The Edit Page

Democracy for NonLethal Crowd Control

Democracy must inform state-citizen engagement
Better late than never. The home minister has said that
the government will set up an expert committee to come
up with non-lethal methods of crowd control. There are
two parts to the challenge. One is in the realm of tools and
technology. Tasers that provide electric shock but do no
permanent damage and stink bombs that make it impossible for people to continue to stay on the vicinity are
obvious examples of the instrumentalist part of the solution. But the more important part is political. It is about democracy, primarily.
After the British transferred power to Indians in 1947
Indians did not quite knock down the colonial power
structure and build something new on their own many
things changed. But the manner in which the police views the citizenry has not. A pre-modern sensibility mediates the citizen-state relationship. Those favoured by
patronage can bend the arms of the state at will while ordinary people are treated as subjects, whose rights can be
enforced only with great difficulty, if
ever, after a legal or political battle following oppressive engagement. This
is the sad reality across India. Sad becomes tragic in a place like Kashmir,
where security forces are, to a large
extent, derived from outside the state
and enjoy statutory immunity from
being subjected to the norms of justice and civil conduct
democracy enjoins on security personnel. If crowd control in Kashmir has to be just that and not a forcible display of the Indian states might meant to clobber dissent,
the Armed Forces Special Powers Act must be scrapped.
Security forces must confront crowds with at least the
restraint and accountability they have elsewhere.
This, in turn, is contingent on political engagement
with the people of Kashmir. PM Modi has offered to engage within a framework of kashmiriyat, democracy and
humanity. The framework is spot on. The trouble is, killing and maiming scores of Kashmiris fails every one of
those three principles. The political process in the state
is stuck. The Centre must intervene, with democracy as
its central guide.

The ban on diesel cars do little to clean Delhi's air. It also treats scientific evidence as bunkum

Farce and the Furious

ration sets that emit fumes that can be

seen, smelt and heard 100 metres
away? Will they punish authorities
who kept diesel artificially cheap for
decades, which changed consumer behaviour and key investment decisions
by manufacturers? Will the tribunal
or higher judiciary direct the government to not sell diesel at prices lower
Himangshu Watts than petrol in line with global norms?
Will they punish the authorities
he National Green Tribu- that set emission norms for the countnals mission to stamp out ry in the past decades? Will they order
diesel cars in Delhi does clo- wholesale markets that attract trucks
se to nothing to clean the ca- and generate garbage to shift out of
pitals air. But it does an aw- Delhi? Will they ask the central goful lot to destroy scientific temper and vernment to build new airports outsiacademic research if they dare to dis- de Delhi to reduce lakhs of vehicles
Lets see who stops Diesel
agree with the worldview of some po- driving in and out of the city?
The answer seems an emphatic
werful elite and ill-informed activists.
No,
even
as
bold
answers
to
all
de a career choice.
The order shows that activists and
authorities are ready to take drastic these questions will certainly reIgnorning Scientists
action to clean the air as long as they duce pollution.
But vehicle owners are much One can argue that public health is a
have the comfort of hitting only soft
targets. The demand by activists and softer targets. What is their crime? compellingly stronger goal than the fiindeed the induced action by the aut- Barring those with excessive we- nances of a few lakh middle-class peohorities is shockingly more strident alth -- or stupidity -- any heavy user ple. But which scientist on Earth is saand aggressive against diesel vehicles of vehicles would obviously buy a ying that personal diesel cars make
than much-more-polluting outstation diesel car in response to the policy any dent in the citys air quality? Even
trucks, smoke-belching diesel genera- and price signals the government the ill-conceived odd-even scheme of
the Delhi government that removed
tion sets, dust and polluting two-whee- has given for a couple of decades.
At the time of purchase, the vehi- half of the Capitals cars from the rolers.
cle could legally be on the road for 15 ads did not have any noticeable impact
years, a period for which road tax was on air pollution, although it was tested
Misleading Claims
Globe-trotting activists have misled fully paid. So who will compensate twice and in different seasons. It only
authorities to such an extent that the the buyer for the five years lost and caused widespread public hardship.
Some may argue that the Supreme
green movements ammunition is be- the severe loss for the person who paing focused entirely on diesel cars, in- id monthly installments for five ye- Courts decision long ago to enforce
cluding brand new ones. Diesel cars ars? If people bought diesel cars, it is CNG (compressed natural gas) on Delcontribute barely 2-3% to particulate not because they had a sinister moti- his public transport shows how judimatter if you go by the results of peo- ve to pollute the air for personal gain. cial action cleans the air. Wrong. ThoThey bought a legal product with se days, diesel engines polluted hundple who have the knowledge and equipment to dispassionately analyse pol- a shelflife that was promised by the reds of times more even if they filled
lution and its causes. If authorities competent authority. Its a bit like clean fuel. And on top of that, diesel
are really serious about cleaning Del- telling bureaucrats and judges one was adulterated with all kinds of
his air, they need to answer a few fun- fine day that they will retire from things, unlike CNG.
service 10 years earlier than they
There is no way that banning old didamental questions.
Will they ban polluting diesel gene- thought they would when they ma- esel cars can make that kind of a difference, particularly when poorly maintained trucks, dust and industrial pollution from the region continues to dirWhere will the old cars go? They wont be scrapped.
ty Delhis air. And where will the old
cars go? They wont be scrapped. They
They will probably end up as great bargains in
will probably end up as great bargains
nearby towns and continue to contaminate Delhis air in nearby towns, which means that if,

Keralas fat tax targets only branded

food; is the tax on fat or on the exotic?

Swadeshi Fat Not

Really In The Fire?
People in Kerala must be relieved that the much-feared fat
tax of 14.5% would be levied only on pizzas, burgers, sandwiches and tacos, that too only those sold through branded outlets. Indeed, this tax could even be decried as an indirect method to make only the states creamy layer who
can afford to patronise such branded outlets healthier, rather than the wider populace. Some may even deem it to be a
covertly swadeshi tax, given that the brands who purvey these fast foods are largely foreign, operating on franchisee models. However, this exemption will certainly take the heat off
the far more numerous unbranded establishments and roadside kiosks selling localised and more affordable versions of these toothsome western delights.
It will, of course, also let off the innumerable indigenous
foods with excessive fat content that are consumed more eagerly, widely and certainly more frequently in Kerala and elsewhere in India. Given their popularity, such caveats would
also probably be included by any other state contemplating
similar levies on fatty foods. Imagine the nationwide commotion if such a tax were to include namkeens, vadas, samosas, kathi rolls, bhajis, bread pakoras, chhole bhature, kachoris, chowmein, jalebis, plantain chips and other fried delights? Then the fat would truly be in the fire.

Ending Wars
Peacefully
PRANAV KHULLAR

Bravo, Maharashtra,
for Courage on APMC
The Maharashtra government must not roll back its decision
to delist fruit and vegetables from the Agricultural Produce
Market Committee (APMC) Act. The law makes it mandatory
for farmers to sell only to a designated bunch of middlemen,
allowing them to control the trade in farm produce and corner
the benefit of higher prices. Excluding fruit and vegetables
from the ambit of the Act is welcome. It would enable organised retail to procure directly from farmers, giving them extra
income and the incentive to produce more. Traders have threatened to surrender their licenses in protest. The state government should not yield to pressure and stand by its decision,
which is pro-farmer and pro-consumer.
In 2014, Delhi delisted fruits and vegetables from the APMC Act. Bihar has scrapped the law. However, India has thousands of agricultural markets, with state
APMC Acts creating fragmented markets
for farm produce. The Economic Survey
had lamented that reforming APMC posed a challenge due to the nexus between
politically influential people manning state-level marketing
committees and middlemen. This makes the case for states to
be prodded to amend their APMC Acts compelling.
The National Agricultural Market, a common electronic
platform that gives farmers and buyers the leeway to sell and
buy freely is a good idea. Policy focus should also be to develop
marketing infrastructure and make the supply chain that
links the farmer to the consumer efficient (Amul offers a good
example). Investment in cold chains and rural roads should be
stepped up. Farmers will have better barganing power when
organised into cooperatives or producer companies. A large
network of regulated warehouses, whose receipts are negotiable instruments, will cut out middlemen.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES | BENGALURU | FRIDAY | 22 JULY 2016

indeed, they are as polluting as the tribunal (not scientists) suspect, they will
continue to contaminate Delhis air.
Studies by scientists of top institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology have shown that personal diesel vehicles make a marginal contribution to Delhis pollution. But when the
government correctly cited that study,
somebody important dismissed that
by saying: So what if its IIT? Wow! It
will make a lot more sense if an IIT professor contemptuously dismisses passionate assertions on technical issues
by people who are not scientists.
The decision to ignore scientific
studies will demoralise Indian scientists and reinforce their view that their skills are respected only in foreign
universities and laboratories. If influential activists and authorities disdainfully kick aside IIT studies, then
they are not just threatening scientists, they are themselves a risk to the
environment.
Because Indias forests and water
are too precious to let arrogant intransigence crush scientific thought.
The environment needs science and
calm logic, not whimsical beliefs about what causes the most pollution or
any misplaced self-righteousness that
often accompanies activism.
Himangshu.Watts@timesgroup.com

Bell Curves

R Prasad

Emissions from Wood Energy

Wood energy accounts for 7% of total global carbon
emissions. However, its share in total emissions varies
significantly among regions...

Prediction is
very difficult,
especially
about the
future
Spike Milligan
Comedian

Total
emissions

Emissions from
wood (fuelwood
+ charcoal)

2,427

Asia and Oceania

17,159

Europe

5,289

199

North America

5,817

57

371

12

2,462

3,056

WORLD

33,747

Push The
Reform Peddle

Wood energy
emissions as a share
of total emissions, %

Africa

Latin America & Caribbean

817

34

1,018

Note: Emissions from charcoal include those from its use and
manufacturing (roughly one-third and two-thirds of the total, respectively)

No, Son I Dont Want To Be

Your Partner-in-Crime!

Citings

GOODS AND SERVICES TAX

Reach Out, Pass the Bill

Vinay Pandey
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is
a shrewd politician. He has dumped
the JD(U)s electoral ally, the Congress, on the Goods and Services Tax
(GST) Bill. He opposes the constitutional cap sought by the Congress even as
he seeks its speedy roll-out.
Why has he done that? Because he
knows that GST will be a big equaliser
going ahead, giving laggard states an
opportunity to catch up with the more
developed and industrialised ones.
Other Opposition-ruled states like
Orissa, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh will do well to raise the pressure
on Congress and get the GST Bill
passed in the current monsoon session of Parliament.
The current complex indirect tax
structure, which the GST will replace,
is heavily loaded in favour of industrialised states, allowing them to corner
most of the new investment, foreign
and domestic.
Take the 2% central sales tax (CST)
on inter-state sales of goods. This tax
means that goods that are produced
within the boundary of a state will
face lower taxes, as opposed to those
made by sourcing inputs from all over
the country. And the more state boundaries crossed in the production
process, the higher the incidence of
these taxes.
This has encouraged the entire
supply and input system for manufacture of a particular good to stay within the boundaries of the state where
an industry has come up. So the state
that has a headstart in a particular
industry, hogs the entire opportunity.
This also diminishes the chances of
other less developed states attracting
fresh investment, as investment tends

to gravitate to the already developed

states other things being equal.
The CST is just one of the inter-state
taxes. Entry tax and octroi not only
add to taxes but also make logistics
and transport slow and costly, again
creating an incentive in favour of
developed states.
From a broader national perspective,
these inter-state taxes also lead to the
fragmentation of industry, discouraging scale where there are cost opportunities and encouraging multiple
locations to avoid the hassles and costs
of too much inter-state movement of
inputs or intermediates.
In India, the bulk of commercial
transport is on trucks that have to
crawl through over 600 inter-state
checkpoints, slowing down cargo and
adding to costs, again discouraging
nationwide supply-chain-based
manufacturing. When GST creates a
single national market thats not
balkanised by myriad local levies,
production of goods and services will
take place in locations where they can
be produced the cheapest, allowing
them to then be traded seamlessly
across borders.
States such as Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh that are working hard to

Roses are red, GST get through...

The preamble to the UN charter sums up our existential

dilemma of today in an intensely evocative way, stating
that since wars begin in the
minds of men, it is in the
minds of men that defences of
peace must be constructed.
In a land where history had
sought to be sketched in an arc
from Gautama to Gandhi, it is
but appropriate to reflect on
such defences and revive them
in a time when war and terrorism have cast their shadow
today. It is in the rock-edicts of
Asoka that one finds the
earliest instance of the transformation of a king who not
only abjured war, but who
went on to ban war in his
kingdom as a measure of state
policy. His inquiry into the
psychological roots of war led
him to believe that hatred for
the others beliefs is the primary cause of war but that
hatred can never be appeased
by hatred; it can be appeased
only by love, which is the
eternal law. This inner understanding transformed
Asoka into the great apostleking of peace and spiritual
values, remembered not
because he fought and won
wars, but because he had the
courage to perform the more
difficult task of winning the
hearts of people.
Urdu writer Krishan Chander narrates a story of two
soldiers journeying back
home after World War II. One
soldier hopes that someday all
soldiers will lay down their
arms and refuse to fight, to
which the other responds, in
that case the enemy would
win. The story captures our
innermost insecurities and
conditioning which would
require an enemy even when
none might exist.

Chat Room

CO2 emissions from wood

energy compared with
total carbon emissions,
2010 (Mt CO2)

Source: FAO

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

FILE PHOTO

18 

improve their ease of doing business

will then be able to attract more investment on the strength of their
resources and what they offer to
industry.
By the same logic, most of these
states will also do well to oppose the
1% inter-state levy proposed by the
government under GST to compensate the manufacturing states that fear a
loss of revenue once the regime is
rolled out.
They will also do well to oppose the
Congress demand that that there be
any sort of cap on the GST rates in the
Constitution, or the GST law that can
make changing rates cumbersome.
Ideally, the GST rate should be like
that in the case of excise and Customs.
A high rate is prescribed in the law
that allows the government to make
changes through notifications within
that limit.
Similarly, in the case of GST, a sufficiently high tax rate could be specified
in the law while giving the proposed
GST councils powers to change the
rate through a consensus.
These states are also among the most
populous ones of the country, which
will anyway stand to gain from GST, a
consumption tax.
This is also the best chance for the
GST Bill because two of the biggest
industrialised states that stand to lose
under it, Gujarat and Maharashtra,
are ruled by the BJP. Gujarat has in
the past opposed the reform strongly.
The BJP government at the Centre
that is trying to push the GST through
can get these states to fall in line.
West Bengals Mamata Banerjee,
UPs Akhilesh Yadav and Orissas
Naveen Patnaik should adopt GST and
get it passed this session. Most of them
have already supported the reform.
But it is time they come out and force
the issue so that the law is passed and
the reform is rolled out from April 1,
2017. Instead of being passive spectators of the tedious shadow-boxing
between the BJP and the Congress.
vinay.pandey@timesgroup.com

Managing
Change
BORIS EWENSTEIN ET AL

Change management as it is
traditionally applied is outdated. We know that 70% of
change programmes fail to
achieve their goals, largely
due to employee resistance
and lack of management support. We also know that when
people are truly invested in
change it is 30% more likely to
stick. While companies have
been obsessing about how to
use digital tools to improve
their customer-facing businesses, the application of such tools to promote and accelerate
internal change has received
far less scrutiny. Applying new
digital tools can make change
more meaningfuland durableboth for the individuals experiencing it and for those
implementing...Organisations today are being forced to
adapt and change to an unprecedented degree: leaders have
to make decisions more quickly; managers have to react more rapidly to opportunities and
threats; employees on the front
line have to be more flexible
and collaborative. Mastering
the art of changing quickly is
now a critical competitive advantage. For many organisations, a five-year strategic plan
is a thing of the past. Organisations that once enjoyed the luxury of time to test and roll out
new initiatives must now do so
in a compressed period while
competing with tens of existing initiatives. In this fast-paced environment, competitive
advantage will accrue to companies with the ability to set
new priorities and implement
new processes quicker than
their rivals.
From: Changing Change
Management

Apropos A Revolution, Half

Finished (July16). 25 years of
reforms have undoubtedly
changed the face of India, but
the momentum of reforms
has not kept up with the aspirations of the people. The
governments working should
become far more transparent;
red tape must be cut. Its focus
should be to improve the
quality of education, health,
reform the judicial system
and set high standards of
integrity.
BHOLEY BHARDWAJ
Mumbai

Allow PSBs to
Tap Markets
Apropos State-Owned Banks
Ask For Lots More (July 21).
Recapitalisation is not that big
an issue if the government is
willing to
shed majority
control.
Taxpayers
money cannot
be provided
endlessly for
inefficient
bailouts.
State-owned banks must be
allowed to freely tap the capital market. The RBI should
also work in tandem with
other major stakeholders to
find a lasting solution to
resolving bad loans.
GAURAV GUPTA
Pune

Autonomy For
Kashmir
It is distressing to note that
the exotic Kashmir Valley,
credited with Sufism, is under
curfew for over 10 days, with
no solution in sight. Bullets
are not the solution. Posting
more troops and targeting
local troublemakers with
bullets is like playing with fire
in the hands of separatists.
The Centre says it wants the
Kashmir issue to be dealt with
collectively. Both the Centre
and the state should open a
dialogue and find a long-term
solution to the problem by
giving more autonomy to the
state within the framework of
the Indian Constitution.
Otherwise, the situation may
go out of control.
GK AGRAWAL
Mumbai
Letters to the editor may be addressed to

editet@timesgroup.com