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EDITORIAL

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU MONDAY, JULY 18, 2016

Game of Thrones in Kathmandu

With the Oli government on the verge of collapse, a new government headed by Prachanda looks highly
probable. Wiser after the missteps of his first stint as PM, he has his development and political tasks cut out
M O N D AY , J U LY 1 8 , 2 0 1 6

RAKESH SOOD

Lessons from
Arunachal Pradesh

he return of a Congress government, albeit

with a diferent Chief Minister, restores a
semblance of political stability in Arunachal
Pradesh, which was caught in a political and constitutional crisis. In a clever and unexpected twist, the
Congress retained power by backing 36-year-old
Pema Khandu as Chief Minister after it became evident that former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki would
fail to command a majority. The credit must primarily go to the Supreme Court for reinstating the
Tuki regime purely on grounds of constitutional
propriety, despite serious doubts about whether he
commanded a majority. The numbers in the legislature tell an interesting tale. Out of the 47 MLAs with
the Congress, 14 were disqualified by the Speaker in
December, while two were told that their resignations had been accepted. The game-plan was to
give the impression that the rebels had 31 MLAs, a
clear majority. When Kalikho Pul, the rebel faction
head, was sworn in as Chief Minister in February,
he claimed the support of 29 Congress MLAs. (Orders disqualifying 14 MLAs had already been
stayed.) He declared that his 30-strong group had
merged with another party. The strategy was to
claim that two-thirds of the Congress Legislature
Party had merged with another party, the only situation in which an act of defection is permitted under the law. After Mr. Tukis regime was reinstated
after the Supreme Court verdict, he stood no
chance of surviving a floor test. This impending
embarrassment appears to have goaded the Congress to shake of months of lethargy. It salvaged the
situation by recognising the dissidents grievances,
ofering the leadership to a more acceptable candidate and winning back the entire rebel faction.
Earlier, the Congress leadership had ignored the
deep divisions within the legislature party and the
extent of dissatisfaction within its own ranks,
which resulted in Mr. Tuki no longer enjoying the
confidence of the House. Using this situation, the
Governor intervened by arrogating to himself the
power to advance a duly convened Assembly session and seeking to set the agenda for it. The BJP responded to the unfolding crisis with cynical opportunism by backing a rebel faction in the Congress
and playing along with, if not encouraging, overreach by the Raj Bhavan. Now that the Supreme Court
has reemphasised the limits of the Governors role,
the political class needs to show that it has learnt
the right lessons, a significant one being that parties should not seek to use individual ambitions for
political ends. There is a stronger case than ever before for greater care in the appointment of Governors and the manner of their functioning. Guidance
is available in abundance the reports of the Sarkaria and Punchhi Commissions, for instance. A
better sense of propriety is required to heed it.

Nepal has once again been plunged into political uncertainty with the Maoist party
the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre), or CPN (M-C) withdrawing support
from Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Olis coalition, reducing to a minority the government
led by the Communist Party of Nepal (UML),
or CPN (UML). Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal
Dahal Prachanda announced last week that
Mr. Oli had not fulfilled the commitments
made earlier in May leaving him with no option. The following day, on July 13, a no-confidence motion against the government, carrying 254 signatures, was tabled in the National
Assembly. Speaker Onsari Gharti has fixed
July 21 as the date for taking up the motion for
consideration, followed by voting, unless Mr.
Oli chooses to resign.
A growing rift
These developments have been expected.
On May 4, Mr. Prachanda had carried out the
same threat, expressing unhappiness with
the Oli governments performance on postearthquake reconstruction and the lack of
progress on the constitutional amendments
process. Then too, he had announced that he
would lead a new government which would
be supported by the Nepali Congress (NC)
and Madhesi groups and urged the UML to
join in so that a national consensus government could be set up. However, Mr. Prachandas real source of unhappiness was that the
cases registered against the Maoist cadres
during the decade-long insurgency had not
been withdrawn despite repeated assurances
by Prime Minister Oli.
Within 24 hours, a patch-up between Mr.
Oli and Mr. Prachanda was put in place,
thanks to the eforts of UML leader Bam Dev
Gautam. A nine-point agreement was announced to address Maoist concerns which
included clemency to the Maoist cadres, provision of compensation to the injured, facilitation of land allotments, giving Maoists a
greater say in government appointments, etc.
In addition was an unwritten three-point
gentlemens agreement that Mr. Oli would
step down as Prime Minister within two
months after presenting the budget (Nepals
financial year begins on July 16) and the UML

Governance took a back seat

even as Mr. Oli donned his
nationalist mantle. Most tragic
was his inept handling of
post-quake relief
would support Mr. Prachanda as the next
Prime Minister.
In recent weeks, rumours had begun surfacing that Mr. Oli had had second thoughts
and was in no mood to step down. In fact,
many UML leaders are upset with Mr. Oli on
his change of position. Former UML Prime
Ministers Madhav Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal urged Mr. Oli to maintain Left unity as did
Mr. Gautam who has publicly criticised Mr.
Oli for backtracking on the May deal that he
had brokered.
Assessing Mr. Olis tenure
Realising that he had been taken for a ride,
Mr. Prachanda revived talks with NC leader
Sher Bahadur Deuba and struck again. In a
desperate attempt to save his chair, Mr. Oli
reached out to rival NC leader Ram Chandra
Poudel, ofering the lollipop of backing him
for prime-ministership down the road in return for support now, but by then it was too
late.
Predictably, Mr. Oli has blamed India for

his problems. Invoking Nepali nationalism,

he has suggested that he is being removed because he had refused to listen to Indias suggestions on the Constitution. He claimed that
meetings to remove his government have
been remotely controlled, a claim that he
had also made in May, and described the current impasse as a sad situation for the country.
Addressing a national security seminar on
July 14, in a barely veiled reference to India,
Mr. Oli said, Maintaining good relations
with neighbouring countries is an important
aspect of national security but we cannot
jeopardise national security for the sake of
maintaining good neighbourly relations.
In a pugnacious mood, he declared that he
would not quit at any cost, preferring instead to face the no-confidence motion in the
Assembly. As it stands, the numbers are
against him. In the 598-member House, the
no-confidence motion needs only 300 positive votes. The NC and the Maoists together
account for 290 seats; the Madhesis can add
another 40 votes, making Mr. Olis exit a certainty.
Mr. Oli has also cited constitutional complexities claiming that since he was appointed Prime Minister following the promulgation of the new Constitution on September
20 last year, he will have to continue as Prime
Minister (or caretaker PM) till the general
election is held by January 2018, to establish
the bicameral legislature envisaged in the
Constitution. Perhaps he hopes that President Bidya Devi Bhandari, his old comrade in
arms from the UML, will back him in this.
However, this suggestion has dubious legality and is likely to be thrown out by the Supreme Court if matters go that far.
Mr. Olis nine-month tenure has been a sorry one. He had enjoyed a good reputation
during his tenures as Home Minister and Foreign Minister during the 1990s, but as Prime
Minister he was unable to reach out to the agitating groups who had felt short-changed by
the new Constitution. Even when he relented
and the government carried out constitutional amendments to partially address the demands of the Madhesis, it was never with a
sense of generosity. His constant refrain of
Nepali nationalism led to a downturn in Nepals ties with India and like other Left leaders, Mr. Oli too fell prey to overplaying the
China card.
Governance took a back seat even as Mr.
Oli donned his nationalist mantle. Most trag-

CARTOONSCAPE

Turmoil
in Turkey

urkeys is a classic case of a coup-prone political system. The military is a relatively autonomous and popular institution. It has in
the past toppled civilian governments four times.
There had always been tension between the ruling
elite and the military establishment. But the relatively stable rule of the Justice and Development
Party since 2002 and the popularity of its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan had projected a picture of military coups having become a thing of the past. The
developments that unfolded on Friday and Saturday bust this myth. Even President Erdogan didnt
foresee the attempt. His success in taking back the
reins of government is good for both Turkey and
the larger West Asian region. Turkey is important
for regional security at a time when West Asia is in
turmoil. Instability here is in nobodys interest.
However, the failed coup exposes the weakness of
Mr. Erdogans regime. The fact that it was not a minor revolt by a few soldiers, but an uprising by
thousands of troops, raises serious questions about
the coherence of the Turkish state. Mr. Erdogan has
contributed to the weakening of the state in many
ways: his disastrous foreign policy that has worsened the security situation; forced Islamisation that
has sharpened the contradiction between the Islamist and secular sections; and the push to rewrite
the Constitution to award more powers to himself.
The coup-plotters may have sensed they would
get support from the anti-Erdogan masses and the
secular political class. Sections of the population
have problems with Mr. Erdogans politics. At Istanbuls Gezi Park, thousands braved his brutal police force in 2013. Despite the government crackdown on liberal academia, opposition, media and
social networks, Turkey still has a thriving public
sphere where anti-Erdoganism is a common theme
for mobilising people. But they dont want the soldiers to solve their problem through force. That is
why thousands thronged the streets to defend the
government they had elected. That is why even Mr.
Erdogans fiercest critics in the opposition denounced the coup. The question now is how the fissures that have been exposed will impact Turkey. It
depends, in large measure, on the choices Mr. Erdogan makes. He could see the peoples commitment
to democracy and use the crisis as an opportunity
to reconsider his dictatorial policies. Or he could
use the military revolt as a pretext to purge more of
his enemies and get what he always wanted, which
is a more powerful executive presidency. His
choice will guide the future of Turkeys democracy.
CM
YK

ic was his inept handling of the post-earthquake relief and reconstruction efort, squandering the goodwill and sympathy of the
international community which had pledged
$4.4 billion at the international conference
held in Kathmandu a year ago. To date, not
even 10 per cent of the pledged amount has
come to the National Reconstruction Authority where key appointments were held
up on account of political jockeying.
Speaker Gharti is a Maoist, and despite Finance Minister Bishnu Poudels request, has
held up passage of the Finance Bill to deal
with the no-confidence motion first, further
increasing the pressure on the government.
Challenges ahead
According to the understanding between
the Maoists and the NC, Mr. Prachanda will
take over as prime minister for the next nine
months, following which, he will hand over
the prime-ministership to NC leader Sher
Bahadur Deuba. The local body elections
will be conducted during Mr. Prachandas
tenure and the provincial and general elections will take place under Mr. Deuba, possibly in November 2017.
According to most political observers, a
NC-Maoist combination could be a more stable political combination than a UMLMaoist combine because the two Left parties
essentially compete for the same vote bank.
Whether this calculation turns out to be correct will nevertheless depend on the maturity of the two leaders, Mr. Prachanda and Mr.
Deuba.
From all accounts, Mr. Prachanda is wiser
today than in 2008-9 when his coalition collapsed on account of his decision to sack the
then Army chief, General Rookmangud Katawal. He now publicly acknowledges that it
was a political mistake. He too had blamed
India for his debacle but now has his task cut
out to restore bilateral ties. The NC can be
helpful in this too. Mr. Deuba, a wily NC leader, has been prime minister thrice before but
will have to be pragmatic in accommodating
the Madhesi and Tharu demands on federalism and representation in a more generous
manner than Mr. Oli did.
Lessons for India
Out of the concessional funds amounting
to $1.65 billion pledged by India during the
last two years, the utilisation has been a
meagre $150 million. From the grant assistance of $250 million pledged last year, $100
million has been allocated for construction
of 50,000 dwelling units for the quake afected but the PPP model has yet to be worked
out. The balance grant amount remains to be
committed. In addition, $750 million was
promised for the Kathmandu-Nijgadh highway but the Oli government sought to review
the project after the contract was awarded to
an Indian consultant! Other development
partners have accumulated similar experiences. Getting implementation of long
stalled projects back on track should be the
priority for the new government.
The Narendra Modi government too needs
to introspect as to how its much vaunted
neighbourhood first policy went wrong.
The problem of too many interlocutors,
claiming to act on behalf of the political powers in Delhi and often conveying conflicting
messages, always existed with Nepal but has
become more acute during the last two years.
Hopefully, this can now be curbed.
A positive turn in relations with India will
work to Nepals advantage in reviving the
sentiment that was generated when Prime
Minister Modi visited Nepal in August 2014,
of a friendly and caring India, sensitive to Nepals concerns and generous in seeking mutually beneficial partnerships.
Rakesh Sood is a former diplomat who has served as
Ambassador to Nepal and is currently Distinguished
Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters emailed to letters@thehindu.co.in must carry the full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.

Failed coup
The will of the people of Turkey to
resist an attempted military coup
against President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan reiterates the point that
elected governments are safe in the
hands of those who reairm their
faith in them by voting for them
(Over 250 die in failed Turkey
coup, July 17). The event may have
comes as a surprise to Mr. Ergodan,
but in one shot it establishes his
power. One must also credit the
Turkish people for defeating an
attempt at destabilising democracy.
B. Prabha,
Varkala, Kerala

There was no coup in the end but

not before there were scores of
casualties. The move has brought to
the fore growing disenchantment
and cynicism over President
Erdogans attempts to dismantle the
secular character of Turkey through
authoritarian measures. There will
now be challenges of diferent hues
that lie ahead of him. Turkey must
ensure that it always enjoys a
semblance of political stability and
peace.
Jeyaramachandran Murugesan,
Sholavandan, Tamil Nadu

Congress back in Arunachal

The Congress government in
Arunachal Pradesh has managed to
rerail itself, in turn leaving the BJP
highly discomfited (New leader
unites Arunachal Congress, July 16).
We had to sufer needless political
drama as a result of naive State BJP

men misreading the situation and in

turn persuading their Central
leadership, which has obviously
little idea of local politics, to get into
a mess. With less than a fifth of
MLAs backing it, it was only a matter
of time before the BJP crashed to the
ground. It has had to pay a heavy
price by losing political credibility
besides being chastised by the
Supreme Court. It has already stung
itself in Uttarakhand.
R. Narayanan,
Ghaziabad

On a Uniform Civil Code

Nivedita Menons article on a
Uniform Civil Code (It isnt about
women, July 15), states that since
the Muslim marriage as contract
protects women better in case of
divorce than the Hindu marriage as a
sacrament, all marriages would have
to be civil contracts. This is not
only fallacious but also factually
incorrect. A UCC need not
necessarily mean the selection of
one practice that would be enforced
upon all Indians, which is the
foundational assumption of this
article. In Hindu law, courts have
laid down that diferent local
traditions and customs would be
respected, even if it results in a
departure from the letter of the law.
What the UCC would actually be
assuming that such a code is even a
possibility at this stage is a set of
standard principles bringing about
certain reforms to all branches of
personal law collectively. A brief
look at eforts to introduce reforms
to personal law show that Hindu law

has been reformed the most since

Independence and not because of a
lack of efort on the part of
parliamentarians in bringing about
reforms in other branches of
personal law. This has been
explained by Prof. Faizan Mustafa as
a minority psyche created by
events such as Ayodhya and Shah
Bano. Therefore, the writers
assertion that one form of marriage
is better for the woman and hence
applicable to all other marriages is
preposterous.
Second, while Muslim marriage is
widely understood to be a contract,
with a small number of scholars
saying that it attains religious value
by virtue of being discussed in detail
in the Koran, it has not proved to be
better for the woman, at least in the
Indian context. A perfect example of
this would be the Shayara Bano case.
Devarsh Saraf,
Hyderabad

I was astonished and perturbed to

read Nivedita Menons article. I
wonder how she states that the
purpose of implementing a UCC is
to teach a lesson to Muslims. I am
afraid that statements like these only
show her leanings and prejudices
against the BJP. What has the
present government done? It has
only requested the Law Commission
to study and report on the possibility
of a UCC. In a secular country with
multiple religious practices, this
becomes all the more important
since administration should be
separated from religious practices.
Religious personal laws completely
negate this and are therefore

anachronic to the secular state. It is

another matter how the UCC should
be, whether it is helpful to the cause
of women and whether it will make
religious groups lose the advantage
they enjoy.
H.S. Gopala Krishna Murthy,
Bengaluru

Nivedita Menon is right when she

says that talk of a UCC has nothing
to do with gender justice, but more
about a Hindu nationalist agenda.
Though Mr. Venkaiah Naidu has
denied this in his article, Why not a
Common Civil Code for all? (July
16), his arguments sound hollow.
This does not mean that Muslims do
not want any changes to be made.
Muslim women in particular look
forward to changes but within the
confines of the Muslim Personal
Law. It does not mean that they are
opposed to Shariat laws or that they
dispute religious injunctions. The
matter is more social and economic
than religious.
In economically backward Muslim
families, there are countless
instances of men who neither
pronounce single or triple talaq and
just walk out of a marriage with
impunity. The poor woman still
bears the tag of being his wife,
though deprived of every right of a
wife. Right-wing activists and even
some Muslim women activists end
up being confused about these
emerging voices demanding changes
in Muslim Personal Law with a false
perception that it is a demand for
enforcing a Common Civil Code.
S. Tahsin Ahmed,
Bengaluru

Crowd control
The editorial, Learning to control
crowds (July 15), prompted me to
do a Google search of the phrase
more humane measures for crowd
control. There are innumerable
references. The first one, on
Wikipedia, gives a general
description of various non-lethal
techniques used across the world
such as the use of tear gas, pepper
spray, rubber bullets, water cannons
and even the Indian lathi. In
Kashmir, many are said to have been
injured by pellets. We should be
aware that these are people who
have been hurling stones at the
police who had to control them from
a distance. I wonder whether
methods have been developed to
control unruly crowds from a
distance. Another interesting
technique is the use of the stink
bomb.
H.S. Gopal,
Bengaluru

Vijender on a roll
Boxing ace Vijender Singh has once
again demonstrated that he is
second to none after outclassing
Australias Kerry Hope (Sport
Vijender scales new peak, July 17).
The champ packed quite a punch.
Though Hope took the fight to the
champion in the middle rounds, he
ran out of steam towards the end.
Vijenders seventh win on the trot is
sure to boost him. One hopes that he
goes on to fetch more laurels for us.
N.J. Ravi Chander,
Bengaluru
ND-ND

THE HINDU MONDAY, JULY 18, 2016

FROM THE READERS EDITOR

Concurrent monologues
are not dialogue
A couple of readers have argued that my columns often
stray into the domain of journalistic rules, codes and literature to discover reasons to justify the newspapers
stand and fail to accord the necessary weightage to their
criticism. They claim that I am silent about some of the
A.S.
criticisms that have a resonance in the social media. One
PANNEERSELVAN of them felt that having a personal and intuitive system of
classification of mails from readers is a divisive approach, and that it does not help in representing all readers uniformly and
without prejudice. It seems that they are not prepared to concede space for
domain expertise, which flows from the experience of handling complaints
on a day-to-day basis.
Are there compelling reasons for not addressing the criticisms that float
in the blogosphere and social media? Yes, there are at least three irrefutable
reasons that prevent me from tackling the rants in cyberspace. One, I am
mandated to address criticisms that emanate in the form of formal letters to
the Oice of the Readers Editor. Two, it is important to stay the course by
upholding the newspapers code of editorial values and not subject it to the
whims of vested interest groups who are hyperactive in cyberspace. Three,
as The Guardians editor-in-chief Katharine Viner recently observed, social media has swallowed the news threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering in an era when everyone has their own facts.
Its the right word
Last week, this newspaper carried a first
lead story and an editorial on the Supreme
Good journalism has
Courts verdict on the use of the Armed
rules of engagement
Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA)
that are enhanced
against criminal action for acts committed
in disturbed areas. The respective headthrough dissent,
lines for the news report and the editorial
dialogue and debate
were: SC ends impunity for armed forces
and Ending impunity under AFSPA. A section of social media activists
thought that The Hindu had got its headlines wrong and that it failed to recognise the diference between immunity and impunity. They went to the
extent of lamenting the general decline of the quality of written English; the
sloppiness in todays prose, and the inadequacies of the news desk in handling copy.
Before explaining why the headlines given by The Hindu desk are perfect,
let us first understand both AFSPA and the recent verdict of the apex court.
Sanjoy Hazarika, who was a member of the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee
to review AFSPA, has pointed out that it is a bare law with just six sections
and the most damning are those in the fourth and sixth sections. While the
former enables security forces to fire upon or otherwise use force, even to
the causing of death where laws are being violated, the latter says no criminal prosecution will lie against any person who has taken action under this
act. In other words, immunity was guaranteed to the armed forces by law for
certain forms of excess force in diicult situations. The Supreme Courts
judgment has neither revoked the law nor declared any of its sections contra-constitutional. What the court has done is to tear down the cloak of secrecy about unaccounted deaths involving security forces in disturbed areas. As the report in this newspaper records the judgment serves as a
judicial precedent to uphold civilian and human rights in sensitive areas under military control and removes the concept of absolute immunity from
trial by a criminal court if an army man has committed an ofence.
The two important takeaways from the judgment are that the AFSPA will
remain in the statute books confirming a certain amount of immunity for the
armed forces in the disturbed areas and that immunity cannot be a licence
for impunity. In this context, the use of the word impunity in the headlines
for the news report and the editorial is not only correct but also brings out
the essence of the judgment. The writers of this newspaper were not ignoramus[es] not to know the diference between impunity and immunity.
Ms. Viner succinctly explained the present reality. She wrote: Now, we
are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between
truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few
and the many, the connected and the alienated; between the open platform
of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob.
Sustaining meaningful dialogue
These arguments do not negate the need for a sustained dialogue with
readers. On the contrary, they reairm the importance of meaningful dialogue and the care one has to take to ensure that it is not derailed by the decibel level. From the myriad responses, I try to sift the real complaints from
the rants and good implementable suggestions from certain kite-flying exercises. In this evaluation process, the covenant between readers and the
newspaper is strengthened by mutual respect and constant dialogue. Good
journalism has intrinsic rules of engagement with the readers in which the
public sphere is not vitiated by acrimony, but enhanced through dissent, dialogue and debate. It is not a prime time manufactured outrage, which is fleeting in nature and seldom revisited, but an act of fostering common good.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

(dated July 18, 1966)

President Ho Chi Minh of

North Viet Nam to-day [July 17]
announced partial mobilisation of
his country, in a broadcast over
Hanoi radio monitored here
[Tokyo]. In a defiant, toughly
worded speech, the President
forecast that the Viet Nam war
might last for decades and would
bring destruction to parts of
cities. President Ho said the
Cabinets Standing Committee
had approved a regulation
efecting partial mobilisation
including first reserve oicers
and rear echelons. Speaking on
the 12th anniversary of the signing
of the Geneva Agreement on
Indo-China, President Ho ofered
only defiance to the United States.
There was no hint of conciliation
or compromise. He pledged all
possible help to the Viet Cong in
the South. The war may last 5, 10,
20 years or longer the 76-year-old
President warned. Hanoi,
Haiphong and other cities and
enterprises may be destroyed but
the Viet Namese people will not
be intimidated, he said.

Morarji Commission
records evidence
The Administrative Reforms
Commission headed by Mr.
Morarji Desai continued its
hearings to-day [July 17] at the
Rajaji Hall [Madras]. Mr. K.
Santhanam, author of the report
known after his name dealing
with corruption and ways of
CM
YK

Limits to autonomy
Institutional autonomy cannot mean the freedom to operate independently of the government.
Rather, it is the freedom to deliver on mandates defined by the government and with consultation
choice of successor. In other words, people can legitimately difer on what constitutes autonomy in a given situation.
Mr. Subbaraos basic message is well
taken. It is important to safeguard autonomy in institutions such as the RBI, the
Indian Institutes of Technology and the
Indian Institutes of Management (IIM),
etc. But autonomy must always be married to accountability. The government is
accountable to Parliament and to the
electorate. Whom are technocrats accountable to?
We will soon have a Monetary Policy
Committee on which three out of six
members will be government representatives. The other three members will be
experts from outside. The government
will define the medium-term inflation
target. The RBI Governor will have to
find ways to meet the target and explain
any failure to do so. Thus, in respect of
monetary policy, we have a framework
for autonomy with accountability.

T.T. RAM MOHAN

Former Reserve Bank of India Governor

D. Subbaraos recently released account
of his innings as RBI Governor Who
Moved My Interest Rate? Leading the
Reserve Bank of India Through Five
Turbulent Years has stories of the
run-ins he had with successive Finance
Ministers. The media has been quick to
lap up these stories.
We learn that the diferences between
the National Democratic Alliance government and the present RBI Governor
are by no means novel. The United Progressive Alliance government behaved in
exactly the same fashion. Both the Governors manfully stood up to the government and ended up paying a price for doing so so we are told.
This is a theme that the media loves to
play up from time to time: the Evil Politician pitted against the Wise and the Noble. The Upright Technocrat confronting
the Lowliest of the Human Species. The
media audience loves these stories because the majority would any day identify with professionals rather than with
politicians. The former are People Like
Us. As for politicians. Ugh.
They made news
Alas, the reality is rather more nuanced. For politicians to leave matters
entirely to technocrats isnt really a sensible solution. We have come round to
this realisation in many cases.
When T.N. Seshan socked political
parties as Central Election Commissioner, he was lustily cheered. Until one day
there was a sense that he was overdoing
things and the political authority responded by having three Election Commissioners instead of one all-powerful CEC.
As Comptroller and Auditor General,
Vinod Rai became something of an icon
when he unveiled his reports on various
scams. But the concept of presumptive losses that Mr. Rai propounded
has had its fair share of sceptics. The concept seems to imply that government
must always use the auction route to
maximise revenues in the sale of natural
resources. And yet, in 2012, the Supreme
Court ruled that the government was not
bound to use the auction route in every
case.
There has been a clamour from time to
time for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to be made independent of the
government. In light of the facts that have
come to light about Ranjit Sinha, the former CBI Director, and his handling of the
coal mine allocation cases, we must wonder whether this is such a great idea.
The judiciary commands great respect
among ordinary people. Yet, many people are uncomfortable with the notion

ILLUSTRATION: DEEPAK HARICHANDAN

that its independence includes leaving

the appointment of judges entirely to the
judiciary. In all these cases, we understand that autonomy has its limits.
Is there any reason a diferent logic
should apply to the RBI? This is the central issue posed by what promises to be a
refreshingly candid account by Mr. Subbarao of his years at the RBI. Mr. Subbarao writes, There was constant and decidedly unhelpful friction between the
ministry of finance, under both Pranab
Mukherjee and later Chidambaram, and
the Reserve Bank on what the government saw as the Reserve Banks unduly
hawkish stance on interest rates, totally
unmindful of growth concerns.
Both Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Chidambaram leaned on Mr. Subbarao to lower
interest rates. Mr. Subbarao believes that
Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Chidambaram
were wrong in seeking to sacrifice price
stability at the altar of growth. He makes
the point that there is no contradiction
between price stability and growth.
Matter of judgment
Very true. But what constitutes price
stability at a given point in time is a matter of judgment. Mr. Subbarao was operating in an era in which there was no inflation number that the government and
the RBI had agreed on. That was to happen later in Raghuram Rajans time.
Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Chidambaram
were entitled to the view that a higher
level of inflation was consistent with
growth. And for them to have conveyed
their views, however strongly, to the RBI
Governor cannot be said to constitute interference with autonomy. Had either attempted to remove Mr. Subbarao from office for not falling in line, it would have
been a diferent matter altogether.

When technocrats arrogate to

themselves the right to decide
on matters that fall within
their ambit all by themselves,
it is usurpation
Mr. Subbarao says that Mr. Mukherjee
and Mr. Chidambaram did not stop with
merely conveying their views. They
made their displeasure known in other
ways. At a G-20 dinner in Mexico, Mr.
Chidambaram pointedly ignored Mr.
Subbarao while greeting everybody else.
Well, you could call it churlish behaviour
but bosses express their displeasure in
such ways all the time and in every organisation. Mr. Chidambaram has been gracious enough to write a generous endorsement for Mr. Subbaraos book. This
does indicate that Mr. Chidambarams
snub was not personal, it was about making a larger point.
Mr. Subbarao says that the RBI paid a
price for not toeing the ministers line in
more material ways. Mr. Mukherjee refused to grant another term as Deputy
Governor to Usha Thorat. Mr. Chidambaram did likewise with Subir Gokarn.
Mr. Subbarao concedes that the government has the power, under the law, to
appoint deputy governors. However, he
feels that the government should leave it
to the Governor to choose his team. Maybe. But this does not mean that the government should go along with one particular candidate preferred by the
Governor. There is a case for the government to select any one of three candidates proposed by a committee headed
by the Governor. This is what happened
when it came to selecting a successor to
Mr. Gokarn. Nobody has faulted the

preventing it, gave evidence

to-day [July 17]. He is understood
to have spoken at length about
political corruption in the
Government, administration of
justice, appointment of judges
after retirement, and lapses in the
economic sphere. Others who
gave their views were Messrs.
Mehta and Shankar representing
the Tamil Chamber of Commerce
and Messrs. R.A. Gopalaswami, S.
Venkateswaran and T.N.S.
Raghavan, all retired civilians.

For a Monopolies
Commission
The Law Ministry has
recommended to the Cabinet to
constitute a Monopolies
Commission with mandatory
powers in respect of restrictive
trade practices only. In all other
respects, particularly relating to
the concentration of economic
power and monopolistic
practices, the Commission is to be
entrusted with powers of inquiry
and report in certain categories of
cases, which the Government may
from time to time, refer to it. The
advice of the Commission may or
may not be accepted. The
Ministries of Commerce,
Industry, Finance and the
Planning Commission have
concurred with the Law
Ministrys proposal. The Law
Ministry has suggested that the
Draft Monopolies and Restrictive
Trade Practices Bill, as
recommended by the Monopolies
Inquiry Commission, may be
modified.

Autonomy and accountability

We need to put in place broader mechanisms for accountability for autonomous institutions in general. One way to
do so is to subject them to oversight by
Parliament. The Chairman of the U.S.
Federal Reserve appears before the U.S.
Congress and fields questions on a range
of matters related to the Fed. It would be
helpful to institute a similar mechanism
in India for the RBI. Similarly, the IIM
Bill, which seeks to cover the IIMs
through an Act of Parliament, is a step in
the right direction. Another way is to
subject autonomous institutions to independent management audit every few
years. These audits may be carried out by
committees of eminent persons. The
committees should interact with all
stakeholders the government, Members of Parliament, management, employees, customers and others and
document how the institution has fared
in relation to its mandate. These documents should be placed in the public
domain.
Institutional autonomy cannot mean
the freedom to operate independently of
the government. Rather, it is the freedom
to deliver on mandates defined by the
government and with due consultation
with the government. When technocrats
arrogate to themselves the right to decide
on matters that fall within their ambit all
by themselves, it is not autonomy, it is
usurpation.
Former RBI Governor Y.V. Reddy is
said to have once quipped, The Reserve
Bank is totally free within the limits set
by the government. That could well
serve as a motto for all autonomous
institutions.

T.T. Ram Mohan is a professor at IIM Ahmedabad.

E-mail: ttr@iima.ac.in This article is based on reports
and excerpts that have appeared in the media. The
author has not had access to D. Subbaraos book.

The PM and the politics of questioning

Why Parliament should consider the practice of weekly Prime Ministers Questions
NISSIM
MANNATHUKKAREN

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Hanoi is prepared
for long-term war

| 11

PERSPECTIVE

NOIDA/DELHI

A politician who can master the media

can shape political afairs outside of
parliament and even eliminate the
mediation of parliament. Umberto
Eco
The Monsoon session of Parliament is
upon us and if we go by recent history,
the Prime Minister, the central spokesperson of the government in Parliament,
may once again not be compelled to answer the questions directed at his
government.
Recently, there were two interesting
developments. First, as the second anniversary celebrations of the BJP-led NDA
government began, a BJP spokesperson
tweeted that Prime Minister Narendra
Modi is the most hardworking PM ever
in Indian history. The reason was that
Mr. Modi delivered a speech every 45.6
hours in two years.
And second, this summer, the Mr. Modi gave his first full-fledged television interview in two years.
There is a bewildering irony here: the
Prime Minister who has given the most
number of speeches in the first two years
has taken the least number of questions
from the people. There is a chasm between Mr. Modis frequency of speeches
as well as communicating through 140
characters, and the refusal to converse
with, and be interrogated by, the people.
This irony of monologue is a defining
feature of the current regime.
How do we get our elected leaders, especially the head of the government, to
take and answer questions from the people is a question that must animate us.
Parliament is the ultimate forum to
achieve this task. Yet, it has seen a progressive decline in the nature and quality
of debates and interventions. The number of sitting days in the last three Lok
Sabhas including the present one is almost half of the first Lok Sabha. Crucially, the Prime Minister himself has played
only a minimal role in the proceedings of
this Lok Sabha, leave alone regularly answering questions from the members.
This is despite Mr. Modi declaring

Q&A: It is the decline of Parliament as the voice of the people that has led to the
hardening of a monologic politics, with debate shifting to the fourth estate.
Picture shows the Prime Minister outside Parliament. PHOTO: R.V. MOORTHY

Democracy is about talking

with the people. We cannot
sing paeans to democracy
while refusing to let the
people ask questions
that conversation and debates are the
soul of Parliament. It is also in sharp
contrast to the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who used to attend Parliament regularly. Indeed, if the BJP once
mocked Manmohan Singh as the NRIPM, ironically, the same tag has come
back to be applied on Mr. Modi. India
does not, in any case, have a parliamentary practice like that of the Prime Ministers Questions in the U.K. where the
Prime Minister takes questions from
MPs every sitting week for a dedicated
time.
When debate shifts
It is the decline of Parliament as the
voice of the people, as the forum where
the most important matters are publicly
debated, that has led to the hardening of
a monologic politics, with debate shifting to other institutions like the fourth
estate. Of course, the fourth estate is by
no means, the people, but in a capitalist
democracy it at least provides the fig leaf
of protection of peoples interests, with
some sections more attuned to the pop-

ular ferment than most others. Therefore, the Prime Ministers reluctance to
take questions from the press and be
subject to even its minimal scrutiny is
particularly damaging to the largest democracy in the world.
In this, Mr. Modi, ironically, continues
the legacy of Dr. Singh, who was widely
criticised for his silence and who interacted with the Indian press collectively
only thrice during his 10-year tenure. But
Mr. Singh did speak with many foreign
media houses in his first term. That Mr.
Modi lags way behind Dr Singh in the
foreign realm, where he has sought to
create a definitive impression, including,
unprecedentedly, on the Indian diaspora
betrays the monologic nature of his
politics.
Anachronistic politics
Monologic politics is increasingly outmoded as the discourse of democracy,
equality and freedom cannot be wished
away as before. Besides, now we are in an
era when we have the technological
tools, like social media, which even
when their efects have not often been
benign, provide unique access to marginalised groups to question the powerful. Monologic politics of Mann ki Baat
is an attempt to turn back the clock. It resembles what the philosopher Jrgen
Habermas, before the era of social networking, had called the refeudalisation

of the public sphere. It meant the control

of the public sphere by powerful private
interests, especially corporations. The
public sphere, instead of one where citizens rationally deliberate about matters
concerning society, becomes one which
is managed top-down by those wielding
political and economic power. Politics is
here reduced to spectacles on television,
or to public relations managed by private
firms, and citizens become mere passive
consumers.
Any attempt to push forward democracy will have to break the stranglehold
of monologic politics. There is a disjuncture between the flow of social media
and the concentration of power in a few
people. While the Prime Minister takes
to forums like Twitter and Facebook, he
is acknowledging the power of the multitude. Umberto Eco would have called it
media populism appealing to people
directly through media. But at the same
time, by refusing to indulge in a genuine
conversation or dialogue, the Prime
Minister pulls back to a monologic
politics.
This refusal to dialogue with the people is rare in democracies. Barack Obama recently became the first American
President to complete 1000 interviews!
Freedom to ask
The fundamental basis of a democracy is dialogue. No democracy can survive in any meaningful sense when it degenerates into a monologue. But as Paulo
Freire, the Brazilian educator, contends,
there is no dialogue without humility, or
faith in the people and their power to
change the world.
Democracy is not about the nations
leaders talking at or to people, but talking with them. We cannot sing paeans to
democracy while refusing to let the people ask questions. And as Freire would
put it, If the structure does not permit
dialogue, the structure must be
changed. That would require at least
the restoration of the sanctity of the Parliament as the forum of the people, as
well as the dignity of the fourth estate as
an independent observer.
Nissim Mannathukkaren is Chair, International
Development Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada.
E-mail: nmannathukkaren@dal.ca
ND-ND