23 Dec 2023 : The Hindu Editorial

Topic 1: Awards for words

Context: On the Sahitya Akademi awards

Introduction

• Literary borders should be porous and the Sahitya Akademi awards, which have been honouring writers of 24 Indian languages down the years, should be seen in that light.
• This year the Akademi has picked nine books of poems, six novels, five short stories, three essays and one literary study in Dogri, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Manipuri, Odia, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Assamese, Bodo, Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Santali and others.

A prize to be welcomed.

• It is a prize to be welcomed just for the sheer linguistic diversity it acknowledges in a country where there is a change in dialect every few square kilometres, and no dearth of marginalised communities or languages facing extinction.
• The possibilities are immense: in a country where not, everyone has the ability to whip up a PR frenzy, a Sahitya Akademi award is encouragement to keep pursuing the craft; writers can expect to see a rise in sales and be taught in schools and universities; and readers can hope to discover some hidden gems.
• Writers also have the opportunity to be translated into other regional languages, and into English too.

Concerns

• It is a pity that the Sahitya Akademi awards, first conferred in 1955, do not have top-of-the-mind recall such as the Booker Prize or the Pulitzer.
• The National Academy of Letters was established in 1954 and its stated goal was to be “the central institution for literary dialogue, publication and promotion in the country and the only institution that undertakes literary activities in 24 Indian languages, including English”.
• To that end, the Sahitya Akademi does hold lectures, readings, discussions, exchange programmes, and workshops, including all communities, but it is so woefully promoted that few get to know of the programmes.
• Though the Sahitya Akademi award is the pinnacle, there are other awards such as the Bal Sahitya award, the Yuva Puraskar and the Bhasha Samman or translation prize. But not enough is being done to promote its activities.
• The Akademi’s website is not updated and is bristling with grammatical errors; its social media presence is abysmal. It has brought out thousands of books, but the fact is that the publications, though affordable, are hard to come by.

Conclusion

At a time when children particularly are glued to screens and losing their reading habits, the Sahitya Akademi with its extensive network should do more to spread the word about India’s rich literary tradition.

Topic 2 : Telecom law upgrades for a digital authoritarian state

Context: The Telecom Bill 2023 extends the colonial architecture of regulation to digital authoritarianism, marking India’s transformation to a ‘rashtra’

Introduction

• This week, Indian Parliament passed the Telecommunications Bill, 2023 to reform the country's century-old telecom law, based on the Indian Telegraph Act, of 1885, the Wireless Telegraphy Act (1933), and the Telegraph Wires (Unlawful Possession) Act (1950).

• Important features of the bill

• The bill cements rules for spectrum allocation and provides for a non-auction route for giving airwaves for satellite-based communication services.
• It also lays down stringent provisions for phone number spoofing for fraud and moots a "digital-by-design" online grievance redressal mechanism for addressing users' complaints.
• The Telecommunications Bill, 2023 also seeks to tighten the noose on pesky callers through various means, including by checking misuse of SIM.

Digital divide

• The mere change in name does little to address the challenges of a persisting digital divide that have recently become worse.
• As in reports by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the growth of new telecom users has sharply stagnated and research reports from the International Data Corporation show a contraction of smartphone sales for the second consecutive year.
• Here, with nationalistic chest beating, the Telecom Bill distracts us from its failure to present any fresh ideas or solutions. Will renaming the USOF magically lead to millions of Indians gaining Internet access?
• Innovation, when present, increases the discretionary power of the government to pick and choose private firms as “national champions”. For instance take the provisions for the allocation of satellite spectrum without the need for auctions that are listed in the First Schedule of the Telecom Bill.

Modern authoritarianism

• State control is present throughout the Telecom Act without any change made to the colonial architecture. Changes within it are a clever rewording of phrases. For instance, “licensing” has been changed to “authorisation” while making it more severe.
• This has been achieved by a studied definitional vagueness of “telecommunication” and “telecommunication services” that will include “transmission… of any messages”. Read together, this will allow the Union government to license Over-The-Top (OTT) messaging applications such as WhatsApp or email services such as Gmail.
• The same pattern is repeated for the interception and surveillance powers, or Internet shutdowns, in which language from the Telegraph Bill has been plagiarised without safeguards. Insertions, when present, such as a fresh provision on “national security”, expand the ability of the Union government to use, prescribe standards, suspend and take over any telecommunication service.

Constitutional charade

• Neither Ms. Chaturvedi or Mr. Gogoi could raise their objections in Parliament or cast their votes. They could not even raise symbolic cries of “shame, shame, shame” as they along with at least two thirds of their fellow Members of the Opposition benches have been suspended.
• Commenting on the parliamentary session, Pratap Bhanu Mehta states in an article, “this formal language of democracy serves increasingly to provide a constitutional veneer to what is in effect, an unconstitutional concentration of power....”
• His lament is justified, for as Milan W. Svolik has empirically demonstrated in The Politics of Authoritarian Rule, 80% of dictatorial countries surveyed from 1946-2008 held elections for legislatures to “facilitate power-sharing among a regime’s elite”.
• Now, where does this leave the ordinary Indian, or should we say bharatwasis? We are being regularly reminded not to ponder over these disturbing questions and instead maintain health and sanity with a diet full of millets and a daily yoga practice.

Conclusion

• After all, we are undergoing a transformation of a colony to a rashtra, where the rule under the Constitution of India is being replaced to governance by scripture under the divine vision of the Prime Minister. As the Telecom Bill shows, India has indeed moved on, however it is far from democracy
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• Here, just like before, the phrase “national security” has not been defined. To ensure the web of a surveillance state is complete, the law requires any telecommunications service provider, that may include WhatsApp or Signal, to identify the user by “any verifiable biometric based identification as may be prescribed”.

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