Author: cprindia

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.

FULL VIDEO OF PUBLIC LECTURE ORGANISED BY ASHOKA UNIVERSITY AND CPR
POLITICS

Watch the full video (above) of the public lecture on ‘Is Electoral Democracy still a good tool for Social Justice?’ featuring Philippe Van Parijs, organised by Ashoka University and CPR. The lecture was followed by a conversation with Pratap Bhanu Mehta.

Electoral democracy possesses virtues that arguably makes it an indispensable tool in the pursuit of social justice. These virtues include the educational force of vote fetching, the disciplining force of self-infliction and above all the civilising force of hypocrisy. But this tool is very imperfect and for a number of reasons — among them, the growing impact of our local decisions on people living elsewhere or not yet born and the growing role of the internet — increasingly so.

To address its imperfections, it is worth exploring unorthodox strategies whose relevance will vary greatly from place to place. These strategies include the democratisation of a lingua franca (as a complement to local languages), the creation of global constituencies (as a complement to local ones), the development of randomly composed citizens’ assemblies (as a complement to elected assemblies) and listening to the street (as a complement to the ballot box). They will be illustrated by recent proposals and debates in the European context.

Philippe Van Parijs is the Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics at UCLouvain.

PART 2 OF A SERIES ON ‘COASTAL REGULATION’ BY THE CPR-NAMATI ENVIRONMENT JUSTICE PROGRAM
COASTAL GOVERNANCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RIGHTS

The Environment Ministry has put the CRZ Notification, 2011 through one review, eight amendments and two clarifications since 2014; mostly without any public participation.

This piece can also be accessed in: हिंदी

History of CRZ Notification

The Indian coastline has been protected by the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification since 1991. However, it has also been a space to set up development projects and commercial activities through the construction of ports, thermal power plants and Special Economic Zones. Coastal lands are also in high demand by resorts, hotels and real estate projects. Between 1991 and 2001, through a series of amendments to the Notification, the coasts were opened for all these activities. By 2002, the CRZ Notification had witnessed 20 amendments and it became a complex piece of legislation difficult to comprehend and implement. To piece together all these amendments in one document and also to acknowledge the coastal communities’ rights of using the coast, the notification was replaced with Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 2011.

Coastal Regulation Zone Notification (CRZ), 2011

CRZ Notification, 2011 was a result of numerous consultations with different stakeholders all along the coast and dialogues between policy makers, civil society organisations, fisher groups and coastal communities. What came out of the process was a negotiated document, which tried to balance different interests and concerns. While it made State Coastal Zone Management Authorities responsible for the implementation of CRZ Notification in their respective jurisdictions, it gave a limited role for state governments in the process of project appraisals and coastal planning (See our report on CZMAs for details). While different actors may have varied opinions on the outcome of the process, there is a unanimous view that the process of drafting the CRZ Notification, 2011 embraced the principles of transparency and public participation in policy making.

Changes to the CRZ Notification, 2011

In June 2014, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Dr Shailesh Nayak, the then director of the Ministry of Earth Sciences to review the CRZ Notification, 2011. The mandate of the committee was to suggest measures to address the concerns raised by state governments, iron out any ambiguities within the CRZ notification and bring ‘procedural simplification’. The committee consulted the state governments and submitted its report to the Ministry in January 2015. Adhering to its Terms of Reference strictly while examining the notification, the committee did not take on board anyone else’s views (see this analysis for details). The committee made a presentation before the erstwhile Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar in early November 2014 and from that month onward, the CRZ Notification, 2011 has been subject to a series of amendments and clarifications. Download the full report to read the recommendations of the Committee, as well as read the analysis of the recommendations of the CRZ review committee to understand its impacts and its link with the changes being undertaken by the government since November, 2014.

The first in the series was an amendment to transfer powers to appraise certain projects from the MoEFCC to the State Environment Impact Assessment Authorities. Both the review and then this subsequent amendment prove that the Ministry’s efforts at decentralisation are limited only till the state level. The District level coastal committees (DLCCs), though recommended to be constituted under the CRZ Notification, are yet to be fully functional in states such as Goa, Kerala and Odisha. The amendment did not pay any attention to this point. This abandonment of DLCCs becomes particularly grave because they are the only institutions that give an opportunity to coastal communities to participate in decision making for the coasts (See this article to understand how DLCCs have been disregarded in coastal governance).

The Second amendment that was proposed on 11 December, 2014, and was finalised on 17 February, 2015, allowed reclamation in water areas of the CRZ for construction of monuments and memorials. Environmentalists and fisherfolk raised concerns regarding impacts of this change on marine ecology and fisheries through submissions to the Ministry. Since this amendment was finalised within a week after the usual period of 60 days of seeking public comments on the draft, how many of these submissions were read remains a question.

In the same month even before the above-mentioned amendment was finalised, another amendment was made (without seeking any public comments) to allow certain relaxations to tourism projects in urban areas of CRZ. These relaxations included lifting the ban on withdrawal of groundwater from near the coast, and doing away with the requirement of maintaining a path between two tourist structures to access the beach, etc.

In February 2015, the MoEFCC also issued a circular that stated that temporary constructions that are essential but secondary to an activity that has been approved for the coast can be carried out even if they are not explicitly mentioned in the clearance letter. The MoEFCC clarified that such temporary constructions cannot be considered violations.

In March the same year, observing that the preparation of new management plans for the coast as per the CRZ Notification, 2011 was taking time, the MoEFCC extended the validity of the existing plans. The new plans were to replace the plans made 15 years ago (in 1996) under the old Notification of 1991.

In the same month, came a draft amendment that proposed to extend the local town and country planning norms to coastal cities and towns. This meant that coastal cities and towns, despite their vulnerability to natural disasters, could have buildings of as much height and have as many floors as their inland counterparts. This amendment was finalised in June 2015 (implications of this amendment are discussed here).

In June 2015, the MoEFCC proposed one more amendment that allowed reclamation of the seabed for roads while the CRZ Notification, 2011, in its original form, allowed roads to be built only on pillar like structures called stilts so that they would have minimum effect on the sea currents and cause less damage to marine ecology. Despite opposition from fisher groups, citizens, environmentalists and urban planners, this amendment came through in December 2015 (amendments introduced till this time have been discussed here).

The Ministry issued another circular that expanded the definition of the term ‘foreshore facilities’ mentioned in the CRZ Notification, 2011. It stated that the term includes shipping related secondary activities such as marinas, ship repair yards, dry docks, shipbuilding yards and ship lifts. This clarification permitted these activities in the coastal regulation zone.

Another extension to the existing coastal zone management plan came in March 2016 (See details of challenges concerning coastal planning here).

Last in the series of amendments and clarifications, was a draft amendment in April 2016 that proposed to lift the restriction on the construction of sewage treatment plants in ecologically sensitive areas of Greater Mumbai. It also allowed temporary tourism structures such as shacks to remain erected during the monsoon months in Goa. The original Notification required them to be removed during these months to keep to their temporary status and to avoid them from becoming permanent facilities. Also, to prevent any delay in appraisals it proposed that the concerned environment department would be responsible for appraisals in the event of delay in the reconstitution of coastal zone management authorities when their term expires. This Notification is yet to be finalised.

In March this year, to further update the appraisal process, the MoEFCC initiated a separate web-portal for CRZ clearance. It also announced training on using the web-portal for the members of the coastal zone management authorities – institutions responsible for implementation of the CRZ Notification.

In the same month, there have been news reports of an impending new Notification that would replace the existing CRZ Notification, 2011. As per the news reports, it will permit more tourism and commercial projects in the CRZ (Read the first piece in this series for an analysis of the implications of these changes).
If analysed together, these changes indicate three trends: opening of coasts for more commercial and tourism projects; fast-tracking and streamlining of the appraisal process; and allowing state governments a bigger role in coastal decision-making. However, these changes have been made without any public consultation or they have ignored the concerns raised by the coastal communities and local people in submissions sent to the Ministry. The suggestions made in these submissions have had no impact on the process of policy making as the final notifications are almost the same as the drafts put out for public comment. From the process followed by the Ministry in changing the CRZ Notification, it appears that the era of participatory coastal planning is over.

he other pieces in this series can be accessed below:

• Coastal commons for private tourism and entertainment?
• States ask Review Committee to loosen up the Coastal Regulation
• Crucial aspects of proposed Marine Coastal Regulatory Zone Notification revealed
• In conversation with Dr Shailesh Nayak – the man who led the review of coastal regulation
• The proposed Marine Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ) Notification
• A tale of two reviews: How two governments amended a coastal land use law
• The Supreme Court’s guiding principles for coastal regulation
• Coastal Regulation Zone Disputes before the National Green Tribunal
• CRZ drives a wedge between communities in Mumbai

NAMITA WAHI, FELLOW AT CPR, EXPLAINS
ECONOMY RIGHTS POLITICS

The Supreme Court is presently hearing several public interest petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Ministry of Finance notification number S.O. 3407(E).

Issued on November 8, 2016, the notification declared that 500 and 1000 rupees notes ceased to be legal tender as of midnight on that day. This “demonetisation” notification permitted unlimited deposit of the now illegal 500 and 1000 Rs. notes by people into their bank accounts, and over the counter exchange of the notes upto a limit of Rs. 4,000, subject to review after 15 days. The notification also imposed limits on both ATM and bank withdrawals of cash. Since then, the government has through executive order made many changes to the applicable limits. The Preamble to the notification stated that the objective of the notification was to eliminate fake currency used for financing terrorism and to address the problem of “unaccounted money” in the economy.

According to some estimates, 86% of Indian currency was in the now illegal Rs. 500 and 1000 notes. Since 68% of all transactions in India are cash transactions, drastically restricting the use of 86% of the currency has predictably thrown the country into a state of chaos. Notwithstanding the government’s efforts to ensure that banks can service the currency needs of the people, endless queues at banks, reports of slowdown of trade and business in the economy, and more than 50 reported deaths have led many to question the wisdom of this move and its efficacy in achieving its objectives vis-à-vis the costs to the people and abridgement of their rights. The Supreme Court likely will not entertain arguments regarding the efficacy of demonetisation since it has repeatedly expressed its deference to the government on policy matters. It must however decide the legality of this move. The demonetisation notification is illegal because it goes beyond the scope of what is permitted under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, (“RBI Act”), the stated source of authority for the notification. There is also a prima facie case of direct and indirect abridgement of fundamental rights to movement (Article 19(1)(d)), trade or business (Article 19(1)(g), livelihood and in certain cases life (Article 21), the right to equality (Article 14), and the constitutional right to property (Article 300A).

It is clear that section 26(2) of the RBI Act empowers the government to demonetise, that is, to declare any series of notes as illegal tender. Therefore, that part of the notification which merely declares that “Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000” notes cease to be legal tender is permissible under section 26(2). In fact, the government twice before, in 1946 and 1978, carried out demonetisation lawfully, with the same goal of addressing unaccounted money. But neither the RBI Act, nor the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, empower the government to impose restrictions on cash withdrawals or deposits in the manner it has been done, and to discriminate between holders and non holders of bank accounts, as the present notification has done. Such actions require an authorising legislation, either an Act of Parliament or an Ordinance. Both in 1946, and in 1978, similar actions were authorised by an ordinance. The failure to issue an ordinance to provide the legal basis for the demonetisation notification this time renders the demonetisation exercise illegal. Even if the act of demonetisation is severed from the restrictions placed on people’s access to their cash and bank accounts, the latter stipulations are both illegal and unconstitutional on several counts.

First, Article 13 of the Constitution provides that the state shall not pass any law or issue any notification that violates the fundamental rights of the people. In Madan Mohan Pathak v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that “public debts” are property and “the extinguishment of such a debt owing from the state amounts to compulsory acquisition of that debt”. Such compulsory acquisition must be for a public purpose and upon payment of compensation. In Jayantilal Ratanchand v. RBI, in the context of the 1978 demonetisation, the Supreme Court held that insofar as the demonetisation wiped out the RBI’s debt to the bearer of notes declared illegal, it constituted compulsory acquisition of property. Under Article 300A, the state may deprive an individual of property only pursuant to the authority of law, that is, by an Ordinance or an Act of Parliament. The Supreme Court has held that even a temporary deprivation of property can constitute deprivation within the meaning of this provision. The government’s failure to issue an Ordinance (since Parliament was not in session at the time of the demonetisation) to extinguish its debt to the people thereby depriving them of their property impermissibly violates Article 300A. Of course, even if the demonetisation had been sanctioned by an Ordinance, the Court would investigate if it met a public purpose and whether those who were deprived of their property were reasonably compensated. Here the Court would likely hold in light of Jayantilal that the Ordinance fulfilled a public purpose but there is a strong claim that the rationing of currency done by the government constitutes a form of creeping expropriation for which there has been no compensation, and that might nevertheless violate Article 300A.

Second, the extraordinary hardship caused by the demonetisation ordinance has impacted fundamental rights to trade, business and livelihoods of vast sections of the population and even the right to life of those who have died. While the government may “reasonably” restrict the rights to trade, business and livelihood of the people in the interests of the “general public”, the burden is on the government to show that such restrictions are reasonable. The test of reasonableness is whether the measure was necessary to achieve the government’s objectives, and whether less risky, less harmful alternatives were available. In Saghir Ahmad v. State of UP, the Supreme Court held that the reasonableness of a law must be assessed in terms of its “immediate effects” on the affected population. Unlike the 1978 demonetisation exercise that impacted only 1% of currency held, the 2016 demonetisation measure insofar as it impacts an estimated 86% of total currency has had severely punitive effects on many sections of the population, daily wage earners, those without bank accounts, those dependent on the informal cash economy for the major source of their trade and livelihood. The notification is unconstitutional for violating their fundamental rights under Articles 19 and 21.

The notification also discriminates between holders and non-holders of bank accounts. While the government may argue that such a classification is necessary to achieve their objectives of eliminating unaccounted money, insofar as the government failed to ensure that 100% of the population had bank accounts prior to the issuance of this surprise notification, the classification may be assailed as arbitrary and violative of the right to equality under Article 14.

We live in a country governed by the rule of law, and not by the rule of men. The objectives of the demonetisation notification may be laudable, whether the notification will achieve those objectives is debatable. But, as it exists, the demonetisation notification is illegal and unconstitutional.

CREMATION AT LODHI ROAD ELECTRIC CREMATORIUM ON FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2015 AT 4.30. PM
OBITUARIES

It is with profound grief and sadness that we announce the passing away of Mr K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, Chairman, Centre for Policy Research. The cremation will take place at Lodhi Road Electric Crematorium on Friday, May 29, 2015 at 4.30. pm. This is an immeasurable loss to CPR and the wider community. We can take some consolation from his extraordinary achievement in so many fields and we know he will be lighting up heaven as he lit up this earth.

A REMEMBRANCE
OBITUARIES

K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, IAS, chairman of the Centre for Policy Research, passed away on May 28. His life surpassed all measures of excellence, achievement and character. A conventional biography would be impressive enough: An IAS officer who exemplified the best that the service was meant to be, in knowledge, dedication and integrity. He served in various positions: chief executive, Calcutta Metropolitan Authority, secretary in the ministries of commerce and urban affairs. After retirement, he embarked on a career as a scholar, publishing a dozen significant books and reports, mainly on urbanisation, which would be the envy of any scholar. But this biography does not do justice to his achievement.

KCS, as he was known, was the kind of individual indispensable to the foundations of modern India. His integrity and thoroughness as a civil servant were exemplary. But unlike the encrusted reputation of civil servants (which he made fun of in a characteristically humorous and self-deprecating book, The Enduring Babu), his conduct as a civil servant was to facilitate and enable, rather than block and slow down things. In a disposition that he carried over to scholarly life, he never presumed to know and always insisted on learning more. But, most importantly, it is hard to think of a modern scholar or civil servant whose career was so insistently bound up with the fundamental architecture of Indian democracy; an architecture we have waylaid at our peril.

In his work and life, that architecture of democracy had four pillars. The first, unusual among civil servants, was an unremitting faith in the primacy of representative democracy. He did probably the most laborious and outstanding work on delimitation, to ensure that the idea of equal representation was not lost. The second pillar was a farsighted belief in the power of decentralisation and the role of local bodies. He was one of the architects of the 73rd and 74th Amendments, and his passion for local government informed almost everything he did. He published numerous books on the subject including, most recently, Courts, Panchayats and Nagarpalikas, which examined the ways in which courts have shaped the architecture of local governance. In his most recent work on mega-city governance, he candidly acknowledged the ways in which a moth-eaten 74th Amendment had stymied the future of urban governance. He argued for democracy over bureaucracy, participation over exclusion, and the fitness of administrative structures to the task at hand with rare depth, knowledge and precision.

The third pillar of a democratic future was cities. He was one of the earliest articulators of a vision for city governance, beginning with his work in developing industrial townships like Durgapur and Asansol, through to his work in rehabilitating refugees during the 1971 war in Calcutta.

Although his work focused much on the legal forms and administrative structures of cities, every single report and book of his is informed by a profound sense of the dynamism of cities and their complex social and economic structures. His most recent work on mega cities (including chairing the commission for a new capital for Andhra Pradesh) highlighted the complex dynamic unfolding in the relations between regions and cities, and was prescient in recognising the kinds of tensions brewing around our cities.

The fourth pillar of his work on democracy was profoundly infused with his personality. Behind his baritone voice and towering presence was a truly democratic personality, infused with the lightness, joy and diversity only a democratic personality could conjure. He had a killer sense of humour that had the power to dissolve conflict rather than exacerbate it. He was fiercely independent, deferring to no authority or threat, and nurtured that quality in institutions he shepherded. He had strong views. But he never imposed them, and often nurtured a kind of agonal difference. He cared about everyone he encountered. He combined in his persona the dream liberal arts sensibility we talk about but rarely achieve — the knowledge of several languages, a deep and cultured interest in art and music, a passion for knowledge ranging from law to economics, a sense of civic duty and dialogue across generations. Democracy for him was the affirmation of life.

He may also have been the last of the great Nehruvians. He chided Nehru for ignoring local government. But he had a commitment to building a modern state, a deep interest in institutions, an interest in modernity, made richer by a sense of the past, a sense of India above region, religion and caste, and a concern for a civilisational linkage that could perhaps one day, again, transcend the barriers Partition created. He left too soon. And the only explanation can be that God needed an exemplary civil servant for himself, since modern India seems to no longer have any use for this kind.

– Pratap Bhanu Mehta, writing in the Indian Express on 29 May 2015

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.

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).