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DELHI THE HINDU
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CMYK
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EDITORIAL
K.P. Shashidharan
The Supreme Court’s observations in connection with theRafale fi��ghter aircraft deal by
citing the Comptroller and AuditorGeneral of India’s (CAG’s) reporton redacted pricing, and subsequent media reports and the controversy over “stolen fi��les”brought back into the spotlight therole of the supreme audit institution of India.
Many questions arise before thestakeholders: What is redactivepricing? Does the constitutionalmandate provide redactive pricingto be included in the CAG’s auditreports submitted to the Presidentto be placed before Parliament?Do any supreme audit institutions(SAIs) such as the National AuditOffi��ce, the Government Accountability Offi��ce or Commonwealthcountries follow redactive pricingin audit reports?
Redaction is the selection oradaption by ‘obscuring or removing sensitive information’ from adocument prior to publication.The CAG is mandated to audit allreceipts and expenditures of thethreetier governments in Indiaand report to the legislature judiciously, independently, objectively in compliance with applicable
laws, rules and regulations, without fear and favour. He conductsfi��nancial compliance and performance audits and submits his reports to the legislature to help people’s representatives in enforcinglegislative oversight and public accountability of the executive. Legislative committees such as thePublic Accounts Committee andCommittee on Public Undertakings examine the CAG’s selectedreports.
Not transparentIn the preface of the audit report,the CAG stated that redactive pricing was unprecedented but had tobe accepted due to the Ministry’sinsistence citing security concerns. Consequently, the full commercial details were withheld andthe fi��gures on the procurementdeal were blackened. It was unprecedented that an audit report submitted by the CAG to the Presidentunder Article 151 of the Constitution suppressed relevant information. Whether the Ministry’s insistence citing security concernscould have been accepted by theCAG can be examined only by theSupreme Court in the light of theconstitutional provisions on theCAG’s duties and parliamentaryprivileges and prerogatives.
Redactive pricing is nowhereused in SAI audit reports. It doesnot seem to have been used in agovernment audit by any SAI ofany country. Redactive pricing inthe ‘Performance Audit Report ofthe Comptroller and Auditor Gen
eral of India on Capital Acquisitionin Indian Air Force (Union Government – Defence Services, AirForce, Report No. 3 of 2019)’ suppresses more than it reveals. Forexample, in the Rafale deal, Parliament, its committees, the mediaand other stakeholders of theCAG’s reports cannot obtain complete, accurate and reliable information due to redactive pricing.The reduction in the original requirement, to 36 aircraft, a waiverof the earlier decision to involveHindustan Aeronautics Limited,observations of the Indian Negotiating Team, cost escalation dueto inclusion of bank guarantee andperformance guarantee were notcompared properly to arrive at theaudit conclusion.
Pivotal to procurementPricing is the quintessence of anyprocurement decision. Along withquality and quantitative specifi��cations, comparative merits and demerits are ascertained, and thepricing of comparable productsare compared in decisionmaking.Pricing is an integral part of theprocurement decisionmaking
process of any equipment, product, goods or service. A strategiccompetitive advantage of a product, how best it should be procured, how many at a time are tobe purchased and at what priceand under what conditions, terms,instalments, along with afterservice conditions, discounts, commissions and other conditions areevaluated to arrive at a purchasedecision. Therefore, price integrity and comparative competitiveness are at the heart of any procurement decision.
The CAG is mandated to get intothe nittygritty of procurementterms, procedures, comparativeadvantages and disadvantageswithout fear and favour to form anobjective, independent and judicious audit opinion. An audit is expected to analyse the facts andcomparative pricing charts tohighlight the fi��nancial proprietyand prudence of the procurementdecision. The institution is constitutionally mandated and empowered to do its duties covering allessential factors about the procurement, customised endtoendpricing assessments, legal requirements, escrow accounting, termsand conditions and arbitrationclauses in compliance with legaland other regulations.
The executive procurement decision is expected to be completely analysed in the CAG’s audit topinpoint inaccuracies, noncompliance of essential procurementprocedures, conditions and pricing errors which may have a nega
tive fi��nancial impact and cause potential damage to the country’sinterests.
Complex auditGiven the dynamics of international competition in competitive products and pricing in today’s modern market scenario, pricing,delivery and postdelivery serviceand other conditions are essentially covered in an SAI audit. It is acomplex audit, demanding exceptional insight, expertise, knowledge and skills. In case the CAG’soffi��ce lacks expertise to conduct aperformance audit, expertise canbe sought from the pool of resources or credible organisationsto be coopted in the audit team.
Pricing decisions must be subjected to detailed analysis, withoutresorting to redactive pricing. Parliament is constitutionally privileged to know what the executivehad done and how and underwhat conditions a procurementwas decided. The CAG’s audit is expected to highlight value for money in purchase decisions.
A performance audit is done toestablish whether the procurement activity was executed keeping in mind economy, effi��ciency,eff��ectiveness, ethics and equity.Only a thorough pricing audit canbring out the credibility and integrity of a purchase decision, thereby achieving an SAI’s constitutionally mandated responsibilities.
K.P. Shashidharan is a former DG, CAG
Offi��ce. The views expressed are personal
Redactive pricing audit and the CAG’s dutiesParliament is constitutionally privileged to know under what conditions a procurement was decided on
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more letters online:
www.hindu.com/opinion/letters/
corrections & clarifications:
The headline of the frontpage report on Vedanta (May 13, 2019)did not accurately refl��ect the details in the text. It should be recastto read: “Vedanta gets nod to conduct impact assessment for 274hydrocarbon wells.”
It is the policy of The Hindu to correct signifi��cant errors as soon as possible. Please specify
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Politics today is not merely aritual of decisionmaking buta dynamics of mythmaking.
Myths provide the rationale, theecological perspectives, the tacitframeworks and the symbols within which politics is located. Todayone of the great myths and icons ofpolitics is Prime Minister NarendraModi. The media and the ideological apparatus are focussed oncreating new myths around him,while in turn Mr. Modi is remythicising politics around proverbs,slogans and fragments of history.
The outsiderHe has presented himself as theoutsider, the man who stormedLutyens’ Delhi. As an attempt topresent himself to the commonman as a fellow common man, hehas created fi��ctions of himself as“Chaiwala” and “Chowkidar”.These two everyday archetypeshave worked effi��ciently for him,banalising his demagoguery andpopulism. These fi��ctions create forhim a groundswell of sympathy, aframework where the Prime Minister is immediately perceived “asone of us”.
The communication industryhas tried to go one up by devotingTV channels to him, and VivekOberoi produced a fi��lm, a biopic,which is doggedly waiting for clearance. However there is a snaghere. While politics and the politics of democracy create one set ofmyths, Bollywood is another greatmythmaker. In fact, Bollywoodhas captured the myths, the contradictions of modernity in a spate
of stellar fi��lms, from Deewaar, Sholay, Mother India to Seeta aur Geeta. Many of the basic tensions between law and family, integrity andloyalty, town and country, foreignand indigenous have been articulated by Bollywood. Bollywood isnot only the fi��rst great creator ofthe modern Indian myth but alsothe fi��nest tuning fork and testingground for myth.
‘Gully Boy’ challengeGiven this, one is tempted to askhow Bollywood would respond toMr. Modi’s mythmaking in politics. Do the archetypes of chowkidar and chaiwala stand the test ofBollywood? Viewed through thelens of a popular fi��lm such as GullyBoy, the answer is a defi��nite no.One has to confront why Gully Boyis one of the most creative and effortless answers to Mr. Modi’s understanding of poverty and the urban margins. It talks of freedombeyond the shakhaimposed panopticons of today, ready todream even beyond state and market, yet sensitive to the neoliberaldream.
Gully Boy is a story of life, survival and creativity in a slum. It focusses on a set of Muslim families.Yet what is insightful is that whilethese people are rooted in community, the characters do not stereotype identity. When the hero isasked where he comes from, he replies it could be any of the sevenMuslim slums around there. He isconscious of the slum and the limits of poverty. Yet he never getsbogged down in his minoritarianidentity or his poverty. The slumin Gully Boy, unlike in Mr. Modi’spolitics, is not oversociologised.For all its roots in minoritarianismand poverty, the slum is a cosmopolitan creation, open to theworld while rooted in the locality.In fact, if one watches closely, itslanguage of politics is remote from
Mr. Modi’s. He repeats the rhetoricof equality and communalism. However, the slum recognises inequality but articulates a languageof dignity, of a sense of individuality without being individualistic.The slum is a society where you donot deny what you are, but refuseto be confi��ned or restricted by it.
There is an unsentimentalityabout life, which looks pain in theeye, but does not believe in the lottery of luck. The slum citizenwants an openrule game. Theyare also on the lookout for perceptions beyond caste and class.When the hero asks his friendwhere he met his girlfriend, a foreigner, the man answers, “Wefound each other by looking intoeach other’s eyes. Outside they doit diff��erently, here when we see,we only see caste and class.” Themessage of the slum is clear. Loveand life need a freedom beyondthe confi��nes of status. Gully Boy recognises inequality but spendsmore time talking about the phenomenology of distance, betweentwo people juxtaposed to eachother, but continents apart inmindsets.
Diff��erent dialectThe most brilliant and intriguingpart of Gully Boy is that it is a fi��lmthat centres around rap, and theradicalism of rap. Rap is a poorman’s song and poetry, capturing
a protean sense of the body and aninventive sense of language. Thelyrics are built around everyday issues of inequality, poverty, raceand the individual’s attempt totranscend them. The lyrics in thefi��lm become little classics of sociology, parables of the struggles ofeveryday life. Every performancebecomes, in that sense, a choreography of sociology, especially ofslum life. This is understandableas rap traces its origins to thehousing projects of New York City.
Rap captures the sense of being, the new ontology of slum life.The traditional stereotypes, theconventional language of the fi��rsthalf an hour gets reworkedthrough rap. The fi��lm faces up tothe violence of patriarchy, the effete nature of fathers who bullytheir sons and wives but feel powerless against the outside world.The hero’s father beats him fordreaming about music. He addsthat the slum is not a place fordreams and aspirations. One survives by keeping one’s face downand sticking to the ground. The older generation worn down by lifebecomes a wet blanket to thedreams of the new. But it is this sociology of diff��ering generationsthat makes the slum as a sociological fragment fascinating. The older generations blend poverty andpatriarchy to create the authoritarianism of the slum. Rap providesthe language of protest and agency, adding to the new cosmopolitanism of the slum. It emphasisesdesire, not mere aspiration, freedom and not the civics of success,and is able to clothe it all in ironyand humour. It is the new costumeball of sociology for a slum, capturing both the dreams and therage within.
Rap as dream is a potent alternative to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, where dreams have tobe collective and march in a shak
ha. Rap is a battle against Jingostan, seeking a cosmopolitanism offriendship and openness. Rap is adream of freedom, a celebration oflanguage, an invention which seesthe slum as a drama ofpossibilities.
In indigenising rap as languageand dialect of the slum, directorZoya Akhtar creates a new piece ofpolitical sociology which goesbeyond current isms and their faded dreams of liberation. Singingrap is dreaming society afresh andin that sense the fi��lm is deeply liberating. In emphasising the powerand creativity of art, it shows howgreat literature and the politics offreedom emerge from great suff��ering. All one has to do is to listen tothe depth of the hunger in you.Without mentioning Mr. Modi orreferring to any other ism, GullyBoy becomes a dream of alternative possibilities, of dreamsbeyond the dated aspiration ofChaiwala and Chowkidar. Insteadof sticking to the sycophanticmindset of the two, it shows thatthe margins of India are explodingwith creativity beyond the confi��nes of the bureaucratic and thegovernmental. The city acquires anew poetics without being less grimy or less violent. There is a newcreativity, a dream of freedomwhich goes beyond shakha, theChaiwala and the Chowkidar,where the city is a form of freedomand the right to be free includesthe right to dream beyond statusand slum. Gully Boy is Bollywood’sfable that Mr. Modi has not got India right, that his India is not musical or free enough. In Gully Boy,dreams, language and body overleap the Modi world to dream adiff��erent India, diff��erently.
Shiv Visvanathan is an academic
associated with the Compost Heap, a
group in pursuit of alternative ideas and
imagination
An eye-opening rap on politicsWhy the ‘Chaiwala’ and ‘Chowkidar’ myth-making cannot capture the political ferment on the margins
Shiv Visvanathan
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On the warpathThe Donald Trumpadministration’sunprecedented withdrawalfrom multilateralinstitutions and agreementsthat have been builtthrough strenuousnegotiations and dialogue isdestabilising the worldorder (Editorial, “Deal indanger”, May 13.) Theeff��ects are impactingtoday’s interconnectedworld, ever more porous tointernational political andeconomic developments. Inthe case of Iran, Mr.Trump’s actions areantithetical to the expectedbehaviour of a statesman.This would boost thedemands for an alternativeto the dollarbasedeconomic and trademechanisms which is freefrom American excesses. Inthe quest to satisfy his
domestic base, Mr. Trumpis compromising theAmerican position in theglobal order. In a scenariowhere U.S. dominance isbeing challenged by risingpowers such as China, itwould be prudent for theTrump administration tothink and then act.Paul Jom,
New Delhi
Data transparencyThe situation that hasarisen as a result of nongovernment nonfi��nancialcompanies in the servicessector not being traceableis what we can call theresult of ‘data pollution’(Editorial page, “Of shells,companies and GDP”, May13). Data are the newcurrency in today’s world,and we have a right todemand that thegovernment’s intent must
be legitimate andtransparent while makinguse of the new MCA21database in GDPcalculation.Avik Seth,
Zirakpur, Mohali, Punjab
Balakot commentThe Prime Minister’sremarks in a televisioninterview on the Indian AirForce using clouds as acover to enter Pakistanairspace for the attack onBalakot is a gaff��e, politicallyand otherwise (“Modifl��outed EC curbs onBalakot: CPI(M)”, May 13).Further, such statementsundermine the credibilityand high standing of theIAF. It shouldn’t beforgotten that the world isclosely watching India’sstatements on the strikes.While there is still a lack ofclarity about India’s
version, such statementscould prove even moredetrimental to our claims. Vidhya B. Ragunath,
Thanjavur
■ Anyone can makemistakes, including thePrime Minister. But there isno credible reason why he isbeing hounded. Have weforgotten the moreincredulous statementsmade by other politicians? Afew years ago, a prominentleader came up with“political physics” bylikening empowerment ofthe marginalised sections toplanetary “escapevelocities”. V. Subramaniam,
Bengaluru
At Uppal and afterIt is often the last ball inoneday matches or limitedovers matches that decides
to dream of a plausible win.The Mumbai Indians teamdeserves full credit.N. Visveswaran,
Chennai
■ The IPL carnival is overand the fi��nal was theultimate thriller. But for anyIndian cricket fan, the bigquestion is whether thetournament will help Indianprospects in winning theWorld Cup. Murlidar K.,
Mumbai
the outcome in cricket. Noone can forget JavedMiandad’s six off�� the last ballduring the Sharjah AustralAsia Cup fi��nal in 1986.Unfortunately, it did notwork out this way, on Sundayat Hyderabad, for theChennai Super Kings (CSK).Back in Chennai, many wereleft sadly disappointedwatching the sloppy fi��nish. The only spark as far as CSKwas concerned was thesuperb batting by ShaneWatson, who hit sixes in theSandeep Sharma over thatmade it possible for the team
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters emailed to [email protected] must carry the full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.
An enthralling Indian Premier League season pro
duced a gripping lastball fi��nish in Hyderabad,
with Mumbai Indians securing an unprecedent
ed fourth crown. Sunday’s tense, seesawing fi��nal ended
in heartbreak for Chennai Super Kings and ecstasy for
Rohit Sharma’s side. This was a clash between the
League’s two most successful teams, and there was lit
tle to separate them in the end. All four of Mumbai’s tit
les have arrived in the last seven seasons, and key to
that continued success has been the retention of a
strong core of players. Lasith Malinga remains a force to
reckon with even at 35, as he proved with his nerveless
fi��nal over. Jasprit Bumrah, who fi��nished with 19 wickets
and an incredible economy rate of 6.63 for the season,
is the fi��nest deathovers bowler in the world today. Har
dik Pandya and Kieron Pollard again made a diff��erence
with their lowerorder striking. Among Mumbai’s new
er faces, the legspinner Rahul Chahar, who had played
only three IPL matches ahead of this season, performed
a vital role. CSK should derive encouragement from the
manner in which it fought for the trophy, with an ageing
squad that clearly had a number of gaps. The batting
was a concern throughout, and if not for the eff��orts of
bowlers Deepak Chahar, Imran Tahir, and Ravindra Ja
deja, and the astute leadership of M.S. Dhoni, the team
may not even have qualifi��ed for the playoff��s.
The IPL’s 12th edition had its share of thrills and con
troversies. A spirited, young Delhi Capitals side enter
tained, as did Kolkata Knight Riders’ Andre Russell with
his ferocious hitting. There were two hattricks and six
centuries. Australia’s David Warner, who with Steve
Smith was returning to highprofi��le cricket since the
ban for balltampering, was in devastating form, top
ping the charts with 692 runs. Tahir’s 26 wickets, the
most for a spinner in one season, made him the leading
wickettaker of the tournament. R. Ashwin’s act of
‘mankading’ Jos Buttler sparked some unnecessary mo
ralising while there were a number of contentious um
piring calls; even the normally composed Dhoni
stormed on to the fi��eld to protest one decision. It was
feared that with the World Cup around the corner, the
IPL would be a watereddown aff��air. English and Aus
tralian stars did fl��y home early to join their national
teams, but love for the IPL remained undiminished in
India. The country’s focus will now shift to the World
Cup, with Dhoni, Rohit, Bumrah, Jadeja and Pandya
having just a few weeks to recover from the IPL exer
tions. With England, Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan
and West Indies having begun their preparations alrea
dy, India will hope its players can quickly switch to the
oneday mode.
Lastball fi��nishThe 12th IPL season ended on the note its
thrills and controversies had promised
With Sunday’s sixth phase of polling, voters in
483 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies have
voted. The electoral process has been a mir
ror to both India’s failings and its promise as the world’s
biggest democracy. A reasonably good voter turnout
did nothing to dull the eff��ects of a nasty campaign by
leaders of most parties, but especially of the Bharatiya
Janata Party. All of Delhi and Haryana, and parts of Ut
tar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and
Jharkhand voted in the sixth phase, a total of 59 consti
tuencies. Turnout varied from place to place, but the
sharp decline in Delhi, to 60.50%, from 2014’s 65.07%
was notable. Widespread violence, including the death
of a BJP activist, and the State government’s highhand
ed action against a BJP activist for a social media post
ahead of the polling vitiated the atmosphere in West
Bengal. An attack on the BJP candidate in Ghatal consti
tuency was unfortunate and condemnable. Meanwhile,
the oversight by the Election Commission of India has
left a lot to be desired in terms of being demonstrably
impartial and swift, through the fi��rst six phases. In the
last phase of polling on May 19, the remaining 59 consti
tuencies will vote. There is no word on when Vellore,
where the election was cancelled because of excessive
use of money by the candidate of the DMK, will vote.
There is no letup in the unusual ferocity among pol
itical adversaries that has characterised the campaign
in the 17th general election, but political leaders have
started preparing for the postpoll scenario. Telangana
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, whose Telangana
Rashtra Samithi is expected to do well, has reached out
to leaders in other States. On Monday, he met DMK
chief M.K. Stalin in Chennai as part of eff��orts to put to
gether a Federal Front of parties dissatisfi��ed with both
the BJP and the Congress. On the other hand, Andhra
Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has been
eager to move towards early coordination of regional
parties within an antiBJP formation that would include
the Congress. These moves are evidently premature,
and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has
rightly suggested that they must await the fi��nal results.
The fi��erce response by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Maya
wati to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s suggestion that
she withdraw support to the Congress government in
Rajasthan has been the clearest indication of her prefe
rence in the postpoll scenario. Meanwhile, Congress
president Rahul Gandhi has continued to publicly ex
press his admiration for Ms. Mayawati, keeping the pos
sibility of an understanding with her wide open. He had
earlier tried to strike a prepoll alliance with the BSP,
but it did not materialise. Prime Minister Modi, while
continuing to campaign against alliances, in principle
calling them unstable, has over the weekend claimed to
know “the art of running coalitions”. The calculators
are clearly out, but the calculations will have to wait.
To the fi��nal lapWith six phases of elections over, parties
are primed for post-poll alliance building
https://t.me/TheHindu_Zone_official
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THE HINDU DELHI
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2019 9EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
CMYK
A ND-NDE
OPED
Unconfi��rmed reports early today [May 13] put the death toll inKuala Lumpur at more than 50 dead and scores injured aftersudden, savage racial clashes between Malays and Chinesetore the Malaysian capital apart. Prime Minister Tunku AbdulRahman declared a State of Emergency over the City of KualaLumpur and police said a curfew has been placed over thewhole State of Selangor surrounding Kuala Lumpur. Theroundtheclock curfew spread to Penang island, nearby province Wellesley and half a dozen areas in Perak State from 1a.m. The Tunku, seemingly near tears when he appeared ontelevision, blamed opposition groups for the rampage and saidhe was grieved by what was happening. He suggested the setting up of multiracial goodwill committees to try to restore order. A Police spokesman said he could not confi��rm reports thatseveral Europeans were among those believed killed.
FIFTY YEARS AGO MAY 14, 1969
Race riots in Kuala Lumpur
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FROM ARCHIVES
In the [House of ] Commons [in London], the Labour Ministerdefending the payment of unemployment donation pointedout that there were a million recipients, including threehundred and fi��fty thousand members of the forces, 108,000exmunitioners and 100,000 cotton operatives, who were unemployed owing to the blockade. Abuses were inevitable, buthe was confi��dent that half the complaints lacked foundation.Any frauds which were discovered would be prosecuted relentlessly. Since the Armistice, three million out of four milliondemobilised soldiers and civilians had been absorbed in industry. This was a remarkable achievement, because it tookyears to get from warwork to peace work.
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO MAY 14, 1919.
War Pensions.
Though related, political, public andprivate morality are not identical.They may come from the samesource, but are distinct. This pointhas been noted in the Western tradition since at least Machiavelli. But itslineage in India is ancient.
Ethics in three domainsTake, for example, Asoka who spokeof Dhamma (ethics) in three distinctdomains. First, interpersonal morality. Each of us has special obligationsto our children, spouse, parents,teachers and relatives. We have a duty towards those under our specialcare, including the aged, ‘servants’,animals and, occasionally, strangers.Asoka distinguished this private ethic from what might be called intergroup morality in public life. Crucialhere is harmony between diff��erentreligiousphilosophical groups generated by the exercise of sayamam(selfrestraint). He particularly emphasised the importance of vacaguti— controlling one’s tongue to be critical of other groups only if there isgood reason to, only on appropriateoccasions and always moderately; also, to praise one’s own group, onlywhen there is good reason to, onlyon appropriate occasions and alwaysmoderately. Neither hate speech norspeech glorifying oneself was acceptable as part of public morality — apoint very relevant in our times.
Asoka then distinguished privateand public morality from powerrelated political morality specifyingwhat rulers and the ruled owe oneanother. Subjects owe obedience totheir king. But the ruler too owed something to his subjects: to ensure ja-nahita, the good of all (including allliving species), and janasukham,happiness not only in this life but also in the afterlife. To achieve this, rulers and their offi��cials must displaydamdasamata and viyohalasamata(impartiality in meting out punishment and in politicolegal acts moregenerally). This sums up the core ofAsoka’s political morality: a commitment to justice, to impartiality.
What then is the diff��erence between private/public morality and
political morality? While in one’spersonal life, in our dealings withthose with whom we have close dailyencounters such as our family,friends or ‘servants’, we can’t helpbut be partial, and while in the largerpublic domain, where we face people with diff��erent religiophilosophical sensibilities, we can’t entirely escape some degree of partiality to ourown world view, the political domainrequires the impartial or just use ofpower for the good of all.
Family, civil society and stateTwo thousand years later, the German philosopher Friedrich Hegelmade similar points, although in adiff��erent way and in an entirely diff��erent context. He distinguished threespheres of human life: family, civilsociety and the state. The family, Hegel claimed, was the smallest community in which its members do noteven distinguish themselves fromone another. Their identities arefused. A family is bound by emotional ties, by mutual love and aff��ection.Members take pride in each other’sachievements and feel a strong senseof shame at the other’s wrongdoing.Morality here is guided by unarticulated feelings.
The family is diff��erent from another sphere of life that Hegel designated civil society but should more appropriately be called ‘marketsociety’. Here, each person acts as anindividual with a sharply defi��nedsense of her own interests which aredistinct from, compete and may evenclash with the interests of others. Noone is tied to the other by bonds oflove or aff��ection. Since there is nocommunity but only an aggregate ofindividual interests, there is no commonly held ethic either. Competitive
life is governed by coercive legalrules to regulate the pursuit of selfinterest. At best, each individual devises her own personal, subjective moral maxims.
Finally, Hegel spoke about a thirddomain where people once again seethemselves as members of a largepolitical community, as citizens of astate. Citizens in a political community must be bound together neitherby feelings nor by selfinterest but bya commitment to common valuesdiscovered by public reason — valuessuch as political freedom, solidarity,shared traditions and cultural heritage. Morality in this domain requiresthat we overcome our loyalty toblood relations, not pursue only ourprivate interests, and commit insteadto using power grounded in sharedprinciples. Love and hate are largelyimposters in this domain where consensus is forged by the use of publicreason. Its democratic version requires that, guided by values ofopenness, equal respect and justice,we deliberate and help each other arrive at impartial laws and public policies, acceptable in principle to everyone in the polity.
Furthermore, those who wieldpolitical power must realise thatwhat they do has enduring consequences aff��ecting the lives of an incalculably large number of people.This brings with it enormous publicresponsibility which derives in nosmall part from the fact that theyhave at least temporary legitimacy touse force against ordinary citizens.They have, at their disposal, an apparatus of violence simply unavailableto heads of families or members of civil society. Powerful politicians, therefore, must show great care and sensitivity to the appropriate use of
force and violence.
Private and political moralityOne important implication of the difference between private and politicalmorality is this: it is sometimes believed that moral scrupulousness inone’s private life automatically guarantees high moral stature in political life. This simply does not follow.Those wielding public power may refuse to enrich themselves, their family or friends, and resist from obtaining sexual favours. But such‘cleanliness’ need not entail scrupulous political morality. What use ispersonal incorruptibility if the politician is partial to or discriminatesagainst one particular community,abandons public reason, smashesdissent to concentrate power in hisown hands, makes arbitrary use offorce, and lives in the illusion that heis greater than all the institutions thatsurround him? What if he begins tobelieve that he alone possesses thetruth or knows the good of the entirecommunity? And precisely becauseof the moral restrictions he hasplaced on his personal life, feels released from any restriction on theuse of power in the political arena? Inshort, a person who is profoundlymoral in his private life may brazenlyviolate all norms of political morality— undermine justice and public reason. Conversely, it is entirely possiblethat a person who has morallyslipped in his private life (cheated onone’s spouse, enriched himself ) respects the integrity of public institutions, is acutely sensitive to the moralcosts of violence, shows a deep commitment to justice, and upholds reasonbased democratic norms.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that politicians are free toabandon private morality. But we often fi��nd comfort in the illusion thatthere is one simple, seamless morality, refl��ected equally in private and inpublic. In fact, most humans arecomplex moral agents. It would bewonderful if our private and politicalmoralities were perfectly aligned andwe achieved the highest moral standards in both. But in a nonidealworld we can only hope that whenpeople choose to lead a life in politics, they will at least follow minimumnorms of political morality even asthey fail to be scrupulously moral intheir private lives.
Rajeev Bhargava is Professor, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi
When people choose a political life, they must follow an ethic distinct from private morality
Private, public and political morality
Rajeev Bhargava
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Legal education in India can be classifi��ed into two categories: the years before and afterthe advent of N.R. Madhava Menon. Earlier,the study of law was often a default option,when you couldn’t get admission to any other course or didn’t know what course yourlife should take. The law degree was a threeyear aff��air following an undergraduate degree. There were a few exceptional teachersand a few exceptional students; for the rest itwas pretty much an active engagement withthe “guide” books in the runup to the examinations. Real learning started when youwere apprenticed to a senior lawyer.
Menon (19352019) shook that up. Responding to an appeal from the Bar Council ofIndia, which was gravely concerned with thesteep decline in standards of the profession,Menon accepted the challenge and transformed himself from an academic to an institutionbuilder. With missionaryzeal he established the country’sfi��rst National Law School in Bangalore in 1987, with an independentuniversity status. He oversaw thebuilding of its campus. He drew inexcellent faculty. He carefully designed a fi��veyear law course as thefi��rst degree after school, therebyensuring that only those who wereseriously interested in the subject came in,and would emerge well equipped for whatthe profession needed.
The Menon modelAnd he succeeded brilliantly. The mix of motivated students and faculty overseen by aVice Chancellor to whom dedication and discipline came naturally produced resultswhich made the Bar, Bench, law fi��rms andother users sit up and take notice. As hisgraduates entered the fi��eld, it was clear thatlaw had joined the ranks of other professionswhere much could be expected from an entrant, and the entrant could expect commensurate responsibility, position and compensation. Inevitably this led to the creationof other national law schools which largelyfollowed the Menon model, and whoseheads were often Menon trainees.
That one achievement would have beenenough to guarantee him a place in any honours listing, but Menon was far from done.Judges too, especially young recruits to the
service, needed training. The National Judicial Academy (NJA) was set up in Bhopal, andthe Menon magic of institutionbuildingcreated another sterling institution fromscratch. It became de rigueur to have this onthe resume of a judicial offi��cer, and it was amark of subject expertise to be invited toteach a course. In time this expanded toreach higher levels of the judiciary, especially in new areas of law. Many senior judges received their fi��rst exposure to public interestlitigation and human rights and environmental issues at the NJA long before these became current coinage — indeed, Menon’s endorsement of these outlier subjects was akey reason for sceptics to become adherents.Supreme Court judges also came to teach,learn and, on occasion, receive reprimandfor an errant judgment, which took the occupant of the apex court back to his collegebackbencher days.
The best tribute More was to come. At the request of the Stategovernment, he set up the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Calcutta, which sought to focus on academicsand research. To some extent, this was to alleviate his concern that students from his
fi��rst and premier law school hadshown a preference for law fi��rmsand corporates rather than joiningthe Bar or NGOs where a rightsbased language was at play. ForMenon, the law worked best whenit worked for society’s benefi��t.True enough, retirement andquieter times did not fi��gure in hislist of options. In his sunset years,
he created and ran the M.K. Nambyar Academy for Continuing Legal Education in Keralaas well as the Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training for developing grassroots capacity to access and use the law for underprivileged sections.
Being the last word on the subject, he was,of course, the fi��rst choice when it came tobeing asked to serve on the Law Commissionand other bodies and committees connectedwith legal education. All these tasks he accepted willingly and gave each one his best.At a personal level he constantly engagedwith those working in fi��elds close to hisheart. They received his advice, encouragement and valued friendship. He will be missed and mourned by many, especially generations of his students. Perhaps one tributethat would please him would be an introspection if they passed the ultimate Menontest — of using the skills he gave them for thepublic good, wholly or at least in part.
Sriram Panchu is Senior Advocate, Madras High Court
The Madhava Menonmodel of legal education For him law worked best when it worked for the society
Sriram Panchu
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China is often pilloried inthe West for the deep surveillance of its people. Latest reports indicate that theChinese state, harnessingartifi��cial intelligence, willsoon have enough information to rate all its citizens forgood behaviour, makingeverything from buying a
train ticket to getting a credit card diffi��cult, if not impossible,for those not conforming to rules of conduct set by the state.
It is naive to believe that mass surveillance is special toChina or that it is a recent phenomenon. The extent towhich the British had spied on Indian society and the systems they developed for that were brought out in detail bythe late historian C.A. Bayly in his book, Empire & Informa-tion — Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication inIndia, 1780-1870. All countries monitor their citizens. Thecommunist states did it through the 20th century. Anyonesifting through records of Stasi, former East Germany’s security agency, would be astonished to note the extent towhich the state spied on its citizens.
In the past, surveillance was selective and targeted. India’s preIndependence leaders were relentlessly followedby British intelligence. Little was missed of Subhas ChandraBose’s time in Germany or Mahatma Gandhi’s in his ashrams. British agents fi��led detailed reports on JawaharlalNehru’s journeys and meetings through Europe.
It is one thing for citizens to be monitored by the state,but it is quite another to be ‘spied’ upon by the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon and apps loaded onto cheap Chinese smartphones. Recently I was surprised to read transcripts of every command I had given to my Alexa speakerover the last few years; I am still trying to erase them all.
As one of the largest consumers of data, India is a goldmine for data aggregators. It’s the state’s duty not to make iteasy for aggregators to collect data with impunity. India tooneeds something as strong as the General Data ProtectionRegulation, which was adopted by the European Union in2018, and a willingness to enforce it, to protect the privacyof its citizens.
In the wake of suicide attacks and bombings worldwide,mass surveillance has assumed a new urgency. Almost allcountries are going China’s way. Today we are all tracked24x7 across places and devices. Unpleasant as it is, and evenas all of us wish to be protected from overzealous governments, we need to get used to living in a global panopticon.It’s the price we must pay to safely walk on the street, watcha movie in a theatre or shop in the bazaar.
The writer, a former civil servant, taught public policy and contemporaryhistory at IISc. Bengaluru
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Living in the panopticonIt’s the price we must pay to safelywalk on the street, watch a movie in atheatre or shop in the bazaar
Uday Balakrishnan
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Election Commissioners
Election Commissioners are members of the Election Commission (EC), the constitutional body tasked with ensuringthe conduct of free and fair elections. They are usually retiredcivil servants, and are appointed by the President. The EC washelmed by a single Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) sincethe body was set up in 1950. In 1989, two more Election Commissioners were appointed but their tenure ended in 1990.Thereafter, in 1993, two Election Commissioners were againappointed. Since then the EC has been a threemember panel.The tenure of the CEC and Election Commissioners lasts sixyears, or up to the time they attain the age of 65, whichever isearlier. They receive the same pay as a judge of the SupremeCourt. Their decisions are taken by a majority vote.
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This TN police constable makes time to teach Silambam to
children
http://bit.ly/SilambamVideo
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