1.Reason to drink on dry days

Tomorrow is a dry day in Delhi, as usual. But afterwards a welcome change shall follow. As part of its new excise policy the Delhi government has notified that the number of dry days here will be reduced from 21 to three – Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti. Despite the caveat that the government may declare other dry days from time to time, such as election and counting days, this is a step in the right direction.

Over in Bihar similarly some reform of its excise policy is being considered, as draconian prohibition has filled its jails far in excess of capacity even while deaths from the consumption of illicit liquor are reported all too frequently. This too, the reducing of harsh penalties and exacting procedures in Bihar, would be a step in the right direction. Gujarat likewise sees regular seizures of alcohol despite prohibition, but also keeps carving out exceptions for various business and tourist vectors. Why though should the local population be denied the same rights and delights?

Of course all such relaxations are driven by states’ desire to shore up their tax collections. But they are painfully hesitant and slow. For example the home delivery of alcohol that the Delhi government had announced last summer is yet to get underway. Pick up the pace please.

2.Be smart, Nato: Germany’s sacked navy chief was right when he said the biggest threat is China, not Russia

Germany’s navy chief, Vice-admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, has had to resign for comments he made at an event in India. With tensions once again rising between Ukraine and Russia, Schoenbach had said that Kiev would not regain the Crimean Peninsula Moscow had seized in 2014. In recent weeks Russia has amassed around 1 lakh troops along the Ukrainian border as part of what it says are winter exercises. Ukraine and the West fear this is preparation for a full-scale Russian invasion. Both the US and UK have pulled out some of their embassy staff and their dependants in Ukraine. Moscow has long objected to Nato’s eastward expansion and sees any moves to include Ukraine in the bloc as a red flag. Its seizure of Crimea and support for rebels in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region show it is prepared to push the envelope.

While helping Ukraine defend its borders is necessary, provoking Russia into a confrontation will be counterproductive for Nato. Russia has enough military depth to seriously complicate security dynamics in Europe. Plus, it provides Europe with more than 40% of its natural gas supply. This supply can get severely disrupted in the event of conflict, pushing European economies into turmoil. Therefore, Nato needs to adopt a sophisticated strategy to deal with Russia at this juncture. Given this, Schoenbach’s analysis that it is important to have Russia on the same side against China is a pragmatic one.

For, China with its vast economic and technological prowess is the biggest threat to the global order. The Nato summit communique of June 2021 had specifically identified China as a systemic challenge to the rules-based international system. Hence, if Nato were to get bogged down in a conflict with Russia, it would take away from international efforts needed to push back against an alarmingly aggressive China.

Despite what strongmen like Putin may want to believe Russia, minus its military capability and its forays into alleged dodgy cyber interference in other nations’ affairs, isn’t a big enough power to seriously disrupt the world. The country is facing de-population, and without a substantive economy – it primarily relies on military and energy exports – its ability to influence matters are limited. A conflict started by Russia also hurts Russia. And its alleged cyber interference may hurt rivals but Moscow mostly gains more mistrust. But teamed with China, Russia can be a serious disruptor and further Beijing’s interests. Thus, a better approach will be to work out a modus vivendi with Russia in Europe and drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing. Nato needs to play smart here.

3.In conjunction: On evolution of democratic society

Individual obligation is meaningful only when rights are guaranteed by the state

The evolution of a democratic society is centred around the expansion of rights — civil, political, economic and cultural, leading to the empowerment of people. Democratic nations respect individual and group rights for moral and instrumental reasons. Duties, both legal and moral, are cherished in order to reinforce those rights. The obligations of the individual to the collective must be understood in that context; rights and duties complement each other, just as responsibility comes with freedom. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to suggest a dichotomy between the rights and duties of citizens when he said last week that the country had wasted a lot of time “fighting for rights” and “neglecting one’s duties”. His speech was not the first time that he or other Hindutva protagonists have called for a foregrounding of duties over rights. Service and the sacrifices of nameless and faceless nation-builders have formed the bedrock of the modern Indian Republic, but their sacrifices were indeed for rights, dignity and autonomy. Any notion of rights and duties being adversarial or hierarchical is sophistic. The Indian Constitution enshrines equality and freedom as fundamental rights, along with the right against exploitation, freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights, and the right to constitutional remedies. The deepening of Indian democracy has led to an expansion of rights — education, information, privacy, etc. are now legally guaranteed rights. The state’s fidelity to these rights is tenuous at best. Citizens are generally duty-bound to protect the integrity and the sovereignty of the country, and this is true for India though there is no conscription. Other constitutional duties expected include a duty to promote harmony and brotherhood, and to develop scientific temper, humanism and a spirit of inquiry.

Any shift in state policy emphasis from rights to duties will be absurd and a disservice to many for whom the realisation of even fundamental rights is still a work in progress. An enlightened citizenry is critical to progress and good governance. But duty is not something that the citizens owe to the state. The obligation of individual citizens to the collective pursuit of a nation can be meaningful when their rights are guaranteed by the state. The citizen has a right to use a public road, and a duty to obey traffic rules. The right and the duty are meaningful only in conjunction. The Prime Minister’s comments come against this backdrop — formal and informal restrictions on the rights of citizens are on the rise along with coercive powers of the state. The emphasis on duty along with the de-emphasis of rights also raises the spectre of a descent into pre-Republican norms in social relations. The celebration of India as a traditionally duty-driven society carries with it the inescapable connotation of an exploitative division of labour and norms that are antithetical to constitutionalism. Needless to say, that is not progress.

4.Not mild for all: On community transmission of Omicron

India has admitted community transmission in the belief Omicron is mild

Even at the peak of the second wave in India last year, when no contact tracing was done or was possible, not a word was said about the Delta variant being in community transmission — where the source of infection cannot be traced. But with extremely transmissible Omicron becoming the dominant variant across major cities, INSACOG, the consortium meant to monitor the genomic variations in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has for the first time officially mentioned that India has entered community transmission; daily fresh cases have been over 0.3 million since January 19. Even as on June 15 last year, when the second wave had peaked here, India claimed to have only a ‘cluster of cases’ as reflected in WHO’s last epidemiological report (weekly) mentioning the stage of transmission in member-States. In contrast, the U.S. declared community transmission in February 2020 when the source of infection was untraceable in one instance; only 15 cases were detected then. The closest India came to admitting community transmission was in October 2020, when then Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said it was restricted to “certain districts in limited States”. The deep reluctance to acknowledge community transmission was based on the premise that it marked the Government’s inability to control the virus spread and the failure of the harsh national lockdown. As the Government tried in vain to obfuscate the stage of transmission, it only reflected its resistance to acknowledge reality and an unwillingness to be transparent.

INSACOG’s weekly bulletin also mentions that the BA.2 sub-lineage of Omicron forms a substantial fraction of cases detected in India. This sub-lineage was detected a month after WHO had designated Omicron to be a variant of concern on November 26, 2021. Though the Omicron variant causes less disease severity intrinsically and most of those who are fully vaccinated have only mild disease, the number of people hospitalised and requiring intensive care has been increasing in the third wave in India. As WHO recently warned, people infected with Omicron can display the “full spectrum of disease” — from asymptomatic infection to severe disease and death. This is especially true in older people, those with comorbidities, and people not fully vaccinated. Though over 67% of adults have been fully vaccinated, and nearly 8.2 million booster doses administered as on January 23, nearly 5.5% of health-care workers, 6.8% of frontline workers, and 16.2% of those older than 60 years have not received their second dose. Fully vaccinating these vulnerable groups should be a high priority. Meanwhile, the need for strict adherence to COVID-appropriate behaviour cannot be overemphasised.