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Scavenging, NREGA kept PM, Sonia busy during 2G, Anna storms by DK Singh

What kept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh busy after securing minister A Raja’s resignation on the night of November 14 last year?
 
He was writing a reply to National Advisory Council chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s letter on the practice of manual scavenging. On November 15, he wrote to her that he was asking the Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment to “examine how to strengthen” implementation of the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act.

And what kept Gandhi occupied in the week leading to Raja’s resignation? She wrote three letters to the Prime Minister, including the one on manual scavenging on November 9. The next day, she wrote on the Ministry of Rural Development’s proposal to involve the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India in conducting the socio-economic census/survey in view of “the deficiencies in the BPL surveys conducted in the past which have led to considerable inclusion and exclusion errors”; on November 11, she wrote on the agreement in the NAC that workers under the MNREGA need to be paid wages as notified under the Minimum Wages Act.

As the UPA government was buffeted with charges of corruption during this period, the top two decision-makers of the ruling dispensation remained focused on drafting and amending legislations as decided by the NAC. This is evident from 31 letters exchanged between the PM and Gandhi from October 2010 to July 2011, which were obtained by The Indian Express through the Right to Information Act.

While government interlocutors were burning the midnight oil trying to persuade Anna Hazare to break his fast last April, the Prime Minister was replying — a day before Anna finally broke his fast on April 9 — to Gandhi’s letter on the proposed amendments to RTI rules.

Barely 48 hours after the police lathicharge on Baba Ramdev’s supporters at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, Gandhi was writing two letters to the Prime Minister on June 6, forwarding the NAC’s recommendation for a reformed and strengthened Integrated Child Development Services, and for a Central legislation for street vendors.

The Prime Minister’s responses to her letters varied from plain acknowledgement to drawing her attention to contra views. For instance, writing to her on the NAC’s recommendation on the Food Security Bill on January 21 this year, the PM enclosed with his letter a copy of C Rangarajan Committee report and Rangarajan’s covering letter stating “it is not feasible to implement the NAC-recommended population coverage of the priority and general categories”. While taking “note” of the Rangarajan Committee report, Gandhi replied to the PM on March 4 sending him the NAC’s explanatory note on the rationale for its recommendations. On March 8, the Prime Minister replied that he was “having the explanatory note examined within the government”.

On August 19, 2010, Gandhi had written to the PM on the NAC’s decision about the need to have a fresh legislation for the prevention of communal violence. On July 22, 2011, she sent to him the draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, prepared by the NAC, “for consideration of the government”. On July 26, the PM replied, “I am asking the Home Minister to carefully consider the recommendations of the NAC.”

All this while, NAC members were constantly seeking to involve many new interest groups. Aruna Roy, for instance, had written a letter to Gandhi on September 24, 2010, enclosing a note on The Constitution (111th) Amendment Bill 2009 by a “group (including people from Indian School of Management)” with experience at working with cooperative societies. On March 24, 2011, she wrote another letter to the NAC chairperson enclosing a petition forwarded by Trilochan Shastry, dean, IIM (Bangalore), and Shashi Rajagopalan, director, RBI and NABARD, on suggested amendments to State Cooperative Laws, which were “regressive and centralised in nature”.

On April 28, 2011, Roy forwarded to Gandhi a petition by Himanshu Thakker of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People requesting her intervention in ensuring transparency and “public consultations” in meetings of the Advisory Committee in the Union Ministry of Water Resources. On May 25, Aruna Roy forwarded a letter by Tara Gandhi and other experts on the plight of Jarawa tribe in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Harsh Mander, another NAC member, wrote to Gandhi on August 16, 2010, urging her to listen to three very important petitions: a presentation by Nandini Sundar on “Rehabilitation of Salwa Judum Internally Displaced Persons”; a presentation by Safai Karmchari Andolan office-bearers S R Sankaran and Wilson Bajwada on abolition of manual scavenging; and a presentation by four representatives of seven organisations of Bhopal gas leak survivors on the issue of restitution and rehabilitation.

Incidentally, a day before DMK MP Kanimozhi’s arrest on May 20, 2011, Gandhi was responding to Mander who had sent her a report, “Promises to Keep: Investigating Government’s Response to Sachar Committee recommendations”.The findings of the study were critical of the results, saying the government’s intervention was “too small to touch even the fringes of the numbers who live with these deprivations”.