The poor and the marginalised are at the receiving end. But since the onset of globalisation and the process of economic liberalisation, the wealth and the prosperity of the few has come to be likened to the collective progress of the nation. Therefore, observations that India along with China is on the threshold of challenging and eventually overtaking United States coming from US president Obama in course of his State of the Union Address is something which excites us many times more than an objective and dispassionate appraisal of our own domestic and international expertise and considerations although that has
become almost unavoidable to overlook.
All is not well with the state of the republic at 60. Disturbing facts were brought outby the Arjun Sengupta Commission, which revealed that Rs20 or less is the paltry amount which is spent by 78 per cent of our people. But such facts have not disturbed the ruling elite who dominate the mainstream public discourse.
The situation is becoming so stark that it is becoming impossible for even the organs of the Nation-state to disregard the grossly unacceptable direction of development. Two recent landmark observations by the Supreme Court have brought out this harsh and bleak reality.
The first was by a bench constituted by Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice KS Radhakrishnan expressing grave concern at the plight of the homeless footpath dwellers shivering in the biting cold wave which was sweeping Delhi. The court pointed out on January 20, “Thousands of people are without a home in this winter. The report says you have reduced the number of shelters. You must ensure that every one of them is provided shelter. No one should suffer.” They went on, pained by the fact that “malnutrition and hunger are the underlined causes making people susceptible to extreme weather conditions. There is ample scientific evidence that due to an increase in the basal metabolism rate (BMR) with a fall in temperature higher calories are required by the body to maintain body temperature”. Thankfully for the government, the honourable judges did not touch upon the subject of soaring food inflation and its possible impact on the nutrition security of these ‘wretched of the earth’.
In an equally perceptive judgment, a bench of Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly in different but concurring judgments pronounced on January 26 on an appeal by Harjinder Singh, an employee of the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation who was retrenched along with some others, came down heavily on the mindset of the courts themselves. Justice Singhvi observed: “The attractive mantras of globalisation and liberalisation are fast becoming theraison d’ etre of the judicial process and an impression has been created that the Constitutional course is no longer sympathetic to the plight of industrial and unorganised workers”.He lamented: “In a large number of cases like the present one, relief has been denied to the employees falling in the category of workmen, who are illegally retrenched by creating bylanes and sidelanes in the jurisprudence. The stock plea raised by the public employers in such cases is that the initial employment/engagement of the workmen/employee was contrary to some or the other statute or that reinstatement will put an unbearable burden on the financial health of the establishment.”
Justice Singhvi was most pointed in stating “Courts have readily accepted such plea unmindful of the accountability of the wrong doer and indirectly punished the tiny beneficiary of the wrong, ignoring the fact that he may have continued in the employment for years together and that micro wages earned by him may be the only source of his livelihood. It needs no emphasis that if a man is deprived of his livelihood, he is deprived of all his fundamental and Constitutional rights and for him the goal of social and economic justice, equality of status of opportunity, and the freedom enshrined in the Constitution remain illusory.”
Justice Ganguly was no less forthcoming:“Any attempt to dilute the Constitutional imperatives in order to promote the so-called trends of globalisation may result in precarious consequences. Reports of suicidal deaths of farmers in their thousands from all over the country along with escalation of terrorism, throw a dangerous signal.” Justice Ganguly was emphatic, “Social justice, the very signature tune of our Constitution and being deeply embedded in our Constitutional ethos, in a way is the arch of the Constitution which ensures rights of the common man to be interpreted in a meaningful wayso that life can be lived with human dignity.”
It is time for a collective introspection. Otherwise, a large section of our people driven to despair will become mired in a series of completely destabilising explosions which is going to affect absolutely everybody.
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