Daily Prelims Notes 2 October 2020

Table Of Contents

1. Mahatma Gandhi
2. Counter cyclical fiscal policy
3. Right to life and Right against exploitation
4. Free speech
5. Armenia VS Azerbaijan

1. Mahatma Gandhi

Subject: History

Context:

Gandhi Jayanti is celebrated all over the country on October 2

Concept:

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on 2 October, 1869 at Porbandar, Gujarat.
• Mahatma Gandhi was a renowned freedom activist who had played an important role in India’s struggle for Independence against the British rule of India.
• His ideology of truth and non-violence influenced many and was also adopted by Martin Luther and Nelson Mandela for their struggle movement.
• At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city’s four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.
• In 1915, after returning from South Africa, where he had perfected the art of non-violent resistance or satyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi spent the next few years in fully understanding Indian conditions and travelled widely across the length and breadth of this vast nation.
• Gandhi also met the Congress leadership and took everyone’s suggestions on board, before taking tentative steps towards launching himself into the Indian Independence struggle.
• While the Indian freedom movement can be thought of as one single struggle that lasted decades, in reality there were phases of great activity and relatively lull periods as well. And much of this calendar of protests and tactical retreat was decided by Gandhi himself, who apart from being the greatest advocate of peace and violence in modern times, was also a brilliant organiser of mass movements. He understood the people’s pulse like few others.
• Here are five of the biggest movements he launched and led, which eventually and cumulatively shook the very foundations of the British Raj:
  • Champaran Movement: The Champaran Movement is regarded as the first modern civil disobedience movement in India. It took place in the then Champaran district of northern Bihar. The Indian labourers and farm-workers here tilled the land but all the profits went to the European landowners. The labourers protested but it was Gandhi’s involvement in their struggle that culminated in the Champaran Agrarian Act, 1918, which helped farmers secure greater rights over their own land. The success of Champaran made many more Indians aware of Gandhi and his principles, and the Congress party found its greatest mass leader.
  • Kheda Satyagraha: In Kheda, Gujarat, despite crop failures, the farmers’ desperate pleas for tax remission fell on deaf ears. Gandhi’s message to them was to withhold revenue and fight peacefully but bravely against such vindictiveness and tyranny. Another rising star of the freedom movement, SardarVallabhbhai Patel, also played a key role in this struggle of 1918. The local government eventually came out with a solution that was acceptable to both parties. The Champaran and Kheda campaigns were limited to specific areas, but they gave Gandhi the confidence to launch his major pan-Indian movements in future.
  • Non-Cooperation Movement: The Non-Cooperation movement (1920-22) was the first mass movement launched by Gandhi, seeking self-government or swaraj for all Indians. It followed from Gandhi’s deeply held ideals of satyagraha and civil disobedience, and he called upon Indians to boycott all institutions linked to the British including courts and colleges, give up titles and refuse to pay taxes. Audacious in scope, the Non-Cooperation movement may not have been a 100 per cent success, but it made millions of Indians understand the true meaning of a modern, organised political movement and its power.
  • Dandi March: An unqualified masterstroke, the Dandi March brought Mahatma Gandhi’s political genius and sense of timing to the fore. He started the historic march from Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi in March 1930. While the basic reason was to protest against the unacceptably high salt tax levied by the British, it turned into something much bigger as thousands of people joined Gandhi on his 24-day march. The Dandi March became the talking point across the country and the whole nation was inspired. From that moment onwards, non-violent resistance against the British became the natural course of action for a vast section of Indians for the remaining years of the Raj.  
  • Quit India Movement: By the beginning of the 1940s, the British knew that their days in India were numbered, but they used the excuse of World War 2 to delay any talk of India’s independence. In August 1942, the All India Congress Committee passed the famous ‘Quit India’ resolution in Bombay, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, who also gave the slogan of ‘Do or Die’. The entire leadership of the Congress was arrested, but that didn’t stop thousands of protests against British rule in every corner of the country. There was no middle path now: the British had to quit India.

2. Counter cyclical fiscal policy

Subject: Economy

Context:

Think tanks want government to pursue a counter-cyclical fiscal policy when the economy faces its worst recession with millions of job losses in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the subsequent strict national lockdown.

Concept:

• A counter-cyclical fiscal policy refers to strategy by the government to counter boom or recession through fiscal measures.
• It works against the ongoing boom or recession trend; thus, trying to stabilize the economy. Understandably, countercyclical fiscal policy works in two different direction during these two phases.
• Countercyclical fiscal policy during recession
  • Recession is a business cycle situation where there is slowing demand and falling growth in the economy.
  • Here, the Government’s responsibility is to generate demand by fine-tuning taxation and expenditure policies.
  • Reducing taxes and increasing expenditure will help to create demand and producing upswing in the economy.
• Countercyclical fiscal policy during boom
  • In the case of boom, economic activities will be on upswing.
  • Amplifying the boom is disastrous as it may create inflation and debt crisis and the government’s responsibility here is to bring down the pace of economic activities. Increasing taxes and reducing public expenditure will make boom mild.
  • Thus, slowing down demand should be the nature of countercyclical fiscal policy during boom.

3. Right to life and Right against exploitation

Subject: Polity

Context:

• The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed the Gujarat government’s notifications granting temporary “relaxations” to employers on certain conditions related to working hours and payment of wages under the Factories Act, 1948.
• The court observed that the notifications, in denying humane working conditions and overtime wages provided by law, are an affront to the workers’ right to life and right against forced labour that are secured by Articles 21 and 23 of the Constitution

Concept:

• Article 21 is protection of life and personal liberty. No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.
• Article 21 applies to natural persons. The right is available to every person, citizen or alien. Thus, even a foreigner can claim this right.
• Article 23 provides for prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour
• Traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law
• Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from imposing compulsory service for public purpose, and in imposing such service the State shall not make any discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class or any of them

4. Free speech

Subject: Polity

Context:

The Bombay High Court said that in a democracy citizens are free to express their views, but they have to ensure that while exercising their right they don’t violate someone else’s constitutional rights.

Concept:

• Article 19 in the Indian constitution gives us the freedom of speech and expression with some reasonable restrictions under as follows:
• It should not affect the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offense.

5. Armenia VS Azerbaijan

Subject:IR

Context:

Over the last one week, military action in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, has resulted in the death of at least 100 civilians and Armenian combatants.

Concept:

• Straddling western Asia and Eastern Europe, Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but most of the region is controlled by Armenian separatists.
• Nagorno-Karabakh has been part of Azerbaijan territory since the Soviet era. When the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late 1980s, Armenia’s regional parliament voted for the region’s transfer to Armenia; the Soviet authorities turned down the demand.
• Years of clashes followed between Azerbaijan forces and Armenian separatists. The violence lasted into the 1990s, leaving tens and thousands dead and displacing hundreds of thousands.
• In 1994, Russia brokered a ceasefire, by which time ethnic Armenians had taken control of the region.
• While the area remains in Azerbaijan, it is today governed by separatist Armenians who have declared it a republic called the “Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast”. While the Armenian government does not recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as independent, it supports the region politically and militarily.
• Even after the 1994 peace deal, the region has been marked by regular exchanges of fire.
• In 2016, it saw a Four-Day War before Russia mediated peace.