[《The Congress Party’s manifesto released earlier this week makes a bold attempt to rescue the electoral narrative from the shrill hyper-nationalistic and increasingly majoritarian pitch it was reduced to courtesy the ruling BJP. While the focus so far has been on the manifesto’s five pillars — the minimum income scheme Nyay, jobs, farm distress, healthcare as well as education — there is more in the Congress’ litany of poll promises. It signifies the attempt of the party to reinstate ideation in the political process. The party’s serious approach to its poll promises is in sharp contrast to the BJP, which released its electoral charter in 2014 on the day when the first phase of polls were held. Even its state units were not very serious ever about manifestos; in Gujarat, before the 2013 Assembly elections, the charter was released just one day before the first phase of voting. Undoubtedly, interest the Congress manifesto has generated across the country, and the flak it drew due to its lackadaisical routine earlier has forced the BJP to be more serious about its manifesto this time. ... Despite knowing that the BJP would question its commitment to internal security and for lowering the morale of the security forces, the Congress displayed political courage by promising to modify AFSPA and to scrap the sedition law. The Congress pledged a more humane government without undermining internal and national security. It makes an important point — laws do not have to loaded against citizens to make the nation more secure. When added to the alterations in the judiciary, the Congress manifesto will force the BJP to address issues which it might otherwise have ignored.》
(Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.) <<Guaranteed minimum income is a powerful idea that has already made some headway in various countries. Some European countries, for instance, guarantee a minimum income to their citizens. This requires extensive data collection as well as an effective cadre of welfare officers and social workers tasked with enquiring into the circumstances of people who claim to need income support. It would be nice if India could achieve something similar, but the obstacles are daunting. Starting with the financial burden, a recent brief of the World Inequality Lab by Nitin Bharti and Lucas Chancel presents some useful figures. The authors essentially estimate the “minimum-income gap”, that is, the gap between minimum income and actual income summed over all households with actual income below the minimum. With a minimum income of Rs 72,000 per year, the gap turns out to be 1.3 per cent of GDP. This information is helpful, but it does not tell us much about what it would cost to guarantee a minimum income of Rs 72,000 per year to everyone. All it says is that if this could be done through perfectly targeted and costless top-up transfers, it would cost 1.3 per cent of GDP.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. II. below.) <<The manifesto will not, by itself, settle many doubts. Just as many people look for an excuse to vote for Narendra Modi, many also look for an excuse to not vote for the Congress. It would be foolish to deny that, for many, the party still exudes memories of an old, corrupt and entitled order. The Congress carries considerable baggage. The politics of anxiety was perfected by both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. Whatever they may say now, the Congress was not shy of using sedition laws or cravenly succumbing to those assaulting free speech. The Congress let down Manmohan Singh on crucial occasions in his Pakistan policy. And while the Congress does not have the capacity for the total mobilisation of institutions in the service of political power, many still have a revulsion against its own history of sycophancy. Given how little change in personnel there has been in the Congress over the last five years, it still has to bridge a credibility gap with a number of voters. But the manifesto, unusually, has achieved one moral victory. Voters will decide whether the Congress will have the courage to shed its own baggage and live up to its promises. But when the mere enunciation of the idea that we need to go back to first principles to strengthen civil liberties, or disperse power, invites a response to the effect that “this is a manifesto for the tukde tukde gang,” you know that a die has been cast. It has put the BJP in a position of saying that even decency and liberty are anti-national conspiracies.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. III. below.)] I/III. https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/040419/cong-charter-shows-a-newfound-confidence.html?fbclid=IwAR0E8uF7CXMFNeV9OoKTebOa7p--AxS8WW7P50wvhuGzbFvt-dHaEVS2voc Cong charter shows a newfound confidence Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is the author of 'Narendra Modi: The Man', 'The Times and Sikhs: The Untold Agony of 1984'. Published : Apr 5, 2019, 12:00 am IST Updated : Apr 5, 2019, 12:00 am IST The Congress manifesto contains promises in three domains and is an emphatic statement of its pro-people and democratic political intent. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh and former Union minister P. Chidambaram release the party’s manifesto for the upcoming general elections in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Photo: G.N. JHA) UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh and former Union minister P. Chidambaram release the party’s manifesto for the upcoming general elections in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Photo: G.N. JHA) The Congress Party’s manifesto released earlier this week makes a bold attempt to rescue the electoral narrative from the shrill hyper-nationalistic and increasingly majoritarian pitch it was reduced to courtesy the ruling BJP. While the focus so far has been on the manifesto’s five pillars — the minimum income scheme Nyay, jobs, farm distress, healthcare as well as education — there is more in the Congress’ litany of poll promises. It signifies the attempt of the party to reinstate ideation in the political process. The party’s serious approach to its poll promises is in sharp contrast to the BJP, which released its electoral charter in 2014 on the day when the first phase of polls were held. Even its state units were not very serious ever about manifestos; in Gujarat, before the 2013 Assembly elections, the charter was released just one day before the first phase of voting. Undoubtedly, interest the Congress manifesto has generated across the country, and the flak it drew due to its lackadaisical routine earlier has forced the BJP to be more serious about its manifesto this time. The Congress also emphasised the effort and engagements of its manifesto committee in the course of crowd-sourcing ideas, besides incorporating inputs from domain experts. Union ministers like Arun Jaitley, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi have damned the Congress manifesto. This shows that the BJP has been forced to take note of the document. The Congress committee tasked with drafting this charter has done its job and now the challenge is for the party campaigners and publicists to take the message to the people. Most important, they have to neutralise the trust deficit among people due to a poor track record in fulfilling earlier promises and also because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sustained campaign against the Congress. He certainly never loses an opportunity to depict it as doing very little for the people despite being in office for close to six decades. The Congress manifesto contains promises in three domains and is an emphatic statement of its pro-people and democratic political intent. In statements made while introducing the document and answering media queries, Congress president Rahul Gandhi claimed that India was facing an “economic emergency”. This phrase portrays livelihood concerns among people stemming from the lack of jobs and rising rural distress coupled with the killer blows of demonetisation and slipshod introduction of the Goods and Services Tax. Of the five most visible pillars of the manifesto, while Nyay, government jobs and addressing farm distress are the three most visible remedies, the undertakings on healthcare and education are also significant. The BJP is expending substantial energy trashing Nyay, and this underscores its anxiety as being seen positively by the people. Significantly, in the political domain, the Congress reclaims its secular position and sheds its recent diffidence. Rahul Gandhi, in the manifesto’s foreword, unambiguously plugs for Indians being “free from fear, free to live and work and pray and eat and love and marry according to their wishes, free from poverty and free to pursue their ambitions”. Some days ago, in an interview, BJP president Amit Shah claimed his was the only party which was promoting its ideology. While this may have been true when the Congress was steering clear from articulating concerns of religious minorities, this is not the case any longer. Mr Gandhi contended in the note that the alternate to the Congress vision was an “India governed by a pernicious ideology that will trample upon people’s rights, institutions, conventions and the healthy differences that are the essence of a multi-cultural country”. The Congress manifesto is not ambiguous in its criticism of the BJP and is unworried about annoying Hindu sentiment. The document stated that “hate crimes and atrocities against the minorities and other vulnerable sections of the people have increased” since 2014, and that the “perpetrators of these crimes walk on the streets with impunity”. The Congress has found the confidence once again to remain committed to non-discrimination, equal opportunity in employment and the right to establish minorities’ educational institutions. Besides cocking a snook at the BJP on the issue of upholding the minority character of Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia, the Congress Party has pledged a new law to prevent and punish hate crimes. In the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack and the airstrikes at Balakot in Pakistan, the BJP campaign has revolved around national and internal security with Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving disproportionate space to his vituperative themes of Pakistan and its alleged allies in India (those questioning the government on security and diplomatic matters). The Congress, particularly, is showing as having buckled down not just after 26/11, but even on matters like testing of A-Sat. To counter the BJP’s claim of being the sole upholder of national security, the Congress manifesto points out that defence spending has fallen after Mr Modi assumed office and pledges to reverse this slide. The manifesto provides a “natsec shield” to the Congress by pledging immediate modernisation of the armed forces and providing a statutory basis to the National Security Council (NSC) and the office of the national security adviser (NSA). It is certain that the Congress has introduced this significant point to the debating table — making the NSA answerable to Parliament — in a direct response to the growing cult around Ajit Doval and the centralisation of powers in the PMO. The Congress remains committed to a broad base of decision-making processes on matters of national and internal security. Despite knowing that the BJP would question its commitment to internal security and for lowering the morale of the security forces, the Congress displayed political courage by promising to modify AFSPA and to scrap the sedition law. The Congress pledged a more humane government without undermining internal and national security. It makes an important point — laws do not have to loaded against citizens to make the nation more secure. When added to the alterations in the judiciary, the Congress manifesto will force the BJP to address issues which it might otherwise have ignored. II/III. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/making-sense-of-nyay-scheme-congress-lok-sabha-elections-5659293/?fbclid=IwAR0EtrQSObhnN56JUxm2BRUcDcT1utk5UTiwfK3dcS2FXiLOEW9ypQ81xPE Making sense of NYAY It is best read as a political promise for social security. There is more than one way of redeeming it Written by Jean Drèze | Updated: April 5, 2019 12:59:34 am Making sense of NYAY In an earlier avatar, the Congress party’s minimum income guarantee (MIG) proposal was based on this sort of top-up model. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar) Guaranteed minimum income is a powerful idea that has already made some headway in various countries. Some European countries, for instance, guarantee a minimum income to their citizens. This requires extensive data collection as well as an effective cadre of welfare officers and social workers tasked with enquiring into the circumstances of people who claim to need income support. It would be nice if India could achieve something similar, but the obstacles are daunting. Starting with the financial burden, a recent brief of the World Inequality Lab by Nitin Bharti and Lucas Chancel presents some useful figures. The authors essentially estimate the “minimum-income gap”, that is, the gap between minimum income and actual income summed over all households with actual income below the minimum. With a minimum income of Rs 72,000 per year, the gap turns out to be 1.3 per cent of GDP. This information is helpful, but it does not tell us much about what it would cost to guarantee a minimum income of Rs 72,000 per year to everyone. All it says is that if this could be done through perfectly targeted and costless top-up transfers, it would cost 1.3 per cent of GDP. In an earlier avatar, the Congress party’s minimum income guarantee (MIG) proposal was based on this sort of top-up model. The idea was that the government would simply fill the gap — if any — between minimum income and actual income, household-wise. This is impractical, if only because it requires household-specific income data that are virtually impossible to collect, at least for now. It also creates obvious incentive problems. One possible response is that the basis for calculation of the gap should not be actual income but some sort of “imputed income” — an estimate of what a household is expected to earn based on observable characteristics such as education and land ownership. Imputed-income estimates, however, are bound to lack precision, leading to large inclusion and exclusion errors. For these or other reasons, the top-up formula was dropped and NYAY was announced: Uniform cash transfers of Rs 72,000 per year, equivalent to Rs 6,000 per month, to the poorest 20 per cent households — about 50 crore households based on 2011 census data. Initially, an impression was created that NYAY “guaranteed” Rs 12,000 per month, because most households earn at least Rs 6,000 on their own, but this is incorrect. In fact, Bharti and Chancel estimate that 33 per cent of households earned less than Rs 6,000 per month in 2011-12, and the corresponding proportion today may not be much lower. In short, NYAY is a targeted cash-transfer scheme that guarantees Rs 6,000 per month to the recipients — nothing more, nothing less. It can also be thought of as a massive non-contributory pension scheme. Naturally, the NYAY proposal is more expensive than the top-up formula. It requires Rs 360,000 crore per year, or close to 2 per cent of today’s GDP. If NYAY is rolled out over five years, and India’s real GDP continues to grow at 7 per cent per year or so, the cost will be around 1.4 per cent of GDP at its peak. If that really goes to the poorest households, NYAY would seem like a good idea. How the NYAY recipients are to be identified, however, is an unresolved puzzle. Identifying the poor used to be the main purpose of the so-called “below poverty line” (BPL) surveys. The record of BPL surveys, however, is dismal: Three national surveys suggest that about half of all poor households in rural India did not have a BPL card in 2004-5. In recent years, for the purpose of identifying the recipients of food subsidies under the National Food Security Act, some states have adopted a different approach, known as the “exclusion approach”. In this approach, well-off households are excluded using simple and transparent criteria, and everyone else is eligible by default. This approach seems to work much better than the BPL surveys, but mainly when the proportion of households to be excluded is relatively low — say 20 or 25 per cent. Excluding 80 per cent, as NYAY requires, is another matter. The targeting problem is all the more serious as the income transfers being proposed under NYAY are much larger than anything ever delivered to BPL households. Shocking as it may sound, Rs 6,000 per month is the sort of salary that many informal-sector workers earn in the poorer states — say chowkidars or domestic workers. People struggle, bribe, cheat and fight for this sort of job. Selecting 20 per cent of households for an unconditional monthly pension of Rs 6,000 is likely to be a chaotic exercise. Perhaps the way forward is to read NYAY as a political commitment to a massive pension scheme, equivalent to cash transfers of Rs 6,000 per month to the poorest 20 per cent households, and explore possible variants of this formula. To illustrate, one possible variant would involve individual pensions of Rs 1,200 per month for 25 crore persons, instead of Rs 6,000 per month for 5 crore households. The NYAY pensioners could include all elderly persons, single women and disabled persons who do not meet well-specified exclusion criteria. That would add up to something like 12 crore persons, leaving substantial room for other vulnerable categories. This would not be perfect, but it would have a chance to work at least. Other variants are also possible, for instance a mix of household and individual pensions. Politicians need simple slogans, and “Rs 72,000 per year for the poorest 20 per cent” serves that purpose, but it is important not to let this slogan shut the door to other ways of redeeming the political commitment underlying the NYAY proposal. The writer is visiting professor at the Department of Economics, Ranchi University III. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/resisting-populism-congress-election-manifesto-lok-sabha-election-2019-5659316/?fbclid=IwAR0bBTG58sLWyS7adEyKeYg_tmZuncX-tY26yU-OuedufQAQKgbr6Gq6t5E Congress manifesto lays out a plan for resisting populism In a context where the populist temptation would have been to act as if India is besieged by enemies round every corner, the manifesto gives a sense of a liberal democracy calmly going about its business confidently, without stigmatising its own citizens. Written by Pratap Bhanu Mehta | New Delhi | Updated: April 5, 2019 8:03:37 am The Congress released their election manifesto on Tuesday. (Twitter/@RahulGandhi) Election manifestos are usually dull documents. By their very logic, they promise everyone something. They are the last slivers of a dull utopianism which construct a world where not many tough choices have to be made: There is a scheme or a policy for everyone. But they often elicit a yawn because by themselves they do not address the core political question: What is the credibility of the party making the promises? In an electorate that is used to having its hopes disappointed, there is always a sense that the real action is outside the manifesto. A manifesto can unwittingly turn into a reminder of past betrayals. But once in a while, the political context makes a manifesto an interesting document. The Congress manifesto is being criticised for its “welfarism.” And certainly, its schemes should be subject to detailed scrutiny, as must the schemes of all other political parties. Are they financially sustainable? Administratively implementable? Do they lay the foundations of long-term inclusive growth? The Congress needs to raise its game in answering these questions. But sometimes, the premise from which we enter the debate reveals a lot about ourselves. There are two typical reactions on welfare schemes. One is a shocked “How can India afford a modicum of economic justice?” — to which the proper reply is “How can India not afford a modicum of economic justice?” The second is partisanship. Some degree of what is pejoratively called welfarism is inscribed in the logic of democratic inclusion; and, well-designed, it is an aid to growth, not an impediment. To this extent, every party has its own version of the idea, and it is anathema only when it appears in the other’s manifesto. For BJP supporters, if Ayushman Bharat, an expensive way of delivering healthcare, had been in a Congress manifesto, it would have spelled economic armageddon; but in their own hands it is a genius scheme. On the production side, if the Congress says administrative simplicity on GST is called for; suddenly Congress’s taxation policy becomes anti-social justice. This is all par for the course in reactions to manifestos. But what makes this Congress manifesto interesting is the context. It lays out a plan for resisting populism in the deepest sense of the term. The populism of the current moment is not captured by the competition to woo voters through various economic schemes. The populism of the current moment is a more dangerous and insidious one. It has five components. The first is to whip up a politics of anxiety, by presenting India as being under relentless attack and in mortal peril from external and internal enemies. This anxiety is then the pretext for taking over the powers to define the meaning of nationalism. Nationalism must have more than a whiff of majoritarianism. We have now reached a new low in politics, where a prime minister brands his opponents running from an ostensibly “minority” constituency as an act of betrayal. Third, nationalism must be tied to a faux militarism. It is a faux militarism in the sense that it constantly peddles the illusion that extraordinary breakthroughs have taken place in our military responses to problems. To sustain that illusion, it creates a culture where elementary questions of fact and accountability are immobilised. Is Kashmir really more safe? Are our borders actually more secure? Fourth, given the state of anxiety we are in, power has to be personified. The nation’s unity can be reflected only in the persona of one leader, who has to colonise all patriotism, all virtue, all thought. Finally, the combination of psychological anxiety, resentful nationalism, faux militarism, and personification of power is mobilised in an undermining of institutions: Every institution has to serve the national purpose as defined by the leader. Strengthening of institutions is not to be judged by their integrity or autonomy, their consonance with constitutional values. They are all merely instruments for the consolidation of power. It is in this context that the Congress manifesto needs to be judged. Its distinctiveness is not in the economics. Its distinctiveness is in its refusal to play the populist card where it really matters. In a context where nationalism is defined by how much power you can concentrate, the promise to disperse power across institutions is important. In a context where manufactured nationalism is a pretext to silence debate, the commitment to finally getting rid of laws like sedition, that should have been considered a scandal in any liberal democracy, is a quiet act of resistance. In a context where a populist impulse would have been to out militarise the present government, Congress quietly holds its ground on a foreign policy that does not peddle illusions that militarism alone will be the solution to India’s problems. And in a context where the populist temptation would have been to act as if India is besieged by enemies round every corner, the manifesto gives a sense of a liberal democracy calmly going about its business confidently, without stigmatising its own citizens. The manifesto will not, by itself, settle many doubts. Just as many people look for an excuse to vote for Narendra Modi, many also look for an excuse to not vote for the Congress. It would be foolish to deny that, for many, the party still exudes memories of an old, corrupt and entitled order. The Congress carries considerable baggage. The politics of anxiety was perfected by both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. Whatever they may say now, the Congress was not shy of using sedition laws or cravenly succumbing to those assaulting free speech. The Congress let down Manmohan Singh on crucial occasions in his Pakistan policy. And while the Congress does not have the capacity for the total mobilisation of institutions in the service of political power, many still have a revulsion against its own history of sycophancy. Given how little change in personnel there has been in the Congress over the last five years, it still has to bridge a credibility gap with a number of voters. But the manifesto, unusually, has achieved one moral victory. Voters will decide whether the Congress will have the courage to shed its own baggage and live up to its promises. But when the mere enunciation of the idea that we need to go back to first principles to strengthen civil liberties, or disperse power, invites a response to the effect that “this is a manifesto for the tukde tukde gang,” you know that a die has been cast. It has put the BJP in a position of saying that even decency and liberty are anti-national conspiracies. This article first appeared in the print edition on April 5, 2019, under the title ‘Resisting populism’. The writer is vice-chancellor, Ashoka University. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
