Post farm laws retreat, let’s recognize all legislation passed without consultation has harmed India – at home and in the international arena
Saba Naqvi
There is one fundamental message that come from the reversal on the farm laws by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it is quite straightforward: legislation passed without consultation with stake-holders and rammed through Parliament, will be bad in spirit and form. The farmers protesting for over a year have in a sense restored democracy to us, that was being taken away, law by controversial law, followed by the criminalization of the protest
To elaborate, let’s examine the most controversial legislations that the Modi government brought in its second term. Heady with power after the 2019 mandate, they seemed determined to go about every agenda with impunity, be it reframing the cultural identity of the country or favoring a particular business house in allocations and policy.
On August 5, 2019, after a Lockdown imposed on Kashmir and a shut-down of communication besides inserting more forces, the Indian Government revoked Article 370 and Article 35A from Jammu & Kashmir, that had given the special legal status to the state since our complex Independence and Partition. For the BJP regime it was an ideological agenda that was about the Muslim majority valley, but the implications have been grave.
First, the internal alienation in Kashmir, always there, has increased exponentially. At regular intervals we get heart-breaking news of civilian deaths in the Valley as we just did earlier this month. All the accompanying steps to the change in the legal status of a state that was now made into three separate Union territories included a virtual shut-down of the internet, crackdown on local newspapers, long incarceration of Kashmiri politicians, repeated months of curfew in Srinagar and a long list of human rights violations.
Even if the idea had been to adopt a hardline with the Muslim majority residents of the Valley modelled on the Israel handling of Palestinian territories, Indian actions in Kashmir have had the unexpected consequence of inviting Chinese aggression and forays into territory in Ladakh. China experts have detailed how our reorganization of the state that included making Ladakh into a Union territory, got Beijing involved in the region. A report authored by a member of an influential think tank affiliated to the Ministry of State Security, China’s top intelligence body, elaborated on this in June last year.
Basically, the Chinese have described the Abrogation of 370 as a move that posed a challenge to “the joint sovereignty of Pakistan and China”. The article by Wang Shida, a deputy director of the Beijing based think tank said the following. “On the Chinese side, India opened up new territory on the map, incorporated part of the areas und the local jurisdiction of Xinjiang and Tibet into its Ladakh Union territory and this forced China into the Kashmir dispute….and dramatically increased the difficulty in resolving the border dispute between India and China”. It’s worth recalling that this article also noted that India had “double confidence” because the 2019 election gave the BJP a boost and because the US and some Western countries used India to “hedge” against China. The article warned that India is doomed to failure if any actions challenge China.
Indeed, it’s worth noting that over a year after the Chinese made their views known in their own way, the least reported story in the Indian media is that just a few days ago satellite images reportedly show that China has built two villages along its border with India in Arunachal Pradesh. So currently the Chinese are firmly aggressive on both the Ladakh and the Arunachal border. Meanwhile, they are also in conversation with the US, opening up the possibility of India being less significant in American calculations on the rise of China.
So, shall we in keeping with the BJP campaigns of the times say Thank You Modiji?
Let’s shift to the other contentious legislation moved by the BJP, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that triggered widespread national protest and is being challenged in the Supreme Court where there are as many as 140 pleas against the law that selectively welcomes migrants into India on the basis of their religion. The law was rammed through Parliament in December 2019 and triggered nationwide protests, crackdowns, riots in the national capital and the unseemly sight of a democratic state crushing dissent with many members of the Muslim community still in jail for protesting. The post CAA scenario has certainly contributed to India being downgraded on democracy index’ and we have lost the moral high ground we once operated from in South Asia. So, if the Hindu minority is attacked in Bangladesh, we have no locus standi to say very much anymore.
The CAA was designed keeping political calculations in West Bengal in mind, but the BJP lost the state anyway and has not been able to bring it into effect as rules have not been framed, two years down the line. Really a waste of national energy on a divisive law. Again, as with the abolition of Article 370 where the decision was plonked on Parliament, there was no willingness to hear contrarian views on the CAA.
Finally, we come to the farm laws that were pushed through without consulting those they would impact the most. The BJP lost an ally, the Akali Dal in Punjab, but went ahead anyway, first bringing an ordinance and then ramming it through Parliament where un-seemly scenes followed in the Upper House as the ruling party passed critical legislation with a voice vote in the midst of mayhem, without agreeing to a division of the House or sending the bills to the Standing Committee on Agriculture, whose mandate would involve speaking to stake holders.
Three Big Decisions after the 2019 win and all three disasters. One can only hope the nation’s pre-eminent party has learnt that it’s got things wrong on many fronts, from geo-politics to the farm sector. The best outcome can be some humility, regard for debate in Parliament and a respect for checks and balances in the system. Thank you Modiji.
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