(The Hindu Mar 4 2009)
Ajmal Amir Iman ‘Kasab,’ the lone terrorist captured alive during the Mumbai attack, is entitled to a fair trial. There is no doubt that his offence is extremely heinous, causing tremendous anguish to the victims and survivors, besides threatening the security of the state. But he still deserves a fair trial, for which one of the prerequisites is his right to have a lawyer to defend him.
The criminal justice system is based on the time-tested principle that an accused is innocent until proved guilty and that the evidence against the accused must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. These principles are based on the premise that an accused (even those who commit heinous crimes) is pitted against the might of the state and is entitled to certain rights under the law.
Fair trial processes have two stages. The first is the pre-trial stage that includes the stages of investigation. The right against self-incrimination, prohibition of torture, prohibition of illegal arrests and the production of an accused within 24 hours are all examples of fair trial standards at the pre-trial stage.
The second stage is at trial, where fair standards include the right of the accused to understand the proceedings and the right to have legal counsel. Legal submissions and critical examination of evidence are crucial to any case and require professional expertise. When such supportive skills are not available to a person charged with an offence, there will be a failure of justice. A fair trial process does not seek to decriminalise serious offences but establishes procedures that incorporate principles of natural justice and established norms of international human rights law. Various judicial precedents of the Supreme Court under Article 21 of the Constitution have enriched and enlarged the ambit of the process and sought to strengthen the rule of law. Ajmal’s trial should be seen as a test case for fair trial standards. And that is why it is important for us not to lose track of such principles with the argument that since there is so much of direct evidence against him, the trial is a mere formality.
Anjali Waghmare has been appointed by the judge according to the mandate of the criminal procedure code that requires the court to assign a pleader to the accused for his defence at the expense of the state. This is a constitutional right and is not dependent on the accused making an application. The right to free legal service is an essential ingredient of a reasonable, fair and just procedure under Article 21. The right is so protected that in a case where there was no legal representation, the Supreme Court acquitted the accused and held that the trial was vitiated by constitutional infirmity. (Suk Das and another versus Union Territory of Arunchal Pradesh AIR 1986 SC, pg 991)
Ajmal’s case projects two disturbing trends. The attack on Ms. Waghmare at her residence by right-wing groups such as the Shiv Sena and the earlier attacks on other lawyers who wanted to represent ‘Kasab’ indicate the growing impunity with which these groups are interfering in judicial processes most brazenly.
While lawyers and public defenders have been attacked in the past, these incidents have been under secrecy. But the current attack on a lawyer appointed by the court by identifiable persons under the gaze of cameras is probably the first of its kind posing a challenge to the judicial system.
The other trend that is equally disturbing is the role of Bar Associations which have passed resolutions asking their members not to take up such cases. The Mumbai Bar did so in the case of ‘Kasab.’ In Lucknow, advocate Shoaib Mohammed was beaten up on the court premises for taking up the case of the Varanasi bomb blast accused, Khalid Mujahid. Resolutions were passed by the local association asking members to boycott the lawyer.
A lawyer may decide not to take up a particular case based on his or her principles of ethics or ideology. This is a matter of individual choice. But when associations force such decisions on their members, it indicates that the principles of natural justice and the rule of law are vanishing from the collective consciousness of the Bar. Such acts amount to interference in the judicial process, besides affecting the freedom of an individual lawyer to carry on his or her professional duty without fear. It is time for some serious introspection.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
CEC's removal issue analysis
(The Hindu Mar 3 2009)
With President Pratibha Patil rejecting, on the advice of the United Progressive Alliance government, Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami’s recommendation to remove Election Commissioner Navin Chawla from office, an unedifying chapter in the working of the Constitution should soon come to an end. The CEC’s move was wholly indefensible in terms of both its constitutional overreach and its timing. It invoked non-existent authority and threatened to destabi lise the functioning of the Commission during the very critical phase of the 15th general election that is to be conducted in five phases from April 16 to May 13. The government’s advice to the President is unexceptionable, even as it was expected, given its public stand that the CEC’s recommendation was totally out of line. The President’s announcement makes it clear that the decision was reached after considering “the report of the CEC, the Government’s recommendation, constitutional provisions, and the Supreme Court judgment.”
It is unfortunate that the CEC should have got himself and his office embroiled in what started out as a political battle. It was in March 2006 that Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani submitted a petition to the President charging Mr. Chawla with being too close to the Congress party and seeking his removal. Traditionally, it has been the government in office that appointed to the Election Commission persons whom it considered suitable. There is much to be said for broadening the process of appointment to the Commission by associating the leader of the Opposition as in the case of the appointment of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, for instance. Yet the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance administration had shied away from such self-denying reforms during its six years in office. It had instead followed the usual practice and appointed the members of the Election Commission on its own, including the present CEC initially as an Election Commissioner. By now seeing virtue in denying the government of the day the unrestrained power to appoint Election Commissioners and questioning the UPA government’s choice on the ground of bias, the BJP was clearly playing partisan politics. The main opposition party also approached the Supreme Court and it was there that the present CEC interposed himself between the political combatants with his claim of suo motu power. Following this claim, the party withdrew its petition and presented it later to the CEC for action. The Supreme Court itself, while allowing the petition to be withdrawn, left open the contested question whether the CEC did have the suo motu power to recommend the removal of an Election Commissioner.
It is clear from the constitutional scheme of things that the CEC cannot initiate action and recommend the removal of any of his colleagues, but instead must wait for a reference from the President for his recommendation. Article 324 (5) of the Constitution provides that the CEC cannot be removed except by impeachment as in the case of a Supreme Court judge, and that an Election Commissioner “cannot be removed from office except on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner.” With the security of his or her tenure guaranteed, the CEC is expected to protect the Election Commissioners from arbitrary removal by the executive. The Supreme Court in its detailed analysis of the Article in T.N. Seshan’s case cautioned that if “the power were to be exercisable by the CEC as per his whim and caprice, the CEC himself would become an instrument of oppression and would destroy the independence of the ECs …” If differences of opinion on the timing of the Karnataka elections, for instance, were to be treated as proof of bias and as a ground for recommending removal, Election Commissioners would be deterred from voicing their independent opinion and forced to go by the dictates of the CEC. The whole scheme and the deliberative and collective decision-making value of a multi-member Election Commission, with the Election Commissioners enjoying equal powers with the Chief Election Commissioner, would then come to nought. From a practical standpoint, if the CEC were to claim such a power, his or her office would be inviting representations from parties dissatisfied with some order or the other of an Election Commissioner. Former Attorney-General Ashok H. Desai, in his opinion tendered to the Election Commission on Mr. Advani’s petition, was clearly of the view that “the CEC cannot act on his own and must await the reference through proper channels to be able to act on a complaint or petition seeking the removal of an EC.” This was also the position that Mr. Gopalaswami’s predecessor as CEC, B.B. Tandon, took in the Supreme Court.
It is clear, in any case, that the President alone can remove an Election Commissioner, and the President and the government are not obliged to accept a recommendation for removal from the CEC even if that were to be within his competence. Now that the decision to reject the CEC’s recommendation on Mr. Chawla has been made, it is imperative that the government must announce the appointment of Mr. Chawla as the next CEC-designate without delay. The murky controversy raised by the BJP and by the CEC’s recommendation is absolutely no reason to depart from longstanding practice. The government would also do well simultaneously to name the person who will replace Mr. Gopalaswami as the third member of the Election Commission when he retires on April 20; this would obviate an appointment when the election process is under way. Without the distraction of an internal war that will do no good to its functioning, and with uncertainty over its composition removed, the Election Commission will be well placed to conduct the elections.
With President Pratibha Patil rejecting, on the advice of the United Progressive Alliance government, Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami’s recommendation to remove Election Commissioner Navin Chawla from office, an unedifying chapter in the working of the Constitution should soon come to an end. The CEC’s move was wholly indefensible in terms of both its constitutional overreach and its timing. It invoked non-existent authority and threatened to destabi lise the functioning of the Commission during the very critical phase of the 15th general election that is to be conducted in five phases from April 16 to May 13. The government’s advice to the President is unexceptionable, even as it was expected, given its public stand that the CEC’s recommendation was totally out of line. The President’s announcement makes it clear that the decision was reached after considering “the report of the CEC, the Government’s recommendation, constitutional provisions, and the Supreme Court judgment.”
It is unfortunate that the CEC should have got himself and his office embroiled in what started out as a political battle. It was in March 2006 that Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani submitted a petition to the President charging Mr. Chawla with being too close to the Congress party and seeking his removal. Traditionally, it has been the government in office that appointed to the Election Commission persons whom it considered suitable. There is much to be said for broadening the process of appointment to the Commission by associating the leader of the Opposition as in the case of the appointment of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, for instance. Yet the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance administration had shied away from such self-denying reforms during its six years in office. It had instead followed the usual practice and appointed the members of the Election Commission on its own, including the present CEC initially as an Election Commissioner. By now seeing virtue in denying the government of the day the unrestrained power to appoint Election Commissioners and questioning the UPA government’s choice on the ground of bias, the BJP was clearly playing partisan politics. The main opposition party also approached the Supreme Court and it was there that the present CEC interposed himself between the political combatants with his claim of suo motu power. Following this claim, the party withdrew its petition and presented it later to the CEC for action. The Supreme Court itself, while allowing the petition to be withdrawn, left open the contested question whether the CEC did have the suo motu power to recommend the removal of an Election Commissioner.
It is clear from the constitutional scheme of things that the CEC cannot initiate action and recommend the removal of any of his colleagues, but instead must wait for a reference from the President for his recommendation. Article 324 (5) of the Constitution provides that the CEC cannot be removed except by impeachment as in the case of a Supreme Court judge, and that an Election Commissioner “cannot be removed from office except on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner.” With the security of his or her tenure guaranteed, the CEC is expected to protect the Election Commissioners from arbitrary removal by the executive. The Supreme Court in its detailed analysis of the Article in T.N. Seshan’s case cautioned that if “the power were to be exercisable by the CEC as per his whim and caprice, the CEC himself would become an instrument of oppression and would destroy the independence of the ECs …” If differences of opinion on the timing of the Karnataka elections, for instance, were to be treated as proof of bias and as a ground for recommending removal, Election Commissioners would be deterred from voicing their independent opinion and forced to go by the dictates of the CEC. The whole scheme and the deliberative and collective decision-making value of a multi-member Election Commission, with the Election Commissioners enjoying equal powers with the Chief Election Commissioner, would then come to nought. From a practical standpoint, if the CEC were to claim such a power, his or her office would be inviting representations from parties dissatisfied with some order or the other of an Election Commissioner. Former Attorney-General Ashok H. Desai, in his opinion tendered to the Election Commission on Mr. Advani’s petition, was clearly of the view that “the CEC cannot act on his own and must await the reference through proper channels to be able to act on a complaint or petition seeking the removal of an EC.” This was also the position that Mr. Gopalaswami’s predecessor as CEC, B.B. Tandon, took in the Supreme Court.
It is clear, in any case, that the President alone can remove an Election Commissioner, and the President and the government are not obliged to accept a recommendation for removal from the CEC even if that were to be within his competence. Now that the decision to reject the CEC’s recommendation on Mr. Chawla has been made, it is imperative that the government must announce the appointment of Mr. Chawla as the next CEC-designate without delay. The murky controversy raised by the BJP and by the CEC’s recommendation is absolutely no reason to depart from longstanding practice. The government would also do well simultaneously to name the person who will replace Mr. Gopalaswami as the third member of the Election Commission when he retires on April 20; this would obviate an appointment when the election process is under way. Without the distraction of an internal war that will do no good to its functioning, and with uncertainty over its composition removed, the Election Commission will be well placed to conduct the elections.
BRIC is not a bloc but a soft balancer
(The hindu Jun 13 2009)
Fresh from my first visit to Brasilia and bang on the eve of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm for which the Indian Prime Minister was preparing to travel as an ‘outreach partner,’ I wrote an article for The Hindu in June 2007 called “Forget the G8, it’s time for a BRICs summit.” The reaction in Delhi was positively underwhelming. A senior Indian official who read it poured cold water on the idea and said the last thing the coun try or the international system needed was more alphabet soup.
Those were the heady days of the Bush era when Indian elites thought their strategic partnership with the United States meant the end of history, and of diplomacy. A lot of water has flowed down the Amazon, the Volga, the Ganges and the Yangtze since then. On June 16, leaders of the four countries dubbed ‘BRIC’ by Goldman Sachs because of their rising economic weight will meet in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg for their first-ever standalone summit. The meeting will take place against the backdrop of the severest financial crisis the world has seen in several decades, caused by the actions and inactions of the U.S. and other leading western economies known collectively as the G7. Together with Russia, an outlier among advanced market economies, the G7+1 or G8 have tended to act as if they are the ultimate arbiters of the world’s economic fate. At the best of times, their ability to “manage” the world economy was simply an illusion; today, when their greed, incompetence and dogmatism have brought the global economy to a standstill, the idea that they should set the agenda on behalf of the rest of the world is preposterous.
During the Heilegendamm summit itself, the Outreach countries invited from the four corners of the world for a glorified photo-opportunity with the G8 got to reflect on the irony that collectively, they, plus Russia, had equal or arguably greater system-shaping power in the world than the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan.
Taken together, the BRIC countries account for a substantial share of world growth and output. By 2020, their output will be 40 per cent of global GDP. They account for 25 per cent of the earth’s land mass and 40 per cent of its population and will play an ever increasing role in strategic sectors such as energy. And yet, when it comes to working out the future rules of the global game, it is the G8 that sets — or tries to set, or believes it sets — the agenda and priorities.
Since June 2007, when President Lula of Brazil floated the idea of a BRIC meeting, the BRIC foreign ministers have held their first standalone meeting. More importantly, the BRIC finance ministers met last November and again this March in the context of the world financial crisis and the G-20 stabilisation process. And now, a full-fledged summit will be held.
After a hesitant, somewhat tentative, start, then, BRIC can be said to have arrived on the world stage. But there is not enough clarity about how it should evolve and grow, what issues it should take up and what form its future interactions should take. Each of the four countries comes to BRIC with differing levels of disaffection with the global system as it exists today. And that is why identifying a common denominator is essential.
Russia’s disaffection is largely security-centric and it would like BRIC to play the role of a strategic counterweight to the U.S. and NATO. China’s disaffection is with its lack of representation in the global circuits of economic decision-making. For Beijing, therefore, BRIC is most useful as a platform to raise the profile of the country as a setter of global economic norms. India’s disaffection with the world is economic and status-centric, for it finds no place at either the political or economic high tables of the world order. Brazil’s source of disaffection is, like India’s, both political and economic.
Given these different agendas, the key to working out the future role and structure of BRIC institutional engagement lies in correctly understanding what BRIC is and what it is not.
First, Yekaterinburg must demonstrate that BRIC is not ‘SCO-plus-minus’ or ‘RIC-plus-1.’ In diplomacy, the physical proximity of meetings can sometimes convey the wrong impression. The fact that BRIC foreign ministers met last year on the sidelines of the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral and that the BRIC principals are meeting on the same day as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation next week has led to some confusion about whether the three groupings are similar. RIC and SCO may have similarities but BRIC and RIC are totally different in geographic and strategic scope. RIC and the SCO are the best forums for Asia’s big powers to discuss political and strategic issues relating to the Asian land mass. BRIC, on the other hand, is best suited to dealing with issues of global architecture that are geography-neutral. And the most important issue there is the global economic and financial system, including trade, credit, capital movement, currency flows, millennium development goals, and migration.
Second, BRIC must not be defined negatively as a club of countries which should be in G7/8 but which are not. It is not a halfway house for aspirants to the G8. BRIC needs to realise the geopolitical and domestic political realities and contexts of each of the four member countries place them in a position to provide non-dogmatic solutions to global economic problems. Brazil and India, for example, have already realised the need to look at the question of Intellectual Property Rights from the standpoint of effectively providing cheap treatment to millions of poor citizens rather than as a device for the enrichment of pharmaceutical companies. BRIC would also look at the issue of labour mobility and human development in a way that is fundamentally different from the G8.
Third, BRIC should not be seen as IBSA-plus-2. In many ways, India, Brazil and South Africa set the ball rolling in creating the first grouping to link three continents in the post-Cold War world. IBSA is, in many ways, the nucleus of a new Afro-Asian-Latin American solidarity, a reinvention of the Bandung process with the politics of the post-colonial era taken out and the globalised economics of the post-Cold War world brought in. IBSA and BRIC would complement each other but the unique geographic and political complementarity within IBSA means the trajectory of its development would be quite distinct.
Fourth, BRIC should not be seen as an adversarial “pole” in a multipolar world. The most important bilateral relationship each country in BRIC has is with the U.S. and that is unlikely to change in the near future. At the same time, this should not prevent the four countries from working together for better global outcomes in both the economic and political spheres, treading on American toes if need be. Though BRIC will not and should not develop as a ‘bloc,’ the U.S. may still view its evolution with wariness, especially as it moves in the direction of proposing financial solutions that could undercut American financial and political power. American pre-eminence today is partly the product of seignorage provided by the role of the dollar as primary reserve currency of the global system. With huge national dollar reserves, the BRIC countries will not want to undermine the value of the greenback. But an orderly move towards a new financial architecture is bound to be on the future agenda.
Fifth, BRIC cannot be a substitute for bilateral ‘outreach’ within and outside the group. The efforts of member countries to build a strong web of relationships with each other and the wider developing world — such as the China-Africa summit or the India-Africa summit — will complement BRIC outreach rather than hinder it.
In order to be successful, BRIC needs a combination of top-down and bottom-up initiatives: Summit level interaction is essential to send a signal globally and to all stakeholders in each of the respective member countries that the political leadership attaches great importance to the new grouping. For the immediate future, the ‘sherpas’ of this political interaction would initially be the finance ministers, who need actively to discuss a joint approach on the design of new financial architecture and regulations that can prevent a recurrence of the present crisis and not only mitigate its effects on the BRIC countries but actually see the latter emerge stronger. The BRIC finance ministers’ dialogue should be accompanied by interaction of trade officials, to deal with the threats of protectionism and curbs on labour mobility. Redefining globalisation to include the movement of labour should be a key strategic goal of BRIC.
Though BRIC is primarily geo-economic, the inability of the U.S. to lead, and of the G8 and the U.N. Security Council to stabilise world order, means the group could increasingly be called upon to shoulder global political responsibilities. Track-II interaction and political dialogue at the officials’ level focussing on issues of common concern such as terrorism, nuclear issues and disarmament, energy security, global rules on the use of force and intervention, U.N. reform should take place annually, but without the pressure to try and produce a comprehensive communiqué. Since differences exist between the BRIC members on questions like Security Council expansion — Russia and China are status quoist permanent members while Brazil and India are aspirants for a permanent seat — striving for conformity on positions where there are known and even sharp bilateral divergences at the BRIC may be counterproductive.
Fresh from my first visit to Brasilia and bang on the eve of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm for which the Indian Prime Minister was preparing to travel as an ‘outreach partner,’ I wrote an article for The Hindu in June 2007 called “Forget the G8, it’s time for a BRICs summit.” The reaction in Delhi was positively underwhelming. A senior Indian official who read it poured cold water on the idea and said the last thing the coun try or the international system needed was more alphabet soup.
Those were the heady days of the Bush era when Indian elites thought their strategic partnership with the United States meant the end of history, and of diplomacy. A lot of water has flowed down the Amazon, the Volga, the Ganges and the Yangtze since then. On June 16, leaders of the four countries dubbed ‘BRIC’ by Goldman Sachs because of their rising economic weight will meet in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg for their first-ever standalone summit. The meeting will take place against the backdrop of the severest financial crisis the world has seen in several decades, caused by the actions and inactions of the U.S. and other leading western economies known collectively as the G7. Together with Russia, an outlier among advanced market economies, the G7+1 or G8 have tended to act as if they are the ultimate arbiters of the world’s economic fate. At the best of times, their ability to “manage” the world economy was simply an illusion; today, when their greed, incompetence and dogmatism have brought the global economy to a standstill, the idea that they should set the agenda on behalf of the rest of the world is preposterous.
During the Heilegendamm summit itself, the Outreach countries invited from the four corners of the world for a glorified photo-opportunity with the G8 got to reflect on the irony that collectively, they, plus Russia, had equal or arguably greater system-shaping power in the world than the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan.
Taken together, the BRIC countries account for a substantial share of world growth and output. By 2020, their output will be 40 per cent of global GDP. They account for 25 per cent of the earth’s land mass and 40 per cent of its population and will play an ever increasing role in strategic sectors such as energy. And yet, when it comes to working out the future rules of the global game, it is the G8 that sets — or tries to set, or believes it sets — the agenda and priorities.
Since June 2007, when President Lula of Brazil floated the idea of a BRIC meeting, the BRIC foreign ministers have held their first standalone meeting. More importantly, the BRIC finance ministers met last November and again this March in the context of the world financial crisis and the G-20 stabilisation process. And now, a full-fledged summit will be held.
After a hesitant, somewhat tentative, start, then, BRIC can be said to have arrived on the world stage. But there is not enough clarity about how it should evolve and grow, what issues it should take up and what form its future interactions should take. Each of the four countries comes to BRIC with differing levels of disaffection with the global system as it exists today. And that is why identifying a common denominator is essential.
Russia’s disaffection is largely security-centric and it would like BRIC to play the role of a strategic counterweight to the U.S. and NATO. China’s disaffection is with its lack of representation in the global circuits of economic decision-making. For Beijing, therefore, BRIC is most useful as a platform to raise the profile of the country as a setter of global economic norms. India’s disaffection with the world is economic and status-centric, for it finds no place at either the political or economic high tables of the world order. Brazil’s source of disaffection is, like India’s, both political and economic.
Given these different agendas, the key to working out the future role and structure of BRIC institutional engagement lies in correctly understanding what BRIC is and what it is not.
First, Yekaterinburg must demonstrate that BRIC is not ‘SCO-plus-minus’ or ‘RIC-plus-1.’ In diplomacy, the physical proximity of meetings can sometimes convey the wrong impression. The fact that BRIC foreign ministers met last year on the sidelines of the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral and that the BRIC principals are meeting on the same day as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation next week has led to some confusion about whether the three groupings are similar. RIC and SCO may have similarities but BRIC and RIC are totally different in geographic and strategic scope. RIC and the SCO are the best forums for Asia’s big powers to discuss political and strategic issues relating to the Asian land mass. BRIC, on the other hand, is best suited to dealing with issues of global architecture that are geography-neutral. And the most important issue there is the global economic and financial system, including trade, credit, capital movement, currency flows, millennium development goals, and migration.
Second, BRIC must not be defined negatively as a club of countries which should be in G7/8 but which are not. It is not a halfway house for aspirants to the G8. BRIC needs to realise the geopolitical and domestic political realities and contexts of each of the four member countries place them in a position to provide non-dogmatic solutions to global economic problems. Brazil and India, for example, have already realised the need to look at the question of Intellectual Property Rights from the standpoint of effectively providing cheap treatment to millions of poor citizens rather than as a device for the enrichment of pharmaceutical companies. BRIC would also look at the issue of labour mobility and human development in a way that is fundamentally different from the G8.
Third, BRIC should not be seen as IBSA-plus-2. In many ways, India, Brazil and South Africa set the ball rolling in creating the first grouping to link three continents in the post-Cold War world. IBSA is, in many ways, the nucleus of a new Afro-Asian-Latin American solidarity, a reinvention of the Bandung process with the politics of the post-colonial era taken out and the globalised economics of the post-Cold War world brought in. IBSA and BRIC would complement each other but the unique geographic and political complementarity within IBSA means the trajectory of its development would be quite distinct.
Fourth, BRIC should not be seen as an adversarial “pole” in a multipolar world. The most important bilateral relationship each country in BRIC has is with the U.S. and that is unlikely to change in the near future. At the same time, this should not prevent the four countries from working together for better global outcomes in both the economic and political spheres, treading on American toes if need be. Though BRIC will not and should not develop as a ‘bloc,’ the U.S. may still view its evolution with wariness, especially as it moves in the direction of proposing financial solutions that could undercut American financial and political power. American pre-eminence today is partly the product of seignorage provided by the role of the dollar as primary reserve currency of the global system. With huge national dollar reserves, the BRIC countries will not want to undermine the value of the greenback. But an orderly move towards a new financial architecture is bound to be on the future agenda.
Fifth, BRIC cannot be a substitute for bilateral ‘outreach’ within and outside the group. The efforts of member countries to build a strong web of relationships with each other and the wider developing world — such as the China-Africa summit or the India-Africa summit — will complement BRIC outreach rather than hinder it.
In order to be successful, BRIC needs a combination of top-down and bottom-up initiatives: Summit level interaction is essential to send a signal globally and to all stakeholders in each of the respective member countries that the political leadership attaches great importance to the new grouping. For the immediate future, the ‘sherpas’ of this political interaction would initially be the finance ministers, who need actively to discuss a joint approach on the design of new financial architecture and regulations that can prevent a recurrence of the present crisis and not only mitigate its effects on the BRIC countries but actually see the latter emerge stronger. The BRIC finance ministers’ dialogue should be accompanied by interaction of trade officials, to deal with the threats of protectionism and curbs on labour mobility. Redefining globalisation to include the movement of labour should be a key strategic goal of BRIC.
Though BRIC is primarily geo-economic, the inability of the U.S. to lead, and of the G8 and the U.N. Security Council to stabilise world order, means the group could increasingly be called upon to shoulder global political responsibilities. Track-II interaction and political dialogue at the officials’ level focussing on issues of common concern such as terrorism, nuclear issues and disarmament, energy security, global rules on the use of force and intervention, U.N. reform should take place annually, but without the pressure to try and produce a comprehensive communiqué. Since differences exist between the BRIC members on questions like Security Council expansion — Russia and China are status quoist permanent members while Brazil and India are aspirants for a permanent seat — striving for conformity on positions where there are known and even sharp bilateral divergences at the BRIC may be counterproductive.
NREGA: Breaking new ground
Suddenly the NREGA has become a buzz word. It stands vindicated by the mandate of the people in its most basic evaluation in a democracy — the general elections. Basking in the glory and security of post-electoral analysis, it is actually the b est time for those who support the basic philosophy of the NREGA to focus on what it has done and what it has not, by its own parameters.
The first and the primary focus should be to examine its impact on the human resource base of rural India. Has it energised, mobilised, empowered, and delivered to India’s poorest and most marginalised rural people? Secondly, has it provided those who were “not shining” a measure of dignity, tangible economic benefit, and a motivation to participate in local action? This is the crux, for, something as vast and ambitious as the NREGA can only succeed in bringing about change if millions of workers become its true advocates and monitors.
Let us begin with the most persistent charges of endemic corruption. Notwithstanding negative propaganda and the prominent reportage of corruption, NREGA stands apart from employment and poverty alleviation programmes in significant ways. It is the first national programme of consequence which has woven transparency and accountability into the mundane fabric of daily interaction of people with government. The cases of reported corruption have shocked the intelligentsia. The rural worker might often be the victim but will still offer critical support, not only because it has provided wage income, but also for facilitating disclosure, which helps identify and fight pilferage. In fact, in many cases, scams have been exposed by the workers themselves. NREGA gives an opportunity to break the feudally enforced silence of its victims. Through transparency and social audit measures, it allows anyone, anywhere to be part of the monitoring of the delivery system. The other programmes appear to be clean only because no one knows what goes on! The NREGA gives a further opportunity to realise the Constitutional sovereignty, the power of the people. What the political establishment would do well to understand is that the vote was not a blind endorsement, but the expression of a fragile hope of a rational participatory relationship with the government.
New claims
The NREGA has opened up a unique legal space for the poor, with a consequent, legally-mandated obligation on the administration to deliver. In fact, implementation rests on the simple philosophy that ordinary people will go to great lengths to procure their entitlements, given the space to do so. Apart from systemic corruption, we are all aware of the chronic inefficiency, unwillingness and incapacities of the bureaucratic system to deliver entitlements for the poor. The persistent argument was that in this context implementation would be impossible. The NREGA sought to create real opportunities and legal spaces, with the belief that people will begin to push to overcome bureaucratic and political resistance. The electoral endorsement over, it is a good time to begin to examine this aspect of bottom-up implementation. Does the rights-based approach really work?
The Act has a number of “trigger mechanisms” designed to activate and establish people’s entitlements. One such trigger is the right to have a Job Card. The Act mandates that anyone who applies at their Panchayat for a Job Card must be given one within 15 days. Without a Job Card, people cannot even apply for work, nor corroborate the records. It is a “license” and “pan card” of the wage worker’s family, with a record of days of work and wages received during the year. There are many States where large numbers of people have demanded, but not received, Job Cards. In many Panchayats, the Job Cards are in the control of implementing agencies. Publicising the Job Card as a record of individual entitlements, to be updated by the authorities, and kept in possession of the workers, would ensure the NREGA is monitored by its workers.
Crucial accountability
The application for work and the dated receipt are crucial to trigger the demand for work. The receipt is also the basic record for claiming unemployment allowance if the work is not provided within 15 days. States like Rajasthan have fared well in providing Job Cards, and providing work within 15 days, but resistance to giving dated receipts has become a massive problem. No State has effectively activated this important mechanism. Nevertheless, it has worked when workers groups have got organised.
In the 30 years of existence of its precursor, the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, there is no recorded instance of payment of unemployment allowance. The NREGA has already recorded payment of unemployment allowance to large numbers of workers in chronically poorly-administered areas. The successful people’s struggles for the payment of unemployment allowance — in Barwani District of Madhya Pradesh, Raichur of Karnataka, Bolangir, Navrangpur and Kalahandi of Orissa, Latehar in Jharkhand, Sitapur District of UP — has been a breakthrough in accountability, and an inspiration to other workers struggling for entitlements. The payment of unemployment allowance emanates from an administrative lapse, and is eventually deducted from the pocket of erring officials. It is not a freebie doled out of the government exchequer. Like the Right to Information Act, this has created an important mechanism for enforcing the right while holding the bureaucracy accountable.
The wage under NREGA has been another trigger and indicator of its success. The wage rate, the measurement system, and the timely payment of wages have all become part of the entitlement package. Thanks to NREGA, minimum wages have, for the first time, become a real factor in determining the lower limit for market wages. There are many ongoing struggles for the payment of minimum wages; and adopting a transparent measurement system for every work-site is a management challenge that has thrown up many grassroots solutions.
Bottlenecks
Wage payments through NREGA have initiated the biggest “financial inclusion” drive, with the requirement that all wage payments be made through banks and post offices. The engineers, the accountants, and the post offices have been unable to cope, and late payments have begun to cripple the Act. Students and Academics, working together with workers’ organisations in Khunti District in Jharkhand, have operationalised the entitlement in the NREGA to get Rs. 2,000/- per worker paid to over 300 workers as compensation for delayed payment under the provisions of the Payment of Wages Act. The Khunti payment, made last month, has once again demonstrated that the solution to the vexatious issue of late payments lies in the entitlement framework.
The uneven implementation in different States has shown that where people’s struggles have gained political and administrative respect, the NREGA has shown tangible results on a massive scale. It is that battleground of struggle that could well determine the future of the political discourse in this country.
The Government of India has transferred adequate money to the States and Districts to make timely wage payments. Shri C.P. Joshi, the current Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, was reported to have talked about his party prospects in the polls being negatively affected because of late wage payments in Rajasthan. As Union Minister now, if he were to exercise his administrative and political will to ensure compensation is paid to those receiving delayed wage payments, the lethargic bureaucratic system will find a way to respond. Chronic delays in wage payments during the drought in Rajasthan became a political issue, and the delays were wiped out. Innovations and mechanisms respond to a bottom-up demand, but do so best when the political establishment puts pressure.
The NREGA also assures an adequate, realistic provision for administrative expenses. At the current six per cent of total costs which has been allowed for administrative costs, there is no legitimacy in citing a shortage of staff or resources for bureaucratic delay. In Rajasthan, for instance, the over 7,000 crores spent on NREGA last year amounts to a massive Rs. 450 crores available for administrative expenses per year. This kind of money and resources can, in fact, help gram Panchayats become properly resourced to better carry out their overall responsibilities. It can also help ensure that there is no excuse for the failure to carry out all transparency measures and put an effective grievance redressal mechanism in place.
Biggest contribution
Transparency and accountability to the poorest and the weakest is in fact the biggest potential contribution of the NREGA to the entire governance system. The NREGA is an outstanding example of how the RTI Act can be woven into the fabric of the delivery system and the whole legal and governance paradigm. The entire expenditure on works and workers — 94 per cent of the total amount — is required to be put on the website of the NREGA, with every transaction revealed in detail. This can easily be increased to 100 per cent. Using this Management Information System (MIS), Vijaypura Gram Panchayat in Rajsamand District has begun to build a Janata Information System (JIS) painted on the walls of government buildings in the Gram Panchayat. The boards reveal the details of the number of days of work provided and payments made in the year to every Job Card holder in the Panchayat. Also painted on the walls are the list of works sanctioned, the expenditure on labour and material, and item-wise expenditure on material in each work in the Panchayat, including exactly how many bags of cement, sand and trolleys of stone were procured, and at what rate in the Gram Panchayat. This is like a web wall which reveals to every interested visitor all that they want to examine.
What can be done in one Panchayat can be carried out in the 9,189 Panchayats of Rajasthan, and the hundreds of thousands of Panchayats in India. The walls in Vijaypura Panchayat provide details of 976 families given employment in 2008-09, where two thirds have completed 100 days, with an expenditure of 91 lakhs. The Sarpanch is a Dalit youth from a poor family, elected in a general seat, and the Panchayat is proof of how well an Employment Guarantee programme can be implemented, in terms of people’s entitlements, transparency measures, worksite management, and many other innovations.
Larger impact
If the millions of financial transactions of the NREGA can go on their web site, there can be no justification for not following the example and putting almost every financial transaction of government — receipt or expenditure — on the web sites of the relevant department or agency. Proactive disclosure is a requirement of the RTI Act, and is a good example of the larger potential impact of the NREGA on governance.
The NREGA is India’s first law to codify development rights in a legal framework, and like the RTI, it has begun to set an example in a global context. Apart from the law, and a set of guidelines, there is a strong and immediate need to formulate rules to operationalise provisions in the Act; which includes guaranteeing grievance redressal in seven days, social audit twice a year, and mandatory transparency and proactive disclosure. Properly incorporated and enforced, a comprehensive set of operational rules could strengthen the entitlement framework, fixing responsibility at every level. Once again, it would enable bottom-up pressure for implementation, which should be matched by a strong political mandate. Today, the NREGA has millions of workers’ unresolved and un-addressed grievances and problems to be dealt with. A response system could not only radically improve the NREGA, but can impact and transform the whole face of rural governance.
Is the NREGA an administrator’s nightmare or a redistribution of income and power? A social safety net or a step towards the right to work, to prevent migration, and even boost local market economies? For those who cannot think beyond the pale of the free market economy and the business model manager, it is indeed a nightmare. For years, simplistic management solutions to poverty, with the poor as an input to be managed, have failed. We cannot see ordinary people as active participants and empowered citizens. That is why there is difficulty in understanding the practice and logic of democracy and difficult, therefore, to understand the realistic detailing and complexity of an Employment Guarantee initiative.
Inclusive growth
Independent India has to acknowledge the critical role the NREGA has played in providing a measure of inclusive growth. It has given people a right to work, to re-establish the dignity of labour, to ensure people’s economic and democratic rights and entitlements, to create labour intensive infrastructure and assets, and to build the human resource base of our country. For the first time, the power elite recognises the people’s right to fight endemic hunger and poverty with dignity, accepting that their labour will be the foundation for infrastructure and economic growth. The entitlements paradigm is still to be established in many States in the country. Second generation issues like the expansion of the categories of permissible works needs to be taken up with labour and the deprived continuing to be the central focus. The improvements must be to strengthen, not divert from these basic tenets. In the midst of the current economic slowdown, there is enough evidence that this kind of commitment can work to help reduce the slowdown.
The political class would do well to understand that the most important solution is an assertion of its will to respond to people’s voices. The many wise, creative, and innovative initiatives emerging from theory and practice have a future only if they are owned by the people and implemented with justice. The NREGA can give people an opportunity to make the entire system truly transparent and accountable. Properly supported, people’s struggles for basic entitlements can, in turn, become the strongest political initiative to strengthen our democratic fabric.
The first and the primary focus should be to examine its impact on the human resource base of rural India. Has it energised, mobilised, empowered, and delivered to India’s poorest and most marginalised rural people? Secondly, has it provided those who were “not shining” a measure of dignity, tangible economic benefit, and a motivation to participate in local action? This is the crux, for, something as vast and ambitious as the NREGA can only succeed in bringing about change if millions of workers become its true advocates and monitors.
Let us begin with the most persistent charges of endemic corruption. Notwithstanding negative propaganda and the prominent reportage of corruption, NREGA stands apart from employment and poverty alleviation programmes in significant ways. It is the first national programme of consequence which has woven transparency and accountability into the mundane fabric of daily interaction of people with government. The cases of reported corruption have shocked the intelligentsia. The rural worker might often be the victim but will still offer critical support, not only because it has provided wage income, but also for facilitating disclosure, which helps identify and fight pilferage. In fact, in many cases, scams have been exposed by the workers themselves. NREGA gives an opportunity to break the feudally enforced silence of its victims. Through transparency and social audit measures, it allows anyone, anywhere to be part of the monitoring of the delivery system. The other programmes appear to be clean only because no one knows what goes on! The NREGA gives a further opportunity to realise the Constitutional sovereignty, the power of the people. What the political establishment would do well to understand is that the vote was not a blind endorsement, but the expression of a fragile hope of a rational participatory relationship with the government.
New claims
The NREGA has opened up a unique legal space for the poor, with a consequent, legally-mandated obligation on the administration to deliver. In fact, implementation rests on the simple philosophy that ordinary people will go to great lengths to procure their entitlements, given the space to do so. Apart from systemic corruption, we are all aware of the chronic inefficiency, unwillingness and incapacities of the bureaucratic system to deliver entitlements for the poor. The persistent argument was that in this context implementation would be impossible. The NREGA sought to create real opportunities and legal spaces, with the belief that people will begin to push to overcome bureaucratic and political resistance. The electoral endorsement over, it is a good time to begin to examine this aspect of bottom-up implementation. Does the rights-based approach really work?
The Act has a number of “trigger mechanisms” designed to activate and establish people’s entitlements. One such trigger is the right to have a Job Card. The Act mandates that anyone who applies at their Panchayat for a Job Card must be given one within 15 days. Without a Job Card, people cannot even apply for work, nor corroborate the records. It is a “license” and “pan card” of the wage worker’s family, with a record of days of work and wages received during the year. There are many States where large numbers of people have demanded, but not received, Job Cards. In many Panchayats, the Job Cards are in the control of implementing agencies. Publicising the Job Card as a record of individual entitlements, to be updated by the authorities, and kept in possession of the workers, would ensure the NREGA is monitored by its workers.
Crucial accountability
The application for work and the dated receipt are crucial to trigger the demand for work. The receipt is also the basic record for claiming unemployment allowance if the work is not provided within 15 days. States like Rajasthan have fared well in providing Job Cards, and providing work within 15 days, but resistance to giving dated receipts has become a massive problem. No State has effectively activated this important mechanism. Nevertheless, it has worked when workers groups have got organised.
In the 30 years of existence of its precursor, the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, there is no recorded instance of payment of unemployment allowance. The NREGA has already recorded payment of unemployment allowance to large numbers of workers in chronically poorly-administered areas. The successful people’s struggles for the payment of unemployment allowance — in Barwani District of Madhya Pradesh, Raichur of Karnataka, Bolangir, Navrangpur and Kalahandi of Orissa, Latehar in Jharkhand, Sitapur District of UP — has been a breakthrough in accountability, and an inspiration to other workers struggling for entitlements. The payment of unemployment allowance emanates from an administrative lapse, and is eventually deducted from the pocket of erring officials. It is not a freebie doled out of the government exchequer. Like the Right to Information Act, this has created an important mechanism for enforcing the right while holding the bureaucracy accountable.
The wage under NREGA has been another trigger and indicator of its success. The wage rate, the measurement system, and the timely payment of wages have all become part of the entitlement package. Thanks to NREGA, minimum wages have, for the first time, become a real factor in determining the lower limit for market wages. There are many ongoing struggles for the payment of minimum wages; and adopting a transparent measurement system for every work-site is a management challenge that has thrown up many grassroots solutions.
Bottlenecks
Wage payments through NREGA have initiated the biggest “financial inclusion” drive, with the requirement that all wage payments be made through banks and post offices. The engineers, the accountants, and the post offices have been unable to cope, and late payments have begun to cripple the Act. Students and Academics, working together with workers’ organisations in Khunti District in Jharkhand, have operationalised the entitlement in the NREGA to get Rs. 2,000/- per worker paid to over 300 workers as compensation for delayed payment under the provisions of the Payment of Wages Act. The Khunti payment, made last month, has once again demonstrated that the solution to the vexatious issue of late payments lies in the entitlement framework.
The uneven implementation in different States has shown that where people’s struggles have gained political and administrative respect, the NREGA has shown tangible results on a massive scale. It is that battleground of struggle that could well determine the future of the political discourse in this country.
The Government of India has transferred adequate money to the States and Districts to make timely wage payments. Shri C.P. Joshi, the current Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, was reported to have talked about his party prospects in the polls being negatively affected because of late wage payments in Rajasthan. As Union Minister now, if he were to exercise his administrative and political will to ensure compensation is paid to those receiving delayed wage payments, the lethargic bureaucratic system will find a way to respond. Chronic delays in wage payments during the drought in Rajasthan became a political issue, and the delays were wiped out. Innovations and mechanisms respond to a bottom-up demand, but do so best when the political establishment puts pressure.
The NREGA also assures an adequate, realistic provision for administrative expenses. At the current six per cent of total costs which has been allowed for administrative costs, there is no legitimacy in citing a shortage of staff or resources for bureaucratic delay. In Rajasthan, for instance, the over 7,000 crores spent on NREGA last year amounts to a massive Rs. 450 crores available for administrative expenses per year. This kind of money and resources can, in fact, help gram Panchayats become properly resourced to better carry out their overall responsibilities. It can also help ensure that there is no excuse for the failure to carry out all transparency measures and put an effective grievance redressal mechanism in place.
Biggest contribution
Transparency and accountability to the poorest and the weakest is in fact the biggest potential contribution of the NREGA to the entire governance system. The NREGA is an outstanding example of how the RTI Act can be woven into the fabric of the delivery system and the whole legal and governance paradigm. The entire expenditure on works and workers — 94 per cent of the total amount — is required to be put on the website of the NREGA, with every transaction revealed in detail. This can easily be increased to 100 per cent. Using this Management Information System (MIS), Vijaypura Gram Panchayat in Rajsamand District has begun to build a Janata Information System (JIS) painted on the walls of government buildings in the Gram Panchayat. The boards reveal the details of the number of days of work provided and payments made in the year to every Job Card holder in the Panchayat. Also painted on the walls are the list of works sanctioned, the expenditure on labour and material, and item-wise expenditure on material in each work in the Panchayat, including exactly how many bags of cement, sand and trolleys of stone were procured, and at what rate in the Gram Panchayat. This is like a web wall which reveals to every interested visitor all that they want to examine.
What can be done in one Panchayat can be carried out in the 9,189 Panchayats of Rajasthan, and the hundreds of thousands of Panchayats in India. The walls in Vijaypura Panchayat provide details of 976 families given employment in 2008-09, where two thirds have completed 100 days, with an expenditure of 91 lakhs. The Sarpanch is a Dalit youth from a poor family, elected in a general seat, and the Panchayat is proof of how well an Employment Guarantee programme can be implemented, in terms of people’s entitlements, transparency measures, worksite management, and many other innovations.
Larger impact
If the millions of financial transactions of the NREGA can go on their web site, there can be no justification for not following the example and putting almost every financial transaction of government — receipt or expenditure — on the web sites of the relevant department or agency. Proactive disclosure is a requirement of the RTI Act, and is a good example of the larger potential impact of the NREGA on governance.
The NREGA is India’s first law to codify development rights in a legal framework, and like the RTI, it has begun to set an example in a global context. Apart from the law, and a set of guidelines, there is a strong and immediate need to formulate rules to operationalise provisions in the Act; which includes guaranteeing grievance redressal in seven days, social audit twice a year, and mandatory transparency and proactive disclosure. Properly incorporated and enforced, a comprehensive set of operational rules could strengthen the entitlement framework, fixing responsibility at every level. Once again, it would enable bottom-up pressure for implementation, which should be matched by a strong political mandate. Today, the NREGA has millions of workers’ unresolved and un-addressed grievances and problems to be dealt with. A response system could not only radically improve the NREGA, but can impact and transform the whole face of rural governance.
Is the NREGA an administrator’s nightmare or a redistribution of income and power? A social safety net or a step towards the right to work, to prevent migration, and even boost local market economies? For those who cannot think beyond the pale of the free market economy and the business model manager, it is indeed a nightmare. For years, simplistic management solutions to poverty, with the poor as an input to be managed, have failed. We cannot see ordinary people as active participants and empowered citizens. That is why there is difficulty in understanding the practice and logic of democracy and difficult, therefore, to understand the realistic detailing and complexity of an Employment Guarantee initiative.
Inclusive growth
Independent India has to acknowledge the critical role the NREGA has played in providing a measure of inclusive growth. It has given people a right to work, to re-establish the dignity of labour, to ensure people’s economic and democratic rights and entitlements, to create labour intensive infrastructure and assets, and to build the human resource base of our country. For the first time, the power elite recognises the people’s right to fight endemic hunger and poverty with dignity, accepting that their labour will be the foundation for infrastructure and economic growth. The entitlements paradigm is still to be established in many States in the country. Second generation issues like the expansion of the categories of permissible works needs to be taken up with labour and the deprived continuing to be the central focus. The improvements must be to strengthen, not divert from these basic tenets. In the midst of the current economic slowdown, there is enough evidence that this kind of commitment can work to help reduce the slowdown.
The political class would do well to understand that the most important solution is an assertion of its will to respond to people’s voices. The many wise, creative, and innovative initiatives emerging from theory and practice have a future only if they are owned by the people and implemented with justice. The NREGA can give people an opportunity to make the entire system truly transparent and accountable. Properly supported, people’s struggles for basic entitlements can, in turn, become the strongest political initiative to strengthen our democratic fabric.
Strengthening urban local bodies
It is 17 years since the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act was enacted and devolution of powers to urban local bodies made mandatory. Going by the recent advisory sent to States by the Union Ministry of Urban Development, the task of strengthening urban local bodies has not been accomplished, particularly in the realm of physical planning. The Twelfth Schedule of the Constitution lists 18 functions, including urban planning, that must be entrusted to the local bodies. The objective of empowering local bodies to take charge of planning the areas they manage has not been realised even in the case of metropolitan areas. Barring Kolkata and Mumbai, none of the other 33 metropolitan cities has constituted the Metropolitan Planning Committee mandated by the 74th Amendment. These large cities have grown beyond their boundaries and have a vital impact on adjacent areas. Although institutions such as the Metropolitan Development Authority have been constituted in different cities to address these regional issues, they are severely limited in ensuring adequate local representation in the planning process. The Metropolitan Planning Committee, with two-thirds of its members elected by and from the elected members of local bodies of the region, could be an effective answer to the problem.
These committees ensure that the priorities of the urban local bodies within the region are factored into the development plan. While this is a necessary first step, further measures must be adopted to strengthen local bodies as institutions of local self-government. The committee formulates the plan; the responsibility of implementing and micro-managing it vests with the local bodies. While the committee is assisted by the technically competent development authority, such support does not exist at the local body level. Such technical support must be provided as a matter of priority. In this context, the Wards Committees at the local level must be empowered to participate in the planning process. Studies have repeatedly made the point that while the 74th Amendment has rightfully devolved several functions to the local bodies, it has not helped them gain commensurate resources and capabilities to perform the functions. Despite their resource base and potential, the local bodies remain dependent on the State government. Financial autonomy combined with transparency and scrupulous respect for federal principles is the imperative if good governance is to be assured.
These committees ensure that the priorities of the urban local bodies within the region are factored into the development plan. While this is a necessary first step, further measures must be adopted to strengthen local bodies as institutions of local self-government. The committee formulates the plan; the responsibility of implementing and micro-managing it vests with the local bodies. While the committee is assisted by the technically competent development authority, such support does not exist at the local body level. Such technical support must be provided as a matter of priority. In this context, the Wards Committees at the local level must be empowered to participate in the planning process. Studies have repeatedly made the point that while the 74th Amendment has rightfully devolved several functions to the local bodies, it has not helped them gain commensurate resources and capabilities to perform the functions. Despite their resource base and potential, the local bodies remain dependent on the State government. Financial autonomy combined with transparency and scrupulous respect for federal principles is the imperative if good governance is to be assured.
Strengthen the social sector
The persistence of low levels of human development is one of the paradoxes of India’s development experience. A substantial boost for the social sector in the next budget will ensure that the government will carry forward the inclusive growth agenda effectively. The increased policy focus on the social sector in recent times is yet to be reflected strikingly in a key indicator: the country’s social sector expenditure as a percentage of its Gross Domestic Produc t. For instance, the Economic Survey (2007-08) shows that the combined expenditure by the Central and State governments increased from Rs.1,41,740 crore in 2002-03 to Rs.2,94,412 crore in 2007-08 (budget estimates), but as a percentage of the GDP, this was a rise of just one half of one percentage point — from 5.77 per cent to 6.27 per cent. The official statistics are even more telling at a disaggregated level. Expenditure on education, one of the key areas of social sector spending, fell from 2.90 per cent of the GDP in 2002-03 to 2.84 per cent in 2007-08, although in absolute terms it climbed from Rs.71,298 crore to Rs. 1,33,284 crore. And, as a proportion of social sector expenditure, it fell from 50.3 per cent to 45.3 per cent.
The President’s address to Parliament which set out the new government’s agenda indicates that the government is keen on continuing with its inclusive growth agenda. There is a strong case for substantially increasing India’s public investments to bridge the huge shortfalls in the provision of public goods that improve the quality of life. Although the link between human and social capital and economic growth has for long been recognised, public investments have fallen woefully short of the growing requirements. The forthcoming budget offers the UPA government an opportunity to step up the resources for key social sector programmes. Some of the critical areas in which it can intervene effectively, apart from its stated intention to expand its flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, are basic social services, education, and economic infrastructure. Substantial increase in resource allocation is also called for in rural electrification, which was one of the under-performers in the past few years, urban poverty alleviation programmes, skills development, and rural health. With nearly 77 per cent of the population still being deprived and vulnerable, a strong infusion of public expenditure in the social sector is imperative to improve their capabilities.
The President’s address to Parliament which set out the new government’s agenda indicates that the government is keen on continuing with its inclusive growth agenda. There is a strong case for substantially increasing India’s public investments to bridge the huge shortfalls in the provision of public goods that improve the quality of life. Although the link between human and social capital and economic growth has for long been recognised, public investments have fallen woefully short of the growing requirements. The forthcoming budget offers the UPA government an opportunity to step up the resources for key social sector programmes. Some of the critical areas in which it can intervene effectively, apart from its stated intention to expand its flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, are basic social services, education, and economic infrastructure. Substantial increase in resource allocation is also called for in rural electrification, which was one of the under-performers in the past few years, urban poverty alleviation programmes, skills development, and rural health. With nearly 77 per cent of the population still being deprived and vulnerable, a strong infusion of public expenditure in the social sector is imperative to improve their capabilities.
Addressing urban poverty
India’s inequalities are more glaring in its urban areas. The country’s urban poor, according to Planning Commission estimates, number 80 million and constitute 25.70 per cent of the urban population. The socio-economic dynamics of urban poverty are very different and the problems the urban poor face are different from that faced by their rural counterparts who at 220 million form 28.3 per cent of rural population. Though the urban poor have better access to employment and income, these are irregular and are mostly in the informal sector. The other key determinants of urban poverty are the levels of access to facilities, such as housing, sanitation and drinking water, and services such as health care and education. Two economic factors aggravate the despair of the urban poor: the nature of employment, and the absence of social security. Yet, poverty alleviation programmes in India and elsewhere have had a marked rural bias, evident from the decrease in absolute numbers of the rural poor from 261 million in 1973-74 to 220 million in 2004-05 (Uniform Recall Period). This is in contrast to the rise in the numbers of the urban poor from 60 million to 80 million over the same period. Addressing urban poverty alleviation through the rural prism runs the risk of coming up with partial solutions, such as those based on self-employment schemes. As it is the lack of access to housing and public utilities that causes urban poverty more than factors related to employment and income, the strategies should differ from those for the rural poor.
For the Central government’s inclusive growth agenda to make a difference to the urban poor, interventions that insulate the poor from the multiple vulnerabilities of urban living are critical. In urban areas, the incidence of poverty is higher among workers in the informal sector. While the government’s proposal to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to urban areas, with modifications, is welcome to the extent that it will provide job opportunities and incomes to the urban poor, measures that prevent a relapse into poverty are also required. More important is to put in place policies that ensure access to affordable healthcare, expenses on which are a major cause for impoverishment of the vulnerable sections. A social security system for all unorganised workers, therefore, is a priority. Improving the conditions of housing for the urban poor is another area for urgent action. The larger aim of poverty reduction programmes should be to ensure that the vulnerable are not impoverished because of the pressures of urban living.
For the Central government’s inclusive growth agenda to make a difference to the urban poor, interventions that insulate the poor from the multiple vulnerabilities of urban living are critical. In urban areas, the incidence of poverty is higher among workers in the informal sector. While the government’s proposal to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to urban areas, with modifications, is welcome to the extent that it will provide job opportunities and incomes to the urban poor, measures that prevent a relapse into poverty are also required. More important is to put in place policies that ensure access to affordable healthcare, expenses on which are a major cause for impoverishment of the vulnerable sections. A social security system for all unorganised workers, therefore, is a priority. Improving the conditions of housing for the urban poor is another area for urgent action. The larger aim of poverty reduction programmes should be to ensure that the vulnerable are not impoverished because of the pressures of urban living.
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