Sunday View: Jayalalithaa, Demonetisation and Air Pollution

The best opinion pieces from across newspapers.

Nothing like a cup of coffee and your Sunday morning reads. (Photo: iStock)

Across the aisle: The Unravelling

Surgical strikes are the phrase of the year in India, writes P Chidambaram in his column Across the Aisle in The Indian Express. From the strikes across the LoC to the 'surgical strike' on black money, he writes that the phrase is politically astute but doesn't live up to all it's meant to be. The strikes across the border only serve to return a normalcy to the situation on the LoC and the strike on black money seems to be unravelling in the span of a month.

The queues outside banks and ATMs are still long, banks run out of cash within a few hours of opening, and most ATMs are dry and non-functional. All major markets remain closed or severely crippled. Retail business is down by as much as 80 per cent. Farmers have no cash to buy seeds or fertilisers or hire labour. Millions of people have been deprived of their daily wage or income for a month.

Read the whole story here.

Fifth Column: Murmurs of Trouble

A month after Prime Minister Modi's decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, Tavleen Singh, in The Indian Express, wonders what gains have been made by him or the country when most people from the lower economic classes seem to be suffering. She also adds that while people continue to stand in lines as seeming leaks in the system keep appearing and lakhs in new notes are discovered in the hands of the powerful, no riots or protests have taken place.

In his digital dreams Mr Modi sees a billion Indians becoming enthusiastic participants in a cashless economy in the near future. But if he understood our creaky banking system better, he would have seen the flaws in these dreams. From different parts of the country, I heard terrible stories last week of very poor people putting their meagre savings into bank accounts only to see the money vanish. The standard response of bank officials is, “Sorry, there was a mistake.”

Read the full piece here.

When Jayalalithaa Put Behind our Acrimonious Interview

In the aftermath of the death of Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa, the video of Karan Thapar's 2004 interview with her went viral. She ended the interview in response to his, "a pleasure talking to you" by saying it had not been a pleasure for her to speak with him. In his column in Hindustan Times, Thapar tells an anecdote from 2006 when Jayalalithaa met with him once more and breezily set aside their last meeting, even mentioning that perhaps it was time for another.

That second interview never happened. I’m not sure if I ever wrote and asked for it. Quite possibly I did not. But the warm-hearted and charming way she put the first behind us left a deeper and more lasting impression than the abrasiveness of our original meeting.

Read the full story here.

Indoor Pollution is as Damaging as the Foul Air Outside

While sighing with relief that air pollution is finally a topic of discussion, Hindustan Times' anonymous op-ed author, Chanakya, points out that indoor pollution continues to be a cause for concern as well and shouldn't be ignored. Chanakya mentions that while urban India seems to have found short-term solutions to the problem in air filters and is focussing on air pollution for long-term fixes, there continues to be a rural problem that shouldn't be brushed under the carpet.

Unfortunately, while exposure to air pollution is a risk factor common to both rural and urban populations, the routine monitoring of air quality, as it stands, is nearly exclusively confined to large cities. This makes the task of understanding the nature and distribution of population exposures much harder, says a 2015 steering committee report on pollution.

Read the entire article here.

Don't Eulogise Amma for her Freebie Politics

Amma's politics relative to results in other states (especially the BIMAROU states - Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand) has not proven that freebies are the way to go to win the hearts and minds of the voter bank, writes Swaminathan Aiyar in his column Swaminomics in The Times of India. He adds that after her death, many narratives have focused on her freebie politics and romanticised it but the numbers don't stand by this assessment.

Far from winning the undying love of the masses, Amma’s vote share actually crashed from almost 52% in 2011 to just over 42% in 2016. This huge anti-incumbent swing should normally have meant crushing defeat. But, luckily for her, the DMK was so confident of winning that it failed to bring small but significant parties into its alliance. The anti-incumbent vote was split, with the Third Front and PMK winning almost 11% of votes. This allowed Amma to squeak through with tiny margins in many seats. The outcome was more a DMK blunder than a great Amma victory.

Read the entire article here.

Are We Ready to Trade Personal Freedoms for Cashless Nationalism?

The current government seems to be forcing the issue of nationalism and that mobilisation, especially around the policy of demonetisation could go either way, writes Sagarika Ghose in The Times of India. Demonetisation seems to have worked politically till now but the jury is still out on how successful a political move it will eventually turn out to be and whether Indians will take kindly to their personal freedoms being dictated by the government.

The benefits of yoga are undeniable, but should every Indian be compelled to do yoga as national duty if he doesn’t want to? PM Modi recently praised a Surat couple who chose a low-cost wedding. But do citizens not have the choice about whether they want meagre or extravagant marriages? Can citizens in a democracy be forced into austerity as a moral command?

Read the full article here.

Anthem Order: Intention’s Good but Imposition Isn’t

The order that dictates that the national anthem be played before every movie screening in a theatre violates individual liberty and freedom, writes Chetan Bhagat in The Times of India. He also adds that the ruling won't actually force anybody to be more patriotic.

The sad part is the imposition won’t increase patriotism. There is a real risk that the young generation will begin to see it as a chore to be done if you want to watch a movie at a cinema. Some may use the time to check messages on their phones. Others may enter the cinema hall late. Does our national anthem deserve that? Should it not be played and sung by people of their own free will and choice?

Read the whole article here.

Opposition on Notebandi: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

Why do political leaders believe that disruption serves a political purpose, asks Swapan Dasgupta in The Times of India. He writes that the Opposition is blocking all debate in parliament and an issue as important as demonetisation has seen no real discussion.

That two wrongs don’t necessarily make a right is well understood. In private, the political class make two admissions. First, that debate is always desirable; and second, that the disruption isn’t a spontaneous expression of outrage but a command performance. Those with political memory will recall the scene inside the Uttar Pradesh assembly in 1997 when open warfare broke out and many MLAs were injured. It was disgraceful but also carefully orchestrated to provoke a Constitutional crisis. The bid failed, but the lessons of that outrage have been insufficiently learnt.

Read the entire story here.

The Only Way to Save Government Schools is to Improve Them

As the rest of the country discusses the death of Jayalalithaa and the effects of demonetisation, Mark Tully in Hindustan Times tackles the issue of government school education in the country. He writes that despite the availability of government education, people are sending their children to private schools. This, he writes, is simply because of the extremely poor quality of government schooling and the only way to save it is by lifting the overall standards of the schools to stem the wastage of money flowing into government education.

One answer to this problem for the government schools should be to up their game, to deal in particular with the chronic problem of teachers not turning up to teach. That is easier said than done. The Central and the state governments’ record on delivering services does not inspire confidence. The spread of private education with its malign influence on the government system is going to make things even worse. The influence is malign because private schools take the influential members of society out of the government system and so there is less pressure on government schools to perform. The Allahabad High Court recognised this when it directed state employees and beneficiaries to send their children to government schools.

Read the full article here.

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