Getting federal transfers right

With the flow of United resources increasing to States, the focus must now be on non-Finance Commission transfers to enable States to effectively utilise the enhanced fiscal space. This is done by changing the coverage and architecture of the non-Finance Commission transfers
The Fourteenth Finance Commission’s recommendation to increase tax devolution to 42 per cent of the shareable pool of taxes has increased the flow of untied resources (or resources transferred without condition) to States. Estimates show that post the 14th commission award, the untied statutory transfers would be more than 70 per cent of the aggregate(sum,कुल) resource transfers from the Union to the States. Although this increase in the share of untied funds is a marked improvement in the structure of a transfer away from a conditional to an unconditional one, it is time that attention is paid to reform the transfer system by focussing on non-Finance Commission transfer to enable States to effectively utilise the enhanced untied fiscal space. This can only be done by reforming the coverage, content and architecture of the non-Finance Commission transfers and a further consolidation(solid mass,दृढ़) of schemes. This article discusses this important issue and provides a possible way forward keeping in view the recommendations made by the 14th commission in this regard.

Budget and non-FC transfers

A major issue, post Budget 2015-16, is the sharp decline in allocations to the social sector in the form of various conditional grants to the States. This decline has happened to accommodate a large increase in tax devolution. As per the Budget estimates, enhanced tax devolution should result in an increase in the flow of untied funds to the tune of Rs.1,86,150 crore and a reduced flow of grants to the tune of Rs.87,730 crore.

This decline in grants has happened in two categories: in a specified list of schemes where the Centre’s contribution has been reduced, implying a corresponding increase in contribution by the States and for a set of schemes where Central support has been withdrawn. Important schemes in the first category are the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan and allocation for elementary education under the midday meal schemes and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) financed by the Gross Budgetary Support (GBS). Major schemes delinked from Central support are the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the Backward Regions Grant Fund and Normal Central Assistance. The Union Budget does not provide the details of the additional contributions States have to make for schemes where Central support has been reduced. This change in the structure of grants has also to be viewed in the context of a restructuring of Centrally sponsored schemes (CSS). Despite this emphasis on restructuring and recommendations made by various committees in this regard, nothing much has happened on the ground. In fact, CSS and other conditional grants as a percentage of GDP have increased from 0.67 per cent in 2000-01 to 1.39 per cent in 2015-16. Post the 14th Commission’s recommendation, the reduction in grants to accommodate a large increase in tax devolution — of which many are CSS — is certainly a step in the right direction. However, this reduction in grants in quantum without clarity on the design, architecture and sharing pattern between the Union and States has the following implications for States: a) reducing the share of contribution of the Centre to CSS has the potential to reduce untied fiscal space available from higher tax devolution as States have to make a higher contribution to these schemes now; b) this reduction does not automatically imply that States are insulated from the conditionalities and ‘one size fits all’ CSS intervention(interference,हस्तक्षेप) and the uncertainties associated with CSS fund flow.

Why restructuring is critical

In the last decade, the proliferation of big-ticket CSS has emerged as the key fiscal strategy to transfer grants to States to achieve a certain outcome in a specific sector, especially in health, education, agriculture and rural development. Though the money allocated under CSS has declined, these schemes, if not reduced in numbers, and, in many cases, consolidated and restructured, may result in States having to fund these schemes with a higher matching contribution. And, they may have to bear the same burden of CSS conditionalities, reducing fiscal autonomy and the available untied fiscal space.

Restructuring is not only important from the perspective of State finances. It is also about getting the expenditure priorities right for both the Union and the State governments. As articulated(express,उल्लेख) in the 14th commission’s report, “between 2002-05 and 2005-11, revenue expenditure by the Union Government on State List subjects increased from an average of 14 per cent to 20 per cent, and on Concurrent List subjects from an average of 13 per cent to 17 per cent. This implies a reduction in expenditure, in percentage terms, on Union List subjects. Expenditure functions under the Union List fall predominantly under General and Economic Services. The share of expenditure on these has progressively declined from 66.3 per cent in 2001-02 to 53.2 per cent in 2014-15(BE).” One of the primary reasons for this is the proliferation of CSS, especially in the social sector and on right-based spending. For better service delivery outcome, these need to change as most of these functions are primarily in the functional domain of the States. The Union government should move its focus from spending on overlapping functional domain to subjects that squarely fall in the functional domain of the Union, as in the Union List, and limit its intervention on the ‘State List’ and ‘Concurrent List’ on subjects of national priority having a consideration of externality.

Kind of restructuring

There are 34 schemes listed in the category where Central support is fully provided for in the Budget. Full Central support is not 100 per cent Central funding. In these schemes, States have to make a matching contribution as per the existing fund sharing arrangement. The distribution of resources allocation across these schemes shows that out of 34 schemes, the aggregate share of 15 schemes works out to be 1.72 per cent of the total grants, with a total allocation of Rs.2,039 crore and an individual share of less than 0.5 per cent of the total grants. Schemes with an allocation of less than one per cent are five and their aggregate share in total grant works out to be 4.09 per cent, with a total allocation of Rs.4,849 crore. There are 10 schemes with an allocation of less than 10 per cent and their aggregate share in total works out to 24 per cent of the total allocation, where the total allocation is Rs.28,000 crore. In other words, 70 per cent of the total allocation is for four schemes, namely, the National Social Assistance Programme, externally aided projects, schemes financed from the Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme with a total allocation of Rs.82,775 crore. The number of schemes with a changing sharing pattern is 20. But in many of these schemes, the number of programmes under each category as an umbrella programme if considered, would total 56. In this case also, seven schemes account for 85 per cent of the total allocation. The major schemes in this category are the National Health Mission, the ICDS, and schemes for agriculture and sanitation. Since resources are thinly distributed with a tiny(small,छोटा) allocation across many schemes, it is time these schemes are consolidated and made into a few national schemes in key sectors; minor schemes can be devolved down to the States with funds.

Principles of restructuring

Also, with a significantly higher tax devolution to the States, much of the expenditure priorities would have to align in a manner as envisaged(imagine,विचार) in the Constitution. Sectors where significant State spending rather than a “one-size fits all” Union government scheme would be more appropriate are health, education, agriculture and rural development. Now, the larger question crops up. When States are the major spending entities in these sectors, as these functions fall primarily in the functional domain of States, should they not be given the fiscal autonomy to carry out their own programme to address differential needs? In this context, should one be too worried about the decline in spending in the Union Budget for some of these sectors? Instead, the focus should be to reform the non-finance commission transfers to make the transfer system transparent, efficient and fiscally non-intrusive unless required. It is also time we take a comprehensive view of spending by taking the Union and State interventions in sectors where States are the primary provider of services rather than focussing on what is allocated by the Union Government.

Finally, this is not to argue that Central intervention does not have a role to play in development spending. Rather, such interventions should be limited to a few national priorities. As articulated in the 14th Commission report, the Union government is currently transferring around 63 per cent of the shareable pool of taxes to States in the various forms of transfers. The commission’s recommendations have left a fiscal space to the tune of around 15 per cent of the shareable pool for the Union government’s intervention on subjects of a national priority in the social and economic services. This fiscal space, as argued in the report, should be used in the framework of “cooperative federalism” with the active involvement of States on the design, architecture and implementation framework of such schemes to avoid the proliferation of a ‘one size fits all’ CSS, as was the practice in the past.

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When messengers shoot the message

Television is a noisy medium but it can convey silence with great power and effectiveness, when it chooses to. In the past week, Indian television journalists covering the earthquake in Nepal have generated a great deal of sound and fury. Apart from the insensitivity and the boisterousness(noisy and uncontrolled,उपद्रवी), it was the combination of jingoism(patriotism,कट्टर राष्ट्रवाद) and the relentless advertising of India’s aid efforts by television reporters embedded with the Indian forces that led to the intensely hostile(negative,विरोधी) reactions from Nepalese citizens on Twitter, the creation of the hash tag of protest: #IndianMediaGoHome. It is undeniably an age of advertised charity but the gloating does hurt the recipients of your generosity.

Unlike the televised hysterics, the broken villages of Nepal and their residents were quiet, subdued, dignified. Whether it was mountainous expanses of Sindhupalchowk district, where more than 1,100 people were killed, or Sankhu outside Kathmandu, where several thousand houses in a dense urban cluster(bunch,झुण्ड) were wiped out, the dignity of the Nepalese men and women, quietly digging through the remains of their lost homes was the most striking aspect of reporting on the earthquake.

Striking dignity

In their interviews, they were stoic(emotionless,भावहीन), recounting the terrors of the day, the journeys of a lifetime in an unhurried way. It was easy to detect a tinge of frustrated resignation at the delayed relief measures, the inefficiency and weakness of their government in their voices. A woman who had been waiting for five days for help to get her daughter’s body retrieved from the rubble of a house was not hysterical. She stood quietly in the middle of a street and requested people to help. A man who had helped dig out bodies of four family members and was working with Nepalese Army rescuers to retrieve the fifth body of someone from his family was prosaic(Lack of imagination,नीरस) about helping find the right place to dig through the rubble of what was a four-storied house. In the hospitals, the surgeons who were working the longest hours went about their work patiently, professionally.

In the emergency ward of Bir Hospital, one of the biggest hospitals in Kathmandu, the people who were intrusive(interference,दखल देने वाला) were the reporter and the cameraman of a television network, who chose to read out his dispatch by the bed of a boy, whose arms and legs were broken and whose head was being shaved as the doctors prepared him for a surgery for his head injury. There was also a Western photographer who jumped around the bed trying to find the right angle for a shot.

Even the most dramatic rescue operations were conducted in grave silence. In the Maitrinagar neighbourhood of Kathmandu, which houses low-end hotels, mostly used by Nepal’s migrant workers leaving for or returning from their jobs in India, Korea, or the West Asian and Arab countries, scores of buildings had pancaked(flattened,चपटा). A several-storied hotel, Pokhara Guest House, had collapsed on itself and a group of French rescue workers and Nepalese paramilitary force men had recovered several bodies. A few hundred people watched the rescue operations in silence as the rescuers used mikes connected to sensitive machines which could track faint sounds and signs of life.

Media insensitivity

The noise throughout the aftermath(result,परिणाम) of the earthquake came from television crews and their absurd(foolish,बेतुके) questions, their indifference to the dignity of the survivors and the victims. The callousness(insensibility,निष्टुरता) wasn’t restricted to Nepalese citizens they interviewed, they wouldn’t even spare the team of Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers who were at the Mt. Everest base camp when the earthquake struck and an avalanche destroyed the base camp, killing at least 17 climbers and sherpas. After three very difficult days, the four officers — one of them injured — were airlifted by a private helicopter and left at the Tenzing-Hillary airport in Lukla, the landing point closest to the Everest base camp. Several bodies of the dead climbers lay on the airstrip. On leaving the airstrip, Sohail Sharma, a Maharashtra-cadre IPS officer, was lugging two heavy bags and walking uphill to a hotel. A young man began walking beside him and struck up a conversation about his close call at the Everest camp.

Sharma, a 27-year-old, was exhausted after three days of horror and almost no food. He panted as he spoke to the young man and climbed the hill. After a while, he called his mother, who lives in Amritsar, from the hotel. She had been crying. The young man following Sharma turned out to be a reporter with a Hindi television network. He had secretly recorded their conversation. Sharma’s mother in Amritsar had heard her son’s straining voice at home. The worried mother, who had waited days for news of her son, broke down. “After everything we had been through, they made my mother cry,” Sharma told me.

A self-pat

The self-congratulatory tone of the Indian relief efforts in Nepal was partly set by the Indian government itself. Prime Minister Narendra Modi told journalists in New Delhi that Nepal’s Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, who was visiting Thailand at the time of the earthquake, learnt about the quake from Mr. Modi’s tweet. Four days after the earthquake, a Minister of the Modi government spoke in Parliament about India’s emergence as a leading nation in disaster response. The feverishness to advertise the aid for Nepal was also found on the social media accounts of various government agencies.

The anger in Nepal has grown to include criticism for the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots for making it a priority to carry Indian journalists and allegedly ignoring the advice of local government officials. On Tuesday, Annapurna Post, a widely read Nepali language newspaper, ran a report from Gorkha, the district that is the epicentre of the earthquake, with the headline: “CDO tells PM, Indian Helicopters Humiliate Us.” Mr. Sushil Koirala was visiting Gorkha and had held meetings with local officials. It reported that Uddhav Timilsina, the Chief District Officer of Gorkha, complained to Mr. Koirala about the IAF pilots not coordinating with the local officials and creating problems with management of relief efforts. “At our meeting at the day’s end, we prepare a schedule on what to do next. But the India choppers don’t follow it. They either don’t fly according to our schedule or fly in Indian journalists,” he said. (A journalist from Nepal, who doesn’t want to be named, helped translate this report.)

Competitive influence

The projection of the Indian efforts in Nepal certainly had the subtext of India-China competition for influence over the country. Even without the breathlessness of television networks, the Indian presence in Nepal is far more visible than the Chinese presence. Grocery stores, taxi drivers, and hotels freely accept Indian rupees. On cable television in Nepal, you get a few Chinese networks and scores of Indian news and entertainment networks. Apart from a range of cars, an overwhelming number of motorcycles and scooters are visible on the streets of Kathmandu. Most of them are imported from India. The number of Nepali citizens going to study or work in India is immensely(large,अधिक मात्रा में) greater than those who travel to China.

Although as several scholarly studies of ‘The CNN Effect’ have shown, television reporting has far less impact on foreign policies than the journalist would like to believe, Indian television news has certainly defeated the Indian government in the game of perceptions. On the other hand, the Chinese, who were skewered(smartly,चतुरता) for their ham-handedness and racist behaviour in African countries, seem to have learned a few lessons in messaging.

China Central Television’s coverage of the Nepal disaster, was like most of its coverage — prosaic and staid. Its English language website has a tiny section with a few stories on China’s aid effort in Nepal. China Daily and its weekly Asia edition did more to publicise the Chinese aid efforts, but it was a shrewdly restrained exercise. Indian relief and rescue teams had arrived much before the Chinese teams in Nepal, a fact the China Daily’s Asia Weekly edition worked around by writing in a story that “China’s International Search and Rescue Team, established in 2001, was the first international rescue team with United Nations credentials for major disaster relief missions to arrive in Nepal.” A Xinhua report about the Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower project, where China’s Sinohydro Corporation Limited manages the construction, spoke about the safety of the project and the Chinese workers stranded there. The message about the efficiency and strength of Chinese-built infrastructure was hard to miss.

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The road looks long for third gender

The Rights of Transgender Persons Bill 2014 was passed in the Rajya Sabha and is headed to the Lok Sabha. But how much has changed for the community since last year’s landmark judgment?
When I spoke to Rose Venkatesan seven years ago, she was a graceful woman but traces of Ramesh still lingered(hang around,रुका हुआ). She had then just become famous hosting a Tamil TV show. Today, after surgery, she is all woman, as I see from a dance video online. And she works as a part-time soft-skills trainer at IT company Wipro. Rose’s story is unique in India, not because she is transgender but because she is not a sex worker or a beggar, which is what most of the community is identified with.

It was to change this reality that a year ago the Supreme Court recognised transsexuals and transgenders as the ‘third gender’ in what was hailed(come,घोषित) as a historic judgment. Nothing historic, however, has happened since; even though we are well past the six-month deadline the court gave the government to implement the recommendations of its Nalsa judgment.

On April 24, the Rajya Sabha passed a private member’s Rights of Transgender Persons Bill 2014, which will head to the Lok Sabha for the final debate and vote.

How have States fared?

What it will mean on ground for the community is less certain. After the Nalsa ruling, the Centre sent out notices to the States to implement five steps: a Central grant of Rs.1,000 a month to parents of transgender children; a Class VII-X scholarship; a scholarship for higher studies; skills training schemes, and finally, a monthly pension scheme. With the Centre-State contribution set at 75:25, none of these seem particularly challenging, but most States have not implemented even one.

Tamil Nadu has possibly done the most: a monthly pension of Rs. 1,000 and subsidised bank loans. It was also the first State to set up a Transgender Welfare Board, followed by Maharashtra and West Bengal. Karnataka recently announced a monthly pension of Rs. 500, and Bihar and West Bengal reservations in government jobs. A few universities have opened up seats for transgenders.

But this is too little and too vague(unclear,अस्पष्ठ) to have any real impact. For instance, the Supreme Court, apart from making ‘third gender’ a legal option, also made it clear that ‘transgender’ included people who had no surgery. But the Ministry of External Affairs still asks for proof of sex reassignment surgery before it allows a gender change on the passport. Only one transgender from Mumbai has managed a passport so far. Says transgender activist Abhina Aher: “I am still ‘male’ on my passport”.

In fact, one of the most significant breakthroughs of the Nalsa ruling was the right of ‘self-identification’, with verifications allowed only through psychological assessment and not physical tests. “It’s a huge win,” says Dr. L. Ramakrishnan of non-profit Saathii, “because horror stories abound of how they are groped as part of ‘medical’ exams.”

And what happens once identity is finally established? Says Dr. Ramakrishnan: “People get name and gender officially changed and published. When they return, prospective employers still reject them.” Ms. Aher agrees, “They hear my voice on the phone and say, ‘but you sound like a man, we cannot rent you a flat.’”

And that is really where all the reform efforts falter. How do you change mindsets? One of the saddest realities is that most families throw their children out when any doubts about gender identity surface. Says Dr. Ramakrishnan, “That is why the Rs. 1,000 per month grant to parents is vital; it’s motivation to at least not kick the child out.”

It is also why just a scholarship or forms saying ‘third gender’ is not enough. Says Kalki Subramaniam, founder of Sahodari Foundation: “How do you protect these children? They are mocked, bullied, beaten up; most of them drop out.”

State governments must initiate sensitivity training for teachers so that they stop the bullying and, in turn, sensitise students. Second, counsellors must visit schools regularly so that gender-confused children have someone to talk to. It is at the age of 12 or 13 that gender dysphoria first surfaces — where a person experiences distress because there is a mismatch between the biological sex and the gender they identity with mentally. It’s now that the children are most vulnerable(weak,कमज़ोर) and need assurance that it is fine to be gender different.

When families and governments fail to provide these security nets, they drive their children into conventional hijra (aravani) communities that adopt them, but also perpetuate begging and sex work as a way of life. When the young Kalki would run away from school, she would hide in a park, which is where she met Apsara, her aravani ‘mother’.

It is estimated that there are about 4.9 lakh transgenders in India today, a number that is likely wildly off the mark, because Census workers are just not qualified to ask the right questions. For instance, there is practically no recognition of female-to-male transgenders — “they are dismissed as “modern girls with short hair,” says Dr. Radhakrishnan.

For about 80 per cent of the community, begging or sex work continues to be the main occupation. This must change. Ms. Kalki mentions Gunavathi, who now finally has a job as a health worker in a government hospital and earns roughly Rs. 5,000 a month. Many work in activist organisations. In a video posted by IndiaUnheard, transgender activist Gomathi says: “We are not asking for IAS jobs, just employ us as attendants or cleaners in hospitals and railways stations.” One project by Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative saw transgenders working with anganwadis to deliver messages on TB and medical insurance. We need more such initiatives.

Ms. Aher says, “ We need jobs through schemes, reservations, business loans, whatever it takes.”

But are transgenders willing to take on ordinary jobs, given that they need to fund expensive hormone injections at Rs. 3,000 a month, and genital realignment surgery, vaginoplasty or breast augmentations at Rs. 2-3 lakh each? There are no facilities for these procedures in India; those who can, fly to Thailand, others resort to quacks and often die or are maimed during surgery.

In fact, the need for quick and big money is a big reason why sex work is so tempting.  “It’s not that simple,” refutes Ms. Aher, “Our vulnerability is high, our client list is limited; we face more risks of violence or HIV than female sex workers.” So, given a shot at a good job, most transgenders will take it up, she says. Which brings us right back to the start — education. “Give them the choice. Let them get skilled, then let them decide whether they want regular jobs or sex work,” says Ms. Aher.

It’s a vicious(wrong,निंदनीय) cycle, and no amount of ‘welfare’ will help without a sea change in attitude. The Bill just passed in the Rajya Sabha cannot do much unless fear, shame, and social stigma(mark,कलंक) are removed and the community is mainstreamed. A transgender version of the ‘My Choice’ video on YouTube says, “If you want to help us, just stop treating us like outcastes.”

Have things changed at all, I ask Rose. “A little bit,” she says. “Families might accept us a little more quickly; the violence might be less frequent and less extreme than what I faced.” 

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Smoking kills — in India too

A study shows that Indians are not immune to health consequences(result,परिणाम) of smoking and that smokers have a higher death rate than non-smokers.
Recently, a parliamentary committee declined to extend the size of health warnings on cigarette packets due to lack of independent evidence on the health impacts of smoking on the Indian population. A longitudinal study conducted by the National Council of Applied Economics (NCAER) and University of Maryland shows that in India too, smoking kills.

The India Human Development Survey (IHDS) was first conducted in 2004-05. In this survey, 41,554 households were surveyed in both urban and rural areas in all States and Union Territories with the exception of Andaman-Nicobar and Lakshadweep. At this time, extensive information about the lifestyles of over two lakh individuals residing in these households was collected. In 2011-12, these same households were surveyed again. We were able to re-interview about 83 per cent of the original households. At the time of the re-interview, information on current location of the individuals from the original household was obtained, including whether they are still alive. Thus, we have access to a prospective data set, which contains both information on smoking tobacco products and whether the individual has died in the seven years between the two interviews. The results unambiguously(clearly,स्पष्ठ रूप से) show that even after we take into account individuals’ age, gender, education and household wealth, those who are reported to be daily smokers are more likely to die.

In the initial interview, 26 per cent men and 1.6 per cent women above the age of 15 smoked. These statistics are very similar to those observed in the Global Adult Tobacco Use Study by Professor Ram and his colleagues at International Institute of Population Sciences, conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2009-10. The GATS study also noted that 24.3 per cent of men and 2.9 per cent of women aged 15 and above smoked.

Categorising smokers

Since smoking is often underestimated for younger people, when smokers tend to hide their habits from the older family members, we focus on individuals who are 30 and above. In this age group, nearly 36 per cent men in the IHDS sample smoke; 29 per cent smoke daily. Among women, only 2.5 per cent smoke. Although men from all walks of life smoke, smoking is disproportionately concentrated among Dalit, Adivasi and Muslim men. Among this group, about 45 per cent men smoke; 37 per cent smoke daily. Lack of education also plays a role. About 46 per cent of illiterate men smoke, while only 16 per cent of the college graduates smoke. Moreover, smoking is concentrated among the lowest income group. Nearly 46 per cent of the men in bottom fifth smoke compared to only 20 per cent in the upper fifth. Death rates are higher for daily smokers than for non-smokers or occasional smokers. About 11.3 per cent of men aged 30 and above and who smoke daily died in the seven years following our initial survey; only 10.2 per cent of the non-smokers and occasional smokers died. However, as we noted above, smokers come from lower socio-economic strata. Hence, it is difficult to know if these characteristics, rather than smoking, may be the cause of higher death rates among smokers. So we compare like with like and control for education, marital status, age, caste/religious background, urban/rural residence, state of residence and whether the individual was employed at the first interview. We also control for household wealth. This does not change the relationship observed above.

Even after taking into account all these differences, we find that smokers have a higher death rate than non-smokers. Among men, daily smokers are 1.14 times as likely to die between the two interviews as the non-smokers and occasional smokers. Lest this seem like a small difference, the improvement in survival by giving up smoking would be more than by difference between illiterate and those with eight years of education or between men living in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. For women, smoking is even more harmful but given the very small number of women who smoke, this impact is not significant.

Delaying anti-smoking campaigns will take a heavy toll on the Indian population, particularly poorer and less educated men. What is disturbing about the current debate is the message that it sends to current and potential smokers. Whether the pictorial warning covers 20 or 30 per cent of the package is less important than the implication that Indian population’s risk profile is somehow different from that of non Indians and that until a study has been conducted in India, we should not believe that smoking increases health risks in India. Nonetheless, the results we show above should lay to rest the argument that Indians are not somehow immune to health consequences of smoking that beset non-Indian populations.

Debate in other countries
This debate is reminiscent(remind,याद दिलाना) of similar battles fought in other countries. In the U.S., for decades cigarette companies tried to throw a smoke screen over research results that unambiguously showed that smoking caused cancer and increased mortality. In France, even in the late 20th century, the legislature argued that controlling public smoking was pitting non-smokers’ rights against smokers’ rights. Financial interests played an important role in the French debate too. Constance Nathanson notes that by 1990, French tobacco market had been captured by multinationals, leading a smoking proponent to grumble that anti-smoking advertising would selectively weaken French tobacco industry and, “there will no less smoking or drinking in sweet France but smoking and drinking will be less French and more American.” These delays in anti-smoking legislations have led to slower decline in smoking in France than in other high income countries; as World Atlas of Smoking shows, today 34 per cent French men smoke compared to 23 per cent in neighbouring Switzerland.

Let us not give mixed messages to our young men and increasingly, young women; smoking is not harmless, smoking is not cool. Smoking kills, even in India.

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Of images and perceptions

The image of a country is not only about the size of its economy, or its future potential for economic growth. If India’s liberal and secular image is tarnished(make dirty,कलंकित करना), there will be a global spillover. The world is watching India, and India must, therefore, watch itself
What constitutes the image of a country? This is a particularly complex question for a country like India which is not only a young Republic but also an ancient civilisation. To my mind, India’s image, for the outside gaze, rests on several factors: the fact that it is the world’s largest functioning democracy; it is an ancient land, with a culture that is marked by antiquity, diversity, assimilation(absorption,समावेश), continuity and peaks of unparalleled refinement; it is a country which has consciously chosen the path of respect for plurality; it is a nation which believes in religious tolerance, as is only befitting a land where four of the world’s great religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism — were born, and which also has the second largest number of Muslims on the planet; it is a country which has the potential to emerge as a “super power”, with a great deal of economic promise, including the incentive of a very large market, notwithstanding the fact that it still has too many of the abjectly(hopeless,दिन हीन ढंग से) poor, the malnourished and the illiterate; and, finally, that it is a country that is essentially liberal in its outlook, with space for dissent(objection,असहमति) and debate, and, therefore, unrelentingly opposed to the monolithic fundamentalisms that are sweeping across large parts of the world.

Report on religious freedoms

The image of a country is thus a holistic(wholistic,पूर्णतावादी) construct. Many deep-rooted pillars underpin it, while on the surface several banners flutter(move Rapidly,फड़फडाना) perennially: Bollywood, yoga, the Taj Mahal, Ravi Shankar and chicken tikka. The big mistake is to believe that a single desirable factor, such as a “stable” government, or a period of high economic growth rate, or an effective machinery of propaganda and projection, are sufficient to give a country an “attractive” image. Hard power, soft power, a certain value system, and an unmistakable civilisational “mystique” must combine in the right proportions to give to a country like India the right image globally.

It is in this context that we must see the annual Report for 2015 of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The report places India in a group of 30 countries that meet “a systematic, ongoing and egregious” standard for failing to protect religious freedoms. In its five-page focus on India, the commission expresses deep concern over the Ghar Vapsi campaign of forced conversions, the attacks on churches, and the hate diatribe carried out against Muslim minorities. What is significant, and possibly in terms of emphasis unprecedented, is that the report indicts the government for not reining in the “Hindu nationalist” groups that are carrying out the attack on the minorities. To deal with this situation, it advocates a new level of activism for the U.S. government. The concerns regarding religious freedom must become a part of the India-U.S. bilateral dialogue, it says. The U.S. must urge the Indian government to “publicly rebuke” those making derogatory remarks about religious communities. Taking activism a step further, it even recommends that the U.S. Ambassador should visit places where “communal violence has occurred or is likely to occur”. To be fair, the report also takes positive note of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech to Catholic Bishops in February 2015 where he spoke of the need to ensure “complete freedom of faith”. But it does so by citing the fact that Mr. Modi faces long-standing allegations of being complicit in the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002, and was denied a visa for this very reason under the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act.

Disturbing perception

Such intrusive(interference,दखल देना) comments on our internal matters by other countries are neither desirable nor necessary. As a democracy, and with established institutions to safeguard our Constitutional commitments to secularism, we are quite capable of fighting our internal frictions. Besides, no country has the right to lecture to others from a self-anointed pedestal. There are several areas where American society too falls short of acceptable standards of behaviour, both in terms of equity and equality. Would our American friends like it if India were to produce a report on such matters, and urge(force,मज़बूर करना) our Ambassador in Washington to “visit” areas where, for instance, racist incidents occur? There are standard conventions which govern diplomatic niceties, and no country, however powerful, has the right to transgress them. The USCIRF may have no legislative or executive powers itself. But it is a bipartisan Congressional body, and does exercise considerable influence on the State Departments assessments on religious freedom. To that extent, the fact that it is technically not a part of the formal U.S. government is but a fig leaf.

Creating disharmony

This being said, the Congressional report does convey a certain disturbing perception about India. Perceptions affect image. And, while our reservations about outsider comments remain relevant, we should be concerned about why a friendly country has articulated(express,उल्लेख) such a damning perception. Is it just bias(unfair,पक्षपात), prejudice and condescension? Or, is there something we need to wake up about, take stock, introspect and apply the right correctives?

The truth is that, notwithstanding the gratuitous U.S. comment, there has been — ever since the new government came to power — a sharp increase in organised attempts by elements of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the affiliated Sangh Parivar to whip up communal disharmony. A consistent hate campaign against the minorities has been orchestrated(organise,योजना बनाना) using artifices like “love jihad” and “ghar vapsi”. Churches have come under attack, including shamefully, in the capital of the nation. A campaign of demographic scaremongering is under way, with calls by Sadhvis and Sakshis and even a certain Shankaracharya urging Hindu women to have anything from four to 40 children. Inflammatory speeches by the likes of Yogi Adityanath and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, and proclamations by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that India will soon be a purely Hindu country, have become the norm. The net consequence(result,परिणाम) is that India’s image as a secular country committed to respecting all faiths has taken a beating. There is a genuine fear that the governance agenda, to the extent that we have seen any real substance of it thus far, will be overwhelmed by the perennial(repeated,सदाबहार) social instability caused by deliberate — and unchecked — attempts to stoke communal divisions.

Under watch

It is not often realised how closely foreign powers follow matters of this nature unfolding in India. The perception that India is regressing from its avowed(declared,स्पष्ठ रूप से) commitments to secular peace and social harmony is under constant watch, and could affect other areas of bilateral interaction. The French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, actually took up with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when he was on an official visit to France in September 2008, his “anguish(pain,दुःख)” about the massacre(kill in large number,नरसंहार) of Christians in India. Consider the facts. Some 40 Indians of the Christian faith had been killed when suspected Hindu extremists resorted to violence in the States of Odisha and Karnataka, ostensibly(apparently,प्रकट रूप से) to protest against perceived missionary activism in converting Hindus to Christianity. The reprehensible killings were condemned by every political party, including the BJP. Police reinforcements(strengthener,मज़बूती) were sent to the disturbed areas; the Centre threatened to intervene directly; the Chief Ministers of both States, as well as national leaders, personally met with the heads of the Church to reassure them about their safety. Being a well-informed head of state, Mr. Sarkozy would have known this. He would have also been more than aware of the many commercial deals France was pursuing with India at that time. And yet, he took up the question of the “massacre of Christians”.

The reaction of U.S. President Barack Obama was not very different. Amidst(in the middle off,के बीच) pivotal(crucial,प्रधान) talks in Delhi last January on furthering the nuclear agreement and giving more substance to the strategic dialogue, and notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Modi referred to him familiarly as “Barrack” not less than 19 times during their brief radio interaction, Mr. Obama used the occasion of his final speech in New Delhi to emphasise that India would succeed only if it respects all faiths and “didn’t splinter along religious lines”. On his return to the U.S., during his National Prayer Breakfast address, he again referred to the targeting of certain faiths in India, adding that this kind of religious intolerance would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi.

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