Comment

Making lives tougher

THE horrors of Bhopal gas tragedy reverberate through the stories of those who suffered and survived the onslaught of the hazardous methyl isocynate gas on the fateful night of 3rd December 1984. Indian officials estimate that the gas leak left nearly 3828 dead.1 Unofficial estimates claim up to 7000-8000 initial deaths and 15,000-20,000 subsequent deaths.2 The uncertain death toll coupled with mental, emotional, physical and psychological trauma of that night still haunt the memories of those afflicted as well as the other residents of the city of Bhopal.

The turning point of the arduous litigation was when an inglorious ‘settlement’3 was reached between the Government of India and Union Carbide. In order to heal the wounds of injustice inflicted upon the valiant survivors of Bhopal, a compensation mechanism was established by legislating the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985. There were around 5,74,000 victims who qualified for receiving the compensation money. Out of these, over 300,000 suffer from serious illnesses.

The journey from processing of claims till obtaining the compensation amount was an impossible bureaucratic nightmare for the victims. It took almost 15 years for the courts to ascertain who all were eligible for compensation and now the mandatory enforcement of Aadhaar seems to be a mere repetition of the whole procedure.4 The whole process has resulted in the victims undergoing a parallel unofficial litigation. Despite the passage of 33 years since the unfortunate day of the gas leak, the enduring rightlessness of the victims clamours for a closure.

Those who were violated by this form of ‘corporate terror’ in ‘India’s Baghdad’5 had their problems aggravated with the recent notification6 by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers dated 06.03.2017. This notification was in pursuance of the provisions of Section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016. It essentially directed that those who have suffered due to the gas leak have to mandatorily ‘furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication’ in order to ‘receive the benefit of cash compensation under the scheme’. The scheme here refers to the Ex gratia to Bhopal Gas Victims Scheme which is disbursed through the Office of the Welfare Commissioner, Bhopal Gas Victims.

The government’s extraordinary affection towards foisting of an identity number on those who have suffered tremendously in Bhopal stands in direct contradiction to the Supreme Court’s interim order which explicitly held that the ‘Aadhaar card scheme is purely voluntary and it cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by this Court one way or the other.’7 The Apex Court has also made it clear that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for availing various social welfare schemes.8 After the pronouncement of these interim orders by the Supreme Court in October 2015, the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 was passed in March 2016 by the legislature (ironically it was introduced as a money bill). The dodgy hastiness with which the legislation was passed and the wide reach of provisions of Aadhaar Act provides fertile ground for several politico-legal issues.9 It would be an exaggeration to say that the state policy is slowly moving towards a totalitarian democracy through enabling Aadhaar card for social welfare schemes but nonetheless, there are signs of the same. Some of the major legal issues which echo the rise of authoritarianism are mentioned below:

1. Whether the previous interim orders by Supreme Court prohibit exercising of powers under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act?

2. Can the victims of the gas leak disaster be denied benefits under the Ex-gratia to Bhopal Gas Victims Scheme for want of an Aadhaar card?

3. Was there a flagrant violation of principles of federalism and Article 110(3) of the Constitution by the government in introducing the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill?

An analysis of the abovementioned legal issues continues to be in debate with the government and civil society offering different answers. The opposition parties along with others in the civil society have continuously claimed that the passage of the act, the overarching gamut of the provisions of the act and the denial of adherence to Supreme Courts orders reflects the infusion of authoritarianism in the democratic procedures of the government.

The victims of the gas leak have directly been effected due to the aggressive Aadhaar policy of the government. Successive governments have shown either apathy or mere tokenism towards those who were violated by the negligence of Union Carbide. The absence of taking concrete steps for ameliorating their condition was the norm for decades. Yet, the obligation of possessing an Aadhaar card on those who suffered in the Bhopal gas tragedy goes a step further in complicating their lives and is clearly a reflection for the utter disregard of human life and suffering.

This compels us to pose a larger question about the ulterior motivations behind the Unique Identification Authority of India project. Are we witnessing the rise of authoritarianism in times of democracy through data collection? The imposition of an identity number on the vulnerable and deprived in relation to welfare schemes is only one of the ways in which a paradigm shift towards a totalitarian democracy is observed. The linking of many social welfare schemes to Aadhaar gives an impression that Dreze’s ominous prophecy of formulation of an ‘infrastructure of authoritarianism’ is finally coming true.10 This is not to say that those who are primarily affected by this decision and forced to possess an Aadhaar card for their daily needs have disapproved of the project. An absence of resistance and the missing interrogation is a perfect recipe to hand over absolute power to the government. The looming fear is that the continual absence of resistance, at both political and local level, is contributing to the pervasive erosion of democratic procedures at parliamentary echelons.

Whereas the intention of the government could be of plugging the leakages in the welfare schemes, yet the fact that it has, so far, met no resistance or serious questioning from the masses likely reflects the changing submissive political attitude of the population towards those in power. A sense of blind obedience to government diktat and emergence of terms like ‘bhakt’, ‘anti-national’, ‘Pakistani’ among others is also evidence of the same. The foisting of Aadhaar card for social welfare schemes alters the political existence of citizens by reiterating a particular political narrative thereby promoting homogeneity of political thought and silencing of dissent. This reminds us of Talmon’s seminal writing on the origins of totalitarian democracy where he said that:

‘The totalitarian democratic school, on the other hand, is based upon the assumption of a sole and exclusive truth in politics. It may be called political Messianism in the sense that it postulates a preordained, harmonious and perfect scheme of things, to which men are irresistibly driven, and at which they are bound to arrive. It recognizes ultimately only one plane of existence, the political.’11

The Aadhaar project also has a sense of awe around itself and is constantly projected as the necessity of the hour by the state. This awe feature has likely justified troubling even the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy who are still reeling from the ill effects of a corporate’s negligence of safety norms. The imagination of the masses has been captured through conjuring that the Aadhaar project is indeed in the undeniable national interest and ultimate goal of recreating a new India. However, this effort should be recognized for what it is – an exercise to reinvent the state-citizen relationship through a ‘hi-tech oriented knowledge economy’.12 Massive bureaucracies have been engaged to ensure that every citizen is on board the Aadhaar project. However, it is still possible that despite this tiring exercise the intended beneficiaries might remain excluded due to false negatives and other technical difficulties. This is not to say that the Aadhaar project is a failure in toto. It is currently in a phase where the results of the project cannot be measured accurately. But what can be understood is that the force-feeding of Aadhaar are prefatory indications that India is shifting into the sea of authoritarianism while projecting itself as the world’s largest democracy.

Justin Jos

 

Footnotes:

1. S. Muralidhar, Unsettling Truths, Untold Tales: The Bhopal Gas Disaster Victims’ Twenty Years’ of Courtroom Struggles for Justice. A Report for the Fact Finding Mission on Bhopal, 2004, available at http://www.ielrc.org/content/w0405.pdf.

2. ‘Union Carbide/Dow Lawsuit (re Bhopal)’ (Business-Human Rights) http://business-humanrights.org/en/union-carbidedow-lawsuit-re-bhopal (accessed 29 December 2015).

3. Union Carbide Corporation v. Union of India (1990) AIR SC 273.

4. ‘No Aid for Bhopal Gas Victims, Workers Rescued From Bonded Labour Unless They Have Aadhaar Number’, Scroll.in, https://scroll.in/latest/831144/no-aid-for-bhopal-gas-victims-workers-rescued-from-bonded-labour-unless-they-have-aadhaar-number?utm_content=bufferc9823&utm_medium=social&utm_ source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer (last visited 23 April 2017).

5. Remembering Corporate Terror in India’s Baghdad. Toxics Watch Alliance (TWA) Toxicswatch.org, http://www.toxicswatch.org/2009/12/remembering-corporate-terror-in-indias.html?m=0 (last visited 23 April 2017).

6. Notification No. S.O. 754 (E).

7. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) and Anr Petitioner(S) vs. Union of India and Ors. Respondent(S), Writ Petition(s)(Civil) No(s). 494/2012.

8. Legal Correspondent, ‘Supreme Court Counters Push for Aadhaar’, The Hindu, 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/aadhaar-cannot-be-mandatory-for-welfare-schemes-supreme-court/article17671381.ece (last visited 23 April 2017).

9. Section 7 reads as follows: ‘The Central Government or, as the case may be, the State Government may, for the purpose of establishing identity of an individual as a condition for receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service for which the expenditure is incurred from, or the receipt there from forms part of, the Consolidated Fund of India, require that such individual undergo authentication, or furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or in the case of an individual to whom no Aadhaar number has been assigned, such individual makes an application for enrolment: Provided that if an Aadhaar number is not assigned to an individual, the individual shall be offered alternate and viable means of identification for delivery of the subsidy, benefit or service.’

10. Jean Dreze, ‘Unique Facility, or Recipe for Trouble?’, The Hindu, 2010, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Unique-facility-or-recipe-for-trouble/article15714630.ece (last visited 23 April 2017).

11. J.L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (Introduction). Secker and Warburg, London, Vol. 1, 1952; Vol. 2, 1960.

12. Itay Noy, ‘State and Society Reimagined: India’s Novel Unique Identification Scheme as a State Hi-tech Fantasy’, The South Asianist 3(1), November 2014, pp. 102-119; ‘Crossing Boundaries’, 2014, http://www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk/article/view/741

 

Universities as spaces of disaffection

THE recent controversy surrounding the death of the research scholar Muthukrishnan on 13 March 2017 at a very celebrated centre in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi has left the progressive and the well meaning fraternity at JNU and elsewhere speechless. If one were to de-contextualize the issue and focus on the immense cultural power that an academic aristocracy exercises in the day-to-day life of students coming from marginalized sections, then one should not just limit our discussion to the external conditions (of unacceptable political and economic regime) that powerfully shape the life of elite institutions, but need to turn the gaze within in order to throw some light on these deeply disturbing experiences.

The intrusion of Dalit Bahujan students into the portals of elite institutions has been made possible not by the magnanimity of the learned savarna elite who have managed these institutions for many decades but by the use of force made possible by a rustic political class in the form of the Mandal Commission report. We are told that it is not in the nature of higher educational institutions to de-elitise themselves and that the process supposedly spells doom for education itself akin to what has happened to state universities in post-independent India.

The de-elitising of these institutions means giving up the ‘autonomy’ of the knowledge bearing aristocracy, disrupting the modern brahmanical imagination that knowledge at higher institutional spaces should be available as a public good. It turns out that the university has become a place of affection for savarnas and a space to experience distance for Dalit Bahujan students. It is possible that this sense of experience of distance and disaffection in elite educational institutions is what bothered scholars like Rohith Vemula, Muthukrishnan and others. These sensitive individuals refused to accept the deeply pathological negation of their identity and embodied presence in university spaces. The critique against the elite institutions is not that they are disembodied and impersonal but that they display a brahmanic form of embodiment that disallows other bodies and minds to breathe and experience happiness and pleasure from inhabiting the concrete space of the university.

Here are some excerpts from Dalit Bahujan students’ concrete experience of this elite institution:

‘Once I was presenting a paper on Ambedkar in my masters’ class as part of internal assessment at the same centre as that of Muthukrishnan’s in JNU. I used Babasaheb Ambedkar to refer to his works in the paper. After my presentation, my professor told me that I cannot use informal titles such as "Babasaheb" in academic presentations. In the same class, another classmate of mine who is an urban savarna student presented his paper on Nehru. He started by regretfully saying that he had written Pandit Nehru throughout his paper and would correct it. My professor told him that that was not a problem.’

‘In my interview for MPhil/Phd admission in the same centre, I had submitted a proposal on Music as a Form of Resistance. I had earlier discussed my proposal with a Dalit professor who told me that it was good and had a lot of scope. I had already scored good marks in the entrance (43/75) and was confident about my proposal. Much to my surprise, in my interview, they did not even ask me a single question about the proposal. They asked only three questions, all about a low grade in one particular paper. Now, this low grade has a background story. I could not submit one of my assignments on time during my masters as I was down with a flu.’

‘I tried to meet my professor who is a very accomplished academic in the field of tribal culture. She told me that she could not accommodate my request for extension. When I described to her how unwell I was, she gave me her phone number and asked me to call her later. I tried to call her five times. The phone rang, but it was never attended. Finally, she gave me a very low grade in my internals for that paper. She was there in the interview board and the moment she saw me asked in a surprised tone, "Oh, you got through?" I replied with a smile, "Yes". I was disappointed after the interview that there was not even a single question to gauge my academic capability. I was awarded very low marks in the viva (3/25). Thus, despite my scoring well in the entrance examination, I did not get through for MPhil/PhD in this very famous centre in JNU.’

These were some of the instances narrated by a Dalit research scholar from a mofussil town in eastern India during a protest meeting in JNU after Muthukrishnan’s suicide. The student in these narratives seeks to excel in his pursuit of knowledge by redefining the epistemological possibilities of problematizing caste in his class presentation and PhD proposal. His attempts show his eagerness to embrace academic culture in the pursuit of life of a mind, which is more than the instrumental purpose of education. But these attempts are constantly marked either as ‘out of academic framework’ or as ‘unfit for the system’. These phrases ‘lack of academic framework’ or ‘fitness to be in the academic system’ recur in many narratives of Dalit students, especially those who attempt to bring in their sensibilities and aesthetics like Muthukrishnan, Rohith Vemula, the student in the above narrative and many others who wade through the everyday discriminatory ‘sensorium’ of the institution and its people. A Dalit student’s eagerness to envisage a non-alienating relationship with the modern higher educational institution is interrupted by subtle suggestions and informal procedures informed by caste as practised by an institution and its people.

Institutions of higher education are supposedly endowed with the responsibility of producing distinctions in modern society. In recent debates on caste discrimination in elite higher educational institutions, this responsibility of producing distinction is inverted. That is, these spaces produce non-synchronic forms of discrimination which are inherited rather than acquired. In some sense, there is a blurring of differences between forms of recognition based on modern rational universal principles and those based on a pre-modern caste system. There are many illustrations which exemplify the reproduction of caste based forms of recognition instead of one that is solely based on acquired learning as seen in the excerpts provided earlier. If one were to look at higher educational institutions as spaces that are both embodied and disembodied sites that reproduce caste along with knowledge, then it follows that they produce marked distinctions.

This production of marked distinctions based on caste is successfully perpetuated through an affective articulation of the body of an institution and its people. Dalit Bahujans, as relatively new entrants to a body that has been largely composed of savarna aesthetics and taste, are constantly made to feel alienated and discriminated against. It is sometimes in the form of informal procedures that delay their scholarships and rights, or a lack of recognition of Dalit Bahujans’ embodied presence in classrooms, other university spaces and so on. Thus, there is a whole affective economy of higher educational institutions that devalues the Dalit Bahujan ‘being’ by prioritizing the already normalized presence of savarna aesthetics and taste. It is in this realm where Dalit Bahujan embodiment itself is seen as a threat, that Dalit students like Rohith and Muthukrishnan seek radical equality, which is beyond the demands for mere presence in modern spaces. They were seeking the life of a mind as well, which is more than the instrumentality of presence.

Equality may be seen as an effort to recognize the sameness in the other person. Neither the Hindu right wing nor the left recognize or grant this space for the production and reproduction of this radical equality that Ambedkar aspired to and which was aesthetically pictured in the suicide note of Rohith Vemula as the desire to not to be reduced to a mere identity. But in the present context, equality is not to recognize the sameness but the incommensurable otherness of the Dalit Bahujan person. Yet, thousands of Dalit Bahujan students relentlessly dream and struggle to experience an intellectual ambience in elite institutions sans caste prejudice to recreate their ‘being’ in radically new ways in a society that otherwise seems to be forgetting what resistance with conscience can deliver in reimagining life and politics afresh.

P. Thirumal and Carmel Christy