Will a Divided BBMP Make the Difference?

Growing! (pic:ces.iisc.ernet.in)

In what can be considered a brave effort at saving Bengaluru - a city plagued by the growth paradigm - Karnataka law minister Mr Suresh Kumar and his Chief Minister Mr Jagadish Shettar have hinted at the need to divide the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in order to make civic administraion more responsive and effective.

This move is laudable indeed because this points at various lessons public administration in India needs to learn in general. Talking about decentralization as the answer to current administrative challenges BBMP has been facing, the Chief Minister's adviser on urban affairs suggests how three smaller corporations could be better than one massive corporation addressing every city matter, centrally.

Scaling this to the national level, the Center still holds close to its chest a rather huge list of items of governance, and the state of administrative affairs in the vast country is no different from how it is in Bengaluru. For instance, if Arunachal Pradesh needs GoI's permission to get two roads laid in the State, or if Karnataka needed GoI's permission to double the railway tracks between two cities within the State, it is this pitiable state of affairs that is begging for increased decentralization in India.

Coming back to Bengaluru - while the idea of decentralizing BBMP and forming multiple corporations could increase efficiency and help control spiraling prices of various local commodities and services, what it cannot ensure by itself is a renewed need to further divide the BBMP, say in another decade, in order to cater to the then size of the city's demands. Apart from the proposed decentralization, the existing BBMP needs to take another brave step and frame legislation to monitor, regulate and wherever necessary restrict migration of people into the city. It will also need to ensure these new corporations inherit this new piece of legislation that is quintessential to making decentralization a success, and thereby a model for the nation to be inspired by. This will be the difference Bengalurians will look forward to from this division, after all.

If cities like Bengaluru can be subject to the adverse effects of poor governance and legislation at the Center and helplessness at the State levels, let us hope that if not negating those effects, this move by BBMP sends strong messages to the Center about decentralization in general, and its skewed nature of policies that fuel people's migration into localized spots across the nation. Over a period of time such migrant patterns are unsustainable and will only make such local hot-spots unmanageable, yet leave local governing bodies helpless to reform. Shall we say, way to go BBMP?

Its a NEET Diaspora Out There

A CBSE book cover (pic:koolskool.in)

In the sequence of National Policies on Development, Water, Labor and other items of national interest coming to light, another of the Center's programs to safeguard its brainchild national interest through establishing uniform standards has surfaced in the matter of education - something that could put a nation on track - the right one or an entirely wrong one.

Earlier this week some students in the pre-university grade from Karnataka approached the Supreme Court demanding to quash one of Medical Council of India's (MCI) notifications - one that forces these students to study subjects based on CBSE curriculum to clear the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), different from their current State curriculum. This new qualifier test is not just an unnecessary replacement of the erstwhile Common Entrance Test (CET) in Karnataka, but also a tragic one for a majority of students in all non-Hindi States since the NEET is rendered only in Hindi and English! This is a dual blow because it is a blow by the Center to the State governments that are seen as subordinate here, and a blow of Hindi imperialism on non-Hindi speaking peoples of India.

The MCI was established in the pre-independence year of 1934. The basis for its establishment back then could be related to the bringing in of alien western methods of medication into colonial India by the British who obviously required to oversee its installation. But the 1956 version of a new Act with the same name empowers the Government of India (GoI), just a six year old republic having no semblance to the British power in terms of medical knowledge supremacy, with supreme powers with regards to establishing uniform standards in medical education in the entire of India and to oversee the registration of medical institutes, professionals and professional courses across the wide nation.

With no sign of medical know-how supremacy at the Center per-se, yet sheer authority in its hands, it is obvious that the MCI has created avenues for its abuse. Although Education is a concurrent subject today, the Center has been able to wield MCI as a weapon to bring education (at least in medical profession) under its sole control. Rolling out programs like NEET that are a combination of the CBSE curriculum menace and Hindi imperialism, it is also able to enable more students from the Hindi belt States to clear NEET because the test is administered in Hindi and no other Indian language. Given the current skew in number of professional institutions across India, NEET leads to a big undesirable diaspora paving way for further sliding of the BIMARU state definition. More importantly, programs such as NEET take away the rights of States to conduct their own qualifiers whereas establishments such as MCI limit the States rights to start new professional institutions based on their own needs.

As seen from this series, a suppression of legislative powers at the State level by the Center has been causing havoc in so many spheres of life that the Indian democracy is now really questionable from many an angle. If such a fundamental right as Education can be held in the concurrent list for so long and the Center being solely responsible for progress under this heading does little but use it to fuel its hidden agenda (of Hindi imposition and uncontrolled migration etc.) it is time that the States educate themselves and demand change.

National Interest: Heads, I migrate; Tails, You're exiled?

Dr Sarojini Mahishi

Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India do not provide for equality of opportunity for all citizens based on language, yet if recent media reports are to be relied upon, observations made by a Karnataka High Court division bench after hearing a PIL seeking implementation of Sarojini Mahishi Varadi hint at the courts having misconstrued this minute detail of the said Articles. Reported observations:

English has became a global language. So think practically...Though the state cabinet approved the Mahishi report owing to political reasons, we cannot accept such recommendations and pass orders.

Besides, the report shows the court as having misunderstood the meaning of a PIL and burst out at the petitioner saying it cannot direct the State and that the demands of the petitioner are against national interest:

We cannot direct the state to provide jobs on the basis of language. It is illegal and also against national interest. Only Parliament can do such things (legislate)

Although I'd like to stop writing about the PIL and the court's observations, finding the phrase "against national interest" being used here doesn't let me do so! Which national interest is it against for a State legislative arm to pass a fully fair legislation, one that is even allowed under the Indian constitution? However, it would be tragic if we discovered that the judiciary interpreted the States' legislative action to be against national interest.

In this backdrop it is vital to recall some provisions in the Indian constitution: one that assures every citizen a fundamental right to live and settle anywhere in the country, another set of provisions that provide the central government an easy signature to supersede the governance of any State under Sections 355 & 356.

Agreeably, the former provides a right to move around, but is often misconstrued, even by some media houses, as a right that overrides the host State's duty to ensure that welfare of its original residents is not compromised by such in-migration.

This provision of an unconditional right to settle in any State is so unscientific, especially given the linguistic and cultural heterogeneity juxtaposed to become India, that if people continue to migrate into and out of a few financially promising States how are these States supposed to accommodate their highly dynamic populations and how are they supposed to roll out welfare programs for an ever changing demography, whereas that was not the original intention at the time of carving out linguistic States.

On top of this jeopardy that States are left to deal with, a shortfall of good administration as a fallout of this unforeseen and uncontrolled migration to a State could expose it to this latter provision allowing the Center to supersede its power in spite of being financially promising.

Sandwiched between these two provisions, the State Executives are being reduced to mere stenography centers taking directions from the Center under constant fear of being whipped for not accommodating the in-migrantion and consequent socio-economic aftermath. If that is the state of the executive, the legislature is under suspended animation because of inaction and fear of going against national interest by any of its actions!

All this is not helping build a good democracy from the roots. If States are the fundamental units of this union called India it is pitiable that these very States are reduced to such bad condition where they're mere caretakers of amoeba shaped real estates while the Center is busy converting all national assets into capital and framing laws to retain States in paralysis.

If the Indian union has to succeed, the State Legislatures and the State Executives must be freed up, and the Center must agree to look at the States as peers in running this nation and not subordinates who can be issued directives and whipped when fancied.

Rape, Crime, Decentralized Democracy & The Sarojini Mahishi Report

Circle of Federalism?

IF CRIME in general and rape cases in particular are on the rise in Delhi & other north Indian regions, the best way to protect women in other states (viz. Karnataka) is to closely monitor and reasonably control migration of people from Delhi & other north Indian regions into other states. Even while not curtailing what is popularly perceived as a fundamental right in India (to be able to migrate and settle anywhere in this country,) this measure will greatly help local authorities to plan development programs within the state, track settlement of migrants in host state and make sure migrants do not resort to unlawful activities. Had this been in place already, we would have had far lesser incidents like this one, this one, or may be this one...

If all the waves created by the media around this story serve as a cue to any government, it is the state government (Govt of Karnataka for instance) and these state governments urgently need to wake up to their real job of protecting their state and the state's interests.

For starters, here's a list of things each state government could do in the interest of common welfare, and prevention of migrant related crimes:

1. Demanding education back into state list of items.
• After all it is education, or the lack of it, that is leading people to commit crimes. 
• Education being in the concurrent list, and with an ill-equipped central government at the helm of education affairs in the entire nation, employment & economic disparities are easy consequences.
• This in turn leads to social disparity driving the social awareness disparity quotient high.
2. Demand decentralization of Railways - one of the major carriers of migrants across this country.
• Although not the reason for migration themselves, in the hands of a central govt. the railways are an easy pawn for interested parties to create vote banks out of potentially migration oriented peoples.
• When decentralized and handed over to state governments, railway policies will be governed by the respective state and its usage for induced, as well as uncontrolled migration will be curtailed.
3. The labour ministry at the center needs to be dissolved or diluted to have lesser jurisdiction and control than now, and lesser control than the states.
• Each state needs to be the ultimate point of control and legislation when it comes to labour laws and settling of labour disputes.
• Owing to this ministry being currently held by the center, the labour laws relating to various industries uphold homogenization across boundaries of labour market, and in process encourage excessive migration across the country.
• Proper installation of and enforcement as per Sarojini Mahishi Report (vote) will limit unnecessary migration of people into its state.

The points go on, and is not limited to the list above. Revolutionary changes such as these are not easy achievements and certainly not feasible achievements for political parties that have conflicting interests within and outside of the state. At political crossroads, a state with weaker political lobby always ends up losing the battle and thereby its interests. The dire need for all states that are part of this union is therefore an urgent up-rise of (regional) political parties that understand democracy and the urgent need to usher in federal forces to save this democracy from internal plunder.