Amartya Sen Talks Over Constitution's Idea Of Justice, Polls Amid Covid Pandemic & More

Amartya Sen discussed the "contrast" between the Constitution's idea of justice and what's going on now; and the "tragic choice" between holding or not holding polls in the pandemic.

Amartya Sen

In a recent conversation with National Opinion Editor Vandita Mishra, Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, discussed the "contrast" between the Constitution's idea of justice and what's going on now, the "tragic choice" between holding or not holding polls in the pandemic, and how he believes South Asian countries can still fight Covid together. 

Justice or trillion-dollar economy? 

On being asked if the economist sees a contradiction between the country’s aspiration to become a $5 trillion economy and common citizens’ aspiration to get justice, Sen said that there is a definite contrast between the direction of justice the constitution is expected to go towards and the direction it has been going in. 

“I don’t know whether the country in any sense aspired to become a ‘$5 trillion economy — some people did certainly — but people mostly wanted basic justice”. 

If we go by official data:

According to the India Justice Report of 2020, India has one judge for every 50,000 citizens and one police person for the safety of 858 people. 
 
As per data released by the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), 5.75 million cases are pending in the Indian high courts (HCs), and 38.15 million cases are pending in the district courts (DCs). The total is a staggering 43.90 million cases. 

A total of 47,10,676 cognizable crimes, comprising of 13,80,043 Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes and were registered during the year 2015 in India. This figure moved to 48,31,515 cognizable crimes, including 18,55,804 SLL crimes and 29,75,711 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes in 2016.  

In 2019, a total of 51.5 lakh cognizable crimes comprising 32.2 lakh Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 19.4 lakh Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes were registered nationwide. 

While the government is busy aiming at a 5 trillion-dollar economy, these facts, and figures continue to shout the need of better and quick justice in the country. 

Polls or pandemic? 

During the recent Bengal elections, questions about the need of conducting elections amid the pandemic were raised. The point that was missed in between those questions is that elections and democracy go hand in hand and that it is a constitutional requirement that cannot be ignored. But amid the pandemic? 

One of the most dangerous moves by EC in the Bengal elections were to hold them in 8 phases. If safety and fir polling was a concern after the move, more security could have been deployed to ensure fair elections. But conducting a month-long election in the middle of a pandemic drew crucial scrutiny from every direction. 

After the completion of the 4 phases, the clubbing of the leftover phases was demanded but the EC denied the demand stating under the Representation of People’s Act of 1951 which states a compulsory difference of 14 days between the date of polling and the date polls are announced on. Since each phase was notified separately, there wasn’t enough time to club the remaining phases together. 

But if this was the case, the EC should have taken this decision much earlier. 

Many people highlighted the idea of not having the elections at all but that would draw its own set of consequences. The decision would have been bad for both the Trinamool Congress, which has a years-long association with Bengal and BJB, which was very keen on holding office in the region.  

“They couldn’t have said at that time that ‘let’s not have an election, which would have looked like a sudden lack of self-confidence. For the secular parties, particularly Trinamool, to try to call off the election would have looked like not giving the BJP a chance”, said Sen.