Making the invisible visible

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, September 19, 2010

The Other Half

KALPANA SHARMA

If women are getting more visibility today, it is partly because of the changes initiated by the UN conferences of the 1990s…

Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar 
 Going unacknowledged: Women farmers...

The most striking photograph of the farmers' agitation against the Yamuna Expressway last month was that of a 45-year-old woman, Rajkumari Devi ( Indian Express, August 29, 2010). Captioned “Protesting Farmer, Zikarpur Village, Aligarh”, the story that accompanied the photograph described how Rajkumari, holding a lathi in her hands, sat in protest for days on end with other men and women, demanding more compensation for their lands that had been acquired for the Yamuna Expressway.

Her life was her land. “My day would start at four in the morning, feeding the cattle and then tilling the land. I would take a brief lunch break and get back to the field. It was during the evening that I finished my household chores and spent some time with my family and neighbours.” She told the reporter that she knew no other life than working in her fields, something she had done even as a child as her father was a farmer. “A farmer has no holidays. One is supposed to work everyday and all the time”, she said.

I was struck by Rajkumari's photograph and testimony for more than one reason. Her story is that of every farmer, man or woman, but her story is also that of women farmers, who are rarely acknowledged when one discusses any matter related to agriculture. Indeed, women as farmers continue to be invisible in India even though millions of them are as directly involved with agriculture as the men.

A reader wrote to me a few weeks ago and asked why I find this “women's” angle in every story. It is precisely because of stories like Rajkumari's, the invisible women who are an important part of our economy, our lives and yet their contribution is so routinely overlooked.

Her story reminded me that this month marks 15 years since the UN fourth World Conference on Women that was held in Beijing from September 4-15, 1995. It was the largest of the series of UN conferences held through the 1990s, bringing together thousands of official and non-governmental representatives from 189 countries to discuss women's rights, how to make them more visible and to strategise ways to ensure that governments legislate and formulate policies that ensure that women have the same rights as all other citizens in their countries.

I know that these days the United Nations does not have much currency. But through the 1990s, some of the important conferences that the UN convened saw the emergence of an international consensus on a number of important issues.

Significant conferences

Of these, as far as women worldwide are concerned, the two really significant meetings were the 1994 Cairo meeting on population and the Beijing conference. Cynics sometimes wonder what is achieved by these huge jamborees. But there was a time and place for them and in some respects the fruits of those efforts can be seen in the decades that followed.

The Cairo conference, for instance, established the link between population and development and between women's rights and population policies. As one of the signatories of the document that emerged from the conference, the Indian government had to look again at its reproductive health policies and discard the earlier system of incentives and disincentives that resulted in fudged data and women being penalised for being the ones who can procreate. The change in policy has, of course, not been uniformly implemented and every now and then we still hear stories about coercion. But 16 years after the conference, there is already enough evidence to show that developmental policies that deal with illiteracy, health and women's rights are a far more effective strategy to limit population growth than coercive policies such as forced sterilisation or limits on the number of children you can have.

Women's rights are a trickier issue. One of the star attractions in Beijing was Hillary Clinton, then the First Lady of the United States. She got the world's attention when she stated unequivocally that “it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights.” She said, “It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls, when women and girls are sold into slavery or prostitution for human greed. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small, when thousands of women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.”

Uneven results

Of course, not all the countries present carried forward the philosophy behind this slogan in their policies post-Beijing. Women continue to be denied basic rights in many societies including India. Violence against women in the home and outside continues in all our societies. While we hear little today about violence at home, including dowry torture and deaths, statistics establish that women are far more prone to assault within the home than outside it.

So was the rhetoric, the declarations, the Platform for Action adopted at Beijing worth anything more than the paper on which they were written?

I personally think they were. What Beijing did was to reiterate standards that are universal within the rights context. It laid out violations of women's rights that were unacceptable. And it urged governments to legislate and enact policies that would make these rights a reality. It also gave civil society actors around the world a handle that was useful for advocacy for change of policy within their countries.

What does any of this have to do with Rajkumari from Zikarpur village? A great deal. Conferences like the one in Beijing set in motion campaigns and changes that were aimed at ending the invisibility of women like Rajkumari. If today we can see her proud face in our newspapers, and recognise that she too is an Indian farmer, then a small step towards ending her invisibility has been taken.

(To read the original, click on the link above)

Dying of indifference

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, September 5, 2010

The Other Half

KALPANA SHARMA

Every eight minutes a woman dies in our country due to pregnancy-related complications. Why aren't we able to devise an accessible healthcare system?

Photo: A.M. Faruqui 

Filled to the brim: The state of our maternity hospitals, where they are available.

“She gave birth, died. Delhi walked by”. This was the headline of a six column news item on the top of an inside page in Hindustan Times (August 29, 2010). Illustrated with four telling photographs, the story was about a pregnant destitute woman, who lay on the footpath of Delhi's busy and well-frequented Shankar Market, which is adjacent to the iconic Connaught Place. Thousands of people must have passed her, but no one spared a glance at what appeared a bundle of rags covered in a red cloth.

On July 26, this woman gave birth, unaided by anyone. The cries of the newborn infant caught the attention of some of the shopkeepers and one of them, the owner of a garment shop, picked up the baby. The mother apparently refused help and died on that same spot where she had given birth, four days later. The police came and removed her body and took the child, who had been in the care of the Good Samaritan until then, to a foster home.

This is an item that should have been on the front page of all our newspapers because it illustrates two things. One, the increasing indifference of people who live in our metro cities, who are so absorbed with their own lives that they don't even look around to see how other people survive or die. We have lost our ability to see, to feel. No one wants to get involved. There is a fear that you might be asked to commit more of your time, your resources, your emotions than you are willing to do. So our eyes glaze over, we look the other way and we walk away.

And two, it brings home the reality of maternal mortality in this country where even as we boast of becoming an economic super power and the media celebrates the few Indians who are joining the list of the richest in the world, millions of our women are dying in the process of giving birth to a child.

Of course the story of this woman, whose name we do not know, is one extreme. But it should remind us that this is the reality that we have to address in this country.

Countless more

One can just imagine with rains and the floods that have taken place in the last months how many more such nameless women there must be on the streets of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, a part of the thousands who have no shelter, who have to sleep out in the open. All our cities, particularly Delhi but other cities too, are in the midst of a huge construction boom. This is bringing in thousands upon thousands of people from the surrounding areas. Those who have a skill and find regular work in these construction sites are possibly provided temporary shelter by the contractors. But many more do causal work, as and when it is available. The rest of the time they do what they can to earn a few rupees everyday, sometimes send their children out to beg and find whatever place they can to sleep.

In Mumbai, for instance, the fancy new skywalks that have been built connecting railway stations to business hubs have become temporary homes for these homeless people. It is an eerie spectacle to see these bodies laid out in a row, all ages, men, women and children, some sleeping under mosquito nets strung to the side of the skywalk, somehow catching a few hours rest under the relentless yellow light that shines all night. By morning the skywalk reverts to being what it is meant to be, a pedestrian walkway. No one can complain or say anything because there is no solution. But what happens to the children, especially the small babies, what happens to the women, some of them fairly young who become pregnant and have no recourse to any healthcare?

For the other side of this tragic story from a busy street in our national capital is that one woman dies every eight minutes due to complications arising due to pregnancy such as sepsis, haemorrhage or obstructed labour. These deaths could be avoided if there is timely medical intervention. But such help is hard to come by if you live in a remote area or if you are poor woman in city or village. Even if you get some help, it is often too late to make a difference between life and death.

India's current Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) is 254 in 100,000 live births. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), half of all maternal deaths in South Asia occur in five Indian states — Rajasthan, MP, UP, Bihar and Orissa. We have committed ourselves as part of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to bring the MMR down to 109 by 2015, in just five years. Is that possible?

The central government has launched the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) to specifically address the problem. It provides cash incentives to women who choose institutional delivery in the belief that this will reduce maternal mortality. If we believe official data, then it would appear that many poor women are benefitting from the scheme. For instance, according to one report, two months before the destitute died in Delhi's Shankar Market, another poor woman living in an open park near the Nizamuddin Dargah was lucky enough to be found by an NGO that helped her get the benefits under this scheme. As a result, the baby girl she delivered in the park has a chance to live, she has a birth certificate unlike others like her, and the mother too is receiving healthcare.

Different reality

Sadly, just as the exception in the case of the woman who died on the street does not make the rule, neither does the woman who survived in the park. Cash incentives in this country have usually led to corruption and fudging of data. This is already evident from reports from Bihar and Jharkhand. Also, the media often remains content with reporting official figures without investing in investigating what is actually happening on the ground. The few investigative stories that do appear on healthcare — on websites like indiatogether.org or infochangeindia.org — tell a very different story. They inform us of the struggle poor women face to reach a hospital, how they are either turned away or have to wait as there are no trained personnel around. As a result, regardless of new schemes or incentives, they are either too weak to survive childbirth or die because the promised help never turns up.

Maternal mortality means women are dying of causes not related to diseases or epidemics. Their ability to survive something like childbirth is inextricably linked to poverty, malnutrition and the absence of basic healthcare. We can set ourselves all kinds of targets but a realistic plan to improve the survival chances of millions of Indian women is to ensure that our systems of healthcare actually cater to those at the bottom of the economic pyramid, women like that poor, nameless destitute in Delhi.

(To read the original, click on the link above) 

Public transport vs personalised transport

The JNNURM initiative, under which the central government funds a substantial part of the costs of city public transport systems, has begun to show some results. The most talked about examples are the Bus Rapid Transport System in Ahmedabad and the public-private partnership in Indore, writes Kalpana Sharma

When you arrive at Geneva airport in Switzerland, a sign just before the exit urges all visitors to collect a free bus pass take them into the city.  If you do that, you find yourself riding in a pleasant low-floored bus to the heart of this relatively small, but nonetheless important Swiss city.

Once you check in to your lodging, irrespective of whether it is a youth hostel, budget hotel or a more luxurious one, the check-in clerk will hand you a free pass to be used on public transportation – trams and buses – to cover the entire duration of your stay.  And the day you leave, all you need to do is wave your plane ticket at the bus driver and you get to ride free back to the airport.

It was not always like that in Geneva, I am told.  But at some point, alarmed at the growth of private vehicles that had begun to crowd the roads and foul the air, the government decided it was worth its while to invest in efficient public transport.  And as the city attracts many visitors – tourists and people attending scores of international conferences through the year – it also made sense to make the public transport system irresistible even for a short-stay visitor.

Unfortunately, given the trajectory of urban development in India, it is highly unlikely that we will see a replication of this kind of model in this country in the foreseeable future.

No one will argue anymore that one of the most important components of a liveable and environmentally sustainable city is a properly designed, efficient and affordable public transport system.  The National Urban Transport Policy, launched in 2006, does lay down some guidelines and accepts that “public transport occupies less road space and causes less pollution per passenger kilometer than personal vehicles”.  Recognising that public transport is a much more sustainable form of transport for cities, the central government has decided to push for greater investment in “high capacity public transport systems” in state capitals and other million-plus cities.  Such an intervention from the centre is essential as otherwise public transport is handled by state governments and municipalities, many of which either have no funds, or no expertise, to undertake such a task.  The result is already evident in the majority of Indian cities.

As part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the central government has offered 50% of the cost for preparing comprehensive city transport plans, equity participation and/or viability gap funding up to 20% of the capital cost of any public transport system and 50% of the cost of projects that are public-private partnership.  The rest would need to come from the state government, city development authority -- if there is one -- and the project developer (as stated in the NUTP).

This intervention has already begun to show some results. The most talked about example of this is the BRTS (Bus Rapid Transport System) in Ahmedabad.  Although still at a nascent stage, it seems to have been accepted even by those who never travelled by bus in the past. On a recent visit to Ahmedabad, when some of us travelled on the BRTS over a considerable distance, two men I spoke to said that in the past they always took their motorbikes to work. Now they take the BRTS to the  point nearest their workplace and then an auto-rickshaw to reach their destination.  They found this not just cost-effective but also a much more agreeable way to travel.  One of the passengers, a middle-aged Muslim gentleman, told me that one of the main benefits of taking the bus was not just a break from breathing in polluted air but also freedom from constant harassment from traffic police who haul up people on motorbikes, check their papers and fine them for even minor discrepancies. Creating a system that is attractive to those who have got used to personalised transport is a very big plus point and is a model that is being followed by several cities.

The BRTS has not been a uniform success in all cities where it has been implemented.  In Delhi, for instance, where BRTS has been tried out in limited areas, the story is a mixed one.  Those who backed the BRTS argue that it could have worked well but for the negative media campaign which seemed to take up only the issues of car owners and the kinds of problems they faced rather than doing an objective assessment of how many people it actually benefitted. 

By way of contrast, the Ahmedabad BRTS has had very positive media coverage. However, it is already evident that it has not made a dent on the number of cars on the city’s roads.  As one passenger ruefully commented, “It will take a lot to get these car-wallahs to take a bus!” Of course transport experts do point out that the BRTS’ success in Ahmedabad is partly due to the specificity of the city. It is one of the cities that has remained compact and dense even though its population has grown.  This is unlike Delhi, or Mumbai, where typically the people who depend on public transport are either the very poor, who have been forcibly relocated in distant suburbs or the lower middle class who cannot afford housing closer to their places of work because of high real estate prices. The BRTS may not be the best way of transporting them into the city where their jobs are located.  These cities would clearly need to pursue other options.  Mumbai already has its suburban rail network that is stretched to the limit and Delhi now has a metro system that seems to be functioning well. Interestingly, as with the BRTS in Ahmedabad, those who use the Delhi Metro the most are owners of two-wheelers (284,433) according to 2005-06 estimates.  The number would be higher now.

Another success story of investment in public transport that has yielded dividends is the case of Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Writing about it in The Indian Express (August 25, 2010), Isher Judge Ahluwalia and Ranesh Nair suggest that this is a good example of public-private partnership (PPP).  In the past, the only form of so-called ‘public’ transport, if you did not own your own vehicle, was a choice between privately-owned mini buses (550), or tempos (500) or one of 10,000 or so auto-rickshaws.  Today, the city’s transport system is managed by a single agency – Indore City Transport Services Limited (ICTSL) – which has a PPP with private bus operators and marketing agents.  Starting in January 2006, ICTSL contracted six private bus operators, worked out routes and schedules they had to follow, insisted on proper maintenance of buses, worked out a uniform fare structure and monitored the entire system through an expensive but effective GPS tracking system.  The city now has 104 buses, with another 124 soon to be added, and 24 routes benefitting around 100,000 passengers every day.

Mumbai poses a difficult challenge.  In the 1960s, the city had a good functioning public transport system with a combination of trams, buses and the commuter railway.  The BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport) is often cited as an excellent example of an autonomous body tasked with managing bus transport in the city.  Although it is part of the municipal corporation, it functions independent of it.

Today Mumbai is a victim of a hotch-potch uncoordinated policy where all kinds of things are being tried out such as BRTS along the Eastern and Western Express highways, metro rail corridors initially linking the eastern and western suburbs, strengthening of the existing commuter rail system, adding more buses, and a monorail in one part of the city. Perhaps all these are needed but somehow one does not get the impression that this has been thought through as a comprehensive policy.  What is missing in both Delhi and Mumbai is a determined policy to reduce the number of personalised vehicles, and particularly cars.

In Mumbai, for instance, fortunately the idea of granting builders additional FSI to build multi-storied car parks has been set aside for the moment.  If it had been pursued, we would have encouraged even more cars to enter the city, bringing movement on the packed roads to a virtual standstill.  Instead of making car parks, there should be a limit on cars entering the city through a system of high parking fees or congestion tax as has been tried in cities around the world.

If higher taxes on personalised transport coincided with better public transport, we might make a dent on the number of cars driving into the city, sometimes with no more than the driver and one passenger and hogging a disproportionate amount of the limited road space.  This is the kind of proactive strategy that needs to be followed in cities like Mumbai and Delhi.  There’s no point investing in multiple forms of public transport while at the same time facilitating private cars by building flyovers and sea links for smoother travel for this minority.

Creating sustainable cities – or rather reversing the trend of unsustainability in all Indian cities – is a daunting challenge. Plans to enhance or introduce public transport in our cities should have been put in place decades ago.  Today, some cities have almost reached the point of no return. 

But it is still not too late.  What we need are more citizens’ lobbies that will push for environmentally benign and cost-effective public transport systems that benefit the greatest number of people.  This would mean scrutinising and questioning the plans that the government doles out, and working on alternatives.  Apart from additional funding and planning, such citizen awareness and participation are an essential component for the future, especially in India where the tendency to go for capital-intensive big ticket projects without considering the views and needs of the majority of people has virtually become an accepted norm.

Infochange News & Features, August 2010

Fear in the city

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, August 22, 2010

The Other Half

KALPANA SHARMA

Sexual harassment seems to be an occupational hazard in our cities… So how do we make them safer for women?

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It is men's gaze, their attitude, their inability to accept women as equals in the public domain that must change.

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Photo: V.V. Krishnan

Possible remedies:Exclusive compartments for women...
Sexual harassment. That is a phrase we have seen more than once in recent weeks in the media. From publishing houses to sports training, women have complained. Some have settled outside court, others have turned to the media, and many more continue to be silent, preferring not to go public. But that sexual harassment in various degrees is an occupational hazard that women face at all times is now a given.
In our cities, the harassment women face on the street, in the public domain, has taken on new forms. It is not just the touch; it is also the talk and the look. Walk down a street in practically any city in India, big or small. It is rare that you get through unscathed. If you are not pushed and prodded, you will definitely hear unwanted comment. And even if you are stone deaf, you cannot avoid the look in the eyes of the beholder who virtually undresses you in public. So am I exaggerating? Is this just a generalisation? Is this not the lived experience of millions of women, particularly younger women?
Irrefutable data We now have some data that establishes what we already know. We did not need it. Things can change without producing numbers to show the extent of the problem. The problem itself should be enough to warrant some attention, to invite some thought on how things can change.
In continuation of a campaign that they began in 2004, Jagori, a women's group based in Delhi, has conducted an interesting survey of Delhi in the context of women's safety. Some of their findings are not surprising; others make one pause and think about what needs to change in the way our cities are structured.
The study itself was a joint Initiative of the Department of Women and Child Development, Delhi, Jagori, UNIFEM and UN HABITAT. It included 3,816 women, 944 men and 250 “common witnesses”. The latter is an interesting category as it included men and women who would have witnessed incidents of sexual harassment. These could be shopkeepers, bus conductors or drivers, or others, men and women, who have fixed locations on streets or other public areas. As a result, the study is textured and also more credible.
The majority of those in the survey were under 35 years of age. Over 40 per cent of the women and around 37 per cent of the men were college or university educated. However, roughly half the men and women, and 93 per cent of the common witnesses earned less than Rs. 10,000 a month.
For those who have lived, or live, in Delhi, it will come as no surprise that 85.4 per cent of the women, 87 per cent of the men and 93 per cent of the common witnesses said that sexual harassment was “rampant” in public places and that this was the single most important factor that made Delhi an unsafe city.
The locations where such harassment takes place are also interesting. While 84.9 per cent of the women reported it in market places, 83 per cent talked about Metro stations, 82.4 per cent in areas around schools and colleges and 79 per cent in industrial areas.
School and college students faced the highest incidence of verbal harassment as well as visual harassment (flashing, for instance). Interestingly, public transport, particularly buses, were the places where women experienced the maximum sexual harassment. This is something any woman who has had to travel on a DTC bus regularly can concur, regardless of her age.
Also significant is the fact that the majority of women expressed a lack of confidence in the police and said they would not automatically turn to them for help in the face of harassment in a public space. Over 40 per cent of them felt that either the police would not act, or they would trivialise the complaint. In fact, according to the survey, very few women, less than one per cent, have actually complained to the police about this kind of harassment when it occurs.
What is sad is that while the women had no faith in the police, those who witnessed acts of harassment admitted that they did not come forward to help, as they did not want to be involved.
The road was the location for the maximum amount of harassment, including while women waited at bus stops for their buses, followed by harassment once they actually got onto the bus.
Widespread violence The survey concluded that “women and girls face violence and the fear of it on a continuous basis in the city. Due to the fear of violence and harassment many women do not have the autonomy to freely move in a variety of public spaces — markets, parks, bus stops, roads.”
None of this data is particularly startling. It pertains to Delhi but could be applied to most Indian cities in varying degrees. In small cities, the absence of public transport probably forces more women to stay inside their homes, as their mobility is restricted. In the bigger cities, although some forms of public transport are available, they are not geared to make women feel safe or comfortable. It is interesting that even the much-celebrated Delhi Metro was cited as a place where women were harassed.
What can one conclude from such surveys? That safe cities are those where women feel safe. That public facilities — such as transport, or public toilets, or shopping areas — must factor in women's safety as much as they should issues like access for the disabled. This does not require additional investment. It means you plan keeping these problems in mind. If you want half your population to feel safe and comfortable, you have to find the ways to do so.
Ways forward Jagori has come up with concrete suggestions on how at least the physical infrastructure can be planned so that women's sense of safety is enhanced. For instance, better street lighting is one guarantee, 24-hour eateries at bus stops and train stations also ensure that there are people around, and a better system of public transport, with enough buses or trains to avoid overcrowding, or even separate women's compartments, as in Mumbai, go a long way.
Sadly, ultimately, even this might not suffice. You can give a city “world class” infrastructure, as is being attempted in Delhi around the Commonwealth Games — all the scams notwithstanding — but you cannot change attitudes overnight. It is men's gaze, their attitude, their inability to accept women as equals in the public domain that must change. Only then can our cities be safe and inclusive.
(Click on the link above to read the original)

Is our neighbour's tragedy not our own?

So why did the Indian media choose to ignore a huge human tragedy which, by virtue of its proportions, has to be considered “breaking news” by any objective criteria, asks KALPANA SHARMA

Posted Wednesday, Aug 11 23:50:10, 2010

SECOND TAKE KALPANA SHARMA    On August 6, the BBC carried extensive reports on the terrible floods in Pakistan.  The estimated number of people affected stood at an incredible 12 million.  The number increases by the day and at last count stood at 14 million. That evening I checked the main news bulletins on three English news channels, Times Now, NDTV and CNN/IBN. There was not a word on any of these channels about the devastation in our neighbouring country. The next day, August 7, I checked five Mumbai editions of English language newspapers ' The Times of India, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, DNA and Mint—as well as The Hindu on the net.  Barring The Hindu, the only Indian newspaper with a correspondent in Pakistan, not a single paper even mentioned the floods although all carried news of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's visit to the UK and his meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron. By August 8, some reports did appear but more often than not they emphasized the political angle, such as the criticism in Pakistan over Zardari's absence from the country, rather than the enormous humanitarian and ecological catastrophe.  For details on that, one had to read papers and websites outside India. So why did the Indian media choose to ignore a huge human tragedy which, by virtue of its proportions, has to be considered “breaking news” by any objective criteria? Going by a traditional understanding of events considered newsworthy, any natural disaster affecting such a large population anywhere in the world would fall into this category. Disasters closer home merit even greater interest. Hence Pakistan's proximity also makes the floods there eminently newsworthy. One could argue that floods are an annual phenomenon in vast swathes of the subcontinent and a media now obsessed with the exceptional or sensational is bound to treat such events as routine.  Indeed, two years ago the floods in Bihar that displaced 2.5 million people got more coverage outside India than in our media. Yet one cannot fail to notice that torrential rain and mudslides in China were reported within a day of their occurrence while Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years had to wait longer for the Indian media to take note. Even when reports appeared, they spoke of an angle that presumably would interest Indian readers, such as “terror” groups collecting funds for relief efforts much as they did for the Kashmir earthquake in 2005. Does this, in fact, illustrate how the media on both sides of the border contributes to a narrow and limited picture that remains firmly fixated on the areas of dispute and conflict whereas our two countries, virtually joined at the hip, share much more in common than we care to admit?  The aam admi and aurat have similar problems. The natural environment is a mirror image in some parts, not to speak of overlaps in cultural heritage. Yet there is precious little of this other Pakistan in our media ' or of the other India in theirs. If we read reports about the devastation caused by these floods, the problems of getting across relief, the misappropriation of relief funds, the efforts of civil society groups and the disappointment and anger against politicians, we would realise that our experiences during such natural disasters is not that different from theirs. What is different is the trenchant and frank criticism of their leaders.  We tend to be far more polite. Read Café Pyala for a brutally frank take on current developments inPakistan and the role of the media. Here is a quote: “So Zardari was an insensitive ass. But is that such breaking news that the media focus shifts entirely to undermining him? Were he not the president, would the suffering of the affectees of the biggest floods in Pakistan's history be any less? Would the administration become super-efficient? Isn't the issue of the inherent lack of capacity of the Pakistani state to deal with such crises a bigger issue than Zardari and his jaunts? Criticise him by all means but is a man chucking a couple of shoes in his direction really a bigger story than the tens of millions displaced from their homes? Or have we become so blinded by our rage and the cult of personality that we are willing to jettison all sense of proportion?” Clearly, politics and entertainment and politics asentertainment have become far more important to media on both sides than the sudden and perennial tragedies that affect millions of ordinary people. I want to end this column with a quote from Basharat Peer's searing “Letter to an unknown Indian” in the Economic Times (August 9, 2010). It addresses a similar issue, what the media chooses to report, what it chooses to ignore: “When pain makes it difficult to articulate coherently, quiet remembrance helps. Like many other Kashmiris, I have been in silence, committing to memory, the deed, the date. The faces of the murdered boys, the colour of their shirts, their grieving fathers — these might disappear from the headlines, but they have already found their place in our collective memory. Kashmir remembers what is done in your name, in the name of your democracy, whether its full import ever reaches your drawing rooms and offices or not. Your soldiers of reason carrying their press cards might dissuade you from seeing it, comfort you with their cynical use of academic categories and interpretations of Kashmir, they might rerun the carefully chosen, convenient images on TV, but Kashmir sees the unedited Kashmir.” Unedited Kashmir, unedited Pakistan, unedited India. Given current media realities, is this ever possible?

Why make divorce easy?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, July 25, 2010

THE OTHER HALF

Kalpana Sharma

What are the laws that need the urgent attention of the government? One that deals with the increasing, and horrific, instances of so-called “honour” killings, where young women and men are being murdered for no other reason than choosing who they will marry, a right that is guaranteed to them as citizens of this democratic country? Or one that will make divorce easier for those who want to opt out of marriage?

These are not mutually exclusive choices. But because they have a direct impact on the lives of millions of women and men, they cannot be rushed through without adequate thought and debate. On the former, there is still some discussion and no conclusion yet. On the latter, strangely enough, the government seems to have made up its mind and is contemplating introducing a new provision in The Hindu Marriage Act that will permit divorce under “irretrievable breakdown of marriage”.

Divorce is still relatively uncommon in India compared to many other countries. The incidence of divorce is barely 1.9 per cent of registered marriages. This figure of course would not include a much higher percentage of desertions that routinely occur, where men leave their wives and children and live a bigamous life without any fear that the law will ever catch up with them. Such women are left in limbo, still legally married, unable to go into another relationship, and left without financial support. In a country where poverty and illiteracy are common, the figures if ever collated of such women would be staggering.

Under the Hindu Marriage Act and the Special Marriage Act there are specific grounds on which divorce can be sought. These include adultery, cruelty, desertion, conversion to another religion, unsoundness of mind, virulent and incurable form of leprosy, venereal disease in a communicable form, renouncement of the world and not heard as being alive for a period of seven years or more. Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act and Section 28 of the Special Marriage Act also provide for divorce by mutual consent. Under this, both parties have to file a petition in court and are given six months after its admission and up to 18 months to change their minds. If neither party withdraws, the divorce is granted.

The government, and the Law Commission in its 217th report (March 2009), holds that the introduction of a provision of no-fault divorce, that is where neither party has to prove that the other committed an offence such as adultery, or cruelty or desertion to file for a divorce, will assist many couples who get caught in legal wrangles when their marriages have already broken down. Sometimes, even when they use the provision of mutual consent, one or the other party pulls out part way through the proceedings, leaving the other with no choice but to resort to a lengthy legal process to get a divorce. The government believes it is introducing this provision to bring such situations to an end.

But lawyers and women’s groups, who have known first hand the problems deserted women, or those who are victims of cruelty within their marriages, or have to live with adulterous husbands, say that such a provision will place a bigger burden on women. At present, a mutual consent divorce is the easiest and only possible way if both parties want to break up. Otherwise, one or the other has to prove a “fault”. Women often do not take the first step, particularly those women who are not financially independent, as they cannot pay for the litigation and also fear that even if there is a divorce, the final settlement will not suffice for them to survive on their own. For instance, apart from maintenance, sometimes the court awards a lump sum if a woman is able to prove her husband falls under any of the categories listed for grounds for divorce. But if the woman has to leave her matrimonial home, she would not have the resources to get another house unless that was part of the final settlement. And the current law does not mandate a formula for a financial settlement that would take care of the woman’s shelter needs.

In countries around the world, including the United States, where the grounds of “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” are part of the statute, there has been considerable debate over its introduction and it has been followed by clear and specific mandates on division of property. In some states in the US, everything is divided equally between the couple after a divorce on these grounds. In India, there is no such provision in the existing law or in the contemplated new addition.

What this will mean in real life is that an adulterous husband can file under this addition to the divorce law and even if he agrees to pay alimony, he is not bound by law to ensure that the woman has adequate resources to survive on her own. Also, in a society where being married grants women “respectability”, a divorce means losing that status. There is no legal compensation for this and no sign that our society is likely to change its attitude toward divorced or unmarried women in a hurry. Hence, women will always hesitate before filing for divorce.

The bottom line is that provisions for divorce are not gender neutral in a society like ours where there is no level playing field for men and women. Therefore, before any such provision is introduced, there needs to be a much closer scrutiny of its impact on poor women without independent economic resources who constitute the majority in this country. You cannot bring in a law that would ease the way for a small minority without considering the impact on this majority.

This is not to say that women or men should be permanently tied into loveless or cruel marriages. Divorce is a way out of such situations and marriage is not sacrosanct as some hold. But the provisions for divorce must be just. Of course, women who have a hard time proving that their husbands are cruel, or bigamous, could also use this provision to end their marriages. But such women are usually those with financial independence and the ability to negotiate a decent settlement. The majority of women would not dare use the provision for fear that they would be left with nothing. On the other hand, for their husbands, this would be a very handy piece of law to opt out of the marriage, and then go in for another.

Let me end by quoting from a reader who responded to the news that the government was going to introduce this provision. Writes Dr. Mitu Khurana from Delhi on the Economic Times website (June 14, 2010): “My husband threw me out because I could not give him sons. I have two daughters. After trying for four years to make my marriage work, for sake of my daughters, now I have initiated legal action against my husband. So has my marriage broken down irretrievably? Now my insistence not to take any more abuse, has it become a ground for my husband to take divorce and remarry to have sons, which he so badly desires? And what is the fault of my daughters in all this? Just that they were born daughters. That means now no mother should take the stand I took, and simply go ahead with female feticide.”
This is just one voice. There are many more. They need to be heard and heeded. Why is the government is such a hurry?

Just let them play

The Hindu, sunday magazine, July 11, 2010

The other half

Women are visible as spectators in most big sporting events but face great hurdles in their attempts to excel in sports.

Today, after a whole month of watching men kicking a ball around a field, and hearing the buzz of the Vuvuzela, the drama of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa will end. Millions of eyes that remained glued to television screens will get a rest. Emotions will settle. Life will move on, to other sports, other interests.

The FIFA World Cup is the world's most watched sporting event. This year, we are told, it has successfully drawn in an ever greater number of women viewers, over 40 per cent. Women were certainly visible as spectators, or rather the television cameras made sure that they were visible. But does a larger women's viewership of what is seen as a men's game have any relevance in the context of women and sports?

Clearly not. Because sports is not about watching others play; it is about being able to participate, to enjoy the physicality, the team spirit, the self-confidence, the exhilaration that sport imbues in the people who participate. Of course, in this media and corporate age, it has also come to represent fame, fortune and glamour.

But what draws millions of young women and men around the world to the playing field is not the prospect of money or fame as much as the sheer enjoyment and freedom that sports represents. Yet, we know only too well, that women who want to excel in sport face many hurdles. A few succeed. The more glamorous amongst them get name and fame. Others appear occasionally on our television screens and news pages and are then forgotten.

Where are the women?

In contrast, pages are devoted to men's sports and individual men who excel in sports. Looking at an average sports page, or sports coverage on our television channels, you could almost believe that women either do not play any sports, or are not interested.

Take just soccer, or football. The American team made a mark in this World Cup. But it is women who made soccer popular in the U.S. The American women's soccer team won the FIFA Women's World Cup as far back as 1999 in a spectacular match against the Chinese team.

Even in China, women have done extremely well on the football field. Not so their male counterparts, who have not yet managed to qualify for the World Cup. And in Germany, women's football is successful and they now even have professional clubs like the men.

In many countries, women's participation in sports increased because those who manage sports acknowledged that traditional gender biases work against women taking part in sports, and because of that specific steps sometimes have to be taken to encourage them to participate.

Thus, in the United States, for instance, Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education including athletics, was enacted in 1975. As a result, more women could enter institutes of higher learning on athletic scholarships. Before the law, only two per cent of women college students participated in sport. After it, by 2001, the number had jumped to 43 per cent. Similarly before Title IX, only seven per cent of girls in high school participated in sport. By 2001, 41.5 per cent were doing so.

In athletics, the Olympic Charter was amended in 2004 with the following inclusion: “The IOC encourages and supports the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures, with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women” (Rule 2, para 7, Olympic Charter). Possibly because of this specific provision, the participation of women in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 touched an all time high of 42 per cent.

Of course, gender equity in sports is not just a numbers game. The playing field can serve so many other functions. Sticking still with football, a unique experiment of bringing healing to a nation that saw the worst genocide since World War II was undertaken in Rwanda a few years ago. “Kicking for Reconciliation” is a project in which over 100 girls, both Tutsis and Hutus, have been trained to play football.

One of their trainers, a young woman called Emertha, said in an interview to Women without Borders, the organisation that initiated the project, “In football, there are no Hutus and Tutsis, there is just us, we, the team.” Passionate about football, Emertha had to overcome the questioning of her neighbours when she took to the field. They told her that this was a man's game. To which she replied, “Why? I have my legs and I use them! What's up? Do I ask you to help me? It's me who's playing and the ball is there. So let me just play.”

Facilities

In fact, that is what millions of young girls around the world must be saying, “Let me just play”. In this country, we don't talk enough about women's sports. It is virtually invisible from our sports pages barring the exceptional sports woman. But should we not be looking at sporting facilities for children, including girls, in schools? Are they given adequate encouragement? Do they have role models if they really want to pursue a future in sports? Where can they go for further training? Do colleges give sports scholarships? How many girls win them? Is their percentage going up or declining? Even as we encourage girls' education, should we not be looking at sports as an integral part of education?

India is hosting the Commonwealth Games later this year. We read constantly about the infrastructure being put in place in New Delhi for it. The spanking new airport is now the envy of every major Indian city including Mumbai, which suffers the problems of making do with an incrementally improved airport. Yet will these games encourage more young Indians, women and men, to aspire to be sportspersons?

That is unlikely if even the few sports facilities that exist for young people are swallowed up by the infrastructure being built for the Commonwealth Games. As the former director of the NCERT, Krishna Kumar, wrote in this newspaper last week (The Hindu, June 28), school playgrounds in Delhi have become dumping grounds for construction material and some grounds have been taken over. Delhi schools will be closed during the Games. As a result, when children return to school, they will be forced to make up with extra classes, leaving precious little time to enjoy sports. We might have the Right to Education now, but young people still cannot assert the right to play sports. And young women cannot even dream of kicking a ball around a football field leave alone saying, “Let me just play”.

(To read the original click on the link above)

Words and their meanings

The Hoot (http://www.thehoot.org)

The language used to describe those who protest in Kashmir is not just a matter of semantics. It is important because it places what is happening within a context, says KALPANA SHARMA.

Posted Thursday, Jul 08 20:22:51, 2010
SECOND TAKE
KALPANA SHARMA

It is interesting how in the current standoff in Kashmir, with curfew imposed in Srinagar and even journalists not being allowed free movement, the phrases used to describe those confronting the security forces are consistently careful in most of the English language print media outside Kashmir. The angry young men of Srinagar, Baramulla, Anantnag and Sopore are being called “stone-pelters” or “stone-throwers” or just the generic term “protestors”. Although some reports hint that some of them might be paid to provoke the police and the CRPF, nowhere is the word terrorists, or even separatists, used to describe those participating in street battles in Kashmir, notwithstanding their battle cry of “aazadi”.

Is this because the bulk of the reporting, as the situation developed in the last month or so, is by Kashmir-based reporters who have followed the story, and the process leading to the protests, rather than by parachute journalists from Delhi or elsewhere who land up when there is a high drama?

Speak to journalists in Kashmir and you will find that many are extremely sensitive about the terminology that so much of mainstream Indian media uses without pausing to think about the meaning. In fact, on a news programme on NDTV on July 7, the day curfew was imposed on Srinagar, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, the “moderate” Hurriyat leader, took the Indian media to task for calling the young men on the streets “hooligans” and “trouble-makers” without understanding why they have taken to the streets.

Another example is the generally accepted view that the higher turnout in the last elections in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the increase in tourism, adds up to a return to “normalcy”. Or that ordinary Kashmiris are now willing to settle for better governance, basic facilities and a “peaceful” life rather than demanding “aazadi”. Many journalists accept this conclusion without question. Thus, through the summer, when tourists from all over India flock to the beautiful valley, you will find articles about “normalcy” in Srinagar and elsewhere.

Yet, when the street battles escalated, particularly in the course of the last month, many readers in other parts of India must have wondered why? Were these young men provoked, paid to throw stones? Or were they nursing grievances for months and years that finally came to a boil with the increase in civilian deaths and the lack of response from New Delhi on the demand for the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act? Is it possible that the media did not probe deeply enough to assess the mood of these young people in the beginning, or to understand how widespread was the feeling of disillusionment and disappointment in the valley? Could it be that journalists from outside Kashmir underestimated the power of a Shopian or the fake encounter of three young men in Machil and presumed that a surface “calm” meant that things were indeed “normal'? Could it be that journalists have been seduced by the language and phrases used by the authorities in relation to Kashmir and as a result overlooked the gaping wound of unresolved political questions that remains open?

I would suggest that the surface changes have not touched the deeper disappointment and disillusionment in Kashmir about the long-term future of the region. Thus, it is not “peace” that ordinary people want; they stress they want a “resolution” to the Kashmir question. They want development and jobs, yes, but they also want a political solution. These are not mutually exclusive. And for us in the media to believe that participating in elections settles open and unresolved political issues like Kashmir is naïve at best and foolish at worst.

The language used to describe those who protest in Kashmir is not just a matter of semantics. It is important because it places what is happening within a context. Thus, what is significant is not that people are using stones instead of guns, as some reports suggest, but that young people are daring men with guns, even at risk to their lives, because their anger and frustration cannot be contained any more. We need to comprehend this anger that fuels the “stone-pelter”.

Writing in the context of the Middle East, veteran journalist Robert Fisk, who has covered the region for over three decades, talks about language and semantics in his column in The Independent. He discusses the use of phrases like “spike in violence” when what is actually meant is an increase in violence, about the unthinking repetition of phrases like the “road map to peace” or getting it “back on track” or even the tautology “deadly massacre” when all massacres are necessarily “deadly”. Many of these phrases emanate from official briefings and become part of the lexicon of journalists. Fisk questions this unthinking adoption of terminology and what it represents. He writes:

“Power and the media are not just about cozy relationships between journalists and political leaders, between editors and presidents. They are not just about the parasitic-osmotic relationship between supposedly honourable reporters and the nexus of power that runs between White House and State Department and Pentagon, between Downing Street and the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence, between America and Israel.

In the Western context, power and the media is about words ??" and the use of words. It is about semantics. It is about the employment of phrases and their origins. And it is about the misuse of history, and about our ignorance of history. More and more today, we journalists have become prisoners of the language of power. Is this because we no longer care about linguistics or semantics? Is this because laptops ‘correct' our spelling, ‘trim' our grammar so that our sentences so often turn out to be identical to those of our rulers? Is this why newspaper editorials today often sound like political speeches?”

The context of Fisk's comments might be different, but the point he makes is apt for Indian journalists, whether we cover Kashmir, the Northeast, or the so-called “Naxal-infested areas” in India.

(To read the original, click on the link above)