10 - MARCH 5, 2016 Vol LI No 10

LETTERS
Issn 0012-9976
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Editor: C Rammanohar Reddy.
An Open Letter to
Smriti Irani
hanks to your stunning performance, we, faculty members of the

University of Hyderabad, are compelled
to do what we should have done in the
past month or so, but could not bring
ourselves towrite about Rohith Vemula,
write about our other students, write
about the state of academics, write about
ourselves and society at large. Our first
acknowledgement for this, therefore,
goes to you for bringing us back from
grief, from teaching and various other
mundane things we do as part of our job.
We watched you on our TV screens on
24 February 2016, in a voice choked with
emotion, referring to the child whose
death has been used as a political weapon. We were left bewildered.
At what precise point did this sinister,
anti-national, casteist, Dalit student of the
University of Hyderabad transform into a
child for you? Definitely not in those five
rejoinders from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) between 3
September 2015 and 19 November 2015
with the subject line anti-national activities in Hyderabad Central University Campus? Definitely, not when you chose to
overlook and endorse what can only be
read as extraordinarily aggressive and unfounded allegations by your colleague in
the government, Bandaru Dattatreya? Your
constant reference to Rohith as a child is
nothing but a patronising attempt to dehumanise his reality. It is also deeply disrespectful to Rohiths mother because she knows
how ironic your appropriation of him is.
A little more than a month after his
death, Rohith becomes a child for you
whose death was used as a political
weapon. A political weapon by whom? By
the other four students who were expelled
with him and who spent those cold nights
out in the makeshift velivada? By the other
students and friends who stood by him?
You were not there that night. You did
not see the grief or the shock, nor were you
there to feel the despair. How could you
even begin to fathom how desperate students were when they called faculty members and medical doctor of the Universitys
Health Centre as soon as Rohiths body was
found hanging? As Dr Rajyasree, medical

officer has stated, she rushed to the hostel at
7.30 pm and declared Rohith dead at 7.40
pm on that fateful night of 17 January 2016.
Iraniji, it is beyond our comprehension
to understand how you with your meticulous preparation evident in the Lok Sabha
speech ignored these crucial medical documents/preliminary evidences. This also
includes the post-mortem report that declared Rohith was dead at least 1824
hours before the body was examined the
subsequent day. Not only are your claims
factually incorrect but they point to an utter lack of respect and sensitivity for the
grieving family, friends, and students.
You have also repeatedly claimed that
the committee, which suspended Rohith
Vemula and four other Dalit students, was
not constituted by your government, but
by the United Progressive Alliance regime.
You have also emphasised that there indeed was a Dalit faculty member in that
committee. We are astounded that you can
so smoothly pass on the responsibility for
this tragedy to someone else. Being at the
helm of MHRD, we are sure, you must know
that the Executive Councils (EC) subcommittee that took the fatal decision to suspend the Dalit students from hostels and
other common spaces, was expressly constituted by the vice chancellor, Appa Rao,
following five rejoinders from your ministry asking the university to take action
against the Dalit students. Prakash Babu,
the sole Dalit member, was co-opted as the
Dean, Students Welfare and not as a
Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe representative. Kindly refer to the constitution
of the EC subcommittee in its minutes of
meeting dated 24 November 2015.
Now let us come to the punishment
itself. Let us think of the lives and struggles
of the five suspended studentsfour of
them being sons of agricultural labourers
and one who has lost both parents. For
them, suspension from hostel meant denial of food and shelter. Add to that, denial
of right to access common spaces. This effectively amounted to social boycott in
caste terms. Do you not believe that the
administration should have reached out at
least when Rohith wrote that 18 December
2015 letter asking the vice chancellor to
provide Dalit students sodium azide and
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
Economic & Political Weekly
LETTERS
a nice rope at the time of admission? For

all practical purposes, it was a cry for help.
This was an opportunity for us to help this
child and we lost that opportunity.
For a despondent, beleaguered Rohith,
hounded and ignored by the powers that
be, death was probably the only way to
freedom. This was Rohiths assertion of
dignity, a dignity that was not allowed
to him or his friends in their lives. To say
that his suicide note of 17 January 2016
does not name or implicate anyone amounts
to gross opportunism and abandonment
of moral responsibility.
The Prime Minister has extolled your
speech tweeting Satyameva Jayate.
Whose truth? we ask.
SC/ST Faculty Forum & Concerned Faculty,
University of Hyderabad
Chittaprosad Bhattacharya
(191578)
he birth centenary of Chittaprosad

Bhattacharya, the radical artist from
Bengal, was last year. Born in 1915 at
Naihati in present-day North 24 Parganas District, West Bengal, Chittaprosad
settled in Chattagram, now in Bangladesh. He developed a great reverence for
the heroes and heroines of the Chattagram uprising of the 1930s, and came
into contact with the Communist Party
of India (CPI) in the early 1940s. P C Joshi,
the general secretary of the party, who
visited Chattagram at the time, was impressed by Chittaprosads artistic acumen.
This was a turning point in his life.
Joshi advised Chittaprosad to be acquainted with the tradition of rural folk
painting and the Indian art tradition. He
took him to Bombay and engaged him as
an artist in Peoples War, the party journal.
The party sent him to Medinipur District to
cover stories of the victims of the Bengal
famine (1943). This led to Hungry Bengal,
a first-hand account of the famine, comprising written text and sketches in stark
black and white, carried in Peoples War.
The British confiscated and destroyed
thousands of copies of Hungry Bengal
when it came out as a book. Chittaprosad
also recorded the armed peasant struggle
in Telangana.
Chittaprosad did many political posters and drawings, focusing on human
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
suffering and struggle for party publications. But his journey was not restricted
to the world of the party. His also did a
Ramayana series, several landscapes,
cityscapes, portraits, birds, flowers and
nudes. He explored different art forms
such as drawings, water colour paintings,
and linocut prints. He was a self-trained
artist, drawing inspiration from village
sculptors, artisans and puppeteers.
Chittaprosad also illustrated childrens books and magazines. He also designed costumes for the Indian Peoples
Theatre Association. Staged in 1944,
Bijan Bhattacharyas Nabanna used costumes designed by him. Chittaprosad
made the poster for Bimal Roys Do Bigha
Zameen as well. He composed many songs
during the Bengal famine and used the
musical tradition of Chattagram in their
rendition.
Chittaprosad was an active member of
the CPI till 1947. He dissociated himself
from active political engagement when
the party adopted the sectarian line in
the late 1940s. But, he retained his faith
in humanity till the end of his life. In the
last phase of his life, he came to Kolkata,
and was ill at the time. When his sister
asked if she should tell the party persons
about his illness, he replied, No. No. No.
I do not want to see the face of any of my
old party comrades. Dont communicate
to any of my old party friends.
Chittaprosads life and work exemplifies a rare radical journey in the domain
of art and culture.
Arup Kumar Sen
Kolkata
Vicious Cycle of Stigma

s a Ragpickers Child Likely To Be a
Ragpicker? by Venkatesh Murthy R
(EPW, 27 February 2016) reminds me of
children of female sex workers in redlight areas. Ragpicking, sex work, and
so forth (as parental occupations) are
considered a stigma by mainstream
society. In female sex worker communities, the stigma attached to children reinforces a vicious cycle that does not allow mobility.
Just like ragpickers, they are not accepted by society. In a study at Bowbazar red-light area in Kolkata, it was
found that children of female sex workers were not provided a comfortable environment in their schools. Schoolteachers, classmates, and peers insult such
children regarding their place of residence and their mothers occupations,
which influence many to quickly drop
out. They also face different remarks
from society at large in public spaces
such as playgrounds outside their community. Thus, their upbringing is largely
confined to their community.
Although rehabilitative measures like
arrangement of education and alternative earnings have been taken up by the
government and development agencies,
their success is limited because the initiatives to combat the stigma of untouchability and casteism are few. Education
and constitutional safeguards, especially reservations in education and for employment, could bring a radical transformation to overcome social barriers. But
for sex workers and their children, the
only law in place has been to restrict the
trade itself. The movement for legalising
sex work is undoubtedly an important
step to save them from the stigma and
harassment. Like for ragpickers, what
does the future hold for sex workers
children when there is no law to protect
their interest?
Harasankar Adhikari
Kolkata
Web Exclusives
The following articles have been published in the past week in the Web Exclusives section of the EPW website.
They have not been published in the print edition.
(1) How Meos Shape Their Identity: Orality and CommunityAbhay Chawla
(2) Weather Conditions and Air Pollution: Impact of Odd-even Policy in DelhiSaon Ray and Nandini Kumar
(3) The Khasis as HindusAvner Pariat
(4) Atoning for the Past: A Response to Rhodes Will Not Fall AloneDalia Gebrial and Ashok Kumar
(5) Menstruation, Purity and Right to WorshipAnant Kumar
Articles posted before 27 February 2016 remain available in the Web Exclusives section.
vol lI no 10
LETTERS
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MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
Budget 2016: Behind the Symbolism

The Modi government tries hard to signal a makeover but beyond the symbolic it does not change much.
udget 2016 is not important for the proposals that it has

made but for what it tries to signal about the proposed
makeover, in a limited way, of the Narendra Modi government. The budget does try hard to claim that the Modi government is not a suit-boot administration, an image it has to shed
given the beatings it has taken in recent state elections and
apprehensive as it must be of the state elections that lie ahead.
The Union Budget for 201617 is not a pro-farmer budget nor
is it a Robin Hood document and it certainly is not pro-poor.
Within a few days of its presentation, analyses of the budget
have shown that while the announcements have been many for
agriculture and the rural sector the allocations for 201617,
shorn of statistical jugglery, do not constitute a major increase
over 201516. The minor additional levy the budget applies on
the super-rich and on recipients of dividends of over Rs 10 lakh a
year will together not soak the wealthy in any fashion and there
is no major hike in social sector spending.
In the ultimate analysis, whether or not Budget 2016 can
claim to have some semblance of being people-friendly will
depend on the implementation of two new schemes. One is the
scheme to provide five crore households below the poverty line
(BPL) with LPGs within five years and to support them with the
initial cost of an LPG connection. The other is a new health
insurance scheme to provide up to Rs 1.30 lakh of cover, again
to BPL families. The first has an allocation of Rs 2,000 crore for
201617 and the second may well be handed over to private
insurance and private hospital chains to implement.
Budget 2016 is deeply disappointing in its taxation proposals.
According to the 201516 revised estimates (RE), personal income
tax and corporation tax revenues are together as much as
Rs 46,000 crore less than the 201516 budget estimates (BE). In
the case of corporation tax, the decline is Rs 17,658 crore. With
the economy supposedly growing by 7.6% in 201516, should direct tax collections fall short of the budgeted amount by such a
large amount? The improvement in the taxGDP ratio that has
yet taken place (from 9.8% to 10.8% between the budget and
revised estimates) is due to the windfall gain in union excise
duty collections of more than Rs 55,000 crore. This has come
from levies on benign petroleum prices without the benefit of
low prices being passed on to consumers. In 201617 the main
source of revenue collection will once again be indirect taxes in
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
the form of higher excise duty collections. Thus, there is an implicit assumption that global crude oil prices will continue to
remain at the same level as in 201516.
The major tax proposals in Budget 201617 reflect a lack of
understanding of the tax system and tax policy governance in
North Block. First, the introduction of various cesses and surcharges is only going to complicate the tax system further ahead
of the planned shift to the Goods and Services Tax (GST). To make
the tax system efficient, simple and transparent, it is important
that the funding of government expenditure should come from
general revenues rather than through earmarked taxation. Second,
with a continuous imposition of cesses on the service tax to fund
various programmes, the statutory rate of service tax will now
climb to 15%. This is completely against the design of the GST that
is being discussed or the proposed revenue neutral rate (RNR) of
18% for GST as recommended by the committee headed by chief
economic adviser. Since the services tax rate is already 15% and
one is talking about a GSTRNR of 18%, does the Ministry of
Finance believe that post-GST, states will tax services at just 3%?
A well-thought-out policy on GST implementation would have
reduced the services tax rate and rationalised the central
excise duty structure by narrowing the current divergence in
rates. Third, in our federal system, cesses and surcharges are
not shareable with the states. The continuous imposition of
such levies denies the states their rightful share of national
revenues collected by the central government.
Corporates and pro-market economists have described this
budget as redistributive and pro-agriculture. However, if we
examine the big picture, aggregate government expenditure as
a percentage of GDP or in terms of growth does not show any
increase. Between 201516 (RE) and 201617 (BE), while aggregate expenditure is expected to grow at the rate of 10.8%, the
allocation for agriculture is expected to increase from Rs 15,809
crore in 201516 (RE) to Rs 35,983 crore in 201617 (BE). However,
the 201617 (BE) allocation includes interest subvention of
Rs 15,000 crore, which was earlier shown under the budget
head of the finance ministry. In other words, the additional
increase is only about Rs 5,000 crore. We should also remember
that agriculture is a state subject and addressing rural distress
needs a national strategy. However, it is important to note that
the budget has increased allocations significantly for rural
7
EDITORIALS
roads through the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, one of

the more successful centrally-sponsored schemes.
Budget 2016 has finally announced that the government will be
doing away with the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure after the completion of the Twelfth Five Year Plan in
March 2017. It is true that an artificial budgetary distinction
between plan and non-plan expenditures has created a distortion
in budgetary priorities and the neglect of maintenance expenditure. But, before the proposed abolition of this distinction, the
central government should think through various transitional
issues, including that of plan resource transfers to states. If one assumes that there will be no Thirteenth Five Year Plan and no plan
transfers, adequate safeguards need to be taken to ensure that in
the absence of plan flows the aggregate flow of resources to the
states does not decline. Transfers should not become ad hoc and
arbitrary under the sole control of the finance ministry.
Finally, the fiscal consolidation road map proposed in Budget
2016 does not project a major improvement in both direct and
services tax collections in 201617. Also, a lot would depend on
what happens to the GDP growth rate. How all these factors will
play out and what the effect on fiscal consolidation would be is
unknown. Probably that is the reason why the central government has announced a review of the working of the Fiscal
Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act. The review
should take note of the impact of the FRBM Act at all levels of
government and should not become a tool to be used by the
centre to justify its own fiscal profligacy as has been the practice
in the past.
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
EDITORIALS
Lost in Its World

There is a refreshing candour in the Economic Survey 201516, but there is also an extreme unrealism.
t has always been interesting to juxtapose the union budget

with the annual pre-budget Economic Survey (ES) which is
presented a day or two earlier. The budget rarely proposes
any of the suggestions of the ES. It is the same but also different
this time.
To begin with, there is a degree of honesty in the ESs discussion
in the more important Volume I on the outlook for the Indian
economy that has rarely been found in earlier surveys. The ES
projects that Indias gross domestic product (GDP) will grow in
real terms by 7% to 7.75% in 201617, as compared to the growth
of 7.6% in 201516. However, it makes clear that there are significant downside risks. These are mainly the turbulence in the
global economy and an uncertainty about an El Nina in 2016
bringing a bounteous monsoon following the drought-laden El
Nino of 2015. On the fiscal deficitan issue which has found its
resonance in Budget 2016the ES presents the case for and
against sticking to fiscal consolidation, but one can sense that on
balance the chief economic adviser is in favour of a modest relaxation. Budget 2016, however, chose to stick to the promise made
last year to peg the deficit at 3.5% of GDP in 201617. The ES
argues for a review of the entire medium-term framework on
fiscal consolidation, and this is exactly what Budget 2016
announced, setting the stage perhaps for an overhaul of the Fiscal
Responsibility and Budget Management Act of 2003.
The ESs estimates of the subsidies that the better-off in India
garner have received considerable attention. The argument is
that while the usual discourse is about the giveaways to the
poor, Indias rich receive an unusually large amount of subsidies. The ES comes up with a large number that is meant to
shock: Rs 91,000 crore of annual implicit subsidies for the rich
in eight products/services. The survey also estimates the subsidies to the rich given in the form of small savings like the Public Provident Fund. It talks of the tax treatment of savings and
argues strongly in favour of the EET approachExemption of
tax on deposits, Exemption to interest earnings and Taxation of
8
withdrawals. It is the EET policy that Budget 2016 has used to

propose taxation of 40% of withdrawals from the Employees
Provident Fund (EPF), a decision that has brought much grief to
the Narendra Modi government.
The EET approach may be good public finance policy and
there certainly is a case for consistency in tax treatment across
savings. But this is a good example of policy drafted in the abstract. The state does not provide old-age security, pensions are
not available to most of the salariat outside government and few
of them (rightly) play the stock market. So the only savings
available to the salariat for 20+ years after retirement and
for acquisition of assets like a house are to be found in the EPF.
Can we believe that the ES and its master, the union finance
minister, want to tax a part of such savings?
There is no denying that it is the better-off sections which are
the recipients of the larger proportion of handouts from the government. But who are these people? The ES wants to define them
only in relative terms. Is that a correct approach in a poor country
where everyone outside the top 5% is living on the edge of one kind
of insecurity or another? Or should we define the better-off
in terms of absolute incomes/expenditure? An obsession with
looking at relative inequality leads to conclusions that would be
amusing but for their shocking implications. The ES says that 50%
of the kerosene subsidy goes to the better-off. And who are these
better-off classes? The top 70% of the population. Yes, the entire
top 70% of the Indian population is supposed be the better-off!
More absurdity: the ES calculates the implicit subsidy in the
railways as being enjoyed by travellers in the A/C, first, and, hold
your breath, second and sleeper coaches.
The ES is written this year in a non-bureaucratic and lively style
that covers a range of policy issues. But it is written by economists
in the language of economists and for those economists who seem
to live in a world far removed from grime and toil. In parts, it does
not seem to have been prepared for the policymaker and the
politician who has to grapple with the real world.
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
EDITORIALS
The Spiritual versus the Temporal

Prejudices obstruct the rights of women worshippers.
he struggles by groups of Hindu and Muslim women to

lift bans on entry into some places of worship have been in
the public limelight over the past year.
In 2007, the Indian Young Lawyers Association had sought
direction from the Supreme Court to strike down the ban on entry
of women between 10 and 50 into the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple
in Kerala. The media coverage of a recent round of these hearings
has fuelled interest and controversy even as the Bhumata Brigade
began an agitation in mid-2015 demanding that women be
allowed into the inner sanctum of the Shani Shingnapur temple in
Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. More or less at the same time, the
Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, which has filed a petition
before the Bombay High Court to demand entry into the mazar of
the Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai, stepped up its campaign.
The bans involve notions and norms which directly clash
with ideas of modernity and are also incompatible with rights
enshrined in the Constitution. The crux is what takes precedence
and whether the courts have jurisdiction over customs ostensibly
sanctioned by religion but which took shape in the distant past
when the predominant view was that women did not enjoy equal
rights. The Sabarimala temple trust forbids entry to girls and
women because of the impurity that is claimed is attached to
menstruation. (Almost all religions and many societies are guilty
of stigmatising this part of a womans being.) The Haji Ali dargah
trust allowed women up to the mazar prior to 2012 after which
they were prohibited for their own safety and security and also
because the pir whose tomb it is would be offended by the feminine presence around it. At the Shani Shingnapur temple, after an
agitation, women were allowed to enter the temple in 2011 but not
the place where the deity Shanis idol is kept and prayers are held.
As legal experts point out, the matter is further compounded
because India has a Constitution that enjoins duties of social
reform on the state, but there is no clear demarcation between the
state and religion. When a judge of the Supreme Court asked the
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
Devaswom Trust of Sabarimala whether it had a constitutional

right to bar women, the point was whether the trust could prove
that the ban was an integral part of religious practice. The challengers look at Article 14 (equality before law) and Articles 25 and
26 (freedom of religion) of the Constitution for guidance. However,
Article 26(b) permits religious denominations the right to manage
their own affairs in the matter of religion and Article 25(2) allows
state intervention in religious practice if it is for the purpose of social welfare or reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus. Again, the ban at Sabarimala is justified by rule 3(b) of the
Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry)
Rules, 1965 and the Government of Kerala has argued that the
opinion of the priests which is in conformity with the rules is the
final one. The Bombay High Court hearing of the Haji Ali petition
has said it is waiting for the Supreme Courts verdict on Sabarimala.
In an earlier case (1962), the Supreme Court held that the reform
clause was not intended to enable the legislature to reform a religion out of existence or identity. However, if the impugned practice
is not an essential practice of the religion then the state has a right to
intervene. A point made by legal experts is that Article 25(1) enforces
the right to freedom of religion with respect to the actions of the
state and not another body or individual, and the Sabarimala Trust
is an autonomous body. However, it is argued that since even private
parties are not allowed to infringe one anothers constitutional
rights, women must be allowed to enter the Sabarimala temple.
So much for legal issues, but on grounds of gender justice the
religious trusts have a duty to end discrimination. Often, the
ruling dispensations which are never afraid to fish in troubled
waters tend to walk the tightrope between the need to respect
constitutional rights and the demands of powerful religious
trusts and prejudiced public opinion. It is time that in each of
the cases now under consideration the governments shed their
timidity and render justice to women worshippers.
EDITORIALS
First Published in 1966
With the censorship in force under the Emergency, in

1976 EPW tried to give readers a sense of what was
happening by putting together brief news items that
appeared around the country that week.
Vol XI, No 10
MARCH 6, 1976
Clippings
The chairman of the Communist Party of
India, Mr S A Dange, told the 25th congress of
the CPSU today... That threat to our independence and the struggle against external
and internal forces of destabilisation have
brought the ruling Congress and our party
closer and this is a very significant positive
development in our national life today.
The Times of India, February 29
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
Former Uttar Pradesh Governor B Gopala

Reddy today described excess of democracy
as a negation of democracy and said, let the
Prime Ministers attempt to contain the flow
of democracy through well-regulated channels succeed.
The Hindustan Times, March 4
The [Bombay] police launched operation
beggars round-up last night and by 10.30 am
today, more than 425 beggars, including 100
women and 50 children had been picked up
... The police said the entire operation was
smooth. There was no resistance ...
Evening News of India, March 1
The anti-beggar drive in Bombay slackened considerably on Tuesday, its second day ... There
were also problems of feeding such large numbers at the transit camp. As police vans kept rolling in on Tuesday with more beggars, food was
vol lI no 10
in short supply. Consequently, several beggars had

not had a morsel of food till 3.30 pm.
The Times of India, March 3
Frequent changes of text-books in Madhya
Pradesh in recent years has [sic] forced the
state-owned Text-Book Corporation to think of
disposing by weightment an estimated two
million books which are of no use either to the
Corporation or to students.
The Reserve Bank of India is considering steps
to put an end to unethical practices resorted to
by certain banks for securing deposits. ... Some
private sector banks in the South are said to offer a free to and fro air trip to Malaysia to customers making big deposits. One bank offers a
refrigerator as gift to anyone who puts a sizeable
amount as time deposit for more than five years.
MARGIN SPEAK
Scourge of the Scoundrels

Anand Teltumbde
The February episode at the

Jawaharlal Nehru University
conforms to a recent pattern. The
Bharatiya Janata Partys student
wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad, ministers belonging
to the party and university
administration collude to declare
dissent as anti-national.
Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.

Samuel Johnson
lose on the heels of the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula

has come another attack by the
Hindutva forces; this time on the students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Earlier, the Ambedkar Periyar
Study Circle (APSC) in Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT), Madras was banned
the ban on the organisation was lifted
after students protested. A clear pattern
is discernible in these episodes. Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)
accuses students of anti-national activities, following which a Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) minister bullies the institutional machinery, which then crawls in
compliance. During the IIT and the
Hyderabad Central University episodes,
the role of the bully was played by the
Human Resource Development Minister,
Smriti Irani, who has somehow internalised that her job is to saffronise the campuses. This time the riot act was read by
the Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, and
the police force. All masks are off exposing the sinister agenda of the BJP to
eliminate potential obstacles in its path
of establishing a Brahminical supremacist regime, the Hindu rashtra.
Some people lazily compare the situation with what prevailed in the 1930s
and 1940s in Germany and Italy, when the
storm troopers of Hitler and blackshirts
of Mussolini beat up people on roads.
But what is happening in India, of late,
portends worse than Nazism and fascism.
This is because the state today is far more
powerful than those Hitler or Mussolini
headed. The state today is equipped
with technologies of precision, surveillance and most importantly, it uses the
liberal faade of democracy.
Nationalism sans Nation
Anand Teltumbde (tanandraj@gmail.com) is a

writer and civil rights activist.
10
The Hindutva camp has only one point

to hammer: nationalism. It had accused
Rohith and his friends of being antinationals and driven the young scholar
to death. The Hindutvawadis are now
baying for the blood of JNU students
calling them anti-nationals. Their claim
is based on the slogans shouted at a
meeting on 9 February. It is said that
many outsiders had mingled with the
students and raised slogans. Anyone
who has little knowledge of left ideology
will know activists of left parties are
unlikely to raise slogans such as Bharat
ki Barbadi, Allah o Akbar or Pakistan
Zindabad. It is anybodys guess who
these outsiders could be. The activists of
the Democratic Students Union are
unlikely to have shouted these slogans
and most certainly the JNU Students
Union (JNUSU) President Kanhaiya Kumar
did not raise them.
That said, there is no hiding the fact
that the left has been protesting against
the hangings of Afzal Guru and Yakub
Memon as judicial murders and a section of the left has been supporting the
rights of the Kashmiris for self-determination. Also, however morally repulsive
such slogans may sound to us, they have
been raised in Kashmir for years. The
claimants of nationalism should understand that India, as prophetically alerted
by Babasaheb Ambedkar, is not a nation
to begin with. India could aspire to be a
nation by ironing off many deep-rooted
prejudices based on caste, religion, race
and ethnicity.
The Hindutva forces, on the contrary,
have been aggravating this divide and
foolishly imagining that ancient India
was a nation. Their attitude is creating
conditions for more partitions of the
country. If they want to learn about
nationalism, the Hindutvawadis should
cast off their blindfolds and go through
Kanhaiyas speech that speaks of azadi
for the toiling poor, Dalits, Adivasis and
women of this country. It can give them
better lessons in nationalism than any
sermon by their gurus. One may remind
the Hindutva forces that in addition to
Muslims, Christians and communists
identified by their Guru M S Golwalkar
to be the bigger enemies of Hindus than
the British, there are Dalits and Adivasis
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
MARGIN SPEAK
as well. These marginalised sections,

whom Hindutva takes for granted, can
potentially turn the tables on it. Therefore, the Hindutva forces better discard
their jingoist patriotism and learn constitutional patriotism that teaches living
with plurality and diversity in modern
world; that is what our founding fathers
envisaged.
Bogey of a Crime
While nationalism and patriotism do not
have legal standing, sedition stands in
our statute books as a weapon in the
hands of rulers to smother peoples dissent. It comes from the Indian Penal
Code first drafted by that arch colonialist, Thomas Babington Macaulay. Our
(as well as Pakistans) ruling classes
adopted this colonial code while pompously declaring the newborn regime as
democratic republic. As is well known,
the British had first used it in prosecution
of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and rampantly
thereafter against the freedom fighters.
The established enlightened opinion,
which was even expressed by our Constitution-makers, is that it is antithetical
to democracy. But how could the rulers let
go of their weapon so easily? Sedition law
was kept on the statutes; the Supreme
Court also having held it intra vires in
the case of Kedarnath Singh v State of
Bihar (1962). The Court, however, set
the threshold for applying sedition at
actual violence or incitement to violence
(spark to a powder keg) or subverting
government, by violent means, through
words written or spoken. Such a threshold definitely does not extend to sloganshouting. In the 1990s, the Supreme
Court had struck down a case against a
certain Balwant Singh who was alleged
to have shouted slogans like Khalistan
Zindabad at the height of the Khalistan
movement. It had come down heavily on
what it termed as immature and insensitive police actions that could have created a law and order problem.
Seen in such light, the sedition act
does not apply to the slogan shouting
however morally repugnanton 9 February at the JNU campus. It definitely
does not apply to Kanhaiya Kumar. But
the police acting at the behest of the
home minister had to arrest him and slap
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
charges of sedition (Section 124-A) and

criminal conspiracy. In the Indian judicial system, where the process itself is
punishment, Kanhaiya may come out on
bail but by then he would have been
scarred by interrogation in police and
judicial custody. There are already
reports of him being physically attacked
by Hindutva goons.
This process is grossly misused by the
police to harass innocent people. Draconian laws are routinely used to tar Dalits,
Adivasis, Maoists and Muslims as terrorists and incarcerate them for years.
Many have lost their prime years, and
their families have been driven to ruin,
before being acquitted by the courts. No
one has ever questioned the culpability
or noted the lack of accountability of
police in misusing such laws. The victims
of such high-handedness are usually the
poor. Kanhaiyas family, for example,
subsists on his mothers monthly salary
of Rs 3,000 as an anganwadi worker.
The ABVP, the big-mouthed leaders of the
BJP, and the police would be delighted at
his ruin. In fact, if one goes by the standing interpretation, they are the ones
who not only instigated violence but
actually committed it inside the court
premises in utter disregard to the judicial system and hence the Constitution.
They and the police who stood by as
mute spectators qualify for being tried
for sedition.
Saffronising Institutions
The stability of India, despite its diversity and widespread poverty, is largely
attributed to its liberal institutions
inherited from the colonial regime. The
Sangh Parivar is out to destroy the character of these institutions to bring in
Hitlerite rule characterised by Ein Volk,
ein Reich, ein Fhrer (One People, One
Empire, One Leader) that finds an echo
in its slogan of One Nation, One Culture,
One Religion, One Language! Such a
fascist paradigm needs only storm
troopers to carry out the leaders writ
and to keep people in compliance mode.
Notwithstanding the constitutional constraints, the current regime displays a
strong penchant for such a rule. Most
institutions are already saffronised with
believers being installed as heads. The
vol lI no 10
way IIT, Madras administration conducted itself in the APSC episode, the
Central University Hyderabad vice chancellor behaved during the ASA episode or
the JNU vice chancellors action during
the February episode speak of such a
takeover. The JNU administration was
well within its mandate to resolve what
happened on 9 February within the university. But it allowed police to take control of the campus and incurred ignominy for the university.
Contrary to the textbook wisdom that
the three wings of the Indian state, legislative, executive and judiciary, maintain
balance, the fact is that the executive
has always colluded with the political
masters. The most visible and important
arm of the executive from peoples perspective is the police, which has always
been subservient to the party in power.
But the manner in which the police at
Patiala House Court premises conducted
themselves marks definite shift. The
police stood by while lawyers and other
activists belonging to the BJP mercilessly beat up students and journalists.
The BJP Member of Legislative Assembly
O P Sharma, one of the several marauders, had the temerity to repeatedly say
on camera that if he had a pistol, he
would have shot them dead. The scene
was defiantly re-enacted when Kanhaiya was to be produced in court on
17 February; this time the JNUSU president was attacked. The BJP goons had
declared that if he got bail from the
court, they would kill him. Not a single
BJP politician would see anything wrong
in this naked show of hooliganism. Less
said of the media, particularly the electronic ones, the better. Almost all of
them ran round the clock programmes
that directly or indirectly fed into the
argument of the state that the students
indulged in anti-national activities.
The BJP is baring its own fangs and
digging its own grave.
available at
Gyan Deep
Near Firayalal, H. B. Road
Ranchi 834 001, Jharkhand
Ph: 0651-2205640
11
STRATEGIC AFFAIRS
equipment sales from Japan to India

were discussed but not concluded. The
official bilateral relationship between
India and Japan has now been elevated
to a global and strategic partnership.
Ties That Might Bind

The IndiaJapan Story
Less Easy Than It Looks
Itty Abraham
The official relationship

between India and Japan has
now been elevated to a global
and strategic partnership.
Understanding this qualitative
leap in IndiaJapan ties is less
easy than it looks. An origin story
of the IndiaJapan relations
explains how its state today is a
reflection of the way Japan has
changed in the last half a century.
Itty Abraham (itty123@gmail.com) is a scholar

of international relations and nuclear histories
based at the National University of Singapore.
12
ies between India and Japan have

never been warmer. The nadir of
the bilateral relationship, not surprisingly, followed Indias nuclear tests
18 years ago. Japans reaction to Indias
announcement that it was now, officially, a nuclear power was to shut down
new loans and grants, to recall its
ambassador temporarily, and to announce it was reviewing its multibillionyen soft loan portfolio. It should be
remembered that Japan was Indias
single largest source of official development assistance (ODA) in 1998. Reflecting the tragic legacy of being the only
country to have suffered the effects of
nuclear weapons in warfare, Japans chief
cabinet secretary expressed his countrys
unhappiness explicitly, noting its shock,
and calling the Indian testing extremely
regrettable, very strong language in the
rarefied world of diplomatese.
Fast forward to the present and a very
different narrative dominates the headlines. Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
torchbearer of the same political party
that pulled India out of the nuclear
closet, delivering the 37th Singapore
Lecture in 2015, paid glowing tribute to
Indias relations with Japan. Sitting in
the front row of the audience at the
lecture was Indian Foreign Secretary,
S Jaishankar, who was serving in Tokyo
when the Pokhran II tests took place.
China was mentioned too as well, and in
a positive way, but there was little question that the subtext of the lecture was
to publicly affirm, in a highly visible
IndoPacific forum, that Indias ties with
Japan had never been stronger. In
December 2015, Prime Ministers Shinzo
Abe and Narendra Modi signed a multibillion-yen agreement on bullet trains,
infrastructural investments, additional
loans, and, not least, nuclear cooperation
on multiple fronts. Even rare military
Understanding this qualitative leap in

the warmth, depth, and extent of India
Japan ties is less easy than it looks. Commonplace explanations reduce this to
the similarities between Modi and Abe
to China and strategic balancing. India
and Japan are natural partners, it is
said, because both fear Chinas rise and
also have close ties with the United Sates
(US) (at least for now). There is little
question that Washington would like to
see India and Japan effectively ally in a
de facto Asian democratic containment
of China: see how the US has welcomed
Japans addition to the annual Malabar
naval exercises. It is added by some discerning commentators that the India
Japan relationship also benefits from
having little to disagree about, now that
the nuclear issue has mutated into a
business opportunity. They remind us
that the outrage expressed by Japan in
1998 was officially withdrawn just three
years later (albeit more for the sake of a
floundering post 9/11 Pakistan than
India). These arguments are neither
wrong nor without merit but fail to rise
to the level of explanation needed. It is
worth noting that both Japan and India
repeatedly make a point of noting how
their relationship is not derivative of
their respective China-phobias, which
are real and ongoing, and is also not
driven by Washingtons not-so-secret
agenda, as the more rabid Chinese commentators affirm and which grossly
overstates the USs ability to shape their
allies and friends behaviour. Let us take
these denials seriously. In that case,
what accounts for this sea change in
bilateral relations?
An Origin Story
Starting points are always revealing. If
one is to tell a story about IndiaJapan
relations where should one begin? Many
trace origins from the spiritual and
march 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
STRATEGIC AFFAIRS
philosophical. Rabindranath Tagore and

Okakura Tenshin, high-minded representatives of Asian difference, mark an
early and well-publicised meeting of
India and Japan. While it must be said
that, given their own world views, Modi
and Abe would have a difficult time
recognising this encounter as a precursor
to their own interactions, the persistence
of the TagoreOkakura genealogy reflects
a mutual self-image of both countries, a
reminder of how they would like to see
themselves in the best of all worlds.
Probably the most referred to beginning, however, is Japans sponsorship of
the Indian National Army and its leader,
Subhas Chandra Bose, during World
War II. Bose would raise an army from
Indian prisoners of war and working
classes in South-east Asia, both men and
women, who would then proceed to join
the Japanese army to seek to liberate
India from British colonial rule. This
story is all too well known but more
often than not gets submerged in accounts of what really happened to
Bose when the military endeavour ultimately failed and he sought to return to
safer terrain. What almost always gets
bypassed as a possible starting point in
this narrative, however, is the contemporaneous Japanese occupation of the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a British
Indian possession, in 1942. Bose was
even brought to Port Blair to announce
Indias independence, but hardly got a
chance to meet the local residents during his visit. Their experience during the
occupation received a fuller accounting
during the Singapore War Crimes Tribunal, a lesser version of the Tokyo and
Nuremberg trials, when it became clear
that the Indian population of the islands
was harshly punished for supporting the
Allied cause. Read against the grain, the
Singapore trials also demonstrate the
limits of anti-colonial passion. Former
colonial masters who had evacuated the
islands en masse when Singapore fell
were nonetheless preferred to the Japanese, especially once the military tide
turned against the Asian liberators.
Alternatively, the starting point could
(and would for me) begin at the fin de
sicle, when Indian students rushed to
Japan (along with other like-minded
EPW
march 5, 2016
souls from across Asia and as far away as

Turkey) after the defeat of the imperial
Russian navy at Port Arthur. Overnight,
Japan became the standard bearer for a
highly appealing and belligerent Asian
modernity that bowed to none, especially
European powers. From less than 10
students to over a hundred in a few
years, India House in Tokyo would soon
become a hotbed of overseas Indian anticolonial nationalism. By the 1930s, distinctly modern Japanese-made consumer
goods, including textiles and bicycles,
would become available in Indian marts,
competing against commodities benefiting
from imperial preferences and low tariffs.
Second Coming Out
Post-war Japan was another story, however.
Conservative, xenophobic, and inwardlooking, Japan was concerned above all
to keep its head down and its cash registers
ringing. The 1980s marked Japans first
coming out, epitomised by the purchase
of the Rockefeller Center in New York.
The excesses of that decade would be
followed in close order by the collapse of
the bubble economy, eventual deflation,
and a return to caution and quiescence.
Abes second stint in office now appears
to be a second coming out, this time
driven by geopolitics rather than geoeconomics. But perhaps this gives the
leader too much credit, and does not
take into account the silent revolution
that has taken place in Japanese society.
There is still plenty that is wrong with
Japan, starting from the economic malaise, and most visible in the close ties
between politicians, regulators, and corporations that regularly lead to financial
scandals and less often (thankfully) to
major accidents like Fukushima. That is
the old Japan: it has not gotten the news
that business is not as usual any more.
The generation of young men and

women who have grown up in Japan
since the 1980s, roughly a fifth of the
total population, are unlike their parents
in many respects. They have only known
a prosperous and comfortable Japan that
is well-integrated into global circuits of
power and influence, and are comfortable travelling and living outside Japan as
well as within it. Politically, however,
they have long been seen as passive,
made inactive by the structural conditions
of politics in Japan. But that may have
changed with the advent of Abes second
coming. His efforts to change the constitution and take on a more muscular role
for the country have pushed Japanese
society to debate what it means to be a
normal country.
Japanese are not, unlike Germans,
socialised into guilt over the atrocities of
World War II. They are, however, deeply
divided over whether these top-down
political changes mean that Japan may
get drawn willy-nilly into global conflicts (not popular) or whether they
reflect the need for Japan to play a more
responsible role in the world, given its
wealth and importance (much more
acceptable). The difference is small but
significant. Taken together, however,
they point to a major change in the way
that Japan sees itself and the world
beyond North-east Asia. This will not
change, post Abe. Just as the 1964 Olympics symbolised a shiny and resilient
Japan that had recovered from the devastation of its recent past, we might just
see the forthcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics as marking the moment when Japan
defines a new relationship with the rest of
the world. What this means is that the
state of IndiaJapan ties today is, in the
last instance, a reflection of how Japan has
changed in the last half-century.
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vol lI no 10
13
COMMENTARY
The Bitter Aftertaste of Beef Ban

Choice, Caste and Consumption
Gayatri Nair
Responses around the beef ban

have focused on the anxiety of
the liberal middle class which
construed the ban as curbing its
consumption choice. But absent
from this was the voice of the
Dalits, who have come to be
defined by what they consume,
and whose relationship with
beef is marked by caste, poverty
and hunger. An exploration of
the practice of beef consumption
through the prism of destitution,
and its relation with the
poor to whom it provides the
bare minimum.
Gayatri Nair (gayatri.nair7@gmail.com)

has submitted her PhD at the Centre for the
Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, and is currently teaching at the
University of Delhi.
14
he Maharashtra governments
recent legislation that bans beef has
evoked a range of responses. The
ban was ridiculed, discussed and debated
on social media sites. However, not surprisingly, the responses arose specifically
from the anxiety of the liberal middle
class, which construed the ban as a curb
on its exercise of choiceas a limit to
what it eatsat a time when what one
consumes has come to define identities.
Missing from the discourse was the voice
of the Dalits, who too had for long come
to be defined by what they consumed
and whose complex relationship with
the consumption of beef is marked by
caste, poverty, and memories of hunger.
Reflecting on this relationship and the
crucial role played by B R Ambedkar in
seeking to end the practice of the consumption of dead cattle is not an attempt to condone the ban, but to highlight the centrality
of meat in the life of the working-class Dalits
in Maharashtra. Doing so, in fact, makes us
engage with the ban not merely as a curb
on choice, but allows us to think about the
practice through the prism of hunger and
destitution, and what it means for the poor
to whom it provided the bare minimum.
This article seeks to examine this relationship through its articulations in Dalit
autobiographies, such as Om Prakash Valmikis Joothan (1997) and Baby Kambles
Jine Amuche (1986). It also unpacks this
relation through a project undertaken by
the 2009 batch of masters students in
Sociology (the author included), under the
guidance of eminent sociologist Sharmila
Rege, at the University of Pune. The project
sought to document Dalits culinary life and
memories around it; a subject that was glaringly absent from other such documents of
food practices (such as recipe books).
One of the central themes that emerged
from the narratives was hunger. Working
as sanitation workers and agrarian labour,
most of the respondents came from households of extreme deprivation, and hunger
was thus almost always a constant. In this
landscape of poverty and hunger, beef
often evoked a pleasant memory; a minimal luxury, of having just enough. Several
respondents gave detailed recipes of their
favourite dishes, many of which often
included beef as an ingredient. The low
prices of beef or buffalo compared to any
other meat item could be argued as one of
the reasons why the Dalits found much
succour in it. However, all that does not
adequately explain the practice.
Caste and Consumption
As is known, Dalits, as the untouchable
castes, were mandated by a social order
determined by caste to undertake demeaning and polluting jobs. One of
these was the disposal of dead cattle or
carrion. Dalits would be tasked with carrying the dead animal out, following
which the hide could be sold and the meat
consumed by them. As those who subsisted on the bare minimum, the meat from
the carrion was often welcomed, and the
protein was a necessity for those whose
work involved hard labour. However,
dealing with the carrion was a difficult
task, and one that has found mention in
several Dalit autobiographies. Valmiki, in
his autobiography Joothan, writes evocatively of his experience of helping his uncle in skinning a cow:
My hands were trembling as I held the knife.
I was trapped in a hard place. Chacha taught
me how to ply the knife. That day something
broke inside me. I skinned the bullock under
chachas guidance. I felt I was drowning in
a swamp. I was being drawn into the very
quagmire that I had tried to escape from.
The wounds of the torment that I suffered
with chacha on that hot afternoon are still
fresh on my skin (2003: 35).
The association with carrion for Dalits

was inextricably linked to their identity
not only because disposing carrion was
their caste-ordained duty, but also because, much like manual scavenging, it
was work that crushed their self-respect
and subjected them to deep humiliation.
Already deemed a lowly task by the
caste order, the association with carrion,
whether to skin it or consume it, came to
reiterate their low status. A narrative
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vol lI no 10
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recorded as part of the project, Isnt This

Plate Indian?: Dalit Histories and Memories of Food, reveals this:
Meat is usually bought, not taken from dead
cattle because this is associated with a low
caste status. Salim can thus recall how a Mahar man in his village was usually entrusted
with carrying away and disposing the carcass
of dead animals, which he did by carrying it
over his head to a shop where he would sell the
hide and bones. This man he vividly remembers as stinking immensely owing to the smell
of the carcass. Pointing out that the business
of selling the hide, meat and bones of these
animals yields a lot, Salim claims, his son [the
Mahar mans son] does the same job, running
through the village with the dead animal on
his head. Nothing much has changed, Salim
wistfully points out (WS 10 Class of 2009: 104).
This association of the Dalit castes with

carrion resulted in Ambedkar addressing
the Mahad conference in 1927 with an appeal to Dalits to stop consuming carrion.
The move was one that was meant to distance them from a practice that in addition
to being one foisted on them by the caste
order also injured their spirit. While many,
including scholars such as Christophe
Jaffrelot (2005: 47), have read this as a
move towards Sanskritisation, it can also
be argued that consumption of carrion
especially since the cause of death may not
be knownwas not a healthy practice.
Moreover its consumption was a practice
born out of poverty. For many Dalits who
could ill-afford vegetables and other sources of meat, beef provided a rare luxury.
Sharmila Rege (2006), drawing from
Baby Kambles autobiography The Prisons
We Broke (Jine Amuche), notes how instances of cattle epidemics were a time of
feasting amongst the Dalit households.
When there were not enough cattle dying,
strategies to consume it had to be evolved.
Men armed with medication would be on
the lookout for stray cattle, and having
fed it the drugs would eagerly wait to be
called to dispose of it when it died. Rege
adds, The women queued up for their
share and sometimes if there was not
enough firewood to cook the meat, it
would be eaten almost raw (2006: 203).
Meat, therefore, was a critical resource for a community that for the most
part was ravaged by hunger. However,
as the study on Dalit food practices revealed, memories of hunger and what
was eaten in times of crisis, such as carrion, could also transform into active food
choices. Ambedkars call for giving up
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MARCH 5, 2016
the consumption of carrion was, therefore, not one met with absolute agreement and conviction by the Dalit community. Several autobiographies, such as
Baby Kambles, recount anecdotes of
how carrion was acutely desired. Improving economic conditions, if they
occurred, were marked by a transition to
the purchase of meat (as opposed to the
consumption of carrion; as was the case
with Salim) and not always by a move to
vegetarianism, as is generally assumed.
The Politics of Food
The purpose of dwelling on Dalit food
practices and their complex links with
beef consumption is not to condone the
recent ban. The argument being made is
that the politics of food requires an examination deeper than what it has seen in
the wake of the ban; that of a question of
choice alone. Drawing on the rich
autobiographical accounts and the memories of food consumed by participants of
the 2009 study, points us to circumstances under which food practices are generated. In the absence of detailed narratives
of the sort by other members of the working class, these accounts are indicative of
the significance of the ban to those who
consume the meat because it was one of
the more affordable options for the poor.
The imposition of the ban will, thus,
have a significant impact not just on the
livelihood of the traders and retailers of
the meat, but also on those consumers
who can only afford to purchase bull or
buffalo meat at a time when vegetable
costs remain high.
But, the significance of the ban and the
responses to it are of special importance
when one considers how articulations of
food practice always invoke choice. This
is not to argue that food consumption does
not involve choices. However, to view these
choices as operating free from the exertions of a social structure is problematic.
Especially in India, food and caste have
come to be enjoined in a way that allows
for food practices to be considered as
markers of particular caste statuses. However, at a time when caste is seen as only
marking the lower castes,1 the food practices of upper castes, although rooted in
cultural, caste-borne practices, are often
termed as an exercise of choice, and not
vol lI no 10
tradition. Thus, upper castes and classes will

often claim to be vegetarian by choice.
This situation can lead one to conclude
that there are no hierarchies in food practices similar to other social practices, and,
in turn, lead to situations where caste can
operate in significant but insidious ways.2
In a political climate that frowns upon
overt mentions of caste while permitting
veiled discrimination based on it, food
practices have emerged as codes for determining an individuals caste.3
The political gesture of the beef ban is
therefore extremely interesting. The Hindutva groups have been involved in
attempts to forge a larger Hindu community by drawing in Dalits into the fold.4 At
such a time, the ban, which directly attacks the consumption habits of the Dalits,
highlights that the Dalits may still enter
the fold on the terms determined by the
upper castes who dominate it. The symbolic value of the cow protection campaign,
which can earn the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) the support of the middle- and
upper-caste Hindus, has been chosen over
the long-term political gains they may receive with Dalit support to the party. Furthermore, the absence of a concerted
voice against the ban from these sections
of the populace, owing to their marginal
status in social and political life, enables
such trade-offs to be made.
For the Dalits, especially the Mahars
among the working class, consumption
of the meat is perhaps not of political
concern, especially after the conversion
to Buddhism which introduced a change
in food consumption. More importantly,
the electoral alliance between the
Republican Party of India (RPI-Ramdas
Athawale) and the Shiv Sena may have
also been responsible for the silence from
the party that seeks to represent them.
This is particularly noticeable since Ramdas Athawale, leader of the RPI(A), made
a public statement regarding food outlets for the poor remaining open through
the night, in wake of the recent decision
by the Maharashtra government on permitting pubs and clubs to remain open
all night long (DNA 2015). That access to
affordable food is important to the poorer sections of society is clearly a fact
Athawale recognises. However, the fact
that this argument could not be extended
15
COMMENTARY
to the ban against beef and buffalo meat

highlights the importance of the ban for
the Hindu right-wing parties and its supporters, such as the RPI(A).
Given the particularly long history the
politics of cow protection has enjoyed,
the enforcement of the ban presents a
potent moment, one that can be channelised to challenge the governments
vision on development, which is an assault on lower castes and working classes alike. It is a pity that the only rallying
cry currently comes from the beef traders of Maharashtra alone.
where they no longer need to explicitly state

their caste, has meant that upper castes have
come to believe that caste holds no value in the
modern world and, thus, these castes now
sanitise themselves as being modern classes.
This has resulted in the impression that caste
belongs to the lower castes alone.
Real estate markets, where buildings are identified as being exclusively vegetarian are a
good indication of how caste discrimination
can be practised through the use of such codes.
The case of the canteen of the Hindu prohibiting
the consumption of meat immediately comes to
mind, not only because of their call for the prohibition, but also because the management explained their position as stemming not from a
caste bias but owing to environmental concerns.
Praveen Togadia, head of the Vishva Hindu
Parishad, has been campaigning for caste
groups to give up untouchability and has campaigned for upper-caste Hindus to befriend at
least one Dalit family (Singh 2015).
Notes
1
16
As S Deshpande and M E John (2010) argue,

upper castes having secured their access to resources of wealth, education, and even health
through now apparently legitimate means,
References
Deshpande, S and M E John (2010): The Politics of
Not Counting Caste, Economic & Political
Weekly, Vol 45, No 25, pp 3942.
DNA (2015): Maharashtra: RPI(A) Leader Ramdas

Athawale Demands Representation of Smaller
Allies in Government, 19 February, viewed on
20 March 2015, http://www.dnaindia.com/
mumbai/report-maharashtra-rpia-leader-ramdas-athavale-demands-representation-ofsmaller-allies-in-government-2062386.
Jaffrelot, Christophe (2005): Analysing and Ethnicising Caste to Eradicate It More Effectively,
Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing
and Fighting Caste, London: C Hurst and Co,
pp 3151.
Rege, S (2006): Baby Kondiba Kamble: Jine
Amuche, Writing Caste/Writing Gender, New
Delhi: Zubaan, pp 194225.
Singh, Mahim Pratap (2015): Befriend at Least
One Dalit Family: Togadia, Hindu, 22 March,
viewed on 18 February 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/befriend-at-leastone-Dalit-family-togadia/article7019268.ece.
Valmiki, O (2003): Joothan: A Dalits Life, Trans
Arun Prabha Mukherjee, Kolkata: Samya.
WS 10 Class of 2009 (2009): Isnt This Plate Indian?
Dalit Histories and Memories of Food, Pune:
Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Womens Studies
Centre, University of Pune.
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
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COMMENTARY
The Discovery of Gravitational

Waves as the Earth-shaking
Event of the Century
B Ananthanarayan, P N Pandita
Based on two detectors

separated by about 3,000 km
and using ultra-stable lasers, a
new observatory known as the
Advanced LIGO has detected
gravitational waves generated
by the coalescence of two black
holes, that turned into a new
black hole with the release
of about five solar masses of
energy in a few milliseconds at
a distance of over a billion light
years, thus confirming one of the
last untested predictions of the
General Theory of Relativity.
16
n an announcement made a few minutes after 10:30 am (United States

(US) time) on 11 February 2016 at
a press conference convened at the
National Science Foundation in Washington, which was webcast live to every
nook and corner of the world, David Reitze, Executive Director of the LIGO Project of the California Institute of Technology, said
...We have detected gravitational waves. We
did it!
Spontaneous applause broke out from

the audience, and it surely did in hundreds and thousands of live screenings
across the world, including at the Centre
for High Energy Physics of the Indian
Institute of Science, Bengaluru. These
words will be immortalised as have so
many other aphorisms that capture the
romance and allure of fundamental science. Some scientists have likened the
discovery of gravitational waves to the
moment when Galileo started looking at
the sky with a telescope.
There were rumours floating for some

time about the discovery, with sketchy
details available from different sources
as to what it was that the LIGO project
had seen, and yet these words with their
simplicity electrified audiences across
the world. Predictions of gravitational
waves are inherent to the General Theory
of Relativity, the theory that explains
gravitational force and subsumes Newtonian gravity, and yet goes beyond by
making predictions that had been vindicated in the years that followed the first
formulation by Albert Einstein in 1916,
based on a decade of research.
This theory overthrew the notion that
space and time are fixed backgrounds in
which matter moves and stitches them
together. It also overthrew the notion of
action at a distance that was the hallmark of Newtonian gravity. Note, however, that the Newtonian picture can be
obtained as a well-defined limiting case
of the General Theory of Relativity.
The dramatic prediction that the General Theory of Relativity makes is that
when very massive gravitating objects
called black holes (Box 1, p 17) coalesce
and turn mass into a gigantic storm of
energy, this sends waves of energy associated with the distortion of the fabric of
spacetime in all directions. This prediction of the theory remained unproven
because until Advanced LIGO, no manmade detector was capable of seeing
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
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COMMENTARY
these waves in the very fabric of space

and time, since the propagation of these
waves over vast astrophysical and cosmological scales renders these disturbances into microscopic disturbances.
The discovery of these waves, which are
created by cataclysmic events in the
universe, opens a new way of observing
the universe.
The results have been published jointly
by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and
the VIRGO Collaboration (a sister experiment near Pisa, Italy), B P Abbott et al in
Phys Rev Lett 116, 061102, in a paper entitled Observation of Gravitational Waves
from a Binary Black Hole Merger, with
the abstract stating ...It matches the
waveform predicted by general relativity
for the inspiral and merger of a pair of
black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole, and that...This
is the first direct detection of gravitational
waves and the first observation of a
binary black hole merger (Box 2).
Einsteins Prediction
Gravitational waves were first predicted by
Einstein in 1916 after the formulation of
field equations of general relativity. He
showed that the linerised weak-field

equations had wave solutions, which
were transverse waves that travel with
the speed of light, generated by time
variations of the mass quadrupole moment of the source. Einstein realised
that the gravitational wave amplitudes
would be very small. It is this smallness
of the amplitude which made it difficult
to detect the gravitational waves. An
international team of astrophysicists (including from India) used a newly upgraded and a very sensitive $1.1 billion
facility known as Laser Interferometer
Gravitational Wave Observatory, in short
LIGO, to detect the gravitational wave
from the merger of two distant black
holes, which is one of the ways the gravitational waves can be created.
Advanced LIGO is a two-piece observatory (Box 3, p 18), separated by about
3,000 kilometres, with one L-shaped
arm in Livingston, Louisiana and the
other in Hanford, Washington, which is
in the north-west state of Washington
which as the name suggests works on
the principle of an ultra-stable laser, with
the laser split and propagated into two
perpendicular arms, and then brought
Box 1: Black Holes

In 1915 Albert Einstein formulated the field equations of the General Theory of Relativity, which is a theory of
gravitational interactions. From his equations he predicted the existence of gravitational waves. He realised that
gravitational wave amplitudes would be very small.
Till as recently as 1957 there was a debate about the physical reality of gravitational waves.
It is interesting to note that immediately after the formulation of the equations of general relativity, Karl Schwarzschild
found a solution to these equations that later came to be understood as a black hole solution. In 1963 Roy Patrick Kerr
generalised the Schwarzschild solution to rotating black holes.
A black hole is a region of spacetime that exhibits strong gravitational effects, in fact so strong, that nothing, not even
light, can escape from inside it. The Theory of General Relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform
spacetime to form a black hole. The boundary of the region from which no escape is possible is called the event horizon.
In many ways a black hole acts like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light. However, quantum field theory, when
formulated in curved spacetime, predicts that event horizons emit Hawking radiation, with the same spectrum as a
black body of a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. This temperature is on the order of billionths of a kelvin
for black holes of solar mass, making it essentially impossible to observe. It is interesting to note that objects whose
gravitational fields are too strong for light to escape were first considered in the 18th century by John Michell and
Pierre-Simon Laplace.
It is also interesting to note that the interpretation of the Schwarzschild solution as a black hole, a region of space-time
from which nothing can escape, was first published by David Finkelstein in 1958. For a long time black holes were
considered only a mathematical curiosity. It was only during the 1960s that theoretical work showed they were a
generic prediction of the General Theory of Relativity. The discovery of neutron stars sparked interest in gravitationally
collapsed compact objects as a possible astrophysical reality. Black holes of solar mass can form when very massive
stars collapse when they run out of their nuclear fuel.
Box 2: Gravitational Waves Detected
available at
The gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago. These have now been detected for the first
time. These were detected when two massive black holes collided and merged (see Figure 1), thereby releasing a large
amount of energy in the form of gravitational waves. The LIGO detector heard the sound of the two black holes colliding.
The event was separated by 7 milliseconds in the two LIGO detectors at Hanford and Louisiana. The noise mimicking
the gravitational event is 1 in 2,00,000 years. The signal started 1.33 billion light years ago and reached Earth on
14 September 2015. Before merging, one black hole was 29 solar masses and the other 36 solar masses.
The final black hole had a mass of 62 solar masses. The power generated in the merger of the two black holes is equivalent
to three solar masses, with 50 times the luminosity of all the stars in the universe.
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
back and recombined. The lasers are

locked and no pattern is observed, unless there is a differential change in the
distance in the two-arms that can be
caused by a passing gravitational wave
disturbance. There are two such interferometers separated by a large distance
so that a passing gravitational wave
would first hit one and then the next, or
should we say, a gravitational tsunami.
The event that was observed on 14 September 2015 was one that caused a strain
of the order of 10 raised to the power of
minus 21, or a strain that was a decimal
point followed by 20 zeros and then a
single part!
The ultra-quiet environment in which
a complex pendulum supports the laser
splitter is actually sensitive to this strain.
Not only is there a strain, but a characteristic wave pattern of the amplitude
and a chirp associated with the cataclysmic event of the merger of two black
holes. In this case, both the laboratories
observed almost identical disturbances
emanating from the merger of the two
black holes, and separated by about a
millisecond which is the time taken for
the disturbance to go from one detector
to the other. This event, as mentioned
above, was triggered by the coalescing
of two black holes remnants of stars that
burnt out and then turned into black
holes, each characterised by its mass
and its spin, and each weighing of the
order of 30 solar masses. These two
black holes were engaged in a cosmic
dance around one another and eventually their event horizons merged and
produced a new black hole which was
about 5% less massive than the sum of
its progenitors. This 5%, weighing about
three solar masses converted into the
massive gravitational energy released
in a matter of about 10 milliseconds,
thereby becoming the most powerful
vol lI no 10
Oxford Bookstore-Mumbai
Apeejay House
3, Dinshaw Vacha Road
Mumbai 400 020
Ph: 66364477
17
COMMENTARY
event ever recorded since the Big Bang

itself.
When Einstein formulated his work,
astrophysical objects that were known
were never thought to be such massive
objects as black holes. In recent decades,
there have been observations that have
proved the existence of exotic objects,
including objects such as quasars, pulsars, binary pulsars, and black holes.
Black holes can come in different mass
scales, all the way from solar mass objects to so-called supermassive black
holes weighing up to a million solar
masses, typically found in the centres of
galaxies. As the name suggests (Box 1),
the fact that they are black holes, nothing can enter or leave their event horizons, allows us to only indirectly infer
their existence, for instance, from the
motion of stars in their vicinity or of gas
clouds circulating and characteristic Xray. But their existence has been known
for some time now. Neutron stars, shells
of burnt-out stars could also come as
pairs, and could coalesce and produce
gravitational waves.
In fact, Advanced LIGO hopes to see
several events associated with such
astrophysical events. Based on the estimates of such objects and their interactions, it was expected that an event
would be seen in some months of observations. This fantastic event was actually
seen within weeks, a fortuitous situation
due to the mass and spin of the black
holes involved.
Complicated Equations
It is pertinent to ask as to how one can
infer the properties of these objects that
we have not seen. The answer is that
they are solutions of the equations arising from the theory of relativity in this
context, which are solved using sophisticated numerical methods (numerical

relativity) performed on supercomputers
that are available today. The equations
of general relativity that were written
down by Einstein are a complicated set
of differential equations for the nature
of distances (metric) as measured by observers in the vicinity of a gravitating
source (energy-momentum). The three
spatial dimensions and the temporal
dimensions are inexorably tied up with
the mass and energy of the gravitational
source. Many solutions of these equations have been studied in the past,
starting with some by Einstein himself,
who used them to account for the precession rate of the perihelion of Mercury,
that incredibly fleet-footed planet that
goes rather too close to the sun, or the
bending of light from a star that could be
observed at the time of an eclipse.
Modern counterparts of such classical
measurements include the rate of slowing of binary pulsars such as the Hulse
Taylor pulsar. All the above capture the
essence of general relativity where the
effects of the departure from Newtonian
gravity are somehow weak. Such effects
are also important in modern-day life, in
the corrections that need to be made for
geo-synchronous satellites and GPS satellites, as these are all objects moving in
the gravitational field of the earth.
How then does one get to probe the
strong gravitational field effects? This
would require the gravitating objects to
somehow heave themselves and send a
shock wave hurtling through the spacetime in which they immerse themselves.
Of special interest are black holes that
arise as solutions of the Einstein equations. Immediately following the formulation of the General Theory of Relativity,
Box 3: Laser Interferometry

The gravity waves caused ripples which moved outwards travelling with the speed of light. The waves become weak
as they travel through space. When they finally reached the earth the distortions that they caused were too small to
be measured.
LIGO is a pair of L-shaped observatories which are 1,900 miles apart (see Figure 2). The gravitational waves that arrived
there push and pull the arms, changing the length by less than the width of a proton. On 14 September 2015, LIGO
detectors recorded first vibrations from a gravitational wave. This was translated to sound, it was a short chirp, the
more than a billion-year-old echo of the collision of the two black holes (see Figure 3).
A word must be said about the technical aspects due to Rainer Weiss and Ronald Drever, who had been encouraged
by the famed theorist Kip Thorne to pursue their idea of using laser interferometry. An earlier epoch was characterised
by the observational effort of Joseph Webber at the University of Maryland. The limitations of these measurements
would come essentially from quantum noise, which is an absolute limit on the accuracy of the measurement process.
Nevertheless, in the frequency ranges associated with the merger of solar mass blackholes the feasibility was
demonstrated.
18
Karl Schwarzschild had given the solution named after him for the metric
around a static gravitational source.
Many decades passed and it was shown
that black holes are almost immaculate
objects that are completely characterised
by their mass, charge and angular momentum. No details of their composition
are needed. They are somehow the purest
of the pure. Of these, the massive spinning
black holes were the hardest to be studied, and the solution was given by Roy
Patrick Kerr. The event of 14 September
2015 was so pristine that one could compare this signal with the predictions of
numerical relativity for black hole merger, which was followed by the ringdown, and settling down to a new black
hole. There is reasonably accurate knowledge of the masses and spins of the progenitors and the daughter by comparison
to the detailed numerical simulations.
The Indian effort includes the work of
Sanjeev Dhurandhar from Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, who developed
techniques for detection of weak signals
which would eventually lead to detection of gravitational waves, while the
work of Bala R Iyer of Raman Research
Institute, Bengaluru was in the field of
numerical relativity, while early work on
black hole mergers was carried out by
C V Vishweshwara, who spent many
years at the Raman Research Institute as
well as at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. Many Indian institutions have
been active members of the LIGO collaboration, and there is now a proposal to
add LIGOIndia to the global consortium
that would enable the network to pinpoint the location of the source of gravitational waves.
[While it is impossible to review all the features
of this rich subject, the standard disclaimer
that more information can be found at a variety
of sources, including the LIGO website, apply.]
B Ananthanarayan (anant@cts.iisc.ernet.in) is
Professor and Chairman at the Centre for High
Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science,
Bengaluru and serves on the editorial boards
of the European Physical Journal A and Current
Science.
P N Pandita (pandita@cts.iisc.ernet.in) is Raja
Ramanna Fellow of the Department of Atomic
Energy at the Centre for High Energy Physics,
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
COMMENTARY
Figure 1: A Pictorial Depiction of a Blackhole Merger and the Ripples Sent Out by the Merger in the
Spacetime Fabric, Taken from www.sciencemag.org
Figure 2: Simplified diagram of an Advanced LIGO detector (not to scale) Inset (a), on the left, shows
the locations and orientations of the two LIGO observatories, and indicates the light travel time
between them. Inset (b) shows how the instrument strain noise varied with frequency in each
detector near to the time of the event. From www.ligo.org
Figure 3: The Vital Waveform of Gravitational-wave Event GW150914 Showing the Inspiral, Chirp
and Ringdown Features
(Courtesy: LIGO/Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 061102) and taken from physicsworld.com
MARCH 5, 2016 vol lI no 10 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
COMMENTARY
Targeting Institutions of
Higher Education
Fear of the Intellectual
Romila Thapar
The ideology central to the

Bharatiya Janata PartyRashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh has no
space or use for liberal thought
and values. Education for such
organisations means only what
can be called a kind of catechism.
This is a memorisation of a
narrow set of questions rooted in
faith and belief and an equally
narrow set of answers that
prohibit any doubt or deviation.
Therefore, educational centres
that allow questioning and
discussion are anathema and
have to be dismantled.
This is a slightly revised version of an article

that was earlier published on TheWire.in.
Romila Thapar is professor emeritus at the
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
ecent events at the Jawaharlal

Nehru University (JNU) raise
many questions pertinent to us
as citizens of India. The questions have
become imperative because it is apparent that many who govern us have little
sensitivity to understanding the fundamental issues crucial to governance. For
example, what are the necessary aspects
of a democratic system, or how essential
are the centrality of equality and human
rights as components of democracy to be
taught and nurtured in educational institutions? Every articulation of thought
and action is judged these days by its immediate political implications and seldom by the wider context of ethics, society and the citizen.
A recent example was a proposed discussion on capital punishment to be held
on the anniversary of the hanging of
Afzal Guru, where a handful of students
gathered on the JNU campus to discuss
it, and were joined by some others who it
seems were from outside the university.
Slogans took over in a confused fashion,
as happens in such situations, and the
serious issue of capital punishment was
lost. The confusion was confounded by
the discovery later that some of videos of
the slogans were faked.
Capital punishment is not just an
issue that relates to nationalism alone.
It involves aspects of ethics, moralities,
religions as well as the context of the
punishment, and it is not in the least
bit surprising that opinions differ on
all these issues. The logical follow-up
could have been a more extended discussion of the subject, from other
variant perspectives, rather than the
insistence by some of those present
that this was an anti-national issue,
and their then proceeding to have the
government intervene and clamp
down on it.
vol lI no 10
Silencing Criticism
As has been said by almost everyone
who has written on this event, the terms
that the government uses in its charges
against the JNU students are problematic
and cannot be bandied about in a casual
way. Charges of sedition, extremely serious as they are, nevertheless are slapped
on anyone who has virtually any critical
opinion about the country. Even the dictionary meaning of sedition is enticement
to violence and the overthrow of the
state/government. As others have pointed out, there is a considerable difference
between advocacy of violent methods
and actual incitement to violence. But
such distinctions seem to be beyond the
comprehension of most politicians. To
maintain that a statement made about
the possibility of a segment of the Indian
nation breaking away is sedition, shows
neither an understanding of the word
nor knowledge of the historical occasions in the last half century when such
statements were made with reference to
other parts of India. This is not the first
time that Kashmir has been mentioned
as part of such a suggestion. There have
been earlier threats of secession from
other parts of the nation, such as Nagaland and Tamil Nadu, and in the intention
of establishing the Sikh state of Khalistan, to mention just a few. Some others
are not completely silent even in present
times. Threats of secession are in part
the way in which nationalisms play out
in nations that extend over large territories and multiple cultures. It has to be
understood as a process of change and
has to be debated rather than being silenced by calling it sedition.
The debate on sedition goes back to
the early years of independence when
the attempt to silence free speech was
successfully resisted by the Supreme
Court (Brij Bhushan v State of Delhi
(1950) and Romesh Thapar v State of Madras (1950)). Nehru was in favour of expunging sedition as unconstitutional.
Those were the days when democracy
was valued and was nurtured. We
should familiarise ourselves with the
many occasions when sedition has been
objected to and on valid grounds, and
therefore consider its removal from the
body of laws. Laws that can be easily
19
COMMENTARY
misused should be reconsidered. Governance does imply taking an intelligent

interest in the debates on the laws by
which we are meant to be governed.
Then there are those who, because
they are critical of some aspects of the
nation, are immediately condemned as
anti-national. Nationalisms have a history and one has to be familiar with this,
as familiar as one has to be with what is
defined as the nation and as anti-national. Taken literally it could apply to a
large number of Indians who are critical
of various aspects of events in India.
Governments have described people as
anti-national, but the frequency of this
accusation has increased in the last
couple of years. It has been applied so
often now that the word has become
virtually meaningless, but not harmless,
because it can be used to politically persecute a person.
The ancestor to the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), the party known as the Jan
Sangh, when it was part of the government of Morarji Desai, subsequent to
the Emergency, criticised the history
textbooks written by some of us and
published by the National Council of
Educational Research and Training. We
were accused of being anti-Indian and
anti-national for the views we held on
ancient Indian history. The government
demanded that our books be proscribed.
But in the election that followed the government fell, so the books survived. Almost 25 years later, in the first National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) government,
the matter was taken up again. The then
Education Minister, Murli Manohar
Joshi and his BJP cohorts, referred to the
authors of the textbooksand I was included in thisas not only anti-Hindu
but also anti-national, anti-Indian, and
academic terrorists of the worst kind.
Enthusiastic BJP politicians demanded
that we should be arrested and punished
for writing these books. Fortunately the
first NDA government did not take itself
too seriously and did not go around arresting many teachers and students for
being anti-national, largely because their
definition of what was anti-national
became a matter for ridicule. Antinational for them was in effect a limited
term, namely anti-Hindu.
20
Who Is Blasphemous?
In the latest move of the BJPRashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) government
pertaining to universities, the JNU students union president, who was arrested,
has been accused of being anti-national
and indulging in sedition. He has been
accused of raising slogans on the independence for Kashmir and praise of Pakistan. The irony is that the students
union president was doing just the opposite
of what would be regarded as anti-national
and seditious, and was trying to close
the discussion, yet he was arrested.
It was then said, very much as an
afterthought, that the group which held
the meeting was instigated by the
Lashkar-e-Taiba. This is at best a rather
pathetic attempt to institute a charge of
terrorism with no other evidence but a
dubious tweet. Does government evidence
now rely on tweets? And are dubious
tweets enough to accuse a person of
sedition? This is not just a case of the
government and the police being adamant, but it appears to be a well-planned
strategy to destabilise JNU. There was
just too much unusual alacrity in the
way events moved.
The ideology central to the BJPRSS,
has no space or use for liberal thought
and values. Education for such organisations means only what can be called a
kind of catechism. This is a memorisation
of a narrow set of questions rooted in
faith and belief and an equally narrow set
of answers that prohibit any doubt or deviation. The same technique applies to all
subjects. Therefore educational centres
that allow questioning and discussion are
anathema and have to be dismantled.
Since what is referred to as Hinduism
does not confine itself to a single sacred
book, nor is there exclusive worship of a
single monotheistic God, the notion of
blasphemy, crucial to the Christian and
Islamic religions, has little application to
the Hindu religion. However, in the
Hindutva version of Hinduism, aimed at
establishing a Hindu rashtraa state
where Hindus are the primary citizens
and the purpose of governance is to
uphold Hindu principlesthe notion of
a kind of blasphemy is applied to those
that are critical of Hindutva that is
equated with the Hindu rashtra. This is
then equated with the nation. Criticism

of it is described as anti-nationalism, so
such criticism can be silenced. To call
criticism as hurt sentiment is now
much too mild. It has to be seen as blasphemy/anti-nationalism, and treated as a
serious crime. This helps to convert a
secular state into a religious state, which
ultimately is the aim of the RSS.
The BJPRSS government currently in
power is unable to have a dialogue with
the JNU and other similar universities such
as the Hyderabad Central University. In
universities such as these, the emphasis
from the start has been to teach students
to question existing knowledge, to explore
new knowledge and to relate knowledge
to the existing reality. This is the essence
of what a quality education should consist of and what constitutes what is
called critical inquiry. This is the very
opposite of merely handing down selected information without questioning it.
This is a problem that the BJPRSS government has to face with a number of
pace-setting prestigious centres of learning that do not substitute a kind of catechism for learning, and instead demand
the right to debate a subject that may be
thought to be blasphemous to the nation
as defined by Hindutva. So the alternative is to try and dismantle such centres
of learning by creating disturbances.
This will eventually prevent them from
functioning as they are intended to do.
There seems to be something of a
pattern in the organisation of such disturbances, since there is a repetition of
the same procedure in each case. The
similarities are curious. The first step is
to ensure that the person appointed in a
position of authority in the institution is
relatively unknown, as have been many
of the directors, chairmen, vice chancellors, appointed in the last 18 months in
various institutions. They are relied
upon to follow the orders of the government. The next step is to locate a group
preferably debating contemporary issues,
and the local Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad (ABVP)the student wing of
the BJPthen has an aggressive confrontation with such a group in the course
of the discussion, sometimes resulting in
violence. This allows the ABVP to claim
that its activists were attacked first and
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
COMMENTARY
complain to the local BJP politician, readily to hand, who then takes the matter up
immediately with a union minister. The
non-ABVP students are either rusticated
or arrested by the police, also invited into
the campus by the authority concerned,
under orders. We are told that this is to
restore discipline on the campus.
The normal university reaction in the
past has been not to allow police on the
campus or to make arrests. The investigation of disputes has been an internal
matter of the university. The exception
was during the Emergency. Generally, a
committee of enquiry is appointed by the
vice chancellor from among deans, proctors
and senior members of the university so
that it is a representative committee. In
this recent case in JNU, three persons
were arbitrarily selected by the vice
chancellor from the science schools. The
JNU Teachers Association has rejected
the committee on grounds of credibility.
Police action within the university can
only be permitted if there is a serious
breach of law. A group of students shouting slogans is not a serious breach of
law. What was done in the JNU reminds
me of the saying to bring a sledgehammer to crack an egg. The intention was
obviously not just to crack the egg but to
smash it. But it looks as if the egg is now
on the face of the government.
A Premium on Conformity
One might well ask why the BJPRSS is so
bent on dismantling institutions of learning and converting them into teaching
shops. Is it the premium on conformity
and out-of-date knowledge that the BJP
RSS would like to define as education? Is
it the kind of education that is given in the
shishu-mandirs and madrassas that is seen
as ideal in form? Interestingly, the institutions that come under attack are those
associated with freedom of thought, the
asking of questions, the advancing of
knowledge. Those that conform to education as learning by rote and providing
supervised answers are not interfered
with all that much, since this pattern of
learning fits into a catechism style.
There is by now little doubt that we
are currently being governed by those that
seem to have an anti-intellectual mindset. This spells trouble for universities
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
that are concerned with high standards

of teaching and research, and it would
seem beyond the comprehension of
those governing. One can only ask, why
is the government so apprehensive of
intellectuals? Is the government hamhanded with universities because from
the Minister of Human Resource Development downwards, they fear the potential power of those universities that
encourage their students to think independently? Or is this a deliberate way of
creating a general ambience of fear in
the institutions? The existence of such a
fear would make it easier to impose syllabi, courses and methods of teaching
emanating from the think tanks of the
RSS and similar institutions. Not to mention that it makes those employed in universities more pliant.
For those of us who were among the
founding members of the JNU, the recent
events at the university have been moments
of a far bigger intellectual and emotional crisis than has ever happened before
in its history. JNU was founded on the
principles of democratic functioning both
administratively, and in the content of
the education we imparted and the students we recruited. It meant a generally
positive relationship between teacher
and taught, and a frequency of free
discussion both on matters academic
and on the world we live in. It meant
more rigorous training in the subjects
taught and this experience improved the
work both of teachers and students, all
of which was underlined by an insistence
on critical enquiry. We were conscious of
stretching our minds to beyond what
was readily known and in encouraging
students to look beyond the obvious. It
was these factors that made it into a
prestigious university, a trendsetter in

many subjects that were taught in other
Indian universities. It was again these
factors that gave it an international
recognition, on par in many subjects
with the best universities outside India.
This of course is the opposite of the
rather pathetic BJPRSS version of what
is meant by education at any level,
judging by the views of the Ministry of
Human Resource Development. To see
the BJPRSS government trying to annul
what we have achieved in the JNU and
reduce the university to a pedestrian
teaching shop is like having to see the
work on ones lifetime being systematically destroyed. Many of us chose to work
in the JNU rather than take up lucrative
positions in universities abroad, because
we had a vision of the university and a
confidence that we could make JNU
among the best academic centres located
in India. And that excellence it has experienced. As an academic who has lived a
substantial part of my life working in the
JNU, and contributing to this vision, the
hostility of the current government to
the JNU leaves me with a sense of despair
and sadness, not just for JNU but for the
future of universities in India. However,
I must add that experiencing the protest
of the JNU community over the last few
weeks, against the attack that has been
mounted on the university, does make
me feel that perhaps the values that we
had tried to inculcate in its early years
have taken root. When JNU recovers from
the trauma of this attack it is likely to be
even more committed to the values for
which it was createdexcellence not only
in intellectual enterprise but also in endorsing a humane and open society, upholding the rights of every Indian citizen.
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vol lI no 10
21
COMMENTARY
Private Thermal Power in a

Liberal Policy Regime
Kannan Kasturi
The extremely liberal regime

ushered in by the Electricity
Act 2003 allowed a few existing
private captive thermal
generators to make handsome
profits, particularly in
certain regions with perceived
advantages in terms of
availability of coal and water. But
the majority of proposed projects
were abandoned without cost to
the communities of the area they
were to be located in. Of the rest,
only a few are operational with
partial capacity, while others are
under construction with delayed
schedules or have gone into
limbo. A critical analysis of the
development of private thermal
power projects over a decade.
he Electricity Act 2003 and the

National Electricity Policy 2005
put in place a highly liberal policy
regime for private thermal electricity
generators. Licensing was done away
with. Techno-economic clearance from
the Central Electricity Authority (CEA)
was no longer necessary. Generators
were provided open access to the transmission network, ownedwith a few
exceptionsby state and central utilities. They could supply power to any
part of India. Generators were also freed
from having to enter into long-term (12
25 year) power purchase agreements
with distribution companies, which limited profit margins. They could opt for
shorter-term contracts as well as sell in
the power markets through traders and
power exchanges.
The liberal regime resulted in an explosion of interest from private companies. This article follows the development of private thermal power projects over a decade to determine the major impacts of this policy regime and to
critique it.
the state where their project is located.

Additionally, companies intending to access the interstate transmission network
register access requests with the central
transmission utility. A composite picture
of projects in different stages of development can be pieced together from all
this disparate data.
It is a painstaking task to obtain
clean summary data from the MoEF&CC
database. The task can be simplified by
limiting it to a subset of all India data.
The choice of the subset is explained
below.
India is divided into five regions in the
context of electricity generation and
distributionthe southern, northern,
western, eastern and north-eastern regionsdefined by a transmission infrastructure that allows power generated
in a state in any region to be conveyed to
any other state in the same region. Electricity is largely consumed within the
region it is generated.
The highest build-up of private thermal capacity in the period from 2008
(about when the earliest thermal plants
conceived in the new regime would have
become operational) to 2015 has been in
the western regionChhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and
Goaaccounting for over 57% of the all
India addition to private thermal generation capacity (Table 1). This justifies the
use of data limited to the western region
for the analysis in this article.
Sources of Data
Kannan Kasturi (kasturi_kannan@yahoo.com)

is an independent researcher and writes on
public interest and policy.
22
Comprehensive data on private thermal Great Thermal Power Rush

projects is not available from a single The extent of private interest in thermal
source. With the end of the licensing regime, power projects can be gauged from the
the CEA has stopped monitoring projects number of projects with EC. Companies
except when they are close to becoming with EC for a project would have tied up
operational. Power projects, however, with the state government for public
have to obtain en- Table 1: Build-up of Private Thermal Generation Capacity in Different Regions
Power Generation Capacity (GW)
vironmental clearFebruary 2008
March 2015
ance (EC) and the Region
Private Thermal Total Thermal Total All Private Thermal Total Thermal Total All
Ministry of Envi- Northern
0.0
22.1
37.5
12.1
44.8
69.4
1.5
17.1
21.9
8.6
30.7
36.7
ronment, Forest, Eastern + NE
4.2
30.4
42.4
37.5
77.2
97.7
and Climate Change Western
Southern
3.6
21.2
39.2
9.4
36.2
63.7
(MoEF&CC) keeps
All India
9.3
90.9
141.1
67.6
188.9
267.6
track of projects Source: Annual Report 2008, Ministry of Power (MoP) and Executive Summary, Power Sector,
that have begun March 2015, CEA (www.cea.nic.in).
the process leading to EC. Even before land and water and have a plan for fuel
starting the EC process, companies typi- supply. They would also have completed
cally sign a memorandum of under- the mandatory public hearing in the
standing (MOU) with the government of project areaa gathering that is often
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
COMMENTARY
an outlet for public opposition to a

project. Only serious players would have
obtained EC for their projects (Kasturi
2011: 10).
There are two things noteworthy
about private thermal projects that have
obtained EC in the western region.
One is the sheer magnitude of the
capacity planned79 private thermal
power projects, with a combined generation capacity of 92 GW (Table 2). The
Table 2: Private Thermal Projects Planned in the
Western Region
Year in Which EC
Was Applied for
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Total
Number
of Projects
Capacity Addition
Planned (GW)
3
1
7
13
28
14
10
3
0
0
0
79
2.6
1.1
12.5
9.9
36.5
13.2
13.5
2.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
92.0
Projects planned by the government (central or state) for

private participation such as the Ultra Mega Power Plants
and SPVs in the DelhiMumbai Industrial Corridor have
been excluded.
Source: Collated by the author from the online
environment clearance database, MoEF&CC.
plants in the western region since 2011

(with but one or two exceptions which
do not have EC yet). The negative consequences of this bunching are briefly
touched upon later. The changing interest in thermal power strongly relates to
the rapidly changing economics of thermal power production of this period.
With permission to sell electricity in
the market, captive generators made
good profits in the prevailing conditions
of electricity scarcity, early on under
the liberal regime established by the
Electricity Act 2003. Jindal Steel and
Power (JSP), a captive generator itself,
went on to establish a thermal plant in
2007 operating exclusively as a merchant supplier without any long-term
power purchase agreements (PPA s) and
made super profits during the period
from 2007 to 2010 (Joshi 2009). The
success of merchant producers, and JSP
in particular, attracted many entrants
into thermal power.
From 2010, the situation turned unfavourable. With the production of coal
stagnating, the government stopped
giving long-term coal linkages to power
plants from 2011. In 2010, the international coal prices increased rapidly,
peaking in early 2011 and importing
fuel was not a good option. The biggest
dampener was that merchant electricity
rates dropped sharply during the second half of 2010, and thereafter, stayed
low in the western region (Figure 1).
latter figure can be better appreciated if

it is kept in mind that all India addition
of private thermal generation in the
Eleventh Plan (200712) was 19 GW and
the Planning Commission deemed 64
GW of thermal power addition (private
and public included) during the Twelfth
Plan period (201217) Figure 1: Historical Monthly Average Electricity Prices at the Indian
sufficient to meet the Energy Exchange
(Rs/kwh)
requirements of the 12
Southern region
Western region
country with gross do(TN, Kerala, Puducherry)
(Chhattisgarh)*
mestic product growing 10
at 9% (Planning Com8
mission 2012: 1.4.1).
The government of 6
the day appears to
have been fully aware 4
that many of these
proposals would not 2
fructify.
0
Second is the bun2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
ching of proposals be- *There is a small variation in price among the different states of the western region.
tween 2006 and 2010 The price in Chhattisgarh is shown here.
Source: Indian Energy Exchange (www.iexindia.com).
(Table 2). The interest
in projects rapidly peaked and had all Other region, with the sole exception of
but petered out by 2011. There has been the southern region, also showed simino fresh private interest in thermal lar falling prices.
EPW
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
Under these changed circumstances,

many thermal projects were put on hold
and others abandoned.
Stalled and Abandoned Projects
Chhattisgarh in the western region is a
case study of some of the excesses and
externalities of the new policy regime.
The state advertised itself as the upcoming power hub, an exporter of electricity to the rest of the country, and signed
as many as 61 MOUs for thermal power.
Forty projects, two-thirds of the number proposed, have not completed the
formalities needed for environment
clearance (Table 3). All these projects
were announced many years ago and
the overriding reason for them not to
have progressed appears to be the
changed economics of thermal power
generation described earlier. Of the 21
projects with EC, 10 are operational,
mostly with only partial capacity on
stream (Table 3). A few are under construction, but extremely delayed. A few
others appear to be stalled. In all, only
about a quarter of the proposed thermal
projects in Chhattisgarh may materialise.
Table 3: Status of Proposed Private Thermal
Projects (200415) in Chhattisgarh
Status
Environment clearance pending

Land acquired (partly/fully)
Environment clearance obtained
Stalled
Under construction
Operational
Total
Number
40
17
21
6
5
10
61
Source: Collated by the author from the following

(a) environment clearance database, MoEF, (b) long-term
open access applications with Power Grid Corporation India
(PGCIL 2010), and (c) company websites and new reports.
For proponents of competition the

failure of some projects may not be of
concern. The failed projects, however,
not just cost their investors, they come at
a great cost to the agricultural communities, amidst whom they are located.
Almost all stalled projects with EC have
acquired all the land they would have
needed. The land requirement for thermal plants is substantial700 to 900
acres for every 1,000 MW plant. At least
17 of the projects that have not even obtained EC have acquired part or all of the
land for their proposed plants. The early
land acquisition has been encouraged by
government itself in the past for providing
23
COMMENTARY
Actual imports from Idle Generators

western region into south- The skewed regional addition of genera40
ern region increased mar- tion capacity in the new policy regime
35
ginally from 2010 to has its direct consequences. The plant
2013, limited by the nom- load factor (PLF) has serially decreased
30
inal transmission capa- in the western region except for Gujarat,
25
city (Table 4). The nomi- and is now at 43% (Table 5).
nal transmission capacity
While coal availability would have
20
cannot be entirely uti- been considered a problem some years
15
lised in practice as mar- back, it appears that it is no longer so.
gins need to be kept aside In 201415, Indias coal production
10
for technical reasons; increased by 32 MT, more than the cu5.0
this table also shows ac- mulative increases in production in the
tual imports.
previous four years. Coal stocks in state
0.0
200708
201415
200708
2007-08
2014-15
2007-08
2014-15
2007-08
2014-15
2007-08
2014-15
201415
200708
201415
200708
201415
Capacity
enhancements
plants have gone up. International coal
Northern region Eastern/NE regions Western region
Southern region
*The installed generation capacity numbers pertain to February 2008 and April
happened in 2014 with prices have come down. The problem
2015 respectively and also include the share of generation capacity allotted to
the opening of the first of appears to be that there are no customstates in a region from central and joint sector plants located in other regions. The
energy requirement is the unrestricted requirement estimated by the CEA.
two 2100 MW links bet- ers for the power generated by these
Source: Generation capacity as in Table 1; energy requirement from the Load
ween Solapur in Maha- power producers.
generation balance report 201516, CEA and from annual reports of MoP and
rashtra and Raichur in
The electricity distribution compasouthern (www.srpc.kar.nic.in), western (www.wrpc.gov.in) and northern (www.
nrpc.gov.in) regional power committees for 200708.
Karnataka. However, even nies (discoms) in the western region
coal linkages, which in turn, was neces- with the much higher nominal trans- cannot absorb more power in their curmission capacity, the average power rent situation. This, of course, does not
sary for obtaining EC (Kasturi 2011: 11).
transferred from western to the south- mean that electricity has reached every
Aggravating Imbalance
ern region went up only by small household in this region or that there is
round the clock supply. It only means
Private thermal generation plants that amounts.
The reason behind this is that power that the discoms have met their stated
have proliferated under the new policy
regime have aggravated the imbalance transfers require an end-to-end trans- requirementslimited by their transbetween installed generation capacity mission capacity between generating mission network, their distribution
and energy requirement in different centres and load centres. Even if the reach and their financial ability to buy
regions (Figure 2). The western region interregional transmission capacity more power. Export to the southern
has become relatively capacity surplus, which is the capacity of links across the regionwhere Karnataka is facing a
while the north and south regions have region bordersis adequate, there may severe electricity crisis because of a deficit
a capacity deficit. Given that nearly half be bottlenecks elsewhere on the end-to- monsoon crippling its hydropower genof the increase in all-India generation end corridor. In the present case, the erationis not possible because of lack
capacity came from private thermal Table 4: Transmission Capacity and Actual Energy Exchange between Western and Southern Regions
plants and that nearly 64% of this was
201011
201112
201213
201314
201415
201516*
in the western region, this region Nominal link capacity (MW)
1,520
1,520
1,520
1,520
3,620
5,720
was bound to become relatively over- Average actual utilised capacity (MW) # 749
788
874
896
1,063
1,363
*April to September 2015; #Actual energy exchanged over the year expressed as an average power rating. Average actual
endowed (Table 1).
utilised capacity (MW) = (Actual transfer in a year (MU)) * (1000/(24*365)).
The surplus capacity in some regions Source: Nominal link capacities are from MoP; Utilised capacity calculated by author using actual energy exchange data
and capacity deficit in others may not from annual reports of Southern Regional Power Committee and monthly system operation reports of Southern Regional
be an issue, if there is an adequate Load Dispatch Centre (www.srldc.org).
inter regional transmission capacity. transmission capacity from western Table 5: Performance of Private Coal Thermal
Starting from 2010, the market has region generating clusters (such as those Power Plants in the Western Region*
Western Region
Gujarat
existed for export of electricity from in Chhattisgarh) to Solapur and from
(Excluding Gujarat)
Capacity (GW) PLF (%)# Capacity (GW) PLF (%) #
the western region to the southern region. Raichur to the southern region load cen4.9
69.8
5.5
41.3
The relative electricity surplus in the tres is lacking. In 201415, only 1,172 MW August 2011
6.5
66.9
6.7
44.8
western region and deficit in the south- of power, equivalent to a capacity trans- August 2012
August 2013
11.1
47.9
6.7
57.1
ern region is seen in the different fer of 1,500 MW or about 0.6% of allAugust 2014
16.5
48.0
6.7
67.6
prices registered for the two regions India generation capacity for the year,
August 2015
23.0
43.0
6.7
69.6
at the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) could be transferred from western re- * Projects planned by the government (central or state) for
(Figure 1). The problems of inter- gion to southern region.1 This was far private participation such as the Ultra Mega Power Plants
have been excluded.
regional transmission are illustrated below the southern region requirement # PLF is calculated as ratio of actual power generated in the
to maximum power that could be generated as per
by the western regionsouthern region and western region available surplus month
rated capacity.
Source: Various Generation Review monthly reports, CEA.
energy exchanges.
(Figure 2).
Figure 2: All-India Share of Energy Requirement and Generation
Capacity in Each Region*
(%)
24
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
COMMENTARY
of transmission capacity. These power

producers have been stranded.
Transmission Planning
Before the advent of the new regime,
electricity generation in India was
planned to keep each region self-sufficient. States developed their generation
and transmission infrastructure in tandem. The centre while establishing new
generating units in a state not only
develops the interstate and interregional
transmission systems required to deliver
the power to the states, but also allocates power from the unit. In addition, a
few transmission links were built by the
centre across region boundaries specifically to exchange power.
The National Electricity Policy 2005
declares that the network planning and
implementation should be based on the
transmission needs arising from the
open access regime and not contingent
on a prior agreement with the users
(MoP 2005: 5.3.2). Considering that generating units can target customers anywhere in the country and transmission
systems are expensive and have to be
built with long-term needs in mind, this
appears to be a wishful thinking under
present conditions of India.
Optimal design of transmission systems requires knowledge of the location,
capacity and time frame of commissioning of each new generation plant as well
as its intended customers. Multiple agencies must work to enhance intra-state,
interstate and interregional networks in
a coordinated manner to ensure the required transmission capacity end to end
(CEA 2012: 7.4.2).
Transmission planning has become
extremely difficult in the new regime as
power plants are no longer required to
enter into long-term PPAs with distribution utilities. Many private generation
plants staking claims for a long-term access
to the transmission network have not
specified end users for their power as they
have not (on purpose) or could not (because of lack of tenders) enter into longterm PPAs with distribution utilities. Further, they are not accountable for their
schedule of commissioning (PGCIL 2010).
For the transmission utilities, as of
now almost entirely owned by the states
EPW
March 5, 2016
and the centre, the above uncertainties

put at risk the investment in transmission infrastructure. This can lead to a
situation where there is suboptimal utilisation of the network. Generation plants
on the other hand can be denied access
because of congestion, as is happening
today (Planning Commission 2012: 2.2.2).
Conclusions
The extremely liberal regime ushered in
by the Electricity Act 2003 allowed the
few existing private captive thermal
generators to make handsome profits.
This attracted a large number of private
companies to venture into thermal power
generation, particularly in certain regions
with perceived advantages in terms of
availability of coal and water. The
changing economics of thermal power
production, however, quickly led to this
interest petering out.
The majority of proposed projects
were abandoned, but not without cost to
the communities of the area they were
to be located in. Of the rest, only a few
are operational with partial capacity,
while others are under construction
with delayed schedules or have gone
into limbo.
The location of the functional plants

serves to further exacerbate the regional
imbalance between demand and generation capacity. Not being able to sell
their electricity locally because of lack of
immediate demand and in power deficit
regions because of the lack of adequate
transmission capacity to load centres,
these plants idle or run at low PLFs even
as parts of the country reel under severe
electricity shortage. The overall development of the private thermal power
sector shows a far from optimal utilisation of national resources.
There are other negative consequences
for the electricity sector which are not
detailed in this article. The rush to build
thermal plants created a spurt in demand
for capital equipment that was taken advantage of by foreign manufactures at
the cost of domestic manufacturing. This
is apparent in the details of executing
agencies and equipment suppliers of private plants captured by CEA (CEA 2015).
State-owned banks, the main lenders to
dysfunctional power projects, are burdened with huge non-performing assets
(Acharya 2012). This also makes it harder for newer entrants into the power sector to obtain financing for their projects.
Assistant Editor (Digital)

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He/she will be expected to coordinate site maintenance and regular uploads.
Knowledge of the content management system, Drupal, and its architecture
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vol lI no 10
25
COMMENTARY
Each of these problems can be seen as

caused by a failure of coordination, adequate due diligence, and so on. Taken
together, they point to the infirmities in
the legal and policy framework. The
framework acknowledges the heavily
capital-intensive nature of the industry
and the need for a planned approach to
electricity for the optimal utilisation of
national resources to serve the economy.
Yet it allows private generation companies unfettered freedom to set up plants
without reference to timing, location or
quantity all in the name of efficiency
through competition.
The present government meanwhile
has shifted its focus to solar energy. It is
pushing humungous targets for solar
26
generation capacity additionreminiscent of the previous governments push

for thermal energywithout addressing
any of the issues that have severely
affected thermal energy development.
Note
1
The equivalent generation capacity has been

arrived at by assuming a plant operating at
75% PLF to generate 1,172 MW.
References
Acharya, Namrata (2012): Banks Review Power
Sector Exposure, Business Standard, 15 September.
CEA (2012): Draft National Electricity Plan (Volume 2) Transmission, Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Power, February, available
at: http://www. indiaenvironmentportal. org.
in/files/file/transmission_12.pdf.
(2015): Monthly Report on Broad Status of
Thermal Projects in the Country, April 2015,

Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Power, 29 May.
Kasturi, Kannan (2011): New Thermal Power Clusters, Economic & Political Weekly, 1 October.
MoP (2005): National Electricity Policy 2005,
Ministry of Power, 12 February, available in
http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2005/
nep20050209.pdf.
PGCIL, (2010): Agenda for Long-term Open Access
of IPP Generation Projects in the Western Region, PGCIL, 29 April, https://apps.powergridindia.com/POWERGRID/docs/OpenAccess/may2010/AGENDA%20chhatt-32.pdf.
Planning Commission (2012): Report of the Working Group on Power for the Twelfth Plan (2012
17), Ministry of Power, January, New Delhi,
available at: http://planningcommission.gov.
in/aboutus/committee/wrkgrp12/wg_power
1904.pdf.
Joshi, Rishi (2009): Merchant of Power, Business
Today, 4 October, available at: http://www.
businesstoday.in/magazine/features/merchant-of-power/story/4692.html.
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
COMMENTARY
Ramkrishna Mukherjee
In Memoriam
T N Madan
A tribute to Ramkrishna
Mukherjee, the eminent
sociologist, who made a
significant contribution to making
sociology a field of research in
India in the second half of the
20th century.
I am obliged to Partha N Mukherji and Rila

Mukherjee for certain biographical details.
T N Madan (tnmadan@gmail.com) is honorary
professor, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi.
26
he death of Ramkrishna Mukherjee

on 15 December 2015 in Kolkata
marks the close of what one may
call the second chapter of the history of
academic sociology in India. If we go by
the substantive scope, methodological
sophistication, and volume of his published work, Mukherjee made a significant contribution to the making of sociology as a field of research in the second
half of the 20th century. If one brings in
the criterion of influence on others, a
negative judgment is inescapable: he
stood outside the mainstream. The reasons for this mixed assessment are personal, institutional, and professional. I
can barely do more here than provide a
few intimations about how to understand the paradox.
Ramkrishna Mukherjee (henceforth RM)
was born in 1919 in an affluent, zamindar,
Brahmin family of Uttar Para (West Bengal). He gave early indications of scholarly inclinations and brilliance while still
in school. He wanted to choose natural
sciences or engineering for higher studies, he once told me, but by the time he
was of age to go to college, poor eyesight
had already emerged as a handicap and

he had to opt for a less demanding and
non-experimental subject. He chose anthropology, which he studied at the University Science College, University of
Calcutta and earned an MSc with distinction in 1941. Among his teachers
there, he used to recall the influence of
K P Chattopadhyay (18871963), with
whom he actually started his research
career. It was on his advice and under
the guidance of the leading Communist
Party of India intellectual, P C Joshi,
that RM undertook the study of social
and economic life in rural East Bengal
through a survey. Actually, RM had been
in contact with the party since 1939. Later,
he took part in a study of the socioeconomic impact of the Bengal Famine
of 1943 under the supervision of the distinguished statistician P C Mahalanobis
(18931972). RMs first publications were
jointly authored with him (1946, 1947).
Meanwhile, the first results of his village
surveys were also ready for publication.
Two papers were published in 1948 and
1949 in the American Sociological Review.
In England
RM went to Cambridge (UK) in 1946 for
further studies, and was awarded the
doctoral degree in biometry in 1948. His
dissertation was based on a statistical
analysis of excavated skulls of the neolithic
period from Jebel Moya (Sudan) using
Mahalanobiss method of multivariate
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
COMMENTARY
analysis, under the supervision of

J C Trevor. It was later published (1955a).
While in England he became interested
in the widely acclaimed work of the
mathematician Karl Pearson (1857
1936), who had advocated the use of statistical techniques in the biological and
social sciences. Chattopadhyay, Mahalanobis, and Pearson were the exemplars who established him as a statistically competent sociologist.
RM found an immediate opportunity
for honing the techniques of research he
was attracted to when he accepted appointment as Chief Research Officer in a
government-sponsored social survey in
London (194849). After a short stint as
a statistical consultant to the Government of Turkey in Ankara (1949), RM returned to India to work at the Indian
Statistical Institute (ISI), but he did not
stay there long. He went back to England
and joined as a consultant to a research
team engaged in the study of social
mobility in Britain led by sociologist David
Glass at the London School of Economics
(LSE). While associated with LSE, he visited
Uganda for participation in ongoing
research on processes of culture change
there, and produced a report in 1956
which was later reprinted (1985).
In 1953, RM went to East Berlin as a
guest professor of Indian Studies at
Humboldt University. One of the products of his teaching duties there is his
well-known study of the East India Company (1955b) in which he analysed the
role of monopolistic merchant capital in
India under the auspices of colonialism.
While abroad, RM continued to work on
the data generated through his study of
the agrarian society of Bengal. The complete report on this pioneering study
came out in the form of two books (1957,
1958). Neither of these books were readily available in India until much later,
nor were RMs methods of research
familiar to the newly emergent postindependence generation of sociologists
and social anthropologists working in
Indian villages.
In the event, RMs books did not
achieve the distribution and influence
they deserved. S C Dubes fieldworkbased monographs on an Andhra village
and M N Srinivass early seminal papers
EPW
March 5, 2016
resulting from his fieldwork in a Karnataka village became trendsetters and

models for further research. It was characteristic of RM that, while he deeply
resented the marginalisation of his work,
he did not openly speak or write about it.
Unlike Dube and Srinivas, he never became a university professor, and did not
have any students; actually he was not
even in India in the early 1950s.
RM returned to India in 1957 and
joined the ISI as professor of sociology,
and organised a Sociological Research
Unit there. He retired as Distinguished
Scientist in 1979. In the intervening
years he visited many countries on academic assignments. RM made his debut
on the national stage, as it were, when
he delivered the sectional presidents
address to the social anthropology section
at the Fifth All-India Sociological Conference convened by R N Saksena and
hosted by D N Majumdar (professor of
anthropology) at the University of Lucknow. From then onwards, RM remained
continuously engaged with professional
bodies. He was a member of the V K R V
Rao Committee which recommended in
1968 the setting up of the Indian Council
of Social Science Research (ICSSR). Subsequently, he served as a member of the
governing body of ICSSR from 1974
onwards for several terms. In 197274 he
was a member of executive council of
the International Sociological Association, and in 197478, president of the
Indian Sociological Society.
Intellectual Interests
During a six-decade-long research career,
RM pursued several interrelated intellectual interests. Notably, the concern with
the identification of significant problems
for empirical investigation, clarification
of conceptual frameworks for their study,
and fashioning of appropriate methodologies for observation and explanation.
At the beginning of his career, as I
have already noted, he was invited to
pursue such problems as the exploitative
nature of prevailing agrarian structures,
or the socio-economic impact of the 1943
Bengal Famine. Subsequently, he devoted himself to empirical, conceptual, and
methodological studies of changing family
structures in Bengal and Bihar (1962,
vol lI no 10
1972, 1977a). From the 1960s onwards, he

busied himself with the study of planned
development in its historical, sociocultural, and methodological dimensions
(1975, 1991).
Central to RMs work was the issue of
scientific method. Observations, measurement, classification, comparison and
inductive inference stand out in his conception of it. Besides, there was the commitment to the historical and value dimensions of social reality. He remained
rooted in the Marxian approach but
not uncritically; he questioned various
dichotomies associated with it, such as
material baseideological superstructure
and objectivitysubjectivity. He placed
at the centre of social inquiry a fivefold
framework of questions: (i) identification
(what is it?); (ii) historical development
(how is it?); (iii) causality (why is it?);
(iv) prognosis (what will it be?); (v) evaluation (what should it be?) (1979).
RM had other related interests too, notably disciplinary history (1977b) and
futures (2009). He did not, however,
look at his work as an enterprise divided
chronologically into stages or substantively into discrete problem areas. It follows that the large body of publications
that RM bequeathed to us needs to be
studied systematically (holistically), and
would require considerable methodological skills, qualitative as well as quantitative. Fortunately, much of his published work is extant; many of his books
have been reprinted and he took care to
bring together select papers. There is work
to do, and it is doable. In a 2014 interview, RM observed rather ruefully that
he never had a follower (2014: 134).
I doubt he would have wanted any after
Obituaries
The EPW has started a monthly section,
Obituaries, which will note the passing of
teachers and researchers in the social sciences and humanities, as also in other areas
of work.
The announcements will be in the nature of
short notices of approximately a hundred
words about the work and careers of those
who have passed away.
Readers could send brief obituaries to
edit@epw.in.
27
COMMENTARY
his death. Appraisal (a favourite word

of his)? Yes.
Relationship with RM
I would now like to briefly relate how I
got to know RM and what kind of person
I found him to be over the years. I will
choose four incidents from among many.
I first met RM in early 1960 when he visited the Department of Anthropology of
Lucknow University at the invitation of
D N Majumdar as an expert member of
the Committee of Courses. I was a lecturer there, and after discussions among
all faculty members, had been asked by
Majumdar to prepare the outline of the
social anthropology papers; other colleagues put together the physical anthropology and prehistory courses. RM listened to the presentations with close
concentration, and then reacted rather
sharply, pointing out that what we had
in hand were sets of topics; the concept
of anthropology as a unified discipline
was missing. Where are the connections?, he kept asking. What he advocated was a systematic (holistic) approach so as to bring out the logic underlying the idea of anthropology as the
empirical study of man and culture.
The outlines would have to be revised,
for his criticisms were convincing and
constructive. It was then that the foundation of a long professional and personal relationship between RM and me was
laid. Majumdar died later that year, but
RM was invited to visit the department
again in 1961 and 1962 as a member of
the Committee of Courses. During each
visit I had long interesting conversations
with him after the formal meetings,
every time with benefit and pleasure.
In 1962, I resigned from Lucknow University to take up a temporary appointment as a lecturer of anthropology at the
School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), University of London. (Leave of
absence had earlier been agreed to but
eventually declined for some bureaucratic reasons.) I wrote to S C Dube,
M N Srinivas, and RM, asking whether I
could hope to find employment on my
return to India. Dube and Srinivas were
unable to provide any such hope, although for different reasons. RM almost
immediately arranged for me to have an
28
audience (it was that!) with P C Mahalanobis, and I was assured a suitable
position in the Sociological Research Unit
on my return to India. This surely was a
huge professional and personal favour.
As it turned out, I did not join ISI.
K Ishwaran, professor of anthropology
at Karnatak University, whom I had met
at Lucknow in 1960, came to know of my
resignation, but had no knowledge of
the ISI offer. He asked me if I would like
to join his department as a reader. After
considering every aspect of the situation
from professional and personal angles,
my wife and I decided to go to Dharwar
rather than Calcutta. I wrote to RM
explaining my decision. He replied promptly, saying he fully appreciated my
decision, and that it would not affect our
relationship; it did not. In subsequent
years, he never gave me the impression
that he had felt annoyed by my decision.
In fact, he hardly ever mentioned it, as if
no help had been sought in a difficult
situation, and readily given. This was
indeed gracious.
In 1978, Rajni Kothari, chairman of
the ICSSR, persuaded me to accept appointment as membersecretary (chief executive). The day he was to announce
this to the council (governing body) of
ICSSR, he asked me to join him at lunch
so as to enable him to introduce me to
the members most of whom did not
know me. I was at the Indian Institute of
Public Administration (IIPA) hostel (where
ICSSR was then housed) at the appointed

time. As members began to assemble in
the lounge, I got into conversation with
economist Balwanth Reddy who was a
friend. Soon RM was there too, and heading straight for me said loudly, almost
sternly, that I had made the worst blunder of my career. He said I still had it in
me to pursue my research career and
had no administrative experience. You
will be an utter failureI remember
these words well. Reddy intervened and
tried to ease the situation, protesting
RMs hasty judgment. Soon Kothari and
other members joined us, knowing nothing of what had just happened.
In the months that followed, I knew I
was under RMs watch as also, perhaps,
of some other members as they had yet
not become accustomed to the idea of
there being a successor to the redoubtable J P Naik, who had led ICSSR for 10
years. Before the year was out I found
RM to be one of the most supportive
members of the council of whatever I
was doing in the administrative as well
as the academic areas of the work of
ICSSR. I had obviously passed the test.
This too was gracious. In fact, we came
closer to each other during my years
there. In the summer of 1981, when I
confided in him that I had decided to
leave ICSSR, and return prematurely to
my parent institute (Institute of Economic Growth), he advised me to stay
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vol lI no 10
EPW
COMMENTARY
my tenure, but also said that he fully appreciated the reasons for my decision.
I may add here that, as a member of
the ICSSR, he was conscientious, regularly attended meetings of the council
and of the all-important research committee which met every two months and
sat all day. He did not speak too often
but when he did it was constructively.
He tried to promote the idea of ICSSR
preparing a database register for social
science research. When in 1980, Kothari
completed his term as chairman, G Parthasarthi took his place. I was amazed to
find how some members suddenly discovered their left-leaning intellectual
preferences, but RM was not one of
them, notwithstanding the fact that he
had deeper understanding of Marxism
than most of them. He kept his distance
and dignity.
My last conversation with RM was late
in 2011, on the telephone. I learned that
he was trying to contact me, and called
him. He told me that he had liked my
essay on Radhakamal Mukerjees work
which had recently been published in
Sociological Bulletin. Thanking him, I reminded him how inadequate he had
found a similar 1978 essay of mine on
D P Mukerji. I still hold that view, he
responded, adding that I needed to
understand better the Marxian notion of
dialectics to arrive at an adequate understanding of D P Mukerjis analysis of
modern Indian culture. At 92, RM had
lost neither his memory nor the pungency
of speech that characterised him!
Reasons for Limited Recognition
To conclude, I will go back to the paradox posed in the opening paragraph of
this short memoir. Why did RM, despite
the wide scope and sophistication of his
large body of published work, not receive
the recognition which, I believe, he deserved? He had his professional admirers
more abroad than in India. Srinivass
Collected Papers (2002) contains but one
fleeting reference to RMs use of advanced statistical techniques (p 504) without any work being cited. Among scholars outside India, I might mention just
one, the American sociologist Immanuel
Walterstein who had RM over yearly for
about 10 years to lecture to and engage
EPW
March 5, 2016
with students at the State University of

New York, Binghamton. RM also was a
regular visitor at the Maison de Sciences
de lHomme, Paris, for many years.
For one thing, RM managed over the
years to cultivate the image of a standapart, even difficult, colleague. He could
be blunt in academic discussions, and
was seen by many as self-opinionated
and even haughty. In short, he was a
poor social mixer: I was a loner all the
time, he confessed towards the end of
his life (2014: 134).
Second, his writing style was rather
inaccessible, not only because of the use
of complicated statistical formulae, but
also because of the terseness of his prose.
I remember the British anthropologist
John Barnes, a specialist in kinship studies, dismiss RMs work on the classification of family structures as etic algebra
in a comment in Current Anthropology.
Third, his institutional base in India for
four decades, ISI, had no teaching or doctoral programmes in sociology, although
there was a research programme, and
there were sociologists working on individual and collective projects. We were
more known as statisticians than as sociologists (2014: 132). He visited the institute only occasionally, and preferred to
meet colleagues and visitors at home.
Fourth, during his most productive
years, it was the social anthropological
method that prevailed over other styles
of doing sociology in India. There were
a few notable exceptions among his
contemporaries, such as Victor DSouza
(Punjab University) who used statistical
techniques (for example, Set Theory).
A R Desai (Bombay University) shared
RMs interest in the Marxian approach to
the study of colonialism, but was content
with the discursive method. Satish
Saberwal, who also came to social anthropologysociology from a background
of the natural sciences was, like RM, an
epistemological realist and an empirist,
and an admirer of RMs work. But he
never went beyond simple quantification
in his studies of urbanisation.
Last Book
In short, RMs idiosyncrasies, his specialist methodological skills and institutional
constraints contributed to the general
vol lI no 10
lack of interest in his work among his

contemporaries. He did not, however,
give up and pursued his scholarly interests until the very end of his life: he completed his last book at the age of 89. Why
Unitary Social Science? (2009) is his testament to the profession. It is a clearly
constructed argument for the imperative of overcoming the compartmentalisation of knowledge among what he
calls discrete (human) social sciences.
In a pre-publication comment, Immanuel Wallerstein wrote: This is a book
to be taken seriously by the worlds
social scientists. We may yet see a
revival of interest in RMs work.
References
Mukherjee, Ramkrishna, jointly with P C Mahalanobis and K P Chattopadhyay (1946): The
Famine and Rehabilitation of Bengal, Calcutta:
Statistical Publishing Society.
jointly with P C Mahalanobis and A Ghosh
(1947): A Sample Survey of the After-effects
of Bengal Famine of 1943, Sankhya VII, 4:
33792.
(1949): The Economic Structure and Social
Life in Six Villages of Bengal, American Sociological Review, 14, 3: 41525.
(1954): A Note on the Analysis of Data on
Social Mobility, Social Mobility in Britain,
D V Glass (ed), pp 21841, London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul.
Jointly with C R Rao and J C Trevor (1955a): The
Physical Characteristics of the Ancient Inhabitants of Jebel Moya, Sudan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1955b): The Rise and Fall of the East India Company: A Sociological Appraisal, Berlin: Deutscher
verlag der Wissenschaften.
(1957): The Dynamics of a Rural Society, Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag.
(1958). Six Villages of Bengal, Calcutta: Asiatic
Society of Bengal.
(1962): On Classification of Family Structures, Indian Anthropology, T N Madan and
G Sarana (eds), pp 35398, Bombay: Asia Publishing House.
(1972): Concepts and Methods for the Secondary Analysis of Variations in Family Structures, Current Anthropology, 13, 34: 41733.
(1975): Social Indicators, New Delhi: Macmillan.
(1977a): West Bengal Family Structures 194666,
New Delhi: Macmillan.
(1977b): Trends in Indian Sociology, Current
Sociology, 25, 3: 1193.
(1979): What Will It Be? Explorations in Inductive Sociology, New Delhi: Allied Publishers.
(1985) [1956]: Uganda: An Historical Accident,
Trenton: World Africa Press.
(1989): The Quality of Life: Valuation in Social
Research, New Delhi: Sage.
(1991): Culture, Society and Development, New
Delhi: Sage.
(2009): Why Unitary Social Science?, Delhi: Primus Books.
(2014): Ramkrishna Mukherjee in Conversation with Anjan Ghosh (on 17 January 2010),
Sociological Bulletin, 63, 1: 11340.
29
Welding the Two Visions

of Democracy
A Tale of Ambedkar and Gandhi
an insurrectionary element in their

(a) critique of the sociopolitical, and
(b) recognition and recovery of force
for the multitude, Radical Equality goes
on to discover, in three parts, the shared
legacies of both the thinkers.
On Constituent Power and Force
H S Komalesha
n the political iconography of the

Indian nationalist struggle for independence, M K Gandhi and B R Ambedkar
have more often than not been invoked
as ideological opponents vying fiercely
with each other to influence the trajectory
of Indias social, moral and democratic
space. Thanks to Arundhati Roys booklength introduction to Ambedkars Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical
Edition (2014), The Doctor and the Saint,
and a vigorous response to it by Rajmohan
Gandhi (2015a) (and a later rebuttal by
Roy (2015)) in EPW, many decades after
independence, the dormant chronicle of
the alleged epic rivalry between Ambedkar
and Gandhi has come alive and there is
today more distance between ideological
legacies of the two towering visionaries
of India. As if chipping into this debate,
Aishwary Kumars book Radical Equality:
Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the Risk of Democracy offers refreshing insights into understanding and locating similarities and
differences between the two radical
thinkers. It explores the complex, but complimentary relationship that they together
shared in shaping the contours of justice,
equality, and democracy not just in India,
but in broader South Asia.
Constructing the ontology of justice,
democracy, and dissent in the anticolonial struggles and writings of Gandhi
and Ambedkar, Radical Equality seeks to
shed light on an ethics of antinomies
that constitutes the egalitarian muscle
and fibre of Indian politics, and its moral
republican centre. Through a probing
enquiry, the book begins by succinctly
engaging with the two seminal texts, Hind
Swaraj (1909) and Annihilation of Caste
(1936), and their shared, but nuanced
filiations and affiliations in the rigorous
pursuit of equality and sovereignty
EPW
march 5, 2016
book reviewS
Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the
Risk of Democracy by Aishwary Kumar; Stanford,
California: Stanford University Press, 2015; pp xiv + 393,
price not indicated.
against the backdrop of the perceived

antagonism between their authors. Aptly
enough, the book not just locates the significance of Gandhi and Ambedkar in the
wider cosmogony of Indian anti-colonial
ideologies of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee,
M G Ranade, B G Tilak, V D Savarkar
among others, but goes on to excavate the
sites of religious and judicial exclusions
that situate Dalit politics in charting out
Indias political modernity.
In its engagement with political and
ontological categories such as the state,
the multitude, social reform, citizenship, truth, morality, justice, etc, in
the life and works of Gandhi and Ambedkar,
Radical Equality escapes being just a sociopolitical biography of the encounter
bet ween the two remarkable thinkers.
With its commendable (and occasionally
strained) intellectual rigour, it raises to
become a history of an antinomy in anticolonial political thought that considers
both of them together as exemplars of a
shared philosophical conviction (p 26).
Though the book attempts to write a
philosophical history of the Indian political, it does so by legitimately shifting the
focus away from the postcolonial and
postmodern narratives of struggle between Europe and colony to bring in the
tensions between the just and the unjust, the politics of inclusion and
exclusion, right in the middle of a grand
account of the nations arrival into
modernity. Strongly arguing how Hind
Swaraj and Annihilation of Caste betray
vol lI no 10
Deviating from the classical and canonical

interpretations of Gandhi and Ambedkar,
Part 1 of the book posits how the category
of force is at the vortex of both their
writings. Indulging in exploiting the
semiotic and semantic dimensions of
satyagraha since its induction into
Gandhis political language in South
Africa, Chapter 2 arguably shifts the emphasis away from the first part of the
word satya (truth) to its second part,
agrahatenaciously tethering its meaning to forceand projects it as the
very spirit, the structuring concept of
the term satyagraha.
One could pick holes in such an argument, which (a) is more academic, and is
convenient to prove its ideological objective, and (b) divests the soul and intent
of the term. The book, though, critically
picks on the diverse threadsphysical,
social, political and spiritualof satyagraha, and shows how it is central
to understanding Gandhis ethics and
politics. Finding its parallel, Chapter 3
focuses on the contours of force in
Ambedkars writings. Rightly moving
away from the legislative concerns and
commitments that have overshadowed
Ambedkars other equally significant
achievements, the chapter constructs a
conceptual genealogy of his distinctive
approach to the problem of the constituent power of the multitude. This lends
political legitimacy to the multitudes right
to revolutionary force, even in a sovereign
space. Beginning with how Mooknayak
(the silent hero)Ambedkars first major publishing ventureinvoked a subject that was trying to reclaim a potent
space between speech and silence both
beyond and before the law, the chapter
neatly explores the polyvalence in the
meanings of freedom, autonomy and
social justice for the downtrodden Dalit
in the writings of Ambedkar.
31
BOOK REVIEW
Destiny of the Nation

Subjecting the 1930s and 1940sthe
two crucial decades that played a pivotal
role in shaping the destiny of the nation
to rigorous intellectual scrutiny, Part 2
explores Indias experiments with questions of franchise and constitution.
Chapter 4 deals with Gandhis maryada
dharmahis logic of discipline and limit
which constitutes his notions of touchability and untouchability.
Chapter 5 deals with how Ambedkar,
in his attempts to cope with his failure
with the 1932 Poona Pact, shifts his focus
away from caste to its total annihilation.
Picking its threads from Annihilation of
Caste and Thoughts on Pakistan (1941),
this chapter throws light on Ambedkars
ambivalence towards the classical republican tradition out of which he develops
his mature ideas on force, sovereignty and
dissidence. The two chapters in this part
cogently bring out the Dalit dialectics
that was at the moral and legal centre of
Indias forthcoming tryst with destiny.
Gandhis act of naming the untouchables as Harijan (children of god) in 1931
and Ambedkars emphasis on the annihilation of caste in 1936, though they
appear to lead questions around Dalit
interests in contradictory directions,
they together explore the possibility of
redefining the notion of democracy by
including into its fold the legitimate and
constitutional interests of the minorities.
The gifted Kannada writer, Devanoora
Mahadeva (2013: 76), offers a brilliant
insight into understanding the conflict
between the two thinkers over their differences on Dalit concerns:
The older generations considered these fights
as quarrel between parents over the best interests of their children; for instance, if the father argues for enrolling the child to a Kannada Medium school, the mother might insist on an English medium school. Obviously, a
fight ensues. Except the interest of the child,
what else is there in the fight? Why was
there a fierce fight over the Poona Pact? Isnt
it like saying, its true, I may have some major
shortcomings; but dont desert me for that?
(Authors translation from the original
Kannada).
Despite their tussle over Dalit interests, what is interesting in both Gandhi
and Ambedkar is their relentless determination to make the Dalit issue central in
the nations anti-colonial articulations of
32
freedom. And, again, significantly enough,

it is the same Dalit issue that is at the
core of Gandhis construction of religion
and Ambedkars destruction of religion.
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Annihilation of Caste
Part 3, Reconstitutions, examines issues
of justice and autonomy couched in a
paradox of politics, whose gridlines pass
through the domains of religion and sacrifice. When Ambedkars Annihilation of
Caste was published in 1936, how does
Gandhi respond to the cognitive, spatial
and material universalisation of force
that the text exuded? How does the text
mediate or mitigate the sacrificial ethics
of Gandhi, the astute reader? Was his
response to the text a defensive act of
immunising Hinduism from a sane critique of it by a community that was inhumanly kept out of the orbit of society?
Taking up these instigating questions,
Chapter 6 intensely engages with Gandhis
disturbing equations with Annihilation
of Caste, which had at its core not just a
militant formulation of equality, but a
legitimate demand to reconceptualise
the meaning of freedom. By exposing
the fault lines of religion and its sacred
texts, which lent caste its social meaning
and mystical power, Ambedkar questions the very ontology of not just Gandhis politics, but the politics that was
spreading its tentacles across the subcontinent, and later proved lethal.
Commenting on Gandhis defence of
Hinduism and Ambedkars fierce attack
on it, the noted writer, Arundhati Roy
remarks: Gandhi believed that Ambedkar was throwing the baby out with the
bathwater. Ambedkar believed the baby
and the bathwater were a fused organism (2014). The chapter, while putting
Gandhis defence of religion to a scathing
scrutiny, rightly exposes Gandhis conservative gestures and contradictions that express a desire to immunise not just faith,
but also reason. The serious questions
that Annihilation of Caste raises about
religion-smeared politics, which was
spreading its wings over Indias aspiration for sovereignty, loom large without
finding a satisfactory answer.
Chapter 7 takes up Ambedkars radical
and also reconciliatory understanding of
the religious politics in his later works,
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such as Buddha or Karl Marx and The

Buddha and His Dhamma (1957). In its
attempt to capture Ambedkars fleeting
self in the tensions of the private and the
public, the ethical and the political, the immanent and the transcendent, the chapter
lucidly brings out Ambedkars struggles
to formulate the notion of maitri: fraternity and justice beyond the norms of the
moral law, especially against the politicomoral vacuum created after the assassination of Gandhi in 1948.
In Conclusion
As Rajmohan Gandhi (2015b) aptly notes,
the exchanges (both cordial and acrimonious) between Gandhi and Ambedkar
help in our understanding of not only
the two powerful individuals in history,
but also of continuing flaws in Indian
society and the tension in the first half of
the 20th century between the goals of
national independence and social justice.
Highlighting how for both Gandhi and
EPW
march 5, 2016
Ambedkar the social question remains

inseparable from the political and the
ethical, the book competently juxtaposes the two powerful articulations of
justice with their insurrectionary potential. In doing so, it strongly welds the two
inherent visions of democracy that have
shaped contemporary Indian society
and polity, the foundations of which are
built on the radical relationship bet ween
freedom and citizenship, equality and
autonomy, sovereignty and justice, and
above all, the constituent power and
constitutional principles.
The book is very timely and relevant.
Recent times have witnessed an unprecedented surge of communal forces that
are actively involved in shrinking the
secular spaces of dissent and choking
the voices of sanity and rationality. Thus,
the need of the day is the synergising of
the strengths of both Gandhi and Ambedkar and harnessing them in our collective struggle against all fundamentalist
vol lI no 10
forces. It is heartening to note that the

book under review succeeds in meeting
that challenge.
H S Komalesha (hskomalesha@gmail.com) is
the author of Issues of Identity in Indian English
Fiction (2008), and teaches English at the
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.
References
Gandhi, Rajmohan (2015a): Independence and
Social Justice: The AmbedkarGandhi Debate, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 50,
No 15, pp 3544.
(2015b): Independence and Social Justice: Understanding the AmbedkarGandhi Debate,
January, viewed on 1 February 2016, http://
www.rajmohangandhi.com/sites/default/
files/Independence%20and%20Social%20Justice%20-%20Jan%202015.pdf.
Mahadeva, Devanoora (2013): Edege Bidda Akshara,
Bengaluru: Abhinava.
Roy, Arundhati (2014): The Doctor and the
Saint [Introduction], Annihilation of Caste by
B R Ambedkar, New Delhi: Navayana.
(2015): All the Worlds a Half-Built Dam,
Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 50, No 25,
pp 16573.
33
BOOK REVIEW
Reclaiming Nature and the Planet

for All
Surajit Mukhopadhyay
ustainable development has for

some time animated discussions on
growth, development and the future
of the mankind in many quarters. Yet, for
all its thrust and parry it has received little
attention in policy formulations. The
stranglehold of neo-liberal economics and
their protagonists is too strong within the
corridors of power for alternative arguments to find space outside seminar halls.
M Nadarajah shifts the focus of alternative thinkingfrom sustainable development to sustainable cultures of living and
uses Asia as his field of study. Nadarajah
examines in this book the Asian obsession
with acquiring developed nation status
that is in reality a copy of the West and
the corporate agenda of putting profit first
and consumption as the most important
marker of happiness and development.
In the critique that he mounts against
this neo-liberal doctrine, Nadarajah falls
EPW
march 5, 2016
Living Pathways: Meditations on Sustainable

Cultures and Cosmologies in Asia by
M Nadarajah; Penang: Areca Books, 2013; pp 184,
price unstated.
back upon the wisdom and lifestyle of

those whom modernity has marginalised
in the developed world and brings onto
the forefront several aspects of life that
have been suppressed, forgotten and consigned to a hoary past. Such wisdoms are
seen as belonging to an archaic past that
must be transcended for modernity to
deliver a better life. Nadarajah finds a
treasure trove of stories of wisdom that
have been made redundant by a lifestyle that premises itself on science and
technology. This lifestyle, Nadarajah would
argue, is antithetical to good living.
Thus we have a two-pronged approach
in this bookone that is a trenchant critique of an overtly consumptive lifestyle
vol lI no 10
underpinned by neo-liberal assumptions of

economy and good life and the other that
is essentially an alternative space where
one would retreat to escape the ravages
of civilisation and the rapaciousness of
development. The book is made resplendent by some wonderful photographs that
the author has taken on his many field
trips. These uncaptioned photographs
beckon the reader to lands that are green,
hydrological and apparently peaceful.
Underpinning these spaces of retreat
and potential rejuvenation of human kind
is a deep sense of spiritualism that the
several communities have produced over
time. Nadarajah claims encounters of a
wide range in Asiafrom the animists,
Buddhists, Shintoists, Catholics, Muslims
and Hindus by way of religious persuasion and the Karen, Lanna, Kankanaey,
Henanga, Ainu, Japanese, Thai, Balinese,
Filipino people who reorient perceptions
about life and living, individual and the
collective. He asks us to join him in seeking answers from these encounters.
Sociological Imagination
Nadarajah begins this tour de force or
rather invites us to it by first providing
us a compelling account of his own
33
BOOK REVIEW
intellectual and emotional journey in

the past 35 years. While no two journeys
are isomorphic, many are similar and
most scholars and students who have
studied social sciences in the latter half
of the 20th century in India and indeed
across the world would find similarities
and resonances with Nadarajahs account.
Social science students then dreamt of
large-scale transformations and saw their
study as opening up vistas of knowledge
that would help them to achieve radical
changes for the betterment of their compatriots and fellow human beings. Thus,
it is no surprise that the author had come
to study at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to further his skills as an
activist and to fortify his practice with
theory for greater insight into social
structures and dynamics.
At this stage, like many hundreds of
fellow travellers, the author felt that
answers lay in historical materialism,
class-based explanations and the alienating processes of capitalist development. Then again like many who were
so convinced, the shortcomings became
acute and material. He confesses ...for me,
a class reductionist explanation was not
very useful in understanding the nonclass aspects of my experience. From an
obvious Marxist analytical position
Nadarajah charts his drift through a
tough intellectual, emotional and social
journey with the help of friends, yoga,
travel and meditation. The immediate
reason was perhaps to propose a nonworkerist model of historical materialism
for the completion of the doctoral work
at hand and one suspects that this work
under review is a long drawn but natural
conclusion of that stance.
The author claims that a close examination of the then USSR and Peoples Republic of China (PRC) performance in
relation to their impact on their respective environments convinced him that
in reality socialist societies were doing
exactly what capitalist societies were doingdominating, senselessly, exploiting
and destroying Nature for the needs of a
productivist-oriented system. This disenchantment is the point of departure for
the author and it takes him through a
range of experiences to meditations,
spirituality and sustainable development,
34
or as Nadarajah says, the path and practice of spiritually-engaged sustainability

found me. This path, he claims, is one
that encourages non-materialism and
non-materialistic development.
A Template
Such journeys from a material understanding of history to its anti-thesis have
many precedents and perhaps this is not
as novel as one would think. The question
however is thiscan a very personal
understanding, that is, spirituality become
a template? Or more critically, when
would the consciousness of spirituality
dawn on the majority of the population
to become engaged in the project that is
being envisaged? Do ideas emerge nomothetically from a non-material space or
are ideas shaped and understood in the
context of history itself? Is spiritualism a
corollary of metaphysics? And then if so,
can we share this spirituality in sufficiently
large number to become a common consciousness? Action on the scale needed to
combat the problems that Nadarajah has
identified would require more than individuals or small groups of dedicated people.
For the discourses sought to be critiqued

and indeed changed are all well entrenched. So how does one go about getting that critical mass of people who
would usher in the changes? How would
they come to band together in solidarities
of action? Let us return to Nadarajah and
see if these are the issues he addresses.
For the author the question of emancipation must be followed up through a
practice of development that is sustainable in an all round sense. Further, he
asks, can there be a limit to development
and growth or a non-materialistic development and de-growth? Nadarajah
argues that these tremendously critical
and important questions have led him
onto pathways of spiritually-engaged
sustainability that is essentially informed
by indigenous knowledge and wisdom
and warns us that existential arrogance
or a dismissive attitude towards the role
of emancipatory politics in sustainability,
will lead us nowhere. Can there be a
politics which deals in here and now and
predicated upon a path that is quintessentially materialist be impelled by a
non-materialist project of emancipation?
march 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
BOOK REVIEW
Can emancipation be a non-class-based

affair as we have known so far from a
Marxist viewpoint? That, one feels, is what
Nadarajah has set out to find for himself.
Nadarajahs quest is mediated by the
material at hand. Nation states in Asia
bent on acquiring a developed-nation
status characterised by high material
growth and higher consumption. These
efforts at mimicry have become an obsession, feels Nadarajah, and they have aggressively exhausted resources without
regard for future generations and by
being careless in polluting the environment. Such growth frenzy does not include compassion and spirituality.
All this is not perhaps new as a critique
of the times in which we live. What we
possibly are not aware of are the alternatives. For long now the refrain from the
capitalist economy and its ardent fans
has been the tired clich that there is no
alternative (TINA).
Alternatives from Margins
Nadarajah would like us to see a plethora
of alternatives that are real and existent
but not really centred in the manner that
both capitalism and socialism were for
the most part in the 20th century. These
alternatives emanate from the margins,
from people who hold out the promises
for sustainable futures.
Alternatives are substitutes to the
mainstream ideas of living and thinking
and they are not merely products of
thought but are responses to crises within the lived condition of humanity. For
the author the immediate and material
condition that turns him to seek such marginalised alternatives is the anticipated
deep crises of the Asian development story.
The success has come at a cost. That cost
is partly visible for it is about a crisis of
ecology, a crisis of justice, a crisis of
compassion and a crisis of spirituality.
These factors are mostly invisible, hidden from view as it were by the patina of
urban-industrial gloss and the seductive
consumerist appeal.
The lack of these values and replacement of them by hedonism has of late
become routinised and part of everyday
living. Nadarajah may well have added
that with the advent of globalisation these
routines have created non-spaces
EPW
march 5, 2016
architectures of conformity where one

domain moves onto the other by losing
its diacriticals and replicates a model of
living where cartographical boundaries no
longer assure diversity of cultural tastes
and values. All shopping malls and airports look the same and it becomes meaningless then to ask about geographical
coordinates or specific mores and norms.
To overcome this non-space Nadarajah
embarks upon a journey seeking diversityboth ethnic as well as religiousin
the belief that the myriad people and their
lifestyle would provide answers to the crises that he sees looming over the horizon.
There is a methodological problem
that is to be addressed herehow does
one step outside ones own history, ones
own embedded moorings in a particular
culture, here urbanism and the industrial
complex, to be able to appreciate even
the possibility of recognising the alternative as one that is worth considering?
Nadarajah in a footnote (and this could
very well have been in the body of the
text, given the importance) makes a very
significant point. For him the awareness
about the alternative begins with confronting the unconscious routine of everyday life and re-adjusting...the level of conscious awareness. One has to look but
see differently, to hear but listen to the
meanings embedded in the cultural territories that were hidden or marginalised. He goes on to say that he had to
use even his olfactory perceptions differently, resisting the temptation to
judge unfamiliar odours by own cultural
standard or to think of communities as
savage as because of these offensive
smells. This qualitative turn in method
where one tries to dismantle the inherent
self-oriented world of commonly accepted
wisdom and thereby remove the hierarchy
of values on to a more horizontal plane is
not an easy task. It took a long time in
the history of academic anthropology to
come to the conclusion that the savage
can think as well as the civilised.
Micro Happenings
Bronislaw Malinowski had, in his lecture
at the Royal Anthropological Society,
exhorted students of anthropology to see
fieldwork as an exercise where one
observes not merely the structured
vol lI no 10
performances in the public but also the

minutiae of everyday life, those micro
happenings that easily escape the
observer for being of little or no consequence. Nadarajah in the course of his
study stumbles upon such a minor
factthe observation of a Thai professor
on the importance and elision of silences,
those short reflective pauses that were
part of Buddhist culture. These lost silences and pauses induce immense complications in...personal, professional and
social lives, in the forms of stress, depression, general malaise caught as we
are in the maelstrom of urban living.
Yet, the life of speed, of unilinear time
and competition, of ever expanding wants
and desire are not things that can be taken
lightly. Entire communities have been
drawn into the vortex of living life fashioned by consumerist dreams and there it
would seem the pauses lose out. What
was once a middle-class dream in many
Asian countries has become true for other
classes as well with the accompanying thin
veneer of social Darwinism that sees
cultures as superior and inferior and the
scientific rationalisation of the inevitability of success of the fittest. Thus is
born an arrogance that puts aside the
wisdom that is traditionally available.
Nadarajah estimates that we would
need anywhere between two to six Earths
if each of us consumed as much as the
average American. On a comparative
scale, Americans (per capita basis) as
compared to Indians produce 27 times as
much carbon dioxide...and consume 35
times as much energy and more frightfully speaking where the global 20% of
the worlds population in the highest
income countries account for 86% of the
total private consumption expenditures
the poorest 20% account for a miniscule
1.3%. Is this model the one Asia is about
to adopt as its own and can it sustain
this inequity? The question is of course
rhetorical for we know the answer. But
what is the way out?
The problematic posed is sought to be
answered by finding pathways that are
subterranean but existing in the world
views of Asian cultures. But to get to them,
Nadarajah suggests that we step outside
our recent past, our history, to have a
dispassionate look at the key questions.
35
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The prescription is provocative intellectually and complex in terms of

execution. We need to withdraw from
the material sociocultural world into the
more intangible sociocultural world of
ideas, world views/worldfeels and meta-views so that we step into another
reality and explore our predicament
exhorts Nadarajah.
He states that in the course of his
research and encounters with the Karen,
Balinese, Kankanaey, Henanga, Japanese
and Ainu people he learnt that the true
critique of the present cannot be mounted
from the spatial portals of sustainable
development and that it must be replaced
with a search for sustainability. The difference between sustainable development
and sustainability is in its approach to
the problema moving away from the
anthropocentric to what is called biocentric egalitarianism emphasis and
thereby acknowledging the presence of
Nature and the limits that it imposes on
human behaviour. Nadarajah is of the
opinionand this really needs to be examined more carefully and critically
that development of this indigenous
orientation to limit and its practical
realisation would aid in dematerialising
the economy. Such limits, he argues,
would bring to the fore the finiteness of
resources and those in turn would galvanise the government, in say, the creation
of a mass public transport system and
wean away people from using more cars. It
would also then allow those that cannot
afford cars to access this transport system.
Cosmovision
While recognising the limits and bringing
the reality of the finiteness of resources to
the fore of the debate over our future, it
is important that we do not create a new
dichotomy of the indigenous and the
non-indigenous, mimicking thereby the
earlier dichotomy of the modern and the
traditional. Emphasising and privileging
the indigenous knowledge as a way out
for us is highly problematic, especially
when the indigenous also becomes the
political and state-sponsored. Nadarajah
is mindful of this and does engage with
this fear at the theoretical level by positing
the notion of cosmovision. Cosmovision
for the author is the most global in spirit,
EPW
march 5, 2016
perspective and practice and he backs

up this with his field notes from across
Asia, the spiritual core of Asia as he puts
it. This vision is heavily dependent upon
religion, as Nadarajah himself admits and
spirituality follows such religiosity.
A quibble here: all the ethnography or
field notes on the religionspirituality
sustainable axis come from cultures that
are essentially monolithic in nature and
spirituality is woven into the religion
that is dominant. While this may pose
no problems for Thailand, Japan or Laos,
the South Asian experience is quite different, especially for India where all major
religions are practised. Religions in
India as well as in other parts of the world
are in competition with each other for
adherents and each lays claim to wisdom
higher than the other and therefore
greater spirituality. Since at the everyday
level it is very difficult to separate the two,
it is always possible for one (religion) to
permeate the other (spirituality) as much
as the sacred (religion) is permeated by
the profane (for example, politics). Spiritualities are essentially personal in nature
whereas religion based on such spiritualities is public code and identifies itself
through practices that set it apart from the
other religions. Values that Nadarajah
privilegessacredness, compassion, love,
respect, balance, empathy, etcare indeed
essential in creating a just world. The
problem is that religions that are supposedly based on such values have
shown none of these in practice. The
history of genocide, ethnocide, riots and
mass killings are also part of the religious
legacy in the world that we live.
Legitimising the Political
To further complicate the issues, the
political has always turned to the sacred
to legitimise it and the sacred has always
been a fellow traveller of the politically
powerful. The symbiosis is by now well
established and the rise of the far right
in many countries of the world including
those in Asia is reinforcing this relationship. In this context the spirituality that
Nadarajah seeks must be perforce private,
addressing personal concerns and thus
glossing over the class solidarities that
must be forged across community lines
despite the several boundaries that
vol lI no 10
cultures would draw for distinction. The

question of sustainability when intertwined with that of spirituality would be
forced to answer the central question
whose spirituality is to be the centrepiece of this movement? That question is
perhaps not to be answered by theory
alone. The practice of spirituality-driven
sustainable community life would on its
own find a peg to get along with the
reimagining of the state of our lives.
That there are crises and that these are
driven by greed and unsustainable
consumptive habits fostered by a system
that breeds inequality is not debatable.
But to see solutions in the past may not
be the best way forward.
India has struggled with traditionbased discrimination and despite the
many pitfalls and imperfections have
progressed over time. Traditions would
not have helped in caste-based discrimination, widow remarriage, education of
the girl child and the integration of the
many within the idea of India. The fight
to regain what is lost and stop what may
be lost in the capitalist frenzy must be
joined by linking several pathways
including those that are agnostic or
atheistic. The idea of progress is to be
re-evaluated and the dangers sharply
brought to focus for people to decide.
To this end this book serves us with a
lot of ideas to chew on and highlights the
gems of wisdom that may be lost irrevocably for humankind. Nadarajah makes
sure through the clarity of his language
that the arguments and propositions are
not confined to the specialist only.
Surajit Mukhopadhyay (surajit62@gmail.com)
is a sociologist based in Kolkata.
Permission for Reproduction of

Articles Published in EPW
No article published in EPW or part thereof
should be reproduced in any form without
prior permission of the author(s).
A soft/hard copy of the author(s)s approval
should be sent to EPW.
In cases where the email address of the
author has not been published along with
the articles, EPW can be contacted for help.
37
PERSPECTIVES
Housing for All by 2022

Assignment Delivered, Accountability Nil
Shirish B Patel
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana,

a central government scheme of
subsidies for low-income housing,
is singularly unimaginative and
poorly thought-through. It is
unlikely to deliver worthwhile
results. The promised funds
could be far more effectively
deployed if used differently. This
article examines the schemes
deficiencies and suggests options
that should be explored. It also
considers the Model Tenancy Act
of April 2015 and the National
Urban Rental Housing Policy
(Draft) released in October 2015.
The article argues that these
policy statements are unlikely to
lead anywhere, at least in regard
to increasing the supply of rental
housing to low-income groups.
ousing for All by 2022 was

the earlier name of a scheme
launched in June 2015 as the
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) by
the central government (MoHUPA 2015b).
It is an anonymous document. It
would be nice to know which experts
thinking went into it. There is nothing
new or innovative about any of it. There
is not even an assessment of past policies, of what has worked and what has
not, or what past experience might teach
us about what to do in future. Instead,
the sum and substance of its proposals
seem to spring from the belief that if you
throw enough money at the problem it
will go away, irrespective of the manner
in which you do it.
The declared objective is to provide:
(i) Rehabilitation of slum dwellers with
participation of private developers using
land as a resource; (ii) promotion of
affordable housing for weaker section
through credit linked subsidy; (iii) affordable housing in partnership with public
and private sectors; (iv) subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction.
We examine each of these in turn.
Land as a Resource
The author is indebted to Sahil Gandhi for

comments that improved the article.
Shirish B Patel (shirish@spacpl.com) is a civil
engineer and urban planner who was in charge
of planning, design and execution in Navi
Mumbai during its first five years.
38
There are some undeclared assumptions

in the scheme. One is that this is restricted to in situ redevelopment of slums. It
could not apply, for example, to rehabilitation of slums on airport land. Another
major unstated assumption is that slum
dwellers could get their housing free, as
they do in Mumbai.1 They would then
pay nothing for the land and nothing for
the construction.
In the late 1990s, several schemes
for rehousing slum dwellers began in
Mumbai, where they were not charged
for the land they occupied but paid for
the construction themselves, through
repayment of loans made available to
them. These schemes worked well,2 and

were expanding to more and more locations, until the Shiv Sena government
came to power and introduced the current scheme of totally free housing for
slum dwellers. In this, private developers are invited to move the slum dwellers into pucca buildings on a fraction of
the land they currently occupy, so that
the rest of the plot can be made available
for construction that can be sold. This
is seen as a win-win situation for all
stakeholders: the slum dwellers get
totally free housing; and the developer
makes a profit which he shares with
the government because he was awarded the project through a competitive
bidding process.
Overlooked entirely in this process is
the impact of the additional population
on the plot. We can expect that slum settlements generally come up as tightly
crowded dwellings, with minimal access
pathways and virtually no common
recreation space. If there were any, it
would most likely be taken up by another
dwelling. The dwellings are often small,
and the population densities, expressed
in households per hectare, are quite
high, in many cases (in Mumbai at least)
higher than anything seen anywhere in
the world.
Now put this number of households
into a corner of the plot, usually less
than half of the total plot area. They will
have to be in multistorey buildings of
course, because there is no other way in
which all these families can be accommodated on the half plot. By all means
give each family larger accommodation
than they had earlier. This is the humane
thing to do, but it does result in still taller
buildings, because there is nowhere to
put the additional floor space other than
on top. Now the ground space that has
been vacated, the half plot area that is
now clear of habitation, can be converted
to use for circulation and recreation and
other amenities, and we have a viable,
properly planned settlement. The slum
dwellers would be expected to pay for
the construction. A subsidy would help,
of course, as would long-term loans, or
subsidised interest rates, and all of these
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
PERSPECTIVES
would be more feasible with the central

governments assistance.
But if instead, we add buildings for
sale on the vacated half-plot so that the
slum dwellers get free housing, and both
the developer and government make a
profit from the sales, more families are
added to the same plot. We now have
even higher densities in terms of households per hectare than we had earlier.
And we have no change in the supporting infrastructure, nothing extra by
way of roads, open spaces or other
amenities. Every family, both old and
new, is worse off in terms of these public facilities than the slum families were
earlier. The surrounding streets and
parks will be even more crowded than
they were before. The old slum dwellers
are better housed but the city has become a worse place to live in, for everyone, both old and new.
In some situations in Mumbai, the
scheme has worked well, particularly in
high-value localities where the earlier
slum population was thin on the ground
and plenty of land was available.3 But
apart from making the city a still more
crowded place to live in, the scheme has
had three disastrous consequences. The
first is that now all slum dwellers feel entitled to free housing, as a matter of
right, and think they can bargain for
larger and larger accommodation in the
rehousing. Also, if slum dwellers can get
free rehousing, why not old-rent tenants, who claim the added virtue of
legality? Whence the second disaster:
cluster redevelopment schemes, in which
old buildings are demolished, the original residents rehoused in taller buildings on a corner of the property to make
room for apartments for-sale in the same
locality. Here too, much bargaining goes
on as to how much larger the reaccommodation can be. However desirable
that may be, the locality suffers in terms
of road space and availability of amenities per household, necessarily diminished because of new incoming residents
and consequently the larger numbers on
the same plot.
In all this, no one asks the question as
to whether there is a large enough
market for the for-sale component to pay
for all the lower-income rehousing. Indeed
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
there is not. So we are left with lowincome people continuing as they are, in
indefinite hope, waiting for a future of
free housing that will never happen, but
now feeling entitled and no longer willing to make any kind of financial contribution themselves. And this is the third
disaster, that as long as the free housing
scheme is an option, no alternative
scheme that calls for a contribution from
the occupant, however marginal, can
ever be put in place.
So if there is a lesson to be drawn at
all from Mumbais experience, it is that
free housing for slum dwellers is to be
avoided at all costs everywhere else in
the country. It should emphatically not
be served up as a model with PMAY
contributing Rs 1 lakh per household
(MoHUPA 2015b: para 4.2). This is money
that goes into the pocket of the state
government, with no change in the financial status of the occupant (her housing is free anyway) or the developer
(whose bid for the project will be independent of how much one government
subsidises another). In other words, the
central government is paying the state
government Rs 1 lakh per household to
implement a scheme which, in the long
run, does the city more harm than good.
Weaker Section Subsidies
For loans up to Rs 6 lakh, PMAY offers a
subsidy of 6.5% in the interest rate for a
tenure of 15 years, discounted to presentday value at 9%, and paid out upfront,
so that the loan amount gets correspondingly reduced, as does the Equated
Monthly Installment (EMI) (MoHUPA
2015b: paras 5.1, 5.2). The calculation is
quite complex, with the quantum of subsidy going up as the basic (market) rate
of interest goes up, though not proportionately. A calculation shows that on a
Rs 6 lakh loan, the subsidy would be of
the order of Rs 2.25 lakh for a basic loan
rate of 12.5%, and Rs 2.01 lakh if the basic
rate was 9%. A subsidy of over Rs 2 lakh
per household sounds generous enough,
but the point is that we are leaving it entirely to the market to provide housing in
the cost range that is affordable for the
weakest sections, including the cost of
the land, which in our metropolitan cities
normally accounts for half, and in many
vol lI no 10
cases far more than half of the total cost

of the project.
There is in fact no need for such an external subsidy. It is possible to design
complexes of mixed-income housing
such that all income groups get housing
at a cost of four years annual income
(Patel 2015a). The principle is that the
higher income groups cross-subsidise
the cost of land for the lower income
groups (LIGs). The number of houses provided in each income group corresponds
to the income distribution across all
groups. Land is differentially priced
within the same project according to
desirability of location and building
control regulations. No one needs a subsidy. Central government funds would
then be far better spent in extending
transport networks into new peri-urban
areas to access new lands for such development. To circumvent the cumbersome
procedures of land acquisition, these
new lands could be laid out with town
planning schemes where the original
landowners, including those displaced
by the transport network, are given back
developed plots for sale after taking
out the areas needed for access, open
spaces, common amenities, and lowincome housing.
The definition of an economically
weaker section (EWS) house (MoHUPA
2015b: page iii) implies a built structure,
either single or multistorey. Excluded
from subsidy presumably would be any
kind of sites-and-services scheme, where
beneficiaries are simply allotted plinths
with a wet point (a water supply and a
sewage connection) on which they put
up their own construction. Such schemes
have worked in the past for EWS groups
and there is no reason why they should
not work again. Charkop, in the northeastern part of Mumbai, is perhaps the
most convincing example of such success. Sadly, this option is being completely overlooked in the formulation of
government schemes, as if what mattered most was the pucca-ness of buildings, and not the supporting infrastructure. Incidentally, the physical infrastructure cost of the on-site road, water supply and sewerage network for a housing
layout would be of the order of Rs 2.5
crore/hectare. Assuming a gross density
39
PERSPECTIVES
of 170 households/hectare, this works out

to a local infrastructure network cost
(excluding costs external to the site) of
about Rs 1.5 lakh/householdroughly
the same as the subsidy proposed by the
central government.
PMAY says that for identification as an
EWS or LIG beneficiary, individuals must
submit a self-certificate/affidavit as
proof of income (MoHUPA 2015b: para
5.10). Would this not encourage underreporting of income? In the sites-andservices schemes started in the mid1980s in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai,
plots were allocated with varying degrees of built construction on them, depending on the self-declared income.
This encouraged families to declare more
realistic income levels.4 Is this kind of
experience not worth relaying to other
states? Does the central government really not learn anything from experience
around the country?
Affordable Housing in
Partnership
PMAY offers a subsidy of Rs 1.5 lakh per
EWS house (MoHUPA 2015b: para 6.1) for
schemes undertaken by the local government through its own agencies or in
partnership with others. The scheme
outlined in the preceding paragraph
would qualify for this subsidy. It seems
as the most realistic and feasible of all
PMAYs proposals. However, there is a
strange and incomprehensible constraint,
which is that at least 35% of the houses
must be of EWS category (MoHUPA 2015b:
para 6.4). What is the point of this? That
the poor must necessarily be in ghettos
of the poor? (Notice that there is a lower
limit and no upper limit on the proportion of EWS houses.) Why should a project be disqualified from benefits of subsidies if, say, less than a third of its housing
is for EWS?
What is also not obvious is why there
is a quantum distinction between different schemesRs 1 lakh per household if
the scheme is developer-driven, over Rs 2
lakh per household if a loan is taken by
the householder from a bank or housing
finance institution (with the amount varying somewhat depending on the prevailing interest rate), and Rs 1.5 lakh if the
local government puts up the scheme.
40
Beneficiary-led Individual
House Construction
This is mentioned as the fourth vertical
under which PMAY support is provided.
But it is made clear that while this
applies to individual houses, it does not
apply to splintered, individual beneficiaries (MoHUPA 2015b: para 3).
To avail of this subsidy, beneficiaries
must first be part of their citys Housing
for All Plan of Action (HFAPoA) (MoHUPA
2015b: para 4.8.1). This maps the citys
slums and decides which are suitable for
builder-led development and which are
not. If within the HFAPoA you as a slum
dweller have a plot, and title to the plot,5
then you can seek this assistance. Do a
group of slum dwellers, anywhere in the
country, actually have documentary evidence of landownership? If they do, then
under this fourth vertical of PMAY they
would qualify for a grant of Rs 1.5 lakh
(MoHUPA 2015b: para 7). Perhaps such
examples of landownership by lowincome people do exist. One can think of
Charkop in north-east Mumbai, parts of
which started 30 years ago as a sitesand-services scheme. Today one would
hardly call these slums, but if the residents somehow managed to get themselves into the citys HFAPoA, they certainly have rights to the land and could
well qualify for assistance under this
fourth vertical. It looks like a way of encouraging people who do not really need
this assistance to go for it.
Implementation
States/cities are to undertake a demand
survey through suitable means for assessing the actual demand for housingshould
also consider the affordable housing stock
already available in the city as census data
suggests that large numbers of houses are
vacant (MoHUPA 2015b: para 8.3 extract).
It seems odd that client states and cities

are not asked to investigate and explain
why such housing stock is vacant, or
what steps they propose to take to ensure that more of the same does not happen again.
Lacunae
Finally, PMAY proposes to set up a technology sub-mission to look into technologies and materials for faster and better
quality construction. What is missing
are two other areas of concern that need

to be simultaneously addressed. One
of these could be covered by a land
sub-mission and the other by a policy
sub-mission.
The problems of housing, particularly
low-income urban housing, are not amenable to resolution by improved or
cheaper construction. About five years
ago, a considerable buzz was generated
by an international competition for design
of a $300 house.6 Some wonderful innovative construction ideas emerged, but
finally nothing much happened. What
this did was perpetuate the general misconception that solutions to the problem
of urban low-income housing lie in new
technology. They do not. Solutions lie in
the worlds of social and political organisation, and government policy.
The land sub-mission would look for
improved policies in regard to land and
its availability, intensity of utilisation
and geographical distribution of lowincome housing. We need more imaginative land management, in particular the
extension of transport networks into
new peri-urban areas. New transport
links are all too often thought of only in
terms of a response to a guaranteed
demandwitness all the new metro systems in city after city. They are not conceived, as they should also be, as a way
of opening up new peri-urban areas to
connect them by high-speed transit to
the rest of the city.
Instead of thinking of self-contained
projects of low-income housing, projects
which consist of mixed-income housing
would be far more realistic and financially viable, so that in effect land prices
for the poor are cross-subsidised by higher
land prices, on better located plots, for
the better off. This has the added advantage of distributing LIGs, just as low-income jobs are similarly distributed
throughout the city.
Many countries in the world have given up on providing social housing, and
in its place have adopted a policy of
inclusionary housing (Calavita and Mallach 2010; Jacobus 2015; Patel 2011).
This mandates that inclusionary housing
for LIGs must be provided on the same
plot as a corollary to the for-sale development. The cost of constructing the
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
PERSPECTIVES
inclusionary housing is reimbursed to

the developer who is consequently not
out of pocket on that account. Moreover,
the inclusionary housing work can be supervised and quality demanded because
it is being paid for. The only thing the
developer gives up without charge is a
portion of the land for that housing, but
this is the condition on which he is getting permission for the rest of his development. In most countries the proportion of inclusionary housing to be provided (also called social or affordable
housing) is 25% of the total units in the
development. In Spain, it is much
more50% of the project area has to be
devoted to social purposes, including social housing (Calavita 2010).
Inclusionary housing may fall within
the purview of either the land submission or the policy sub-mission. What
clearly fall within the scope of the latter
are organisational and governance matters. One of these could be exploration
of the possibility of community land
trusts (Davis 2010; White 2011; Patel
2015b). These exist in many countries.
Started in the United States (US), the
principle is that EWS land is taken permanently off the market and made available, for all time, for low-income housing. These, and other such initiatives,
are surely to be expected as thoughts
that should emanate from the central
government.
The importance of extending transport networks as pioneering enterprises,
rather than simply responses to existing
demand, is something that calls for policy
initiatives. As is the importance of encouraging mixed-income housing, with
social housing distributed throughout
the area, in preference to gated communities of the well-off and ghettos of
the poor.
Since the intent is to provide guidelines, why not make suggestions as to
how intensely developed a locality can
be? For example, how many households
per hectare might one consider ideal,
and what should be an upper limit?
What extent of road area, or recreation
space within walking distance should
one ensure per household? These are
issues not covered by the National Building Code, and surely it is not too much to
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
expect that PMAY would at the very least

take up such matters for discussion and
for the formulation of sound guiding
principles.
PMAY mentions the word rental in
only two places in the document. The
first is in the list of mandatory requirements before a state can avail of PMAY
financial support: it must amend existing
rental laws (MoHUPA 2015b: para 11.5);
and the second is in a list of coordinating
measures with other ministries, where
PMAY says the Ministry of Labour and
Employment will be requested to create
rental housing for workers (MoHUPA
2015b: para 13.4).
PMAY is a programme of central governments financial subsidies for housing. But nowhere in PMAY is the faintest
hint of a suggestion of any kind of support for rental housing. It is almost as if
rental housing is completely irrelevant,
and need not be subsumed in any programme of Housing for All by 2022.
Model Tenancy Act, 2015
Each state or union territory is expected
to pass a law modelled on this one. So,
this is a suggestion only, and states can
improve upon it.
Briefly, after the commencement of
such an act, all tenancies must be by
written agreement between landlord
and tenant, for a specified period. Such
agreements must be lodged with the
rent authority, who will provide a registration number and upload the details.
The rent authority is an officer not below the rank of deputy collector. An appeal against his orders lies in a rent
court, and an appeal against that in a
rent tribunal. Rent courts have the status of a civil court. No courts other than
the rent court and the rent tribunal can
deal with tenancy matters.
Tenancies are inheritable, but only
until the end of the period specified in
the agreement between landlord and
tenant (MoHUPA 2015a: para 6(2)).
In the case of tenancies entered into
before the date of the act, landlords and
tenants must arrive at their future
agreement within 12 months. Failing
this, the landlord can terminate the tenancy and evict the tenant (MoHUPA 2015a:
para 21(2)(a)). This is a completely
vol lI no 10
unworkable proposition, and no state will

enact legislation with such a provision.
Over the years, tenants have acquired
more and more rights vis--vis landlords, and this is reflected in the division
of spoils when a tenancy changes hands.
Typically, in Mumbai, the outgoing tenant gets two-thirds of the pugree amount,
the landlord gets one-third. What happens to a tenant who has just paid pugree,
and expects his investment to deliver
low rent premises for all time hereafter?
One can fully expect that existing tenants will rebel against such a law. Moreover, this has been the main stumbling
block in amending the old rent acts. Expecting this to go through without resistance is nave and unrealistic. In any
case, international experience clearly
indicates that an abrupt termination of
an old rent act does not work (Tandel et
al 2016). What is needed for existing tenants instead, is a much more gradual
transition towards market-level rents.
A particularly obnoxious provision is
that a landlord, in the course of an agreed
period of tenancy, can evict the tenant
if the landlord requires the premises
for himself or for any member of his family or for any person for whose benefit the
premises were held and the landlord or such
person is not in possession of any suitable accommodation within the same urban area
(MoHUPA 2015a: para 21(2)(g)).
How much more explicit a declaration

can there be that this is an act aligned
perfectly and exclusively with the interests of landlords?
National Urban Rental
Housing Policy
Instead of being part of PMAY, we have a
separate statement in the form of a draft
National Urban Rental Housing Policy
(MoHUPA 2015c). Before the policy was
framed, a task force was formed which
submitted a report (MoHUPA 2013) making a variety of recommendations. These
have been accepted and turned into a
well-written, well-produced document
that could hardly be more vapid.
The purpose of the policy is to encourage rental housing. The document is
basically exhortatory, urging states and
union territories to do this or that, since
housing is a state subject. The vision is
41
PERSPECTIVES
described as, to create a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive rental housing market
in India. No one can quarrel with that.
And how do we go about it? Ministry of
Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation
(MoHUPA) will promote encourage
facilitateenable, that is, do everything by way of cheering from the sidelines while skilfully avoiding rolling up its
sleeves and getting involved in the action.
For example: The policy urges adoption of the Model Tenancy Act (MoHUPA
2015c: para 7.2.4). It also encourages
states to provide low-income tenants
with rental housing vouchers (MoHUPA
2015c: para 9.5). There is no connection
between the two. It does not suggest (as
it should) that for low-income households you must have rental housing
vouchers in place before you permit
landlords to implement market-level
rentals. Nor does it suggest that MoHUPA
will share the cost of the vouchers.
There is also no recognition that rental housing for the poor has to be distributed throughout the city. This is because
low-income jobs, which are often of a
kind that service a local population, are
distributed, like the population, all over
the city, and transport from home to
work for the poor should be minimised,
ideally to be within walking distance.
How do you get low-income housing,
with low-income rentals, in the middle
of higher-income localities? The only
way to do thisif you are not providing
social housing, as most countries are
not, with the notable exception of Singaporeis to mandate inclusionary housing, as discussed above. This is done all
over the world. France in fact requires
the local government, more or less ward
by ward, to ensure that a specific fraction
of all its housing is for the poor (Calavita
and Mallach 2010). Have NURHPs authors
never heard of inclusionary housing? We
also know that no developer in the world
likes his countrys policy of inclusionary
housing and that many of Indias leading
politicians have deep connections with
land and builders. So it is little wonder
that awareness of inclusionary housing
is kept well below the publics horizon.
Apart from inclusionary housing, one
policy that has worked remarkably well
in the US is the Low-Income Housing Tax
42
Credit (LIHTC) programme (US Department of Housing and Urban Development (nd)). This is a federal programme
that gives a rebate in income tax (not in
taxable income, but in the quantum of
income tax itself) against investments
in low-income rental housing, subject
to certain limits, and with administration of the credits in the hands of states
and local LIHTC-administrating agencies. It has resulted in the creation of
2.6 million housing units between 1987
and 2013.
Rental Better Option
Considering PMAY, the Model Tenancy
Act and NURHP together, it would seem
that MoHUPA has not understood that for
the urban poor, who unlike many of
their rural counterparts do not own the
underlying land, rental is far more viable than ownership (with its concomitant obligations of maintenance, and
sudden, unpredictable demands for
repairs). All over the world, urban LIGs
are predominantly in rental housing. To
make rentals affordable to the poor, different countries have found different
solutions. In the United Kingdom, it is
non-profit housing associations that own
and manage properties that incorporate
low-income housing. The US, besides
LIHTC and inclusionary housing, has a
system of housing vouchers. Families
receiving such vouchers can only spend
them on rental. But this ensures that
landlords who invest in low-income
housing are assured of a reasonable
return. Surely when considering subsidies
for housing, in the context of Housing for
All, should we not also think of schemes,
not just for ownership but also for lowincome rental along the lines which have
proven successful in other countries?
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
MoHUPA (2015) para 4.8.8 allows for contribution from beneficiaries/slum dwellers, if
any.
Typical is the Rajiv-Indira Society in Dharavi.
Typical is the Imperial Towers project at Tardeo.
I am indebted to V K Phatak for this information.
MoHUPA (2015b) para 7.1, where the exact
wording is: A beneficiary desirous of availing
this assistance shall approach the ULBs (Urban
Local Bodies) with adequate documentation of
land owned by them.
Conceived by Vijay Govindarajan, Business
School, Dartmouth College.
References
Calavita, Nico and Alan Mallach (2010): Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective: Affordable Housing, Social Inclusion, and Land
Value Recapture, Cambridge MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Davis, John Emmeus (ed) (2010): The Community
Land Trust Reader, May.
Jacobus, Rick (2015): Inclusionary HousingCreating and Maintaining Equitable Communities,
Cambridge MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
MoHUPA (Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty
Alleviation) April 2015a: Model Tenancy Act,
New Delhi: Government of India.
(June 2015b): Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
Housing For All (Urban) Scheme Guidelines,
New Delhi: Government of India.
(October 2015c): National Urban Rental Housing
Policy (Draft), New Delhi: Government of India.
Task Force on Rental Housing (2013): Report on
Policy and Interventions to Spur Growth of
Rental Housing in India, New Delhi: Government of India.
Patel, B Shirish (2011): Inclusionary Housing,
pp 1314.
(2015a): Affordable Housing with Spatial
Justice, For All, Economic & Political Weekly,
Vol 50 No 6, pp 6166.
(2015b): Community Land Reserves, Economic
& Political Weekly, Vol 50, Nos 4647, pp 2123.
Tandel, Vaidehi, Shirish Patel, Sahil Gandhi, Abhay
Pethe and Kabir Agarwal (2016): Decline of
Rental Housing in India: The Case of Mumbai,
Environment and Urbanization, forthcoming.
US Department of Housing and Urban Development (nd): Low-Income Housing Tax Credits,
viewed on 23 February 2016, http://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/lihtc.html.
White, Kirby ed (2011): The CLT Technical Manual,
USA: National Community Land Trust Network, http://cltnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/MASTER-CLT-MANUAL.pdf.
EPW Index
An author-title index for EPW has been prepared for the years from 1968 to 2012. The PDFs of the
Index have been uploaded, year-wise, on the EPW website. Visitors can download the Index for
all the years from the site. (The Index for a few years is yet to be prepared and will be uploaded
when ready.)
EPW would like to acknowledge the help of the staff of the library of the Indira Gandhi Institute
of Development Research, Mumbai, in preparing the index under a project supported by the
RD Tata Trust.
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
Blurred Boundaries
Identity and Rights in the Forested Landscapes of Gudalur,
Tamil Nadu
Manasi Karthik, Ajit Menon
This paper critically analyses the politics of

claim-making, vis--vis, the Forest Rights Act by
illustrating how three distinct political actors in Gudalur,
Tamil Nadu, have used the FRA. In this analysis the law
has not been taken as an immutable category, but rather
as a political instrument that various groups use to assert
their identities and political imaginaries. In doing so,
these imaginaries invoke unique histories and reference
multiple genealogies of belonging. By highlighting
the multiple uses and interpretations of the FRA in
Gudalur, this study opens up space for a discussion
around some larger concerns implicated within issues
of forests, rights and conservation, particularly, the
limits of seeing Adivasis as the only authentic traditional
forest-dwellers by highlighting the blurred boundaries
between various categoriesAdivasi and non-Adivasi,
forest and non-forest, legality and illegality. It is in these
liminal spaces, where boundaries are blurred, this study
offers an analysis informed by the analytic of
governmentality to argue that local actors exercise
agency in either taking on or resisting environmental
subjectivities framed by the FRA.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Ashoka Trust for
Research in Ecology and the Environment on 27 March 2015. We are
grateful to the audience for their feedback and questions. The fieldwork
undertaken for this research was funded by the Khoj Foundation.
Thanks to Brendan Donegan, C R Bijoy and the organisations and
individuals discussed in the paper.
Manasi Karthik (manasi142@gmail.com) is an independent researcher
studying the politics of indigeneity in Gudalur, Tamil Nadu. Ajit Menon
(ajit@mids.ac.in) is with the Madras Institute of Development Studies,
Chennai.
EPW
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
n 15 December 2014, over 2,000 Adivasis, under the

banner of a local Adivasi organisation, took to the streets
of Gudalur town demanding the implementation2 of the
Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers
(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006henceforth referred
to as the Forest Rights Act (FRA)an act aimed at recognising
the rights of traditional forest-dwelling communities. By planning this protest and calling upon only Adivasis to attend, the
organisation took the position that, in Gudalur, the FRA was
applicable only to Adivasis. A few years prior to this, a group of
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), one of which supported
the Adivasi organisation, sought to route the claim-making
process exclusively through Adivasi gram sabhas.3 They did
this due to their concern that having non-Adivasis on the gram
sabha would leave scope for them to usurp the claim-making
process. This position was then endorsed by the state machinery when the district collector at the time issued a government
order sanctioning the formation of such gram sabhas.4
Other political actors in Gudalur (on behalf of other communities as well) have used the FRA to stake their claims to
land in Gudalur. In many villages around the town of Devala, a
mass organisation of agricultural workers that represents the
interests of small-scale farmers and landless labourers formed
gram sabhas consisting of both Adivasi and non-Adivasi
members. In the Masinagudi area to the East of Mudumalai
Tiger Reserve, local activists challenged the expansion of the
elephant corridor by way of land acquisition insisting that
rights should first be settled under the FRA.
This paper analyses the politics of claim-making vis--vis
the FRA in Gudalur, a region that has become home to a large
number of migrant peasants (Krishnan 2009) from different
parts of South India. Much of the recent literature on the FRA
has taken the act as given and then assessed its problems,
extent of implementation and the reasons for non-implementation (Ramnath 2008; Sathyapalan 2010; Sarap et al 2013),
adopting what Mosse describes as an instrumental approach
to policy analysis in which the usual concern is how to implement policy, how to realise programme designs in practice
(Mosse 2004: 641). Such an approach has relegated to the
background much of the controversy and conflict that continues
to beset debates about who the genuine claimants of the FRA
can be in specific geographical regions, what constitutes
forest rights, and consequently, how a policy such as the FRA
43
SPECIAL ARTICLE
is translated into practice. Addressing these issues would

require unpackaging both the hidden purposes of bureaucratic
dominance (Mosse 2004: 641) as well as the micropolitics of
how policy works.
We attempt such an analysis of the FRA in what follows in a
manner that builds upon, but also differs from, the approach
adopted by Bose et al (2012), who have analysed the FRA as a
form of governmentality through which the state not only
governs forests, but in doing so, also creates environmental
subjects. While their analysis takes an important critical
view in highlighting the technologies of power that the state
uses to control and manage its subjects, it pays insufficient
attention to how local actors exercise their agency in either
becoming the kinds of subjects the state might want them to
be or in challenging such essentialised subject formation.
In the case of the FRA, more attention needs to be given to
how different actors respond to technologies of power (Brockling et al 2011) through exercising their own capacity for
politics (Li 2008). Rather than attending solely, therefore, to
the success or failure of policy or even problematising it as a
veiled exercise of state power, in this paper we strive towards a
more nuanced and actor-oriented ethnography of development
as Mosse (2004) has called for and examine the sets of relations
between various political actors in Gudalur.
To do this, we look at how various local actors, both Adivasi
and non-Adivasi, in Gudalur invoke genealogies of belonging to lend support to their unique uses and interpretations of
the FRA. While the FRA itself is clear about the necessary residential requirements that communities must fulfil to claim
rights and the definition of forests, on the ground in areas such
as Gudalur, the FRA remains a contested law because of the
complex nature of claims staked by various local actors and
the fluidity of land use categories historically. We substantiate
Sundars contention that the poor mobilise law as part of their
politics (Sundar 2009: 3). In the process we hope to speak not
only to how the state uses the FRA as a form of governmentality,
but also to the politics of differential engagement. We take the
law, not as an immutable category, but rather a political
instrument that various groups use to assert their identities
and political imaginaries as a way to stake claims in the highly
contested forested landscapes of Gudalur. In other words,
rather than evaluating whether particular local actors use or
abuse the act in engaging or implementing it, our focus is on
how the act works locally and is intercepted by local actors
who see it as a resource that can be worked into already
existing social relations to further already existing political
projects. Doing this also allows us to gesture towards a more
complex formulation of what marginalisation entails.
for decades. In 2002, when the Ministry of Environment and

Forests (MoEF) ordered large-scale evictions of forest-dwelling
communities across the country, peoples movements protested
collectively. A number of these peoples movements then came
together under the banner of the Campaign for Survival and
Dignity (CSD). More than a decade earlier in 1990, the MoEF
had issued a set of six circulars that (amongst other things) directed states to regularise all pre-1980 settlements on forest
lands (Rajashekhar 2012).5 However, as is often the case with
government directives, these orders were never fully operationalised. Hence, CSD at first used these orders to stave off
evictions in a move that later became a struggle for a new law.
The passing of the FRA, in other words, was seen by activists as
an enabling tool in their wider struggle for social change. Once
the struggle for forest rights became a struggle for a new law, it
came under the purview of the state.
As Rajashekhar (2012) and Vaidya (2013) have illustrated,
the original forest rights bill went through many drafts with
different actorsgovernment departments, political parties,
political activists and conservationistseach trying to leave
their mark on it. The subsequent evolution of the FRA was a
politically fraught process which involved the conciliation of numerous competing demands. Amongst these, the two most contentious issues in the bill were the cut-off date6 from which
communities would be granted forest rights and whether the
act should apply only to Scheduled Tribes (STs).
While it is outside the scope of this paper to discuss the
various debates that took place on these issues, what we do
wish to point out is that the resultant law was as much a result
of the political leverage possessed by the various actors
involved in the drafting process as it was a synthesis of the
positions put forward by competing constituencies. The final
decision regarding these issues of entitlementrequiring
non-STs to prove 75 years of residence in order to claim
rightswas made in haste because some actors, most notably
the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA), consistently objected to
the inclusion of non-STs in the act. It is this criterion that some
activists and scholars have strongly criticised (Sarin 2014:
100146), arguing that it skews the implementation of the act
in favour of a ST constituency. Nonetheless, the politics of the
drafting process contributed to the creation of the other
traditional forest-dweller (OTFD) category, which applied to
non-STs who could prove 75 years of residence (Vaidya 2013).
For our purposes here, it is adequate to say that the distinction
pertaining to residential requirements of STs and OTFDs led to
fierce debates about entitlements under the act and situated-ness
in given localities.
2 The Three Actors
1 The FRA: Power and Politics
To understand the complex nature of forest governmentality,

vis--vis the FRA, and more specifically, the tension between
the states technologies of power and the peoples capacity for
politics, it is necessary to look back at the making of the FRA. The
FRA, as an idea, emerged from activists as a response and solution to evictions that forest-dwelling communities have faced
44
The FRA, from a black letter law perspective, provides the legal
framework through which the state is meant to govern forestdwellers and forests. Well-defined procedures exist at multiple
scales through which claims can be made and verified. The
rules of the FRA themselves prescribe only that the FRA is to be
implemented through the gram sabha and committees at the
block, district and state levels. However, in practice, civil
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society organisations have cited both the unwillingness and

the lack of awareness of the state bureaucracy as reasons for
their mediating role in the implementation of the act. In Gudalur,
there are multiple sets of non-state actors who have each read
and used the law differently. In what follows, we detail how
three non-state actors in Gudalur have made use of the law
and how the state has positioned itself.
2.1 Adivasi Group and NGOs
In 2008, a group of NGOs across Nilgiris District of Tamil

Nadu came together to collectively strategise about how to
implement the FRA.7 This group consisted of both NGOs working
on Adivasi welfare and international conservation organisations.
It played the role of creating awareness about the act through
trainings conducted for the administration. They also jointly
constituted a district-level coordination committee to oversee
the implementation process and ensure that procedures of the
act were followed.
These NGOs had a unique interpretation of the provisions of
the act. Under the FRA, the gram sabha is the primary body
responsible for processing claims at the most decentralised
local level. Section 2(g) of the act defines the gram sabha as a
body consisting of all adult members in a given village, the
exception being in areas where panchayats do not exist and
where traditional bodies can act as substitutes for village gram
sabhas. However, the above-mentioned NGOs felt the need to
modify this definition. They constituted gram sabhas which
consisted exclusively of Adivasi members. Rather than constituting these gram sabhas as defined under Section 2(p) of the
FRA, they clustered groups of hamlets together such that there
were approximately 150 Adivasi families under each group. In
Gudalur, these gram sabhas overlap with the administrative
units used by the Adivasi organisation that we described in the
introduction. The district collector sanctioned these Adivasionly gram sabhas and each panchayat also passed a resolution
recognising the gram sabhas under them. This marked the
birth of what became known as Special Tribal Gram Sabhas in
the Nilgiris.8
These NGOs were concerned that allowing non-Adivasis on
the gram sabhas would compromise the claim-making process.9
They argued that the in-migration of non-Adivasi settlers had
resulted in the dispossession of Adivasis. Given this history,
locally specific hierarchies and the ensuing power dynamics
between Adivasis and non-Adivasis necessitated limiting the
membership of the gram sabhas exclusively to Adivasis. They
also argued that even autochthonous, non-Adivasi groups,
such as the Moundadan Chetties do not qualify as having
bonafide livelihood needs from forestlands.
Large-scale migration of non-Adivasis into Gudalur can be
traced back to the mid-19th century. At that time, much of the
area was under the control of the Nilambur Kovilakam, a royal
family from neighbouring Kerala, who leased out land for the
establishment of first coffee and then tea plantations primarily
to British capital (Krishnan 2009). The emergence of this
plantation economy required labour from the plains. The next
significant wave of migration was in the 1950s when the
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post-independence state launched the grow more food

campaign to contain the effects of famine (Menon et al 2013).
During this time smallholders from the neighbouring state of
Kerala were encouraged to cultivate food crops and develop
the agricultural economy of independent India (Menon et al
2013). The last major wave of migration into Gudalur was after
the SirimavoShastri Pact in 1964, a pact that resulted in the
repatriation of over five lakh Tamils from the plantations of
Sri Lanka to various parts of South India (Adams 1989).
In addition to a general concern about the in-migration of
non-Adivasis, members of these NGOs expressed particular
concern about this latest wave of migration. A number of the
Tamil repatriates had been absorbed on either government or
private estates and received little by way of land, making them
a significant constituency vying for land rights. Members of
the local Adivasi organisation, while sympathetic to their
struggle for land rights, were concerned that they would use
the FRA to make false claims despite the fact that they had
not been in Gudalur for the requisite 75 years. They argued
that such a conflation of land rights for Tamil repatriates with
forest rights for Adivasis was inimical to the goal of Adivasi
sovereignty.10
2.2 Agricultural Labourers Organisation
Activists who work on issues of land and labour rights predominantly for Tamil repatriates formed a mass organisation
in 1996. This organisation grew out of the mobilisation for the
rehabilitation and rights of Sri Lankan repatriates. It subsequently evolved as a toiling class organisation bringing Adivasis,
Dalits, and small and marginal farmers into its fold. It also
became a part of larger movements such as the Tamil Nadu
Front for Tribal Self-Rule (a wing of the National Front for
Tribal Self Rulethe movement that launched the campaign
for the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled
Areas) Act of 1996 (PESA)). They also formed an integral part
of the CSDthe campaign that launched the nationwide
struggle for the forest rights. Their primary aim has been
to fight for land rights within the wider context of local selfgovernance in Gudalur.
Even prior to the passing of the FRA, this mass organisation
formed village assemblies as a part of its attempt at political
mobilisation at the grass-roots level. After the FRA was passed,
they facilitated the submission of individual and community
claims through gram sabhas at the panchayat level. The members of the group argue that, only STs and OTFDs submitted
individual claims. Some gram sabhas filed community claims
to forestlands.
As we mentioned earlier, many of those who were repatriated
from Sri Lanka to work on estates did not have secure land titles
even if they had acquired their own land. Thus, when evictions
began in 2002, these activists used 1990 government orders11
to stave off evictions in keeping with CSDs national strategy.
Filing claims under these government orders in combination
with public protest proved to be an effective strategy for keeping the worst of the evictions at bay. When the FRA was notified they used it as a possible alternate way to claim land
45
SPECIAL ARTICLE
rights. This was done largely in terms of community claims

filed under Section 3(1)(i) of the FRA. If a community claim
was recognised, community rights would be vested with the
gram sabha that would give villagers more agencies over the
management of their lands.
Beyond the specific issue of securing the land rights of Tamil
repatriates, this organisation worked in the interest of a larger
political goal: taking back control of forests from the forest
department to return them to local communities. In Gudalur,
where there has been ambiguity in land classification due to
the janmam system of land tenure, the forest department
continues actively to claim land it deems forests (Adivasi as we
shall see later). The bureaucratic mechanisms that facilitate
such reclassification remain a mystery to people living in
villages. When land is reclassified, it is brought to the attention of those who occupy it through the unwelcome presence
of noticeboards placed by the district administration, which, to
villagers, signifies that they will no longer be able to cultivate
their lands or receive developmental benefits on these lands.
In order to counter this, when a village is classified as forest,
the organisations activists erect boards declaring that the village has rights under the FRA. In doing this they are appropriating state tactics in an attempt to reassert peoples rights.
These boards have been a matter of contention for the Adivasi
organisation and supportive NGOs. Their concern is that these
boards are a misrepresentation, leading people (especially,
non-Adivasis) to believe that they can claim rights under the
FRA when, in fact, they are not eligible to do so. They argue that
the FRA provides only for the rights of STs and OTFDs and thus
that placing these boards undermines and dilutes the value of
the FRA by leaving room for false claims by non-Adivasis.12
We need to see this not just as an individualised concern,
but rather, as a sentiment that is exacerbated by the larger
concern that the traditional structures that existed within
Adivasi society, whether kinship or labour, are slowly being
eroded through intermarriage, migratory work and modern
education. There is a growing rate of inter-marriage between
Tamils and Adivasis that is especially of concern to some Adivasi
elders who perceive it as a form of cultural and material appropriation which contributes to the erosion of Adivasi culture.
For the activists who put up the boards, however, have different
connotations and are contextualised within larger struggles that
invoke their own, distinct political imaginary. They say that
the forest department puts up boards declaring non-forestlands
as forests even if people use these lands. Moreover, they also
argue that if lands are to be declared as forests, a settlement
process must be undertaken which has not happened. In other
words, activists not only contest ownership of land, but also
what lands are forests and what lands are not forests.
2.3 Activists from Masinagudi
The third actor in our narrativean informal group of activists,

Adivasi leaders, Dalit members of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) and small-scale farmers in the Masinagudi region
used the FRA to challenge conservation projects in the area. In
2007, the Mudumalai Panchayat and parts of the Masinagudi
46
Panchayat were declared as a Critical Tiger Habitat under the

Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act (WLPA) 2006. In 2008,
a writ petition was filed before the High Court of Madras seeking evictions in a proposed elephant corridor.
These attempts were met with widespread resistance on the
ground; on 30 December 2008, thousands of people took to
the streets of Gudalur in protest against the proposed tiger
reserve (Taghioff and Menon 2010). These activists were the
main drivers of these protests as they were residents of the
region who were now facing the threat of eviction. They
contended that due procedure as outlined under Section 38 V
of the WLPA had not been followed in declaring the tiger
reserve. Additionally, the notification was in violation of the
FRA which calls for a consultative process with gram sabhas.
They used the FRA as a legal tool with which to challenge the
constitution of the tiger reserve. As per the FRA, what is known
as a Critical Tiger Habitat, may be constituted with the consent of the gram sabhas in the area. This group of local residents and activists argued that consent had, in fact, not been
sought from them and that the FRA had not been implemented
as yet. They constituted gram sabhas in the Masinagudi area
that comprised both Adivasis and non-Adivasis, as per the
definition prescribed in the act. These gram sabhas then
passed resolutions on 15 August 2008, citing that rights must be
settled under the FRA prior to constituting a tiger reservewhich
must be done in keeping with the provisions of the WLPA.13
The BrahmagiriNilgiris Eastern Ghats elephant corridor
was proposed as part of Project Elephant, which was launched
in 1992 by the MoEF to undertake elephant conservation across
the country.14 In 2008, conservationists in Gudalur filed a writ
petition (In Defence of Environment and Animals v Principal
Chief Conservator of Forests and Ors 2008) in the High Court of
Madras seeking the eviction of encroachers in an area proposed
to be declared as an elephant corridor. In 2010, the government
followed this by passing an order proposing to acquire a portion
of the Sigur plateau so as to create an elephant corridor. However,
activists argued that the extent of land demarcated for the
proposed corridor lacked scientific backing and that earlier
expert reports had suggested a much smaller elephant corridor
area (Suchitra 2012).
The FRA provided these activists with a legal avenue to challenge the extension of the elephant corridor. When the Madras
High Court issued orders permitting evictions in the proposed
elephant corridor, these activists took the help of a lawyer in
the Madras Hight Court to file a case challenging this,15 citing
the lack of implementation of the FRA. They were successful in
preventing the evictions; their case has now been clubbed with
the preceding case (In Defence of Environment and Animals v
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Ors 2008) in which
conservationists in Gudalur called for evictions. Both these
cases are now pending in the Supreme Court.
3 Defining Forests and Expanding the Forest Regime
Before engaging in a more critical analysis of how the FRA as a

form of governmentality has worked in Gudalur, first, it is
necessary to highlight the complexity of defining forests and
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forest-dwellers given the complex history of state policy and

land-use change in Gudalur. This is the case because the forest
governmentality regime in Gudalur that seeks to recognise
Adivasi rights and exclude those of others is premised on the
notion that these others for the most part are not traditional
forest-dwellers.
Gudalurs dense malarial forests were opened up in the late
19th century with colonial zest, as mentioned above, first for
coffee, then tea plantations, when the Nilambur Kovilakam
leased out large tracts of land to wealthy British planters. The
colonial state facilitated this burgeoning plantation economy
through its taxation policies (Menon et al 2013), and a forest
lease regime (Krishnan 2009) was soon established. An
enormous labour force was required to clear these forests and
transform them gradually into the uniform rows of well-pruned
tea bushes interspersed with silver oak trees that still dominate
the landscape. And a veritable army of managers and maistries16 (Raman 2010; Menon et al 2013) were engaged in the
task of recruiting the requisite labour from the nearby plains.
Having transformed the forests into profit-making plantations
using the labour of migrant workers, various wings of the state
then intervened to reclaim this forest land. The colonial
bureaucracy, expressing its concern about deforestation, introduced the Madras Protection of Private Forest (MPPF) Act in
1949.17 This was a means to not only regulate tree felling on
private plantation lands, but also to suggest, more fundamentally, that these lands were private forests as large portions of
the estates were left undeveloped (an official term for
forested portions of leases (Krishnan 2009: 288)). Plantations
and forests, therefore, became permeable categories.
Reclaiming Forests
In 1969, the postcolonial state passed the Gudalur Janmam

Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act (henceforth the Janmam Abolition Act). Though ostensibly an act of
agrarian reform, the Janmam Abolition Act was as concerned
with delineating what it considered undeveloped forestland
within estates so that the state could stake claim to these
forests (Krishnan 2009). More than three decades later,18 on
12 December 1996, the Supreme Court had issued an interim
order on the Godavarman case (T N Godavarman Thirumalpad
v Union of India & Ors 1995), a case that was filed by a member
of the Nilambur Kovilakam family. The order not only extended
the definition of forest to mean any land that conformed to the
dictionary definition of forest, but also rebuked the forest
department for not adequately enforcing the Forest Conservation
Act, 1980, thereby bringing potentially all janmam lands that
had no patta, within the ambit of forest department control.
No non-forest activities were allowed on these janmam lands
(Menon 2015).
In an ironic turn, the state that had encouraged the transformation of lands away from forests was now trying to reclaim
these lands. Though the earlier intent to declare estate lands
as private forests under the MPPF Act did not lead in practice to
the usurpation of these lands by the forest department, it did
highlight that boundaries between forest and non-forestlands
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were potentially blurred and that the demarcation of forestland was essentially a political act that could help the forest
department take control over all remaining forests, as was to
legally happen when the Janmam Abolition Act was passed
(the provisions of this act were fundamentally directed towards
vesting the control of the janmam lands in the hands of the
state, especially the forest department, by settling rights and
offering compensation to landholders).19 While the purported
logic of giving control of all forestlands to the forest department was to empower it to prevent deforestation, it opened up
a hornets nest with regard to the boundaries between forests
and non-forests, and equally importantly, what rights local
people should have to these forests. The state was undoubtedly concerned that large estates would continue to clear undeveloped lands. However, much of estate land had been encroached
upon by small farmers who often grew trees near their homestead.20 Did this make them forest-dwellers? Should they have
title to this land?
In practice, the Godavarman verdict discouraged farmers
from growing forest trees on their land because there were
so many rules that regulated the felling and transportation of
such trees (Menon et al 2013). The Janmam Abolition Act and
the Supreme Courts Godavarman verdict, in other words,
have had the effect of bringing the majority of land in Gudalur
under stringent restrictions which do not necessarily correspond with preceding land-use patterns. Moreover, in 2011, there
was a settlement process in which portions of Section 1721
land were converted to Section 53 (that is, forest) under the
Janmam Abolition Act.22 People residing on these lands have
complained that they were taken by surprise when they found
noticeboards on their land warning them that it has now been
converted into forestland. Such problems were faced by both
Adivasis and non-Adivasis. In one Paniyan village, an elephant
trench was dug by the forest department right in the middle of
the village. While villagers were hopeful that the trench might
prevent wild elephants from entering their hamlet at night, they
also felt that positioning of the trench would allow the forest department to declare the land as reserved forest.23
This reclamation of forestlands necessitated multiple spates
of evictions. Gudalurs chequered history has made eviction
from forestland a particularly problematic and deeply politicised
issue. Present-day Gudalur remains to a large extent in legal
limbo due to the hiatus that ensued following the notification
of the Janmam Abolition Act. Krishnan (2009) has argued that
this legal limbo resulted in continued encroachment; however,
it also resulted in evictions. In 2002, following the court order
on the Godavarman case, the forest-dwelling communities
were evicted from janmam lands. As with previous evictions,
this effort was met with massive public protest and the threat
of violence. By now, farmers in Gudalur had become only too
familiar with the threat of evictions24 and the dangers of
having their crops destroyed or their houses demolished by the
forest department.
In addition to having their use of forestlands curtailed, communities in Gudalur have been denied their development
rights. On 30 January 1996, the district collector cancelled all
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schemes and public works in reserved forests and Section 17

lands on the ground that Section 17 lands are forest lands
(Menon et al 2013: 468). Although this order was later revoked
in 2007, in practice, people living on these lands are still
denied basic developmental facilities such as roads, water,
electricity and housing.
Governmentality and Subjectivities
Notwithstanding different actors using the FRA in Gudalur to

undo what they consider historical injustices, from the
perspective of the state, the law must exercise its capacity to
govern. The defining of forests, discussed above, is part of this
process of governing. Having done this, the states next objective
was to filter-process and institutionalise rights discourses. Often,
as Ronald Niezen (2010) has argued, the form governmentality
takes and the rights that are bestowed on select actors occur
through a process of norm diffusion from supralocal levels.
Discourses of rights and identity make their way from the ivory
towers of policymaking into the everyday practices of communities through the law and its implementation. Commonly
stated narratives of the FRA as a legislation that is undoing historical injustice (Sarin 2014) elide this performative role of law.
Central to the FRA as a form of governmentality in Gudalur
has been what Bose et al (2012) call the politics of social
identity. Much has been written about the making of the
Adivasi identity in India (Xaxa 2005; Shah 2010; Prasad-Aleyamma 2014) and indigeneity at the global level (Niezen 2003).
By virtue of being original inhabitants, ST communities are, by
extension, also assumed to be the traditional and rightful
inhabitants of the land who posess untold connections and a
symbiotic relationship with forests. When the FRA was being
drafted, there was an outcry from environmentalists in India
who argued that it would compromise conservation efforts.
Publics25 (Niezen 2010) in favour of the act strategically positioned
themselves to counter such claims by projecting indigenous
people as being natural conservationists. As we highlighted
earlier, in Gudalur the state in the form of the district collector
passed a GO authorising the establishment of Adivasi-only gram
sabhas. In the process, the FRA in Gudalur, at least officially
speaking, was perceived as legislation for Adivasis only.
While planning for the Adivasi protest of December 2014
that we described in the introduction of this paper, an Adivasi
leader stressed that:26
Nanga kalacaram oda povom, appo dhan avangalukku theriyum,
adhivasi makkal dhan indha porattam nadatharanga. illati yenna vidhyasam irukkum? Nanga kalcaram dress-u pottu, thudi sinar oda povom.
(We will go with our culture, only then will people
know that Adivasis are doing this protest. Otherwise how will
they make out any difference? We will wear our traditional
dress and have our traditional musicians with us.)
Agrawal (2005) has argued that the states technologies of

power result in the creation of environmental subjects. For
these environmental subjectsas in the case of this protest
the invocation of a cultural identity can itself constitute a
means of claim-making. This cultural identity, as illustrated
above, is also emphasised by civil society groups that support
these environmental subjects, in this case the Adivasi subject.
48
Other actors, however, resist, challenge and reinvent subjectivities of the natural conservationist by making counterclaims.
For example, Krithivasan (2011) highlights how non-Adivasis
in the MasinagudiSigur area call themselves Padivasis (half
Adivasi) so as to highlight that they too are local and protect
the forests. This suggests that non-Adivasis perceive that being
Adivasi is the main determinant of forest rights, and hence,
the more they can highlight their similarities to Adivasis the
better the chance they have to get their rights recognised.
Another example of this is that of repatriated Tamil labourers
in Gudalur, who are keen to emphasise their roots in Tamil Nadu
rather than Sri Lanka. In a recent article for a Tamil political
magazine,27 an activist referred to Tamil Nadu as motherland as a means of staking claims to belonging. Similarly,
Tamils choose to identify themselves as Malaiyaga Tamizhar
or Upcountry Tamils, a term used by Indian Tamils in Sri
Lanka to distinguish themselves from Eelam Tamils. The word
malai in Tamil means mountain and so malaiyaga Tamizhar
then becomes a variation on mountain peoplesuggesting
a certain enmeshing of topography with identity. The agricultural labourer organisation in Gudalur has always emphasised
that non-Adivasis and Adivasis face similar challenges and
that identity should not divide them. Hence, while on the one
hand, Tamil peasants point out that they too are hill people, on
the other, they have tried to stress the class similarities
between Adivasis and non-Adivasis in Gudalur (Steur 2014).
However, despite counter-narratives of the environmental
subject, it is the interpretation of the group of NGOs that has
received sanction from the state bureaucracy. How does this
come to be? If multiple actors have taken up and used the FRA
in Gudalur, how does the state deem one group to be legitimate
and not others? Li (2000) argues that an indigenous identity is
articulated through the conjuncture of a number of factors, including in-migration into indigenous frontiers and the development of capitalist relations. These factors had already coalesced
in Gudalur to give rise to the articulation of an indigenous politics.
The region has seen an efflorescence of NGOs whose raison
detre is the indigenous identity. It was in these circumstances
that the FRA, as a law and policy that is predisposed towards
treating Adivasis as good forest subjects, has lent itself to being
utilised by this already existing politics of indigeneity.
This still begs the questionwho is authorised to oversee
the implementation process and why? What we have argued is
that despite the fact that the act has a prescribed set of
committees at different scales that are supposed to be in
charge of vetting claims, this coalition of NGOs shaped the
broader discourse on the act. If, for example, the agricultural
labour organisations had approached the district collector to
pass an order sanctioning the gram sabhas constituted by
them, would the collector have consented? Most likely, not. As
one Tamil estate labourer told us:28
The forest department knows that Adivasis have rights. They are
afraid to do anything because then some big NGO will have words with
their higher officials. But we do not have anyone like that.
More significantly, what are the implications of this? What

are the consequences of certain civil society/state allegiances
march 5, 2016
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assuming privileged positions? As Niezen (2010: 58) argues,

the downside of cultural rights lobbying is especially to be
found in dark corners and narrow alleys, among the dispossessed, where the public gaze is sightless or apathetic. The
Tamils in Gudalur who have been repatriated from Sri Lanka
present one example of a people that have fallen between the
cracks of belonging. When the tea economy was first emerging
in Sri Lanka, consignments of labourers (many of them indentured) were shipped from rural Tamil Nadu to work on the
newly-established plantations of erstwhile Ceylon, in what
was a period of one of the largest migrations history has seen
(Amrith 2013). These Tamils were refused citizenship in Sri
Lanka and seem to have been significantly bypassed post-repatriation in regions such as Gudalur. As Niezen (2010: 58)
reminds us: Refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants have
difficulty in representing suffering and a distinct way of life
that resonates with justice activists or cultural preservationists, a situation that engenders vacuums or failures of remedy.
The group of NGOs in Gudalur argue that, if non-Adivasis
were to be on the gram sabha, locally specific hierarchies and
power struggles will begin operating. Although this is a valid
concern, we must take into consideration the existence of other marginalised actors. When broad categories such as Adivasi
and non-Adivasi are invoked, this has the effect of collapsing
the multiple identities that exist and the possibility of other
marginalisations. In other words, without invalidating the
reality of Adivasi marginalisation, we can perhaps seek a
more nuanced understanding of what marginalisation entails,
namely, one that accounts also for people who may not be able
to present themselves as a salve for our own, very modern,
disenchantments but who are nevertheless enduring the
afterlives of colonial mobilisations.
Conclusions
Although the FRA remains unimplemented in Tamil Nadu as a

result of it being stuck in the courts,29 the battles around the
act and who the entitled beneficiaries should be continues in
Gudalur. While viewing the FRA as a form of governmentality is
a useful conceptual entry point, we have argued that processes
of governmentality need to be further problematised, paying
attention not only to how both the population and forests are
governed, but equally to how different actors respond to the
states attempt to create new environmental subjects. Law, as
an instrument of governmentality, we have argued, is not an
immutable category but rather a political instrument used by
multiple groups with their distinct political identities to stake
their various claims to the highly politicised forests of Gudalur.
More specifically, we have highlighted how three sets of
actors have used the FRA to stake claim to forests in Gudalur.
The first is an Adivasi organisation, supported by a set of NGOs.
Notes
1
Our use of the word Adivasi as opposed to tribal

is to respect the fact that many Adivasis selfidentify themselves as Adivasis or original
inhabitants, and hence, it is part of their political
consciousness and mobilisation. We recognise,
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march 5, 2016
This coalition of actors argued that Adivasis are the only

legitimate claimants of forest rights in Gudalur as non-Adivasi
settlers, who do not have title to their lands have not been
there for 75 years. What we have also illustrated is that the
state machinery endorsed this position by officially recognising
this coalition of NGOs and allowing for the constitution of
Adivasi-only gram sabhas. This notwithstanding, other actors
challenged the official position and deployed their capacity for
politics. One of these other actors was an agricultural labourer
organisation composed of predominantly Tamils (but also
others, including Adivasis) who were repatriated to Gudalur
from Sri Lanka under the SirimavoShastri Pact. This organisation has used the FRA as a means to highlight the tenurial
insecurity of many of its members, arguing that the state has
not implemented prior government orders aimed at regularising encroachments. The third set of actors was a group of
activists near Masinagudi concerned about the adverse consequences that the newly constituted Mudumalai Tiger Reserve
would have. They used the WLPA in combination with the FRA
to highlight that the constitution of a tiger reserve was illegal
since rights had not yet been admitted under the FRA.
Our purpose has not been to assess who the legitimate
claimants are, but rather to highlight the multiple genealogies
of belonging of the different actors and the highly blurred
boundaries of what constitutes forests and traditional
forest-dwellers. We did this by detailing the growth of the
plantation economy and the patterns of in-migration to
Gudalur as well as alluding to the complex history of janmam
land tenure and land-use in the region. By doing so we have
suggested that processes of marginalisation in Gudalur are far
more complex than a simple story of Adivasi dispossession by
accumulation. We suggest that a more nuanced formulation of
marginalisation would account for those who fit into the indigenous box as well as those who do not fit neatly into narratives
of modernity and its lacks or others (Argyrou 2005).
As we were completing this paper, news trickled in that the
Chennai High Court has quashed spurious claims to janmam
forests. Some conservationists have welcomed this decision.
However, given the blurred boundaries between forests and
non-forests, one wonders where this judgment will lead to and
what its implications will be for small farmers in Gudalur.
Already, as we have argued in this paper, the politics of claimmaking around the FRA has led to solidified boundaries
between communities along the lines of ethnic identity thereby
militating against solidarity and collective organisation at the
grass-roots level. It is likely that this court decision will further
solidify these divisions and that the implementation of the
FRA, if and when it does take place, will produce a form of
decentralisation that ignores the multiple genealogies of
belonging and histories of marginalisation we have detailed.
however, that Adivasi and tribal are often used

interchangeably and that as Li (2000) argues
they are mobile terms which have been
reworked and inflected as they have travelled
and often have context-specific connotations. We
are not using Adivasi in a manner coterminous
vol lI no 10
with the legal category of Scheduled Tribes since

in practice this is not the case.
Titles have not yet been issued under the FRA
in Gudalur due to an order from the Madras
High Court which required that titles can be
issued only after approval from the court. This
49
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7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
50
has, in effect, stalled the implementation of the

act because it is widely interpreted as a stay on
the FRA. The court order was finally vacated
on 1 February 2016 and titles can now be issued
without court approval in Tamil Nadu.
The gram sabha is the primary body responsible
for the implementation of the FRA at the grassroots level. It is to be constituted by all adult
members normally resident in a given village.
There are four different definitions of village
under Section 2 (p) of the FRA: (i) A village
referred to in Section 4(b) of the Panchayats
(Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act; (ii) Any
area referred to as a village in any state law
relating to panchayats other than scheduled
areas; (iii) Forest villages, old habitation or
settlements and unsurveyed villages, whether
notified as village or not. (iv) In the case of
states, where there are no panchayats, the
traditional village, by whatever name called.
Field notes, Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, May 2014.
This information was obtained through interviews with individual members of the said NGO.
Thus far we have obtained no documentary
evidence of the existence of such an order.
Circular No 13-1/90-FP of the Government of
India, Ministry of Environment and Forests,
Department of Environment, Forests and Wildlife dated 18 September 1990 addressed to the
secretaries of forest departments of all states/
union territories. FP (1) review of encroachments on forestland; FP (2) Review of disputed
claims over forestland, arising out of forest settlement; FP (3) Disputes regarding pattas/leases/
grants involving forestland; FP (4) Elimination
of intermediaries and payment of fair wages to
the labourers on forestry works; FP (5) Conversion
of forest villages into revenue villages and settlement of other old habitations; and FP (6) Payment
of compensation for loss of life and property
due to predation/depredation by wild animals.
Available at: http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/
media/1167469383/bill53_2007010153_ MOEF_
Guidelines_of_1990.pdf.
The debate during the drafting process was
whether the cut-off date should be 2005to
correspond with the passing of the Actor it
should be pushed back to 1980.
Internal documentation and field notes, Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, May 2014.
The act prescribes a detailed procedure for
claim-verification, which is to be carried out by
a Forest Rights Committee (FRC), and dictates
that tribals as well as Other Traditional Forest
Dwellers (OTFD) must be adequately represented
in the FRC.
Field notes, Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, 5 June, 12
May 2014.
These were the circulars issued by the Ministry
of Environment and Forests regularising pre1980 settlements on forestlands.
Website of MoEFCC, GoI, Project Elephant
http://envfor.nic.in/division/introduction-4.
Mudumalai Palangudinar Sangam v The State,
writ petitions 2762 and 2839 of 2009 filed in
the High Court of Judicature of Madras.
Foremen who act as subcontractors for labour
forces.
Later known as the Tamil Nadu Preservation of
Private Forest Act (1949).
Through this period the constitutional validity
of the act was challenged by planters and courts
decided to invoke the protection of Article 31A
of the Constitution. In the legal hiatus that ensued, planters began to clear and cultivate even
forested portions of leases (Krishnan 2009).
The Janmam Abolition Act provided for the
provision of ryotwari patta to janmis and
cultivators under Sections 8, 9 and 10 and
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
sought to acquire the remaining uncultivated

land under Sections 53 and 17.
A number of migrant peasants and smallholders
had encroached upon lands in the 1970s and
1980s, at the connivance of large plantation
owners and the district administration
(Krishnan 2009).
Land that is classified under Section 17 continues
to be disputed land which may be reclassified as
forest.
Interview with district forest officer, Nilgiris
District; 16 June 2014.
Field notes, Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, December 2014.
A significant instance of evictions became a
publicly politicised issue when a farmer who
had been evicted from his lands self-immolated
in 1978 (Adams 1989).
Publics are the abstract, invisible intended
audiences of outreach engaged in by those with
very tangible grievances (Niezen 2010: xi).
Field notes, Gudalur, 7 December 2014.
Kumudam Theeranathi (2015).
Fieldnotes; Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, 12 November
2014.
The Chennai High Court has suspended titles
from being issued prior to the approval of a
court-appointed committee in an order given
on the Sambasivam case (V Sambasivam v Government of India 2002).
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Employment Elasticity in India and the US,

19772011
A Sectoral Decomposition Analysis
Deepankar Basu, Debarshi Das
This paper analyses the phenomenon of jobless growth

in India and the United States through the lens of
employment elasticity. We decompose the level and
change of aggregate employment elasticity in terms of
sectoral elasticities, relative growth and employment
shares. Estimates of these decompositions are presented
with employment and output data from relevant
sources for both economies. In India, the agricultural
sector was the key determinant of both the level and
change of aggregate elasticity till the early 2000s. In the
US, the service sector is the most important determinant
of the level, but manufacturing remains an important
driver of changes in aggregate employment elasticity.
We thank the anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier

draft. Debarshi Das would like to thank the FulbrightNehru Foundation
for facilitating his visit to University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
the United States.
Deepankar Basu (dbasu@econs.umass.edu) teaches at the Department
of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the United States
and Debarshi Das (debarshidas@iitg.ernet.in) is with the Department
of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology,
Guwahati.
EPW
march 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
1 Introduction
ver the past few decades, the phenomenon of a marked

slowdown in the growth of employment has been
noticed in many countries across the world. This is
often referred to as jobless growth (ILO 2013; Caballero and
Hammour 1997; Verme et al 2014). To be sure, it is not the case
that employment has not been rising at all, even as output has
grown. Rather, for each percentage point of output growth,
the associated growth rate of employment has fallen. Hence, a
more precise characterisation would be that the output elasticity
of employment, which measures the responsiveness of employment to output growth, has been declining over time.1
In addition to the almost secular decline in employment
elasticities over the long run, asymmetric fluctuations over
phases of the business cycles have also been observed. For
instance, Basu and Foley (2013) note that the responsiveness of
employment to output growth in the United States (US) economy
has been different between the downturn and recovery phases of
business cycles. In particular, they point out that while labour is
shed during the economic slowdown, as is to be expected, the
pickup of employment during the recovery phase has been
weakening since the early 1990s (Basu and Foley 2013).
While these asymmetric employment responses at business
cycle frequencies are interesting and important phenomena,
the focus of this paper is on longer term response of employment to output changes. In this respect, India is no exception
to the global trend of declining labour absorption capacity of
output growth (Papola 2006; Kannan and Raveendran 2009).
Even as the growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) in
India has accelerated since the late 1980s, employment growth
has slowed down. Thus, the employment growth associated with
each percentage point growth of real value added has drifted
down over time. In Figure 1 (p 52), we plot the aggregate output
elasticity of employment, which measures the percentage
change in employment for every percentage change in real value
added, for India and the US since 1977. It is immediately apparent from the figure that there is a clear downward trend in the
output elasticity of employment over time in both countries.
The downward trend in employment elasticity highlights
the key challenge facing policymakers in contemporary India.
For a poor and labour surplus economy like India, employment
growth is by far the most important mechanism for rapid and
robust poverty reduction.2 The fact that employment elasticity
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Figure 1: Output Elasticity of Employment for the Aggregate Economy
0.800
0.600
US
0.400
India
0.200
0.000
-0.200
197782
198287
198793
199399
19992004
200409
200911
Source: Tables 2 and 5.
has been declining means that the capacity of output growth

to absorb labour is weakening. To kick-start an employmentintensive growth strategy, it will be necessary to address the
issue of employment elasticity.
It is from this perspective that we investigate the phenomenon
of declining employment elasticity in India and the US in this
paper. We choose these two countries because they are both
large and important in the contemporary world, but also quite
different in terms of structure and levels of economic development. In India, a large poor country, agriculture continues to
be the dominant sector in terms of employment even as
non-agricultural sectors have become important in terms of
output. In the US, one of the richest countries in the world, the
picture is quite different: services has become predominant
both in terms of output and employment. Despite these important structural differences, we will see that they display a
strikingly similar trend in terms of aggregate employment
elasticity. The fact that these two very different economies
face similar problems of labour absorption will highlight the
widespread reach of the phenomenon under investigation. But
our analysis will also show that the sources of low labour
absorption are quite different in the two countries. Hence,
policies fashioned to address the problem of employment will
need to be aware of common, worldwide trends and also sensitive to local conditions.
Aggregate employment elasticity, that is, employment
elasticity of the whole economy, is a blunt tool to investigate
the complex of phenomenon that underlies declining labour
absorption. The entire economy is composed of many sectors,
which are very different from one another. Thus it would be
more rewarding to adopt a sectoral perspective, as has been
the practice in much of the previous literature (see, for
instance, Papola and Sahu 2012). While previous research has
estimated aggregate and sectoral employment elasticities and
also analysed its evolution over time, this paper makes two
novel contributions.
First, we demonstrate that: (a) the level of aggregate employment elasticity is a weighted sum of sectoral employment elasticities, with the product of sectoral employment shares and
relative growth rate of output functioning as weights (we call
this the level-decomposition); and (b) the change of aggregate
elasticity over a period of time is the sum of three components,
52
one capturing changes in sectoral elasticities, the second arising from changes in employment shares and the third coming
from changes in relative growth rates (we call this the changedecomposition). While the level-decomposition allows us to
understand the influence of the employment elasticity of any
particular sector on the level of aggregate elasticity, the
changedecomposition enables us to investigate the importance of changes in sectoral elasticities and compositional
changes on changes in aggregate elasticity.
Second, we use output and employment data from 1977 to
2011 for the Indian and US economies to operationalise our
decomposition results. This allows us to empirically investigate
the level and change in aggregate employment elasticity for
both countries. Our main empirical findings are the following.
For the Indian economy, the agricultural sector was the most
important factor determining the level of aggregate employment elasticity before the 2000s, and since then its importance
has declined. An analysis of changes in aggregate employment
elasticity shows that changes in sectoral employment elasticities
are its most important determinant. Here too, the role of the agricultural sector was important till the late 1990s, and since then
it has declined. For the US economy, we find analogous results:
the services sector has been, and continues to remain, the main
determinant of the level of aggregate employment elasticity.
Analysis of changes shows that changes in sectoral elasticities
and changes in relative sectoral growth rates have both been
important drivers of changes in aggregate employment elasticity,
with the manufacturing sector playing an important role.
Before we proceed further, a disclaimer is in order. Although
the level of and change in aggregate elasticity is being investigated in this paper, the underlying factors which determine
those levels or changes remain beyond its scope. In other
words, we decompose the overall elasticity and its change into
its three components. What factors determine each component,
for example, the employment elasticity of a sector, is an important question which could be addressed through future
research.3 The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In
Section 2, we outline our empirical methodology; in Section 3,
we discuss the sources of our data and definitions of key
variables. Section 4 contains a discussion of the main results
and the last section concludes the paper.
2 Empirical Methodology
Employment elasticity captures the responsiveness of employment to changes in output. There are two common ways of
measuring the output elasticity of employment (Misra and
Suresh 2014). The first method calculates the point elasticity
by regressing log-employment on log-output, where the coefficient on the latter is the estimate of elasticity. Since estimation
of point elasticity relies on a regression, a researcher requires
substantial data points to put it into practice. Often, enough data
is not available to run regressions. In such cases, researchers turn
to the second method, which calculates the arc elasticity as the
ratio of the growth rate of employment and growth rate of output
over some period of time. In this paper, we use data on employment from the EmploymentUnemployment Survey (EUS) of the
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which is available only

every five years. This makes regression analysis infeasible.
Hence, we compute and work with arc elasticities.
The arc employment elasticity for the aggregate economy is
defined as
E
E Y
E =
Y
Y E
Y
periods. To be more concrete, suppose t0 refers to an initial

period and t1 refers to a final period, then the change in the
aggregate employment elasticity between the initial and final
period is
=
e g
... (1)
e g
Adding and subtracting terms, this becomes
where E denotes employment, Y denotes real output (value

added) and x stands for change in the variable x.
= e g + e g g + g e e
so that
2.1 Level-decomposition
The key idea of our empirical methodology rests on the recognition that the aggregate economy is composed of many
sectors, which behave quite differently in terms of employment
elasticity. Thus, our first task is to decompose the level of
aggregate employment elasticity for any time period into sectoral
elasticities, sectoral employment shares, and sectoral proportion of aggregate growth over the same period. To be more
concrete, suppose there are i = 1,2,..., n sectors in the economy,
so that
E = i Ei and Y = i Yi
...(2)
then the aggregate employment elasticity in (1) can be written as

=in
= 1 i gi ei,
...(3)
t1t0=SEL+SGW+SEM
where the first component, SEL, captures changes in sectoral

elasticities
SEL = e g
...(5)
and the second component, SGW, captures changes in relative

sectoral growth rates
SGW = e g g
...(6)
and the third component, SEM, captures changes in sectoral

employment shares
SEM = g e e
where
...(4)
...(7)
E
E

Y
Y
is the employment elasticity in the i-th sector,

g
Y
Y
Y
Y
is the i-th sectors growth (of real value added) as a ratio of the
rate of growth of aggregate value added, and
e =
E
E
is the share of total employment contributed by the i-th sector.

The expression in (3) shows that the aggregate employment
elasticity is the product of sectoral employment elasticity,
employment share and growth summed across all sectors of
the economy. Thus, the contribution of any particular sector to
the aggregate employment elasticity can be large if either of
the three componentsemployment elasticity, employment
share, or relative growthis large.
2.2 Change-decomposition
Our interest is not only in decomposing employment elasticity

for a time period but also to investigate the factors that drive
its change over time. Thus, our second task is to decompose
the change in aggregate employment elasticity between two
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march 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
The expression in (4) shows that the change in aggregate

employment elasticity can be decomposed into three componentsone driven by changes in sectoral employment elasticities, another by changes in relative sectoral growth, and the
last by changes in sectoral employment shares. Let us look at
each component in turn.
The first component, SEL, is a weighted sum of changes in
employment elasticity occurring within each sector between
the final and initial period. The weights are the product of
employment shares and relative growth rates in the final period.
It represents the contribution to the change in aggregate output
elasticity of employment coming from changes in the elasticity
occurring within each sector. It will have a value of zero (or
close to zero) if employment elasticities do not change much in
every sector. On the other hand, if employment elasticity
changes in sectors that have relatively large employment
shares or in sectors that are growing relatively faster than
average, then this component will have a large value.
The second component, SGW, is a weighted sum of changes
in the relative growth rates of each sector, with the product of
employment share in the final period and the employment
elasticity in the initial period used as weights. It measures the
contribution to the change in aggregate employment elasticity
coming from changes in the relative sectoral growth rates of
real value added. If the relative position of all sectors with
respect to the average growth rate of the economy remains
more or less unchanged, then this component will have a value
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
that is close to zero. On the other hand, if sectors change position

relative to average growth, then the magnitude and sign of this
component will depend on the magnitude and signs of
employment elasticity and employment shares.
The third component, SEM, is a weighted sum of changes
in the employment share of each sector, where the product of
employment elasticity and relative growth in the initial period
are used as weights. This component represents the contribution
to the change in the aggregate elasticity coming from changes
in the employment share of each sector. If an economy is
undergoing rapid structural change, this component might
have a large value. Otherwise, it will be relatively small.
In this paper, we use data on real value added and employment at the aggregate level and at levels disaggregated by
major sectors in India and the US to investigate the level and
changes in the aggregate output elasticity of employment since
the mid-1970s. To understand the determinants of the level of
employment elasticity for any time period, we compute the
components of the level of elasticity given in (3) and study
sectoral contributions. To investigate the drivers of change, we
compute the three components of change in aggregate elasticity
given in (4) and investigate their relative sizes.
Before we discuss our results, we would like to describe our
data sources.
3 Data
Data for our analysis of employment elasticity in India

come from two main sources. Data on aggregate and sectoral
real value added comes from the Economic Survey of India,
201314 (Government of India 2014). We use GDP at factor
cost, expressed in terms of 200405 prices, as our measure of
real output. Output data is available for the whole economy
(ALL) and for four major sectors: AGR (agriculture, forestry
and fishing, mining and quarrying), MFG (manufacturing,
construction, electricity, gas and water supply), TRD (wholesale and retail trade, hotel, transportation and communications), CSP (community, social and public services sectors).4
Thus, the particular division into sectors that is used in this
paper is determined by the availability of data on real output
in India.
Data on aggregate and sectoral employmentthat matches
the above four sectorsis constructed from various rounds of
the EUS conducted by the NSSO. The EUS questionnaire uses
three different reference periods to ascertain the activity status
of any individual: one year (usual status), one week (current
weekly status), and each day of the reference week (current
daily status). Following common practice in the literature, we
will use usual status to define employment.
With respect to the reference period of a year (usual status),
each person is classified into one of the three activity statuses:
(a) working, (b) not working but available for work, and
(c) neither working nor available for work. All those who fall in
categories (a) and (b) are counted as part of the labour force,
with those in category (a) being counted as employed and
those in (b) as being unemployed. Those who fall in category
(c) are counted as not in the labour force.
54
Since it is possible for a person to simultaneously belong to

more than one of the categories (a), (b) and (c) over the reference
period of a year, the EUS uniquely identifies a person as belonging to one of the three categories using the major time criterion, and calls it the usual principal activity status. The activity
status on which a person spent relatively long time (that is,
major time criterion) during the 365 days preceding the date of
the survey is considered as the usual principal activity status of
the person (NSSO 2011). To allow for the possibility that a person
classified with the major time criterion performed some other
economic activities for a shorter time span, the EUS uses usual
subsidiary status. This is defined as the status for any economic activity performed over the past 365 days for a minor period
not less than 30 days. In this paper, we will use the definition
of total employed as all those persons who are counted as
workers (that is, falling in category (a) above) using either the
principal status (PS) or subsidiary status (SS). To arrive at estimates of workers using this definition, we use three sources.
First, we extract the data on sectoral shares of employment
from Statement 5.9, NSSO (2011). Second, we take data on levels
of total employment from Himanshu (2011), who had used unitlevel EUS data to construct his figures. Combining the two gives
us levels of sectoral employment from 197778 to 200910
(roughly every five years). Third, for the latest year, 201112, we
use data on sectoral employment levels from Thomas (2014),
who had used unit-level EUS data to generate his estimates.
Thus, the time period for our analysis runs from 197778 to
201112, but the frequency of our data set is not annual. While
we do have annual data on real output, data on employment is
only available roughly every five years, the years when the EUS
was conducted by the NSSO. Hence, our data set for India
consists of observation on real output and employment, at the
aggregate level and for the four major sectors mentioned above,
for the years 197778, 1983, 198788, 199394, 19992000,
200405, 200910 and 201112.
Data for the US economy come from the GDP by Industry
data set available on the website of the Bureau of Economic
Analysis of the US Department of Commerce.5 For the US economy, our measure of real output is nominal GDPfor the whole
economy and for the four sectors that we are working withdeflated by the economy-wide GDP deflator with 2005 as the base
year. Our measure of employment is the sum of full-time and
part-time employees. To facilitate comparison with India, we use
the same years of analysis. Thus, our data set for the US has observations on real output and employment, at the aggregate
level and for the four major sectors, for the years 1977, 1983,
1987, 1993, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2011.6
4 Results
4.1 Overall Trends
Table 1 (p 55) presents data on output and employment for

India from 197778 to 201112, roughly every five years. Over
this three and half decade-period, Indias real output (measured in 200405 prices) has increased more than sevenfold
from about Rs 7.4 trillion to Rs 52.5 trillion. Over the same
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
4.2% per annum. Of course, the pace of change has been uneven over the decades so that the responsiveness of employment to output growth has also fluctuated over time.
The first row of Table 2 has employment elasticities over
consecutive periodswhich is also
Table 1: Output (Rs crore in 200405 prices) and Employment (millions) in India
197778
198283
198788
199394
19992000
200405
200910
201112
visually displayed in Figure 1comAGR Output
3,00,873 3,23,862 3,60,949 4,79,592 5,90,696 6,50,454 7,64,817 8,64,557 puted from the data in Table 1. The
Employment
191.7823 209.0246 212.9175 242.0752 242.5261 261.3757
241.17
224.4 data in Table 2 seems to suggest that
MFG Output
1,70,123 1,97,833 2,59,641 3,57,237 5,35,730 7,44,755 11,73,089 13,69,932 there is a downward drift in the
Employment
32.6369 39.9473
49.38 53.2954 62.3585 83.0973
97.7914
111.2
employment elasticity: it was 0.792 for
TRD Output
11,80,84 1,49,903 1,98,578 2,74,682 4,76,088 7,27,720 11,97,891 14,02,261
197778/1983, but fell to 0.166 for
Employment
21.9452 26.6363 31.7625
39.1135 55.4923
68.1653 72.2709
77.9
200910/201112. In the intervening
CSP Output
1,55,892 1,96,494 2,75,825 4,10,833 6,43,762 8,48,535 13,80,274 16,10,780
Employment
21.7539 26.7277 30.2612 39.7732 38.0839
45.3857 48.5353
59 periods, it has fluctuated.
Table 4 (p 56) presents analogous
ALL Output
7,44,972 8,68,092 10,94,993 15,22,344 22,46,276 29,71,464 45,16,071 52,47,530
Employment
268.3
303.4
324.9
374.2
397.9
457.9
460.1
472.5 data on output and employment for the
AGR = agriculture, forestry, mining and allied activities; MFG = manufacturing, construction, electricity, gas and water supply;
US economy. Over the period from 1977
TRD = trade, transportation, and communication; CSP = community, social and personal services; ALL = aggregate economy.
to 2011, real output (measured in 2005
Source: Value added data is from the 201314 Economic Survey of India; employment (usual principal and subsidiary status) data is
from various rounds of the EmploymentUnemployment Survey of the NSSO, Himanshu (2011) and Thomas (2014).
prices) in the US has increased only
about 2.5-fold from $5.4 trillion to $13.3
Table 2: Components of and Contributions to Employment Elasticity in India
197778/
198283/
198788/
199394/ 19992000/ 200405/
200910/ trillion. Employment has increased
198283
198788
199394
19992000
200405
200910
201112
from 90 to 138 million. Thus, real
Aggregate elasticity
0.792
0.271
0.389
0.133
0.467
0.009
0.166
Sectoral employment
AGR
1.177
0.163
0.417
0.008
0.768
-0.440
-0.533 output (measured in 2005 prices) per
elasticity
MFG
1.375
0.756
0.211
0.340
0.852
0.307
0.817 worker increased from about $59,388
TRD
0.793
0.593
0.604
0.571
0.432
0.093
0.457 per worker to $96,360 per worker,
CSP
0.878
0.327
0.642
-0.075
0.603
0.111
1.291 implying an average annual growth
Relative sectoral growth
AGR
0.462
0.438
0.842
0.487
0.313
0.338
0.805
rate of about 1.4% per annum. Just
MFG
0.986
1.195
0.963
1.051
1.209
1.106
1.036
like in the case of the Indian economy,
TRD
1.630
1.242
0.982
1.542
1.637
1.243
1.053
the pace of growth of output and
CSP
1.576
1.545
1.254
1.192
0.985
1.206
1.031
Sectoral employment
AGR
0.702
0.672
0.651
0.628
0.590
0.547
0.500 employment has been uneven over
share
MFG
0.127
0.142
0.147
0.150
0.169
0.197
0.224 the decades, so that the employment
TRD
0.085
0.093
0.101
0.122
0.144
0.153
0.161 elasticity has fluctuated. The first row
CSP
0.085
0.091
0.100
0.101
0.097
0.102
0.115 of Table 5 shows that the aggregate emContribution to
AGR
48.23
17.66
58.76
1.85
30.42 -880.91 -128.89
ployment elasticity has declined from
aggregate elasticity (%)
MFG
21.69
47.26
7.69
40.16
37.29
725.09
113.93
0.642 in the period 197783 to 0.154 in
TRD
13.86
25.20
15.43
80.66
21.83
191.77
46.52
200911.
CSP
16.22
9.88
18.12
-22.67
10.45
64.06
68.43
Figure 1 has time series plots of
Share of aggregate employment is the average for the two periods; elasticity is for the change over the period; proportion of
aggregate growth is over the period.
aggregate employment elasticities for
Source: Calculated from data in Table 1.
both India and the US. It is rather
Table 3: Decomposition of Change in Aggregate Output Elasticity of Employment in India
striking that despite the differences in
Period 1 to
Period 2 to
Period 3 to Period 4 to
Period 5 to Period 6 to
Period 2
Period 3
Period 4
Period 5
Period 6
Period 7
the structures of the two economies, the
Change in aggregate elasticity
-0.520
0.118
-0.256
0.334
-0.458
0.157
aggregate employment elasticity shows
Component 1
AGR
-0.299
0.139
-0.125
0.141
-0.224
-0.038
similar levels and trends over the past
(change in sectoral elasticity) MFG
-0.105
-0.077
0.020
0.105
-0.119
0.118
three decades. For both countries, the
TRD
-0.023
0.001
-0.006
-0.033
-0.064
0.062
aggregate employment elasticity starts
CSP
-0.077
0.039
-0.086
0.065
-0.061
0.140
at roughly similar values in 197783
Total
-0.504
0.103
-0.197
0.277
-0.468
0.282
and falls to similar values by 200911.
Component 2
AGR
-0.019
0.043
-0.093
-0.001
0.010
-0.103
(change in sectoral growth)
MFG
0.041
-0.026
0.003
0.009
-0.017
-0.005
This aggregate picture hides enorTRD
-0.029
-0.016
0.041
0.008
-0.026
-0.003
mous variation across sectors. For inCSP
-0.002
-0.009
-0.004
0.002
0.014
-0.002
stance, in India the share of agriculTotal
-0.009
-0.008
-0.053
0.018
-0.019
-0.112
ture in output declined sharply from
Component 3
AGR
-0.016
-0.001
-0.008
0.000
-0.010
0.007
40% to 16% over our period of study,
(change in sectoral
MFG
0.021
0.005
0.000
0.007
0.029
0.009
but its share in employment declined
employment share)
TRD
0.010
0.006
0.012
0.020
0.006
0.001
much more slowly from 71% to 47%
CSP
0.008
0.005
0.001
0.000
0.003
0.002
Total
0.023
0.014
0.006
0.027
0.028
0.019
over the same period. In contrast to this,
Period 1 = 197778 to 1983; Period 2 = 1983 to 198788; Period 3 = 198788 to 199394; Period 4 = 199394 to 19992000;
the share of manufacturing in output
Period 5 = 19992000 to 200405; Period 6 = 200405 to 200910; Period 7 = 200910 to 201112
Source: Calculated from data in Tables 1 and 2.
increased very slowly from 23% to
period, employment has increased from 268.3 million to 472.5
million. Thus, real output (measured in 200405 prices) per
worker increased from about Rs 27,776 per worker to Rs 1,11,058
per worker, implying an average annual growth rate of about
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
of sectoral elasticity, employment share and relative growth

summed over the different sectors.
From the first row of Table 2, we see that the aggregate
employment elasticity in India had extreme values in two
periods: in the period 197778 to 1983, the elasticity was high
at 0.792; in the period 200405 to 200910, the elasticity was
low at 0.009. Other than these two periods, the elasticity has
hovered around 0.29, sometimes above and sometimes below
this magnitude. The period of high elasticity was driven by
low output growth (16.5% over a six-year period) and a high
employment growth (13% over the same period). On the other
hand, the period of low elasticity was caused by very high
output growth (52% over a five-year period) and an exceptionally low employment growth (0.5% over the same period).
The next three panels in Table 2 present information on the
three components of elasticity: sectoral employment elasticity,
sectoral employment share and relative growth across sectors.
We see some interesting patterns in these numbers. First, sectoral
employment elasticity has declined for agriculture over the past
4.2 Level of Employment Elasticity
three decades, with the two recent most periods, 200405 to
Tables 2 and 5 present results of the decomposition of the level 200910 and 200910 to 201112, registering negative employof employment elasticity for India and the US respectively. ment elasticity. While other sectors do not display any pronounced
This decomposition uses (3) in Section 2.1 above, which shows trend in their within-sector employment elasticities, all the
that the level of aggregate employment elasticity is the product non-agricultural sectors have witnessed large increases in employment elasticities for the most recent
Table 4: Output (million of $ in 2005 prices) and Employment (thousands) in US
period.7 One may infer that the decline
1977
1983
1987
1993
1999
2004
2009
2011
AGR Output
2,51,720 2,77,268.9 2,34,233 2,10,785 2,01,354
3,12,096 3,32,447 4,08,775 in the overall elasticity has been
Employment
2,411
2,595
2,094
1,952
1,890
1,758
1,881
2,022
driven by the decline in elasticity in
MFG Output
15,33,112 15,44,903 17,88,028 18,82,213 22,67,607 23,19,452 21,43,362 22,57,177
agriculture until very recently, when
Employment
23,360
22,088
23,590
22,234
24,594
22,146
18,667
18,081
TRD Output
9,78,275 10,32,417 12,09,291 13,69,094 17,49,868 18,86,962 18,34,777 19,39,411 the former has increased even as the
Employment
17,276
18,357
21,153
22,023
25,210
25,293
24,687
24,857 latter has declined. We shall get back
CSP Output
26,08,175 32,70,715 40,75,607 50,54,348 65,52,111 77,28,612 84,47,038 86,92,511 to this point later. Second, the relative
Employment
47,397
55,557
63,954
72,842
83,170
88,615
91,870
93,042 growth of the agricultural sector has
ALL Output
53,71,283 61,25,303 73,07,159 85,16,439 10,770,940 1,22,47,121 1,27,57,624 1,32,97,874 always been below unity, that is, the
Employment
90,444
98,597 1,10,791 1,19,051 1,34,864
1,37,812
1,37,105 1,38,002
agricultural sector always grew at
AGR = agriculture, forestry, mining and allied activities; MFG = manufacturing, construction, electricity, gas and water supply;
slower rates than the aggregate econTRD = trade, transportation and communication; CSP = community, social and personal services.
Source: Value added and employment (full-time and part-time employees) data are from GDP by industry data from the US Bureau of
omy. All the other sectors have generEconomic Analysis.
ally registered above (or close to) averTable 5: Components of and Contributions to Employment Elasticity in the US
age
growth. This is in line with existing
197783
198387
198793
199399 19992004 200409
200911
Aggregate elasticity
0.642
0.641
0.451
0.502
0.159
-0.123
0.154 evidence on the relative stagnation in
Sectoral employment
AGR
0.752
1.244
0.677
0.710
-0.127
1.073
0.326 the agricultural sector in India. Third,
elasticity
MFG
-7.080
0.432
-1.091
0.518
-4.354
2.069
-0.591 the employment share in agriculture
TRD
1.131
0.889
0.311
0.520
0.042
0.866
0.121
has secularly, but slowly, declined. All
CSP
0.678
0.614
0.579
0.478
0.365
0.395
0.439
other sectors have witnessed a growth
Relative sectoral
AGR
0.723
-0.804
-0.605
-0.169
4.013
1.564
5.422
growth
MFG
0.055
0.816
0.318
0.773
0.167
-1.821
1.254 in their employment shares. This sugTRD
0.394
0.888
0.799
1.051
0.572
-0.663
1.347 gests a slow process of structural transCSP
1.810
1.275
1.451
1.119
1.310
2.230
0.686 formation of the Indian economy, that
Sectoral employment
AGR
0.026
0.022
0.018
0.015
0.013
0.013
0.014 is, movement of labour out of agriculshare
MFG
0.240
0.218
0.199
0.184
0.171
0.148
0.134
ture, over the past three decades.
TRD
0.188
0.189
0.188
0.186
0.185
0.182
0.180
The last panel of Table 2 presents
CSP
0.545
0.571
0.595
0.614
0.630
0.657
0.672
data
on the relative contribution of each
Contribution to aggregate AGR
2.24
-3.50
-1.60
-0.36
-4.27
-18.05
16.26
elasticity (%)
MFG
-14.52
11.99
-15.37
14.74
-78.05
454.59
-64.09 of the four sectors to aggregate employTRD
13.08
23.24
10.36
20.27
2.79
84.91
18.96 ment elasticity. The number for each
CSP
99.20
68.26
106.61
65.36
179.54 -421.45 128.88 sector has been derived in two steps.
Share of aggregate employment is the average for the two periods; elasticity is for the change over the period; proportion of
First, for any sector the product of emaggregate growth is the average for the two periods.
ployment elasticity, relative growth rate
Source: Calculated from data in Table 4.
26%, but the share of employment increased much faster from

12% to 24%. These divergent trend movements in output and employment give rise to divergent employment elasticities across
sectors, which will be a key part of the analysis in this paper.
Much as in India, the aggregate picture in the US arises from
very different sectoral patterns. While agriculture has been,
and remains, the dominant sector in India, plays CSP an analogous role in the US. But there is a difference too: while the
share of agriculture in Indias output and employment has
fallen, the share of CSP in the US economy has increased. The
share of output for CSP has increased from 49% to 65%; and
the share of employment has also increased from 52% to 67%.
The manufacturing sector in the US shows a trend that is similar to the role of agriculture in India: its share in output and
employment has secularly declined. Naturally, these differing
movements in output and employment give rise to different
employment elasticities. We turn to an analysis of these next,
with an investigation of elasticity levels first.
56
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
and relative employment share is calculated, as in the expression

in (3). Second, the ratio of the above-derived number with the
aggregate employment elasticity is obtained and reported (in
the last panel of Tables 2 and 5). Among the first five periods,
agriculture was the main contributor in two (197778 to 1983,
and 198788 to 199394) and important in one (19992000 to
200405). The last two periods are very different from the first
five. In the last two periods, the contribution of agriculture
has turned negative and extremely large, that is, aggregate
employment elasticity has an opposite sign to that of employment elasticity in agriculture. Thus, from 200405 onwards,
aggregate employment elasticity is being driven by the nonagricultural sectors, especially manufacturing. This is in line
with existing evidence that the period since 200405 has
seen rapid growth of employment in constructions, which is
part of what we have called manufacturing.
Table 5 presents similar numbers for the US economy. It is
clear from the third panel that unlike in India, agriculture
does not account for a significant part of the US employment.
The last sector, CSP, which includes all services other than
trade, hotels, transport and communication, employs the largest
share of people. Employment elasticities of CSP have been
reported in the second panel. Although there is some decline
over time, the fall is not as drastic as was observed for agriculture in India. Much as in India, we find a decline in the overall
elasticity, from 0.642 in 197783 to 0.154 in 200911. This decline
in the aggregate employment elasticity is more pronounced
than the decline in CSP elasticity. Therefore it must have been
influenced by factors other than CSPs employment elasticity.
Among other sectors, manufacturing displays volatility in
employment elasticity even as its employment share has relentlessly fallen. TRD shows a mild long run decline in elasticity,
which may have had a bearing on the overall elasticity. AGR is
not significant; like MFG it shows some volatility in the elasticity
levels, but its employment share is too small to make any significant impact on the aggregate employment elasticity.
Examining the last panel of Table 5, we find that CSP has
indeed been the largest contributor to the overall elasticity in
most of the periods (refer to the last row). The period 200409
was exception to this pattern, when the overall elasticity turned
negative, although CSPs employment elasticity was positive. The
manufacturing sector, which witnessed large negative relative
growth, was main reason for the negative overall elasticity in
200409. Trade, hotels, transportation and communications
sector added to the negative influence of the manufacturing
sector with its own negative growth. The recent recession of the
US economy which rendered growth of these two sectors negative is thus the possible culprit. Figures for the period 200409
bear a lesson for the employment elasticity analysis. Even if all
the sectors display positive employment elasticity (refer to the
set of numbers in the second panel), the overall elasticity can
become negative because of negative growth in some sectors.
In the above discussion, references to changes in employment
elasticity across time, both of the overall economy and of
individual sectors, have come up repeatedly. We made some
conjectures about the influence of a particular sectors elasticity
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vol lI no 10
change on the change in aggregate elasticity. In the next section,

we investigate these issues in greater detail and with more rigour.
4.3 Change in Employment Elasticity
In Tables 3 and 6, we report results for the decomposition of the

change of aggregate employment elasticity for India and the
US respectively. The numbers in these two tables refer to the
terms in equation (4), where the change in overall elasticity is
expressed as a sum of three components pertaining to change
in elasticity within the sector, change in relative growth of the
sector, and change in the employment share of the sector. For
easy reference, the first row of the tables reports the change in
aggregate employment elasticity between successive periods.
The first panel (component 1) reports the component that is
driven by change in sectoral employment elasticity; the second (component 2) report the component that comes from
change in relative growth rate of sectors; and the third panel
(component 3) reports the component that arise from change
in sectoral employment shares. Each panel ends with a Total
row, which adds up the numbers of that particular panel. This
number gives the contribution of the particular component
components 1, 2 or 3to the change in overall elasticity.8
The results for India (Table 3) show three interesting
patterns. First, the numbers in the first row of the table shows
that aggregate employment elasticity did not undergo monotonic
change in India. Positive and negative entries have alternated
with each other, giving a zigzag pattern to the corresponding
line in Figure 1. Since the magnitude of the negative entries
have been larger, there is an overall decline.
Second, the entries in the Total row for component 1
(change in sectoral elasticity) have dominated the corresponding
Total row entries for components 2 and 3. This means that
aggregate employment elasticity has been swayed in the direction of the change of elasticity within individual sectors. The
influence of the other two components has been weak in
comparison. The reason for the weak effect of component 2
comes from the fact that relative position of sectors with
respect to aggregate growth has not changed much over the
periods; and the weak effect of the third component arises
from the slow change in sectoral employment shares.
Third, if we compare the contribution of each sector to
component 1 (which has been the most important driver of change
in aggregate employment elasticity), we see that agricultural
sectors employment elasticity appears to be the most influential.
Irrespective of the changes in elasticity of the other sectors,
aggregate employment elasticity has changed in the direction
of change of the employment elasticity of the agricultural sector,
except for the last period under consideration. For the first time,
aggregate elasticity and elasticity in agriculture have moved in
opposite directions during the last period, 200405/200910
to 200910/1112, the former having risen even as the latter
fell. A probable reason for the dominance of agriculture in the
past three decades and its declining influence of late is its high
employment share which has been gradually waning.
Referring to equation (5) we find that in the expression for
the first component, SEL, change in sectoral elasticity between
57
SPECIAL ARTICLE
role in the US that agriculture has been playing in India.

Changes in the manufacturing sectors employment elasticity
has had a decisive impact on the first component. For each
period, component 1 is dominated by the manufacturing sector, that is, the numbers reported in the Total row is impacted decisively by the numbers in the MFG row. This is probably
because of the relatively higher volatility of employment elasticity observed for the manufacturing sector. Although the
manufacturing sectors share in aggregate output and employment has been declining for a long time, this observation
underlines the continuing influence of the sector on the overall
employment elasticity change.
Finally, the Total row of the third component (driven by
changes in the sectoral employment shares) is found to be
most stable and small in absolute value. This is also the case
for the Indian economy, as can be seen from the bottom panel
in Table 3. In both countries, sectoral employment shares are
the slowest to change compared to the other two factors,
sectoral elasticity and sectoral growth. But there is a difference
in the behaviour and sectoral composition of the last component
between the two countries. In India all the entries for the
agriculture sector are negative numbers, an inTable 6: Decomposition of Change in Aggregate Output Elasticity of Employment in US
197783 to 198387 to 198793 to 199399 to 19992004 200409 to dication of the continuous decline of the em198387 198793 199399
199904 to 200409 200911
ployment share of the sector (except the last
Change in aggregate elasticity
-0.360
-0.086
0.051 -0.342
-0.283
0.278
Component 1
AGR
-0.009
0.006
0.000 -0.045
0.025
-0.057 phase, when although employment share of agri(change in sectoral
MFG
1.337
-0.097
0.230 -0.139
-1.737
-0.446 culture fell, it got multiplied with negative elasticelasticity)
TRD
-0.040
-0.087
0.041 -0.051
-0.099
-0.181 ity of the former period, giving a positive entry). In
CSP
-0.046
-0.031 -0.069 -0.094
0.045
0.020 the US economy, it is the manufacturing sector
Total
1.241
-0.208
0.201 -0.329
-1.766
-0.664
which has been steadily declining in employComponent 2
AGR
-0.026
0.004
0.004
0.040
0.004
0.059
ment share (refer to Table 5). Since it has long
(change in sectoral
MFG
-1.175
-0.043 -0.092 -0.054
1.285
0.850
growth)
TRD
0.105
-0.015
0.015 -0.046
-0.009
0.314 been experiencing negative elasticity, the decline
CSP
-0.207
0.064 -0.118
0.058
0.220
-0.410 in employment share has got multiplied with
Total
-1.302
0.011 -0.190 -0.003
1.500
0.812 negative employment elasticity, resulting in
Component 3
AGR
-0.002
0.005
0.001
0.000
0.000
0.002 positive entries. But theyagricultural sector
(change in sectoral
MFG
0.009
-0.007
0.005 -0.005
0.017
0.056
in India and manufacturing sector in the US
employment share)
TRD
0.000
-0.001
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
CSP
0.032
0.019
0.016
0.008
0.013
0.014 are essentially similar in this respect. Both are
Total
0.039
0.017
0.022
0.003
0.029
0.072 ceding employment dominance to other
Source: Calculated from data in Tables 4 and 5.
emerging sectors. In India, manufacturing and
One of the key differences with India is that the first compo- trade, hotel, transportation and communications are gaining
nent has not always been the main driver of change in the employment share; in the US, it is the CSP (services minus
aggregate employment elasticity in the US economy. In four of trade, transportation and communications).
the six periods, it played an important role. But there are
periods when the second component, namely, change in the 5 Conclusions
two successive periods gets multiplied by employment share

and relative growth of the sector in the latter period. The high
employment share of agriculture meant that its elasticity change
had a stronger impact on overall elasticity change compared to
other sectors, making its elasticity change count for more. This
is borne out by the numbers in Table 2. Seen in this light, the
divergence of elasticity movement of agricultural sector with
the overall economy in the last period (200405/200910 to
200910/201112) is crucial. Even though the agricultural sector
remains the largest employer, its share in total employment
has been slowly eroded. By the mid-2000s, we seem to have
reached a stage where numbers can stack up in such a way that
sectoral elasticity change in agriculture no longer decides the
direction of change in the aggregate elasticity.
Turning to the US economy, we observe less of the wavering
zigzag pattern of employment elasticity that we saw for India
(refer to the first row of Table 6). In four of the six periods
considered, the change has been negative. Over the whole
period, the aggregate employment elasticity fell because the
magnitude of the negative changes has been greater than that
of the positive changes.
growth rate of sectors, has played a determining role. For

example, the last period, 200409 to 200911, is a case in
point. The first component shows a negative entry, indicating
that sectoral employment elasticities fell in general.9 But the
high and positive value of the second component pulled the
overall effect in the positive direction. Thus, in spite of declining
elasticity in most of the sectors, the economy as a whole showed
a rising employment elasticity because relative growth rate of
sectors (especially MFG and TRD) improved over time.10
To compare with the Indian case, we can focus on the first
component, namely, the component that arises from the change
in sectoral employment elasticities. In terms of sectoral employment elasticities, we find the manufacturing sector playing the
58
Employment generation is a key challenge for a poor, labour

surplus economy like India. Quite unexpectedly perhaps, it has
also emerged as a key challenge since the early 1990s for
advanced capitalist countries like the US. In this paper, we
have investigated the phenomenon of jobless growth in India
and the US through the lens of employment elasticity, the
responsiveness of employment to output growth. Even though
these two countries are very different in terms of their structure
and stage of development, we find a strikingly similar pattern in
the evolution of aggregate employment elasticity in both: since
the mid-1970s, the aggregate employment elasticity has
witnessed a long-term decline, even as it has fluctuated over
shorter periods. To better understand this dynamic, we adopted
march 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
a sectoral perspective, informed by the recognition that different sectors have very different behaviour with regard to labour
absorption. We operationalised this perspective with a two-step
decomposition strategy.
In the first step, we analysed the contributors to the level of
aggregate employment elasticity by decomposing it into three
components: sectoral elasticity, relative sectoral growth rates,
and sectoral employment share. This allows us not only to
study employment elasticities of individual sectors but also to
ascertain the relative contribution by different sectors to the
level of aggregate employment elasticity. In the second step,
we decomposed the change in aggregate elasticity into three
analogous components, the first related to changes in sectoral
elasticities, the second driven by changes in relative growth
rates, and the third coming from changes in sectoral employment shares. Using employment and output data from relevant
sources, we estimated these level and change components for
both India and the US.
In terms of the level of aggregate employment elasticity in
India, we find that the agriculture sector played a dominant
role till the early 2000s. There is an important change underway since then, because non-agricultural sectors have become
important determinants of aggregate employment elasticity
for the first time in the history of the Indian economy. An
analogous analysis for the US showed that the services sector
(minus trade, transportation and communications) has been
the dominant determinant of the level of aggregate employment
8
Notes
1
5
6
For the sake of brevity, henceforth we will refer

to output elasticity of employment as employment elasticity.
There is the important consideration of quality
of jobs that are being created. But the creation
of jobs itself remains a major challenge.
There are serious problems as far as availability
of data is concerned in this regard. For example, data on capital stock or skilled workforce
could be needed to estimate the factors behind
changing elasticity. These data are difficult to
obtain at the aggregate and sectoral levels. One
can use the ASI (Annual Survey of Industries)
data, which is fairly detailed, to address the data
issues. But that limits the scope of the research
to the organised manufacturing sector. One of
our ongoing projects investigates this issue,
namely, low labour absorption in Indias organised manufacturing sector.
Note that the division into the four sectors is
exhaustive. Thus, for both output and employment, ALL = AGR + MFG + TRD + CSP.
See http://www.bea.gov/industry/index.htm#annual
The time periods in the Indian data sets are
accounting years, which span over consecutive
calendar years. For instance, the time period
197778 refers to the accounting year that starts
in the middle of 1977 and runs till the middle of
1978. In the case of the US, the time periods in
the data set are the calendar years. As a matter
of convention, we choose the first year from the
US for comparison with the relevant period in
India. For instance, to compare the accounting
year 197778 in India, we use 1977 in the US.
Comparing the last with the other periods calls
for some caution because the duration of the
last period is only two years while the others
are of roughly five-year durations.
elasticity (other than in one period, 200409). Turning to the

analysis of changes in aggregate employment elasticity in
India, we see that the first component (that derives from
changes in sectoral elasticities) has been the most important
driver of change. Moreover, changes in the employment elasticity
of the agricultural sector have been salient in determining
the first component. Thus, changes in employment elasticity
of the agricultural sector have been the most important factor
underlying the change in aggregate employment elasticity in
India till the mid-2000s. Since then, non-agricultural sectors
have started taking over.
In the case of the US economy, we see a different pattern.
While the first component has been important for determining
change in aggregate employment elasticity for many periods,
the second component (that arises due to changes in relative
growth across sectors) has also been important in some periods.
Focusing on the first component, we see that the manufacturing
sector has been its most important sectoral determinant. Thus,
despite losing employment share over the decades, the manufacturing sector remains important for the direction of change
in aggregate employment elasticity in the US. We observe an
important parallel between India and the US with respect to
the third component (coming from changes in employment
shares across sectors). In general, the third component has been
unimportant because sectoral employment shares change slowly.
While agriculture has been the key sector losing employment
share in India, in the US it has been the manufacturing sector.
EPW
march 5, 2016
The sum of the entries in the Total row for the

three components differs from the number in
the very first row (change in aggregate elasticity) due to the following reason: the aggregate
employment elasticity computed directly from
data on aggregate employment and output
(and reported in Tables 2 and 4) is different
from the aggregate employment elasticity computed as the sum of the components given in
formula (3) above; this discrepancy then carries over to the computation of changes in aggregate employment elasticity (the first row in
Tables 3 and 6) and its components (the bottom
3 panels in Tables 3 and 6).
9 Except for the CSP sector which experienced a
slight improvement.
10 We observe that the CSP sectors growth rate
fell during this time (refer to Table 5). Hence its
contribution to the second component has been
negative (Table 6). However, this negative contribution from CSP got overwhelmed by the
stronger positive effects coming from other
sectors, especially MFG.
References
Basu, D and D K Foley (2013): Dynamics of Output and Employment in the US Economy,
Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol 37, No 5,
pp 10771106.
Caballero, R J and M L Hammour (1997): Jobless
Growth: Appropriability, Factor Substitution,
and Unemployment, The National Bureau of
Economic Research, NBER Working Paper, No
6221, http://www.nber.org/papers/w6221.pdf.
Government of India (2014): Economic Survey of
India, 201314, New Delhi.
Himanshu (2011): Employment Trends in India: A
Re-examination, Economic & Political Weekly,
Vol 46, No 37, pp 4359.
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ILO (International labour Organization) (2013):

Global Employment Trends 2013, International
Labour Office, Geneva, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/-dgreports/-dcomm/-publ/documents/publication/wcms_202326.pdf.
Kannan, K P and G Raveendran (2009): Growth
sans Employment: A Quarter Century of Jobless
Growth in Indias Organised Manufacturing,
pp 8091.
Misra, S and A K Suresh (2014): Estimating Employment Elasticity of Growth for the Indian
Economy, WPS (DEPR): 06/2014, RBI Working
Paper Series, Department of Economic and
Policy Research, Reserve Bank of India.
NSSO (2011): Employment and Unemployment
Situation in India 200910, NSS 66th Round,
July 2009June 2010, National Sample Survey
Office, Ministry of Statistics and Programme
Implementation, Government of India.
Papola, T S (2006): Employment Trends in India,
The Oxford Companion to Economics in India,
Kaushik Basu (ed), New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Papola, T S and P P Sahu (2012): Growth and
Structure of Employment in India: Long-Term
and Post-Reform Performance and the Emerging
Challenge, Institute for Studies in Industrial
Development Working Paper, New Delhi.
Thomas, J J (2014): The Demographic Challenge
and Employment Growth in India, Economic &
Political Weekly, Vol 49, No 6, pp 1517.
Verme, P, A G Barry, J Gouennouni and M Taamouti
(2014): Labor Mobility, Economic Shocks, and
Jobless Growth Evidence from Panel Data in
Morocco, Policy Research Working Paper 6795,
Middle East and North Africa Region Poverty
Reduction and Economic Management Department, World Bank, http://elibrary.worldbank.
org/doi/pdf/10.1596/1813-9450-6795.
59
SPECIAL ARTICLE
Undone by Its Own Mistakes

How the BJP Lost Bihar
James Manor
In the 2015 Bihar elections, Bharatiya Janata Party and its

allies led at the outset but lost badly to the Grand
Alliance when votes were counted. The familiar themes
of caste and developmentalong with governance,
class alignments, the reservations issue, and communal
polarisationwere all important, but the mishandling
of them by BJP leaders turned them to their rivals
advantage. The BJP campaign suffered from the
over-centralisation of power in the hands of Narendra
Modi and Amit Shah. A detailed account, based on
fieldwork and interviews with those on the ground,
explains how BJP lost in Bihar.
James Manor (james.manor@sas.ac.uk) is with the School of Advanced

Study, University of London.
60
he Bihar election was immensely important not just for

the people of the state, but also for the future of Narendra
Modi, his government, his partyand for India. The
usually understated chief election commissioner called it the
mother of all state elections. It was essentially a bipolar
contest. The Maha Gathbandhan or Grand Allianceof Chief
Minister Nitish Kumars Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) and Lalu
Prasads Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), plus Congress as a minor
partnerwon nearly three-quarters of the seats (Table 1). The
National Democratic Alliance (NDA)the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) and three smaller partieslost badly. A senior
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader said that BJPs
missteps had led to a massacre (Hebbar 2015). That word
exaggerates a little in terms of vote shares because of the multiplier effect, but it fits the seat totals.
An adequate explanation for this outcome must consider
numerous thingsand not just caste and development, the
dominant perspectives1 in analyses of Bihar elections. Two
key elements have not received the attention that they deserve:
over-centralisation within the BJPs campaign, and the misjudgments and erratic behaviour of those who led it. We must
also recognise that a swing during the campaign decided this
election. The NDA led at the start by roughly 4%, but trailed by
a similar margin at the end. Table 2 has details from Loknitis
pre- and post-polls on castes and communities.
If we view things from a narrow caste/community perspective, this outcome disappointed both alliances. The NDA
hoped for a split in the Yadav vote, plus a coalition of
extremes, with EBCs (Extremely Backward Classes) and
Dalits joining higher castes to elect it. In the Grand Alliance,
Lalu Prasad sought to revive the post-Mandal polarisation
Table 1: Election Result
between higher and
Seats Votes (%) lower castes, with EBCs
Grand Alliance
and Dalits joining upRashtriya Janata Dal
80 18.4
per Other Backward
Janata Dal (United)
71 16.8
Classes (OBCs) and
Congress
27 6.7
Muslims. But many
Total
178 41.9
National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
Mahadalits (non-PasBharatiya Janata Party
53 24.4
wan Dalits) spurned
Lok Janshakti Party
2 4.8
both alliances for
Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) 1 2.3
others, and EBCs
Rashtriya Lok Samta Party
2 2.6
(whose strong support
Total
58 34.1
the NDA badly needIndependents and others
7 24.0
ed) split fairly evenly.
Grand total
243
Source: Election Commission of India.
That, together with
MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
SPECIAL ARTICLE
Table 2: The Swing from Late September to Polling DaysCastes and
Communities
Castes and Communities
(%)
Vote for GA
Vote for NDA
Vote for Others
Pre-Poll Post-Poll Pre-Poll Post-Poll Pre-Poll Post-Poll
Upper castes (13% of pop)

Yadavs (11%16%)
Kurmis (3.6%)
Koeris (4.1%)
EBCs or lower OBCs (26%27%)
Mahadalits (15.9%)*
Paswan (or Dusadh) Dalits (4.8%)*
Muslims* (16.9%)
10
58
50
57
36
41
12
52
9
68
71
31
35
25
19
69
67
23
18
43
48
52
62
9
84
12
18
28
43
30
54
6
23
19
32
16
7
26
39
7
20
11
41
22
45
27
25
* See Indian Express (2015a), Kumar and Sardesai (2015),Verma and Mehta (2015) and
Palshikar, Shastri and Kumar (2015).2
Source: Lokniti-CSDS pre-poll and post-poll survey data.
strong consolidations of Yadav, Kurmi and Muslim votes, gave

the Grand Alliance victoryalthough as we shall see, many
things other than caste and communal identities helped to
produce the swing that decided the outcome.3
It is important to recognise that for the BJP/NDA, this was a
winnable electionhad it not stumbled during the campaign.
Modi was not unpopular. Lokniti polling showed that his
approval ratings declined from 68% before the campaign to
63% afterward, but the latter figure is still quite positive. Bihar
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was slightly more highly rated,
but his numbers also declined from 71% to 69%; Lalus
improved from 42% to 52% (Palshikar, Shastri and Kumar 2015).
Vote transfers between parties in the Grand Alliance were far
from perfect, but those within the NDA were worse. If the
NDA had held or modestly increased its pre-election leads
over the Grand Alliance among the numerically powerful
EBCs or Mahadalits, it could have won, but it lost ground
among both.4
But while the NDA might have won, winning would have
been very difficult for one key reason. Its lead in the Lokniti
pre-poll was more precarious than it appeared because of the
heavy concentration of its support in urban areas where only
11.2% of voters live. Its early urban lead was a whopping 20%,
but its edge in rural areas was a mere 2%. Even a small swing
against it which gave its rivals a small lead in rural areas might
have left the NDA with more votes but fewer seatsbecause
elections are decided by rural voters. In the end, however, the
swing was not small. The NDAs lead in urban areas plummeted
to 2.4% while in rural parts, the Grand Alliance led by 9.3%.
The NDA won only 17 of 30 urban seats. The Grand Alliance
crushed it in rural areas, 165 seats to 41.
The Campaign
The swing between the pre- and post-polls indicates that events
during the campaign were decisive. So before examining other
important themes, let us consider it.
Only two things external to the campaign had great influence on the election result. The first was a prior reality: Nitishs
strong record in power since 2005. The second was the
comment on reservations by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, although it mattered less in itself than reactions to it during
the campaign by Nitish, Lalu and indeed Modi, as we shall
discuss later.
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The BJP/NDA campaign was tightly micro-managed by

Modis chief aide, Amit Shah. As we shall see, he made grave
errors by over-centralising and not listening to state- and
lower-level BJP leaders and activists, and by misjudged candidate selection which triggered some avoidable infighting
(Ramakrishnan 2015b). As a result, demoralisation set in among
many BJP activists, so that its more numerous ground-level
campaigners were less effective than their Grand Alliance
counterparts. Roughly 70,000 RSS activists were imported
from outside Bihar, but their limited local knowledge undermined their impact. Modis 30 rallies (including four before
the campaign began) were massively attended, but many
observers concluded that they were less effective than the 200
to 2305 smaller, more intimate meetings addressed (mostly
separately) by Nitish and Lalu.
To run the JD(U) campaign, Nitish hired Prashant Kishore,
Modis key campaign manager during the 2014 national
elections. He excelled at image-building for Nitish, conducting
surveys on key issues, carefully consulting and advising on
ticket distribution, swiftly countering Modis arguments, and
adroitly managing the ground campaign. That last point was
important because Nitish had mainly governed through
bureaucrats, which left his partys organisation weak. Kishore
occasionally misperceived certain subtleties of Bihar, but this
did little damage.6 Lalus RJD had more grass-roots activists,
but was rather ill-organised. To compensate, he hired a skilled
manager who had worked for multinationals for four years. He
amassed and made good use of data on every constituency.7
The Grand Alliance suffered less than the NDA from dissension
and demoralisation, so it mounted a stronger ground campaign
(Joshi, Ranjan and Sircar 2015).
The BJP spent colossal sums on posters, advertising in the
print and electronic media, Modis rallies, a vast fleet of cars,
160 high-tech vans to deliver its message, etc. It hired over 20
helicopters; Nitish and Lalu had only two. BJP candidates
reportedly received Rs 2 crore each, in addition to other spending by the party. The Grand Alliance had far less money, but it
still spent more than in any previous election in the state. Each
candidate was supposedly given over a crore, and much was
spent on hoardings. In Patna alone, 100 cycle rickshaws
circulated, displaying posters that changed daily in response
to events. In every constituency, 30 cyclists toured constantly,
each of whom aimed to reach 50 households per day.8
To win this election, the Grand Alliance had to overcome, or
at least mitigate, four potential contradictions: (i) between
Nitish and Lalu, who had long opposed each other aggressively; (ii) between activists in each partys organisation who had
opposed each other for years; (iii) between Lalus strategy
when he ran the government (between 1990 and 2005) of
allowing state structures to degeneratebecause they were
dominated by prosperous elites who used them to abuse disadvantaged groups (Witsoe 2013)and Nitishs resurrection of
those same structures after 2005 (Lal and Gupta 2013; Chakrabarti 2013; Thakur 2014); (iv) between the social groups that
had gained most from their governments: under Lalu, especially Yadavs and higher OBCsplus, to some degree, EBCs,
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Muslims and Dalits; and under Nitish, EBCs and disadvantaged

groups among Muslims and Dalitssome of whom had suffered from the Yadav dominance under Lalu.
As events unfolded, most of these potential contradictions
were eased. Nitish and Lalu consistently displayed their newfound friendship. This enabled some cooperation between their
parties activists, although problems remained. Suspicions between elements in their social bases were reduced by constant
reminders that the reservations issue threatened them all.
Votes from these groups were transferred effectively from some
groups (Yadavs and Muslims), and imperfectly but well enough
from others (EBCs and Dalits)9 better than in the NDA.
One pre-election action by Nitish was crucial. He had two
notoriously unsavoury Bhumihar leaders from his own party
arrested. This signalled a break with (high caste) Bhumihars
who had been key allies in his administration. It greatly reassured Lalus backers10 and partly explains why more than half
(of poll respondents)considered him the best chief minister
the state has had (Palshikar, Shastri and Kumar 2015).
What of the apparent contradiction between their governing strategies? The insistence throughout that Nitish would be
Chief Minister reassured voters alienated by poor governance
under Lalu.11 Perceptive analysts argued that Nitishs approach
in some ways followed logically upon the Lalu era. One of
them wrote that Lalu had awakened the OBCs and Dalits to
their rights and gave them a voice and that while Nitish
reversed Lalus approach to state structures, he then delivered
the fruits of development to these sections (Gupta 2015).
Jeffrey Witsoe adds that Nitishs ability to use the state as a
tool for development has only been possible because the linkages between landed elites and state interests were weakened
under (Lalu)although not by any means eliminated.12
Enough voters were sufficiently relaxed about whatever
contradiction existed to support the Grand Alliance.
A full understanding of the swing in voters preferences that
decided the election will only emerge from an examination of
several key themesincluding caste and development, but
also several others.
them,13 but it gained only a modest edge (8%) over the Grand
Alliance from them. The same can be said of Mahadalits (15.9%
of the population) who had benefited under Nitish, among
whom the BJP had only a 5% lead. This takes some explaining.
The BJP made strenuous efforts to attract votes from Yadavs
while also cultivating the EBCsa difficult balancing act (also
faced by the Grand Alliance) because under Lalu, Yadav
dominance alienated many EBCs (and Dalits). The BJP gave 16
tickets to Yadavs, counted on Pappu Yadav to rival Lalu by
splitting the Yadav vote,14 and sought to woo Yadavs (Uttam
2015; Mishra 2015). The pre-poll survey, in which 23% of Yadavs backed the NDA, offered it some hope. But simultaneously
(and very strangely), Modi made caustic personalised attacks
on Lalu, and sought to create a Yadav phobia to appeal to
EBCs and Dalits. Modi apparently thought that his personal
magnetism could overcome the contradiction between the
wooing and the phobia. He intended his slashing attacks on
Lalu to detach Yadavs from their old leader, but these had the
opposite effect. Yadav voters swung strongly to the Grand
Alliance (Madan Kumar 2015), giving it 68% of their votes,
with only 12% to the NDA (Kumar and Sardesai 2015).15
Yadav phobia gained only limited traction among the
crucial EBCs and Mahadalits. Many of them had benefited
under Nitish from reservations and government programmes,
and some regarded Lalu as a symbol of social justice. Both
groups were alarmed by the reservation issue and were alienated by the BJPs disproportionate provision of tickets to higher
castes65 of 160, including Rajputs (30), Bhumihars (19),
Brahmins (13) and Kayasthas (3).16 The BJPs confused signals
first wooing Yadavs, then the phobialeft it with only 43% from
EBCs, against 35% for the Grand Alliance.17 The NDAs 11% prepoll lead among Mahadalits was halved during the campaign.
Even among Paswan Dalits (whose leader was a BJP ally) its
lead slumped from 61% to 51% (Verma and Mehta 2015).
This is not to say that the EBCsor any caste/community
combination determined the outcome. Nor did the slogan of
development, but let us consider it.
Development
Caste
BJP leaders sought to explain away their defeat by claiming

that social arithmetic the numerical strength of the groups
opposed to themposed insurmountable problems so that
they had no hope of victory. This is nonsense. Social arithmetic favoured them in the pre-poll period which showed them
leading. They lost because they failed to retain that support
during the campaign.
Note that the groups at both higher and lower ends of
Table 2 (p 61) consolidated markedly behind one option:
upper castes and Paswan Dalits for the NDA; and Yadavs,
Kurmis and Muslims for the Grand Alliance. But none of the
groups that stand between them in the table leaned strongly to
either alliance.
The most important intermediate group were the EBCs,
because of their numerical strength (26%27% of the population). To win, the BJP needed to produce a near sweep among
62
Much has been said about Nitishs developmental accomplishments. His record is, for the most part, admirable. But we must
take care to not idealise him. He has impressive techno-managerial skills, works long hours, and is a tough taskmaster
making civil servants do the same. But he is a centraliser who
delegates not one inch. So while the many problems on
which he had focused were effectively tackled, he could not
attend to everything, so other problems festered.18 For example, workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme in Patna District had not been paid for over a year,19
and two promising irrigation projects were in suspended animation due to sheer administrative apathy (Dubey 2015).
However, these shortcomings did little to dent his image as a
development achievera major electoral asset.
In this election, voters were offered two different views of
development, but commentators have exaggerated the
contrasts. The Prime Minister (and BJP campaigners at ground
MARCH 5, 2016
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level) largely omitted certain themes from his 2014 campaign

especially economic growth because under Nitish, it had
soared,20 and private investment in industry which Bihar
struggles to attract (Shaibal Gupta 2015a). Like Nitish, Modi
promised public sector spending through a Rs 1.25 lakh crore
special package (because he had failed to persuade private
corporations to contribute to it). The Grand Alliance countered
with three weeks of blanket advertisements arguing that 1.08
of the 1.25 consisted of old and unrealised projects (Singh
2015b). Nitish offered his own sizeable package which included several genuinely new initiatives (PTI 2015). Public spending had already shot up under Nitish, and he and Lalu were far
more persuasive at linking development to inclusion and social
justice (which Modi downplayed).
Modi was popular, partly because of his concern with
development, but he faced a major stumbling block: Nitishs
substantial development achievements which were widely
appreciated in Bihar. Besides growth, the Chief Minister had
made considerable progress with building roads and bridges,
electricity connections and supply, the public distribution system, promoting self-help groups, and much else.21 He argued
that only 1% of children were out of school (Singh 2015a). This
explains why Nitish faced near-zero anti-incumbency
(Dubey 2015)and why post-poll respondents from all age
groups preferred him to Modi as a deliverer of development,
56% to 35%. Nitish even led on removing unemployment, 48%
to 38% (Palshikar, Shastri and Kumar 2015).
Modi made things worse by badly mishandling his attacks
on Nitish over development. Despite his wise decision to
remain silent on growth, he could not restrain himself from
claims that Nitish had damaged the economywhich lacked
credibility after years of growth. Modi got into deeper trouble
when he said that Bihar was woefully underdeveloped, and
that if the BJP were elected, it would no longer be a BIMARU
state. He had been misinformed about popular perceptions,
and these claims offended many voters (Correspondent
2015a)because Nitishs accomplishments since 2005 had
persuaded many Biharis that their state was now developed.
Readers comparing Bihar
Table 3: Views of Bihars
Development
(%) with other states may regard
Bihar
2005 2010 2015
these perceptions as inaccuHighly developed
9 16 22
rate, but voters were comparModerately developed 19 55 47
ing todays Bihar with its old
Underdeveloped
65 27 18
Do not know
7 3 13 self, not with other states
Source: Palshikar, Shastri and Kumar (2015). (Tables 3 and 4).
Greater
embarrassments
Table 4: Views of Change in Bihar
aw
ai
ted
Modi
when he disin Three Development Sectors (%)
cussed specific development
Better
Same
Worse
issues. Early in the campaign,
Roads
55
19
23
Power supply
47
23
28
he hammered away at the
Water supply
13
45
36
need to deliver better electriSource: Palshikar, Shastri and Kumar (2015).22
city, roads and waterbijli,
sadak, paani. But in response, audiences at his rallies remained strangely silentbecause (again) the Prime Minister
had not been informed of substantial progress under Nitish on
two of these frontselectricity and roads.
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Here again, Modi seemed out of touchand the emphatic

manner in which he voiced these inaccuracies compounded
the problem. (His befuddlement is explained by self-destructive
over-centralisation within the BJP campaign, discussed below.)
He could only counter Nitishs past development accomplishments with future promisesannouncement-raj (Varadarajan 2015).23 Evidence from two neighbouring states showed
that by May 2015, excitement over his earlier promises had
given way to widespread disillusionment. In rural Uttar
Pradesh, (t)hanks to the fantastic promises that he made, he
was being blamed for everything. His campaign slogan,
achche din (better times), had become a joke (Subrahmaniam
2015). Similar sentiments were reported from Chhattisgarh,
amid some disillusionment in Bihar (Tewary 2015a). In Bihar,
however, things were more complicated. He had approval rating of 68% (declining during the campaign to 63%), and he
was certainly not being blamed for everything. But Lokniti
found that 58% of respondents agreed that Modi hasnt yet
brought achche dina higher figure than in all other states
that had faced recent elections (Indian Express 2015).24
He might have used different tactics to undermine Nitishs
edge on development. He might have said that the BJP, as a
partner in the Bihar government for eight years until mid-2013,
also deserved credit for those accomplishments. He might
have used measured, reasoned arguments to claim that
although Nitish had made headway, the BJPs development
strategy could achieve much more. But instead, he ignored his
partys contribution and repeatedly thundered that for the
first time in 25 years, Bihar would vote for development
(Mathew 2015). He could not hold back from his customarily
contemptuous attacks on rivals. If he is temperamentally
incapable of using more subtle tactics (see the final sections of
this paper), then he will face serious trouble over the
longer term.
Caste and development both influenced the election outcome,
but so did many other thingssome of which were equally
important. Analyses that overlook them are incomplete. Let us
examine them.
Governance
Governance loomed nearly as large as development. That was

mainly explained by the Prime Ministers constant claims that
a Grand Alliance victory would mean a return to the jungle
rajrampant lawlessnessof the Lalu era. Law and order
certainly degenerated in those years, but Modis argument
collided with Nitishs strong governance record after 2005.
In his first nine years as Chief Minister 95,000 criminal convictions had been obtained (Singh 2015a). Nitishs numerous
infrastructure initiatives drew many former criminals into the
more profitable (and legal) pursuit of government contracts25.
In his first two years, expenditure on police administration
grew by 27.4%. Five thousand ex-servicemen were recruited in
his first year, 11,500 in the second, and more hirings followed
(Lal and Gupta 2013: xxi and xxvii). This explains why prepoll respondents thought him better able than Modi to check
crime, 53% to 32%. Since it was clear throughout the
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campaign that Nitish would head the state government, Modis

message did not resonate.26
There is another, more subtle dimension to this. Especially
the higher OBCs, but also many EBCs and Dalitswhose votes
the BJP badly neededtook a different view of jungle raj.
They saw it as a euphemism for the Other Backwards Classesled challenge to centuries of upper caste dominance. Lalu had
allowed state structuresand with them, law and orderto
degenerate because high castes had long used them to impose
an abusive reign in rural areas. Lalu enabled disadvantaged
groups to assert themselves and change power dynamics to
their advantage (Smita Gupta 2015). This is authoritatively
established in Witsoe (2013).
Of course, governance consists of more than law and order.
In other spheres, Nitish had also achieved constructive
changecollecting revenues more effectively, and administering both existing and imaginative new programmes adroitly.
Those revenues and additional funds from the India-wide revenue surge after 2003 enabled him to promote development
with social justice (Lal and Gupta 2013; Thakur 2014).
Class
When Lokniti divided respondents into different economic or

class groups, one striking finding emerged. The Grand
Alliance, which in the pre-poll trailed the NDA among middleclass voters, outpolled it when ballots were castthe result of
a marked swing (Table 5). Possible reasons for this are
discussed in the sections below on inflation, communal polarisation, and Modis caustically negative rhetoric.
Table 5: Class and Voters Preferences
Economic
Class
Poor
Lower middle
Middle class
Upper middle
Vote for GA
Pre-Poll
Post-Poll
40
45
31
24
41
46
39
36
(%)
Vote for NDA

Pre-Poll
Post-Poll
42
38
46
45
29
38
36
52
Vote for Others

Pre-Poll
Post-Poll
18
17
23
31
30
16
25
12
The sharp swing against the NDA among the poor is partly
linked to the reservations issue (see section: Reservations
Controversy).
Women and Youth Vote
Two variables did not affect the election outcome: gender and
age groups. Some reports mistakenly claimed that women
strongly backed the Grand Alliance (Ramakrishnan 2015b). In
reality, they voted in greater numbers than men, but both gave
it equal support (42%). Women provided only slightly less
support than men to the NDA (33% against 35%).27 The Prime
Ministers special efforts to woo young voters failed too
(Upadhyay 2015). The Grand Alliance led his NDA among all
age groups.28
Inflation
This issueespecially rising prices for pulses and other

foodstuffsgrew in importance from the time the pre-poll
survey was conducted, where 12% identified it as their greatest
concern, to the post-poll survey, when the figure was 16%. By
64
then it had displaced unemployment as the second most

important issue behind development. This is partly explained
by the efforts of each alliance to blame its rival for inflation.
Indias agriculture minister stated (correctly) that the Bihar
government had not drawn on a Price Stabilisation Fund to
curb inflation, but then Modipoorly briefed by Amit Shah
alleged (incorrectly) that the state government had done
nothing to tackle the problem. The adroit Grand Alliance war
room pounced on his error, presenting evidence that
anti-hoarding raids had occurred in Bihar (Sengupta 2015a).
With his usual theatrical extravagance, Lalu mocked the
Modi government by saying Pulses have vanished from the
plate of the poor, but prices of petrol and diesel have come
downcan people eat and drink petrol instead? (Special
Correspondent 2015). Over the course of the campaign, Nitish
and Lalu made headway in attaching blame to the central
government. Those who agreed with them increased from
37% to 40%, and those who blamed the state government
decreased from 22% to 19% (Indian Express 2015a; Palshikar et
al 2015). Grand Alliance supporters gleefully proclaimed that
the Prime Minister had gone from har har Modi (an
adaptation of a chant by devotees of the god Mahadev) at the
2014 national elections to arhar Modi ([Give us] pulses,
Modi) in 2015. Middle-class voters were especially inclined
to hold New Delhi responsible,29 which partly explains
the unexpectedly strong showing of the Grand Alliance
among them.
Reservations Controversy
In Bihar, government reservations matter enormously because

the private sector is underdeveloped and provides few jobs.30
The comment just before the campaign by RSS Sarsanghchalak
Mohan Bhagwat that reservation policies should be reconsidered (interview, Organiser, 21 September 2015later removed
from their website) did not, in itself, influence many votes.
Lokniti found that 37% of voters had not heard of it (Palshikar
et al 2015). What made it salient were the reactions of the three
leading campaigners.
The Grand Allianceespecially Laluwarned loudly and
often of the dangers that a BJP victory would pose to castes
that benefited from reservations.31 And ironically, Modiwho
was rattled by the controversyspread the word further by
claiming that the Grand Alliance had a devious plan to transfer reservations from OBCs, EBCs and Dalits to another
communityobviously, Muslims. This attempt to communalise the issue failed because many regarded his claim as implausible.32 Indeed, it made communal polarisation more
difficult to achieve because by calling attention to reservations, it sharpened divisions between upper castes and other
Hindus.33
There is an erroneous view that EBCs were less sensitive
about reservations than higher OBCs because the latter (and the
Scheduled Castes) had gained more from them. In fact, EBCs had
benefited hugely34 because Bihar has long provided reservations for them. They too were alarmed.35 This issue was not
decisive, but it contributed significantly to the BJPs defeat.
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Communal Polarisation
From late October, the BJP made intense efforts at communal
polarisation. In every speech Modi spoke of the aforementioned devious plan a conspiracy to take away a part of
the quota for Dalits, Mahadalits, OBCs and EBCs to give it to
another community. His party placed openly communal
advertisements in newspapers. Some stressed the conspiracy,
others cow slaughter and the need to ban the consumption of
beef, and still others the claim that Lalu and Nitish sow the
seeds of terror to please a particular community (Hindu
2015). Amit Shah said that If by any chance the BJP government is not formed, crackers will be burst in Pakistan. This
triggered Hindus editorial saying that it was spectacularly
shamefulto cast citizens of India who vote otherwise as unpatriotic (2015). Arun Shourie, a former BJP union minister
protested against Modis speeches: He is the Prime Minister
He has to set moral standards (Economic Times 2015).
This followed longer-term attempts to sow communal enmity. Police records show nearly a fourfold increase in communal incidents after Nitish split with the BJP in June 2013.
These entailed Pieces of animal carcass and bones dumped in
places of worship, religious processions through sensitive
areas, etc, in a coordinated pattern (Suresh 2015; Ramakrishnan 2015a). This may have been connected to the creation in early 2015 of RSS social harmony committees in every
district of Bihar (and Uttar Pradesh). They were said to seek to
overcome caste divisions and thus to promote harmony
among Hinduswhich could easily produce HinduMuslim
enmity (Mathew 2015a).
But as one BJP leader said, ...hard Hindutva didnt work in
Bihar (Pathak 2015). The beef issue flopped. Lokniti polling
showed that 49% of Grand Alliance voters favoured a ban on
beef, but that did not prevent such large numbers from voting
for it. The NDA had just a 3 percentage point advantage among
those who supported a beef ban while the (Grand Alliances)
advantage among those with other opinions was massive
(Verma and Sardesai 2015). Table 6 shows that the NDA trailed
the Grand Alliance
Table 6: Communal Incidents and Seats Won
Communal Incidents
NDA Won
Grand Alliance Won by slightly less in
20 or more (127 seats) 38 (36% vote) 83 (41% vote) places where more
Less than 20 (116 seats) 20 (32% vote) 95 (43% vote) com munal inciSource: Palshikar et al (2015).
dents had occurred, but only slightly. (Note that over 20 incidents had occurred
in 127 constituencies.)
Efforts to polarise intensified as 1 November, the fourth of
five polling dates, approached. In phase four, the BJP suffered
staggering losseswinning in only 46.5% of assembly
segments, 95% of which it had swept at the 2014 Lok Sabha
elections.36 In phase five, where many constituencies had large
Muslim populations, polarisation proved especially counterproductive because it consolidated Muslim support behind the
Grand Alliance. The figures on the state-wide swing among
Muslims were 52% before the campaign to 69% on polling
days (Palshikar et al 2015). BJP supporters acknowledged the
increasing effort to polarise late in the campaign as a blunder
(Bhattacharya 2015). It apparently had a similar, but more
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modest effect on middle-class voters. It even alienated some

Bihar BJP leaders who had long insisted to Modi and Shah
who did not listenthat this state was less inclined towards
polarisation than others. As one BJP MP complained, Bihar is
not Uttar Pradesh (Pushkarna 2015).
We have seen from the swing between pre- and post-polls
that this election was decided during the campaign. In
explaining how the BJP went so badly wrong, we must consider two further, immensely important themes that have often
been overlooked.
Implications of Modis Radical Centralisation of Power
Modi radically centralised power within this election

campaign, as he had within the central government and the
BJP organisation. His 26 rallies (plus four before the campaign began) were the main focal point, and Amit Shah
exercised tight top-down control of day-to-day operations.
As one state-level BJP leader put it, they hijacked the entire
campaign without feeling the pulse of the state (Roshan
Kumar 2015). Their over-centralising had six implications,
all of which damaged their party and strongly influenced
the outcome.
First, it cut those two leaders off from crucial information
from below so that ironically, by centralising power, they
weakened themselves. Shahalmost the sole source of
information for Modi (Hebbar 2015)37made grievous errors.
After the 2014 national elections, in order to achieve utter
dominance over party management, he had unwisely dismissed his formidable campaign teamincluding skilled gatherers of political intelligence. In Bihar, he and his new, less
able aides and his bad pollster38 often failed to do their
homework. They overlooked a published Lokniti poll from
2014 showing a two-thirds approval rating for Nitishs development work (Kumar 2014: 96).39 So Shah allowed Modi to
denounce Nitishs development record before disbelieving
audiences. Shah held daily consultations with party activists
from most districts, but these mainly consisted of him issuing
directives. As one source close to him said, Amit comes to
meetings with his mind made up.40 He did not listen carefully
to warnings from below.41 Thus, after phase two, he absorbed
only a vague sense that Modis development message was not
resonating. He let the Prime Minister continue stressing
specifics like electricity and roads, so thatembarrassingly
Modi learned of Nitishs success in these sectors from crowds
at rallies.
Consider the contrast between this and the BJPs successful
2003 state election campaign in Madhya Pradesh. It was
adroitly managed by Arun Jaitley (who remained in New Delhi
during the Bihar campaign). The party began with the same
mantra: electricity, roads and water. But BJP activists quickly
warned Jaitley not to stress water because Digvijay Singhs
Congress government had done solid work therealthough it
was vulnerable on power and roads. Unlike Shah in 2015,
Jaitley listened and swiftly dropped references to water. Even
though the BJP had fewer forces on the ground than in Bihar in
2015, it won in 2003 (Manor 2004). No such adjustment was
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made in Bihar because over-centralisation had left Modi and

Shah flying half-blind.
Second, over-centralisation left the Prime Minister badly
exposed when things went awry. After phase two, new posters
began showing state BJP leaders rather than Modi and Shah.
But they soon gave way to advertisements stressing communal
themes. So state-level leaders could not be blamed for this
defeat as Kiran Bedi was after the Delhi elections. The BJP had
to resort to Congress-style assertions that top leaders were not
culpable.
Third, the projection of Modi as the face of the campaign
placed him in an impossible positionbecause he faced both
Nitish and Lalu, each of whom played a different role. Nitish
was mostly understated and serene. Even RSS sources concede
that he had managed to look like a dignified statesman: his
choice of words and conductplaced him above the fray
(Tewary 2015b). By contrast, Lalu played the pugilist, slashing
away with taunts aimed at provoking Modi. This left the Prime
Minister, as the only figure who mattered on his side, dangerously exposed to these cross-currents. Unlike Nitish, he could
not remain unruffled while employing what Americans call an
attack dog. Amit Shah played that role only occasionally, and
he counted for far less than his leader. So Modiwho is also
given to pugilism (as Nitish and Lalu well understood)felt
compelled to hit back harshly.
One BJP MP complained that he fell into Lalus trap (and)
stooped to the level of Laluviolating all propriety of his position (Madan Kumar 2015). One commentator said that these
attacks brought a new low to the standards of a Prime Minister
(Mohan 2015). BJP activists concede that this did s evere damage, and contributed to the startling success of the Grand Alliance in outpolling the NDA among middle-class voters, 39% to
36% (Palshikar et al 2015).42
Fourth, over-centralised candidate selection by Modi and
Shah led to many poor choices and to unwisely disproportionate representation for high castes. (They received 65 of the 160
BJP tickets.) This alienated voters from disadvantaged groups.
It also sowed demoralisation among many state-level BJP leaders and ground-level activistswho were further dismayed to
see union ministers and BJP operatives from the national level
given command over the campaign at district levels. Most of
these appointees knew little of Bihar.
Fifth, Modi and Shah named no candidate for chief minister
mainly because they were bent on top-down control not just of
the campaign, but also of the choice of the next chief minister,
and thus of the newly elected BJP government. In so doing,
they deprived themselves of the best device for undermining
Nitishs popular developmental successes. If they had named
Sushil Modi, they could have shared credit for those achievements since he had been Nitishs Deputy Chief Minister from
2005 until June 2013.
Instead, the Prime Minister belittled Nitishs record and
spoke of wretched underdevelopment in Bihar. He went round
the state telling Biharis how miserable they are (Sengupta
2015b). This alienated voters (Table 3). Modi seemed out of
touch with reality.43 But he went further, creating unnecessary
66
trouble for himself by accusing the w

idely admired Nitish of
back-stabbing Biharis (PTI 2015). The Chief Minister replied
adroitly, he has insulted not just me but all the people of
Bihar. It is unbecoming of a PM to say so (Singh 2015a). This
struck a popular chord and facilitated the emergence, for the
first time in this state or in the Hindi belt (Kailash 2014),44 of a
popular identification with the state: Bihar pride (Shaibal
Gupta 2015a; Smita Gupta 2015). That also lent substance to
the Grand Alliance claim that this was a contest between baharis (outsiders) and Biharis. Insofar as voters felt that pride, it
helped the Grand Alliance to overcome suspicions between
OBCs, EBCs and Dalits.
Finally, when things started to go wrong, over-centralisation
left Modi and Shah with woefully limited options. They had
ruled out claiming credit for Bihars development. The unwise
over-representation of elite castes among candidateswhom
they had chosen after inadequate consultationmade it difficult for them to base their appeal on caste. So they turned to
the only remaining alternative, communal polarisation, which
largely backfired.
Erratic Behaviour and Narcissism
One further problem weighed heavily on the outcome. When

power is radically centralised, the actions of top leaders become
immensely important, and some of Modis words and actions on
key issues were damagingly erratic. Consider some examples.
The first was Modis strange switch from an attempt to woo
Yadavs to Yadav phobia. This occurred, in part, because he
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
was apparently unable to offer restrained, statesmanlike replies

to Lalus contemptuous taunts which were obviously intended to
provoke undignified reactions. Lalu well understood that (in
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyays words) heaping humiliation on his
adversary is central to all Modi campaigns (2015).45 The Prime
Ministers scorching reactions were intended to alienate
Yadavs from Lalu, but they produced the opposite result.
Modi angered Yadavs (and others) by saying that shaitan
(the devil) had entered Lalus body. Lalu countered by calling
Modi a brahmapishaach (demon). Modi claimed that Nitish
and Lalu were sheltering terrorists (Singh 2015b). Amit Shah
followed Modis cue by calling Lalu a chara chor (fodder thief).
Lalu responded by calling Shah a narbhakshi (cannibal), referring to the 2002 Gujarat riots (Tribune 2015). Modi scorned
Lalu for his time in jail for corruption, which prompted Nitish
to ask about bad habits Shah imbibed during his jail term
(Correspondent 2015b).
BJP MPs despaired at this slanging match. One described
Modis language as cheap and undignified. Another said that
(p)eople went to Modi looking for a Prime Minister but they
found a Lalu in him while Nitish remained dignified
(Pushkarna 2015). After phase two of the voting, state-level
BJP leaders tried to tell Shah that feedback from the ground
showed that Modis diatribes against Lalu were driving Yadavs
to the Grand Alliance. Shahs response too was inconsistent
and erratic. He stopped posters attacking Lalu and Nitish, but
then contradicted himself by urging activists to become more
aggressive towards the two (Tewary 2015c).
Modi and Shah reversed themselves on another issue,
communal polarisation. In early October Shah banned BJP
leaders across India from making controversial communalist
statements because it distracts from the agenda of governance.
But less than two weeks later, he and Modi were mainstreaming
such statements (Tewary 2015c).
Modi was even more erratic in his handling of the sensitive
issue of reservations. Immediately after Bhagwats call to
rethink reservations, Nitish and especially Lalu began
hammering away in outrage. At firstand in state BJP leaders
view, for far too longModi said nothing. Then, briefly, he
stated that he agreed with Nitish and Lalu (PTI 2015b). But he
notes
1 Kumar understands that many other things
matter.
2 Lokniti Pre- and Post-pollsin, respectively,
Indian Express (2015a), and Kumar and Sardesai
(2015), Verma and Mehta (2015) and Palshikar,
Shastri and Kumar (2015). Their data were far
more reliable than those from other sources. I
am extremely grateful to Sanjay Kumar, Suhas
Palshikar, Sandeep Shastri and Lokniti colleagues for valuable data and insights. Shaibal
Gupta also provided crucial guidance. This
study was supported by the EECURI (Explaining Electoral Change in Urban and Rural India)
project.
The figures in Table 2 on groups populations
are rough estimates, based on discussions at
Lokniti and extrapolations by the Asian Development Research Institute, Patna from the 1931
Census of India. Entries with asterisks are from
the 2011 Census.
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
soon reversed himself and repeatedly alleged that they were

conspiring to transfer reservations from OBCs, EBCs and Dalits
to another community. This claim was too implausible to
convince many voters, but Modis strange waffling on the issue
made things worse.
Gone was the clarity that marked his Lok Sabha campaign.
As one Bihar BJP leader said privately, it was bad enough that
the Prime Ministers caustic language was undignified. But
his erratic actions made him appear muddled at best, and
perhaps even unstable. He wondered whether narcissism
made Modi overestimate the inconsistencies that he could get
away with and whether this would eventually cripple the
BJP government in New Delhi.46 As the MP made this comment, Modi provided another example of such behaviour
when he switched abruptly from venomous attacks on Congress in Bihar to elaborate courtesy towards Sonia Gandhi
over tea.
In Conclusion
This election was won (and lost) during the campaign. The
BJP-led alliance led at the beginning and trailed at the end. It
was undone by its own mistakes.
Caste and developmentthose familiar themes in analyses
of Bihar electionswere both important, but so were many
other things. Prominent among them were the extreme
over-centralisation within the BJP campaign which damaged
the partys performance, and the erratic actions of Modi on
whom (given that centralisation) so much depended. These
were political factors, and it was politics during the campaign
not caste, development or arithmeticthat had the strongest
influence on the outcome.
This was an election that the BJP needed to win if its dream
of dominating Indian politics was to be realised. Its defeat
does not entirely close the door on that dream. Nor has it
thrown the Prime Minister, inescapably, into a downward
spiral. But a recovery will be excruciatingly difficult, and it
will take more than Congress-style assertions that no individual
leader can be blamed for reverses. As an RSS leader said, nonadmission of mistakes due to arrogance causes more damage
(Mukhopadhyay 2015).
3 We learn more by focusing on the swing than

by comparing this election with the Lok Sabha
elections of 2014 or the last state election in
2010because parties changed their alliances
prior to the 2015 election.
4 Interview with Sanjay Kumar, Delhi, 17 November 2015.
5 I am grateful to Gilles Verniers for enumerating
these.
6 Interviews with three knowledgeable political
operatives, Patna, 23 and 25 November 2015.
7 The comments in the previous two paragraphs
are based on many interviews with journalists
and operatives in both campaigns, Patna,
2229 November 2015, and with Sarthak
Bagchi, Patna, 22 November 2015.
8 Nistula Hebbar, Hindu, 25 October 2015; and interviews with political scientists, journalists and
campaign activists, Patna, 2229 November 2015.
9 Interview, Sarthak Bagchi, Patna, 23 November 2015.
vol lI no 10
10 Interview, Shaibal Gupta, Patna, 26 November.

11 This mattered. 27% of Grand Alliance voters
would not have supported it had Nitish not
been the chief ministerial, candidate. Lokniti
post-poll, Indian Express, 10 November 2015.
12 Private communication, 29 July 2015.
13 Interviews with two BJP leaders, Patna, 25 and
28 November 2015; and Venkitesh Ramak rishnan, Frontline, 13 November 2015.
14 He took some votes from Lalus RJD and cost it
between five and seven seats. The six candidates of Asaduddin Owaisis Majlis-e-Ittehadul
Mulimeen (which sought Muslim votes) fared
poorly.
15 It also found that Nitishs acceptability among
Yadavs increased from 27% to 45% between
the pre- and post-polls.
16 By contrast, the Grand Alliance slate included
97 Yadavs; 16 Kurmis; and 40 EBCs.
17 Interview with Srikant and five colleagues,
Patna, 25 November 2015.
67
SPECIAL ARTICLE
18 There are uncanny parallels here to Naveen
Patnaik in Odisha (Manor 2015).
19 Interviews with two IAS officers, Patna, 21 and
26 November 2015.
20 For several years, it had been higher than in
any other state until Madhya Pradesh overtook
it in 201314. Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar,
Times of India, 4 October 2014.
21 A state government effort to improve the public
distribution system had also produced significant achievementsrooted in political commitment (Dreze, Khera and Pudussery 2015:
5051). On roads and electricity, see note 39.
22 Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar noted that by
2015, Bihar was providing over four times as
much electricity as in 2005, and 70% more
than in August 2012. Almost half of the 4,000
non-electrified villages of 2012 were now electrified. Villagers were reporting that they now
got 1218 hours of power per day, and cities
nearly all day. (Economic Times, 1 November
2015). Seventeen thousand kilometres of roads
were built; and infant mortality and maternal
morbidity had declined. Indian Express, 21 November 2015.
23 Faith in Modis word had declined because
nothing had come of his perceived promise to
deliver 15 lakhs to the many new bank accounts
that had been openedmoney recovered from
secret overseas accounts, Manisha Priyam, The
Wire, 17 October 2015.
24 Consider the key issue of jobs. In the first quarter of the current year, only 64,000 new jobs
had been created in Indias organised sector
a figure which Prannoy Roy termed shocking,
NDTV, 9 November 2015. Manufacturing jobs
actually contracted in the year to July 2015,
Mint, 2 July 2015.
25 I am grateful to Sarthak Bagchi for stressing this.
26 Both alliances gave ground to Bihars longstanding criminalisation of politics. Thirty per
cent of all candidates declared that they faced
criminal charges, and 23% faced serious charges. An India Spend report in Scroll.in, 10 November 2015.
27 The bar chart in the Indian Express, 10 November 2015 errs by reversing the columns for
women and men.
28 When asked Who can develop Bihar better?,
young voters preferred the Grand Alliance to
the NDA, 53% to 37%. Lokniti post-poll.
29 Lokniti post-poll.
30 Shaibal Gupta, interview, Patna, 25 November
2015.
31 Many minor government functionaries from
those castes also spread the message. Interviews with Shaibal Gupta and two journalists,
Patna, 22 and 26 November 2015.
32 This point emerged consistently from field
researchers and political activists, even in the
BJP, during interviews in Bihar, 2130 November 2015.
33 Interview with Sanjay Kumar, Delhi, 17 November 2015.
34 Shaibal Gupta and Sarthak Bagchi both emphasised this.
35 I am grateful to Srikant and colleagues for stressing this, interview, Patna, 25 November 2015.
36 I am grateful to Gilles Verniers for stressing
this.
37 Bihar BJP leaders said that their advice was
neither solicited nor acted upon (Hebbar 2015).
Earlier in 2015, Modi had held no consultation
with BJP MPs, so he did not know that roughly
80% of them from rural constituencies had
reservations about his Land Acquisition Bill.
The RSS reported that growing resentment
was especially strong in Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar (Panwar 2015).
38 Interview with two BJP leaders, Patna, 23 and
26 November 2015.
68
39 Shah also allowed Modi to make the erroneous

claim (noted above) that the Bihar government
had done nothing to tackle inflationwhich
the Grand Alliance immediately refuted.
40 Interviews, New Delhi, 19 November 2015.
41 Interviews with two groups of BJP activists,
Patna, 24 and 26 November 2015.
42 Also from interviews with BJP campaigners,
Patna, 26 November 2015.
43 He also seemed out of date. His stinging condemnations of Nitish and Lalu for allying with
Congress wrongly presumed that the popular
antipathy towards Congress seen during the
2014 election remained strong.
44 Kailash demonstrates that up through the 2014
Lok Sabha election, there was little or no space
in Bihar or other Hindi-speaking states for a
regionalist political agenda to be used as a
mobilisational tool (p 66). But the tentative
emergence of a Bihari identity was used as
such a tool at the 2015 election.
45 Economic Times, 10 November 2015. Such attacks
work when directed at unpopular rivals, but not
against adversaries like Nitish. They failed miserably in Odisha in 2014 where (like Nitish)
Naveen Patnaik offered voters what Modi was
promising: development achievements, firm
leadership, administrative skills, high approval
ratings, a clean image and no dubious relatives
(Manor 2015).
46 Interview, Patna, 27 November 2015.
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NE
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MARCH 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
SPECIAL ARTICLE
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Upadhyay, Nisheth (2015): Bihar Polls: BJP Underestimated Grand Alliances Strength, Say
Young Voters, Hindustan Times, 9 November,
available at http://www.hindustantimes.com/
india/bihar-polls-bjp-underestimated-grandalliance-s-strength-say-young-voters/story-ECmBstHDpP8ShFOmwMivuI.html and accessed
on 5 February 2016.
Uttam, Kumar (2015): BJPs Bihar Plan: Woo Yadavs, Drop MLAs Facing Anti-incumbency, Hindustan Times, 21 September, available at
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/bjp-sbihar-plan-woo-yadavs-drop-mlas-facing-antiincumbency/ story-8kzI9c6LCZX6BmLYiCjGlI.
html, accessed on 5 February 2016.
Varadarajan, Siddharth (2015): Modi Beware, the
Battle of Indraprastha Is Beginning to Take
Shape, The Wire, 8 November, available at
http://thewire.in/2015/11/08/the-battle-of-indraprastha -is-beginning-to-take-shape-15199/,
Verma, Rahul and Nitin Mehta (2015): Bihar Post
Poll Survey: Dalits Dump NDA, Rural Bihar
Stays Out of Its Reach, Indian Express, 10 November, available at http://indianexpress.
com/article/india/india-news-india/biharpost-poll-survey-dalits-dump-nda-rural-biharstays-out-of-its-reach/, accessed on 5 February
2016.
Verma, Rahul and Shreyas Sardesai (2015): Bihar
Post-poll Survey: Both Caste and Development
Viewed through Identity Lens, Indian Express,
10 November.
Witsoe, Jeffrey (2013): Democracy against Development: Lower-Caste Politics and Political Modernity in Postcolonial India, Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press.
available at
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Mukarram Subji Mandi Road
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Ph: 2740705
69
ECONOMIC NOTES
Continuous Revisions Cast

Doubts on GDP Advance
Estimates
J Dennis Rajakumar, S L Shetty
Two recent press releases by

the Central Statistics Office
substantially revise the new series
of National Accounts Statistics.
The new releases are more than
just routine updates, and entail
methodological changes and
incorporate new sources of data,
perhaps in response to various
critiques. Yet, on comparing
the advance estimates released
with past such estimates, the
CSOs latest growth projections
once again turn out to be far too
optimistic.
wo recent press releases from the

Central Statistics Office (CSO)
produce a telling story on how the
statistics on Indias growth have been
unfolding after rebasing the National
Accounts Statistics (NAS) to 201112
prices. The first release (CSO 2016a) is
particularly important as it introduces
revisions in the estimates of national
income and related aggregates starting
right from the base year 201112, while
the second one (CSO 2016b) provides
advance estimates (AE s) of national
income for 201516, taking the above
revised estimates (REs) as the base. The
objective of this note is twofold. First, to
analyse the nature and extent of revisions effected to the originally published
new series; and second, based on the
magnitudes of such revisions, to critically judge whether the growth rate projected as per AEs for 201516 would stand
the test of reasonableness, and if not,
what could be the alternative projection?
Growth Scenario
J Dennis Rajakumar (dennisraja@epwrf.in)

and S L Shetty (slshetty@vsnl.com) are with
the EPW Research Foundation, Mumbai.
70
Before we address the two issues, it is

advisable to take a look at the macroeconomic growth scenario as depicted by
the latest CSO data. The scenario does
provide some revealing features generally
unknown in Indias macroeconomic data.
First, there appear to be strange differences in the growth trends between
nominal and real numbers. The nominal
estimates show a distinct declining
trend in growth during the latest fiveyear period, 201112 to 201516. Contrariwise, the numbers at constant prices show
a marked upward trend in growth
(Table 1). This is true of both gross value
added (GVA) at basic prices and gross
domestic product at market prices (that
is, now defined as GDP). Thus, growth
rates in nominal GVA steadily and sharply

declined from 13.6% in 201213 to 6.8%
in 201516 and likewise, growth rates in
nominal GDP fell from 13.9% to 8.6%
during the same period. In contrast to
these nominal growth rates, growth
rates of GVA steadily rose from 5.4% to
7.3% and real GDP, likewise, increased
steeply from 5.6% to 7.6% during the
aforesaid years. This is obviously reflective of the sharp declining trends in GVA
and GDP deflators to which a brief reference is made below, but the root of
which was addressed by us earlier (Rajakumar and Shetty 2016).
Table 1: Trends in Growth Rate (Annual Changes
in %)
Year
GVA at Taxes on Subsidies GDP at Difference

Basic Products
on
Market
(4)-(1)
Prices
Products Price
1
2
3
4
5
At current prices
201213 13.6 18.9
21.5
201314 12.7 13.5
-2.3
201415 10.5 12.4
8.1
201516 6.8 21.7
-1.7
At constant (201112) prices
201213
5.4
9.5
12.7
201314 6.3
5.3
-7.9
201415
7.1
8.0
4.8
201516
7.3
7.7
-1.3
13.9
13.3
10.8
8.6
0.3
0.6
0.3
1.8
5.6
6.6
7.2
7.6
0.2
0.3
0.2
0.3
Source: Based on data extracted from CSO (2016a and

2016b).
Second, the growth differences as

between GVA and GDP, which remained
meagre in the initial three years until
201415 at about 0.3 percentage point,
have suddenly widened in the latest year
201516 by 1.8 percentage points. But,
this has happened only in estimates at
current prices, while the differences in
Table 2: Key Components of GDP (Percentage
Share)
Year
GVA at Basic
Prices
1
At current prices
201112 92.8
201213 92.6
201314 92.1
201415 91.9
201516 90.3
At constant prices
201112 92.8
201213 92.6
201314 92.3
201415 92.2
201516 92.0
Taxes on
Products
2
Subsidies GDP (1+2-3)

on Products
3
4
10.2
10.6
10.7
10.8
12.1
3.0
3.2
2.7
2.7
2.4
100
100
100
100
100
10.2
10.6
10.4
10.5
10.5
3.0
3.2
2.8
2.7
2.5
100
100
100
100
100
Source: Based on data extracted from CSO (2016a and

2016b).
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
ECONOMIC NOTES
growth rates of GVA and GDP at constant

prices have continued to remain meagre
at about 0.3 percentage point. This also
arises out of the behaviour of deflators.
Finally, this brings us to examining
the key components of GDP and the
behaviour of deflators, both of which
are interlinked. As shown in Table 2
(p 70), GDP comprises GVA at basic prices
the volume index and for the latter, the

volume index is used with the tax margin from the base. New taxes and collection rate increases are treated as price
changes. This has been in line with the
recommendation of the System of
National Accounts (SNA) 2008, which
has been the guide for the construction
of the new NAS series (Sen 2015).
Table 3: Annual Percentage Variations in Implicit Deflators of Selected NAS Aggregates

Year
GVA at
GDP Taxes on Subsidies
Private
Government Gross Fixed Changes in Valuables Exports of Imports of
Basic Prices
Products
on
Final
Final
Capital
Stock
Goods and Goods and
Products Consumption Consumption Formation
Services Services
Expenditure Expenditure
201213 7.8
201314 6.0
201415 3.2
201516 -0.5
7.9
6.2
3.3
1.0
8.6
7.8
4.0
13.0
7.8
6.0
3.2
-0.5
9.7
7.5
4.0
4.8
9.0
8.2
5.0
2.9
5.7
3.8
2.9
-1.6
6.7
4.1
1.8
0.4
5.4
3.0
2.4
-4.2
6.6
8.6
-1.4
-0.3
8.0
11.8
0.5
-0.1
Source: Based on data extracted from CSO (2016a and 2016b), NAS: National Accounts Statistics.
plus product taxes minus product subsidies. GVA itself is computed by adding
to GVA at factor cost the production
taxes net of production subsidies. Incidentally, the CSO has ceased to publish
data on GVA or GDP at factor cost. What
stands out in Table 2 data series is that
while the share of GVA has fallen over
the years, the fall nevertheless has
been gentle during the first four years
201112 to 201415 as a counterpart of
the gentle rise in the share of taxes on
products net of subsidies during those
years. But, again, the latest year 2015
16 stands out in this respect: the share
of GVA falls by 1.6 percentage points,
which is the counterpart of the rise in
product taxes net of subsidies.
However, all this has happened in
nominal estimates, whereas when expressed at constant (201112) prices, the
respective proportions of GVA, product
taxes and subsidies in total GDP remain
more or less unchanged throughout the
period including in 201516. This relative constancy in the shares of GVA and
net product taxes in GDP at constant
prices unaffected by sharp changes
when measured in nominal numbers,
carries an interesting tale associated
with the methodology employed by the
CSO to arrive at deflators particularly
for product taxes and subsidies. This
method treats separately the cases of
taxes levied on quantity of products
(specific taxes) from those levied on
product values (ad valorem). In the former case, extrapolation is done using
EPW
March 5, 2016
With this method of using volume

changes for deflation of indirect taxes, it
is claimed that the real growth in GVA at
basic prices and GDP at market prices
become by and large similar for which
there is some evidence in the growth
rates presented earlier in Table 1. The
growth rates at current prices during
201516 were 6.8% in GVA and 8.6% in
GDP, with a difference of 1.8 percentage
points, that is, far higher than those in
the previous years (Table 1). This difference was reduced to 0.3 percentage
points in measures or constant prices
very similar to the earlier three years.
The import of the above methodology
used for measuring the deflators for
product taxes has manifested itself in
differing growth rates of implicit deflators of various NAS aggregates as presented in Table 3. The growth rate of
implicit deflators of both GVA and GDP
moved in tandem till 201415 with only

marginal differences, but in 201516
they diverge considerably by about 1.5
percentage points (Table 3). The implicit
deflator of product taxes remained marginally higher than GDP deflator over
the years but in 201516, this divergence
has considerably widened. While the
implicit GDP deflator grew at 1% in 2015
16 against 3.3% in 201415, the implicit
deflator of taxes on products grew at
13% in 201516, compared to 4% in the
previous year. The divergence in the
growth rates of GVA and GDP in 201516
in nominal terms but not in real terms,
as also their respective deflators in the
same year, should thus be attributable to
the novel deflator method employed for
product taxes.
Revision from the Base
Contrariwise, this time the CSO has
revised the macroeconomic aggregate
series right from 201112; it is normal
practice to undertake revisions in the
data series based on fresh availability of
source statistics, but the methodology
employed in a base-level series remains
unchanged until the next base revision.
The latest revision encompasses not only
the fresh sources of data but also some
methodological changes possibly after
realising the validity of suggestions
offered by commentators on the new
series. Another key aspect of the revision effected now shows that the fresh
data sources give vastly divergent results
upon revision. For example, in the case
of manufacturing, moving from Index of
Industrial Production (IIP) and advance
Table 4: Size and Nature of Revisions in GVA at Basic Prices, by Economic Activity (at Current Prices)
S No Industry
Revised (2016) Estimates as %

of Earlier (2015) Estimates
201112 201213201314
201415
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
99.7
99.3
95.1
96.0
100.4
100.0
99.4
100.2
98.9
Agriculture, forestry and fishing

Mining and quarrying
Manufacturing
Electricity, gas, etc.
Construction
Trade, hotels, etc.
Financial services, real estate, etc
Public administration
Total
100.7
100.4
95.1
100.8
105.7
100.2
98.5
100.2
99.5
Difference between Revised (2016) Estimates

and Earlier (2015) Estimates (Rs Cr)
201112 201213 201314
201415
101.1 100.7 -3,764 12,121

99.1 102.4 -1,778 1,009
94.8
92.7 -72,172 -80,452
104.7 100.8 -7,735
1,712
107.2 107.0 3,269 45,689
97.1
98.1
-4
3,611
100.4 96.7 -8,883 -27,532
96.5
97.7 2,178
1,814
99.1
98.1 -88,890 -42,028
21,300
12,970
-2,566
6,990
-93,640 -1,45,650
11,592
2,418
62,872 65,777
-57,225 -41,629
8,142 -81,706
-46,800 -36,466
-96,326 -2,17,296
Full nomenclatures:
4 Electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services.
6 Trade, hotels, etc, comprised: Trade, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting.
7 Financical services, real estate, etc, comprises: Financial, real estate and professional services.
8 Public administration includes: Public administration, defence and other services.
Source: Based on data extracted from CSO (2015a) for earlier estimates and CSO (2016b) for revised estimates.
vol lI no 10
71
ECONOMIC NOTES
Table 5: Size and Nature of Revisions in GVA, Savings and GCF by Institutional Categories
(at Current Prices)
S No
Institutions
Gross value added at basic prices

A
Public sector (1+2+3)
1 General government
2 Public non-financial corporations
3 Public financial corporations
B
Private corporations (4+5)
4 Private non-financial corporations
5 Private financial corporations
C
Households including NPISH
D
Total (A+B+C)
Gross Savings
A
B
C
Households, including NPISH
D
Total (A+B+C)
Gross capital formation
A
B
C
Households, including NPISH
D
Total (A+B+C)
Revised (2016) Estimates as %

of Earlier (2015) Estimates
201112
201213
201314
99.8
100.0
99.5
100.0
96.6
96.4
100.0
100.3
98.9
100.0
99.7
100.2
100.3
97.7
97.8
96.2
100.8
99.5
97.9
96.2
99.4
100.0
97.5
97.5
97.6
100.8
99.1
107.4
98.3
100.7
103.4
96.8
95.9
103.9
102.5
101.1
82.0
125.0
99.5
101.3
99.6
101.4
88.7
110.8
105.8
97.6
96.2
98.9
100.0
98.5
98.8
91.0
103.9
100.3
99.7
99.0
100.5
94.3
100.5
101.0
80.1
113.9
104.5
Difference between Revised (2016)

Estimates and Earlier (2015)
Estimates (Rs Cr)
201112
201213
201314
-3,164
-81
-3,080
-3
-95,342
-95,339
-3
9,617
-88,889
-490
-3,052
1,661
901
-75,423
-64,900
-10,522
33,884
-42,028
-42,970
-38,854
-4,069
-46
-90,805
-83,601
-7,204
37,448
-96,326
81.4
132.7
108.5
95.8
98.9
100.7
86.5
114.3
107.2
9,278 -30,432
2,744 -32,032
916
-626
5,618
2,226
-27,319
-3,836
-31,167
12,216
3,848 -16,051
50,840 2,17,828
32,799 1,83,561
-33,378
-36,461
10,230
-7,147
-13,268
7,158
-20,426
2,95,757
2,49,111
89.1
87.9
90.0
102.2
103.5
103.9
85.2
120.5
106.8
-15,953
-2,223 -98,703
-11,984
-3,410 -56,683
-3,970
1,775 -42,279
0
-587
259
-17,032
6,850
50,368
-13,649
13,391
54,411
-3,384
-6,541
-4,043
51,657 1,79,064 2,48,542
13,622 1,93,952 3,07,257
Source: Based on data extracted from CSO (2015) for earlier estimates and CSO (2016a) for revised estimates.
filing of corporate accounts to MCA21

and Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), is
prone to such divergences in results.
GVA Revision across Industries
At the aggregate level, the GVA revisions
do not appear large and unusual but
what is striking is that the revisions have
been downwards in all the years (Table 4,
p 71). In the initial three years, the revisions have ranged from (-) Rs 42,028 crore
(or (-) 0.5%) in 201213 (-) Rs 88,890 crore
(or (-) 1.1%) in 201112. It was (-) Rs 96,326
crore (or (-) 0.9%) in 201314, but the
largest revision of (-) Rs 2,17,596 crore
(or (-) 1.9%) has occurred in 201415.
The revisions at the aggregate GVA
level have been considerably narrowed
because it has been the combined end
result of many sectoral upward and
downward revisions. Interestingly, the
largest contribution to the revision in
total GVA and in all the four years has
72
come from the downward revisions of

manufacturing GVA; these downward
revisions in manufacturing GVA have
steadily risen in absolute terms from
Rs 72,172 crore (that is, by 4.9%) in 2011
12 to the highest amount of Rs 1,45,650
crore (or by 7.3%). The other two industries to face substantial revisions are
construction and financial services.
While financial services, real estate, etc,
has generally experienced downward
revisions ranging from (-) Rs 8,883 crore
(or by (-) 0.6%) in 201112 to (-) Rs 81,706
crore ((-) 3.3%), the construction industry has been the one to enjoy persistently
growing upward revisions on a sizeable
scale from Rs 3,269 crore (or by 0.4%) in
201112 to Rs 65,777 crore (7%) in 201415.
While providing details on the extent
of revision of aggregates income, CSO
(2016a) has cited two primary reasons;
one pertaining to changes in methodology, and the other taking recourse to
updated database. As for the former, CSO

now uses separate blow-up factors for
public limited companies and private limited companies using the MCA21 database
effective from 201112, instead of its earlier practice of using a common scaling up
factor for both the sets of companies
together. With regard to data sources, CSO
has taken recourse to the revised results
of ASI, updated information on production and prices of agriculture commodities, actual expenditure and receipts of
government, and alsoupdated the MCA21
database. It is significant that admittedly
the private corporate sector accounted for
about 65% of the manufacturing sector
GVA in 201415 (CSO 2015d) and, therefore, the major downward revision that
has occurred in manufacturing GVA can
be attributed to changes in the method of
estimation and use of fresh source data
for arriving at GVA of private corporate
sector. Because of the dominating influence of the revisions in manufacturing
GVA on the revisions in the total GVA, it
could be satisfactorily inferred that the
same procedure of estimating private corporate GVA has made the major contribution to the revisions in the aggregate GVA
as well.
Across Institutional Categories
There is also other concrete evidence
that the private corporate sector GVA
revisions contributed in large part to the
overall GVA (Table 5). It shows that
amongst the major institutional categories, an overwhelming proportion of the
revisions in the aggregate GVAranging
from 87% to 154%has emanated from
the revisions made in the GVA of private
non-financial corporations. These also
have been downward revisions ranging
from (-) Rs 64,900 crore ((-) 2.2%) in
one year to (-) Rs 95,339 crore in another
((-) 3.6%). The other sector to show such
downward revision was public sector
under which general government (comprising administrative departments and
autonomous institutions like local bodies)
has contributed to these negative revisions,
the largest revision being (-) Rs 38,854
crore ((-) 3.8%) in 201314. As against
these downward revisions, GVA of the
household sector, which accounts for
nearly 45% of total GVA (CSO 2016a), has
March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
ECONOMIC NOTES
experienced an upward revision to a

sizeable extent: Rs 33,884 crore (0.8%)
in 201213, and Rs 37,448 crore (also
0.8%) in 201314.
In the absence of further information
in the public domain, it is difficult to
attribute the institutional sector revisions
to any specific factor. As cited earlier, in
the case of the private corporate sector,
separate scaling factors used for public
limited and private limited companies
since the base year 201112 may have
been a major factor contributing to the
change. There are of course the constant
revisions effected following the receipt
of updated MCA21 database received
from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs
(in 201314) and the replacement of provisional results by final results of ASI
201213, as also use of provisional
results of ASI 201314 in place of other
indicators. In the case of public sector,
similar updated information on local
bodies and autonomous institutions in
201213 and 201314 and the replacement of revised estimates of central
and state government budgets by actuals in 201314, seem to have been
responsible for the revisions.
Revisions in Savings and Capital
Formation
In sharp contrast to the downward revisions in GVA, the economy-wide savings
as well as gross capital formation (GCF)
have gone up in the revised series. But
this is at the aggregate level. The revisions across institutions in both savings
and GCF have followed the same directional changes as in GVA, with public
sector and private corporations experiencing downward revisions followed by
the household sector enjoying sizeable
upward revisions. A part of this phenomenon is attributable to the fact that the
numbers for the household sector are
residual, particularly in household savings in physical assets (CSO 2015c) which
appear under both savings as well as
GCF. This means that some parts of
downward revisions under the public
sector and private corporate sector
appear as upward revisions under the
household sector.
But, interestingly, the disaggregated
data presented institution-wise in Table 5
EPW
March 5, 2016
show that the upward revisions in savings would have perceived and had held the
as well as GCF in respect of the house- view in their discourses that the Indian
hold sector far exceed the sum total of economy was suffering from such low
the downward revisions under the public saving and investment rates of 30% of
sector and the private corporations. We gross national disposable income (GNDI)
recognise that this broad description is and 32% of GDP. The revisions in the
not true for all years. For instance, series have tended to somewhat disprivate corporations as a group have prove this perception; now the revised
experienced downward revisions in GCF data show that the overall saving and
only in 201112 (that is, (-) Rs 17,032 investment rates have been in the order
crore or (-) 1.5%) whereas in the next of over 32% and 34% respectively. Also,
two years, they have experienced upward the extent of decline between 201112
revisions, that is, Rs 6,850 crore (0.5%) in and 201314 of the savings rate has been
201213 and Rs 50,368 crore (3.5%) in narrowed from 3 percentage points from
201314. Under gross savings, the public 33% to 30% in 201112 to 1.5 percentage
sector enjoyed an upward revision in points from 33.8% to 32.3% in 201314
201112 but fell in line with the down- in the revised series.
ward revisions in the next two years.
Thus, what stands out is the whopping Questions on Growth AEs
upward revisions of the household sec- All of these narrations we have made of
tor under both the savings and capital the nature and extent of GVA revisions
formation, ranging from Rs 50,840 crore across industries and institutional cate(2.5%) in 201112 to Rs 2,95,757 crore gories effected in all the years since the
(14.3%) in 201314 under savings and from base year 201112, tend to cast a serious
Rs 51,657 crore (3.9%) and Rs 2,48,542 question on the acceptability of AEs now
crore (20.5%) under GCF, respectively.
projected for 201516.
That the upward revisions in houseAs per these AEs of CSO (2016b), the
hold savings and capital formation have nominal GVA and GDP are expected to
not been entirely dependent on the grow in 201516 at 6.8% and 8.6%,
downward revisions in other sectors are respectively, and in real terms, at 7.3%
evident also from the fact that the aggre- and 7.6%, respectively. The AEs of
gate estimates of domestic savings and growth rates for 201516 have been
GCF have shown a
steady upwards revi- Figure 1: Gross Savings as % of Gross National Disposal Income
35
sions in all the years
(Figures 1 and 2). Also, 34
Revised (2016) estimates
the upward revisions 33
in the total savings 32
and GCF have widened 31
over the years. In gross
30
Earlier (2015) estimates
saving, it was just 0.8
percentage points in 29
201112, but in 201314, 28201112
201213
201314
201415
it increased to 2.3 percentage points. Likewise, Figure 2: GCF as % of GDP
in aggregate GCF, the 40
Revised (2016) estimates
corresponding increases 38
were 0.8 percentage
points and 2.5 percent- 36
Earlier (2015) estimates
age points.
34
Such revisions have
serious macroeconomic 32
implications as students
and teachers of current 30
economic affairs as well
28
as policy planners, who 201112
201213
201314
201415
vol lI no 10
73
ECONOMIC NOTES
worked out over first revised estimates

(FRE) of 201415. As is widely known,
the data sources, method of estimation,
and judgments involved in AEs are different from FRE. This has reflected on
the REs being considerably different
from AEs. For instance, FRE of GVA at
basic price in 201415 was lower than its
corresponding AEs by 1.9%, and of manufacturing by 7.3% (earlier Table 4). For
AEs and FRE, different data sources have
been relied on which have vastly divergent coverage and sample-size implications (Table 6). The advance filing of
corporate accounts is used for AEs and
this is replaced by MCA21 in FRE. The
considerable revision taking place in
manufacturing GVA may perhaps be
attributed to such changes in data
sources. Needless to say that any downward revision of GVA estimates across
industry groups, as it happened in 2014
15, results in favourable base effect for
the succeeding year such as 201516.
Table 6: Phase-wise Data Availability for
Manufacturing Sector
Year 1 Advance and
Provisional
Year 2 1st revised

estimate
Year 3 2nd revised
estimate
Index of Industrial
Production (IIP) +
Advance Filing of
Corporate Accounts
IIP + MCA 21
MCA 21 + Noncorporate Annual
Survey of Industries
Source: CSO (2015b).
A reasonable option is, therefore, one

in which we compare AEs of corresponding periods of different years. That is, if
we need to forecast growth for 201516
based on AEs, then the base should also
be AEs of 201415, which rely more or
less on the same data set. We are
conscious of the fact that when firmer
data are available for the previous year,
it may not be proper to ignore them and
base the growth on the AEs for that year.
But, we are nevertheless proposing this
unusual approach, because the revisions
take us to a truly downward path consistently and rather significantly, which
we cannot ignore while using the latest
estimates for making the assessment of
the growth scenario. We are in a difficult situation of weak and fluctuating
databases.
In this light, if we project growth rate
using AEs, the FRE becomes less
74
Table 7: Estimated Growth Rate (in Percentage)

in 201516: AE Compared with AE and FRE of
201415
Sl Industry
no
At Constant Price At Current Price

Over
Over
Over
Over
201415 201415 201415 201415
(AE)
(FRE)
(AE)
(FRE)
1 Agriculture,
forestry and fishing 0.3
2 Mining and
quarrying
12.1
3 Manufacturing
3.1
4 Electricity, gas, etc

5 Construction
5.1
4.4
6.9
6.1
3.7
9.5
0.2
8.1
-1.1
5.9
11.5
10.5
11.8
3.7
7.6
0.6
7.6
9.5
4.4
6.4
9.4
10.3
3.5
7.0
8 Public administration 4.6
6.9
9.9
12.5
6 Trade, hotels, etc

7 Financial services,
real estate, etc
1.1
9 GVA at basic price
5.9
7.3
4.8
6.8
GDP
6.5
7.6
7.2
8.6
Notes and source: Same as in Table 4.
appropriate and relevant. Growth rate

forecasts based on similar data sets will
be more convincing and acceptable. Following this logic, we have reworked the
expected growth rate for 201516 over
AEs of 201415 (Table 7). According to
our suggestion, GDP is expected to grow
at 6.5% over 201415, compared to 7.6%
based on the FRE for 201415. The GVA is
also expected to grow slower at 5.9%,
against 7.3% using FRE for 201415. A
similar tendency is noticed with respect
to GVA across industries, except mining
and quarrying and construction which
together are expected to contribute 11.5%
of overall GDP in 201516. In particular,
manufacturing GVA, expected to contribute 17.5% to total in 201516, would grow

at 3.1% if we consider its corresponding
AEs of GVA in 201415, as opposed to 9.5%
on FRE of 201415. These results point to
all not being well with the Indian economy, quite unlike what CSOs most recent
AEs (2016b) seem to suggest.
References
CSO (2015): New Series Estimates of National
Income, Consumption Expenditure, Saving
and Capital Formation (Base Year 201112),
Press Note, 30 January.
(2015a): Advance Estimates of National
Income 201415 and Quarterly Estimates of
Gross Domestic Product for the Third Quarter
(Q3) 201415, Press Note, 9 February.
(2015b): Understanding the New Series of
National Accounts Frequently Asked Questions, CSO.
(2015c): Changes in Methodology and Data
Sources in the New Series of National Accounts
Base Year 201112, CSO, June.
(2015d): Quarterly Estimates of Gross Domestic Product for the Second Quarter (JulySeptember) of 201516, Press Note, 30 November.
(2016a): First Revised Estimates of National
Income, Consumption Expenditure, Saving
and Capital Formation 201415, Press Note, 29
January.
(2016b): Advance Estimates of National Income
201516 and Quarterly Estimates of Gross
Domestic Product f9or the Third Quarter (Q3)
201516, Press Note, 8 February.
Rajakumar, J Dennis and S L Shetty (2016): Some
Puzzling Features of Indias Recent GDP Numbers, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 51, No 2,
9 January.
Sen, Pronab (2015): The Three Unanswered Questions in GDP Data, Interview in Livemint,
2 September.
EPW 5-Year CD-ROM 2004-08 on a Single Disk

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March 5, 2016
vol lI no 10
EPW
DISCUSSION
On the AmbedkarGandhi
Debate
S D Kapoor
In response to the discussions

around Arundhati Roys
introduction to B R Ambedkars
Annihilation of Caste, this article
draws on Ambedkars views on
caste in government policy to
reiterate his continuing relevance
today.
have followed with interest, and some

disquiet, the B R AmbedkarM K Gandhi debate in the pages of EPW generated by Arundhati Roys introduction,
The Doctor and the Saint, to Ambedkars seminal essay, Annihilation of
Caste. Interest, because the debate
brought to the fore the AmbedkarGandhi
relationship on the question of untouchability and the larger question of caste.
Disquiet, because at places the debate
exudes bitterness and tends to pitch one
against the other which, to my mind,
was not the intention of Roy. She wanted
to move the Gandhi monument out of
the way in order that Ambedkar may be
better understood and honoured, so as
to present an appropriate account of
the complicated intellectual and political battle that Ambedkar waged in
order to get his people not only civil rights
but also human rights, as well as to understand caste politics. It was impossible to
do that without bringing in Gandhi. As
to the charge of denigrating Gandhi, or
comparing him with Ambedkar, she
writes, in response to the critique of
Rajmohan Gandhi that the selections she
made to substantiate her arguments were
a means of telling the story of the significant
and perturbing part that Gandhi played in
Ambedkars struggle. To do this it became
necessary to highlight things that the dominant historical narrative has gone out of its
way to obscure (Roy 2015: 166).
S D Kapoor (sdkapoor@gmail.com) is based in

Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
That is the reason why she devotes more

space to Gandhi in her introduction.
Roy made explicit her desire to rearrange the stars in the firmament in
order to give Ambedkar his rightful
place. It was not, as Rajmohan Gandhi
argues, for pushing to substitute Ambedkar for Gandhi as Indias chief hero, but
to give Ambedkar the status of a hero on
the strength of what he did for the
depressed classes and the caste-ridden
vol lI no 10
societynot at the cost of Gandhi.

Ambedkar was a brilliant thinker and
analysed the entire range of roles caste
played in Indian society, and how it
should be annihilated to the point of unsettling the orthodox Hindus, including
Gandhi. Ambedkar once told Gandhi,
Gandhiji, I have no homeland. The
anguish in his expression could not have
been lost on a sensitive person like
Gandhi. He felt suffocated in the ambience
created by the savarnas in the country,
and that is why he walked out of the
Hindu fold along with a large number of
his followers.
I believe that both Gandhi and Ambedkar contributed to the growth of political
consciousness; one through moral force
and the other through intellectual and
political force. The two could be combined, but moral force by itself could not
solve the problem of caste. As Rajmohan
Gandhi himself writes, Gandhi never led
or encouraged direct struggle against
the caste system, and that his writings
lacked historical analysis of the caste
system, let alone untouchability. Gandhis
entire struggle was directed towards
attaining independence (and Hindu
Muslim unity): he sought to postpone
the struggle for social justice and social
reorganisation till India attained independence. Rajmohan Gandhi admits,
Ambedkar was a clear victor over Gandhi in
their 1936 argument over caste, varna and
hereditary occupationan argument triggered in the formers lecture, Annihilation of
Caste (Gandhi 2015).
Gandhi had messianic zeal, not just

missionary zeal, and wanted to abolish
untouchability, not caste, by appealing
to the conscience of the savarnas. He kept
talking of sin in analysing this problem to
the point of being unscientific. To expect
Gandhi to talk of equality and socialism
in economic terms was to go against the
moral framework within which he operated. The questions of entitlement, land
reform and the redistribution of wealth
were of no consequence to him (Roy
2015). His concept of trusteeship revealed
his approach to wealth and he expected
the rich to use their wealth for the benefit
of the unfortunate. Gandhi experienced
75
DISCUSSION
the intricacies of the caste system when

he visited the Shiva Temple, Vaikom,
and held discussions with the head priest
there. In the article, Pathapally: Mahad
of the 21st Century, Anand Teltumbde
has shown how atrocities continue to be
inflicted on Dalits (Madigas) in a village
in Telangana. The Boya community,
which ranks the lowest among the backward castes, prevented Madigas from
offering prayers at the temple and
grabbed their land by burying their dead

there, preventing them from occupying
the land that belonged to them. The
Madigas, supported by other organisations and by Teltumbde himself, waged
a battle and forced the authorities to concede to their demands (Teltumbde 2015).
Rajmohan Gandhis insinuation that
Ambedkar did not work for Indias
independence, like other nationalist
leaders, is rather unfair, as Ambedkar

wanted social revolution to precede
political revolution. Ambedkar did the
greatest service to Indias political struggle by exposing the workings of the caste
system, in which the untouchables were
the worst sufferers. He was forthright in
saying that Hindus ill-treat Dalits not
because they are cruel or wrong-headed,
but because they are deeply religious.
True, he did not go all out to fight the
external enemy, but he knew they were

his enemy as much as the savarnas in
the country. This was evident in his
speech at the Depressed Classes Conference and later in a letter that he wrote to
A V Alexander, a member of the Cabinet
Mission. The British did precious little
for the depressed classes although the
latter had fought with them in the army.
But instead of rewarding them, the first
thing the rulers did was to stop their
recruitment in the army. Ambedkar
posed uncomfortable questions to Alexander that remain relevant to this day.

Did the British help them in any way to
overcome their social disabilities? The ans
wer must be in the negative. The schools,
wells and public places were closed to the
untouchables. It was the duty of the British
to see the untouchables, as citizens, were
admitted to all institutions maintained out
of public funds. But the British did nothing
of the kind and, what is worst, they justified their inaction by saying that untouchability was not their creation. It may be
that untouchability was not the creation of
the British. But as Government of the day
surely the removal of untouchability was
their responsibility. No Government with
any sense of the functions and duties of a
Government could have avoided it. What did
the British Government do. They refused to
touch any question which involved any kind
of reform to Hindu society. So far as social
reform was concerned, the untouchables
found themselves under a Government

distinguished in no vital respect from native
Government under which they had toiled
and suffered, lived and died, through all
their weary and forgotten history. From a
political standpoint, the change was nominal. The disposition of the Hindus continued
as ever before. Far from being curbed by the
British High Command, it was pampered.
From social point of view, the British accepted the arrangements as they had found
them and preserved them faithfully in the
manner of the Chinese tailor who, when given an old coat as a pattern, produced with
pride an exact replica, rents and patches
and all. And what is the result. The result
is that though 200 years have elapsed since
the e stablishment of the British rule in India,
the untouchables have remained untouchables. Their wrongs remained unaddressed
and their progress hampered at every stage.
Indeed, if the British rule has achieved
anything in India, it is to strengthen and
reinvigorate Brahminism which is the inveterate enemy of the untouchables and which
is the parent of all the ills from which the
untouchables have been suffering for ages
(Ambedkar 1946: 49798).
References
Ambedkar, B R (1946): Letter, B R Ambedkar to
A V Alexander, 14 May 1946, New Delhi.
Gandhi, Rajmohan (2015): Independence and
Social Justice: The AmbedkarGandhi De
bate, Economic & Political Weekly, 11 April.
Roy, Arundhati (2015): All the Worlds a Half-Built
Dam, Economic & Political Weekly, 20 June.
Teltumbde, Anand (2015): Pathapally: Mahad of
the 21st Century, Economic & Political Weekly,
22 August.
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Depletion and destruction of forests have eroded the already fragile survival base of adivasis across the country, displacing an
alarmingly large number of adivasis to make way for development projects. Many have been forced to migrate to other rural
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This volume situates the issues concerning the adivasis in a historical context while discussing the challenges they face today.
The introduction examines how the loss of land and livelihood began under the British administration, making the adivasis
dependent on the landlord-moneylender-trader nexus for their survival.
The articles, drawn from writings of almost four decades in EPW, discuss questions of community rights and ownership,
management of forests, the states rehabilitation policies, and the Forest Rights Act and its implications. It presents diverse
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Authors: Ramachandra Guha Sanjeeva Kumar Ashok K Upadhyaya E Selvarajan Nitya Rao B B Mohanty
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76
CURRENT STATISTICS
Wholesale Price Index
Foreign TradeMerchandise
The year-on-year (y-o-y) inflation rate based on WPI dipped for the 15 month in a
row at 0.90% in January 2016 against 0.73% in December 2015 and (-)0.95%, a
year ago. The index for primary articles group decelerated by 4.6% in January
2016 compared to 5.5% in December 2015, as the index for food articles group
decelerated by 6.0% against 8.2%, a month ago. The index for fuel and power
group fell by 9.21% in January 2016 compared to (-)11.02% a year ago and 9.15%
in December 2015. The index for manufactured products group declined by 1.2%
in January 2016 against the inflation of 1.1% a year ago.
The merchandise trade deficit narrowed to $7.6 billion (bn) in January 2016 from
$11.7 bn in December 2015, and $7.8 bn a year ago. Exports contracted for the 14th
month in a row in January 2016 by (-)13.6% to $21.1 bn from $24.4 bn in January
2015. Imports shrank by (-)11.0% to $28.7 bn from $32.3 bn, a year ago. Oil imports
in January 2016 were lower by (-)39.0% at $5 bn compared to $8.2 bn a year ago,
and non-oil imports fell by (-)1.4%. During AprilJanuary 201516, exports
declined by (-)17.7% to $217.7 bn and imports by (-)15.5% to $324.5 compared to
$264.3 bn and $383.9 bn respectively, during corresponding period last year.
Consumer Price Index
Index of Industrial Production
CPI inflation rate rose to a 17-month high in January 2016 to 5.7% compared to
5.2% in January 2015, and 5.6% a month ago. This was led by food price inflation,
which accelerated to 6.9% against 6.1%, a year ago, and 6.4% in December 2015.
CPI-rural inflation rate inched up by 6.5% in January 2016 compared to 6.3% in
December 2015. Similarly, the CPI-urban inflation rate increased by 4.8% against
4.7% a month ago. As per Labour Bureau data, CPI inflation for agricultural
labourers increased to 5.6% in January 2016 against 5.7% in December 2015 and
industrial workers inflation was 5.9% compared to 6.3% in December 2015.
The year-on-year growth in IIP dropped by 1.3% in December 2015 against 3.6% a
year ago, led by a decline of 2.4% in the manufacturing sector compared to 4.1% in
December 2014. Mining sector grew by 2.9% in December 2015 compared to (-)1.7%
a year ago and electricity generation slowed down by 3.2% against 4.8% in December
2015. As per use-based classification, growth in capital goods fell considerably by
(-)19.7% in December 2015 compared to 6.1% a year ago. Consumer goods grew by 2.8%
in December 2015 against 0.6% in December 2014. Consumer durables reported 16.5%
growth while consumer non-durables witnessed a decline of 3.2% in December 2015.
Movement of WPI Inflation AprilJanuary
Merchandise Trade January 2016
Year-on-Year in %
January 2016
($ bn)
Exports
Imports
Trade deficit
Over Month
(%)
21.1
28.7
7.6
Over Year
(%)
-5.5
-15.4
-34.5
(AprilJanuary)
(201516 over 201415) (%)
-13.6
-11.0
-3.0
-17.7
-15.5
-10.6
Data is provisional. Source: Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
-0.90%
-0.95%
Components of Trade AprilJanuary

$264 billion
Exports
270
$218 billion
-3
-6
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November December* January 2016*
* Data (2015) is provisional.
$120 billion
Trade Deficit
Trends in WPI and Its Components January 2016* (%)

Weights
All commodities
Primary articles
Food articles
Fuel and power
Manufactured products
Over Month
100
20.1
14.3
14.9
65.0
Financial Year (Averages)

201213 201314 201415
Over Year
-1.0
-1.7
-1.9
-2.9
0.1
-0.9
4.6
6.0
-9.2
-1.2
7.4
9.8
9.9
10.3
5.4
6.0
9.8
12.8
10.2
3.0
2.0
3.0
6.1
-0.9
2.4
$73 billion $107 billion
$125 billion
Oil Imports
-270
$251 billion
$259 billion
Non-oil Imports
Oil refers to crude petroleum and petroleum products, while non-oil refers to all other commodities.
Movement of IIP Growth AprilDecember
* Data is provisional; Base: 200405=100; Source: Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Year-on-Year in %
Movement of CPI Inflation April 2014January 2016
12
Year-on-Year in %
2015
Consumer Food
3.6%
6.8%
6
5.7%
-1.3%
2014
CPI
3.9%
-4
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December*
* December 2015 are quick estimates; Base: 200405=100.
Miscellaneous
Industrial Growth: Sector-wise December 2015* (%)
0
April M
2014
Jan F
2015
N Dec* Jan*
2016
* Data is provisional.
Source: Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Base: 2012=100.
CPI: Rural and Urban January 2016* (%)

Latest
Month Index
Over
Month
Over
Year
Financial Year (Avgs)

201314 201415
Rural (2012=100)
128.1
0.2
6.5
9.6
6.2
Urban (2012=100)
124.2
0.2
4.8
9.2
5.7
CPI: Occupation-wise #
Industrial workers (2001=100)
269
0.0
5.9
9.7
6.3
Agricultural labourers (198687=100)
849
-0.5
5.6
11.6
6.6
# December 2015. * Provisional. Source: CSO (rural and urban), Labour Bureau (IW and AL).
Weights
Over
Month
100
14.2
75.5
10.3
10.3
5.0
12.0
4.3
-1.3
2.9
-2.4
3.2
-0.1
-0.6
-0.8
6.1
2.8
1.4
2.3
8.4
45.7
8.8
15.7
29.8
8.5
21.3
5.0
13.8
7.4
18.6
6.8
26.0
0.5
-19.7
0.9
2.8
16.5
-3.2
2.1
-3.6
3.1
-2.8
-12.2
4.8
7.0
6.4
1.7
-3.4
-12.6
2.8
General index
Mining
Manufacturing
Electricity
Over Year
Financial Year (Avgs)

201314
201415
Industrial Growth: Use-based

Basic goods
Capital goods
Intermediate goods
Consumer goods
Consumer durables
Consumer non-durables
* December 2015 are quick estimates; Base: 200405=100; Source: Central Statistics Office.
Comprehensive current economic statistics with regular weekly updates are available at: http://www.epwrf.in/currentstat.aspx.
EPW
MARCH 5, 2016
vol LI no 10
77
CURRENT STATISTICS
Indias Quarterly Estimates of Final Expenditures on GDP for 201415

201415
Rs crore | at 201112 Prices
Private final consumption expenditure

Government final consumption expenditure
Gross fixed capital formation
Change in stocks
Valuables
Net trade (Exportimport)
Exports
Less imports
Discrepancies
Gross domestic product (GDP)
Q1
1406817
294338
832420
48976
42871
-40831
620869
661700
-49687
2534903
Q2
(8.2)
(9.0)
(8.3)
(23.0)
(16.3)
1422029
322557
828754
48434
38194
-55355
625875
681230
-36835
2567778
(11.6)
(-0.6)
(7.5)
Q3
(9.2)
(15.4)
(2.2)
(20.6)
(0.3)
1495823
261886
843733
45077
37174
-45813
636468
682281
21305
2659185
(1.1)
(4.6)
(8.3)
Q4
(1.5)
(33.2)
(3.7)
(16.0)
(10.8)
1539614
223826
903344
52520
55036
-13989
625190
639179
29933
2790285
(2.0)
(5.7)
(6.6)
201516
Q2
Q1
(6.6)
(-3.3)
(5.4)
(21.6)
(32.2)
1496865
297285
875840
50641
47906
-43945
584770
628715
1870
2726461
(-6.3)
(-6.1)
(6.7)
(6.4)
(1.0)
(13.8)
(20.7)
(15.4)
1501895
336578
891606
50894
47703
-58970
598797
657767
-3536
2766170
(-2.0)
(-0.4)
(7.6)
Q3
(5.6)
(4.3)
(14.7)
(26.4)
(28.9)
1591508
274071
867229
48907
47749
-31889
576676
608565
54763
2852339
(-4.7)
(-4.8)
(7.8)
(6.4)
(4.7)
(9.8)
(30.5)
(32.6)
(-5.1)
(-6.1)
(6.9)
Indias Overall Balance of Payments (Net): Quarterly and Annual

201415 ($ mn)
Q2
Q3
Q1
Current account
Merchandise
Invisibles
Services
of which: Software services
Transfers
of which: Private
Income
Capital account
of which: Foreign investment
Overall balance
-7489
-35093
27604
17561
17014
16452
16630
-6408
18811
20032
11179
-10945
-39652
28706
18929
16917
16387
16513
-6610
17589
17237
6897
201516 ($ mn)
Q1
Q2
Q4
-7721
-38635
30913
19982
17844
16428
16521
-5497
22864
13194
13182
-645
-31560
30916
20116
18625
16425
16600
-5625
30023
22993
30149
-6141
-34181
28040
17384
17658
16153
16267
-5498
18115
7782
11430
201415 (Rupees bn)

Q2
Q3
Q1
-8234
-37425
29191
17960
18225
16263
16421
-5032
7243
125
-856
-448 [-1.5]
-2098
1651
1050
1017
984
994
-383
1125 [3.8]
1198
668 [2.2]
-663 [-2.2]
-2403
1740
1147
1025
993
1001
-401
1066 [3.5]
1045
418 [1.4]
201516 (Rupees bn)

Q1
Q2
Q4
-478 [-1.5]
-2393
1915
1238
1105
1017
1023
-340
1416 [4.5]
817
816 [2.6]
-40 [-0.1]
-1964
1924
1252
1159
1022
1033
-350
1869 [5.6]
1431
1876 [5.7]
-390 [-1.2]
-2,170
1,780
1,103
1,121
1,025
1,033
-349
1,150 [3.5]
494
725 [2.2]
-535 [-1.6]
-2432
1897
1167
1184
1057
1067
-327
471 [1.4]
8
-56 [-0.2]
Figures in square brackets are percentage to GDP.
Foreign Exchange Reserves

Excluding gold but including revaluation effects
Rs crore
US $ mn
Variation
19 Feb
2016
20 Feb
2015
2244760
330071
1944860
312375
31 Mar
2015
Over
Month
Over
Year
2010400
321309
29730
1039
299900
17696
Financial Year So Far

201415
201516
201011
201112
257120
31552
73038
19208
108086
-14361
Monetary Aggregates
Rs crore
Money supply (M3) as on 5 February

Components
Currency with public
Demand deposits
Time deposits
Other deposits with RBI
Sources
Net bank credit to government
Bank credit to commercial sector
Net foreign exchange assets
Banking sectors net non-monetary liabilities
Reserve money as on 19 February 2016
Components
Currency in circulation
Bankers deposits with RBI
Other deposits with RBI
Sources
Net RBI credit to government
of which: Centre
RBI credit to banks & commercial sector
Net foreign exchange assets of RBI
Govts currency liabilities to the public
Net non-monetary liabilities of RBI
Over Year
260060
12772
Variation
201516
Aggregate deposits
Demand
Time
Cash in hand
Balance with RBI
Investments
of which: Government securities
Bank credit
of which: Non-food credit
Capital Markets
S&P BSE SENSEX (Base: 197879=100)
S&P BSE-100 (Base: 198384=100)
S&P BSE-200 (198990=100)
CNX Nifty (Base: 3 Nov 1995=1000)
Net FII Investment in equities (US $ Million)*
82800
-485
201314
201415
251570
16769
322660
40486
Financial Year
201314
Outstanding
2016
Over Month
11554220
111170 (1.0)
1171400 (11.3)
865440 (9.1)
1537220
948770
9055580
12650
27750
18060
67270
-1920
(1.8)
(1.9)
(0.7)
(-13.2)
174280
108640
884170
4300
(12.8)
(12.9)
(10.8)
(51.5)
117120
28150
713790
6380
(9.4)
(3.5)
(9.6)
(323.9)
150870
58030
801710
-1940
(10.9)
(6.5)
(9.7)
(-13.3)
118420
42240
863900
420
(11.6)
(5.9)
(15.3)
(14.9)
104760
58760
965330
-1270
(9.2)
(7.8)
(14.9)
(-39.2)
140530
78760
796250
12620
(11.3)
(9.7)
(10.7)
(640.6)
3411280
7673230
2483890
2035490
2063320
79240
73690
49200
90960
58180
(2.4)
(1.0)
(2.0)
(4.7)
(2.9)
278620
768870
380870
259190
256280
(8.9)
(11.1)
(18.1)
(14.6)
(14.2)
87790
459060
179080
-137770
74290
(2.9)
(7.1)
(9.3)
(-7.2)
(4.3)
405130
633640
233240
265220
134850
(13.5)
(9.0)
(10.4)
(15.0)
(7.0)
337320
709420
92880
116530
88540
(14.2)
(14.3)
(6.0)
(7.7)
(6.2)
335850
777440
287280
275010
217860
(12.4)
(13.7)
(17.6)
(16.8)
(14.4)
-38720
594290
326710
-143800
195720
(-1.3)
(9.2)
(17.0)
(-7.5)
(11.3)
1623700
412490
27130
36770 (2.3)
6930 (1.7)
14470 (114.3)
190400 (13.3)
46800 (12.8)
19090 (237.4)
132230 (10.2)
-64010 (-14.9)
6080 (310.2)
175390 (12.1)
-53070 (-11.4)
12540 (85.9)
123750 (11.6)
-35610 (-10.0)
420 (14.9)
110090 (9.2)
109020 (34.0)
-1280 (-39.5)
147240 (11.3)
35860 (8.3)
12630 (644.4)
444480
442030
188630
2386590
21310
977690
35810
33810
26050
52230
0
55930
-18780
-19850
113540
323040
2050
163560
-235450
-235760
17600
261030
1920
-29190
79950
81000
-13870
259310
1880
192410
54840
56080
34610
85860
1900
88670
108130
107140
14080
244460
2000
150810
-334180
-336610
145010
324760
2090
-58040
201415
(8.8)
(8.3)
(16.0)
(2.2)
(0.0)
(6.1)
(-4.1)
(-4.3)
(151.2)
(15.7)
(10.6)
(20.1)
Outstanding
2016
(-33.7)
(-33.8)
(30.6)
(14.5)
(11.1)
(-3.5)
Over Year
201415
26 February
2016
23154
7107
2958
7030
163035
(-19.5)
(-19.1)
(-17.6)
(-19.0)
(-1.6)
1024980 (13.9)
(21.9)
(22.4)
(-6.8)
(12.2)
(9.7)
(24.5)
1127560 (13.4)
(10.2)
(10.5)
(393.3)
(5.8)
(14.1)
(14.7)
(18.3)
(18.1)
.
(15.7)
(13.0)
(21.8)
201415
1028170 (10.8)
(-47.8)
(-48.2)
.
(18.0)
(12.1)
(-6.9)
Variation
Over Month
9361270
850060
8511210
57230
389760
2762680
2760450
7153410
7044720
201213
1008670 (9.6)
Scheduled Commercial Banks Indicators (Rs crore)

(As on 5 February 2016)
Financial Year
201213
83430
17700
65730
-3540
14350
22570
22470
72580
63990
(0.9)
(2.1)
(0.8)
(-5.8)
(3.8)
(0.8)
(0.8)
(1.0)
(0.9)
Month
Ago
24486
7526
3140
7436
163822
950830
101570
849250
6010
26530
249090
248600
740050
734330
(11.3)
(13.6)
(11.1)
(11.7)
(7.3)
(9.9)
(9.9)
(11.5)
(11.6)
Year
Ago
28747
8784
3591
8684
165765
(37.0)
(41.8)
(44.9)
(39.2)
(13.3)
704880
34570
670320
5350
46880
300770
300660
419270
414740

201516
(9.1)
(4.8)
(9.6)
(11.7)
(14.8)
(13.6)
(13.6)
(7.0)
(7.0)
827990
56030
771950
3870
16690
270850
270700
616990
602710
(9.7)
(7.1)
(10.0)
(7.3)
(4.5)
(10.9)
(10.9)
(9.4)
(9.4)

Trough
Peak
201415
Trough
Peak
22952
7051
2938
6971
-
22277
6680
2678
6653
-
29044
8980
3691
8834
-
Financial Year
201314
201213
841360
36970
804400
4360
-41000
268320
268640
648610
633490
(14.2)
(5.9)
(15.2)
(12.1)
(-12.7)
(15.4)
(15.5)
(14.1)
(14.0)
955110
51620
903480
5380
34090
206720
207540
733630
731610
End of Financial Year

201314
201213
29682
9107
3723
8996
-
18836
5679
2288
5683
136304
(14.1)
(7.8)
(14.8)
(13.3)
(12.1)
(10.3)
(10.4)
(13.9)
(14.2)
(8.2)
(-38.0)
(6.0)
(7.3)
(23.4)
22386
6707
2681
6704
149745
(18.8)
(18.1)
(17.2)
(18.0)
(9.9)
201415
827720
80110
747620
7490
56720
279010
278560
542330
546360
(10.7)
(11.2)
(10.7)
(16.3)
(17.9)
(12.6)
(12.6)
(9.0)
(9.3)
201415
27957
8607
3538
8491
168116
(24.9)
(28.3)
(31.9)
(26.7)
(12.3)
* = Cumulative total since November 1992 until period end | Figures in brackets are percentage variations over the specified or over the comparable period of the previous year | (-) = not relevant | - = not available | NS = new series | PE = provisional estimates
Comprehensive current economic statistics with regular weekly updates are available at: http://www.epwrf.in/currentstat.aspx.
78
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vol LI no 10
EPW
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THE MICROFINANCE REVIEW

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TOPIC: AMBEDKARISM AS RADICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE
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Call for Papers
9th All India Conference of China Studies (AICCS)

Special Theme
Date
Venue
Deadlines: 30
30
30
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March 2016
April 2016
July 2016
August 2016
:
:
:
India-China Economic Relations

12-14 December 2016
University of Mumbai, Kalina Campus, Mumbai
:
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Last date for receiving abstracts (250-300 words)

Notification of the selected abstracts
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title of the paper and a brief CV and mailed to Mr. P.K. Anand at info@icsin.org. The organisers will cover costs
incurred in travel by train (AC III Tier) and boarding and lodging expenses.
The best paper presented by a young scholar at the AICCS will be given the Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea Award,
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Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad invites applications
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Atoning for the Past

Dalia Gebrial (dgebrial@live.com) is a Masters student at Oxford University and an organising
member of Rhodes Must Fall. Ashok Kumar (arkumarzona@gmail.com) finished his DPhil from
Oxford University in 2015 and is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary,
University of London.
Responding to Abhijit Sarkars Rhodes Will Not Fall Alone the authors argue that the aim of their
campaign has been the opposite of sanitising history. The campaign wants to begin and sustain a
long overdue conversation in Britain about its colonial past.
Abhijit Sarkars article Rhodes Will Not Fall Alone in Vol 51, No 2 makes the case against the
Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford (RMFO) campaign, which is mobilising, among other things, to remove
a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College. In the midst of logical flaws and
factual inaccuracies, Sarkar describes the movement as an attempt to sanitise our uncomfortable
past and draws wholly unsupported parallels between RMFO and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS).
No Parallels between RMFO and RSS
Let us begin by addressing Sarkars simple, factually incorrect statements. His first sentence claims
that RMFO is demanding the destruction or removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes. The literature
from RMFO has always been clear. The campaign demands the removal of the statue from its
glorifying and uncritical elevation on the walls of Oriel, to a museum or a space in which full
contextualisation can be rendered; preferably in a space dedicated to the memorialisation of the
crimes of Empire. It needs to be a space that elevates the victims and those who resisted brutality,
as opposed to those who perpetrated it.
Without the deliberate inclusion of this loaded, misleading word, the premise of the earlier article
falls apart. Indeed, this is the claim upon which he builds the spurious collapsing of two
fundamentally different eventsRMFO and actions of the RSSacross space and time. He claims
that RMFO methods are similar to the fascistic RSS demand for the destruction of the Babri
Masjid. Not only is this a misrepresentation of RMFOs aim for removal and re-contextualisation, it
reveals a lack of perspective, absence of power analysis and a comical level of contextual tonedeafness.
Rhodes imperialism still percolates Britains national culture. As recently as last month, a YouGov
poll found that 59% of British people are proud of the countrys colonial past (Dahlgreen 2014).
Perhaps more troublingly, 34% reported that they would like to see the return of Empire. The
majority of the British public, according to the poll, do not consider colonialism to be regrettable
part of history. These are not just views without consequencethey are structurally enforced by a
context of ongoing corporate exploitation of labour in the global South, which is in part a
continuation of such colonial legacies.
Compare this to the existence of the RSS in India, where Muslims are an oppressed minority, rather
than a group with dominant or ruling power. Power commanded by Muslim rulers in Indias past
bear no continuity into the present power structure or lived experiences of Indian Muslims.
However, the struggle to remove Rhodes statue is intended to strike symbolically against the
pervasive institutional racism and an ideological state apparatus within the present undergirded by
historical amnesia. This is an oppositional context to the destruction of the Babri Masjid, which is
intended as a piece of sectarian warfare, and a strike against an already disenfranchised religious
group. It merely counterposes one modern form of chauvinism against a more ancient form.
Whereas one is the articulation of an oppressed group against their continued economic, social and
cultural subjugation in which the silencing of this history is intimately bound to the subjugation in
the present, the other is a re-enforcement of an existing power structure and culture of
marginalisation, and the violence embedded within it.
Not Sanitising History
This brings us to what seems to be his central contention; that RMFOs aimsfar from limited to a
statueare tantamount to sanitising history. When considering the context of historical amnesia
demonstrated in part by the aforementioned YouGov poll, Sarkars argument demonstrates his
conceptual failure. Indeed, history is sanitised precisely through the uncritical, but quite literal
elevation of the Rhodes statue, underneath which sits a plaque praising his splendid generosity.
This constitutes an effacement of the hundreds of thousands of black South Africans who died, were
tortured or disenfranchised by Rhodes actions, and his legacy as the architect of apartheid.
Rather than trying to sanitise our uncomfortable past, the RMFO campaign represents an
intellectually rigorous intervention into the carefully constructed sense of comfort that dominates
typical historical narratives.
Statues are not sites of learning. They are at best vanity projects, and at worst carefully
constructed PR fabrications, established to preserve the uncritical veneration of some of the most
exploitative men of modern history, and inoculate them against critique not only by later
generations, but by those of their own time. Indeed, Rhodes was condemned for his brutality even
within the context of the British Empire. Not only did several of his own peers at Oxford object to
his inauguration as a doctorate of civil law in 1899 on the grounds of his involvement in the illegal
and catastrophic Jameson Raid, but also his 1902 Guardian obituary (Guardian 1902) held Rhodes
responsible for an unbroken sequence of evil. Of course, a century of the statues erection has
resulted not in a more nuanced or detailed understanding of Rhodes actions and his legacy, but the
rise of defensive sentimentality; indeed, the past few weeks have seen an unprecedented wave of
whitewashed praise and misinformation.
A Conversation Begun
Indeed, the real impact of RMFO has been the opposite of sanitising history; it has been the
resurgence of a long overdue conversation in Britain about its colonial past. In the UK context,
where this era of history is studiously ignored in curricula at all levels and where the government
has withheld classified files on the end of empireincluding on the Mau Mau uprising and Chagos
Islandersthis is a rare moment in which some column space is being devoted to an analysis of the
brutality of Empire and its manifestations today (Engelhart 2014). It appears that Sarkar does not
wish to engage with this history; rather, he calls for the memory of Cecil Rhodes to sink into
oblivion. The demands levelled by the campaignfor removal and re-contextualisationrepresent
a far more sincere commitment to history than the forgetting that the establishment is calling for.
References
[All URLs accessed on 1 March 2016]

Dahlgreen, Will (2014): The British Empire is 'something to be proud of', YouGov UK, 26 July,
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/07/26/britain-proud-its-empire/.
Engelhart, Katie (2014): Heres What the British Government Has Been Hiding, Vice, 1
September, http://www.vice.com/read/katie-engelhart-britains-secrets-mandy-banton-321.
Guardian (1902): Death of Mr Cecil Rhodes, 27 March,
http://www.theguardian.com/century/1899-1909/Story/0,,126334,00.html.
Tags:
Rhodes
Oxford University
Rhodes Will Not Fall Alone
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
RSS
BJP
Babri Masjid
Britain
British
United Kingdom
The Khasis as Hindus

Avner Pariat (abner.pariah@gmail.com) is a writer and cameraperson based in Shillong,
Meghalaya.
Hindu religious practices may have influenced present day monotheistic Christinatity prevalent
among the Khasis. However the cultural and religious linkages between Hinduism and Christianity
in Khasi Hills need to be investigated keeping in mind that there was no defined centre for the
Hindu faith and the influence may have been more syncretistic than partisan.
Perhaps this article is ill-timed. Perhaps in the current scenario with various right wing groups
actively seeking a Hindutva agenda it is not the best time to be writing about things which could be
used for their own benefit. This is particularly true after the recent procession carried out by the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Shillong (its first in the city) that has evoked so much
reaction. However, these events cannot forestall the need for articulating important things.
It has been repeated over and over again especially by the Christian clergy and its fraternity that
Khasis were and are not Hindus. They often say, in very vague terms, that essentially Khasis
worshipped One God (U Nongbuh U Nongthaw) through his ambassadors here on Earth. So in a
sense Lei Shyllong and other ancient deities might be suitably placed within a pre-Christian
monotheism. This seems contradictory in more than one way.
Why only Khasis?
The most obvious is that it seems the Khasis are the only ones who profess this. Other tribes around
us who have undoubtedly influenced and been influenced by the Khasis worship multiple gods, not
one god. These are full framed figures, resplendent in their distinct tribal garb, not simple allusions
to a one universal deity. This aspect is something we need to interrogate further because this preChristian Christianity (monotheism) appears to be revisionist. The frequency of the articulation of
this idea among the Christiansespecially Catholic priestsseems to betray its origins and
motives. After all, it is much easier to convert people by drawing comparisons to that which they
are already acquainted with. It is convenient to argue that the new gods is in reality just a change
in nomenclature and ritual, that essentially they have always been worshipping the same god.
However if the Khasis claim to be a matrilineal culture, why is U Nongbuh Nongthaw (The Keeper/
Creator) a male deity? Shouldnt he be a she? I realise that this is not necessarily a water-tight
hypothesis, but we could still argue for it to be questioned.
The Pnars and Bhois, interestingly, seem to place more importance on female divinitiesthe
goddess Riang Khangnoh, goddess Myntdu and Lukhmi are more popular than any of their male
counterparts. And they are not simply goddesses of the homestead either, they can wonder outside
from spring to spring, blessing the families that stay along their path, they can serve as guardians
(lei khyrdop) protecting Jowai like Myntdu does and they can also guarantee a good harvest like
Lukhmi. They seem to have more character, more nuance than the Nongbuh Nongthaw. To simplify
the pre-Christian era has been one of the major projects of the missionaries of various faiths. These
include both the Christians and the Hindus. Both have, in their own manner, drawn attention away
from the differences and harped on the similarities that were allegedly shared. The Christians have
been vague about it while the Hindus have embraced the nitty gritties of the idiosyncratic Khasi
myth pantheon as their own.
Danger in Simplification
When we talk of Hinduism we have been warned time and again about the dangers of centralising
it: that there are, in fact, many Hinduisms. This is a convenient starting point for interrogating the
Hindu processes that went on in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills before the coming of Christianity. To
simply state and defend the Khasis were not Hindus tenet with no evidence except popular belief
is bad logic. On the contrary, there is substantial material evidence to support the claim that they
were, indeed, Hindus. In Syndai, you will find a large Ganesha sculptureamong othersof some
age carved onto a large rock; the local people call it U Khmi (interestingly the word means
earthquake in Pnar). Dawki has a number of old rock carvings which seem to be influenced by
Hindu traditions. Legend has it that the Kamakhya Temple in Assam was originally a sacred Khasi
sitea point acknowledged by temple management in publicationswhere a type of mother
goddess supposedly resided. She was called Ka Mei Kha by the Khasis, which over time morphed
into Kamakhya. The phonological shift is noteworthy. Nartiang and Iale Falls were important
locations for Shakti human sacrifices. The former is still an important shrine for pilgrims to visit.
Mahadek,also known as Laittyra, was called that because of the presence of a Mahadev temple
within the village. Mawsynram still draws a decent number of Hindu pilgrims who suffer the
horrible roads in order to perform puja at the mawjymbuin cave, which they consider to be a
shivling. Interestingly, these sites are all near borders, either with Assam or Bangladesh. There are
undoubtedly other similar sites and shrines throughout these hills and valleys which await rediscovery.
Beyond the ostensible spaces, there are also a number of cultural borrowings that seem to have
been directly influenced by Hinduism. This should not surprise (or anger) us. The North East is
basically a land bridge (possibly one of the most important in history). Materials, skills and ideas
have flowed through this region for a very long time from East to West and vice versa. The isolation
of the North East and the xenophobia of mainland India should not fool us into believing otherwise.
Many important festivals like Behdeinkhlam, Lukhmi have strong links with larger Vedic currents.
The references to Lukhmi/Lukhimai are quite clearly to a tribalised Hindu goddess Lakshmi.
During Behdeinkhlam, the rot (tower-like structures made of wood, bamboo) must be cast away
after the religious festivities are over. This is interesting because the worship of the (non-Classical)
Hindu deity Jagannath (Odisha mostly) also involves similar structures which are called rath
(chariot). One should also note the similar names. The casting away of the rot is akin to the casting
away of the idols at Durga Puja after their roles as cleansers have been fulfilled. Even the
ritualistic animal sacrifices at Shad Pomblang might be seen in the light of other festivals like
Gadhimai, Bali Jatra and others. When I was to be married, there was some discussion about
putting up banana stalks in front of the entry way which is a very common Hindu practicethis in
spite of the fact that my in-laws household is almost exclusively Christian. This ultimately did not
happen but it was interesting nonetheless.
Conclusions
I am not attempting to locate a centre from which all Hindu authority emanates (which is what
Hindutva groups seek). This automatically assumes the position that the tribal people are always
the ones who take ideas and concepts and divorces them of a knowing and conscious exchange
with Hindu missionaries, maybe even resistance to them. Hinduism has always been shifting and
de-centering itself according to contexts and areas. The question were/are Khasis, Hindus is
inextricably linked to the notion of who a Hindu is in the first place. The flexible and assimilative
nature of Hinduism ensured its success from Cambodia and Bali through to Kabul etc, it spread
through a huge geographic expanse. However, this strength, this mutability is also what permits
the right-wing groups to go about proclaiming everything and everyone as being Hindu, everything
from proper religions like Buddhism and Jainism to smaller belief systems like Niam Khasi
(Meghalaya), Donyi Polo (Arunachal Pradesh) and Meiteism (Manipur). Their success in redefining
the latter practice as their own is something the Niam Khasi followers should be wary of. Politics
has always been used to influence religious practices, and it is no different this time.
Tags:
Khasi
Hindu
Shillong
Tribe
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Christian
Assam
North East
Hinduism
Weather Conditions and Air Pollution

Saon Ray (Sray@icrier.res.in) is a Senior Fellow at the Indian Council for Research on International
Economic Relations, New Delhi and Nandini Kumar (kumar.nandini@gmail.com) is an independent
consultant based in Delhi.
To understand the impact of the odd-even policy in Delhi researchers will need to take into account
prevailing weather conditions of not just Delhi, but also its outskirts and neighbouring states.
Since 1 January 2016, the odd-even formula has been implemented for private vehicles in Delhi for
15 days. The most visible impact of this scheme has been on road congestion, with noticeable
declines at major intersections. However some have claimed that air pollution has gone up during
this period, leading to the question whether this scheme worked at all. This article argues that
there is a host of benefits even if Particulate Matter (PM)2.5 does not go down, and points out some
of these benefits.
Sources of Air Pollution
What leads to air pollution in cities? Air pollution can be caused by the emission of toxic
vapours/gases and particles. Particles can be of different sizes, with the ones under 2.5 microns
(10-6 m), also called fine particulate matter, that do not settle to the ground under gravity, causing
the most damage to human health. The very small size of these particles causes them to be inhaled
deep into lungs with our bodies natural mechanisms unable to filter them. Greenstone et al (2015)
have estimated that 660 million people or half of Indias population live in areas that exceed Indias
National Ambient Air Quality standard for fine particulate pollution.[i] The effects of toxic gases
such as the oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and ozone, on health are well
established too (Central Pollution Control Board 2008).
Several studies undertaken by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Centre for Science
and Environment (CSE) have shown that for several of the major cities in India, the sources of air
pollution include the transport sector, industry and power plants and dust, burning of leaves, etc.
The transport angle has been discussed at great length in these studies. Both natural and manmade
factors play an important contribution to the PM build up in a city.
World Health Organization (WHO) finds that 13 of the 20 cities with the worst particulate matter
PM2.5 are in India. Delhi recorded an average PM10 of 286 mg/ m3 in 2010, and had the worlds
highest levels of average PM10 during 200810. Similarly, the PM2.5 of level of 153 mg/ m3 in 2013, is
also the highest in the world. (WHO: Ambient Air Pollution database, update 2014).
Delhi has more cars than Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata together. Reddy and Balachandra (2010)
note that the per capita travel by cars was 331 passenger kilometre (pkm) in 23 urban areas in
2005, with Delhi reporting 894 pkm against the national average of car use per capital of 58.6 pkm.
Consequently, emissions from the transport sector are the highest in Delhi. Ramachandra et al
(2015) show that during the year 200910, the total number of registered vehicles in Delhi was
6451883, out of which there were about 20 lakh cars and jeeps and 40.5 lakh motor cycles, mopeds
and scooters. The emissions from these registered vehicles were 10867.51 gigagrams (Gg) which
was about 30% of the total emissions in this sub category.

The number of private cars for which the odd even policy is applicable (2587887 as of 31 December
2013) is about a third of the total registered vehicles (8140695) in the city (based on data from the
Transport Department, Government of National Capital Territory)hence the impact of the policy
is limited to that extent. Moreover compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles were exempt. Efforts to
contain the pollution from other sources need to be pursued as well.
Fate of Pollutants
When pollutants are emitted, they stay in the air for a while and then get deposited on the ground,
leavesany surface, in fact, or, then are carried elsewhere by air. Some react with other
substances in the air to form secondary pollutants (so called because they are not emitted directly).
Most of these secondary pollutants are constituents of PM2.5, so when the number of vehicles on the
roads is reduced, fewer pollutants are released and fewer secondary particles are formed.
The Effect of Weather on Pollution
Many newspapers have reported that pollution levelsmostly those of the particulate matter of size
2.5 microns, have not declined despite the imposition of the odd-even policy. One of the reasons
that particulate matter of the fine kind continues to remain in the air of Delhi, is that such particles
are present in the air all over North India. Gupta, et al (2006) report worst air quality in Delhi using
satellite and ground measurement over several global locations including Delhi.
The answer lies in the prevailing weather conditions. While the sources remain more or less the
same, better circulation in the summer (more sunshine and windier conditions than the winter)
allows the pollutants to be carried elsewhere; they do not sit at ground level, but move either
higher up in the air or to some other places, by horizontal movements of air, that is, via breeze or
winds.[ii] So, rural areas receiving air from Delhi suffer the same effects that Delhis residents
doperhaps in a less severe manner.
A glance at any satellite image taken during the winter months of 2015 and 2016 will show a brown
haze over Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and West Bengal. What is being experienced in Delhi is only
part of a large-scale, regional problem. In fact, the odd-even experiment is showing quite clearly
that the whole of North India (and probably other parts of the region as well) is polluted. So, the
regional concentrations of PM2.5 contribute a large amount, possibly more than 50%, to what is
observed in Delhicontrolling air quality in this large, densely populated urban area, will
necessitate controlling pollution over all states north, south east, and west of Delhi, which can only
be good news for humans and crops (Air Quality Expert Group 2012).
Benefits of the Odd-even Policy
To summarise, weather and climate cannot be changed, but controlling the sources of pollution is in
our hands. The odd-even policy has had the following excellent spin-offs. First, it has raised
awareness of air quality among Delhis residents and suggests that the mostly compliant population
recognises air pollution as a problem and is willing to cooperate even though they (people) are put
to some inconvenience. Second, it has taken half the private cars off the roads, reducing traffic and
congestion. As cars move relatively faster, they use less fuel and burn it more efficiently. Idling
engines at traffic lights and start-stop traffic are associated with greater pollution from exhaust
pipes. Commuters and other kinds of travellers reach their destinations faster, wasting less time
and, it may be said, reducing mental and physical stress. Two-wheeler drivers, cyclists, pedestrians
and anyone outside an enclosed area are exposed less to pollutants, too.
There are reports over the last three to four decades, containing measurements from Mumbai,
Delhi and occasionally other cities, too, but these are sporadic and do not cover all aspects of air
quality. It is very important to measure the levels of PM2.5 systematically all over India and establish
how much sources outside Delhi contribute to its observed levels. Apart from knowing how good or
bad air quality is, it is important to know the sources of each of the components mentioned above.
This should be the first step towards any action seeking to control pollution of any kind. It is hard to
find systematic studies reporting emission sources and their strengths for any region in India.
If one source, that is, vehicular exhaust, is reduced, the others still remain. The odd-even policy is a
temporary measure to curb pollution. Other more permanent measures need to be taken to make
the quality of air in Delhi liveable.
Notes
[i] This includes Delhi, and can be seen on page 42, Greenstone et al (2015).
[ii] A study of particulate air pollution in six Asian cities including Chennai, Oanh et al (2006) found
that the levels of particulate pollution were higher in the dry season compared to the wet season.
References
Air Quality Expert Group (2012): Fine Particulate Matter in the United
Kingdom, http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat11/1212141
150_AQEG_Fine_Particulate_Matter_in_the_UK.pdf.
Central Pollution Control Board (2008): Epidemiological Study on Effect of Air Pollution on Human
Health (adults) in Delhi, Environmental Health Series, EHS/1/2008, August, Delhi: Ministry of
Environment and Forests, Government of
India, http://cpcb.nic.in/upload/NewItems/NewItem_161_Adult.pdf.
Gupta, P, Christopher, S A, Wang, J, Gehrig, R, Lee, Y, and Kumar, N (2006): Satellite Remote
Sensing of Particulate Matter and Air Quality Assessment over Global Cities, Atmospheric
Environment, Vol 40, Issue 30, pp 58805892.
Greenstone, M, Nilekani, J, Pande, R, Ryan, N, Sudarshan, A, and A Sugathan (2015): Lower
Pollution, Longer Lives: Life Expectancy Gains if India Reduced Particulate Matter
Pollution, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 50, No
8, http://www.epw.in/journal/2015/8/special-articles/lower-pollution-longer-lives.html.
Oanh, Kim, N T, Upadhyay, N, Zhuang, Y H, Hao, Z P, Murthy, D V S, Lestari, P, Villarin, J T,
Chengchua, K, Co, H X, Dung, N T, and E S Lindgren (2006): Particulate Air Pollution in six Asian
Cities; Spatial and Temporal Distributions, and Associated Sources, Atmospheric Environment, Vol
40, No 18, pp 33673380.
Ramachandra, T V, Aithel, B H, and K Sreejith (2015): GHG Footprint of Major Cities in

India, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol 44, pp 473495.
Reddy, S and P Balachandra (2010): Dynamics of Urban Mobility: A Comparative Analysis of
Megacities of India, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research Working Paper,
WP-2010-023, Mumbai.
Tags:
Delhi
Ambient Air Quality
Odd-even
Odd-even Policy
Suspended Particulate Matter
Particulate Matter
Central Pollution Control Board
Asian Brown Haze
Urban Studies
CNG
Compressed Natural Gas
Congestion
Pollution
Air Pollution
How Meos Shape Their Identity

Abhay Chawla (abhaychawla13@gmail.com) teaches mass communications and new media at the
University of Delhi.
The Meos, a Muslim-Rajput tribe staying around Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, have a rich oral tradition
and have several popular tales sung to this day. This article explores how these stories contribute
to the formation of the Meo identity through the prevalent folklore within this community.
Mirasi Sirajuddin singing a Meo tale. Video Courtesy: Abhay Chawla.

Meos are the inhabitants of Mewat, a region in North-West India situated between the cities of
Delhi, Agra and Jaipur1. Most of them belong to Rajput families and embraced Islam four centuries
ago (Shamsh 1983: 17) though a lot of Hindu customs were practised as late as the mid-20th
century. Meo society is still divided into pals and gotras, as in Hindus, with clear exogamous rules.
The religious orientation of the Meo identity is thus deeply contested (Mayaram 2004).
Mewati is the spoken language of the region and is considered a dialect. It has no script of its own
and can be written in both Persian-Arabic and Devanagiri scripts. The language, therefore, has an
indeterminate status (Grierson 1908).
Origin of the Meos
There are various theories about the Meos and Mewat, the place they inhabited. Colonel James
Skinners (17781841) illustrated Tashrh-ul-Aqwm (An Account of Origins and Occupations of
Some of the Sects, Castes, and Tribes of India) mentions the community in a mythological context.
The genealogy of their migration can be traced back to an Indo-Scythian group settled beyond the
Danube. The Meos could have been the Mids, a pastoral-nomadic migratory group of North-West
India between the 7th and 11th centuries. They could also have been the descendants of
Alexanders army who stayed back under his governor Seleucus Nicator to guard the conquered
Indian territory of Sind. Other theories suggest that they could be related to Raja Jaswant as
described by Crooke (1896) in his book The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and
Oudh, Volume III.
The Gazetteer on Gurgaon district 188384 says
In Tods Rajasthan, Vol II, page 76, I find it stated that Mewasso is a name given to the
fastnesses in the Aravalli hils to which tribes like Meos retreat. Pal is, on the same
authority, the term for a community of any of the aboriginal mountain races; its import
is a defile or valley, fitted for cultivation and defense; and Pal is the term given to the
main sub-divisions of the Meos. (p 60)
History of Marginality
According to the Gazetters of the United Provinces (UP), Meos were first displaced from the Doab
by the Rajput clans of Dors, Tomars, Bargujars and Chauhan (Mayaram 2004: 22). There is no
written record of the life of Meos (except during Qutabal-Dins period) and, as a result, scholars
have had to rely on this one source alone (Mayaram 2004: 22).
From various documented accounts (not directly connected to the Meos) it is apparent that Meos
were perceived as a problem for the state in Delhi as well as at Ulwar (present day Alwar in
Rajasthan). They were known to indulge in criminal activities like looting and maintain a
rebellious stance towards the state and were looked upon as the other. However from their
perspective, it was their land that had been occupied by those in power, and they were fighting
against this injustice.
Outsiders were unable to understand their syncretistic practices. Diverse explanations are available
regarding the Meos converting from Hinduism to Islam. It is unclear if the conversion was a onetime process, a complete movement associated with conquest, or if it occurred as a gradual process
over an extended period of time. Based on various Meo accounts it seems that the conversion was
gradual and could be attributed to rulers like Sultan Balban, Timur, Sultan Firoz Tughlaq and
Aurangzeb.
Jagga records in Rajasthan show that, by the early 18th century, Meos had started keeping Muslim
names for their babies though the process was still fragile. Major Powlett observed in the second
half of the 19th century that Meos are now Musalmaan in name but their village deities are the
same as those of the Hindus (Alwar Gazetteer 1878).
In fact this tenuous process continued till Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi started the Tablighi
Jamaat movement in Mewat in 1926. The movement caused the Meos to gradually distance
themselves from Hindu customs and adopt Islamic customs. This was further accelerated by the
rise of communal forces, and subsequent communal riots in the run up to Indian independence. All
this occurred over a span of a few decades, in the early 20th century.
In fact towards the end of the British rule the Meos seemed to be at the wrong end of the political
spectrum. With independence looming on the horizon and the hardening of communal forces, riots
broke out in Alwar, Bharatpur and adjoining areas. There was a mass migration of Meos from
Bharatpur to Alwar and Gurgaon. Some of them are believed to have migrated to Pakistan.
Overpowering the State
Oral tradition gives glimpses of a society that is bereft of written records. Meo tales were
composed by different mirasis (bards) working for various Meo Pals2 in the late 18th or early 19th
century. Dariy Kh, Gurchar Mev Kh, Kauln k lar and Pch Phar k lar are some of
the popular stories. As one studies these tales as transcribed by Mayaram (2004) one notices a
repetition of certain keywords. Keeping in mind that these stories were scripted by different
mirasis (bards) working for different Pal groups, it is interesting that there are some surprising
similarities between the stories irrespective of the text and context of the stories themselves.
Mirasi Amin. Courtesy: Abhay Chawla.

Keywords found repeated across stories arePal, brother, kill/killed, loot, avenge, maharaja,
camels, soldiers/army, queen, goddess, pir, reward, hills, Alwar kingdom and sword. Other words
frequently found in the stories areMinas, rob, escape, destruction, Rajputs, treasure, rejected,
roaming, enmity, feud, Brahman, escape, thief, treasure, destruction, defeat, victory, surrender and
wealth.
The subjects that are robbed seem to be people with wealth or powerKasai, Baniya, the dancer,
goldsmith and the English. It could also happen that they were targeting the very people they were
exploited by.
The Meos wanted to overpower not only the princely state, but also colonial power. Gurchari and
Mev not only kill the tiger that was to be the hunt of the Maharaja, Gurchari then goes and
introduces himself as a bandit of the state and Gurchari cuts the wire belonging to the English
and leaves a message that he will capture and stop the train the following daygoes the legend of
Gurchari.
Mirasis use an improvised harmonium in accompaniment to their songs. Courtesy: Abhay

Chawla.
The songs depicting the anti-state stance of the Meos also suggest that other communities like the
Minas (possibly of the same stock who later converted to the Hindu faith) shared a similar
sentiment. Several tales reveal that both these communities were railing against the state and both
had been charged with similar acts of criminality. Abstract concepts like brotherhood and
criminality are important in the song, as they signify close social linkages with other non-Muslim
castes, even if the connection is through their criminal disposition. It only goes to show that Meos
had a syncretic culture, that drew from many different communities and sources.
Self and Society
Besides the concept of representation and culture another element playing a part in the discourse
of oral tradition is the concept of identity.
Patterns of behaviour between individuals have different levels of analysis, and this is the key to
understanding the link between self and society. One way is to look at the patterns of behaviour
across individuals to see how these patterns fit with the patterns of others to create larger patterns
of behaviour. It is these larger, inter-individual patterns that constitute social structure (Stets and
Burke 2005).
In the narrative of Gurchari Mev Khan, he exhibits fearlessness against a more powerful adversary,
by looting with impunity and indulging in anti-state behaviour. At the same time the protagonist is
shown to have a very clear understanding of right from wrong. Upon closer examination, one finds
this pattern repeating itself across stories thereby creating a larger pattern of behaviour. This
larger pattern created is internalised by the individual and goes on to form his/her identity.
Others perceive Meos as criminal and rebellious. This is clear when one talks to and interviews
people on the street, both within and outside Mewat. In the government primary school seeing a
Meo boys climb the school building with aplomb gets the non Meo teacher, one who does not hail
from Mewat comments these people learn this criminal traits right from a young age, to climb
walls and to steal.
The Meo self-perception meanwhile is diametrically opposite. The Meo considers himself to be the
true son of the soil, one who defended the country and fought various invaders who dared to attack
and impose their rule, right from Balban to the British. The proof of this patriotism is the massive
destruction of life and property experienced by the Meos.
Conclusions
Marshall McLuhan (1964) had coined the phrase medium is the message. It meant that the form
of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium
influences how the message is perceived. The songs of the Meos embody this very concept in their
renditions.
As the story of valour sung by the mirasis progresses, their voice intonation and the speed of
rendition add to the message being delivered--...we the fearless unconquerable community who
will not tolerate subordination even if we have to give our lives.
Notes
1
The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1909, page 313
Meo society is divided into 12 Pals. Then there is a 13th Pallakra or having an inferior status with
respect to other Pals. In addition there are the Nepaliyas who do not fall into any Pal.
3
As documented by Mayaram (2004), an abridged version.
References
[All URLs accessed on 4 March 2016]
Ahmad, A (2013): Mewat: A Retrospective, Gaziabad: Sahitya Sansthan.
Crooke, W (1896): The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume III,
https://archive.org/details/tribesandcastes01croogoog.
Crooke, W (1907): Natives of Northern India: Native Races of the British Empire, London:
Constable and Company Ltd, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023625910.
Grierson, G A (1908): Linguistic Survey of India.
Mayaram, Shail (2004): Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the Margins,
Ranikhet: Permanent Black.
McLuhan, Marshall (1964): Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York: McGraw Hill.
Shams, Shamshuddin (1983): Meos of India, Their Customs and Laws, New Delhi: Deep and Deep
Publications.
Stets, J E, & P J Burke (2005): New Directions in Identity Control Theory, Advances in Group
Processes, Vol 22, pp 4364,
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1016/S0882-6145%2805%2922002-7.
Tags:
Meo
Subaltern
Oral Traditions
Mewat
Mewati
Identity
Haryana
Marginalised Community
Gurchari Mev Khan
Mirasis
Subaltern Discourse
Mahadev
Pir Chudh Sidh
Maharaja Mangal Singh
Where is this Self-Proclaimed Nationalism Coming From?

Kanhaiya Kumar is the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU). He
was arrested on 13 February 2016 on charges of sedition and was granted a six-month interim bail
on 2 March by the Delhi High Court.
Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar gave a speech in JNU after
he was released from judicial custody on being granted a six month interim bail by the Delhi High
Court. We reproduce an English translation of sections of his Hindi speech.
We would like to thank The Wire for providing us access to the English translation of Kanhaiya
Kumar's speech.
From this platform on behalf of all of you, as JUNUSU president I take this opportunity of the
medias presence to thank and salute the people of this country. I want to thank all the people
across the world, academicians and students, who have stood with JNU. I salute them (lal salaam).
I also wish to acknowledge and thank all the people standing firm with the struggle, who are
demanding justice for Rohith Vemula, be they from the media or civil society, political or nonpolitical. I salute them. (lal salaam).
I especially wish to thank the worthies of this country sitting in parliament who claim it is they who
decide what is right and what is wrong. Thank you to them, their police and also to the media
channels [resounding cheers] In our parts they say, so what if ones name was vilified, it got one
some publicity! At least they gave space to JNU on primetime even if it was to vilify it.
I have no rancour against anyone none whatsoever against the ABVP [Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad, student wing of the BJP]. You know why? (crowd roars why?) Because the ABVP on our
campus is actually more rational than the ABVP outside the campus. I have one suggestion for all
those people who consider themselves political pundits kindly watch the recording of the last
presidential debate to see the state the ABVP candidate was reduced to. When we decimated the
sharpest ABVP intellect there is in the country, which happens to be in the ABVP of JNU, you can
draw your own conclusions about what awaits you in the rest of the country. There is no ill-will
against ABVP because we are truly democratic; we truly believe in the constitution, and that is why
we look at the ABVP not as enemies but as the opposition. Rest assured, my friend, I will not
indulge in any witch-hunt against you for the simple reason that one has to be worthy enough to be
hunted.
JNU has shown the way. JNU stands unshakeable today to state what is right is right and what is
wrong is wrong. The best thing about this protest is that it is spontaneous. I am stressing this
aspect because everything on their part was planned.
We have unstinting faith in the constitution of this country, the laws of this country and the judicial
process of this country. We also believe that the only truth is change, and we are standing here
rooting for change. This change will come about, make no mistake
We have unstinting faith in the constitution. With all our alertness we stand fully behind the articles
of faith declared in the preamble socialism, secularism, equality.

I dont want to give a speech here; I want to tell you about my experience. Earlier I studied more,
endured the system less. This time I studied less and endured the system more. Since JNU has a
tradition of research I can say I have primary data, first hand information! First things first I dont
want to say anything about the judicial process. I have said just one thing and all the people of
this country who truly believe in the constitution and want to bring Babasahebs dreams to fruition
would have taken the hint. I dont want to say anything about the matter that is sub judice.
So the honourable prime minister has tweeted. He says, Satyamev Jayate [truth will prevail]
(laughter). My reply is as follows: honourable prime minister, I have serious ideological differences
with you but Satyamev Jayate is not your slogan; it is the motto of the country and the constitution,
so I too will happily say Satyamev Jayate.
Truth will emerge victorious.In my village you have become acquainted with my family these
past days we have confidence men at our railway stations trying to trick people into buying a
lucky ring that will give them anything they desire.
We have some policy makers in our country who are cast in the same mould. They say many things
black money will return, har har modi, this killing inflation will come down, sab ka saath sab ka
vikas. Although Indians easily forget such things, the spectacle this time was so huge that we are
unable to forget the slogans.
Nevertheless, attempts are on to make sure that these slogans are forgotten. How? Stop the
[money] of research fellows so that they have to beseech you to restore their fellowship. Then you
agree but on the condition that the remuneration will stay at the same level of Rs 5000 or Rs 8000.
Who speaks out against this? JNU, who else?.
If you speak out against this undemocratic regime, what will its cyber cell do? It will send a
doctored video and insults, and the condoms in your dustbin will be counted too. But make no
mistake, this is a critical moment and we need to understand that the attack on JNU is a planned
attack because they want to delegitimise the Occupy UGC movement. It is a planned attack because
they want to discredit and destroy the struggle to get justice for Rohith Vemula. You are running
this JNU issue on prime time, ex-RSS worthy [Subramanian Swamy], because you want the people
of this country to forget the prime ministers assurance that he would put 15 lakh rupees in their
individual bank accounts. A word of friendly caution it is not easy to get admission in JNU and it
certainly is not easy to make JNU students forget. We will remind you repeatedly that every time a
government has turned oppressor, JNU has raised the voice of protest
Modis and RSSs agenda
Today, when our honourable PM (I have to be respectful, no, or they will doctor this too!) spoke
about Stalin and Khrushchev, I had an irresistible urge to enter the television, tug at his suit and
say, Modi ji, why not talk a little about Hitler too? If not Hitler, then Mussolini at least whose
black cap was worn by your Guruji? Golwalkar ji had gone to meet him and had been advised to
fashion the definition of Indianness on the German model.
Now I come to something very personal. I spoke to my mother after three months. When I was in
JNU I never kept in regular touch. After going to prison I felt one should keep in regular touch; I
advise you to do the same. When I spoke to my mother I asked her: So you took a dig at Modiji? She
replied that it was not a dig at him. To make fun of people is their prerogative. We just express
our pain those who understand, cry, and those who dont, laugh. My mother said, It was my pain
which made me say Modiji is also a son to a mother, my son has been falsely accused in a sedition
case. So when he talks about mann ki baat, why not also talk about maa ki baat (mothers
plight)?
What words of comfort could I offer her? Whatever is happening in this country shows a dangerous
pathology. Here I am not talking about one party or one media channel, or only about soldiers I
am visualising the entire country. What will be the face of this country when it is emptied of its
people? That is why it is important to salute all those people who have stood up in support of JNU.
They understand the importance of JNU 60% of its students are women. Moreover, despite any
shortcomings it may have, JNU is one of the few institutions which implements the reservation
policy; where it doesnt we fight to ensure it does so.
Also the people who come here I have not told you until now, my family lives on 3000 rupees.
Would I be able to pursue a PhD in any big university? So when a serious offensive is mounted
against JNU, the people who are standing up for it are also being tarred with the same brush (in
saying this I am not expressing sympathies for any particular political party, for I have my own
ideological path). Sitaram Yechury has been charged with sedition, Rahul Gandhi, D. Raja and
Kejriwal too. Even those from the media who are speaking up for JNU actually they are not
speaking up for JNU, they are stating the truth as truth and falsehood as falsehood are being
hounded and threatened.
Where is this self-proclaimed nationalism coming from? I was asked by some in prison whether I
really shouted those slogans. I said, yes, and I will do so again.
My question is, Are you [those in power] able to see the difference or has your rationality been
destroyed. Is it a good thing to lose ones rationality so soon because 69% of the people of this
country voted against this kind of mindset? Only 31% voted for you and among them were some
who were taken in by your slogans. Some of the people you lured with your har har slogan can only
think of the price of arhar [dal] these days.
So dont delude yourself that your victory is forever. If you repeat a hundred times that the sun is
the moon, will the sun become the moon? Certainly not. It will remain what is the sun even if
you repeat your lie a 1000 times.
The beauty of it is that in parliament they table a call attention motion, but outside the Lok Sabha
across the country they revert to the distract attention motion draw people away from their
genuine problems and entrap them in ever new agendas. Here the Occupy UGC movement was
going apace and comrade Rohith was killed. As soon as we raised our voice for him came the new
salvo witness the biggest betrayal of the nation, look carefully at the epicentre of sedition. This
agenda too will lose steam.
So they are planning their next move Ram mandir, what else. Let me tell you about a conversation
I had with a policeman just before stepping out of prison.
He: do you believe in religion?
I: I need to know about religion to be a believer.
He: You must have been born in some family?

I: Coincidentally, I was born in a Hindu family
He: So do you know something about your religion?
I: From the little I know I can say that God created this earth and is present in every little speck.
What do you say?
He: Absolutely right
I: Some people want to create something for God. What do you have to say about it?!
He: Height of madness.
You cannot dupe the people endlessly with an agenda that has run its course. Your duplicitous
game helped you gain from 80 to 180 seats once, but not anymore, for the axis has shifted. But still
they will not give up their efforts to distract peoples attention. They dont want the people to raise
genuine issues.
(For the entire text of Kanhaiya Kumar's speech in JNU please go to the Wire here.)
Tags:
JNU
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Kanhaiya Kumar
JNUSU
Narendra Modi
BJP
Sedition

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