Sunday, December 24, 2023

INDIA

The Three New Criminal Laws Betray a Narrow Spirit of Nationalism



Whatever the merits or demerits of the three new criminal laws, much will depend on how the law and order machinery uses them and how the courts interpret them, writes Parsa Venkateshwarrao Jr.

criminal laws

The vaulting ambition of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to overturn the existing structures is the hallmark of his being at the helm in the last nine years and more.

Three new laws have replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 in the form of the Hindi-titled Bhartiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita (BNS), Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita (BNSS), Bhartiya Sakshya (Second) Bill (BSB) respectively.

Union home minister Amit Shah, replying to the debate in Lok Sabha on Wednesday on the three Bills, argued like a right-wing nationalist politician that the colonial-era laws were meant only to defend British interests and that these new laws have been drafted to deliver justice and not just punish as was the intent of the earlier laws.

Shah indulged in partisan rhetoric. He said, “Under the leadership of Modiji, I have brought Bills that lay emphasis on Indianness, the Indian Constitution and the well-being of the people. The laws are being changed in the spirit of the Constitution.”

It is common knowledge that the Indian Constitution is in spirit an Anglo-Saxon one, with its emphasis on freedom, the rights of the people and democratic governance, which Indians never had in their 5,000-year-old history, despite Modi’s excessive claim that India is the mother of democracy.

Having said that, changes in laws, if they are for the better, are always welcome. What is to be looked at is the intent and spirit of the laws. If it is mere rewording of the old ones, it is a forgivable sin on the part of Shah and Modi. It is an infirmity of politicians that they want to credit themselves with the little things they have done and the big things they have not.

The basic principle of the English common law— the spirit behind the colonial laws— was that justice means not punishing the innocent, accepting that a person is innocent until proven otherwise and letting a hundred criminals go free rather than punish a single innocent person.

For many in India who have lived under the colonial laws before and after Independence, the Anglo-Saxon philosophy of law had no attraction.

Not that this idealistic principle of justice is alien to Indian culture. It is only that the deracinated right-wing nationalists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) kind and their admirers are not aware of it.

There is the shining example of Kannagi, the protagonist of the Tamil epic, Silappadikaram, who curses Madurai to be burnt down because an innocent man was put to death by the king, and that innocent man was her husband.

Many nationalist Indians, in their zeal to decolonise their minds, do not have the moral imagination that Ilango, the author of Silappadikaram had.

Similarly, for many Indians, especially the educated majority, the fundamental principles enshrined in the Preamble and the fundamental rights of Chapter III of the Constitution are contemptible things because they want a safe society even if it means living without basic freedoms.

This is not peculiar to educated Indians. It is a desire of many middle-class people everywhere in the world. That is why many Indians and others praise Singapore as the paradise of safety, and the absence of basic freedoms in the city-state does not matter to them.

Shah indulged in sophistry when he claimed that sedition as a crime had been removed from the new law because it was used by the British to imprison freedom fighters such as Balgangadhar Tilak, M.K. Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel— of course, he would not mention Jawaharlal Nehru who spent the longest time in British-era prisons because of the visceral hatred that his party and its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, have for Nehru— but in the new law, those who speak against the country would be punished, though criticism of the government’s policies will not be because it is part of the freedom of speech.

Shah brought back sedition under a new rubric. Sedition in any democratic country is only when violent means are used to overthrow a democratically elected government, and it does not imply that you cannot speak against the country.

If a citizen says that India is a dirty country, that Indians are casteist and communal, that India’s past was in many ways unfair and unjust and undemocratic, they are not committing sedition. These are arguments that can and should be made in a free country.

The new law comes down heavily against it. It is not surprising that a right-wing BJP government, with its claustrophobic philosophy of blinkered nationalism, should be bringing in these laws.

A country that refuses to be self-critical is doomed. India became a backward country because it did not have a self-critical spirit.

The test of the pudding lies in the eating. So, whatever the merits or demerits of these new laws, it will depend on how the law and order machinery uses them and how the courts interpret them.

A colonial police structure whose main intention is to wield the baton to intimidate people can undermine the best of laws. A good law in itself is no guarantee that it will be administered justly.

A police force with casteist and communal prejudices can only inflict cruelty on helpless people. Judges who look over their shoulders at their political masters will never stand up for the wronged man or woman on the street.

Modi’s narrow-minded vision of a powerful India is at best a naïve one, and it is this naivety that lies behind the claims made for the laws by Shah.

These new laws are suspect because they emerge from a government with an authoritarian attitude, which believes in the fascist ideology of Mussolini: “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”

Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr is a senior journalist and political commentator. He is the author of several books on Indian politics.

Courtesy: The Leaflet


Parliament Intrusion Highlights Repression and Economic Desperation


Suhit K Sen 



But Parliament and the public must be content with airy dismissals of their concerns.
 Parliamentarians in the Lok Sabha during the Winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023.

Parliamentarians in the Lok Sabha during the Winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023. Image Courtesy: PTI

The intrusion into the innermost sanctum of the new Parliament complex by two young men reaffirms something most of us have known for a while: the extant regime is not just sectarian and authoritarian but amateurish.

Even as vanity projects go, the Central Vista and the new Parliament building was always extraordinary, considering the finances being lavished on it and its no-stops construction through the pandemic. Also unsurprising was that the security arrangements should be so palpably suboptimal—an issue raised by many during the pell-mell process—that all it took was a small group of disaffected youths to penetrate Lok Sabha with, one must admit, considerable brio.

If the events of 13 December shone a powerful beam of light on the regimes ineptitude, subsequent events revealed the complete disregard for due processes and contempt for democratic institutions and norms that have come to characterise the regime. Regrettably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets the tone for his colleagues in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the government with his grandstanding. Now we know: Modi hai to mumkin hai; if Modis in the picture, it must be doable.

Weve said this before and are saying it again: the Pragya Singh Thakurs, Giriraj Singhs and Ramesh Bidhuris are not part of a lunatic fringe. They are valued members of the BJP and Sangh Parivar mainstream who carry out the biddings of the leaders who set the stage with their unsubtle dog whistling. Rewards are on offer; witness the promotion to the Cabinet of Anurag Singh Thakur.

This context frames the response to the intrusion into the inner chamber of the Lok Sabha by two men who were, most fortunately, not intent on creating mayhem. Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah dont really care about public opinion because they know that behind them are a well-funded electoral juggernaut and the majoritarian stick that seems to do the trick when it matters. Thus, Modis stubborn refusal to go to Manipur when it was being ravaged by riots or his refusal to make a meaningful statement on the situation in Parliament.

Nobody was seriously expecting a statement from either once it became apparent that the crisis had blown over, especially since neither worthy was in the House when the pyrotechnics happened. Any statement would surely involve taking some responsibility, and, hey, did anyone in their right mind see that materialising on the distant horizon? 

As expected, we got a jejune statement from Speaker Om Birla, kind of putting his hand up; Shah kind of implied his culpability as well. But whichever way you slice it, the fact that the Speaker is in charge of House proceedings doesnt mean he is in charge of security or who busts in through the outer gates. The Union Home Minister is singularly responsible, and he isnt raising his hands, except to say, outside Parliament, that a mistake happened—in the passive voice, with an intransitive verb.

BJP leaders led by Shah have fixed responsibility on the Opposition. Sure. They are politicising the issue, as if miraculously, the security for the Parliament complex—bulldozed through against widespread opposition and without consultation—is not a political issue many times over.

The suspension of almost a third of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members for demanding the presence of Modi and Shah to make a statement and render themselves answerable is typical of the regime. It takes no account of the fact that for members of Parliament, this is a life-and-death issue. That the trespassers intended merely to register their protest against the dictatorial and incompetent functioning of the regime is, in a sense, incidental.

Meanwhile, of course, BJP Member of Parliament Pratap Simha expectedly gets a pass despite having given the passes used to breach Parliaments security, as has BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri despite his invective-laden verbal attack against another MP on the floor of the House. The pattern persists. Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra was expelled for sharing her password without being given adequate opportunities to defend herself, but Simha gets commiserations for doling out passes.

With the Winter Session ending on 22 December, it looks unlikely that any answers will be forthcoming. Both Parliament and the public will have to be content with airy dismissals of their concerns and questions.

The incident does raise an important question, though. What compelled regular citizens, going by the reports about their general situation, to stage a protest that was, first, purely symbolic since it wont result in deep introspection to solve the myriad problems they wanted to draw attention to. And second, it was a protest that will undoubtedly lead to a long prison term and most likely a permanently blighted future. Let us remember that these are still youthful people, not terrorists or criminals.

Clearly, there is a problem caused by a lack of opportunities for the educated, coupled with an increasingly constricted space to legitimately air grievances. In other words, we are living under an increasingly authoritarian regime acquiring all the hallmarks of a police state, which cannot provide avenues of advancement to the educated youth or the means of proper subsistence to a huge number of people.

Check the recently released United Nations report that says almost 74.1% of Indians—that works out to 104.3 crore people—cannot afford a healthy diet. Whatever the denial-prone regime might say about methodologies and data, it cannot repudiate that Modi announced the extension by five years of free rations to over 80 crore people during the recent Assembly election campaign.

This is likely to be an underestimate of hungry people given that the regime has refused to conduct the decennial census, now overdue two years. You dont have to be a member of Mensa International to figure out that its not being held because the regime thrives in post-truth situations that afford an infinite scope of plausible denial.

Thus, the people who got together to tear down the security apparatus, or whatever Keystone version passes for it, have highlighted the fundamental problem facing the nation: misgovernment of colossal proportions policed by jackboots to repress democratic protests of any kind.

Its a pity that matters have come to such a pass, but lets not pretend we hadnt seen it coming.

(The author is an independent journalist and writer. The views are personal.)

The Suffocation of Democracy in India



Vijay Prashad 


Attacks on the progressive Indian news outlet NewsClick coincided with the suspension of 141 Opposition members of Indian Parliament, both constituting serious attacks on Indian democracy.
Newsclick

On December 18 and 19, 141 members of the two Houses of India’s Parliament were suspended. Each of these members belong to the parties that oppose the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government said that these elected members were suspended for “unruly behaviour.” The Opposition had shaped itself into the INDIA bloc, which included almost every party not affiliated to the BJP. They responded to this action by calling it the “murder of democracy” and alleging that the BJP government has installed an “extreme level of dictatorship” in India. This act comes after a range of attempts to undermine India’s elected opposition.

Meanwhile, on December 18, the Indian news website NewsClick announced that the Income Tax (IT) department “has virtually frozen our accounts.” NewsClick can no longer make payments to its employees, which means that this news media portal is now close to being silenced. The editors at NewsClick said that this action by the IT department is “a continuation of the administrative-legal siege” that began with the Enforcement Directorate raids in February 2021, was deepened by the IT department survey in September 2021, and the large-scale raids of October 3, 2023, that resulted in the arrest of NewsClick’s founder Prabir Purkayastha and its administrative officer Amit Chakraborty. Both remain in prison.

Organs of Indian Democracy

In February 2022, The Economist noted that “the organs of India’s democracy are decaying.” Two years before that assessment, India’s leading economist and Nobel Prize laureate, Amartya Sen, said that “democracy is government by discussion, and, if you make discussion fearful, you are not going to get a democracy, no matter how you count the votes. And that is massively true now. People are afraid now. I have never seen this before.” India’s most respected journalist, N. Ram (former editor of The Hindu), wrote in The Prospect in August 2023 about this “decaying” of Indian democracy and the fear of discussion in the context of the attack on NewsClick. This attack, he wrote, “marks a new low for press freedom in my country, which has been caught-up in a decade-long trend of uninterrupted down sliding in the ‘new India’ of Narendra Modi. We have witnessed a state-engineered McCarthyite campaign of disinformation, scaremongering, and vilification against NewsClick.” The world, he wrote, “should be watching in horror.”

In May 2022, ten organisations – including Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders – released a strong statement, saying that the Indian authorities “should stop targeting, prosecuting journalists and online critics.” This statement documented how the Indian government of has used laws against counterterrorism and sedition to silence the media, when it has been critical of government policies. Use of technology – such as Pegasus – has allowed the government to spy on reporters and to use their private communications for legal action against them. Journalists have been physically attacked and intimidated (with special focus on Muslim journalists, journalists who cover Jammu and Kashmir, and journalists who covered the farmer protests of 2021-22). When the government began to target NewsClick, it was part of this broad assault on the media. That broader attack prepared the journalist associations to respond clearly when the Delhi Police arrested Purkayastha and Chakraborty. The Press Club of India noted that its reporters were “deeply concerned” about the events, while the Editor’s Guild of India said that the government must “not create a general atmosphere of intimidation under the shadow of draconian laws.”

Role of the New York Times

In April 2020, the New York Times ran a story with a strong headline about the situation of press freedom in India: “Under Modi, India’s Press Is Not So Free Anymore.” In that story, the reporters showed how Modi met with owners of the major media houses in March 2020 to tell them to publish “inspiring and positive stories.” When the Indian media began to report the government’s catastrophic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Modi’s government went to the Supreme Court to argue that all Indian media must “publish the official version.” The Court denied the government’s request that media must only publish the government view, but instead said that the media must publish the government view alongside other interpretations. Siddharth Vardarajan, editor of The Wire, said that the court’s order was “unfortunate,” and that it could be seen as “giving sanction for prior censorship of content in the media.”

The Indian government’s “administrative-legal siege” on NewsClick began a few months later because the website had offered independent reporting not only on the COVID-19 pandemic but also on the movement to defend India’s Constitution and on the movement of the farmers. Despite repeated searches and interrogations, the various agencies of the Indian government could not find any illegality in the operations of NewsClick. Vague suggestions about impropriety of funding from overseas fell flat, since NewsClick said that it followed Indian law in its receipt of funds.

When the case against NewsClick appeared to go cold, the New York Times – in August 2023 – published an enormously speculative and disparaging article against the foundations that provided some of NewsClick’s funds. The day after the story appeared, high officials of the Indian government went on a rampage against NewsClick, using the story as “evidence” of a crime. The New York Times had been warned previously that this kind of story would be used by the Indian government to suppress press freedom. Indeed, the story by the New York Times provided the Indian government with the credibility to try and shut down NewsClick, which is what they are now doing with the IT department’s decision.

Upside Down World

The 141 members of Parliament are accused of trying to justify a breach of Parliament that took place on December 13. Two men jumped from the press gallery into the hall and released smoke canisters to protest the failure of the elected officials to debate issues of inflation, unemployment, and ethnic violence in Manipur. The men received passes to enter Parliament from Pratap Simha, a parliamentarian of the BJP. He has not been suspended. The BJP used this incident to suspend the Opposition parliamentarians because they either did not condemn the incident, or they came out in defence of colleagues who were suspended.

None of the men who held the smoke bombs in Parliament have a political background, let alone any linkage to the Opposition. Manoranjan D lost his job in an internet firm and had to return to assist his family work their farm; Sagar Sharma drove a taxi after he had to drop out of school due to financial problems at home. Neelam Azad had an MA, a Med, and an MPhil, but could not find a job. These are young men and women  frustrated with Modi’s India, but with no political connections. They tried to use normal democratic means to be heard but were not successful. Their act is one of desperation, a symptom of a broader social crisis; the suspension of Opposition parliamentarians and the attack at NewsClick’s finances are also symptoms of that crisis: the suffocation of democracy in India.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

INDIA

Tunnel Collapse: Upset Rat-Hole Miners not to Cash Cheques Given by Uttarakhand Govt





They said permanent jobs for rat-hole miners who helped in the operation is what they expect from the state government.
news round up

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami with rat-hole miners who successfully rescued the 41 trapped workers. (File Photo. | PTI)

Tunnel Collapse: Upset Rat-Hole Miners not to Encash Cheques Given by Uttarakhand Govt

PTI

Dehradun: The rat-hole miners who played a vital role in the evacuation of 41 workers trapped in the Silkyara tunnel have refused to encash the cheques of Rs 50,000 given to them recently by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

The rat-hole miners said the chief minister's gesture was "not commensurate" with the role they had played.

"It was a desperate situation. We chipped in when the machines had failed to reach the trapped workers. We drilled manually through the debris risking our lives without putting any preconditions. We appreciate the gesture of the chief minister but are not satisfied with the amount that was given to us," Vakil Hassan, who headed the team of the rat-hole miners, told PTI.

"The role of rat-hole miners in the operation was heroic but what they got from the government was sadly not adequate," he said.

The 12 rat-hole miners honoured by the state government have collectively decided not to encash the cheques, he said.

"I conveyed our dissatisfaction to the chief minister the day the cheques were handed to us. We returned after being assured by the officials that some announcement regarding us will be made in a couple of days. However, if the promise is not kept, we will return the cheques," Hassan said.

Hassan said permanent jobs for the rat-hole miners who helped in the operation is what they expect from the state government.

Munna, a rat-hole miner who works for Rockwell Enterprises, a firm headed by Hassan, and was among the first to reach the trapped workers said, the amount given to them was not adequate considering the kind of effort they put in to rescue the trapped workers.

"We literally entered the jaws of death to rescue the trapped workers. We did not listen to our family members as human lives had to be saved," he said.

"Cheques of Rs 50,000 is too paltry a sum to acknowledge our role. It lowers our morale. A permanent job or a house to live in would have been more appropriate," Munna, who lives in an 8/10 room with his children, said.

Chief Minister Dhami on Thursday honoured 12 rat-hole miners with cheques of Rs 50,000 each.

The rat-hole miners had manually drilled the final stretch of about 15 metres through the debris in the collapsed part of the tunnel in claustrophobic conditions to prepare an escape passage made of MS steel pipes for the trapped workers.

Rat-hole mining was the last strategy adopted by the rescuers after several attempts to reach the workers with the help of auger machines failed to produce the desired results.

The workers had remained locked up in a part of the tunnel for seventeen days after its partial collapse on November 12.


NEWSCLICK.IN

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA

Article 370 Verdict: A Missed Opportunity to Rein in an Unrestrained Exercise of Power


Mohammad Wasim 


What the judgment ended up with is to validate an act that tested the elastic limits of the tether that binds the government to the Constitution, writes Mohammad Wasim.
Article 370

Image credit: The Leaflet

Four years after Article 370 was de-operationalised, the Supreme Court has held the Presidential Orders [Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir), Order 2019 or CO 272 and Declaration Under Article 370(3) of the Constitution or CO 273] and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 constitutionally valid.

However, the rationale used by the Supreme Court to reach the conclusions was stretched and did little to enhance confidence in the judicial process.

Nor did the judgment do much to restore the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), which itself would not be anything more than a consolation for the people of the State.

In any case, the judgment merits a closer look.

Nature of power contained in Article 370(3)


In the judgment, the Supreme Court concludes, “The power under Article 370(3) did not cease to exist upon the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir.

When the Constituent Assembly was dissolved, only the transitional power recognised in the proviso to Article 370(3) which empowered the Constituent Assembly to make its recommendations ceased to exist.

It did not affect the power held by the President under Article 370(3).”

In other words, the President can unilaterally exercise power under Article 370(3). Nothing could be further from the plain reading of the clause, let alone when the context elucidates the clause.

A plain meaning makes it clear that the final shape of the relationship between the Union and J&K was to be decided by the Constituent Assembly of the state.

This is in no way a manifestation of any separate sovereignty of the state but is a specific provision in the Constitution of India itself. The provision does not arrogate the supremacy of the Constitution of India but is an inalienable part thereof.

Thus, as per the Constitution of India, under Clause (3) of Article 370, it was specifically for the Constituent Assembly of J&K to frame the Constitution for the state and to decide the fate of Article 370, as envisaged under the then Article 306 A.

After the Constituent Assembly of J&K was dissolved, the framework of constitutional law for J&K comprised Article 370 of the Constitution of India, the Constitution of J&K as well as Acts and Orders issued thereunder.

Therefore, to conclude that the President can unilaterally exercise power under Article 370(3) and dissolve Article 370 could not be any further from the plain reading of the text of 370(3).

This interpretation also finds support in the detailed exposition of Article 370 in the Constituent Assembly debates by N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, an Indian civil servant and statesman who worked as the Prime Minister of the princely state of J&K and thereafter as a minister in the very first cabinet of independent India, and served on the Indian Constitution’s drafting committee.

Ayyangar writes: “[S]o the provision is made that when the Constituent Assembly of the State has met and taken its decision both on the Constitution for the State and on the range of federal jurisdiction over the State, the President may on the recommendation of that Constituent Assembly issue an Order that this Article 306A shall either cease to be operative, or shall be operative only subject to such exceptions and modifications as may be specified by him.

But before he issues any Order of that kind, recommendation of the Constituent Assembly will be a condition precedent. That explains the whole of this Article.”

Thus, it is clear that Article 370 was ‘temporary or transitional’ till the Constituent Assembly had sat and decided upon the final and permanent nature of the relationship between the Union of India and the State of J&K.

Hence, once the Constituent Assembly was dissolved after framing the Constitution for J&K and without recommending “cessation of the operation of Article 370”, what was to be permanent was the framework of law comprising Article 370 of the Constitution of India, the Constitution of J&K as well as Acts and Orders issued thereunder.

The Constituent Assembly of J&K had not specified any “exceptions or modifications” for the continued operation of Article 370. Thus, the article had gained a permanent character according to the text of Article 370 itself.

It also follows that the issue of the effect on the power of the President under Article 370(3) does not arise.

Temporariness or transitional nature

The Supreme Court proceeded to put forth a rationale for the temporariness of Article 370. According to the court, “It can be garnered from the historical context for the inclusion of Article 370 and the placement of Article 370 in Part XXI of the Constitution that it is a temporary provision.”

It is redundant to say that temporariness is a relative concept. A thing, entity or provision is temporary till (a) a specified time, or (b) certain conditions are met.

Article 370 does not specify any time but it clearly mentions the condition under which and the form in which the Article shall operate or cease to operate, i.e., upon and as per the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly of J&K, as elucidated above.

Process of integration

The Supreme Court further relies on the rationale that “the continuous exercise of power under Article 370(1) by the President indicates that the gradual process of constitutional integration was ongoing. The declaration issued by the President under Article 370(3) is a culmination of the process of integration and as such is a valid exercise of power. Thus, CO 273 is valid.”

The very usage of word “integration” is misplaced, and contradictory to other assertions in the very judgment, i.e., that J&K did not retain any element of sovereignty after the execution of the Instrument of Accession and issuance of the Proclamation dated November 25, 1949 by which the Constitution of India was adopted.

J&K has been an integral part of India and this line of argument is a recognition of the same.

Thus, to say that integration is complete only after CO 272 and CO 273 is a manifest contradiction in the judgment.

What was continuing was the gradual application of further provisions of the Constitution of India, and not the process of integration. What was changing was the nature of asymmetrical federalism in relation to J&K, and not the quantum of integration.

Nothing emaciates a judgment as a manifest contradiction. It gives the impression that the rationale has been forced to reach a conclusion. This ought to be protected against.

Even in the case of the application of further provisions of the Constitution, the procedure enshrined in Article 370(1)(d) ought to have been followed. Even if it is assumed that “concurrence of the government of the State” stood dispensed with, since J&K was under President’s rule, such exercise of power could not have been in violation of the Constitution of J&K.

It lay beyond the powers of even a duly elected government of J&K to make recommendations in violation of the provisions of the Constitution of J&K, since the same avails the protection of the Constitution of India. The process of issuance of CO (272), thus, stood vitiated.

Furthermore, is the issuance of CO 272 not an exercise of power under Article 370(3) through the backdoor? Can the averment, right or wrong, that since the President enjoyed similar power under Article 370 (3), so he could issue CO 272 under Article 370(1)(d) cure the time-honoured doctrine of substance over form?

In my humble opinion, the Constitution of India frowns upon such coloured exercise of power.

Future of Article 370

A major issue is whether it is open for a future government to re-introduce the original provisions of Article 370 through an executive Order? Since the cessation of Article 370 has been effected through executive Orders and parliamentary resolutions, and not through an amendment under Article 368, the constitutional door remains open for the reintroduction of the original provisions, though it is highly unlikely any future government would wade into these troubled waters.

But what is problematic to the greatest degree is the suspect and circuitous manner in which the changes to Article 370 were brought about. The method has been questioned by legal luminaries including former judges of the Supreme Court.

It opens the Constitution of India to gross abuse by any unconscientious government in the future. The same endangers the constitutional and other values we hold dear as a society.

Federal structure

Another problematic aspect of this judgment is the interpretation of Article 3 of the Constitution, which is read to provide all-encompassing power to the Union government to alter the territory or status of a state without reading any limitations to such power.

A logical question is whether the Union government can unilaterally convert all states into Union territories and govern them directly. Will that not be against the federal character of the Constitution?

If yes, when and how is the federal character threatened?

Given the language used in Article 3 and the limited scope of this judgment in relation to the same, one cannot be too excited over this aspect of the judgment.

But these questions are of prime significance, and ought to be dealt with by an appropriate future Bench of the Supreme Court which ought to delineate the contours of power contained in Article 3 and limitations on such power.

Also, the undertaking of the Union government that the statehood of J&K will be restored or that elections will be held at the earliest does little to cure the erosion of constitutional principles.

It will not be far-fetched to say that this judgment is a missed opportunity to rein in an unrestrained exercise of power.

What was at stake was the principle of “limited government”. What was and is threatened is the much-vaunted natural rights of citizens.

Such a situation requires a constant and heightened vigil by the judiciary.

What the judgment ended up with is to validate an act that tested the elastic limits of the tether that binds the government to the Constitution.

Mohammad Wasim is an advocate practising in the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Delhi. He also works in the rural education sector. The views are personal.


Free Trade Isn’t a Good Thing; It Creates Unemployment


The US, which is preaching the virtues of free trade to the whole world, is itself going protectionist.

Imagine a country that is exposed to relatively unrestricted trade. There are two obvious problems that it can face because of this trade policy: the first is a balance of payments problem, because its exports are insufficient relative to its imports. And the second is the creation of unemployment, and more generally of domestic resources remaining idle, because domestic goods cannot compete with imports.

These two (balance of payment and unemployment) are not identical problems, in the sense that there can be unemployment in the absence of an import surplus, as had happened in the colonial period when there was domestic “deindustrialisation” causing massive unemployment among artisans and craftsmen even though the Indian economy did not have an import surplus (in fact it had an export surplus which was simply appropriated by the colonial rulers as “drain”). In what follows, however, I shall not be concerned with the balance of payments problems caused in a Third World economy because of relatively unrestricted trade; I shall concentrate only on the employment question.

The fact that unrestricted trade creates domestic unemployment is quite obvious, and should be especially obvious to Third World people who have had the historical experience of deindustrialisation during colonial rule. Yet, there is a general impression around that free trade is a good thing, and an utterly spurious argument is advanced to create this impression.

Indeed, the so-called global trade rules evolved under the WTO (World Trade Organisation) are based precisely on this argument. This argument states that countries should specialise in the production of those goods where they have a “comparative advantage”. If each country specialises in the production of those goods at which it is adept, then taking the world as a whole output would be larger than otherwise, so that all countries can become better off.

This free trade argument based on “comparative advantage” (which by the way is the only argument for free trade) is a complete fiddle. It assumes, simply assumes, that in each country and hence in the world as a whole, there is always full employment of all resources including of its total labour force, irrespective of whether it is engaging in trade or not. It follows that if all resources, including its labour-force, are fully employed before and after trade, then all that trade involves is a mere redirection of resources from one kind of use to another. It cannot by assumption cause the unemployment of any resource including a country’s labour force.

Once we reject this assumption, however, as we must since it has no basis either in facts or in theory (its theoretical vacuity was demonstrated by Michal Kalecki and John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s, though Marx had anticipated their theoretical innovation three quarters of a century earlier), the potentially deleterious implications of free trade for a country become clear.

There is a very simple way of seeing this. Suppose the total production capacity of the world economy is 100 units; if total demand in the world economy is 80 units, then 20 units of world output would remain unrealised, and hence, under capitalist conditions, unproduced. The resources that remain unemployed as a result, will be distributed among the countries in a certain manner.

A question may be raised here. Keynes, afraid of the workers being disillusioned with capitalism because of the unemployment it generates and hence moving towards socialism, had suggested State intervention in a capitalist system to raise the level of aggregate demand and hence employment. Why can this not be attempted at the world level itself, in which case no country would be left with unutilised resources even in the event of free trade?

The very simple and obvious answer to this question, even without going into any complexities, is that for this to happen there has to be a world State with a world government, which there isn’t under capitalism.

And in countries where resources remain unutilised because the world demand is not large enough, if their particular states attempted to raise demand in those economies to create larger unemployment, then under free trade conditions this extra demand might “leak out” resulting in additional imports and hence an unsustainable trade deficit. If these countries did not have free trade and could protect their economies, then their governments could expand domestic aggregate demand and hence employment. But their hands get tied because of free trade.

The fact that under a free trade regime a country’s government cannot intervene to raise aggregate demand, and hence employment, but has to accept meekly the fall-out of the consequences of whatever the level of world demand happens to be, means that employment, whether in a particular country or at the world level, might well be lower with free trade than if countries could resort to protection. 

This totally negates the fundamental argument for free trade. This argument, it may be recalled, hinged on the fact that each country, specialising in producing only those goods where its comparative advantage lay, would increase world output which would be potentially beneficial for all countries. But, this argument collapses once we recognise that post-free trade world output might be lower than pre-free trade world output, if the level of world aggregate demand in the former situation shrinks compared with the latter.

What, it may be asked, does the post-free trade world aggregate demand depend upon? The primary determinant of world aggregate demand is the demand generated within the leading capitalist country, in the present context the United States, which enjoys a degree of autonomy in generating demand even when this demand “leaks out” to other countries. This is because it does not have to worry about a trade deficit, as its currency is generally considered to be “as good as gold” and it can simply print money to finance its external deficits which the rest of the world would be willing to hold.

It is for this reason that consumption plus investment plus government expenditure in the US becomes the primary determinant of world aggregate demand. Government expenditure of the US, in particular, is important here because it has a certain autonomy: it can be turned on like a tap. In this sense the US State, despite being a nation-state, can potentially act, and even actually acts up to a point, as a surrogate world-state in conditions of contemporary capitalism.

There is, however, a contradiction here which is now beginning to make itself felt. While the US State can act as a surrogate world state, it is not a world state; it remains, everything said and done, a nation-state after all. If the US State increases domestic aggregate demand which “leaks out”, then, even though the US may not have any problems in financing its external deficit, it gets indebted while financing its external deficit. And it gets indebted while generating employment, most of which is located abroad (since demand “leaks out”).

An enlarging through larger government expenditure of US aggregate demand, therefore, while it may not raise any technical problems for the US in the sense of being unsustainable, militates against its narrowly national point of view, which its State cannot ignore as it is after all a nation-state. Its nation-state role, in short, comes in the way of its surrogate world-state role.

This contradiction is now reaching an acute form. During the pandemic the US (and other advanced countries) ran large fiscal deficits to finance the provision of relief to their populations. Even after the pandemic was over, the US was keen to continue with relatively larger fiscal deficits for reviving domestic aggregate demand, but was somewhat thwarted by the recent upsurge of inflation.

But once this upsurge abates, there is likely to be a stimulus to domestic demand in the US by State expenditure, but this would be accompanied by protectionism to prevent any “leaking out” of demand to other countries. In fact, the US, for some time, has been moving toward protectionism, most clearly directed against China, but also vis-à-vis other Third World countries.

Some have called this move toward protectionism in the US “de-globalisation” but that is not correct. While there is this tendency to introduce protectionism, no restrictions are being placed by the US on the movement of finance capital.

Indeed, on the contrary, any Third World country imposing capital controls faces victimisation by the US. Such contradictions, however, do not bother the US. After all, it is a country that is going protectionist even while preaching the virtues of free trade to the rest of the world.