Saskhi Dhoni, the wife of former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, had hit headlines earlier this week after she questioned Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad for making her husband’s personal details public.
Little did she realise that her action in post-May 2014 India will not be taken kindly by vicious right-wing social media trolls.
No sooner had she posted her comments on Twitter, Mrs Dhoni began to face barrage of abusive posts with right-wing trolls using unspeakable languages to target her. From the languages of the trolls, it was clear that in the new India, asking a legitimate question to a BJP minister is unacceptable act.
Only last year, the right-wing Hindutva trolls had made fun of veteran Congress leader, Digvijay Singh’s daughter even when he remained grief-stricken because of his young daughter’s death.
Earlier this week, the agency working for the central government on Aadhar cards, CSC e governance services India Ltd, had posted the personal details of Dhoni including his phone number. This had angered Sakshi, who then angrily asked Prasad if there was any privacy left in India under the current government.
A visibly red-faced Prasad was then forced to admit the mistake promising to investigate the matter.
Alt News website on Thursday posted the abusive tweets.
What is your locus standi, SC asks Subramanian Swamy, and refused to expedite case. On March 21, 2017, the court had, making oral observations offered to ‘mediate’ and resolve the issue that ‘was a matter of sentiments’.
The Supreme Court today turned down BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy’s plea to expedite the hearing in the Ayodhya land dispute case. “What is your locus standi in the case? We don’t have time to hear you now… we didn’t know that you are a party to case,” the bench told Swamy. On March 21, after it’s oral offer to ‘mediate’ on the issue, the Supreme Court had come in for widespread criticism. Reacting to Swamy’s over-zealous efforts to expedite the case and make political capital out of it, the judges said they have no time and adjourned the matter.
PTI reports that the litigant has objected to Subramanian Swamy seeking urgent hearing. Mohammad Hashim Ansari's son has written to the Secretary General of the Supreme court that Subramanian Swamy mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India without even informing the Advocate On Record.The son of one of the main litigants in the Ram Janam Bhumi-Babri Masjid land dispute has written to the Supreme Court raising objections to BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seeking urgent hearing in the case without informing all the parties concerned. Mohammad Hashim Ansari’s son has written to the Secretary General of the apex court that time and again the Rajya Sabha MP mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India without even informing the Advocate On Record including the lawyer who has been appearing for his father. Ansari, one of the oldest litigant in the Ayodhya dispute, had died in July last year due to heart-related ailments at the age of 95. He was first to file the suit in the court of civil judge of Faizabad on the matter.
“It was reported by media that Dr Subramanian Swamy had mentioned the matters on March 21, 2017 for its day to day hearing before this court(Chief Justice of India). It is submitted that the above proceedings arise out of original suit and in none of the aforesaid suits Dr Swamy is a party….
“On earlier occasions also, Dr Swamy has made oral mentioning of the matter and despite request, has not informed the concerned AORs about the mentioning stating that he is not obliged to inform. Considering the sensitivity of the matter, I wish to place on record my objection to such mentioning of the matter by Dr Swamy without informing all the concerned AORs,” said the letter from Ansari’s son Iqbal.
Always a law unto himself, Swamy said in his Tweet, “Today the SC asked me if I was a party in the Ayodhya dispute. I said I had made clear that I was on Fundamental Right to worship issue. The judges said they have no time and adjourned the matter. In other words those who wanted delay succeeded. I will try another route soon.” Even ten days ago, Swamy had issued an ‘ultimatum’ to Muslims.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, in full public view, even as security forces and policemen silently watched, has been widely acknowledged to have been the first act in democratic, secular India that shook the foundations of Constitutional Secularism. Senior leaders of the BJP, LK Advani, Murli ManoharJoshi and Uma Bharati were at the site instigating the crowds. They are facing criminal charges of conspiracy in a case that has taken years to proceed due to the high stakes involved. On September 30, 2010, in a controversial verdict (tw—one) the Allahabad Bench of the High Court had conceded to the ‘faith of the majority community.’ This controversial judgement is under challenge today and has been pending before the Supreme Court.
Usha Ramanathan clarifies the misinformation regarding UID coming through the press.
Some people have written in, worried that the SC yesterday directed that the government can ask for the UID for Income Tax and PAN card. That is just a misinformation coming to us through the press.
For one, what transpired happened during a ‘mentioning', that is, where the lawyer mentioned the matter only to the court to ask that the matter actually be listed and heard on 3rd April. Earlier the case was listed for 27th March, but then it got shifted in the list to 3rd April. The lawyer took the matter to court to ask the court that there should be no further delay, and that it should be heard on the 3rd April.
The court turned down the request for such an assurance.
While doing that, the court looked at para 5 of the order of the 5-judge bench in its order dated 15th October 2015. There it said that even when it is used in PDS, NREGA, pensions, LPG, JDY and provident fund, it cannot be made mandatory. That is it.
The court nowhere said that the UID can be asked for other services. That is wrong reporting.
Anyone who knows court proceedings knows that the court could not have made any such order, firstly, because it was a `mentioning' that was underway, and that was only to fix a date, and such an order cannot be passed without hearing the parties to the case. Secondly the October 15, 2015 order was by a 5-judge bench, and 3 judges cannot revise/rewrite/override that order.
For your information, the October 15, 2015 order said:
The UID can be used in six services: PDS, LPG, NREGA, JDY, EPFO, pensions such as disability, widow, old age pensions which are seen as services provided by the state.
Even in these services, its use "is purely voluntary, and cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by this court one way or the other".
The UID number cannot be used in any other service. It is not a matter of whether it is voluntary or mandatory. It cannot be used at all.
All earlier orders from the first order of the court on September 23, 2013, when it directed that no one can be denied any service only because they do not have a UID card or number, shall be `strictly followed'. That includes the order dated August 11, 2015, which, among other things says that enrolment is not mandatory (which makes their notifications saying that those who do not have a UID number should be shepherded to the enrolment station is in contempt of court).
On October 15, 2015, the 5-judge bench heard a series of applications for expansion of the use of the number, including the TRAI that came to court saying that they could deal with terrorism if they were able to use the UID number for giving and checking Sim cards. The 5-judge bench refused this use. This refusal by the 5-judge bench was suppressed by the Attorney General when he told the court in a matter taken to court by Lokniti, an NGO, that they intended to make sim cards secure by having it checked against the UID. The court reproduced this submission and disposed of the matter. This has been read by some part of the press as an order by the court that sim cards should be checked against the UID, which is inaccurate. This did, however, mean that the court did not object to such use. That was a 3-judge bench, and could not have overridden a 5-judge bench. This happened because the Attorney-General did not inform the court, and since it was not a UID matter that was being heard, there was no one challenging the UID project who could have pointed this out to the court. This is what is called an order -per incuriam' (i.e. being in disregard of the facts or the law, in this case because they were kept in the dark about what had happened before the 5-judge bench.)
So, the government attempt to make UID mandatory for income tax and PAN card is in contempt of court. Not just making it mandatory, but even using the UID in these fields is in contempt.
The reason the court so restrained the court is because it had seen the various dimensions of the project that made up the challenge before it, including
surveillance
profiling
tagging
tracking
insecurity of the data base
national security issues, posed both by the creation of such data bases, and because of the companies involved which includes L-1 Identity Solutions, Morpho and Accenture, which have close connections to the intelligence establishments of foreign governments.
lawlessness
the use by private actors, and
importantly, the denial of the right to privacy of the people that the government had asserted before them. Like the court said: without the right to privacy, "the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India, and more particularly the right to liberty under Article 21 would be denuded of vigour and vitality."
That is why they said that their order would be till the court has heard and decided these matters – not till passage of a law or any other such circumstance.
There is another thing, and of much significance. When the government directs that we put the UID number on various data bases, they are violating not just the order of the Supreme Court, but their own law (which they passed as a Money Bill, to stifle discussion and dissension). Nowhere does the Act of 2016 authorise the ‘seeding' of numbers in data bases. It allows only two things:
authentication, which means that biometric or demographic data can be sent to the UID's CIDR (Central Identities Data Repository) to return a ‘yes/no' reply to the question whether you are who you say you are.
eKYC, which does something they had said they would never do, viz., give the data on their data base (except core biometric data – but they have no means of stopping any agency from collecting and keeping biometrics when it is given for authentication) to an Authorised Service Agency.
Section 8(2)(b) is categorical that an agency requesting authentication “ensure(s) that the identity information of an individual is only used for submission to the CIDR for authentication". There is no authorisation to hold on to the number. So, seeding the number is itself beyond the law. And this is how it makes sense anyway if establishing identity was indeed the purpose of this project, as claimed.
I hope this clarifies some of the confusion caused by the reportage on hearing that happened during mentioning on 27 March 2017.
Of the 30 million pending court cases in India as of December 2014, over 80% are in district and subordinate courts, which are short of about 5,000 (23%) judges. But filling vacancies may not be the universal answer, according to our analysis, which found only a weak direct correlation between shortage of judges and performance of lower courts.
The Thiruvarur district court took, on average, two years to dispose a civil case–the best among Tamil Nadu’s courts. Identifying high-performing lower courts and replicating their best practices can make an immediate impact to reduce pendency of cases.
India’s judicial delays are legendary, and its shortage of judges well-known, as IndiaSpend has reported (here, here and here). Yet, despite the constraints, some courts manage to perform better than others, sometimes significantly so. Data can help identify such courts, as well as their innovations and best practices, so that these can be replicated in other courts.
India has over 600 district courts. Identifying the high performers and replicating their best practices in other courts can make an immediate impact.
Here’s an example from Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu illustrates India’s problem
Without standardisation in data across lower courts, their performance cannot be compared directly. So, we studied Tamil Nadu, whose average duration of pendency of cases approximates the national average.
Also, the Madras High Court is one of the few in the country whose latest annual report, for 2015, provides a detailed analysis of the lower courts under its jurisdiction.
Civil case takes, on average, three years to conclude
Within Tamil Nadu, let’s identify the laggard courts.
The state average for pendency duration of civil cases is 2.95 years–a civil case takes about three years to reach a conclusion. Ariyalur is the worst performing district in this regard–a civil case takes 4.65 years on average, that is, 50% slower than the state average.
Thiruvarur performs the best with an average pendency duration of just two years.
For criminal cases, average pendency duration is 3.23 years for all of Tamil Nadu. Madurai performs exceedingly well with an average pendency duration of 1.75 years, while Perambalur is the slowest with an average pendency duration of 5.29 years. Kancheepuram performs poorly in both civil and criminal cases, being significantly slower than the state average–it takes four years to resolve civil cases as against the state average of three, and takes 4.3 years to resolve criminal cases, as opposed to the state average of 3.2 years.
Cases accumulate when the rate of disposal is lower than the rate at which new cases are instituted. Tamil Nadu accumulated 43,973 cases in 2015. Of these, 36,945 were civil and 7,028 criminal cases.
Here’s a look at the best and worst performing district courts with respect to case accumulation.
First, the civil cases: Of the 32 districts in Tamil Nadu, only five are disposing of more cases than the number of cases instituted, with Ariyalur performing the best and Chennai the worst.
Chennai lower courts accumulate more than 6,000 civil cases each year, while Ariyalur courts dispose of 1,000 cases from its pending pile each year. If this continues, Ariyalur courts will dispose of all their pending cases in nine years, after accounting for new cases that will be instituted each year.
The top three cities of Tamil Nadu–Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai–have the highest case accumulation rate.
Next, the criminal cases: Chennai lower courts perform the best in disposing of criminal cases–they conclude 7,700 criminal cases more than instituted each year. At this rate, Chennai will dispose of all its pending cases in 5.4 years. This is far better than any other district in the state.
Coimbatore’s lower courts are the slowest in disposing of criminal cases too.
What vacancies have to do with efficiency
We also analysed the number of judicial vacancies across all lower courts in Tamil Nadu. There are no significant differences in the number of vacancies between various lower courts, so the huge difference in their performances cannot be explained solely by shortage of judges.
The answer would seem to lie in procedural innovations, which needs to be analysed and documented at the high performing courts.
Our key point is: District courts can learn from each other’s successes and failures. For example, Chennai courts may learn from Ariyalur courts how to better dispose of civil cases, and may learn from their own experience with disposing of criminal cases.
A nationwide analysis is possible if we have standardised data to compare lower courts across the country. There is an urgent need for collecting case data in a structured and standardised format across the various courts in India. This will enable deeper insights and precise policy prescriptions.
While long-term issues such as shortage of judges grab policymakers’ attention, they must also tackle the immediate problems. In the near term, immediate improvements are possible by horizontally replicating proven procedural innovations.
(Mathur is the Executive Director at Vision India Foundation, a non-profit policy research and training organisation based in New Delhi. Prasath is a Research Intern with Vision India Foundation.)
Around the world experiments in universal basic income are taking place. The question of affordability has dominated much of the debate but the focus on young people, as proposed by French presidential candidate Benoit Hamon, is important to examine.
The International Labour Office estimates that the unemployment rate for young people was 13% in 2016, a new high representing 71 million people, with little prospect of improvement in 2017. As outsiders looking for jobs with limited professional experience, young people are at a serious disadvantage.
In recent years, the Great Recession has exacerbated the consequences of young people’s weak position on the labour market in terms of joblessness and the quality of work. Recent European-funded research has shown that policy responses towards young people have been inconsistent, and at times incoherent, demonstrating an ongoing reliance on reducing employment protection and limiting income protection.
The impact of basic income on youth
Based on a number of pilot studies around the world, there is some evidence on how basic-income schemes can impact the lives of young people. The effects on participation in education are particularly important – young people are more likely to complete their secondary school education when the pressure to earn is eased.
An experiment in Manitoba, Canada, in which everyone qualified for the scheme, found that basic income can influence young people’s attitudes towards education. The researcher, Evelyn Forget, noted that each student’s decision around whether or not to stay in school was influenced by norms regarding education – whether or not their peers also favoured education over low-paying work.
The effects regarding employment and entrepreneurship specific to young people, however, have not yet been studied.
The Finnish universal basic income experiment.
According to a preliminary report, two subsets of young people were excluded from the experiment in Finland: students, because the trial is intended to study short-term effects on employment; and economically inactive young people, because their existing benefits are lower than those of adults over the age of 25.
There are two lessons for the policy makers interested in young people, in France and elsewhere. First, the fact that other countries have not focused on young people or have excluded young people suggests any policies aimed only at this group must be developed carefully. Second, there is a lack of evidence of the benefits of basic income for young people not because those benefits are unlikely, but because the results of basic income studies for young people remain thin on the ground and because these results are likely to vary across groups. For young people, especially, these impacts may also emerge over a longer time period.
The challenges for youth in France and elsewhere
The characteristics of the French and some other European labour markets create a number of challenges for young people. For those who drop out of school without an adequate qualification, access to work is difficult. While it is predicted that a universal basic income scheme might support young people’s decisions to forgo greater earnings in the short-term, whether through third-level education or internships, apprenticeships and voluntary work, there are multiple reasons why people drop out. Furthermore, in countries with well-protected permanent contracts, like France but also Spain and Italy, the segmentation between permanent and temporary contracts is perhaps the greater challenge facing young people.
Churning between short-term jobs is certainly a source of insecurity and precariousness. A 2016 study shows that 53% of French workers under the age of 25 participate in such “independent work”, meaning its disadvantages are particularly felt by the young. Young people more likely to cycle through different work situations quite rapidly (from education to summer jobs or unemployment, from internships to short-term contracts and gig work) with many gaps in between in which they are not supported and thereby left vulnerable. This is a point highlighted in a French Senate report on basic income, which notes that only 44% of job transitions are direct, involving no period of unemployment between the two, and that vulnerable indirect transitions are concentrated among the young.
Among other things, being young means taking the time to experiment and find one’s way forward. Hagerty Ryan/pixnio
Being young is also about finding one’s way in life and this group’s tendency towards short-term positions might be attributable, in part, to their exploratory approach to employment, whereby low-paying or “gig economy” jobs are taken to meet short-term needs, to gain experience or to get a taste of a given industry. However, we can also see it as part of a wider trend whereby job security is experienced by fewer and fewer workers, risking more frequent retraining and periods without work.
A universal or conditional income for young people?
In France, the scoping for an experiment in the Aquitaine region is already underway but so far little has been said about young people. Meanwhile, presidential candidate Hamon has proposed an amount equivalent to the full RSA (income support) to be paid unconditionally and automatically to all people between the ages of 18 and 25 as a first step in his introduction of a universal basic income scheme. Due to means testing based on parental income, most un- and underemployed young people do not now qualify for the RSA, so this move could make a difference to those excluded, as well as to their families.
A common worry is that providing a basic income for young people would, perhaps more than for other demographic groups, encourage worklessness and dissuade integration into the labour force, with severe long-term effects. In this light, a “participation income” may seem more palatable.
This would involve imposing conditions on the receipt of a basic income – for instance, that the young person would have to commit to perform voluntary work in their community, pursue training, take steps to establish a business, etc. An immediate difficulty is that the definition of such participation could be problematic. Furthermore, administration of such a conditional scheme would involve expenses that may outweigh any increase in participation relative to an unconditional scheme. For instance, a similar European-wide conditional scheme, the Youth Guarantee, has run into difficulties in expanding its reach to all young people in long-term unemployment due, in part, to the expense of career counselling and monitoring.
A Dutch experiment, known as Know What Works, is planned for later in 2017 and will go some way towards answering this question by investigating the relative expense of various conditional and unconditional benefits.
A 21st-century solution for 21st-century youth?
As the nature of working life changes, it seems fair to say that workers will need to be agile and ready for retraining and new opportunities. Those people entering the labour market with limited experience bear the brunt of this new reality and the associated risks. Addressing these risks is one core argument for basic income – a secure floor that does not require form-filling and applications each time one falls below an income threshold. Such an approach could make sense for young people in a world of job uncertainty and flexibility.
Furthermore, it is argued that freeing people from the stress and bureaucratic entanglement of income support, as well as from the work disincentives that plague conditional benefits, could allow people to focus their attention more productively. Young people should be focused on education, training, discovering their unique contribution to society, and ultimately on creating work opportunities for themselves and others. Whether a universal basic income achieves that for young people will depend on how the French people vote in May 2017 and the results of the experiments in France and elsewhere.
Mark Smith is Dean of Faculty & Professor of Human Resource Management, Grenoble École de Management (GEM). Genevieve Shanahan is Research assistant, Grenoble École de Management (GEM)
This story was first published on The Conversation. Read the original.
On April 14, 2017 Kausalya will for the Annihilation of Caste, in strong resistance against the brute murder of her husband, Shankar, a Dalit
AIDWA remembering Shankar on his first death anniversary. Kausalya seen fourth from the left
Last year, on the 14th of March, Shankar was murdered for marrying Kausalya, a girl from the Kallar community in Tamil Nadu. Shankar was a Dalit from Kumaralingam village in Udumalpet; Kausalya, a Thevar from Palani, belongs to an OBC caste with social and political clout in the state. On that day, both of them were attacked by a group of 5 men armed with weapons. Shankar died on the spot succumbing to the injuries. Kausalya’s father surrendered to the local police, and confessed to the murder.
Now, a year later, after going through the trauma of loss, Kausalya has decided to come out and fight the system of caste, the primary reason for the death of Shankar. Today, Kausalya is 20-years old. She has decided to work with women’s organisations in the area. These organisations fight for the rights of women in a patriarchal society and steadfastly oppose the archaic and barbaric practice of honour killing. “There is plenty of work for me to do in this society now. I believe that I must fight against that which took Shankar away from me” says Kausalya. “Several organisations are working towards this cause, I have decided to work along with them” she added.
Although Kausalya says that “(a) change in mindset is required to stop honour killings”, she also warns young couples who have married outside their caste to be cautious. She says, “People who have had love marriages like me, should be as safe as possible. They should not be careless and they must expect the possibility of anything happening to them.” On that fateful day, the couple was coming out of a shop after purchasing a shirt for the up-coming annual day at Shankar's college. Shankar was murdered on the street. Stressing the precarious condition of a caste-ridden society, she feels that young couples “should not simply walk on the streets” carelessly.
“All India Democratic Women’s Association honoured me, Abhirami and other women for bravely fighting against this patriarchal and castiest system” said Kausalya. “Like me, even Abhirami has lost her husband. She is also fighting against this practice of honour killings” she adds. Like Kausalya, Abhirami also belongs to the Kallar caste. She had married a Dalit man, Marimuthu, with the support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 2010. After a life of struggle in Chennai, and the birth of their daughter, Soundaraya, the couple returned to their village to live with Marimuthu’s family. However, just before Soundaraya’s first birthday, Marimuthu’s body was found hacked to pieces near the river. After confessing to the murder, Abhirami’s father and brother gave themselves up to the police.
On 4th of July 2013, a 19-year old Dalit boy, Ilavarasan, was found dead by the railway tracks in Dharmapuri. A year ago, on the 8th of October in 2012, Ilavarasan had married Divya, a girl from the powerful Vanniyar caste. Responding to this case, Kausalya says, “We have no news of Divya, where she is and what she is doing. So, to mobilise all the women who have been victims of honour killings, we need to create a force. But that is not going to be easy.” If such a force was made, however, she felt that it would be a very powerful one.
In the land of Dravidian politics which takes pride in its history of women's empowerment, why is blood being shed in the name of honour? We asked her this only to hear that the condition of women is bad, here and everywhere, as it is bound to be in a patriarchal society. She says, “If [it were] not for Periyar and others, I don’t know if the state of women would be even as much as it is today.”
Over the last one year, Kausalya has been recovering from the injuries she suffered after the attack. She has also received counselling to recover from the traumatic experience of being attacked and witnessing her husband's murder. Meanwhile, she has been fighting the case against her parents and relatives for the murder of her husband. At one stage, she had even attempted suicide. But now, she has entered the public sphere in her fight against a casteist society that was responsible for the death of Shankar.
After clearing the exam, Kausalya has now obtained a central government job in the Ministry of Defence. She considers Shankar’s grandmother, father and two younger brothers, her family.
Kausalya has taken to keeping her hair short and wearing jeans and T shirt. When asked why she changed her appearance, she said, “There is a societal view that women should project themselves in a certain way. I have changed the way I look and my hairstyle in defiance of these norms”.
With pride, she also says, “I am learning parai. I am also learning Karate”. She wants to popularise the drum-like instrument parai, associated with Dalits and other oppressed sections and make it acceptable for everyone. Kausalya has been invited to speak on Ambedkar Jayanthi at an event in Chennai. She considers being a part of events like these an important task. She said that, “Ambedkar struggled to annihilate caste. He fought for the downtrodden people, and strove to attain equality for all in society.”
In a letter to Vice President Hamid Ansari, they argued that bypassing the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP is in minority, undermined the Constitution.
More than 200 eminent citizens, including jurist Fali S Nariman, economist Jayati Ghosh and musician TM Krishna, have opposed the classification of the Finance Bill, 2017, as a Money Bill, calling it an “illegitimate” move that undermines the Constitution. In a letter to Vice President Hamid Ansari on Wednesday, they argued that the Upper House should not be bypassed by introducing important legislations as Money Bills, urging Ansari to “do everything else in his power” to stop this practice, reported PTI.
The signatories pointed out that the Finance Bill has 40 amendments to several Acts that have “far-reaching” effects on our democracy and Constitution. “Allow extensive and uninterrupted discussion into every aspect of the Bill in the Upper House,” read the letter addressed to the chairperson of Rajya Sabha.
Money Bills do not need the approval of the Upper House, where the Bharatiya Janata Party is currently in minority. “It has become a duty to speak out and raise concerns following the passage of a Bill that has, in one fell swoop, affected so many…rights that we normally take for granted,” said economist Jayati Ghosh.
Jagdeep Chhokar, co-founder of the Association for Democratic Reforms, echoed Ghosh’s views. “It is a clear case of misuse of the spirit of a Money Bill,” he told Hindustan Times. An online petition has also been launched to garner more support, according to The Times of India.
According to the Indian Constitution, a Money Bill is one that falls under six broad categories of financial legislations, including the imposition or regulation of taxes and the regulation of government borrowing. But the Finance Bill tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and passed by the Lok Sabha on March 22 had made Aadhaar mandatory to file income tax returns from July 1 and to apply for a permanent account number. It also includes amendments to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, Companies Act, Employees Provident Fund Act, Information Technology Act as well as the Smuggling and Foreign Exchange Act.
Regarding the Aadhaar Bill – which had also been passed as a Money Bill in March 2016 – the letter read, “The Bill allows for unprecedented surveillance of every citizen and massive invasion of privacy. These can be used by governments at different levels to target political opponents and dissidents, as well as others…the protections and cyber-security provisions in the Bill are inadequate. Despite all these concerns, the Bill will not even be debated in the Rajya Sabha and has not been subject to adequate public scrutiny.”
Opposition parties such as the Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal had alleged that the Centre was trying to bypass the Rajya Sabha by adding the changes as amendments to the Finance Bill instead of introducing separate Bills.
A bemused reception greeted British Member of Parliament Carol Monaghan when she arrived at work earlier this month in Westminster. Like many practising Christians, she had attended an Ash Wednesday service where her forehead was marked with ash in the shape of a cross. Most of her colleagues reacted with typically British awkwardness, and sometimes with curiosity. But the media reaction was more intense. The BBC asked whether her actions were “appropriate.” One political opponent implied that she was “promoting sectarianism.” The old debate about religion’s presence in political life was re-ignited, this time on social media.
The fact that a Christian attended church on an important date in the religious calendar hardly sounds like news. Yet open displays of religion are practically unheard of these days in British politics. For Damian Thompson, the event was further evidence of the “steady secularisation of British political life.” Arguably, this process is near complete: the idea that politicians should keep their religious views to themselves has almost the status of dogma, at least since ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair was silenced by one of his advisors with the reminder that “We don't do God.”
But now it seems that this process of secularisation is also being mirrored in political lobbying by religious groups. The researcher Steven Kettell recently reported his finding that Britain’s ‘Christian right’ are drawing on secular norms and values to support their political activities. For example, in justifying opposition to gay marriage, Dr. Dave Landrum of the Evangelical Alliance refers to the negative “impact on children” that same-sex unions will have.
What’s interesting about this development is that from a liberal perspective, this move should be applauded. By opting for secular rather than religious arguments, these conservative organisations are actually drawing closer to the liberal ideal of neutral discussion—the idea that when engaging in political debates we should keep sectarian beliefs out of the picture. So it’s not just politicians who shouldn’t mention Jesus (or Muhammad or Marx for that matter). All of us should keep controversial views to ourselves. The ideal of neutral discussion has long been popular amongst liberal political philosophers. For example, Charles Larmore famously argued that:
“when two people disagree … each should prescind from the beliefs that the other rejects … in order to construct an argument on the basis of his other beliefs that will convince the other of the truth of the disputed belief.”
Applying Larmore’s argument in practice, when we disagree over an issue like gay marriage we should shelve our most controversial values and convictions. Conservative Christians must shelve their belief that St. Paul condemned homosexuality, just as liberals who champion autonomy must shelve their belief that there must be total freedom in personal relationships. Instead, we should seek common ground and give a ‘neutral reason’ for supporting it—like appealing to the well-being of children, which is something all reasonable people care about.
Why is it important to give such neutral reasons? One argument is that in doing so, we engage directly with what distinguishes our opponents as people—their rationality. If you care about treating your opponent with respect, you should recognise that it would be wrong to ask them to lend their support to a policy based on a reason they oppose.
On a more common-sense level, you might say that presenting neutral reasons is necessary in order for opponents to engage with each other at any meaningful level. Perhaps this is one reason why discussions with Jehovah’s Witnesses arriving on my doorstep never last very long: our arguments rely on such different assumptions that we inevitably talk at cross purposes.
Or, someone defending neutral discussion might say that it’s just intuitive to accept that personal views should be left out when making group decisions. They might make a comparison with selecting candidates for a job. Here it would clearly be inappropriate to bring in the consideration that one candidate is a family member, and the same applies to religious beliefs.
But is neutral discussion really useful, healthy or even rational when debating public policy?
In the case of picking a candidate for a job, it is right to leave out personal views because these are only expressions of personal preference; they aren’t relevant in finding the best person for the role. In contrast, religious beliefs are not merely expressions of preference, they are beliefs about the way things are and what is right. Conservative Christians believe that their sectarian reason—the authority of the Bible—takes them towards the right answer to any policy question under discussion. If it’s true that God exists and condemns homosexuality as a sin, then this has serious implications for policy on same-sex marriage. In that case it seems strange to ask people to leave out considerations that they believe are most salient to the issue at hand.
We might also worry that asking people to present neutral reasons rather than those that are most important to them is to encourage citizens to be dishonest. It asks that they wear a cloak over their deepest beliefs and motivations. It makes them pretend to be concerned with reasons that in fact don’t actually motivate them. This is problematic because we want to encourage citizens to be virtuous and honest, not two-faced and deceitful.
But it’s also a problem because we want to reach better answers to policy questions. By shelving what people believe to be pertinent considerations, we blunt the tools at our disposal for reaching a resolution that might at least be workable. If the aim is consensus, this consensus will be more meaningful and longer-lasting if it’s based on what people really believe—the values in which they are invested—rather than on reasons that are made up in order to get the other side on board.
Lastly, is it true that mutual respect requires neutral discussions? As the scholar William Galston has argued, we show respect for someone’s rational nature simply by engaging with them and attempting to reason with them. This suggests that the best way to conduct respectful public discussions is to be truthful about our different reasons and to try to get to the bottom of where, at root, we disagree.
All this may be of little relevance to the Conservative Christians interviewed by Kettell. As the quotes from his interviews show, the move by this constituency to publically embrace non-religious reasons is motivated by a desire to persuade and gain support, rather than to show respect for the rationality of their opponents. But it is certainly of relevance more generally for thinking about whether we should argue for neutral discussion as a key principle in the public sphere.
If the pursuit of neutral reasons encourages dishonest communication and comes at the expense of progress towards a meaningful consensus, then liberals should scrap this idea. It would be far more respectful, and far more helpful for resolving disputes about public policy, to be honest about the reasons behind our beliefs.
None of this is to say that we shouldn’t look for things on which we might agree. Finding common ground and a ‘shared mission’ might be the only way to get hostile constituencies to engage with each other. Perhaps a search for mutual territory is the way to bridge the chasm that has emerged in the politics of many countries over the last twenty years. But once we’ve found a way of starting the conversation we need to be honest about the beliefs we hold dear. How our variously-sectarian arguments then fare in public discussion will be a good indicator of their strength.
Christina Easton is a doctoral researcher in the Philosophy Department at the London School of Economics.
