📰 Supreme Court allows Centre to widen three Char Dham highways
Crucial for troop movement to China border, Ministry of Defence had said.
•The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the government’s mandate to broaden three Himalayan highways, considered crucial by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for quick troop build-up along the Indo-China border.
•The three national highways — Rishikesh to Mana, Rishikesh to Gangotri and Tanakpur to Pithoragarh — act as feeder roads to the northern border with China. They are part of the Char Dham project.
•These highways would now be developed in accordance with the Double Lane with Paved Shoulder (DLPS) system.
•“This court in judicial review cannot second-guess the infrastructural needs of the armed forces,” a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said in a judgment.
•The verdict is based on an application filed by the MoD to modify the court’s September 8, 2020 order, which directed that mountain roads for the Char Dham Highway project should be 5.5 m in width in compliance with a 2018 circular of the Roads and Highways Ministry.
Amendment to circular
•The Ministry had gone on to amend its circular in December last, saying that “for roads in hilly and mountainous terrain which act as feeder roads to the Indo-China border are of strategic importance for national security, the carriageway width should be 7 m with 1.5 m paved shoulder on either side”.
•Modifying the September order, the judgment on Tuesday said “we allow the Ministry of Defence’s application for DLPS configuration for three strategic highways… At the same time take note of the environmental concerns raised for the entirety of the project and the unanimous recommendation of the High Powered Committee (HPC) for taking remedial measures and direct that they have to be implemented by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the Ministry of Defence going forward”.
•The Bench formed an oversight committee chaired by former Supreme Court judge, justice A.K. Sikri, to ensure that the government implements the remedial measures recommended by the court’s HPC for the environment. The court clarified that the Justice Sikri Committee however is not to undertake “an environmental analysis of the project afresh” and should focus on the three highways in order to avoid overlapping into the HPC’s ambit. The Ministries of Road and Defence have to give monthly reports to the committee, which would in turn report to the court every four months.
•Noting that while a majority of the HPC had recommended DLPS-standard road width for the highways, the court said the panel had also unanimously suggested “best practices” and remedial measures to protect the ecology from harm, especially in “areas of concern”.
•The court questioned the government’s assertions that development benefits from the broadening of the highways were proportionate to the harms. “The reality tests these assertions. HPC had recommended carrying out relevant studies to ascertain the true reality, such as creation of bypasses, maintenance of environmental quality, protection of wildlife, disaster management preparedness…” it stated.
•The court observed that some of the areas needed constant monitoring by the Roads Ministry. A system needsed to be set up. The court highlighted the HPC’s recommendation to study the effect on local communities and a dialogue with them to resolve their problems. It said the government had made efforts to resolve the issues, but they were “late in coming and did not address crucial issues”. The remedial measures, say against landslips, had been “tardy and limited”.
•“Making the project environmentally compliant will not be seen as a check-box in the path of development,” Justice Chandrachud stressed.
•Environmentalists had argued in court that broadening the highways using DLPS would prove fatal to the already fragile Himalayan ecology. The petitioner, an NGO called Citizens of Green Doon, had called the Himalayas the “best defence for our country”. It had challenged the Road Ministry's December 2020 circular, saying the government introduced DLPS without application of mind.
‘Specialised body’
•But the court concluded that the Roads Ministry’s circular was based on recommendations from the MoD. The court said it cannot “interrogate” the defence requirements of the nation. The MoD was the “specialised body” which discerned the requirements of the armed forces. Security concerns, which changed over time, were assessed by it.
•When the conservationists contended that smaller, disaster-proof roads served the needs of the armed forces, Justice Chandrachud responded in the judgment that “The submission of the petitioners requires the court to override the modalities decided upon by the Army and the Ministry of Defence to safeguard the security of the nation’s borders… The petitioners want the court to interrogate the policy choice of the establishment which was entrusted by law for the defence of the nation. This is impermissible”.
•To an argument that the Army Chief, in a media interview in 2019, commented on the adequacy of infrastructure requirements for troop movement, the court reminded that “the recent past has thrown up serious challenges to the national security”.
•“The armed forces cannot be held down to a statement made during a media interaction in 2019 as if it was a decree written in stone,” Justice Chandrachud observed.
•The court said different considerations come into play while constructing highways in mountainous terrains, which were strategic roads from a defence perspective.
‘Delicate balance’
•The judgment said a “delicate balance” should be maintained between environmental considerations and infrastructural development so that the former did not impede the latter, specifically in areas of strategic importance crucial to the security of the nation.
•The government had argued in court that the armed forces cannot surrender the defence of the nation to threats of landslips by the widening of Himalayan roads, for quickly moving military hardware to the “very vulnerable” Indo-China border, may cause.
•Attorney General K.K. Venugopal had submitted that crucial defence equipment such as the BrahMos or Vajra missile launchers and Smerch rocket carriers need room to maneuver the tough terrain and reach the border.
•“There is a Chinese build-up in the Tibetan region... Today we are facing a situation that the country has to be defended. All three wings of the armed forces have to combine to defend the nation. We have to ensure that every physical, technological and financial facility is made available to the armed forces. The Army has a stupendous task to reach the passes and the line of control. The defence forces cannot fold their hands and say ‘oh, landslide may happen, we will give up this road to the border’. If it is a landslide threat, we will have to deal with it,” he had submitted.
The CBSE’s recent apology for an exam question is worrying
•We in India are destroying the spirit of education — the spark of engaged pedagogy, critical thinking and humanistic sensibilities. Possibly, the dominant political culture — often celebrated by sections of the media in this ‘post-truth’ age — is not in tune with the art of debate and dialogue. Furthermore, as the ‘will to power’ often characterises our leaders, it becomes difficult to acknowledge solid facts and truth that might unsettle their images as the ultimate saviours of the nation. It is no wonder that the escape from truth becomes the new normal. And this pathology seems to have crippled the educational sensibilities of our academic bureaucrats.
Poverty of imagination
•Is it, therefore, surprising that the CBSE issued an apology for the “inappropriate” question on the Gujarat riots asked in the Class XII Sociology board exam paper? The question read: “The unprecedented scale and spread of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 took place under which government?” Why is this inappropriate? Students of the social sciences ought to reflect on the dynamics of culture, politics and society. They ought to learn, unlearn and think critically of the complex trajectory of sociopolitical ideals like secularism, cultural pluralism and religious nationalism. What is the point of studying sociology if they do not become aware of, say, the violence implicit in caste hierarchy or the tyranny of majoritarianism?
•However, our academic bureaucrats are not spirited teachers or pedagogues. See the poverty of imagination in their justification for the apology. We are told that this “inappropriate” question is in violation of the CBSE guidelines. A question, we are told, should be purely “academic oriented”, “class and religion neutral”, and not touch upon domains that could “harm sentiments of people based on social and political choices”. If we go by this strange logic, our children should not be told about, or encouraged to debate on, the historical/political episodes which affected the trajectory of the postcolonial Indian state — the propagation of the ‘two-nation theory’ by V.D. Savarkar and Muhammad Ali Jinnah; the brutalisation of human consciousness in the Partition violence as depicted with immense sensitivity by a literary figure like Saadat Hasan Manto; the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu fanatic; the horror of Emergency; the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi in 1984; the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992; or the rise of feminist/Dalit/working class/environmental/civil society movements in the country. It is possible that the techno-managers of the CBSE might argue that all these episodes are “political” and therefore not “academic”. Furthermore, they would argue that debates on these would hurt some group or other. They might say don’t refer to anti-Sikh riots because it would hurt the sentiments of Hindus or don’t talk about Gandhi’s assassination because it might hurt the sentiments of many Hindu nationalists. Hence, children, as the CBSE logic seems to suggest, should grow up with the notion that no one demolished the mosque in 1992; no riot took place in Gujarat in 2002; and no COVID-19-related deaths due to the scarcity of oxygen cylinders took place during the pandemic.
The potential of critical pedagogy
•Imagine the likes of Paulo Freire and Bell Hooks responding to the CBSE’s logic. They would possibly make three points. First, they would demythologise the notion of value-neutral academics. They would argue that in the name of value-neutrality, we often end up legitimising the status quo. In fact, the spirit of critical pedagogy awakens young minds and makes them capable of reflecting on the discourse of power. Hence, a young student should not merely memorise the Preamble of the Constitution as a fact; instead, they should be inspired by teachers to see the harsh reality and wonder why our secular, socialist republic is characterised by gross inequality and caste/gender violence. Education is about asking difficult questions and striving for a just social order.
•Second, they would stress on the creative agency of a young learner. The idea is neither to memorise facts like a parrot nor to master the strategy of cracking the multiple-choice questions pattern of standardised tests. In our classrooms, they must find their voice, their argumentative spirit, and their urge to walk with teachers as co-travellers and critical thinkers. There is no harm if in our classrooms they ask: Does the cult of narcissism negate the ethos of democracy?
•And third, they would remind us of the art of building the bridge between the ‘self’ and the ‘world’, or ‘personal’ and ‘political’. When you are introduced to the ideas of Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar and Savitribai Phule, you undergo a process of inner churning; you begin to strive for a new world.
•Our political masters seek to negate this liberating potential of critical pedagogy. And ironically, our academic bureaucrats abhor the spirit of emancipatory education.
📰 Needed: repeal of AFSPA, not regret
There have been scores of civilian killings in the Northeast since the AFSPA came into force
•The demand for the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 (AFSPA) is gathering momentum throughout the Northeast. Massive rallies are being held against the law in Nagaland. The Chief Minister and his Cabinet have backed the demand and Meghalaya’s Chief Minister has also joined in. In Assam, large rallies are being held by student organisations against the Act.
•The Centre has tried to convey the impression that the Mon incident of December 4, which claimed the lives of 14 civilians, was a “mistake” because of intelligence failure. But the Union Home Minister tried to justify the Army’s action by saying that the firing was resorted to only when the vehicle under question refused to stop at a signal and tried to flee.
•The people of the Tiru and Oting villages of Tizit subdivision of Mon district are used to checks carried out by the security forces. One of the survivors of the shooting has said that the Army personnel began firing without any signal whatsoever, in daylight. The FIR filed by the Nagaland Police against the 21 Para Special Forces involved in the firing states that the security forces did not “make requisition to police station to provide police guide for the operation” and that they “blankly opened fire at the vehicle without any provocation”. The Army’s statement that its operation had been carried out on the basis of “credible intelligence of the likely movement of insurgents” only shows once again how vulnerable the civilian population is in areas under the AFSPA.
Pattern of civilian killings
•The Mon incident cannot be seen as an exception or a mistake because it fits into a general pattern of civilian killings that have been taking place ever since the AFSPA was first invoked in the then Naga Hills district of Assam in 1958. This particular incident came to light only because of the quick intervention of the villagers. Moreover, it took place when the situation in Nagaland was largely peaceful and the State was celebrating the annual Hornbill Festival. It would perhaps have been a different picture had these killings taken place while an Army operation was in progress in the area.
•Nagaland has seen numerous cases of civilian killings by the security forces which have gone unpunished because of the AFSPA. In his book Nagaland and India: The Blood and the Tears, Kaka Iralu documents the extra-judicial killings and the suffering of the common people under the draconian provisions of the AFSPA which gives total immunity to the security forces for their actions.
•There have been scores of civilian killings in the region over the last several decades since the AFSPA came into force. In the long list of the roll call of the dead, some incidents stand out in memory. In 1995, nine innocent civilians were killed by Central Reserve Police Force personnel in front of the RIMS hospital in Imphal. In 2000, 10 civilians were gunned down by the 8th Assam Rifles at Malom Leikai following a blast at Imphal’s Tulihal Airport. It was this incident that triggered the famous 16-year fast by Irom Sharmila for the repeal of the AFSPA. The Manipur High Court later declared those killed as innocent and announced compensation for their families. One also cannot forget how in 2004, a group of women launched a nude protest in front of the Assam Rifles Headquarters at Kangla Fort, Imphal, after Thangjam Manorama was allegedly tortured, raped and brutally killed by security personnel. This was followed by several months of continuous protest by the people of Manipur eventually forcing then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Imphal and assure the people that he “sympathised with the legitimate aspirations of the people regarding the Act” and would replace it with a “more humane law” which would “take into account” the legitimate aspirations of the people and national security concerns. Herein lay the catch. Though Dr. Singh’s assurance was followed by the setting up of the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee, which recommended the repeal of the AFSPA, finally, national security concerns made the Commission’s recommendations infructuous and the AFSPA continued as it was.
•In 2016, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit passed a historic judgment on a plea by hundreds of families in Manipur for a probe by a Special Investigation Team into 1,528 cases of alleged fake encounters involving the Army and the police between 1979 and 2012. The Court held that “there is no concept of absolute immunity from trial by a criminal court.”
•Assam, which has been under the AFSPA since November 1990, has had its own share of killings by the security forces since the days the United Liberation Front of Asom insurgency began in the early 1990s. Gunning down young men in “encounters” became so common that Army dispatches on these incidents appeared to be carbon copies of one another. Such killings have been documented by organisations such as the Manav Adhikar Suraksha Samiti.
The many who go scot-free
•However, at least in one case, because of the dogged perseverance of former legislator and present Assam Jatiya Parishad leader Jagadish Bhuyan and some activists of the All Assam Students’ Union, the security personnel involved in the cold-blooded murder in February 1994 of five young men of the Talap area of Tinsukia district were finally court-martialled. In that incident, nine youths were picked up by the Army on the suspicion that they were involved in the killing of the general manager of the Assam Frontier Tea Limited, Rameshwar Singh, at his Talap office. Following a habeas corpus petition at the Gauhati High Court, the Army handed over five bodies to the Dhola police while freeing the other four. As usual, the deaths were attributed to an encounter, while the police claimed them as killings. Finally, after the Gauhati High Court ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry, which indicted the Army personnel of murder of the five youths, the Army was forced to order a court martial in July 2018. Seven Army personnel, including a Major General, were dismissed and sentenced to life imprisonment. This is just one case where the protective cover given by the AFSPA wasn’t enough to hide the murders committed by the security forces. However, hundreds of extra-judicial killings under the AFSPA have gone unpunished throughout the State.
•For decades now, the people of the Northeast have been living under the shadow of a draconian law which makes a travesty of the rights of the citizen guaranteed by the Constitution. The Centre has expressed its regret over a botched operation. A mere regret is not enough. What is needed is an immediate repeal of the AFSPA.
📰 The NMP is hardly the panacea for growth in India
As the Government has also shown, there are out-of-the-box policy initiatives to revamp public sector businesses
•The National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) envisages an aggregate monetisation potential of ₹6-lakh crore through the leasing of core assets of the Central government in sectors such as roads, railways, power, oil and gas pipelines, telecom, civil aviation, shipping ports and waterways, mining, food and public distribution, coal, housing and urban affairs, and stadiums and sports complexes, to name some sectors, over a four-year period (FY2022 to FY2025). But the point is that it only underscores the need for policy makers to investigate the key reasons and processes which led to once profit-making public sector assets becoming inefficient and sick businesses.
To unlock value
•Eight core industrial sectors that support infrastructure such as coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement, and electricity have a total weight of nearly 40% in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). According to NITI Aayog, the strategic objective of the asset monetisation programme is to unlock the value of investments in public sector assets by tapping private sector capital and efficiencies. The NMP policy advocates unlocking idle capital from non-strategic/underperforming government owned assets and reinvesting the funds, thus received, into new infrastructure projects and augmentation of assets such as greenfield infrastructure creation.
•This reportedly first-of-its-kind initiative claims that it will boost the economy, generate better employment opportunities, and drive the competitiveness of the Indian economy.
•Notwithstanding the merit of this decision by the government of the day, it becomes imperative for policy makers to introspect the decline of profit-making government assets in the backdrop of the Government contemplating reinvesting the funds received to create fresh assets, post the NMP exercise. It is quite likely that the nation may find itself in a vicious cycle of creating new assets and then monetising the same when they become liabilities for the Government at a later stage.
•Going by the annual report (2020-2021) of the Department of Public Enterprises, Government of India, there are 256 operationally-run central public sector undertakings (CPSUs), employing about one million people; they posted a net profit of ₹93,294 crore (FY 2019-20). Out of these, 96 have been conferred the Ratna status (72, 14, and 10 are Miniratnas, Navaratnas, and Maharatna companies, respectively).
•As India needs to invest about $1.5 trillion on infrastructure development in order to aspire to become $5 trillion economy by the year 2024-25, according to the Economic Survey 2019-20, public enterprises should be in focus.
Some reasons for PSU decline
•The primary reasons for the failure of public sector enterprises is no secret. Cost overruns, inter alia, is one of the major reasons. In some cases, project completion time is exceeded, leading to elevated project cost so much so that either the project itself becomes unviable at the time of its launching or delays its break even point. Besides, optimum input-output ratio is seldom observed in a majority of government infrastructural projects leading to their overcapitalisation. A reluctance to implement labour reforms, a lack of inter-ministerial/departmental coordination, poor decision-making, ineffective governance and excessive government control are other reasons for the failure of public infrastructural assets.
•Recently, the “Pradhan Mantri Gati Shakti National Master Plan” for multi-modal connectivity was launched by the Prime Minister with an aim ‘to synchronise the operations of different departments of 16 Ministries including railways and roadways for seamless planning and coordinated execution of infrastructure projects in a timely manner’. It is essentially a digital platform for information sharing among different Ministries and departments at the Union and State levels. It also entails analytical decision-making tools to disseminate project-related information and prioritise key infrastructure projects. Besides, it fosters a periodical review and monitoring of the progress of cross-sectorial infrastructure projects through the GIS platform in order to intervene if there is a need.
Essential steps
•In addition to it, as enunciated in the Economic Survey 2020-21, an important step for the Government to take to strengthen public sector businesses would be to completely revamp their corporate governance structure in order to enhance operational autonomy augmented with strong governance practices including listing on stock exchange for greater transparency and accountability.
•The Department of Public Enterprises has reportedly initiated revamping of the performance monitoring system of central public sector enterprises to make them more transparent, objective and forward looking, based on sectoral indices/benchmarks.
•The Economic Survey also highlights the Government’s initiatives as part of the Atmanirbhar Abhiyaan (campaign for self-reliance) in order to boost domestic production in the steel sector, viz. inclusion of “speciality steel”, recommending four different types of steel for incentives under the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme; selling steel to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), affiliated to Engineering Export Promotion Council of India at export parity price under the duty drawback scheme of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT); measures to provide preference to domestically produced iron and steel in government procurement, where aggregate estimate of iron and steel products exceeds ₹25 crore; protecting industry from unfair trade through appropriate remedial measures including imposition of anti-dumping duty and countervailing duty on the products on which unfair trade practices were adopted by the other countries.
•More such out-of-the-box policy initiatives are needed to rule out public asset monetisation schemes such as the NMP in future.
