In Naga villages, sustainable farming is being undermined by need to earn cash for medicine, schools

Scroll.in  June 23, 2016


(Women in Leshemi village spinning yarn from nettle: Kalpana Sharma)


When you look down from the main road, the imposing Baptist church in Leshemi village, in Nagaland's Phek district, looks like a wedding cake.

But Leshemi's claim to fame is more than an impressive church. Leshemi is located on the hill opposite Khezakeno village, a place that the Nagas believe is the original village settled by them. From it, they believe, Nagas went off in different directions. The three main Naga tribes, Angami, Chakhesang and Sema, trace their origins to this settlement.

Leshemi is a small Chakhesang village, perched on a hillside with thick forests above and terraced rice fields below. What makes it unusual is that it is virtually a "village republic", a concept Mahatma Gandhi articulated. Its 800 or so inhabitants want little from the outside world, as the women tell you.

"Do you lack anything in your village?" I asked 65-year old Solhouii, part of a group of women who had just demonstrated how they spin yarn from stalks of stinging nettles found in the forest.

She thought for a while, then laughed and said: "No."

Though they do need a few things from outside, Solhouii said that they grow their own rice, millet, vegetables and fruit. They even make salt from brine found in a natural spring. There is plenty of water. They spin their own yarn from nettles and homegrown cotton. And they weave this into shawls and wraps, following the traditional patterns of their tribe.

Unhealed wounds

Like neighbouring Khezakeno, people in Leshemi also believe that they live in one of the oldest villages in Nagaland. As proof they show you what they call their fetish stones (which, they believe, contain spirits and special powers), which were found by their elders. These stones are now being carbon dated to establish their real age.

A stone shrine of sorts has been built around one of the original fetish stones.
Two elderly men, who are hovering around the little structure, tell me that the stone "died" when the Indian army burnt Leshemi village in 1957.

That statement, said sotto voce, is a wrenching reminder of what ordinary people in Nagaland went through from late 1950s till the ceasefire in 1964, during what they call the Indo-Naga war. This was fought between the Nagas, who believed they were independent and not part of the Indian Union, and the Indian government and its army that saw them as insurgents to be forcibly brought into the Indian fold.

I asked these two men if they remember that time. Yes, they do, they told me. For an entire year, the villagers had to hide in the forests. Those who went to the higher reaches survived despite hunger. Those who went to the valley died of disease or could not tolerate the heat and humidity.

The village that stands today was rebuilt after that.

The women and men in Leshemi do not bring politics into the conversation. But you cannot escape the past, the sadness that hangs over such villages, and the memories that live on.

A monolith at the entrance of Khonoma village in Nagaland. [Credit: Kalpana Sharma]

The old and the new

Just as the smiles, the jokes and the laughter hide deeper wounds, so does the talk of self-sufficiency.

For the reality in Leshemi, as in other villages in Nagaland, is that changes in the name of modernisation and development are undercutting the self-sufficient nature of their traditional societies.

A group of women farmers (and the majority of farmers are women) explained why today, what they grow is not enough to meet their needs.

A group of Chakhesang women in Chizami village, east of Leshemi village, spoke of the dilemma they face. We need cash, said one, to pay for school fees and medical expenses.
What they grow is enough to feed the family and sometimes there is a surplus that can be sold in the market. But the earnings from this cannot cover these other expenses necessitated by the introduction of education (Nagaland's literacy rate is now 80%) and modern medicine (in the past people relied on local cures).

As a result, the women look for work in the fields of others, where they get paid Rs 300 per day. The men find work as construction workers in the road repair projects that are perennially underway (despite which the roads are in a terrible state), and under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Boards in all these villages announce improved village roads, or structures like community centres, that have been built courtesy MGNREGA.

Money power

This need for money is one factor that could, in the long run, undercut the sustainable forms of agriculture that continue to survive in many parts of Nagaland and elsewhere in the North East.

For instance, in villages like Leshemi and Chizami, no chemicals are used in the paddy fields. Villagers save seeds for the next planting. And their diet consists of locally grown rice and millet, vegetables, greens and meat, including birds and animals they hunt in their forests. But the need for money leaves them vulnerable to the incentives offered by the government's agriculture department to switch to faster growing hybrids. This also means using fertiliser and chemicals that they have never used before.

The traditional Naga form of agriculture has been organic before that term became fashionable. Their food, too, has the ideal balance that highly paid dieticians recommend to unhealthy city dwellers. But all this could change.

Besides the temptation of earning more, the future of traditional forms of agriculture also depends on the next generation. Will younger, educated Nagas go and till the land like their parents? Or will they only keep the link with their villages during festivals and occasions? This is already happening and is something that worries the women.

These women also know that not everyone wants to do the backbreaking work that is so much a part of their lives. They literally work from morning till dusk.

I asked a woman farmer from Chizami village to describe her typical day: "We wake up at 4 am, light the fire, make tea, cook, prepare children for school, eat something and then go to the field by 8 am. We take a break at 12 and then continue working till 5. On the way home, we collect fodder, then cook, then feed the livestock. We rarely get to sleep before 9 pm."

How many young women and men today will want to follow such a schedule?

Resources threatened

However, the biggest threat to the sustainable existence of such villages in Nagaland and elsewhere in the North East is the policy the Indian government has framed for this region. Essentially, it envisages ways in which the area's forests, rivers, land and minerals can be fully exploited.

Activists say local people do not fully understand the environmental and social consequences of some of the proposed projects. For instance, In Nagaland, new roads and highways are being built cutting through pristine forests. People have consented without realising that easier access to these forests could also spell the end of precious biodiversity. However, in Arunachal Pradesh local communities are asking questions and opposing the many hydroelectric projects being constructed in the state.

"It is scary,” said Akole Tsuhah, a young activist working with the North East Network, a women's rights organisation. “Our people are not prepared for this. Because of the need for cash, it is difficult to convince people about the need to safeguard our resources. Once we lose our common resources, we will lose our independence, our sovereignty."

(To read the rest of the article, click HERE) 

Also here's the link to another article on Nagaland, women and politics that was published in Scroll.in on June1, 2016 under the headline:

In politics and property ownership, there’s no space for Nagaland's women

https://scroll.in/article/808787/in-politics-and-property-ownership-theres-no-space-for-nagalands-women

Yes, it's time for a re-think – by people trying to deflect charges of sex crimes by their friends

Scroll.in  June 9, 2016

An item in a Mumbai tabloid on Thursday said that journalist Tarun Tejpal, who is facing rape charges, had merely committed a 'grave error'.

Normally, the dozens of ill-informed and vacuous comments that find space in the “diary” sections of some newspapers are best ignored. Yet sometimes a response is needed.

I am referring to an absurd diary item in the Mumbai tabloid Mid-Day on June 9. As I said, it could be ignored as the newspaper is published only in one city, Mumbai, and has a limited circulation. Yet, in these days of Internet and social media, the reach of such publications is amplified.

So Malavika Sanghvi, in her column “Malavika’s Mumbai: The Daily Dish” (last item) that appears on page 8 of Mid-Day has taken up the case of Tarun Tejpal, former editor of Tehelka, who was charged with rape by a colleague, is currently facing trial in a court in Goa and is out on bail.

Under the headline, “Time for a RE-THINK?” Sanghvi refers to the serious rape charge against Tejpal as “a grave error”. And because this so-called error apparently gave “his detractors ammunition to demolish him” through an “excessive” and “relentless media campaign”, she suggests that it is time for “strong liberal voices” to speak out.

(To read the rest, click here.)

In politics and property ownership, there’s no space for Nagaland's women

In Scroll.in

Link: https://scroll.in/article/808787/in-politics-and-property-ownership-theres-no-space-for-nagalands-women

June 1, 2016

Photograph of women from Sumi village in Phek district spinning homegrown cotton.



While the recent Assembly elections have been the subject of endless chatter in the media, in Nagaland, the question that hangs in the air is: when will we see women governing the state?

Nagaland attained statehood in 1963, but since then, it has not elected a single woman to its Assembly. It has also only ever sent one woman to Parliament – Rano M Shazia, who was elected to the Lok Sabha back in 1977.

This reality pervades through all levels of governance in the state.

Traditional village councils, formalised through the passage of the Nagaland Village Councils Act 1978, have hardly any female representation. And though laws have been enacted providing for 33% reservation of women in municipal and town councils, their implementation has been halted, as a result of which there is not a single woman in these bodies.

Twin battles

What does this say about the status of Naga women?

At first glance, Naga women do not appear oppressed. You meet strong, articulate women, well-known writers, poets, academics and activists. 

You also see women doing backbreaking work in the fields, carrying heavy loads of firewood, cooking, cleaning, weaving or selling vegetables and fruits in markets and by the roadside. 

Yet, a Naga woman cannot call the field in which she works her own, or lay claim to house she manages or even her kitchen garden. If it is ancestral property, she is not entitled to inherit it. 

The only exception is acquired property – parents can gift their daughters land. But after her death, that land will not go to her heirs; it will be returned to her clan. 

For the women in Nagaland, then, the battle is two-pronged – for representation in institutions of governance and for the right to inheritance.

In many ways, the fight for representation in self-governing bodies is symptomatic of the larger battle of Naga women against their society's inherently patriarchal traditional structures. 

A drop in the ocean

Anungla Aier, principal of the Kohima Science College, said that within the traditional definitions of who is entitled to be on the village council, "there is no space for women, in the social or political realm.”

"When you have a state Assembly of 60 men, how can we expect any of them to take steps to bring women into the picture?” she said.

The village councils predominantly consist of men who are selected by villagers. They have powers to govern many aspects of village development, including the use of development funds. In that regard, they’re quite similar to panchayats. The big difference, though, is that they are not elected bodies (in the way that panchayats are) and they have hardly any women.

Additionally, all villages have Village Development Boards (VDB) and a state law in 1980 stipulated that a quarter of their members should be women. Though this provision has been implemented, the resistance to women entering village councils continues.

In the last few of years, a few village councils, mostly in Dimapur and in Phek district in eastern Nagaland have taken a few women on board. Tokheli Kikon, Chairperson of the Naharbari Village Council, is the first and only woman so far to head a village council. 

But these are the exceptions, not yet the norm. 

For those have found a place in the village councils, there is the expectation that they can make a difference, even if there are only two women in a council of 30 or more men. 

One such woman is 38-year-old Konie-u from Enhulumi village in Phek district. A village with around 250 houses, Enhulumi is perched precariously over the state highway running from Kohima to the eastern part of Nagaland via Chizami. If you go there early in the morning, you will only find men. The women have already left for the fields.

Every morning, Konie-u weaves for some time, then leaves for the fields. That morning, she waited, as did her mother, Khwetsozu-u, who offered us sticky rice and then left for her paddy fields.

Konie-u, from the Chakasang tribe, said that three years back, the women's society in the village pushed for women to be in the village council. They finally succeeded last year. They nominated Konie-u, who has studied up to Class 9, along with another woman.

"In the beginning, when we got into the council, we explained to the men that we are not just here to make and serve tea but that we want to participate in the meetings", said Konie-u. 

They told the men that if they want tea, they should tell them early so that it can be made. Even if they wanted lunch, the women would arrange it. But during the meetings, they wanted to be there. 

"Already, within a year, men in the council are starting to acknowledge and listen to us and are telling us that our opinion matters," she said.

Can women really make a difference, I ask?

In Konie-u's opinion, they can. She said that if men eat up 75% of the funds, and leave only 25% for the community, women will ensure that at least 75% of the funds are available for the village. 

Would she be prepared to stand for the Assembly? Konie-u dismissed the suggestion saying that she is not qualified, and doesn't have the money. But, she said, “I believe that we will have a woman legislator from our constituency. I will campaign and push for her.”

Opposition to laws

This is but a small breach in a male fortress. The larger struggle for representation in municipal councils, which revolves around implementing a law and not on the munificence of some men, is proving far tougher.

The Nagaland Assembly passed the Nagaland Municipal (First Amendment) Act in 2006. This provided for 33% reservation of seats for women. But till today, this cannot be implemented because men have argued that this runs counter to customary law. And according to Article 371A of the Constitution, Nagaland is exempt from any law that does not conform to customary laws.

For the last six years, elections to the municipal bodies have not been held, as a result of the ongoing stand-off on the reservation.

A writ petition challenging the state government's refusal to hold municipal elections was filed before the Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court on June 26, 2011. 

The petitioners, Rosemary Dzuvichu, an academic, and Abeiu Meru of the Naga Mothers' Association argued that as the law guaranteeing representation to women was applicable to Nagaland and did not violate traditional practices, it ought to be implemented. The government, however, put forward various arguments and also claimed that implementing such a law would upset the peace in Nagaland. 

In October 2011, the court, presided by a single judge, upheld the petition and directed the government to hold the elections to municipal councils and town councils on or before January 20, 2012. 

But before that could happen, the state government filed an appeal before a division bench of the Gauhati High Court. The previous ruling was stayed. 

The petitioners then moved a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court in September 2012 and finally got a ruling on April 20 this year. The Supreme Court upheld the single-judge ruling of the Gauhati High Court of October 2011. As a result, the state government and the state election commission must begin the process of holding elections to the urban local bodies. But to date, nothing has happened. 

In the absence of municipal elections over the last few years, funds cannot be released for essential urban services, the consequences of which are evident in the sorry state of Nagaland's towns.

Dzuvichu, one of the petitioners, argues: "When reservation exists in the village development boards for more than three decades, all these excuses about customary traditions, or even by educated women on being equal with men and therefore not needing reservation, are based on ignorance of and denial of the plight of the larger group of women who are voiceless, both the rural and urban poor and marginalised." 

She said that as petitioners, they have written to the Election Commission of India, to the state election commissioner, the chief minister and the Parliamentary secretary of municipal affairs asking them to hold elections.

“The entry of 82 women councillors in 19 municipal and town councils is an exciting event to watch for someone like me who believes Naga women will be good dynamic partners of our men in this strong patriarchal society,” said Dzuvichu. “It will be a turning point for the future of Naga women.” 

The other battleground

With regard to their fight to property rights too, some headway has been made, but there’s a long way to go.

Temsula Ao, writer, professor, and head of the Nagaland State Women's Commission said that a process of discussion to introduce a new law on inheritance has begun. 

"We are trying to see if we can figure out an Act for Naga inheritance," said Ao. "At the moment we are not talking about ancestral property. We have decided we will not touch this hornet's nest. We are just talking about acquired property of husband and wife."

The state women's commission has conducted a series of consultations with the apex bodies of each of the tribes of Nagaland. Men from village councils and student bodies as well as gazetted officers were invited to these consultations. Ao believes that this is the best way to take the issue forward.

Women leaders met after these meetings and formulated the main points they wanted to put to their people. These were then taken back to the tribal leaders and their consent was sought in writing. By the middle of May, Ao said that almost 99% of them had accepted the suggestions made.

After further consultations and endorsements, these suggestions will now be sent to the law department. Sikkim and Mizoram already have laws that address women’s right to inherit property. These, Ao suggests, could help in the formulation of the Naga law.

These debates on women's rights do not make it to the so-called national press as conflict and politics dominate the discourse. Yet, for the future of Naga society, caught on the cusp between tradition and modernity, the outcome of these struggles will be crucial.

Africa is not a country: How the Indian government and media have mishandled the racist attacks

In Scroll.in

May 31, 2016

Colour matters. In India, it matters a lot. We knew that much before the recent attacks on people who are being described as African nationals.

We knew that just on the basis of the persistence of fairness cream commercials, including those for men.

But black lives don't matter. For we must admit that not all people from Africa are insulted, jeered at, called all kinds of horrid names and every now and then beaten up and even killed. It is only those of a certain colour that we Indians seem to hate.

Read the rest here: http://scroll.in/article/809054/africa-is-not-a-country-how-the-indian-government-and-media-have-mishandled-the-racist-attacks

'Important for intellectuals to take sides': Academic Hiren Gohain on why the BJP is bad for Assam

This interview was done before the Assam election results were out.

May 7, 2016

The Sahitya Akademi award winner feels the party has been exposed as fascist and would wreck the communal harmony in the state should it come to power.

http://scroll.in/article/807339/important-for-us-intellectuals-to-take-sides-hiren-gohain-on-why-the-bjp-is-bad-for-assam

RK Pachauri’s civil suit against a women’s rights lawyer could set a very dangerous precedent

Here's a catch up of various articles I've written for Scroll that I haven't posted on this blog.

April 12, 2016

The move by the climate scientist, who is facing sexual harassment charges, is likely to have a chilling effect on other women.

http://scroll.in/article/806530/rk-pachauris-civil-suit-against-a-womens-rights-lawyer-could-set-a-very-dangerous-precedent

Four problems Maharashtra can't wish away by chanting 'Bharat Mata ki jai'

My latest on Scroll.in on the Bharat Mata Ki Jai obsession:

http://scroll.in/article/806121/mr-fadnavis-shouting-bharat-mata-ki-jai-wont-drive-away-the-crippling-drought

Muzaffarnagar to Murthal

Indian Express, March 17, 2016

(Op-ed in Indian Express)

When public figures speak violence, the fallout goes beyond their immediate targets.  In ways seen and unseen, those most affected are often women. 

Recently, we saw an illustration of this during the Jat quota stir.  In a sea of men blocking highways and railway tracks, women were invisible.  In fact, they were not there at all. 

Yet, they figured, not as participants but as targets.  Although everyone seems to deny that any molestation or rapes occurred at the end of February, there are several reports that suggest that women were attacked and that most of them will not speak out.

That is hardly surprising.  Did we not see that in Muzaffarnagar in September 2013?  In the communal riots preceding the 2014 general elections, only after the violence had subsided, an estimated 60 people had died and 60,000, mostly Muslims, had been displaced, did the stories of rape begin to be told.

Till today, there has been no closure.  Just a few days ago, one of those cases was closed because the survivor and her family “turned hostile”, another way of saying that they were either intimidated, or decided to keep quiet for fear of consequences.

Despite changes in the rape law, and an increase in general awareness after the 2012 gang rape in Delhi, the reality for rape survivors who fight for justice is either endless delay and humiliation, or threats forcing them to withdraw charges.  Statistics of the low conviction rate amply illustrate this reality.

Muzaffarnagar and Murthal tell us the same story.  When there is public violence, by way of riots or agitations, the consequence is often heightened levels of violence against women.  This is not unique to India.  Studies around the world have established this reality in multiple locations.  The most ghastly in recent memory is Rwanda, where during the genocide in 1994 when Hutus systematically eliminated Tutsis, in the course of 100 days of violence, an estimated half a million women were raped or killed.  The legacy of that violence has still not been erased.

In the current atmosphere in India, where statements are made almost on a daily basis about chopping off heads, slicing tongues and taking revenge, there is real reason to worry.  This kind of heightened violence, much of it going unchallenged and even endorsed by the very people who should be stopping it, leaves all women vulnerable, not just those belonging to the targeted groups.

What this does is that it makes violence acceptable as a way of settling scores.  If ministers in the government speak such language, and they get away without being reprimanded, and are not even hauled up for hate speech, then what is to stop any person from assuming that such talk, and the actions that follow, are permissible?

While data has established that the majority of incidents of violence against women occur in the home or familiar neighbourhoods, a heightened atmosphere of violence affects women’s access to the public space.  At such times, the problem is viewed as a breakdown in law and order. In fact, it is a direct fallout of a culture of political violence that is deliberately perpetuated and thereby becomes the norm.

The government needs to recognise this and address it because it undercuts its stated efforts to “empower” women. Beti Bachao and Beti Padhao will remain empty slogans if girls fear stepping out to go to school or women are terrified at the thought of giving birth to another girl who will have to confront increasing violence, at home and outside.

A survey conducted by the group Breakthrough in 2014 in five states and 15 districts in India indicated that girls on their way to school had to fight off sexually explicit verbal comments, stalking and sometimes molestation.  The unsafe spaces women listed included bus stops, railways stations, open toilets, public toilets, markets and streets.  In other words, practically all public spaces.

In election season, women will be more constrained and restricted if these public spaces that they must necessarily negotiate every single day also become the sites of political violence. The fear of molestation and rape will hold young girls back from attending school, prevent women from going out to work, and in myriad other ways directly affect their mobility. 

The more dangerous aspect is not just the random violence in the public space, but the targeted one, when women become a part of the plan to wreak vengeance by one group of men on another.  This is what we saw in Muzaffarnagar.  And this is what could repeat itself as the electoral temperature rises, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. 

These realities are constantly obscured in the continuous talk about achievement and empowerment of some women, or in the increasingly empty and consumerist agendas that now dominate the celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8.

Beyond Kanhaiya Kumar

March 6, 2016

Something really unusual and encouraging has been happening in the last days. Apart from JNU, which has been in ferment, young people in many other parts of India seem to be waking up and speaking out as never before.

I spent all day yesterday surrounded by enthusiastic, intense youngsters who hung on to every word spoken by a range of speakers about secularism, communalism, democracy, the media, and history. The meeting was organised by a small group who call themselves the Mumbai Collective.  I can't remember such an electric atmosphere in this city in a long time. Keeping my fingers firmly crossed that this is not a passing phase but part of a deeper churning.

My piece in Scroll.in

Beyond Kanhaiya Kumar: Is this the student awakening that has been a long time coming?

Kanhaiya Kumar’s words, as he delivered his passionate speech in Jawaharlal Nehru University hours after being released on bail following 23 days in custody, will continue to reverberate in our ears for some time to come. “We want freedom in India, not from India,” he said as he went on to define what he meant by that freedom, that “azadi”.

Kumar left those who listened to him at the venue, and on television, speechless. He probably left his detractors, who have called him “anti-national”, sleepless. For what Kumar said on the night of March 3, and what he represents, cannot be ignored anymore.

But is this the story of only one exceptional person, a young man not just with admirable oratorical skills but also commitment, perspective, passion, courage and insight? Or does this represent an awakening among India’s students and youth, a stirring that has been a long time coming?

Rise and spread

What began in September 2014 in Jadavpur University in Kolkata in the form of a demand to investigate an incident of sexual harassment, spread to the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune in June 2015, when the students went on strike against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan to head the institution.

Like the “infection” the Delhi High Court judge who granted Kumar bail fears, it then spread to the Hyderabad Central University in August 2015, culminating in the tragic death of Rohith Vemula in January this year. And then on February 9, JNU became “infected” as students demanded their right to protest and were instead charged with sedition and being “anti-national”.

Since the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on February 12 on charges of sedition and the subsequent arrest of two other JNU students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, students from many more universities across India have come out in their support. This kind of solidarity among students across universities has not been seen in recent times.

These protests could, of course, subside. The majority of students might decide to get back to classes, and to worrying about their careers. But the chances that this “infection” will spread are greater because the JNU students and the Dalit students from Hyderabad Central University have widened the ambit of their protests. It is not just freedom of expression that they are demanding; they are equally passionate about freedom from caste. It is this combination that must worry the current dispensation at the Centre, or at least should worry them.

Past passion

You would have to delve quite far into your memory to remember a time when Indian universities were in ferment. But there was such a time. If you were in any university or college in the 1960s or 1970s, student politics was alive. There were passionate debates about the country’s future, about injustice and about freedom. There were Gandhians, Socialists, Communists, Maoists. I can’t remember too many Sanghis in those days.

Whether you were politically inclined or not, expressing your views on everything and anything was the norm. And no one was afraid. There was no one telling you what was allowed or not allowed. And there was certainly no one accusing anyone of being “anti-national”, not even if you believed that “power came out of the barrel of a gun”.

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the Naxalbari movement at one end, and Jayprakash Narayan’s call for Total Revolution at the other. Both attracted educated young people, including students who left their studies to go and work in the villages. There were study circles and intense debates. Many young people who followed JP dropped their surnames so as not to identify with any caste. Despite opposition from parents, young people were giving up jobs, education, comfortable homes to follow their convictions. They did not want to wait, to be safe. They wanted to take risks.

For the young people who were politicised in the early 1970s, the declaration of Emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975 was an inflexion point; it confirmed their worst fears about the Indian state. When the Congress Party president DK Barooah declared that “India was Indira and Indira was India”, the frame within which rights, such as freedom of expression, could operate had been set. If you were critical of Indira or her policies, you were against India, hence anti-national. In today’s context, this sounds creepily similar.

Lessons not learnt

Although there have been other galvanising events that have drawn out young people since the end of the Emergency in 1977 and today, I would argue that there has been nothing that has been this widespread. The issue of communalism did bring young people out on the streets after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and the Gujarat violence in 2002. But their participation was not on the scale we have seen today.

Since the 2014 election and the formation of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, the demand for “azadi”, in the way Kumar describes it, has been spurred because the state now defines what we can say and cannot, what we can do and cannot, what we can eat and cannot, what we can read and cannot. You don’t have to be a student of JNU to understand that this is unacceptable. Young people have always demanded the right to question, to rebel, to choose their own paths. As Kanhaiya Kumar presciently pointed out, the more you push them down, the stronger they will emerge.

This is precisely what has been happening. Instead of recognising the legitimacy of the demands being made by students on these different campuses, the government has chosen the hammer of “sedition” and the “anti-national” label to knock them down. In turn, it is now facing the ballooning rebellion of students, political and apolitical, who instinctively react against arbitrariness and oppression.

Pertinent reminders

What is particularly pertinent about the struggles of the students in JNU is that they are going beyond demanding freedom of expression. By placing on the same plate caste oppression, these youth have launched a campaign that has relevance and should have resonance. Relevance because it is unacceptable that in 2016 caste should still be a factor that determines a person’s future in this country. And resonance because in 2014, as Kumar reminded us, 69% of the voters did not vote for Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party. There is a large constituency of people out there who do not subscribe to identity politics and the divisiveness that is being deliberately fuelled by this government.

Kumar has also reminded us that there is an India that lies beyond university campuses and television studios. It includes places like his village, where his mother is an anganwadi worker. He is in JNU only because there is a system that accommodates people like him. In those places beyond the reach of the media, what is “India”, what is “the nation”, who is a patriot and who an “anti-national”? Does it really matter?

Listening to Kumar’s passionate speech at JNU, I recalled an incident from 40 years ago. I was meeting students at a village school in Panchgani, western Maharashtra. They were curious about Bombay. Some had heard of it, many had not. They had no idea who was the prime minister of India, or the president.

And then I asked, “Which do you think is the biggest city in India?” In an instant, a little girl dressed in the regulation uniform common in most village schools, with her hair neatly braided into two plaits, raised her hand. “Satara”, she said, with utmost confidence.

Irom Sharmila: Woman who will not bend

March 2, 2016

The news this morning that Irom Sharmila, that indefatigable campaigner against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) had been released, with the court stating that the police cannot rearrest her, came as some good news after a long week of terrible developments.  But by later in the day it was clear, that nothing has changed.  Sharmila is determined to fast and has said so.  And the police has once again arrested her, according to the latest reports.

Much has been written about this "Iron Lady".  I too have written about her (http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/i-am-sharmila/article4515503.ece?homepage=true) and met her briefly in 2009 in Imphal when the same drama of release and rearrest took place.  She is a person one cannot forget -- frail yet strong, smiling through the pain visible in her eyes, and determined in a way one has never seen before.  It makes you feel humbled, even over-awed.

But we cannot stop at admiration. The cause for which she is prepared to inflict such suffering on herself is one that should be a concern for all of us, even if we are not subject to the draconian AFSPA that has made life a hell for people in Manipur.  The demand for its withdrawal should not be limited to the people living under it.  All of us who care for a just society, where abitrary powers are not placed in the hands of people with no respect for human rights, must oppose AFSPA.

In the meantime, we wait and watch.  Will someone listen -- anyone? To quote what I wrote earlier:

"What will it take for the deafness of the government, and its obduracy, to give way to a listening ear and an open mind on the issue? How many Sharmilas will it take? Should all of us who care, who feel outraged at this state of affairs, decide to become Sharmilas?"

Maneka Gandhi’s suggestion on mandatory sex tests aims to absolve doctors of blame for foeticide

Feb 4, 2016 on Scroll.in

The minister’s remarks are a response to a campaign by the medical community to change the sex selection law.

 

Kalpana Sharma  · Today · 10:30 am

Is Maneka Gandhi just shooting her mouth off or is a policy change imminent?

According to reports by journalists who heard her speak at a conference in Jaipur on Monday, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development seems convinced that the way to deal with sex-selective abortions, which has led to a precipitous decline in the sex ratio, is to make sex-determination tests on pregnant women mandatory.

Her logic is hard to fathom. The minister has suggested, in all seriousness, that doctors should reveal the sex of the foetus to pregnant women whether they want to know it or not. She believes that by doing this, women will then be afraid to abort female foetuses as its sex will be part of public record.

“It is really not feasible to go around trying to catch every ultrasound technician for revealing the foetal gender to parents in violation of the PCPNDT Act,” Gandhi was quoted as saying. “Rather, why not reverse the strategy? The moment a woman gets pregnant, we should find out the gender of the child, tell the mother about it, and immediately register it in public records. Then we can track which pregnancies are carried to full term.”

She continued: “Since the gender is already known, and given the law, families would be compelled to go through with the pregnancy especially when the foetus is female.”

If it ain’t broke…

In other words, Gandhi wants to turn the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act on its head. The law prohibits the revelation of the sex of a foetus as it could lead to sex-selective abortions and it penalises doctors and ultrasound technicians who reveal the sex of the unborn child. The new proposal seems to suggest that the Union minister wants to shift this burden to the shoulders of pregnant women who will be considered criminals if they decide to abort a female foetus.

The proposal might never get through but it is worth considering the consequences if it did.

The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act was the result of campaigns followed by consultations with groups that linked the use of sex-selection and sex-detection technologies to the decline in the sex ratio in India. They argued that the misuse of these technologies aided society’s preference for sons. The fact that the sex ratio had declined even in wealthy districts pointed to the widespread use of these technologies to limit the births of girls.

Paperwork pain

Doctors and ultrasound technicians were held responsible for revealing the sex of the foetus because this was a straightforward way to check rampant sex selection and the sex-selective abortions that followed.

Of course, this meant that all sonography machines had to be registered and doctors had to go through additional paperwork when dealing with pregnant women. However, this was considered a small price to pay given the enormity of the problem.

The law also kept in mind that women who were compelled to have multiple abortions before they produced a male child had no choice. They did this under circumstances where they were blamed if they produced only female children.

The medical lobby

Gandhi was quick to clarify that her remarks were just loud thinking and not the precursor to policy change. Yet, her proposal did not emerge out of thin air. It is in response to a concerted campaign by the medical community to change the Pre-Natal Conception and Diagnostic Technologies Act.

Doctors have complained not just about the paperwork but that they were being charged even for minor “clerical errors”. This argument has held sway in many cases and accounts for the low level of conviction in cases that fall under the law forbidding sex determination. Doctors have also complained about corruption by officials who demand bribes when they come to inspect papers.

In Maharashtra, doctors have been particularly vociferous in their demands for a change in the law. Not surprisingly, the first response to Gandhi’s statement came from the president of the Maharashtra branch of the Indian Medical Association, Dr Jayant Lele, who said, “The sex ratio has not dramatically improved after this law came into force. If expecting couples are tracked after sex determination shows it is a female foetus, they will be more fearful of breaking the law.”

In short, the medical community would like to be absolved of all responsibility and Gandhi’s proposal is precisely what it wants.

Fix basics first

Apart from being highly impractical, Gandhi’s proposal are unacceptably intrusive. In a country with over a billion people with millions being added every year, how will the government monitor every single birth to make sure that sex selective abortions are not taking place? Who will do it?

If even the basic job of ensuring that all pregnant women receive antenatal care so that they survive the pregnancy and deliver healthy babies is not being done how will health establishments across the country take on this additional task? And should they?
The proposal is even more perplexing when Gandhi suggests that the monitoring of every pregnant woman in the country will encourage institutional deliveries. The leap of logic she uses to arrive at this conclusion is unfathomable.

In a country where the word “inadequate” would be a gross understatement when it comes to the ratio of hospital beds to people, does the minister for Women and Child Development really think that we are ready to abolish home deliveries and compel all pregnant women to go to hospital for their deliveries?

Millions of babies are born at home, delivered by trained village dais, and survive. Yet, Gandhi believes “home deliveries pose a threat to the newborn as there might be an attempt on its life” and recommends that they be abolished.

If we have to put up with such ill-informed statements from a person tasked with ensuring the survival of women and children in India, perhaps the post of minister for Women and Child Development should be abolished.

To understand why job quotas for women don't go far enough, take a ride on a Mumbai train

January 22, 2016 in Scroll.in

Employers should recognise that women start working long before they get to the office – and continue when they get home.

 

Kalpana Sharma  · Today · 04:30 pm

Photo Credit: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

“Why aren’t India’s women working?” This was the headline of an article in the August 23 edition of The New York Times. The headline writers ought to have known better. Indian women work hard, and all the time. Yet, their work is largely not considered “work”. Only work for which you are paid is counted. And much of the work that women do is unpaid.

The premise that bringing more women into the paid workforce will help women and the Indian economy is behind policies, such as the one announced on Tuesday by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, to reserve 35% of all government jobs for women.
Kumar is not the first to take this step. Madhya Pradesh already has 30% reservation for women in government jobs, as does Gujarat at 33%. In addition, the Union home ministry sent out an advisory to all state government and union territories on August 26, 2014 on increasing women in the police to 33% of the total force.

While 33% of positions in the constable rank are reserved for women in the Central Reserve Police Force and the Central Industrial Security Force, 15% are reserved in the Border Security Force, the Sashastra Seema Bal and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. As the local police come under the state government, they are expected to fall in line and work towards increasing the number of women recruits – currently in short supply as evidenced by the Delhi Police, a force in which women comprise only 9.27%.

Discouraging factors

But while quotas are well-intentioned, they are clearly not enough. The Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women, which looked specifically at the question of increasing women’s presence in the police force, underlined the simple and rather obvious problems that need to be addressed even as the number of women recruited for these jobs increases.

In its December 17, 2014 report, the committee emphasises the need to improve the facilities available to women when it writes, “despite a spate of efforts from the Government, lack of basic amenities/rest rooms/mobile toilets is still a major problem for the women in police in many States.”
In other words, it is not enough to just recruit more women. Both government and the private sector need to ensure that the conditions at work do not dehumanise women or place an additional stress on their lives. Apart from toilets, provisions of crèches and benefits such as maternity leave should not be seen as special favours. Women enter the paid workforce on unequal terms. A paid job is in addition to the unpaid “work” that they do every day – child care, elderly care, domestic chores, among them.

There will be those who will argue against quotas for women in government jobs. Such people ought to travel by the women’s special trains at peak hour from Churchgate station in Mumbai. Here you meet women, many of them employed by the state government, who wake up at the crack of dawn every day, prepare food for their families, and then set off on their long commute to work.

At the end of the day, they use the train ride to prepare for the tasks that wait exclusively for them once they get home: cook, clean, wash and at some point sleep before the day begins again. Government jobs, with all their security and benefits, are not exactly a gravy ride if you are a lower-middle-class woman.

The other important component to increase women’s presence in the paid workforce is safety. From sexual harassment to sexual assault, women face these dangers every day as they step out to earn a living. The recent distressing case of an Accredited Social Health Activist worker in Uttar Pradesh, who committed suicide because the man who raped her threatened to release the video of the act, brings home the dangers that even those women part of government programmes face. Just having a paid job does not protect them from sexual predators.

A matter of perception

In any case, even if every state government follows the lead of Nitish Kumar and others by reserving government jobs for women, it is unlikely to make more than a tiny dent in the larger problem of getting more women in paid employment. India is close to the bottom in the list of countries when it comes to the percentage of women in paid employment or “female labour force participation” (termed FLFP). While the global average is 50%, which means every other woman is in the labour
force, in India it was 33% in 2012 and has now slipped further.

Why do we need to increase the number of women in paid employment? Is it just tokenism if employment means a double burden on them?

The most obvious significance is that a woman contributing to family income has a better chance of being treated more decently than one who does not. That, of course, is an assumption that is not always born out with the statistics which reveal that even well-educated women in good jobs are at the receiving end of domestic violence. Also, in many cases, they do not have control over the money they earn. Yet, there is change, especially in urban areas where the cost of living is inducing more women into some form of paid employment.

The larger significance of more women in the workforce is that of perception. In the last several decades, women have entered many fields that remained closed to their mothers. Rabia Futtehally, for instance, was one of the first women pilots in India. Today, out of 5,100 commercial pilots in India, 11.7% are women (the average worldwide is 3%). This has been achieved without quotas but illustrates how the opening up of new avenues for employment for women encourages more women to consider these options. And even if entrenched attitudes, which will not accept that women have capabilities and rights, do not evaporate, they are challenged.

Reserving jobs for women is one way to increase the percentage of women in paid jobs. But in the long run, neither more money, nor job security, will make a difference to women’s status unless we recognise and value the real “work” that millions of women do every day, all day.

Why Haryana CM's claim that state's sex ratio has improved is dangerous for women

On scroll.in  Tuesday January 19, 2016

Opinion

By claiming that the declining sex ratio can be turned around by a high-profile campaign, Khattar is trivialising an important issue.

Kalpana Sharma  · Today · 12:30 pm

Photo Credit: Roberto Schmidt/AFP

It is quite extraordinary that the chief minister of a state with the lowest sex ratio should claim that there has been a dramatic turnaround in less than a year. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was reported on January 16 as saying that the child sex ratio in his state had improved from 834 girls to every 1,000 boys in the 2011 census to 903 in December. He attributed this jump to the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign launch by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last January.

The sex ratio, male-female and child sex ratio (0-6 years) cannot be measured every day – unlike, say, pollution levels. It is tracked over a period of time. Changes in the sex ratio become apparent in the census, conducted once every ten years. Thus, it was with the 2001 census data that alarm bells first rang out about the extent to which the sex ratio in India was skewed in favour of males, especially in the more prosperous districts. Specifically, it is the fall in the child sex ratio that caused concern as it fell from 927 in 2001 to 919 in 2011, clearly indicating that sex selection was widely prevalent.

However, civil society groups had warned of the dangers of the declining sex ratio three decades before the 2011 census when they noticed the growing misuse of medical technology to detect and abort female foetuses. In the 1980s, the first technologies to indicate the sex of the foetus came to India. Amniocentesis, an invasive process that removes amniotic fluid from the uterus of a pregnant woman to test the sex of the foetus, was costly and not widely available. Even so, it was evident that those who could afford the test went ahead and paid for it, followed by an abortion if the foetus was found to be female.

Misusing technology

The first group to begin campaigning and drawing attention to this came up in Mumbai. The Forum Against Sex Selection exposed the misuse of amniocentesis, meant to detect abnormalities in the foetus, and demanded that this and other such technologies be banned. In fact, in the early 1980s, Mumbai’s local trains carried advertisements selling the idea of sex selective abortions at centres that provided both services, amniocentesis and abortion, under one roof.

The FASS campaign eventually led to the Maharashtra government passing a law banning sex selection technologies in 1988. But by then, the technology had changed: it become non-invasive, cheaper and easier. Sonography machines could detect the sex of the foetus much earlier than amniocentesis, making abortion safer. There were no curbs on these machines. They were small and easily portable. Sex selection spread from cities to smaller towns and even villages.

The Maharashtra law led to the central government being persuaded to take note of the dangers of the spread of this technology and in 1994, the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act 1994 was passed.

But all such laws have their limitations. It is not just a matter of checking the misuse of such technologies but stemming the demand for them. Sex selection is essentially the desire by thousands of Indian families to avoid giving birth to girls. If in the past, some communities resorted to infanticide, today technology provides a neater, easier way of getting rid of the problem – avoid giving birth to girls.

Many justify the use of sex selection by arguing that it will spare girls the tortures they will encounter later in life. It is a strange argument, for it accepts that woman in Indian society can never hope for fair treatment. Also, the fact that the better-off use sex selection clearly establishes that at root the issue is one of property and not any concern for the safety of girls or women.

Misguided measures

Not surprisingly, a law passed to give women equal rights to inherit ancestral property, the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005 went against them in places like Haryana where the status of women is low in all respects. As this article by Chander Suta Dogra points out, since the law came into effect, the desire to avoid giving birth to girls has accelerated in Haryana rather than decreased.
Ironically, many government schemes aimed at checking the decline in the sex ratio are aimed at poor people through cash transfer schemes, such as Dhan Lakshmi and Ladli, Kanyadan, even though the groups that are most likely to practice female foeticide is well above the poverty line.

Even as we accept that sex selection is a symptom of the larger problem, the implementation of the PCPNDT Act has been patchy at best and mostly indifferent. Even in Haryana, where the declining sex ratio has been the focus of many campaigns for well over a decade, only 58 FIRs had been registered under this law in the last six months. These are registered cases, not convictions. In many instances, those operating sonography machines without registering them are caught but there is no way to prove that they have been used for sex selection. Even if this law was enforced more strictly, it only deals with the technology of sex-selection when the problem is embedded in societal attitudes.

Regressive environment

In Haryana, these attitudes have a long way to go before they change. Political parties, including the BJP that has launched the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign with such fanfare, refuse to take a stand against regressive institutions like the khap panchayats that have a direct impact on the status and rights of women in that state.

Whatever the credibility of the figures recently released by the Haryana government about the improvement in the child sex ratio, the larger problem of women’s rights remains unaddressed. By claiming that something as serious as the declining sex ratio can be turned around by a campaign high on optics is to trivialise an important issue. Such boasts are not just false, they are dangerous. What they do is deny the process required to change mindsets. Even if a state has a reasonably good sex ratio, if its women are harassed, denied choice in marriage, restricted in their movement, dictated what they should wear and what they can do, can we conclude that women’s status has improved and that all girls in the future will be safe? This is the question Khattar and his colleagues need to answer.

Read the original here.

Unheard voices

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, Jan 10, 2016

inShare

A note to my readers:

 

After a run of 22 years in The Hindu (and before that 4 years in Indian Express), this is the last column to appear in print (at least for the moment).  The Hindu's editors informed me that they were dropping it, and some other columns, to make way for "new content".  

Sadly, despite my long association with the paper, the people in-charge did not have the courtesy to call and speak to me personally about this, or to give me enough notice and finally agreed to this last column on my prompting!  On top of it, they removed the line that indicated clearly that I was stopping the column only because they wanted it and not on my own volition.

Be that as it may, I will, as I've written, continue to write about these issues, on this blog, on other digital platforms and hopefully in print.

The Hindu

Irom Sharmila's fast without end and her plea that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act be withdrawn has so far fallen on deaf ears. Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

 

 

As 2016 begins, one prediction will not go wrong. There will be noise, much more noise on the Indian political-scape. Five state elections. Each will be as fraught as the next. But in the midst of this noise, some voices will be drowned out, voices that are barely heard even when it is quiet.

This column has tried, in the 22 years that it has occupied this space, to remind us that these unheard voices need an audience. Urgently.

Voices like that of Irom Sharmila in Manipur. Her fast without end and her plea that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) be withdrawn has so far fallen on deaf ears. Sharmila continues her protest; successive governments continue to justify the imposition of AFSPA in northeastern States like Manipur and in Kashmir. And the voices of those who bear the brunt of this policy are heard only when there is an “incident”, when enough people die to be noted by the national press. And that is where the story ends.

Voices like that of Lakshmi, who lived on a Mumbai pavement for decades. Her plea that cities also belong to the urban poor, that they too are equal citizens who are guaranteed the same rights as those who live in 100-room mansions, has also fallen on deaf ears. Our cities are for people with houses, with cars, with holiday homes but not for people like Lakshmi who hold up the city and make it work. There is money for sea links, flyovers, broad roads, gleaming new airports and swanky business districts, but no money for affordable housing, potable water supply, sanitation systems that reaches the poorest.

Voices like that of Veena Devi, the mukhiya of Loharpura panchayat in Bihar’s Nawada district. She has only basic literacy skills. Yet she has managed to grasp the essentials of good governance, brought solar lighting to her village so that women feel safe, and figured out that being humane and efficient is not rocket science. There are thousands like her across India. Their voices will disappear if the law that Rajasthan and Haryana have enacted laying down minimum educational criteria for panchayat candidates, is accepted across the country.

Voices like the rural women journalists who work without fear or favour in the rough lands of Uttar Pradesh. The women who bring out Khabar Lahariya in five dialects remind us, who live in cities, that there is an India that our urban obsessed media so readily forgets. These women, trained to be journalists, set out fearlessly to expose incidents of harassment, rape, dowry and other social issues. They also cover local politics. They report, edit and produce their paper. For it they get brickbats, they face harassment, but there is also enough appreciation to keep them going. But their voices are not loud enough to drown out the ruckus that mainstream media generates on any number of issues every day.

Giving space to such voices is not something special; it is what journalism should be about. I chose ‘The Other Half’ as the title for this column because I believe that journalism should be about telling the stories that are not obvious, that don’t automatically hit you in the face. In our rush to meet deadlines, we journalists sometimes miss out on other perspectives. We fail to invest enough in listening to those who speak in quiet voices, those not quite sure about what they feel, those who appear inarticulate to the outside world.

These are often women, poor women, but also men who belong to groups so long marginalised that they have internalised the belief that their views do not count. So they never step forward and speak to you. If you are interested, or concerned, you have to seek them out and convince them you want to listen.

As we go into a new year, followed by one that stood out for growing intolerance, perhaps we should find ways of being more intolerant, but about issues other than the ones that cropped up last year.

We are too tolerant. We tolerate abysmal poverty in the midst of strident consumerism; we tolerate the infamy of millions of our citizens who continue to be discriminated against and marginalised by virtue of their caste; we tolerate unacceptable levels of violence against women within their homes and outside; we tolerate sex-selection and son-preference leading to a skewed sex ratio; we tolerate the existence of millions of undernourished and stunted children in a country where waste is becoming a symbol of prosperity and “progress”; we tolerate women dying at child-birth when this is not a life-threatening disease; we tolerate the excesses of the state in the name of “national security” even as our justice system fails to serve the powerless. The list of what we tolerate, and should not, is endless.

As I sign off on my last column in this space, let me assure the readers of The Other Half, who favoured me with sharp and useful comments through these years, that the other half of the story will continue to be told.