📰 The foreign hand
NGOs fill in for the state; regulationsshould not stifle their functioning
•Amendments to the FCRA, drafted without consultation with stakeholders and passed with limited discussion in Parliament, further clip the wings of India’s battered civil society. New regulations put onerous conditions on civil society organisations, and educational and research institutions that have partnerships, including of a financial nature, with foreign entities. Passions overwhelm rationality in conversations on foreign influences, and it could well be true that a portion of such foreign assistance may be reaching the wrong hands. In Parliament, the BJP alleged that foreign money was being used for religious conversions. In 2017, the government barred American Christian charity, Compassion International, accusing it of supporting conversions. The debate on religious propagation and conversions must be delinked from the question of foreign funding. There are adequate laws against conversion by inducement, and the right or wrong of it cannot be decided against the touchstone of the source of funds, native or foreign. Some of the restrictions appear well meaning, but could impact NGOs besides showing up India to be overregulated.
•The International Commission of Jurists has said the new law was incompatible with international obligations and India’s own constitutional provisions on rights. Seamless sharing of ideas and resources across national boundaries is essential to the functioning of a global community, and should not be discouraged unless there is reason to believe the funds are being used to aid illegal activities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often cited the ancient Indian ethos of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam as the framework for its global engagement. The pandemic has only underscored the importance of this approach. As a growing economy, India under Mr. Modi has been proactive in seeking global capital and technology. The aversion appears to be towards select categories of global ideas and ideals — environmentalism, human rights and civil liberties. Organisations working in these fields have often had their patriotism being called into question. To be fair, this approach predates the current government, and it was during the UPA that an official report even quantified the GDP losses allegedly caused by environmental NGOs, insinuating a foreign conspiracy against India. Such paranoia does not go well with India’s legitimate ambitions to be a global player. The BJP and the Congress are well aware of the limits of the national-foreign binary. In 2017, both joined hands to legislate an escape route after receiving funds from foreign entities in violation of FCRA provisions. Thousands of NGOs serve extremely disadvantaged sections, at times filling in for the state, at others, supplementing it. A presumption of guilt against them all, followed by control, amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The world is poorer when new barriers are raised.
Firms should consider creating green supply chains rather than following a few environmental practices
•The United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the World Bank Group’s global practices have recognised sustainability as an essential issue of global importance. Economic, social and other forms of sustainability have evolved over the years, but it is environmental sustainability that has gained significant popularity.
•Environmental sustainability is understood as buying greener products, avoiding hazardous materials, energy optimisation, and waste reduction. While some firms are still reluctant to engage in environmentally beneficial activities as they are afraid to compromise on the economic benefits, some others have positioned environmental practices at the forefront due to legislation, and industry and government commitments. In several firms, high importance has been given to environmentalism due to compelling regulatory norms, and a potential to manage costs, risks and optimise eco-friendly practices. However, in this process, organisations, especially in the manufacturing sector, get so serious about the low-hanging fruits of waste reduction and energy efficiency improvements that they fail to recognise the need for restructuring their learning imperatives and see the big picture of environmentalism. While government norms, organisational policies and corporate environmental responsibility projects drive environment-friendly practices, these are merely short-term actions towards environmental sustainability.
Long-lasting benefits
•Only through organisational learning can people be urged to work towards long-lasting benefits. In this context, green supply chain practices are useful. These include green procurement, green manufacturing, green distribution, and reverse logistics. With practices starting from acquisition of eco-friendly raw material to disposal/ reuse/ recycle of used products,employees, suppliers, distributors, retailers and customers will be able to integrate environmental concerns in the daily operations of a firm. Thus, green supply chain practices enable organisational learning in environmental sustainability.
•Our research, based on a survey of 220 respondents across 21 manufacturing units in India, points to the inter-linkages between green supply chain practices, organisational performance and learning. We found that these inter-linkages not only lead to a long-lasting natural drive towards environmental performance, but also to higher economic performance . Research shows that the positive impacts of environmentalism can only be felt in the long term when they get embedded into organisational learning systems through green supply chain practices. The resultant learning system smoothens the knowledge flow in the organisation and help firms to strategise for better performance, bearing in mind the environmental aspects. This further promotes environmentalism across all players in manufacturing supply chains. Thus, environmental sustainability is ensured from the source (willingness) and not through force (regulations).
Understanding links
•Drawing linkages between green supply chain practices, corporate environmental performance, corporate economic performance and the dimensions of learning organisations in firms is necessary for an organisation’s progress and environmental protection in society. Understanding these inevitable links will enable managers and experts to shape their organisational values, work practices, and performances for the greater good of society.
•We infer that when the different players of a manufacturing supply chain realise the inherent benefits associated with organisational learning dimensions, their drive towards environmentalism increases. Policymakers should support this thinking by not merely imposing environmental practices as regulatory norms but by emphasising on the creation of green supply chain-based learning systems in manufacturing.
📰 Shadow force apart, India needs a China plan
With a resolution to the stand-off far away, New Delhi must study how Beijing has handled its other boundary disputes
•The mystic, celestial snow lion, ‘ Gang Seng Ge ’ in local lore, derives its name from the Sanskrit Simha . It is the emblem of Tibet showcasing its eternally snow-covered mountains and glaciers, even as it symbolises power, strength, fearlessness and the joy of living. It is also the symbol and the flag of the intrepid, fearless warriors of the ‘Special Frontier Force’, or the SFF, which has figured so prominently in the recent clashes in eastern Ladakh.
Stand-off in the heights
•Towards the end of April this year, 4 Motorised and 6 Mechanised Divisions of the Chinese Western Theatre Command, having completed their exercises on the edge of the Gobi Desert, took to the Xinjiang highway. In a well-planned and rehearsed move, they branched off onto a series of feeder roads on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. Once the troops were in position, they initiated multiple incursions across the LAC into what had been “No Man’s Land” patrolled by both sides (India and China). This included areas in the Depsang plains threatening the forward airstrip of Daulat Beg Oldie as also the north and the south of the expansive Pangong Tso salt water lake.
•The world watched in horror, as soldiers of two nuclear armed Asian giants engaged each other in a slug fest on the snowy summits of the Himalayas. In the melee that followed, they went at each other with clubs studded with barbed wire, machetes and rocks, resulting in serious injuries. Not a shot was fired, but the Indian Army which was initially surprised, reacted swiftly and with bravery and courage inflicted casualties to the Chinese side.
•The inevitable fallout of these actions was both sides jostling for heights, leading to a stalemate. Suddenly, on the night of August 29-30, in a surprise move, the Indian Army turned the tables on China by occupying heights that were not only of great tactical importance north and south of the Pangong Tso lake as also dominating the Spangur Gap. It was now looking into the innards of the Chinese depth localities at Moldo including China’s armour, guns and reserves. This amazing feat was accomplished primarily by a Ghost Army, the Special Frontier Force. Who are these super human troops? What are their antecedents? They are the dreaded shadow warriors of the SFF.
Working in the shadows
•During the era of the “Great Game”, the British employed natives to patrol their own lands, which included Tibetans. It was the Mustang Base in the Northern Border Range that escorted the 14th Dalai Lama to safety to India during the 1959 rebellion. As a consequence of the 1962 war, the Jawaharlal Nehru government ordered the raising of an elite Commando Force called the Special Frontier Force comprising among others, Tibetans who had sought refuge in India along with the Dalai Lama.
•My father, Major General Sujan Singh Uban, was a natural choice for this based on sheer merit and his being a legendary war veteran of the British Army famous for his daring exploits with the Long Range Desert Group in the Middle East, and the Guerrilla Wars in Burma during World War II. He was tasked with raising, training and commanding this nascent Force; as also moulding them into a well-oiled fighting machine.
•To enhance their inherent fighting capabilities its members were given airborne training in addition to acquiring expertise in mountain and jungle warfare. Initially aided and equipped by the United States, they quickly indigenised and were soon on their own feet. The opportunity to display their mettle as also to repay their host country came during the India-Pakistan war of 1971. As the Indian Army moved in with its major thrust into East Pakistan, the SFF, while supporting the flank of the Indian Army, in a blitzkrieg cleared the Chittagong hill tracts, as also the Kaptai dam, and encircled and prevented the escape of the Pakistani 97 (Indep) Brigade and No 2 Commando Battalion, all of whom were taken prisoners. The SFF was poised for the capture of Chittagong port when a ceasefire was declared; a daring move which paid handsome dividends. This earned them the nom de guerre , the ‘Phantoms of Chittagong’.
The importance of Tibet
•It soon became my turn to serve the SFF, enabling me to fulfil a family commitment. Having performed exceedingly well in the Indian Army (including being awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM) and based on my record of service) I was promoted as Inspector General to command the SFF and was privileged to command it during the Kargil war in battles fought at heights of 14,000 feet and above in subzero temperatures; actions which were lauded in the Ladakh and Kargil sectors. That year, the security for the Amarnath Yatra was provided by the SFF.
•The strategic importance of Tibet cannot be overemphasised. It is the roof of the world, with vast mineral and natural resources. The mighty rivers that emanate from its expansive glaciers — such as the Brahmaputra, the Yangtse, the Yellow river, the Mekong, the Salween and the Indus — together with thousands of their tributaries have nurtured civilisations in peripheral countries for centuries. The Kailash Mansarovar, which is centered in this region and with its spiritual overtones, tugs at the heart strings of every Indian. In an act of naked aggression, China occupied Tibet in 1959.
•A buffer was eliminated, and the de facto boundary of China became contiguous to that of India, a boundary deliberately left undemarcated to enable further expansion. Mao Zedong declared, “Tibet is the palm that we shall occupy and then go after the five fingers, Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.” Consequently, in 1959, China committed the naked act of aggression, to which India acquiesced, and our dream of “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai ” was rudely shaken in 1962.
Understanding China’s stand
•India is dealing with a bellicose neighbour, with its obsession for asserting its rights over land which its predecessors may have acquired through conquest or guile. China has land borders with 14 neighbours covering an estimated 22,100 kilometres. Post independence, and as its economic status burgeoned, so did its military muscle. China embarked on claims based on perceived imbalances of treaties forced on countries when they were weak.
•Some of these have since been resolved after bloody clashes such as with Russia and Vietnam, while others have been resolved using a combination of lucrative offers of money, trade and guile. In most cases, the end result has been such that victory can be claimed by both sides.
•Russia accepted half of China’s claim, Kazakhstan was given lucrative economic deals, Kyrgyzstan retained 70% of the land, ceding just 30%, and so on.
•It would be fallacious to surmise that there will be any resolution to the on-going stand-off between India and China in the near future. Let us assume that both countries wish to avoid a full-scale war considering the nuclear backdrop, the COVID-19 pandemic and also the economic downturn. The road ahead will have to be evolved and based on a study of the manner in which China has negotiated its boundary disputes with 12 of its neighbours and the results achieved.
What must be done
•There can be little doubt that the actions by the People’s Liberation Army, or the PLA, in Ladakh were pre-meditated, planned and executed with precision. The Chinese were fully aware that they were transgressing into “No Man’s Land”. With a pre-determined aim in mind they proceeded to secure tactical heights and gained access to the areas which would forestall a counter-offensive by the Indian Army. To expect them to vacate these areas at this juncture would be naive. At the same time, the PLA, in its present configuration and posture, has immense weaknesses which they would be aware of, and which should make them uneasy.
•Under the prevailing circumstances, it has become imperative to form a group of experts from among retired professionals, who have a proven track record with the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force, diplomats, the intelligence services, cyber technology and cartographic services, who will plan and prepare, short-, medium- and long-term goals to achieve them within a suggested time frame. Let us play down the rhetoric and adopt a pragmatic approach. It can no longer be a part-time issue to be addressed only when a crisis occurs. The crisis is upon us now.
📰 Will the farm bills benefit farmers?
The APMC Bypass Bill leaves too much to the benevolence of private players
•Three farm bills — the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill (commonly referred to as the APMC Bypass Bill), and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill — were cleared by Parliament amid protests from the Opposition. Sudha Narayanan and Arindam Banerjee discuss the implications of the controversial Bills in a conversation moderated by Vikas Dhoot . Edited excerpts:
What are the concerns about these Bills? Do they hold up?
•Sudha Narayanan:Sometimes we say, ‘Be careful what you wish for, you may actually get it’. These Bills represent fairly important changes in marketing regulation and are what many were asking for because of the flaws in the APMC [Agricultural Produce Market Committee] system. But at the same time, they are worrying for two reasons. The first is in what they say. The Bills have lacunae: lack of regulation, regulatory oversight and reporting. They’re somewhat non-transparent. The second is what they do not say. You can’t have marketing Bills that are devoid of the larger context of State intervention in agriculture, and agricultural policy.
Could you give us examples of a couple of those?
•SN:The APMC bypass Bill is the most controversial. This Bill actually assumes that private players don’t exist today and the APMC is a monopoly. That is a flawed assumption. Private players actually look to the APMC for a reference price to conduct their own transactions.
•Now you’re trying to create an alternative that’s outside the APMC, which is on advantageous terms where you don’t have to pay mandi fees or taxes. This could result in two perverse consequences. One is that the APMC continues to set the reference price. That makes no sense because if your private players are still looking to the APMC for a reference price, then your idea of getting rid of the inefficient APMC doesn’t hold. Large-scale trade outside the mandi is bound to happen because new players will prefer to trade outside the mandi because they don’t have to pay charges. APMC traders too might now prefer to operate outside the mandi for the same reason. So, if the APMC system collapses, then this Bill hasn’t envisioned any alternative for a large market that can actually set price signals. So, instead of unifying the national market, you could actually have little bargaining islands where people are just setting prices. This might undermine farmer interests. And in that new trade area, there is no regulation, no data, transactions are invisible. In the current APMC system, even with its flaws, at least there is some recording and grievance redressal. The current Bill leaves too much to the benevolence of private players to give fair terms to the farmers.
•Arindam Banerjee:Private trade in agricultural commodities is not something new in India. At the same time, the justification for these Bills at this point of time is primarily, I think, to facilitate bigger private players into the farm sector. There are several reasons for that. The government’s justification is hinged on farmers getting better prices for their produce because they are going to get greater choices. Now, the farmers, at least the big farmers, and net surplus producers don’t seem convinced. The reason is that market prices or farmers’ incomes are not simply dependent on the market structure. Farmers’ organisations are concerned that other demands are being ignored, particularly during this difficult economic situation. Market prices are sluggish because demand is sluggish. Farmers’ incomes are actually seeing a period of stagnation. The other concern for farmers has been growing input costs. Farmers have been squeezed between rising costs of cultivation and sluggish prices. These concerns need interventions from the government in the form of subsidies or procurement. There is MSP [Minimum Support Price] and procurement but one major concern is that certain policy documents were presented before the government earlier, which talked about replacing the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and PDS with cash transfers.
•What might happen as a result of the facilitation of big players into the farm sector is that some farmers will get better choices and big farmers will actually start selling to the private players. There is a possibility that the importance of the APMC and the procurement system will actually wither away over time. And that concerns everybody.
There is concern that big retail players and corporates could end up monopolising farm trade and vitiate farmers’ interests. What are the global precedents and can we learn something from there?
•SN:Internationally, we’ve seen cartels. The French dairy producers and the dairy farmers’ co-operatives in the U.S. have become huge players. A lot of buyer cartels fix the price, and that’s one of the reasons the EU and the U.S. are taking a hard look at their own supply chains to reduce the power of consolidation.
•In India, it’s going to be less predictable, because big players themselves want to minimise costs. The traditional marketing channels are very resilient… if the farmer goes to a trader, it is for multiple reasons, not just the sale of crop. The trader extends credit, has a deeper relationship of trust and he will take all kinds of quality. The farmer runs a lot of risks dealing with the big players. It’s not a given that the big players will come in, set up shop and crowd out other players. But if they manage to get a place, there are two ways in which I have seen them operate. One is to try to crowd out competition and the other is to co-opt them. Big businesses are well positioned to interact with a lot of farmers because they have the field staff. But eventually, many of them end up co-opting farmer cooperatives or anybody who’s able to aggregate produce for them. So, though we keep saying that these Bills will facilitate direct transactions with farmers, what we are seeing is not dis-intermediation, but re-intermediation. Companies will find that it’s too expensive to work with a large number of farmers and look for intermediaries who will aggregate produce for them.
•AB:If you look at the global experience, corporate food markets are all about monopolies or duopolies. So, we can expect that to happen. But what I’m more concerned about is this: private trade in agricultural commodities has existed for several years in India, so what is the new usefulness from the perspective of big capital? Pepsi has been in the potato value chain and there are several other examples of contract farming. I think the new thrust area is the grain trade in India and that is where procurement by the government happens. I think global corporates are eyeing the grain market. With more than 90 million tonnes of foodgrain in our stocks, it is clear that there is a massive market to play around with, only if there is a relative shift of weight from government regulation to private players. Even with the pandemic measures, the stocks have not reduced. The pandemic has caused massive disruption of jobs globally. Consequently, it has caused a massive disruption for capital and profits as well. Agricultural goods have suffered less because these are necessary items in consumption baskets. There is less chance of revival of demand of industrial goods and services to pre-pandemic levels in the near future. This is why big capital is trying to move into the agricultural commodity trade on a bigger scale, so that it can recover some of its lost profits.
While the Bills are said to give farmers more choices, shouldn’t they also have more predictable trade policies to work with? Every time prices rise, exports are curbed as we see with onions now.
•SN:What you said is important. Look at what happened after these ordinances were passed. We had the ban on export of onions. So the farmers are not getting a signal that these Bills are, in fact, farmer-centric. There’s nothing in the Bills that says what the procurement policy is going to be. In general, when you want to protect the interests of the consumers, while not undermining the interests of the farmers, you have an array of policies that work together. You can’t say, I’m not going to use the Essential Commodities Act and then try to influence consumer prices by a policy that hurts farmers.
The Opposition and some farmer groups want the MSP to be added to the legal framework so that they have a floor price of sorts. Is that some kind of a solution for now?
•AB:The FCI was formed in 1965 as a response to a significant food shortage in the country. From that point, we have made progress in food production. In the early 1990s, we were not facing food shortages. That did not mean that the problem of hunger was addressed. It continues to persist because there is mal-distribution of foodgrain. And that is happening in spite of the PDS. One has to recognise that we have a different political-economic regime than the time the FCI was set up. Post-liberalisation, private players and capital have a much greater role to play in the economy, which is fine. But then you also need regulations for those players. So, if today there is a perceived concern about the government public procurement system, then it’s a valid demand to include a clause regarding procurement, or maybe just bring in another law that would quell a lot of fears.
•SN:Given that these Bills are quite problematic, I wouldn’t want an MSP clause to be introduced into them. If these Bills are flawed, we have to think of ways of fixing them. And I think the MSP question is larger, more complex, and deserves a very serious consultative process, and its own dedicated Act. Now the two may not be compatible. Because you can’t say I want to get private players but insist what price they deal with. That’s going to be self-defeating both for the MSP as well as for private participation. The reason MSP has to be a separate question is because farmers from Punjab may disagree with farmers from Bihar. So, how are you going to enforce the MSP? There have been interesting suggestions there. One suggestion was, if the APMCs were functioning as they would under the old regime, then you would ensure that all bidding starts at the MSP, which ensures that the MSP starts as a floor price. We’ve lost that opportunity now because now if you say APMC has a MSP, but outside it, you can do whatever you want, then it makes no sense any more.
•If we keep an MSP that actually forces the government to procure way more than it needs (like China did a decade ago and could not distribute it within the country or export it), then unless you have a very well-planned distribution system, does it make economic sense for the government? Who is going to take responsibility, and how is it going to be geographically distributed and across crops? So, even if you were to go for an MSP legislation, there needs to be serious discussion on all these different aspects.
Is there any scope for course corrections in these Bills?
•AB:There cannot be minor tweaks; major corrections need to be done. The consultative process that was missing within our federal democratic structure... at least some amount of that needs to be done. I may sound like an alarmist, but on the face of it, if these Bills undermine the grain procurement system, there could be Balkanisation of the country. It’s not simply a matter of farmers anymore, it’s a much deeper concern.
