The Bharatiya Janata Party government completes three grand years today. The past three years have been splattered with many scheme launches and many speeches. So very many speeches. In all this, many are asking themselves the question: How does one judge the performance of this government? Some will resort to looking at economic data, some will look at the schemes, many might just go by the stats that the government will definitely throw at them today. I, personally, am a little wary about using these metrics to judge performance.

Statistics are always manipulated and window-dressed to show the picture the government wants you to see. And why shouldn’t they, since their staying in power completely depends on how well they sell themselves to the public. What would be a good way to look at their performance would be to take a peek at a few of the major laws that have been cleared in Parliament. While stats can be changed and manipulated, laws are written in stone. This government will follow them, so will the next and the one after that, unless they change it by getting a bill passed.

So, on this grand occasion, let us take a look at the BJP government’s Three Years in Parliament!

(Image Credit: https://twitter.com/BucketheadCase/status/844453046478344192)

Goods & Service Tax

The biggest & most crucial reform this government has allowed to be implemented is to usher in a new indirect tax regime. I say “allowed” because when in Opposition, BJP had opposed this very reform for years. Aah well, let us ignore that and move on for now.

The primary bill was called The Constitution (122nd Amendment) (GST) Bill, 2014 and it took two long years to clear Parliament after getting introduced in December 2014, but it finally happened in August last year. Since this is a constitutional amendment, it required a two-third majority in both Houses to be cleared. As it turns out, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was the only party that was truly opposing this. The rest fell in line.

Since there will be a tonne of pieces praising the GST for being the most amazing policy reform ever thought of, allow me to do the opposite (Coz, I take pleasure in being anti-establishment. LOL).

The Opposition put up by late J Jayalalithaa’s party gives us a glimpse into why GST will change how our democracy functions… forever. Let’s do a quick recap of the crucial points.

1. GST encroaches on the state’s right to levy taxes – The states were allowed to impose their own taxes in a pre-GST era. This helped them strategise state government spending according to their regional requirements. In a post-GST era, these local taxes will be removed and subsumed into one national tax. This national tax will be implemented & designed by the GST Council.
2. The GST Council gives veto power to the Central Government – The decisions on how this tax will be implemented will be done by voting: the Central Government has one-third vote weightage (33 per cent) while the states have the remaining two-thirds (67 per cent). Tax changes can only be made if three-fourths of the committee (75 per cent) votes in favour. This provision gives an automatic veto power to the Central Government. Plus, it doesn’t take into account the population of each state. For instance, Sikkim will have one vote (Population: 6 lakh) and so will Uttar Pradesh (Population: 20 crore).
3. Destination-based taxation – Earlier, both producing and consuming states were allowed to levy their own taxes. Now, only the consuming state will be able to do so. This would lead to major losses for manufacturing states and consuming states would benefit. This tax will encourage states to consume more to earn more revenue, than to just base their income on manufacture. Super duper behaviour change, as I pointed out earlier.
4. GST Network is privately owned – The big messed up part of this whole thing is that the system which is supposed to manage the tax regime is privately owned. In the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN), 51 per cent stake is held by private banks and other financial institutions, while 49 per cent is with state and central governments. This gives controlling power to these institutions, not the government. So much so that the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) was not allowed to have access to GSTN. Even RTI requests were denied citing “national security”. But don’t you worry now. Because Subramanian “Awesome” Swamy is on the job. He is going to save us all!

(For more deets on this, read this: “The Voldemort of bills got passed, and you didn’t know”)

Political Funding “reforms”

This government has made two very crucial changes to how political parties will be funded. While the impression that is being given out is political funding is becoming more transparent, the laws are being amended to do the absolute opposite.

Foreign companies allowed to donate to political parties – One thing that political parties were definitely not allowed to do before was to accept money from foreign sources. Well, not anymore. In March 2016, the Finance Bill contained a curious little amendment within which changed the provisions of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and changed the meaning of “foreign sources”. Now, a company which has less than 50 per cent share capital with a foreign entity will not be considered as a foreign source anymore. AND they will be allowed to donate to political parties. Joy to the world!

Oh, and I must point out here, this change was done retrospectively!

(The reason why they did this shady little thing is also quite… amusing. Deets here: “FCRA and the Congress-BJP jugalbandi”)

Electoral Bonds which allows anonymous donations to political parties – In the second (fun) phase of (fun) political funding reforms, the government introduced this strange little instrument called “Electoral Bonds”, via the Finance Bill 2017 this year. It’s like a special currency that can ONLY be used by political parties. A donor can purchase these bonds from registered bank accounts and give it to a political party of his/her choice. The party, in turn, would redeem it by depositing it in a specified bank account in the party’s name. This was done to keep the donor’s identity anonymous.

Earlier, according to the Association of Democratic Reforms, 70 per cent of all donations to political parties were made in cash. Which means, 30 per cent were totally transparent. Now, thanks to this, 100 per cent donations can be made totally anonymous. Even those made by foreign companies.

(One has written about this in detail here: “Why Jaitley’s Political Funding Reforms Won’t End Anonymous Donations”. Oh, and HOW this whole thing was bulldozed through via the Finance Bill is a funny little story I’ll probably be telling for quite sometime. You should too: “Finance Bill, 2017: You’ve Just Been Punked”)

Aadhaar Act

Simply put, THE biggest policy the BJP government has implemented (after opposing it for years when in Opposition) is the Aadhaar. To put it mildly, your dear columnist has a tiny voice in his head that constantly goes, “I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE THIS MAKE IT STOP” when dealing with anything related to Aadhaar. But enough about me and my inherent bias and unhealthy obsession against the whole program.

Let’s talk about what (fun) things happened here.

In March 2016, the Lok Sabha passed the “Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016”. The Act itself is so ambiguous and full of loopholes, that the government went bonkers with the implementation of Aadhaar. (Details on why this makes me hyperventilate: “The Aadhaar Act: Why You Should Panic”)

What was earlier just supposed to be a Yes/No authentication mechanism now has turned into something that lets government agencies and private companies mine data from the UID server using e-KYC.

Unless you have been living under a rock, there has been a raging debate going on about the multiple aspects of Aadhaar, ranging from legality to security concerns to privacy to data collection to profiteering to leakages to welfare exclusion. I fondly call the Aadhaar the “many-headed Hydra”. Hydra is a mythical (evil) multi-headed serpentine creature with regenerative powers & poisonous scent. If you cut off one head, another one pops up. Sometimes two pop up in place of one. Aadhaar is something like that.

Despite the Supreme Court telling the government multiple times not to make it mandatory, the government is going ahead and doing it anyway (Because laws don’t matter no more, y’all!).

Long-ass Twitter Thread:

Then came the regulations in September 2016 which blew collective minds. Not only does it introduce e-KYC, but it also talks about how the ‘Authority’ can deactivate numbers basically based on a whim and how there is NO grievance redressal mechanism (Because your rights are subject to the benevolence of the state y’all!).

Another long-ass Twitter Thread about what happens to you if your Aadhaar gets deactivated JLT:

(If you want to read more deets about the Regulations, you can find them here: “Aadhaar Act: It’s a web of regulations out there”)

With Aadhaar, the government be like:

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Monetary Policy Committee

Many missed out on how THE WHOLE STRUCTURE OF THE RESERVE BANK OF INDIA & HOW IT OPERATES WAS CHANGED THROUGH A MONEY BILL DAMMIT!

Sorry. Had to be done.

Anyway, remember this guy who “put the sex in the Sensex”?

So, after he retired, he was replaced not just by Urjit Patel, but a whole committee called “Monetary Policy Committee”. This was also a part of the Finance Bill 2016 (same one where foreign funding was made possible for political parties). Earlier, the RBI Governor was the whole and sole authority to decide interest rates. He could veto anything that he thought doesn’t benefit the Indian economy. It was a dictatorship and there was no way around it. Now, the MPC will be the one setting rates and making fiscal policies for the country.

The MPC will have six members: three from the RBI and three eminent personalities appointed by the Central Government. The RBI representatives will consist of the governor (Chairman of the MPC), deputy governor and one officer nominated by the RBI central board. The three other members will be appointed by the Central Government. Each member will have one vote to decide on the country’s fiscal policy.

There are MANY vital points about this whole deal which should have been asked but weren’t.

A few of them are:

1. Earlier, the Governor was totally responsible for the policies made by RBI, now it will be diluted between six people. A.K.A. Collective responsibility.
2. Three people (government appointees) vote in favour and the other three (RBI appointees including the Governor) vote against. It’s a tie. Now the governor gets a casting vote. Logically, the governor would vote against, keeping in line with his first vote. But what if he/she decides to vote in favour? What would that exactly mean, in terms of attributing responsibility for making decisions?

(For more details on how this whole MPC works & its significance, read: “Raghuram Rajan’s Successor Is A Committee”)

Before ending this part, I must share the ominous words I had written towards the end of that column on MP. Funny how things turn out, no?

Demonetisation

Of course Demonetisation is in the list. I mean, COME AWN! The media at large might have conveniently forgotten about it, but some of us haven’t!

Urjit “Bhai” Patel enters the scene and a few months later, 87 per cent of our circulating currency becomes pieces of scrap paper. All thanks to a bearded man who appeared on TV and told us that it is so. Everyone believed him and stopped dealing in old currency from the next day, lined up outside banks to deposit the money and some even died in the process.

Even the world’s biggest crazy person was like…

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The most insane thing about this whole deal is that one person took the decision which impacted 1.3 billion people, and the Parliament – which consists of elected representatives whom these 1.3 billion people chose – was not even consulted or informed about it. Some said even the Cabinet wasn’t aware of what was about to happen. Others said even the RBI wasn’t aware. Speculation, all of this, but still quite crazy even if this is untrue.

Demonetisation happened on November 8, 2016 and Parliament resumed for the winter session on November 16. It continued till December 16. For the WHOLE session, even a simple discussion on Demonetisation was not permitted under one pretext or the other. Even The Economist noticed this – “Do nothing Lok Sabha”.

While some of us were desperately waiting for a discussion to happen…

To such an extent that even my cat was asking me every day…

The Parliament kept getting adjourned for one reason or the other…

Again…

And again…

And again…

And… then it just… ended. Just like that.

AFTER the session ended, the government decided to pull a fast one on December 30, 2017, by passing an Ordinance to extinguish ALL the old notes in existence and remove that liability from RBI. (‘Coz ordinances are just the best! Read: “Ordinances: A Shady Way To Subvert Democracy”)

Not a single thought was given to whether this WHOLE thing was legally tenable (it wasn’t), or whether the government was even allowed to conduct the crazy raids it was conducting willy-nilly (they weren’t) or whether the multiple objectives given by the government for conducting this crazy experiment were true or not.

(There are SO many aspects to demonetisation and why it was really done, I had to make a nice long-winded post about it. Read it here: “Connecting the Demonetisation Dots”)

But it didn’t end there. Since there was no law to justify the insane raids that the government conducted for all these days, they made a retrospective amendment in the Finance Bill, 2017 which would require the Income Tax officers to not even justify why they conducted these raids. (Read for details: “How To Make Dubiously-Seized Cash Legal”)

This whole demonetisation episode still leaves one completely speechless. Everything happened so fast and in such a complex manner that people are either still dealing with the shock of it all or plain ignoring whatever happened.

Personal Comment at the end of 3 years of watching Parliament

These last three years have been quite a ride. I have been in and around Parliament for the past six years, and for the first three years the House barely even functioned. Now it’s functioning alright. And HOW!

I have learnt one thing while watching this complex chaotic mess that is our Democrazy: Government is a perpetual entity. It really doesn’t matter which party is in power because they all behave the same once they get a-hold of the reins. As citizens, all we can do is keep asking questions and wondering what the heck our elected representatives are up to this time around.

With 2019 coming up fast, the next two years in Parliament are going to be insanely fun. Be assured, your dear columnist will be watching like a hawk & live-tweeting everything. LET THE HUNGER GAMES BEGIN!

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BONUS

A twitter threaded heartfelt poetic humble dedication for the love of my life:

The author can be contacted on Twitter @Memeghnad

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