Studies Programme
(ISSSP), National Institute of Advanced Stud-
ies Report R-192013, www.isssp.in.
Ministry of Mines (2012): Rare Earths and Energy
Critical Elements: A Roadmap and Strategy for
India, Government of India, Centre for Study of
Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) Report.
Nair, V R (2001): Production of Neodymium at
PRYNCE Plant, Nuclear India, Vol 34, Nos 78.
Parliament Question 1601 (2015): Rajya Sabha,
Augmenting the Capacity of IRE Plant, answered
on 12 March 2015.
Sundaresan, Lalitha and S Chandrashekar (2014):
R&D on Rare Earths and Value Additionthe
Indian Case, International Strategic and Securi-
ty Studies Programme (ISSSP), National Insti-
tute of Advanced Studies, www.isssp.in.
Technical & Closing Report submitted to TIFAC by
DMRL (1996): Commercialisation of Home
Grown NdFeB Permanent Magnet Technology.
Toyotsu Rare Earths India, http://trei.co.in/our-
company.php, accessed on 10 July 2015.
Shanghai Metals Market, http://www.metal.com/
metals/rare-earth/prices#1, accessed on 9
July 2015.
33
Economics of Sustainable
Development
K S Kavi Kumar
T
he growing population and the
never satiated demands for higher
and higher consumption pose con-
cerns regarding the sustainability of the
impressive economic growth registered
by many countries including India. Since
the increasing demand of the population
is often met by the greater exploitation
of available resources, this tends to exert
additional pressure on the aggregate
resource base of the economy. The natu-
ral question which has come to occupy
the minds of contemporary policy-
makers and social thinkers is whether
the impressive growth rates of the global
economies can last and, if so, how.
Ramprasad Senguptas seminal con-
tribution provides an exhaustive treat-
ment of this issue, bringing together the
vast expertise and experience the author
has gained over several decades of com-
mitted research on the interface of energy,
economics and environment. In the first
four chapters of the book, Sengupta
provides a detailed discussion on the
linkages between ecology and economics
and reminds us about the importance of
acknowledging not only the biophysical
limits and the limits of assimilative capa-
city of nature, but also the role played by
the fundamental thermodynamic laws
in understanding economic systems.
The author cautions us that economic
growth cannot bypass the laws of ther-
modynamics. Put simply, the first law
states that something cannot be produced
out of nothingin other words, there is
always a requirement of a irreducible
minimum quantity of resources for pro-
ducing material objects. The second law
(also known as the entropy law) insists
that same matterenergy cannot be
used repeatedly for similar purposes.
While theoretically the thermodynamic
laws constrain the potential for long-term
economic growth, the literature has been
34
book reviewS
Ecological Limits and Economic Development:
Creating Space by Ramprasad Sengupta, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2013; pp xxvi + 365, Rs 1,250.
divided in terms of identifying the
signs of such limitations. The factors
fuelling optimism are that human inno-
vation and ingenuity may, after all,
take us beyond the thermodynamic
laws and meet the growing demand of
global economies for services that there
will be a steady increase in resource
efficiency, and there will be a growing
share of renewables in the energy-mix.
Yet, as Sengupta acknowledges, the
growing population pressure does put
additional pressure on our ability to
continuously innovate. The collective and
growing needs of over 7 billion people
are never going to be easy to meet.
Incidentally Rob Dietz in his book,
Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable
Economy in a World of Finite Resources
(Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2013), puts
such numbers into perspective by quoting
National Geographic statisticsit takes
200 years to count to 7 billion aloud; also
in 7 billion steps one can circumnavigate
the globe some 133 times. Given that the
subject matter of the book is relatively
difficult to comprehend, Sengupta should
have used such anecdotes to retain the
readers attention.
Sengupta quotes the findings of the
ecological footprint1 analysis and argues
that the worlds present demand on the
biosphere is already 25% more than the
biocapacitythe biospheres ability to
meet the demand. In the case of India, it
is estimated that the total national foot-
print has doubled since 1961. It is also
shown that the balance between Indias
demand on and supply of natural capital
has worsened, leaving the country an
JANUARY 16, 2016
ecological debtor. It suggests the country
is depleting its ecological assets and its
productive base more than contributing
to its growth. These analyses tend to
argue that the current global level of con-
sumption is unsustainable.
Sustainable Development
In economic parlance, sustainable deve-
lopment requires maintenance of inter-
generational well-being, that is, ensur-
ing that the total well-being of the indi-
viduals in future generations does not
decline over time. In other words, sus-
tainable development ensures that the
future generations of individuals are
at least at the same level of welfare as
todays generation. Hence, intergenera-
tional equity in the welfare of the future
generations lies at the heart of sustaina-
ble development. In this broader view of
sustainability, an economy is sustainable
if and only if it is dynamically efficient
and the resulting stream of total welfare
levels is non-declining over time (Stavins
et al 2003).
Arrow et al (2012)2 follow a similar
approach to define sustainability as the
non-declining intergenerational well-
being over time. That is, sustainability
depends on the capacity to provide well-
being to the future generations of indi-
viduals. The indicator of this capacity is
called comprehensive wealth (the social
worth of the entire range of capital
assets constituting the productive base
of an economy), including both marketed
and non-marketed assets. The sustaina-
bility criterion is satisfied if this compre-
hensive wealth measure is increasing on
a per capita basis. Arrow et al (2012) take
a comprehensive view of sustainable
development by considering the entire
productive (capital) base of an economy.
The capital base includes reproducible
capital goods (for example, roads, build-
ings, etc), natural capital (ecosystem,
minerals, etc), population (its size and
demography), intellectual capital (for
example, public knowledge), and insti-
tutions (formal and informal) which
help in resource allocation.
The author acknowledges that the
market for several of these assets may
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

not exist, and estimates the shadow
prices for a number of capital assets.3
For example, consider clean air as an as-
set for which a market does not exist.
Nevertheless, since clean air is one of
the most important ingredients of life,
it carries some value. In this sense,
the maximum price that one would
be willing to pay for an extra unit of
clean air (that is, to avoid an extra unit
of pollution) is the shadow price of
pollution. These shadow prices are used
to estimate the value of comprehensive
wealth. Using this, it is shown that an
economys intergenerational well-being
is dependent on its comprehensive wealth.
In other words, intergenerational well-
being will not decline over a specified
period of time, if and only if economys
comprehensive wealth does not decline
over the same period.
To infer whether or not a country is
on the path of sustainable development,
Arrow et al (2012) adopted the concept
of comprehensive investment (net addi-
tion to the stock of comprehensive wealth,
holding the shadow prices constant). This
is equivalent to the notion of genuine
savings as introduced by Pearce and
Atkinson. Genuine savings (Sg) refer to
that level of savings, over and above the
sum of all the capital deprecations in
the economy. Intuitively, if Sg > 0, any
nation must be adding to its capital
base. If Sg < 0, then the nation is run-
ning down its capital stock. As it hap-
pens, one cannot tell too much from the
value of Sg at any point in time as the
interest is in the entire consumption path,
not just one point on it. However, if Sg is
persistently negative then it can be
inter preted that things do not look good
for sustainability. If Sg is persistently
positive, then there is a greater chance
that the way the economy is configured
is sustainable.
Ecological Dimension
While Ramprasad Sengupta provides a
comprehensive account of the economic
understanding of sustainability, he also
highlights the limitations of the main-
stream conceptualisation of potential
ecological limits that economic develop-
ment has to confront. Referring back to
the thermodynamic laws, he argues
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
that, for instance, accounting for energy
flow in isolation without relating it to
the total energy flow in the ecosystem,
including flows through the humans as
food energy as well the associated subsi-
dies, will provide only a partial picture
and misses proper accounting of poten-
tial ecological limits.
Sengupta also emphasises the need for
avoiding creation of multiple sub-branches
to deal with the challenge of ecological
limits and entropy law to the sustainable
functioning of the economy. Such dis-
tinctions are unwarranted and will end
up addressing the challenges inade-
quately. For example, eco-taxes de-
signed for addressing market failures
(without accounting for the role of limits
of the ecosystem that lie at the root of
market failure) from a purely environ-
mental economics perspective could
be ineffective in fostering sustainable
economic growth.
Yet, in the discussion surrounding
policies to foster sustainable develop-
ment, the book falls short in addressing
ecological limits, and the discussions are
largely restricted to the environmental
dimension. In the context of technology
and resource development, the discus-
sion is limited to technology develop-
ment for overcoming environmental
concerns but not deep ecological mani-
festations of our current economic deve-
lopment. Sengupta appropriately identi-
fies the role of human values in this con-
text, which is often kept outside the
mainstream policy prescriptions.
A more detailed discussion covering
the following aspects would have en-
riched the book: How crucial are human
values in fostering sustainable develop-
ment? Are we aping each other? Or are
there some societal characteristics re-
flected in lifestyles that could sustain
growth without harming environment?
Can we mould human values in such
direction to ensure sustainable develop-
ment? What is the scope of advanced
techniques like agent-based models in
modelling human values?
Overall, despite employing simple
and elegant dynamic models with en-
dogenous ecosystems for identifying
relevant policy directions, the prescrip-
tions provided are largely in the known
vol lI no 3
BOOK REVIEW
domains such as technological change.
One possible reason for this could be
the implicit faith reposed by the author,
like many other contemporary thinkers,
in capital for fostering technological
innovation.
Scope and Coverage
Chapters 6 to 13 form the core of the
book and provide a very detailed dis-
cussion covering crucial sectors includ-
ing land, water, forests, biodiversity,
energy and waste. However, the book
does not provide a clear rationale for
the focus on these sectors: Are these
chapters focusing on resources, or on
mediums, or on cross-cutting themes?
The chapters are a mix of all these in
the book. Moreover, the reason for
focusing explicitly on India could have
been explained in greater detail: Is it
because of Indias population size, or its
enormous growth potential? Also, by
focusing on India, the author does not
connect with historical political economy
issues of exploitation by foreign rulers
and their impact on Indias ecology. It
would have also been useful if the book
had provided some discussion on tradi-
tional knowledge and its role in ensuing
sustainable development.
All these are minor limitations of an
excellent book that treads the lesser
understood interdisciplinary territory
of ecology-environment-economy inter-
face. By going deep into this interface,
Sengupta attempts to create space for
a new paradigm of analytical investi-
gation. The book will serve as an excel-
lent reference material for masters and
doctoral level students, researchers
working in the fields of ecological and
environmental economics, and public
Permission for Reproduction of
Articles Published in EPW
No article published in EPW or part thereof
should be reproduced in any form without
prior permission of the author(s).
A soft/hard copy of the author(s)s approval
should be sent to EPW.
In cases where the email address of the
author has not been published along with
the articles, EPW can be contacted for help.
35
BOOK REVIEW
policymakers. If the technical details
can be circumvented, the book has great
appeal to general readers too who are
concerned about human influence on
nature.
K S Kavi Kumar (kavi@mse.ac.in) teaches at
the Madras School of Economics, Chennai.
36
Notes
1 The Ecological Footprint measures human de-
mand on the biosphere in terms of the land and
sea area required to provide the resources we
use and to absorb the waste we generate.
2 Interestingly, Sengupta does not provide direct
reference to this influential work.
3 The maximum price that one is willing to pay
for an extra unit of a resource for which market
does not exist.
JANUARY 16, 2016
References
Arrow, K J, P Dusgupta, L H Goulder, K J Mumford
and K Oleson (2012): Sustainability and the
Measurement of Wealth, Environment and
Development Economics, 17(3): 31753.
Stavins, R N, A F Wagner and G Wagner (2003):
Interpreting Sustainability in Economic
Terms: Dynamic Efficiency Plus Intergenera-
tional Equity, Economics Letters, 79: 339 43.
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
BOOK REVIEW
Afghan Political and Social History
Hikmatullah Fayez
T
he political, social and military
history of Afghanistan has been
written by many scholars over
the decades. Every writer has looked
at this history from his or her own per-
spective. Kaushik Roys War and Society
in Afghanistan: From the Mughals to the
Americans, 15002013 sheds light on a
number of aspects of Afghan political and
social history with some new insights.
Generalisations about Insurgents
The books main thrust is to explain why
the superpowers (the Mughals, British,
Soviets and Americans) won conven-
tional wars, but lost almost all the
unconventional wars in Afghanistan the unification of the Afghans under
a clear victory in the short run, defeat in
the long run. The book also focuses on
how the Afghans and the superpowers
fought wars in Afghanistan.
The Mughals did not have much
control over all of Afghanistan for long
periods due to opposition from Afghan
insurgents and the presence of rivals such
as the Safavids and Uzbeks. In order to
pacify the Afghan tribes and strengthen
their hold over the region, the Mughal
army occasionally launched attacks
against tribal sirdars (leaders) who were
the main cause of the insurgencies. Writ-
ing about the overall behaviour of tribal
leaders, Roy asserts; financial incen-
tives sometimes overcame the frontier
tribes sense of hospitality to a fugitive
who had taken refuge in their territory.
He also writes, throughout history, the
Afghan sirdars lacked any coherent na-
tional vision and operated according to
local, tribal and religious interest. More-
over, they changed sides in accordance
36
War and Society in Afghanistan: From the Mughals
to the Americans, 15002013 by Kaushik Roy,
New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2015; pp xvi + 312, Rs 850.
with the changing balance of power.
There are several such statements through-
out the book. Such generalisations are
not backed up by evidence. They might
be true in certain contexts, but not gen-
erally. So statements like those pointed
out above need to be treated with some
reservation while reading Roys book.
Assaulters or Heroes
Persian and Mughal rivalry as well as
the decline of the Safavids resulted in
currencies without mentioning their
Ahmad Shah Abdali, according to the
author. Abdali, in order to maintain his
rule in the country, and check rivals in
the regionthe Mughals of India and
Safavids of Persialaunched several
assaults on them. The purpose of his
expeditions in India has been explained
by the author as a need for plunder and
loot which shows his bias. In writing
histories and describing the assaulters,
there have been at least two conflicting
views: (i) to some historians, the as-
saulters are national heroes, and (ii) to
the historians of that country, they are
plunderers and invaders. Therefore,
while describing the political, economic
and military relationships of Afghani-
stan and India throughout history, the
views of both Afghan and non-Afghan
writers need to be taken into account
before arriving at conclusions.
The British in India also failed to hold
the country for long; they lacked the
support of the frontier tribes and had to
JANUARY 16, 2016
deal with their numerous insurgencies.
The British ruse of pacifying these tribes
through financial support also did not
benefit them for long, as people viewed
the British as infidels who would ulti-
mately interfere in their religious affairs.
The Russian influence in Afghanistan
during the colonial era also worried the
British, forcing them to directly intervene
in the country by supporting and installing
the puppet government of Shah Shuja.
This intervention was a miserable failure.
The British armoured cars and light tanks
used in AngloAfghan wars proved use-
less in the countrys harsh terrains and
valleys. After the third AngloAfghan
war of 1919, Afghanistan officially pro-
claimed its independence.
In explaining the military expendi-
tures and revenues of the Mughal and
British empires in Afghanistan, the author
gives the amounts in rupees or other
current worth, thus making any com-
parison difficult. Besides, figures have
been used loosely in different parts of
the book. For example, figures on the
child mortality rate, poppy cultivation
and its contribution to the countrys gross
domestic product as well as illiteracy
rate are exaggerated.1
Missing Personalities
The Cold War between the erstwhile
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR) and the United States (US) started
with the intervention of the former in
Afghanistan in the 1970s. The Soviets
supported the communist revolution in
Afghanistan. They played a significant
role in establishing puppet governments
after the collapse of Mohammad Daouds
government, before their direct inter-
vention in 1979. However, the Soviets
faced tough opposition from the Afghans
who were given financial and logistical
support by the US and Pakistan. In this
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 BOOK REVIEW

regard, the author seems to have missed
some very important events and person-
alities in the history of Afghanistan
which served as turning points for the
countrys politics and society. Noor
Mohammad Tarakis assassination by his
close party (Khalq) friend Hafizullah
Amin during the Soviet hold and influence
in Afghanistan resulted in a shift of the
Afghan governments attention from the
USSR towards the West. This caused the
execution of Amin by the USSR to prevent
the establishment of a pro-West govern-
ment in Afghanistan. Similarly, the assass-
ination of the Afghan national hero
Ahmad Shah Massoudon 9 Septem-
ber 2001 paved the way for the US inva-
sion of the country in December 2001.
Massoud was a strong opponent of for-
eign political and military presence in
the country. Events like these have been
ignored by the author in the book.
The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001
after the 9/11 attack and after buying
the influential warlords with millions
of dollars. Though the US won the
conventional war in Afghanistan, it
lost the unconventional war. This is
testified by the fact that the US has been
engaged in dealing with insurgencies
during the past decade and a half. In
explaining such invasions, events and
personalities, the book includes infor-
mation of debatable veracity. There is
no consensus on their reliability, accu-
racy and credibility. Despite this, the
author asserts certain facts. These pertain
to (i) the truth of the 9/11 and the global
invasion plan (starting with Afghanistan),
(ii) the personality and personal lives of
figures such as Mullah Omar (his having
four wives), Osama bin Laden (having
three wives) and Abdul Rashid Dostum
(who is wrongly mentioned as being
known as pasha or commander by most
Afghans), and (iii) the relationship bet-
ween the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda.
The authors lack of knowledge of the
Afghan peoples Islamic heritage and
his ignorance of Islamic terminologies
show up conspicuously in the book.
Assertions such as .Islam in general
and Jihad in particular were not crucial
components of Afghan opposition to
external invaders. and they resisted
the Afghan Marxists and the Soviets in
order to preserve their old ways rather
than fight Communism. .., do not
depict the true picture of the opposition
to invaders by Afghans, though they
may be true for individual instances of
opposition. Terms like jihad and fakir
are defined partially and to some extent,
wrongly. Furthermore, most of the
sources consulted by the author in writ-
ing this book are written by foreign or
non-Afghan writers who may or may not
have a good understanding of the coun-
trys politics, social settings and history.
Overall, however, the book is a contri-
bution to knowledge on Afghan political
and social history. If the debatable infor-
mation in the book by the author (some
of which is mentioned above) is taken
with a grain of salt, it can serve as a good
reference for political scientists, military
specialists, sociologists, policymakers and
planners, and general readers.
Hikmatullah Fayez (hikmatullah.fayez@gmail.
com) is an independent researcher and a
university lecturer based in Kabul, Afghanistan.
note
1 Refer to: Afghanistan Statistical Yearbook
201415, Central Statistics Organization (CSO),
and National Risk & Vulnerability Assessment
(NRVA) Report by CSO.

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 37

PERSPECTIVES
The Last Polymath
Benedict Anderson as Scholar
and Human Being
Ramacha ndra Guha
Benedict Anderson was among
the most influential intellectuals
of our times. His seminal book
Imagined Communities has
changed the way the world
understands nationalism and
the nation state. Its influence
permeates across disciplines
and beyond the academia. Yet,
Imagined Communities was only
one part, even if the most visible,
of Andersons intellectual travels
and engagements. A personal
account of Andersonthe
scholar, the traveller and the
raconteur.
Ramachandra Guha (ramguha@gmail.com) is
a historian and a scholar of the environment
and modern Asia.
38
B
enedict Anderson, who died in
the second week of December
2015, aged 79, was the last of the
great polymath social scientists. He was
at once a political scientist, historian,
sociologist, literary theorist, and bio-
grapher. He was also formidably multi-
lingual, knowing half a dozen European
languages and some four or five Asian
languages too.
In the range of his learning, in his
ability to so effortlessly transcend disci-
plinary, temporal, and geographical
boundaries, Benedict Anderson had only
two peers: Ernest Gellner (192595) and
Eric Hobsbawm (19172012). Gellner and
Hobsbawm were European Jews forced
to emigrate to England in the wake
of the rise of the Nazis. Anderson was
born in the Chinese city of Kunming,
the son of an Irish customs official. The
family later moved to California, and
then to Ireland.
Ben Andersons first degree was in
classics at the University of Cambridge.
He became interested in anti-colonial
politics, and thought of working on India,
before choosing Indonesia instead. He
moved to Cornell University, where he
studied under the pioneering scholar of
Indonesian nationalism, George Kahin.
Kahin had built an excellent programme
in South-East Asian studies, bringing
together historians and linguists, anthro-
pologists and political scientists, ex-
perts or putative experts on Indonesia,
Malaysia, Burma, Vietnam, and Thailand.
His Cornell mentor, recalled Anderson,
sought energetically to recruit students
interested in every one of the emerging
Southeast Asian nation-states on the
assumption that they had every reason
to study together and learn from
each other.
JANUARY 16, 2016
Through the 1960s, Anderson im-
mersed himself in the politics and cul-
ture of Indonesia. He travelled widely
through this large, dispersed, stagger-
ingly diverse and often troubled nation.
He wrote a doctoral thesis on politics in
Java, and also published seminal essays
on the sociology of language, exploring
the delicate interplay between colonial
Dutch, old and modern Javanese, and
the trading tongue (now called Bahasa
Indonesia) that eventually became the
nations official language.
Anderson deeply loved Indonesia; his
travels and the friendships he forged
there feature in a forthcoming memoir,
where his evocation of the social egali-
tarianism of Djakarta in the 1960s is
reminiscent of George Orwell writing on
Barcelona in the 1930s. He warmed to
the country and its people, but was less
impressed by its political leadership. He
wrote critically of the military regime of
General Suharto, whereupon he was ex-
pelled from Indonesia, and not allowed
to re-enter the country for many years
thereafter.
A New Religion
Left to himself, Anderson would prob-
ably have deepened his studies of
Indonesian culture and history. In the
event, Suhartos ban made Anderson into
a theorist of comparative politics. In
1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia. The
next year, China invaded Vietnam. These
armed conflicts between communist states,
all professedly committed to proletarian
internationalism, brought home to
Anderson the powerful and enduring
appeal of nationalist sentiments. Juxta-
posing his own knowledge of Asian
nationalisms with works on American
and European nationalism, he published
Imagined Communities (1983), the book
for which he is best known. This presented
a brilliantly original analysis of how,
through the spread of what Anderson
called print capitalism, people with no
connection to one another came to see
themselves as members of the same
imagined community, their nation.
The history and sociology of nation-
alism had been dominated by European
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

scholars writing on Europe. Anderson
brought to the topic a genuinely compar-
ative lens. He argued that in fact the first
properly nationalist movements had taken
place in the New, not the Old, World,
these being the revolts against colonial
domination of settler or creolised popu-
lations in North and South America.
Imagined Communities was a dazzling
work of scholarship, moving from early
19th century nationalist movements in
South and North America to their coun-
terparts in Europe later in the same cen-
tury (where language played a more sig-
nificant part), on to the anti-colonial
struggles in Asia and Africa in the 20th
century. In a mere 160 pages of text,
Anderson presented an astonishing num-
ber of case studies, brought together by
an original (and to this reader largely
persuasive) framework of analysis.
Anderson did not see nationalism as
something rooted either in ancient his-
tory or in ties of blood or soil. It was
modern, contingent, forged out of strug-
gle and contest, often against a colonial
ruler. For Anderson, faith in the nation
or the national idea had replaced faith in
god(s) and in the afterlife. As T J Clark
perceptively noted, the first move in Im-
agined Communities is of sympathy, and
therefore full recognition of national-
isms ability to provide answers to the
questions that previous religions had
made their own.
The nation, argued Anderson, was
based on a deep horizontal comrade-
ship that allowed people who would
never see or know of one another to
consider themselves part of a community
whose past and future they were all so
invested in as to even risk their lives.
His explanation of the term imagined
community is careful and precise. A
nation, he wrote,
is imagined because the members of even
the smallest nations will never know most
of their fellow-members, meet them, or even
hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives
the image of their communion.
At the same time,
the nation is imagined as limited because
even the largest of them encompassing
perhaps a billion living beings, has finite, if
elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other
nations.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
For, unlike proselytising faiths like
Christianity or Islam, no nation imagines
itself as coterminous with mankind.
There is a brilliant passage in Imagined
Communities on the role played by the
daily newspaper in the construction of
nationalism. Reading the morning paper
in silent privacy, each reader
is well aware that the ceremony he performs
is being replicated simultaneously by thou-
sands (or millions) of others whose existence
he is confident, yet of whose identity he has
not the slightest notion.
At the same time,
the newspaper reader, observing exact rep-
licas of his own paper being consumed by
his subway, barbershop, or residential neigh-
bours, is continually reassured that the im-
agined world is visibly rooted in everyday life.
Thus is created the remarkable confi-
dence of community in anonymity which
is the hallmark of modern nations.
Print and Orality
In focusing on print, Anderson under-
stated the importance of oral communi-
cation in creating nationalist conscious-
ness. The historian Wang Hui has spoken
of the role played by songs, plays, and
films in consolidating Chinese resistance
to Japanese imperialism in the 1930s
and 1940s. In India, around the same
time, the message of nationalism was
promoted through the vernacular press,
but also by films and plays, and through
word of mouth. Most of the peasants
who participated in the Civil Disobedi-
ence Movement of the 1930s were unlet-
tered. But they knew of Mahatma Gandhi,
and to some degree of his ideas, and
were encouraged by his example to
wage their own battles with oppressive
forest officers, land revenue collectors,
and the like.
Anderson wrote of the age of print
capitalism, of the impact of novels and
newspapers in creating a national con-
sciousness. A future historian will also
have to actively engage with how na-
tionalism has been transformed by the
television and the internet. Anderson
himself was aware of the rapidity with
which new technologies and inter-
national migration were changing the
presentation of nationalist sentiments.
In a later essay, he coined the term
vol lI no 3
PERSPECTIVES
long-distance nationalism to denote
that nationalism no longer necessarily
denoted a territorial location in ones
country of origin. As he wrote,
some of the most vehement Sikh national-
ists are Australians, Croatian nationalists,
Canadian; Algerian nationalists, French;
and Chinese, Americans. The internet, elec-
tronic banking, and cheap international
travel are allowing such people to have a
powerful influence on the politics of their
country of origin, even if they have no inten-
tion of living there.
(This was written in 2001; but it superbly
captures the character of the delirious
diasporic crowds in Narendra Modis re-
cent meetings in New York and London.)
Imagined Communities sold more than
half a million copies in English, and was
translated into more than 30 languages.
Its commercial success assured the
future of Andersons socialist publishing
house, Verso, which had never quite
had a bestseller like this one (nor would
it since).
Anderson himself was characteristi-
cally self-deprecating about this success.
He thought that the book benefited from
the accident of it being published in Lon-
don, and in English, the language of
power that now served as a kind of global-
hegemonic, post-clerical Latin. As he
put it, had Imagined Communities origi-
nally appeared in Tirana, in Albanian, or
in Ho Chi Minh City, in Vietnamese, or
even in Melbourne, in Australian, it is
unlikely to have travelled very far.
Under Three Flags
I have said that in the range of
their learning, only Ernest Gellner and
Eric Hobsbawm among modern social
scientists can be compared to Benedict
Anderson. Interestingly, Gellner and
Hobsbawm were to write important
comparative studies of nationalism in
due course. Meanwhile, Anderson had
himself returned to South-East Asia. He
collected his major essays on Indonesia
in a book; then, since the ban imposed
by Suharto was still in force, turned his
attention to Thailand and the Philip-
pines instead.
George Kahins training made it possi-
ble for Anderson to study other countries
in the region when Indonesia was closed
to him. His own natural curiosity and his
39
PERSPECTIVES
gift for learning new languages made
the transition easier still. He learnt Thai
and Filipino, teaching himself by, among
other methods, doing the daily newspa-
per crossword. (There is a story, possibly
apocryphal, of a lecture at the University
of Manila where the chair asked the
respected Professor Anderson whether
he had any questions of the speaker. The
great man, seated in a back row, looked
up from his newspaper and asked: What
is the Filipino word for orgasm ?) travels abroad, Rizal, wrote Anderson,
Like some other well-known scholars,
Anderson wrote many books but is
chiefly remembered by one. He is iden-
tified with Imagined Communities, just
as E P Thompson is largely known by The
Making of the English Working Class,
Marc Bloch by Feudal Society, and Max
Weber by The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism. Yet these may have
been merely those authors best-known,
rather than best, books. I myself think
Thompsons Whigs and Hunters a more
finely crafted work of historical scholar-
ship than his baggy, meandering, study
of the English working class. I prefer
Blochs The Royal Touch to his Feudal
Society; while Weber himself was (justly)
much prouder of his work in social theory
(collected in the book Economy and Soci-
ety) than in his study of Protestantism.
In 2005, Benedict Anderson published
what is my own favourite of his many
books. This is Under Three Flags: Anar-
chism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination,
a study of radical Asian intellectuals of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and
of the links they built between colonies
and continents. It had two major figures,
both Filipino: the novelist Jos Rizal and
the folklorist Isabelo de los Reyes.
Jos Rizal was perhaps the historical
figure Anderson most identified with.
Born in the Philippines in 1861, speaking
Tagalog and Spanish, he was educated
by Jesuits before travelling to Europe,
criss-crossing the Continent while pick-
ing up French, German, and English
along the way. Rizal was, in Andersons
words, poet, novelist, ophthalmologist,
historian, doctor, polemical essayist,
moralist and political dreamer; in the
range of his intellectual and political in-
terests, and of his learning, comparable
to the Irish scholar who, a hundred years
40
after his death (Rizal was executed at
the age of 34), brought him to world at-
tention. Jos Rizal was an obsessive
and gifted polyglot; so, of course, was
his biographer, who taught himself
Spanish reading Rizals novels.
Rizal looked at Asia through the eyes
of Europe; Anderson did that as well, but
also came to look at North America and
Europe through the eyes of South-East
Asia. After his return home from his
was haunted by a new, restless double-
consciousness which made it impossible
ever to experience Berlin without at
once thinking of Manila, or Manila of
thinking of Berlin. Anderson then adds,
entirely in his own voice: Here indeed
is the origin of nationalism, which lives
by making comparisons.
Anderson himself said of Under Three
Flags that it was the novel of someone
who always wanted to be a novelist but
without the talent for it!
Influences
Benedict Anderson was influenced by
Marxism, but not chained to it. Imagined
Communities was provoked in part by
the inability or unwillingness of Marx-
ists to seriously study the great (and
greatly influential) global phenomenon
that was nationalism. Meanwhile, in the
country where he lived and worked,
Harvard University had, under the lead-
ership of the sociologist Talcott Parsons,
started a programme promoting A
Common Language for the Areas of the
Social Sciences.
Anderson was wholly against this kind
of grand theorising, whether it emanated
from Parsonian Structural-Functionalism
or from Marxism. He was also less than
enthusiastic about research driven by fund-
ing agendas, writing wryly of grandiose
and expensive co-operative research
projects being the Harvard thing.
In his own work, Anderson transcend-
ed the polarities in which even the best
social scientists are trapped. Structure
and agency; interests and ideas; economy
and cultureAnderson paid attention
to all these themes.
Like his close friend, fellow South-
East Asianist, and almost exact contem-
porary, James Scott, Anderson was both
JANUARY 16, 2016
a powerful thinker and a wonderful
writer. Singly and together, Scott and
Anderson disposed of the myth that im-
portant and original ideas could not be
expressed in elegant prose. This combi-
nation is at work in Andersons books,
but also in his essays, as for instance
in this passage from an article in the
London Review of Books on a traditional
water festival he attended in the ancient
city of Luang Prabang:
The open-air market reminds one of what
shopping-malls and supermarkets have cost
modern life: the savour and endless varia-
tions of homemade cooking and the exuber-
ant inventiveness of a cottage artisanate.
At the stall of a genial, toothless old Hmong
woman, for example, I found an elaborately
embroidered babys cap from which a circle
of 12 silver alloy coins dangled, while the
scarlet tassled top was held in place by a larger
heavier coin with a hole bored through its
middle. The larger coin was inscribed: 1938:
Indochine francaise and 5 centimes. The
smaller ones, dated 1980, have passed out of
circulation because they are still etched with
the hammer-and-sickle, and because infla-
tion has anyway made them valueless. High
colonialism and high Communism, once
mortal enemies, now cheek by jowl on the
endless junk heap of progress, can still light
up a babys face. Of all the ethnic groups in
Laos, the Hmong suffered the most severely,
first as cannon fodder, cynically exploited by
the CIA during the Vietnam War, and later
as the object of the [Laotian] Revolution-
ary Governments suspicion and vengeance.
Tens of thousands fled to Thailand and over-
seas, and many who stayed behind were
forced down from their opium growing hill-
tops to more supervisable makeshift lowland
settlements. One cant help thinking that the
babys cap is a small, mute token of Hmong
laughter and refusal.
What a wonderful passage this is,
reflecting both the anthropologists eye
for the peculiarities of individual life, as
well as the political scientists penchant
for social analysis. And with a dash of
history thrown in, as the cap and its coins
are revealed to show the traces of the
countrys colonial past, and its postcolonial
present. The activist is not absent either;
thus the castigation of the treatment of
upland peoples such as the Hmong by
the dominant culture of the plains.
As a student in Calcutta in the early
1980s, I read Imagined Communities
with interest and excitement. Then, in
1989, I met Benedict Anderson himself.
We were together at a conference in
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

Karachi, where the tenor of the talks
was strongly flavoured by postmodernist
and post-structural thought. I was out
of place, and Ben Anderson even more
so. So we took long walks through the
city, discussing Weber, Marx, Gandhi,
Nehru, Sukarno, Suharto, and much
else. It was an arrangement that worked
well; Anderson had a companion, and I
a teacher.
On that trip to Karachi, Anderson was
carrying, as his plane-and-bed-time read-
ing, a copy of Salman Rushdies The
Satanic Verses. The book had just been
banned by Rajiv Gandhi in India, and was
of course verboten in Pakistan too. At
breakfast one morning, Anderson told me
that a kindly waiter, bringing him a cup
of tea, had advised him to hide the book
in a drawer whenever he left the room.
Despite Andersons scholarly distinction,
he had an absolute lack of self-importance,
and a lovely dry witcharacteristics on
display in the letters and emails we
exchanged over the years. Once he wrote
to me from a hospital bed in Bangkok,
where he was laid up for weeks with
multiple fractures in his ankle:
But being in hospital (nice one) in a mon-
soon country isnt bad at all. Food a little
bland, but otherwise tasty. Nurses who,
trying to cheer you up, and making fun of
your belly, ask you how long have you been
pregnant and when is the baby due, visitors
at all hours, with armfuls of fruits and cook-
ies, cheerful doctors just back from golf-
ing. Very unlike the chilly hospitals of the
US, to say nothing of the prices being 60%
lower. I kept thinking about a student com-
rade in Indonesia in 1963, who came down
with hepatitis, and was stuck in a hospital
for two weeks going mad out of loneliness
and impatience. He asked me to see if I
could find any folk medicine. So I asked
around. I was told that the best medicine
is two or three head-lice concealed in a ba-
nana. Luckily headlice were easy to find in
those days, so I took the lice-filled bananas
and (not knowing what they contained) he
wolfed them down. Two days later he was
cured. Its true!
Some months later, after Anderson was
out of bed, and (sort of) up and about, he
wrote of the consolations of having a
physical deformity when elderly:
Weeks of physiotherapy because my leg
muscles had turned into squash, no power
at all. The one good thing that came out of
this was that I learned to exploit my misery
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
in airports. Take a strong metal cane, bow
the body low, and whizzzzzzrushed to top
of the queue, whisked through immigration
and customs in no time, special treatment by
cute stewardesses. I am rather ashamed of
myself, but there it is.
Another time, when I wrote that I was
down with a minor ailment, laryngitis,
aka too much bullshitting syndrome, he
answered:
I suddenly thought that if Vishnu were
around he might punish bullshitters all over
the world with chronic laryngitis. No doubt
that the internet and the cellphone have
vastly increased the numbers of nonstop
bullshitters. Early in the internet days, when
visiting Dartmouth for a lecture, I asked
some of the youngsters why they liked the
internet, especially chatting so much,
abandoning local bars, student canteens
and so on. Answer: You cant be interrupt-
ed! If you go to bars and canteens, people
are interrupting all the time. Narcissism on
a global scale.
Political Commentary
Andersons emails often had a dash of
political commentary, served in typically
sharp style. About a country admired by
many Indians (but one I myself have little
time for) he remarked:
Anything must be better than Singapore,
the one country in Southeast Asia which I
have refused to visit for almost 30 years. In
35 years of teaching at Cornell, I never had a
single really good student from there, while
plenty from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philip-
pines and so on. Ghastly record on mistreat-
ment of foreign slave-labor, hyocritical cover
up of sex-trafficking syndicates, racism and
so on. But things are changing, and will
change more once the odious Lee Kwan Yew
is dead. They actually have some very good
moviemakers, esp Royston Tan.
An essay that I had written on demo-
cracy and political violence (later pub-
lished in this journal) provoked this
arresting chain of thoughts:
Here are a couple of things that struck me
as a litle murky in a beautifully Enlight-
ened argument. The first is the question of
proportionality. Countries which start off
with a single enormously dominant ethnic
group, or contain two large and competing
ethno-religious groups. Burma is the perfect
example of the former, where the ethnic
Burmans have inherited from the British a
vast, mountainous, country filled with dif-
ferent small ethno-religious groups, none
of which can take over in Rangoon even in
coalition, but are also very difficult to sup-
press. In the case of [Sri Lanka], it was a
question of a zero-sum game between two
vol lI no 3
PERSPECTIVES
powerful groups, with one of them thinking
it could rule alone if it was tough enough.
The second thing, which is much murkier,
is the whole question of partition. Is it pos-
sible to think that Indian democracy was
a by product of Partition? The existence of
Pakistan and later Bangladesh gave Muslims
their own states, where they could be domi-
nant, leaving India with a vast Hindu major-
ity. I imagine this view of Partition as the
mother of Indian democracy could dim the
cheerful glow of your account, but one could
pose the question in reverse. What kind of
polity would have been possible in an undi-
vided Raj-India?
The counterfactual that Anderson had
posed was deeply interesting. Had there
been no partition, would India have
survived as a single nation state and/or
as a democracy? In India today, Muslims
constitute 13% of the population, or one
in seven. Had there been an undivided
India, the percentage of Muslims would
have been closer to 33%, or one in three.
The demographic balance would have
been more delicate; and prone to being
exploited by sectarians on either side.
The politics of late colonial India had
already emboldened religious fanatics;
Hindu as well as Muslim. The partition
of India allowed Gandhi and Nehru to
stamp down firmly on majority commu-
nalism and assure minorities a free and
equal place in the Republic. Communal
peace largely prevailed until the 1960s;
ever since, there have been periodic
bursts of sectarian violence, but no out-
right civil war.
Independent Indias record on reli-
gious harmony is mixed. The citizen
says (rightly) that it should really be
much better. The historian adds the
caveat that it could in fact have been
much worse. Had partition been avoided,
it could only have been on the basis of
the Cabinet Mission Plan, which envis-
aged an extremely weak centre. And the
proportion of religious minorities would
have been much larger. In that case, as
Anderson suggested, India might have
become Sri Lanka or Lebanon writ large.
The first controversy, and perhaps civil
war, may have been on the question of
scriptnot even language. The Hindu
and Muslim elites of an undivided India
might have agreed on Hindustani (a
composite of Urdu and Hindi) being the
national languagebut then quarelled
41
PERSPECTIVES
on whether this would be written and
taught in Devanagari, or in the modified
Persian/Nastaliq script.
My last mail from Ben Anderson, re-
ceived in April 2015, had three gems:
First, about himself:
I am leaving Bangkok tonight to keynote
a flashy All-Asian Blabla in Korea, I think
maybe on peculiar ideas about nationalism.
I think that secretly the Koreans want me
to be a referee fearing intellectual war be-
tween the Chinese and the Japanese.
Second, in response to a query of
mine, about right-wing intellectuals in
the West:
I once went to a [meeting of] Conservative
Intellectuals in Boston, and it was a real riot,
screams and roars between the Britsel-
egant traditionalists against the Australians
and Yankeestrashy demands for the free-
dom to get as much money as possible, and
use it as freely as possible too.
The third remark was slightly more
serious:
How many public intellectuals are there in
India? In South-east Asia they are dying,
replaced by professors and bureaucrats to
whom not many ordinary people pay any at-
tention. I guess your Gandhi was a public
intellectual, but probably Nehru not???????
I would not say I was a particularly
close friend of Ben Andersons. I was
never his student, nor did we live in the
same country, let alone the same town. I
am sure those who studied with or
worked with him would have many
more letters than I. So would his family
and close friends. There must therefore
be thousands of letters/emails compara-
ble to the ones I have quoted, likewise
redolent with wit and insight.
The correspondence of another cele-
brated transnational scholar, the Russian-
born Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin,
has recently been published in four large
volumes. They are illuminating enough,
for Berlin had a wide circle of friends and
admirers in Europe, the United States,
and Israel, and he wrote well. I suspect a
Selected Letters of Benedict Anderson would
be far richer still. Berlin spent his entire
adult life in Oxford (with the exception of
a war-time spell in that other bastion of
privilege, Washington), whereas Anderson
alternated between Cornell and the
deepest reaches of South-East Asia,
42
stopping sometimes in Latin America or
Europe on the way. Where Berlin traf-
ficked in the high and mighty, Anderson
warmed to ordinary individuals too.
Anderson was as distinguished a scholar
as Berlin, but a less pompous human being,
and a much funnier writer.
Love of the Nation
Once, during a public conversation at
the University of Oslo, Benedict Anderson
said, half-humorously: I am probably
the only one writing about nationalism
who doesnt think it ugly. While scholars
such as Gellner and Hobsbawm had
quite a hostile attitude to nationalism,
Anderson thought nationalism can be
an attractive ideology. I like its Utopian
elements. As well as, it appears, its
pragmatic elements, the ways in which it
enabled community life and fruitful
(and often peacable) social interacton in
large and complex societies. As Anderson
told a Japanese newspaper, In the US, if
people didnt believe in America, theyd
be shooting each other out of pickup trucks
in five minutes flat. Nationalism was a
kind of glue that makes people, on the
whole, obey the law and respect each
other, in very large communities. It was,
he insisted, hard to think of anything
else on the horizon that can enforce that
kind of everyday decent behaviour.
In Imagined Communities, Anderson
wrote that while it was common for pro-
gressive intellectuals to insist on the
near-pathological character of national-
ism, its roots in fear and hatred of the
Other, it was useful to remind our-
selves that nations can inspire love, and
often profoundly self-sacrificing love.
He added:
The cultural products of nationalismpo-
etry, prose fiction, music, plastic artsshow
this love very clearly in thousands of dif-
ferent forms and styles. On the other hand,
how truly rare it is to find analagous nation-
alist products expressing fear and loathing.
There are many nationalist-inflected
Hymns of Love, but few Hymns of Hate.
Racism evokes fear, whereas national-
ism evokes hope. Or, to quote Imagined
Communities one last time, the fact of
the matter is that nationalism thinks in
terms of historical destinies, while rac-
ism dreams of eternal contaminations.
JANUARY 16, 2016
But, as Anderson well knew, nationalism
did have its darker side, particularly
when it was allied to state power. In the
multi-ethnic states of Asia, nationalism
was often used as a stick to beat minorities
with. They had to conform to the majority
culture, or else be subjugated and
persecuted. At the same time, in the
rich and powerful nations of the West,
there was a tendency to think of ones
country as the chosen nation, destined
to lead the world out of darkness into
light. This chosen nation syndrome was
most obviously manifest in the country
where Anderson lived for most of his
adult lifethe United States. There, the
arrogance of nationalism had provoked
bloody imperialist adventures across
the world.
To pre-empt or tame its own darker
side, nationalism had to permitindeed
encourageshame, self-criticism, and
self-correction. Anderson once proposed
that all thinking, reflective, nationalists
should adopt the motto: Long Live
Shame!
In 1998, the long, brutal regime of
Suharto finally ended. The next year,
Anderson was allowed to visit Indonesia
again. He was asked to speak at the re-
launch of a magazine called Tempo,
which had also been banned by Suhar-
tos regime. Andersons lecture was an
affectionate scolding of the Indonesian
people for allowing their ideals to
wither and be perverted in the decades
he had been kept apart from them. He
chastised his large and diverse audience
in Jakarta for not doing more to combat
the military dictatorship. This he saw as
a wider problem of citizen complicity
with postcolonial regimes; as he put it,
the modern world has shown us sufficient
examples of nations that have broken up be-
cause too many of their citizens have had
shriveled hearts and dwarfish mindsto
say nothing of excessive lust for domination
over their fellows.
available at
CNA Enterprises Pvt Ltd
27/13 Ground Floor
Chinna Reddy Street, Egmore
Chennai 600 008
Ph: 44-45508212/13
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

In Indonesia, this lust for domination
had been expressed with regard to the
people of Aceh, of Irian, and, above all,
of East Timor. Anderson savaged the
conduct of the military; their pervasive
practices of sadistic brutality had deeply
alienated the citizens of these places. He
also deplored the growing gangsteriza-
tion of Indonesian politics.
In his Jakarta speech, Anderson cau-
tioned against too much talk of a na-
tions allegedly glorious past, which de-
viated attention from the violence and
inequities of the present. Indonesia had
witnessed the capture of the state by the
military, large-scale political corruption,
and violence against Christian, Chinese
and ethnic minorities. So, as Anderson
told his audience, no one can be a true
nationalist who is incapable of feeling
ashamed if her state or government
commits crimes, including those against
their fellow citizens.
The scolding administered, Anderson
still hoped that these citizens, and their
shared nation, could be redeemed. Re-
calling the sacrifices and ideals of the
Indonesian patriots who had fought
against Dutch colonialists, Anderson
proclaimed: I believe in, and hope for, a
real revival of the common project
which was initiated almost a hundred
years ago.
In speaking as he did, Anderson was
drawing on his memories of his own
early mentor, George Kahin. For, as he
wrote elsewhere, precisely because he
wanted to be proud, not ashamed, of his
country, Kahins scholarly career was
shaped by his political activism. Kahin
had his passport cancelled in the 1950s
because of his sharp criticisms of American
foreign policy. Later, in the 1960s, he
emerged as the earliest and most promi-
nent Southeast Asianist critic of American
intervention in Indochina.
Kahin called Americans to their better
selves, and his student did likewise to
the Indonesians. In his speech of home-
coming in Jakarta, Anderson argued that
nationalism was not something inher-
ited from the ancient past, but rather a
common project for the present and
the future. The national ideal asked for
self-sacrifice, not the sacrificing of others.
That is why it never occurred to the founders
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
of the independence movement that they
had the right to kill other Indonesians, rath-
er they felt obliged to have the courage to be
jailed, to be beaten up, and to be exiled for
the sake of the future happiness and free-
dom of their fellows.
Passports to Elsewhere
After retirement from Cornell, Benedict
Anderson moved to Thailand. From
here, he travelled tirelessly across the
region: flying, sailing, driving, or walk-
ing to islands or provinces he had not yet
visited, meeting scholars and citizens,
digging in archives and libraries. After
he was allowed to re-enter Indonesia,
he spent much time there, his zest and
curiosity undimmed by age, failing
health, or the horrific condition of that
countrys roads.
At the time of his death, Anderson
was working on two books. One was a
literary biography of a SinoIndonesian
satirist and journalist, himself a polyglot
whose writing was a cunning mix of
Dutch, Hokkien, Javanese, and Malay,
and some English, German, and Japanese
too. Anderson was fascinated by this
writer, a colonial cosmopolitan who
never went anywhere but opened his
heart and brains to the rest of the world.
He had done all the research; but faced
the question of which language to write
the book in. I cant decide whether to
write the book in English or Indonesian,
he wrote to me.
The probem is that his polylingual prose
is really untranslatable into English, so
I dont know what to do with all the pas-
sages of his writing that I want to use. If I
write in Indonesian, its for a local audience,
but at least I dont have to translate the
quotations. But more and more in my last
years of life I have been turning towards
local readerships in Asia. The book I am
working on now will, I think, have to be in
Indonesian.
Characteristically, where one of
Andersons last projects drew on his
own deep knowledge of Indonesia, a
second ranged widely across the world.
This was a comparative history of royal
heads of state from Napoleon to the
Gulf Emirs. The central theme here
was the role of the United Kingdom in
turning small chiefdoms into protec-
torates and then into kingships, and
eventually into nation states. It was a
vol lI no 3
PERSPECTIVES
project that engaged his wide learning;
on the other hand, it was inevitably
depressing, because one is mainly deal-
ing with idiots, sexmaniacs, crooks,
medicates, sadists, etc. Hard to think of
any ruler except perhaps in Bhutan that
one can admire.
Benedict Anderson himself carried an
Irish passport, an object of some puzzle-
ment (and occasionally anger) for immi-
gration officials in American airports,
who could not understand why a Cornell
professor would not seek citizenship of
the great and glorious country he had
the fortune of living in. Andersons iden-
tification with the Republic of Ireland
was familial; his identification with the
Republic of Indonesia, both scholarly
and sentimental. In the introduction to
his Spectres of Comparison, he remarked:
It is now twenty-five years since I was
banned from General Suhartos Indonesia,
but the country continues to exercise a
powerful hold on my affection and im-
agination. In the decades he was not
allowed to enter Indonesia, Andersons
works were still read there, faded photo-
copies passed around from hand to
hand, catalysing young minds to think
more critically of the democratic and
other deficits in their country.
It was just and appropriate that
Ben Anderson died in Indonesia, the
country he had adopted for good and
for ill. On Thursday 12 December 2015,
he spoke at the University of Indonesia
on Nationalism and Anarchism. From
the capital he proceeded to East Java, to
revisit some places he had been to 40
years previously. He died on Saturday
night, in his sleep, in a hotel in the town
of Batu.
Benedict Andersons students in
Indonesia, elsewhere in Asia, and in
Europe and America, will surely do
proper justice to his memory. They
will bring to fruition the book projects
he was working on, and perhaps com-
pile collections of his essays as well.
I hope his correspondence over the
decades is also collected, edited, and
published. He was a great scholar, a
remarkable human being, an Irish cosmo-
politan who went everywhere and
opened his heart and brains to the rest
of the world.
43
SPECIAL ARTICLE
Evolution of Institutions for Climate Policy in India
Navroz K Dubash, Neha B Joseph
The growing focus on climate policy in India is not
matched by an equivalent level of attention to
institutions. Effective institutions are also needed for the
design, coordination and implementation of policy. This
paper examines the functioning of institutions,
organised around three periods: pre-2007; 2007 to 2009
and 2010 to mid-2014. Several key themes emerge: First,
the formation of climate institutions has often been
ad hoc and is inadequately geared to Indias co-benefits
based approach to climate policy. Second, there is a lack
of continuity in institutions, once established. Third,
coordination across government has been uneven and
episodic. Fourth, while various efforts at knowledge
generation have been attempted, they do not add
up to a mechanism for sustained and consistent
strategic thinking on climate change. Fifth, the overall
capacity within government remains limited. Sixth,
capacity shortfalls are exacerbated by closed
structures of governance that only partially draw on
external expertise.
The authors are grateful to several interviewees who gave generously
of their time and insights to this research. However, they are not
responsible for any of the findings or opinions presented here.
This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International
Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. We are also grateful
for additional financial support from the Oak Foundation, Geneva,
Switzerland.
Navroz K Dubash (ndubash@gmail.com) and Neha B Joseph
(nehajoseph21@gmail.com) are at the Centre for Policy Research,
New Delhi.
44
Introduction
I
n recent years, there has been a proliferation of policy in-
struments aimed at addressing climate change in India.
Since the release of the National Action Plan on Climate
Change (NAPCC) in 2008, its eight subsidiary missions have
been approved and started implementation. Several states
have also embarked on processes for formulating state climate
plans. To what extent will this proliferation of policies lead to
meaningful action?
One possible answer is that the likelihood that policies and
strategies will be translated into action is higher if there is a
clear institutional transmission mechanism from policy to im-
plementation. Robust institutional arrangements are neces-
sary for both upstream functions like strategy formulation and
knowledge creation, and downstream functions of coordina-
tion and implementation.
The literature suggests several aspects salient to effective
institutions (Meadowcroft 2009; Dixit et al 2012; Kok and De
Coninck 2007; Somanathan et al 2014). Leadership capacity
and appropriate authority is important, particularly in an area
like climate change which is a meta-issue operating in a con-
text where existing sector-specific institutions proliferate.
Closely related is the need for institutional continuity, as cli-
mate change is a long-term issue. Next, designing institutions
to enable and enhance interconnections across sectors is impor-
tant so that decisions do not occur in departmental silos, par-
ticularly since Indian climate policy is driven by the idea of
co-benefits between development and climate outcomes. Cli-
mate institutions have to also provide mechanisms to integrate
policy and action at multiple scalesinternational, national
and local. Finally, given these complexities, facilitating inter-
actions between stakeholders and policymakers in order to win
buy-in and to draw on knowledge outside the formal policy
process is important.
A central argument of this paper, therefore, is that under-
standing climate institutions is a necessary complement to un-
derstanding climate policies. To this end, this paper analyses
the evolution of Indias climate institutions, in an effort to add
insights to Indias engagement with the climate change debate.
Institutions are understood here as the formal or informal
procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the
organisational structure of the polity or political economy
(Hall and Taylor 1996). This definition allows us to examine
both practices as well as the organisational form within which
they are contained.
After briefly outlining the context for Indian climate policy, we
discuss the institutionalisation of domestic climate governance
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 SPECIAL ARTICLE

around three phasespre-2007, 2007 to 2009, and 2010 to Figure 3: Institutions in Climate Change Governance: 2010mid-2014
mid-2014. The three phases are demarcated by what we see as Prime Ministers Office
natural inflection points in institutional architecture. For Prime Ministers Council
each period, we develop an illustrative institutional chart on Climate Change
NAPCC
(Figures 13). Notably, the charts do not include linkages with
Executive Committee on Climate Change
broader structures in the government, such as accountability (Committee of Secretaries)
institutions like the Comptroller and Auditor General, or judi- Ministry of Ministry of Environment
Planning Commission Ministry of
cial bodies such as the National Green Tribunal. Similarly, for Finance External Affairs and Forests
Expert Panel on Low CCFU National CDM CCU
missions under the NAPCC, we focus on the nodal agency Carbon Strategies for Authority
Inclusive Growth NMCI
while, in reality, often several agencies are involved. Despite Climate
Change Action
these limitations, the charts provide a useful institutional Bilateral Programme
Research Agencies
snapshot as a device to reflect on the processes of institutional- Institutions International
Organisations
ising climate governance.
Figure 1: Institutions in Climate Change Governance: Pre-2007
Ministry of New and Ministry of Ministry of Urban Ministry of
Renewable Energy Power Development Agriculture
Ministry of External Affairs Ministry of Environment and Forests JNNSM BEE NMSA
NMSH
National CDM Authority NMEEE
Ministry of Science Ministry of Water
and Technology Resources
Sectoral Ministries DST NWM
Eg: Ministry of Power provided technical Research
inputs on improving coal efficiency; NMSKCC NMSHE
Institutions Donor
Department of Science and Technology Departments of Environment/Department of Science Agencies
provided inputs on IPCC submissions and Technology in Individual States and Union Terrorities International
Key to lines Key to Boxes State Action Plans on Climate Change Organisations

Coordination Executive Body Plans and Processes Non-governmental actors, Bilateral Key to lines Key to Boxes
Relationships Agencies and International Organisations
Source: Authors representation based on interviews. Coordination Executive Body Plans and Processes Non-governmental actors, Bilateral
Relationships Agencies and International Organisations
Figure 2: Institutions in Climate Change Governance: 200709 Source: Authors representation based on interviews.

Prime Ministers Office Prime Ministers Council Indian Climate Policy Context
Prime Ministers on Climate Change
Special Envoy on NAPCC Climate policymaking in India is a complex business because
Climate Change
India carries multiple climate identities: it is simultaneously a
highly vulnerable country; a major emitter when measured
Ministry of External Ministry of Environment and Forests
Affairs
Research by annual emissions; and a very low contributor to the prob-
National CDM Authority CCU Institutions
lem when measured by per capita or historical emissions.
NMCI
India is vulnerable because projected variations in rainfall
and an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme
Ministry of New and Ministry of Power Ministry of Urban Ministry of
Renewable Energy BEE Development Agriculture events like cyclones, droughts, floods can have huge adverse
JNNSM NMSH NMSA impacts on agricultural yields, livestock, and water resources
NMEEE
with implications for food security, human health, rural liveli-
Ministry of Science and Technology Ministry of Water Resources
DST
hoods, biodiversity and infrastructure investments (INCCA
NWM
NMSKCC NMSHE 2010). India is labelled a major emitter because its annual
Key to lines Key to Boxes emissions are the fourth highest in the world, behind the Unit-
ed States (US), China and the European Union (WRI 2014). It is
Coordination Executive Body Plans and Processes Non-governmental actors, Bilateral a small contributor to the problem because its contribution to
Relationships Agencies and International Organisations
Source: Authors representation based on interviews.
global cumulative emissions stands at a relatively low 3%,
compared to 27% by the US and around 70% by Annex I coun-
Methodologically, we draw on official documents that are tries as a whole (WRI 2014). Moreover, Indias per capita emis-
publicly available, media accounts and interviews with key sions in 2011 were 2.0t CO2/person, less than a third of the
participants in climate policymaking. We have also supple- world average of 6.3t CO2/person and around one-fourth of
mented our understanding with minutes of internal meetings Chinas per capita emissions (WRI 2014).
obtained using Right to Information petitions. This confusing context and multiple climate identities
The time period for this analysis extends to mid-2014. With strongly shape Indias international and domestic climate
a new government in place as of that date, these institutional positions. Internationally, based on its low level of responsibility
structures are being revisited. An understanding of past insti- as indicated by low per capita and historical emissions, India has
tutionalisation could well be a useful input to that process. We sought to carve out space for domestic development policy, and
conclude with the lessons of the past decade of climate govern- insulate it from international pressures to mitigate. Increas-
ance and suggestions for the future. ingly, it has also stressed the need for attention to adaptation.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 45
SPECIAL ARTICLE
At home, attention to climate policy is slowly growing, but
with an emphasis on mainstreaming climate change into de-
velopment decisions, with particular attention to co-benefits
or development-enhancing measures that also bring climate
gains, as laid out in the NAPCC. This approach carries implica-
tions for how climate policy is to be institutionalised, placing
emphasis on interweaving climate objectives into existing
policymaking constructs and institutions.
To what extent, and how, has the institutionalisation of cli-
mate policy contributed towards achieving this end? In the
sections that follow, for each period, we examine the global
and national context for policy formulation, the corresponding
institutional structure that emerged, and the institutional
roles that shaped governance. We particularly explore the role
of institutions in strategy formulation and knowledge crea-
tion, coordination, and implementation of climate policy.
Pre-2007: Climate Change as a Diplomatic Problem
Limited Institutionalisation
For most of the preceding two and half decades, the narrative
construction of the climate problem in India has been as a dip-
lomatic rather than a developmental problem. Based on this
construction, climate change is a problem of allocating a glob-
al commonsthe earths ability to absorb greenhouse gases oped countries to renew and enhance commitments under the
equitably across nations (Agarwal and Narain 1991; Dubash
2013; Jakobsen 1998). This led to an emphasis on preparing
diplomatically for negotiations. India played a leading role in
championing the importance of equity and articulating the
concept of differentiated responsibility to ensure that pri-
mary responsibility for mitigation rested with the developed
countries (Sengupta 2011; Dasgupta 2011).
Climate policy was thus synonymous with foreign policy on
climate change and was handled collaboratively by the Minis-
try of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Environment
and Forests (MoEF) by a small number of experienced officials.1
There was little engagement with or oversight by Parliament,
the cabinet or the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) (Jakobsen
1998). Sectoral line ministries provided input on technical
matters and general support during discussions before inter-
national meetings on specific issues, such as Ministry of Power
(MoP) on improving coal efficiency, or Department of Science
and Technology (DST) on inputs to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).2 There were links between
the two key ministries and a few research organisations in
the early years of the climate negotiations, but these were
informal and unstructured. Consequently, there was limited
institutionalisation and few formal institutional links during
this period (Figure 1).
At the domestic level, while there was considerable domes-
tic policy formulation and implementation in related areas
energy efficiency, electricity reform, and building codes
there was no explicit effort to link these to climate change.
The resulting insulation of domestic politics from global cli-
mate politics was breached only partially through engagement
with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). While there
was initial concern that CDM was a Trojan Horse designed to
46
get developing countries to do the work of developed coun-
tries, this changed over time as Indian businesses saw oppor-
tunity in the new mechanism (Sengupta 2011; Das 2011). In
2003, the National Clean Development Mechanism Authority
was established within the MoEF to evaluate and provide ap-
proval for CDM projects. Indian industry associations, and no-
tably the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), played a sub-
stantial role providing an interface between the MoEF and
individual companies and sectors, managing details of green-
house gas inventories, reporting and other requirements of the
CDM process (Das 2011).
Thus, policy formulation in this period was characterised by
limited and unstructured stakeholder interaction. There were
limited requirements for coordination, other than bet ween the
MEA and MoEF, which was facilitated by a limited number of
individuals and a long-standing working relationship between
them. Strategic planning and implementation were not seen as
salient to climate governance requirements at the time.
20072009: Co-Benefits as a Doorway to
Domestic Climate Policy
The year 2007 was an inflection point for global climate de-
bates. While developing countries continued to press devel-
Kyoto Protocol, large developing countries also came under
considerable pressure to undertake mitigation action (Dubash
2009; Rajamani 2012). In addition, climate change became a
regular agenda item at meetings of the G8+5 and G20, parti-
cularly in the build up to the Copenhagen Conference of the
Parties (COP) of 2009 (G20 Information Centre 2011). India also
formed a negotiating alliance with other large emerging econo-
mies, notably Brazil, China and South Africa (BASIC) with the
intention of forming a joint bulwark against pressure by the
developed world. This had the effect of exposing India to their
national climate policy debates, which in some cases were more
developed than at home.
These international shifts, and notably the Copenhagen COP,
also led to greater domestic attention to the subject (Rastogi 2011;
Atteridge et al 2012). Domestically, the appointment of Jairam
Ramesh as Minister of Environment and Forests in mid-2009
led to more vigorous engagement with the subject. There were
focused debates in Parliament around Copenhagen, media articles
increased in number (although predominantly focused on the
negotiations), environmental debates in India provided some
indications of more serious engagement with climate concerns
although local concerns remained dominant, and business as-
sociations developed focused platforms on climate change
(Dubash 2013; Prabhu 2011; Jogesh 2011; Lele 2011; Das 2011).
The combination of greater international pressure and
shifts in the extent and nature of domestic attention led to a
re-formulation of Indias international climate position and
attendant domestic policy changes. A NAPCC, organised around
eight missions ranging from solar power development to
energy efficiency promotion, a water mission and a special
mission for the Himalayan states, was released in mid-2008. In
the build-up to Copenhagen, under inexorable external
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

pressure and in the face of concrete pledges by BASIC allies,
India also pledged in 2009 to reduce the emissions intensity of
its economy by 20%25% from 2005 levels by 2020 (Lok Sabha
2009; Sengupta 2011). In form and content, the pledge was, by
authoritative accounts, an instance of horizontal diffusion
from the example of other countries, particularly China.3
Institutional change during this period centred on two high-
level policy formulation and coordination institutions, the
Prime Ministers Council on Climate Change (hereafter referred
to as the council or PMCCC) and the Prime Ministers Special final concise draft, which abstracted from technical details
Envoy on Climate Change. In addition, at the level of the MoEF,
a number of additional supportive bodies and processes were
put in place. And finally, driven by the NAPCC, inter-sectoral
coordination bodies and processes emerged. All these changes
represented a substantial thickening of institutional linkages
(Figure 2). We discuss each in turn.
The formation of the PMCCC in mid-2007 likely was stimu-
lated, at least in part, by a perception that India needed to be
better prepared to react to global pressures to address climate
change. At this time, India had offered to limit its per capita
emissions to the average of industrialised country per capita
emissions at the G8 summit at Heiligendamm (MEA 2007).
However, there was no mechanism in place to credibly devise
an approach towards this end. Notably, China had released its
domestic climate plan just days before the 2007 G8+6 meet-
ing, which was reported in the Indian media as an important
element in Chinas relative success, as compared to India, at de-
flecting international pressure (Sethi 2007).
Formally, the council was charged with formulating a na-
tional strategy to address climate change (later released as the
NAPCC), overseeing the formulation of action plans, and moni-
toring key policy decisions (GoI 2007). The council was chaired
by the prime minister and composed of 26 members, including
ministers of various departments and eminent non-govern-
mental and retired governmental experts. This level of stake-
holder involvement helped ensure that any substantive con-
tent in the plan reasonably accommodated a wide range of in-
terests. Indeed, the various members did provide thoughts,
many of which informed the final NAPCC. For example, an em-
phasis on no regrets measures, a sectoral focus on renewable
energy, energy efficiency, water, agriculture and transport
were all mentioned in the initial meeting, and found substan-
tial emphasis in the plan (PMO 2009; PMCCC 2008). The result-
ing NAPCC was released in June 2008 shortly before the G8
meeting at Tyako, Japan, suggesting that, at least in part, the
audience for the NAPCC was international.
The manner in which the council was used provided little
scope either for detailed analytical input or for considered
deliberation. With regard to the first, there were no focused
studies commissioned to inform the plan preparation process,
although council members had access to prior work undertaken
by their various organisations. With regard to deliberation,
the plan was finalised over the course of three sittings of the
council from 13 July 2007 to 2 June 2008 (PMO 2009). Minutes
of the second and third meetings provide few details of the
discussion. And while there were many voices represented on
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
the council, there was no mechanism to enable broader con-
sultation or provision of a comment period for the wider
community of academics and stakeholders. As a consequence,
the content of the document was strongly shaped by the
primary authors, a three-member group from within the
council, composed of the principal scientific advisor, former
secretary of the MoEF and the director general of The Energy
and Resources Institute. However, in the final analysis, the
office of the special envoy played a significant role, since the
and focused on larger messages, was prepared in the PMO
(Down to Earth 2008).4
Although its substantive and analytic role was limited, as an
institutional platform, the council played an important role
with regard to representing interests and winning agreement
on the specific measures. The presence of key ministers, such
as ministers of Agriculture and power ensured buy-in from
other power centres within the government, and the presence
of external members from the media, industry and civil socie-
ty organisations helped win agreement and ownership from
broader sections of society.5
Perhaps the most important use to which that representa-
tion role was put was to buy broad political agreement on the
NAPCC through the idea of co-benefits, measures that pro-
mote our development objectives while also yielding co-benefits
for addressing climate change effectively (PMCCC 2008). The
political importance of this idea is hard to overstate. It allows
India, while holding on to the political roots of its equity-based
position, to start factoring climate change into national policy-
making. On balance, the contribution of the council was as a
representative body, and to a much smaller extent, as a sub-
stantive body with regard to strategy and content.
The council was relatively active only in its early years
during the formulation of the NAPCC. It has met a total of eight
times between August 2009 and February 2011 to consider and
approve the mission documents of the eight subsidiary mis-
sions, and did not meet until after it was reconstituted with a
new membership in November 2014 (PIB 2014).
Special Envoy on Climate Change
In January 2008, shortly before the release of the NAPCC, a
specialised office of the Prime Ministers Special Envoy on
Climate Change (hereafter referred to as the special envoy)
was established within the PMO. It was staffed by a senior and
seasoned diplomat, Ambassador Shyam Saran, who had been
both foreign secretary and the lead negotiator on IndoUS
civil nuclear issues. As with the council, the special envoy
had no dedicated staff, but rather was able to draw on the
broader personnel of the PMO and on ad hoc assistance from
external researchers. The special envoys office engaged in
both domestic and international climate policy, and notably
played a substantial role in bringing the unwieldy process
of drafting an NAPCC to conclusion. Specifically, the detailed
report prepared by three members of the council was tight-
ened into a much shorter summary report, with the detailed
report shifted to a technical appendix.
47
SPECIAL ARTICLE
The office also played a significant coordinating role. The
special envoy was able to exercise the authority of the PMO to
convene other ministerial colleagues at a high level, and
through a method of intensive networking and coordination,
to identify and find ways around roadblocks, if necessary by
knocking heads together.6 Indeed, the special envoys office
was more often focused with the hard work of negotiating a
complex political and bureaucratic landscape than with high
level strategic thinking. For example, in formulating the
National Solar Mission, a key sticking point was figuring out
where the finance would come from for a subsidy for new solar
power, to be provided through an innovative reverse auction
mechanism.7 Providing additional budgetary support was out
of the question. The creative answer arrived at was to blend
solar power with low cost thermal power available with the
National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) as reserve power
for states, to bring down the average cost of power supplied
through this mechanism. However, doing so required agree-
ment by NTPC as well as buy-in from the finance minister. This
agreement was won by the Prime Ministers special envoy
through personal visits and leg-work, backed by the authority
of the PMO. In another example, agreement on the Himalayan
Mission required personal visits by the special envoy to the
various states, to ascertain interests and needs, and seed im-
portant themes regarding collective action across states.8
The special envoys office also played a supporting role to
other ministries.9 For example, in formulating the National
Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, the Bureau of Energy
Efficiency sought the PMOs help in ensuring finance for energy
efficiency, following which the PMO contacted public sector
banks encouraging support for the mission. In all, over the course
of 2009, four missions were approved by the council, of which
the special envoy had a substantial role in three: the National
Solar Mission, the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Effi-
ciency and the National Himalayan Mission. Due to pressures
of time and lack of resources, the special envoy was relatively
less focused on the remaining missions,10 and this lack of high
level focus may indeed be one reason for their slower pace.
In addition to driving the momentum on the NAPCC mis-
sions, the special envoy also raised the level of coordination on
Indias international policy on climate change, convening reg-
ular meetings across the MEA, MoEF and other relevant minis-
tries, and also calling in external experts, to formulate Indias
international position and prepare country submissions on
items in the negotiating agenda. A notable example was a posi-
tion paper on technology innovation centres.11 While this coor-
dination had always existed at an informal level, the process
was made more consistent during the tenure of the office.12
Whether and to what extent the special envoy should control
international climate policy ultimately became an issue for
contention with the newly appointed minister at the MoEF, and
was the cause for dismantling the office after two short years
(Varadarajan 2010; Deshpande and Sethi 2010).
This period also saw preliminary engagement with climate
change by sectoral ministries. The various nodal ministries for
the NAPCC missions had to develop climate-specific expertise
48
and assign staff to manage the mission (Figure 2). In these ini-
tial years, activity was centred around formulation of mission
documents. The exact processes for mission formulation have
varied across ministries. In most ministries, this task was
assigned to existing personnel, although, as detailed above,
some missions also saw the involvement of the special envoys
office. The extent and manner of stakeholder interactions dur-
ing mission formulation has also varied across missions. The
MoEF, for example, held five public regional consultations in
Mysore, Dehradun, Nagpur, Jaipur and Guwahati, each of
which was attended by around 5,000 people, making the
Green India Missions consultative processes the widest among
all missions. Thus, the NAPCC, despite being undertaken ini-
tially due to global negotiation pressures, allowed for linkages
between climate change and domestic sectoral concerns and
consequently, opened up a range of institutional spaces, more
in some missions and less in others, that were material to
Indias efforts to mainstream climate change.
Beyond these institutional innovations, the appointment of
Jairam Ramesh as the Minister of Environment and Forests in
mid-2009 ushered in an additional round of institutional
building within the ambit of his ministry. Ramesh set his sights
initially on domestic policy, and in particular on building a
science knowledge infrastructure.13 The Indian Network on
Climate Change Assessment (INCCA), envisioned as an Indian
IPCC, a network of 127 institutions, was set up to examine im-
pacts of climate change, conduct greenhouse gas inventories
and provide a mechanism for coordinating existing, hitherto
disconnected research.14 INCCA has produced a report which
provides an assessment of impacts of climate change in 2030s
on four key sectors of the Indian economy, namely, agriculture,
water, natural ecosystems and biodiversity and health, in four
climate sensitive regions of India, the Himalayan region, the
Western Ghats, the coastal area and the north-east region
(INCCA 2010). A second approach was to deepen the engage-
ment of scientific bodies with the climate issue, such as the In-
dian Space Research Organisation, to harness its satellite tech-
nology for various monitoring purposes, and the Indian Coun-
cil of Forestry Research and Education to make use of its de-
tailed forest work.
Over time, Jairam Ramesh was drawn deeper into process-
es for formulating Indias international position, in a manner
that placed him increasingly in conflict with long-standing
climate negotiators in India (Varadarajan 2010; Dasgupta
2014). By his own account, Ramesh sought to position India as
a forward-looking player in climate negotiations, calling for a
yes, but approach emphasising the conditions for agree-
ment (Ramesh 2010) and a shift to a per capita plus ap-
proach (Sarkar 2009) and even attempted to pursue domestic
legislation in this regard.15
This narrative re-formulation ran against a strong current in
Indian climate politics, held by senior negotiators as well as
influential civil society groups: that domestic climate policy in
India should be minimally linked to the international process
(Agarwal and Narain 1991; Narain 2008; Dasgupta 2014).
These differences are salient to questions of institutionalising
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

climate governance. If climate policy is intended to main-
stream climate change into domestic policy, institutional change
is required to drive climate concerns into domestic policy. If,
instead, it is a minimalist effort at signalling international
credibility while insulating domestic policy, then institutional
change is superfluous. As the experience described here sug-
gests, the outcome falls between these two extremes and is in
part a reflection of the failure to completely settle the larger
strategic debate about Indias international climate stance.
In sum, the need for strategic planning and policy formulation
in the early stages of Indian climate policy was incompletely
met. The establishment of the PMCCC and the office of the
special envoy were the capstone institutions intended to play
this role. The former largely served a representation function
for various voices and the latter was uniquely able to leverage
the authority of the PMO to play an important convening and
coordination role. However, neither institute fully served as a
forum for strategic planning and neither led to a marked in-
crease in research capacity and analysis.
Beyond these two high level institutions, the period from
2007 to 2009 was also one of general institutional fecundity,
as Figure 2 shows, but in a qualified way. First, the sheer
numbers of personnel involved remained relatively small,
with climate change being added on to existing responsibili-
ties in many cases. Second, and related, technical capacity and
skills were inducted in an ad hoc manner through informal
contacts with researchers and through formulation of working
groups. Third, this institutional thickening was limited to the
government, and did not lead to structured and ongoing
mechanisms for consultation with other interests or stakehold-
ers, limiting the effectiveness of these institutions as transmis-
sion pathways for broader mainstreaming of climate consider-
ations. Finally, the unevenness of the institutional landscape
reflected the unsettled and ongoing debate about Indias inter-
national climate stance, which fell somewhere in between
seriously internalising climate considerations, and merely
gesturing towards doing so.
2010Mid-2014: Diminished Momentum,
Diminished Coordination
Following the Copenhagen COP in 2009, the political momen-
tum on climate change slowed. There was far less pressure to
declare sweeping new measures or policies. But, by the same
token, India, like other countries, had to give body, substance
and form to what were often hasty pre-Copenhagen declarations.
At the domestic level, the biggest change in context was the
consolidation of authority by Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of
Environment and Forests, who had taken over the ministry
just six months before the Copenhagen COP, but played a sub-
stantial role in Copenhagen (Ramesh 2014). He had acquired
visibility and profile at home and overseas, through a high vis-
ibility approach complemented by rare parliamentary debates
on climate change before and after Copenhagen (Lok Sabha
Debates 2009; Prabhu 2011).
The period during Rameshs tenure until July 2011 saw a
flurry of new initiatives. Significant among these was an effort
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
to develop State Action Plans on Climate Change in each of
Indias states to complement the NAPCC. During this period,
there was also a shift in the centre of gravity around climate
governance back to the MoEF. Following Rameshs departure
from the MoEF in mid-2011, few additional domestic initiatives
on climate change were apparent through the first half of
2014, with little evidence of institutional change and develop-
ment in climate policymaking.
In the early years of this period, these contextual changes
were manifested in four sets of institutional shifts, which led
to a further change in the institutional map of climate govern-
ance (Figure 3). First, there was an institutional vacuum at the
highest levels of coordination and strategic thinking, with the
dissolution of the office of the special envoy. Second, there
were complementary additional institutional efforts under-
taken at knowledge creation and strategic thinking, which
were only partly successful. Third, there was an initial attempt
at building institutional capacity across sectoral ministries in
the course of implementing NAPCC missions, albeit not at the
scale necessary. Fourth, there was a corresponding introduc-
tion of dedicated climate entities at state levels, to prepare and
implement state climate plans. We elaborate on each below.
In the build-up to Copenhagen, tensions between the MoEF
and the office of the special envoy over control of the negotiat-
ing position were already apparent. The growing inter-institu-
tional tension eventually led to the closure of the office of the
special envoy in March 2010 (Varadarajan 2010; Deshpande
and Sethi 2010) with implications for coordination of climate
policy across the government. Coordination around interna-
tional diplomatic policy has reverted back to a relatively un-
structured process involving the MEA and the MoEF, with oc-
casional input from external advisers, notably retired bureau-
crats. However, the bigger change occurred in terms of coordi-
nation of domestic policy. While the special envoys office was
de facto playing this role during its existence, the MoEF subse-
quently picked up this task. As minister, Ramesh apparently
took on this coordination at a personal level, making direct
calls to secretaries of other ministries.16 While the Prime Min-
isters special envoy was able to call on the authority of the
PMO to sort out differences, the MoEF was hampered in playing
this role by considerations of inter-ministerial competition.17
From the MoEF perspective, they were very careful to allow
the individual ministries not to get the impression that the
MoEF was becoming the single tsar.18 Without an overarching
authority, coordination, by all accounts, was less effectively
handled despite the best efforts of the MoEF.
In an effort to address this challenge, in 2013, a new Execu-
tive Committee on Climate Change (ECCC) was instituted to
establish oversight over mission implementation (PIB 2013).
Composed of secretaries, the highest ranking bureaucrats in
each ministry, the intention was that with deep knowledge of
the system and an ability to speak for their respective minis-
tries, such a committee would ease coordination challenges.
A committee of secretaries is also an empowered committee
which renders it the authority to demand that decisions
taken by it are followed by line ministries. However, this
49
SPECIAL ARTICLE
approach provides no solution to the possible problem of inter-
ministerial competition. Thus, the closure of the special
envoys office has likely reduced effective coordination in
what is also now a more complex institutional landscape, as
we discuss below.
A second set of institutional changes were brought about by
disparate efforts at broadening the information and strategic
knowledge base for implementation of the Copenhagen
pledge. The most significant step towards this was the estab-
lishment of an Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategies for
Inclusive Growth (hereafter referred to as the Expert Group
or LCEG). The LCEG was jointly convened by the MoEF and
the Planning Commission, with the engagement of the latter
signalling the entry of the governments in-house institution for
integrated and strategic thinking into the climate discussion.
The formation of the LCEG promised a more systematic
approach to harnessing technical input and working it into a
larger strategic framework. It was composed of 20 expert
members from both within and outside the government. How-
ever, the model for technical input tended to be ad hoc with
individual members expected to depend on the resources of
their home institutions. Little dedicated or focused new
research was carried out with a reliance instead, on existing
research.19 The Expert Group took over four years to deliver its
final report, well beyond its mandated time period of nine
months, and was consequently relatively limited in influenc-
ing policy formulation during this period. Additionally, in its
involvement with the formulation of the Twelfth Plan, it oper-
ated in parallel with and separated from various sectoral
working groups drafting the plan. Thus, there were separate
groups on power planning and environmental planning, the
functioning of which were not coordinated with the Expert
Group. Over time, and after a change in the leadership at the
MoEF in mid-2011, the latter became progressively disengaged
with and even critical of the work of the group (Sethi 2012),
limiting its usefulness as an input to policy.
In recognition that climate change deserved a long-term
approach, in 2013, discussions were initiated for the creation
of an overarching National Institute for Climate Change Stud-
ies and Action. News reports indicate that the new institute
will have four broad roles: scientific assessment; economic and
legal analysis; policymaking, monitoring, capacity-building
and training; and database management (Business Standard
2014; Economic Times 2013). The institute will be placed under
the MoEF, but with representation on its governing body by
other ministries and independent experts (Sethi 2013). Such
an institution has the potential to increase overall capacity,
but much depends on details of its implementation. In particu-
lar, its ability to serve as a broader hub to stimulate indepen-
dent analysis and deliberation, versus being an in-house think-
tank, will be critical.
Another central government organisation that was drawn
into climate discussions was the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
One of the concrete outcomes of the Cancun COP was a com-
mitment by developed countries to mobilise $100 billion a
year by 2020 to support developing country activities on
50
climate change (UNFCCC 2010). Climate finance, covering both
discussions about amount and deciding how it would be used,
was therefore promised to be a growth area for negotiations,
and was a key element of Indias negotiating strategy. Subse-
quently, a Climate Change Finance Unit (CCFU) was created
within the MoF in 2011. Since its creation, this unit has fo-
cused heavily on the international climate finance context,
notably on representing India at discussions of the Green
Climate Fund and in producing a chapter on climate and sus-
tainable development in the annual Economic Survey.20 The
parallel set of tasks of increasing Indias domestic capacity to
develop projects and absorb climate finance are built around
the MoEF and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development (NABARD).
Engagement with climate finance also suffers from coordi-
nation failures (Jha 2014). For example, there is no intermedi-
ary body that enables the long list of projects emerging from
state plans to be developed into bankable climate finance proj-
ects. Even more important, there is no mechanism for strategic
consideration of various projects to enhance the chances that
individual projects aggregate to the directional shift that is
called for in the NAPCC.
Third, the biggest task for this period was to move from the
broad contours of a national plan to specific design and imple-
mentation of missions. For this purpose, mission directorates
have been set up within the various nodal ministries, compris-
ing a mission director with administrative and financial pow-
ers, backed by other officers, experts and consultants. Simply
the act of creating missions has led to an expansion of person-
nel in the official machinery charged with addressing climate
change, although this likely occurred through redeployment
of existing personnel rather than through induction of
individuals with dedicated skills.
However, even after this process, overall levels of capacity
remain limited. Table 1 (p 51) lays out existing staff in various
central government ministries, and at various levels, dedicat-
ed to climate change. Even in the core nodal agency of MoEF,
full-time employees focused on climate change in the Climate
Change Unit are a section officer, three scientists, a director
and a joint secretary (the latter also handling the Montreal
Protocol), adding to six full-time staff. Across missions, the
staff strength is similarly low, with the Bureau of Energy Effi-
ciency a partial exception. In practice, many officials have
multiple roles, making an exact estimate of staff strength in
ministries challenging; these strengths are also complement-
ed by additional consultants and other temporary staffing,
which is harder to document. It is also unclear whether these
additional personnel provide the continuity of engagement
and the specialised capacity necessary.
Although a detailed mission-by-mission analysis is beyond
the scope of this paper, a quick review of government
documents reveals some differences in the approaches taken
by missions. To begin with, the nature of the mission is rele-
vant to its pace of implementation. Missions with a relatively
tightly focused agenda have tended to move faster. For example,
the National Solar Mission efforts to encourage investment
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 SPECIAL ARTICLE
Table 1: Personnel Capacity in the Climate Change Unit (MoEF), MEA, MoF and Nodal Ministries for Missions
Administrative Levels in Ministriesi
Special / Additional / Director/Deputy Under Secretary/ Section Officer/
Joint Secretary/ Secretary/ Scientist (C) Desk Officer
Scientist (G) Scientist (D, E, F)
Ministry of Environment and Forests Climate Change Unit (CCU)ii 1 3 1 1
Ministry of External Affairs UNES (United Nations Economic and Social) Divisioniii 1 1 0 0
Ministry of Finance Climate Change Finance Unit (CCFU)iv 1 1 1 0
Ministry of Environment and Forests National Green India Mission (NMGI)v 2 1 1 NA
Ministry of New and Renewable
Energy Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM)vi 2 2 NA NA
Ministry of Power National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency
(NMEEE)vii 3 8 0 0
Ministry of Science and Technology National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate
Change (NMSKCC)viii 1 2 NA NA
Ministry of Science and Technology National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan
Ecosystem (NMSHE)ix 1 2 NA NA
Ministry of Water Resources National Water Mission (NWM)x 3 2 1 NA
Ministry of Urban Development National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (NMSH) NA NA NA NA
Ministry of Agriculture National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) NA NA NA NA
i The politico-administrative structure in Ministries is divided into seven levels comprising minister/MOS; secretary; special secretary/additional secretary/joint secretary/scientist(G);
director/deputy secretary/scientist (D,E,F); under secretary/scientist C; section officer/desk officer and assistant/upper and lower division clerk (Second Administrative Reforms
Commission 2009; MoEF 2010a). For the purpose of comparing capacity among nodal ministries implementing missions, we focus on four of the above levels (as detailed in the table
above). We exclude the levels of minister/MOS and secretary, since ministers and secretaries of all ministries oversee a wide range of issues under the jurisdiction of their ministry. We
also exclude the level of assistant/upper and lower division clerk.
ii Information regarding personnel in the Climate Change Unit of the MoEF has been gathered from the Ministrys response to an RTI enquiry, dated 24.7.2014 (MoEF 2014a). This
information reflects the bureaucratic shuffle that followed the formation of the new government. In addition to these officers, an Additional Secretary to the Government of India has
responsibility over climate change activities as a portion of his work allocation (MoEF 2014).
iii Information regarding staffing in the UNES Division of the MEA has been gathered from the ministrys official website (www.mea.gov.in) (accessed on 3 May 2014) and personal
communication, dated 29 July 2015, with Satwant Khanalia, Under Secretary in the ministry of External Affairs.
iv Information regarding staffing in the CCFU of the MoF has been gathered from the ministrys official website (www.finmin.nic.in) (accessed on 3 May 2014).
v Information regarding staffing in the NMGI Directorate has been gathered from the ministrys official website (www.moef.nic.in) (accessed on 21 April 2015).
vi Information regarding staffing in the JNNSM Directorate has been gathered from the ministrys official website (www.mnre.gov.in) (accessed on 3 May 2014).
vii Information regarding staffing in the NMEEE Directorate has been gathered from personal communication, dated 15 May 2015, with Ashok Kumar in the Bureau of Energy Efficiency,
Ministry of Power.
viii Information regarding staffing in the NMSKCC Directorate has been gathered from the official website of the Department of Science and Technology (www.dst.gov.in) (accessed on 3
May 2014).
ix Information regarding staffing in the NMSHE Directorate has been gathered from the official website of the Department of Science and Technology (www.dst.gov.in) (accessed on 3
May 2014).
x Information regarding staffing in the NWM Directorate has been gathered from personal communication, dated 27 February 2015, with M Satyanarayana, Advisor (Coordination and
Monitoring) in the National Water Mission Directorate.
Source: Authors compilation based on government websites and documents, and personal communication with government officials..

in solar energy (MNRE 2009) and the National Mission for
Enhanced Energy Efficiency efforts to create a trading mecha-
nism for energy efficiency credits (MoP 2009) have made prog-
ress. The sprawling National Water Mission, with a particularly
large and unfocused objective, has moved more slowly.
In addition, the degree of stakeholder engagement in imple-
mentation varies across the missions. The Green India Mission
has perhaps gone the farthest towards engaging the public and
multiple levels of government, establishing state-level steering
committees, and integrating implementation with the existing
framework of forest institutions at district and village scales
(MoEF 2010). While this integration is desirable, the implemen-
tation challenge will be to ensure that the Green India Mission
is not entirely subsumed by the existing structure and its in-
centives, but results in a change consistent with the larger pur-
pose of the mission.
Monitoring arrangements also differ by mission, in part by
whether the topic of the mission operates under central
government control or rests with the states. In some cases,
such as the Solar Mission, monitoring is conducted by an
executive committee, chaired by the secretary to the Ministry
of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE 2009). The Green India
Mission includes a provision for remote sensing and third
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
party monitoring (MoEF 2010). In sum, the degree of institu-
tionalisation of climate concerns in line ministries went up
during this period, although it would be hard to argue that the
result is adequate given the task.
Fourth, the formulation and implementation of State Action
Plans on Climate Change has led to the creation of a comple-
mentary level of institutions at the state level, representing a
significant expansion of the climate policy space. While the
state plans considerably increased the scope of the main-
streaming efforts, they also have systematic weaknesses as
strategic documents (Dubash and Jogesh 2014). These include:
a focus on generating long and unprioritised lists of possible
implementation actions without a corresponding strategy; a
failure to build adequate implementation capacity; a
consequent reliance on donors and consultants; an inability to
foster integrative thinking and break out of departmental
silos; a weak basis in the science of climate impacts; limited
attention to the energy sector due to strategic concerns on
implications for climate negotiations; lack of an analytical
framework through which to mainstream development and
climate mitigation and adaptation; and, with few exceptions,
relatively non-participatory processes. Despite these limita-
tions, the plans have led to a conversation at the state level,
51
SPECIAL ARTICLE
and in some cases to deepened engagement by key bureau-
crats in the state.
A limited sample of five states reveals, however, that relative-
ly little institutional capacity had been created, and all the states
relied heavily on donor agencies and consultants to prepare
state plans (Dubash and Jogesh 2014). In many cases, climate
change was added to the brief of existing institutions. For ex-
ample, in Karnataka, the Environmental Management and Poli-
cy Research Institute (EMPRI) of the state government served as
the nodal agency for preparation of the states climate plan. In
other cases, such as Odisha, a Climate Change Action Plan Cell
was created within the Forest and Environment Department.
In sum, the period after 2009 witnessed a thickening of in-
stitutional structure, although this was focused in the period
until mid-2011, while Ramesh was Minister of Environment
and Forests. This included new capacity in central ministries
such as the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance,
and perhaps more significantly in line ministries and states.
However, an analysis of institutionalisation within ministries
reveals that capacity levels remain numerically very low. Most
problematic, coordinating institutions atrophied, leaving no
institutional spaces through which climate policy could be
monitored, coordinated, and driven. The result risks a direc-
tionless effort at climate policymaking. While policy formula-
tion, implementation and coordination functions were the
focus of this period, strategic planning continued to be an
important task, but one on which little activity was witnessed.
Conclusions
Over the period covered by this paper, from 2007 to mid-2014,
there has been a steady and growing spread of institutions for
climate governance in India. This institutionalisation reflects
the proliferation of policy instruments and objectives of
climate policy. However, it is very much a work in progress.
Towards strengthening this emerging institutional structure,
we conclude with several observations.
First, institutionalisation around climate change has often
been ad hoc, instead of being designed to suit Indias stated
development-focused approach to climate policy. The approach,
thus far, has been creation of multiple institutional openings
in a scatter shot manner, often in reaction to international
circumstances. This reactive mode has filtered down to states,
with states rather hastily setting up climate nodes in response
to a central diktat to produce state climate plans. While this
approach does create opportunities for enterprising bureau-
crats, or space for new voices, such as solar entrepreneurs,
it is far less deliberate than the approach other countries
have chosen, such as Chinas centralised target setting and
monitoring approach (Held et al 2011), or the UKs analysis
and information-based regulation approach through its Climate
Change Committee. While Indias multivalent approach facili-
tates experimentation, a more deliberate process of institu-
tional design, while maintaining some of the benefits of flexi-
bility, may be warranted.
Second, institutions, once established, have not been stable
or long-lasting. Notably, the office of the Prime Ministers
52
special envoy on Climate Change, which played an important
role coordinating climate policy, was dismantled after two
short years. As one implication of this instability, climate
policy making is more often driven by individuals than institu-
tions. Such an approach can lead to both inconsistent engage-
ment with the issue and create a vacuum when no strong and
interested leader emerges. For example, after Ramesh was
shifted out of the MoEF in 2011, there were relatively few new
developments around domestic climate policy through the
first half of 2014.
Third, coordination across various parts of the government
has ebbed and flowed with different institutional configura-
tions. Arguably, the most explicit coordination, both of domes-
tic and international policy, existed when the PMO included a
Special Envoy on Climate Change. The resultant ability to lev-
erage the authority of the PMO to convene, resolve disputes
and overcome hurdles was instrumental in implementing ac-
tions around Copenhagen. After 2010, coordination has oc-
curred in an ad hoc manner, through special committees for
missions and bilateral consultations between MEA and MoEF
on international negotiations. An overarching structure that
encompasses strategic thinking, promotes monitoring and
allows for course correction would enhance climate policy
formulation and implementation.
Fourth, while various efforts have been undertaken to en-
hance knowledge generation around climate change, they
have not added up to a sustained and consistent mechanism
for strategic thinking. The Prime Ministers Council on Climate
Change did not play an active strategic role beyond initial input
into the NAPCC; the special envoys office had access to very
limited internal analytical capability; and the LCEG was an ad
hoc effort that fell short of its mandate and did not lead to cre-
ation of mechanisms for ongoing knowledge generation that
cumulate over time. The initial visibility and activity of INCCA
have not been sustained over time, with no reports being re-
leased beyond the initial analyses. Particularly since climate
policy needs to bridge domestic sectoral concerns and global
negotiation pressures, a sustained, strategic and analytically
sound process is a necessity.
Fifth, the capacity within individual governmental organi-
sations to address climate change remains limited. There are
two aspects to this capacity shortfall. First, the absolute num-
ber of personnel in existing institutions dealing with climate
change remains low, leading to a problem of over-burden. It is
a considerable challenge for such small numbers to keep track
of design and implementation of the NAPCC and its missions,
oversee state climate plans, and cover the gamut of interna-
tional discussions. Second, the cross-sectoral nature of the cli-
mate problem requires officials to understand linkages with
other issue areas such as energy, urbanisation, agriculture, and
so on. Currently, there exist no mechanisms within the gov-
ernment to mobilise such integrative knowledge. Addressing
both aspects requires increasing absolute numbers and foster-
ing specialisation within the civil service as well as supple-
menting the civil service with a cadre of specialists, who bring
both specialised knowledge and institutional memory over
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 SPECIAL ARTICLE

time. Finding a sustainable and consistent way to bring more
and better capacity to bear on the problem is a prerequisite for
effective climate institutions in India.
Sixth, the policy formulation and institution building pro-
cess, so far, have provided few opportunities for public input
and consultation. The NAPCC was a largely closed process, the
LCEG had no consultations, the missions have been uneven in
the extent of their consultative processes (an exception is the
Green India Mission), and the state plans have been heavily
bureaucratically driven processes. This is in contrast to some
other emerging economies, notably South Africa and Brazil,
that have put in place public deliberation processes (Rauben-
heimer and Younge 2011; Hochstetler and Viola 2012). Indian
institutions could learn from this experience by going beyond
treating climate change as a technical design challenge, to en-
gaging the public in bringing about, as the NAPCC suggests, a
shift in development trajectories.
While a detailed institutional design is beyond the scope of
this paper, the contours of an approach can be drawn from
these findings. Indian climate institutions should follow a
facilitative approach that complements existing institutions to
promote mainstreaming of climate considerations in a manner
consistent with development. This implies nudging and
provoking existing sectoral bodies to seek co-benefits opportu-
nities in mitigation and mainstream climate resilience into de-
velopment decisions. A robust analytical capacityto track
the burgeoning climate literature, develop and adapt concep-
tual tools (such as on co-benefits), and serve as a repository for
consistent data collectionis an indispensable function. Given
the capacity shortfalls in the government, the ability to draw
in academics, civil society representatives and others with
expertise to complement governmental capacity would be
very helpful. In architectural terms, having institutional struc-
tures at multiple levelscentre, states, and citieswould
reflect the increasingly multilevel governance nature of climate
policy responses. Finally, lessons of the past suggest that a
complementary high-level strategy group that can serve a
coordinating role and an accountability function for other
climate institutions is necessary.
While the details, such as the institutional homes for these
roles, require a great deal more consideration, the last decade
of climate policymaking suggests that an ad hoc and reactive
approach to institutionalising Indias climate response has its
limitations. A more deliberate approach, and one that is tai-
lored to Indias policy approach to climate change, will provide
long-term payback.

Notes
1 Although the name of the ministry has been
changed to Ministry of Environment, Forests
and Climate Change in 2014, in this paper we
use the older name, since that was the name in
use during the period covered in this paper.
2 Personal communication with Surya Sethi, 7
January 2015.
3 Interview with Jairam Ramesh, 16 October
2014.
4 Interview with Shyam Saran, 21 March 2014.
5 Interview with Ajay Mathur, 7 May 2014.
6 See note 4.
7 See note 4.
8 See note 4.
9 See note 5.
10 See note 4.
11 Personal communication with Shyam Saran, 7
January 2015.
12 Interview with Surya Sethi, 28 April 2014.
13 See note 3.
14 See note 3.
15 See note 3.
16 See note 3.
17 See note 5.
18 See note 3.
19 One of the authors of this paper, Navroz K
Dubash, was initially appointed as a member of
the Expert Group. Some of these observations
are based on personal experience. He resigned
from the group in August 2013.
20 Interview with Dipak Dasgupta, 20 March 2014.
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SPECIAL ARTICLE

Imagining Colonial Assam

The Figuring of Wastelands in Its Making

Sarah Hilaly

The colonial states categorisation of land as wasteland
was not based on an ecological understanding. Such
lands were, rather, identified on the basis of productivity.
Wastes, therefore, connoted untapped idle; items to
which value had not accrued because they had not been
utilised for commercial purposes. This paper observes
how value addition to land was central to the thesis on
private property and how the idea justified colonial
territorial acquisitions and classification of population in
Assam. It also led to differentiating people on the basis
of their habitat and land-use patterns. The colonial
classification of wasteland and the colonial idea of the
indigenous Assamese as lazy and indolent lay at the root
of the colonial states encouraging peasant migrations
from outside Assam into arable lands in the province.
C
olonial intervention has nuanced our ways of under-
standing of spaces. One such construct is that of
wastelands. Land and its management was a crucial
adjunct to the fiscal-military regime of the East India Company.
Across South and South-East Asia, the state has viewed unoccu-
pied customary land as idle or waste land. The notion is
rooted in the colonial land settlement process. While attempting
to read propriety rights in the colonised countries, the colonial
administration deemed unoccupied lands or wastes as
tracts outside the territory held by native communities. Land
for common use or land left fallow was not compatible with
Western notions of private property; colonial officials found it
difficult to comprehend such land use.
The category of wasteland, thus, is critically linked to the
Western idea of private and exclusive rights over property. The
term property along with private ownership formed the
bedrock of 18th century politics and political imagination. The
colonial state suppressed pre-existing dissonances between
the ideal of absolute ownership and customary rights by not
recognising collective rights (Mazumdar 2001: 89). The idea
that land was productive only when occupied or improved went
hand in hand with legalising landownership through title. In
property theories derived from the European or North American
experience, first possession is usually assumed to result in
continuous occupation and use of the newly acquired object by
those who have claimed such possession (Lentz 2006: 5).
To reinforce these categories, colonial legal codes were put
in place. They transformed forests into two categories: natural
forests and agricultural land (Lentz 2006: 5). Previous codes of
land management systems did not differentiate between the two
categories. Once local spaces have been transformed through
categorisation, they are then policed using techniques of power
and discipline that included territorial zoning and mapping, the
constitution of institutions of enforcement, and the creation of
exemptions, among which are customary (Lentz 2006: 320).
According to Sucheta Mazumdar, the brutal process of
enclosure in Europe impinged upon both political and legal
theories. They, she argues, ensured the erasure of personhood
of non-European humans based on the treatise on property.

Evolution of the Concept of Wasteland in

The author is grateful to an anonymous referee who gave valuable
suggestions on the basis of which the paper has been revised.
Sarah Hilaly (sarahhilaly@yahoo.co.in) teaches at the Department of
History, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
Colonial Discourse
Discourses of Christianity, commerce, geography and law
formed the core of Western plans of expansion across the
oceans. Debates centred on whether the territory would be
55
SPECIAL ARTICLE
used to plant Christianity, conduct trade or conquer (Lentz
2006: 320). These ideas informed much of the debate in the
17th century on English colonisation of foreign lands in North
America.1 Notions of private property and international sover-
eignty which thinkers such as Hugo Grotius (15831645) and
John Locke (16321704) derived from the natural law or ius
gentium (Harrison 2005: 2) were to become tropes from which
formal justifications for colonies were drawn.
A relook at John Lockes Two Treatises of Government, particu-
larly the labour theory of property and the chapter on con-
quest, draws attention to the ways in which writings such as
his informed debates about early English settlement in Ameri-
ca and the subsequent conquest of the New World (Whitehead
2010: 83). At the philosophical level, the arguments about occu-
pation and ownership of territory were attempted to be re-
solved by appeals to principles, which were claimed as univer-
sal. Scriptural injunctions like be fruitful and multiply, fill the
earth and subdue it, along with the account of the exodus and
the occupation of the promised land, also fed into the dis-
course on the origins of private property (Harrison 2005: 1).
Such injunctions are said to have provided an important foun-
dation for the legitimising occupation of lands thought to be
either underpopulated or underutilisedand hence legitimis-
ing the dispossession of the natives.
Away from the philosophical discourse in England, the issue
of the legitimacy and desirability of settling colonies was
debated extensively in the 17th century among the Puritans. A
strong body of resistance grew and is reflected in Puritan cleric
George Walkers contention in 1641, whether it bee lawfull,
(sic) to send people, and to plant colonies, is a question much
controverted (sic) amongst godly and learned divines
(Harrison 2005: 1). The debate within this group offered an
alternate set of justifications for colonisation, which were
independent of the natural laws of justice. The most common
argument drawn from Scripture was, however, the stricture
to preach the gospel to all nations.
The new tendency was to find, in ancient injunctions, related
notions of private property, which in addition to justifying
colonisation, also attempted to challenge traditional landown-
ership through appeals to the text of Genesis. Peter Harrison
(2005: 6), however, draws attention to the necessity to
distinguish formal justifications for overseas settlements, the
motivations of the relevant actors, and interpretations of the
providential meanings of colonization.
Within this debate the ideas of the Levellerswho stood for
enclosuresand the Diggers who supported of community
possession of resource, brought into play the issue of unuti-
lised lands or wastes.2 A common ground in the arguments
of both orthodox and radical exegetes of the Genesis texts was
the allusion that the lack of prosperity in England could be
attributed to the presence of unutilised land. The debate
brought forth the argument that waste land was an affront to
God (Harrison 2005: 13). The idea of its reclamation was
inherent to the question of what constituted unused or vacant
land. Vacant was most often understood in this context to
mean uncorked, untilled, in its natural condition, for Adam
56
had been instructed not merely to fill the earth, but also to
till the earth (Harrison 2005: 13). Subduing the earth, wrote
John White, in his 1656 commentary on Genesis, Is, by Culture
and Husbandry, to Manure and make it fit to yield fruits and
provision...which is done by Planting, Earing, Sowing, and
other works of Husbandry (Harrison 2005: 13). Subduing the
earth, agreed George Hughes, is by plowing, tilling, and
making use of it (Harrison 2005: 13).
It would be pertinent to state here that John Locke in his
treatise had alluded to the presence in North America in the
1600s of vast swathes of uncultivated lands. This, he argued,
when rendered, productive land would be a source of individual
wealth with consequent increase in trade and immense benefit
to the English nation. Settled cultivation according to him was
the defining frame of distinction between the state of nature
and state of civilisation. While Locke denounced the
conquest of the already inhabited territories, this principle was
not applied to territories in which settled cultivation was
non-existent and land was lying waste (Whitehead 2010: 83).
Colonial Governmentality and the Classification of
Wastelands
Judy Whitehead argues that while the implications of John
Lockes treatise on the theory of property and colonisation of
wastelands in North America have received substantial
attention, the influence of his doctrines in the conquest and
governance of India has not been explored. This is because of
the gap of several decades between the publication of his
treatise and the conquest of Bengal. Lockes singular contribu-
tion to the sphere of English Common Law and conquest is,
however, well-established. It could, therefore, be argued that
the core of the property laws and British policies on land use
impinged upon the land revenue settlements in India
(Whitehead 2010: 83). A critical examination of Lockes
category of wastelands does find reflection in the manner in
which the laws on land management were drawn up between
1793 and 1878. Lockes binary constructs, state of nature and
state of civilisation, overlapped with wastelands and
settled cultivation. These categories informed the British
land revenue regime and forest policies throughout the
colonial period.
Ever since the grant of the Diwani of Bengal in 1765,
developing infrastructure of revenue became a pressing
concern for the East India Company in addition to diplomacy
and law and order. In 1793, Charles Cornwallis inaugurated
the revenue regime of Permanent Settlement in Bengal. It
introduced the concept of rights of private property which
superseded the earlier rights on land. This was secured and
maintained by putting a Western legal system in place. According
to Eric Stokes, this measure sought to eliminate the parasitic
presence of the intermediaries and ensure exclusive individual
propriety rights over the soil (Shan Loong 2000). This, accord-
ing to Ranajit Guha, represented a confluence of English and
French thoughts in the mercantilist and physiocratic ideas
and the faith in the doctrine of private property. While one
stream of thought visualised agriculture as secondary to
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

commerce, the other saw agriculture as a source of wealth,
with trade as an outlet to agricultural produce (Bhattacharjee
1992: 113).
The concept of waste in the Indian law and land revenue
policies in Bengal was introduced into the vocabulary of the
legal codes concomitant with the Permanent Settlement of
1793 (Gidwani 1992: 39). Property rights were vested in a class
of gentleman farmers through the Permanent Settlement
which came into force to correct abuses of the farming system
under Warren Hastings. Its basic essence was largely derived
from Lockes and Benthams treatises and was based on the
understanding that secure private property rights in land
provided the best incentive for value-creating labour, which in
turn, would increase political stability and land revenue
leading to creation of wealth. William Hunters asserts that
wastes were central to the Permanent Settlement in Bengal.
V K Gidwani reads into such a contention that the wastes, far
from being a classificatory category, were a representation of
the cultural inferiority and physical infirmity of Indians as the
colonised people vi-a-vi the English as the colonisers (1992:
40). This representation in its ascriptive form both informs
and legitimises the land revenue regime, which is defined
and inscribed into a particular political ideology.
Wasteland therefore, did not merely signify the kind of land
designated, but more insidiously was a commentary on social
behaviour. Thus, when Cornwallis remarked that one-third of
the Companys territories in Bengal lay waste, he did not
merely allude to the legal classification of land types, but was
reflecting on the pattern of land use and the kind of society
where such patterns were in vogue (Gidwani 1992: 42). The
myth of the lazy native essentialised the idea of indolence cultivation to the commons which was facilitated by reduced
that was responsible for lands lying waste. This imputed a
moral dimension where certain kind of human activities on
nature were constructed as undesirable. According to Gidwani
(1992: 44), colonial discourse, consequently, becomes (sic) a
system of linked essentialisations that both legitimised the
colonial project and fuelled its policies.
The colonial category of wastelands was not an ecological
category; it was identified on the basis of productivity. Wastes,
therefore, connoted untapped or idle to which value had aftermath of the first Burmese war in 1826 was on it being a
not accrued because they had not been utilised for commercial
purposes. Land left fallow thus disqualified communities from
claiming proprietary rights over it. The way in which value
addition to land was central to the thesis on private property
justified colonial territorial acquisitions and classification of
population. It also differentiated on the basis of their habitat
and land use patterns. Though all parts of India had come
under colonial rule, yet the pattern of governance had not
been homogeneous. Regions and parts of the country were
according to Ajay Skaria differentiated in terms of essentialised
subject positions (quoted in Whitehead 2010: 83).
With a massive acquisition of territories in the early half of
the 18th century, it became imperative to outline whether
Permanent Settlement could be introduced into the Ceded
and Conquered Provinces. A committee report in 1808 while
highlighting on the deficiency of finances, insisted that the
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
oppressive regime of the mediating land controllers had
rendered vast swathes of land uncultivated. This was in
addition to the existing tracts that were not under the plough.
Extension of Permanent Settlement into the newly acquired
territory would mean sacrificing the great benefit accruing
from land resources. A new system put in place would set off
the losses created by the perpetual limit set on the source of land
revenue under the existing regime. Another reason was that
many of the newly conquered regions had sparse population
in relation to the vast stretches of cultivable land. According
to Gupta (1992: 68), the discourses for an alteration in the rev-
enue regime brought into focus the uncertainty about rights
in land and the unequal and inequitable burden of land in dif-
ferent region and among different classes of people.
Despite its increased control over the resources, the Companys
fiscal policy became complex. During the period of the ascend-
ancy of mercantilist principles, a constant outflow of English
bullion to transmit Bengals Company revenues was a matter
of serious concern. The solutions to this predicament were
few: a resort to more ruthless taxation, a growth in the tax
base, or perhaps, the cultivation of commodities to redress the
trade balances (Sharma 2006:434). Interest was shown in
directly settling revenue with the ryots by circumventing the
intermediaries. This, it was believed, would bring in revenue
through an expansion of cultivable lands and also leave room
for improvement of agriculture on the already cultivated land
(Sharma 2006: 434). The Ryotwari Settlement which was
introduced in the Madras Presidency and later modified
inaugurated a new regime of taxation in the ceded and
conquered territories. There was an insistence on extending
rental rates.
Discourse on Wastelands in Colonial Assam
Assam became a part of the colony in 1826. Early productions
of colonial knowledge in Assam were replete with allusions to
vast swathes of land lying waste. The Ryotwari Settlement
was put in place to maximise resources from agriculture. A
recurring trope following the occupation of Assam in the
depopulated region consequent to the ravages of the Burmese
conquest between 1818 and 1824.
A discourse on the land rights brought to the fore the
perception of non-existent rights in property beyond the
homestead, over the one pura of land entitled to the peasantry
in lieu of labour rendered to the state. The imagining of the
province of Assam was mediated by the reading of the pre-
colonial landholdings and land use pattern. Over the raised
homestead or bari lands a peasant (paik) enjoyed propriety
rights, while the land received from the state as labour-rent in
lieu of their services was projected to be based on usufruct
rights. This construct allowed common lands to be appropri-
ated by the colonial state.
Consequent to the introduction of a land tax regime which
sought to maximise revenue in a population deficient province,
the myth of the lazy native, who deserted productive land in
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
order to escape the regressive tax net came to be perpetuated.
In its historical empirical manifestation, the colonial ideology
utilised the idea of the lazy native to create subjectivities,
where existing societal practices were denigrated. This negative
image of the natives and their society rationalised the European
conquest and domination of the area. It distorted elements of
social and human reality to ensure a comfortable construction
of ideology (Alatas 1977: 2). Settlement of wastelands thus
assumed salience for colonial governmentality in Assam.
As early as 1827, Captain Mathews projected that in Lower
Assam of the 1,659,694 puras,3 529,735 puras were cultivated,
with the rest being wastelands (Mills 1984: 56). Under the
Ahom monarchy, the high officials were remunerated by
grants of wastelands or khats at nominal rates of revenue.4
David Scott outlined the conditions for encouraging settlement
on wastelands. The idea of colonising the wasteland since the
early period of colonial intervention in Assam centred on the
project of commercialisation of agriculture. T C Robertson
(183234), who succeeded David Scott, formalised the
wasteland rules conceived by Scott. Its salient features were
that occupants of the land grants were allowed to retain their
holdings rent-free for three years. A graduated system of taxation
was introduced until the end of 10-year span (Barpujari 1963:
235). Captain Jenkins in the 1830s set himself upon the task of
systematically gathering data on the wastelands and assessing
its potential for growing commercially viable crops like indigo.
During the Burmese war, the Bruce brothersthe earliest
British travellers to Upper Assamwere credited, in the 1830s,
with the discovery of the native tea plant.5 Till then it was
believed that the plant native to China was not found
elsewhere. Here, the tea leaves were used as a beverage only
by the Singphos and the Khamptis living on the AssamBurma
frontier. These communities had migrated from Upper Burma
in the last quarter of the 18th century, when the centralised
power of the Ahom state was on the decline. It was the formal
proclamation by the Tea Committee in 1832 on the discovery
of teaconsidered the most valuable in terms of the agricul-
tural and commercial resource of the empirethat the waste-
land grants assumed a central place in colonial governance
(Sharma 2006: 438). The tea factor made Jenkins scheme of
colonisation of wastelands acceptable and the policy got the
required assent from the Government of Bengal.6 The develop-
ments of the tea plantations in India and the renewal of the
Charter of 1833 opened up the possibility of Europeans making
forays into the sector by directly controlling the cultivation of
these crops. This was based on the fear that reliance on a
produce not controllable through direct colonial means could
be dangerous (Sharma 2006: 438).
The discourse on the colonisation of vast tracts of land in the
slopes of Assam was based on the construction of the spatial
contours of unused land which formed the corpus of the
state resource. Jenkins collated data gathered from district
officers. Such data served as a window to visualising the land-
scape and economic potential of Assam. He states:
In the district of Goalpara, the available wastelands were found
suitable for cultivation of indigo.7 Its cultivation had however been
58
restricted by the orders of the Government. Cultivation of mustard
was however permitted. In Kamrup, the inundated wastelands were
considered unfit for commercial cultivation on a large scale. However,
Darrang, Nowgong, Sibsagar and Lakhimpur divisions had the best
tracts of wastelands adapted for the culture of sugarcane and offered
many superior advantages.8
In 1836, the Government of Bengal approved the scheme
proposed by Jenkins and gave Assam the first set of wasteland
rules. In this schema the wastelands were broadly divided into
three categories: (i) forestlands, (ii) reed and grass wastes,
and (iii) grasslands amongst cultivated lands. The first catego-
ry was allowed to be rent-free for five years, and the third, for
21 years. For four years subsequent to the rent-free period, a
graduated manner of assessment was to be introduced, from
eight annas per pura to Re 1 to eight annas per pura for 21
years from the ninth, 14th and 24th year, respectively, for each
category of land. From the 21st year of the grant, lands were to
be assessed at full rates till the end of the total grant period of
30, 35 and 40 years on all three categories (Barpujari 1963: 236).
The wasteland rules were revised in 1854. Though these rules
did not overtly discriminate against the indigenous inhabitants,
but reading their fine print shows that the rules sought to ex-
clude indigenous inhabitants from the concessional grants. An
applicant with capital worth Rs 3 per acre was allowed to occupy
land, with a minimum limit being fixed at 100 acres (Guha
1991: 154). The rules thus enabled only Europeans to avail con-
cessions. It created a niche for European presence in joint stock
ventures which became a hallmark of the mercantilist tradi-
tion of the East India Company. According to Adam Smith, in
their monopolistic operational dynamics these ventures de-
stroyed local goods, prohibited indigenous forms of commerce
and agriculture and restricted the activities of native popula-
tions (Muthu 2008: 200). Very little Indian capital circulated
in these industries which were dominated by European capital.
It racialised the economy leaving very little scope for the
growth of local enterprise (Sharma 2006: 452).
Entry of Tea
Simultaneously it was the alluring prospect of cultivation of a
new produce and enhancement of trade that drew the East
India Company to patronise scientific ventures in horticulture.
In the nascent years of tea industry, labourers known for their
skills in the production process were brought in from China.
According to Jayeeta Sharma (2008: 1291) the gruelling task of
preparing the nurseries and the grounds for planting was
deemed fit for the wild Nagas, a tribe that practiced slash
and burn agriculture and was thus accustomed to clearing jun-
gles. The emergent Assamese elite facilitated the profiling of
the Kacharis as potential labourers for the tea industry. The
discourses on local labour were thus informed by the ideology
of the high caste Assamese and the British disdain for primi-
tive habits. Hard work, resilience and resistance to disease had
been inscribed into the characterisation of all tribes in Asia
(Sharma 2008: 1291).
By the 1850s recalcitrance among the Chinese workers and
frequent demands of the local labour, comprising Kacharis,
Assamese peasants and the Nagas, for hike in wages meant the
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

colonial regime had to look elsewhere. Propelled by the notion
that tribes constituted the appropriate type of labour, the
colonial administration in search of stability and a large work-
force looked at other regions of India. Large-scale migration
from the wild regions of Bengal (Chotanagpur and Santhal
Parganas), where tribal communities reeled under the burden
of exploitation from the zamindars and moneylenders, were
encouraged. These exploited and displaced tribes were
perceived as compliant and hard-working and so fit for
migration to the plantations of Assam.9 In the operational
dynamics of imperial capitalism, a crucial discovery was how
displaced and dislocated aboriginal peasants from different
parts of the Indian subcontinent could be indentured to work
as a plantation labour force in the gardens not only of Assam,
but also those of the Caribbean, Mauritius, Ceylon and Fiji
(Sharma 2006: 447).
By the 1860s, with a massive expansion in acreage, the tea
plantations became segregated enclaves with vast settlements
of population from outside the province. The land was
perceived to be of no use to the natives, whose culture of
production was retrograde. Spatially, it became a part of the
imagination of the empire and its agriculturalindustrial
complex. An enhanced level of control was exercised over the
labour that lived in servitude. The workforce was not allowed
contact with the surrounding villagers. In spatial as well as
demographic terms, turning wastelands into plantations
controlled by the tea industry and settling such land with
people from outside the province represented an alienation of
the productive resource from the native population.
Discourse on Wastelands in Late 19th Century
The early years of railway development in India were centred
on the extraction of coal and cotton, an important commercial
crop to feed the cloth mills of Manchester. In the 1840s, the
demand for cotton as a result of the disruptions of supply
because of the American Civil War shaped the discourse on
railways. The impact of the railways in the agricultural complex
of the Indian economy was significant. This is visible in the
expansion of the railway network into the surplus food pro-
ducing areas till well into the 20th century. It was in the 1880s,
that there was a demand for construction of railway lines in
wheat and paddy producing areas for mitigating famines and
also meeting the growing worldwide demand for jute.
Developments in infrastructure like waterways in the 1860s
and railways in the 1880s facilitated the expansion of the
existing capitalistic ventures in the tea industry and new
ventures in coal and petroleum sectors in Assam. In 1890s, the
development of trunk railways connecting to the nearest port
started in Assam. This reopened the discourse on settlement of
wastelands. Around this period, there was a reorientation of
colonial labour ethnography. This exercise sought to introduce
new modes of knowledge with the view to privilege Indias
industrious primitive, who was also an authentic agricul-
turist. The readings on the communities were mediated by
the perceptions of the dominant India social classes who
helped in the incorporation of peripheral castes, tribes and
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
peasants into the corpus of the labour class. The emergent
vocabulary essentialised the Santhals as fit to work on planta-
tions and forests (ASA 1898: 11). The stout and fanatical
Mohammedans of East Bengal, were considered as the most
eligible for immigration as they were hard working and
prolific cultivators.10
Henry Hopkinson, the Chief Commissioner of Assam, was
not in favour of large-scale import of labourers into planta-
tions as the foodgrains production was insufficient to feed the
growing population. A significant proportion of the revenues
were spent on importing foodgrains from Burma and Bengal.
The issue of developing the wastelands by settlement of
surplus population from overcrowded tracts in other parts of
the country got an audience with the Government of India.
According to a survey in 1899, an estimated 6 million
acres of land considered suitable for production of rice, jute,
corn, and other cereals were lying waste (ASA 1898: 45).
Wastelands, if brought under the plough, could help overcome
food supply deficit and become a source of agricultural wealth
for Assam. To the visionaries of the empire the millions of
acres of culturable land now lying waste represent millions of
rupees which might be dug out of the soil, but are now
wrapped in a napkin (ASA 1898: 45).
The views of the Government of India found expression in a
speech by Patrick Playfair, a mercantile member of the council,
in the budget discussion of the Imperial Legislative Council in
1897. He emphasised the importance of settling immigrants
on the cultivable wastelands of Assam for providing relief
from recurring famines and scarcity in Bengal.11 The proposal
received support from zamindars like the Maharaja of Darb-
hanga, the Chambers of Commerce, the Indian Tea Association
and the Indian Jute Manufacturers Association (ASA 1898: No
130). The nascent Assamese middle class also supported the
scheme of immigration. It was observed by them that the the
ultimate reclamation of these lands is infallibly destined to
[be] a great source of revenue of the Province of Assam.12
Closely linked with the scheme of colonisation was the issue
of exploring the prospects of cultivating jute in the wastelands
of the province. A worldwide expansion in the jute trade
necessitated expansion of cultivation. Production of jute in Ben-
gal had reached saturation point, with practically no scope for
further expansion. Certain portions of Assam were considered
suitable for cultivation of jute and so the jute traders turned
towards the province. With the completion of the Assam
Bengal Railway close at hand, encouraging peasant settlers to
cultivate jute got an impetus. The issue of raising jute in Assam
as a successful commercial crop was first raised in the Bengal
Chamber of Commerce on 28 April 1897 (Monohan 1898).
The Director of Land Records and Agriculture issued
instructions in 1897 by the chief commissioner to conduct a
detailed survey on the prospects of jute cultivation in Assam. It
was reported that jute was grown to a greater or lesser extent in
all plain districts of the province and the plains portion of the
Garo Hills. The only districts producing jute on a considerable
scale, for export, were Sylhet and Goalparabeing contiguous
to the great jute-producing districts of Bengal. Small quantities
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
of jute were exported from Garo Hills, Kamrup and Nowgong.
The tracts of wastelands identified as suitable for jute cultiva-
tion, on the Gauhati branch of the AssamBengal Railway was
between Nowgong and Kamrup (Monohan 1898).
The completion of the AssamBengal Railway and the
encouraging land reclamation regulations brought in peasant
population predominantly from Cachar, Sylhet in Assam and
Mymensingh in Eastern Bengal. Subsequent to the merger of
Eastern Bengal with Assam in 1905, there was a steady flow of
migrants from the districts of Eastern Bengal into Nowgong
and Goalpara. This railway connected Upper Assam to the
port of Chittagong. By the beginning of the 20th century, the
colonial administration discovered that volume of reclamation
of wastelands had not taken place as anticipated. There was a
growing demand to connect the terminus of the AssamBengal
Railway at Gauhati with the Eastern Bengal Railway system.
Henry Cotton while trying to push for this railway connection
outlined its relevance to the colonisation of the wastes:
Immense areas of State owned waste lands from which, as population
extends, revenue will surely be earned. It is quite conceivableor may
be arguedthat even after direct railway earnings and indirect land
earnings shall have been raked in by the State, there will still remain a
balance of interest charges to be made good (Spring 1901).
The recurring trope was that connecting Assam to the port of
Calcutta, with its links to the network of railways in Eastern
Bengal was extremely crucial for settling the remaining wastes.
This sentiment was echoed by the railway engineers in course of
his survey for the alignment of the railways. The consulting engi-
neer for railways in Assam, F J E Spring, recorded his observation
on the benefits of the DhubriGauhati extension thus:
From my point of view and specially (sic) now that we have more than
completed the original Famine Commissions scheme of protective
railways, the immigration problem is of far higher practical impor-
tance to the general taxpayer than the problem of making the rail-
way directly remunerative through its own revenue account. For an
improvement in the revenues of Assam, through spread of cultivation
to the extent of 4 annas per acre on ten or fifteen million acres, means
a great deal more than any possible railway profits (1901).
Here the profits of the railways were not viewed in terms of
its passenger traffic, rather in terms of indirect benefits in
terms of settlement of peasantry. The production of both paddy
for internal circulation to the deficit provinces during famines
and jute for export was catered to in the logic of capitalism.
The linking of peripheral Assam to the world market was seen
as a triumph of industrial capitalism.
Wastelands: Spatial and Demographic
Reorganisation of Assam
The wastelands settlements of Assam in the early 19th century
led to the creation of an agroindustrial complex where the
natural resources and the human resources were confined to
specified spaces. The planters imposed restrictions on the day-
to-day interactions of their labour with the neighbouring
settlements, while locals were not permitted entry into the
plantations. In an extremely hierarchical, isolated and
regimented setting both the state and the planters used a coer-
cive mechanism on the labourers.
60
The planters were a dominant section of the capitalist class
in Assam. They were instrumental in legislating a coercive
regime to control the workforce in the plantations. There was
a distinct overlapping of powers with that the colonial state.
The capitalist enterprise, therefore, produced a space which
was ordered and disciplined in terms of geography, its wild
tastes were tamed and its population controlled as a racialised
human resource. This enterprise altered the social demographics
of Assam. That state power was represented as the Planter Raj
became part of the provinces vocabulary.
By the third decade of the 19th century, wastelands suited
for plantations reached a saturation point. During the same
period, the Assamese peasantry started leasing out lands to
time expired coolies. Plantations enclosing cultivable land
later rented it out to the labourers who were no longer of utility
to the plantation due to old age or disability. Does it mean that
plantations rented out surrounding arable land to labourers
who were old or infirm and thus of no utility to the plantations.
The produce from these rice plots were extracted by the planta-
tions. The coolies had a preference for settling on government-
held land as it freed them from the obligations to planters.
This spillover from the plantations led to the development of
closer ties with local peasants. As the number of plantation
workers began to expand their habitat outside the plantations,
the social relationship altered with a marked openness, despite
reservation about caste hierarchies. According to Sharma
(2008: 1318), an index of the change in perception and marked
openness was the gradual acceptance of garden baat (garden
dialect) as a form of the Asomiya language.
With the railways traversing through areas in Assam that
were appropriated by the statebecause they were not culti-
vated and had to be brought under the ploughcolonial la-
bour ethnography of the province was reconstituted. It was
now imperative to identify and profile populations on the basis
of their traditional agricultural practices suited to the production
of paddy and jute. There emerged a construction of Assam as a
population scarce province. This image was contrasted with
that of the overpopulated tracts of Bengal. While Bengal was
overflowing with population, Assam had a surplus of cultura-
ble land. The peasants of Assam were constructed as lazy and
opium eating making them averse to extension of cultivation
beyond the level of sustainability of their livelihood practices.13
The Mohammedan peasant from Bengal was profiled as
hardworking and prolific cultivators endowed with the
knowledge of cultivating rice and labour-intensive jute.
A large number of Nepali graziers migrated into Assam from
Jalpaiguri, owing to an increase in the rates of grazing tax in
that district (Nag 1990: 90). The Nepalese graziers settled in
the districts of Lakhimpur and Sibsagar and were instrumen-
tal in the economic development of the area. They introduced
sugar cane cultivation in the Brahmaputra Valley (Somerset et al
1917: 624). Another group of immigrants who arrived were the
Santhals. The earliest attempts to establish a colony for the
Santhals were taken up under the orders of Stuart Bayley in
1880 (ASA 1898: No 130). In 1897, 3,730 bighas were brought
under cultivation by a colony of 1,361 Santhals.14 Until the
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

opening of the Eastern Bengal Railway, annually small groups
of Santhals continued to migrate. The railways fostered
immigration of this group. The Report of the Administration
of Assam of 19111912 states, immigration increased appreci-
ably in the Eastern Duars of Goalpara district, where Santhals
continue to arrive from Dumka, Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri.15
They were settled mostly in the forest villages.
In these constructions was embedded the logic of opening
up Assam to colonisation of wastelands to populations from
outside who were incentivised by offering rent-free lands for a
substantial period of time till all land was brought under full
rates of revenue assessment. The partition of Bengal and the
merger of Assam with Eastern Bengal in 1905 inaugurated the
process of immigration of farm settlers from Eastern Bengal.
Between 1905 and 1915, about 70,000 migrants from the districts
of Dacca, Mymensingh, Pabna and Rangpur were registered to
have entered the province.16 In 1911, as communication
between Assam and Bengal was achieved with the completion
of the GolakganjGauhati extension of the Eastern Bengal
Railway. This was followed by a dramatic increase of agricul-
turists into Assam from the Eastern Bengal districts.
This phenomenon had serious implications in the demo-
graphics and social evolution of Assam. The immigrant peasants
became highly successful, largely due to their capacity to do hard
labour. Their fortunes were in sharp contrast to the Assamese
peasantry, which floundered. The Assamese peasantry failed
to respond to the new demands of the economy for production
of surplus, as well as the cultivation of non-traditional crops
such as jute, tobacco, wheat, and sugar cane. Many of the
indigenous peasants sold off their lands to the immigrants at
high prices. In order to prevent the Assamese peasants from
selling off their lands to the Eastern Bengal migrants a
proposal was mooted in 192324 to insert periodic pattas in
the districts of Kamrup, Darrang and Nowgong with a clause
restricting the right of Assamese (peasants) to sell off their
lands to immigrants (Guha 1977: 20406).
The landless Assamese farmers were sucked into a vicious
cycle of rural indebtedness. The local peasantry could not
match the aggression of the Eastern Bengal migrants. These
migrants, who had largely settled in the districts of Kamrup,
Nowgong and Darrang, were a cause for concern for the Assa-
mese farmers. Their relationship was far from cordial and
clashes and confrontations became frequent.
Immigration brought in drastic demographic changes, tilting
the population balance in favour of the Bengalis. The majority
of the immigrants from Eastern Bengal were Muslims. The
relatively insular Assamese society was exposed to a population
which was distinctly different. The linguistic, cultural and reli-
gious differences of the migrants often inflamed ethnic tensions.
Sections of the indigenous Assamese population were Muslims
who formed an integral part of the Assamese society, yet did
not maintain a distant identity. The distinctiveness in aspects
of the culture and language of the Eastern Bengal immigrants
sparked social conflicts in the areas where they had settled.
Earlier the ethnic resistance was discernable at the level of the
educated Assamese middle class, who faced stiff competition
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
from their Bengali counterparts in matters of employment. This
was because for almost three decades of colonial rule, Bengali
was used as an official language. As the demographic profile
altered, the threat of being swamped by a people not native,
yet beneficiaries of the colonial projects affected the everyday
lives of the Assamese peasantry. Immigration threatened to
reduce the Assamese population into a minority community.
This issue played a vital role in galvanising and consolidating
Assamese nationalism. Until independence, the issue of immi-
gration dominated provincial politics. The balance of popula-
tion was tilted towards the migrant groups, that in the politi-
cal arena in the 1930s public opinion was building up within
the representative structures as well as outside, towards pro-
jecting Assam as a Muslim majority province. There was a
natural clamour that along with Sylhet, Assam could become
an integral part of Pakistan. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose,
however, was instrumental in voting against the proposal in
the Central Legislature.
Conclusions
In an attempt to try and locate the evolution of the idea of
wastes, it becomes necessary to look into its philosophical
underpinnings which are embedded into the notion of private
property. The ideas of John Locke not only influenced
colonisation in North America, but impinged on land use regu-
lations in India. Their manifestations in the land revenue re-
gimes that evolved in colonial India are significant. The colo-
nial state constantly strove for ordering these unstable spaces
and their populations used it effectively in their political and
legal code. The scriptural injunctions were woven into the
everyday practice of governance enjoining that all landscapes
are turned productive.
In Assam, the settling of wastelands dominated the
discourse on governance. Till the 1920s, the Assamese elite
expressed optimism about the tea industry being the harbinger of
modernity and progress, while the labouring multitudes of the
industry were regarded with disdain. The peasantry too on
account of the restrictions within the plantations had less
opportunity to encounter the coolie, and hence, harboured
reservations against them. It was during the national movement,
inspired by Gandhis visit to the plantations that their attitude
towards the coolie turned patronising. The agenda of reform
and that of incorporating the coolie into Assamese society
came into play. Though the planter raj was challenged and
overthrown, yet the plantation production system remained
intact in enclaves. Tea enterprise transmuted its context
becoming a symbol of economic progress for the Indian planters,
who inherited the Assam gardens and their workforce from
their British predecessors. The enterprises extremely hierar-
chised environs continue to perpetuate within the structures
of the modern nation state. This alienation of space was natu-
ralised and incorporated into the hegemonic discourse of the
postcolonial.
However, it was peasant migrations into the arable lands of
the most agriculturally productive districts that were instru-
mental in ethnic Assamese assertions. This was because they
61
SPECIAL ARTICLE

were apprehensive of their identity being overwhelmed by
that of the Bengali Muslim migrants. There was resistance to
such large-scale migration where indigenous populations were
subjected to alienation of land within the enclaves which
developed. The discourse on immigration fuelled feelings of
extreme animosity which spilled over into social conflicts. In
the 1937 elections to the Provincial Legislature, the Muslims
dominated. Extremely threatened politically and socially, the
Assamese middle class pressed for a demarcation of areas
under the Line System that restricted movements of the
migrants. It was the middle class which had earlier internalised
the colonial logic of the necessity of settling the wastelands
through immigration for the ultimate prosperity of Assam. So
aggravated was the animosity that when the Sylhet referen-
dum took place in 1947 to decide if this district of Assama
Bengali Muslim majority districtshould remain within the
province or go to East Pakistan the Assamese nationalists
ensured that Sylhet did not remain in Assam.
The creation of conflicting meanings of productivity
which stood at loggerheads with indigenous interests in land
use is well-exemplified in the colonial construction of waste-
land. For the state, with a primary interest in revenue,
biologically productive land was waste if it did not generate
revenue. The imagining of Assam as a population scare
province awaiting peasant migration for its prosperity is the
root of social problems that plague contemporary Assam. As
Whitehead argues that the land settlements did not reflect,
but also construct the discursive categories of productive,
cultivating castes and non-productive Scheduled Castes and
Tribes and inscribed these essentialised categories onto an
agrarian frontier that was being encouraged to expand at the
expense of remaining wastelands (Whitehead 2010).

notes
1 The earliest recorded English discourse for a
trans-oceanic empire was evident in the propa-
ganda of two Elizabethans, who were cousins
each named Richard Hakluyt, during the last
decade of the 16th century.
2 The idea of wastes had its place within Com-
mon Law. It appeared as early as the late 13th
century and its specific purpose is to curb the
rights to use enjoyed by tenants. This was in
view of a growing scarcity of land during that
period. The imperatives of the 17th century
brought into play a different connotation of
wastes, where settlers in overseas settlements
were urged to occupy lands.
3 One pura is equivalent to 2.33 acres of land.
4 Theoretically, all land belonged to the king,
whether cultivated or waste. He assigned
land both to the nobility and the freemen or
individual paiks in lieu of their services to the
state. Land grants were made for religious
purposes along with assigning servitors.
5 The pioneer in Assams tea discovery was
Robert Bruce, a former major who entered
Assam in 1823 with an assortment of trading
goods and was the first British merchant to
penetrate so far beyond the eastern frontier of
British India. Robert Bruce in course of his
travels observed that tea was growing in a state
of nature and was instrumental in negotiating
with the Singpho Chief in order to provide
samples of the same. Charles Bruce, a naval
officer followed his brother Robert into Assam.
At the outbreak of the AngloBurmese War in
1824, Charles offered his services to David
Scott, the Governor Generals agent on the
Northeast Frontier.
6 Here it is necessary to mention that the first set
of rules for granting wastelands in India was
applied in Gorruckpore (sic) District. These set
of rules were used for making similar grants in
the Sundarbans. The Gorruckpore Rules were
the basis of all wasteland grants over the rest
of India.
7 Letters Issued to Government, Volume No 14,
184648, No 73 of 27 March 1846, Para 7 (hence-
forth as LIG).
8 LIG, Volume No 2, 1835, No 46 of 3 June 1835,
Para 1.
9 By early 20th century the base for recruitment
of labourers to the tea plantation in Assam
extended to the Central Provinces and from
distant Madras.
10 This was a remark made by Porteous as early as
1890, Naga Hills Dairy, dated 22 April 1890.
11 Letter No 855/281, from Denzil Ibbetson,
Secretary to the Government of India, to the
Chief Commissioner of Assam, 2 June 1897.
12 ASA 1898: Appendix A, Opinions on the Sub-
ject of Subletting of Lands in Assam: 110.
13 The Assamese middle class implicitly accepted
these colonial categorisations both during the
early colonial rule and the national movement.
This construct, therefore, became normative
and continues to feed into the discourse on
colonial Assam.
14 Report on the Administration of Assam: 1897, p 4.
15 Report on the Administration of Assam: 191112,
p 4.
16 Revenue Department, Agriculture A, February
1916, Nos 1019, Appendix A, Note on Jute by Muthu, Sankar (2008): Adam Smiths Critique of
R S Finlow.
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62 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

SPECIAL ARTICLE
Domestic Violence and Effectiveness
of Law Enforcement Agencies
A Panel Data Study
Anubha Shekhar Sinha, Milind Padalkar, Sreevas Sahastranaman
Crimes of domestic violence are distinct from other
crimes against women. They show a steady rise, despite
the Domestic Violence Act coming into force in 2005.
This paper studies the efficacy of the law enforcement
agencies response in dealing with the rising trend
through an econometric panel data study and posits
new explanatory societal variables and reports
significant correlations between the explanatory
variables and agency responses to reported domestic
violence crimes. It questions the functioning of police
force and calls for a critical analysis of the policy of
employing women in police force. It also brings out key
insights for a comprehensive policy review and
interventions to improve the effectiveness of agencies.
Anubha Shekhar Sinha (anubhashekhar@gmail.com), Milind Padalkar
(milindp07fpm@iimk.ac.in) and Sreevas Sahastranaman (sreevass06fpm@
iimk.ac.in) are with the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode,
Kerala.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
T
he Indian ethos epitomised by its epics, mythology and
goddess worship proclaims reverence for womanhood.
Despite such a cultural heritage, crimes against
women remain high and have been rising. The total number
of crimes in India does not correlate directly with crimes
against women (Mukherjee et al 2001: 4072). The regular
factors, which explain prevalence of crime in India, fail to
explain, and thereby, fail to predict prevalence of crime against
women. This warrants a systemic study of crime against
women to design policy interventions. This paper is an effort
in that direction.
India has been reluctant to acknowledge crimes against
women. However, this orientation is changing lately. In view
of recent reports in the media, Indian women are taking
recourse to the law. This study questions the efficacy of our
legal and social institutions in providing them justice. We
explore how legal and sociocultural interventions have
helped their quest for justice and try to unravel how police
agencies and judiciary react to women reporting domestic
violence. Our study shows that police agencies as well as
women in the police force, presumably employed to help
women, have not only failed to help the victim of domestic
violence, but also thwarted her efforts to seek justice. How-
ever, our study also shows that sociocultural interventions
like empowering women, restoring respect for women in soci-
ety and reducing criminalisation of society enable them in
obtaining justice.
Domestic violence against women forms a large part of all
crimes against women. A recent study estimates that domestic
violence cases comprised over 43% of all crimes against women
in 2011 (Kulkarni et al 2013), rising from about 33% in 2001
(Mukherjee et al 2001: 407477). If we include crimes related
to dowry, the proportion rises to nearly 50%. It is ironic that
while patriarchal mores preach that women should stay with-
in the confines of their homes for their own safety, nearly half
of all crimes against women are reported from these very
homes. Further, the people responsible for carrying out these
crimes are generally their own relatives. Other forms of crime
against women like kidnapping are generally carried out by
outsiders, whose chance of having criminal antecedents are
much higher than perpetrators of domestic violence. The
purposes of and motivations behind the two kinds of crimes
against women are also different. Given these differences, we
63
SPECIAL ARTICLE
argue that domestic violence is theoretically distinct from
other forms of crimes against women and research needs to
treat it as such in order to draw relevant inferences.
Domestic violence began to attract lawmakers attention in
the 1990s, with a number of movements and international con-
ventions1 describing such violence against women as a human
rights violation. Consequently, India passed the Domestic
Violence Act of 2005, which provides victims of abuse with
remedy through mandatory registrations of first information
reports (FIR). It also mandates safe shelters to victims. How-
ever, empirical evidence suggests that despite the stringent
nature of the Domestic Violence Act, rates of domestic
violence have far from reduced (Ravi and Sajjanhar 2014;
Kulkarni et al 2013) and law enforcement agencies have fall-
en short in curbing the same.
Violence within homes is seen as a global phenomenon cut-
ting across culture, religion, class, country and ethnicity
(Watts and Zimmerman 2002: 1234). Many countries have
passed stringent laws to deal with this problem. In Indian
society, social mores and strong patriarchal underpinnings of
the social fabric suppress the acknowledgement of violence
against women. Attempts to discuss it outside the confines of
homes, or reporting to the police are met with vilification,
character assassination and other forms of social retribution.
Formulation of effective and sustainable intervention strategies
to address domestic violence against women requires a compre-
hensive understanding of all dimensions of the problem
(International Center for Research on Women 1999). Domestic
violence crimes have been extensively studied. Studies ascribe
such crimes to a variety of reasons: education levels, pecuniary
motives of husband and in-laws, alcoholism, the victims inability
to conceive or giving birth to a boy child, victims economic
status, etc (Rao 1997; Visaria 1999; Martin et al 1999). How-
ever, most of these studies are qualitative, with narrow contexts
that make generalisation difficult. A systematic and quantita-
tive study of this subject is elusive. Our study aims to fill this
gap through an econometric analysis and contribute to the
growing body of literature.
Designing effective policy interventions requires research
outcomes to have predictability and generalisability. For this
purpose, we conceptualise societal variables that affect pros-
ecution and conviction for domestic violence. These variables
are based on propositions drawn from qualitative studies,
prior usage in literature or intuition based on empirical data.
We note the limitations of this approach, in that the propositions
emerging from qualitative studies do not necessarily allow
operationalisation via objectively measurable variables. For
example, the education level or sex ratio (number of females per
1,000 males) are measurable variables but alcoholism eludes
quantification. However, given the overall paucity of quantitative
studies linking societal variables to domestic violence, we
believe a quantitative approach offers the potential to generate
additional research insights grounded in data. To ensure
statistical validity and generalisability, we use a large panel
data set for the period 200111 (11 years) across 19 states in
India, giving 209 observations for regression analysis.
64
The crime data is taken from the National Crime Records
Bureau (NCRB) of Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
The NCRB publishes annual records of all crimes, including those
against women across states as well as districts. We choose to
study variations across the states. We assume that (i) inclination
to report the incidence of a crime is influenced by cultural
factors, and (ii) reluctance of police and administration to
register a crime and follow it up in the courts have more or less
similar variations across states. We assume such homogeneous
variation because police forces are led by a centrally-selected
and trained cadre of Indian Police Service officers, who follow
similar administrative processes. Therefore, we expect the
police to adhere to similar norms of performance across states.
In line with these assumptions, we identify four stages in the
crime of domestic violence (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Simplified Process for Handling of Crimes of Domestic Violence
against Women
Incidence
Reporting Investigation Conviction or
to Police by Police Acquittal in
(Stage 1) (Stage 2) (Stage 3) Courts (Stage 4)
FIR Case Filing Judgment
The first stage is the incidence of the crime itself. The actual
incidence of crime is latent and cannot be studied in our re-
search design. The second stage involves reporting of the
crime by the victim, which results in an FIR. Though FIR data is
available from the NCRB database, we note that studies have
reported inadequacies in the NCRB data primarily due to under-
reporting as well as variations in under-reporting across states
(Mukherjee et al 2001). Further, given variations in state-level
sociocultural factors, the propensity to report is likely to be
non-uniform across states. Given these problems, our study
excludes FIR data from the analysis. The third stage is investi-
gation of the crime by police and filing of a case in a court of
law. We acknowledge that the third stage may not be complete-
ly free from cultural factors of the state, especially when it comes
to cooperation by the victim in the investigation process. How-
ever, we believe that these factors get diluted considerably
once an FIR is filed. There is an investigation and a case filed in
the courts on the merit of the evidence. For example, studies have
reported how pushing all cases under Indian Penal Code (IPC)
Section 498A2 has created a situation, where the want of sufficient
evidence jeopardises the victims desire for justice (Mukherjee
et al 2001). Therefore, the data at the third stagefiling of
cases by the police in the courts of lawreflects the effectiveness
of investigation process by police agencies. The fourth stage is
that of prosecuting the crimes and obtaining the judgments
which could be either conviction or acquittalfrom the courts.
This data reflects both the quality of prosecution and the
response of the Indian judiciary to domestic violence crimes.
The paper is organised as follows: We describe the theory
and hypotheses development in Section 1. In Section 2 we
describe the methodology, data sets, conceptualisation behind
independent variables and the description of variables. The
results are described in Section 3. We then discuss the implications
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

for policy in Section 4. Section 5 presents conclusions, the lim-
itations of the study and directions for future research.
1 Theory and Hypotheses
Domestic violence is understood as physical, verbal, visual or
sexual abuse that are experienced by women or girls as threats,
invasion or assaults and that have the effect of hurting her, or
degrading her and/or taking away her ability to control contact
(intimate or otherwise) with another individual (Koss et al
1994: 317). This understanding of violence is not restricted to
the husband, but extends to boyfriends, former husbands,
as well as to other members of the family such as parents,
siblings, progenies and in-laws.
Theories of feminism propose that the act of violence emanated
as a disciplinary mechanism to enforce matrimonial sanctity
in post-hunting human agricultural societies across the globe.
These theories postulate that such disciplinary measures
ensure (a) the transfer of land and other property happens only
to rightful heirs of a monogamous matrimony (Morgans Theory
of Cultural Revolution), and (b) the subjugation of women and
denial of her adult rights ensures that strict patriarchal structures
in family, community and society at large are not threatened
(Engels 2004: 4588). Similarly, other theories posit that
important forces of human civilisation, namely culture and re-
ligion, are united around the premise of women being under-
stood as equivalent to property or at best at par with animals
or children of the household. It is, therefore, not a surprise that
violence against women is common in most parts of the world
and generally not cognisable unless it crosses the severity
standards of society.
The phenomenon of domestic violence against women in
India is complex and deeply embedded. According to a report
by the International Center for Research on Women (1999),
Legal jurisprudence has historically considered the domain of the
house to be within the control and unquestioned authority of the
male head of household. Thus, acts of violence against members of
the household, whether wife or child, are perceived as disciplinary
measures, essential for maintaining the rule of authority within
the family.
To take the argument further, we can see the primacy of the
male household headship in common law of familyas a kind
of gendered jurisdiction.
We study the effectiveness of state agencies in addressing
these crimes, particularly in terms of investigation, prosecu-
tion and convictions. We examine how different factors affect
the filing of cases and the obtaining of convictions for crimes
of domestic violence against women. We use state as a distinct
unit of analysis to capture variations across different regions
in India. We note that the states in India are organised on
linguistic basis, and exhibit diversity not just in spoken
languages, but also in the language scripts, food habits, social
and religious customs, and other cultural aspects. Based on
our study of extant literature (Kulkarni et al 2013; Panda and
Agarwal 2005; Cornell 2006) and several interactions with
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and women victims
during the conceptualisation phase of our study, we identify
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
four such state-level factors for this study, namely: (a) state police
strength, (b) enablement of women, (c) respect for women,
and (d) criminalisation of state.
State Police Strength
Under the Constitution, the state is the governing unit and
is responsible for law and order, which is administered
through policing and legal framework. Across the world, the
efficacy of the police force is considered to be dependent upon
the number of personnel in the force per unit population in
the society. This is based on the premise that the strength of
the police force mirrors the state expenditure on law and order.
In India, the outlay on the police force comprises one-third of
the total budget of state expenditure (Varma and Gavirneni
2006: 131). Higher police strength indicates more resources
for policing, and is expected to lead to better investigation
and prosecution activity. Therefore, we hypothesise that the
number of cases filed in a court of law shall be directly propor-
tional to the police strength.
H1: The total police strength per unit of population in a state is
positively related to the number of cases of crime filed in the
court of law. However, the coverage and effectiveness of such
policing has been questionable, going by various reports in the
public domain. The Indian police is commonly perceived as dis-
playing high levels of verbal or physical abuse when dealing
with citizens. This factor compounds the victims reluctance to
approach the police for reporting a crime, especially when the
police force is male-dominated. Inclusion of women in the
police force can be expected to mitigate such reluctance, as a
woman policeperson can be expected to be more sympathetic
to crimes against fellow women. This is the central assumption
behind setting up of all-women police stations and inclusion of
more women in the police forces (Centre for Womens Studies
and Development 2005). Therefore, we expect that inclusion
of women in the police force to positively affect the investiga-
tion and filing of cases in the courts of law.
H2: The number of women in the police force per unit of
population in a state is positively related to number of filings
of cases of crime in a court of law.
Enablement of Women
Enabling women has been traditionally seen as the most im-
portant inhibitor of domestic violence across the globe (Panda
and Agarwal 2005). The possibility of a woman fighting for
herself when faced with violence against her is a deterrent for
her relatives who might be prone to inflicting pain upon her.
However, not every woman is equipped with necessary resources
and knowledge to be able to stand up against violence. It requires
courage, determination and intelligence to be able to lodge an
FIR and help the police in collecting requisite evidence to file a case
in court. Further, it is an accepted fact that the Indian judicial
process is extremely slow and it requires considerable prepared-
ness to put up a fight against ones own relatives. Moreover,
most courts are located in cities or district towns and they require
65
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women to travel to cities to pursue their cases. In both these
stages of filing and conviction, there is a lot of paperwork involved.
A basic level of literacy becomes a bare necessity to be able to
file and pursue a case with the police and the courts. Many are
cowed down during these stages and give up pursuing the cases.
Extant literature offers two parameters for enablement of
women: (a) rurality of the residence, and (b) literacy level of
the women (Kulkarni et al 2013; Anderson 1997).
Studies have shown that domestic violence is more acceptable
in rural areas as the strings of patriarchal mores are stronger
there than in urban locations (Rao 1997; Koenig et al 2006).
Further, people living in rural locations generally do not have
enough access to the state machinery and resources and can be
considered less-enabled. Thus, we expect that women in rural
areas feel more inhibited in reporting the incidence of domestic
violence or cooperating with the investigation than those in
urban areas. Accordingly, we develop the following hypothesis:
H3a: Rurality of women is negatively related to the filing of
cases of crime in a court of law.
H3b: Rurality of women is negatively related to the convic-
tions in cases of crime against women.
Education enables women. It is also expected to improve
economic security of women (Panda and Agarwal 2005; Koenig
et al 2006). Higher economic security is expected to inhibit
domestic violence crimes. This is supported by evidence from
microcredit lending programmes, where improved incomes of
women and their control over household finances have been seen
to reduce the level of domestic violence (Kabeer 1998; Schuler
et al 1998). Literacy is a basic measure of education; however,
quantitative studies have failed to establish a clear relationship
between female literacy levels and crimes against women
(Mukherjee et al 2001: 4077; Anderson 1997). We believe that
rather than female literacy alone, it is the disparity between
male literacy and female literacy that measures enablement
more accurately. Accordingly, we adopt the difference be-
tween male and female literacy (literacy gap) as a measure of
womens enablement. A higher gap indicates lesser enablement of
women and lower levels of investigation and prosecution.
Based on this, we hypothesise:
H4a: Literacy gap is negatively related to the filings of cases of
crimes in a court of law.
H4b: Literacy gap is negatively related to the convictions in
cases of crime against women.
Respect for Women
Respect for women is related to their status in the family,
community and society (McCarthy and Maine 1992: 26;
Ahmed-Ghosh 2004: 109). Girls growing up in societies that
treat women as unequal tend to internalise beliefs about their
inferiority, and are conditioned from early childhood to accept
low respect from society at large (Panda and Agarwal 2005;
Rao 1997). Therefore, they are likely to yield to domestic violence
66
as a natural part of life in a society (Ofei-Aboagye 1994; Rao 1997).
Such social conditioning may lead to low self-esteem amongst
women to the extent that they might not be able to act even
when their lives are in danger (Ofei-Aboagye 1994). The same
conditioning might lead male relatives to domestic violence.
Society is also likely to ignore these crimes as natural incidents
(Koenig et al 2006; Rao 1997). We expect societies that place less
of a value on womanhood to negatively affect all aspects of a
womans life including her rights, education, health and life.
Respect for women is difficult to measure. An extensive search
of literature yielded no satisfactory definitions or variables. A
girl child who begins her life as an unwelcome addition to the
family can hardly be expected to grow up as a valued, respected
woman (Ahmed-Ghosh 2004). Another study finds an association
between sex ratio and dowry deaths (Mukherjee et al 2001: 4077).
Declining sex ratios across states are a result of a thriving
industry of quacks and unscrupulous doctors despite stringent
laws. With the same intuition, we argue that female foeticide
should show negative co-variance with respect for women. We
posit that the sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 males)
measures respect for women, based on the intuition that a
society that has higher respect for women will exhibit higher
value and concern for a womans life and her rights. Based on
these justifications, we hypothesise that states with a higher
sex ratio will see higher levels of investigation and prosecution,
as women in such states will be less inhibited to report domestic
violence, cooperate with investigation and seek procedural justice.
H5a: The sex ratio is positively related to the filing of cases of
crime in the courts of law.
H5b: The sex ratio is positively related to the convictions in
cases of crime against women.
Extending the above arguments, we take the maternal mortality
ratio3 (MMR) as another indicator of respect for women. Shen
and Williamson (1999: 203, 210) report that womens status, as
measured by indicators such as the level of education relative
to men, age at first marriage, and reproductive autonomy, is a
strong indicator of maternal mortality. While we acknowledge
that status and respect are different constructs, we argue that they
have similar effects in matters of womens health and violence
against women. Therefore, we take MMR as a measure of respect
to women. Higher MMR means lower respect for women and a
reduced prospect of due investigation and a reduced chance
of obtaining procedural justice. Accordingly, we hypothesise:
H6a: MMR is negatively related to filing of cases of crime in the
courts of law.
H6b: MMR is negatively related to convictions in cases of crime
against women.
Criminalisation of State
Criminalisation of a state is difficult to define. Cornell (2006:
39) observes that criminalisation of a state institution fulfils
the same purpose as a criminal network: both serve to
JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

weaken the rule of law, facilitating the conduct of criminal
operations. Chabal (1999), in his review of The Criminalization
of the State in Africa authored by Jean-Franois Bayart, Stephen
Ellis and Batrice Hibou notes that literature about criminali-
sation of the state is sparse and points out the difficulty in
defining the construct. A detailed discussion of criminalisa-
tion of the state is outside the scope of our research. For this
study, we define criminalisation of the state as reduced
regard for laws and their enforcement, by the ruling strata of
the society for personal or ulterior motives. The Constitution
places many institutions under the elected governments and
ministers. Accordingly, we posit that the extent of criminal
elements in the state legislatures can be used to proxy for the
criminalisation of a state. Further, we believe that the voters
in different states differ in their levels of tolerance to crimi-
nalisation, while electing representatives. We argue that when
people abhor criminalisation, they are likely to weed out
candidates with criminal antecedents through their voting
behaviours. We conjecture that elected representatives, who
have prior criminal records, are less likely to uphold the
enforcement of laws than those who do not have criminal
records. Therefore, we hypothesise that there will be more
crime in a criminalised society, and investigation and prose-
cution will be comparatively low. We also hypothesise that
state agencies will show greater reluctance to domestic vio-
lence. Further, we hypothesise that despite higher incidence
and reporting of such crimes in criminalised states, state
agencies will impede investigation and prosecution, leading
to lower filing of cases and convictions:
H7a: Criminalisation of the state is negatively related to the
filing of cases of crime in the courts of law.
H7b: Criminalisation of the state is negatively related to con-
victions in cases of crime against women.
2 Measures and Data
Dependent Variables
This study has two independent variables: Case filing and con-
viction. These relate to the Stage 3 and Stage 4 of the process
for handing crime as given in Figure 1.
Case Filing: Investigation of a reported crime results in filing
a case in a competent court of law, if there is sufficient
evidence for prosecution. If the police fail to find enough
evidence to support the case in the court, the FIR may be closed.
So, case filing measures the effectiveness of investigation
by police. We adopt case filings per lakh of population as a
dependent variable.
Conviction: The cases filed need to be prosecuted in courts
towards obtaining convictions. The variable conviction
measures the overall quality of work done by the police and
judiciary from recording a crime to its prosecution. We adopt
convictions per lakh of population as a dependent variable.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
Independent Variables
State Police Strength: We use the strength of police force per
unit population and the strength of women in police force per
unit population as measures for state police strength.
Rurality: We conceptualise rurality as the ratio of rural popu-
lation to urban population in each state.
Literacy Gap: Literacy gap is reckoned as the difference between
percentage of male and female literacy rates for each state.
Sex Ratio: Sex ratio has been reported through various popu-
lation surveys. We consider the sex ratio as a relatively robust
indicator, immune to short-term variations.
Maternal Mortality Ratio: We use the MMR as defined by the
World Health Organization (WHO). It defines MMR as:
The number of maternal deaths per 1,00,000 live births, during preg-
nancy or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of
the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or ag-
gravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental
or incidental causes.
Like sex ratio, we consider the MMR as a robust indicator.
Criminalisation of State: Criminalisation of the state is defined
as a categorical variable taking values 0 and 1 for non-crimi-
nalised and criminalised states, respectively. It is computed
based on efficiency with which state electorates filter out the
candidates with prior criminal records.4
Data Description
We use a combination of secondary data sources for this study.
We select 200111 including end-points as the period of the
panel study, and select 19 states shown leading to 209 data
points. We exclude the following: all union territories; all
north-eastern states except Assam; and Jammu and Kashmir,
Chhattisgarh and Goa. We drop the north-eastern states both
because of their small populations and because of their unsettled
law and order conditions. Jammu and Kashmir is excluded
because of its unsettled law and order conditions and also
because many Indian laws (including Domestic Violence Act
2005) do not apply in that state. We exclude the union territories
and Goa because of their small populations. Further, we exclude
Chhattisgarh because of an unusually high number of police and
police officers in the data set. We suspect this is because of the
Salwa Judum programme, which co-opted citizenry in the fight
against Naxalism by giving them a special police officer status.
For case filings, convictions and police strengths, we use the
data from the NCRB. This data is available at the state and district
levels and includes registration of crimes, filing of court cases,
and convictions by the courts of law. The NCRB publishes annual
records of all crimes, including crimes against women.5 We
select three types of domestic violence crimes, namely, cruelty
by husband or his relatives, dowry deaths, and crimes under
Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
67
SPECIAL ARTICLE

Sex ratio, and male and female literacy percentages are taken
from Census 2001 and Census 2011. Data for intervening years is
interpolated from the two end points by constant annual compound-
ing. Such interpolation has been adopted in previous studies
(Schultz 1969; Nickell 2006). Given the robust nature of such
data, we consider our interpolations to be adequately reliable.
The data for MMR is taken from the website of the Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. This data is
reported through three-yearly surveys. The data for intervening
years has been interpolated from the successive survey results.
Data on criminal records of legislators has been obtained
from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 2013,6
which reports data on criminal records of electoral candidates
and elected representatives for the state and central legisla-
tures, based on affidavits filed with the Election Commission.
We acknowledge the following problems with this data:
(a) The data is generally available only after 2004. Prior data is
not publicly available due to its lack of digitisation. In this
study, we had to do backward extrapolation to fix values for
the period of the study.
(b) The normal duration of state assembly is five years. There-
fore, this data cannot capture creeping criminalisation trends.
For example, a state may see rapid criminalisation as a result of
by-elections, mid-term changes in coalition partners, or mid-
term changes in chief ministers and/or their cabinets, or even
mid-term appointment of a single minister, who has question-
able antecedents. Our data cannot capture such phenomena.
3 Analysis and Results
partially caused by state-specific unobservable factors, which,
if correlated with the independent variables (IVs), can cause
pooled OLS regression results to suffer from heterogeneity bias.
Accordingly, a Breusch and Pagan (1980) Lagrange multiplier
test was performed for the null hypothesis of no random
effects. We found significant random effects. Then we per-
formed fixed effects and random effects regressions. We found
significant relationships between the DVs and IVs in fixed effects
regressions as well as in random effects regressions. Next, a
Hausman test was used to determine where the unobservable
heterogeneity is correlated with the independent variables by
testing for systematic differences in the fixed- and random-effects
coefficient vectors. Hausman test confirmed that fixed effects
should be used for both the DVs. Further, the model was tested
for both panel (one way) fixed effects as well as panel and time
(two-way) fixed effects and found both the result inline. We
report two-way fixed effects.
Thereafter, data was tested for heteroskedasticity and serial
correlation. Whites test rejected the null hypothesis, which
confirmed absence of heteroskedasticity and robustness of
results in Table 2. The DurbinWatson test for autocorrelation
confirmed positive autocorrelation, as expected. Next, the
model was checked for multicollinearity. The variance inflation
factors were below the value of 10, ruling out multicollinearity
from our analysis (Neter et al 1996).
Table 3: Results of Regression Model (N=209)
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Dependent Dependent Dependent
Variable Variable Variable
Case Filings Case Filings Convictions

The data set contains 11 time periods and 19 cross-sectional Police per lakh population -0.0529*** ---- ----
Police women per lakh population ---- -0.1927*** -0.0201***
states, making it a balanced panel. We use Gretl version 1.9.12
Literacy gap -0.6366*** -0.7544*** -0.0090
for the data analysis. Tables 1 and 2 give summary statistics
Rurality -1.7420** -2.0504*** 0.0781
and the correlation coefficient matrix, respectively. Sex ratio 0.1806*** 0.1981*** 0.0089*
We used panel data regression to test for the hypotheses. It Maternal mortality ratio 0.0140*** 0.0135*** -0.0017**
is likely that the variation in dependent variables (DVs) is Criminalisation -0.5087 -0.0283 0.1655**
Table 1: Summary Statistics Constant -148.38*** -161.417*** -7.3797
No of observations=209, missing observations: None Adjusted R-square 0.8217 0.8382 0.8236
Variable Mean Std Dev Minimum Maximum F- statistic 40.9406*** 45.9202*** 41.4856***
Case filing per lakh population 6.33019 3.19149 1.542 19.91 *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1
Convictions per lakh population 0.720370 0.550596 0.093 2.376
The panel regression was run as follows: First, we tested total
Police women per lakh population 5.85622 5.87228 0.000 31.97
Police per lakh population 144.74 76.692 0.000 449.35
police strength against the number of cases filed using a fixed
Literacy gap 18.3580 5.91353 4.04 31.85 effects panel regression to test H1. The results are shown under
Ruralurban ratio 3.18502 2.36064 0.026 9.222 Model 1 in Table 3. Next, Model 2 was run by replacing total
Sex ratio 939.928 49.4409 821 1084 police strength with strength of women in police to test for
Maternal mortality ratio 225.734 110.957 61.645 517 hypothesis H2. We did not include both the independent variables
Criminalisation 0.425 0.495 0 1 total police strength and women in police in the same regres-
Table 2: Correlation Matrix sion equation as that would lead to endo-
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 geneity in the regression model. We per-
Case filing per lakh population 1 0.0444 -0.1846 -0.1181 -0.2663 -0.1923 0.2239 -0.2895 -0.2196 formed all the regressions for hypotheses
Convictions per lakh population 1 -0.1625 -0.0847 0.4672 -0.088 -0.1936 0.4534 0.152 H3a, H4a, H5a, H6a and H7a with total
Police women per lakh population 1 0.6677 -0.4187 -0.2592 -0.0831 -0.3899 0.3119
police strength first. Then, we dropped
Police per lakh population 1 -0.5109 -0.2594 -0.4437 -0.1787 0.140
Literacy gap 1 0.2715 -0.2796 0.6102 0.0043
the variable total police strength, and
Ruralurban ratio 1 0.1276 0.4128 -0.0166 replaced it with the women in police
Sex ratio 1 -0.2027 -0.0604 variable for all the other predictors. Thus,
Maternal mortality ratio 1 -0.1074 we tested hypotheses H3a, H4a, H5a, H6a
Criminalisation 1 and H7a twice in Models 1 and 2 on the

68 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly


dependent variable of case filings against the proposed vari-
ables. This was followed by regressing convictions against the
predictor variables to test hypotheses H3b, H4b, H5b, H6b, and
H7b as shown in Model 3.
Both Models 1 and 2 show significant negative relationships
between state police strength (total police strengths and wom-
en in police) and case filings. Thus, H1 and H2 are rejected. The
significant nature of a negative relationship suggests that fur-
ther investigation is necessary. To understand these counter-
intuitive results, we carried out semi-structured interviews of
a few policemen and administrative staff in charge of handling
domestic violence. Based on these interactions, we present a
conjecture about the existence of serious issues of task prioriti-
sation and accountability within the police forces. Of course,
this needs to be correlated by further studies.
H3a is supported both in Models 1 and 2. This suggests strong
inclination by the police to investigate urban crimes in preference
to rural crimes. This could be due to the proximity of urban
centres to transport and other related facilities and the fear of
the media. However, H3b does not find support in Model 3.
This indicates that there is no evidence of a conviction bias on
part of the judiciary towards rurality of the woman population.
In summary, therefore, enablement of women as measured by
their urban residence obtains greater action from police. How-
ever, the judiciary stays unbiased, as one would expect.
H4a is supported both in Models 1 and 2. This suggests that
higher literacy gap retards the investigation and prosecution
of crimes. This result supports our claim that the literacy gap
rather than literacy alone as a societal variable holds merit.
However, H4b does not find support in Model 3. This indicates
that the literacy gaps do not influence the judiciary. This result
is similar to rurality. Thus, we can infer that societal enablement
of women obtains action from the police, but the judiciary re-
mains impartial to these factors. It might be conjectured that
during the court trials, the judiciary is able to discern the cases
in spite of the difference of empowerment status of women.
Both H5a and H5b are supported in Models 1, 2 and 3. This
suggests that higher sex ratios are positively correlated with
both prosecution as well as conviction rates. Thus, it supports the
hypothesis that the societies that have high respect for women
generally give high value to their safety. Legal institutional
mechanisms of police as well as judiciary act in the interest of
women undergoing crime when the general respect for women
as measured by the sex ratio of the state is high.
H6b is significantly negative for judiciary as in Model 3. This
suggests that the judiciary is positively affected by respect for
women as depicted by MMR. The judiciary acts in the interest of
the woman facing crime when the general respect for woman is
high. Thus, it supports the hypothesis that the societies that have
high respect for women generally give high value to their safety
from the point of view of providing justice by the judiciary. How-
ever, a significant rejection of H6a in Models 1 and 2 suggests that
MMR is positively correlated with case filing. This is counter-intui-
tive and no rationale for the same is proposed by us in this study.
We find no support for H7a in Models 1 and 2. This is interesting
as it goes against the conventional wisdom of the police force
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
being affected directly by the criminalisation of the state.
However, we cannot rule out the fact that criminalisation of
the state might be a more important predictor for other types of
crime than that of the crime of domestic violence in a state. We
note, however, that this opens a host of research possibilities, as
the literature on criminalisation is very sparse, and the construct
lacks grounding in its definition and operationalisation. Also, it
is interesting to note that H7b is significantly rejected in Model
3, suggesting that the judiciary is cognisant of criminalisation
of the state, and perhaps exerts a countervailing force by ruling
higher number of convictions for crime of domestic violence.
4 Discussion and Policy Implications
Some of the most interesting findings of this study are counter-
intuitive. We were particularly interested in our findings about
the significant negative relationship between case filings and
both the overall police strength and the strength of women in
the police force. We delved deeper by employing qualitative
research methods of interviews and field observations with a few
policemen, non-governmental organisations, lawyers and protec-
tion officers, in their working environments. While a detailed
description is out of the scope of this paper, we give a brief report
of our experience. We found the police to be highly patriarchal in
their orientation, and tended to view the complaints of domestic
violence as motivated attempts by the woman to harass her
in-laws or get even with her husband. Many policemen con-
sidered beating as a legitimate instrument to discipline a wayward
or a lazy wife. Frequently, we observed the police advising the
victim not to pursue the complaint, and instead opt for a nego-
tiated settlement of disputes. We were surprised to see police-
women often keeping away from women complainants, and
often exhibiting pseudo-male behaviour. This calls for not only
a greater sensitisation of the police force towards better han-
dling of these crimes, but also a re-examination of the policy of
recruiting women in police forces and their reorientation.
Further, our study finds that high relative literacy and urban
residence offer greater chance of obtaining procedural justice and
this knowledge possibly inhibits the incidence of these crimes.
This suggests that womens education should be given a fillip and
calls for policy interventions to ensure education of a girl child.
We find that respect for women in society measured through
the sex ratio and MMR has a significant effect on a womans
overall safety at home. Since, sex ratios change only very slowly,
the states with lower sex ratios should consider policy inter-
ventions to help women in these states.
5 Conclusions, Limitations and Directions for
Future Research
Our study brings out significant relationships between explan-
atory societal variables and the phenomenon of domestic
violence and makes three contributions. First, it is an addition
to the sparse body of quantitative studies on the subject. Second,
the counter-intuitive findings uncover issues on accountability
and prioritisation and may provide further insights to policy-
makers and researchers. Finally, we observe that the variables
showing significant correlations such as sex ratio, literacy and
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SPECIAL ARTICLE

rurality are robust, and change only very slowly over time.
This indicates that the road to improvement is likely to be long
and hard.
We acknowledge several limitations: First, our model
considers all data contemporaneously for the years. However,
there is a lag from registration to case filing and from case
filing to convictions. The period lag is stochastically distributed
and is not easy to measure. This is not factored in our model.
Second, data has been drawn from different sources such as
NCRB, national census, ADR, etc. We do not consider this to be
a serious limitation since data drawn from different sources is
distinct. Third, several independent variables such as population,
sex ratios, urbanrural ratios, literacy and MMR derive the
data from the Censuses of 2001 and 2011, and interpolate for
the intervening years by using a constant annual compound-
ing scheme. This method ignores short-term migrations, and
population mobility. We have assumed that the local and
migrant populations do not differ in their propensities for this
category of crime.
However, notwithstanding these limitations, this study high-
lights four important areas that need further research. First, an
in-depth study of police agencies in India is warranted. Second,
the policy of employing women in police force needs a thorough
review. Further research is needed to assess whether they lack
critical mass to be effective. Third, further research is needed
to assess that the courts are indeed unbiased when it comes to
rurality and literacy levels, as this is a welcome finding, if
confirmed. Fourth, by isolating domestic violence crimes, this
study differs other studies who take an aggregate view of all
crimes against women (Mukherjee et al 2001). We argue that
aggregating all crimes against women might lead to erroneous
insights because of theoretic as well as causal distinctness of
different forms of crime. This study is also distinct in that it uses
large-scale quantitative data. This ensures greater generalis-
ability for the results. Moreover, since states have been con-
sidered as the units of analysis in this study, it highlights
state-level variations in institutional and cultural factors and
their effect in helping women seek procedural justice.

Notes
1 The 1993 United Nations World Conference on
Human Rights in Vienna and the 1995 Fourth
World Conference on Women in Beijing.
2 The payment of dowry has been prohibited
since 1961 under Indian civil laws. Subsequently,
Sections 304B and 498A of the IPC were enact-
ed, making it easier for the wife to seek redress
from harassment by the husbands family. Anti-
dowry laws have been criticised by mens rights
groups, who accuse women and their families
of misusing the laws (Source: Wikipedia).
3 World Health Organization defines MMR as
the ratio of the number of maternal deaths dur-
ing the pregnancy and 42 days after the child
birth per 1,00,000 live births.
4 Criminalisation dummy for a state is 0 if its ra-
tio of criminals in elected legislature to crimi-
nal candidates is below the national average
for the particular year, else it is 1.
5 The crimes against women identified under IPC
are: RapeSection 376 IPC; Kidnapping and
abductionSection 363373 IPC; Dowry
deathsSection 302/304-B IPC; Assault on
woman with intent to outrage her modesty
Section 354 IPC; Insult to the modesty of
womanSection 509 IPC; Cruelty by husband
or his relativesSection 498A IPC; Importation
of girls from foreign countrySection 366-B IPC.
Further, various crimes are identified under special
and local laws (SLL), that were enacted from time
to time to deal with specific social and economic
problems affecting women. These are reviewed
and amended periodically. NCRB reports four
of these SLL crimes against women at the state
level. They are (i) Commission of Sati (Preven-
tion) Act, 1987; (ii) Immoral Traffic (Prevention)
Act, 1956; (iii) Indecent Representation of Wom-
en (Prohibition) Act, 1986; and (iv) Dowry Pro-
hibition Act, 1961 (Mukherjee et al 2001: 4071).
6 Association of Democratic Reforms (2013), Na-
tional Election Watch, viewed on 24 March 2014
at http://myneta.info.
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70 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

SPECIAL ARTICLE
Role of Private Sector in Medical Education and
Human Resource Development for Health in India
Pradeep Kumar Choudhury
This paper examines the growth and regional spread of
medical education in India, particularly in the private
sector. An important feature of the considerable growth
of medical education, especially after the 1990s, has
been the setting up of numerous private medical
colleges in the country. Interestingly, this growth has
occurred primarily in the more developed states with
better health outcomes, while the low-income states
with poor health indicators have lagged behind. This
unequal distribution of medical colleges has had an
impact on the availability of medical services and has
resulted in regional differences in access to doctors in
the country.
The author would like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful
comments on an earlier version of the paper. The useful comments
and suggestions received from the faculty members of the Institute for
Studies in Industrial Development are duly acknowledged. However, the
views and opinions expressed in the paper are those of the author.
Pradeep Kumar Choudhury (pradeepchoudhury@mail.jnu.ac.in) teaches
at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social
Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
A
vailability of human resources is considered a critical
factor for effective provision and delivery of quality
healthcare to Indias vast population and is important
for realising the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of
improving maternal health and reducing child mortality in the
country (Anand and Barnighausen 2004; Mathur and Dua
2005). Also, Indias mandate for universal health coverage
(UHC)that is, developing a framework for providing easily
accessible and affordable healthcare to all Indiansdepends, to
a large extent, on an adequate and effective health workforce
providing care at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Many
studies have argued that the availability of health workers is
an important determinant of the health status of populations
human resources drive health outputs and outcomes, including
immunisation levels, outreach of primary care, and infant, child
and maternal survival (WHO 2006; Anand and Barnighausen
2004, 2007; Mitchell et al 2008; Rao et al 2008; Krupp and
Madhivanan 2009; Rao et al 2012).
However, even with the recognition of the importance of a
health workforce for delivering better healthcare, the number
of health workers in India today is quite inadequate. The World
Health Statistics Report (WHO 2015) reveals that in India,
between 2007 and 2013, there were 24 health workers per 10,000
population (seven doctors and 17 nurses and midwives)
almost half of the global average of 43 workers per 10,000
population (14 doctors and 29 nursing and midwifery personnel).
The availability of human resources (doctors, nurses and
midwives) in India is less than the threshold of 25 health
workers per 10,000 population as established by the Joint
Learning Initiative (JLI) of the World Health Organization (WHO)
in 2004.1
As per the WHOs Global Atlas of the Health Workforce (WHO
2010b) data, India ranked 52 of the 57 countries facing human
resources for health (HRH) crisis. Though the health workforce
includes all the clinical staff such as physicians, nurses,
pharmacists, dentists, midwives, allied health professions, com-
munity health workers, and support staff engaged in providing
health services, most of the studies (both in India and elsewhere)
in this area have largely focused on examining the issues related
to physicians, nurses, and midwives, as their role is quite signifi-
cant in the overall healthcare delivery. Similarly, this study
has focused on the allopathic physicians, that is, the medical
graduates who hold Bachelors Degree in Medicine and Surgery
(MBBS) from medical institutions recognised by the Medical
Council of India (MCI).
71
SPECIAL ARTICLE
In India, the establishment of medical colleges in the early
1950s was based on the recommendations of the Health Survey
and Development Committee (1946), popularly known as the
Bhore Committee.2 These colleges focused on creating basic
doctors who were capable of treating most of the common
diseases as well as effectively manage and lead primary
healthcare teams, particularly in rural areas. The aim was to
secure adequate medical care (both curative and preventive)
for all, that is, no individual should fail to get it because of his/her
inability to pay. However, with health (and medical education)
being largely controlled by individual states, we soon saw the
focus shifting to create more specialists for the urban centres.
The MBBS soon became an entry level qualification, an essential
requirement for further specialisation or going abroad. The gov-
ernment either refused to take control of directing medical
education towards its own stated policy ends, or failed in its
attempt to do so. The inadequacy of the MCI coupled with the lack
of political will to regulate medical education has resulted in a
situation where the poor, villagers, women, and other under-
privileged sections of society do not have access to doctors. It
is this modification of the broad policy aim of medical education,
from creating a basic doctor to being a vehicle for fulfilling the
career aspirations of urban youth that sowed the seeds of the
later large-scale privatisation of medical education in India.
However, in contrast to India, the issue of lack of physicians
was addressed quite successfully in China, and it has performed
well in many basic health indicators like life expectancy at
birth, infant mortality rate, etc. In 2013, the life expectancy at
birth was 75 for China compared to 66 for India (WHO 2015). In
China, between 2007 and 2013, there were 15 doctors per
10,000 population compared to seven in India (WHO 2015).
With a vast foundation in the form of barefoot doctors (BD) in
lakhs of villages,. China gave a concrete shape to its health
intentions down to the grass roots levelcurative, preventive
or promotive (Ashtekar 1999). The village youth turned doc-
tor for the village received a short training (few weeks to a few
months) in regard to basics in medical sciences. In this sense,
the contributions of barefoot doctors in developing Chinas
health system was unique.
Further, upon graduation from medical schools, the new
doctors in China become salaried employees of hospitals or
clinics instead of becoming private medical practitioners, as
was the trend in India. Even in the late 1990s, a hospital run by
private establishment was a rare thing in China. This was
largely due to its elaborate public health infrastructure and the
million-plus rural doctors. Decentralisation of healthcare, with
an effective role played by village-level bodies, was a major
factor in the spread of healthcare network in China (Ashtekar
1999: 2911). But in India, no attempt to decentralise has been
made beyond the level of state governments and municipal
corporations. Village bodies have no role to play in healthcare.
To develop its health system, China thought of villages first,
rather than our blundering cities first centralised approach.
India has seriously erred on this front.
It is argued that states in India are struggling with the com-
plexities of escalating human resource costs, additional demand
72
for health workforce, uneven distribution, and skill-mix imbal-
ances; and the intervention of private sector is suggested as a
potential alternative in solving these issues (Jilani et al 2008;
Shehnaz 2010, 2011; Davey et al 2014). Thus, in the past several
decades, there has been a growing participation of the private
sector in building up health manpower in India, particularly
by establishing a large number of medical and nursing colleges.
However, there is lack of evidence on how the private sector has
contributed to the health system by producing human resources.
It becomes important to examine the issue of the acute
shortage of HRH and the role of private sector in its alleviation
in the context of the Draft National Health Policy (NHP) 2015,
which is largely silent on this issue. Though the draft policy
document has highlighted some important aspects of human
resources in the health sector (like the quality of medical
education, locating doctors and other health professionals in
rural areas), the role of private sector in the expansion of
medical education in India and its consequences have been most-
ly ignored in both the research and policy domains (Government
of India 2014a). This paper discusses two important issues: (a) the
role of private sector in medical education, particularly its growth
and geographical distribution; (b) availability and distribution
of doctors in India, with a special focus on interstate variations
and ruralurban disparity. The paper uses data from the MCI,
National Health Profile and Rural Health Statistics published
by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the WHO.
1 Growth of Medical Colleges in India:
Role of Private Sector
There has been a huge demand for professional education
(particularly in the disciplines of engineering and medicine)
in India in recent years. Recent estimates indicate that 6.17 lakh
candidates took the All India Pre-Medical Test in 2014 to qualify
for 2,503 open seatsseats available through merit and not
reservedin government medical colleges. That is almost 250
applicants per seat.3 The competition is as intense for engineering
seats. In 2014, 13.57 lakh senior secondary graduates took the
nationwide Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance
Examination (IIT-JEE) for approximately 9,600 seats; the ratio
of seats to applicants being 1:141. 4
Though in the field of engineering, a large number of insti-
tutions have been established by the private sector to minimise
the gap between demand and supply, in medicine, the situation
has not improved much. The involvement of the private sector
in medical education to a lesser degree (compared to engineering
education) may be attributed to the cost difference in establish-
ing these two types of institutions. The setting up of a medical
college involves a huge capital investment and heavy recurring
expenditure as compared to establishing an engineering college.
This has led a number of students to seek medical degrees in
countries such as China and Russia.
When bright students who want to pursue a career in medicine
look around India for institutes to study in, they find only a few
top-quality institutions. Further, the numbers of students who
can be served by top-quality medical institutions like the All
India Institute of Medical Sciences is quite limited. The number
January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

of private medical institutions are not enough to fulfil the
aspirations of the students, even if they are ready to pay huge
amounts for their education. Thus, if a bright Indian student
wants to study for a MBBS degree at a top department or
university, he or she is forced to study overseas.
1.1 A Period of Rapid Growth: India has witnessed a rapid
growth in the medical education sectorone of the largest in
the world. From 28 teaching institutions at the undergraduate
level in 1950, we reached a total of 384 colleges in 2014, with a
total intake capacity of about 50,000 students (Mahal and
Mohanan 2006; Medical Council of India 2014). Traditionally,
medical colleges in India were largely funded by the government,
and the contribution of the private sector was negligible (Rao
et al 2008). The growth in the number of private medical colleges
in India began in the 1980s, and it further accelerated in the
1990s with the implementation of new economic policy in 1991.
Within a decade (1980 to 1990), the share of private colleges
in the total number of medical colleges increased by 16% (from
12.7% to 28.7%) (Mahal and Mohanan 2006). In the last two
and a half decades (1990 to 2014), the number of private medical
colleges increased by 405% (from 41 to 209), whereas the number
of government-run medical colleges increased only by 72%
(from 102 to 176), with an overall growth of 169% during this
period (Mahal and Mohanan 2006; Medical Council of India
2014). The share of private sector in the total number of medical
colleges increased from 3.6% in 1950 to 54.3% in 2014. Similarly,
the enrolment in these colleges currently accounts for 52.1% of
the total, as compared to 1.4% in 1950 (Mahal and Mohanan
2006; Medical Council of India 2014). The annual average
growth rate of private medical institutions between 1950 and
2014 was 8.7% compared to 3% in government sector, with a
more or less similar growth trend for enrolment figures
(Mahal and Mohanan 2006; Medical Council of India 2014).
Thus, the growth of medical institutions and their intake
capacity in India has been driven largely by developments in
the private sector. In some states, it grew to such a level that in
relative size the public sector became infinitesimally small.
The overwhelming increase in the number of private medical
institutions in India has been primarily due to the lower public
spending on the health sector, and particularly on medical
education and health manpower. The current public expenditure
on health (1.3% of gross domestic product (GDP)) is far below the
target set by the High Level Expert Group Report on Universal
Health Coverage (hereafter, HLEG Report) for India to spend at
least 2.5% of GDP at the end of Twelfth Five Year Plan. In 200405,
the share of public expenditure on medical education, training
and research as a percentage of the total health expenditure
was only about 14%.
1.2 Capitation Fee: The state, by not opening adequate number
of colleges, has created a space for private enterprise in the
field of medical education in India. The access to private col-
leges is largely restricted to the elite. Students from lower- and
middle-income households face difficulties in accessing these
institutions, mainly due to high fees and other associated costs. A
Economic & Political Weekly EPW January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
SPECIAL ARTICLE
study by Kumar (2008) reveals that on an average a household
spent 16.19% of their annual income on obtaining an MBBS de-
gree in Kerala. It is widely observed that (even though empirical
evidence may be lacking), except in very rare cases, private col-
leges providing professional education (medical education in
particular) run on capitation fees, a large sum of money chang-
ing hands without accountability. The thriving black economy
in the country provides a congenial environment for this practice
to flourish. A recent report of the National Institute of Public Fin-
ance and Policy ranked the education sector second in a list of
sectors generating black money in India. It is estimated that
capitation fees paid to professional colleges in 201213 was
around Rs 6,000 crore.5 There are instances where students have
paid Rs 2550 lakh as capitation fees for an MBBS seat, Rs 75
lakh to Rs 1 crore for a postgraduate medical seat, and between
Rs 1 crore and 2 crore for a super speciality seat (Pathak 2014).
The capitation fee system restricts many students from
accessing private colleges. The system largely caters only to
the wealthy and politically connected groups, even if they are
academically inferior. Medical education (particularly private
medical education) by and large is becoming a preserve of
those who have the requisite economic and political resources,
and where merit becomes a casualty (Jayaram 1995).
India is the only country that authorises, as official policy, the sale of
medical seats by private colleges, implicitly accepting the principle that
the ability to pay, and not merit, is what counts (Rao 2013).
The private medical colleges have been criticised for sacri-
ficing academic standards for commercial gains. Though
officially the collection of capitation fee is banned, it is an open
secret that many colleges continue to charge this fee with
impunity. The extraordinary spread of the capitation fees
phenomenon has been opposed by many stakeholders, including
student organisations, medical professionals, and some political
parties. The issue has been successfully challenged in courts of
law. However, despite several judgments of the Supreme Court
declaring that charging capitation fees is unfair and unjust,
the practice continues unabated.
2 Regional Spread of Medical Colleges in India:
Trend and Patterns
2.1 Uneven Distribution of Medical Institutions: Although
medical colleges are spread throughout the country, their
distribution is found to be quite uneven across different
regions, as is evident from Table 1 (p 74). In total, the four
southern statesAndhra Pradesh (including Telangana),6
Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Naduand the union territory
of Puducherry, with 21% of Indias total population, have near-
ly half of the medical schools (43.6%) and intake capacity
(46.3%). In contrast, 10 states and two union territories from the
eastern and northern regions, accounting for 45.3% of Indias
population, have only about one-fourth of the total number of
medical institutions and their intake (Table 1). In Jharkhand,
all the three existing medical institutions had been established
during the 1960s, and no more colleges have been set up ever
since. Similarly, only about 2.8% of the medical colleges (11 in
73
SPECIAL ARTICLE

number) with the total intake capacity of 2.2% (1,126 students) that offer undergraduate courses. In states such as Jharkhand,
are located in the eight north-eastern states. The population Goa, Manipur, and Meghalaya and the union territory of
share of these sates is 3.76% as per the 2011 Census of India. Chandigarh, there is not even a single private medical college
Interestingly, most of the states with a fewer number of yet. States like Assam, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh,
medical institutions and intakes (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, and Tripura have only one
Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, private college each and those have come up in recent years.
Uttar Pradesh, and Assam) are also the Empowered Action Similarly, only around 20% of the total number of private med-
Group (EAG) states. The EAG was formed by the Ministry of ical colleges can be found in the nine EAG states. Therefore,
Health and Family Welfare in March 2001 to ensure population from a regional perspective, the northern, eastern and north-
stabilisation and inter-sectoral convergence in these eight states eastern regions have a disproportionate number of private
with high fertility rates and weak socio-demographic indicators. medical colleges.
Overall, the number of medical institutions and their intake Table 1: Share of States in All-India Numbers (%)
capacity is much higher in states with better health indicators. Region/State/UT Institutions Intake
Government Private Total Government Private Total
This reflects the distorted distribution of the countrys produc-
Southern 32.39 53.11 43.64 32.82 58.74 46.30
tion capacity of health workers. Andhra Pradesh 8.52 13.40 11.17 9.98 14.58 12.38
The skewed regional spread of medical colleges and intakes Karnataka 6.82 16.27 11.95 6.24 20.17 13.48
in India is largely due to the unequal spread of the private sector Kerala 3.98 8.61 6.49 4.58 7.68 6.19
in medical education. The states in southern and western Tamil Nadu 11.93 11.48 11.69 11.09 12.86 12.01
regions have almost three-fourths of the total private medical Puducherry 1.14 3.35 2.34 0.94 3.45 2.25
institutions in India as is evident from Table 1. These states are Western 20.45 20.10 20.26 23.63 19.75 21.61
also richer with better health outcomes. As of 2014, 53% of the Goa 0.57 0.00 0.26 0.62 0.00 0.30
total number of private medical colleges in India were located Gujarat 5.11 6.22 5.71 6.36 5.37 5.85
Maharashtra 10.80 11.96 11.43 11.23 12.45 11.87
in the southern states compared to 32.3% of government col-
Rajasthan 3.98 1.91 2.86 5.41 1.92 3.59
leges (57 of 176 medical colleges) in 2014 (Table 1). The student
Northern 19.89 15.79 17.66 18.56 12.07 15.19
intake capacity of the private medical colleges in this region is
Chandigarh 0.57 0.00 0.26 0.42 0.00 0.20
58.7% as compared to 32.8% of the government medical Delhi 3.41 0.96 2.08 3.54 0.77 2.10
colleges (Table 1). While in the other four regions (northern, Haryana 1.70 1.91 1.82 1.66 1.15 1.40
eastern, central, and north-eastern), the presence of the private Himachal Pradesh 1.14 0.48 0.78 0.83 0.58 0.70
sector in medical education is found to be significantly less. Jammu & Kashmir 1.70 0.48 1.04 1.66 0.38 1.00
Not only in the private sector, but there is a recent spurt in Punjab 1.70 3.35 2.60 1.87 2.67 2.29
government medical colleges in the southern states as well. Uttarakhand 1.14 0.96 1.04 0.83 0.96 0.90
Interestingly, out of the total number of government medical Uttar Pradesh 8.52 7.66 8.05 7.75 5.57 6.61
colleges established after 1990 in India, 42% (29 out of 71) are Eastern 16.48 5.74 10.65 15.77 4.26 9.78
Bihar 5.11 1.91 3.38 3.95 1.00 2.42
in the four southern states of Andhra Pradesh (including
Jharkhand 1.70 0.00 0.78 1.00 0.00 0.48
Telangana), Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu and the union
Odisha 1.70 2.39 2.08 2.29 1.73 2.00
territory of Puducherry. In Tamil Nadu alone, 12 government
West Bengal 7.95 1.44 4.42 8.53 1.54 4.89
medical colleges came up in the last two and half decades, eight Central 6.25 3.83 4.94 5.57 4.22 4.87
colleges came up in Karnataka, six in Andhra Pradesh, two in Chhattisgarh 2.84 0.48 1.56 2.29 0.58 1.40
Kerala and one in Puducherry (Medical Council of India 2014). Madhya Pradesh 3.41 3.35 3.38 3.29 3.65 3.47
It is important to note that many of these government colleges North-Eastern 4.55 1.44 2.86 3.64 0.96 2.25
have been moving away from the goal of strengthening prima- Assam 2.27 0.48 1.30 2.19 0.38 1.25
ry care towards creating more capital-intensive, treatment- Manipur 1.14 0.00 0.52 0.83 0.00 0.40
oriented medical colleges. Meghalaya 0.57 0.00 0.26 0.21 0.00 0.10
The shifting trend noted among these government colleges Sikkim 0.00 0.48 0.26 0.00 0.19 0.10
Tripura 0.57 0.48 0.52 0.42 0.38 0.40
has broader policy implications for the overall health sector of
India 100 100 100 100 100 100
the country. For example, people belonging to rural areas and (176) (209) (385) (24038) (26055) (50093)
weaker sections of society, who usually rely on government Figures in parentheses show the number of institutions and intake capacity respectively.
hospitals, will suffer the most. The other important conse- Source: Authors estimation from the MCI data.

quence of such a shift may be the negligence of basic health-
care services, which are commonly demanded by the people.
The share of private medical colleges in the northern and east-
ern regions is only 21.5% (with a intake of 16.3%) as compared
to 36.3% (with an intake capacity of 34.3%) of government
medical colleges (Table 1). Excluding Uttar Pradesh, the other
nine states and two union territories in the northern and east-
ern regions have only 14% of the total private medical colleges
74
It is important to note that the public expenditure on health
in states with fewer private medical institutions is significantly
less and is even worse in regard to medical education, training
and research. In 200405, out of the total public expenditure
on health, the share spent on medical education, training and
research in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, and
West Bengalstates with fewer private medical institutions
was 11.5% as compared to 14.4% for states with more private
January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 SPECIAL ARTICLE

medical colleges such as Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana), of medical institutions established after 1990, more than 70%
Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu belonged to the private sector (Table 3). Up to 1990, the share
(Government of India 2005a). Therefore, states from the northern of private sector in medical education in the northern, eastern,
and eastern regions lack support both from the government and north-eastern regions was less than 10%, and in the central
and private sector to establish new medical institutions. This is region, there were no private medical institutions. But between
contrary to the HLEG recommendation which emphasises on 1991 and 2014, the share in all these four regions crossed 50%.
greater public investment to create additional educational The share of private sector in the southern and western regions
institutions in HRH deficient states. until 1990 was 39%, and this has gone up to 75.1% over the last
24 years. There were no private institutions in Kerala and
2.2 Analysis by Region: A more detailed analysis by region Puducherry till 1990, but all the institutions set up after this
and ownership of medical schools has been done in Table 2. period were privately owned. Karnataka is the only state where
The table shows that in 2014, around two-thirds of the total the share of private medical institution has come down from 79%
medical colleges in the southern region were owned by the before 1990 to 58.7% after 1990 (Medical Council of India 2014).
private sector. The share of two states and one union territory Thus, the climate of openness and increased privatisation of
(Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry) is more than 70%. A sim- medical education in India started primarily after 1990 in the
ilar trend has been also observed for students intake in this northern, eastern, central, and north-eastern regions, while in
region.7 Interestingly, the intake of students for an MBBS course the southern and western regions it had begun much before
in private medical colleges in Puducherry and Karnataka is that. More specifically, out of 39 private medical colleges
around 80% of the total. Likewise, about 54% of the total medical established in India before 1990, 35 were in the southern and
institutions in the western region are privately managed, and in western regions and two each were set up in Punjab and Bihar.
Goa alone, their share is 60%.8 In contrast, only about 29.2% In Maharashtra and Karnataka, around half of the private
of the total medical colleges and 22.6% of the total students colleges were established before 1990 (Medical Council of
intake in the eastern region are from the private sector, and a India 2014). Some of these institutions, set up in the 1950s and
more or less similar trend is also observed in the north-eastern 1960s, were philanthropic endeavours.
region (Table 2). In Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, medi- At the other end of the spectrum, as many as 22 states and
cal education is largely provided by the public sector and the many union territories of India (including the bigger states
presence of private sector is quite negligible. Also, only around such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and West
20% of the MBBS students in Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir Bengal) had no private medical institutions until 1990. In states
(two states from northern region) are from private medical col- such as Assam, Chhattisgarh, and Himachal Pradesh, the pri-
leges, and in Chandigarh, students interested in pursuing medi- vate sector started setting up institutions mainly after 2010. As
cal education completely rely on the public sector, as there is argued by Tilak (2014), people with money in the 1950s and
no private medical institution there (Medical Council of India the 1960s either made donations to public institutions or set up
2014). Thus, it is clear from the discussion that the steady philanthropy-based private institutions; however today, those
increase in medical colleges in India is largely due to the rapid with even a fraction of that money prefer to set up a private
growth of the private sector that is concentrated in a few states. self-financing college for profit. Therefore, there is a difference
between the private medical institutions that were established
Table 2: Region-wise Institutions and Intake Shares in Government and
Medical Colleges in India, 2014 (%) in 1960s and those that were set up in the 1990s and after.
Region Institution Intake
Government Private Total Government Private Total Table 3: Region-wise Share of Medical Institutions in Pre- and Post-1990 (%)
Region Up to 1990 After 1990
Southern 33.93 66.07 100(168) 34.02 65.98 100(23,195)
Government Private Total Government Private Total
Western 46.15 53.85 100(78) 52.47 47.53 100(10,825)
Southern 58.33 41.67 100(48) 24.17 75.83 100(120)
Northern 51.47 48.53 100(68) 58.66 41.34 100(7,607)
Western 63.41 36.59 100(41) 27.03 72.97 100(37)
Eastern 70.73 29.27 100(41) 77.35 22.65 100(4,900)
Northern 91.30 8.70 100(23) 31.11 68.89 100(45)
Central 57.89 42.11 100(19) 54.92 45.08 100(2,440)
Eastern 90.91 9.09 100(22) 47.37 52.63 100(19)
North-eastern 72.73 27.27 100(11) 77.80 22.20 100(1,126)
Central 100.00 0.00 100(6) 38.46 61.54 100(13)
India 45.71 54.29 100(385) 47.99 52.01 100(50,093)
North-eastern 91.11 8.89 100(4) 35.94 64.06 100(7)
Figures in parentheses show the number of institutions and intake capacity respectively.
Source: Authors estimation from the MCI data. India 72.92 27.08 100(143) 29.46 70.54 100(242)
Figures in parentheses show the number of institutions.
Source: Authors estimation from the MCI data.
2.3 Medical Institutions Pre- and Post-1990: Out of the 385
medical institutions in India in 2014, around two-thirds were Besides the governments inability to meet the overwhelming
established after 1990. Again, the growth during this period demand for medical education in India (largely due to budgetary
was largely seen in the southern states; the increase was 250%, constraints and limited infrastructure), some other important
while the least growth was observed in the eastern region explanations for the growth of private sector in this arena may
the increase was only 86%. As seen in Table 3, until 1990, include creating a conducive environment for privatisation by
medical institutions in India were mostly in the government way of relaxed regulations and permissions for establishing
sector (72.9%) and the presence of private sector was negligible. medical institutions by the MCI and the rapid growth of medical
But after 1990, the situation reversed; out of the total number tourism in India. It is also being argued that migration of doctors
Economic & Political Weekly EPW January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 75
SPECIAL ARTICLE

and nurses to developed countries can be correlated with the provides a clear picture of the regional spread of medical edu-
fact that India has the greatest number of private medical cation in the country. The HLEG Report (2011) has considered
institutions in the world (Shehnaz 2010). the issue of over-medicalisation and has suggested measures
A closer examination of the differential pattern of growth in for correcting the severe imbalance in the distribution of medi-
private medical education reveals specific reasons for this growth cal colleges in India.
in some states: (i) the capacity to pay for costly medical education The skewed regional distribution of private medical colleges
offered by the private sector may be higher among the students cannot be seen in isolation. It has to be looked at in the context
living in better-off states than others; (ii) in some states it is of what happened in other disciplines of professional education
relatively easier to fulfil the MCI norms to establish an institution. such as engineering and nursing education. In both these fields,
For example, in the southern states, due to returnee doctors from there was a profusion of private colleges earlier, allegedly for
abroad, there is availability of qualified faculty to teach in medi- creating professionals for the expanding global market. There
cal colleges, which meets an important requirement of the MCI; was competition between states, especially in the south, since
(iii) there has been an element of competition among states for each state thought that it is losing its students to the neighbour-
attracting private investment in medical education, and there- ing states, so they wanted private colleges to be established in
fore some states, particularly from the southern and western their respective states. Interestingly, this thinking prevailed even
regions, have been offering various tax concessions and other in a state like Kerala with a strong leftist political tradition.
special facilities to new investors on a competitive basis. As per the 200607 data of the All India Council for Technical
Education (AICTE), the southern region alone has more than half
2.4 Recommended Number of Colleges: The Mudaliar of the degree-level private engineering institutions in the coun-
Committee (Government of India 1962) recommended the try, with an intake of 53.5%. The trend is more or less similar in
establishment of one medical college for a population of five nursing education. According to the Indian Nursing Council,
million. In context of this norm, a wide interstate variation in in 2012, out of the total undergraduate-level private nursing
the number of medical colleges has been observed. All states colleges in India, 56.8% were in the southern region with an
from the southern region have an excess of medical colleges, intake of 47.4%. However, the recent phenomena of many private
while many states from the eastern and northern regions (also professional colleges (particularly engineering colleges) closing
with poor health indicators) such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and down due to a lack of demand is a serious concern. This should
Jharkhand face a shortfall (Table 4). The southern states of also be a pointer to the future of medical colleges in India.
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have more than 30 extra colleges,
while Uttar Pradesh alone still needs 11 more medical colleges 3 Private Sector in Medical Education and
to fulfil the Mudaliar Committee norm that was set more than Availability of Doctors in India
five decades ago. This is primarily due to the dominance of pri- The rapid growth in the production of health workers such as
vate sector in some specific states. Though the norm set by the doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives has not helped to fill vacant
Mudaliar Committee is an old one, and the health sector in India positions in the public health system (Hazarika 2013: 111). Though
has undergone a significant change since then, the assessment the Bhore Committees recommendation of producing doctors
of the availability of medical colleges according to this norm was realised to some extent, the unfortunate aspect of this
development is that these doctors have been produced not for
Table 4: State-wise Number of Required and Existing Medical Colleges, 2014
State/UT Population 2014 (P) Medical Colleges Existing Number of Difference the salaried service in the national health plan that the commit-
(in millions) Required @ One per Medical Colleges tee had envisaged but for adding to the ranks of private medical
Five Million Population in 2014
practitioners (Duggal 1991: 404). Several studies have high-
States with more colleges than required
Andhra Pradesh 86.95 17 43 26 lighted that though there is an increase in the overall health
Delhi 20.09 4 8 4 workforce in India, there are gross inequalities in the availability of
Gujarat 61.33 12 22 10 health personnel at the subnational level (Planning Commission
Karnataka 61.21 12 46 34 2011; Shehnaz 2011).
Kerala 35.26 7 25 18 Until December 2013, the total number of doctors registered
Maharashtra 117.2 23 44 21 with different state medical councils of India was 9,18,303,
Puducherry 1.573 1 9 8 which meant 7.5 doctors per million population (Table 5, p 77).9
Punjab 28.57 6 10 4
The number of registered doctors per million population var-
Tamil Nadu 68.65 14 45 31
ies widely across states. It is the lowest for Jharkhand (1.3) and
States with less colleges than required
Assam 31.69 6 5 -1 highest for Goa (17.2). Most of the states belonging to the
Bihar 101.5 20 13 -7 northern and eastern regions of India have less than five doctors
Jharkhand 32.77 7 3 -4 per million population, whereas most of the southern and
Madhya Pradesh 75.61 15 13 -2 western states have 510 doctors or more than 10 doctors per
Rajasthan 70.97 14 11 -3 million population. Using the 2001 Census data, Rao et al
Uttar Pradesh 211.2 42 31 -11 (2009) have shown that Goa and Kerala (which have more
P stands for provisional.
Source: Population figures from National Health Profile 2013 (Government of India 2014b)
medical schools) have three times higher doctor density than
and medical institution figures from the MCI. states like Odisha and Chhattisgarh that have fewer medical
76 January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 SPECIAL ARTICLE

schools. Thus, the high density of doctors in the southern and dentist, pharmacist and other medical staff) per 10,000 popu-
western region states shows the link between production and lation in urban areas is approximately four times higher
availability of doctors. More clearly, states with more medical (42.03) compared to rural areas (10.78) (Rao 2012). Most im-
colleges have higher doctor density compared to the states with portantly, the difference in the density is highest among doc-
lesser number of medical colleges. This supports the finding tors13.34 in urban regions and 3.28 in rural regions (Rao
that there is a strong relationship between the number of 2012). According to the report of the Task Force on Medical
medical schools and the physician density, and, therefore, Education for the National Rural Health Mission (NRhM) 2005,
establishing more medical institutions in low density areas about 74% of the graduate doctors living in urban areas served
may improve the situation (Boulet et al 2007). The missing only 28% of the national population, while the rural popula-
tion was largely unserved (Government of India 2005b: 9).
Table 5: Cumulative Number of Allopathic Doctors Registered with State
Medical Councils, 2013 Due to a critical shortage of doctors, unqualified practitio-
State Medical Council Number of Projected Population No of Registered Doctors per ners play an important role in the delivery of healthcare to a
Registered Doctors 2013 (in millions) Million Population
large section of society (Jilani et al 2008). Healthcare being
With < five registered doctors per million population
Jharkhand 4,373 32.3 1.3 largely a demand-driven service, in many rural areas of the
Chhattisgarh 5,257 24.9 2.1 country, the shortage of allopathic doctors is met by ayurveda,
Haryana 5,717 26.3 2.1 yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha and homeopathy (AYUSH)
Himachal Pradesh 1,896 69.2 2.7 doctors, and rural medical practitioners (RMPs) who lack
Uttar Pradesh 64,749 207.7 3.1 formal allopathic training. Rao et al (2012) found that up
Bihar 38,260 100.3 3.8 to 63% of clinicians practising in rural India had inadequate
Madhya Pradesh 29,991 74.4 4.0 or no medical training. The situation is particularly alar-
Odisha 16,786 41.4 4.0
ming because a relatively small fraction of the countrys health
Uttarakhand 4,366 10.2 4.2
workforce is available in areas where majority of the
Rajasthan 32,874 69.9 4.7
With 510 registered doctors per million population
population resides.
Delhi 9,773 19.5 5.0
Assam 20,724 31.3 6.6 3.2 Developing Policy Solutions: In India, attempts are being
West Bengal 62,645 91.1 6.8 made to develop policy solutions (several incentive schemes by
Andhra Pradesh 70,799 86.2 8.2 the government have been launched) to bring and retain health
Gujarat 53,376 60.5 8.8 workers in rural areas. In 2005, the Task Force on Medical Educa-
With > 10 registered doctors per million population tion for the NRHM had planned steps for the expansion of medi-
Jammu & Kashmir 12,939 12.0 10.7
cal education to address the HRH crisis in rural areas. It had
Kerala 42,015 35.0 11.9
recommended measures like increasing the emoluments of doc-
Maharashtra 1,47,989 115.7 12.7
Tamil Nadu 1,00,165 68.3 14.6
tors, revamping of medical education with a shift in focus from
Punjab 42,013 28.3 14.8 curative to community care, compulsory rural posting, and cre-
Karnataka 1,00,440 60.6 16.6 ating a new cadre of health workers after three years of training.
Goa 3,215 1.8 17.2 Besides these, the scheme also aimed to strengthen primary care
India 9,18,303 1,223.6 7.5 human resources by introducing flexibility and financial provi-
Source: Population figures from National Health Profile 2013 (Government of India 2014b) sion for contractual appointments of 10,000 allopathic doctors,
and medical institutions figures from the MCI.
including 2,500 specialists (Planning Commission 2011: 145).
link between the production and availability of physicians in But has this mission helped to increase the availability of
Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana) may be attributed to doctors in rural areas during the last one decade of its
the internal and international migration of doctors which implementation? The data obtained from Rural Health Statistics
needs to be probed in detail. reveals that between 2005 and 2013, the share of primary
health centres (PHCs) working without doctors went up from
3.1 Shortage of Doctors in Rural Areas: The HLEG Report 3% to 4.4% (Government of India 2005c, 2014c). The percentage
(Planning Commission 2011: 144) has stated that the clustering of PHCs without doctors increased from 7.1% to 10.4% in the
of private colleges around cities exacerbate the shortage of major states of northern and eastern regions (Bihar, Chhattisgarh,
doctors in rural areas. Not only in India, but in many other Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttara-
developing countries also rural areas have insufficient number khand, and Uttar Pradesh) while the figure came down from
of health workers, primarily due to the less production of 1.5% to 0.2% in states such as Andhra Pradesh (including Tel-
doctors in these locations. Approximately one half of the global angana), Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Puducherry, and
population lives in rural areas, but these people are served by Tamil Nadu (having large number of medical colleges) during
only 38% of the total nursing workforce and by less than a the last eight years (Government of India 2005c, 2014c).
quarter of the total physicians workforce (WHO 2010b: 7). As against the requirements, the shortfall of doctors at PHCs
In India too, there is a considerable variation in the density of increased from 3.8% in 2005 to 9.1% in 2013 (Government of
the health workforce between rural and urban regions. The den- India 2005b, 2014c). Similarly, the shortage of specialists
sity of the total health workforce (doctors, nurse and midwife, surgeons, obstetricians and gynaecologists, physicians, and
Economic & Political Weekly EPW January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 77
SPECIAL ARTICLE
paediatriciansalso increased from 41.4% to 72% in the
post-NRHM period (Government of India 2005c, 2014c). In
2013, there was a shortage of 2,225 doctors at PHCs and 14,952
specialists at community health centres (CHCs) (72% of the
required number) (Government of India 2014c). Between 2005
and 2013, there was a 37% increase in the shortfall of surgeons
(from 34.79% to 72.18%), highest among the four specialists,
whereas for the paediatricians, the increase (23.15%) was the
least (Government of India 2005c, 2014c). In 2013, the percentage
shortage of specialists at CHCs in the southern states was found to
be lower (77.6%) than that in the major states of northern and
eastern regions (84.29%) (Government of India 2014c).
Medical graduates in India look forward to practising in
towns and cities, and the rural areas fail to attract and retain
them (Singh 2005). Many studies have reported that in develop-
ing countries students from private medical institutions are
more likely to end up working in urban areas, even though
rural medical service is an often emphasised need (Huntington
et al 2012). It is argued that the clustering of private colleges
around cities has worsened the situation. Doctors trained in
these institutions prefer to serve in nearby towns/cities and
hesitate to go to rural areas and even to small towns. In some
cases, instead of serving in remote locations they choose to
work overseas. The payment of huge capitation fees may also
be responsible for the lack of doctors in rural areas. As stated
in the Draft NHP 2015, the fees and the orientation of private
medical colleges make it less likely for graduates to opt for
public sector services or even serve in towns and cities that are
outside the main metropolis (Government of India 2014a).
Diwan et al (2013) conducted a cross-sectional survey of 792
first year medical students in five public and four private medical
schools in Madhya Pradesh and found that public medical
school students were more likely to work in rural areas than pri-
vate medical school students. The shortage of health workers
in rural and remote areas is because of both the disinclination
of qualified private providers to work there and the inability of
the public sector to attract and adequately staff rural health
facilities (Rao et al 2011). The study by Ramani et al (2013)
has suggested that in India, to place qualified health workers
in rural areas, the service conditions need to be attractive for
them. It will help to bring health workers into the public sector
system and to motivate in-service health workers to remain in
rural areas.
However, there is also an urgent need to establish medical
colleges in rural and semi-urban regions. It is expected that
the out-turn from these institutions will be interested to work
in the areas close to their institutions. To attract private invest-
ment in medical education in underserved regions, some states
have started a few special incentive schemes. For example, in
2013, the state cabinet of Uttar Pradesh approved a scheme
where a capital subsidy of up to Rs 20 crore would be granted
to private players who would invest in setting up medical
colleges in three divisions of Devipatan, Basti and Mirzapur in
Eastern Uttar Pradesh, where there are no medical colleges
(Indian Express 2013). The success of these schemes needs to
be seen in the days to come.
78
4 Conclusions
This study finds that one of the most dominant features of Indian
medical education is the rapid expansion of private sector,
which has led to regional inequality in the production and dis-
tribution of doctors. The medical colleges that have come up in
the private sector in India are largely concentrated in the better-
off provinces and cater to the needs of the urban population.
The bulk of the growth in private medical education is concen-
trated in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh (including
Telangana), Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, and the un-
ion territory of Puducherry; while states like Bihar, Chhattis-
garh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand
and Uttar Pradesh are lagging behind, though they have poor
health indicators.
The uneven distribution of medical colleges has led to severe
health system imbalances across states, both in production
and availability of doctors. There is considerable variation in
the density of doctors between rural and urban areas, which
indicates the difficulty rural Indians face in accessing health-
care. Due to a lack of qualified physicians, people in rural areas
rely on unqualified health practitioners, who have either no
training or have training in alternative system of medicine,
but they still prescribe allopathic medicines. A majority of the
qualified doctors available in the country serve in urban areas
and are not interested in working in rural areas despite policies
and guidelines laid out by the state in this regard.
Based on the findings of the study, it is proposed that policy-
makers and planners should devise effective strategies to
increase the availability of doctors in rural areas. Secondly,
and perhaps more importantly, attempts should be made by the
government to correct geographical imbalances in the production
of medical graduates by setting up medical institutions in the
underserved regions. The need of the hour is to reorient the
private sector for the production of quality medical graduates
to meet domestic needs, particularly in the underserved areas.
This study is an attempt to understand the size, growth and
distribution of doctors and the role of private sector in produc-
ing them, and this kind of an enquiry is important for the pur-
pose of health workforce planning in India. Also, it shares
some possible implications of privatisation of medical educa-
tion in India. From a research perspective, the findings of this
study underline some potential areas for future investigations.
Some of the front line research issues include: factors driving
the emergence of the private sector in medical education,
consequences of the growth of private sector on the quality of
doctors (may be by comparing the service of doctors produced
by government and private medical institutions), and analys-
ing the extent of private investment made in medical educa-
tion in India.
Another concern to be addressed is that though privatisa-
tion of medical education can widen the scope and availability
of medical professionals in India, can it be an alternative to
create human resources with appropriate skill-mix? Detailed
studies aimed at examining the link between the type of
institution where the students are being trained and their
motivations and career aspirations, particularly their willingness
January 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

to work in rural areas, are certainly called for. Since the present
study focuses specifically on allopathic doctors/physicians, a
similar exercise can be carried out for other equally important
Notes
1 Besides the international norms of WHO, the tar-
gets set by some important committees established
by the Government of India (Bhore Committee
1946; Mudaliar Committee 1962; Bajaj Commit-
tee 1987) on health manpower in India are yet to
be achieved. For details, see Planning Commis-
sion (2011: 14243).
2 The production of doctors was one of the im-
portant recommendations this committee along
with other targets like expanding basic health-
care services to rural people, improving the
quality of medical research, emphasising on
industrial health, etc.
3 See, for example, Jha (2014).
4 See, for example, Johri (2014).
5 See, for example, Vaidhyasubramaniam (2014).
6 The state of Andhra Pradesh mentioned in the
text includes Telangana, unless stated otherwise.
7 Estimated from the MCI 2014 data.
8 See note 7.
9 The figure of registered doctors includes doc-
tors serving in both private and government
hospitals till 31 December 2013. It is important
to note that the MCI and state medical councils
do not maintain a live register with updated
figures which take into account attrition due to
death, migration to other countries and non-
practising of medicine by qualified doctors.
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(2015): World Health Statistics 2015, Geneva:
World Health Organization, http://www.indi-
annursingcouncil.org/pdf/31-Oct-2012.pdf, acce-
ssed on 28 May 2015.
79
NOTES
Wages and Non-wage Benefits
in Organised Manufacturing
Evidence since 198182
Srijita Chakraborty
It is conventionally claimed that
protected by pro-worker labour
laws, organised sector workers
receive a disproportionate share
of the fruits of economic growth.
And these rigid labour laws are
believed to hinder output and
employment. An evaluation
of wages and earnings data
(198182201112) suggests that
organised sector workers real
wages have grown slower (0.82%
per annum) than per capita income
growth (3.6% pa) in India
despite high productivity growth
while their non-wage benefits
have declined at (-)0.18% pa.
The article is based on the authors Masters
thesis, Wages and Non-wage Benefits in the
Organised Manufacturing Sector: Evidence
since 1981, at the Indira Gandhi Institute of
Development Research, Mumbai. The author
would like to thank her supervisor R Nagaraj
for his valuable guidance and comments on
various aspects of the findings of this article.
Srijita Chakraborty (srijitac@igidr.ac.in) is
currently Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers,
Mumbai.
80
legislations, however, has been on Chap-
ter V-B of the Industrial Disputes Act of
1947, often considered the single most
important piece of legislation governing
the employeremployee relationship. It
requires employers employing more
than 100 workers to take the govern-
ments assent for retrenching even a single
worker. It has been argued that the diffi-
culty of adjusting labour in response to
T
he organised manufacturing sector falling product demand, burdens the
in Indiaconsisting of those facto- employer with a fixed cost. In response,
ries that employ 10 workers using firms prefer to substitute capital for
power, or 20 without using power labour, leading to widespread unemploy-
employs about 3% of the workforce, ment. Further, it is believed, economic
while producing about 11% of the gross growth is foregone as India is unable to
domestic output (Mehrotra, Gandhi and reap the benefits of its comparative advan-
Sahoo 2012). This small fraction of the tage in labour-intensive manufactures due
workforce is often perceived as a steep to inflexibilities in the market structure
island of privileged workers with high (World Bank 1989; Ahluwalia 1992).
wages and job security, shielded from Social security legislations, enacted in
the complexities of the competitive labour order to ensure the welfare of the organ-
market by institutional regulations. Hence, ised working class, are however less dis-
the primary contention against them is cussed (Table 1). Non-wage benefits are
that these workers secure a dispropor- paid to workers either through a cost to
tionate share of the economys growth employers or a joint contribution of both
process, at the expense of the interests the employer and the employees.
of the wider economy and society. Clearly India has ample provisions to
Several laws seemingly protect the ensure the welfare of its organised work-
rights of these workers (Table 1). The ing class. But, what do these legislations
primary focus of the debate on labour achieve? Further, the long list of laws gives
Table 1: Labour Laws: Domain and Purpose
Law Domain Purpose
The Factories Act, 1948 10 or more workers with power/ Adequate health, safety and
20 or more without power welfare measures
The Payment of Wages Act, 1936 10 or more workers with power/ Regular and prompt payment of
20 or more without power wages and prevention of
exploitation of workers
The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 20 or more workers 8.33% of total wage payment
The Industrial Employment Specific employment as defined Regulation of conditions of
(Standing Orders) Act, 1946 in the Payment of Wages Act recruitment, discharge, disciplinary
and the Factories Act action and leave; subsistence
allowance to workers under
suspension pending domestic enquiry
The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 Organised sector Improvement of industrial relations
The Employees Organised sector workers, not Compensation for injury, death or
Compensation Act, 1923 covered by Employees State disablement caused at work
Insurance (ESI) Act
The Employees Provident 20 or more workers 12% of wages as Provident Fund to
Funds and Miscellaneous employees
Provisions Act, 1952
The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 10 or more workers Gratuity on termination of
employment
The Employees State 10 or more workers with power/ Medical care and cash benefits
Insurance (ESI) Act, 1948 20 or more without power
The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 Women in factories employing Maternity leave, medical bonus
10 or more workers, except
those covered under ESI
Source: Indian Labour Yearbook 201213, Labour Bureau.
january 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

the impression that they add a huge cost to
the employer. Is that really the case? In a
bid to evade regulations, employers are
increasingly shifting to smaller-sized esta-
blishments. Further evidence of evasion
is found in the increasing incidence of out-
sourcing and contractualisation within
organised manufacturing. As the pur-
view of these laws does not extend to in-
formal workers, employers increasingly
raise the proportion of contract workers
hired in the total workforce to reduce
their production costs (Chakraborty 2015).
The enforcement of labour regulations
has, by and large, been poor and has
been attributed to a pro-employer politi-
cal climate, corruption and poor enforce-
ment of laws in a situation of excess
supply of labour.
In the face of such rampant evasion, it
is difficult to argue that rigidities are
emanating from the labour laws. The
Indian labour market has been quite
flexible despite all the concern about
regulation. Even during the phase of
jobless growth, one group of industries
witnessed a surge in employment while
another saw a decline resulting in a net
effect of employment stagnation. These
differences indicate that labour market
rigidities do not operate across the board
(Kannan and Raveendran 2009). Despite
little change in labour laws since liberali-
sation, employment regimes, instead of
remaining static, have been changing
furtively to accommodate more and
more informal workers. The result has
been an expanding informal segment
a group with no social security bene-
fitswithin the population of workers
protected by rigid and pro-worker
laws (Chak raborty 2015). With large
sections of the workforce effectively
being left out of the scope of labour reg-
ulations, holding these laws responsible
for rigidities in the market, and there-
by for poor employment and output
growth seems fallacious.
Citing these rigidities, the Labour
Code on Wages Bill 2015 was drafted by
the Ministry of Labour and Employment
in March last year, in an attempt to rec-
oncile 44 different labour laws into four
main codes. By the provisions, only state
governments, and not the union govern-
ment, will have the power to fix minimum
Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 16, 2016
NOTES
wages. The bill also Figure 1: Trends in Per Capita Income and Industrial Real Wage
proposes to combine 200
Real wages and per capita income in Rs
the Industrial Dis-
putes Act, 1947, the 150
Trade Unions Act,
Industrial wage
1926 and the Indus-
trial Employment 100
Per capita income
(Standing Orders)
Act, 1946. Most not- 50
ably, it provides for
the dilution of exist-
0
ing restrictions on
198182
198384
198586
198788
198990
199192
199394
199596
199798
19992000
200102
200304
200506
200708
200910
201112
laying off workers in
Chapter V-B of the
Industrial Disputes Source: Annual Survey of Industries (various issues), Agricultural Wages in India (various
Act. Factories with issues), National Accounts Statistics, RBIs Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy.
less than 100 workers can lay off workers an industrial worker, relative to the rest
without state permission; the new code of society. Moreover, if these workers
proposes to change the threshold from indeed form an island of high wages,
100 to 300 workers, all in an attempt to it must be reflected in a growing gap
ensure greater flexibility in the labour between industrial wage and per capita
market. income.
The International Labour Organization The level of industrial real wage (base
(ILO), however, concurring with trade 200405=100) has always been higher
unions, is opposing the bill. They are than that of per capita income, expectedly
concerned mainly that states will con- for reasons of human capital variables,
tinuously reduce (or will not revise) but the gap between them has declined
minimum wages in order to compete in recent years (Figure 1). While real per
with each other. Further, the ILO noted capita income increased steadily over
that the provisions aimed at simplifying the years, industrial real wage stagnated
hiring and firing of workers are detri- since its initial rise. For almost 25 years
mental to workers welfare (Jha 2015). between 198586 and 200910, it fluctu-
Additionally, the stricter norms proposed ated almost entirely within the Rs 160
for the formation of trade unions are Rs 170 range. Though still above per
contrary to the principle of freedom of capita income, a worker today is rela-
association, it is argued. tively much worse off than he or she was
Reviewing the main currents of this in the 1980s, as is indicated by the
debate, this study provides fresh evidence closing gap between the two trends.
on wages in the organised manufactur- In 198182, the industrial worker was
ing sector to capture how a worker fares more than four times as well-off as the
compared to the rest of society. It looks average individual. By 201213, this
at wages from the perspective of the em- figure had come down to 1.7 times the
ployeras a cost of production deter- latter. This difference is attributed to the
mining profitability. And also presents erratic growth rate of industrial wage,
evidence on the non-wage benefits. falling below that of per capita income
for the most part. Industrial wage grew
A Small, Steep Island? at a rate of 0.82% per year, over our
If the contention against workers in the period of studyless than a quarter
organised manufacturing sector is true, times that of per capita income (which
the industrial real wage should exhibit grew at 3.6% per year). The diminishing
a persistently increasing trend, with a gap between the two questions the view
growth rate higher than that of wages that the organised manufacturing work-
in other sectors. Comparing it with per force amasses a disproportionate share
capita income (representative of the pur- of the economic growth process. Having
chasing power of an average individual discussed wages from the perspective of
in the economy) reveals the status of incomes to workers, we now turn to the
vol lI no 3 81
NOTES
Figure 2: Productivity and Nominal Wage employers would want to employeeswithin the organised man-
6,000 keep unit labour cost low ufacturing sector (for further details see
Nominal productivity and wage

5,000 while workers hope for the Chakraborty 2015).

4,000 contrary. Prior to finding The organised manufacturing sector
Productivity
3,000 the trend exhibited by was able to achieve a growth rate owing
in Rs

2,000 the unit labour cost, we mainly to high labour productivity and a
Nominal wage
1,000 examine the trends of its gradual move towards capital-intensive
0 individual components. production (Kannan and Raveendran
198182
198384
198586
198788
198990
199192
199394
199596
199798
19992000
200102
200304
200506
200708
200910
201112
Nominal productivity of 2009). In this process, capital appropri-
labour, measured as gross ated a greater share of the production
Source: ASI (various issues).
value added1 per worker, surplus, resulting in a declining share of
in organised manufactur- wages. This, coupled with the slow growth
Figure 3: Share of Labour Cost in Total Cost of Production (%) ing has been increasing at in real wages observed in the previous
8
a rate much higher than section, points to an unambiguous decline
6 that of nominal wage. in the bargaining power of workers.
While the two were almost The total earnings of a worker typically
6
equal in 198182, by 2012 consist of two partsthe wage compo-
5 13 productivity was over nent and the non-wage benefits. The
4 15.5 times that of wage discussion so far pertained to the former.
19992000

200001

200102

200203

200304

200405

200506

200607

200708

200809

200910

201011

201112

(Figure 2). In addition to the wage that a worker

Between 198182 and receives for work performed, he or she is
201213, nominal produc- entitled to certain social security bene-
Source: Report on Absenteeism, Labour Turnover, Employment and Labour Cost
published by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Labour Bureau (various issues). tivity grew at a rate of fits as per law. These benefits, however,
Figure 4: Proportion of Factories Employing Contract Workers (%) roughly 13.5% per year, extend only to workers in the organised
30 while nominal wage grew manufacturing sector, who are said to
at a much lower rate of enjoy undue privileges at the cost of
8.5% per year. Nominal the rest of society.
20
wage has not been able to
keep up with the growth Are They Really Privileged?
10
in productivity and this Despite all the allegations about the
divergence in their trends rigidity of the Indian labour market, the
0 is evidence of workers government is hesitant to introduce
200304 200405 200506 200607 200708 200809 200910 201011
receiving less than pro- drastic reforms in anticipation of fierce
Source: Same as Figure 3.
portionate benefits from resistance from trade unions. In view of
Figure 5: Proportions of Man-days Worked by and Paid to Contract the process of economic this, employers find ways to evade these
Workers (%)
40 growth. Consequently, unit laws by hiring a growing proportion of
Proportion of man-days worked by contract workers labour cost declined at a contractual workers. Social security
rate of 4.3% per year over benefits extend only to workers in the
30
the entire period of study, organised sector and employers often
indicative of employers re- try to shirk this additional cost by dele-
Proportion of man-days paid to contract workers
20 taining a large part of the gating work to the informal sector. As a
productivity increase. result, informal sector employment grows
10
Just as falling unit at the cost of the organised manufactur-
200304 200405 200506 200607 200708 200809 200910 201011 labour cost is indicative of ing sector (Figure 4).
Source: Same as Figure 3. workers getting a smaller Between 200304 and 201011, the
employers perspectivehow has the share of the output, so is a falling pro- proportion of factories employing contract
movement in wages affected profitability portion of labour cost in total cost of pro- workers increased steadily from 21.7% to
of the firm? duction. From 7.84% in 19992000, it 28.3%. The proportion of man-days
declined to 5.81% in 200405, and has worked by contract workers also steadily
Wage as Cost to Employers remained fairly stable since (Figure 3). went up from 23.01% to 33.48%, while
The unit labour cost, given by the ratio Again, this may be indicative of a substi- the proportion of man-days paid to them
of nominal wage to labour productivity, tution of capital for labour and an in- rose from 21.32% to 32.11% (Figure 5).
is indicative of a firms profitability. A crease in the rental rate at the expense of Interestingly, the latter has consistently
falling unit labour cost indicates greater wage. Further, it is also evidence for the remained below the former, indicative
competitiveness, higher market share expanding informal sectorthat rece- of contract workers receiving wages less
and greater growth expectations. Clearly, ives much less wages than permanent than proportionate to their contribution
82 january 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 NOTES

to the production process. The gap be- 4% in 201112. Similarly, Figure 6: Proportion of Non-wage Payments in Total Payments
tween the two has been quite persistent, that of provident fund to30Workers (%)

showing no improvement in the status of and other fundsstipu- Total non-wage

contract workers. lated at 12%declined 25
Since wages of informal workers are from 11.5% to 6.2%. Pro-
typically much lower than that of formal portion of workmen wel- 20
workers, increasing informalisation means fare has remained fairly Provident fund and other funds
a decreasing share of labour in total value stable, confined more or 15
Workmen and staff welfare expense
added, and an increasing share of capital. less to the range of 6%
From the macroeconomic point of view 8% of total wage pay- 10
this can create the effective demand ment. In the aggregate,
5
problem in the economy, which in turn the proportion of non-
could affect the prospect of growth in wage components exhi- Bonus
0
output and employment (Chakraborty bits a downward trend

19992000

200001

200102

2002 03

200304

200405

200506

200607

200708

200809

200910

201011

201112
2015). Unless the incomes at the lowest (Figure 6). Clearly, there
end of the employment spectrum are is a gross violation of the
protected, the demand for mass con- labour laws on social Source: Same as Figure 3.
sumption goods may not rise. Therefore, security of workers, pro- Figure 7: Proportion of Factories Paying Various Non-wage Benefits (%)
the kind of trend in the shift in labour viding evidence contra- 76
Workmen and staff welfare expense
force from agriculture to non-agriculture dicting the popular no- 74
Provident fund and other funds
that we observe in the Indian economy tion that these privi-
72
can hardly be seen as a positive develop- leged workers receive
70
ment, since most of them end up in the an array of benefits dis-
unorganised or informal sector where proportionate to their 68
Bonus
earnings are low, work conditions are contribution to economic 66
generally dismal, and there is always growth. On the contrary,
64
the fear of termination of work in casual it makes one wonder
19992000

200001

200102

200203

200304

200405

200506

200607

200708

200809

200910

201011

employment.
This peculiar phenomenon of an
expanding informal segment within the
organised sector workers effectively re-
duces the proportion of employees enti-
tled to non-wage benefits (Chak raborty
2015). The contribution of non-wage ben-
efits to total payment to workers has
been a point of contention in India. It is
often suggested that pressures from trade
unionisation has led to a large proportion
of non-wage payments. To examine this
position, we use data from the Report on
Absenteeism, Labour Turnover, Employ-
ment and Labour Cost published by the
Ministry of Labour and Employment,
Labour Bureau. It publishes the break-up
of wage components, that is, wage/salary,
bonus, provident fund and other funds,
and workmen and staff welfare expens-
es. It also reports the proportion of facto-
ries paying these benefits to workers.
Due to lack of continuous data for previ-
ous years, the discussion is confined to
the period 19992000 onwards.
Against the stipulated minimum bonus
of 8.33% of total wage payment, the actual
payment is around 6% in 19992000.
This number subsequently declined to
Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 16, 2016
201112
about the fate of the
majority of the labour
force that falls outside Source: Report on Absenteeism, Labour Turnover, Employment and Labour Cost
published by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Labour Bureau.
the purview of such laws.
What is appalling is that while the workers over the years. The organised
proportion of non-wage benefits has manufacturing sector caters to an extre-
clearly been on a downward trend for mely limited section of the workforce
over a decade, claims are made that an even here not all employers comply with
increasing non-wage share puts pres- such laws.
sure on employers (Sabharwal 2014). In The proportion of factories paying
several of his popular newspaper columns, bonuses to workers has declined steadily
Sabharwal argues the injustice of a system from a high of 72.61% in 19992000 to
which requires employers to confiscate 64.27% in 201112 (Figure 7). Those of
45% of a workers salary in lieu of social provident fund and other funds, and
security funds. The absurdity of this figure workmen and staff welfare expenses,
is reflected in the following: even in the however, exhibit a slight U-shaped
aggregate, the proportion of non-wage trend. Comparing the end points, we
benefits is a mere 17.4% of wages, while observe that their values have remained
the part that the employer confiscates fairly stable.
as provident fund stands at a bare 6% Thus, on the whole, the proportion of
only half of the mandated minimum. workers receiving social security bene-
We now turn to the proportion of fits has declined unambiguously. More-
factories that actually pay these benefits. over, even the employers that pay these
Factories in the organised sector are benefits do not abide by the mandated
required to pay non-wage benefits to minimum. This phenomenon, over the
their workers. However, employers find last three decades, may be suggestive of
ways to get around them quite easily, as a substitutability of wage and non-wage
is evidenced by a greater incidence of components. As employers are obliged
contractual workers vis--vis permanent to pay a wage higher than the mandated
vol lI no 3 83
NOTES
minimum wage (though the number of
employers actually abiding by this norm
is questionable), it may be argued they
curtail non-wage benefits to balance out
the total payment (Sharma 2006). With
the wage component growing at 0.82%
per year over our period of study, and
the non-wage component declining at
(-)0.18% per year, total wage or payment
to workers has grown at a rate
of roughly 0.64% per year. Minimum
wages have been repeatedly revised
upwards, and yet real wages have
grown sluggishly, supporting our claim.
Constrained by a lower limit for wages,
there seems to be operating a substitu-
tion between wage and non-wage com-
ponents. When the economy is booming,
wages tend to increase along with pro-
ductivity. But during a downturn, when
productivity is low, wages cannot be ad-
justed accordingly due to downward
rigidity. Thus, labour costs pose a burden
on employers and they may tend to cur-
tail non-wage benefits in order to com-
pensate for this added burden.
Concluding Remarks
Piecing together evidence, this study
establishes that contrary to the popular
view and policymakers belief, organised
sector workers are far from a privileged
aristocracy. The structure of employment
Review of Womens Studies
Rethinking Violence
Locating Hyderabad for Feminism in the Present Struggle against Violence
Rape as Atrocity in Contemporary Haryana
Reporting Sexual Violence in India: What Has Changed since the Delhi Gang Rape?
Gathering Steam: Organising Strategies of the Indian Mens Rights Movement
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence
Some Thoughts on Extreme Violence and the Imagination
320321, A to Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013.
84
has changed substantially since liberali-
sation despite unchanging labour laws;
in particular, an increasing share of
informal workers are being accommo-
dated. The result is a peculiar pheno-
menon of a large informal segment
with no social securityexisting within
the organised sector that is considered
the most privileged lot of workers. The
organised manufacturing sector is con-
stantly under threat from the urban infor-
mal sector, contradicting the view of the
organised sector as a small, steep and
rising island of privileged workers.
With large sections of the workforce
effectively being left out of the scope of
labour regulations, it is difficult to justify
the role of these laws in creating rigidi-
ties in the market, and thereby poor
employment and output growth on their
basis. Citing these alleged rigidities to
reject legislations and move towards
complete flexibility would be incorrect.
Further, in a developing economy such
as Indias, the states role as arbitrator in
the labour market to ensure protection of
workers and redistribution of the fruits of
economic growth cannot be disregarded.
The challenge then is to develop a system
which ensures economic and social secu-
rity of workers, including those employed
in the informal sector, without compro-
mising on the efficiency of the industry.
October 31, 2015
Maranatha Grace T Wahlang, Gitanjali Joshua
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression
For copies, write to:
Circulation Manager,
Economic and Political Weekly,
Email: circulation@epw.in
january 16, 2016
note
1 Gross value added is preferred to net value
added for the computation of nominal labour
productivity as depreciation charges are known to
be highly arbitrary, fixed by income tax authori-
ties and fail to capture actual consumption
(Goldar 1986).
References
Ahluwalia, I (1992): Productivity and Growth in
Indian Manufacturing, New Delhi: Oxford
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Chakraborty, A (2015): Reforming Labour Markets
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Goldar, B (1986): Import Substitution, Industrial
Concentration and Productivity Growth in
Indian Manufacturing, Oxford Bulletin of Eco-
nomics and Statistics, Vol 48, No 2, pp 14364.
Jha, S (2015): Govts Labour Reforms Remove Shield
for Workers: ILO, Business Standard, 17 June.
Kannan, K P and G Raveendran (2009): Growth
sans Employment: A Quarter Century of Jobless
Growth in Indias Organised Manufacturing,
Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 44, No 10.
Mehrotra, S, A Gandhi and B K Sahoo (2012):
Organized and Unorganized Employment in
the Non-agricultural Sectors in the 2000s,
Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Vol 55, No 2.
Nagaraj, R (2006): Industrial Wages and Produc-
tivity, 19512002: Some Fresh Evidence, paper
presented at the International Conference on
Development in Open Economies: Industry and
Labour, Academy of Third World Studies,
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, 68 March.
Sabharwal, M (2014): Pains of the Pay Cheque,
Indian Express, 25 November.
Sharma, A N (2006): Flexibility, Employment and
Labour Market Reforms in India, Economic &
Political Weekly, Vol 41, No 21.
World Bank (1989): India: Poverty, Employment and
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ments.worldbank.org/curated/en/1989/12/43-
7491/india-poverty-employment-social-services.
Mary E John
Tejaswini Madabhushi,
Divya Arya
Srimati Basu
Flavia Agnes, Audrey DMello
V Geetha
vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
DISCUSSION
NSSO 71st Round Data on
Health and Beyond
Questioning Frameworks of Analysis
T Sundararaman, V R Muraleedharan, Indranil Mukhopadhyay
The overarching policy question
in private expenditure on
health that we should all be
addressing is, What must the
government do to reduce the
debilitating (financial) effects
of out-of-pocket healthcare
expenditure of people?
A response to a comment
(EPW, 21 November 2015) on
the authors earlier piece
(EPW, 15 August 2015).
T Sundararaman (sundararaman.t@gmail.
com) teaches at the School of Health Systems
Studies, TISS, Mumbai; V R Muraleedharan
(vrm@iitm.ac.in) at the Department of
Humanities and Social Sciences and Centre for
Technology and Policy, IIT (Madras), Chennai
and Indranil Mukhopadhyay (indranil.m@phfi.
org) is senior research associate with Public
Health Foundation of India, New Delhi.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
I
n response to our earlier commentary
on the National Sample Survey Of-
fices (NSSO) 71st Round (EPW, 15 Au-
gust 2015), Nishant Jain et al (in short,
NASK in EPW, 21 November 2015) have en-
gaged in an important and valuable debate
on the interpretation and policy implica-
tions of NSSO 71st round data. The specific
objectives of our commentary were to
(a) illustrate the usefulness of the NSSOs
71st survey to policymaking process in
health, (b) cull out evidence on the out-of-
pocket (OOP) spending on health and on
the inadequate coverage through govern-
ment schemes, and (c) suggest ways to im-
prove our evidence base in the future.
The overarching purpose was to em-
phasise the urgent need to reduce the over-
whelming financing risks on the people,
particularly on the poorer sections of the
country, arising out of increasing OOP
expenses made t0wards healthcare. The
policy question we should all be address-
ing can be put as follows: What must the
government do to reduce the debilitat-
ing (financial) effects of out-of-pocket
healthcare expenditure of people in
India? We presume, NASK would not be
in disagreement with this formulation of
what we consider as one among the
most critical policy questions that we
should address in the Indian context.
In this piece, we shall (a) clarify some
our earlier observations and (b) advance
further evidence and arguments (which
are partially in the nature of a rebuttal
to NASK) in support of the important
policy question mentioned above.
Critical Issues
Let us first address the critical issues:
(1) We begin with two issues which have
been raised that directly relate to NSSO
data and its methodology. We note that
vol lI no 3
the categorisation of self-care as medical
treatment makes no difference to com-
parability of prevalence rate, nor to choice
of provider. Self-care accounts for only
around 12% of all episodes of care within
the last 15 days. The average medical
expenditure changes only marginally
when we exclude self-care, increasing
from Rs 609 to Rs 668, but this still
amounts to a significant increase over
previous rounds. Comparability there-
fore is quite possible and the changes
have no immediate implications for the
issues under discussion.
(2) We do not agree that collection of in-
formation incurred on treatment based on
a paid approach instead of a payable
approach limits us from being able to
comment on cashless health insurance.
Indeed, our whole contention is that a
cashless health insurance as (where) no
money is paid by households from their
pocket in these cases is almost in the
nature of a myth. The NSSO 71st round
data does allow us to examine whether
households which have insurance cover-
age and are aware of it experience cash-
less service or even significant degrees
of financial protection in terms of OOP
expenditure as compared to those who
have no insurance coverage. The authors
are correct in stating that an attribution
of reimbursement directly to the patients
as the only measure of effective coverage
is flawed. We clarify that the low levels of
reimbursement made directly to clients
are useful only to state that the expenditure
being counted as OOP expenditure is not
altered significantly by such reimburse-
ments. In Table 1 (p 86) we show the dif-
ferences in net paid OOP expendi-
ture after deducting any such reimburse-
ments. There are many clarifications that
need to be made regarding Table 1 such
as the relationship between income cat-
egories and nature of insurance cover-
age, the significance between mean and
median, but that all of these would only
further reiterate our central point that
there is a major difference between
nominally covered by (registered in) a
cashless insurance scheme and effective
coverage (proportion of those who are
registered, required hospitalisation and
85
DISCUSSION

got significant financial protection). Let and not have any nave belief in markets as immunisation, vector control and dis-
alone cashless care, in publicly financed and individual choice being able to ease surveillance), and in addition, also
insurance schemes, the difference in attend to this. Much higher degrees of covers a substantial portion of medical
net OOP expenditure experienced bet- government intervention and institu- and nursing education and yet other
ween those with insurance cover and tional capacity are required. functions like the medico-legal.
those without insurance seeking private (4) NASK agree that from a patients We therefore would like to argue that
Table 1: Average OOP Expenditure per Hospitalisation by Provider out-of-pocket expenditure the expenditure on health care by govern-
Type and by Different Insurance Categories in Last 365 Days perspective, the net out- ments (union and state) has increased
(excluding hospitalised deaths)
Scheme Provider Mean Median N
flow is much lower in the by more than four times in nominal
(Rs) (Rs) public hospital than in the terms, but the share of patient load for
Government-funded Public 2,817 900 4,030 private ones. However hospitalised care in government facilities
insurance scheme (ex RSBY, Private 18,081 10,200 4,235
Arogyasri, CGHS, ESIS, etc) Total 10,943 3,550 8,265 they argue that while the has remained practically static in rural
Employer supported health Public 4,301 1,250 260 cost to a household in a areas (41.7% to 41.9%) and steadily
protection (other than Private 19,441 7,200 566 public hospital does not decline in the urban areas between the
government) Total 15,463 5,600 826 represent the full cost of 60th and 71st round survey is quite mis-
Arranged by household with Public 11,596 1,500 91 service, the outgo at the leading. The correlation that NASK make
insurance companies Private 19,688 8,000 814
Total 19,188 7,450 905 private hospital represents between the recent increase in public
Others Public 2,608 2,000 52 the true opportunity costs health expenditure and the stagnating
Private 14,106 5,250 120 of availing the medical public share of hospitalisation misses
Total 10,842 3,700 172 services. This is so because this understanding altogether. A rupee
Not covered Public 4,560 1,402 21,833 of subsidies built into spent in an insurance scheme buys a
Private 22,912 11,500 23,025
Total 14,436 5,100 44,858 public healthcare delivery rupee worth of hospitalisation. A rupee
OOP expenditure includes all medical expenses and patient transport. N is the actual such as salaries of doctors, spent as public health expenditure buys
sample size without weightages. Costs of care are calculated with weightages. and paramedical staff, cost a large bundle of public goods of which
Source: Authors computation from unit records of NSSO 71st round.
of land, building, equip- subsidy on patient care is a small part.
healthcare is too limited to be consid- ment, etc. The implication is that if all This is not said in praise of the public
ered as meaningful financial protection. costs are counted for, it would be equally services, but it acknowledges the need
(or more?) efficient to provide financial for much greater public investment.
Assessment of Insurance protection through purchase of care from
(3) The NSSO 71st round is not an evalua- private sector. We had limited ourselves Private v Public Expenditure
tion of the insurance schemes. But it does to the patients perspective, as this is the (5) The NASK commentary almost ex-
draw attention to this wide gap between meaning of financial protection and this claims: it is quite inexplicable why
nominal coverage and effective cover- is what the NSSO data can comment on. households across income group choose
age and this is consistent with most oth- But now that NASK have raised this ques- to go to private hospitals despite the ex-
er evaluations of government-financed tion, let us point out some of the problems penditure on private hospital being over
insurance schemes (Selvaraj et al 2015; of this contention with regard to efficien- four times that of public hospital. Let us
Ghosh 2014; Nandy et al 2013). It does cy. First, many private sector hospitals reiterate and elaborate the explanation
indicate the need for a great caution to also receive public subsidy in terms of we had earlier suggested.
policymakers before they invest more in land costs, equipment, tax concessions, We had noted earlier that a major driver
insurance schemes as compared to invest- not to speak of subsidised medical educa- of this increased public expenditure was
ing in public health serviceswhich on tion, etc. Second, more importantly, public through the National Rural Health Mission
the other hand show a clear protective healthcare systems provide far more whose focus, even on health systems
effect. We would, in line with the draft than hospitalisation care. We know that strengthening, was largely on improving
National Health Policy 2015, call for a of total health expenditure, roughly 28% delivery of select reproductive and child
re-conceptulalisation of public provision- is public health expenditure (2010), and health (RCH) services (Draft National
ing of healthcare services as a form the rest is mainly OOP expenditure. But Health Policy, 2015 or NHP, paras 2.6, 2.7,
of tax-paid insurance or prepayment this 28% that government spends on pp 6 and 7), and within this in improving
whose efficiency, quality and accounta- healthcare covers 28% of all rural out- institutional delivery. Therefore the main
bility need to be improved. To the ex- patient care, 21% of all urban out-patient positive finding in the survey is the dramat-
tent that publicly-funded insurance is care, about 42% of all rural inpatient ic increase in institutional deliveries, from
going to be essential to engage the large care, 32% of all urban inpatient care, 36% a decade ago to 80% now. Why would
private sector and supplement public about 70% of all institutional delivery in we expect any increase in urban areas
sector provisioning, the message from rural areas and 40% in urban areas, and when the increase in public expenditure
NSSO 71 and other evaluations is that we almost 100% of all preventive and pro- was only for rural areas? We know that the
need to show greater concern about ac- motive care services (which includes a Urban Health Mission was launched only in
countability in the private sector too, very wide basket of public services such 2013 and by 2014, when this survey was
86 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

conducted, it was only in the very early
stages of implementation and without any
significant increase in the resource enve-
lope. And why would we expect a general
increase of in-patients even in rural areas,
when there is no significant increase in re-
source allocation for trauma care or for
non-communicable disease or for commu-
nicable diseases other than those three or
four diseases which are part of national dis-
ease control programmes? What we meas-
ure as outputs must correlate with what the
government spent on and intended to do.
Otherwise, it represents not a mere analyti-
cal slip, but a gross error in assessing the
value of public programmes and exposes
lack of even simple heuristic ability expect-
ed of policy analysers.
(6) NASK do take note that this remarka-
ble success of National Rural Health Mis-
sion in ensuring that 80% of all deliveries
in the rural areas are now happening in a
hospital or a health center compared to
36% a decade ago, and that government
hospitals account for 70% of the overall de-
liveries in rural areas but then go on to
state that maternity incentive pro-
grammes like Janani Suraksha Yojana
(JSY) and Janani Shishu Suraksha Kar-
yakaram (JSSK)offering cash incentives
to women and Accredited Social Health
Activist (ASHA) workers for incentivising
institutional deliveries in government hos-
pitals, may not apply and might not even
be fiscally prudent or sustainable for a
wide range of healthcare services. There
are several problems with this line of argu-
ment. The JSSK is a programme that
finances public facilities for improved qual-
ity of delivery services in healthcare facili-
ties and reducing oop expenditure on such
care. It is not an incentive paid to either
ASHAs or pregnant women. The JSY is a
demand-side financing effort, but as one
major evaluation of JSY showed (NHSRC
2011), it is best understood as an effort that
helped improve access by overcoming the
financial barriers to seeking care and by
bringing pressure on public systems to pro-
vide these services. This evaluation also
showed that though much reduced, there
was still significant oop expenditure, even
in public facilities, which is a finding reiter-
ated in NSSO 71st round as well.
The ASHA incentive is a performance-
based payment made for her providing a
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016
package of services. Most sources would
agree that the ASHA is severely under-paid
for the wide and varied work performed
by her and that the bulk of any income
she gets in most states is only from the
so-called JSY incentive. Most political and
civil society voices have called for a regu-
lar and higher level of payment to her for
these services. But in the ideological
framework of analysis, such payments
get labelled as lack of fiscal prudence.
The NSSO 71st round data cannot speak
on whether investment should be in the
form of incentives to ASHAs or through
paying premiums to insurance compa-
nies for purchasing care from private sec-
tor. We only drew attention to this mod-
est correlationthat in the preceding
seven years, the government invested its
money in providing assured delivery ser-
vices in rural areasand the data shows
an increase in rural areas. The govern-
ment did not make investment in urban
areas or in non-communicable disease
and the NSSO data also shows no signifi-
cant increase in government provisioning
in these areas. It is true that the NRHM
framework document talks of general
strengthening of all services, but the
health sector leadership can reflect on
this data to understand better that what
was actually financed and implemented
was much more selective than what was
intended at one level of policymaking.
(7) A policy background to our interpre-
tation is that selective investment in
some elements of RCH and communica-
ble disease care and the neglect of the
public system is not merely an aberration
of implementation or a matter of holding
providers accountable. This is the policy
design and intent. Since the early 1990s,
one continuing thrust in all health sector
programmes and in most internationally
financed programmes is the insistence on
selective healthcare, where government
provisioning is restricted to a very nar-
row and highly selective package of care.
To quote the infamous 1993 World Bank
Report, Investing in Health:
Beyond a well-defined package of essential
services, therefore, the role of the govern-
ment in clinical services should be limited
to improving the capacity of insurance and
healthcare markets to provide discretionary
care whether through private or through
social insurance. Poorer countries must, of
vol lI no 3
DISCUSSION
necessity, define their essential packages
more narrowly (World Bank 1993: 57).
(8) NRHM made some hesitant efforts to
reverse this selective care policy in its
early years, but after the 11th Plan period,
it returned even more vigorously to a
RCH focus. As different states go into a
demographic and epidemiological transi-
tion, as non-communicable diseases
(NCDs) begin to account for major share
of morbidity and mortality, the mis-
match between the services prioritised
in public healthcare facilities and the
needs faced by people are likely to widen.
Of the 12 states that showed an increase
in private sector hospitalisation in rural,
in nine states such a transition has
already occurred. This mismatch is true
for households in higher economic status
also. No doubt, lack of quality contrib-
utes to the situation, but so does the epi-
demiological shift to NCDs and the lack
of services to address these at the pri-
mary care level, and availability of the
full range of services only in grossly
overcrowded public mega-hospitals. Sel-
ective care must be construed as a pas-
sive form of privatisation when the state
withdrew from investment, except in a
small set of priorities. Can the NSSO 71st
round establish this? Certainly notno
more than it can establish that the choice
to go to a private provider is a choice
made only on quality considerations.
But certainly there are enough grounds
to consider this framework of analysis,
and for policymakers to increase invest-
ments in the provision of public primary
care services for chronic illness, and for
trauma and emergency care.
Rise in Public Health Outlay?
(9) Given the dismal state of public
health in India after nearly two decades
of structural adjustment-driven health
sector reforms, the increase in NRHM was
on such a low base line that even after the
so-called four-fold increase it remains
subcritical. All key policy documents,
whether it is the National Health Policy
draft of 2002 or the draft policy of 2015 or
the 12th Five Year Plan or the Report of
the High Level Expert Group, have em-
phasised the need to increase govern-
ment spending on health to a minimum
in the range of 2.5% of the gross domestic
87
DISCUSSION
Figure 1: Unions Spending on Health as % of GDPOn a Slippery Slope possible error in such best explains what systems are designed
computations.) We are to deliver. Public systems are designed
0.32 0.33
0.31
0.30
not sure of the exact and financed to deliver and provide
0.28
0.27
basis of Table 3 in financial protection for a very limited
0.25
0.23
NASks commentary. range of services with a limited level of
But noting that they quality and this they do. Insurance pro-
provide data for 2014 grammes could be understood as desig-
15, where the actual ned to provide an economic stimulus to
expenditure figures are both insurance and private healthcare
not yet available, it industry (Virk and Atun 2015), while
could be based on the providing a semblance of financial pro-
200809 200910 201011 201112 201213 201314 201415 201516
RE BE revised estimates. Ac- tection. For this it does.
Actual expenditure for the last two years are likely to be much less than projected in tual expenditures tend At a time when there is a serious crisis
this figure.
Source: Union Budget: Expenditure Budget various years; www.indiabudget.nic.in, to be much lower. In in public health due to falling and fail-
accessed on 07.06.15 Table 2 we show that ing public investments, an interpreta-
product (GDP). What this so-called four- at constant (200405) prices, the increase tion that is dismissive of the very limited
fold increase represents is an increase in between 200506 and 201314 expendi- efforts made at strengthening public
public health expenditure from about 0.9 ture is just about two times! Further, the services or characterises it as fiscal im-
% in 2005 to about 1.04% in 2011 (Plan- major part of the increase is during the prudence only serves to justify further
ning Commission, Government of India early years of NRHM. In the period since decreases of government investment
2012, Volume III, para 20.3.5: 3). With re- 2011, central government expenditures in into one of the worlds worst-funded
gard to the NRHM, the National Health real terms and as a proportion of GDP have public health systems.
Policy 2015 draft admits that the budget again started declining (Figure 1). The union We welcome the opportunity to clarify
received and the expenditure there under governments spending on health as a and reiterate our views in these columns.
was only about 40% of what was envis- percentage of GDP is the lowest in last four
aged for a full re-vitalisation in the NRHM decades, even lower than the early 1990s. References
Framework (NHP2015, para 2.8: 7). (11) Where we do not disagree with NAsK: Ghosh, S (2014): Publicly-Financed Health Insur-
ance for the Poor Understanding RSBY in
(10) Even this more than four-fold We agree that the NSSO 71st round has se- Maharashtra, Economic & Political Weekly,
increase that is repeatedly referred to rious limitations for certain types of inter- Vol XLIX, Nos 43 and 44, pp 9399.
by NASK requires a closer inquiry. Our pretations, the need for building a more Jain, Nishant, Alok Kumar, Sunil Nandraj and Kheya
Melo Furtado (2015): NSSO 71st Round: Same
tables for 200506 to 201314 based on robust database on healthcare in India, the Data, Multiple Interpretations, Economic & Poli-
actual expenditures show a much more need to pay greater attention to enforcing tical Weekly, Vol L, Nos 46 and 47, 21 November.
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (2015):
modest picture of the increase, especially accountability, particularly where public GOI, National Health Policy-2015; Draft,
when compared to other macroeconomic money is spent on behalf of the poorer sec- http://mohfw.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/
parameters like GDP and inflation. (We tions of the population, and above all the 35367973441419937754.pdf, accessed on 5 De-
cember 2015.
should take care that central transfers to governments role in reducing the impov- Nandi, A, A Ashok and R Laxminarayan (2013): The
states are not being double counteda erishing effects of OOP expenditures on Socioeconomic and Institutional Determinants
of Participation in Indias Health Insurance
Table 2: Trends in Public Spending on Health by healthcare on the poor in particular. Scheme for the Poor, PLoS ONE, Vol 8, No 6,
Union and State Governments: 200506 to 201314 e66296. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0066296.
(All figures in Rs crore) Conclusions National Health Systems Resource Center (2011):
Year All States Union Transfer Total Union Total Union Programme Evaluation of the Janani Surak-
to States and State and State Clearly there is a need for more careful sha Yojana, National Rural Health Mission.
(Current (Constant
Prices) 200405
costing studies to answer questions of Planning Commission (2012): XII Five Year Plan
(201217): Faster, More Inclusive and Sustaina-
Prices) relative efficiency and for increasing the ble Growth, Government of India, Volume 3,
200506 23,058 9,650 3,676 29,032 27,776 quality, efficiency and accountability in New Delhi.
200607 26,765 10,606 2,565 34,806 31,186 both the public and private sectors. Our Selvaraj, S, Anup Karan and I Mukhopadhyay
200708 30,359 14,410 3,464 41,306 34,784 (2015): Publicly-Financed Health Insurance
reading of the NSSO data makes us look Schemes in India: How Effective Are They in
200809 36,726 17,661 4,166 50,222 38,792 Providing Financial Risk Protection?, Social
beyond the popular myths and stereo-
200910 44,610 20,996 4,478 61,128 42,002 Development Report, 2014, Council For Social
types of times, where people choose pri- Development, New Delhi.
201011 54,218 24,450 4,984 73,684 45,848
201112 67,080 27,199 5,990 88,288 50,709
vate services because of its quality, Sundararaman, S and V R Muraleedharan (2015):
Falling Sick, Paying the Price, Economic &
201213 73,217 27,885 6,363 94,738 50,769 where insurance will solve problems of Political Weekly, Vol L, No 33, 15 August.
201314* 86,796 30,135 5,063 1,11,869 54,005 financial barriers they face and where Virk, A K and R Atun (2015): Towards Universal
* All figures represent actual expenditures except for 201314 the only problems of public services are Health Coverage in India: A Historical Exami-
where state expenditure which is revised estimate, while nation of the Genesis of Rashtriya Swasthya
union expenditure is in actuals; All states include states and
poor accountability despite the so-called Bima YojanaThe Health Insurance Scheme
UTs with legislature (Delhi and Puducherry). massive investments. for Low-income Groups; Public Health; 129;
Source: All state: State Finance: A Study of Budgets, various 81017.
years; Government of India: indiabudget.nic.in; Expenditure
In our framework of analysis what is World Bank (1993): World Development Report-1993,
Budget Vol 2, Transfers: indiabudget.nic.in, EB Vol 1. measured as being delivered by a system Investing in Health, Oxford University Press.

88 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

CURRENT STATISTICS EPW Research Foundation

Wholesale Price Index Foreign Trade

The year-on-year (y-o-y) inflation rate based on WPI stood at -1.99% in November The merchandise trade deficit narrowed by 39.8% to $9.8 billion (bn) in
2015. Thus, the deflationary trend persisted for 13 months in a row since November 2015, y-o-y. The non-oil trade deficit was valued at $5.5 bn in November
November 2014 (-0.17%). The inflation rate of primary articles group increased 2015 compared to $9.2 bn in a year ago, while the oil trade deficit stood was lower
by 2.3% in November 2015 compared to -0.4% in October 2015 and -1.6% in at $4.3 bn against $7 bn. Exports contracted for the 12th consecutive month in
November 2014. The inflation for food articles rose to 5.2% in November 2015, November 2015 by 24.4% to $20 bn from $26.5 bn in November 2014, and imports
the highest in the last 7 months. The fuel and power index remained negative at fell by 30.3% to $29.8 bn from $42.7 bn. Cumulative exports for AprilNovember
-11.1%, y-o-y, in November 2015. The index for manufactured products declined 2015 was $174.3 bn, 18.5% lower compared to $213.8 bn reported last year, while
by -1.4% in November 2015 against inflation of 1.9% a year ago. cumulative imports shrank by 17.2% to $261.9 bn from $316.3 bn.

Consumer Price Index Index of Industrial Production

The CPI inflation rate increased to 5.6%, y-o-y, in December 2015, from 5.4% in
November 2015 and 4.3% in December 2014. The food price inflation rate rose by
6.4%, in December 2015, compared to 6.1%, a month ago. The inflation rate in the
miscellaneous group inched up to 4% from 3.8%. CPI-rural inflation increased sharply
by 6.3% in December 2015 compared to 4.2% a year ago, similarly CPI-urban inflation
rate increased to 4.7% against 4.5% in December 2014. As per Labour Bureau data,
CPI inflation for agricultural labourers and industrial workers was 4.9% and 6.7%,
respectively, in November 2015 compared to 4.4% and 6.3% in October 2015.
The y-o-y growth in IIP contracted by (-)3.2% in November 2015 after rising to a high
of 9.9%, a month ago, and 5.2%, a year ago. The growth in the index of eight core
industries declined by (-)1.3% in November 2015 against 8.5% a year ago. Growth in
the production of crude oil and natural gas fell by (-)3.3% and (-)3.9%, respectively,
in November 2015 (it was -0.1% and -2.3%, a year ago), and the growth in refinery
products and coal production slowed down to 2.5% and 3.5%, respectively, from 8.1%
and 14.6%. Growth in steel and cement production declined by (-)8.4% and (-)1.8%,
respectively, in November 2015 against 9.9% and 10.5% in the previous year.

Movement of WPI Sub-indices April 2014November 2015 Merchandise Trade November 2015
Year-on-Year in % November 2015 Over Month Over Year (AprilNovember)
($ bn) (%) (%) (201516 over 201415) (%)
12
Exports 20.0 -6.3 -24.4 -18.5
6
Imports 29.8 -4.3 -30.3 -17.2
Manufactured Products Trade Deficit 9.8 0.1 -39.8 -14.6
2.3%
Data is provisional; Source: Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
0

Primary Articles -1.4% Trade Deficits April 2014November 2015

-6
$ billion
Fuel and Power
-11.1% 0
-12
Non-oil Trade Deficit
-3
-$4.3 bn
-18
April M J J A S O N D Jan F M A M J J A S O* Nov*
2014 2015 -6
Oil Trade Deficit -$5.5 bn
* Data is provisional.
-9
Trends in WPI and Its Components November 2015* (%) -$9.8 bn
-12
Financial Year (Averages)
Weights Over Month Over Year 201213 201314 201415
-15
Total Trade Deficit
All commodities 100 0.5 -2.0 7.4 6.0 2.0
Primary articles 20.1 1.6 2.3 9.8 9.8 3.0
-18
Food articles 14.3 2.3 5.2 9.9 12.8 6.1 April M J J A S O N D Jan F M A M J J A S O Nov*
2014 2015
Fuel and power 14.9 0.9 -11.1 10.3 10.2 -0.9 * Provisional; Oil refers to crude petroleum and petroleum products, while Non-oil refers to all other commodities.
Manufactured products 65.0 -0.2 -1.4 5.4 3.0 2.4
* Data is provisional; Base: 200405=100; Source: Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Movement of Components of IIP Growth April 2014November 2015
Year-on-Year in %
Movement of CPI Inflation April 2014December 2015 16
Year-on-Year in %

10
Electricity
8

8 2.3%
Rural 0
6.3% 0.7%
6
5.6% Manufacturing Mining -4.4%
CPI (Combined)
4.7% -8
4 April M J J A S O N D January F M A M J J A S O Nov*
2014 2015
* November 2015 are quick estimates; Base: 200405=100.
2
Urban
Growth in Eight Core Industries November 2015* (%)
0
April M J J A S O N D Jan F M A M J J A S O N Dec* Financial Year (Avgs)
2014 2015 Weights Over Month Over Year
201314 201415
* December 2015 is provisional; Source: Central Statistics Office (CSO); Base: 2012=100.
General index 100.0 -8.2 -3.2 -0.1 2.8
Infrastructure industries 37.9 -4.9 -1.3 4.2 4.4
Inflation in CPI and Its Components December 2015* (%)
Coal 4.4 7.1 3.5 1.3 8.5
Latest Month Over Over Financial Year (Avgs)
Weights Index Month Year 201314 201415 Crude oil 5.2 -3.5 -3.3 -0.2 -0.9
CPI combined 100 126.1 -0.4 5.6 9.4 5.9 Natural gas 1.7 -2.8 -3.9 -13.0 -5.0
Consumer food 39.1 131.3 -1.2 6.4 12.1 6.4 Petroleum refinery products 5.9 7.8 2.5 1.5 0.4
Miscellaneous 28.3 118.3 0.2 4.0 6.5 4.6 Fertilisers 1.3 -3.0 13.5 1.5 -0.1
CPI: Occupation-wise Steel 6.7 -7.0 -8.4 11.5 4.2
Industrial workers (2001=100)# 270 0.4 6.7 9.7 6.3 Cement 2.4 -10.3 -1.8 3.1 5.6
Agricultural labourers (1986-87=100)# 853 0.5 4.9 11.6 6.6 Electricity 10.3 -13.4 0.0 6.0 8.2
# November 2015; * Provisional; Source: CSO (rural & urban); Labour Bureau (IW and AL). * Data is provisional; Base: 200405=100, Source: CSO and Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Comprehensive current economic statistics with regular weekly updates are available at: http://www.epwrf.in/currentstat.aspx.

Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol LI no 3 89

 CURRENT STATISTICS EPW Research Foundation
Indias Quarterly Estimates of Final Expenditures on GDP for 201415
201415 201516 Financial Year
Rs crore | at 201112 Prices Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 201415 (PE)
Private final consumption expenditure 1483613 (6.2) 1443019 (7.1) 1543034 (4.2) 1594581 (7.9) 1592806 (7.4) 1540972 (6.8) 6064247 (6.3)
Government final consumption expenditure 306488 (1.6) 338349 (8.9) 276412 (27.6) 236561 (-7.9) 310018 (1.2) 356058 (5.2) 1157810 (6.6)
Gross fixed capital formation 769880 (8.7) 777597 (3.8) 789694 (2.4) 854802 (4.1) 807225 (4.9) 830687 (6.8) 3191973 (4.6)
Change in stocks 41969 (4.9) 40276 (4.4) 37469 (0.2) 44284 (4.9) 44076 (5.0) 42945 (1.0) 163998 (3.7)
Valuables 41528 (26.2) 36999 (8.9) 36010 (20.3) 53348 (43.6) 49589 (19.4) 53592 (44.8) 167884 (25.3)
Net trade (ExportImport) -34550 -62135 -40438 -8297 -39102 -72450 -145420
Exports 596944 (9.1) 628508 (-2.0) 607707 (-0.3) 601191 (-8.2) 558269 (-6.5) 598744 (-4.7) 2434350 (-0.8)
Less imports 631494 (-3.6) 690643 (1.1) 648145 (2.8) 609488 (-8.7) 597371 (-5.4) 671194 (-2.8) 2579770 (-2.1)
Discrepancies -74273 -7811 26616 98959 -51615 5182 43491
Gross domestic product (GDP) 2534654 (6.7) 2566294 (8.4) 2668797 (6.6) 2874237 (7.5) 2712998 (7.0) 2756985 (7.4) 10643983 (7.3)

Indias Overall Balance of Payments (Net): Quarterly and Annual

201415 ($ mn) ($ mn) 201415 (Rupees bn) (Rupees bn)
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 201516 Q2 201516 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 201516 Q2 201516
Current account -7489 -10945 -7721 -645 -6141 -8234 -448 [-1.5] -663 [-2.2] -478 [-1.5] -40 [-0.1] -390 [-1.2] -535 [-1.6]
Merchandise -35093 -39652 -38635 -31560 -34181 -37425 -2098 -2403 -2393 -1964 -2,170 -2432
Invisibles 27604 28706 30913 30916 28040 29191 1651 1740 1915 1924 1,780 1897
Services 17561 18929 19982 20116 17384 17960 1050 1147 1238 1252 1,103 1167
of which: Software services 17014 16917 17844 18625 17658 18225 1017 1025 1105 1159 1,121 1184
Transfers 16452 16387 16428 16425 16153 16263 984 993 1017 1022 1,025 1057
of which: Private 16630 16513 16521 16600 16267 16421 994 1001 1023 1033 1,033 1067
Income -6408 -6610 -5497 -5625 -5498 -5032 -383 -401 -340 -350 -349 -327
Capital account 18811 17589 22864 30023 18115 7243 1125 [3.8] 1066 [3.5] 1416 [4.5] 1869 [5.6] 1,150 [3.5] 471 [1.4]
of which: Foreign investment 20032 17237 13194 22993 7782 125 1198 1045 817 1431 494 8
Overall balance 11179 6897 13182 30149 11430 -856 668 [2.2] 418 [1.4] 816 [2.6] 1876 [5.7] 725 [2.2] -56 [-0.2]
Figures in square brackets are percentage to GDP.

Foreign Exchange Reserves Variation

2 Jan 31 Mar 1 Jan Over Over Financial Year So Far Financial Year
Excluding gold but including revaluation effects 2015 2015 2016 Month Year 201415 201516 201011 201112 201213 201314 201415
Rs crore 1888040 2010400 2185980 -29670 297940 200300 175580 73038 108086 82800 251570 322660
US $ mn 298722 321309 331831 -1425 33109 17899 10523 19208 -14361 -485 16769 40486

Monetary Aggregates Variation

Outstanding Over Month Over Year Financial Year So Far Financial Year
Rs crore 2015 201415 201516 201213 201314 201415
Money supply (M3) as on 25 December 2015 11338370 87780 (0.8) 1127520 (11.0) 693460 (7.3) 792810 (7.5) 1024980 (13.9) 1127570 (13.4) 1028170 (10.8)
Components
Currency with public 1499470 19500 (1.3) 173010 (13.0) 80640 (6.5) 113120 (8.2) 118420 (11.6) 104760 (9.2) 140530 (11.3)
Demand deposits 955260 -3370 (-0.4) 101280 (11.9) 42000 (5.2) 64510 (7.2) 42240 (5.9) 58760 (7.8) 78770 (9.7)
Time deposits 8869290 72520 (0.8) 847020 (10.6) 564640 (7.6) 615420 (7.5) 863900 (15.3) 965340 (14.9) 796240 (10.7)
Other deposits with RBI 14340 -880 (-5.8) 6210 (76.4) 6170 (314.8) -250 (-1.7) 420 (14.9) -1280 (-39.5) 12630 (644.4)
Sources
Net bank credit to government 3251290 -55120 (-1.7) 175190 (5.7) 31230 (1.0) 245130 (8.2) 337320 (14.2) 335850 (12.4) -38710 (-1.3)
Bank credit to commercial sector 7532920 159880 (2.2) 720700 (10.6) 366920 (5.7) 493330 (7.0) 709420 (14.3) 777440 (13.7) 594290 (9.2)
Net foreign exchange assets 2441840 5950 (0.2) 358130 (17.2) 159770 (8.3) 191190 (8.5) 92880 (6.0) 287280 (17.6) 326710 (17.0)
Banking sectors net non-monetary liabilities 1908990 23590 (1.3) 128920 (7.2) -134000 (-7.0) 138720 (7.8) 116530 (7.7) 275010 (16.8) -143800 (-7.5)
Reserve money as on 1 January 2016 1975220 -860 (-0.0) 226870 (13.0) 15620 (0.9) 46760 (2.4) 88540 (6.2) 217840 (14.4) 195730 (11.3)
Components
Currency in circulation 1554400 -5080 (-0.3) 176360 (12.8) 76970 (5.9) 106090 (7.3) 123750 (11.6) 110090 (9.2) 147240 (11.3)
Bankers deposits with RBI 405640 4150 (1.0) 43610 (12.0) -67670 (-15.7) -59920 (-12.9) -35610 (-10.0) 109020 (34.0) 35860 (8.3)
Other deposits with RBI 15180 80 (0.5) 6900 (83.3) 6320 (322.4) 590 (4.0) 420 (14.9) -1280 (-39.5) 12630 (644.4)
Sources
Net RBI credit to Government 437940 -61400 (-12.3) -85350 (-16.3) -175420 (-25.1) 73420 (20.1) 54840 (10.2) 108130 (18.3) -334190 (-47.8)
of which: Centre 437970 -60270 (-12.1) -85350 (-16.3) -174320 (-25.0) 76940 (21.3) 56080 (10.5) 107140 (18.1) -336610 (-48.2)
RBI credit to banks & commercial sector 99550 58390 (141.9) 43900 (78.9) -1830 (-3.2) -102950 (-50.8) 34610 (393.3) 14070 . 145020 .
Net foreign exchange assets of RBI 2305120 -32570 (-1.4) 306080 (15.3) 196510 (10.9) 177840 (8.4) 85860 (5.8) 244470 (15.7) 324750 (18.0)
Govts currency liabilities to the public 21310 660 (3.2) 2420 (12.8) 1540 (8.9) 1880 (9.7) 1900 (14.1) 2010 (13.1) 2080 (12.0)
Net non-monetary liabilities of RBI 888690 -34070 (-3.7) 40190 (4.7) 5180 (0.6) 103420 (13.2) 88670 (14.7) 150810 (21.8) -58050 (-6.9)

Scheduled Commercial Banks Indicators (Rs crore) Variation

Outstanding Over Month Over Year Financial Year So Far Financial Year
(As on 25 December 2015) 2015 201415 201516 201213 201314 201415
Aggregate deposits 9184650 59890 (0.7) 901310 (10.9) 577780 (7.5) 651370 (7.6) 841360 (14.2) 955110 (14.1) 827720 (10.7)
Demand 857650 -1910 (-0.2) 95850 (12.6) 47870 (6.7) 63620 (8.0) 36970 (5.9) 51630 (7.8) 80100 (11.2)
Time 8327020 61820 (0.7) 805460 (10.7) 529910 (7.6) 587760 (7.6) 804400 (15.2) 903490 (14.8) 747610 (10.7)
Cash in hand 63040 -2710 (-4.1) 7310 (13.1) 9850 (21.5) 9680 (18.1) 4360 (12.1) 5390 (13.3) 7480 (16.3)
Balance with RBI 409040 21990 (5.7) 63190 (18.3) 29500 (9.3) 35960 (9.6) -41000 (-12.7) 34090 (12.1) 56730 (17.9)
Investments 2695170 -2850 (-0.1) 269420 (11.1) 212930 (9.6) 203350 (8.2) 268320 (15.4) 206720 (10.3) 279000 (12.6)
of which: Government securities 2693110 -2800 (-0.1) 269110 (11.1) 212800 (9.6) 203360 (8.2) 268640 (15.5) 207550 (10.4) 278550 (12.6)
Bank credit 7017000 149070 (2.2) 698480 (11.1) 324430 (5.4) 480580 (7.4) 648610 (14.1) 733630 (13.9) 542330 (9.0)
of which: Non-food credit 6905990 146990 (2.2) 695790 (11.2) 314550 (5.3) 463990 (7.2) 633490 (14.0) 731610 (14.2) 546350 (9.3)

Capital Markets 8 January Month Year Financial Year So Far 201415 End of Financial Year
2016 Ago Ago Trough Peak Trough Peak 201213 201314 201415
S&P BSE SENSEX (Base: 197879=100) 24934 (-8.6) 25310 27275 (31.6) 24852 29044 22277 29682 18836 (8.2) 22386 (18.8) 27957 (24.9)
S&P BSE-100 (Base: 198384=100) 7772 (-6.7) 7848 8332 (34.4) 7687 8980 6680 9107 5679 (-38.0) 6707 (18.1) 8607 (28.3)
S&P BSE-200 (198990=100) 3255 (-4.8) 3276 3417 (37.5) 3193 3691 2678 3723 2288 (6.0) 2681 (17.2) 3538 (31.9)
CNX Nifty (Base: 3 Nov 1995=1000) 7601 (-7.7) 7702 8235 (33.4) 7559 8834 6653 8996 5683 (7.3) 6704 (18.0) 8491 (26.7)
Net FII Investment in equities (US $ Million)* 162139 (0.1) 165195 162010 (10.9) - - - - 136304 (23.4) 149745 (9.9) 168116 (12.3)
* = Cumulative total since November 1992 until period end | Figures in brackets are percentage variations over the specified or over the comparable period of the previous year | (-) = not relevant | - = not available | NS = new series | PE = provisional estimates
Comprehensive current economic statistics with regular weekly updates are available at: http://www.epwrf.in/currentstat.aspx.

90 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol LI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

 Secondary Market Transactions in Government Securities, Forex Market and Money MarketDecember 2015
1 Settlement Volume of Government Securities Transactions 2 Netting Factor 3 Instrument-wise Break-up of Securities Transactions (Rs Cr)
Settlement Outright Repo Daily Average (Outright) Daily Average (Repo) a Securities b Funds a Outright Trades b Repo
Period Number Volume Number Volume Number Volume Number Volume Gross Net Netting Gross Net Netting Central Govt Treasury State Central Govt Treasury State
of Trades (Rs Cr) of Trades (Rs Cr) of Trades (Rs Cr) of Trades (Rs Cr) (Rs Cr) (Rs Cr) Factor (%) (Rs Cr) (Rs Cr) Factor (%) Dated Bills Govt Dated Bills Govt
Dec 2015 70844 794688 11883 1520105 3374 37842 517 66092 2314792 895985 61.29 2341760 380139 83.77 683190 82883 28615 540863 192415 24278
Dec 2014 117335 1230147 9735 1375953 5333 55916 374 52921 2606100 973311 62.65 2681714 418707 84.39 1141390 68485 20272 438301 195338 38415
201516* 653237 7254121 95670 12484975 3609 40078 456 59452 19739002 7772302 60.62 20121981 3283458 83.68 6366939 666330 220852 4346624 1802696 97034
201415* 740534 7616668 80667 11499625 4184 43032 373 53239 19116293 7345271 61.58 19143574 3048257 84.08 6864580 633963 118125 3145546 2518278 93912

Economic & Political Weekly

4 Tenor-wise Settlement Volume of Central 5 Deal Size Analysis (%) 6 Market Share of Top n Securities (%)
Government Dated Securities Settlement Period < 5 Cr 5 Cr > 5 Cr <=10 Cr >10 Cr<=20 Cr > 20 Cr Period Dec 2015 Dec 2014 201516* 201415*

EPW
Year December 2015 201516* 201415* % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total Top 5 78.95 82.89 71.31 80.01
CURRENT STATISTICS

2016 4079 36454 (0.58) 13920 (0.20) Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value
Top 10 86.80 92.03 86.14 93.38
2017 2369 37446 (0.59) 14023 (0.21) Dec 2015 3.34 0.41 61.29 27.32 19.02 16.91 5.28 8.01 11.08 47.35 Top 15 90.67 95.63 90.09 97.18
2018 5114 36006 (0.57) 5185 (0.08) 201516* 3.21 0.39 59.85 26.95 20.76 18.66 5.60 8.57 10.58 45.43 Top 20 93.23 97.56 92.94 98.34
2019 9655 69892 (1.10) 165648 (2.43)
2020 84973 688562 (10.87) 702676 (10.30)
7 Intercategory Member Turnover Activity for All Category
8 Market Share of Top Five Members
Buy Sell
2021 5503 34160 (0.54) 5983 (0.09) Category Outright Reverse Repo CBLO Lending Uncollateralised Forex Outright Repo CBLO Borrowing Uncollateralised Forex
(Category-wise) (%)
2022 8159 97983 (1.55) 222537 (3.26) (Funds Lending) Money Market Money Market Categories Dec 2015 Dec 2014 201516*
2023 85252 568519 (8.98) 2307159 (33.83) Lending@ Borrowing@ Cooperative Banks 65.34 60.06 61.03

january 16, 2016

2024 36662 1546582 (24.42) 1311296 (19.23) Cooperative Banks 3.83 0.33 3.53 35.75 0.18 3.59 1.86 2.42 0.78 0.18 Foreign Banks 88.61 84.70 86.05
2025 224591 1463464 (23.10) 10607 (0.16) Financial Institutions 0.57 0.80 2.02 - 0.00 0.12 0.00 9.60 - 0.00 Public Sector Banks 50.44 49.89 49.60
2026 2790 293980 (4.64) 50971 (0.75) Foreign Banks 28.91 39.01 4.85 7.46 41.17 29.43 8.37 8.17 10.97 41.07 Private Sector Banks 83.83 77.32 84.02
2027 4897 77112 (1.22) 515323 (7.56) Insurance Companies 2.12 7.68 9.33 - - 2.45 0.00 0.24 - - Mutual Funds 62.71 67.49 63.54
2028 6156 368301 (5.81) 1303495 (19.11) Mutual Funds 12.15 17.71 56.71 - - 13.32 0.00 12.13 - - Primary Dealers 91.50 89.48 88.94

vol li no 3
2029 13401 31207 (0.49) 0 (0.00) Others 3.37 0.00 4.29 - - 0.58 14.00 15.11 - -
2030 159879 737400 (11.64) 70564 (1.03) 9 Market Share of Top n Members (%)
Primary Dealers 13.29 4.30 0.10 0.01 - 16.69 34.42 6.23 26.02 -
Period Dec 2015 Dec 2014 201516* 201415*
2031 0 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) Private Sector Banks 14.25 9.48 6.56 21.45 28.91 14.19 31.30 18.37 27.06 28.87
2032 3592 41616 (0.66) 27089 (0.40) Top 5 32.76 27.15 31.84 31.83
Public Sector Banks 21.52 20.69 12.62 35.33 29.74 19.62 10.04 27.74 35.17 29.88
2033 6795 47231 (0.75) 5055 (0.07) Top 10 49.04 43.63 48.58 46.48
Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 Top 15 58.56 54.65 58.60 56.34
2034 6171 19494 (0.31) 415 (0.01)
2035 97 1811 (0.03) 1182 (0.02) 10 Trading Platform Analysis of Outright Trades Top 20 64.92 62.80 65.74 64.20
2036 483 4503 (0.07) 632 (0.01) Period OTC NDS-OM
Trades % Share Value (Rs Cr) % Share Trades % Share Value (Rs Cr) % Share 12 Settlement Volume of Collateralised Borrowing and Lending Obligations (CBLO)
2037 0 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00)
Dec 2015 4743 6.72 145855 18.45 65827 93.28 644737 81.55 Period Overnight Term Total
2038 0 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) Number Volume Number Volume Number Volume
Dec 2014 5805 5.10 166867 13.97 107963 94.90 1027193 86.03
2039 0 41 (0.00) 10 (0.00) of Trades (Rs Crore) of Trades (Rs Crore) of Trades (Rs Crore)
2040 431 13005 (0.21) 5956 (0.09) 201516* 43545 6.68 1416275 19.57 608204 93.32 5821864 80.43
Dec 2015 16744 1364675 2489 192098 19233 1556772
2041 245 7331 (0.12) 5452 (0.08) 11 Type-wise Settlement Volume of Government Securities Transactions (Rs crore) 201516* 140136 11924796 23664 1867719 163800 13792515
2042 944 14144 (0.22) 33116 (0.49) Period Outright Repo
2043 892 14332 (0.23) 35943 (0.53) Proprietary Constituent Proprietary Constituent 13 Top 5 SecuritiesBasket Repo 14 Top 5 SecuritiesSpecial Repo
2044 4550 48877 (0.77) 5404 (0.08) Trades Volume Trades Volume Trades Volume Trades Volume Security Trades Value Rate Security Trades Value Rate
2045 5195 33223 (0.52) 0 (0.00) Dec 2015 64137 727979 6707 66709 5735 722195 204 35360 8.27% GS 2020 215 43708 6.88 7.72% GS 2025 838 73482 6.58
2055 316 1440 (0.02) 0 (0.00) Dec 2014 106467 1105392 10868 124755 4532 631381 251 40672 6.35% GS 2020 139 39865 6.86 7.88% GS 2030 350 29355 6.75
Total 683191 6334116 (100) 6819641 (100) 201516* 587289 6524688 65948 729433 45792 5914208 2102 332144 8.40% GS 2024 322 30471 6.89 7.68% GS 2023 210 14893 6.77
17 Forex Deal Size Analysis (%) 07/01/2016 91DTB 50 14908 6.93 8.40% GS 2024 97 13101 6.87
Settlement Period < 1 mn 1 mn > 1 mn <= 5 mn > 5 mn <= 10 mn > 10 mn <= 20 mn > 20 mn 14/01/2016 91DTB 84 14505 6.87 8.27% GS 2020 114 10501 6.77
% to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total
Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value
16 Category-wise Forex ActivityDeal Type
Dec 2015 32.90 4.64 40.43 12.84 18.06 18.21 3.84 11.59 1.75 9.63 3.03 43.08
Category Cash Tom Spot Forward
201516* 32.06 4.75 43.38 14.63 16.93 18.03 3.42 11.02 1.47 8.60 2.75 42.98
Foreign Banks 43.64 47.84 37.06 41.62
15 Forex Settlement Public Sector Banks 24.33 20.18 35.49 30.92
Settlement Period Cash Tom Spot Forward Total Average Netting Factor: Forex
Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Gross Net Netting
Private Sector Banks 31.88 31.91 27.15 27.39
(Rs Cr) (US $Mn) (Rs Cr) (US $ Mn) (Rs Cr) (US $ Mn) (Rs Cr) (US $ Mn) (Rs Cr) (US $ Mn) (Rs Cr) (US $ Mn) (US $ Mn) (US $ Mn) Factor (%) Cooperative Banks 0.13 0.08 0.29 0.08
Dec 2015 5314 473146 71080 8104 611262 91794 258914 1379940 207133 17768 575549 86566 290100 3039897 456574 13814 144757 21742 456574 20080 95.60 Financial Institutions 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00
201516* 24116 4054934 627516 36681 4951087 766185 1370003 12370046 1910460 88077 5005449 770736 1518877 26381517 4074897 8581 149048 23022 4074897 191275 95.31
20 Forex Trading Platform: FX Clear (Amount in US$)
18 Market ShareForex (%) 19 Tenor-wise Forward Trade Analysis (%) Period Spot Daily Average
Period Dec 2015 Dec 2014 201516* 201415* Settlement Period < 30 Days > 30 Days & <= 90 Days > 90 Days & <= 180 Days > 180 Days & <= 365 Days > 1 Year Trades Value Trades Value
% to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total % to Total Dec 2015 % to Total 35755% to Total
19881 % to Total
1703 947 % to Total
Top 5 31.25 30.17 28.86 28.83 Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value Trades Value
Top 10 52.75 50.31 49.13 49.65 Dec 2014 33086 18768 1504 853
Dec 2015 14.97 21.75 17.50 20.14 16.19 13.27 48.33 41.56 3.01 3.28
Top 15 64.82 64.91 63.29 64.88 Dec 2014 14.35 21.33 19.65 20.77 14.84 12.04 50.09 44.31 1.07 1.54 201516* 318642 174750 1760 965
Top 20 74.03 74.96 74.13 75.19 201516* 15.39 23.15 18.22 20.75 14.54 12.26 48.95 41.53 2.90 2.32 201415* 236647 133781 1337 756
EPW Research Foundation

91
* Data pertains to AprilDecember. @ Call and Term Money Segment. (i) Figures in brackets are percentage to total, (ii) Tables 1 to 11 relate to Government Securities Market, (iii) Tables 12 to 14 relate to Money Market, and (iv) Tables 15 to 20 relate to Forex Market. Source: Clearing Corporation of India Limited (CCIL).
 POSTSCRIPT
FOOD

Meat of the Matter

Considering that all through human evolution our ancestors had little choice but to bank on meat, the
negative moniker non-vegetarian smacks of a little disesteem.

M A Kalam

S
ometime back, we had an invitation for dinner. It To reiterate, and to make an obverse statement, but for the
was very thoughtful of our hostess, a kind and doting Lake Malawi and surrounding region in the African continent,
lady, to inquire beforehand about our food prefer- the rest of the entire world was completely uninhabited.
ences. As is usual with me, due to my distaste for the (nega- There was no other human group, that is, Homo sapiens,
tive) moniker non-vegetarian, I said we are anthropo- anywhere else on planet Earth. Some Neanderthals were,
logistsmeaning we eat what is eaten by the people/ of course, to be found in southern Europe. All of humanity,
community we are with. I added: We eat normal food, we as it is represented on the world map today, in different
are not vegetarians. continents, islands and countries, originated from this
I find it difficult and just cannot bring myself around single cluster around Lake Malawi. The debate as to why
to say I am non-vegetarian. As it is, my identity suffers from this group migrated is still inconclusive; there are theories
various ethnic drawbacks in terms of religion, and conjectures.
And pray why
language, region and food habits. I certainly can What did our Lake Malawi ancestors look like?
cannot there be a
do without further dents of the negative kind to That is, how were they phenotypically? Almost
positive sobriquet
my identity. (Similar negativity occurs as regards similar to the people who live there today! Sur-
for absolutely
the NGOs. Some of them, even the heavily-funded prised? Well, there is room for further surprises.
BINGOS, that is, Big NGOs, are doing good work.
normal human All the differences that we find in contemporary
Cant we have a decent positive label for them? beings who have human societies in different parts of the world
Why define these organisations as non-govern- chosen to consume divided into various religious groups and linguistic
mental ones?) things that do not zones, with several cultures following numerous
No dictionary seems to give a proper meaning, repulse them, customs, traditions and food habits, emerged
description or definition for the term non-vegetarian. things that have from this single Lake Malawi ancestral stock.
Usually we are offered one who is not a vegetarian! been elements Also, all the physical, phenotypical, differences
This is nothing short of an ugly rendering; it is, to of life sustenance in terms of height, weight, eye and skin colour
my mind, absurd. It is utterly adverse, to say the for eons? came about as a result of migration to different
least. No self-respecting non-vegetarian (whatever that may climatic and ecological zones, and settling down there.
mean) would like that sort of epithet. (Melanin pigment controls the ultraviolet radiation that
And pray why cannot there be a positive sobriquet for enters the skin; human complexion ranges from the darkest
absolutely normal human beings who have chosen to con- brown to the lightest pinkish-white.)
sume things that do not repulse them, things that have been The most recent inhabited area happens to be the New
elements of life sustenance for eons? After all, these negative World, the Americas, via the Bering Sea/Bering Pass from
moniker-carriers have existed on terra firma for much longer Central Asia, about 14,000 years ago. The earliest human
than the vegetarian optioners or opters (allow me to invent a skeleton found in Japan is about 17,000 years old. So the
couple of words as compensation for having been branded clutch that left Lake Malawi travelled in different directions
negatively all my lifeI should have minor concessions). All at different speeds and formed human societies in different
through the path of human evolution, our ancestors had little climatic and ecological zones from the North to the South
choice but to bank on meat. Pole, almost. Today, though the question of migrations and
Whether we are talking about the Homo erectus or sons (could we make that children, please?) of the soil is a
Neanderthals (not yet sure, if the latter could have been our vexed matter, at the most basic level, it is just a relative issue
direct ancestors) or the other group that took the direct as to who came first and where. Fundamentally, only our
route to Homo sapiens-ship, our ancestors had to rely pre- Lake Malawi ancestors are justified in claiming first use and
dominantly on meat; raw at first and subsequently, cooked. habitation of a territory. Subsequently, everything else hap-
Lake Malawi in East Africa, from where the Out-of-Africa pened in layers through time.
migration of our ancestors began about 70,000 years ago, To avoid any further digression (though the issues we looked
was indeed the place that supported the almost and all- at are significant) and revert to our main subject matter,
through carnivorous anatomically modern humans, Homo domestication of animals occurred far earlier in human
sapiens (not much older than 2,00,000 to 2,50,000 years). history than domestication of plants. And this is true of all
92 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 POSTSCRIPT
FOOD | CULTURE

the regions and places referred to above. Domestication of

animals did not tie people down to a place. Nomadism, semi-
nomadism and transhumance enabled people to move around
in search of food, water and shelter, depending on where
they had to be during a particular season. Domestication of
plants, on the other hand, had a restriction on mobility.
Only when sufficient plant-based food was available could
some people avoid animal food. Animal food/meat, as a
normal, primary source, continued unabated. Very late in
human evolution and history, some, who gave up meat and
deviated from what was the norm, designated themselves
vegetarians. Fair enough. And those who had been following
their ancestral practice in food consumption were rewarded
with the label non-vegetarian. How very generous of these
kind souls! If a term like non-vegetarian could be conjured
up for normal and usual food consumers, so also could other
terms be for those who gave up meat. For a start, here are
some: Non-normal food eaters, Non-non-vegetarians, or
Non-meat-eaters. That is, if those on the usual, un-deviated
path have to live with a negative sobriquet.
M A Kalam (Kalam.ma@gmail.com) is a social anthropologist at the Tezpur University
in Assam.

Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 93

 POSTSCRIPT
FOOD | CULTURE
Colours of Love and Hate
Modern politics often completely transforms and
abuses older concepts and meanings embedded
in the symbolism associated with colours in
political and cultural traditions.
Raziuddin Aquil
T
his is not a piece in praise or defence of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi for his unique sartorial sense, which
is often trending on social media. Modi wore a tradi-
tional Malaysian jacket in green for a gala dinner on the
sidelines of the ASEAN summit late last year, the fuller
significance of which may not be known to many, including
the wearer who might be thinking he was playing to the
gallery by donning the Islamic green. Green is the colour
of love in ancient Hindu traditions, which medieval Sufis
picked up to express their own love for God. This was then
passed on to, or appropriated by, various strands of modern
Islam emerging from the Indian subcontinent since the
early decades of the 20th century. Much as Saudi Arabia,
Iraq or Syria monopolise the limelight for matters Islamic,
the crucial Indian connections with international Islamic
movementspolitical and cultural practicesare often
ignored. One such interesting link is the adoption from
India of green as the predominant colour in Islamic societies
in modern times. There has been a reverse flow from India
of many things Islamic, which even the most experienced
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3
of the Islamologists in the West have not discerned and
appreciated.
Drawing here from my ongoing research on colour sym-
bolism in Islam and how modern politics often completely
transforms and abuses older concepts and meanings embedded
in them, green was the colour of sublime expression of love
and attractions in ancient Indias cultural traditions. Of all
the principal emotions or rasa, Sringara is recognised as
the finest, while others like Rudra (furious) and Bhayanaka
(horrendous) will be identified as abhorring or repulsive.
Each of these rasasnearly 11 of themhas a colour and a
presiding deity associated with it. Sringara is celebrated in
green with Vishnu as the deity, whereas the colours of terror
and violence are red and black, with their own presiding
deities prone to violence of the ultimate kind.
Just as saffron is The association of green with
now identified with Sringara rasa and Lord Vishnu
various shades of provides an important clue to its
Hindutva politics, later association with Islam. It
leads one to think of the possibility
the colour green has
of understanding the connection
been appropriated
between the association of the
from Sufi groups
colour green with Islam in modern
into modern
times and its meaning in ancient
political Islam Indian performing arts and stage-
craft, including dance and music.
Sufis devoted their whole life to desiring union with their
beloved God and their death anniversaries, urs, are cele-
brated with much fanfare. The Sufis went around flaunting
their love wearing turbans and, often, even upper garments
of green colour, or by just throwing a green scarf over their
shoulders, even though the most recommended colour for
the Sufis robe was bluea colour of mourning and asceti-
cism. Some sprinkling of saffron was appropriated from
Hindu mystics by mainstream Sufis, often in skullcaps,
though the more liberated Muslim mystics did not hesitate
to wear saffron clothes, asserting their own devotion to God
in a competitive spirituality of medieval bhakti kind, though
bhakti as an emotion was developed later and Vaishnava
bhakti or other strands of devotional movements should
have been expressed in green, instead of saffron!
Just as saffron is now identified with various shades of
Hindutva politics, the colour green has been appropriated by
modern political Islam from Sufi groups. Despite being heirs
to a tradition of religiosity which throve on shared and dia-
logic practices, modern Sufi masters have often sided with the
separatist Muslim groups, as in the case of the overwhelm-
ing support of Sufi pirs in colonial Punjab for the Mus-
lim Leagues demand for Pakistan. The flags they carried
were splashed with various shades of green, in the process
completely transforming the older Indic connotations of
the colour; of love as in the Sringara rasa or of fertility and
prosperity as in the varna system, or the north-centric Vastu
association of a cool green having calming effects. In course of
93
 POSTSCRIPT
CULTURE

time, the colour green was heavily used by Muslims not only in
the subcontinent, but also in other parts of the world. Often,
this has been at the cost of white, which is the colour of piety
in Islam, though Saudi-inspired modern mosque buildings do
emphasise the symbolism of white for Muslim religiosity of the
fundamentalist kind.
Prior to the 19th century, the colour green is almost completely
absent from all major mosques, tombs, gates, forts, palaces,
and many other elegant structures. There is not even a single
faade of green in the historic buildings of the Qutb Minar
complex in Delhi. Imagine a smudged green Qutb Minar, or
the Taj Mahal in polluted green; they would be eyesores.
Neither the Jama Masjid of Delhi of the 13th and 14th centuries
(subsequently known as Qubbat-ul/Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque,
located in the Qutb complex) nor the Jama Masjid, built by
Shah Jahan in Delhi, displays the kind of green minarets
and domes one comes across in Muslim localities today.
The Koranic inscriptions, floral designs, and other forms
of artistic expression shine in bright gold and attractive
sprinklings of blue in most medieval monuments. Often, just
simple engravings on plain marble would do. Not to forget,
many religious decrees or fatwas were issued against Muslim
rulers wearing silk in golden or yellow colours. If the rulers
had listened to the guardians of Sunni Islamic traditions, they
would have had to give an austere image of themselves by
turning out in white robes in coarse cotton; nothing could be
more farcical, given the rulers self-expression of grandeur
and magnificence channelled through various art forms,
which were gracefully deployed for making statements of the
awe-inspiring power and resources they commanded. In this
context, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahans vibrant style
statements can be contrasted with his son Aurangzebs politi-
cally calculated pretensions to piety and austerity.
Further, the major medieval forts, built or appropriated
and maintained by Muslim monarchsQila Rai Pithora,
Purana Qila and Red Fort, to name three well-known sites
in Delhiwere made of red sandstone and other locally
available construction material. The stylish finishing on these
buildings will have the trappings of various colours other
than green. The three colours generously used, which actually
attract attention, not only in medieval buildings, but also in
vast repositories of extant paintings are red, gold and blue.
This is not only true of art and architecture in medieval India,
but also for Central Asia, Iran and the Arab world through
the middle ages. Medieval Islamic monuments in major cit-
ies like Isfahan, Istanbul, Baghdad or Jerusalem represent a
colourful and gorgeous world of Islamic architecture, and not
a monotony of green. So is the case with the refined Islamic
artefactsincluding thrones and pulpitsnow located in
many international collections. Despite enduring violence
involved in their relocations, whether as gift items or as
objects of loot, their polished designs glitter in gold, crimson,
blue and several other pleasing combination of colours. Some
of the most fascinating Mughal miniature paintings reveal the
predominant use of the combination of red, gold, yellow,
white and blue. Only rarely a green-robed figure might be
noticed in the miniatures and the person presented would, in
all likelihood, be a mystic or religious figure devoted to God.
In modern times, in Muslim public buildings in India and
abroad, one can find a preponderance of green, bordering on
a bizarre kind of obsession if not fanaticism, irritating the
aesthetically inclined. This, as mentioned earlier, could be of
ancient Indian origin; just check out the Natyashastra or even
the Vastu expert nearby, someone who is not yet saffronised in
the modern sense. Still, with the common association of green
with Muslims in recent times, Hindusof whatever caste,

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94 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 POSTSCRIPT
CULTURE | WRITING

creed or denominationwould prefer, even for occasions such Indian theatrical art forms, Bharata Muni, would have
as weddings, a colour other than green, though in several responded to the modern-day political theatrics. For instance,
communities and in various regions Hindu brides do wear can even the most accomplished of the politicians strike a
green saris. Yet, even as a red sari might be generally considered reasonable balance between saffron and green? As the
more auspicious in Hindu weddings now, the green glass Koran would indicate, God, as a dyer (rangrez), could dye
bangles traditionally symbolise the prospects of marital bliss. everything in his own colour of radiant light, which, He
Muslim women appearing in public in their black burqas can splash on his sincere devotees such as Sufis and other
might be an eyesore for some, but it is mainly to ward off any divines. Splattered by Gods colouring, colour distinctions
ogling, if not the evil eye, though some are increasingly coming disappear for the Sufis, enabling them to rise above distinc-
out in designer veils, both as a fashion statement and as new tions of caste or creed. Can rulers achieve that kind of invis-
assertions of Islamic identity. Incidentally, black is the colour of ible radiance, even if they might be styling themselves as a
mourning in Islam, with the additional intention of revenge shadow of God on earth and taking upon themselves the
for any wrongdoing. Black has been the colour of the cloth responsibility to set things right?
used to cover the Kaba, a structure central to Islam, with long
Raziuddin Aquil (razi.aquil@gmail.com) is Associate Professor, Department of History,
pre-Islamic antecedents appropriated after a violent struggle. University of Delhi.
As we are dealing with a sensitive matterand most issues
tend to become sensitive in these days of intoleranceone
may as well add that Muslims might like to believe that the
colour green has been a part of Islam from the time of Prophet
Muhammad who had a green flag in his army and later his
tomb at Medina was also painted in green, but it was probably
an innovation introduced by the Ottoman Sultans as the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina were controlled by them in the
early modern era. It is unlikely that the tribal Arab sheikhs
would paint the tomb green on their own. For different
reasons perhaps, white robes for men in the desert must have
been the preferred choice, as has been for the holy warriors
and for our modern-day politiciansexpressed in a fine
Urdu word with some tinge of sarcasm, safed-posh. Further, if
we are to accept the early association of green as historically
valid, the near absence of green in medieval Islamic icono-
graphy, except in representations of Sufis turbans or scarves,
becomes inexplicable. In fact, the Prophet himself wore
clothes of different colours; his banners were black when he
fought against the infidels and he recommended praying in
white garments; in peacetime, the black cloth used for the
banner could double up as a turban.
We know that modern communal politics is often ex-
pressed in green or saffron. Despite polarisation on religious
lines, many people would like to go for a third option, which
unfortunately may not be red for now. And, when one looks
around at contemporary Islamic art and architecture, one is
left thinking about the fate of shades of blue and turquoise,
a predominant colour in medieval times which is conspicu-
ously absent now. It could be that blue had a negative con-
notation, associated with blue eyes whose evil was warded
off by putting blue as a decorative element just as the wear-
ing of blue beads is supposed to repel the same. Significant-
ly, for Sufis the preferred colour for robes in medieval times
was blue, but in the Indian environment, they also got
enchanted by green.
Nothing is impossible in politics; in this case, a sublime
language of love has been transformed almost as a symbol of
Muslim political identity. One wonders how the father of
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 95

Economic & Political Weekly
POSTSCRIPT
CULTURE | WRITING
English, Clearly
In a multilingual nation like India, where English
is the language of a select few, it is all the more
imperative to aim for plain writing that shuns
gobbledygook, jargon and legalese.
Arvind Krishnaswamy
A
cademic or semi-academic writing in English in India
could be characterised, a la Steven Pinker, as turgid,
doggy, wooden, bloated.... Here are a couple of
examples from EPW itself:
Social reality is best comprehended if its analysed,
inferred, explained, interpreted with the help of conceptual
abstractions that are (a) either deeply rooted in its structure,
culture and historical process, (b) or, are sufficiently efficient
in capturing the complex realities.
My high school English teacher would weep. Sufficiently
efficient? Does the writer mean effective?
The poignancy in the portrayal of such gloomy ground
reality does not fail to provide a severe jolt to our slumber-
ing consciousness or to our complicity with the forces of
domination and the sure-footed after-effects of such revela-
tion are the birth of subjectivity that causes subtraction from
the networks of hegemony. This is from an appreciation of a
vernacular writer. After an appreciation like this, who would
be interested in reading the original. Inglorious nonsense or
vainglorious nonsense? What is the writer trying to say?
It is taken for granted that writers would want a wide audi-
ence for their works. Critical writing that makes it more dif-
ficult to understand the original and the publishing of such
writing are both insults to the writer. But why would people
want to write like this? Have they been trained to think and
write this way? Is it that they deliberately want to be obscure?
Is it because English is their second or third language? Is it
EPW JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 95
 POSTSCRIPT
WRITING

that they have been led to believe that complexity is directly be used to perpetuate illogic, unfairness and judicial
proportional to wisdom? Is it poor thinking? Is it laziness? Or misdemeanours.
all of the above? Trying to make waffle read simply would In the US, President Obama signed the Plain Writing Act in
take too much time and you can get away with it as long as it 13 October 2010 that requires federal agencies to use clear
sounds clever. Even so, what are the copy editors doing about Government communication that the public can understand
this? Are they also afflicted with the same disease or are they and use and in January 2011, issued an Executive Order,
overworked? that states that [our regulatory system] must ensure that
Whatever be the cause, it is imperative for both Critical writing regulations are accessible, consistent, written in
the personal and greater good that such writing that makes it plain language, and easy to understand.
be avoided. Complicating a sentence ends up more difficult to In England the Plain English Campaign
complicating the idea. Even mathematicians understand the (http://www.plainenglish.co.uk) has made great
strive very hard to make their ideas understand- original and the strides. This is an independent group fighting for
able. Lagrange said that he would pare down his publishing of such plain English in public communication. They op-
idea so that he could walk out of his office, catch writing are both pose gobbledygook, jargon and legalese.
the first man in the street and be able to explain Here it would take years to get such an act
insults to the writer
to him what he had thought of. passed, with all probability that the lawmakers
Bad English affects government, law, philosophy and much and givers would probably just order a ban on bad language.
else. Much though I disliked Margaret Thatcher, her views This would then allow governments to freely terrorise
on plain English were spot on. Here she is: Bollywood, the press and anybody who dissents. Maybe this
Human relationships depend on communication. Bad writing is act is not such a good idea in India. But we do need some
a barrier to communication. When a large organisation such as rules in place. More so because we are a multilingual nation
the Government tries to communicate with the man and woman and the original framing of ideas and laws need to be in
in the street, the scope for misunderstanding is enormous. Too
simple, clear and sparse language.
often clarity and simplicity are overwhelmed by pompous words,
long sentences and endless paragraphs. If we all wrote in plain In India it is an even more complex issue as English is still
English, how much easierand efficientlife would be. It is no written and disseminated by very few for a slightly larger
exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of few. Its importance is way out of proportion to its usage. In
good Government. such circumstances, it is even more necessary that the writer
The legal arena too is rife with bad and unclear language. uses prose that is accessible and understandable.
To quote Sumathi Chandrashekaran, a legal consultant at When Woody Allens character in the film Sleeper was
the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Delhi: asked to comment on a poem, he solemnly declared that it
Matters of grammar, punctuation, political correctness was full of pith. I hope we dont end up in the same place.
(gender neutral, anyone?), and plain sloppiness aside, the
Arvind Krishnaswamy (a_krishnaswamy@hotmail.com) is a sports lover who lives in
bill is complex and unreadable for many reasons. There is Mumbai and writes occasionally.
the problem of ambiguity, where a provision invites more
than one possible meaning...Clarity and precision, two
LAST LINES
essential principles of the rule of law, cannot be co-opted
by allusion. This was a comment in the Indian Express on
the Jan Lokpal Bill.
This dubious pattern is more discernible in the humani-
ties subjects economics, psychology, linguistics, English
literary criticism, etcwhere some strive to attain greater
respectability.
Alan Sokal, a renowned mathematician and a physicist,
perpetrated an interesting hoax some years ago on an aca-
demic journal, Social Text. His article, Transgressing the
Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of
Quantum Gravity, turned out to be pure nonsense based
on a pastiche of fawning references, grandiose quotations,
and outright nonsense structured around the silliest quota-
tions by postmodernist academics he could find about
mathematics and physics.
Sokal functioned like an ethical hacker who wanted to
expose weaknesses in the system. Unfortunately, unclear
language is like a virus that runs amok and can easily
96 JANUARY 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
APPOINTMENTS/PROGRAMMES/ANNOUNCEMENTS ADVERTISEMENTS

POLITICS AS THE BEST CAREER OPTION!

India needs leaders who are dynamic, proactive, capable and knowledgeable. All professions including Medicine, Engineering,
Pharmacy, Management, Law etc. employ educated & skilled people in their respective fields. Then why not in Politics, which
is as crucial as it concerns the well-being of nation and its populace at large. We have undergraduate and postgraduate
programs to address the challenges of other sectors but none for those who envision to enter into politics in a professional
way. When we look at the present political scenario, we all feel that India needs Leaders who have a fair idea about what
is happening and what they need to do when they take over the mantle. But how do they go about it? Like getting proper
guidance, training, knowledge whereby they can form their own perspective, and giving better guidance when leading the
country and its citizens. Todays political environment demands knowledge & skills like Foreign Policy, Political Economy,
International relations, Public Policy, Constitution, Five Tier Structure and grass root politics required to win the elections,
Election Management, Constituency Development etc.

The political leaders in their active public life are concerned mostly with Social Work focusing on policies related to betterment
of the masses. They require trained/skilled manpower to assist them in this endeavor in the following areas Political Analyst,
Political Strategist, Election Consultants, Constituency Managers, Public Relation officer, Social Media analyst, Brand consultants etc.

All these positions require good analytical, research, managerial, leadership & communication skills along with good decision
making power. Many professionals work for government and make excellent money, enjoy security in their positions. Think
tanks and private firms also provide job opportunities, although the pay in such cases can vary, depending on the grants
received and the groups political affiliations. These professionals represent the country in international forums, indulging in
debates of grave importance, having meetings with international leaders, passing of bills in parliament etc. They assist to
resolve the internal problems and issues as well as we need to make good relation with the other nation.

As professionals work for a corporate organization to enhance its brand equity, a healthy balance sheet and a good customer
feedback, politicians are striving hard for their respective political parties and constituency. MIT School of Government, Pune
established in 2005, is the only institute in the country to provide experiential learning and training to the young, dynamic
leaders of India to take up challenging positions and leadership roles in the democratic fabric of the nation.

Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 97

APPOINTMENTS/PROGRAMMES/ANNOUNCEMENTS ADVERTISEMENTS

A Workshop
Identities, Exclusion, Justice: Theory, Practice and Methods
(ICSSR-supported 10-day capacity-building workshop for research scholars)
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi
www.csds.in
February 26 March 8, 2016

CSDS announces its annual workshop for research scholars, designed to provide critical orientation to enhance research skills,
impart theoretical knowledge and build methodological capacity. This years workshop addresses diverse historical and
contemporary issues around the broad thematic of identities, exclusion and justice in Indian society. Participants will engage
a range of readings, seminar-style discussions, and special lectures, addressing: multiple pasts, religion, inequality, democracy
and participation, language and power, space and mobility, media and the arts.
Instructors and guest speakers will include primarily CSDS faculty and a few scholars drawn from other Delhi-based academic
institutions.
This workshop is designed for SC/ST students, however, other students who feel they may benefit from this orientation
program are also encouraged to apply.
Registered research students in the beginning to intermediate stages of their doctoral project, and advanced MPhil students
may apply. At the end, participants will have the opportunity to review their research proposals in light of what they have
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The workshop will admit thirty (30) participants, including a maximum of fifteen (15) outstation candidates. Outstation candidates
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will be made available to all selected candidates.
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application letter, a current CV of no more than 2 pages, the names of 2 referees, and a synopsis (600-900 words) highlighting
research questions and methodological framework.
The last date for receiving applications is 21st January, 2016

Eleventh 2-Week Refresher Course in
Public Economics for University and
College Teachers in South Asian Region
NIPFP proposes to organize a 2-week Refresher Training
Programme in Public Economics for the South Asian
Region, during May 30, 2016 to June 10, 2016. The
participants would be college or university teachers, faculty
in research institutions, normally under 45 years of age.
Preference would be given to teachers teaching Public
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The programme would be organized at the Institute
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Interested candidates may send their CVs to the following
address by March 15, 2016.
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18/2 Satsang Vihar Marg
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Dialogues: India, China and the Contemporary Calling
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detailed CV and statement of purpose to Professor
Ananta Kumar Giri at aumkrishna@gmail.com by
Feb 15, 2016.
ENLIGHTENMENT TO PERFECTION
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NOTICE INVITING CONTRIBUTIONS TO JOURNAL OF
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98 january 16, 2016 vol lI no 3 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Reading into 25,000 Crore Loss

Ankur Sarin (asarin@iimahd.ernet.in) teaches in the Public Systems Group at Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). Aditi Thakur is an Academic Associate at IIM-A.

Industry bodies and the mainstream media were quick to claim that the country suffered a loss of
Rs 25000 crore in the 2 September all India labour union strike. Parroting these figures and ot
contextualising the strike in the larger debate of erosion of labour laws and rights make both these
bodies look like knowledge architects without public accountability.

The 2 September strike called by almost all the major central trade unions garnered the usual,
frenzied media attention. It was touted as one of the biggest ever in the country (The Hindu
Business Line 2015). The strike protested against the changes in labour policies being ushered in
by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.[i] All leading newspapers, websites and
news blogs covered the strike, some even provided their readers with sort of an all you need to
know about the bandh cheat sheet, a day before. While the strike raised several issues, the
headlines that dominated the reporting on the day after the bandh were around the loss of Rs
25,000 crore to the nations economy.

Assochams Numbers

This widely quoted number was attributed to the industry association, Associated Chambers of
Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). By midday on 2 September itself, Economic Times
published an article reading, Strike Call: Estimated Loss to Economy Pegged at Rs 25,000 Crore,
says Assocham. Almost the entire mainstream media repeated this estimate of the loss as the most
salient feature of the strike. However, other than a quote by D S Rawat, secretary general of
Assocham, stating that the, financial impact of the disruption of essential services might lead to an
estimated loss of over Rs 25,000 crore to the economy thereby taking into account the numerous
direct and indirect losses (Ghoshal 2015) there was no public mention of how the association had
estimated the numerous direct and indirect losses that had come to dominate the narrative about
the strike in the mainstream media.

This was not the first time that Assocham had estimated such a loss. For a trade union strike on
February 2013, Assocham had estimated a loss of Rs 26,000 crores to the countrys Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). This was also was reported by the media with headlines such as, Bharat Bandh:
Assocham Raises GDP Loss Estimate to Rs 26,000 Crore (NDTV 2013).

Despite the economic growth witnessed during the interim period, the difference in the durations of
the strike, the similarity between the losses estimated because of the strikes that took place more
than two years ago is intriguing. However, our purpose here is not to engage with the magnitude of
the estimated loss or comment on its accuracy. Our concern is with the manner in which such a
number is generated; the legitimacy it is granted and the lack of accountability of institutions
engaged in the production of narratives that influence how the larger public perceives civic action.

Since none of the public reports provided any details on how the loss associated with the strike
ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

was estimated, we tried contacting Assocham for an explanation. After several emails and calls to
their Ahmedabad and Delhi offices, the only response we received over a telephonic conversation
was that these estimations were a result of an informal, internal exercise conducted to estimate
the losses that could have been incurred by the particular industry affected (which in the case of
the 2 September strike was banking services) on the day of the strike. They offered to send this
data in a more formal, detailed manner, via an email. But even after sending several reminders, we
had not received any information.

Assocham states that it is the fountainhead of knowledge for Indian industry (The Associated
Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India) choosing to call themselves the knowledge
chamber. However, the callousness that characterises their response to requests of an explanation
for a number they put out with considerable authority makes them appear as knowledge
architects without the requisite public accountability. The putting out of a number to characterise
large public action is nothing but a political activity. In summarising a complex and contested
activity, a number suggests objective, scientific thinking that seeks to monopolise the truth and
everything that purportedly needs to be said about a subject.

Media Allegiance

Kohli (2012) argues that, over the last three decades the Indian state and business have
increasingly converged on such crucial issues as the approach to labour; the pace and pattern of
external opening of the economy; and, most importantly, on how to enable Indian business to
improve productivity and production. An issue on which there appears to be clear convergence is
the view that organised workers are obstructionist and one should delegitmise any means of protest
available to them. In this role they seem to have found a close ally in mainstream media that
decides not to question the knowledge produced by a clearly interested party or put out a
counterpoint.

Describing the media coverage of February 2013 strike, Krishnan (2013) wrote, The dominant
media narrative about the two-day all-India Strike called by trade unions was one of hooliganism
by workers and inconvenience caused to the public. As is usual, the main demands of the striking
workers found little space in the medias discussion of the strike. The particular strike had turned
violent in some parts of the country, mainly in the National Capital Region (NCR); this was
obviously widely reported by the media. What the media chose to ignore is that working class anger
is based on real issues like denial of rights to unionise and organise as well as blatant violation of
labour laws.

Shifting Politics

Discussing the political-corporate-media relationship and the manipulation of media in shaping

public thought, Kohli emphasises the growing corporate control of media as an example of the
diffuse power of business. He further warns that while much of what the Indian media target are
consumer tastes, political values are hardly far behind. By influencing what issues get covered and
how they get covered, as well as via editorials, the privately controlled media in India today
attempts to shift the political preferences of Indian society in a pro-business direction. (Kohli
2012).

The media coverage of the recent strike is clearly reflective of this direction. Almost all the leading
dailies and news sources quoted Assocham on the loss the country was seen to have suffered
without any efforts to question the methodology of the estimation or provide independent estimates
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of their own. In unquestioningly reporting Assochams estimate, the mainstream media not only
fails its readership by providing a biased, if not misleading, perspective, it also reinforces
prejudices against worker rights.

By not contextualising the strike in the context of increasing threats to worker safety (SafeInIndia -
Agrasar Research, 2015), their own reports of failures of translating increases in productivity to
higher wages and consequent stagnating worker wages (Singh 2015), mainstream media shows the
paradox in which it finds itself. Even as it reports on the need and urgency for paying attention to
worker rights, it is unable to get itself to challenge the structures that sustain it.

Note

[1] The trade unions that participated in the nationwide strike included the Indian National Trade
Union Congress (INTUC), affiliated to Indian National Congress, All India Trade Union Congress
(AITUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), affiliated to the Communist Party of India (CPI)
and CPI Marxist, respectively, independent Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) and Self-Employed
Womens Association (SEWA), All India United trade Union Centre (AIUTUC) which is affiliated to
the Socialist Unity Centre of India, Trade Union Coordination Committee (TUCC) supported by the
All India Forward Bloc, All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), United Trade Union
Congress (UTUC) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) affiliated Labour Progressive
Federation (LPF). Bharatiya Janata Party affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and
independent National Front of Trade Unions (NFITU) boycotted the strike (Nanda 2015) (Ahn
2010).

References

[All URLs accessed on 12 January 2016]

Ahn, Pong-Sul (2010): The Growth and Decline of Political Unionism in India: The Need for a
Paradigm Shift, Bangkok: International Labour Organisation,
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-bangkok/documents/publicatio
n/wcms_143481.pdf.

Economic and Political Weekly (2009): The State of Our Unions, Vol 44, No 3,
http://www.epw.in/journal/2009/39/editorials/state-our-unions.html.

Economic and Political Weekly (2010): Understanding the Bandh, Vol 45, No 29,
http://www.epw.in/journal/2010/29/editorials/understanding-bandh.html.

Ghoshal, Sutanuka (2015): Strike Call: Estimated Loss to Economy Pegged at Rs 25,000 Crore,
says Assocham, Economic Times, 2 September,
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-09-02/news/66143958_1_central-trade-unions-m
r-d-s-rawat-labour-reforms.

Hindu Business Line Bureau (2015): Strike Near Total, Say Trade Unions, Hindu, 2 September,
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/trade-unions-strike-a-success/article7607675.ece.

Kohli, Atul (2012): Poverty Amid Plenty in the New India, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.

Krishnan, Kavita (2013): All Out Crackdown on the Working Class in Noida, Economic and
Political Weekly, Vol 48, No 9,
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http://www.epw.in/journal/2013/09/web-exclusives/all-out-crackdown-working-class-noida.html.

Nanda, P K (2015): The Impact of the Trade Union Strike, Livemint, 2 September,
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RfQmVt1zi4ccYpOEDZq19H/The-impact-of-the-trade-union-strike.
html.

NDTV (2013): Bharat bandh: Assocham Raises GDP Loss Estimate to Rs 26,000 crore, 21
Februrary,
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-bharat-bandh-assocham-raises-gdp-loss-estimate-to-r
s-26-000-crore-318229.

Press Trust of India (2015): Bharat Bandh Cost Rs 25,000 Crore to Economy: Chambers, Indian
Express, 2 September,
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/one-day-strike-cost-rs-25000-crore-to-economy-c
hambers/.

SafeInIndia - Agrasar Research (2015): What Can Safeguard WorkersAccidents in the

Automobile Industry in Gurgaon: Case Studies and Stakeholder Response,
http://nebula.wsimg.com/3007bdc8b88eb5461fc18c4fb1101528?AccessKeyId=8F419A6E8A113525
0670&disposition=0&alloworigin=1.

Singh, P (2015): Higher Productivity Equals Higher Wages? Not for the Indian Industrial Worker,
Livemint, 21 January,
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/Vxmd5HHO8qeLuqYUiobbpM/Higher-productivity-equals-higher-
wages-Not-for-the-Indian.html.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (nd): Assocham India Mission,
http://assocham.org/defaultpage.php?pageId=9.
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Prosecution as Persecution

Murali Karnam (murali.karnam@gmail.com) teaches at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences,

Mumbai.

The court needs to protect the right to protest against the arrest of activists such as G N Saibaba,
without labelling them anti-nationals. What constitutes anti-national activities has always been
contested by intellectuals but accusing them of punishable offence is an attempt to silence the
debate.

The Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association brought out a report titled Framed, Damned and
Acquitted in 2015. It compiled 16 high profile cases of acquittal, in which the Supreme Court
reprimanded the police for systematic and rampant fabrication of evidence. Needless to say in all
these cases, the accused persons languish in prisons for many years. The report rightly pointed out
that cases are presented in courts not backed by evidence but mostly by the belief that the court
will be seduced by the hysteria of national security. Is the fate of G N Saibaba, whose bail was
rejected by the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court on 23 December 2015, going to be any
different?

The verdicts that acquit the accused after long incarcerations often point out the inefficiency of
prosecutions. But inefficiency of the police is an understatement. This purges the judiciary of its
complicity in incarcerating innocents for an indefinite period. In fact, a lot of planning seems to be
behind the concoction of evidences, especially against those accused of crimes against national
security. In none of these cases any representative of state is ever made accountable. Judiciary is
more often not willing to accept the version of prosecution in these cases. The 16 cases of acquittal
are not rare cases in which evidences are concocted efficiently. The process of prosecution itself is
designed as persecution by the state. It requires enormous ideological affinity with the dominant
political thought of our times not to recognise these trends. This is the context in which the case of
G N Saibaba, a professor at Delhi University and human rights activist, has to be seen.

The court describes the material against Saibaba as collected. The defense has been contesting
this claim and pointing out the high handedness of the police in his arrest and confiscation of
evidence. The authenticity of material gathered is being questioned. The computers of Saibaba
were confiscated without conducting a panchanama, and things were taken away from him without
a list or receipt. The court should have appreciated the legal issues raised. But it maintained total
silence about the process of collecting the evidence. The bench openly defended all organs of the
state. But they have to earn their own share of credibility and it is hardly the business of
independent judiciary to bat on their behalf.

The primary accusation against Saibaba is that he used his intellectual ability for anti-national
activities. The fact is that the sense of personal security in general, and national security in
particular, are deeply shrouded in competitive politics in all societies. What constitutes anti-
national activities has always been contested by intellectuals but accusing them of punishable
crime is an attempt to silence the debate.

The court thinks that creating public opinion and defending the rights of the accused deserves
contempt of court charge. It felt offended and construed questioning the justness of order that
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rejected the bail since it was perceived to have questioned the sanctity of judiciary. In the same
breadth it displayed its contempt for human rights sarcastically describing the petitioner before
Bombay High Court, Purnima Upadyaya and author Arundhati Roy as so called human rights
champions. It may have forgotten the role of public intellectuals in the field of judicial activism. In
fact, judiciary has never been immune to public opinion. A healthy public debate always forces
public institutions to take a hard look at the alternative facts and ways of interpretations. The
landmark judgments by the Indian judiciary in public interest litigations are inspired by the reports
of social activists. The experience of the womens movement too is that as long as there was vibrant
public debate on the layers of gendered violence that women are subjected to, even the most
toothless laws were applied by the judiciary to defend their rights. But in the absence of such
intellectually vibrant debates, even the most powerful laws could not come to their rescue as the
judiciary in general is inclined to drown itself in technicalities. Of course when it comes to the
issues of national security, our sense of loyalty overrides our faculties. Judiciary, too, is susceptible
to this process. The sanctity of judicial orders should flow from the philosophy of justice they are
girded in and cannot be protected with contempt orders.

As per this verdict, protesting against the arrest of Maoist leaders and demanding their immediate
release is equal to sharing the ideology of the banned organisation. Those who believe in the
constitution and perceive the arrest of Maoist leaders as unjust also openly demand their release.
Does that make them Maoists?

The court accuses the author of scandalising and questioning the credibility of the higher judiciary.
At least half a dozen retired chief justices of Supreme Court can also be charged with the same
accusation as they spoke about the levels of corruption in judiciary, unfortunately only at the time
of their retirements.

The court feels that instead of challenging the order before the larger bench, the author wrongly
chose to write. But the authors are different kind of advocates. They do not challenge the powerful
in judiciary. They tease the executive in the court of ethics. That is not interfering in dispensing
justice but challenging injustice. The ideas of authors cannot be regimented. The freedom of
expression is meaningless if alternative narratives of truth are throttled. They do not need to be
eyewitnesses to express moral anger against the perceived injustice.

And in any case being judgmental is not just the monopoly of the judiciary. While anybody could be
players of truth, the writers as the teasers of the truth do irritate those who exercise power. British
writer of Indian origin, Hanif Kureishi aptly described the writers as wreckers of fatuous utopias,
who unmask the reality and leave the bleached bones. They leave societys sense of immaturity
bruised.

At this juncture we have to ask whether rational thinking is the monopoly of the powerful and
whether citizens should surrender their capacity to think what is just and unjust to manipulators of
facts. Such dangers are not unfounded and therefore the independence of civil society and media
needs to be fiercely defended. Where life and liberty of citizens are valued more than the sanctity of
social institutions, the judiciary too is expected to be independent of the ideology of the powerful
ruling class.