Bishops must be the voice of the suffering Church… as Pope says, women & laity must play bigger role

“Bishops must be the voice of the suffering Church, not the dormant, triumphalist Church.
Let’s follow the guidance of The Holy Father – bigger role for the laity and women. PM Modi has to be asked tough questions on Christians.” – says Derek.

In a first of its kind, Derek O’Brien interacted with the Christian community in Gujarat. Archbishop Thomas Macwan (in pic above) presided over the two-hour programme, SPEAK UP, in Ahmedabad. The Archbishop endorsed O’Brien’s view and emphasized it was time to ‘Speak Up’.

The programme was held on 9 January, 2025 at St. Xavier’s, Ahmedabad. The event was also attended by Bishop Rethna Swamy and Archbishop Emeritus Stanislaus Fernandes SJ, Sr. Kalak the Superior General of the Little Daughters of St Francis Xavier, the Vicar Generals of the Gandhinagar, Rajkot and Ahmedabad Dioceses, ex-Provincials, and 200 members the laity.

Father Cedric Prakash, who coordinated the event, said, “Today’s meeting was the beginning of a new dawn. There will be similar events organised in all state capitals”.

Reported by – Aubrey White

Coverage of Ahmedabad event:

PTI–https://tinyurl.com/3rdakk2u
Deccan Herald–https://tinyurl.com/5h3mxjxv
The Print–https://tinyurl.com/yc65tees
Devidiscourse–https://tinyurl.com/5n6mc6s7

Earlier Coverage:
English:

Hindi:

Amar Ujala–https://tinyurl.com/2wemm5p8
Republic Bharat–https://tinyurl.com/2uhntpxp
IBC24–https://tinyurl.com/2u6t39a7

Posted 10th January 2025 by Derek O'Brien

Nov

India Is Failing Its Young. But Happy Children’s Day, I Guess

by Derek O'Brien

As the nation celebrates Children’s Day, can we look a child in the eye and say: ‘Happy Children’s Day’. Have we let the kids of our nation down.

The Union government had sanctioned an Eklavya school near 11-year-old Sulekha’s home. Today, Sulekha is 16. The school in her neighbourhood is still not functional. This is true for two out of five schools sanctioned under the Eklavya Model Residential School scheme. Sulekha is forced to enrol in the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) located in an ‘educationally backward area’. Her favourite class isn’t held because the teacher’s position has not yet been filled by the administration that reports to the Union government. As of July 2024, there are over 4,000 teacher vacancies in KGBVs. The highest vacancies are in Uttar Pradesh. Even for subjects with assigned teachers, classes do not take place daily—teachers are frequently absent. It is common practice that even for a five-day week, teachers take an extra day off.

A Grim Childhood

Sulekha is in class 10 now. She struggles to read texts of what a student in class 2 should know. She is unable to solve maths problems that are from the class 3 level. One out of four rural youth, between the ages of 14 to 18, demonstrate a similar gap in learning. Research suggests that half the students in this age group are unable to solve arithmetic that is taught in class five.

To support her family, Sulekha has been forced to drop out of school. One in every five students is compelled to do so. As an alternative to school education, she then enrols herself in the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)—a “flagship” scheme by the Union government, launched to upskill youth in order to improve the employment opportunities available to them. Sulekha completes all the requirements of the programme. She is even awarded with a certificate. But nothing changes. Like half of the certificate holders, she finds no job.

Coping with all this pressure at a young age can be traumatic. On paper, teenagers with mental health issues can seek help through Manodarpan, a mental health support helpline launched by the Union government during the pandemic. A good idea but poorly implemented. Calls to the helpline (844 844 0632) almost always go unanswered. There are just 366 counsellors listed in Manodarpan’s directory across the country. The District Mental Health Programme is no better. Just 1,178 psychiatrists and 513 trained psychologists in total.

Thousands Of Sulekhas

Sulekha’s story is not a one-off. It is the story of hundreds of thousands of youngsters in India. Thirty-five students commit suicide every day (the actual numbers could be even higher).

Many such students depend on schemes like Samagra Shiksha, which provides for teacher salaries, fees for those enrolled under Right To Education, uniforms and school infrastructure. However, the funds under the scheme for states ruled by non-BJP parties like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab, West Bengal, and Delhi have either been stalled or denied. Why? Is it because they objected to a certain suffix in the name of the scheme? The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 advocates for an allocation of 6% of the GDP to education. Good intentions, but the reality is a mirage. In 2023-24, the Union allocated 0.44% of GDP to education. This was reduced to 0.37% in this year’s Budget. Sorry Sulekha, we failed you.

[This article was also published in NDTV| Thursday, November 14, 2024]

Posted 14th November 2024 by Derek O'Brien

Nov

Big Poll Promises From Maharashtra To Michigan – But Where Are The Jobs?

by Derek O'Brien

Eight thousand miles away, across an ocean, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have desperately tried to woo youth and women before election day. Also in November, in the country of Kamala Devi Harris’s maternal ancestors, political parties are reaching out to 6 crore women voters and 2.5 crore youth in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Raise your hand if you are a woman or between the ages of 18 and 30. They want your vote.

Campaigns of political parties in these two states are focused, from ‘Mati, Beti, Roti’ and ‘Ladki Bahin Yojana’, to ‘Maiya Samman scheme’ and a youth unemployment benefit scheme. The 8.5 crore voters in the youth and women demographic can clearly be the inflexion point.

But for all the pre-poll promises to youth and women, these statistics tell a story.

About 75 lakh youth enter the labour force every year in India
Youth unemployment rate has been at a high 10% for the last two years
One in three youth are neither in education, employment, nor training. Women account for a staggering 95% of this group
The urban female unemployment rate for 2023 averaged at nearly 9%. For young urban females, it was 20%
In 2022, the unemployment rate was six times higher for individuals with secondary or higher education, and nine times higher for graduates, than those who could not read or write
In 2023-24, the unemployment rate for graduates was at 13%, and postgraduates at 12%
Unemployment rate among educated females is among the worst in the country, with 20% of graduates and 22.5% of post-graduates unemployed
The Economic Survey reveals that half of all individuals are not ready to be employed upon graduating from college
Only four out of ten youth in the workforce possess formal skills
The female labour force participation rate is at 32%, compared to 58% for men. In urban areas, it is 28% for women compared to 60% for men
The Union government introduced a new internship scheme in October 2024 to reduce the unemployment rate in the country. A top company needs to train 4,000 people a year to achieve the target set by the Union government. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that a private firm will need to spend ₹ 20 crore every year to train youngsters. How many companies will?

Even after training, there is no guarantee that the trainees will be retained or find a job in the formal workforce. This is especially worrying since this scheme comes at a time when there have been job cuts by major companies across the globe.

Three Constructive Suggestions

Experts have suggested that a better way to roll out the scheme would have been by engaging Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) instead of big firms. Interns often gain more practical experience in smaller firms, and these businesses, in turn, benefit from an extra set of hands. Additionally, the likelihood of retaining interns and converting them into medium- to long-term employees would be significantly higher, creating a more sustainable model for both interns and MSMEs. This would also encourage and ease the transition of an own account establishment (establishment operated without any hired employees) to a hired worker establishment (establishment operated with at least one hired employee), which would benefit the economy more.

To tackle urban unemployment, the Union government should accept what many states have done, and the parliamentary standing committee on labour had suggested in its 25th report: create an employment guarantee programme for urban areas with special emphasis on women. States like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Telangana, and West Bengal already run similar schemes.

An urban unemployment guarantee programme will be a step in line with the Right to Livelihood, which has been read into the Right to Life through judicial interpretation. Moreover, it will be a step towards turning the Right to Work (Article 41), currently a directive principle, into a fundamental right.

Joyce Banda, former President of one of the world’s poorest countries, Malawi, put it well, “The seeds of success in every nation on earth are best planted in women and children”.

[This article was also published in NDTV | Monday, November 4, 2024]

Posted 4th November 2024 by Derek O'Brien

Sep

How direct benefit transfer empowers women

by Derek O'Brien

Let me begin by sharing a few startling statistics. India’s female labour force participation rate is just 28 per cent. One out of three young people is not engaged in education, employment or training, with women making up 95 per cent of this group. For every five men in managerial positions, only one is a woman. India ranked 127th out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2023. Three out of 10 women in the age group of 18-49 years have experienced violence from their spouses as per a survey by Niti Aayog.

In election manifestos, speeches in Parliament or internal resolutions, every political party will tell you that there is “a need for women to be empowered, financially and socially”. That is easier said than done. The challenge is: How do you provide financial autonomy, or even a small degree of financial autonomy, when the majority of women are outside the purview of the labour force? Enter, Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT).

All the data from ground research that your columnist has gleaned on this subject indicates one important trend: Much of the income that comes through DBT is spent by the woman at her own discretion. Targeting low-income households through these schemes is especially beneficial as these households allocate a larger proportion of their income to basic necessities like food and fuel. This is evident from the fact that the bottom 20 per cent of rural households spend 53 per cent of their income on food, while urban households in the same bracket allocate 49 per cent. Given these patterns of high consumption, much of the money provided through DBT circulates back into the economy.

Now to the politics of DBT, which is not so cut and dried. Rolling out the scheme does not guarantee an election win. YSRCP’s Jagananna Amma Vodi, launched in January 2020, did not do the magic for Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh in June 2024. In Telangana, the story was different. KTR’s BRS must be ruing the fact that they didn’t have a similar DBT scheme in place. Congress’ Mahalakshmi Scheme, adapted from their own Karnataka (Gruha Lakshmi) model and swiftly introduced after the big Telangana Assembly win in 2023, paid rich electoral dividends in the 18th Lok Sabha election.

Let’s look at Maharashtra and the DBT play. The state government announced the Ladki Bahin scheme in the budget this June. The first tranche reached the bank accounts of women in August. The second tranche is likely to reach beneficiaries mid-October. Is this the primary reason why the Maharashtra elections were not announced along with elections in Haryana, and Jammu & Kashmir? Will the Ladki Bahin scheme be enough to secure the NDA government? Or will the heinous sexual assault on two children in Badlapur be a flashpoint? Let your columnist stick his neck out and call a win for the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition later this year.

Besides Maharashtra, NDA states like Assam and Madhya Pradesh run similar schemes. Opposition states running DBT schemes for women are Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab. West Bengal has Lakshmir Bhandar. Amartya Sen’s Pratichi Trust, analysing Bengal’s Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, opined that cash incentives have enhanced women’s ability to make financial decisions and improved their position within the family. The study stated that four out of five women spend the money at their will, and one out of 10 decide how to spend the money after chatting with their husbands. Also, the women themselves had reported that their position in the family improved, empowering them in reality.

All these schemes are fully sponsored by the states. Then there are 53 ministries under the Union government that run 315 DBT schemes. Of these, 13 are related to the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The ministry has an abysmal track record in implementing the schemes and ranks 31 in the DBT Performance Rankings. Intriguingly, there is no central scheme that directly transfers financial support universally to all women or specifically targets low-income women (the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana gives financial support to pregnant and lactating mothers).

In an election speech earlier this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on record, “We (BJP) will not stop the DBT scheme (Lakshmir Bhandar). In fact, we will raise the assistance by Rs 100.” It isn’t only Shah who is impressed. The IMF has called India’s DBT schemes a “logistical marvel”. So, should we wait for a national rollout? This will, in a small way, help change for the better the statistics mentioned in the opening of this column.

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Friday, September 13, 2024]

Posted 13th September 2024 by Derek O'Brien

Feb

For My Mother Language – It’s Time Bengali Got Classical Status

by Derek O'Brien

I am proud of my mother language.

আমি আমার মাতৃভাষা নিয়ে গর্বিত |

मुझे अपनी मातृभाषा पर गर्व है |

என் தாய்மொழியை நினைத்து பெருமைக் கொள்கிறேன்.

Linguistic politics has been a central theme of Indian democracy. The Visalandhra movement and the demise of veteran freedom fighter Potti Sriramulu of Andhra Pradesh (erstwhile Madras Presidency) prompted Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to declare the linguistic reorganisation of Indian states. After 1989, with regional parties gaining considerable influence in the formation of coalition governments in New Delhi, the demand for classical language status for Tamil grew stronger. In 2004, the Union Government conceded to the political pressure and created a new category of languages, known as ‘Classical Languages’. Tamil was the first beneficiary. Since then, Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014) were added to the list.

The West Bengal government has been advocating for the recognition of Bengali as a Classical Language. Let us examine whether this demand holds any merit.

Distinct Identity

Vaṅga-Bhāsa was the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient Janapada of Vanga Desa, in the eastern region of the Indian subcontinent. The term ‘Vaṅga’ first appears in the Aitareyya Brahmana. Distinguished linguist Dr Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay in his work Origin and Development of the Bengali Language writes that modern-day Bengal was a conglomeration of several territories that were not Aryanised till the 4th century BCE.

Baudhayana also excludes Bengal from the land of Aryans, making it abundantly clear that Bengal had a different culture and language. As noted by Dr. Chattopadhyay and Dr. Sukumar Sen, the Bengali language acquired its distinct form in the 10th century. They have traced the origin of Bengali to the 6th century Magadhi Apabhramsha, a written language that evolved from the spoken Magadhi Prakrit prevalent in Eastern India. When King Shashanka established his independent Gauda kingdom in the 7th century in Bengal, this newborn Bengali language became the official language of his Gauda-Vanga Rashtra. This is supported by Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah, an accomplished linguist and philologist.

The beginning of Bengali literature was marked with the Buddhist text Caryāpada, written between the 8th and 12th centuries. A large number of Siddhacharyas who wrote these were from Bengal, and as such, Bengali’s claim on the Caryāpada verses is far stronger than that of any other Indian language. Archaeological findings and inscriptions in Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese indicate that Bengali as a language existed even in the 3rd-4th century BCE.

While Bengali meets all the criteria as outlined in the 2004 Government of India notification, consider these:

International Mother Language Day (February 21) commemorates the Bengali Language Movement, which ultimately led to the formation of Bangladesh.
Bengali is the second most spoken language in India, spoken by 8% of the country’s population from the states of West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, and Jharkhand. It is also the seventh most spoken language in the world.
The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were composed by Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali.
All Parliament sessions begin and end with songs written in Bengali language.

The New Education Policy provides for training in the six officially recognised classical languages, as well as Pali, Prakrit and Persian, as part of the curriculum.

Foundation Of Indian Nationalism

Bengal was the centre of the renaissance movement in late-18th-century India. From Raja Ram Mohan Roy to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, from Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay to Rabindranath Tagore, the foundation of Indian nationalism is written in golden letters in Bengali. Our school textbooks tell us about Vande Mataram and the lives and contributions of heroes like Kanailal Dutta, Master Da Surya Sen, Khudiram Bose, Prafulla Chaki, Dinabandhu Mitra, Madhusudan Dutt, Romesh Chunder Dutt, Chandranath Basu, Sri Aurobindo and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Inspired by Swami Vivekananda, Bagha Jatin famously remarked, “Amra morbo, jagat jagbe” (we shall die to awaken the nation).

The struggle for the preservation of linguistic traditions and their official recognition is an arduous journey. Currently, 38 languages, including Ho, Saora, Kuruk, Garo, Khasi, Tulu, Nicobarese and Magahi, among others, await inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The delay in granting recognition to these languages raises serious concerns.

Apart from Bengali, languages such as Pali, Marathi, Manipuri, and Maithili have also been demanding classical language status. All six languages recognised as classical languages were acknowledged between 2004 and 2014. Bengali has still not been included as a classical language. Can you believe it.

[This article was also published in NDTV | Thursday, February,22 2024]

Posted 22nd February 2024 by Derek O'Brien

Feb

How BJP government’s Data Fails Rekha, Kavita, and Mohan

by Derek O'Brien

The interim budget session of Parliament has just concluded. Nine days of the Union government using a deluge of several self-aggrandising adjectives — some romantic, others poetic and almost all unsubstantiated by fact. Intellectual dishonesty about data is endemic. This columnist delves into the lives behind the numbers. The people who aggregate into government “data” and find out how India really lives. This is the story of Rekha, Kavita and Mohan.

Health: “The Ayushman Bharat scheme has greatly helped the poor.”

Scenario A: Rekha visits a government hospital and waits in a long queue. She desperately needs medical assistance. She knows the treatment she will get here is of poor quality, but this is all her pocket allows. Not just the quality of the treatment, but the process of accessing it is also difficult. Data stored with government hospitals under the Ayushman Bharat scheme is riddled with errors. This pushes Rekha, and citizens like her, further away from timely healthcare. The numbers either misidentify the dead, incorrectly record surgery details or entirely leave out beneficiaries from the list. If Rekha is lucky enough to not get entangled in all the red tape, she would be treated at a government facility, where resources are limited and facilities often sub-par. What more can one expect from a government that invests a mere 2.1 per cent of GDP in healthcare? Endless out-of-pocket expenditure coupled with insufficient government support impoverishes 55 million Indians every year.

Scenario B: Rekha attempts self-medication to save money. This severely jeopardises her health. According to the recent NFHS report, the proportion of households that typically avoided utilising government health facilities between 2019 and 2021 was a staggering 49.9 per cent. This means that half the country does not turn to government facilities in their time of need. Reality gets worse for Indian women like Rekha. Six out of 10 women from the general category, and seven out of 10 women from the tribal community have reported at least one concern in accessing healthcare. P.S: The International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) Director and Senior Professor K S James, who was behind this year’s NFHS data, was suspended by the Union government shortly after the release of the report.

Food security: “India’s food diversity is a dividend for global investors.”

Scenario A: Kavita decides to buy her family’s monthly ration from the government-subsidised ration shop. The prices are low but so is the nutritional value. Kavita’s is not a one-off case. Her reality confirms what various independent surveys say, like the Global Hunger Index where India ranked 111 out of 125 countries. Kavita’s reliance on subsidised options amplifies the struggles faced by countless low-income Indian families whose nutritional needs remain unfulfilled.

Scenario B: Kavita opts to buy groceries from the supermarket close by. It gives her more options, and better quality, albeit at a higher cost. Kavita reduces the number of meals she has in order to afford the quality. Her predicament supplements the report recently published by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO which finds that three out of four Indians (a staggering one billion people) cannot afford a healthy diet.

Employment: “Today, every youth believes that they can cement their job position with hard work and skills”

Scenario A: Mohan decides to participate in a recruitment drive organised at the local school. Like the five thousand others from his state, he joins the queue for a job in war-torn Israel. Mohan fears for his life but the prospect of earning over one lakh rupees per month is tempting. That is ten times more than what he is earning now. Twenty-four year-old Mohan knows that there would be a grave threat to his life in a country where 30,000 people have been killed since October of last year. However, in the grocery store in his locality, a packet of rice costs 56 per cent more while dal costs 120 per cent more than it did earlier. If he wants to provide for his family, then a job in a war zone is his only option.

Scenario B: Mohan is considering taking up a job as a delivery agent for a food services company. He has a graduate degree in economics from a reputed central university. Sadly, much like the other 42 per cent graduates under 25 years of age, he has not found employment. It has now been 11 months. Every morning he finds himself as one of those 10 per cent who the newspapers report to be unemployed at a two-year record high. Mohan has to provide for his ageing parents. He understands that as a gig worker, no law protects him from losing his job or working unfixed strenuous hours. So he tells himself, “let me board that plane to Israel.”

The voices of Kavita, Rekha and Mohan did not find a place in the Prime Minister’s marathon monologue in Parliament.

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Friday, February 16, 2024]

Posted 16th February 2024 by Derek O'Brien

Jan

Let Young MPs Light Up Parliament Which Has Become a “Deep, Dark Chamber”

by Derek O'Brien

Very happy with the news that Swati Maliwal, the young firebrand chief of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), has been nominated by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a candidate for election to Rajya Sabha. Maliwal (39), when elected, will be part of a small group of young MPs in Rajya Sabha who are in their 30s and early 40s.

This includes Jebi Mather from the Congress, AAP’s Raghav Chadha (35), and three of my colleagues from the Trinamool Congress.

One is Saket Gokhale (36), among India’s foremost RTI activists, who has also faced incarceration for his activism. There’s Prakash Chik Baraik (42) a popular and rising tribal leader from the Alipurduars who comes from a humble background of tea estate workers. More young blood. Meet Samirul Islam (36) an alumnus of IIT Delhi who spent a short while overseas and then gave it all up to come back to India and work at the grassroots for the welfare of the socially challenged, especially migrant workers.

Then there’s the plucky Jebi Mather of the Congress from Kerala who is an advocate, a former Municipal Councillor and, astonishingly, the first woman Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala in the last 42 years.

These young colleagues of mine have entered Rajya Sabha with a great amount of hope and with the determination to excel in their responsibilities as parliamentarians. Whenever I chat with them, I am glad to see their enthusiasm and their faith in parliamentary procedure.

Let these young people do all it takes to light up an institution that is being turned into a deep, dark chamber.

No place for disagreements

In 1987, the Chairman of Rajya Sabha emphasised, “Every member is entitled to express his opinion. Merely because you disagree, you cannot shut him down. Then, there will be no parliament.”

Between 2019-2023, MPs faced suspension on multiple occasions, marking a 13-fold increase from the 15th Lok Sabha (2009-2014). Compare that to MPs from the ruling dispensation. Despite allegations of sexual harassment, use of toxic communal slurs on the floor of the House, and enabling a security breach in parliament, no action has been taken against any of them. No BJP MP has faced suspension in the last 10 years.

Quality of Committees

Parliamentary committees play a vital role by taking up crucial policy matters for discussion, inviting participation from stakeholders and domain experts. Consider this. The Home Affairs Committee while analysing the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) Bill, 2006, which had 41 amendments, sat for 11 sittings. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, one of the three Bills overhauling the entire criminal justice system, with 356 amendments (almost nine times that of the CrPC Bill) was discussed in just 13 sittings.

Bulldozing Legislation

Former leader of Rajya Sabha, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, stressed in the Constituent Assembly that the purpose of a second chamber is to conduct dignified debates, delaying impulsive and hasty legislation. Significant Bills like the 1977 Banking Service Commission Repeal Bill and the 2002 Prevention of Terrorism Bill were passed in Lok Sabha but rejected by Rajya Sabha.

In the last winter session, 47% of Opposition MPs were suspended for demanding a discussion and statement from the Home Minister on the parliament security breach. As a result, the discussion on the Provisional Collection of Taxes Bill saw participation by just six members and was passed in 30 minutes. The Telecommunications Bill saw only eight members taking part in the discussion and was passed in an hour. The three critical Criminal Law Bills were passed in five hours, with the Home Minister himself speaking for an hour. Since 2019, over 100 Bills have been passed in less than two hours.

Stealth and Secrecy

Rule 69 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) states that a Bill should be circulated to MPs two days before it is taken up for consideration. Though the Chairman has discretionary power, this was a long established practice that had become convention.

Today, secrecy reigns supreme. Take the case of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019, which stripped J&K of its statehood. The Supplementary List of Business reached the members at 11:18 am, while the Bill was introduced at 11:07 am. It was discussed and passed on the very same day.

Not House of Elders, but Council of States

The Council of States, unlike the House of Lords in the UK, was designed to genuinely deliberate and represent states and their interests. A notable instance of this occurred in 1989 when Rajya Sabha rejected the Nagarpalika Bill passed by the Rajiv Gandhi government. The Opposition in Rajya Sabha perceived it as a threat to the federal structure of the country.

Post 2014, there has been a paradigm shift. The Opposition has been systematically targeted, from muting microphones and blacking out live feed, to outright suspension. The principles of federalism have been trampled upon. Bills aimed at weakening state governments such as the J&K Reorganisation Bill, 2023 and the Government of NCT of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023 were passed in less than half a day.

In March 2016, the Prime Minister had stated in the Rajya Sabha, “This is the Upper House. Whatever happens in this House, its impact is felt on Lok Sabha, Assemblies and Municipal Corporations. So we should think how to create an atmosphere by which democracy can be strengthened.”

[This article was also published in NDTV | Friday, January 12, 2024]

Posted 12th January 2024 by Derek O'Brien