06 January 2021: The Hindu Editorial Analysis

1) The dark step of writing hate into law?

The new marriage laws put state power and the law behind majoritarian communal biases, boosting regressive mores.

GS 1: Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.

GS 2  : Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

GS 4:  Ethics and Human Interface: Essence, determinants and consequences of Ethics in-human actions.

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CONTEXT:

1. Uttar Pradesh recently passed an ordinance which criminalizes inter­faith marriages, which is against the exercise of the free will of individual citizens in India.
2.  These laws blatantly violate the Right to Privacy, which the Supreme Court of India in a much-lauded judgment in 2017, decreed to be fundamental right.

Interfaith marriages and the Constitution:

1. The right to marry a person of one’s choice is a guarantee under Article 21 and it is.also granted in The Special Marriage Act, in 1954.
2. At the same time, freedom of conscience, the practice and propagation of a religion of one’s choice, including not following any religion, are guaranteed under Article 25.
3. The domain of matrimony is occupied by separate laws governing weddings that take place under religious traditions, and the Special Marriage Act that enables a secular marriage.

 

Fundamentally wrong:

1. Under the Constitution, it is the individual citizen who has and exercises rights and obligations. But these new laws treat religious communities, instead of individual citizens, as basic entities.
2. Constitution does address communities when speaking of minority rights and untouchability, it is to only acknowledge and overcome social discrimination because that impedes the ability of those citizens to exercise their rights as individuals. 
3. Violate privacy, choice rights, the level of state interference in a civil union, which is a solemnisation of a relationship between two individuals, breaches the basic structure of the Constitution.
4.   Competitive communalism fanning charges of Hindu betis in North India being taken away like cattle, are being relived now. By Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020.

 

What is the proposed UP law on ‘love jihad’?

1. Conversion done though “misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means” would face jail term of one to 5 years, and a minimum fine of Rs 15,000.
2. Conversion of a minor, a woman from the SC or ST would have to face a jail term from three to 10 years, with a minimum fine of Rs 25,000.
3. If such conversion is found at the mass level, then those guilty would face jail term from three to 10 years, with a minimum fine of Rs 50,000.

 

Need for such law?

1. NO : Because  many other recent ‘laws’ — on slaughter of cattle, marriage, and religious conversions — which taken together, target Muslims, both by denying them shared social spaces and their rights as equal citizens of the republic.
2. YES: However, it still allowed intrusion by the state, unlike under personal laws, by demanding notices to be put up in advance, The state of UP is witnessing rising incidents of forced religious conversions or conversions through fraudulent ways. And  against allegedly lured and honey-trapped.

 

Cost of inaction?

1. Inter-religious marriages may be less than 2.5% of all marriages they put state power and the law itself behind majoritarian communal biases which empower regressive social mores governing marriage and fellowship.
2. Unfairly treating all women in the same way and   Reconversion to a person’s previous religion is not illegal. It may increase communal violence. 

 

Conclusion:

1. . Time to revisit the past judgement  In Rev Stainislaus v State of Madhya Pradesh (1977), the Supreme Court held that the fundamental right to “propagate” religion does not include the right to convert a person to another religion.
2. The ordinance puts an incredible chilling effect on the freedom of conscience and state must reconsider it.

 

2.) Shock treatment will not work in agriculture?

    Post-1991, changes in industry caused a second de-industrialisation; the results in agriculture are likely to be no different.

GS – 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation

GS-3:  marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints; e-technology in the aid of farmers.

GS-3: Effects of liberalization on the economy, changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth.

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CONTEXT:

1. Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC)-mandi policies for agricultural marketing, initiated in the 1960s for a few crops, have outlived their utility and the system needs a new policy in the face of the agricultural sector’s growth slowdown.
2. The government has opened up the output market with the aim to let market forces improve efficiency and create more value for farmers and the economy.
3. Problem of stagnation and high input prices in agriculture can be addressed through a systematic approach proposed in the M.S. Swaminathan Commission and/or the Ashok Dalwai Committee.

 

 Replacement of Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) is needded?

1. Crop-composition is not widening, and investments in land are not happening.
2. Market pattern and Utility system needs a new policy in the face of the agricultural sector’s growth slowdown due to restriction impose by WTO.

Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) is  Marketing board established by state governments in India to ensure farmers are safeguarded from exploitation by large retailers, as well as ensuring the farm to retail price spread does not reach excessively high levels. APMCs are regulated by states through their adoption of a Agriculture Produce Marketing Regulation (APMR) Act. The Hindu

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The government has opened up the output market:  

1. Opening up the output market with the aim to let market forces improve efficiency and create more value for farmers and the economy.
2. The recent passed three new Laws state that farmers are now free to sell all their products anywhere and to anyone beyond the physical premises of APMC markets.
3. The laws also promote contract farming through establishing partnerships between farmers and food-processing companies, and also permit unlimited hoarding of food except in special circumstances.

 What farmers want?

1.  Their produce prices should be the cost of production plus a reasonable mark-up.
2.  Fluctuations in prices should be minimal.
3.  There should be little or no interface with legal or administrative officials — they are not comfortable dealing with the “sahibs and the police”.

 

New markets are an unknown to farmer:

1. The first law of the Minimum Support Price-mandi is a known devil, but the new markets will be an unknown ghost with no control over them by anyone.
2.  Farmers’ anger or arbitrate(by SDM not by Court) in difficult situations, malpractices in the new systems are neither forecast-able nor is there any authority to report to. 
3. While the government says that the mandi-MSP system will continue, the question is, for how long? If the alternative traders offer better prices, farmers will go there and not to the mandis.
4. Traders could reduce the prices on more than one pretext, such as finding faults with the product; declining to buy on the pretext of glut (a wait and watch strategy); defaulting on payments, and so on.

 

 Advantage corporate buyers over farmer:

1. The corporate-buyers might just not buy the full quantity of the product on one or another pretext or delay payments , and if farmers complain, the corporates have access to a battery of lawyers, the fine print in contracts, the advantage of language, and, above all, the capacity to wait it out.
2. The other issue is in regard to different regions and crops. Many proponents of the agri-marketing laws maintain that farmers from outside the wheat-rice belts in northern India are not protesting. Evidently so, since the country is diverse with some 15 agroclimatic zones and has over 50 crops grown.

 

Benefits in fevered?

1.  New selling option: The bill gives the long sought freedom to the farmers of selling their produce via more than one channel of APMCs.
2. Might be better price: It will also help farmers of regions with surplus produce to get better prices and consumers of regions with shortages, lower prices.
3. Promote national and international trade: It will also promote barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade and commerce outside the physical premises of markets notified under State Agricultural Produce marketing legislations.
4. One India, One Agriculture Market: The Bill basically aims at creating additional trading opportunities outside the APMC market yards to help farmers get remunerative prices due to additional competition.

 

Way forward:

1. The farmers will earn better income as they get to dictate their own price and do not have to pay transportation charges anymore.
2. Having a variety of buyers will protect farmers from exploitation and by having more sellers (farmers), consumers can buy better products at better deals.
3. Although the role of middlemen is not going to end completely, their hold on the trade will not be as strong.
4. Competition is the best protector of stakeholders whether it is consumer or the farmers.
5. Shock treatments do not work anywhere, be it agriculture, industry or the economy. Many an industry, post-1991, shut down due to “shock treatment” then, resulting in a second de-industrialization and the loss of hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs.

 

3) Changing contours of India-U.K. ties

The two countries have a shared past and need to chart a different shared future.

GS 2: Effect of policies and politics of developed countries on India’s interests

GS 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

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CONTEXT:

1. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who, due to the ravages of COVID-19 mutations in the U.K., has expressed his inability to attend a truncated version of India’s Republic Day parade this month.
2. From Britain’s point of view, Mr. Modi’s invitation to its Prime Minister was fortuitous because Brexit necessitates that every effort be made to seek commercial advantage in Asian countries with high growth rates.
3.  The two countries may settle for a limited one perhaps covering pharmaceuticals, financial technology, chemicals, defence production, petroleum and food products.

 

A fortuitous invite or A pattern of choosing chief guest ?

1. The Prime Minister’s choices have mostly been leaders identified with the Western camp. Besides this, the invitation to Britain was the sixth to that country, more than to any other nation.
2. There is much in common between Mr. Modi’s recent invitees, Mr. Bolsonaro, Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson.They are all populist nationalists advocating ‘make my country great again’ and ‘my country first’. Their brand of democratic politics is self-centred and impervious to criticism.
3.  In one aspect of his invitation to Mr. Johnson, Prime Minister Modi was remarkably prescient.  With the EU-British trade agreement concluded in the dying hours of 2020, the betting now is that Mr. Johnson will lead his Conservative Party into the next election in 2024 as Prime Minister.

 

Indian and UK recent negotiation :

1. India has a shared past with Britain and needs to chart a different shared future, now that Britain has left the European Union (EU).
2. One joint enterprise will be as members of the UN Security Council where Britain has permanent status and India holds a non-permanent seat this year and next. And this year, Mr. Johnson will be hosting India as an invitee to the G-7, and the UN Climate Change Conference.
3.  India has been fruitlessly negotiating a trade agreement with the EU since 2007, during which Britain was considered the main deal-breaker.
4. The EU wanted duty reductions on autos, wines and spirits and wanted India to open financial sectors such as banking and insurance, postal, legal, accountancy, maritime and security and retail. India, as always, sought free movement for service professionals.
5. Britain is among the top investors in India and India is the second-biggest investor and a major job creator in Britain. India has a credit balance in a total trade of $16 billion, but the level is below India’s trade with Switzerland, Germany or Belgium.

 

Importance of UK for India :

1. Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) meeting:  India and the United Kingdom (UK) affirmed their shared commitment towards a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) during the 14th virtual Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) meeting.
2. Investment: It is a significant partner of India as an FDI investor after Mauritius and Singapore which ranked second and first respectively.
3. "Special and preferential": access the UK will get in the vast European market when it is out of the EU’s single-market dynamics.
4.  The UK is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and one of the strategic partners of India. UKs support at global issues like standoff with China in the Ladakh sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and claim for permanent seat at UNSC.
5. Institutionalized dialogues: India and UK have a number of bilateral dialogue mechanisms in place, covering a wide spectrum of areas including political, trade, education, science & technology, defence etc.
6. Education: Education is an important plank of the India-UK bilateral relationship. Over the last 10 years, the relationship has grown substantially with the introduction of bilateral mechanisms such as the India-UK Education Forum UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI).
7. Indian Students: UK has traditionally been a favourite destination for international students. At present, there are approximately 20,000 Indian students pursuing Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses in the UK.
8. Cultural Linkages: Cultural linkages between India and UK are deep and extensive, arising out of shared history between the two countries. There has been a gradual mainstreaming of Indian culture and absorption of Indian cuisine, cinema, languages, religion, philosophy, performing arts, etc.
9. Indian Diaspora: The India Diaspora in UK is one of the largest ethnic minority communities in the country, with the 2011 census recording approximately 1.5 million people of Indian origin in the UK equating to almost 1.8 percent of the population and contributing 6% of the country’s GDP.
10. Geopolitical Significance - The Indian Ocean is identified as a vital arena for closer defence and security cooperation between the two countries. Further, India needs UK’s support on international fora for its aim to have a permanent seat in UNSC and full membership of NSG.

 

Way forward:

1. India-UK relationship would necessarily entail the UK. is more sensitive  to India’s concerns, and for India to be less sensitive when Britain expresses its concerns.
2. Both need economic support from each after India exit form  Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and  UK from  European Union (Brexit).