When Julius Caesar’s Senate fixed January 1 as the ‘first day of the year’, the idea wasn’t only to ‘start afresh’. It was also when those in civil office were to set in motion their responsibilities. In that tradition, coming down from 45 BC, let the existing coalition government headed by Narendra Modi set out to focus and do a lot better with this list: Top 25 Must Get Done In 2025.

1. Control inflation: Retail inflation reached a 14-month high of 6.21% and food inflation reached a 15-month high of 10.87% in October 2024. In 2023, savings by households dipped to a 50-year low.

2. Make the GDP grow: The Reserve Bank of India reduced GDP growth estimates from 7.2% to 6.6% in December 2024. The repo rate was not cut for eleven consecutive terms.

3. Attract foreign investment: 13 thousand crore (1.6 billion USD) worth of foreign direct investment has decreased between 2022-23 and 2023-24.

4. Make the rupee strong: In December 2024, the rupee stayed weak for the third straight session and settled at an all-time low of 85.27 against the US dollar.

5. Generate employment: Youth unemployment rate has been at 10% for the last two years. As per the Economic Survey, half of all individuals are not ready to be employed after graduating from college.

6. Favour the common man: In the last four years, Rs 5.65 lakh crore has been written off for the industrial sector. Agriculture, the largest employer in the country, received the least attention in terms of loan write-offs among all sectors from Scheduled Commercial Banks.

7. Provide food for all: Annually, 17 lakh Indians die from diseases related to insufficient food intake.

8. Ensure equal wages for all: Annual growth rate of real wages over the last decade has been close to zero at the all-India level. Rural real wages for the last five years have declined at 0.4% and agricultural wages have become stagnant at 0.2%. Four out of five people earn less than Rs 515 as of 2021.

9. Ensure dignity of life for farmers: As per the NCRB, 30 farmers commit suicide every day. Since February 2024, 22 farmers have lost their lives and over 160 have been injured while protesting for a legal guarantee for MSP.

10. Enable safety for women: Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita deals with the offence of rape but provides an exception for marital rape, stating that “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under eighteen years of age, is not rape”.

11. Ensure dignity for the marginalised: Between 2018 and 2020, 443 people died cleaning sewers and septic tanks. Manual scavenging was banned in 2013.

12. Protect the press: Between 2014 and 2019, there were 200 serious attacks on journalists, along with arrests and interrogations. At least 194 journalists were targeted by government agencies, non-state political actors, criminals, and armed opposition groups in 2022 alone.

13. Ensure equitable representation: The representation of women in the 18th Lok Sabha is merely 13.6%. This is even less than the 17th Lok Sabha, which had 14.4% women. Only two out of 24 Parliamentary Standing Committees are chaired by women.

14. Allow legislative scrutiny: Since 2019, over 100 bills have been passed in less than two hours. In the 17th Lok Sabha, nine out of 10 bills introduced in Parliament have been marked by zero or incomplete consultations.

15. Select the Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha: The 17th Lok Sabha did not have a Deputy Speaker for its entire five-year term. The office of the Deputy Speaker continues to remain vacant even in the 18th Lok Sabha.

16. Allow criticism: The number of opposition MPs who have been suspended in the last five years has increased 13-fold. As many as 95% cases by the Enforcement Directorate in the last ten years have been filed against those from the Opposition.

17. Respect institutions: The National Commission for Backward Classes, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights do not have a Vice-Chairperson.

18. Support Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes & Other Backward Classes: As of March 2024, one out of 10 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBV) were not functional. Two out of five Eklavya schools were not functional as of July 2024.

19. Complete timelines: The 2021 Census has still not been conducted. This makes it the first Census to be delayed between 1887 and 2011.

20. Utilise funds better: As much as 80% of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’s total fund was spent on media advocacy, not for interventions on health or education.

21. Release dues owed to states: The government owes Rs 1,500 Crore under MGNREGS and Awas Yojana to West Bengal. The non-payment of the funds has directly affected the livelihood of 59 lakh MGNREGS workers.

22. Care about Manipur: The violence in Manipur has continued for more than a year, causing the displacement of 67,000 people, of which 14,000 are school-going students. The Prime Minister is yet to visit the state.

23. Safeguard minorities and their welfare: The NCRB recorded 378 instances of communal violence in 2021 and 272 such instances in 2022. In 2023, India witnessed 668 documented hate speech incidents against one community alone. One hundred and twenty-eight properties were demolished between April and June 2022, following communal violence and protests.

24. Build secure public infrastructure: There were 244 train accidents between 2017 and 2022. As many as 135 people died when a suspension bridge collapsed in Morbi. Fourty-one workers were trapped for 17 days after the Uttarkashi Tunnel caved in.

25. Enable a safer internet: Frauds relating to “digital arrests” in the first nine months of 2024 amounted to losses worth Rs 1616 crore. The Digital Data Protection Rules have not been notified despite the Act being passed over a year ago.

[This article was also published in NDTV| Thursday, January 2, 2025]

There’s a kind of mystic magic when you find an unlikely hero. How many of us would have predicted, before the start of the T20 World Cup, that Axar Patel would be competing for headline space with the big boys: Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma? Far from the Caribbean beaches, in Lutyens’ Delhi, another unlikely hero has emerged: Awadhesh Prasad.

Even just a fortnight ago, most would ask — Awadhesh who?

In the very short, just concluded inaugural session of the 18th Lok Sabha, Awadhesh Prasad was my (unlikely) hero. My first glimpse of him was from the special visitors gallery in the Lok Sabha. I was seated there as the 127 newly-elected MPs from the last three states (in alphabetical order — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal) took their oath, one Member of Parliament at a time.

The ceremony is predictable. The Protem Speaker announces the name of the new MP. Rise in your seat. Walk up to the lectern. Read the oath. Enthusiastically add a slogan (later, slogan gets deleted from the records, because the rules don’t permit it), complete oath. Shake hands or exchange a namaskar with the Presiding Officer. Sign register. Done. Next.

It’s around 4 pm on a drowsy afternoon in Lok Sabha on the second and final day of the taking of oaths. From my perch in the gallery, I do a quick head count. There aren’t more than 150 MPs in the House. And yet, when the Protem Speaker announces, “Awadhesh Prasad, Faizabad”, there is a lusty cheer from the full contingent of Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress MPs present.

The first-time MP stands up. Nice and easy. Unhurried. Adjusts his red cap, which members of the SP usually wear. Waves to fellow MPs. Acknowledges his leader seated next to him. Holds up his copy of the Constitution of India. Soaks in the moment and then struts up to take his oath. Struts? Yes. Here’s the man who won a significant victory in Ayodhya, which is a part of the Faizabad parliamentary constituency.

Cut to the Lok Sabha visitors gallery. Seated next to me is my colleague and SP’s Rajya Sabha Parliamentary party leader, Professor Ram Gopal Yadav. He enthusiastically conducts a quick, private tutorial for me. It goes somewhat like this.

Awadhesh Prasad, SP, won Faizabad. So he actually defeated the BJP by 54,000 votes in Ayodhya. This is big. He is from the Dalit community. His win is even more special as this is a non-reserved constituency. He is 78 years old and a nine-time MLA. He studied Law at Lucknow University and entered politics soon after. He contested his first Assembly election from Sohawal in Ayodhya district in 1974. He is bilingual.

In the next 24 hours, a certain Banerjee political duo start working the phones. As always, laser focussed, they had earlier suggested the four criteria in the search for a Deputy Speaker candidate for the INDIA bloc: a) An out of the box name for powerful messaging; b) A seasoned politician; c) Our choice should rattle the BJP and d) Choose from one of the parties with 20+ MPs.

Text messages, conversations and effective coordination were fully on. Power play. All on board. Awadhesh Prasad will be the candidate for Deputy Speaker.

Article 93 mandates that the Lok Sabha “shall” and “as soon as may be” elect a Deputy Speaker, underlining both the necessity and urgency of this action. For the first time in the history of Independent India, the Constitutional position of the Deputy Speaker was left vacant for five years (2019-2024) in the 17th Lok Sabha. The 16th Lok Sabha’s Deputy Speaker was elected on the 71st day. For the 13th, 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas, the Deputy Speaker was elected on the eighth day.

During the Budget session, the INDIA bloc will certainly up the ante on the issue of installing a Deputy Speaker. Expect the NDA to be on the backfoot and delay that election. In cricketing terms, INDIA timed the ball sweetly on the opening days of Parliament. Visible teamwork. Egos were tucked away in the back pockets of flannels. More unlikely heroes will be found.

Team India. Thank you for showing us how it’s done.

P.S. It must be said, the new captain of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha has got off to a good start.

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Friday, July 5, 2024]

Six weeks, thousands of registered political parties, 97 crore eligible voters. India’s General Election of 2024 was the biggest in history. It was also a template for a post-truth, post-climate change democracy. With summertime temperatures climbing to 45 degrees and higher, campaigning and running the election machine was extremely challenging for political parties. A stifling media environment with legacy news channels and most newspapers held captive by the ruling establishment and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government added to the uphill task for all Opposition parties.

We in the Opposition — struggling to breathe in the limited space India’s Modi-fied democracy allowed us — were not the only ones trying to cope. The hapless Indian voter was also desperately attempting to keep herself informed and aware as she determined her franchise. What were the issues and themes that resonated with her or her fellow citizens? What was the truth behind the battery of data and the information blitz coming her way from the BJP and the government? In a media environment of compromise and negotiable facts, how does one delineate right from wrong? Simply put, how do you get the other point of view?

There was a time when this was easy and simple in India. That was also an easier and simpler India. There were honest, no-holds-barred debates and discussions on news television. Newspaper reports were trusted — they were bipartisan, if not neutral. Speeches and manifestoes of all major political parties were laid out threadbare. Today, India has 5,500 daily newspapers and 230 news channels, and yet the independent voice speaks in hushed tones. Encouraged by craven media barons, most publications and virtually every network have turned into brazen cheerleaders.

What is this doing to political communication in what is still the world’s largest democracy? It’s putting power in the voter’s hands, literally! The mobile phone has become the most potent election weapon — the ultimate medium of outreach and empowerment. That India has the biggest national YouTube audience — 46 crore people — is, in a sense, an indictment of the country’s formal or “Legacy Media” landscape and its fading credibility. Digital media and independent platforms rewrote the rules of political communication in Indian elections. To take one example, Ravish Kumar, a prominent and gutsy newscaster, was edged out of the NDTV network after it was bought over by a pro-BJP business tycoon. Today, Kumar runs his own YouTube channel. It has one crore subscribers.

There are many other former and formal journalists who have followed that route. Perhaps even more exciting — or sobering, for old-style media — is the new breed of citizen journalists. Very often Dhruv Rathee gets lakhs of views in the span of four to five hours; his YouTube feed has two crore subscribers. He’s no trained journalist — just an engineer with a nose for research, a flair for prose and a hard-hitting style that conquers even his home-video skills.

Prime Minister Modi himself is not unknown to this format. With two crore subscribers on YouTube, he’s the most followed politician on the platform. But unlike television and 9 out of 10 newspapers, where friends and officials can “manage” the competition, digital media isn’t an opinion monopoly in India. Not yet. The past year has seen the emergence of the “politician journalist”; largely, Members of Parliament from the Opposition who have devised a new strategy to challenge Legacy Media. Rather than send articles that are rarely printed on editorial pages and give interviews that are cut to caricatures — or appear on channels where they would be shouted down and crowded out by biased anchors and other establishment proxies — they have set up their own platforms for direct digital outreach.

The tech is rudimentary, it could even mean shooting or recording videos on mobile phones. But the uptake has been fascinating. The disintermediation of political communication, reaching voters directly and bypassing distrusted go-betweens, is exciting. It revolutionised election communication, with virtual engagement taking the place of large public meetings that are not always feasible in the summer heat. Recently Kapil Sibal, an erudite lawyer-parliamentarian and former minister, launched his own YouTube channel. He says he intends an easy conversation that brings him to the “doorsteps of Indian citizens”.

This was the big story of the India Election 2024 — a digital insurgency that has upturned the mechanics of political communication. Maybe it’s the future of politics in our unequal world.

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Friday, June 7, 2024]

The Modi government has launched a few headline-grabbing flagship schemes, ostensibly aimed at improving the lives of women in India. However, the patriarchal mindset that lies at the core of the RSS-BJP belief system has ensured that the outcomes are very different from those envisaged in the scheme documents.

A former RSS chief said that women should be staying at home and cooking. The RSS is the fountainhead of the BJP. Are women allowed in an RSS shakha? So one cannot miss the irony that in the days leading up to Women’s Day (March 8), the Prime Minister, in the face of misogyny under his watch, has been waxing eloquent about “nari shakti”. Here are six instances when his government denigrated women, but they resisted powerfully.

Female farmers

Tens of thousands of women farmers, coming from places as distant as Chhattisgarh, gathered in makeshift camps in Delhi and at the borders of Punjab, Haryana, and UP to protest against the draconian farm bills. Some staged hunger strikes wearing bright yellow scarves that represented mustard fields, while others ran medical camps and soup kitchens. Amidst speeches and silent resistance, when the Supreme Court asked them to go home, the women farmers responded with a loud “No”.

The stakes were high. Distant and exploitative markets had rendered them extremely vulnerable. As per the NCRB, nearly 10 per cent of farmers who committed suicide in 2022 are women. Over 80 per cent of rural women work in agriculture but less than 13 per cent own any land.

The women of Shaheen Bagh

Enraged by the Union government’s decision to impose unconstitutional laws on citizenship against minorities, women protestors retaliated by staging a peaceful demonstration in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh. The 101-day-long protest caught the world’s imagination as women across religions, ages and walks of life united. Shaheen Bagh became a symbol of intergenerational and intersectional political dissent to protect the Constitution. Inspired by the women there, demonstrations took place across the country.

The government clamped down with violence, specifically targeting minority-dominated areas in BJP-ruled states. In the face of severe backlash that questioned their patriotism, the women of Shaheen Bagh defiantly challenged the Prime Minister to come and speak with them. Of course, he did not.

Champion sportspersons

The sickening story of Brij Bhushan Singh — a BJP Lok Sabha MP and former President of the Wrestling Federation of India — is too well documented to bear repetition. He was present and voting when the Women’s Reservation Bill was being passed in the Lok Sabha. Enough said.

Community healthcare workers

In 2022, 10 lakh female health workers, who tirelessly provided last-mile primary care in India’s villages, were honoured with the WHO Director General’s Global Health Leaders Award. Once the Prime Minister’s tweets ceased, they were promptly cast into obscurity. Despite being the backbone of the nation’s healthcare system, ASHA workers continue to wait for the recognition they deserve.

For the last two years, more than 6,00,000 ASHA workers from all over the country have been protesting against the lack of protective gloves, PPE kits, and masks, delayed payments since the pandemic, absence of insurance coverage, and exploitative working conditions that have pushed them to the brink of poverty.

Chief Minister Ajay Bisht aka Yogi Adityanath had promised to increase the honorarium for ASHAs in Uttar Pradesh, purportedly to end the protests. Turns out, it was another jumla.

Women for Manipur

Since May 2022, over 180 lives have been lost and 60,000 people displaced in Manipur. The much-touted double-engine sarkar has miserably failed to control the situation. In July 2023, horrifying news broke about Manipur. Two women had been stripped naked and were videographed by a mob of men. Women’s organisations from across the country rose in solidarity and organised protest marches and demonstrations in Imphal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi, Goa, Bhopal, and Bengaluru. Thousands of women took to the streets demanding the resignation of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh, owning moral responsibility for the incident.

It has been nine months, yet neither the state nor the Union government has taken any responsibility. The Prime Minister has not visited the state. In a dangerous precedent, not a single question on the issue has been admitted and answered in Parliament.

MGNREGA workers

Despite being one of the best performers under the scheme, the wages of 59 lakh MGNREGA workers from West Bengal have been withheld. Women constitute more than 50 per cent of the beneficiaries. Their access to livelihood has been cut off.

MGNREGA was more than just an Act; it was a guarantee, a promise by Parliament to the people of India, especially women. Today, that promise lies broken.

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Friday, March 1, 2024]