WATCH THE FULL VIDEO
SECURITY POLITICS INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
‘The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy’ edited by David M Malone, C Raja Mohan and Srinath Raghavan provides an extensive survey of India’s external relations, and was launched on 11 September. It addresses factors in Indian foreign policy flowing from both history and geography, and also discusses key relationships, issues and multilateral forums through which the country’s international relations are refracted.
BY THE ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE
BUDGET FISCAL DEVOLUTION SOCIAL SECTOR SCHEMES
BUREAUCRACY
The Accountability Initiative (AI) at the Centre for Policy Research has come out with its budget brief series for 2015-2016, analysing government allocation and expenditure in key social sector schemes, launched on its brand new website.
This year, AI realigned its budget work to study state rather than union budgets in response to the Fourteenth Finance Commissions (FFC) recommendations to increase the fiscal autonomy of states. Through a study of 19 state budgets, AI analysed how this move toward fiscal devolution impacted the future of social sector investments. The full report, State of Social Sector Expenditure in 2015-2016 can be accessed here.
The research this year analysed union budgets in four schemes combining these with field surveys, and the individual budget briefs can be accessed here: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Integrated Child Development Services, Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) and National Health Mission.
Six out of the 19 states studied in the State of Social Sector Expenditure in 2015-2016 report can be accessed through individual state briefs here: Bihar, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
In the video (above) Yamini Aiyar, who leads the work at AI, explains what these briefs are and how they will be used to deepen the public debate, going forward.
INCREASING PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND INFORMING PUBLIC POLICY
URBAN SERVICES
The India Homeless Resource Network (IHRN) was launched on 20 April in the presence of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha
The IHRN website, which will curate research and learning on the issue, can be accessed here.
Five organisations have come together to form this knowledge hub with a view to informing policy makers, social workers, and the wider public, to increase the level of attention homelessness receives in urban policy.
Listen to the audio (above) to learn more about the issue and the need for IHRN.
IHRN combines unique strengths from each of the organisations working on a range of issues, such as health, livelihood, gender, and legal reforms, faced by people on the streets and shelters of India’s cities. To learn more, tune in to the audios describing the different organisations’ work, and visit their websites, listed below:
BY CPR-NAMATI ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program, with support from Duleep Matthai Nature Conservation Trust has prepared handouts on the legal mechanisms available in Human wildlife conflict in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha and Karnataka. These handouts entail:
A brief overview of the present status of human wildlife conflict,
The measures taken by the Centre and states to tackle this, and,
The compensatory mechanisms available in case of human wildlife conflict.
The information in the handouts is based on publicly available information and discussions with partner organisations. It is available in Hindi, Gujarati, Odia and Kannada .
The Program also announced the release of material on the legal framework for conservation and protection areas. This material provides information on the legal provisions under which these areas are formed, the spaces available for the local communities, and the monitoring mechanisms. It is also available in Hindi, Odia, Gujarati and Kannada.
KANCHI KOLHI EXPLAINS
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RIGHTS
The state government of Andhra Pradesh is preparing to amend The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act (RFCLARR), 2013 in order to acquire land for the new proposed capital city of Amravati, in the footsteps of the Gujarat state government. A move of this kind would greatly disadvantage the farmers whose land is at stake, compromising their rights. In the interview below, Kanchi Kohli, the Legal Research Director at the CPR-Namati Environment Justice Program, explains this in greater detail.
Can you explain the specific provisions in The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act (RFCLARR), 2013, and how these provide protection to farmers’ lands?
There are few provisions in the RFCLARR, 2013 that look to strengthen the position of those whose lands are being acquired or whose livelihoods and rights would be affected by the acquisition. One is the need for prior consent of 70 to 80% of land owners depending on whether a project is a public-private partnership or entirely private sector owned. Another is a thorough Social Impact Assessment (SIA) to determine all people affected (other than land owners), and a process for determining and putting together a Rehabilitation &Resettlement (R & R) plan. There are also provisions relating to the repatriation of land or possible higher compensations, in case it has remained unused.
Can you explain the Social Impact Assessment in more detail?
Broadly speaking SIA is a process to understand the nature and extent of impacts on lives and livelihoods of people living in or dependent on the land being acquired. Although there are apprehensions expressed by industry and its associations that the SIA process will lead to delays in land acquisitions, at least two aspects of the SIA process as prescribed under the RFCLARR, 2013 are critical for a democracy.
One of the first objectives of the SIA is to determine whether the acquisition is for a ‘public purpose’ or not, as land cannot be acquired under the 2013 law otherwise.
Second, is to determine the people who would be affected by acquisition of the land, including farm labourers, users of a forest, pastoralists, artisans and several other occupations that have always been left out of the rehabilitation and compensation processes. This process needs to be carried out by the District Collector in collaboration with the panchayats, gram sabhas and municipalities and a public hearing has to be conducted to ascertain if the impact assessment is adequate. It is only after this that a Social Impact Management Plan is prepared.
What are the proposed amendments and how would these dilute the Act?
The Principal Act of 2013 allows states to create rules under the Act (Section 109). If one is to go by this news report, the Andhra Pradesh government is seeking to move amendments similar to that carried out by Gujarat. One significant change is the introduction of a section, which allows for some projects to be exempt from the SIA and food security related protection (discussed below).
According to the national legislation, SIA is mandatory and multi-cropped land is to be acquired only in exceptional circumstances. However, the Gujarat state rules, drawing from the 2014 ordinance put out by the Central Government, exempts defence and national security projects; projects related to rural infrastructure; affordable housing; industrial corridors of State governments and its undertakings; and infrastructure projects, from SIA and food security related safeguards–effectively rendering these protections invalid.
If Andhra Pradesh were to adopt similar amendments for the acquisition of land for the new state capital, the rights of land owners and those tilling the land, could be seriously compromised.
How can the Act be interpreted differently from state to state? And with respect to that how have the amendments played out in Gujarat?
In our working paper, co-authored with Debayan Gupta, we have tried to assess how Section 109 has been used in nine states and how it affects sections such as consent, SIA, determination of compensation, and applicability of the food security clause. While some of these amendments are in the form of clarifying procedures or giving clear timelines for processes, others are seeking to work around the national rules, which state governments find cumbersome to implement.
It is yet to be empirically assessed how these amendments have played out in Gujarat.
Is Andhra Pradesh government changing its land acquisition procedures, and how will this affect the farmers of Amravati?
As has been widely reported, Amravati is the new capital for Andhra Pradesh following its bifurcation in 2014. The state government has lauded it to be a people’s capital with state-of-the-art infrastructure and is seeing it as an opportunity to create a world class city. A land pooling scheme has been put in place by the state government to bring together the 33000 acres of land required for the construction of the city, which reportedly several farmers have responded to positively.
However, the state government’s current move is to acquire the remaining land which that has not been pooled in through the acquisition process. The news report quotes the Agriculture Minister assessing this land at almost 6000-8000 acres. With the proposed amendment this would happen without an SIA and acquisition would be possible as food security safeguard provisions would not apply. More importantly, the livelihood dependence on this area would neither be assessed nor compensated for.
What is the likelihood of other states following suit? And if there is a domino effect of this kind, how can people’s rights be protected eventually?
A RFCLARR ordinance of 2014 and the proposed amendments to the 2013 Act drawing from the ordinance, had already put the above mentioned idea on the table. Large scale opposition within the parliament and by farmer’s organisations led to the setting up of a Parliamentary Standing Committee. This Committee had received several technical submissions, including by CPR-Namati Environment Justice Program, on the legal and constitutional tenability of the proposed amendments.
Even though the national law has not been amended so far, several provisions put forth have been built into the state rules. For instance, some states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tripura have proposed to do away with prior consent entirely.
Since the focus of the amendments to this law has shifted to the state rules and land acquisition is a process entirely under the administration of the state governments; it is important for us to follow these proposed amendments closely. Whether it is enhancing the national provisions, protecting safeguards or reversing the dilutions will require an active engagement of many interested in democratic decision making in India.
IN CONVERSATION WITH NEELANJAN SIRCAR
ELECTION STUDIES POLITICS
Neelanjan Sircar, Senior Fellow at CPR, provides a detailed data analysis of the Bihar election in 2015, and why the BJP performed poorly in Assessing Party Performance and Alliance Dynamics in the 2015 Bihar Election.
Drawing on key arguments from the Bihar analysis, he shares below the learning for the BJP for the upcoming state elections (Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Pondicherry) between April–May, 2016, with a special focus on Assam.
How do the upcoming state elections look for BJP in general?
The BJP is clearly not doing well in the state elections, and if they do not win one in 2016, they would have gone without having won a single state election for nearly two years, which is not good for any party. Four out of the five states slated for election between April and May are not in play for them at all. The only state in which the BJP may do well is Assam, and it is important for them to win this so that their base feels energised and the morale of the party workers is boosted.
What should the BJP learn from the Bihar outcome?
There are two big lessons for the BJP from Bihar:
1. They must figure out a way to work with the state outfits—this was a problem in Bihar. Unlike the Congress, which is really a collection of quite independent state level Congress parties, this avatar of the BJP is far more centralised. In Assam, the BJP state election is being led by a Congress defector, and it might prove tricky to lead a state election through a centralised campaign, which requires negotiating with an opposition party defector.
2. If there is one state where playing the Hindu cultural issues is likely to work, it is Assam, given its Muslim population and the Bangladeshi migrant issue, which are existing fault-lines. That being said, if that is the only card played, it will be hard to win. Tarun Gogoi is weighed down by anti-incumbency, but I always tell people that ‘anti-incumbency’ is an observation, not an explanation ; it only means that people are tired of the incumbent. The BJP needs to develop an explanation in order to appeal to the floating population of voters that may be swung in its favour. Issues like economic growth and infrastructure development tend to draw floating voters and expand vote share. The BJP failed to develop these sorts of narratives in Bihar, often focusing on cultural issues. It must be remembered, however, that such cultural issues can motivate the BJP’s core base of voters but are less effective in drawing the floating voters necessary to win an election.
To what extent will the current debate around ultra-nationalism be a factor in Assam?
It is an open question. As it appears, since a lot of state elections are not going well, the BJP’s return to power in 2019 is unlikely to happen through these state elections. As a result, they are creating this national narrative around nationalism, with the 2019 general elections as the goal.
Sircar and his team will be regularly sharing data analyses; positing trends; field notes; and detailed post-analyses from April through June for all state elections.
The Myanmar strikes are in the news right now. Do you think it is redefining India’s counter-terrorism policy?
Yes, I think it is. Earlier it was a passive mode where you did not really react in the manner you did this time. This is definitely a new approach by the government wherein they are going to retaliate in a very hard fashion if there is a terrorist attack by anybody across any border. So it effectively opens up possibilities against China (since it is a disputed border) and Pakistan as well.
The not so good thing that has happened is that it has taken an anti-Pakistan note because of our usual habit of reducing everything down to Pakistan, and in a sense it defeats the larger strategic purpose that we are trying to signal. Unfortunately, former Colonel and current Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Rathore, putting an anti-Pakistan spin on things in an indirect way has not helped either. Targeting Pakistan is not on because all it does is that Pakistan gets all worked up, everyone starts talking about a possible nuclear scenario, and the essential thing is lost.
Instead, what we are trying to say is – if there is a terrorist strike, we will respond to the strikes by eliminating the terrorists – the groups that are responsible for the strike. Very simple.
The other downside of the strike is that we have also put the Special Forces in the news by sharing their photographs. This is not done. Special Forces are special because they are incognito. Their photographs should never come out because they can become targets. These are secret missions. Now you have gone and said that the 21 Para commandos carried this out. You never let out which commando group did it.
How important is it to have the consent, or the partnership of the country in which you are going to conduct the surgical strikes?
When the countries themselves recognise there is a problem, as the Myanmar government does, as the Bhutanese government earlier did wherein we carried out a similar operation in 2003 eliminating ULFA terrorists, then it is fine. This was in that league, where compliant states were aware of the problem and they also needed help to root out terrorist outfits, which had forcibly occupied space in their own land.
In Burma, the Khaplang NSCN faction for instance (which wants an independent Nagaland), has support from Kachin army, also known as Chin army, which in turn is supported by China. The Kachin or Chin army controls Northern-North Eastern Myanmar. This part of Myanmar is controlled remotely by China through the Kachin army.
This is a much larger situation than merely going across the Manipur border and hitting. It points out the rather grave possibility of bigger powers involved, and I am not talking about Pakistan, but China. This raises the question – would India respond, as we seem to have some evidence of the Khaplang NSCN faction being supported by China through the Kachin army, in a similar manner in Northern Myanmar? Interesting thought. That is what we need to worry about. Pakistan is a very minor issue. We always get side-tracked and that’s what we should avoid doing.
A BLOG SERIES BY TR RAGHUNANDAN OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE AT CPR
BUREAUCRACY
The blog series below by TR Raghunandan, an advisor to the Accountability Initiative at CPR, sheds light on how senior IAS officers overcome challenges to do their work and create value for the communities they are responsible for:
Why the Bureaucracy Clicks, and Doesn’t recounts the experiences of V J Kurien, the Managing Director of the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), and how he was able to convince and win the trust of all stakeholders to develop Kochi International Airport. His credibility as someone who strived for consensus helped overcome the challenges of financing, providing gainful employment for thousands of people, and getting the support of a sceptical local administration. An Eye for Detail, further explores Kurien’s exceptional eye for detail and his ‘un-relenting desire to seek economy and efficiency’ that set him apart from most other bureaucrats.
A Bureaucrat’s Endeavours Bear Fruit explores how T Vijaykumar managed to secure tribal rights and increase livelihood for rural women in Andhra Pradesh. It looks back on Vijaykumar’s experience as Managing Director of the Girijan Cooperative Corporation and head of the Society for the Elimination of Rural Poverty, (SERP). The latter, a state-level society, cut through red tape and implemented the state’s ambitious poverty reduction mission thereby supporting 1.15 crore rural poor women in the state. The success of the Andhra Pradesh approach significantly contributed to the evolution of the national model – the National Rural Livelihoods Mission.
The Key to Success in the IAS reflects on the qualities that both Kurien and Vijaykumar exhibited, and how their personal experiences of interacting with the system shaped their professional vision such as dealing with political repercussions and jealousy of colleagues from within the bureaucracy. A Social Sector Crusader delves deeper into Vijaykumar’s career trajectory as a bureaucrat, including the time he was abducted and held for ransom by left wing extremists.
FULL VIDEO OF DISCUSSION
RIGHTS POLITICS
Watch the full video (above) of the discussion on ‘Key Findings of the Status of Policing in India Report – A Study of Performance and Perceptions’, featuring Dr Vipul Mudgal and Prof Sanjay Kumar.
The Police is the most visible face of the State. Indian police forces are riddled with problems of corruption and misuse of authority, and are often seen as stooges of the parties in power. The idea of police reforms in India remain a distant reality as no action has been taken despite 12 years having passed since the landmark Supreme Court judgment of Prakash Singh vs Union of India. The police and paramilitary forces often seem to work as private armies of politicians and political parties in power across the ideological spectrum. Their writ seems to run everything from arrests to acquittals and from appointments to transfer and postings, irrespective of court orders and constitutional provisions.
The Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR) 2018- A Study of Performance and Perceptions is one of the first attempts to scientifically study police performance and its interaction with the public. It is a rigorous study of the performance and perception of the police in India. It covers close to 16000 respondents in 22 states on parameters like citizens’ trust and satisfaction levels, discrimination against the vulnerable, police excesses, infrastructure, diversity in forces, state of prisons and disposal of cases etc.
Dr Vipul Mudgal is an activist, journalist and a media scholar. He is the Director and Chief Executive of Common Cause and also heads the Inclusive Media for Change. Prof Sanjay Kumar is currently the Director of The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).
DATA ANALYSIS BY NEELANJAN SIRCAR (SENIOR FELLOW, CPR), ROSHAN KISHORE (HINDUSTAN TIMES) & HOW INDIA LIVES
ELECTION STUDIES
A last-minute blitz by Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) surge ahead of the ruling Congress in Karnataka assembly elections, but it fell just short of the magic figure.
A mapping of election results on top of data that characterises the socio-economic make up of constituencies throws up interesting details on how certain sections of voters clinched it for the winners. Here are three voting patterns seen in Karnataka.
Urban seats 35/71
There are 71 constituencies where more than 35% of the population was living in urban areas. The BJP won 15 such seats in 2013. In 2018, it increased its count to 35. Meanwhile, the Congress saw its tally in such seatsshrink from 42 to 30 seats.
Dalit seats: 31/82
There are 82 constituencies where Dalits comprised over 20% of the population. In 2013, the BJP won only 9 of these seats. This time, they won 31, mostly at the expense of the Congress, whose tally fell from 49 to 34.The JD (S) saw its count in such seats fall from 17 to 15.
Minority seats: 36/78
There are 78 constituencies in Karnataka where the share of minorities in the population was above 17%. The BJP increased its haul in such seats from 19 to 36. The Congress went from 45 to 35—a decline but not of the same level as in Dalit and urban seats.
Irrespective of who forms the government, the results are a boost for the BJP as it has managed to get more seats than the Congress and bury the ghosts of the defeat it suffered in the 2013 assembly elections. Three factors can explain this success.
The announced alliance between the Congress, JD(S), has left the BJP seething. But this kind of an alliance would never been necessary had there been a pre-electoral understanding between these two parties. While the JD(S) wins many seats in South Karnataka, it often plays spoiler outside of the region.
We defined JD(S) as a spoiler when it finished third or lower but had a greater vote share difference between the Congress’ and BJP vote share. In effect, these are the seats the JD(S) has no chance of winning but has enough votes to push the second place party over top. Thirty-one of the 43 seats in which JD(S) plays spoilers are in Bombay, Central, or Hyderabad Karnataka – areas with heavy Lingayat populations that came back to the BJP this time. There was little bias in whose fortunes the JD(S) spoiled. Of the 43 seats in which JD(S) was spoiler, the Congress won 23 and BJP bagged 20. (Graphic text: Neelanjan Sircar)
Blow to incumbents
The Congress got fewer seats than the BJP though its vote share was nearly two percentage points higher than the saffron party’s. A look at seats where incumbents lost, which may have hurt the Congress more than the BJP because the former had 122 seats.
Sixteen ministers from the Siddaramaiah government failed to secure a win from their constituencies
The Siddaramaiah government’s decision in March to grant the status of a minority religion to the Lingayat community backfired with the Congress emerging as the biggest loser. The Congress had banked on the support of the influential mutts (monasteries) of the community to back its decision and help sway a significant chunk of Lingayat votes in its favour. But it managed to win just 39 of the 104 seats in the Mumbai-Karnataka, Hyderabad-Karnataka and Central Karnataka regions where the community is dominant, a significant reduction from the 67 seats it won in 2013.
BJP dominates India and how
The Karnataka assembly election results reconfirm the dominance of Narendra Modi-Amit Shah leadership in national politics.
The data analysis has been carried out by Neelanjan Sircar, Senior Fellow, CPR, Roshan Kishore from Hindustan Times and How India Lives. The original article appeared in Hindustan Times.
