Corruption in India is now legalised. A disastrous Finance Bill was passed in Lok Sabha on 22 March 2017 as a money bill with 40 different amendments and the whole mainstream media was silent on it.
Fresh violence broke out in the coastal town of Bhadark in Odisha on April 7, after a deceptive calm in the aftermath of April 6. In the bouts of fresh violence mobs set ablaze shops and attacked police vehicles, forcing the authorities to impose curfew. The riot was triggered after a Muslim youth had allegedly posted vulgar remarks on goddess Sita on facebook on April 5. On the following day, political activists led by the Bajrang Dal , Vishwa Hindu Parishad,Hindu Surakhya Samiti and ABVP gheraoed the town police station demanding the immediate arrest of the person around 10 am. Despite efforts by the police to call a peace committee meeting and insist that action could be taken only after investigations since this was a cyber crime, the agitators were bent upon taking law into their own hands.
Mobs led by these organizations came out on the road strongly protesting the inaction of administration and blocked the National highway No 16. During these violent protests they even set fire to some shops owned by Muslims; to bring the situation under control, the administration imposed curfew under section 144 of the CRPC all over Bhadrak town.
The meeting of the peace committee called to broker dialogue between communities was called but ended in failure. Even as prohibitory orders were in force, more than 50 bike-borne Muslim youth allegedly went on a rampage rally giving slogans “Islam zindabad” and targeting shops owned by Marwari and Hindu traders. This led to a further retaliation by mobs burning down of shops owned by Muslim traders.
By the night of April 7, many shops in the main market area including vegetable shops, furniture shops, cloth houses, restaurants and roadside slaughter houses had been burned. With the situation deteriorating, the state government imposed curfew in the town and rushed the home secretary, the director general of police and RDC to the spot to control the situation.
Background
In March 1991, after celebration of Ramnavami, the shops, godowns and houses of Marwari businessmen were attacked along the main roads. The riots soon spread to Soro, another small town located nearby, where 17 persons had then, died. Since then, regular peacemaking efforts between the two committees had restored communal harmony to a large extent. However, over last few years the peace committee has been rendered defunct with the administration and local political leadership making little effort to rein in the hotheads from both communities.
On April 6, when the matter came to our knowledge, we feared that a communal conflagration like that in 1991 may erupt. Hence we activated our sources to gather information and after getting information we organised a team of peace soldiers under the leadership of eminent Gandhian Leader Mrs. Krishna Mohanty came to Bhadrak for peace restoration on the morning of April 8. MLA Bhandaripokhri Sri Prafulla Samal also invited Mrs. Mohanty to intervene in the matter. Along with Mrs. Mohanty, eminent poet and Sarvodaya leader Sailaj Ravi, Pratinidhi of Kasturba Gandhi National memorial trust Sandhyarani Mallick, joint Secretary of Utkal Gandhi Smarak Nidhi Ambika Prasad Pati, State Convener of Rashtriya Yuva Sangathan Ranjit Dehury, Angul District Convener Surya Narayan Nath and National Convener of Rashtriya Yuva Sangathan and trustee of Central Gandhi Smarak Nidhi Dr. Biswajit also formed part of the team. Presently, we are staying at Gandhi Odisha Balashram, Garad Pur, Bhadrak to speed up peace process.
Our Interim Findings
We met many intellectuals, leaders of both communities, Political leaders, Gandhians, general public including district and state administration who are staying at Bhadrak.
There was an element of pre planning in the raising the communal temperature by the Hindutvawadi organisations. This year during the ‘grand’ Ramnavami celebrations that lasted for eight days, several aggressive, anti-national slogans like “Hinduon ka hai Hindustan” (India for Hindus) “Bharat main Rahna hai to Ram Ram Kahna hai” (To Live in India, Say Ram Ram) were shouted.
After the peace committee meeting a bike rally was organised by the Muslim youth, when 144 were in force. Members of the public opined that due to pressure from the local MLA, the administration remained salient. This bike rally was also another provocation that contributed to the deterioration of the situation. Hindutvwadi organisations told the peace committee that during this bike rally, Muslims shouted, “Hindustan Murdabaad and Pakistan Zindabaad”. No independent onlooker however corroborated this and the fact finding committee believes this is just a rumour.
Like during the Kandhmal violence, huge numbers of saffron flags had been planted on many of the homes belonging to Hindus and shops owned by Hindus to discriminate between Hindus and Muslims.In some area Muslim people saved the houses and shops of Hindus and vice versa. Now the both communities are in a state of panic.
Liberal Hindus and Muslims intellectuals and even the district administration have suggested to us that we develop a permanent peace process in the town. In this context on 10 am of April 16, the first peace committee meeting is being held at Bhadrak Gandhi Odisha Balashram premesises. A detailed report will send after completing the programme.
(The author is National Convener, Rashtriya Yuva Sanghatan)
Lucknow:On Saturday, an 18-year-old Dalit boy named Ramu committed suicide in Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh by jumping in front of a train. The reason behind the suicide is said to be a social boycott which Raju was facing after accidently killing a Calf.
PTI | Representative image
Ramu, who was the resident of Gopalpur Barandi village, was a daily wage labourer whose boycott was announced by his villagers after he thrashed his pet calf few days back.
The case comes under Itiyathok police station whose SHO Vedprakash Srivastava recovered the body of Ramu on Saturday near the railway tracks. While commenting on the incident, SHO Srivastava said that it had came into the knowledge of Ramu that his fellow villagers had decided for boycotting him socially.
Ramu, who left no suicide note, is survived by his mother Cheirya Devi and three brothers.
The village Gopalpur Barandi has a majority of Brahmins, Bhumihars and few settlements form the backward castes. It is a custom in most of the north Indian villages is that the person accused of killing of cow or its progenies has to spend a whole year outside the village, living on his own. The villagers inform that if someone tries to talk to the boycotted man, that person will have to face the same consequence.
The village’s Pradhan Usha Devi’s husband Balram Tiwari spoke to the media and informed that Ramu beaten his calf with a hammer. The calf passed away couple of hours later. “Ramu came to know through the villagers that the calf died because of beating”, said Tiwari.
Tiwari said, “After a few meetings, the villagers decided to socially boycott Ramu until the Panchayat took any final decision on the matter.”
The largest circulating Hindi daily, Prabhat Khabar, has reported on April 15, 2017 from Bodam Village, outside Jamshedpur :
Bodam: following an incident of alleged eve teasing on April 11, 12 Muslim families have fled the Bodam village which is 15 kilometres out of Jamshedput city in Jharkand. The fleeing of these families followed the burning down of four homes and a mosque by a mob. All those who have fled have sought shelter in Hasim mosque in nearby Kapali. These 12 families consist of 130 persons who have locked their homes and fled. Only one person Shareef Ansari has been left behind in the village who is reportedly, mentally challenged.
Minorities from Pokhariya who fled have told the paper (Prabhat Khabar) that they fear for their lives and the administration is not responding to their pleas for help. They have further alleged that no complaint or FIRs have been lodged against those accused who burned down homes nor has any compensation amount been announced. The food and stay arrangements of all 130 persons is being managed by the community.
Among the families who have fled the village there are many aged persons and also young children who are now sleeping under an open sky. All the affected families have met the district police under the leadership of All India Minorities Welfare Organisation secretary Babar Khan.
Justification for the attack: Allegations of eve teasing in Pokahriya, on April 11, by a middle aged person, of a woman belonging to another community, led to the assault, it is reported. The person alleged to have been responsible for the eve teasing, Asghar Ansari has been arrested by the police and sent to jail. When the police tried to arrest those responsible for the arson, an entire mob, reportedly attacked the police.
The names of the affected families are Mohammad Naushad Ansari, Qutubuddin Ansari, Mukhtar Ansari, Gaffar Ansari, Azad Ansari, Arjan Bibi, Akhidan Bibi, Nasiruddin Ansari, Khatuna Bibi, Zakat Ansari, Nizamuddin Ansari, Saiful Bibi, Taimus Ansari, Yunus Ansari, Rukhsana bibi, Norresha Khatun, Auesha Khatun, Muslim Ansari, Nasiruddin Ansari, Jainul Abedin, Shamsher Ali, Nizamuddin Ansari, Jabran Bibi, Ateema Khatun, Sarbari Bibi, Mahrun Bibi, Mohammad Hanif Ansari, Jennifer Bibi, Mohammad Ilisuddin, Mohammad Rustom Ansari, Sabeena Khatun, Mohammad Shareef, Shamsul Ansari, Mumtaz Bibi, Shafi Ansari, Jainula Bibi, Khalil Ansari, Rabban Ansari, Shubhani Ansari, Kulsum Bibi, Adam Ansari, Jaiban Bibi, Allahuddin Ansari, Gafooran Bibi, Majnu Ansari, Anwar Ansari, Abdul Hamid Ansari, Guljan Bibi, Kader Ansari, Mariam Bibi, Ajeez Ansari, Kalaam Ansari, Mahjeez Ansari, Samad Ansari, Haneef Ansari, Shahid Ansari, Ali Mohammad, Sahidan Bibi, Asiq Ansari, Kumaruddin Ansari, Jamaruddin Ansari, Ramzan Ansari, Nasiruddin Ansari, Shahabuddin Ansari, Abul Ansari, Yunus Ansari, Bablu Ansari, Kabul Ansari, Mojidul Bibi, Taibarun Bibi, Abbas Ansari, Saqib Ansari and many others.
Singer Sonu Nigam on Monday posted a series of tweets expressing his disgust for Muslims using loudspeakers for azaan (call for prayers) in mosques and likened the act to gundagardi.
His tweets, that have gone viral now, said, “God bless everyone. I’m not a Muslim and I have to be woken up by the Azaan in the morning. When will this forced religiousness end in India. And by the way Mohammed did not have electricity when he made Islam.. Why do I have to have this cacophony after Edison?”
In his concluding tweets, the famous singer said the act was nothing but gundagardi.
“I don’t believe in any temple or gurudwara using electricity To wake up people who don’t follow the religion . Why then..? Honest? True? Gundagardi hai bus…”
The singer is now being branded as communal even as others defend him as somebody who just cared about his sleep. Some users felt that Sonu’s comments criticising the use of loudspeaker for azaan, which lasts for few 2-3 minutes was his Abhijeet moment against Islam. Many on Twitter, however, have termed his act as extremely courageous.
The saffron party is already acting as if it is the main Opposition in the state.
Jayanta Shaw/Reuters
There is always the danger of reading too much into the politics of a single constituency, and extrapolating it to the state or the country. Yet the result of the Kanthi Dakshin (Contai South) bye-poll, declared on Friday, is startling not because the Trinamool Congress won handsomely – that was always expected – but for the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party came in second, comfortably.Vote shares in the bye-poll for the Kanthi Dakshin Assembly seat in West Bengal.
From 9% of the vote share, the BJP near quadrupled its vote share to 31%. The Left Front on the other hand, plummeted from 34% to 10%. This, in less than one year, as the previous election had been held last May. The bye-poll was necessitated after the seat fell vacant when the previous MLA, Dibyendu Adhikari, was elected to the Lok Sabha in November.
While the Left has been declining in West Bengal for some time, the Kanthi Dakshin result might be the clearest red flag on how bad things are for the communists in the state. Given this result, it is all but inevitable that the BJP would now take up the mantle of the state’s principal Opposition, even if its current strength in the Assembly stands at just three seats out of 294.
Losing the narrative
East Midnapore, the district in which Kanthi Dakshin is located, is where the first stirrings arose against the decades-old rule of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the state. In 2008, the Trinamool Congress, backed by the Nandigram land agitation, defeated the Left Front in the panchayat election. Nandigram is also located in East Midnapore. Yet, even as the Left lost power in Midnapore as well as West Bengal, in 2011, it still maintained a hold in the area. In the 2016 Assembly elections, it managed to get 34% of the vote there. Yet, so dismal were its future prospects that five months after that election, its most popular face in the region, Lakshman Seth, left the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – and joined the BJP.
What is true for Midnapore is true for the rest of West Bengal. For the past year, the BJP has monopolised the Opposition space, using Hindutva to attack the Mamata Banerjee administration. While the BJP scarcely has any organisational strength in Bengal, it has managed to control the narrative at the national level, which has then filtered down to the state. This includes social media as well as television news coverage on Hindi-language channels such as Zee News, seen to be close to the BJP.
Lacklustre Left
While the Left is obviously unable to compete with the much larger BJP in the media space, even on the ground, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) faces organisational collapse, with its party machinery either under attack by the Trinamool, or in many cases having simply switched sides to Banerjee’s party. The Left has also been in a spot since the land agitation movements of Singur and Nandigram.
Given its role in forcibly taking away farm land for industry in order to force West Bengal out of its industrial stagnation, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) ceded the Left space to the Trinamool Congress. The Left itself had come to power in West Bengal on the issue of land rights in 1977, and its extensive land reforms ensured that it ruled the state for an uninterrupted 34 years.
Even now, the land rights movement in West Bengal remains extremely strong with an agitation breaking out in Bhangar, near Kolkata, in January, in which two people protesting against a power sub-station project were killed in police firing.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal is also affected by the national paralysis of the Left. Given that its communist ideology has lost lustre nationally and globally, the party in Bengal is struggling to attract young cadre. For instance, at its 20th Party Congress in 2012, only 4% of the delegates were below 40 years of age.
Don’t count the BJP’s chickens yet
The direct beneficiary of the Left’s decline has been the BJP. It won 31% of the vote in Kanthi Dakshin with barely any organisation in the area or even a relatable state leader. In fact, it had to depend largely on the muscle power of Lakshman Seth, the former Communist Party of India (Marxist) member, who is alleged to have directed the Nandigram violence of 2007.
However, while the bye-poll verdict portends the rise of the BJP as the state’s main Opposition, it is also a sign of the saffron party’s limitations in West Bengal. Till now, the BJP has fed off the Left’s decline. In Kanthi Dakshin, this has meant taking in former Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders, and profiting from a low Muslim population in the area to reach a vote share of 31%. While this might help it in the short run, without any party machinery or leaders of its own, the BJP is a long way off from harassing the Trinamool Congress, which still retains a strong grip on West Bengal.
Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, student enrolment in government schools across 20 Indian states fell by 13 million, while private schools acquired 17.5 million new students, according to a new study that offers insights into India’s public-school education crisis.
Average enrolment in government schools–where teachers are paid, on average, salaries that are four times those in China–declined from 122 to 108 students per school over five years, while it rose from 202 to 208 in private schools, according to this March 2017 research paper by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, professor of education and international development at the Institute of Education, London.
Why are students opting out of India’s government schools, which educate the poorest and most vulnerable students until the age of 14 for free, and migrating to fee-charging private institutions in such large numbers?
The study, which uses DISE data, traced this student migration to the belief among parents that private schools offer better value for money and better teaching than government schools. Multiple evaluations after controlling for students’ home backgrounds indicate that “children’s learning levels in private schools are no worse than, and in many studies better than, those in government schools”, said Gandhi.
Despite the Rs 1.16 lakh crore ($17.7 billion) spent on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)–the national programme for universal elementary education–the quality of learning declined between 2009 and 2014, IndiaSpendreported in March 2016.
Less than one in five elementary school teachers in India are trained, IndiaSpendreported in May 2015. In Delhi, India’s capital city and its richest state, by per capita income, half of all government-school teachers are hired on temporary contracts. These teachers are likely to be less motivated and accountable than teachers with full-time jobs, we reported in January 2017.
Fewer cheap private schools in states where govt schools function well
At the primary level, 58.7% of Indians cite “better environment for learning” as a major factor for opting for private schools, IndiaSpendreported in May 2016.
However, the preference for private school education and the differences in learning outcomes of private and government schools vary between states. For instance, in 2015-16, in Uttar Pradesh, over 50% of children studied in private schools, while in Bihar, less than 4% of children attended private schools, according to DISE data.
In 2016, in Kerala, the proportion of children (aged 11-14) enrolled in government schools increased from 40.6% in 2014 to 49.9%. In Gujarat too, it increased, from 79.2% in 2014 to 86%, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016 data. ASER is a learning assessment of children in rural India.
In Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, government schools outperformed private schools in reading skills in local languages, once household and parental characteristics were controlled for, according to a state-wise analysis in ASER 2014.
In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where government schools were better than private schools to start with, learning outcomes improved between 2011 and 2014, once other factors were accounted for.
States with better-functioning government schools have more elite–that is, more expensive–private schools because there is no market here for the ‘low-fee’ budget private schools that have been sprouting across the country, Gandhi’s study said.
This explains why in poorer states, such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa, about 70% to 85% of children studying in private unaided schools pay less than Rs 500 per month as school fees. Up to 80% of private schools in India are ‘low’ fee schools when benchmarked against per capita and daily wagers’ incomes, the data show.
It must, however, be pointed out that ASER 2016 has shown small improvements in learning outcomes in government schools. Over 25% of children in grade III could at least read a grade II level text in 2016, up from 23.6% in 2014. The proportion of children in grade III who could subtract increased from 25.4% in 2014 to 27.7% in 2016, IndiaSpendreported in January 2017.
Private schools up 35%, government schools by 1%
In 2016, for the first time in 10 years, private-school enrolment did not increase in rural areas–it fell from 30.8% in 2014 to 30.5% in 2016, according to the ASER 2016 report. But this has not stemmed the growth of private schools nationwide.
Between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the number of private schools grew 35%–from 0.22 million in 2010-11 to 0.30 million in 2015-16–while the number of government schools grew 1%, from 1.03 million to 1.04 million. Section 6 of the Right To Education Act 2009 legally obligates states to create more government schools.
Tiny (with 20 or fewer students) and small (with 50 or fewer students) government schools are being abandoned, according to Gandhi. In the five years considered by the study, the number of tiny government schools rose 52% and small ones by 33.7%. As many as 5,044 government schools had no students in 2015-16, up 14% from 4,435 in 2010-11.
The migration out of government schools has left many unviable, with high per-pupil expenditure, and low value-for-money from public education expenditure. About 24,000 government schools across Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh have closed, according to the study.
West Bengal witnessed a 280% rise in tiny schools–more than any other state–followed by Madhya Pradesh (225%) and Jharkhand (131%). However, Bihar bucked the national trend by reporting a 98% decrease in tiny schools.
Govt teachers in India earn four times China salaries but don’t perform as well
India’s government teachers earn more than not just their counterparts in private schools but also in other countries, Gandhi’s analysis shows.
Despite being paid at least four times the salaries of teachers in China (in terms of multiples of their respective per capita incomes), the performance of Indian teachers judged in terms of their students’ learning levels, has been poor in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test in 2009, with India ranking 73rd and China ranking 2nd, among 74 countries.
PISA is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations of 15-year-old school pupils’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading.
Up to 80% of India’s public expenditure on education is spent on teachers–salaries, training and learning material, according to a six-state report. Teacher salaries in of teachers in Uttar Pradesh are four to five times India’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and more than 15 times the state’s, according to a 2013 analysis by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze. This is much higher than the salaries paid to teachers in OECD countries and India’s neighbours.
Estimated Ratio Of Teacher Salary To Per Capita Incomes
Country/State
Reference year
Estimated ratio of teacher salary to per capita GDP
Estimated ratio of teacher salary per capita state domestic product
OECD average
2009
1.2
–
China
2000
0.9
–
Indonesia
2009
0.5
–
Japan
2009
1.5
–
Bangladesh
2012
~1.0
–
Pakistan
2012
~1.9
–
Nine Indian states
2004-5
3
4.9
Uttar Pradesh
2006
6.4
15.4
Bihar
2012
5.9
17.5
Chhattisgarh
2012
4.6
7.2
Source: Analysis by Amartya Sen & Jean Dreze, quoted by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon here (Table 14, page 26)
“This suggests the need to link future teacher salary increases to the degree of teachers’ acceptance of greater accountability, rather than across-the board increases irrespective of performance or accountability,” said Gandhi.
The reason private schools get away with paying their teachers less, argued Gandhi, is because of the “bureaucratically-set high ‘minimum wage’, which may also be influenced by political pulls and pressures and be responsive to lobbying by strong government school teacher unions”. Also, she added, the private education sector offers salaries based on market factors of demand and supply–and given that there is a 10.5% graduate unemployment rate in India, jobless graduates are willing to settle for low salaries in private schools.
Will increasing spending help? Unlikely
A common suggestion is increasing India’s spending on education. In 2015-16, Indian central government spending on school and higher education was less than other BRICS countries–India spent 3% of its GDP on education, compared to Russia (3.8%), China (4.2%), Brazil (5.2%), and South Africa (6.9%), IndiaSpendreported in January 2017.
However, increased government spending in education is not enough to improve educational outcomes. Between 2006 and 2013, public expenditure on school education increased from 2.2% to 2.68% of the GDP. But India’s education policy must be thoroughly revised to put in place better accountability and monitoring mechanisms to exploit the gains of increase in fiscal outlays on education, this January 2017 Mintcolumn argued.
Public private partnership (PPP) model may be the solution, Gandhi argued, combining the best of both worlds–public sector funding and private resources for education.
“Given the tattered state of govt schooling in the country, the first best option–government as producer and also funder of elementary education–is not viable because the reform of the sector is not politically feasible (vested interests, eg teacher unions, will oppose any efficiency and accountability-raising measures),” Gandhi told IndiaSpend in an email interview. “Therefore, perhaps, a well-designed PPP (model) would be the best. But the devil is in the design of the PPP–there are some good models around the world.”
Before choosing any particular form of educational PPP, India must study these different designs and their relevance/applicability/adaptability, and must also pilot test the chosen models before scaling up any novel intervention, Gandhi suggested in her paper.
Notes
Private aided schools: Private aided schools are like public schools in the way they are governed. Although nominally and run by their private management boards, they are funded and governed by the state.
Private unaided schools: Private unaided schools are autonomous fee-charging schools run by private managements which recruit/appoint their own teachers and determine their pay scales independently.
DISE data overestimate the extent of private schooling in the country by including aided schools in the category of ‘private schools’, but underestimates the extent of private schooling by excluding the unrecognised private schools.
In the paper, the term ‘private school’ includes private unaided schools (both recognised and unrecognised) as these display the conventional features of ‘private’, i.e. schools that have autonomy in teacher recruitment, fixing of salaries and pupil fees. It excludes aided schools. In the data on government (public) schools, aided schools are again not taken into account, even though they are publicly funded and controlled.
(Saha is an MA Gender and Development student at Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.)
"They cannot be submerged without proper resettlement according to the Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal and Supreme Court judgments of 1992, 2000 and 2005"
The Narmada Bachao Andolan group, which has been fighting for the villagers, claims that if the Sardar Sarovar is filled to 139 metres, 244 villages in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra will be inundated. This will affect over 45,000 families who have not got yet been fully compensated.
Senior advocate Sanjay Parikh spoke to Communalism Combat and Newsclick on the issue of Sardar Sarovar dam case. He talks about the legal aspects of the case and how the Supreme Court judgements of 1992, 2002 and 2005 have just not been implemented.
After a recent trip to the villages that face submergence, Parikh describes how the villages in the submergence zone are full of life and activity.
