Here’s proof that the print media in India is alive and kicking

My column in Scroll.in

The print media in India is alive and kicking. If there were any doubts about this, the last few weeks have dispelled them.

Two of the biggest exposés this season have come from print. One from Somesh Jha of Business Standard, published on January 31, on the jobs data in the National Statistical Commission’s employment survey 2017-’18 that the government has been desperately trying to hide because it reveals the extent of unemployment, the highest in 45 years.

And the other, a story that is still unraveling every day, is the series by N Ram in The Hindu about the controversial Rafale deal between France and India. Both Jha and Ram have produced documentary evidence that has put government spokespersons on the spot while trying to explain their side of the story.

The two stories are a reminder of how journalism needs to be done, slowly and painstakingly until what is put out to the public is convincing.

While no one yet has faulted the facts in these stories, sometimes complex stories like the Rafale imbroglio pose a challenge to the lay reader. For instance, the first story in The Hindu on the pricing issue was dense and contained information that the uninformed reader would have struggled to follow. Did India under the current government pay more for each of the 36 fighter jets than it would have for the earlier deal of 126 jets negotiated by the previous government? Now, according to the report tabled in Parliament by the Comptroller and Auditor General, it did not. But the documents emerging in the public realm suggest that this is not yet a settled fact.

However, the two stories that followed this one were clearer and unravelled several important aspects of the deal, such as a set of parallel negotiations being conducted by the Prime Minister’s Office without the official negotiating team from the Ministry of Defence being informed, and changes in certain clauses that allowed the seller to get away without giving a sovereign guarantee. The latter has been confirmed by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Jha’s stories on the jobs data could not have been clearer and the reader would be left in no doubt about why in election season, a government would not want such facts to be in the public domain.

Calling out the bluff of the government is the job of the media in a democracy. That is the importance of these two exposes.

It is also the job of the media to fact check and point out the misinformation, and sometimes lies, put out by the people in power. When politicians, like the prime minister, receive widespread coverage for all their public events, what they say at these occasions is out there without any questions being asked about the veracity of the statements being made.

 

Death sentences in India

One such statement was made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a meeting in Surat at the end of January where, according to ANI, he said: “There used to be rapes in this country earlier too, it is a shame that we still hear about such cases. Now, culprits are hanged within 3 days, 7 days, 11 days and a month. Steps are being taken continuously to get daughters justice and results are evident.”

This statement, posted on Twitter by ANI, brought forth a number of adverse comments, calling out the inaccuracy of Modi’s statement. Even Scroll.in carried an article on this.
However, another fact check by Mumbai Mirror pointed out that in the translation of Modi’s speech, ANI had erred. Where the PM had spoken of the death sentence, the agency had used the word “hanged”.

The paper also pointed out that indeed, there had been judgments in lower courts awarding the death penalty to rapists within a short period. The cases quoted are all from Madhya Pradesh: one was awarded in July within 22 days, another in the same month within 46 days and one in August within three days. There have been no hangings in India for rape since 2004, when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was executed for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl.

What is worrying about the prime minister’s statement is not that it was not factual, but that it was, at least partially, true. If judges are handing out death sentences so rapidly, should we not be worried? Not only those of us who are principally against capital punishment. But because such hasty decisions are precisely the reason there was opposition to the introduction of the death penalty for rape by the Justice Verma Committee in its 2013 report. It had argued then that “in the larger interests of society, and having regard to the current thinking in favour of abolition of the death penalty, and also to avoid the argument of any sentencing arbitrariness, we are not inclined to recommend the death penalty”.

In any case, official data from the National Crime Records Bureau (only available until 2016) illustrates that the introduction of capital punishment for rape has made no difference to the crime rate.

Second, also of concern is the prime minister taking credit for these rulings. “Steps are being taken continuously to get daughters justice and results are evident,” he said. What steps are these that his government is taking that are resulting in such rulings? Are public prosecutors being incentivised to push through rape cases? Are lower court judges being nudged into delivering quick rulings?

The law was amended in 2013, and the death penalty was introduced for the “rarest of rare” cases, before his party came to power. One would really like to know what the prime minister meant. But no one has asked him. And in any case, he is not available for pesky questions from the press.

 

India’s sex ratio

Take another similar claim that the prime minister made about the sex ratio improving under his watch.

On more than one occasion, Modi has lauded his government’s Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme, crediting it with having improved the sex ratio and female literacy levels in Haryana, Rajasthan and several other states. While that might be true in the case of specific districts in these states, the reality is somewhat different as an editorial in The Telegraph points out. Indeed, even if there is an improvement in some states, in the southern states with better female literacy rates, there has been a perceptible decline in the sex ratio.

Another report in The Telegraph illustrates this by giving data from Bihar where in a district like Vaishali, although the female literacy rate has improved from 50.49% in 2001 to 68.57% in 2011, the sex ratio has declined from 937 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001 to 894 in 2011.

And overall, the sex ratio at birth in India has declined from 887 in 2014 to 877 in 2016.
This is something not just the government, but Indian society as a whole needs to worry about. Clearly, governments cannot pat themselves on the back if female literacy rates increase and assume that this will inevitably result in an improvement in the sex ratio. The roots of son preference, and therefore sex selection, are embedded in a patriarchal culture that appears not to be dented either by government literacy programmes, or by stringent laws.

(Click on the link above to read the original)

Disappearing...

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 30, 2014

The Hindu No empowerment here. Photo: Paul Noronha

 

Mumbai’s taxi drivers are repositories of earthy wisdom. They come from all parts of the country. A few are grumpy. Some are silent. But mostly they are loquacious, if you ask them the right question.

In the last couple of days, I have been at the receiving end of some down-to-earth and commonsensical opinions about life, values and politics from such taxi drivers.

The first, a young taxi driver from Vasai, which is on the outskirts of Mumbai, informed me that he was actually a “Hindu Brahmin”, but loved Jesus Christ. Without much prompting, he then proceeded to predict that Narendra Modi would win the elections. Would he vote for Modi, I asked. Not necessarily, he said. Then whom would he want to vote for? Arvind Kejriwal, he said. Why, I asked. Because, he said, he had watched Kejriwal’s TV interviews. He was convinced that this was a good and honest man. More than that, he was educated, qualified, had a good job and yet gave it all up to do something about corruption. These were the kind of people India needed in politics, he asserted. Above all, he said, this was the only man who had the courage to take on the richest and most powerful man in India.

The other was a Tamilian who had lived in Mumbai for 35 years but continued to read a popular Tamil newspaper (that now arrives in the morning because it is printed in Pune). Despite the many years in Mumbai, he had a clear view of Tamil politics. There was no doubt in his mind that “Amma” would sweep the polls in Tamil Nadu. Why, I asked. Because she has looked after the poor, he said. And she does not discriminate between Hindu, Muslim, Dalit and Christian.

More important, he continued, she has addressed the problem of families not wanting to give birth to a girl child. He then proceeded to explain to me in detail the government schemes that encourage families to look after girls. He also gave graphic details of how families kill infant girls. He was clear that this was an evil practice and must be ended. And he gave credit to “Amma” for putting in place monetary incentives to help raise the value of girls.

So, corruption and schemes that help the poor and stop female infanticide were the issues these two men talked about. Corruption features in election talk. And every party ruling a state, or the centre, speaks of its pro-poor schemes. But what about India’s steadily disappearing women?

Results of the Annual Health Survey conducted by the office of the Census of India — reportedly the largest sample survey in the world — have recently been released. The survey covered 20.94 million people and 4.32 million households in 284 districts in nine states.

While the survey has a lot of interesting information on several aspects of health, including infant and maternal mortality rates, its findings on the sex ratio — at birth, in the 0-4 age group and overall — are perhaps the most significant.

According to the survey, in 84 of the 284 districts there was a fall in the sex ratio at birth. In some districts like Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand, the sex ratio at birth was as low as 767 girls to every 1,000 boys. That is a worrying sign as it suggests that the law to prevent sex-selection has not succeeded in creating enough of deterrents against the practice of aborting female foetuses.

Equally worrying is the decline in the sex ratio in the 0-4 age group. This was visible in 127 districts and was significant in 46 districts. Rajasthan recorded the lowest levels in this category, while Chhattisgarh recorded the highest. The reason for the decline in this age group is clearly neglect of girls after they are born. Otherwise, there is no reason that more girls should die than boys. Overall, the sex ratio was worse in urban areas than rural, suggesting again that the availability of sex selection technology and higher incomes contributed to this decline. In a state like Jharkhand, for instance, while the sex ratio at birth was 961 in rural areas, it was as low as 903 in urban areas.

In this election season, where rhetoric is king, the reality of India’s disappearing women — who everyone seems to want to “empower” — is not even a blip on the horizon. Yet, it has been evident for decades that all this talk about “women’s empowerment” has little meaning if we are unable to deal with the despicable attitudes and practices that guarantee that girls will not be born, and if they are, that they will not live to become young women.

(To read the original, click here.)

Insurmountable hurdle

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, July 23, 2011

  

The HinduNot wanted Bad news yet again from the Census 2011. Photo: K. Murali Kumar

As the declining sex ratio from Census 2011 shows, merely having laws against sex selective abortion is not enough. Fighting entrenched social attitudes is a much tougher call…

Three cheers for Japanese women. Their soccer team beat the powerful U.S. team and won the FIFA Women's World Cup. Indeed, in a week with much gloom, this was the one cheerful piece of news. Even more to celebrate was the fact that women's sports is finally making headlines, and is not relegated to a single column at the bottom of the page.

But the bad news from Census 2011 about women is relentless. Once again, as provisional data is released on the 2011 Census, and we know now, for instance, that India is becoming increasingly urban, we are also getting confirmation that India is increasingly male. We were warned in 2001 that the situation was alarming; in 2011 that adjective appears an understatement.

Persistent problem

India's declining sex ratio is a subject one has to revisit repeatedly. No matter how often you think about it, or write about, it is difficult to come up with a straightforward or simple solution to the situation we face in India: Where girls are simply not wanted. They can excel in sport, in studies, in jobs, as politicians, as bureaucrats, as writers, as engineers. But none of that changes the attitude of the couple on the verge of parenthood — who long for a boy and grieve if a girl is born.

Now, in addition to the usual breast-beating about this appalling situation, we have people suggesting that access to abortion should be restricted. In Maharashtra, where the 0-6 years sex ratio has seen a precipitous decline, suggestions are flying around of restricting access in different ways. For instance, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation has made it compulsory for all radiologists and gynaecologists to post details of their work online. That might prove a salutary step. But in addition, they must get clearance from the municipality before they perform an abortion. How adding a layer of bureaucracy to the process will check the misuse of abortion facilities for sex-selective abortions beats comprehension.

India's abortion laws are considered to be progressive because they recognise the right of women to have access to safe abortion. The importance of safe abortion cannot be emphasised enough. India has the highest number of unsafe abortions in the world and an estimated 56 per cent or more than half the recorded abortions that take place, are under unsafe conditions. As a result, 15 to 20 per cent of maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortions. India's maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. So women who need to undergo an abortion for a variety of reasons including rape, or contraceptive failure when they are not ready for another child, should have legal, safe and clean facilities for the procedure.

Unfortunately, even what exists by way of public facilities is grossly inadequate. According to studies on abortion in India, only 25 per cent of abortion facilities are in the government sector. Studies have also revealed that as little as six per cent of all primary health centres have abortion facilities. This means women living in rural areas have no option but to turn to private practitioners, of whom many resort to unsafe procedures.

In cities, health facilities are better. But the people who misuse legalised abortion for sex selection rarely use government facilities. They can afford the private practitioners who ask no questions and charge a hefty fee.

Not a solution

So restricting abortion facilities will affect poor women, already burdened with inadequate health facilities; while those with money, who also seem to have decided they do not want girls, will continue as before.

The dilemma is a real one. Since 2001, when the first shock of the extent of the decline in the sex ratio hit home, there have been many discussions about the problem. The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 2003 has been tightened. Despite that, there have only been a small number of convictions; out of 800 cases in 17 states, only 55 convictions. Clearly the law is not being implemented the way it should be.

But even if it were strictly enforced, would there be a difference? Indians are notoriously proficient in bypassing even the best-made laws. If they want to do something, they find a way of doing it.

To give you a simple example of how difficult it is to get people to obey a law. In most states, it is compulsory to wear helmets if you drive a motorbike or scooter. The law has been made for the safety of those who ride these machines, people who should know that the law is in their best interests. Yet, in city after city, you will see people risking their lives and finding ways to evade being caught rather than wearing helmets, or quickly putting them on just before they see a policeman. In fact, there is an advertisement on television these days showing a young man finding an ingenious way to side-step the rule when he sees a cop on the horizon; he puts on a hollowed-out watermelon on his head in place of his non-existent helmet. And the ad is supposed to be light-hearted and funny.

Perhaps this example is not a direct parallel to the ways in which the PC&PNDT Act has failed to make a difference. But it illustrates an approach towards law that makes implementation of any law an even greater challenge in India. When that law meets entrenched social attitudes, the hurdle appears almost insurmountable.

So the dilemma before us is how we get people to actually not resort to sex selection and sex selective abortions. One way is to keep the issue alive in the media, to provoke debates on this in colleges, and to constantly remind people that a country progresses if all its people are secure, if all feel they have rights, and not if one half of the population is made to feel so unwelcome that you ensure that they are never born.

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

Where have all the girls gone?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, April 17, 2011

THE OTHER HALF

KALPANA SHARMA

Does economic development only reinforce regressive values? How else can one explain the phenomenon of disappearing girls in modern India?

Photo: V. Sudershan 

Will laws alone help?

India's Cricket World Cup victory followed by Anna Hazare's indefinite fast on the Lokpal Bill virtually knocked out of the news arena some really bad news. Just days before all these media-grabbing events, the Census office released preliminary figures for 2011. The most shocking of them is that in the 0-6 year age group, the number of girls to every 1,000 boys is just 914, even lower than the 927 of the 2001 census.

How has this happened even as the adult sex ratio has gradually crept up from 933 women to 1000 men in 2001 to 940 women to 1000 men today? Why has this happened even as women's literacy rate has gone up and the gap between male and female literacy rates has shrunk? Why has this happened even when there are laws in place to ensure that sex-selection does not lead to the elimination of girls?

Perhaps a coincidence, but just a few days after the disturbing census results were made public, a group of activists met in Mumbai to mark 25 years since they launched a campaign against the use of medical technology for sex detection and selection. Their campaign had culminated in the first law against sex-selective abortions being passed by the Maharashtra government on January 1, 1987.

Misuse of technology

In those days, the popular method of sex detection was amniocentesis. It was an invasive procedure involving amniotic fluid being extracted from the womb for testing. The technology had been devised to detect foetal abnormality. Instead, in India it began to be used to detect the sex of the foetus. Women risked an abortion if the test confirmed a female foetus even if they got to know at a later stage of pregnancy.

In the absence of a law or any restraining regulation, those conducting these tests were openly advertising them. Advertisements like “Better 500 now than 50,000 later” were common, suggesting that Rs. 500 on a test to confirm the foetus today was better than spending many times more for a dowry later.

There are several aspects of how this first legislation came about that are pertinent in the context of the recently-concluded agitation by Anna Hazare and his supporters for a Jan Lokpal Bill to check corruption. The Maharashtra law banning sex selection came about through a push from below by the activists and a response from above. The activists tried to gather together as much evidence and data that they could about something that was just below the surface. It was virtually impossible to prove as neither the mother, nor the doctor, would admit that the test had been used for such a purpose. Ironically, they had stumbled upon this issue when a multinational company, concerned about the mounting medical claims from its women employees who had sought abortion, asked women activists to speak to them.

Through a variety of techniques, including sending in decoys to doctors suspected of conducting such tests, the activists assembled some proof. They were lucky to find at least one sympathetic senior bureaucrat, the Maharashtra Health Secretary. Without any dharnas or fasts and little media coverage – there were no private TV channels those days – the government and activists spoke to each other, argued over the provisions in the Bill and ensured that it was finally passed. That law was the precursor to the central law banning sex-determination tests passed in 1994 and amended in 2003 – the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex-selection) Act 2003.

Loopholes

Even after the 1994 Central Act was passed, the activists were not happy. They pointed out that not a single doctor had been convicted under the Act. Also the law made women who undertook the test culpable for the crime. Furthermore, sex pre-selection techniques did not come under the ambit of the Act. After advocacy and dialogue had failed to get the law amended, the activists turned to the courts and presented their case. It was at the intervention of the Supreme Court that the government was compelled to amend the law to make it more watertight.

But given the latest Census figures, it is evident that the law even today is not strong enough. So the question that must be asked is whether making it any stronger will make a difference if the mindset of families remains firmly set against girls. Can laws really deal with what is essentially a social problem in India?

The other question that needs to be raised and discussed is whether high economic growth and women's status in society are necessarily linked. As India becomes economically stronger, will the value and worth of its women also become higher? In 2001, this was disproved as the lowest sex ratios existed in districts that were the most prosperous.

Today, there is an additional and more worrying phenomenon. Like a virus, the declining child sex ratio is spreading to districts that till now had not been affected. More research will reveal why this has happened but could this be one of the negative fallouts of economic growth?

For, has increased prosperity actually resulted in easier access to technology that assists sex selection? Sonography, the technology currently most popular in sex selection, does not come free although it is far cheaper today than when first introduced. Portable sonography machines can be loaded in the back of a car and taken to even smaller towns or larger villages. But even this would not have made a difference had there been no demand for the technology. That a growing demand exists is evident from the census figures.

Getting more conservative?

Also, is the availability of more money actually having the opposite effect? Is it reinforcing regressive attitudes? Instead of bringing in more enlightened and liberal attitudes, is it making people more conservative, getting them to hold on to beliefs that should find no place in a modern India? How else can one explain the story of India's disappearing girls?

Apart from the law, a great deal of work has been done to create awareness about the value of the girl child. There have been campaigns; state governments offer incentives for girls' education, and even the media and the advertising fraternity has been sensitised to the issue.

But all this seems to be of no avail. So while India shines on the cricket field and in other arenas, the darker, uglier side of our society continues to stare us in the face.

Dealing with this is at least as challenging as rooting out corruption. But will people come out and demonstrate for what someone called this ‘invisible constituency'?

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

Where have all the young girls gone?

I will be writing more on this subject -- of the disappearing Indian girls -- but here's a short comment I did for The Guardian.  It is written for a non-Indian audience and I was also constrained by the word length, only 600 words.  But I have tried to convey the conundrum.  Here's the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/10/missing-girls-dark-side-india-abortion

Missing: 42.7 million women

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, April 4, 2010

THE OTHER HALF

Lack of access to healthcare, malnutrition and selective abortion — all these have contributed to over 40 million women dying in India. And these are the issues the government needs to address now…

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In India, women constitute 48.2 per cent of the population, worse than Pakistan...

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Photo: V. Ganesan

A struggle all the way...

Last month, on March 8, we celebrated the centenary of International Women's Day. A day later some celebrated the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha while others ranted and raved against it. Still others asked whether 63 years after Independence, any of this made a material difference to the lives of the majority of Indian women.

The latter were, of course, right. Symbolic gestures have little meaning when every year over 40 million Indian women die for no other reason than not being able to access healthcare, if and when they do being discriminated against, being so malnourished that even if they get treatment they cannot survive, and all this only if they are not eliminated before birth or after being born.

Yes, also on March 8, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released its 2010 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report titled, “Voice and Rights: A turning point for gender equality in Asia and the Pacific”. The picture that emerged of India was not a happy one. In most countries, women generally outnumber and outlive men. As a result, they are a little over half the population. But in India, they constitute 48.2 per cent of the population, worse than Pakistan where the situation is bad enough with women being 48.5 per cent of the population. Even Bangladesh is better at 48.8 per cent. The reason this has happened is a combination of the factors that have led to 42.7 million “missing” women (2007 data).

Chilling reminder

As if we needed another reminder, The Economist magazine carried a hard-hitting feature under the headline: “Gendercide – The worldwide war on babies” (March 4, 2010). “Technology, declining fertility and ancient prejudice are combining to unbalance societies”, stated the article as it reported on several Asian countries, particularly India and China and the skewed sex ratio. The article should have been titled “Femicide” as only one gender is being eliminated — the female. Still, it was a chilling reminder of the reality in the world's two most populous nations, where, as an old Chinese lady who witnessed female infanticide was quoted by The Economistas saying, “It's not a child. It's a baby girl, and we can't keep it…Girl babies don't count.”

But someone is counting baby girls and boys, men and women. In fact, thousands of people are right now fanning out across India for the mammoth exercise, one of the largest in the world, of the 2011 Census.

The 2001 census brought home the point starkly that millions of girls in India never saw the light of day. Either they were never allowed to be born, due to sex-selective abortions, or were killed shortly after birth. As a result, in the 0-6 year age group of children, there was a marked increase in boys as compared to girls in some of the richest districts in the country. Clearly medical technology, that the better off could afford, had been perversely put to this kind of use — of ensuring that girls were eliminated before birth.

The 2011 census will be significant in more ways than one. In 2001, the problem that had been lurking for years was exposed through stark, irrefutable data. As a result, the government had to act. It tightened the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act 2003 (also known as the PCPNDT Act). Campaigns were run for the “girl child”, incentives given for her education, and threats held out of punishment and fines against those misusing technology for sex-selective abortions. How effective were all these efforts? Results from the 2011 census will tell us.

It is small comfort to know that this problem is not unique to India. The article in The Economist, for instance, gives startling data on the situation in China where decades of son preference and a one-child policy as well as sex selection have resulted in a marked difference between the number of young men and women. The article quotes research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that predicts that by 2020, China will have 30-40 million more men less than 19 years of age as compared to women. (The current sex ratio in China is 123 boys to 100 girls).

Serious consequences

Such a situation fraught with serious sociological consequences, not the least of which is the shortage of brides. In India, in states like Haryana this has already come about with brides from other states being bought by young men who just cannot find a woman from their own region. Every other day we read stories about women from as far away as Kerala or Assam who have made Haryana their home. Nothing wrong with such cross-fertilisation in a country that is so divided by caste, religious and regional identities as long as the women know their rights and have a way out if things don't work out. What is disturbing is the reason this is happening — not free choice but no choice.

Tragically, none of this kind of data seems to create any ripples amongst those in a position to make a difference. Take Maharashtra, for instance, one of the richest states in India. This year's Economic Survey revealed that by 2011, the state's sex ratio would be 915 women to 1000 men, down from 922 in 2001 when it was significantly lower than the national average of 933. Maharashtra also has the dubious distinction of ranking 15 out of 28 states in India in terms of its sex ratio.

Yet, what is preoccupying the men who govern the state? Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has been tying himself up in knots trying to explain how the actor Amitabh Bachchan, who has chosen to identify with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the state's brand ambassador, came to share a dais with him at an official function. How does any of this matter? States like Maharashtra need governance, not showbiz.

The Economist referred to India as “that super giant”. But such compliments count for nothing if our government does nothing about “femicide” and those “missing” women.

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