M.V. Rajeev Gowda ಎಂ. ವಿ. ರಾಜೀವ್ ಗೌಡ

"Emperor Ashoka transformed from a conqueror to the champion of justice after the devastation during the Battle of Kalinga opened his eyes to the futility of territorial expansion at the cost of people’s lives. Will the extraordinary human suffering we are witnessing during our ‘Battle with Corona’ get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prioritise healing people’s lives and repairing the economy?One year ago, he won a second successive victory, riding on the perception of decisive leadership on the issue of national security. Modi mistakenly interpreted the mandate as an endorsement of the controversial ideology of the Sangh Parivar.

He swiftly eliminated the special status of Jammu & Kashmir, and placed it under prolonged lockdown and detained pro-India political leaders. He pushed through the triple talaq bill to move law closer to a uniform civil code by criminalising a feature that enabled Muslim men to obtain divorces quickly. On the third ideological priority, the Supreme Court ruled that a Ram temple will be built at Ayodhya.

Next up was the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Its ostensible aim was to help non-Muslim minorities fleeing persecution in neighbouring countries, but home minister Amit Shah clarified the chronology: CAA would be followed by the updating of the National Register of Citizens. Thereafter, non-Muslims without proper proof of citizenship would acquire Indian citizenship through CAA. The remaining millions would be declared infiltrators and housed in detention camps indefinitely.

The unconstitutional introduction of a religious criterion for citizenship and the suspicion that this was a move to decitizenise Muslim Indians triggered sustained, spontaneous protests across India. In February communal riots broke out in northeast Delhi. Multiple videos surfaced showing how the Delhi Police (under central government control) failed to take action against rioters, at times abetted criminals and omitted to act against incendiary speeches by BJP leaders. While northeast Delhi burned, in Lutyens Delhi Modi partied with President Donald Trump.

Two weeks before Namaste Trump, Rahul Gandhi warned that urgent measures were required to prevent the coronavirus from spreading in India, but the government chose to ignore his warning. A month later, in the Rajya Sabha, I urged the government to adjourn Parliament early, but received the rejoinder that MPs needed to demonstrate bravery by working in the face of the Covid-19 threat.

Days after that, once BJP toppled the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, it abandoned the bravado and adjourned Parliament abruptly. After a practice session, the government imposed a national lockdown with four hours notice. The economy came to a sudden stop. Millions of migrant workers began their long march home braving nature, official apathy and police brutality. Tragically, some died along the way due to accidents or exhaustion.

The padayatra of the poor brought to centrestage the hitherto hidden misery of the masses. It revealed that the reality of rural India was that its able bodied would migrate in search of any insecure, even exploitative, chance to earn enough to survive and to send something home for the family. They had somehow missed Modi’s assurance that he was soon to double farmers’ incomes and that India was on the fast track to becoming a $5 trillion economy.

These inconvenient facts about the economy came as a surprise because the government has made sure that there is no data to decipher. When periodic labour surveys revealed rising unemployment, the government discontinued them. When the National Sample Survey warned of worsening poverty and malnutrition because rural Indians were cutting even their food expenditure, the government simply killed the survey citing technicalities.

The first year of Modi 2.0 also highlighted the steady erosion of a separation between the executive and the judiciary. The nomination of former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi to Rajya Sabha days after he retired raised concerns about institutional capture. Indeed, the judiciary has somehow not found the time to intervene on crucial executive actions, including suspension of fundamental rights.

The government’s demonstrable lack of empathy for migrants trudging home contrasts with its earlier manic obsession with “infiltrators” who had to be rooted out through NRC. Clearly, if it had instead focussed on understanding why Indians moved around and in what conditions, it would have been able to create a support structure for migrant workers, and spared lakhs of them the pain and indignity they suffered during the lockdown.

In terms of the larger economy, if the government was willing to face facts, it would have seen evidence of a demand slump even before Covid-19 locked India down. Investments, electricity consumption, non-food credit, GDP growth, all were dropping steadily. Unfortunately, it still refuses to understand that without jump starting demand through substantial fiscal measures, all the credit measures it announced in the “world-beating” Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package will have little effect.

As India battles a global pandemic coupled with an economic crisis that has its roots in the Modi 1.0 government, it is clear that the next few months will shape the country’s future. At this critical time, all Indians need to be part of a collective effort directed towards recovery. Diverting even a single person’s energy towards an ideological agenda will contribute to dooming the country to a dismal fate.

India is at a crossroads. Modi can change course to restore India to its appropriate and inclusive growth path by focussing on repairing the economy, healing the pain of the poor, and dropping communally charged agendas. Or he can misinterpret the mandate as one for divisive leadership (communal tensions even reasserted themselves during the Covid-19 crisis).

History offers different models. Someone who wants to leave his mark on history can make his choices. For India’s sake, I hope he chooses wisely. "

In 2017, India witnessed a unique event. A democratically-elected government stood before the Supreme Court and argued that it had complete and absolute right over the lives of its citizens. It asserted that privacy was an “elitist” concern, that its surveillance powers had no constitutional limits and, no fundamental right to privacy was guaranteed by the Constitution. The Court disagreed unanimously.

Twice thereafter, the Narendra Modi government attempted to circumvent the Supreme Court’s strictures. First, through the mandatory, expansive and unjustified use of Aadhaar, which was pruned substantially by the Court. And second, by issuing a tender to build a surveillance system in 2018, which was stopped after being brought to the notice of the Supreme Court. The government’s latest attempt at circumventing our fundamental right to privacy is the Aarogya Setu app.The government claims it has launched this contact tracing app to better equip healthcare authorities to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. However, its historically poor track record on privacy, the lack of transparency about who built and runs the app, and the absence of data protection legislation compound people’s anxieties. Especially because the app allows the government continuous access to an individual’s location and demographic data. Thus it is imperative that the government answer some burning questions:First, since the app breaches the fundamental right to privacy, it must have legislative sanction. Instead, the app is being imposed through executive order. Companies are being told that all their employees must use the app, and local governments, building societies and shops are making it mandatory. Why has the government not complied with the orders of the Supreme Court vis-a-vis the need for legislation? Under what legal framework has this breach of privacy been shown to be reasonable?

Second, what are the safeguards against data theft and other breaches? The app’s Terms of Service (TOS) confer blanket limited liability on the government. In cases of data theft, who will be held accountable? How can the government be allowed to operate a huge surveillance system without concomitant obligations?

Third, why is the app not open source? The closed source architecture of the app violates transparency principles and this government’s own policies. Singapore’s TraceTogether app was made open source, thus allowing researchers and experts to test the architecture and suggest measures to correct vulnerabilities.Fourth, why is there no protocol for deletion of data? What legal rights do users have over their data and its deletion? Does the government have a right to hold the data and process it in perpetuity? Under the TOS, the government is obligated to delete certain personal data after a 30-day time period. However, there exists no framework to check compliance of the same. If users have no control over their data, it is a complete violation of their right to informational self-determination and the right to be forgotten.

Ever-changing rules add to the problem. On April 14, the app updated its privacy policy without notifying users, despite the privacy policy explicitly mandating the same. Such actions do not inspire trust.

Fifth, has the app been tested with any groups of users, for example, like Britain is testing a contact tracing app with a limited population in the Isle of Wight? Has the government conducted scenario analyses of how the app can be misused or abused? This is crucial in India given how much stigmatisation has already occurred (communities refusing to bury bodies of COVID patients and an instance of the lynching of a person suspected to be positive). The human touch may be vital, as Kerala has demonstrated, by successfully using old-fashioned manual contact tracing.

Sixth, has the government figured out how to deal with cases of false positives, the possibility of which is acknowledged in the TOS? How well trained are officials who will be making decisions about whom to quarantine? What if the app provokes people to infer incorrectly that someone they encountered a few days earlier was a carrier of the virus? If they attack or stigmatise that person, a faulty algorithm or inference would have jeopardised someone’s life. How will the government deal with such cases?

Seventh, in a country where the total number of smartphone users is around 500 million, is the government going to penalise the remaining (almost) two-thirds of the population for not downloading the app on a smartphone they do not possess or cannot afford?

Across India, there are efforts to build databases of people’s health records to enable easier treatment, including through telemedicine. If instances of misuse of the Aarogya Setu app emerge, then people will not trust other government initiatives involving health records, even if they are undertaken with due care, inclusive consultations, and respect for privacy.

The government must address these concerns in an open manner. Contradictory statements from ministers and combative rejoinders to those, like Rahul Gandhi, who raised valid concerns, just worsen the confusion.

When the Supreme Court heard the Right to Privacy case, it marked an unprecedented occasion where the government of India actually argued against the rights of its citizens. Now, it is time to stand up and ensure that, through the Aarogya Setu app, this government does not callously snatch those rights and jeopardise citizens’ safety.

In Karnataka, we celebrate Ugadi by eating bevu bella, neem leaves mixed with jaggery so we can take both bitter and sweet in our stride. Our new year started with the 21-day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This extraordinary but appropriate risk management measure should help keep our fellow citizens safe at home. Our health authorities must now scale up testing, isolation and treatment of those infected by the COVID-19 virus. Over the next three weeks, we should be able to drastically curtail its spread.

The government has finally announced a financial relief package to help Indians facing a loss of livelihood and food security as a result of the lockdown. They now have some reassurance that the government is thinking of their plight and will do its duty and provide them with a safety net.

Along with this, we urgently need the Centre to enhance the resources it allocates to India’s states. They are already taking decisive measures to combat the pandemic and to provide support to those who are economically displaced. Our governance model provides for decision-making at the Union level. But the burden of policy execution falls upon states. Healthcare, sanitation, agriculture and public utilities are administered by state governments.Our early success in containing the spread of the virus has been due to the early start by state governments. Kerala started screening people and recommended social distancing weeks earlier. Chhattisgarh started scaling up its healthcare infrastructure to tackle COVID-19 as early as February. Rajasthan was the first state to announce a complete lockdown and comprehensive social security measures like cash transfers and provision of food for the most vulnerable. Karnataka is working to make food available for those affected. Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Assam, and other states have taken similar proactive measures.

India’s states, however, are at a massive disadvantage. They are at the frontline but have limited resources to fight. Post GST, their ability to raise resources through taxes has been curtailed. To fight the global pandemic, I urge the Union government to strengthen federalism and take the following measures:

First, release all the pending dues owed to the state governments on account of GST compensation. Make an advance payment of the dues that will arise over the financial year. Earmark a fund dedicated to supporting state government activities to contain COVID-19, which may go beyond what the Centre has decreed. If states are still short of money, actively assist them in raising finances from markets, even giving an explicit sovereign guarantee to lenders. The Centre should also share some of the bonanzas it will gain from the fall in crude oil prices and hike in excise duty.Second, reorient investments to activities that will contain the pandemic, especially since the fight against COVID-19 will not end in 21 days. Medium-term and long-term planning must start now. Utilise funds earmarked for investments in infrastructure to supplement efforts of state governments. The redevelopment of the Central Vista, a grand Rs 20,000-crore project to create a new Parliament House and prime ministers’ residence, can wait. Setting up isolation centres, production of medical and safety equipment, and ramping up of testing capabilities cannot wait. Projects under the Swachh Bharat Mission and MGNREGA should be reoriented to align with the larger health mission.

The Union government must clear all its dues to states under different programmes and policies. Most welfare schemes that rely on central government transfers suffer from delays in allocation. The Mid-day Meal Scheme and MGNREGA are less effective because of massive delays in releasing funds to states. These vital components of our social safety net must be fully funded and dues released urgently.

Third, regularly consult all chief ministers and lieutenant governors and devise a protocol to ensure seamless execution of activities. Supply chains have been greatly affected by the varied lockdowns across India. Different states’ guidelines hinder the movement of citizens from other states and essential goods and services. Their concerns and other bottlenecks must be removed through a holistic approach.

One welcome step by the Union government was directing states to transfer funds to registered construction workers from the earmarked welfare funds. Different states have made decisions based on their financial capabilities. What is lacking is support from the Union government.While Rajasthan and Punjab announced advance payments of monthly pensions, some states have not. The Union government should step up by starting a direct cash transfer scheme similar to Congress’s NYAY proposal. Payments can be made through the Kisan Samman Nidhi and to Jan Dhan accounts.

It is harvest time in parts of India but, with the lockdown and depressed demand, we are staring at a huge drop in earnings for farmers, along with labour shortage. Nearly half of India depends upon agriculture for their livelihoods. The Union government must offer support to state governments to ensure that farmers receive a fair price and can move their produce, especially perishables, to markets.

Some state governments are doing a stellar job. The need of the hour is for the Union government to support all of them to step up. Team India is in this together. The prime minister must ensure our states have the resources to fight, and overcome, COVID-19.