THE VACCINE AS METAPHOR

   The metaphor is a useful literary and cognitive tool; it can, in just one image, idea or phrase convey more than a historian or writer can in a thousand words. To take some examples from our own country: the white Gandhi cap in the 1930s and 1940s reflected our collective desire for independence; in the 1950s the Bhakra Dam became the metaphor for modernisation; the Green Revolution in the 60s reflected our efforts at food self sufficiency; the Emergency in 1975 was a synonym for political overreach; in the 80s and early 1990s the Maruti 800 was a metaphor for our industrial resurgence; the cell phone was the symbol of our coming of age in the digital world in the first decade of the new millenium; Vijay Malya and Nirav Modi encapsulated the corruptness of our political and financial eco system in the second decade. Each was a symbol of the times they pertained to.

  And now, as we enter the third decade of the 21st century, we have a new metaphor: the Covid vaccine. It signifies the beginning of the end of a period which brought homo sapiens to its knees as nothing had done before- not the plague, not two world wars, not Hiroshima or Nagasaki, not Krakatoa, not SARS or Ebola. But, as usual, our sub-continental creativity and genius has imbued this metaphor with a wealth of variety and sub-sets, to such an extent that it has become a very mirror of today's India. I give below some of the subsidiaries of the parent Vaccine Metaphor.

  Mr. Shashi Tharoor has identified eight types of nationalism in his latest book, The Battle Of Belonging, but he has missed out on one: Vaccine Nationalism. Our government has sought to make it a metaphor for "atmnirbharta" and elevated the vaccine from a curative to a nationalist status, perhaps hoping to milk from it not just antibodies but also a few votes. The vaccination campaign has been billed as "the world's largest " such exercise, forgetting that, with 1350 million people, anything we do will be the world's largest. Just as the migration of labour post the lockdown was the biggest global migration after the Partition, and the ongoing farmers' protest has been the largest such agitation in the world in recent times. So, while size matters it is not always something to crow about.                                                                                           It has been announced that we will save the world with our vaccines (which is probably right too) but we must remember that  even before the pandemic, we were already supplying half of the world's global vaccines. We can, of course, be more than justifiably proud of our achievements in this field (achieved, incidentally, long before the present government came to power in 2014), but to use the vaccine to further promote a party's political agenda is egregious at best.

  It is the same Vaccine Nationalism which has resulted in the approval of a second vaccine even before the results of its Phase 3 trials are known. The essential (and mandatory) Phase 3 trial results are supposed to be available only in November 2021, so the hurry to approve it ten months prematurely can only be ascribed to a misplaced "atmanirbharta". But the decision has inevitably produced a lot of Vaccine Politics, with the opposition questioning the government and dubbing it as the BJP vaccine; some states have announced that they will not accept this particular formulation. The central government., however, is offering them the same deal it has offered the protesting farmers-- take it or leave it. Covaxin or no vaccine, appears to be the message.

  In the last six years we have lost all our neighbours to the MEA's (Ministry of External Affairs) bumbling incompetence and China's billions, so now Vaccine Diplomacy is expected to reverse the tide. We have decided to supply the India made shots to all our disgruntled  neighbours such as  Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar,  Srilanka and Mauritius, and also to the gruntled ones like Mauritius, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Seychelles . Pakistan too is standing in line, with its sleeves rolled up for a jab but we have yet to decide on this second surgical strike. The question which our spin doctors (not medical doctors) are asking, however, is this: how long will the beneficial effects of the vaccine last in our neighbouring countries? Will their antibodies prevail over the BJP govt's antibodies and the virus of arrogance? For the time being, however, our vaccines will do more for friendly external relations than six years of blind man's bluff by the Ministry of External Affairs. Maybe it's now time to merge the MEA with ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research).

 There have been a few surprises too. It was expected that the army, or at the very least General G D Bakshi with his arsenal of four letter words, would have to be called out to control the mobs once distribution of the vaccine started. That has not happened, and the queues outside my local " theka" are longer than the ones at the vaccination centre. This is the result of an unexpected reaction called Vaccine Hesitancy, which in turn is a consequence of Vaccine Scepticism. The latter stems from the usual reluctance of the govt. to share any information with the public: the EUA ( Emergency Use Authorisation) data for both the vaccines, the efficacy data for the Covaxin, and why the second vaccine which was supposed to be a "back-up" vaccine is now being distributed in the first phase itself along with Covishield. This opaqueness, which is now a familiar SOP of this govt., has resulted in justified scepticism and hesitancy.

This reluctance to put it in the arm has been accentuated by the hesitancy of our political leaders, Ministers, even the Prime Minister to practice what they preach. The biggest question being asked these days (other than "Where is Arnab Goswami hiding?") is- Why are our leaders not taking the shot? Just about every other important head of government has done so- Biden, Kamla Harris, Boris Johnson, Bolsanaro, Netanyahu, Putin, the UN Secretary General, the Saudi prince to name just a few. Why are our worthies hiding behind the "tehzeeb" of Lucknow- "pehle aap"- when they are otherwise first in line for all the goodies of life? It has been officially announced that they will take the jabs in the second phase, after the 20 million or so frontline workers are covered. At the current rate of innoculations that may take more than a month. How about leading from the front, gentlemen, and inspiring some confidence among the serfs?

With international tourism hitting rock bottom, the leisure industry is now setting its sights on Vaccine Tourism, a variant of medical tourism, the moment the government allows vaccines to be sold privately in the open market. This should not take long, given that Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson are all lining up for approvals. Once these are available in the market, expect chartered flights from the Gulf countries by the dozen- a quick jab in Delhi or Mumbai, a week in Goa to recover from the traumatic experience, and back to the souks and oil-fields. The Tourism Ministry, I am told, is holding its breath and licking its chops behind the masks.

And finally, this being India, how can we not have our own brand of Vaccine Humour ? Here are two specimens, circulating as widely on WhatsApp as the virus itself:

Now, I always was a sucker for smart pitches, even though my brand recognition skills are somewhat limited- for quite a long time I thought that cunnilingus was the name of the Irish national airline. But I've looked up Viagra on Google and have felt considerably uplifted since then. I've decided to wait till they bring the Pfizer vaccine to India, with or without the Pfizz.

Here's the second example of Vaccine Humour, though I suspect unintended. Now, one was aware that our journalism had descended to Mariana Trench depths in recent times, but this takes the lemon tart. The article refers, of course, to the vaccine wall being figuratively built by the govt. to protect its citizens, but the terrible pun is an error of phallic proportions. It is certainly not a printing error- one prick can be a printer's devil, but two pricks has to be the editorial board! One has read of arm in arm friendship, hand in glove chicanery, ball by ball commentary, but a prick by prick wall is a first for me. 

  And finally, of course, there are all those questions about Vaccine Immunity: how long will the antibodies last ? A friend of mine informs me that the only chaps who are not bothered about this are our judges: you see, they already have plenty of immunity- from accountability, prosecution and criticism. Which is why it makes no sense for them to stop physical court hearings- nothing can touch them, for if a virus were to attack them that would be ultra virus, wouldn't it ?

ARE THE FARMERS MAKING DELHI IRRELEVANT ?

 

  The irony of this is lost on a government drowning in its testesterone: with every nail studded barricade installed at Tikri, Ghazipur or Singhu, Delhi is making itself progressively redundant to the ongoing course of events, and perhaps even to the future shape of things in India. A subterranean tsunami is slowly building in the country and the power elite, the pampered middle class and wheeler dealers of the capital are blissfully unaware of it.

  The farmers do not need Delhi to survive or even to prosper, they are creatures of the soil and the elements and know how to live in harmony with them. They have been at our borders for almost three months now and have taken nothing from Delhi except perhaps water, the internet- and a lot of abuse. Now the rulers have stopped even the supply of these essentials, having practiced the art for a long time in Kashmir. But the farmers are unfazed- they now get them in abundance from their villages.

 For me, in fact, Mr. Modi's cat was let out of the bag by an economist friend who ( in defence of the farm laws) informed me that rural unemployment on a huge scale was inevitable as a country progressed to " developed nation" status. He sent me some charts to establish the co-relation between GDP and rural unemployment: the higher the GDP, the higher the unemployment in agricultural communities! This is the neo liberal, IMF-cum-World Bank formula which has ensured that 100 of the world's richest billionaires have more wealth than half the world's population. Mr. Modi's farm laws will be the Indian version of this formula.

  The invidious objective is to create cheap labour for industry and big Capital. This is already happening in India- 34 million farmers have left farming between 2004 and 2012 ( Census figures), 50 million have been " displaced" by capital projects and 500,000 more are uprooted every year, tribals are being evicted from forests, there are already 120 million migrant labour. It's a dismal picture but not dismal enough for our politicians and wanna-be billionaires. The farm laws were intended to speeden up this process, and the barricades are a statement that the govt. will enforce them, come hell, high water, Rihanna or Greta Thunberg.

  But our sturdy farmers, who are more intelligent than we Dilliwallahs give them credit for, have little interest in the barricades, the concertina wires, the foot long embedded nails blocking their way to Delhi, the product of the fear, paranoia, incompetence and malice of those who rule in Delhi. For the farmers have no reason to go to Delhi any more, after leaving their visiting card there on the 26th January. Every institution they appealed to for the last six months has let them down: Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Media, mainstream political parties, even the wealthy burghers of South Delhi. The lawyers are silent, the veterans are citing discipline as an excuse for their timidity, the celebrities have tucked their heads beneath their tails, the Embassies are " watching the situation", the IMF and World Bank are hopeful that Mr. Modi would carry the day. Delhi has let down the farmer, and he no longer has any need for India's capital- the word " capital" signifying many things.

  And so the farmer has decided to BYPASS Delhi and take it out of the equation: Rakesh Tikait went to Jind to attend a mahapanchayat on the 3rd of this month, he avoided Delhi and took the longer route via Haryana. The symbolism of this cannot be ignored. And at Jind he announced that he will now take the protests to other parts of India. This reminds me of two historical events. One: the Maginot line was built by France on its borders with Germany to deter any invasion by Hitler. It was so heavily fortified that it was considered impregnable. But when the time came the Germans simply bypassed it and rolled their Panzers through the Ardennes forest into France without any opposition.

  Two, and I am thankful to Punya Prasun Bajpai for pointing this out in a video, when Mahatma Gandhi saw that he was making no progress with the British in Delhi and Shimla, he decided to head in the opposite direction- to Dandi in Gujarat- to get a pinch of salt. That further helped to spread his message to the rest of India, to universalise it and give it more strength.

  By closing off Delhi, literally and figuratively, to the farmers Mr. Modi and Shah may have committed their biggest miscalculation. They have forced Mr. Tikait to change his strategy mid-way. He is doing three things now: one, he has made Western UP, not Punjab, the hub of the movement now. This is the region which enabled the BJP to come to power in the state in 2017, winning more than 100 Vidhan Sabha seats in just this belt. The BJP did so by creating a communal rift ( remember the Muzzafarnagar riots?) between the dominant communities here, the Jats and the Muslims. Now, Tikait has healed the rift, united both against the govt., and demolished the formula that won BJP western UP.

  Two, as the de-facto Supremo of the farmers' movement now, Tikait is more acceptable to the rest of the Hindi ( or Hindu) heartland than the earlier Sikh leaders and he will be able to take the protests to the other states- MP, Rajasthan, Haryana, UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand- more successfully. This is precisely the belt which allows BJP to win big in Parliamentary elections, and the spread of the agitation here does not augur well for it. It would have made more sense for the BJP to have limited the protests to Delhi and its vicinity.

  Third, in India political parties have always won elections, not on the basis of their track records or manifestos, but on manipulation of identities- religion, caste, backwardness, region. The BJP has been particularly smart at this. But the farmers' movement has now begun to erase these sub- identities in favour of a larger one- the farmer identity ( which includes the landless labourer, the artisan, even the village shop-keeper). There will be only one identity now, one concern and one demand. With nothing to divide, the Great Divider will not be able to rule: it was a lesson the British had finally learnt, and the BJP will now learn it the hard way.

  The game has changed but the farmers have made it clear that the rules have not- winner takes all. This rule had been made by an arrogant and over-reaching govt. and it may just come back to bite it. The nails on the road at Ghazipur could well be the nails in the BJP's coffin. The pampered and indifferent upper middle classes of Delhi can now live in peace- the battle has been taken away from them, they no longer count.

THE DAY BHARAT CAME CALLING ON INDIA

  Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, for without it we would never know who the idiots among us are. Like the celebrity anchor on an English news channel who on the 26th evening equated the tractor parade in Delhi to the insurrection on Capitol Hill on the 6th of this month! Or those other lamebrains who don't know the difference between the Nishan Sahib and the Khalistan flag. Had it not been for our fundamental right to speak our minds we would never have known of these delayed- fuse time bombs planted in the nation's public discourse.

  As you sow, so shall you reap: the farmer has known this for a long time but Mr. Modi and his government are learning this only now. If we go beyond the scattered violence in Delhi on Republic Day ( which was not more than what was heaped on the students of JNU and Jamia Millia last year by a police force " exercising maximum restraint") the overwhelming turn-out of farmers/ villagers from many states indicates that this movement is no longer about the three farm bills alone. It is just as much about the betrayal, calumny, humiliation, vilification and persecution they have endured at the hands of  the govt. and its media collaborators for the last few months. Our rural communities may not have much money in their current accounts but they have something far more valuable which a callous Delhi has tried to rob them off: pride and dignity. The protests are also about this.

  It is just as much about the slow and lingering decline of  rural India and its hardy communities, the falling share of agriculture in the GDP, the non-delivery of basic services which we in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai take for granted. Notwithstanding our Constitution, there are many categories of citizens in the nation and the farmer occupies perhaps the bottom slot. He is not considered worthy of being allowed into Delhi's Lutyen's zone, not even onto the outer Ring Road, and to keep him out we have resorted to the medieval tactics of digging trenches and moats, erecting barriers and firing (water) cannons. We live in two Indias: urban India which benefitted from the post 1991 neo-liberal reforms and produced 102 billionaires ( 2020 figures, fourth highest in the world) and 330,000 High Net Worth Individuals; and the second, rural Bharat where 200 million go hungry every night and 40% of whose children suffer from malnutrition. Nothing encapsulated this dichotomy better than, ironically, the split screens of TV channels on Republic Day: on the left were grand scenes of the embellished militaristic march past on Rajpath viewed by well clad politicians and officials, on the right the sight of unadorned farmers driving into Delhi's outskirts on tractors.

  Rural India has been abandoned on our journey to the fabled five trillion dollar economy. Consider some of the statistics. The urban per capita income( Net Value Added) in 2018-19 was Rs. 98435.00 while the figure for rural areas was Rs. 40924.00, less than half. This is inevitable when one factors in the fact that whereas agriculture provides only 15% of GDP, it accounts for 40% of total employment.

  In 2011-12, according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey of GOI, the average monthly household expenditure in urban areas was Rs. 2630.00: the corresponding rural figure was Rs. 1430.00. ( The survey figures for 2017-18 are available but have not been released by the govt., presumably because it does not suit it.)

  Agriculture, which is the mainstay of our villages, is becoming increasingly unviable and farmers are exiting it in hordes. The NSO data shows that the rate of exit from farming is 2.04% per annum. To appreciate the magnitude of this tragedy, absorb this: 34 million farmers moved out of agriculture between 2004-05 and 2011-12. They now wander between our prospering cities as migrant labour. Which is why, for the first time in decades, in December 2020 rural unemployment at 9.15% was higher than urban unemployment rates ( CMIE report). Commensurate with this is the shockingly high suicide rate among the farming community, far higher than the national average: more than 300,000 farmers have killed themselves in the last 25 years- a little more than 10000 every year.

  About 50 million people have been displaced ( " development refugees") since Independence, and their exodus continues at the rate of 500,000 per annum. Their lands are appropriated at ridiculous prices for projects which actually help urban India only- dams, mines, highways, SEZs, urbanisation, airports. The tribals are the worst affected, with many states yet to implement the Forests Rights Act. If these oustees are lucky they get  jobs as unskilled labour on the lands they were once self-sufficient owners of, if unlucky they will migrate to some fetid urban slum. 

Rural India is being denuded of its resources- land, water, forests, minerals, labour- in a massive transfer of resources from the rural poor to the rich corporates. The three farm laws will transfer the last remaining asset- agricultural crops- also to these favoured entities. The pandemic itself provides proof of this: while 120 million people, mainly migrant labour from the villages, lost their jobs in the last one year, the top 100 billionaires INCREASED their wealth by 35% or 400 billion dollars in the same period, according to a recent OXFAM report.

  There is , relatively speaking, little development of our villages while tens of thousands of crores are spent on cities- flyovers, metros, river-front beautification, Central vistas, stadiums, even statues of the dead to pander to the egos of the living. The govt. plans to spend Rs. 200,000 crores on 5151 Smart City projects- what about the 600,000 villages where almost half our population resides? Even basic services and facilities are not available in them: to take just one example, 80% of doctors and hospital beds are in cities, the villages are expected to manage with " hybridpathic" doctors- a mix of allopathy and ayurveda.

  Rural India is crying out for some attention, not more exploitation and neglect. The farm laws are the final assault and the final frontier. The farmers know it and it is time for our pampered upper middle classes, the backbone of the present government, to wake up to this. The current protests have many layers and it is time to stop oversimplifying them in the language of arrogance, privilege and contempt. Dignity and a proud self respect is just about the only thing we have left our farmers with, and the urbanised sophisticate is now attempting to denude them of that too. The Golf Links socialite who is aghast at the so-called " desecration" of the national flag at the Red fort should know that the Punjab and Haryana farmer has seen his sons draped in the tiranga when their bodies are brought from our borders, he doesn't need to be lectured about the flag by a gin drinking neo-colonial.

  The farmer IS India and his roots are too old to be dug up by megalomaniacs, opportunists, sycophants and the elite. He will eventually claim what is rightfully his. Bharat had come to India on Republic Day and has left its visiting card. India is now on test. As the poet said:

Manzil to mil he jayegi, bhatak kar hi sahi;

Gumrah toh woh hain jo ghar se nikle hi nahin.

THE DAY AFTER COVID.

   Covid-19 has cut a big swathe through human civilisation, if we call it that anymore after what happened in Washington and what has been playing out on Delhi's borders. It is leaving in its wake, apart from almost a million dead bodies, the ruins of a liberal world order, whose promise had petered out some time ago. Having defeated both its rivals, Fascism in the 1920s and Communism in the second half of the 20th century, it appeared that Liberalism would sweep the globe, with its attendant benefits of human rights, democracy, welfarism, globalism etc. Some of this sheen had begun wearing off even before Covid, but the pandemic has now taken us back by a century. The twin spectres of Communism and Fascism are walking the ramp again, wearing the haute- couture of democracy, and India may yet be the show stopper in this nihilistic parade. Trump may have fallen but Trumpism is alive and kicking, literally.

  It is not, however, my desire to spoil your weekend with Yuvall Noah Harari type thoughts but to divert your mind to some lighter learnings from, and effects of, the pandemic. Take for instance Mr. Amitabh Bacchan; till last week he must have  been the most hated man in India . Every time you wished to make a phone call you had to listen to his "man ki baat" caller tune for two minutes, exhorting you to wear a mask and wash your hands. It didn't matter that you were desperate to call the hospital because you were dying of a heart attack, or  the police because someone was gutting you with a knife. You first had to listen to the Big B instructing you how not to die of the Covid.

  And the supreme irony was: Bacchan is the last man who should have been advising us, because he himself got Covid some months back ( and thankfully recovered to tell his tale, as it were). So how come someone who himself contacted Covid was  advising us on how not to contact it? Even if Mr. Harsh Vardhan was paying him crores for it ? ( I do not know for a fact that he was being paid big moolah for it, but I assume so since he has one basic principle for endorsements- put your money where my mouth is). But his public service had not gone unnoticed: a lawyer in Delhi had filed a petition in the High Court asking that Mr. Bacchan's voice be put on mute because, with his Covid past, he is not the ideal brand ambassador for an anti-Covid campaign. For once the govt. realised its gaffe and has now replaced him with a lady: we shall no longer hear his baritone and will have to contend only with the dulcet tones of our Prime Minister on his monthly musings- or is it amusings? He has gone the way of Saurav Ganguly and Fortune rice bran oil. His lady substitute has a new message- why we should take the vaccine- but going by the numbers she could be replaced soon too. So who's next? Baba Ramdev?

  And what about the COVAXIN fiasco? The virus must be chuckling behind its double membrane at the disarray in the enemy camp, the outrage of citizens at being asked to take the vaccine without completing the human trials. Not necessary, says the Director General of ICMR, we have tested it on rats and assorted apes, and if it's good enough for them its good enough for you. The citizenry do not agree and some have suggested there is only one way to find out: give the vaccine first to the alpha males. Starting with the President and Prime Minister and working its way down to all Chief Ministers, Ministers, MPs, MLAs, and of course, the head of ICMR. The CM of Madhya Pradesh has already declined the honour, as did six eminent doctors on an India Today show on the 7th of this month: only Dr. Naresh Trehan had the guts to say that he would not take it. But then, since all VVIPs with Covid prefer to recover in Medanta rather than kick the bucket- or. more appropriately, the bedpan-  in AIIMS, I guess he can break ranks. All major world leaders have taken the shot- when will our stalwarts " put it in the arm" as the latest phraseology has it? That way, even if the vaccine doesn't work, the country benefits: if it works, good for humanity: if it doesn't, good for Indians.

  The delayed effects of the lockdown are now beginning to manifest themselves, and it is clear that Mr. Modi's hasty diktat has had an unexpected denouement : UNICEF has revealed that on New Year's Day the storks were on overtime pay. 1st January saw the arrival of 59,995 babies in India ( and 3.71 lakhs globally), almost twice that of China. That makes for almost 22 million for a whole year for us, far above a normal year, what the farmers would call a bumper crop. Not only did folks misinterpret " work at home", it appears that they also misunderstood Mr. Modi's subliminal message about pots and pans, when he asked us to start banging away at 4 o'clock. But our PM can take some comfort from the fact that in at least one marker our curve is going, well, upwards. It also proves that the animal spirits are thriving in the confines of our homes behind the masks, even though there may have been a few surprises when the masks and other accoutrements came off, and Mrs. Kapoor turned out to be Mrs. Talwar. Not that anyone's complaining- except Mr. Talwar, that is.

  And here's some good news about Covid- a study shows that the " work at home" regimen may have resulted in fewer deaths from stress in the office. Research in Sweden's Lindbergh University Medical Centre reveals that working with idiots can kill you. Working with people who ask for correction fluid to correct an error on their computer monitor, or put vital documents into the shredder instead of the copier,  has been established to cause heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure. Since now most people work from home and have no contact with the office idiot, it is expected that death rates in cities like Tokyo, New York, Delhi and London will plummet. In fact, my own curiosity has been aroused and I now intend to track down all the people who have worked closely with me for 35 years in government. A high mortality rate amongst them can only confirm what Neerja has always felt about me- that when I left Husainganj in the late 50's the place lost its village idiot.

  Finally, there is a rumour going around that Mr. Ambani, having been thwarted in his bid to become the Kisan King, is thinking of entering the hooch business. The new venture will be called PIO and will follow the same business model of JIO- every second peg will be free and the namkeens will be on the house. After all other distilleries and even bootleggers have shut shop and the happy customers have passed out the government will, after a voice vote in Parliament, declare liquor as a life saving drug and exempt it from any tax. The rates for the hooch will then go up a few pegs. And India will go- what else, bottoms up! 

Life will never be the same after COVID. Keep watching this space, folks! 

THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE SELF- GOAL.

   In my last post (The Farmer's Protest Does Not Require A Judicial Intervention, Jan. 9, 2021 ), while hoping that the Supreme Court would keep its hands off the farmers' protest, I had concluded by saying: "For what is on the line this time is not only the Supreme Court's credibility but also its dignity." As things have turned out, however, I should also have added  "and its authority."

  It has taken just three days for the worst apprehensions and suspicions of the farmers to be confirmed, viz. that running out of options, the government would toss the ball into the SC's lap: the public statement of the Agriculture Minister on the 8th Jan. that "the farmers could go to the Supreme Court ", was a dead give away that this is what the govt. was planning. But one did not expect the Court to pick up the ball so willingly and, worse, kick it out of play.

  For the simple fact is that its order of the 12th January has made a bad situation worse. Most jurists are aghast at the staying of a law without finding even a prima- facie legal reason to do so; the hasty appointment of a Committee of government apologists as arbitrators, inevitably raising the question: who provided the names? ; giving credence to the Attorney General's outrageous charge that Khalistanis had infiltrated the protests by asking him to furnish an affidavit; suggesting that women protestors have no place in the protests, and thereby putting on full display its ignorance of farming in which 70% of the labour is done by women.

  To continue with the football analogy- why was the Court so desperate to come off the bench and jump into the field? Neither the government nor the farmers had petitioned it, the protests did not raise any legal questions which needed to be adjudicated upon, the farmers had repeatedly made it clear that they did not want any arbitration by the Court and that they only wished to interact with the government which they had elected. They had rejected any more Committees. The Court should instead have gone on with the business of deciding on the other, legal petitions which had challenged the vires of the laws. As Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta has pointed out in an article in the Indian Express, this tussle is a political process between the government and the people in which the judiciary has no legitimate role. By intruding into it the Supreme Court is "seeking to break the momentum of a social movement."

   The only answer to these baffling questions is: by this legal legerdemain the Court has tried, unknowingly perhaps, to bail the government out of a sticky situation and inflicted a self-goal that has plunged it into needless controversy. None of its decisions make any sense or instill confidence in its sagacity. The staying of the three laws are only meant to tar the continuance of the protests as no longer justified: it is a hollow gesture that only flatters to deceive. The four member committee, all public supporters of the laws, is a non-starter for, as Mr. Mehta comments wryly, their appointment violates the first rule of mediation- "the mediators must be acceptable to all parties and appointed in consultation with them." The Court might just as well have appointed Arnab Goswami, Sambit Patra and Kangana Ranaut (as one twitter wise guy has pointed out) for all the credibility it will inspire in its report.                                                                                                  Bringing the Intelligence Bureau into play as the twelfth man is again intended to tar the farmers with an "anti-national" taint. The IB is to the government of the day what a bespoke tailor is to a gentleman- it will cut the cloth whichever way you want it. In an interesting video aired on Newsclick! on the 13th evening Abhisar Sharma has detailed instances when the IB has sought to pressurise people, including judges, by unsubstantiated reports, and an instance when the Supreme Court itself rejected its reports as untrustworthy. One can't but ask the troubling question: is the IB input just a prelude to banning the protests and preparing the ground for the use of the  sovereign violence ?

  The purpose of this unwise legal exercise appears to be twofold: tarnish the reputation of the farmers, turn public opinion against them by making them out to be unreasonable and obstinate, and force them to call off their protests. But the farmers are no fools- they have seen this farce for what it is and have walked off the field: they have refused to engage with either the Court or its committee, perhaps they may refuse to engage with the Agriculture Minister next. Worse, the Supreme Court's authority will be severely dented because there is no way the protestors will comply with the Court's dubious order : they have already said so. So will the Court initiate contempt against 200,000 men, women and children, give or take a few thousand ?

  In an effort to bail out an insensitive and despotic executive the Supreme Court has only confounded the issue and made any possible solution impossible; in the words of the Chief Justice (which may haunt him in the days to come ), it is now part of the problem, not the solution. Had it kept its hands off the protests the government might have climbed down a rung or two, considering the massive support the protests are gaining; now, however, it will hunker down behind the facade of the Committee and refuse to negotiate. The farmers will have no option but to continue their agitation, confronted by an intransigent government and feeling betrayed by the Court.

  The Hon'ble judges had an opportunity to quench the flames but they have instead fanned them. Instead of a still- born mockery of a committee it should have advised- not ordered- the government to take the laws back to Parliament for the examination and discussions which never took place before they were rammed through. The Court itself should have posted the constitutional challenges to the laws for urgent hearing. Now, unfortunately, that will not take place for at least two months- the time given to the committee to submit its recommendations. The real issue has once again been side-tracked. The only gainer in this grotesque process is the government, and the public (not just the farmers) is the loser.

  The Supreme Court has now become irrelevant to the course of unfolding events in this people's struggle, but doesn't know it. And it has no one else to blame but itself. 

  I recollect a scene in a movie about ancient Rome, which I saw many decades ago. Mark Antony was being sent to Egypt by Caesar to enforce the laws of Rome there. Witnessing the soldiers marching off, Caesar had one final advice for his young general : "Take good care of your armies, Mark Antony, for they make your laws legal."

  Have we also come to that ?

  

THE FARMERS' PROTEST DOES NOT REQUIRE A JUDICIAL INTERVENTION.

   The Supreme Court cannot be a broker of peace between the farmers and the central government. There is no politically correct way of saying this: the Supreme Court's credibility and majesty is no longer what it used to be. It is bad enough when political parties, media, international bodies, eminent  lawyers  express a lack of trust in the court, but what do you say when even judges do so? It happened at that famous but futile press conference by four SC judges in 2018. It happens every week when distinguished retired judges publicly voice their disquiet time and again. And now it's happened again: just last week Justice Rakesh Kumar of the Andhra Pradesh High Court expressed his dismay at the sudden transfer of the Chief Justice of the High Court,  remarking that it conferred "an advantage" on Chief Minister Jagan Reddy in the more than 30 serious cases against him, and criticised the lack of transparency in the Collegium's decisions. He even made the point that High Court judges too, like the Collegium members, are Constitutional appointees. He expressed himself obliquely, of course, in language which is careful and proper, but no one can doubt either its meaning or his displeasure and disgust. Any intelligent person can read between the lines and come to just one conclusion. This order will be stayed, of course, but the bitter taste will not go away.

  In traits such as non-transparency and selectiveness the Court appears to be acquiring the habits of the government, which has prompted one writer to coin the phrase " executivisation of the judiciary." The two are becoming indistinguishable. Which is why I, for one, am not all pleased that the SC has decided to take a shallow dive into the cauldron of the farmers' agitation and is attempting to adjudicate on the matter. It should not, it should limit itself to examining the legality of the three farm laws which have been challenged in a number of petitions. But it should stay away from this protest itself, and for a number of reasons.

  It would be fair to state that the implicit trust of a large section of citizens in its decisions is now missing: they may have legal validity but are perceived by many to be devoid of the all important moral legitimacy that an apex court should command ( and did, until a few short years ago). Legality and legitimacy are not the same thing. This is not the place to go into the reasons- what the court has done and what it should have but has not- beyond stating that I cannot recollect a single decision on any major policy or action of the govt. which has been set aside by the Court in the last couple of years. The order of the 5th of January clearing the Central Vista project is but the latest in a long line of judicial indulgences. It is a supreme- pun intended- irony that whereas in this judgment it finds nothing wrong with the govt. not consulting stakeholders before  changing the land use of the area and granting environmental approval, on the farmers' agitation it advises the govt. to talk to the farmers! Surely, an inconsistency that does not inspire much faith in its obiter dicta. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the Court's repeated munificence to the executive has led to further erosion of its moral capital, further compounded by precipitate contempt actions against a select few who are also, incidentally, thorns in the government's side.

  The reason I make this point is that the farmers are perhaps no longer inclined to trust the court. Let us not forget that the court has taken up the farmer protest issue ( as opposed to the petitions against the farm laws) , not of its own volition, but on petitions filed by the govt's proxies who want the protest to be declared illegal and the blocking of roads a cause of "inconvenience" to other citizens. The deja vu here is palpable, it is Shaheen Bagh playing out all over again, where the Court had effectively taken away all public places from citizens and handed them over to the executive and the police in a breathtaking denial of the universal history of democratic protests. The excesses of governments are not checked by drawing room discussions but by protests in the streets, but the hon'ble judges appear to have missed this.

  The first hearing in the Court could have only reinforced the misgivings of the farmers. There was a proforma acceptance that the right to protest is a constitutional given, but the shades of Shaheen Bagh too were present in the observation that it should not affect the rights of other citizens ( translation- do not block roads). There was a lukewarm suggestion that the govt. could consider holding the three laws in abeyance, but before the matter could come to a boil the heat on the executive was turned off and the case adjourned till after the indispensable winter vacations. Did the massive agitation and economic disruption not require a day-today hearing by the vacation bench ? By adjourning the matter the Court lost its one chance to demonstrate that it could intervene impartially. Now it has lost its relevance as events have spiraled out of its control.

  The second hearing on the 7th of this month was no less comforting for the farmers: the court expressed its fears that the huge gatherings could result in a Tablighi Jamat kind of super spreader event for Covid-19. Once again, fault was found with the protesters, not the government, whose intransigence and high-handedness was apparently not commented upon. It is also strange that the Court drew an analogy with the Jamat event but not with the Namaste Trump event in February 2020 in Ahemedabad, the Bihar election rallies or Mr. Shah's road shows in Bengal recently, all equally super spreader events. One doesn't need a weather vane to see in which direction the wind is blowing.

  Secondly, there are no legal issues involved in the protests that could command the Court's precious time when major constitutional cases are yet to see the light of day for months and years- CAA, vivisection of Jammu and Kashmir, Electoral bonds, habeas corpus: a recent RTI application revealed that there are 1072 applications for bail and suspension of sentence pending in the court. Is somebody's  "convenience" in travelling to Murthal to have an alloo paratha in Sukhdev dhaha more important than these grave legal challenges to the executive? If the Court was really interested in defusing the protests it should have peremptorily directed the government at the first hearing itself to hold the farm laws in abeyance and then hold multi stakeholder parlays to arrive at a consensus. By allowing the protests to drag on for a few more weeks ( which suits the government) it has not instilled much confidence in the farmer groups.

  Thirdly, there is a growing perception that if only the Court had acted more firmly with the central government in the past, ruled on the grave constitutional challenges before it instead of adjourning them for months and years, acted as a break on the demolition derby let loose by the BJP governments, protected human and fundamental rights with greater vigour- maybe that would have made the government more cautious and circumspect in hijacking all constitutional and Parliamentary norms. Instead, the Court's largesse has only emboldened the executive to do as it wishes, confident that if push comes to shove it can obtain a judicial endorsement at any time. The farmers know this, and therefore will not trust the Court to find an equitable solution. Can we blame them?

  Fourthly, and with respect, the Court is not really in a position to decide on the issues raised by the farmers and resisted by the executive. These are matters of agriculture production, economics, price fixation, food safety and equity on which no two experts agree. The Court would be out of its depth here, just as it was with BCCI, firecrackers, HSRP number plates and loan moratoriums. There is no judicial nostrum or panacea which can impose an agreement on the opposing factions, given the total lack of trust between the farmers and the central govt. If the Court does arrive at a decision- any decision- in all likelihood it will be defied by either one or the other of the parties and its enforcement shall only lead to more trouble. The majesty of the Court cannot but be diminished by this.

  At the end of the day, the issues involved are political or, at best, belong to the realm of political economics: there is an equal dose of both in them and neither the knowledge or training of judges equip them to adjudicate on the merits of the matter. No more stultifying committees are needed- the Swaminathan Committee report has been lying in some dusty corner in Krishi Bhavan crying out for attention for the last 15 years: it should suffice for some time. The best that the Supreme Court can, or should, do is to cajole, compel and coerce both parties to sit at the negotiating table and talk - not "man ki baat" or press conferences, but talk. Lock them up till they arrive at an agreement. This, and no more, should be the limited brief of the Court. It should do nothing, under the garb of a tattered Constitution, to delegitimise these peaceful protests, or to appoint Committees which act as vaccine containers to put issues in cold storage for perpetuity, or to permit the use of unnecessary force by the executive ( as has already started happening). For the rest, let the two sides sort out the matter through a democratic, maybe even a political, process. Mr. Modi et al have dug a big hole- literally- for the farmers but find themselves in it. Let them climb out of it of their own- without the help of the Court.

  If the Supreme Court does only this, and nothing else, it would have earned the trust and respect of a grateful nation. For what is on the line this time is not only the Supreme Court's credibility but also its dignity.

TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY, MR. KANT, OR TOO LITTLE ?

    So now we finally know why the Modi govt. has messed up the Farm Bills issue big time: it has advisors like Mr. Kant who no doubt firmly believe that a few more jackboots on peasant throats would have made them gladly swallow the legislation without any demur. And, for all we know, he's the one who is also advising our resident sage: " We kant back down now!"

    Amitav Kant is one of the most powerful and influential policy makers in the present dispensation and his words cannot be wished away like those of Mr. Giriraj Singh. He has come a long way from his Kerala Tourism days, but posterity will always wonder what happened to him between the brilliant  "God's own country" and the alarming " India has too much democracy." He may just be his master's voice sending up a trial balloon or he may be making a down payment to insure a second extension of service. In either case he appears to have crossed that gradually fading line between a civil servant and a politician.  The IAS is justly proud of the fact that it is a jack of all trades, but when one of its tribe elevates this to master of all he is treading on thin ice. But this is unfortunately what happens when you get invited to too many Conclaves where fawning comperes treat you like the Delphic oracle, and one soon starts believing that one is Nostradamus, Solomon and Adam Smith combined.

    For, if only Mr. Kant had taken off his saffron-tinted blinkers, he would have realised that the reverse of what he said is the stark truth: it is not too much, but too little democracy which is the problem with reform and governance today. Democracy is not just periodical elections or a brute majority in Parliament, as he seems to think, but the existence of robust constitutional values. Its ingredients include a willingness to consult and engage, federalism, tolerance of dissent, freedom of the press, a tireless quest for equity, social harmony, respect for autonomy of institutions, transparency, a pledge to abide by  the rule of law. If only Mr. Kant would take the trouble of stepping out of his bio bubble in NITI AYOG he would notice that most of them do not exist in his master's New India.

   The present regime consults nobody, not even Parliament or reportedly its own Ministers, even as it forcibly imposes one calamitous policy after another on the hapless nation: demonetisation, GST, the lockdown, electoral funding, reading down of Article 370, reduction of status of J+K, CAA, NRC, the amendments to the UAPA, the three Farm Laws. Internationally recognised domain experts are ignored with contempt and banished abroad, we are left with the Surjit Bhallas and Gurcharan Dases. It allows no debate in Parliament: not even one in five draft bills are referred to Parliamentary committees, where earlier 70% of them went through this process of scrutiny. The inevitable results of such steam-rolling are widespread agitations like the anti-CAA and the ongoing farmers' protests.

   Federalism has ceased to exist: states ( especially opposition controlled states) are not consulted on legislation or policy matters; they are brow beaten into surrender by fiscal arm twisting or outright denial of legitimate funds ( such as the GST compensation) or re-engineering the TORs of the Finance Commission, or denial of Ways and Means limits ;  central investigating agencies are let loose on  "uncooperative " states to a point where at least five states have now barred them from operating without permission;  state police are intimidated by excessive deployment of CAP personnel during "raids" even though law and order is a state subject ; state governments are preempted and prevented from investigating cases that may embarrass the central govt. by bringing in the CBI, ED or NIA, as in the Sushant suicide case or the Bhima Koregaon case. In opposition ruled states there is now no difference between a Governor and a party apparatchik. Huge resources are deployed in undermining elected state governments and federalism has now become naked adversarialism: the last vestige of trust has been exterminated.

  The space for free speech has been drastically curtailed: dissent has been rechristened as anti-nationalism and sedition, and dozens of academics, social workers, students, activists and journalists have been incarcerated for being critical of the government. The only free " press" now is on social media and digital platforms, and the government has now initiated steps to bring them under control too by bringing them under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Hate speech laws are being applied selectively, sending a clear signal that remarks against a particular community will attract no punishment. Our own govt. will do nothing to curb the hate speech on TV which only amplifies its own narrative, even as one of its pet channels has been fined 20000 pounds by the UK watchdog last week, even after it tendered 280 specious apologies! Our own regulator is happy being a lapdog.

   Just about every constitutional institution, nurtured over decades, has bitten the dust, the judiciary and CAG not excluded. What the government wants, the government gets, with reemployed bureaucrats  falling over themselves to carry out the imperial commands. Parliament, it appears, has become as obsolete as its building and as redundant as the coccyx on the human anatomy: it's a part of our evolution but has outlived its purpose. Universities have been bludgeoned into silence. Such is the decay of these institutions that just last week the Central Information Commission ruled that the citizens have no right to know who is donating how much money to a political party! I can only wonder: was this judgment given with a straight face ? Was the honourable CIC able to sleep that night? Going by this amazing logic, the next step could be a ruling that the voter does not have a right to know how many votes were cast for a political party in an election. The leitmotif is clear- the less the citizen knows, the stronger Mr. Kant's version of "democracy".

   This is further strengthened by a complete lack of transparency in the manner in which the govt. functions, whether it is about the Electoral Bonds, the Rafael pricing or off- set details, the PM CARES Fund, the Chinese intrusion into Ladakh, the EVM-VVPAT reconciliation, or even Mr. Modi's degree from Delhi University. Crucial reports and results of surveys are simply buried if they do not suit the govt's narratives or claims. No international organisation of any repute believes our statistics any more and have developed their own markers.The public's right to know is haughtily dismissed with silence by the executive, with convenient adjournments by the Supreme Court and a quivering pen by institutions like the Election Commission, the CAG and Central Information Commission.

   Which is why Mr. Kant's obiter dicta is so astounding. Especially when the consequences of this lack of democracy are becoming more and more visible every day, in cold facts and figures which can no longer be brushed under a yoga mat , redacted by a Niti Ayog or sanitised by Arnab Goswami.

   It's not just that our economy has shown a negative growth of 23% or that the unemployment rate has never been higher in independent India or that the GST has been a failure or that demonetisation has knocked the bottom out of our small scale sector which accounts for 80% of non-agriculture employment. Other indicators of democracy or social well being have taken an even bigger hit in the last six years:

* In the Freedom Index we are now at 111 out of 162 countries, a fall of 17 places since 2014. Incidentally, this is a comprehensive assessment of the state of Personal, Economic and Human freedoms in a country, aggregated by the globally respected CATO Institute.

* The Human Development Report of UNDP places us at 131st position among 189 countries, again a fall of 2 places in one year.

* In the Global Hunger Index the country is ranked at 94 out of 107 ( even though the govt. claims we have 90 million tonnes of foodgrains in stock!)

* The Internet Freedom Index ranks us at a miserable 52, which is not surprising considering that Kashmir has had the longest continuous internet shutdown in the world since last August. This is the third straight year of decline.

* In Environmental Protection our country is at an abysmal 168 out of 173 nations, and we can only go further down under the stewardship of Mr. Javadekar.

* In the Economic Freedom Index we have plummeted- there can be no other word to describe this- from 79 to 105.

* The World Press Freedom Index places us at an alarming 142nd rank out of 180 countries, and things are only getting worse, what with as many as 50 scribes being arrested simply for being critical of the various state govts during the pandemic.

* The most disturbing report about the state of our country, however, comes from the central govt. itself- the NFHS ( National Family Health Survey)'s fifth report, which covers 2019-20. It has found that malnutrition, stunting, wastage and underweightage among children ( between the age of 1 and 5 years) has GONE UP in 15 states and union territories. It is the first time this decline has been seen since 1998 and it negates all the progress made since then. The explanation is simple: it has been caused by a consistent decline in incomes, rendering households unable to buy protein foods- meat, eggs, vegetables, pulses, milk. These findings confirm the other economic and health indicators. This is not something for which the BJP govt. at the centre can blame the UPA or Nehru or the pandemic( the normal scapegoats),  as all these children were born after 2014. And these figures can only get worse next year, once the impact of the pandemic has been factored in.

   Mr. Kant's Niti Ayog, as the govt's primary stink-sorry, think- tank has to bear responsibility for the mess we are in. None of the big ticket programmes launched by this govt. has shown any success so far- Digital India, Skill India, Make in India, Smart Cities, Insolvency Code, RERA, to mention just a few. Instead, social and economic inequality has only worsened at a compounded rate, thanks to the consistent pro corporate policies which have become the unabashed norm. Just 1% of the country's rich control 45.40% of its wealth, the top 10% control 74.30%. According to the Billionaire's Insight Report 2020 ( brought out by UBS and PWC every year) the net worth of India's billionaires increased by 35% to US$ 423 billion- at a time when 120 million people have been pushed below the poverty line and tens of millions have lost their jobs. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Social Mobility Report, it is estimated that it will take seven generations for a member of a poor Indian family to achieve the average national income! That's a very long time to wait for Mr. Modi to deliver on his many promises.

   And the CEO of Niti Ayog would have us believe that all these stupendous failures are because we have too much democracy ?

   Do a retake, Mr. Kant, and remove your blinkers. If the country is regressing in every field- economic, social, developmental- it is because of the rapid erosion of democracy in the last few years, not because of too much democracy. Ambedkar famously described democracy in India as a thin top dressing of the Indian soil- much of it has been removed since 2014. We need to restore it- and not deny it with incompetent dilletantism and worse.

   Contrary to what he may think, genuine democracy begins AFTER the votes are counted and the winner declared, and we have had too little of that of late. Which explains the many protests breaking out ( and suppressed) all over the country, the farmers' revolt being only the latest but perhaps of greater consequence. Mr. Kant and his govt. may consider these are a sign of too much democracy, but they would be wrong- the protests are indicative of too little, not too much, democracy.

   I would have advised Mr. Kant to go back to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, for a refresher course on India's history and Constitution, but I won't. They have probably already changed the syllabus there, from " people's democracy" to "corporate democracy".