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NOIDA/DELHI THE HINDU

THURSDAY, JULY 27, 20178EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

CMYK

A ND-NDE

EDITORIAL

The Supreme Court has shown due restraint in de-

clining to apply the provisions of the Protection of

Children from Sexual O�ences Act to mentally re-

tarded adults whose mental age may be that of a child. It

would have been tempting to give a purposive interpret-

ation to the term ‘child’ under POCSO, which refers to

those below 18 years of age, and rule that it encom-

passes those with a ‘mental age’ of a person below 18. It

would have been compelling to acknowledge how simil-

arly a child and an adult with inadequate intellectual

growth are placed when it comes to sexual assault: both

may show the same lack of understanding about the

situation they are in and incapacity to protest. No

doubt, any expanded de�nition to encompass both bio-

logical and mental age within the POCSO framework

would have helped extend its bene�cial features to an-

other section of vulnerable persons. The court has

chosen the challenging path of analysing the import of

such judicial interpretation, along with the question

whether expanding the notion of age is within its remit.

It has ruled that it is outside its domain. POCSO is meant

to protect children from sexual o�ences. To extend it to

adult victims based on mental age would require de-

termination of their mental competence. This would

need statutory provisions and rules; the legislature

alone is competent to enact them. Judicial conferment

of power to trial courts to treat some adults as children

based on mental capacity would, in the Bench’s opin-

ion, do violence to the existing law protecting children

from sexual o�ences. It noted that there may be di�er-

ent levels of mental competence, and that those with

mild, moderate or borderline retardation are capable of

living in normal social conditions.

The case before the court related to the rape of a 38-

year-old woman with cerebral palsy. Her mother was

concerned about the absence of a friendly and con-

genial atmosphere before the trial court. She ap-

proached the courts for a direction to transfer the case

to a special court under POCSO, a law that mandates

child-friendly procedures and features during the trial,

taking into account her daughter’s mental age, which

she said was that of a six-year-old. In a fateful turn of

events, the lone accused died during these proceed-

ings, bringing the criminal case to an end. The implica-

tion of the Supreme Court ruling is that the onus is al-

ways on trial judges to keep in mind the degree of

retardation of victims and their level of understanding

while appreciating their evidence. It would be unfortu-

nate if cases get derailed because of either the victims’

inability to communicate e�ectively or because of the

court’s di�culty in understanding their words or ges-

tures. It is now up to the legislature to consider the in-

troduction of legal provisions to determine mental

competence so victims with inadequate mental devel-

opment may e�ectively testify against sexual o�enders.

Questions of ageThe SC has done right in refusing to extend

POCSO to adults with mental retardation

Poland’s right-wing government has been waging a

relentless war on democratic institutions ever

since it assumed o�ce in 2015. But it may have

gone too far now with its moves to curb judicial inde-

pendence, which have been categorically opposed by

President Andrzej Duda. Mr. Duda, an ally of the ruling

Law and Justice Party (PiS), vetoed two measures that

militate against the rule of law. One of them requires all

judges of the Supreme Court to step down, except those

the President thinks should stay on. The second gives

Parliament control over the mechanism that deals with

their appointment. However, he did assent to another

controversial measure which empowers the justice

minister to sack the heads of lower courts. The govern-

ment of Prime Minister Beata Szydło was able to initiate

these unpopular pieces of legislation because it has

already stripped the tribunal that adjudicates on the

constitutionality of laws relating to its powers. The gov-

ernment has claimed that the overhaul was intended to

rid the judicial system of Soviet-era remnants. But most

Poles seem to think otherwise. They have tasted eco-

nomic prosperity and political freedoms in the post-

Cold-War years and after the country’s 2004 accession

to the European Union. They have also grown accus-

tomed to standing up for their rights against arbitrary

encroachment, and with success. The government was

forced to reverse a socially regressive policy on abor-

tion that even criminalised termination of pregnancies

regardless of circumstances, including rape.

Outrage against the latest judicial reforms has drawn

thousands to the streets in protest against the PiS re-

gime. Poland has been the poster child of the EU’s integ-

ration, and the institutional clampdown in this other-

wise thriving economy is understandably causing

concern in other European capitals. The European

Commission has said it would start legal proceedings.

Under the Rule of Law Framework, it can strip a mem-

ber-country of its voting rights. But given the sensitivit-

ies about national sovereignty, there are bound to be

limits on the application of procedures, even where

they may be sound under the law. Moreover, Hungary’s

continued clash with the EU over similar issues seems

to have made little di�erence to its dismal record on

democratic governance and accountability. Experience

suggests that leading by example and exerting diplo-

matic pressure, rather than preaching from the pulpit,

is a more realistic and e�ective course to adopt. The art

and craft of stitching up pragmatic, if sometimes pain-

ful, political compromises has been the story of the EU,

where the imperatives of staying together trump almost

all else. Poland’s robust civil society may, in the end, be

more e�ective in keeping its government accountable.

Poles apartExecutive overreach in Poland is drawing

people to the streets, and inviting the EU’s ire

It is heartening to read the pre-liminary observations of the Su-preme Court, made on July 19,

regarding privacy as a funda-mental right. Unfortunately, muchof the debate on privacy seems tosu�er from the leftovers of a cer-tain traditional understanding ofprivacy and the private. In fact, it isno longer possible to decouple theidea of privacy from the mechan-isms through which privacy isguaranteed. Since Aadhaar andmany of the contemporary discus-sions on privacy are related to deeptechnological developments, thequestion of privacy should be re-thought in the context of thesetechnologies.

Secrecy and securityPrivacy is not a concept like theother fundamental rights.Moreover, our notions of privacyhave changed and will continue tochange. If there is one major cata-lyst for this change, it has beentechnology. Built homes are asimple example of how we developa sense of privacy which is in�u-enced by a technological develop-ment. Once we have a conceptionof home, we also have conceptionsof bedroom, living room, toilet andkitchen. These spaces and concep-tions created by very simple pro-cesses of technology create spe-ci�c ideas of privacy.

Two common ways of under-standing privacy are throughsecrecy and anonymity. We believethat our bank balance must beprivate. Companies do not nor-mally make public the salaries of

all their employees. Universities donot make public the marks orgrades of their students in a waythat violates the privacy of the stu-dent.

These notions of privacy arebased on the need for security andprotection. We do not want to di-vulge certain things about ourwealth or life practices since theymay be used by others to poten-tially harm us. So privacy becomesa way of protecting individuals orgroups. But we also often over-throw privacy arguments for se-curity purposes. We do not objectto giving our biometrics when weapply for visas or when we joinsome private jobs.

Contemporary technology hasmade possible many new innova-tions that have changed the verymeaning and signi�cance of pri-vacy. From smartphones to thedarknet, the fundamental traject-ory is one to do with privacy. How-ever, there are two worrisome as-pects. In any discussion onprivacy, there is a deep suspicionof the government and state, mosttimes rightly so. But this suspiciondoes not extend to technology andits private agents, those that are re-sponsible for the breakdown of thevalue of privacy today.

Today, in times of growing

privatisation, the greatest chal-lenge to privacy comes from theprivate sector. It also stems from anindi�erence to our own privacy.We do not seem to value privacytoday as in earlier times. Social ex-periments have shown that peopleare willing to have private informa-tion about themselves made publicif they receive some monetary ad-vantage.

We do this all the time. When wesearch for a book or a ticket, westart getting advertisements re-lated to these searches in our sup-posedly private emails. What weread, search, buy, talk and perhapseven think get stored, used and cir-culated. Everything is tracked andrerouted. We have no clue to theamount of information about ourprivate lives that is out in the Web.All because we get free emails andfree Internet access! Today, pri-vacy has been deeply comprom-ised through the o�ering of ‘free’goods.

The state and private playersVery often when we worry aboutquestions of privacy, it is about therole of the government or the state.The state too can do much with theinformation on individuals that itcollects through various voluntaryas well as coercive means. The con-

cern about privacy thus was a con-cern about potential misuse ofsuch information. However, in-formation about individuals is ar-guably much more in the privatedomain today than it is within vari-ous governments. Moreover, themining of this information is takenup far more assiduously by theprivate compared to governmentinstitutions.

The idea of privacy has alwayshad a troubled relationship withprivatisation. Private companiesoften have rules that protect themfrom being transparent in hiringpolicies, in a�rmative action oreven making public the salaries ofall their employees. Private groupsknow best the power of the idea ofprivacy. They use this notion toprotect themselves from govern-ments and the public. They alsorealise that the greatest marketthat is perennially available tothem is the market of trading in-formation on privacy.

A related problem is that thegovernment has begun to lookmore and more like the private sec-tor. Today, almost all politicians arerich entrepreneurs and holdpowerful business interests. Thepublic-private binary does notfunction in any useful sense as faras the governing class is con-cerned. Thus, privacy is not onlyopen to manipulation by the gov-ernment but even more so by theprivate sector. This is so especiallybecause it is the private sector thatis at the forefront of developingtechnologies that facilitate thismining, storing and sharing of in-formation.

No free lunchesThe Trojan horse through whichthe state and private players enterour domains of privacy is throughcontemporary technologies.These technologies have nowcome to be seen as necessary. The

fact that we so unthinkingly buyinto this story shows the success ofhow these technologies have col-onised us so e�ectively.

The price we pay for moderntechnologies is not only money.The economic model that runsconsumerism of modern technolo-gies is quite di�erent from themodel of selling groceries. We areseduced by the amount of freethings we get in a technologicalgadget. The websites are free; wecan download millions of booksand songs for which we had to payearlier. Why are we being given somuch that is free? Like almosteverything else in this world, thereare always hidden costs. The majorcost that we pay is the cost of ourprivacy — the information on eachone of our private lives and,through this information, more ef-fective control on how we act andbehave.

This raises deeply troublingquestions about making privacy afundamental right. How will theSupreme Court judges be able togive a judgment on privacy as a fun-damental right without also mak-ing possession, and the making, oftechnology as ‘rights’? How canthey do this without imposing con-trols on predator technologies thatenter the social world in the guiseof making our lives comfortable?Some might argue that technologyis only an intermediary tool thatenables certain things, both goodand bad.

But to hold this view is to beblind to the changing modes oftechnological domination throughdigital and Internet technologies.Technology is no longer outsidehuman and social processes; it co-creates and co-constitutes the hu-man and the social.

Sundar Sarukkai is professor ofphilosophy at the National Institute ofAdvanced Studies, Bengaluru

Privacy in the public domainThe greatest challenge to privacy is from the private sector. It also stems from an indi�erence to our own privacy

sundar sarukkai

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Since December 2015, Chennaihas limped from one extremeweather-related shock to an-

other — the �oods, the failed mon-soon of 2016, Cyclone Vardah, andnow the water crisis. Chennai’s de-�ning element is water. But the cityshows scant regard for this pre-cious but dangerous resource. Loc-ated squarely in the intervening�oodplains of three rivers on ahigh-energy coastline, Chennai is adisaster-prone location. Any badlylocated city can be vulnerablemerely by virtue of its location. Butonly a special kind of city — a citywith a death wish — actively makesa bad situation worse.

Nothing speaks more elegantlyto Chennai’s death wish than whatgovernments are doing to the wet-lands in North Chennai. In June,the State government concededthe Government of India-ownedKamarajar Port Ltd’s (KPL) requestto divert 1,000 acres of the hydro-logically sensitive Ennore wetlandsfor industrial installations that arebest built on dry land. The pro-posal is pending Central govern-ment clearance. If permitted,

KPL’s dream will turn out to beChennai’s worst nightmare, farworse than the 2015 �oods.

The importance of EnnoreEnnore Creek, a sprawling 8,000-acre tidal waterbody, is a placewhere climate change and dis-astrous land-use change converge.Two rivers with a total catchmentof 5,000 sq km empty into the En-nore Creek.

This wetland’s importance maynot be apparent. Much of the creeklooks dry year-round, when visiblewaterspread is only 1,000 acres.But when cyclonic weather pushesthe sea surging landwards, orwhen rainwaters from the tworivers come rushing to meet thesea, the waterspread in the creekswells to its majestic fullness.Come rain or storm surge, theavailability of room for the rain orsea water to stay is what keeps thecity from going under.

The creek o�ers another protec-tion too. It bu�ers the rich aquifersof the Araniyar-KosasthalaiyarBasin from the sea, and keeps saltwater from invading groundwaterresources that supply several hun-dred million litres daily to Chennaieven during the worst droughts.

In 1996, the Tamil Nadu govern-ment protected a 6,500-acrestretch of the tidal waterbody un-der the Coastal Regulation Zone(CRZ) Noti�cation. But greed pre-vailed over good sense. More than1,000 acres of the creek were lost

to illegal encroachments that riselike dams across a river.

The o�ending installationsblock the path of rainwaters rush-ing down the Arani river and themighty Kosasthalaiyar. Areas thatnever got �ooded saw waters enterhomes and remain for more than afortnight in 2015. Tamil Nadu’s life-line, the Manali petroleum re-�nery, went under water for days.

Seeds of disasterThe identities of the architects ofthe last disaster may not be clear.Also, they may arguably not haveknown the consequences of inter-fering with mega-drains. But suchassumptions no longer hold good.Political leaders and bureaucratshave been told that the creek is aprotected waterbody, and that en-croaching on it is both illegal and

dangerous.But neither impending danger

nor illegality has stopped the Stategovernment from clearing KPL’sproposal to construct coal yards,warehouse zones, car parking andexport terminals for Ford, Hyundaiand Nissan on 1,000 acres of En-nore wetlands. Justifying the de-cision taken in June, the StateCoastal Zone Management Author-ity published a new map — sub-sequently exposed to be a fraudu-lent map — that denied theexistence of the 6,500-acre creek.

The architects of future dis-asters in this case are neither an-onymous, nor ignorant. Theycleared KPL’s proposal fully awarethat the encroachments will en-danger more than a million peoplein Thiruvallur and Chennaidistricts.

Such decisions arise not out of alove for encroachments, but out ofperverted values, lack of account-ability and an entrenched cultureof discrimination. We refer to thisin our collaboratively producedmusic video, the “ChennaiPoromboke Paadal”, or the “Songfor Chennai Commons”.

Picking on the poorAfter every �ood, courts and gov-ernments turn their ire against thepoor who huddle in horrible hov-els along the edges of our stinkingrivers. The larger, more dangerousencroachments are never touched.The 2015 �oods are being used to

justify the removal of 55,000 famil-ies from the edges of Cooum andAdyar rivers to socially fraught and�ood-prone ghettos in wetlands onthe city’s fringes.

The Cooum and the Adyar areelite, high-status rivers, runningthrough elite neighbourhoodswithin the city. Purging the edgesof the poor is seen as integral to thewholesome restoration of theserivers. Contrastingly, theKosasthalaiyar and Ennore Creekare seen as working-class water-bodies. Here, the value of the“worthless” wetland is sought tobe enhanced by industrial en-croachers with state protection.

Our song about Chennai spot-lights the undervalued EnnoreCreek, because with every cut tothe creek, Chennai will hurt a hun-dred times. The song has reson-ated with �shers to whom thecreek is life, and with lakhs moreacross the world. When, not if, En-nore �oods this year or next,people will know it was not anaccident.

If plans to �ll the creek persist,Chennai will have no future. Theprecious freshwater aquifer thatChennai draws from will be lost tosalt. The precious freshwater thatfalls from the sky will turn the cityinto a watery grave.

Nityanand Jayaraman is a Chennai-basedwriter and social activist. T.M. Krishna isa Carnatic vocalist, author and publicspeaker

Time to change courseChennai city will have no future if plans to �ll the Ennore creek go ahead

nityanand jayaraman &

t.m. krishna

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A di�erent presidencyPresident Ram Nath Kovindhas left many disappointedwith his inaugural speech. Itis odd that he chose toignore mentioning India’s�rst Prime Minister amongthose who shaped thedestiny of the nation andalso hyphenated MahatmaGandhi with PanditDeendayal Upadhyaya, thelate Jan Sangh icon, inbuilding an egalitariansociety.One is saddened to discernan ideological tinge in thespeech of the highestconstitutional functionary.Given Nehru’s contributionto the freedom movement,spread over severaldecades, sacri�ces madeand his achievements inbuilding the nation in thepost-Independence era, notacknowledging him as oneof the leading architects innation-building endeavoursis regrettably and grosslyunfair (“Diversity key toIndia’s success, saysKovind”, July 26). S.K. Choudhury,

Bengaluru

■ President Kovind’s �rstspeech does convey themessage that “it’s going tobe a di�erent presidency”as aptly titled in a report( July 26). It is an egregious omissionnot to mention the name ofthe �rst Prime Minister, thebuilder of modern India,and strange to equateMahatma Gandhi withDeendayal Upadhyaya. TheBJP seems to havedeveloped an antipathytowards Nehru, who wasperhaps the most secular ofour top leaders. One waitsto see who the real RamNath Kovind will be whenthere is a constitutionalcrisis or even a hungParliament. He has dropped enoughhints about his politicalthinking in his very �rstspeech, thanks to hisspeech-writers either in hissecretariat or the PMO.V.N. Gopal,

Chennai

■ Mr. Kovind deserves allappreciation for fondlyremembering the Iron Man

of India while boldlyomitting reference to the�rst Prime Minister. It is unfortunate that theOpposition has evencriticised the naming of asel�ess social worker in Mr.Kovind’s speech. It is theprerogative of anypersonality to rememberhis role models. Why doesone need to toe theCongress’s line which hasonly looked at members ofthe Nehru-Gandhi family? Madhu Agrawal,

New Delhi

The Doklam stand-o�Unswerving adherence tothe path of neutrality andshunning exhibition ofeditorial prejudices —hallmark traits of The Hinduwhich got us old-timersaddicted to it — are nowshowing signs of extinctionas far as this daily isconcerned. The headline on the �rstpage was startling — “Indiaadmitted to transgression”( July 26). For a moment Iwondered whether thenews agent had supplied me

a Chinese newspaper. P.R.R. Nayar,

Thiruvananthapuram

■ Amidst the aggressiveposturing and sabre-rattlingby the Chinese state mediaand government o�cials,the article, “The crossroadsat the Doklam Plateau” ( July26), injects much-needednuance into the discoursesurrounding the currentdispute. Bhutan’s historicalposition as an e�ectivebu�er zone between Indiaand China and its long-standing friendship withIndia are invaluable in ahostile neighbourhood. Thestrategic advantage of thisnation’s goodwill towardsIndia must not be fritteredaway by any overreach intoits sovereignty for thepurpose of counteringChina’s overtures. Indiamust avoid adopting a BigBrother attitude and viewBhutan as an equal partner.By respecting Bhutan’ssovereignty and evincingconcern regarding Chineseattempts to compromise thesame, India can cultivate a

mutually advantageouspartnership to tackle thistough situation.Manaswini Vijayakumar,

Bengaluru

State of the RailwaysThe �ndings of the CAG onvarious aspects offunctioning in the IndianRailways are alarming. It isevident that food served ontrains will be the mostvulnerable point ofcontamination. I travel frequently on so-called superfast trains.These are someobservations. Passengersget foul-smelling co�ee/teamost of the time and areapprehensive that it couldbe contaminated with waterfrom the washrooms. The

quality of food served isnothing to write homeabout. Right frombreadsticks to the milkpowder, there is nothingappetising. The less onetalks about hygiene thebetter. There is no point in thinkingabout bullet trains. What allpassengers need isreasonably priced fooditems that are cooked welland wholesome.In the non-air-conditionedtrains, there are all sorts ofunauthorised vendors whohawk stale and rotten foodright under the noses ofrailway authorities.P.S.S. Murthy,

Hyderabad

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters emailed to letters@thehindu.co.in must carry the full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.

more letters online:

www.hindu.com/opinion/letters/

corrections & clarifications:

The report, “In Rajya Sabha, contesting claims over farm crisis”( July 26, 2017), there was an erroneous reference to SamajwadiParty leader Ram Gopal Verma. It should have been Ram GopalYadav.

It is the policy of The Hindu to correct signi�cant errors as soon as possible. Please specify

the edition (place of publication), date and page. The Readers’ Editor’s office can be

contacted by Telephone: +91-44-28418297/28576300 (11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to

Friday); Fax: +91-44-28552963; E-mail:readerseditor@thehindu.co.in; Mail: Readers’

Editor, The Hindu, Kasturi Buildings, 859 & 860 Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002, India.

All communication must carry the full postal address and telephone number. No personal

visits. The Terms of Reference for the Readers’ Editor are on www.thehindu.com

https://telegram.me/TheHindu_Zone https://telegram.me/PDF4EXAMS

CMYK

A ND-NDE

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THE HINDU NOIDA/DELHI

THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2017 9EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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DATA POINT

The Education Minister, Mr. C.H. Mohamed Koya, to-day [ July26] justified the decision to extend the period of closure of alleducational institutions till August 7. He said the Governmentdid not wish to expose young people to any risk in the “explos-ive situation created by the serious food crisis.” The Ministerwas making a statement in the State Assembly on an adjourn-ment motion, tabled by Mr. K.M. George (Kerala Congress).The motion was disallowed by the Speaker. Mr. Koya said thatthere was already unrest among the students, as seen in theirdemonstrations and Gheraos. The Government had at firstlimited the closure to three days, but the food situation hadnot improved and the parents and teachers, who feared that“anything may happen at any time,” favoured the extension ofthe period.

FIFTY YEARS AGO JULY 27, 1967

Kerala Minister justi�es school closure

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FROM ARCHIVES

At the resumed sitting of the Bombay Legislative Council to-day [in Poona on July 26], H.E. Lord Willingdon presiding, theHon’ble Mr. V.J. Patel’s Bill on Free and Compulsory PrimaryEducation in municipal areas of the Presidency was read a firsttime, and referred to a Select Committee. Almost all speakerssupported the principle underlying the Bill while many non-officials criticised the clause inserted in the Bill to satisfy legalrequirements. His Excellency wound up the debate in a sym-pathetic speech, in the course of which he said: As the head ofthe Presidency it has been a severe blow to me to feel that ourfinances have been curtailed owing to war. I am certain whenthe war is over, this question of compulsory primary educa-tion will have to be seriously and comprehensively con-sidered, not only by this Government but all over India.

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO JULY 27, 1917

Bombay council.

It’s barely �ve months beforeGujarat goes for crucial As-sembly polls. The BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP), the rulingparty since 1998, is already inthe thick of things with PrimeMinister Narendra Modi visitingthe State once a month andparty national president AmitShah holding region-wise con-ventions of party workers. Not-withstanding anti-incumbencyof almost two decades, theparty has set itself an ambitious

target of winning 150 out of 182 Assembly seats to break the Con-gress record of 149 seats way back in 1985.

Meanwhile, the State’s only Opposition party remains miredin fratricidal factionalism — over its prospective CM candidate orwho should have authority to pick candidates — instead of takingon the ruling party, highlighting the government’s failures andexploiting the cold war between the Amit Shah camp and that offormer CM Anandiben Patel. Leader of Opposition ShankersinhVaghela has resigned from the Congress while as many as 11 of itslegislators reportedly voted for the BJP candidate in the presid-ential polls. The speculation is that several MLAs may switchover to the sa�ron front as the polls near.

Riven by dissensionThe Gujarat Congress is under the control of a few rootless lead-ers most of whom have not won even a single Assembly or parlia-mentary poll — the likes of Himmatsinh Patel, Sagar Raika, Hi-manshu Vyas and Gaurav Pandya. In the 2012 Assembly polls,two main leaders of the Opposition party, then State unit chiefArjun Modhwadia and then legislature party leader ShaktisinhGohil, had lost by more than 15,000 votes each. In�ghting is notlimited to the top level; it’s pervasive and has percolated to mostof the district units. It’s not the case that the Congress has no tal-ent or base in Gujarat: its vote share has remained above 30%despite consecutive drubbings at the hustings. However, thevice-like grip of a few has prevented the rise of any new faces.Leaders like Mr. Vaghela, Bharatsinh Solanki, Siddharth Patel,Mr. Modhwadia and Mr. Gohil have been rotating posts such asCongress Legislature Party leader or party president amongthemselves in the last one decade. The party has no urban facein a State which is rapidly urbanising with 43% urban popula-tion, as per the 2011 census. In the two largest cities, Ahmedabadand Surat, the Congress has only two MLAs out of 28.

Two years ago, the party did win a majority of district andtaluka panchayats following the Patidar agitation. Elements stillremain favourable: the quota stir may not be as intense andforceful as it was in 2015 but there certainly are undercurrents;and social unrests involving the Dalits and OBCs still simmer.Party strategists in the BJP are reportedly toying with the idea ofconsolidating OBCs, Dalits and tribals, who constitute around70% of the population, to o�set Patidar losses, and replacingover half the sitting legislators to minimise anti-incumbency. Butas a senior Congress legislator says, his party has to �ght on twofronts, one against the BJP and the other in-house. Will it get itsact together?

The war withinThe Congress is its own biggest enemyas Assembly polls in Gujarat draw near

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SINGLE FILE

Mahesh Langa

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Dividend yieldFinance

The return that an investorin a stock earns in the formof cash dividends. The di-vidend yield is calculatedby dividing the dividenddeclared by a companyduring the year by the cur-rent market price of itsshare. It increases as thereis an increase in the size ofdividends paid by the com-pany or a decrease in itsshare price. Since cashrepresents real earnings,stocks with high dividendyields are considered to berelatively safer invest-ments and protected fromvolatile swings in the mar-ket. So, many conservativeinvestors adopt thestrategy of investing instocks with high dividendyields.

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CONCEPTUAL

What we know on the 39Indians missing fromMosul http://bit.ly/indiansinMosul

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What is superintelligence?The prognosis that artifi-cially-intelligent (AI) ma-chines will get to a pointwhere humanity could, intheory, be made redund-ant. The decades-old ideatriggered a social mediasquabble this weekbetween Elon Musk, theCEO of Tesla, and MarkZuckerberg, the Facebookchief. Mr. Zuckerberg saidaccelerated progress in AIis a good thing as it couldeliminate deaths in car ac-cidents and spell the endof disease. On the otherhand, Mr. Musk thoughtthat, if not “regulated”, AIcould lead to doomsdayscenarios of machines tak-ing over the Earth.

Is there a history to thisdebate apart from sciencefiction? Silicon Valley ti-tans, from Mr. Musk to BillGates and physicistStephen Hawking are ac-knowledged fans of an Ox-ford philosopher, NickBostrom, who has spentlittle over a decade warn-ing that humans have anoption of either achieving

“transcendence” or be-coming extinct. Tran-scendence, in this context,involves conquering deathand people outsourcinglarge parts of their mentallife to artificial brains. A lotof Mr. Musk’s argumentsstem from those of Mr.Bostrom, who relies onprobability theory to fore-cast the future.

Who’s right? It depends onthe time frame one’s con-sidering. The most visiblethreat that AI now poses isthe possibility of jobs be-ing taken over by ma-chines. But robots takingover shop floors, orautonomous cars makingdrivers redundant don’tyet constitute a ‘rise of themachines’ because, as AIoptimists argue, old jobsbeing made redundant im-ply new ones being cre-ated.

However, Mr. Musk andcompany argue that tradi-tionally, regulation comesabout after a disasterstrikes. In the case of AI,an accelerated improve-ment in neural networkscould mean that even a

single machine, with amental capacity dwarfinghumans, could reorganisethe world in a manner thatit deems fit. Attempts byhumans to rein it in wouldhave little success in sucha scenario.

How exactly can researchin AI be regulated? Nobodyhas any clue. Geoffrey Hin-ton, one of the gurus of ar-tificial neural networks,said in an interview to TheNew Yorker that each in-cremental step towardsimproving AI is only seenas a challenging problemthat begs a neat solution.In the early 20th century,the knowledge that atomscontain destructive, lethalcapacity didn’t hinder fun-damental research in thefield. Governments did,for a while, ban stem cellresearch on the groundsthat it involved ‘destroy-ing’ nascent life. However,banning computer scient-ists from trying to connectsemiconductors in themost efficient way to simu-late the human brainwould be a hard sell evenfor a totalitarian regime.

Planet of machines

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FAQ

Can AI make human life redundant?Jacob Koshy

Thirty years have passed, not so quietly,since President J.R. Jayewardene of SriLanka and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhiof India signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Ac-cord in July 1987. The accord’s story hasbecome part of history in India as wellas Sri Lanka. However, has Sri Lanka’spolitics changed since the advent of theaccord? The answer is both ‘yes’ and‘no.’

In Sri Lanka, the most importantpolitical change since 1987 has been thetotal military defeat and demise of theLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE). The accord was one of the earlyattempts to bring Sri Lanka’s ethnic civilwar to an end by means of a political-constitutional solution. On his part,Rajiv Gandhi thought that a politicalsolution in Sri Lanka on India’s initiativewould not only resolve the island na-tion’s ethnic conflict, but also ensure arole for India in shaping the political tra-jectories of a post-war Sri Lanka. Thisthinking was subtly reflected in the ac-cord’s clauses as well as annexures.

The accord had two immediate ob-jectives. The first was to end Sri Lanka’sethnic war by persuading the Tamil mil-itant groups to lay down their arms andthen join the so-called political main-stream. The second was to alter the con-stitutional and structural framework ofthe Sri Lankan state and offer regionalautonomy to the minority Tamil com-munity through devolution of powers.The two objectives have been met withonly partial success.

The Tamil militant groups, with theexception of the LTTE, agreed to followthe political path opened up for them.The LTTE rejected the accord, and re-turned to war not only with the SriLankan state, but also with the Indianstate. Within four months of the ac-cord’s signing, India — its sponsor — be-came a direct party to the war, demon-strating the utterly unforeseen twistsand turns in Sri Lanka’s politics of civilwar.

And the war went on and on till May2009 when the government of Presid-ent Mahinda Rajapaksa achieved theseemingly impossible — a unilateral warvictory by decisively defeating theLTTE, effectively and permanently end-ing the ‘political-solution’ approach tothe ethnic conflict — an approach that

guided the drafting of the accord in July1987.

The second objective of the accordrequired a constitutional amendment.The 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s1978 Constitution was passed by SriLankan Parliament in November 1987.The new law, which closely followed theIndian constitutional model of power-sharing, created a system of ProvincialCouncils in Sri Lanka’s nine Provinces.Though rejected by the LTTE as an inad-equate solution to the Tamil nationalquestion, the 13th Amendment at leastrestructured, de jure, Sri Lanka’s post-colonial state, which had remained un-reformable in the direction of pluralismand multiethnicity. This, in retrospect,is the single-most significant and lastingcontribution that the much-malignedpact has made to Sri Lanka’s contem-porary politics.

The 1987 system of devolution wascreated on the basis of a set of import-ant assumptions, as clearly articulatedin the text of the accord. These in-cluded: Sri Lanka is a multiethnic andmulticultural society; Tamil demand forsecession is not politically tenable,though understandable; regionalautonomy is the best alternative both toa unitary state and separation; and SriLanka’s ethnic conflict can be best man-aged by political means, grounded inthe acknowledgement that the ethnicminorities have legitimate political andother grievances and aspirations.

Tracking the CouncilsSo, what has happened to Sri Lanka’sProvincial Council system since Novem-ber 1987? It has been a story of manytwists and turns. In the merged ‘NorthEastern Province’, the Eelam People’sRevolutionary Liberation Front(EPRLF), the most leftist among Tamilmilitant groups, formed a coalition after

winning the first Provincial Councilelection, only to be confronted with a ri-gid, unsympathetic and evasive politicalclass and bureaucracy in Colombo. Thedespair led the EPRLF to declare a uni-lateral declaration of independence andits members then retreated to India forpolitical asylum.

Provincial Councils continued in theSinhalese-majority Provinces, seven inall, where there was no demand for de-volution. Confined to these sevenProvinces and caught up in a powerfulideological paradigm of a centralisedunitary state, the entire system of Pro-vincial Councils found new politicalreasons for their existence other thanregional autonomy. Two of them standabove others. First, the Councils, con-trary to the original intention of the law,became institutional extensions of theCentral government and the rulingparty in Colombo. Second, they evolvedinto institutions through which politicalcorruption and patronage politics gotdecentralised and democratised. Eventhe Northern Council, which wasformed anew after the war in 2013, andrun by a Chief Minister of the Tamil Na-tional Alliance, has not been able to re-verse this institutional paralysis.

Since July 1987, there have been signi-ficant changes in Sri Lanka’s politics,amidst which there is one constant. It isthe resistance to reforming the state,and the state’s failure to become trulypluralistic and multiethnic. This is des-pite popular support for such reformsand pledges made by political leaders towin elections. Thirty years since the ac-cord, Sri Lanka is fast losing momentumto bring constitutional reform, yetagain.

Jayadeva Uyangoda recently retired as professorof political science, Department of PoliticalScience and Public Policy, University of Colombo

Thirty years of soul-searching — the lasting legacy of 1987The most signi�cant contribution of the much-maligned Indo-Sri Lanka Accordhas been the restructuring of the island nation’s postcolonial state

Jayadeva Uyangoda

Moment of opportunity: Then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri LankanPresident J.R. Jayewardene signing the historic accord in July 1987. * THE HINDU ARCHIVES

July 29, 1987 was a watershed in SriLanka’s history. That was the day In-dian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhisigned an accord with Sri Lankan Pres-ident J.R. Jayewardene in Colombo, inwhich Sri Lanka promised to sharepower with the Tamil people. One can-not also forget the attack on the IndianPrime Minister later that day by a NavalRating at a Guard of Honour. If not forhis quick reflexes, the rifle butt that wasswung at him would most certainlyhave cracked his skull. The history ofSri Lanka would have been very differ-ent had he not survived that assault, asalso the history of the Tamil people inSri Lanka if Rajiv Gandhi was not assas-sinated four years later in Tamil Nadu.

A unique accordThe Indo-Sri Lanka Accord itself wasunique in that it was a bilateral interna-tional agreement between two sover-eign nations, where one promised theother that an internal political re-arrangement would be made in orderto solve the Tamil national question. Itwas indeed ironic that a President( Jayewardene) who popularised anddeified the concept of “unity, sover-eignty and territorial integrity of SriLanka” assured the neighbour as tohow he would solve an “internal” polit-ical question and then invited the In-dian Army into Sri Lanka to help imple-ment the accord. Following on thispromise, the Constitution of Sri Lankawas amended, Provincial Councils werecreated and two of those — North andEast — were merged, albeit temporarily,but which lasted for nearly twodecades.

Upon the main Tamil political party,the Tamil United Liberation Front(TULF), expressing dissatisfaction overthe devolution arrangements, PresidentJayewardene subsequently in Novem-ber 1987 gave a further written under-taking to India that those areas wouldbe rectified. That was not followed upsince by then fighting had eruptedbetween the Indian Peace KeepingForces (IPKF) and the Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Jayewardena’ssuccessor, Ranasinghe Premadasa, ter-minated the engagement with India onthe strength of direct negotiations withthe LTTE, thus ending the role India

could play in the full realisation of theprinciples embodied in the accord.

Although very little mention is madeof the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in the SriLankan government narratives there-after, every attempt to solve the unre-solved Tamil national question has in-deed been on the lines of that accord,which theoretically remains in forceeven today. The question as to whetherSri Lanka was breaching the agreementarose when the Supreme Court by ajudgment in 2006 “demerged” theNorthern and Eastern provinces. Thatstill remains a moot question. Sri Lankathough, for its part, has constantly as-sured India that a satisfactory power-sharing arrangement would be made. Itis noteworthy that it was during Presid-ent Mahinda Rajapaksa’s tenure that noless than three joint communiquéswere issued with India, promising to“implement the 13th Amendment to thefull and building upon it so as to ensuremeaningful devolution of power”. Thuseven without explicit mention of theIndo-Sri Lanka Accord, Colombo atleast pays lip service to its obligationsunder this agreement even now.

New ConstitutionA major deviation from the policy ofnon-acknowledgment of the accord oc-curred when President MaithripalaSirisena mentioned it as one of theagreements which, if implemented,would have prevented the enormousloss of life in Sri Lanka. He said this inhis address to the Sri Lankan Parlia-ment on January 9, 2016 while speakingon the resolution to set up a Constitu-tional Assembly to draft a new Constitu-tion for the country. The other agree-ments mentioned by him are theS.W.R.D. Bandaranaike-S.J.V.Chelvanayakam Pact of 1957 and theDudley Senanayake-Chelvanayakam

Agreement of 1965.One and a half years after that

speech by President Sirisena, the Con-stitutional Assembly is yet to receiveeven an interim report from the Steer-ing Committee, which is mandated withthe task of drafting a new Constitution,although six subcommittee reportswere presented in December 2016. Adraft interim report was available at thesame time, but has been delayed owingto political manoeuvring by differentpolitical actors whose main objectiveseems to be winning the next electionand not solving the vexed Tamil na-tional question, which has plagued SriLanka since independence and whichgave rise to a three-decade bloody war.

The Indo-Sri Lanka Accord gave SriLanka the best chance to recover fromthe devastation caused by the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, whenColombo accepted New Delhi’s good of-fices to solve this issue. But insincereapproach by successive Sri Lankan gov-ernments, beginning with the one ledby Jayawardene who tried to short-change the principles in the accord bythe half-baked 13th Amendment, sawan escalation of the conflict, which hasnow resulted in the issue being taken toa global level. The present effort by theSirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe govern-ment is yet the best opportunity to ar-rive at a local consensus that can satis-factorily solve this issue and set SriLanka on a new prosperous path. Butthat local consensus must necessarilyconform to the principles enunciated inthe Indo-Sri Lanka Accord if it is to suc-ceed. The continuation of India’s “goodoffices” in this regard is also vital forthis success.

M.A. Sumanthiran is President’s Counsel and aMember of Parliament in Sri Lanka representingthe Tamil National Alliance

The Accord o�ered the best chance to resolve the Tamil national questionbut was undermined by successive governments in Colombo

M.A. Sumanthiran

Missed chances: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena with former PresidentMahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo in August 2015. * GETTY IMAGES

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