The politics of violence

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, September 29, 2013

  

PTIRiot-affected women and children at a makeshift camp in Muzaffarnagar.

In all the reports about the recent communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar, little has been written about the trauma suffered by women.

Imagine if you are a woman with several children and a riot breaks out. You can run, carry one child, hold the hand of the other. But what about the rest? Who do you leave behind? How can you make sure they will be safe? How do you live with the choices you made in that moment of terror and panic?

These are the harrowing choices that hundreds of women must have faced when the communal violence flared up in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district last month. As Muslim families fled, leaving behind their homes, some were also forced to abandon members of their own families. And now they have no idea what happened to those they left behind, whether they are alive or dead.

This is one of the more disturbing accounts that comes through in a small report prepared by a group of 11 women working in U.P. with different non-governmental organisations whose focus has been gender. The report is impressionistic; it does not pretend to be a balanced fact-finding report. Yet, in its very simplicity, it conveys some of the trauma and immense sadness that is a reality for the thousands who continue to shelter under shaky tarpaulin shelters in the humid heat of September.

Titled “A human tragedy unfolds as the State watches”, the report describes six relief camps; three each in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts. Calling it a Preliminary Citizens’ Report, it narrates what the inhabitants of these camps told the team. Possibly because the team consisted only of women, the report gives us a small but essential insight into what women experienced. For instance, they quote a number of women telling them how they had to leave children behind. Yet, even after the violence ended, the district administration has not been able to help them trace missing family members or even to prepare a list of people who are missing.

Also unspoken and unwritten are stories of sexual violence. They are not easy to record. Some of the women spoke hesitatingly about rape, about having their clothes torn off. But they were afraid to go into more details or to register cases.

We cannot forget that it took a team of women to visit Gujarat soon after the anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 to write a comprehensive report on the sexual violence perpetrated on women. Their report, “The Survivors Speak: Sexual Violence Against Women” is still relevant today even if the searing testimonies of the survivors in the report relate specifically to Gujarat. For through these testimonies we understand how women become the collateral damage during such communal conflagrations.

In Muzaffarnagar, too, such a follow up will be needed so that this ugly side of communal violence, that scars the bodies and souls of so many women, does not go unrecorded and hence unrecognised.

It is so easy to miss women’s narrative at a time of heightened political competition in the run up to the general elections next year. Yet each recording of such testimonies informs us that regardless of the location, there is a common theme that runs through them — that men and women experience violent conflict in different ways. And there can be no real healing or rehabilitation unless this difference is noted and recognised.

The displaced women in Muzaffarnagar have no voice at the moment. Given the status of women in that region, where men fight feuds and their women are part of an unwritten “honour” code, they might never find a voice. Yet experiences around the world have underlined repeatedly, that women must have a say in the aftermath of conflict and in building a peace that lasts.

Currently, the dominant theme of discussion around Muzaffarnagar and the fallout of the violence is politics — who gains and who loses, who started it, who fanned the flames, who is to blame. Yet, the real politics of such violence is the grief a mother feels when she is compelled to abandon her child; the nightmares a young woman confronts each day as she recalls sexual violence; the harsh daily reality confronting pregnant women, nursing mothers, elderly women surviving in makeshift camps without sanitation, privacy or health care. Who is bothering to address these issues?

(To read the original, click here.)

Let’s talk about men

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, Sept 15, 2013

  

The HinduDocumentary film-makers (from left): Sanjay Kak, Rahul Roy, Amar Kanwar, and Saba Dewan at a press conference in New Delhi. Photo: S. Subramanium

A project that questions concepts of masculinity is more than welcome.

We write and talk about women’s rights, about violence against women, about stronger laws to “protect” women and about punishing the men violating these laws. But there is little discussion on what it means to be a man in today’s India. An on-going project titled “Let’s Talk Men” (www.letstalkmen.org) has come up with some interesting perspectives on this subject.

Has the understanding of being “masculine” changed even as women have begun to think of themselves differently from their mothers? Or are boys and men, barring a handful of exceptions, no different from their fathers and grandfathers? Has their view of women changed? Or do they continue to believe that women, whether they are mothers and sisters, or wives, are basically there to serve them?

Under the Let’s Talk Men project, launched in 1998, five filmmakers from South Asia — India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan — were encouraged to explore concepts of masculinity in their own countries. Now 15 years later, these filmmakers have followed up with another set of films.

I have seen Delhi-based filmmaker Rahul Roy’s film, Till We Meet Again. It returns to the four young men — Bunty, Sanjay, Sanju and Kamal from Jehangirpuri on the outskirts of Delhi — who featured in his first film. In 1999, when Roy made When Four Friends Meet, these four men were single. In the new film, all of them are married. The film explores how these men see their own lives, what they think of their wives, why they justify hitting their wives (something they did not support when they were single), and what they feel about the expectations of their families and society from them.

Such an exploration is particularly relevant at the present moment when there are so many questions being asked about the growing violence against women in the public space — although the greater violence women continue to experience in their homes has never resulted in such great outrage. What is it that makes men, who seem perfectly reasonable characters as the ones in Roy’s film, think it is acceptable that they should hit their wives because, as one of them says, that is the only way to make them understand?

Roy’s film raises questions around masculinity through the lives of these four men, all from the same class, living in a lower middle-class neighbourhood. Two of them have work and bring home an income while the other two are unemployed. Yet, the latter would never consider helping their wives with housework.

These men’s lives reflect the reality in many of our cities. In a milieu where the value of a man is measured by his ability to take care of his family, men who fail must fear that their “maleness” will be questioned. Yet, there is little in our educational system, or in the media, that seriously addresses these concepts. On the contrary, entrenched views of masculinity are being reinforced every day.

Discussions on “gender” tend to leave out men. We do not, for instance, make an effort to understand the impact of socialisation and family on the roles men are pushed to play. We do not know what is going on in the minds of men as more women get educated. Or why, despite education, the sexual division of labour persists within homes.

There is also a serious gap between what women want, and what men expect from them. In response to my last column, a young woman articulated this well: “What I experience as a college student is that there is a growing sense of unease among those who are comforted by the blanket of patriarchy, by the liberation of women. They feel that their space is being invaded and they feel threatened. What they don’t seem to realise is we are only taking back what was ours in the first place — the freedom to be oneself and chase one’s dreams.” Roy’s film suggests that young men today don’t believe that women were ever entitled to such freedom.

Clearly, there could not be a better time for a project looking at and questioning concepts of masculinity. But it is a project that needs to find a resonance in our homes, in our schools and colleges and in our work places.

(To read the original, click here.)

Salute the survivor

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, September 1, 2013

  

Photo: AP

While the young journalist’s attitude to not see the assault as the end of her life is exceptional, how do we tackle the patriarchal mindset that still views women as commodities?

As a journalist, a woman and a Mumbaikar, the dastardly rape by five men of a young woman journalist in Mumbai on August 22 was particularly jolting. Of course, every day rapes are reported; of young and old women and of little girls, of women in uniform, of women at work, of women at home, of women on their way to work, of women on their way home.

The day after this ghastly assault, a front-page story reported the gang rape of a policewoman in Jharkhand. And just in the vicinity of Mumbai, in Navi Mumbai, a 13-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly raping his five-year-old neighbour; in Mankhurd, a northeastern suburb of Mumbai, a 22-year-old man was charged with raping a 21-year-old woman; and in Pune, the body of an 11-year-old girl who had been raped and murdered was found.

Rapes are not a creation of the modern world. They have happened before. It is the tool men use to assert their power over women. It is a tool men use to assert their power over other men, by raping “their” women, especially in an arena of war and conflict, but even otherwise.

Today’s rapes are no different. They have increased in number. They are reported. And a media, which has realised that readers have a vicarious interest in reading about crimes, is obliging by amplifying, selectively, a few of these crimes and acts of extreme violence against women. Pages and pages are devoted to detailed reports about one or two of these crimes, such as this recent incident.

What is different today is the way politics is being played out on the wounded bodies of women. One of the most distressing and distasteful aspects of the media’s coverage of the Mumbai gang rape was the way it gave air time to politicians to hold forth, to score points against rivals, to demand resignations and to blame other communities. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray announced his absurd conclusion on prime time television that recent migrants to the city were responsible for the increase in crimes while also joining the chorus demanding the resignation of Maharashtra’s Home Minister R. R. Patil.

The problem with this volume of hot air emanating from the talking heads on television talk shows is that it contributes to the pall of unreality that surrounds many issues in this country. It perpetuates the belief that there is a quick fix solution to every problem. One such quick fix is to insist that the home minister should resign. Of course, Maharashtra’s Home Minister did not help his case by suggesting that every woman journalist on an assignment should take along some security. The suggestion was too absurd to even merit serious debate.

Every time there is a case like this which the media spotlights, we go over the same ground. We did it last December. We are doing it again. After some time, the news slips to the inside pages, and the questions that we should be asking are forgotten. Until the next time.

The question that got asked before and needs to be addressed today is: How do we tackle the patriarchal mindset in this country that still views women as commodities? The men who raped the young journalist in Mumbai apparently called up their friends and used the word “maal” while referring to her.

It is this mindset that makes men pour acid and disfigure for life women who dare refuse their overtures. It is this mindset that compels even women to abort female foetuses rather than raise daughters. It is this mindset that views all women out in the public space as available, as targets, as women who must be taught a lesson.

The second issue is the culture of impunity that has come to prevail in this country. It begins at the top but has now permeated to every level. It is interesting that one of the men arrested for the Mumbai rape admitted that he never expected the survivor to report the rape.

It is this belief, that women will not report because of the shame society associates with their being sexually violated and, second, that even if they do nothing much will happen, that encourages those planning and contemplating such crimes. In this case, the young woman had her wits around her and gave a full statement to the police within hours of reaching the hospital. Also, she and her male colleague were able to describe their assailants in detail. Given the publicity around the crime, the government and the Mumbai police were compelled to move quickly and as a result the five alleged rapists have been arrested.

But we must remember that this is an exception; it is very far from the norm. Until the systemic issues that prevent such crimes from being reported and investigated, and then prosecuted, are addressed, we will always only have exceptions. And if such crimes are only tackled in exceptional cases, then the culture of impunity will become even more embedded.

I write this when the Mumbai rape case is still on the front pages. What stands out in the last few days since that brutal crime was committed is the attitude of the young journalist. It has been exemplary. She has declared that she wants to get back to work. She has not hesitated to recall every painful detail for the police. She has refused to see this as the end of her life. She is in an exception — of a kind that this country badly needs.

(To read the original, click here.)

Think beyond the rape

This piece was written in January 2013 soon after the Delhi gang rape.  Now that we have something to report from Mumbai of a similar nature, I found it useful reading this again.

KALPANA SHARMA, GUEST EDITOR

Kalpana Sharma urges the need to engage with the deep-rooted sexism and misogyny in all aspects of Indian society

We must now move beyond sorrow and anger at the horrendous gang rape and lingering death of the 23-year-old woman in Delhi. Since December 16, this one story and its many dimensions have dominated the media.  Opinion pieces, talk shows, surveys, documentaries – we have seen, read, watched.  The horror of this hideous gang rape by six men in the national capital has finally brought to centre stage an issue that should have been a national concern much earlier.

When the 2001 census figures revealed the drastic decline in the child sex ratio, we should have woken up and asked, what is happening to this country that girls are not even being allowed to be born.  But we did not.  We dismissed talk of the consequences of this precipitous decline leading to an increase in the levels of violence against women. Yet, a decade later all those prophecies are coming true.

 When international studies indicated that too many girls were dying in India before the age of six because of socially endorsed neglect in health care and nutrition, again few were alarmed.  This was not a dramatic one-time occurrence.  It was a process that was killing off girls.  So no one noticed.  And few cared.

 There are many more processes that continue to disadvantage women from birth, onto marriage and even when they are widowed, abandoned or divorced.  But these are processes that lead to subjugation, violence and death.  So no one notices.  And few care.

 Today, women are reaping the consequences of this lack of attention to the details – by policymakers, by civil society and by the media, all those who are now worked up about the issue of rape and sexual assault against women.

 At root is the issue of patriarchy – that long word that we prefer not to mention.  It is about social systems that sanctify the superiority of the male.  It is customs and traditions that socialise women to believe that they are inferior, that they must accept a secondary position in everything.  And ones that make men believe that it is their right to dominate, to order, to demand sex and servitude from women, including from those to whom they are related.

 Even as we work to make the criminal justice system work for the survivors of sexual assaults, tighten existing laws so that the perpetrators of these crimes do not get off lightly and establish fast-track courts so that cases do not drag on until the survivor is exhausted and gives up, we must delve deeper into these societal structures that ultimately perpetuate and even endorse sexual crimes.

 Even if all these legal steps are taken, they will not suffice in reducing levels of violence until the stranglehold of patriarchy is broken.  That is no easy job.  The system has had centuries within which to perfect itself.  It has learnt how to mould itself even as society changes and ‘modernises’.  So, even as women are being encouraged to study, to pursue careers, a line is drawn:  this far and no further.  A career, yes, but only if it can fit in within the prescribed limits of a marriage.  Have your own mind and opinion on issues, but not at the cost of alienating the men in your life – your father, your bothers, and your husband.  Even if young educated women chafe at these restrictions, the majority of them fall in line.

 What greater violence could there be than to tell a young girl that she is a free bird, that she can do what she likes, and then cage her within these resilient societal structures?  The price for resisting, for being their own women, is to be confronted with forms of violence that are often not even reported.  Those that occur in a public space are noticed.  What happens within the confines of homes is never known.

 The mothers of these young women lived through this violence.  But there is a difference.  Their mothers did not demand equal rights to the public space outside the home.  Today’s young women believe they have the right.  And just that act, of stepping out with confidence, is being interpreted as their being sexually available to men.  They are challenging patriarchy.  And this is enraging those who believe that a woman is good for only set tasks – as a homemaker and as someone who provides sexual gratification, and of course male progeny, to men.  Anyone falling outside this frame should be punished.

 Grim as this sounds, there is hope – because women and men are finally talking about these issues, because the media is engaged and because policy-makers are not being allowed to make any more excuses.  Yet, after all the shouting is over, those who really want a lasting change will have to engage with the deep-rooted sexism and misogyny in all aspects of Indian society, of which gang rapes and sexual assaults are one manifestation.

(To read the original published in Thumbprint, click here)

True victories?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, August 18, 2013

  

PTIIndia's P.V. Sindhu.

While it’s exciting to watch women do well in sports, the difficulties they face in building a career are still daunting.

One of the most heart-warming stories last month was that of the amazing group of young women from Jharkhand who danced a jig in their red and white saris as they collected their third prize in a football tournament in Spain. Few in India would have heard of this fixture. But thanks to the Yuwa India team of girls under 14 years of age, all from tribal villages near Ranchi, the Gasteiz Cup is known. So are the faces and the stories of some of these young girls who had to overcome incredible hurdles not just to learn to play the game but to travel to Spain to participate in the tournament.

Even as we applauded the Yuwa girls, another bunch of women under 19 years of age came home with a prize. This time it was the under-19 Indian women’s hockey team that brought back the bronze medal from the Junior Hockey World Cup in Germany. And, in China, another bronze medal came India’s way, with the victory of P.V. Sindhu in the badminton World Championships.

Yet do these victories presage a change of attitude towards women and sports in this country? Will there by many more Rinki Kumaris, the 13-year-old girl from a Jharkhand tribal village who is captain of the Yuwa India team? Or is this an exceptional story that is not likely to be repeated?

While there have been several women who have excelled in individual sports, such as Saina Nehwal, Mary Kom and Sania Mirza, it is particularly gratifying that women are doing well in team sports, especially in a game like football. In my growing up years, if girls wanted to play football, they were deflected to hockey; if they wanted to play basketball, they were asked to play netball; if they preferred volleyball, they were told throw-ball was more suitable and if they liked cricket, they were advised that “Rounders” (a British game that resembles American baseball in a vague sort of way) was the appropriate game for girls.

Fortunately, girls today are not being forced into such choices and you can see them playing hockey and football, as well as basketball and volleyball and, of course, cricket. And Rounders has probably vanished from the list of team sports considered “suitable” for girls as have the exam papers printed on blue paper that were sent by sea mail from the University of Cambridge for the school-leaving examination!

Yet, the world of sports for Indian women remains one of exceptions. The number of successes is increasing each year. But the difficulties that girls and young women face if they want to build a career in sports are still daunting. These include familial and societal attitudes towards women taking part in sports. When girls are young, playing games is tolerated. Once they reach puberty, they are actively discouraged, even if they show exceptional talent. If they overcome all this and still manage to find their way into a team at the school, university, state or national level or in individual sports, the story does not end. The quality of coaching, the kind of facilities available, the travel arrangements for tournaments, the shoddy accommodation at venues and the lack of security are only some of the more obvious problems.

In addition, women in particular are confronted with the unpleasant reality of sexual harassment. The few studies on this subject indicate that this is a major downer for women. We know of the tragic case of young Ruchika Girhotra, an aspiring tennis player, who committed suicide as a result of sexual harassment. For every such story that is known, there are likely to be many more that never surface and where the sportswoman quietly withdraws.

Women in sports need not just more visibility in the media, but their problems must be tackled at many different levels. For instance, there is a huge shortage of women coaches and sports managers. Why are women not encouraged to pursue a career in sports management, or as coaches, or as referees, or as sports psychologists? If more teams like Yuwa India and the under-19 women’s hockey team keep winning, they will need more coaches and managers. And there is no reason why women should not do this job.

It is also evident that women born in poverty face special challenges. They are hands needed to work in the home and outside. If their parents fail to understand why they want to be out in a field kicking a ball, it is understandable. The only way such girls can play is if they are provided encouragement in the form of scholarships and jobs. Many young people have succeeded in getting out of poverty by excelling in a sport. But there needs to be much more of this rather than a one-off intervention like that of the idealistic young American, Franz Gastler who decided to train adolescent tribal girls to play football in Jharkhand. Such interventions need to be an integral part of the educational system.

So let’s raise two cheers for these wonderful young women who are bringing back medals but save the last cheer for the day when we see real and substantial changes in the arena of women and sports in India.

(To read the original, click here.)

Naturally rich

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  The HinduContainers carrying alumina from Vedanta Aluminium Ltd. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury
• 
  PTIAt a gram sabha in Niyamgiri hills, Kalahandi district. The locals are protesting against the proposal.

The Niyamgiri tribals’ rejection of the State Government’s plans to mine the hills for bauxite should lead to a rethink on the current notions of poverty and development.

I have never been to Niyamgiri in Odisha. But what is playing out there since July 18 is a drama that has people like me mesmerised even at this distance. For in those thickly forested hills, where under the rich and diverse plant and animal life above the soil lie valuable deposits of bauxite underneath, an environmental battle of an epic scale is being fought. On the one side are some 8,000 Dongria Kondh and other tribals, sometimes referred to as “primitive” tribes. On the other is the State of Odisha and one of the most powerful multi-national companies in the world, Vedanta. In the face of this apparent inequality, is it even possible for an outcome that favours the outnumbered minority?

Such an outcome is a very real possibility. Because from July 18 until August 19, these so-called “primitive” people — who have lived for centuries on the slopes of the Niyamgiri hills, drunk its clear waters, eaten its fruits, hunted some of its animals, grown small crops and merged with the natural resources abundant around them — have been asked to speak. A Supreme Court ruling in April this year, ordered the Odisha government to hold gramsabhas, or palli sabhas as they are called, in all the villages that would be affected by the State government’s plan to mine the hills for bauxite. While the court’s order has clearly stated that all the villages affected should be consulted, the Odisha government has cleverly chosen only 12 out of an estimated 112 villages that want to have a say. Perhaps it thought that a dozen villages could be “handled” easily.

Instead, the State government was in for a rude shock as one palli sabha after another unanimously voted against the mining project. These unlettered men and women stated without hesitation that any mining in the region would disturb what the Dongria Kondh regard as their deity, Niyamaraja. The apex court had clearly stated that this is what the palli sabhas should examine and decide upon — whether mining would impact their traditional beliefs. At the time of writing, six out of 12 have unanimously reiterated that the mining project would disturb their deity.

It has been truly inspiring to read the reports about these palli sabhas, covered in detail by Down to Earth, the environmental magazine produced by the Centre for Science and Environment (http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/battle-niyamgiri) and some mainstream media. First, the very fact that such a process of consultation is even taking place is extraordinary. It has never been done before. Second, the circumstances are particularly difficult. There are no motorable roads to many of the places where the palli sabhas are held. The district magistrate deputed to be present during the meeting has had to trek uphill through treacherous terrain for several kilometres to reach the place. That experience in itself should be transformative for people who otherwise are used to the aggrieved trekking long distances to offices in urban centres.

More than that, the unambiguous language in which people have spoken, without any fear, should stir the conscience of even the most stuck-in-the-mud bureaucratic type. Surely, no one can dictate to Gata Majhi, a woman of over 70 years from Palberi village in Kalahandi district where the fifth palli sabhawas held, when she says, “We only buy salt and kerosene from outside. Everything else we need is here. My God is spread over all these hills. No one messes with him” (reported in Down to Earth).

The palli sabhas should make all of us pause and think what we mean by “development” and “poverty”. Both these terms are linked. The poor, we are told, need development to get them out of their poverty. Yet, no one asks these so-called poor people what they think, whether they consider themselves poor, whether they want development, and if they do, of what kind.

The people living in Niyamgiri have more than once stated in clear terms that they do not want the kind of development that gouges out their precious hills, the inevitable outcome of open cast mines. They do not want roads blasted through forests that have survived as repositories of precious biodiversity. They do not want people stomping through their villages and hamlets bringing “development” of a kind they reject.

Also, do they think of themselves as poor? Not if you listen to the words of the woman quoted above or others like her. They have testified how the hills, the forests and the land, satisfy all their needs. They live by rules that ensure that no one hunts more than they need, no one cuts more trees than are needed, no one pollutes the natural springs and streams. These might be “poor” in the ways in which calculations about poverty are made by economists, but they are richer than most people in the world in their ability to live off the bounty that their natural environment provides. Of course, if you take that from them, destroy it in the name of “development”, you will succeed in making them “poor”.

So even as our media obsesses over what various world-famous economists believe is the way forward for this country, let us pause and listen to the wisdom of the people of Niyamgiri. In a world threatened every day by natural calamities that are a direct consequence of destructive “development”, the philosophy of the inhabitants of Niyamgiri takes on an urgent relevance.

(To read the original, click here.)

The forgotten bill

The HinduWhat now? Photo: S. Subramanium

It’s important that the Women’s Reservation Bill becomes law so that more women find a place in Parliament and in the State assemblies.

It should be renamed the Forgotten Bill. The Women’s Reservation Bill, also known as the 108 Constitutional Amendment Bill 2008, has been up in the air for so long that it has virtually vanished into thin air.

Of course, officially it still exists. The Rajya Sabha passed it in 2010. As a result, it remains on the record and will not be sent back to the drawing board once a new government is elected.

But before it becomes law, and 33 per cent seats are reserved for women in Parliament and State assemblies, it still has to cross several hurdles. It must be passed by the Lok Sabha and by over half the State assemblies.

Clearly, this is not going to happen for some time. Or so it appears given current political realities. Political parties are now in election mode. And the ruling coalition at the Centre cannot take any chances. So I would guess that the bill will remain in limbo for a while yet. The passage through the Rajya Sabha was not entirely without drama. The bill received 191 votes in support and only one against it, that of Sharad Joshi of the Swatantra Bharat Paksh. The front pages of newspapers on the day after it was passed showed former Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson Najma Heptullah, Sushma Swaraj of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) joining hands and smiling jubilantly. But in the House the opponents to the bill made sure their voices were heard. In fact, four members of the Samajwadi Party (SP), one each from Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Lok Jan Shakti Party had to be physically removed from the House. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also walked out without voting. Despite this the bill was passed.

The odd thing is that this government has the numbers on its side to be able to steer the bill through the current Lok Sabha. All the major parties are supporting the bill. Apart from the Congress Party, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the BJP, the Left Front, the DMK and the AIADMK support the bill. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool is ambivalent as are the BSP and the JD (U). But even without their support, the bill would pass.

So what is the hitch? As in the past, it is politics and political calculations. Two parties who otherwise support the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government — Mulayam Singh’s SP and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD — are bitterly opposed to the Women’s Bill. The UPA government cannot risk losing their support with the approaching elections.

And secondly, although no one will say this openly, the majority in Parliament consisting of men secretly hope that the bill never becomes law because overnight their numbers would be reduced.

The pros and cons of this law have been literally debated to death for almost two decades. So let us not again start discussing whether reservation of seats for women is a good thing or a bad thing. The current bill is not perfect by any means. Even those who have pushed for women’s reservation in Parliament are not entirely satisfied with it. But they believe that passing it would be an important first step. Even if some parties oppose it, they could always move for amendments. But at least the principle of affirmative action would be established and more women would find a place in Parliament and State assemblies.

Some of the arguments made against reserving seats for women are more resilient than others. One such points at the existing women leaders. We are told that none of them provide inspiring role models. Nor do they infuse confidence in us that more women would necessarily mean better governance. Yet, no one questions the fact that that there are not many men who are inspiring role models either. Does that mean men should not have a share in leadership?

Whatever the quality of male leadership, we take it for granted that men have a right to be in positions of power. But women must prove themselves. They have to earn the right. They must be incorruptible, or at least less corrupt. They must be more efficient. They must inspire confidence. They must be less biased and they must be much more decisive than the next man (but not bossy, only a man is allowed that).

In other words, in the current pot-holed playing field (as opposed to a level one), women have zero to no chance of making it unless they have a male benefactor. On their own merit they simply do not stand a chance. Instead of fearing the opposition to the bill, the UPA should push it through before the next election. The worst that can happen now is that the parties opposing it will dump the UPA and elections will have to be held sooner. Given that general elections are less than a year away, that would hardly be catastrophic. For all you know, it might actually work in the UPA’s favour.

What we need now is one last push — a bi-partisan effort by all those politically in favour of the bill with the support of the many women’s groups that have fought for this law.

(To read the original, click here.)

No more tree huggers

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, July 7, 2013

Photo: V.V.Krishnan (courtesy The Hindu)

While talking of pilgrims affected by the Uttarakhand tragedy, spare a thought for the local communities who have made the mountains their home.

They are still looking for the missing and counting the dead. The tragedy of the Uttarakhand floods continues to haunt. It stares at us daily from the front pages of newspapers and from television footage.

Yet these compelling visuals hide other realities of that land, as Ravi Chopra highlighted in his prescient article in this newspaper (The Untold Story of Uttarakhand, June 25). While the media reports told us about stranded pilgrims, we forgot the people of the State who have been stranded not only by this natural disaster but also by decades of disastrous developmental policies.

The communities living in the mountains of Uttarakhand are no strangers to floods and landslides. Yet, when their mountains spew forth streams of mud, water and boulders as on the night of June 16/17, which destroy everything in their path, even the hardiest of communities will be devastated.

Worse, the destruction represents not just a temporary hardship but one that spells penury and privation that will go on for years. These Himalayan communities live off the land. When that land is washed away, they are left with nothing — neither home nor source of livelihood. Once the focus on rescue recedes, it is imperative that the needs of these communities are addressed.

Uttarakhand is special in many ways. Its people have been pioneers in community-led initiatives to nurture the fragile environment. Everyone has heard of the Chipko movement of the 1970s when the women of Reni village, Hemwalghati in Chamoli district, hugged the trees and prevented loggers from cutting down their forests. Chipko was the dramatic representation of what scores of other groups, mostly led by women, have been doing for decades to oppose deforestation or the substitution of local tree species with those that would fetch attractive returns when cut and sold.

Women’s participation in these struggles is not accidental. The women of the hills have long had to bear the burden of heading households as their men migrate to work in the cities. Their main workload has traditionally been to find fuel and fodder. In days past, water was never a problem. But today, in addition to the other tasks, they also have to find water. Deforestation has led to greater run-off of topsoil. The mountain slopes, bare of vegetation or topsoil, cannot hold the generous supply of water that comes in the form of rains. Instead the water cascades down in landslides, taking with it more soil and rocks. When the forests were untouched, the rainwater would percolate and replenish the plentiful mountain springs that were a perennial source of water.

In the aftermath of the Uttarakhand flood disaster, everyone is discussing environmental protection. While some point to ill-advised developmental policies that have destroyed the ecosystem of this region, others slam “environmentalists” for being anti-development. We forget that nurturing the environment has been the life mantra of the women of this region. It is not something you debate in television studios or discuss in seminars. It is the way you conduct your life every day. It is the only way to conduct your life. It is survival.

We also forget, when we see visuals of roads that have been washed away, what happens to the lives of communities living in villages and hamlets in mountainous regions. The absence of even small roads accentuates their isolation. If someone is sick, they cannot easily reach a public health facility. Even if they want to educate their children, it is not easy to ensure that their children attend the nearest school. And of course, the scattered nature of settlements also means that they will not get electricity, because it is difficult and expensive to take grid-based electricity to them. What an irony that in a State that is aiming to become a source of hydroelectric power, its people continue to live in the dark. In fact, the topography of much of Uttarakhand makes it ideal for decentralised, renewable energy systems that would best serve the needs of its people.

Yet whether it is the current focus on the pilgrims and the holy sites, or the kind of developmental model that successive governments in Uttarakhand have favoured, what is emerging clearly is that the needs of the people, including the women, of the region has not been a priority. If people, instead of profits, had been the priority, then the energy mix chosen by the State would have been dramatically different, with more emphasis in guaranteeing a reliable source of power for everyone, including those living in mountain settlements, rather than profiting from the State’s hydroelectric potential. If people had been the priority, then forests would have been retained at any cost, even if it meant controlling and limiting religious tourism that yields considerable profits.

There are many such “ifs”. The tragedy of the Uttarakhand floods has been compounded because the wisdom of those women, who hugged the trees in the 1970s and brought real name and fame to this region, has now been forgotten. Their courage and far-sightedness, if translated into developmental policy, might not have prevented natural calamities. But there is no doubt that it would have miminised damage in the face of calamities.

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The shocking truth

 

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  The HinduThese traditional chulhas do more harm than good. Photo: Brijesh Jaiswal
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  Cow dung cakes are another poisonous option. Photo:AP
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  The HinduThe daily grind. Photo: Lingaraj Panda

Somehow “electricity for all” still seems a distant dream.

They saw electric light for the first time since India became a free country. A curious news-item reported that Mohanlalganj, a village just 20 km away from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, was connected to the electricity grid for the first time in March this year. Why should we be surprised? After all, an estimated 400 million people in this country that boasts of generating electricity through nuclear power are not connected to the electricity grid. All they hold on to is the promise of light but the tunnel has remained dark and they certainly have seen no light at the end of it.

The lack of electricity apart, there is a tragic twist to the Mohanlalganj tale that speaks of callousness compounding indifference. When people in the village realised that they had finally got electricity, scores of them rushed to the electricity pole that was the source of the “current”. And in their excitement, they touched the electric pole that had finally made them an electrified village. In so doing, they did not expect to be shocked. But that is precisely what happened. The electric supply authority forgot to install insulators. As a result, anyone who touched the pole received an electric shock and many were injured. How can anyone overlook installing insulators? In this instance they did. And needless to say, no one has been hauled up or held accountable, nor have the injured been compensated.

Electric power is a basic component of development. No one will argue that without electricity, the backwardness we see in our villages will continue. Children suffer because they cannot study after dark. Everyone suffers because there is no electricity to pump up water, thereby forcing people, especially women, to walk miles searching for shallow sources of water. Yet even as all this is well known, somehow “electricity for all” still seems a distant dream.

Furthermore, even if on paper, villages are connected to the electricity grid, the reality is often somewhat different. At times, the electricity is only used for agricultural pumps and does not reach homes. At other times it reaches some homes, but each village has its area of darkness, consisting of the poorest who are also often Dalits. Scattered tribal hamlets will not see electricity for a long time. General statistics about the reach of electric power do not reveal these areas of exclusion.

There is another side to this story of electricity, or rather energy that has a specific women’s angle. The most crucial form of energy for rural India remains cooking energy. Yet, the reality in an India that is forging ahead on so many other fronts is that 83 per cent of rural households still continue to depend on firewood, wood chips and cow dung for cooking energy. The task of gathering the firewood and the cow dung falls principally on women. Even today, if you go to any village, you will see women bent double carrying head-loads of firewood.

The story does not end there. While the daily search for cooking fuel increases the amount of work women have to do every day, they come home and literally line their lungs with poison when they light their stoves. Women, children and the elderly sit in poorly ventilated rooms as traditional chulhas using firewood and cow dung belch out poisonous fumes. The chulhas are not just inefficient, in that they use more fuel to generate less energy, but are also dangerous because of the smoke they emit.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, there were many different efforts made to introduce smokeless chulhasinto village homes. This effort was the result of growing awareness of the health impact of indoor pollution on women. But these campaigns slipped on to backburner. Surveys suggested that the smokeless chulhas were not being accepted. Instead of investigating why this was so, the efforts slowed down.

Of late, there has been a renewed push for smokeless chulhas. But this is being fuelled by the realisation that soot from millions of wood fires is contributing to global warming. So there are funds available now for introducing more efficient chulhas that can work on cleaner fuels.

I believe that the campaign for smokeless chulhas never found enough takers among policy makers because the issue concerned women. It is women who cook. It is women who collect fuel. Mostly they do it silently, without complaining, because they have been socialised to accept that this is their work. The men, for whom they do this day and night, also do not question because they too believe that this is “women’s work”.

As a result, the urgency of dealing with something so basic as cooking energy and clean fuel does not make its way into the air-conditioned rooms where energy policy is made. Even if it finds a voice, it is not put on the front burner, or backed by the funds and political will that could make a difference.

Mohanlalganj has got electricity, even if it is of the “shocking” variety. But no one has asked what is the source of energy that lights up the stoves in that village. The chances are that even today the women are out looking for fuel, while the men sit back and enjoy the “current”.

(To read the original, click here.)

A living hell

  

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, June 9, 2013

In the range of violent attacks against women, acid attacks are one of the most devastating.

In many ways it is worse than death. It is a living hell. And you are plunged into it without warning. One day you are this young woman, looking forward to a new job, a new life. Within the fraction of a second, your life is transformed. Your face, eyes, nose, ears, skin sizzle and burn as someone decides to “teach you a lesson” by flinging acid at you. If you survive, and many do, you must wonder if it was better that you had died.

Death came to 23-year-old Preeti Rathi, after she battled for a month in various hospitals to survive. She has become one more statistic in India’s growing list of people, mostly women, who are punished in the cruelest way imaginable — by being singed with acid.

Preeti came to Mumbai on May 2 from Delhi to start work as a nurse at INS Ashwini, the naval hospital in south Mumbai. She never made it. Even as she stepped off the train, a masked man came up to her and flung acid on her face. Then he turned around and ran before anyone could react and stop him. The grainy footage of him on the CCTV cameras, even as he removed his scarf to wipe his face, has not helped the police catch him.

Meanwhile Preeti, like others before her, was taken from one hospital to another before she was finally admitted to a large, well-equipped private hospital. But even the best surgeons could not save her.

We have no statistics on the number of women like Preeti who die, or are maimed, due to acid attacks. The National Crimes Record Bureau does not include acid attacks as a separate category. In any case, not all attacks are reported to the police, or reported by the media.

While accurate numbers would give us an idea of the extent of the crime, it is the nature of the crime that makes your blood curdle. What kind of men are these that they can plot to inflict this kind of punishment on a woman? Many of the cases are those of women who have refused a man in marriage, or spurned advances.

Some of these stories are now known because the women, despite their unbearable pain and disfiguration, have been brave enough to talk about it and bring out this horrendous crime into the open. People need to know. They should be revolted. And they should demand exemplary punishment for the criminals as also every kind of help for the survivor.

One such brave survivor is Sonali Mukherjee. In 2003, she was a bright 17-year-old from Jharkhand dreaming of doing her PhD in sociology. But before she could realise her dream, three young male students who had been harassing her, decided to “teach her a lesson” because she did not respond to them by throwing a jugful of acid on her face. Within seconds, her face and part of her chest melted away. She lost sight and hearing. She could not walk or talk.

The men were caught and convicted. But they were let off with a light sentence. If this had happened today, under the amended law they would have had to serve a minimum of 10 years going up to a life sentence. Meantime, Sonali continues to fight to live and has been through 27 surgeries. She still has a long road to travel but it is her spirit that is inspirational.

In the range of violent attacks that women can and do encounter, acid attacks must stand out as one of the most devastating. The “weapon” of choice is cheap. It is available at any shop that sells household cleaning liquids. The shopkeeper does not need any special license to sell hydrochloric or sulphuric acid that are commonly used in such attacks. So a criminal can get his “weapon” for less than a hundred rupees.

When it comes to crimes against women, India is in any case fairly high on the list of countries with some of the worst records. Not surprisingly, it is also among the five countries with the highest number of acid attacks alongside Cambodia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

Since Preeti’s death, the Maharashtra government is talking of restricting the sale of acid. The Tamil Nadu government and several other State governments have also taken such steps. This might have some impact. In Bangladesh, this apparently did make a difference. A tougher law on acid attacks combined with licensing for acid sale led to a reduction by 75 per cent over a 10-year period of acid attacks in Bangladesh. In Pakistan, where only around 30 per cent of the acid attacks are actually reported, the increase in the jail term to 14 years plus a fine of one million rupees has led to an increase in the conviction rate and more women are reporting the crime.

Preeti’s tragic death might bring the focus back to this excruciatingly cruel form of violence. Yet, given our experience in dealing with other forms of violence against women, even a tougher law, or a restriction on the sale of acid, will not be enough to stop the crime. What needs to change is the entrenched attitude in men that compels them to destroy women if they cannot own them.

(To read the original, click here.)