On Tuesday evening I was packing in preparation for driving the next day to Lucknow. Gillian and I were planning to attend the wedding of a close friend. Then a journalist friend, also hoping to go to the wedding, rang to tell us to rethink our plan. “The roads are a shambles,” he said, “there is a strike by transport drivers.” With the new highways, it should not take more than six hours to drive to Lucknow from Delhi. I have just managed the same journey but it has taken us hours because of all the obstacles we had hit with trucks blocking the fast roads and the diversions we had to make.
After a meeting with the Union home secretary, the All India Motor Transport Association (AIMTC) decided to end the nationwide truck drivers’ protests against the new hit-and-run law. The government assured members of the transport body that the new laws have not been implemented yet and will only come into force after consultation with AIMTC. The transport body said that the truck drivers’ strike would end soon and all the drivers must resume operations. The nationwide protest led to chaos in several states as people indulged in “panic buying”, fearing that stocks would dry up. Many petrol pumps ran out of fuel as people queued up to get supplies amid uncertainty over the drivers’ protest. What was particularly strange about this strike was that it didn’t appear to be hitting the Capital Delhi.
Coincidentally, in the same day’s newspaper, I read a government spokesman saying the rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) would be released before dates for elections were announced. The CAA, introduced by the Narendra Modi government, aims to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants. Notably, the Act will provide citizenship to non-Muslim migrants including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and others. The implementation of the CAA, which has been delayed for over four years, necessitates the formulation of its associated rules. On December 27, 2023, Union home minister Amit Shah asserted that the implementation of the CAA can’t be halted as it stands as the law of the land. Between April 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021, 1,414 individuals from non-Muslim minorities were granted Indian citizenship. This Act will give citizenship to everyone from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who faced problems because of their religion provided they were not Muslims. It was passed four years ago and the date for announcing the rules has been extended several times.
Two years ago, the government went one step further after one year of agitation by farmers and announced that they would be repealing the controversial farmer’s laws. The farm Bills were approved by Parliament in September 2020. The laws would have deregulated a system of government-run wholesale markets, allowing farmers to sell directly to food processors. However, farmers feared that this would result in the end of government-guaranteed price floors, thereby reducing the prices they would receive for their crops. This inspired protests against the new laws.
On January 12, 2021, the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the farm laws and appointed a committee to look into farmer grievances related to the laws. In a televised address on November 19, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government would repeal the laws in the upcoming parliamentary session in December. On December 1, 2021, the laws were formally repealed.
All this uncertainty about legislation concerning a government that prides itself on its decisiveness could be that for all its apparent arrogance, it does overestimate its power. It could also mean that the government does not care about respecting the law and the Constitution. All these incidents represent a breach of the Constitution’s spirit if not its letter. It is, of course, possible that the government has simply discovered a way of implementing the law by just delaying things.
If so, then a more vigilant and vigorous media could act as an effective check against this tendency. Unfortunately, this is not the case today as large sections of the media are content to remain passive, even indifferent.
The views expressed are personal
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