📰 In conjunction: On evolution of democratic society
Individual obligation is meaningful only when rights are guaranteed by the state
•The evolution of a democratic society is centred around the expansion of rights — civil, political, economic and cultural, leading to the empowerment of people. Democratic nations respect individual and group rights for moral and instrumental reasons. Duties, both legal and moral, are cherished in order to reinforce those rights. The obligations of the individual to the collective must be understood in that context; rights and duties complement each other, just as responsibility comes with freedom. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to suggest a dichotomy between the rights and duties of citizens when he said last week that the country had wasted a lot of time “fighting for rights” and “neglecting one’s duties”. His speech was not the first time that he or other Hindutva protagonists have called for a foregrounding of duties over rights. Service and the sacrifices of nameless and faceless nation-builders have formed the bedrock of the modern Indian Republic, but their sacrifices were indeed for rights, dignity and autonomy. Any notion of rights and duties being adversarial or hierarchical is sophistic. The Indian Constitution enshrines equality and freedom as fundamental rights, along with the right against exploitation, freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights, and the right to constitutional remedies. The deepening of Indian democracy has led to an expansion of rights — education, information, privacy, etc. are now legally guaranteed rights. The state’s fidelity to these rights is tenuous at best. Citizens are generally duty-bound to protect the integrity and the sovereignty of the country, and this is true for India though there is no conscription. Other constitutional duties expected include a duty to promote harmony and brotherhood, and to develop scientific temper, humanism and a spirit of inquiry.
•Any shift in state policy emphasis from rights to duties will be absurd and a disservice to many for whom the realisation of even fundamental rights is still a work in progress. An enlightened citizenry is critical to progress and good governance. But duty is not something that the citizens owe to the state. The obligation of individual citizens to the collective pursuit of a nation can be meaningful when their rights are guaranteed by the state. The citizen has a right to use a public road, and a duty to obey traffic rules. The right and the duty are meaningful only in conjunction. The Prime Minister’s comments come against this backdrop — formal and informal restrictions on the rights of citizens are on the rise along with coercive powers of the state. The emphasis on duty along with the de-emphasis of rights also raises the spectre of a descent into pre-Republican norms in social relations. The celebration of India as a traditionally duty-driven society carries with it the inescapable connotation of an exploitative division of labour and norms that are antithetical to constitutionalism. Needless to say, that is not progress.
The Union Budget needs to maintain an accommodative fiscal stance to support the sustainability of economic growth
•Macroeconomic uncertainties are mounting. Against the backdrop of possible interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the taper tantrum, there is pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to increase its interest rates to prevent capital outflows. The monetary policy corridor is still “accommodative” to support the growth recovery. Globally, central banks have started increasing the interest rates. However, we need to wait for the Monetary Policy Committee meeting in February 2022 to understand the RBI’s decisions regarding policy rates.
Inflationary pressures
•Inflationary pressures are also high. In India, the wholesale price index (WPI) inflation rose to a record high of 14.32% in November 2021 as per the data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The WPI decreased slightly to 13.56% in December 2021. The consumer price index (CPI) inflation now is 5.03%, though that is still within the comfort zone of the inflation targeting framework envisaged in India’s new monetary framework. The official nominal inflation anchor in India is 4%, with a band of variations of +/- 2. It has been argued that the inflation we are currently experiencing is transitory in nature due to supply chain disruptions and volatile energy and food prices.
•Absorbing the excess liquidity that was injected to stimulate growth as part of the pandemic response is crucial to reversing trends in non performing assets (NPAs). The RBI Financial Stability Report, published on December 29, 2021, revealed a possible worsening of the gross non performing asset (GNPA) ratio of scheduled commercial banks — from 6.9% in September 2021 to 9.5% by September 2022 — under a “severe stress scenario” estimates.
•The RBI has not yet formally announced any “normalization” procedure, though absorption of excess liquidity was attempted by increasing the cut-off yield rate of variable rate reverse repo (VRRR) to 3.99%, and curtailing the government securities acquisition programme.
Interest rates structure
•The structure of interest rates is also a matter of concern. The call money market rates are below the repo rate. The bond yields are increasing ahead of the Union Budget 2022-23. The cut off yield rate of 10-year benchmark bond is as high as 6.63%. The rise in bond yields will result in higher borrowing costs for the Government.
•Given these macroeconomic uncertainties, maintaining an accommodative fiscal policy stance in the upcoming Union Budget for FY23 is crucial for a sustainable recovery. The fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP rose to 9.5% in 2021–22 (revised estimates). The RBI estimates suggest that revenue deficit pre-empted about 70% of the gross fiscal deficit during the period 2018-19 to 2019-20, and increased further to 79% in 2020-21 (revised estimates) and 76% in 2021-22 (Budget estimates).
•Any attempt at fiscal consolidation at this juncture employing capital expenditure compression rather than a tax buoyancy path can adversely affect economic growth. Public investment — infrastructure investment in particular — is a major growth driver through “crowding-in” of private corporate investment.
•Omicron is a reminder that the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over. Public spending on healthby the Union government is still below 1% of GDP, though the estimate has increased from 0.2% of GDP in 2020–21 (revised estimates) to 0.4% of GDP in 2021-22 (Budget estimates). Strengthening investments in the health-care sector is crucial at this juncture as a prolonged lockdown can accentuate the current humanitarian crisis and deepen economic disruptions.
•Bringing down the fiscal deficit now can be detrimental to economic growth recovery. The plausible “fiscal risks” arising from the mounting public debt and deficits need to be tackled with a medium-term road map of fiscal consolidation, as instantaneous deficit reduction can affect the sustainable growth recovery process.
•When credit-linked economic stimulus has an uneven impact on growth recovery, the significance of fiscal dominance cannot be undermined. We argue that the upcoming Union Budget for 2022-23 should maintain an accommodative fiscal stance in order to support the sustainability of the economic growth process and also for financing human development, which is crucial in the time of a pandemic.
Address unemployment
•Rising unemployment needs to be addressed through an urgent policy response that strengthens job guarantee programmes. The welfare models of the Government in providing food security to poor households and designing gender budgeting in energy infrastructure are also welcome. However, we need to go further to strengthen social sector policies in the time of a pandemic. To deal with these issues and more, maintaining an accommodative fiscal policy stance in the upcoming Union Budget for 2022-23 is crucial.
•The advance GDP estimates released by the National Statistical Office on January 7, 2022, revealed that India’s GDP growth rate will be 9.2% in FY22. In FY21 it was 7.3%. However, this growth estimate is lower than that published by the RBI in December 2021, which was 9.5%. The growth in nominal GDP is estimated to be 17.6%. These GDP estimates published ahead of the announcement of the Union Budget 2022-23 are significant as they will be used for projections — including those for the fiscal deficit — in the upcoming Budget. How India emerges from the pandemic to meet these estimates will depend largely on an accommodative fiscal policy stance when monetary policy has limitations in triggering the growth recovery.
📰 India needs a national vision
Only then will there be coherence in multi-sectoral and multi-ministerial policymaking and execution
•“All the world knows, gentlemen, that we are building a new navy... Well, when we get our navy, what are we going to do with it,” asked Alfred T. Mahan, the great Naval strategist, in 1892 at the U.S. Naval War College. This is a question we can ask in India where piecemeal announcements are made in various sectors without a stated national vision. There is no overarching official document to guide policy and decision-making.
Lessons from China
•What do other nations do? In 2015, China released a ‘Made in China 2025’ document that envisaged a 10-year plan for development of 10 key high-tech industries, the larger aim being to reduce dependence on foreign technology. The target is to be 70% self-sufficient by 2025 and to achieve a dominant position globally by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China. China’s 2019 defence white paper stated that by 2035, the armed forces would complete the “modernisation of national defence and the military” and by 2049, “fully transform the peoples armed forces into world-class forces.” The fifth plenum of the Chinese Communist Party re-emphasised China’s goal of becoming a modern socialist society by 2049.
•Western nations, too, periodically release vision documents — defence reviews, security strategies et al. Shell-shocked by the advances made by the USSR in space exploration in the 1950s and early 1960s, U.S. President John F. Kennedy enunciated in May 1961 the American vision to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Scientists were given a 10-year time frame, were supported financially and they met the national goal. In August 2018, India announced its aim of sending astronauts into space by 2022. Where are we? India carried out only two space launches in 2021 (of which one failed) while China set a world record of 47.
•India must learn from China. While unleashing his path-breaking economic reforms in the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping asked his countrymen to “hide your capability and bide your time.” With single-minded conviction and a national vision of regaining China’s lost glory, all policies and actions were focused towards first augmenting national power by accretion in economic capability. This central direction, and monitoring, is visible even now as Beijing goes about its Made in China 2025 plan, a long-term space exploration programme, and a military technology enhancement vision.
•India seems to announce a programme first and then go overboard with it. And even as the Aatmanirbhar campaign hogs the headlines, it would only be nationalistic to ask whether everything needs to be 100% Indian. Is it even possible in this era of niche technologies being protected by nations, which makes international cooperation the way out? For sure, a number of projects are indeed being developed indigenously. For instance, advancements in the UAV and drone industry, in the private sector, are truly riveting; and radars and missiles are achievements of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. But while there are success stories, it is dangerous for the environment to be pushed into a make-believe world of faux grandeur and equally hazardous that a feeling of being powerful allowed to creep in. Being powerful is having the ability to create and sustain an outcome. This requires depth in a nation’s capacity to not only be self-sufficient in focal spheres necessary for daily subsistence but to buttress steps undertaken to project national power to safeguard national interests. We announced that India was the world’s vaccine capital, but when it came to delivery, New Delhi reneged on its promise to supply COVID-19 vaccines; our ‘power’ became suspect in the eyes of our friends.
Three-step process
•If we continue in an unplanned manner, we are doomed to doing jugaad. The very fact that every emergency, without exception (Kargil, Mumbai 26/11, Doklam, Uri, Pulwama), has resulted in the despatch of high-powered teams to make emergency purchases of arms and ammunition shows that the lack of a national vision is costing us dearly; no wonder we get fleeced in such transactions. So, the need of the hour is to formulate an all-encompassing document to enable coherence in multi-sectoral and multi-ministerial policymaking and execution. Clarity will emerge only when the national vision document is drafted and put through a three-step process. First, adequate time should be given to experts to draft it. Second, the ‘vision’ should be put through an economic and technological analysis grinder to ensure that it is a realistic national dream. Third, the plan should be implemented by a body of experts that has the confidence of the leadership on both sides of the political aisle; a lack of political continuum would be a non-starter for achieving the grand national vision.
📰 The devastating impact of school closure
By closing schools for this long and providing just online education, we have violated children’s rights
•About three weeks ago, we all wished each other a happy 2022. However, that has remained wishful thinking with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 upending our lives. More than Omicron itself, which is more transmissible than Delta but far milder, the response to the variant in terms of the restrictions that have been imposed on us has once again affected our daily lives. Much has been written about the disproportionate response to Omicron. It stands to reason that if restrictions like night curfews and border checks did not restrict an earlier variant, they will not restrict a more transmissible one.
Abandoning reason
•But we as a society abandoned reason long ago, when we decided to close schools for about 20 months. The unreasonable response to Omicron has had an impact especially on children. Schools have become an easy target for politicians: closing them gives them the benefit of being seen as “doing something”, even as being caring and sensitive, to “contain COVID-19”. But this is an emotional reaction and not rooted in reason and fact. Even before the second COVID-19 wave, experts across the board advised that schools should be the last to close and first to open. Ignoring all this advice has brought us the ignoble distinction of being among the countries with the longest school closures during the pandemic. Despite the Omicron surge, most other countries have kept schools open, prioritising the well-being of children.
•The primary (emotional) “reason” being provided for school closure is to “protect children”. Let us pause for a moment and examine this reason with an analogy. Suppose the government told us that children should no longer travel in cars and on motorbikes, as these are dangerous, what would our reaction be? Surely, we would consider it absurd. Now, data show that the risk of COVID-19 for those under 25 years is much lower than the risk from traffic accidents. So, school closures to “protect children” is as absurd as banning children from travelling in cars.
•Are schools super-spreaders? We are told that children could carry the virus from school to elders at home. The scientific evidence for schools as COVID-19 hotspots is very weak. Indeed, studies have shown the opposite. For instance, a study in Spain looked at data from over 1 million children of all ages in schools, and found that the R-value (rate of virus spread) is well less than one for all schoolchildren. Furthermore, the R-value is lower for lower ages, as low as 0.2 for pre-primary children. So, the practice of shutting Anganwadis and primary schools, which many States have done, is unscientific. Sweden never closed its schools for children under 16, and there was no extra risk for teachers compared to other professions. But at this point, one does not need careful studies, but only plain common sense. How can schools be super-spreaders when every other place in India is crowded: banks, markets, buses, trains, airports, and even malls and theatres?
Consequences
•Does online education constitute education? Early on in the pandemic, whether children would be affected by COVID-19 may have been an unknown. But it was always known that online education would be a poor replacement for physical classes, and that children, especially in primary and pre-primary classes, can learn as well as socially and emotionally develop only through human interactions with teachers and peers. Yet, by shutting schools, we have experimented with their lives. The results of this experiment are devastating. A detailed survey report from September 2021 shows the extent of the impact. The reading and writing levels of children have declined, with nearly half of them unable to read more than a few words. More than a third of the them were not studying at all.
•Even going along with the baseless and implicit assurance that learning issues can somehow be made up at some unspecified future date, mental health issues are deeply concerning. Despite a shorter school closure than India, the U.K. has reported alarming increases in mental health issues among kids. Likewise, the American Academy of Pediatrics called the mental health crisis among children a national emergency. In India, aside from mental health issues, there have been other severe consequences of school closure. Malnutrition is a serious problem; by neglecting mid-day meals, we have worsened it. Decades of progress against the severe malice of child labour has been reversed due to extended school closure. As per the 2011 Census, we had an estimated 10.1 million children in child labour. If we had daily updates on malnutrition or child labour cases, we would probably have paid attention to the plight of India’s children and not closed schools this long.
The vaccination argument
•Yet another myth in the context of schools is that they are safe only after children are vaccinated against COVID-19. This too defies logic as schools were open in several other countries even before adults were vaccinated. Some medical professionals have argued that COVID-19 vaccines are necessary for children as otherwise children may carry the infection from school back home to adults. Aside from the obvious ethical question of jabbing children for the benefit of adults, such a stance is also quite unscientific, as it is known now that the current COVID-19 vaccines (even boosters) do not prevent infection or transmission. While no one can argue against a vaccine that is shown to be safe and effective after rigorous trials for children, there is no case for linking schools and education to a vaccine still under clinical trial. There can be no question of emergency authorisation of vaccines for children as there has been no COVID-19 emergency for children. This was indeed the position of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation. The government nod for vaccinating children in the 15-18 age group defies explanation.
•Education is a constitutional right. By closing schools for this long and providing a poor substitute with online education, we have violated children’s right. Everyone must now speak up for children. A group of us has started an initiative, ‘Happy 2022, Happy for Kids Too’, which has been endorsed by various epidemiologists, doctors and educationists. We hope that 2022 and the years from now are normal for children in all respects, including a good school life and happy childhood. Children have needlessly suffered for too long, not from COVID-19 which has thankfully spared them, but from irrational and disproportional restrictions and school closures. We urge all concerned citizens to join the Chain-for-Children’s-Cheer at happy22kids.org to make this wish come true.
