📰 Troubled waters: On Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan custody
More efforts should be made to wean away fishermen from trawlers
•The arrest of 68 Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan authorities between December 18 and 20 and the impounding of 10 boats for “poaching” in territorial waters have again raised concerns about the fate of the men. It is a matter of comfort and relief that the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka is working to secure their early release. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin, in his communication to the External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, on Monday, has underscored the need to get back 75 fishing boats too from Sri Lanka. Fishermen from Tamil Nadu getting arrested and released later has become a routine affair, but there have been cases of deaths. In January 2021, four fishermen from Ramanathapuram district lost their lives after their vessel collided with a Sri Lankan naval craft. There was a similar case in October in which a fisherman died. This is why the Palk Bay fishing dispute needs a resolution soon. The fact that many rounds of discussions — at the levels of the fishermen and the governments of the two countries — have not led to any tangible improvement in the situation should not deter the pursuit of sustained engagement to sort out a problem that involves humanitarian and livelihood issues.
•The bone of contention between the two countries has been the use of bottom trawlers by the Tamil Nadu fishermen, a practice opposed in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province on the ground that trawling damages the marine ecosystem. This practice has been banned in Sri Lanka and there have been agitations for stringent enforcement of the law. More than anything else, the fishermen of Tamil Nadu should take into account the fact that their counterparts on the other side of the Palk Strait are still struggling to pick up the threads of their lives after a brutal civil war. Given that an ambitious ₹1,600 crore scheme of replacing in three years 2,000 bottom trawlers with deep-sea fishing boats equipped with long lines and gill nets continues to be a disappointment, both the Central and Tamil Nadu governments need to take up fresh initiatives to get the fishermen on board. The main reason for failure is the component of cost to be borne by the fishermen, accounting for 30% of the unit cost of ₹80 lakh; the two governments take care of the remaining 70%. Apart from increasing the unit cost at least to ₹1.2 crore, which will be at the same level as that of a similar scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), the Governments must increase their share of subsidy. They should also motivate the fishermen to adopt sea cage farming and sea/ocean ranching, which were all covered under the PMMSY. Such an approach is essential as the fishermen find it hard to restrict themselves to India’s territorial waters, given the limited marine wealth and area on the Indian side. But, the priority now for New Delhi should be in securing the swift release of the 68 fishermen.
India must respond to neighbourhood challenges by making it clear that it is an arbiter of its destiny and the region’s
•Addressing an Indian Ocean Conference this month, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar listed two “trend lines” that have most influenced the “evolution” of Indian Ocean countries: a greater caution in power projection by the United States, and the rise of China that has permeated many spheres but also resulted in territorial tensions. He also listed two developments that have the most heightened uncertainties in the region: the American pull-out from Afghanistan and the novel coronavirus pandemic. While challenges to India and its neighbourhood were quite correctly identified, it is on these very factors that Indian leadership in the region has been challenged the most, and has fallen short.
Handling the Afghan issue
•To begin with, there is the challenge that the situation in Afghanistan has thrown up, triggered by the U.S. decision to pull out all troops.
•Four months after the Taliban takeover of Kabul, it is clear that New Delhi has failed to effect outcomes in a country where it has had a role historically, and is now left studying the threats that will emanate from Afghanistan — from terror groups, narcotics, and mass migration to flee the growing humanitarian crisis there. Three failures mark the Narendra Modi government’s efforts on Afghanistan thus far: the past, the present and the future.
•The first is a failure to recognise where U.S. policy was leading, especially after it signed the Doha Agreement of February 2020, that made the Taliban a legitimate interlocutor, and did not impose a ceasefire with the Afghan security forces as a pre-condition. That the Government continued to insist that it was “on the same page” with the U.S. merely ensured it was blindsided when the U.S., in conjunction with its Troika Plus-mates (Russia, China and Pakistan), paved the way for the fall of the Afghan republic.
•The second is one that New Delhi persists in today: the failure to secure its friends in Afghanistan. A stubborn resistance to allowing Afghans needing shelter — this includes students, artists and women activists, Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and National Directorate of Security (NDS) officials who are in particular danger because they trained in India, and members of Afghan minorities that are not Sikh or Hindu (Hazaras, Tajiks, Ahmadis and Shi’as) — has left thousands of Afghans feeling betrayed by a country they once considered “second home”. The cancellation of all visas that had been granted prior to August has only strengthened the belief that the Government has closed its doors to the very Afghan “brothers and sisters” in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly promised to stand by during a Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting on August 17.
•The third, is a failure to sow the seeds today for a better future for Afghanistan tomorrow, one which has a strong Indian presence in it. Among all the Afghan friends New Delhi has chosen to shun are members of opposition groups, including the “Resistance Front” led by Ahmad Massoud and former Vice-President Amrullah Saleh. The wariness to meet, support or host those who pose a counter to the Taliban regime today — even to provide a platform for them to speak — is in sharp contrast to the 1990s when New Delhi kept up its contacts with the Northern Alliance, supported their families in India, and admitted thousands of other Afghan refugees, an act that held it in good stead for two decades, after the Taliban was defeated in 2001. The Modi government’s moves thus far, building furtive links with the Taliban, with plans to send a small amount of food and aid through Pakistan (not its independently built route via Chabahar), and convening a conference of National Security Advisers of Central Asian countries, while proactive, will hardly fulfil that purpose in the future. Above all, India cannot be seen as toeing a line laid out by “western powers” that have themselves been defeated in the country on whether or not to re-establish its presence in Kabul or rebuild connectivity initiatives. Nor can it be seen as complicit in actions by the Russia-China combine that have protected the Taliban in Kabul and the Tatmadaw in Naypyitaw to subvert two of the world’s newest democracies.
Dealing with China
•The next big challenge India has faced is from Chinese aggression, quite directly. Regardless of the Indian Prime Minister’s statement in June 2020 that “neither has anyone come in, nor is anyone inside” Indian territory, it is clear from a number of ground sources, satellite maps and official releases that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has amassed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in unprecedented numbers for “peace-time”, built villages and settled populations inside disputed territory claimed by India; it has also dug trenches, brought in heavy artillery and prepared road and helicopter and aircraft landing infrastructure for its forces right up to the boundary with India.
•The Government’s reticence in acknowledging the Chinese actions is no longer seen as being “discretion over valour”. It is seen, particularly in the region, as deliberate diffidence on India’s part, particularly given the brutal killing of 20 Indian soldiers at Galwan last year.
•More surprising is the oft-repeated official statement that despite dozens of rounds of military and ministerial talks, the Government is unaware of the reasons for the Chinese action, which is disingenuous or exposes a lack of strategic thinking.
•Those who have analysed the situation more closely have pointed to five decided objectives behind China’s aggression at the LAC: apart from the obvious hegemonistic line Beijing has adopted to “reclaim” territory it claims it has lost over hundreds of years from the South China Sea to Tibet, the PLA plan is: to restrict India’s recent efforts at building border infrastructure, bridges, and roads right up to the LAC; to restrict any possible perceived threat to Xinjiang and Tibet; to restrict India’s ability to threaten China’s key Belt and Road project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), including a second link highway it plans from the Mustagh pass in occupied Gilgit-Baltistan to Pakistan, and to blunt any plans as outlined by the Home Minister in 2019 for India to reclaim Aksai Chin and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) militarily.
Impact of some bad moves
•In the face of such a clear-cut strategy, New Delhi must not only counter China more vocally and robustly but also be seen to provide leadership to the region that outpowers Beijing’s influence.
•The first is to resolve not to make spaces for China in the manner that the Modi government has during the coronavirus pandemic. By failing to keep its promises to provide vaccines, even those that had been paid for by countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal, and to send the paltry number required by Bhutan and the Maldives, India has left an indelible scar in the region.
•Second, India cannot cast itself as a counter to China by invoking its democratic system unless it is prepared to adhere to the very principles the Indian Republic’s founders committed to: as a pluralistic, representative, inclusive power that respects the rights of each citizen, the media, and civil society. While neighbours may not emulate India, they admire these very qualities that differentiate New Delhi from Beijing.
•The third imperative, which would promote India’s leadership in the region, is to stop seeing collaborations with other countries for projects in South Asia as a “win-win”. In fact, recent surveys by think tanks Carnegie and the Centre for Social and Economic Progress have found that while India is a preferred strategic partner for most of the countries in the neighbourhood (with the obvious exception of Pakistan), possible Indian collaborations with the U.S., Japan, Europe, etc. are not as popular, especially as they are seen as “anti-China” rival platforms, which these countries would want to avoid. These partnerships also hamper India’s ability to stand up for its neighbours when required, as some in Dhaka had hoped it might, when the U.S. chose to slap sanctions on Bangladesh’s multi-agency anti-terror Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) force right as the nation’s 50th anniversary celebrations began.
•As a result, New Delhi must block all external attempts to recast India as a “middle power”, one which looks to the example of others to decide its best interests and needs the support of other powers to chart its course of action in its neighbourhood. More than anything else, India’s response to neighbourhood challenges must not paint it as a “victim of circumstance” but as an arbiter of its own destiny, and the region’s.
📰 Why the electoral reforms Bill is a problem
The Aadhaar project is again being used for purposes far beyond the stated purpose of ‘welfare’
•The Government has rushed the passage of the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in Parliament, also amending the Representation of the People Act, 1950 by facilitating the linking of a person’s Aadhaar number with electoral roll data.
•The amendment provides that an electoral registration officer may “require” an individual to furnish their Aadhaar number in order to establish their identity. Even persons already enrolled “may” be “required” by the officer to furnish their Aadhaar numbers in order to authenticate their entries in the electoral roll. Registered voters have the option of providing their Aadhaar number to Government authorities. The amendment states that no one shall be denied inclusion in the electoral roll, nor shall their names be deleted from the electoral roll due to their inability to furnish the Aadhaar number “due to such sufficient cause as may be prescribed”. Such individuals may be allowed to furnish alternate documents, as prescribed by the Central government.
•There are various substantive and procedural concerns with the amendments passed. First, although the Government has termed these measures as voluntary, the provisions of the amendment belie this. The electoral officer clearly has uncanalised discretion — since the law does not prescribe any guiding principles — to decide when an Aadhaar number may be “required”. Moreover, the Central government has the final say in prescribing the conditions (“sufficient cause”) under which an individual will be permitted to enter or remain on the electoral rolls, in case of her “inability” to furnish their Aadhaar.
•This means that the Central government will decide what reasons are considered acceptable for a voter to remain on the electoral roll. Interestingly, the law does not even consider a situation where an individual may be opposed to linking her Aadhaar number to the electoral database — further undermining the voluntary premise of the amendments.
Burden of proof shifts
•In this manner, the burden of proof has been reversed. Instead of the Government proactively ensuring registration on the electoral rolls (such as through house-to-house verification) to achieve universal adult franchise, the burden now shifts to individuals who may be unable/unwilling to link their Aadhaar to justify their retention on the rolls. In fact, deletion from the voter rolls will happen without any procedural safeguards since at the moment, the law does not provide for a right to a hearing before such deletion.
•Such a step has real world consequences. In 2015, media reports highlighted how lakhs of voters in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were reportedly excluded from the electoral process due to the practice of linking Aadhaar numbers with electoral ID. Right to Information replies indicated that such deletion was carried out without any door-to-door verification of the identity of individuals. The Supreme Court of India had to finally intervene to stop the linking process since the constitutionality of the Aadhaar Act was under challenge then.
Political profiling
•Second, there are concerns that the amendment will result in political profiling. By linking electoral IDs with Aadhaar numbers, it is much easier for the Government to track which voter has accessed welfare subsidies and benefits using their Aadhaar. This can be used by political parties to selectively target their messages to specific voters, using information that is not publicly available.
•Political profiling using Aadhaar data is not unheard of. In April 2021, the Madras High Court asked the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to ascertain how confidential information held by it may have been leaked in light of “credible allegations” that only mobile phones linked to Aadhar cards received bulk SMS messages to join WhatsApp groups of a particular political party during election campaigning in Puducherry. Given these concerns, it is worrying that the amendment is conspicuously silent in reiterating the secret nature of such data or prohibiting the Election Commission of India or any other agency from sharing such information.
•There are also procedural concerns that relate to the manner in which the amendment was passed. The Government introduced the Bill on December 20 and passed it on the same day in the Lok Sabha, while pushing it through the Rajya Sabha on the next date (December 21). Members of Parliament were not given time to understand or debate the implications of the amendments. Despite calls for division of vote in both Houses, the law was passed on the basis of a voice vote. This undermines the fundamental premise of a parliamentary democracy — to allow elected representatives the opportunity to voice the concerns of their constituents over laws that affect them.
Not substantiated
•This is especially important since the Government has failed to provide any empirical data that demonstrates either the extent of the problem of bogus voters in the electoral roll (justifying this extraordinary measure) or the success of Aadhaar in de-deduplication. It is now well known that the Aadhaar database is beset with errors and exclusions. This is partly because there is no verification of the authenticity of the demographic information on the Aadhaar database, i.e. the UIDAI does not independently authenticate the information provided by an applicant at the time of enrolment.
•In fact, both the Calcutta High Court and the Allahabad High Court have refused to rely on the authenticity of Aadhaar data, noting, “There is definitely something amiss with the Aadhaar enrolment process if important demographic information such as the name of the applicant’s father, as in the case in hand, can be falsified and even go undetected.”
•Finally, it is worth questioning how the Aadhaar project is once again being used for purposes far beyond the stated “welfare” purpose that was upheld by the Supreme Court of India in the Aadhaar judgment as the basis for the introduction of the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill in Parliament.
•It is likely that some of these issues will be litigated before the Supreme Court. One can only hope that unlike other issues such as electoral bonds that have been pending for years, this challenge will be decided expeditiously. The success of our democracy may very well depend on it.
📰 Looking beyond the Forest Rights Act
Schemes and programmes already drafted for the tribal people need to be implemented everywhere
•The Forest Rights Act (FRA) has been in existence for 15 years. As on April 30, 2020, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs had received 42,50,602 claims (individual and community), of which titles were distributed to 46% of the applicants. If the Forest Department’s views are considered, the implementation process is more or less over. But the supporters of tribal rights allege that the Department is overlooking the genuine claims of the tribal people. Despite the Ministry being the implementing agency, the role of the Forest Department in granting titles is crucial because the lands claimed are under its jurisdiction. While both sides hold extreme positions, the situation on the ground presents a mixed picture.
Issues in implementation
•The journey of the FRA’s implementation has never been smooth. The Act provides for democratic tenets in the implementation process. In the first stage, it requires the constitution of a Forest Rights Committee comprising members from within the village by conducting a Gram Sabha with two-thirds of the members present at the meeting. The process was not followed in many places. These committees were mostly constituted by the Panchayat Secretaries upon the directives received from District Magistrates at short notice. The nominations for members for the taluk-level and district-level committees were also not transparent. The contribution of women to the forest economy is well known. The FRA provides for equal rights in titles issued under the Act for women. They have the equitable role at every stage of decision-making. However, on the ground, the women were hardly visible in this regard.
•It was disappointing that in the initial stages of implementation, there was insistence on satellite images as evidence while other admissible proofs were ignored, as happened in Gujarat. This resulted in mass rejections of claims by the authorities. It is a different matter that a writ petition filed by the civil society groups in 2011 forced the authorities to look into the matter afresh in the State.
•In some villages around Bastar, Chhattisgarh, the plots claimed and the documents confirming the award did not match. Besides, the extent of land that was awarded was far smaller than what was claimed within the ceiling. The claimants did not protest anticipating that whatever little they had received could be taken back by the authorities. Further, various welfare and developmental schemes of the Rural Department were not extended everywhere to the tribal people who received documents of land possession under the FRA despite the directives issued by the Ministry to treat them on a par with others.
•Overall, poor awareness levels among the tribal people proved to be a handicap, especially in the scheduled areas which are remotely located. To effectively present claims, a fair understanding of the Act and its implementation process is necessary. Some NGOs, like in Dang district of Gujarat, made a difference by hand-holding the beneficiaries at every step. However, the involvement of NGOs was missing in some interior areas in States like Chhattisgarh where insurgency was affecting the lives of the people. Evidence suggests that implementation was better in areas which were fairly close to urban settings or where accessibility was easy. In these places, most Central and State government schemes and programmes such as Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, National Food Security Act, National Health Mission; Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana; and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana were implemented, empowering the people to assert their positions.
Declining produce, livelihoods
•Many tribal areas are witnessing a decline in the quality of forest produce in their vicinity, thus forcing them to look for other sources of livelihood. In Chhattisgarh, in many villages, earnings from activities such as collection of tendu leaves for rolling local cigars were affected when there was an influx of labourers from Bihar who were willing to work for low wages. Poor market and exploitation by local traders/middlemen were no less demoralising.
•The recognition given to their lands under the FRA gave the tribal people a psychological boost. However, they possess lands (including the lands recognised under the FRA) that are small, of poor quality (particularly lands located on hill slopes) and are not very fertile. The lack of irrigation facilities forces them to depend only on rainfall. To enhance their income, they migrate to work as construction or road-laying labourers. In their opinion, this will continue until the wages earned through any source in the villages matches with the wages in urban areas.
•NGO representatives working in the tribal areas believe that the livelihoods of the locals would improve if horticulture practices are promoted in addition to bamboo and aloe vera plantations with an assured market. A popular recommendation is medical and ecotourism along the lines of the Kerala model. On the other hand, given the quality of education received by the youth in the remote districts, the possibility of acquiring meaningful jobs remains thin. Those accustomed to urban culture do not feel like going back to their villages. Civil society groups, therefore, believe that providing skill-based education with assured jobs on a large scale in proportion to the demand would do wonders in these areas.
•A majority of the tribal communities in India are poor and landless. They practise small-scale farming, pastoralism, and nomadic herding. On the Human Development Index, the tribal-populated States always rank lower than the national average. Not long ago, a tragic news article was published about a tribal man walking 12 km in Odisha carrying his dead wife on his shoulder all night. A Chhattisgarh tribesman who had led the members of his village in a march to Delhi in 2004 to demand forest rights told this researcher that the lives of the tribal people are insignificant for our leaders. He said the Central government in the 1970s generously welcomed refugees from Bangladesh into forests and provided them a house and a land to farm, whereas natives were still being denied the same.
The way forward
•The FRA was never going to be a panacea to address all the issues of the tribal people, but it is important. To improve the condition of the tribal people, especially those living in remote areas, there needs to be a push on every possible aspect of their socioeconomic life. This can be attained if schemes and programmes already drafted for the tribal people are implemented in letter and spirit across the country. With protective laws like the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, in place, it is only a matter of will. One way forward could be to induct people who are sensitive to the cause of tribal people in the decision-making process at every stage.
