PERILS IN A DEFINITION

The country's Supreme Court is tasked with deciding whether political parties should be restricted from promising freebies in election campaigns and manifestos. But the debate is not so simple

- HIMANSHU N and TARAN DEOL

DURING A speech in Uttar Pradesh on July 16, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned people against political parties offering revadi to get votes. Revadi is a north Indian sweet that the prime minister used as a metaphor for governmental handouts or freebies. Modi's choice of event to make his point-the inauguration of the Bundelkhand Expressway that provides connectivity to drought-prone areas of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh seemed a deliberate attempt to highlight the difference between developmental activities and freebies. "Those indulging in revadi culture will never make new expressways, airports, and defence corridors... We have to jointly defeat this thinking of theirs," he appealed.

The speech engendered a debate among political parties, economists and journalists on what constitutes freebies. On July 26, the Supreme Court of India heard a public interest petition filed on January 22 this year by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, a member of Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The petition seeks "direction" to the Election Commission of India to "seize election symbol/deregister the political party which promise/distribute irrational freebies from public fund". In a video uploaded to his Facebook account on August 23, Upadhyay claims, "The states have loans worth ₹70 lakh crore while the Union government has ₹80 lakh crore, totalling to ₹150 lakh crore worth incurred in public debts." He insists that unless steps are taken, India may mirror Pakistan and Sri Lanka's economic collapse. Regional parties, like Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), argued at the apex court that the promises are not freebies but for welfare, a constitutional duty of the government.