Sunday, April 21, 2019

Why is EC scared of acting against Modi and Shah?


Not published by India Today
Fair play demands that EC takes cognisance of all complaints of alleged violations of poll code and misuse of defence forces for votes; selective action which leaves out the most dominant political players does little good to its credibility or free and fair polling, (A week later, Modi continues to violate MCC but no action from EC and media is silent. Meanwhile, SC changed its stand and asked EC to watch Modi film for 'informed decision' after EC banned it following its order. SC surprised at EC's action to ban the film? That looked more plausible.)

After dithering for more than a month, the Election Commission of India (ECI) finally woke up to its responsibilities and powers on Monday and cracked whips on four political leaders for poll code violation, at the prompting of the Supreme Court.

In all, four leaders – Yogi Adityanath, Mayawati, Azam Khan and Maneka Gandhi – have been banned from campaigning for a period ranging from 48 to 72 hours.

While Yogi, Maneka and Mayawati have been found violating the poll code by seeking votes in the name of religion or appealing to communal feelings, Azam Khan has been found making remarks “repugnant to honour and dignity of women” and derogatory of political rivals.[1]
Yogi had earlier (on April 5) been censured for describing the Indian Army as “Modiji ki sena”.[2]

The ECI has also issued a notice to the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao for communal remarks but has not yet communicated what further action has been taken.

No note of violations by Modi and Shah

Praiseworthy as such actions are the ECI seems to have taken no note of allegations of similar violations by the two most significant influencers of the electoral outcomes – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.

Both Modi and Shah have been reported for speeches appealing to communal feelings and also for ignoring the ECI’s March 19 directive not to seek votes in the name of the defence forces – “the political parties/candidates are further advised that their campaigners/candidates should desist, as part of their election campaigning, from indulging in any political propaganda involving activities of the Defence forces.[3]

On April 6, soon after Rahul Gandhi picked Wayanad in Kerala to contest, Modi hit out at him saying: “The Congress dynast went out with a microscope to look for a safe seat to contest and selected a seat where the majority is in minority.”[4] A few days later on April 10, Shah likened Wayanand to Pakistan and wondered aloud at a rally: “Is it in Pakistan?”[5]

Shah was reported for doing more of the same at a rally in West Bengal on April 12, which the BJP duly twitted: “We will ensure implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha, Hindus and Sikhs: Shri @AmitShah #NaMoForNewIndia.”[6] The Muslims and Christians were missing from the reference.
Both Modi and Shah have been reported for using the defence forces in their campaign.

On May 28, addressing a rally in Jammu, Modi reportedly referred to the Balakot strike to run down the opposition parties.[7] On April 10, he asked the first-time voters of Aurangabad and Latur in Maharashtra to dedicate their vote to the martyrs of Pulwama and the heroes of the Balakot strike.[8]
Shah, addressing a rally in Shahjahanpur (Uttar Pradesh) on April 13 narrated how Modi had “issued an order to the brave soldiers of our air force on the 13th day of the martyrdom of the CRPF men, and they entered Pakistani territory.”[9]

The Congress and other political parties have filed multiple complaints with the ECI regarding all these speeches[10] but the latter has not taken any note of it so far, as a scanning of its orders show.

Violation model code, RP Act and Constitution

The violations of the poll code being mentioned primarily relate to the first three directives of the MCC to parties and candidates which prohibits:[11] (a) activity that may “aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension” between communities and religious groups (b) criticism of other political parties “based on unverified allegations or distortion” and (c) “no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes”.

Besides, appealing to communal feelings violates the Constitution of India, which is expressly secular in character, the Representation of People Act of 1951 and the political parties’ respective constitutions. Some cases, like that of Azam Khan, attract criminal proceedings too (FIR has already been filed against him).

Section 123(3) of the RP Act makes communal politics a “corrupt practice” and forbids (i) seeking vote or refrain from voting for any person on the ground of his religion, race, caste, community and (ii) promotion of, or attempt to promote, feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of the citizens of India on grounds of religion, race, caste, community.

Such politics also violate section 29A (5) of the RP Act, under which all registered parties have given an undertaking to the ECI, at the time of their registration, declaring their “true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy, and would uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”.

This declaration is also incorporated in party constitutions. For example, the third paragraph of BJP’s constitution (Article II) reproduces this declaration verbatim, besides promising “Sarva Dharma Samabhav”.[12]

Modi and Shah are undoubtedly the two most powerful political influencers in India and their capacity to influence campaign narrative is unmatched by any other. Hence, it is all the more important that the ECI takes note of allegations of poll code violations and violation of its directive not to seek vote in the name of the defence forces and take appropriate action.

Incidentally, Shah and Khan, both were banned from campaigning in 2014 (for the rest of the campaign period) for appealing to communal feelings.[13] Later, Shah was allowed to campaign after he promised to be mindful of his language but not Khan, who had shown no remorse.[14]





[6] https://www.deccanherald.com/national/all-aliens-except-buddhists-sikhs-hindus-out-shah-728249.html
[7] https://indianexpress.com/elections/congress-blinded-by-anti-modi-sentiment-stopped-thinking-in-nations-interest-modi-5647374/

Friday, April 19, 2019

Why EC’s pusillanimity poses a great threat to our democracy


Not published by India Today
The effectiveness of ECI in conducting a free and fair poll is far more significant than realised; any mistake will have far reaching consequences, endangering India’s democracy itself

In 2007, historian and author Ramachandra Guha wrote in India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy that India is a 50-50 democracy. He wrote: “It mostly is (a democracy) when it comes to holding elections and permitting freedom of movement and expression. It mostly is not when it comes to the functioning of politicians and political institutions.”

In 2016, he was saying: “My worry is that we are not so much an electoral democracy as much as an elections-only democracy. You win an election and you think you are immune to criticism for the next five years. That was true of the UPA and that was true of the NDA.”[1] Yet, he still held that as a democracy India was “perhaps only 50 percent”.

India: A ‘flawed democracy’?

Guha is not far off the mark. A free and fair election is India’s biggest marker of democracy.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)’s democracy index has been providing a broad picture of the state of democracy worldwide for 165 states since 2006. It measures the state of democracy on five parameters – electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties – and classifies countries into four types: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime.

India falls in the category of ‘flawed democracy’.
Its score (on a scale of 0 to 10) has remained the same (7.23) for the past two years, 2017 (ranked 42) and 2018 (ranked 41).

Among the five parameters, India scored the highest – a near perfect 9.17 – in ‘electoral process and pluralism’ as is shown in the table below.






In 2017, India witnessed a drastic fall by 10 places – from 32nd to 42nd to place – which the EIU explained in these words: “The rise of conservative religious ideologies also affected India. The strengthening of right-wing Hindu forces in an otherwise secular country led to a rise of vigilantism and violence against minority communities, particularly Muslims, as well as other dissenting voices.”[2]

If plotted in a chart, India’s democratic index graph since 2006 looks as the following.




‘Decline of democracy in India’ and creeping autocratization

The V-Dem dataset (of Gothenburg University’s V-Dem Institute) on the health of democracies in the world is considered one of the most rigorous and comprehensive one. Its latest report, Democracy for All?: V-Dem Annual Democracy Report 2018,[3] has a chapter on India headlined: “The Decline of Democracy in India”.

It says India is “at risk” not only because its “level of democracy has declined significantly over the last decade, particularly concerning freedom of speech and alternative source of information, civil society, the rule of law and some electoral prospects” but also that “autocratization is now manifesting” here, along with some others like Brazil, Russia, Turkey and the US.

It points out that “much of these changes have taken place after the Bharatiya Janata Party won the Parliamentary elections in 2014...”

V-Dem measures democracies through five indices – deliberative democracy index, egalitarian democracy index, electoral democracy index, liberal democracy index and participatory democracy index. A graph plotting the data for each index from its database – from 1900 to 2018 – is reproduced below.

As is evident, barring the 1975-77 Emergency years in the post-independence era, all indices are on a nosedive. In fact, all the indices are very close to what obtained during the Emergency years of 1975-77.

In this dataset too, India scores the highest in the ‘electoral democracy index’ with a score of 0.56 (closer to 1 reflects better performance) while others range between 0.33 (egalitarian democracy index) to 0.42 (liberal democracy index).




How democracies die or survive

Two Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have been teaching about failures of democracy in Europe and Latin America and new forms of authoritarianism around the world.

In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, they observe that most democratic breakdowns post-Cold War have been caused by the elected governments through subversion of democratic institutions, unlike classic coup d’état of the past.

They say erosion of democracy takes place piecemeal, often in baby steps. Each individual step seems minor – none appears to truly threaten democracy. And, therefore, there may not be a single moment and the society’s alarm bell may not ring.

They argue that not all democracies have fallen into the trap of electing autocrats. Some democracies defended themselves successfully, like Belgium, Britain, Costa Rica and Finland at some or other time in their recent history.

What saved them? The Harvard professors talk of two factors: (a) political parties played democracy’s gatekeepers and (b) basic norms of the society (“Some of history’s most tragic democratic breakdowns were preceded by the degrading of basic norms”).

By ‘basic norms’ they mean (i) “mutual tolerance” or the understanding that competing political parties accept one another as legitimate rivals and (ii) “forbearance” or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives.

They wrote that in America these ‘basic norms’ have weakened since 1980s.

They didn’t write about India. But discernible observers will note a similarity in recent years with the ‘basic norms’ falling like nine pins, particularly in the run up to and during the on-going poll campaign.

While a free and fair election is not the panacea for all that may ail India’s democracy, it remains a very critical factor. No wonder the Supreme Court has, in several of its orders relating to the electoral laws (Representation of the People Act of 1951) insisted on maintaining the “purity of the electoral process” – free of unhealthy practices.[4]

The Election Commission of India (ECI) would do well to keep that in mind.

[2] https://www.prensa.com/politica/democracy-index_LPRFIL20190112_0001.pdf

Thursday, April 11, 2019

2019 (missing) reports: Government is equally responsible for ensuring neutrality and level-playing field during elections & Explained: How Rahul Gandhi's minimum income guarantee is different from universal basic income

 Government is equally responsible for ensuring neutrality and level-playing field during elections

The governments have as much responsibility of ensuring free and fair elections and providing a level-playing field for all candidates and political parties as the ECI. 

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(Picture for representation)

HIGHLIGHTS

  • IT and ED raids targeting the Opposition parties vitiate level-playing field, giving advantage to the party in power - which goes against Model Code of Conduct
  • IT is expected to report to ECI during election campaign and limit itself to checking misuse of money power, not to misuse power in a partial and discriminatory way
  • IT and ED have conducted several raids targeting the Opposition rank - TDP, DMK and JD(S) - after the MCC came into effect on March 10

Even while a war of words is going on between the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Finance Ministry over maintaining neutrality in raids against political parties while the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is in force, it has come to the notice that 15 raids have been carried out targeting the Opposition parties by the Income Tax department (IT) alone in the past six months.

Last Sunday the ECI had written to the Revenue Secretary of the Government of India strongly advising that the enforcement agencies working under his supervision - IT and Enforcement Directorate (ED) - should be absolutely neutral, impartial and non-discriminatory in their action against political parties.

The immediate provocation was the IT raids on the Congress leader Kamal Nath's associates in 52 locations in four states bang in the middle of electioneering - five days ahead of the first phase of polling. The raiding party from Delhi was accompanied with CRPF personnel and the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Madhya Pradesh had no prior information about it.

On Tuesday, the Revenue Secretary and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) rebutted the ECI's charges and instead advised the ECI to curb the use of illicit money and keep tax officers in loop. The ECI is understood to have told them to keep it informed if its action related to electoral malpractice.

IT & ED targeting the Opposition

In the run up to this event, the IT and ED have conducted several raids targeting the Opposition rank - TDP, DMK and JD(S) - after the MCC came into effect on March 10.

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On April 5, the IT raided TDP MP CM Ramesh and his supporters in Andhra Pradesh's Kadapa, following which the Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu went on a dharna in Amravati. Naidu has been complaining of harassment at the hand of the Central enforcement agencies after he snapped ties with the NDA government.

On March 28, in another pre-dawn swoop, the IT officials accompanied with the CRPF personnel from Delhi raided the JD(S) minister for minor irrigation CS Puttaraju, his nephew and PWD minister HD Revanna's associates in Karnataka.

On March 29, there was yet another IT raid, this time on another Opposition party. The DMK's treasurer Durai Murugan and his institutions were raided in Vellore, Katpadi and other places in Tamil Nadu.

Government is equally responsible for fair elections

The governments have as much responsibility of ensuring free and fair elections and providing a level-playing field for all candidates and political parties as the ECI.

In 1979, a new chapter was added to the MCC specifically for stopping misuse of official machinery - Part VII: Party in Power. The first line of this chapter says : "The party in power whether at the Centre or in the State or States concerned shall ensure that no cause is given for any complaint that it has used its official position for the purposes of its election campaign..."

In 2010, former Chief Election Commission SY Quraishi (2010-12) added a division to the ECI - Expenditure Monitoring Division (EMD) - to check misuse of money power in electioneering and is manned by the Revenue Service officials.

The EMD had issued a directive to the CBDT chairman on January 16, 2013 , clearly defining the role of the IT during electioneering: (a) keep track of "movement of undisclosed cash during election process" and (b) "for this purpose, the services of the officers and officials under the supervision of Director General of Income Tax (Inv.) in charge of the state are requisitioned by the Commission".

This means the IT department is required to report to the ECI, not the other way round and it has to confine itself to checking misuse of money power. Its routine investigations are supposed to take a backseat during the elections so as not to influence the elections in any way - as has been the practice until now.

When asked for his views on the recent raids and the ECI's notice to the Revenue Secretary, Quraishi told India Today: "Not at all. This has never happened. In our time, the government agencies were extra careful not to vitiate, harm or influence any candidate or party in any way. Normal activities were postponed. This (raids by IT and ED) is totally unprecedented and so has the ECI written to the Revenue Secretary."

Regarding the misuse of official machinery vis-a-vis the Part VII of MCC, Quraishi said, "It (Part VII) is directed against the government which has an extra responsibility. It (government) has an advantage which has to be neutralised to ensure a level-playing field".

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SK Mendiratta - who served the legal department of the ECI for 52 long years (1964-2018), the last 20 of which as the legal advisor post his retirement - also confirmed that such a directive had never been issued in the past.

"It never happened. Raids are violation of Part VII. There is no legal angle to it. If something is wrong, action can be taken by the government agencies. The only thing to see is that nothing political is done to disturb the level-playing field."

A serving ECI official said on the condition of anonymity that such raids on the Opposition parties do constitute misuse of official machinery and violates the Part VII. The ECI expects the government agencies to maintain decorum, restraint and ensure that powers are exercised legitimately, he added.

MCC is voluntary without statutory backing, but has worked well until now

The MCC was adopted voluntarily by the political parties, ECI and government of the day in 1968-69 but has the backing of the Supreme Court and High Court in their several rulings in the past. It has worked well until now and the ECI has always argued in favour of maintaining its voluntary nature which gives it moral authority in the conduct of elections in a free and fair manner.

The recent events - selective raids on the Opposition rank during the electioneering and the ensuing war of words between the ECI and Finance Ministry - have the potential to derail the MCC and vitiate the elections to the advantage of the party in power but to the detriment of the Opposition, raising questions about the free and fair nature of the elections in India.

Explained: How Rahul Gandhi's minimum income guarantee is different from universal basic income

The idea of a universal basic income has been discussed on the sidelines in India, but Rahul Gandhi promising that Congress would ensure minimum income guarantee for the poor has brought that debate into the mainstream

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Explained: How Rahul Gandhi's minimum income guarantee is different from universal basic income
The most popular version of universal basic income is one where every single citizen of a country -- regardless of her social, educational or economic standing -- gets a guaranteed monthly income

The threat of automation and the widening divide between the rich and the poor have pushed the world to consider different income redistribution concepts in the past few years. And one of the concepts that has received the most attention is the idea of a universal basic income, or UBI.

Until a few years ago, UBI -- the idea that government guarantee a fixed monthly income to every citizen of a country -- was largely a utopian one. But now, that probably is an idea whose time has come, to borrow Victor Hugo's words famously quoted by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh while unleashing the liberalisation process in his 1991 budget.

The idea of universal basic income was discussed in India, like it was in the rest of the world. But that debate took place largely on the sidelines.

Yesterday, however, that idea entered the mainstream when Congress chief Rahul Gandhi announced that if his party was voted to power in the upcoming general elections, it would ensure a minimum income guarantee for the poor.

Rahul Gandhi did not go into the details of his proposal. But, UBI quickly became MIG. However, the two are different.

UBI vs MIG

The most popular version of universal basic income is one where every single citizen of a country -- regardless of her social, educational or economic standing -- gets a guaranteed monthly income.

In India, the concept of universal basic income is slightly different. The concept was studied during the ruling Narendra Modi government's term.

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In 2016-17, the Economic Survey of India studied the idea and presented a model for UBI. The basic premise of the Economic Survey's UBI was: "A just society needs to guarantee to each individual a minimum income which they can count on, and which provides the necessary material foundation for a life with access to basic goods and a life of dignity".

The Economic Survey of India's model of UBI suggested providing Rs 7,620 per annum to 75 per cent of India's population. The income was based on Tendulkar's poverty line of 2011-12 inflation-indexed to 2016-17.

Now, Rahul Gandhi's plan seems to target only the poor. Rahul Gandhi has not said whether his proposed minimum income guarantee will cover 22 per cent of the population (as fixed by Tendulkar) or 29.5 per cent (fixed by Rangarajan). Also, Rahul Gandhi has not declared what the "minimum income" has would be.

Suresh Tendulkar and C Rangarajan headed committees that studied poverty in India. Both arrived at different qualification of poverty.

The essential difference between UBI and MIG is this: A universal basic income provides a monthly stipend that would ensure that a person would be above the poverty line without any other source of income. (Thus, the Economic Survey of India suggested a UBI of Rs 7,620 per annum).

A minimum income guarantee, on the other hand, is pretty much at the discretion of the government of the day -- it can be equal, more or less than the poverty line expenditure.

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