Month: April 2019

The Scheme Holds Promise

NYAY – ‘The Scheme Holds Promise’

By LokMarg Publishing

Jai Kishore Singh, 72 a retired HR professional, sees a lot of promise in Congress’ proposed Nyunatam Aay (NYAY) scheme and hopes it is implemented well.

All those years in the HR department of a PSU have taught me to understand the fine print. Thus, if I had to give my opinion on Congress’s proposed NYAY scheme, I would say it is a much-needed step for the poorest of the poor, who don’t have the resources to improve their lives, despite having the willpower for it. But there is a hitch — the implementation.

The scheme has tremendous potential to successfully bail out the poorest of the poor sections. But if not implemented well, the scheme can end up exploiting the poor. Rahul Gandhi’s heart seems to be in the right place – he mean well. However, neeyat acchi hone se sirf kam nahi chalega, neeti bhi utni hi acchi honi chahiye. Aur neeti ka implementation bhi. Tabhi desh ki niyati badlegi. (just meaning well for the poor won’t work here, the policy and its implementation are equally important, then only can the fortunes of our country turn)

ALSO READ: ‘Create Jobs, Avoid Freebies’

The implementation will be carried out in phases and not in one fell swoop like demonetization. Rahul seems to have this well-planned. The Congress manifesto says that the scheme will be tested properly for six to nine months before running it. Implementing policies in a phased manner gives you the opportunity to learn from mistakes and carry out rectifications, if required. The janta can give valuable inputs too.

Here’s what happens if you rush in with policies that look good but haven’t been fine-tuned properly. I recently read about the BJP’s Ujjwala Yojana.  The beneficiary of the Ujjwala Yojana were only given gas cylinders and not cooking stoves. One of the most popular stove brand in villages and small towns is Sunflame Pride 2 burner stove, which costs around ₹2,249. To reduce the burden, the beneficiaries could pay for the stove and the first refill in monthly installments

. However, the cost of all subsequent refills has to be borne by the beneficiary household. And this is where the scheme is failing. As per reports, poor people don’t have the money to get a 14 kg cylinder filled or even pay installments for the stove and are ultimately resorting back to traditional cooking methods.

ALSO READ: ‘Easy Money Makes People Lazy’

Rahul Gandhi has also talked about how he wouldn’t burden the exchequer for the implementation of this plan. Many people say that the NYAY scheme will put a burden on the honest taxpayer. Didn’t it put a burden on the honest taxpayer when the statues costing ₹3,600 crore and ₹ 2,989 crores were built? NYAY scheme is expected to cost ₹3.6 trillion and is supposed to benefit 2,500 crore ‘humans’, the majority of whom will then further contribute to the economy. The Congress has said that it would be doing away with some subsidies as well as sharing the cost with the state governments. So it’s a thumbs up for the NYAY scheme for me. Though at the national level I support Congress and its policies, at the local level I am very happy with the work done for our constituency by our MP Nishikant Dubey, who belongs  to BJP. He has worked extensively on broadening our roads, plus the waste management inside the town is good. He has streamlined Deoghar’s famous Saawan mela for kanwariyas (Deoghar is one of the only 12 jyotirlingas in the country) and the town’s economy is improving steadily under him. The best part, he is working on bringing back the town’s green cover. I like the man, not the party he belongs to.

‘Create Jobs, Avoid Freebies

NYAY – ‘Create Jobs, Avoid Freebies'

By LokMarg Publishing

Arup Chatterjee, 34, a business development consultant from Bhopal, who worked in the UK for four years, believes India can learn from the British social security schemes. He warns that handing out freebies like NYAY will only make them dependent on the state; the solution lies in creating more jobs.

I lived and worked for almost four years in the United Kingdom and came back in 2015. In these few years, I have been able to observe how both the countries help their poor. Unlike the UK, India took a long time to cope with the after-effects of colonization. As a result, both socially and financially, India remains backwards. However, now it is time to put an end to this, and that can be brought about only through a change in mindset.  

In case of populist schemes like Congress’ Nyuntam Aay (NYAY), I feel they are a way of giving handouts to people, which in turn, makes them lazy. India has a huge population of beggars, who would remain beggars and will have no motivation to work if they get money from the government. Thus, I don’t have high hopes from the as of now.

ALSO READ: Easy Money Makes People Lazy

The people who could benefit from such a scheme are the ones who work in India’s unorganised sector. Demonetization dealt a severe blow to these people and rendered them jobless. But I guess they won’t be covered under the NYAY scheme as they don’t belong to the poorest 20% of the population. Rahul Gandhi should look at addressing the problem of the unorganised sector as a whole. I have heard that he has talked about filling up 22 lakh government job vacancies within a year, if voted to power. 

Social security schemes for all sections of society in the UK are well-structured and India can learn a lot from it. However, I have seen many people turn lazy in the UK because the government supports them so well. We Indians generally don’t follow discipline, for e.g. standing in lines, but when it comes to freebies, ‘mamla air bigad jata hai aur log uspe toot padte hain’ (things get worse and people will go up to any extent to avail them). We need a social change where people understand that the government is there to help you only after you have tried to help yourself — himmat-e-mard madadan khuda (God helps those who help themselves).  

Whichever government comes to power, it must think about job creation and addressing unemployment. Women are more financially astute and they should more involved in such policy that would require large sums of money to be taken out from the exchequer.

The BJP government had also launched the PM-KISAN Samman Nidhi Scheme, which gives ₹2,000 every quarter to farmers owning agricultural land of less than two hectares. This is quite low in comparison to ₹6,000 per month, but BJP knows how to advertise its schemes better, while Congress/Opposition doesn’t. 

I also read that NYAY is expected to cost the exchequer ₹3.6 trillion or around 1.7% of the forecasted gross domestic product (GDP) for 2019-20. However, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has said that the cost will never cross 2% of the GDP. 

To put less burden on taxpayers, Congress is thinking about doing away with some subsidies as well as sharing the cost with state governments. Let’s see if it works, though I don’t have high hopes. 

Last time if I had got the chance to vote (because I was in the UK then) I would have voted for the BJP. However, this time despite seeing the tremendous infrastructural development around me, I am still to make up my mind whether to vote for it or not.

I am doing a lot of research before casting my precious vote and taking note of all facts and figures related to socio-economic development. Our city, Bhopal is known for communal harmony, but BJP is known for its divisive tactics and that is disturbing. I have seen people from all cultures coexisting peacefully during my stint in the UK and we need to bring back the thought of ‘unity in diversity’ in the mainstream to be happy as a country.

Who Will Win Muzaffarnagar?

WATCH – Who Will Win Muzaffarnagar?

By LokMarg Publishing

LokMarg travelled across Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency to gauge the mood of the voter. A prestigious battle will play out here between SP-BSP-RLD candidate Ajit Singh and BJP’s Sanjeev Balyan. The latter won the last election in post-riot, polarised belt. This year, however, it will be a closely contested fight.

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Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Jallianwala Bagh: Will An Apology 100 Yrs Late Help?

By Mahendra Ved
An apology that comes a hundred years after the bloodbath in Amritsar is mere tokenism. Britain has failed even in this belated act.

Of numerous incidents of violence perpetrated on the unarmed by the British while colonizing much of the world, the carnage at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on April 13, 1919, is and shall remain unique.

Many say that firing 1,650 bullets on the unarmed civilians that day, Britain shot itself in the foot, eventually losing India, its “Jewel in the Crown”. And that, in turn, unleashed the global process of de-colonization.  

As that event marks completion of a century this Saturday, much water has flow down the Thames and many rivers across the world that went red with blood of the ‘natives’. But the present-day British are in no mood to apologize. British Prime Minister Theresa May did term the incident a “shameful scar” but stopped short of an apology.

The House of Lords that had exonerated Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, the “Butcher of Amritsar”, debated the tragedy this February; the House of Commons debated it on Tuesday (April 8). But worried about “potential financial implications”, Minister Mark Field, chose to be ‘conservative’ and expectedly, declined appeals by Members for an apology. 

Perhaps, an apology would have set a ‘bad’ precedence. Members of the “Mother Parliament” and governments of the day would be left with little else to do if they began apologizing to people around the world for much that happened during two centuries of colonization.

Allowing a related topic to creep in, the British, like other European ex-colonizers, will not return the artefacts they stole from Asia, Africa and Latin America. This is unlike what the United States, itself a colony once, is in the process of doing. So a million precious things that belong to other peoples’ heritage, shall remain where they are, or to be auctioned at Sotheby’s.

It’s a tad unfair, one might say, to expect only the Britons to atone for their sins when there were other, equally rapacious, colonizers.

It’s also unfair that the present generation be expected to atone for their ancestors’ sins. Besides expression of regrets by the Queen in 1997 and another by then Prime Minister David Cameroon in 2013, an FCO spokesman recalled Winston Churchill. As the Secretary of State for War when Jallianwala occurred, he had called it “a monstrous event.”

But records show Churchill’s attitude towards India and Indians only hardened thereafter. As Britain’s war-time prime minister during the World War II, he diverted food produced in India to the Allied forces, causing deaths of millions during the Great Bengal Famine.      

In the latest book on Jallianwala carnage, Kishwar Desai – (her husband Lord Meghnad Desai and Lord  Raj Loomba had moved the resolution in the House of Lords), reveals that Brigadier General Dyer alone was not responsible for the massacre and other atrocities. The blame must also fall on Lieutenant Governor Michael O’Dwyer, who blindly endorsed Dyer’s actions.

She writes of “a feigned state of war” declared by Miles Irving, Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, which set the ground for General Dyer to take command of Amritsar on April 11, 1919, without a formal notification.

A study on Live History on Lifting The Veil says there was alarm at the show of Hindu-Muslim unity at the Ram Navami celebrations, four days earlier. The book reveals that “the army and the police came closer than ever with a dual purpose: to break the so-called rebellion and to smash Hindu-Muslim unity forever.”

This is yet another aspect of the British rule in India consequences of which are being felt even today.    

Desai says Dyer deliberately took only Indian soldiers, who “continued to fire on the defenceless gathering without any warning till they exhausted 1,650 rounds, killing and wounding nearly 2,000 people who had allegedly “defied Dyer’s authority” by assembling there. While many areas in Punjab had been placed under restriction, Jallianwala Bagh was not among them.

Salman Rushdie has dramatized the event in his Booker- winning 1981 novel, Midnight’s Children. In it, Dyer says after the massacre: “Good shooting. We have done jolly good work.”

Thanks to a lid on information, the Indian leaders’ reaction took a while to come and was muted. Rabindranath Tagore returned his British knighthood. Mahatma Gandhi condemned the system rather than any individual.

But Viceroy Chelmsford endorsed the action of the Punjab government without inquiry and said that it was “an error in judgement” on Dyer’s part, whose initial report of April 14 revealed “only 200-300 casualties.”

It was only four months after the massacre, on August 25, that Dyer wrote a detailed report of the events of April 13 and confirmed that he had fired without warning. This was the first time that the Government of India learnt about the actual circumstances. Subsequently, many of the official documents were suppressed, and official hearings were held in camera. Relevant documents were carted away to London when the British quit India.

Undoubtedly, Jallianwala Bagh was the turning point for India’s freedom movement. The world was to watch how Gandhi met British violence with non-violence. He had already launched Satyagraha at Champaran (1917) and Kheda (Kaira -1918). The one against the Rowlatt Act took place in Bombay (now Mumbai) on April 6, 1919, occurred just a week before Jalliawala Bagh happened.  

The carnage convinced Gandhi that the British needed to be countered with something they were unprepared for and, in the long run, could not endure.

But not everyone had Gandhi’s patience and vision. Udham Singh avenged Jallianwala by killing O’Dwyer on March 13, 1940, a good 21 years later. By that time, the Hindu-Muslim divide had been deep. Udham Singh is said to have given his name as Mohammed Singh Azad, which the London Police initially registered. Symbolically, it combined three different faiths.

There is no final count of how many people actually perished. Desai records that the authorities were totally insensitive to the sufferings of the hapless victims. Lt. Col. Smith, the government doctor, turned away the wounded, calling them “rabid dogs”, causing more deaths over the following days.

Jallianwala massacre has rankled people on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, despite the bitterness caused by India’s Partition and that of Punjab, and the perpetual state of mistrust between the two South Asian neighbours. This week, Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry endorsed the demand that the British government apologise for the empire’s role in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the famine of Bengal in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the massacre.

Having defended Dyer initially, the British have sought to demonize him. Most literature published in the UK around the massacre focuses on him, as if the British Indian Government or that ruling from Westminster had no role to play. Certainly, there is not an iota of guilt.

Sadly, this attitude appeared to influence ‘Gandhi’, the 1981 cinematic opus by Sir Richard Attenborough that, nevertheless, is the best tribute that could be paid to the Mahatma. It won a record eight Oscars at the 55th annual Academy Awards and reminded the world of Gandhi and his teachings.

Here, this writer may be allowed, for the sake of better expression, first-person reference to the press preview of the film held in New Delhi. Sir Richard, fair to history, events and to characters, by and large, did seem to guard Britain’s ‘sovereign’ interests.

In the film, Dyer wears no insignia depicting the British Crown on his cap. However, black-and-white photographs of Edward Fox, the actor who played Dyer, distributed at the media preview showed the Crown. When I pointed this out to Sir Richard, he initially denied it. But after Major Atul Dev, a retired Indian soldier-turned journalist, also insisted that it was so, the legendary had the grace to apologize. I have retained that photograph.

Does it really matter if Britain, a declining power today, apologizes? India, its economy galloping at a faster rate than the British, has found better ways — like buying over Tetley and Jaguar and in a manner of speaking, pouring cold ‘Cobra’ into the Thames.

Some fair-minded Britons have said that the Jallianwala Bagh massacre apology should have come in 1919 itself, when the issue was discussed in the British Parliament. Was that not an “error of judgement”, a la Dyer, but a collective one?  

An apology that comes a hundred years hence is mere tokenism. Britain has failed even in this belated act.  

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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Indian Voters

Hindi Belt Lags In 1st Phase Of Polling

By LokMarg Publishing
In the first phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections Manipur recorded the highest polling percentage at 78.20 per cent (upto 5 pm), followed by Assam at 68 per cent, Lakshadweep at 65.9 per cent, Meghalaya at 62 per cent, Telangana 60.57 per cent followed by others.

The Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar recorded poll percentage of 59.77 and 50.26 per cent respectively.

Among the eight Parliamentary constituencies of Uttar Pradesh that went to poll today, the highest poll percentage was of Saharanpur at 63.76 per cent, followed by Muzaffarnagar at 60.80 per cent, Bijnor at 60.60 per cent and then others.

https://twitter.com/sanataniameric1/status/1116358623159050241

The eight constituencies — Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar — all in the western Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh will see polling in all the seven phases of the Lok Sabha elections.

In Bihar, the highest poll percentage was at Jamui (SC) at 53.35 per cent.

The polling percentage in Maharashtra was 55.78 per cent with the highest being that of Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST) seat with 61.33 per cent. Andhra Pradesh polling percentage remained over 54 per cent.

91 parliamentary constituencies spread over 20 states and Union Territories (UTs) went for polls on the first phase of seven phases Lok Sabha polls.

Among the constituencies that went for polls in the first phase are – eight in Uttar Pradesh, five in Uttarakhand, four in Bihar, seven in Maharashtra, five in Assam, four in Odisha, two each in Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and West Bengal, and one each in Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. The results will be announced on May 23 (ANI)

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Wikileaks Co Founder Julian Assange

Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Held

By LokMarg Publishing
Julian Assange, the co-founder of Wikileaks was arrested from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Thursday morning bringing to a dramatic end his seven-year stint in the UK Capital.

Metropolitan Police officers made the arrest after Ecuador withdrew Assange’s asylum and invited authorities into the embassy, citing the Australian’s bad behavior, according to CNN.

https://twitter.com/barnabynerberka/status/1116275982518898688

Wikileaks on April 5 had indicated that its founder Assange is likely to be expelled from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has taken asylum since 2012, in the wake of INA papers leak.

The INA papers are the cache of documents published in February 2019, allegedly uncovering the operations of INA Investment Corp., an offshore tax haven created by the brother of Ecuadorian President.

Assange has been arrested for failing to surrender to the court over a warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates’ Court in 2012, the New York Times reported quoting the London Police.

Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno in a video statement said his country withdrew Assange’s asylum due to his “discourteous and aggressive behaviour,” “the hostile and threatening declarations of his allied organisation against Ecuador” and “the transgression of international treaties.”

Video footage showed a bearded Assange being taken down the steps of the red brick embassy in the wealthy area of Knightsbridge in central London by several plainclothes police officers and put into a gray police truck that was waiting to take him away.

Wikileaks had announced that Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno is being investigated for corruption charges after the leaks of the papers.

The leak of papers sparked a congressional investigation into the matter. However, the President cannot be summoned for a criminal probe while he remains president. He is currently being investigated and risks impeachment.

The whistleblower has repeatedly suggested he might be apprehended outside the embassy and extradited to the United States.

Over the past months, the Ecuadorian authorities have been putting various restrictions on the conditions of Assange’s stay in the embassy, which the whistleblower’s defense called the violation of human rights.

(ANI)

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Why Foreign Policy Is Never An Electoral Issue?

By Seema Guha
It is surprising that for a country like India, which likes to project itself as a global power, the foreign policy narrative during elections remains limited to Pakistan

For a nation which sees itself as a future global power, it is surprising that foreign policy is never a major talking point in the election season. What goes as foreign policy is a national security narrative focused mainly on Pakistan, terrorism and the need for a strong leader like Narendra Modi to keep India safe.

This buys into the domestic tirade against an “unpatriotic opposition” which plays to Pakistan’s tune. Indeed, this is not the first time that Pakistan comes into play during election season. The “Mia Musharraf” jibe at the Congress party was after all popularised by Narendra Modi in 2014. However, the mainstay of BJP campaign theme that year was not Pakistan, but development and good governance.

Having failed to deliver credibly on any of its poll promises made in 2014, the BJP has pounced on nationalism as the recipe to return to power. The Pulwama terror attack which killed 42 CRPF men in South Kashmir could not have come at a better time. The suicide attack outraged the country. India’s bombing of the Jaish-e Mohammed centre at Balakot gave a fillip to the BJP’s strong leader narrative. The IAF hero who was captured when his plane was shot down over PoK and his subsequent return home, enthralled the urban Indians glued before their television sets to soak up every bit of the action details.

Much of this ultra-nationalism passes off as a foreign policy achievement for the BJP in its election campaign now, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself declaring that India had got inside the enemy’s territory and hit hard. While there is still debate on the amount of losses incurred on Pakistan, the super efficient BJP election machine has ensured that all this is of no consequence. Modi’s connect with the voters is perfect. Anyone questioning the state narrative is anti-national. The opposition dare not raise any doubts for fear of being dubbed as enemies of India.

While foreign policy is rarely an electoral issue for most developing countries, the relations with neighbouring countries often raised to bolster own and vilify the opponents. South Asian nations are a case in point. For a while in Bangaldesh, India was used by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Khaled Zia much in the way Pakistan is being by the BJP. Sheikh Hasina was constantly attacked for being an Indian stooge. In Nepal’s last elections, the fact that Prime Minister Oli took on India for its blockade of Nepal in 2015 played a significant part in winning elections for the Communists.

India’s foreign policy has seen a continuation of the Nehruvian vision by successive governments. Even though critics have torn into Nehru’s non alignment movement, we have continued with our lip service to it. The Congress manifesto this year “affirms its firm belief in the continued relevance of the policy of friendship, peaceful co-existence, non-alignment, independence of thought and action, and increased bilateral engagement in its relations with other countries of the world” reads the party’s manifesto in response to a muscular policy allegedly adopted by the Modi government.

The one new idea offered by the Congress is establishment of a National Council on Foreign Policy, where members of the Cabinet Committee on Security would me domain experts to advise the government from time to time. The rest is pretty much the same. There is not much difference between the policies of the BJP and Congress on external affairs.

The biggest tactical shift in India’s foreign policy was brought in by the Manmohan Singh government in 2006 by signing the India-US civil nuclear deal. But the UPA government hesitated to take this either to its logical conclusion or posit it as an achievement before the electorate. The ground for changing equation with the US was set in motion by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee with the  Strobe Talbot-Jaswant Singh dialogue. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has further enhanced the Indo-US partnership by signing three of the four foundation defence agreements which would help the Indian and US troops to operate together. But do such important strategic policy decision make it to the poll campaign banners? Hardly.

In the Indian foreign policy and security establishment, as well as people psyche, there is concern about moving too close to the US. So while Delhi is cautiously moving towards the US camp, it is hesitant to take the final leap. We have little idea of either the BJP or the Congress take on this. The US is keen for India to jointly patrol the South China Sea, in a show of cooperative action against Chinese assertiveness in the region. Yet like the previous UPA government, the NDA has also so far not agreed to it for fear of escalating tension with its giant Asian neighbour.

So far both the Congress and the BJP has continued with the policy of going ahead with co operation with China despite the boundary issue not having being resolved. All this is pragmatic but now with the Belt and Road Initiative of President Xi Jinping, the question is should Delhi continue to stay away? The answers are not simple but need to be debated in public. Should India go ahead and take part in certain projects which would enhance connectivitiy or oppose the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor? Does India have a realistic chance of getting back POK? All of India’s neighbours except Bhutan, have signed in. Italy has too. That should be an eye opener. The foreign policy debate in India should have been much more robust. Can India continue to ignore SAARC? How long will this boycott continue?  But on every question on SAARC, Pakistan props up and the debate goes nowhere till relations improve. We need Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi to talk all this though.

There are reasons why foreign policy is not a part of the election discourse. In a country still struggling to lift millions of people from grinding poverty, unemployment, caste and religious divisions, foreign policy does not resonate among the general voters. It is a subject confined to strategic experts and academic and power circles. India is not an advanced democracy like either Britain or the US or France. It is a democracy in the sense it holds national and state elections every five years and very little else. Questions of human rights, transparency and seldom raised except by intellectuals and activists. It does not concern the general public.

It would be of some concern to people living in border villages along the LoC who are suffering Pakistani artillery in Kashmir or Punjab. In Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur and Assam, the one point agenda is to detect and deport the alleged Bangladeshi migrants who have entered the north east. All together these states carry less than 40 Lok Sabha seats in a 543-member of the Lower House. For the states that carry the lion’s share of constituencies, like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, or Madhya Pradesh or Andhra Pradesh, where villagers struggle to make ends meet, does India’s foreign policy really impact their lives?

Thus, it will be quite some time before foreign policy discourses become part of India’s election debate. Till that happens, the electoral debate will circle around either ‘jumlas’ or basic livelihood issues.

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