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Type: op-ed snap

  • Health Sector – UHC, National Health Policy, Family Planning, Health Insurance, etc.

    Ensuring a sustainable vaccination programme

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Gavi

    Mains level: Paper 2- Future pandemic preparedness

    Context

    COVID-19, which disrupted supply chains across countries and in India too, marks an inflection point in the trajectory of immunisation programmes.

    UIP: Showcasing India’s strength in managing large scale vaccination

    • India’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), launched in 1985 to deliver routine immunisation, showcased its strengths in managing large-scale vaccine delivery.
    • This programme targets close to 2.67 crore newborns and 2.9 crore pregnant women annually.
    • Full immunisation: To strengthen the programme’s outcomes, in 2014, Mission Indradhanush was introduced to achieve full immunisation coverage of all children and pregnant women at a rapid pace — a commendable initiative.
    • India’s UIP comprises upwards of 27,000 functional cold chain points of which 750 (3%) are located at the district level and above; the remaining 95% are located below the district level.
    • The COVID-19 vaccination efforts relied on the cold chain infrastructure established under the UIP to cover 87 crore people with two doses of the vaccine and over 100 crore with at least a single dose.

    Why strong service delivery network is essential?

    • While we have, over the years, set up a strong service delivery network, the pandemic showed us that there were weak links in the chain, especially in the cold chain.
    • Nearly half the vaccines distributed around the world go to waste, in large part due to a failure to properly control storage temperatures.
    • In India, close to 20% of temperature-sensitive healthcare products arrive damaged or degraded because of broken or insufficient cold chains, including a quarter of vaccines.
    • Wastage has cost implications and can delay the achievement of immunisation targets.

    Measures and initiatives in strengthening vaccine supply chains

    • The Health Ministry has been digitising the vaccine supply chain network in recent years through the use of cloud technology, such as with the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN).
    • Developed with support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and implemented by the UN Development Programme through a smartphone-based app, the platform digitises information on vaccine stocks and temperatures across the country.
    • This supports healthcare workers in the last mile in supervising and maintaining the efficiency of the vaccine cold chain.

    Way forward

    • Electrification: There is a need to improve electrification, especially in the last mile, for which the potential of solar-driven technology must be explored to integrate sustainable development.
    • For instance, in Chhattisgarh, 72% of the functioning health centres have been solarised to tackle the issue of regular power outages.
    • This has significantly reduced disruption in service provision and increased the uptake of services.

    Conclusion

    India has pioneered many approaches to ensure access to public health services at a scale never seen before. Robust cold chain systems are an investment in India’s future pandemic preparedness; by taking steps towards actionable policies that improve the cold chain, we have an opportunity to lead the way in building back better and stronger.

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  • Freedom of Speech – Defamation, Sedition, etc.

    On Section 124A Supreme Court has aligned itself with the collective conscience

    op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary,Parliament & State Legislatures

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- The SC aligning with collective conscience of India

    Context

    The Supreme Court’s seminal intervention in a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of section 124A of the Indian Penal Code is a watershed moment in the progressive expansion of human rights jurisprudence.

    Abuse of sedition law

    • The slapping of sedition charges against political opponents and others in Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have confirmed that the abuse of the sedition law is no longer an aberration.
    • It has become a norm that has hollowed out the constitutional guarantee of fundamental rights and exposed individuals to the rigour of draconian laws unjustly invoked, outraging national sensitivities as never before.

    Significance of the move

    • In what is seen as a first in judicial history, the Supreme Court has virtually rendered redundant the provision of a criminal law without expressly declaring it as unconstitutional.
    • In an example of judicial statecraft, the court has shielded individuals against a harsh law without trenching on Parliament’s legislative remit or the executive’s command over policy decisions.
    • Plenary jurisdiction: Exercising plenary jurisdiction, the Supreme Court is expected to see through its suggestions/orders to the government, particularly when these concern the non-negotiable fundamental rights of citizens.
    • Suggestive jurisdiction: As an organ of the state, the Supreme Court’s suggestive jurisdiction is clearly in accord with its declared law (Nagaraj, 2006) that the state (of which the court is an integral constituent), is under a duty not only to protect individual rights but is also obliged to facilitate the same.
    • Validating the nations role: The court-inspired initiatives would also validate the nation’s preeminent role in the shaping of a new world order.

    Implications of the law

    • Nudging the government towards anti-lynching law: As with the sedition law, it can nudge the government to enact an anti-lynching humanitarian law as suggested by it and a comprehensive law against custodial torture.
    •  Law against custodial torture: The absence of an anti-custodial torture law, a glaring gap in the architecture of the criminal justice system, is inexplicable considering the command of Article 21, recommendations of the Select Committee of Rajya Sabha (2010), the Law Commission of India (2017) and the Human Rights Commission and the judgments of the Supreme Court (Puttaswamy, 2017; Jeeja Ghosh, 2016; and Shabnam, 2015).
    • Implications for the UAPA: It is expected likewise from the court to intervene suitably and read down the UAPA and other criminal laws that have been repeatedly misused to trample upon the civil liberties and rights of the people.

    Conclusion

    This is indeed the moment to seize, as the government reviews the nation’s legal structures. The initiatives suggested above are in aid of democracy anchored in the inviolability of human rights and would enhance India’s soft power in our engagement with the international community.

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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-SAARC Nations

    For a better South Asian neighbourhood

    op-ed snap | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Buddhist circuit

    Mains level: Paper 2- Regional cooperation

    Context

    Recent developments — in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan — underline the geographic imperative that binds India to its neighbours in the Subcontinent.

    Need for intensive regional cooperation for managing the new dangers

    • Working with the logic of geography has become an unavoidable necessity amidst the deepening regional and global crises accentuated by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
    • As higher oil and food prices trigger inflation and popular unrest across the region, more intensive regional cooperation is one of the tools for managing the new dangers.

    Hope for transcending internal divide between India and Sri Lanka

    • India’s relations with Sri Lanka underline the importance of continuous tending of political geography.
    • Tradition of hosting political exile: India has had a long tradition of hosting political exiles from the region.
    • Whether it was the Dalai Lama from Tibet or Prachanda from Nepal, Delhi has welcomed leaders from the neighbourhood taking shelter in India.
    • Negative consequences: There is a dangerous flip side to this positive tradition in the Subcontinent.
    • India has paid a high price for the decision in the early 1980s to train and arm Sri Lankan Tamil rebels.
    • Hope for transcending internal divide: The current crisis in Sri Lanka raised hopes for transcending the internal ethnic divide in the island nation and rebuilding political confidence between Colombo and Delhi.
    • Material and financial support to Sri Lanka: Delhi’s unstinting support — both material and financial — for Colombo during this unprecedented economic and political crisis has generated much goodwill in Sri Lanka.

    Relations with Nepal and role of cultural ties

    • Possibilities in cultural geography: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha in Nepal, highlights the immense possibilities of cultural geography in reshaping the Subcontinent’s regional relations.
    • The idea of a “Buddhist circuit” connecting the various pilgrimage sites across the India-Nepal border has been around for a long time.
    • India and Nepal have come together in developing the Buddhist circuit.
    • Religion and culture are deeply interconnected in South Asia.
    • Developing all religious pilgrimage sites across the region, and improving the transborder access to them could not only improve tourist revenues of all the South Asian nations, but could also have a calming effect on the troubled political relations
    • That China has built a new airport near Lumbini and Modi is avoiding it points to the turbulent triangular dynamic between Delhi, Kathmandu, and Beijing.
    • Revitalising the shared cultural geography inevitably involves better management of economic geography.
    • Infrastructure development on Indian side: The last few years have seen the Indian government step up on infrastructure development on the Indian side and accelerate transborder transport and energy connectivity in the eastern subcontinent.

    Recent trends in India-Pakistan relations

    • Cultural ties: Despite their frozen bilateral political relationship, Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to open the Kartarpur corridor at the end of 2019 across their militarised Punjab border.
    • There is much more to be done on reconnecting the Subcontinent’s sacred geographies — including the Ramayana trail and Sufi shrines.
    • While parts of the region are aligning their policies with the geographic imperative, Pakistan would seem to be an exception.
    • Ignoring the geographic imperative: Given the depth of its macro economic crisis and massive inflation, one might have thought Pakistan would want to expand trade ties with India in its own economic interest.
    • But Pakistan’s politics are hard-wired against the logic of geography.
    • Delhi had little reason to believe that Pakistan’s new government can alter its self-defeating policy towards India.
    • But it must continue to bet that the geographic imperative will eventually prevail over Islamabad’s policies.

    Conclusion

    Realists might want to argue that current trends in the Subcontinent point to India’s growing agency in shaping its neighbourhood and that Pakistan will not forever remain an exception. For Delhi, the policy question is whether India can do something to hasten the inevitable change in Pakistan.

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  • Freedom of Speech – Defamation, Sedition, etc.

    In abeyance of Section 124A, a provisional relief

    op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Article 19

    Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with Section 124A

    Context

    In a brief order delivered in S.G. Vombatkere vs Union of India, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India effectively suspended the operation of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code.

    What was the basis for the reconsideration?

    • This direction was issued after the Union government filed an affidavit informing the Court that it had decided to re-examine the law.
    • The Bench believed that the offer to reconsider the provision, if nothing else, showed that the Government was in broad agreement with the Court’s prima facie opinion on the matter, that the clause as it stands “is not in tune with the current social milieu, and was intended for a time when this country was under the colonial regime”.

     Section 125A and issues with it

    • Section 124A defines sedition as any action — “whether by words, signs, or visible representation” — which “brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in India”.
    • The word “disaffection”, the provision explains, “includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity”.
    • The adopted Constitution did not permit a restriction on free speech on the grounds of sedition. 
    • In the 1950s, two different High Courts struck down Section 124A as offensive to freedom.
    • But, in 1962, in Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar, a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court reversed these verdicts.
    • The Court paid no heed to the debates that informed the Constituent Assembly.
    • Instead, it found that Section 124A was defensible as a valid restriction on free speech on grounds of public order.
    • However, while upholding the clause, the Court limited its application to “acts involving intention or tendency to create disorder, or disturbance of law and order, or incitement to violence”.
    • Vague terms: The decision failed to recognise that terms such as “disaffection towards the government”, which are fundamentally vague.
    • Marginalised sections affected: Since then, in its application by law enforcement, the limitations imposed in Kedar Nath Singh have rarely been observed.
    •  As is often the case with abuses of this kind, it is the most marginalised sections of society that have faced the brunt of the harm.
    • Reading of fundamental rights changed: Since 1962, when the judgment was handed out, the Supreme Court’s reading of fundamental rights has undergone a transformative change.
    • Time to reconsider Kedar Nath: This altered landscape meant that when fresh challenges were mounted against Section 124A, the time to reconsider Kedar Nath Singh had clearly arrived. 
    • In the long run, the decision in Kedar Nath Singh will require a clear disavowal.
    • But in nullifying Section 124A, albeit for the present, the Court has provided provisional relief — allowing those accused of the offence to both seek bail in terms of the order, and to have their trials frozen.

    Conclusion

    To protect our democracy, we must ensure that the constitutional guarantees to personal liberty and freedom do not go in vain. For that, each of our penal laws must be animated by a concern for equality, justice, and fairness.

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  • Economic Indicators and Various Reports On It- GDP, FD, EODB, WIR etc

    Brace for higher interest rates

    op-ed snap | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 3- Inflation challenge

    Context

    Inflation has now remained above the RBI’s upper tolerance limit of 6 per cent for four months in a row.

    Broad based inflation

    • The second-order impact of higher fuel prices is also visible as inflation in transport and communication surged to nearly 11 per cent, from 8 per cent in the previous month.
    • The latest data also indicates that inflation is becoming broad-based. 
    • With demand rebounding, the pass-through of higher input costs is also gaining momentum.
    • Considering that demand for goods recovered faster than services, goods producers passed on input costs to consumers.
    • But as services recover, there will be greater pass-through of prices to consumers in the coming months.
    • While there may be a slight moderation, inflation is expected to remain above the RBI’s threshold of 6 per cent in the coming months.
    • The Ukraine conflict continues to impact markets for foodgrains and vegetable oils.
    • Rising fertiliser prices are likely to push up farmers’ production costs, leading to high food prices.
    • While the government has extended price support through higher subsidies, if this will be enough to cool prices needs to be seen.

    Inflation targeting by the RBI

    • With sticky crude oil prices and continuing supply-side disruptions amplified by the Covid-induced lockdowns in China, the RBI has rightly reverted its focus on inflation targeting.
    • This is needed as central banks around the world are pursuing tight monetary policies to counter inflation.
    • The US Fed followed its 25 basis points hike by another 50 basis points rise in May.
    • These will be followed by hikes of similar magnitude in the coming months.
    • In its April policy, the RBI announced the withdrawal of excess liquidity but did not raise the policy rate.
    • Rate hikes by RBI: The RBI is now likely to respond with aggressive rate hikes to prevent the price spiral from getting entrenched.
    • The continued strength of the dollar index and sharp rupee depreciation in the last few days could impose further pressure on prices through higher imported inflation.
    • Withdrawal of liquidity support: In addition to calibrated rate hikes, the RBI needs to fast-track the withdrawal of the ultra-accommodative liquidity support provided during the pandemic.

    Implications

    • Discretionary spending: Rising inflation will cut back discretionary spending and adversely impact consumption that had only just started picking up.
    • Recession concerns: There are concerns about a recession in advanced economies as rising prices have started manifesting in a decline in purchasing power and a fall in consumer sentiments.
    • The demand destruction could trigger a moderation in prices.
    • Base metals prices have eased from the peak seen in the last few months.

    Conclusion

    Monetary policy support needs to be accompanied by fiscal support measures. The policy response will have to be tailored to the evolving geopolitical situation and the paths of commodity and food prices while balancing the imperatives of fiscal consolidation.

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  • Food Procurement and Distribution – PDS & NFSA, Shanta Kumar Committee, FCI restructuring, Buffer stock, etc.

    Inflation in India

    op-ed snap | Agriculture | Mains Paper 3: Issues Related To Farm Subsidies & Msp

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: CPI

    Mains level: Paper 3- Tackling food inflation

    Context

    Recently, the RBI raised the repo rate by 40 basis points (bps) and the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 50 bps with a view to tame inflation.

    How effective would be the rate hike in taming the inflation?

    • High inflation is always an implicit tax on the poor and those who keep their savings in banks.
    • Will the increases in the repo rate and CRR control inflation, especially food inflation?
    • The RBI has been behind the curve by at least by 4-to 5 months, and its optimism in controlling inflation in the earlier meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee was somewhat misplaced.
    • The reason for this is that food prices globally are scaling new peaks as per the FAO’s food price index.
    • The disruptions caused by the pandemic and now the Russia-Ukraine war are contributing to this escalation in food prices.
    • India cannot remain insulated from this phenomenon.

    Opportunities and challenges for India

    • Record wheat export: For the first time in the history of Indian agriculture, cereal exports have already crossed a record high of 31 million metric tonnes (MMT) at $13 billion (FY22), and the same cereal wonder may be repeated this fiscal (FY23).
    • Among cereals, wheat exports have witnessed an unprecedented growth of more than 273 per cent, jumping nearly fourfold from $0.56 billion (or 2 MMT) in FY21 to $2.1 billion (or 7.8 MMT) in FY22.
    • Rice exports have crossed 20 MMT in FY22 in a global market of 50 MMT.
    • Some of the concerns on the wheat front are genuine, and we need to realise that climate change is already knocking on our doors.
    • With every one degree Celsius rise in temperatures, wheat yields are likely to suffer by about 5 MMT, as per earlier IPCC reports.
    • This calls for massive investments in agri-R&D to find heat-resistant varieties of wheat and also create models for “climate-smart” agriculture. We are way behind the curve on this.

    Need for rationalising food subsidy

    • India distribute free food to 800 million Indians, with a food subsidy bill that is likely to cross Rs 2.8 lakh crore this fiscal out of the Centre’s net tax revenue of about Rs 20 lakh crore in FY23.
    • Reducing coverage: What needs to be done targeting only those below the poverty line for free or subsidised food and charging a reasonable price, say 90 per cent of MSP, from those who are above the poverty line.
    • Giving an option to beneficiaries to receive cash in their Jan Dhan accounts (equivalent to MSP plus 20 per cent) in lieu of grains can be considered.
    • This is permitted under NFSA and by doing so, he can save on the burgeoning food subsidy bill.

    Conclusion

    Indian farmers need access to global markets to augment their incomes, and the government must facilitate Indian farmers to develop more efficient export value chains by minimising marketing costs and investing in efficient logistics for exports.

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  • Public opinion cannot influence jurisprudence

    op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Comparison Of The Indian Constitutional Scheme With That Of Other Countries,Executive & Judiciary,Seperation Of Power

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- Pubic opinion and jurisprudence

    Context

    On May 5, 2022, the current affairs site politico.com obtained the draft opinion of Justice Samuel Alito, apparently speaking for the majority of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) overruling Roe v Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992). These two previously decided cases enable women in the US to access abortions, albeit with some restrictions.

    Background of the US Supreme Court

    • SCOTUS was established on March 4, 1789.
    • The almost 225-year-old court, founded to interpret the American constitution that was adopted in 1789, has a long history of being an ideologically divided court, hearing deeply contentious political issues.
    • Within both the polity and law in the US, no issue is as emotive and divisive as matters related to abortion.
    • At present there is the 6-3 divide in the SCOTUS, with the conservatives constituting the majority.
    • Paying attention to the public opinion: Conservative judges also frame the regulation of abortion as a state legislative rights issue, giving enormous weight to the apparent public opinion within those states.

    Paying attention to the public opinion

    • In the draft opinion that was leaked, after being circulated to the other eight judges of SCOTUS, Justice Alito writes “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” adding, “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.
    • Here is how the issue is initially framed: Legislatures in states must be able to adopt laws on abortion as they see fit.
    • The justification offered is in the context of the legitimacy of such laws being made by the will of the people, through their representatives.
    •  Justice Alito clearly sees this an issue for the legislature to decide based on the will of the voters.

    Why public opinion is not a legitimate parameter for adjudicating issues of rights

    • Against the separation of power: Across jurisdictions, in the constitutional scheme of separation of powers, the executive, legislature and judiciary are expected to play different roles.
    • The executive to govern using the rule of law, the legislature to make law and the judiciary to ensure that those laws are in consonance with constitutional values.
    • The introduction of public opinion and deference to the legislature as a valid basis for adjudication by constitutional courts leads to extraordinary conclusions.
    • The virtue of constitutional courts is that they are expected to be insulated from public opinion.
    • In that regard, they are freed from the vagaries of the will of the voters and enjoy the quiet introspection and justification through legal reasoning that the law creates space for.

    Conclusion

    The notion that constitutional courts should take  the will of voters into account is at odds with the understanding of courts elsewhere, like in India.

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  • J&K – The issues around the state

    With delimitation over, a look at the slate for J&K

    op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Federalism,Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- Delimitation for Jammu and Kashmir Assembly

    Context

    Fresh delimitation was necessary for Jammu and Kashmir since the State had been divided into two Union Territories and elections could only be held under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.

    Issues with the report of the Delimitation Commission

    • The central question of why Jammu has gained six Assembly seats and the Valley only one has been brushed under general remarks on methodology with no explanation of how that methodology was applied.
    • Nor does it explain why Jammu’s Muslim-majority seats now comprise less than a quarter of the province’s total seats, though Muslims comprise over a third of the province’s population.
    • The commission’s recommendations further complicate the issue.
    • They propose that the President nominate Pandit migrants to two Assembly seats — why is there no reference to Pandits who remain in the Valley?
    • Indeed, the only overarching guideline which the report does describe in some detail is the commission’s desire to match the boundaries of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies.
    • Most of these questions were addressed to the commission during its consultation phase.
    •  By choosing not to do so they lost a valuable opportunity to display transparency and dispel suspicion of bias.

    Way forward

    • The only hope for a peace process in Jammu and Kashmir is if there is a clean election, statehood is speedily restored, and the new Assembly determines whether or in which form special status is required. 
    • The better option is to hold elections for existing constituencies and let the new assembly approve or query the delimitation report.
    • In fact, the commission itself proposed that the report be placed before the legislative assembly, a recommendation that makes sense only if new delimitation comes into force after and not before elections.
    • Urgent as elections are, attention to fundamental freedoms is even more important.

    Conclusion

    The peace process in Jammu and Kashmir needs to address the concerns of the people related to the restoration of statehood, and clean elections.

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  • Civil Services Reforms

    Actions that corrode the steel frame of India

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Civil Service

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Article 311

    Mains level: Paper 2- Civil Service reforms

    Context

    A letter war between two sets of retired public officials (civil servants, judges and army officers), concerning the prevailing political and social situation in the country, has been widely reported in the media.

    Role of civil service

    • It is the police and magistracy, judicial courts and other regulatory agencies — not politicians — which have been authorised and empowered by law to take preventive action against potential troublemakers, enforce the laws relating to criminal, economic and other offences, and maintain public order.
    • In mature democracies, self-respecting public officials normally discharge their constitutional and legal responsibilities with honesty, integrity and their own conscience, firmly resisting the dictates of the vested interests.

    Deterioration in the standard of civil service

    • The deterioration in standards was very visible during the National Emergency declared in 1975.
    • The civil services, like other institutions including the judiciary, just caved in; the trend might have accelerated over the years.
    • Now, no one even talks of civil service neutrality.
    • Earlier, during communal or caste riots, the Administration focused on quelling the disturbances and restoring peace in the affected locality, without ever favouring one group over the other.
    • Now, there are allegations of local officers taking sides in a conflict.
    • A civil servant’s pliant and submissive behaviour means an end to civil service neutrality and the norms and values that this trait demands, does not seem to bother either the political or bureaucratic leadership.
    • Despite the protection and safeguards in Article 311 of the Constitution, politicians could have a civil servant placed in an inconvenient position or even punish him.

    Norms and values associated with a civil servant

    • Norms: The norms that define neutrality are: independence of thought and action; honest and objective advice; candour and ,‘speaking truth to power’.
    • Values: Associated with these norms are the personal values that a civil servant cherishes or ought to cherish, namely, self-respect, integrity, professional pride and dignity.
    • All these together contribute to the enhancement of the quality of administration that benefits society and the people.

    Conclusion

    Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment,” wrote B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution and added, “It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic.”

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  • Freedom of Speech – Defamation, Sedition, etc.

    Sedition law

    op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary,Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Article 19

    Mains level: Paper 2- Misuse of sedition law

    Context

    On May 11, the Supreme Court directed the Union government and the states to refrain from using the law of sedition and keep all previous cases under 124A in abeyance till the matter is reconsidered in a comprehensive way.

    Data on Section 124A and UAPA about pendency and conviction rates

    • The data on draconian laws like 124A or UAPA exposes their untenability.
    • According to the National Crime Records Bureau data, a total of 156 cases of sedition were pending in 2017.
    • In that year, only 27 cases could be disposed of at the police level by withdrawing the case or submitting a chargesheet.
    • In courts, out of the 58 cases on trial, only one conviction could be obtained and the pendency rate for the cases of sedition was close to 90 per cent.
    • The number of cases increased in 2020, the year for which the latest NCRB data is available, but with the same results.
    • Of the total 230 cases registered, only 23 were chargesheeted.
    • Pendency in court reached close to 95 per cent for the sedition cases in 2020.
    • The abysmally low rate of conviction and disposal of these cases make it clear that these charges are slapped with very flimsy or no evidence to intimidate or harass those who question the government’s fiat.
    • The picture is no different for the UAPA.
    • Cases under it have increased by about 75 per cent between 2017-2020.
    • A total of 4,827 UAPA cases were pending in 2020 —of them, only 398 could be chargesheeted in that year.
    • The pendency rate in court remained 95 per cent, indicating harassment and violation of the right to life and liberty for a great number of people who are suffering because of the diabolical prison conditions in India.

    Recommendations and measures

    • A consultation paper on sedition circulated by the Law Commission of India on August 30, 2018, found many issues that need addressing around the working of Section 124A.
    • Most recently, on May 11, the Supreme Court directed the Union government and the states to refrain from using the law of sedition.

    Conclusion

    Dissent, criticism and differences of opinion are vital for the functioning of any democracy. The witch-hunting of those who question the government of the day reminds us of medieval times and totalitarian rulers. It is time we usher in an era of free speech. For that, the sedition law must go.

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