The government's use of policy 'abeyance' as a conflict-resolution tool reflects a broader pattern in Indian labour relations. Discuss with examples.

'Abeyance' means suspending a notified policy's operation without withdrawing it. In September 2026, the Finance Ministry kept the Performance-Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for public sector bank employees in abeyance for FY2025-26 after a Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh-led delegation met the Finance Minister, days before a nationwide strike — a textbook illustration of a wider Indian pattern of deferring, rather than defending or abandoning, contested policy [1].

Abeyance as a conflict-resolution device

• Buys time without conceding intent: the PLI scheme, notified in November 2024, stands paused, not scrapped; the substantive dispute moves to the Bipartite Settlement/Joint Note channel with the IBA [1].
• Defuses immediate disruption: it pre-empts costly banking shutdowns while keeping reform on the table.
• Converts confrontation into negotiation, preserving the government's reform credibility.

The broader pattern

• Labour Codes: enacted in 2019-20 amid central trade union opposition, they were brought into force only on 21 November 2025 — a five-year de facto abeyance through delayed notification [2].
• Farm laws: suspended after the Supreme Court's stay and the offer to hold them in abeyance, before eventual repeal in 2021, showing abeyance can be a staging post to withdrawal [3].
• Institutional grounding: the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 itself privileges delay — mandatory 14-day strike notice, bars on strikes during conciliation and arbitration — embedding "pause and talk" in law [4].

Limitations

• Policy uncertainty deters administrative follow-through and signals that mobilisation, not merit, decides outcomes.
• Unresolved grievances resurface: bank unions retained further strike calls despite the pause [1].
• Repeated deferral weakens formal tripartite machinery.

Abeyance is thus a pragmatic shock-absorber in a polity where organised labour retains real veto power. Its value depends on what follows: used to open genuine, time-bound consultation through bipartite and tripartite forums, it strengthens the constitutional promise of industrial democracy under Articles 19(1)(c) and 43A; used merely to postpone, it converts reform into drift.