What to Read in The Hindu Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

Editorial 1: A surge in radical governments, the hope of democracy

Context

The last thing India needs is the revival of Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh.

 

Introduction

One thing seems fairly certain now. If an Islamic radical group were to seize power by force, then the world will be willing to legitimise it and forgive its past deeds. But till the time such a group does not capture power, it will either be fought tooth and nail and/or treated like an enemy. We had Afghanistan in 2021. We now have Syria in 2024.

• Taliban's capture of power: When the Taliban captured power on August 15, 2021, 13 members of the United States troops were killed in an Islamic State (IS) suicide attack.
  1. $7.1 billion worth of U.S. weaponry was left behind in Afghanistan.
• Global response: Cooperation with the Taliban: Despite these events, the U.S., the West, China, and Russia bent backwards to work with the Taliban.
• Justifications for engagement: The West justified their engagement by stating it would wean the Taliban away from supporting terrorism and help in the protection of women’s and minorities’ rights.
  1. They talked about an "inclusive government", but democracy was not uppermost in their minds.
• UN’s perspective: The then UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, even told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the Taliban was ‘misunderstood’.

 

Treated with kid gloves

• Karma and the irony of international actions: The ultimate irony was how “karma” had come full circle.
  1. In the days preceding the Taliban’s capture of Afghanistan, the “Troika Plus” (U.S., China, Russia, and Pakistan) had tried to coordinate their efforts in Afghanistan to exclude India and ignore its vital interests.
  2. In the UNSC, even an innocuous reference to the Heart of Asia Conference on Afghanistan was deleted from the draft statement because India was one of the countries attending it.
• India’s role during Taliban takeover: When the events of August 2021 unfolded, India was the president of the UNSC that month.
  1. Any text or resolution required India’s concurrence.
• India's Impact on UNSC Resolution 2593: The UNSC Resolution 2593, passed on August 30 after the Taliban takeover, carried India’s imprint.
  1. India ensured that the resolution included a paragraph about Afghan soil not being used for terrorist activities.
  2. The express reference to terrorists and terrorist organisations in the UNSC Resolution 1267 sanctions list was inserted at India’s behest, particularly targeting Pakistani terrorist organisations associated with ISIL (Daesh) and al-Qaeda, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
• UNSC’s Engagement with the Taliban: In December 2021, the UNSC allowed the Taliban to receive donor money directly into its coffers.
  1. With no political will among the P-5 or the West to demand accountability for implementing UNSCR 2593, the Taliban soon denied girls school education, imposed restrictions on women, and stopped all moves for an inclusive government.
• Global apathy: Now, the world looks the other way as the Taliban continues to violate its commitments.

 

Now, Syria and Bangladesh

Syria in 2024

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  • We have just witnessed a radical Islamic leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani or Ahmed al-Shaara of the Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) seize power, culminating in the toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
  • Al-Jolani was earlier leader of the al Qaeda in the region, with links to international terror groups.
  • His radical outfit, the HTS, which was earlier an al Qaeda wing in Syria called the Jabhat al-Nusra, still features in the U.S. State Department list of terror groups.
  • Mirroring what they did with the Taliban, the U.S. and the West have lined up behind the HTS and its leader.
  • The first move of the U.S. was to remove the bounty of $10 million on al-Jolani’s head for his capture. Capturing power can help evade capture also.

 

Global Radicalization and Threats

•  
  • This is wonderful news for Islamic terrorists and extremist groups gaining ground, especially in Africa such as in Mali, and adopting IS and al Qaeda techniques to topple governments.
  • But the world is preoccupied with Ukraine and West Asia.
  • Bangladesh: Brewing Situation Closer to Home
  • Now, India has a situation brewing closer to home, in Bangladesh.
  • Even if the collapse of the elected government in Bangladesh has been largely due to an autocratic government stifling democratic forces and losing the plot, under the guise of supporting regime change, the U.S. clearly downplayed the interests of its “strategic” partner India.
  • It is propping up the interim military-led government of Muhammad Yunus, which is seen as tolerating, even encouraging, Islamic radical groups in Bangladesh and is a threat to its minorities.
  • The last thing India needs is the revival of Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh, where the last 16 years have seen the two countries and its peoples come closer in a variety of ways for mutual benefit.

 

Past Political Shifts in Bangladesh

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  • When Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League came to power in 2008, it was seen as free and fair elections with a cleaned-up electoral list and the Bangladesh Army staying on the side-lines.
  • The people overwhelmingly rejected the violent past of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Khaleda Zia and their Islamic radical partners such as the Jamaat-e-Islami.
  • Just when one thought that the Jamaat-e-Islami stood discredited for siding with Pakistan in the 1971 war and rejected by the people of Bangladesh for causing mayhem and disrupting lives, the popular student protests of 2024 and the ensuing military coup have given them a fresh lease of life.
  • Radical Groups Taking Advantage
  • While there is no doubt that the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) — affiliated to the Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the Hefazat-e-Islam, the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) have taken advantage of the situation, it is not as if the people of Bangladesh have embraced them wholeheartedly.
  • Consequently, these radical groups have tried to shore up support for their extremist ideologies by attacking the minority communities, forcing the interim government to release Islamic extremists from prison (such as Jashimuddin Rahmani, head of the ABT), and adopting shrill anti-India rhetoric, conflating the dismantling of Sheikh Hasina’s legacy with attacks on India.
  • India should be careful not to fall into this trap.

 

Religious Hate Rising Globally

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  • Religious hate has been on the rise around the world.
  • It was when this writer was India’s Permanent Representative to the UN that India brought up, for the first time, in 2021-2022, the rise of religiophobia against non-Abrahamic religions, including against Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.
  • India condemned all forms of religious hate, whether in the U.S. and the West or in Bangladesh and the neighbourhood.
  • While India may have taken its eye off the ball when it came to the Sheikh Hasina government, it cannot ignore Islamic extremism again rearing its head in Bangladesh and posing renewed danger to India’s national security — something which New Delhi successfully prevented over the last 16 years.

 

The larger picture

• Avoiding a religious lens: However, for both sides to view the unfolding events purely through a religious lens — be it an Islamic lens or Hindu lens — would be a mistake.
  1. This has been counterproductive before and will be so now.
• Islamic radicals and polarization: In fact, Islamic radicals are baiting India, and, unfortunately, so are the officials who have been appointed as advisers to Mr. Yunus, precisely to polarize forces within their own country.
• India's Larger Perspective: On the other hand, India has the larger perspective in mind to protect its bilateral relations from damage.
  1. It has reiterated its readiness to do business with the interim government.
  2. India has removed most irritants in its bilateral relations in the last two decades, except maybe for the sharing of Teesta river waters.
• India's Support During 2009 crisis: What is forgotten is that when Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) revolted in February 2009, just after the first clean elections of Bangladesh in December 2008, it was India which gave its rock solid support to the newly-elected government and helped save democracy.

 

Conclusion

It is in Bangladesh’s own interest that this military coup does not translate into an Islamic coup and goes the way of Syria or Afghanistan. The silver lining is that, having tasted the power of democracy in 2008, and now in 2024, it will be difficult to put the clock back.

Editorial 2: Recasting insolvency resolution

Context

The Jet Airways case is one example of the many structural infirmities affecting India’s insolvency regime.

 

Introduction

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) is one of India’s most significant economic reforms, introduced to address the challenges of insolvency resolution in a structured and time-bound manner.

 

Challenges and Infirmities in India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC)

• Introduction of IBC: At the time of its introduction, the IBC was seen as an important tool.
  1. It was expected to help India’s standing in the business world.
  2. The IBC aimed to bring bad borrowers and big defaulters to book.
• Issues with IBC as it matures: Certain issues have cropped up that demand attention.
  1. Focus on institutional capacity and procedural efficiency.
• Recent Supreme Court Judgment: The recent Supreme Court of India judgment in Jet Airways (State Bank of India & Ors. vs The Consortium of Mr. Murari Lal Jalan and Mr. Florian Fritsch & Anr.) has laid bare the many structural infirmities.
  1. These infirmities are plaguing India’s insolvency regime.

 

A double burden

• Effective implementation of IBC: The effective implementation of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) hinges on the performance of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and its appellate body, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).
• Dual burden on NCLT and NCLAT: These tribunals face the dual burden of handling corporate insolvencies under the IBC and cases under the Companies Act.
• Institutional challenges: Temporal Disjunction
  1. This institutional architecture suffers from what might be termed “temporal disjunction”.
  2. The NCLT’s structure, conceived in 1999 based on the Eradi Committee’s recommendations and operationalised in 2016, reflects the economic realities of a bygone era, leaving it ill-equipped to meet contemporary demands.
• Current issues with NCLT: With a sanctioned strength of 63 members, many of whom divide their time across multiple benches, the NCLT has become a bottleneck for insolvency resolutions and corporate transactions like mergers and amalgamations.
  1. Several NCLT benches do not operate for the full working day, even when not tasked with handling cases from other benches.
• Impact of delays: As a result, delays have worsened.
  1. According to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI), the average time for insolvency resolutions increased to 716 days in FY2023-24, up from 654 days in FY2022-23.
  2. This is despite the Supreme Court’s repeated calls for adherence to specific timelines in the IBC, including in the Jet Airways case, where the Court stated that the NCLTs/NCLATs need to be sensitised not to exercise judicial discretion in extending timelines to the extent that it undermines the effectiveness of the Code.

 

The need for domain expertise

• Deficiencies in the current framework: The current framework’s deficiencies are manifest across various dimensions.
• Qualitative dimension of Institutional capacity: The most prominent issue is the qualitative dimension of institutional capacity.
  1. The current method of appointment ignores the need for domain experience.
  2. As the Court noted in the Jet Airways case, “Members often lack the domain knowledge required to appreciate the nuanced complexities involved in high-stakes insolvency matters…”.
  3. This creates a paradox where an institution tasked with resolving complex cases is hindered by a lack of specialised knowledge.
• Bureaucratic labyrinth: There is also the issue of the bureaucratic labyrinth.
  1. There is no effective system for urgent listings before the NCLTs.
  2. The staff of the Registry is given wide powers to list or not list a particular matter.
• Growing Concerns of defying court orders: The Supreme Court has expressed concern about a “growing tendency” among NCLT and NCLAT members to ignore or defy its orders.
  1. This threatens the very foundation of India’s judicial hierarchy.
• Institutional integrity at risk: The issue is not merely about institutional efficiency, but about institutional integrity.

 

Sparse use of alternatives

• Procedural Framework Issues: The procedural framework further exacerbates existing constraints.
  1. The requirement for a mandatory hearing for all applications, including for progress reports, is not necessary from the standpoint of natural justice, leading to considerable delays.
  2. The limited use of alternative dispute settlement methods adds to the problems of an already overworked system.
• Global Challenges and India's unique context: Various jurisdictions across the globe face similar challenges related to institutional capacity and procedural efficiency.
  1. However, the magnitude of India’s scale, its endemic corruption, and its economic ambitions demand solutions that go beyond mere incremental enhancements.
• Recent reform proposals and optimism: Recent reform proposals, including the initiative for mandatory mediation prior to the submission of insolvency applications, present a degree of optimism.
• Proposed solutions for improvement: A hybrid model that values both judicial experience and domain expertise is necessary.
  1. The time is ripe for procedural innovations that go beyond piecemeal changes.
  2. The creation of specialised benches for different categories of cases could enhance both efficiency and expertise, ensuring that mergers and amalgamations are cleared in time.

 

Conclusion

Pertinently, infrastructure must not remain an afterthought. Adequate courtrooms and a qualified, permanent support staff are critical to sustaining these institutions within the broader economic framework. Above all, India’s insolvency regime must evolve beyond mere debt resolution to serve as a proactive driver of economic rejuvenation, especially as the country aims to attract greater foreign investment. At this very important point in time, the choice is clear. The time for a bold reimagining is now.