From The Hindu, May 8, 2007
THE POWER crisis in Maharashtra has occupied many column centimetres in local newspapers. Understandably so as with the onset of summer, life without electricity is hell. It is that in any case in most parts of rural Maharashtra where daily power cuts of up to 15 hours have been the norm for many months. In cities and towns, the power cuts are shorter but still unbearable. Only Mumbai has been spared.
But what no one is talking about is the looming water crisis. One of the fallouts of climate change, the consequence of global warming, will be on water sources. The drying up of water sources will have a direct impact on water availability. As urban areas grow, their demand for water will increase. If on top of this, governments aim to provide 24 hours water to all urban residents, then the demands of the city on the hinterland will escalate hugely. Who will mediate the competing demands between urban water needs and rural survival? Already, the choice of ensuring that urban areas get power while rural areas suffer is laying the ground for inequality and injustice.
At the G8 meeting in Berlin scheduled for June 8, civil society groups plan to launch an End Water Poverty campaign. In India poverty and water poverty go hand in hand. A campaign to bring water to the poorest is closely linked with any campaign to deal with poverty. One billion people in the world lack access to potable water. A good number of them are in India.
(Click on the link to read the rest of the article)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Attacking real democracy
The Hindu, May 6, 2007
The Other Half
MORE than a million women are quietly working away and demonstrating a
different form of governance than the top-down centralised forms that
generally prevail in this country. A decade ago, in the honeymoon period
after the 73rd Constitutional amendment was passed devolving powers to
the panchayats, there was excitement at this democratic development,
where power was literally being handed over to the people. The media took
note of the fact that women, who had been kept out of systems of
governance, were finally being given a chance. The one-third reservation for
women in panchayats guaranteed their presence in numbers, something
that has still not been achieved at the national level.
The result was a virtual revolution as thousands upon thousands of
women got elected. Many of them were Dalit women. They challenged not just
the patriarchal hierarchies but also the caste hierarchies. A decade
later, these women are no more "new kids on the block", so to speak. Many
of them have been re-elected, they now know the system and they are
more willing to assert their views than in the early years. Of course, not
all the women elected to posts are enlightened and many of them
continue to be mere front people for their powerful husbands. But even if half
the women elected are like that, you still have another half who have
begun to understand their rights and are beginning to fight for them.
This is an immensely exciting social revolution that is quietly taking
place.
Given the import of these developments for India's future as a working
democracy, one would imagine that the Minister for Panchayati Raj would
be considered an important post. Not so. Ask the Union Minister for
Panchayati Raj, Mani Shankar Aiyar. Speaking to the Confederation of
Indian Industries (CII) on April 4, Mr. Aiyar complained, "There is nobody
so marginal in a government as the Minister of Panchayati Raj. I count
for nothing. Nothing! When I was Minister of Petroleum, I used to walk
surrounded by the media. But just try to get them to write two words
about 700 million Indians."
(Click on the link to read the rest of the article)
The Other Half
MORE than a million women are quietly working away and demonstrating a
different form of governance than the top-down centralised forms that
generally prevail in this country. A decade ago, in the honeymoon period
after the 73rd Constitutional amendment was passed devolving powers to
the panchayats, there was excitement at this democratic development,
where power was literally being handed over to the people. The media took
note of the fact that women, who had been kept out of systems of
governance, were finally being given a chance. The one-third reservation for
women in panchayats guaranteed their presence in numbers, something
that has still not been achieved at the national level.
The result was a virtual revolution as thousands upon thousands of
women got elected. Many of them were Dalit women. They challenged not just
the patriarchal hierarchies but also the caste hierarchies. A decade
later, these women are no more "new kids on the block", so to speak. Many
of them have been re-elected, they now know the system and they are
more willing to assert their views than in the early years. Of course, not
all the women elected to posts are enlightened and many of them
continue to be mere front people for their powerful husbands. But even if half
the women elected are like that, you still have another half who have
begun to understand their rights and are beginning to fight for them.
This is an immensely exciting social revolution that is quietly taking
place.
Given the import of these developments for India's future as a working
democracy, one would imagine that the Minister for Panchayati Raj would
be considered an important post. Not so. Ask the Union Minister for
Panchayati Raj, Mani Shankar Aiyar. Speaking to the Confederation of
Indian Industries (CII) on April 4, Mr. Aiyar complained, "There is nobody
so marginal in a government as the Minister of Panchayati Raj. I count
for nothing. Nothing! When I was Minister of Petroleum, I used to walk
surrounded by the media. But just try to get them to write two words
about 700 million Indians."
(Click on the link to read the rest of the article)
Thursday, April 26, 2007
I stand vindicated
With the recent news about the arrest of three IPS officers in Gujarat, charged with the murder of an individual in a fake "encounter", I feel vindicated. In the light of the findings submitted to the Supreme Court in the case of the killing of Sohrabuddin, questions are being raised about several other similar "encounters" where the alleged "terrorists" were apparently plotting to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. One such "encounter" involved a young woman from Mumbra, just outside Mumbai, Ishrat Jahan, who was killed on June 15, 2004 in Ahmedabad while travelling in a car with three men, suspected "terrorists" on an apparent mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Her story caught the attention of the media in Mumbai and much was written about her and her possible involvement with "terrorists". Her funeral procession drew a huge crowd in her neighbourhood. But since then, Ishrat has been erased from our memories. But wait. Could her name come up again if there is a proper inquiry into all recent "encounter" killings?
I post below a piece I had written shortly after the Ishrat incidence which never saw the light of day. More on the reasons for the rejection in a later post. But I felt I should post the article now, as a record.
----------------
A question guilt or innocence
By Kalpana Sharma
The recent gunning down of four suspected “terrorists” in Ahmedabad on June 15 raises several important and uncomfortable questions. To date, there is no clear explanation either from the Gujarat police or the intelligence agencies (the glaring loopholes in the various versions were evident from the stories carried in this paper recently) about how the information about the intentions of these four was ascertained and why they were killed. The unease is compounded by the death in the encounter of the 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan. What was a young Mumbai college girl doing with a group of “alleged” terrorists? Was she also one?
Everyone who knew Ishrat said it was improbable that she would knowingly join such a group. No one had heard her voice an opinion about Gujarat or about the injustice meted out to her community. She was perceived as a cheerful, hard-working girl who filled her day with activities to generate money to support an impoverished family. Had she been duped? Had her desperation for money got her into something about which she did not know all the details? Or was she a willing accomplice?
We will never know because the girl is dead. In fact, that is the frustrating aspect of all these stories. The public has to accept what the State puts out as the alleged motives of those gunned down. No one will ever know the complete truth because the dead cannot defend themselves.
So far, all that has appeared in the media about Ishrat’s “motives”, “intentions”, “sentiments” is conjecture. The Gujarat police have quoted from her diary but no forensic test has established whether in fact it is her handwriting. The results of the post mortem report on her death have also not yet been released. We still do not know whether she was shot in the back or how she died. One unpublished photograph shows her slumped back in the front seat but there is no sign of a bullet mark on her clothes. Javed lies slumped sideways, sitting in the driver’s seat but with his head on her lap. The only photograph that has appeared in the media shows Ishrat laid out next to the other three slain men.
The Gujarat police have records of Ishrat’s phone calls to the driver of the car, Javed Sheikh who is alleged to be a Lashkar operative. That too has not been conclusively established although intelligence agencies are convinced. The nature of Ishrat’s conversations with the dead Javed will never be known. Just the fact that she spoke to a man who is allegedly a terrorist does not make the girl guilty by association. Yet, a Home Ministry official is quoted as saying, “Legally and morally, she too was a terrorist”. How has such a conclusion been reached?
The media has also carried stories about a possible “love angle” between her and Javed. Would that explain the phone calls? Her mother, Shamima, has compounded the mystery by first refusing to acknowledge that Ishrat or she knew Javed and then acknowledging, during her interrogation by the Gujarat police, that she did know him. In the end, no one really knows whether Ishrat was duped by Javed, infatuated with him, or was a willing and knowing accomplice. And no one, except Ishrat’s family will speak up for her because they fear that if they do, they too will be questioned, and possibly implicated.
What is worse is that in this rush to establish guilt by association all of Mumbra, a township of 600,000 people on the outskirts of Mumbai is being referred to as a “hotbed” of terrorists activities. It is true that some suspected terrorists have been apprehended from this area. But a handful of such characters do not justify calling a place, which is a Muslim majority area, “terrorist infested”. Mumbra and Kausa are old settlements that grew when many Muslim families were forced to leave their homes in Mumbai after the 1992-93 communal riots. Some families moved because they found they could get a bigger place for the value of just one room in the overcrowded areas of central Mumbai.
Yet, the emergence of a Muslim ghetto on the outskirts does not automatically mean that its youth will turn to terrorism. In fact, one of the striking aspects of the changes that have taken place in Muslims in and around Mumbai since 1992-93 is the thrust given to education, particularly education of girls. In successive matriculation examinations, Muslims girls have done exceedingly well in the last decade. The community’s welfare organisations have made a deliberate effort to push for both education and employment.
At the same time, it is also true that organisations like the banned Students Islamic Movement of India have grown and recruited young men. But the existence of such extremist groups in any community, Hindu or Muslim, does not mean that large swathes of that community have the same mindset.
It is entirely possible that the intelligence agencies will be able to prove their suspicion about the four killed in Ahmedabad. But there is also a good possibility that Ishrat was innocent, that she was the “collateral damage” of the State’s “war against terror”. The chances of proving that are slim because there is no independent authority to investigate such encounter killings. Yet, we must remember that after the Godhra tragedy, the Gujarat police and government had a watertight story about what happened. Yet in the last weeks, the testimonies before the Nanavati Commission are exposing the many holes in that story. Given the lack of credibility in the case made out by the state in many such instances, it is perfectly legitimate to ask questions about what really happened on June 15 in Ahmedabad.
If indeed the authorities conclusively prove that Ishrat was a terrorist, a girl who knew what she was doing and that she aided and abetted men with guns, the import of such a finding will be enormous. This will be a first, for a young Indian Muslim girl to actually join the ranks of terrorists, that too one with their roots in Pakistan. So far we have known of women in the ranks of the LTTE, or women supporters of the militants in Kashmir, or women who are prominent in the ranks of the “naxalites”. But there has not been a “mainstream” Muslim women implicated in terrorist activities in India. In the twin bomb blasts in Mumbai on August 25 last year, a woman, the wife of Sayad Mohammed Hanif, has been implicated. But the charges have only just been filed in the special POTA court. And their daughter Farheen, who was also held on grounds of suspicion, was discharged when no evidence was found against her.
Ishrat’s death is not going to be forgotten, particularly in parts of Mumbai. Already, young Muslim women who are in college or venturing in a career are apprehensive about how other communities will view them. One such woman told this writer that she fears that her parents will now stop her frequent trips with the social service league in her college. Muslim women activists fear that the backlash from the Ishrat case will result in a rise in conservatism, particularly in areas like Mumbra, leading to young Muslim girls being sequestered and ordered to stay indoors. Ishrat, on the other hand, like many young men and women from Mumbra, travelled a couple of hours every day to attend college in Mumbai city.
The Ahmedabad encounter has played into the hands of those who want to reinforce the stereotype of the Muslim as terrorist. Initially questions were raised and Ishrat’s killing in particular was close to becoming politicized. But once the media began putting out the different versions set out by the police or the intelligence, this questioning was silenced.
But the questions remain and they must be asked. Can terrorism be stamped out if the State kills every single “suspected” terrorist? Or as we have seen in so many other countries, such extra-judicial killings will isolate and anger people of one community and destroy their faith in the rule of law and in justice, thus laying the grounds for more violence. Surely, the answer to terror and injustice is not more terror, and more injustice.
I post below a piece I had written shortly after the Ishrat incidence which never saw the light of day. More on the reasons for the rejection in a later post. But I felt I should post the article now, as a record.
----------------
A question guilt or innocence
By Kalpana Sharma
The recent gunning down of four suspected “terrorists” in Ahmedabad on June 15 raises several important and uncomfortable questions. To date, there is no clear explanation either from the Gujarat police or the intelligence agencies (the glaring loopholes in the various versions were evident from the stories carried in this paper recently) about how the information about the intentions of these four was ascertained and why they were killed. The unease is compounded by the death in the encounter of the 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan. What was a young Mumbai college girl doing with a group of “alleged” terrorists? Was she also one?
Everyone who knew Ishrat said it was improbable that she would knowingly join such a group. No one had heard her voice an opinion about Gujarat or about the injustice meted out to her community. She was perceived as a cheerful, hard-working girl who filled her day with activities to generate money to support an impoverished family. Had she been duped? Had her desperation for money got her into something about which she did not know all the details? Or was she a willing accomplice?
We will never know because the girl is dead. In fact, that is the frustrating aspect of all these stories. The public has to accept what the State puts out as the alleged motives of those gunned down. No one will ever know the complete truth because the dead cannot defend themselves.
So far, all that has appeared in the media about Ishrat’s “motives”, “intentions”, “sentiments” is conjecture. The Gujarat police have quoted from her diary but no forensic test has established whether in fact it is her handwriting. The results of the post mortem report on her death have also not yet been released. We still do not know whether she was shot in the back or how she died. One unpublished photograph shows her slumped back in the front seat but there is no sign of a bullet mark on her clothes. Javed lies slumped sideways, sitting in the driver’s seat but with his head on her lap. The only photograph that has appeared in the media shows Ishrat laid out next to the other three slain men.
The Gujarat police have records of Ishrat’s phone calls to the driver of the car, Javed Sheikh who is alleged to be a Lashkar operative. That too has not been conclusively established although intelligence agencies are convinced. The nature of Ishrat’s conversations with the dead Javed will never be known. Just the fact that she spoke to a man who is allegedly a terrorist does not make the girl guilty by association. Yet, a Home Ministry official is quoted as saying, “Legally and morally, she too was a terrorist”. How has such a conclusion been reached?
The media has also carried stories about a possible “love angle” between her and Javed. Would that explain the phone calls? Her mother, Shamima, has compounded the mystery by first refusing to acknowledge that Ishrat or she knew Javed and then acknowledging, during her interrogation by the Gujarat police, that she did know him. In the end, no one really knows whether Ishrat was duped by Javed, infatuated with him, or was a willing and knowing accomplice. And no one, except Ishrat’s family will speak up for her because they fear that if they do, they too will be questioned, and possibly implicated.
What is worse is that in this rush to establish guilt by association all of Mumbra, a township of 600,000 people on the outskirts of Mumbai is being referred to as a “hotbed” of terrorists activities. It is true that some suspected terrorists have been apprehended from this area. But a handful of such characters do not justify calling a place, which is a Muslim majority area, “terrorist infested”. Mumbra and Kausa are old settlements that grew when many Muslim families were forced to leave their homes in Mumbai after the 1992-93 communal riots. Some families moved because they found they could get a bigger place for the value of just one room in the overcrowded areas of central Mumbai.
Yet, the emergence of a Muslim ghetto on the outskirts does not automatically mean that its youth will turn to terrorism. In fact, one of the striking aspects of the changes that have taken place in Muslims in and around Mumbai since 1992-93 is the thrust given to education, particularly education of girls. In successive matriculation examinations, Muslims girls have done exceedingly well in the last decade. The community’s welfare organisations have made a deliberate effort to push for both education and employment.
At the same time, it is also true that organisations like the banned Students Islamic Movement of India have grown and recruited young men. But the existence of such extremist groups in any community, Hindu or Muslim, does not mean that large swathes of that community have the same mindset.
It is entirely possible that the intelligence agencies will be able to prove their suspicion about the four killed in Ahmedabad. But there is also a good possibility that Ishrat was innocent, that she was the “collateral damage” of the State’s “war against terror”. The chances of proving that are slim because there is no independent authority to investigate such encounter killings. Yet, we must remember that after the Godhra tragedy, the Gujarat police and government had a watertight story about what happened. Yet in the last weeks, the testimonies before the Nanavati Commission are exposing the many holes in that story. Given the lack of credibility in the case made out by the state in many such instances, it is perfectly legitimate to ask questions about what really happened on June 15 in Ahmedabad.
If indeed the authorities conclusively prove that Ishrat was a terrorist, a girl who knew what she was doing and that she aided and abetted men with guns, the import of such a finding will be enormous. This will be a first, for a young Indian Muslim girl to actually join the ranks of terrorists, that too one with their roots in Pakistan. So far we have known of women in the ranks of the LTTE, or women supporters of the militants in Kashmir, or women who are prominent in the ranks of the “naxalites”. But there has not been a “mainstream” Muslim women implicated in terrorist activities in India. In the twin bomb blasts in Mumbai on August 25 last year, a woman, the wife of Sayad Mohammed Hanif, has been implicated. But the charges have only just been filed in the special POTA court. And their daughter Farheen, who was also held on grounds of suspicion, was discharged when no evidence was found against her.
Ishrat’s death is not going to be forgotten, particularly in parts of Mumbai. Already, young Muslim women who are in college or venturing in a career are apprehensive about how other communities will view them. One such woman told this writer that she fears that her parents will now stop her frequent trips with the social service league in her college. Muslim women activists fear that the backlash from the Ishrat case will result in a rise in conservatism, particularly in areas like Mumbra, leading to young Muslim girls being sequestered and ordered to stay indoors. Ishrat, on the other hand, like many young men and women from Mumbra, travelled a couple of hours every day to attend college in Mumbai city.
The Ahmedabad encounter has played into the hands of those who want to reinforce the stereotype of the Muslim as terrorist. Initially questions were raised and Ishrat’s killing in particular was close to becoming politicized. But once the media began putting out the different versions set out by the police or the intelligence, this questioning was silenced.
But the questions remain and they must be asked. Can terrorism be stamped out if the State kills every single “suspected” terrorist? Or as we have seen in so many other countries, such extra-judicial killings will isolate and anger people of one community and destroy their faith in the rule of law and in justice, thus laying the grounds for more violence. Surely, the answer to terror and injustice is not more terror, and more injustice.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
'Gendered' health
THE OTHER HALF
`Gendered' health
KALPANA SHARMA
HERE is the good news. There is a decent chance that
Delhi will soon
have a woman police commissioner. And that too, no
ordinary woman. The
person slated to take over the post is Kiran Bedi, the
first woman Indian
Police Service (IPS) officer whose work has won her
many awards,
national and international.
Maharashtra could also have a woman at the top — the
first woman Indian
Administrative Service (IAS) officer to become Chief
Secretary of the
State. None of this is confirmed at the time of
writing. But the chances
look good for both women.
But both these women, regardless of their standing in
their respective
services, would have had to fill in the same appraisal
form that judges
their worth not just by what they have achieved as
officers, but what
they are as women. Here biology has been made an
important component of
performance appraisal at work. If this sounds
ridiculous, that is
precisely what it is. And why it has drawn anger and
protest from senior
women officers.
(For the rest of the article, click on the link)
`Gendered' health
KALPANA SHARMA
HERE is the good news. There is a decent chance that
Delhi will soon
have a woman police commissioner. And that too, no
ordinary woman. The
person slated to take over the post is Kiran Bedi, the
first woman Indian
Police Service (IPS) officer whose work has won her
many awards,
national and international.
Maharashtra could also have a woman at the top — the
first woman Indian
Administrative Service (IAS) officer to become Chief
Secretary of the
State. None of this is confirmed at the time of
writing. But the chances
look good for both women.
But both these women, regardless of their standing in
their respective
services, would have had to fill in the same appraisal
form that judges
their worth not just by what they have achieved as
officers, but what
they are as women. Here biology has been made an
important component of
performance appraisal at work. If this sounds
ridiculous, that is
precisely what it is. And why it has drawn anger and
protest from senior
women officers.
(For the rest of the article, click on the link)
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Survival tools
HERE is a simple exercise that mothers can try with their daughters. Get your daughter to lie on her back on a big piece of paper and draw an outline of her body. Then ask her to fill in the space by marking out all her organs. Nine times out of 10, even a girl going to a "good" school will pause when it comes to the sexual organs. She will not know. Because she has never been taught properly where these are located and what they are.
Why does she need to know, people ask? Previous generations of women and men did not have such knowledge. So why does this generation need to be taught? The answer to that question is so obvious that it really does not need an answer. Today, girls have to be taught because they are more vulnerable than their mothers. They are encouraged to be out in the public space. They are made to believe that they can do anything with their lives. Yet they do not know enough about their bodies to understand how to protect themselves — from assault and disease. These are basic issues that boys and girls can be taught in a clear, clinical way in school. This is not pornography we are talking about. Sex should not be a dirty word. It is a "fact of life", one that everyone has a right to know and understand.
(Read the rest of the article in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, April 8, 2007
Why does she need to know, people ask? Previous generations of women and men did not have such knowledge. So why does this generation need to be taught? The answer to that question is so obvious that it really does not need an answer. Today, girls have to be taught because they are more vulnerable than their mothers. They are encouraged to be out in the public space. They are made to believe that they can do anything with their lives. Yet they do not know enough about their bodies to understand how to protect themselves — from assault and disease. These are basic issues that boys and girls can be taught in a clear, clinical way in school. This is not pornography we are talking about. Sex should not be a dirty word. It is a "fact of life", one that everyone has a right to know and understand.
(Read the rest of the article in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, April 8, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
My take on banning sex education
“Sex” is a dirty word in Maharashtra. “Sex Education” is even dirtier. Therefore, in its infinite wisdom, the Maharashtra government has decided that children should not be taught the “facts of life” in school. Last week, the state government banned sex education in all schools including those that follow the CBSE and ICSC syllabi. The cause of their ire was the CBSE textbook on sex education.
The government believes that “Indian values” are offended by the courses that give children basic information about human anatomy and physiology, about safe sex, dangers of infections, about AIDS, about other sexually transmitted diseases etc. No, our children must not be taught this in school, says the government. Should they be taught this at all? Apparently, that decision is left to the parents. Yet, most of us know that Indian parents, by and large, rarely discuss such matters openly with their children. So, if children are not taught in school, or at home, then they have no option but to discover the facts for themselves. So like previous generations, they will have to experiment, ask equally ill-informed peer and read whatever they can to find out these “facts of life”. Unlike their parents’ generation, they have many more avenues for information, particularly the Internet. And of course, they can also turn to the Kama Sutra or the sculptures in Khajurao that one presumes would not be considered contrary to “Indian values”.
While the subject of the ban was brought up in the Maharashtra state Assembly, rather predictably, by the Shiv Sena and its ally the Bharatiya Janata Party, who felt that the CBSE textbook on sex education should be banned, one of the organisations that campaigned for a ban on sex education is the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), a group that would normally not be seen in the company of the saffron parties. In their press release welcoming the Maharashtra government’s decision, the SIO states, “This is the win (sic) of students and people, who are struggling to promote virtue and trying to make evil free society…This decision will save our young generation from being spoiled and going astray…it will save our society from going towards a valueless and vulgar culture”. It is evident that on this issue there is no communal divide.
The ban crept up on an unsuspecting public. Although groups like the SIO had issued statements, they found little response in the media. The government gave no indication that it had been considering such a step although the subject had come up because of a circular from the Centre recommending the introduction of sex education. Even if it was thinking about the issue, the state government does not seem to have consulted educationists, counselors, parents and others, people who are in regular touch with the younger generation. Had it taken the time to do so, it is possible that it would have paused.
At a time when India wants to project itself as this modern, growing world power, decisions like that of the Maharashtra government remind us that India continues to governed by people who equate modernity with promiscuity. It is these same people who oppose open debate, who will not allow freedom of expression (because it could hurt “Indian values”) and who support media censorship and bans. The attitude cuts across party lines.
Maharashtra is now gaining the dubious distinction of being a state that is not just losing out in the race for new industries because of its power crisis but is also forfeiting its historical legacy of being a state with a liberal and progressive culture by turning into one that is obscurantist and ultra-conservative. In the last years, books have been banned, particularly any book that mentions Shivaji, bar dancers have been banned, movie channels on television have been banned, and now sex education is banned. The circle, it would seem, is complete. Our politicians seem to believe that if you ban something, the problem will disappear. In the information age, when what you need to know is available at the click of a mouse, how many channels of information will you seek to block?
How children should be taught about sex and whether they should be taught is a matter that ought not to be decided by politicians who are only interested in pleasing certain constituencies. This is a serious question and should be the subject of debate and discussion amongst educationists and parents who deal on a daily basis with children and their questions. Ask anyone who has taught adolescents and they will tell you that they need no prompting to ask questions about sex. Ask women’s groups who have worked with young girls and they will tell you how little these women know about their bodies and themselves and how that increases their vulnerability. Schools are the ideal places where at least the basic questions that children have on sex and related issues ought to be answered. Why is that so wrong? How can knowledge corrupt young minds? Such a regressive attitude, which wants to limit and control knowledge and to stem curiosity, is not just anti-education, but also anti-democracy.
(Edited version appeared in The Hindu, Op-ed page, April 2, 2007
The government believes that “Indian values” are offended by the courses that give children basic information about human anatomy and physiology, about safe sex, dangers of infections, about AIDS, about other sexually transmitted diseases etc. No, our children must not be taught this in school, says the government. Should they be taught this at all? Apparently, that decision is left to the parents. Yet, most of us know that Indian parents, by and large, rarely discuss such matters openly with their children. So, if children are not taught in school, or at home, then they have no option but to discover the facts for themselves. So like previous generations, they will have to experiment, ask equally ill-informed peer and read whatever they can to find out these “facts of life”. Unlike their parents’ generation, they have many more avenues for information, particularly the Internet. And of course, they can also turn to the Kama Sutra or the sculptures in Khajurao that one presumes would not be considered contrary to “Indian values”.
While the subject of the ban was brought up in the Maharashtra state Assembly, rather predictably, by the Shiv Sena and its ally the Bharatiya Janata Party, who felt that the CBSE textbook on sex education should be banned, one of the organisations that campaigned for a ban on sex education is the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), a group that would normally not be seen in the company of the saffron parties. In their press release welcoming the Maharashtra government’s decision, the SIO states, “This is the win (sic) of students and people, who are struggling to promote virtue and trying to make evil free society…This decision will save our young generation from being spoiled and going astray…it will save our society from going towards a valueless and vulgar culture”. It is evident that on this issue there is no communal divide.
The ban crept up on an unsuspecting public. Although groups like the SIO had issued statements, they found little response in the media. The government gave no indication that it had been considering such a step although the subject had come up because of a circular from the Centre recommending the introduction of sex education. Even if it was thinking about the issue, the state government does not seem to have consulted educationists, counselors, parents and others, people who are in regular touch with the younger generation. Had it taken the time to do so, it is possible that it would have paused.
At a time when India wants to project itself as this modern, growing world power, decisions like that of the Maharashtra government remind us that India continues to governed by people who equate modernity with promiscuity. It is these same people who oppose open debate, who will not allow freedom of expression (because it could hurt “Indian values”) and who support media censorship and bans. The attitude cuts across party lines.
Maharashtra is now gaining the dubious distinction of being a state that is not just losing out in the race for new industries because of its power crisis but is also forfeiting its historical legacy of being a state with a liberal and progressive culture by turning into one that is obscurantist and ultra-conservative. In the last years, books have been banned, particularly any book that mentions Shivaji, bar dancers have been banned, movie channels on television have been banned, and now sex education is banned. The circle, it would seem, is complete. Our politicians seem to believe that if you ban something, the problem will disappear. In the information age, when what you need to know is available at the click of a mouse, how many channels of information will you seek to block?
How children should be taught about sex and whether they should be taught is a matter that ought not to be decided by politicians who are only interested in pleasing certain constituencies. This is a serious question and should be the subject of debate and discussion amongst educationists and parents who deal on a daily basis with children and their questions. Ask anyone who has taught adolescents and they will tell you that they need no prompting to ask questions about sex. Ask women’s groups who have worked with young girls and they will tell you how little these women know about their bodies and themselves and how that increases their vulnerability. Schools are the ideal places where at least the basic questions that children have on sex and related issues ought to be answered. Why is that so wrong? How can knowledge corrupt young minds? Such a regressive attitude, which wants to limit and control knowledge and to stem curiosity, is not just anti-education, but also anti-democracy.
(Edited version appeared in The Hindu, Op-ed page, April 2, 2007
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Of films and fatwas
I realised today, February 28, when all anyone can think about is the Budget, that this blog has fallen into deep slumber. No postings! Not even my own articles. And I have been writing.
But until I get the time to update the blog with my articles, here are a few thoughts.
Bal Thackeray announced today that he had no objection to the film Black Friday. In fact he recommends that people see it.
Why? Clearly because the entire film is based on the police chargesheet in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case where you see and hear Muslims talking about revenge. They seem indifferent to the fact that their revenge will kill hundreds of ordinary people. Although the riots that preceded the March 12, 2003 blasts are mentioned, you are left with images of men who seem to lack any remorse. And they are all Muslim. And apparently Pakistan is closely involved. What is worse is that the film is not a documentary and yet appears to be one. There are recognisable characters and there are others who have been introduced for the sake of making an interesting film. Only those who have followed the case, that has stretched over 13 years and is still concluding, will be able to pick the inaccuracies. For the lay public, this seems to be The Truth. Although the police are shown torturing people, in the end all this is justified by the police officer as essential to "break" the "terrorists". Was there another side to the story? Is the case really so cut and dried? What about the hundreds of people who were picked up, questioned and finally let off because there was no case against them? What do they feel?
Most important, the film fails to point out that even though 100 people have been convicted in the '93 blasts case, not a single person has been charged for the killing, looting and arson that led to the deaths of hundreds of people during the riots that preceded the blasts. It was Bal Thackeray who was indicted by the Srikrishna Commission for his hate speech. Yet, he continues to lead a life untouched by any of this. And the media continues to report his "fatwas" without question.
In contrast, "Parzania", that moving if flawed film on the Gujarat violence of 2002, can still not be shown in Gujarat because the Bajrang Dal says so and the Narendra Modi government silently endorses the ban. Here is a flim that should be shown in Gujarat. If a film like this had been made about the Bombay riots -- not Mani Ratnam's romantic film but a straight hard-hitting feature that documents those terrible weeks -- will we in Mumbai be able to see it? Unlikely, so long as the government and the media continue to pander to the man and the party responsible for so much hate and division in this city.
The media boasts of the way India is moving ahead. Nine per cent growth. Indian companies buying up major companies in the rest of the world. India has arrived on the world stage, we are told. But has it? If in its most "global" city, the "fatwa" of one man determines what we can see or not see -- where have we arrived? Or rather where are we headed?
But until I get the time to update the blog with my articles, here are a few thoughts.
Bal Thackeray announced today that he had no objection to the film Black Friday. In fact he recommends that people see it.
Why? Clearly because the entire film is based on the police chargesheet in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case where you see and hear Muslims talking about revenge. They seem indifferent to the fact that their revenge will kill hundreds of ordinary people. Although the riots that preceded the March 12, 2003 blasts are mentioned, you are left with images of men who seem to lack any remorse. And they are all Muslim. And apparently Pakistan is closely involved. What is worse is that the film is not a documentary and yet appears to be one. There are recognisable characters and there are others who have been introduced for the sake of making an interesting film. Only those who have followed the case, that has stretched over 13 years and is still concluding, will be able to pick the inaccuracies. For the lay public, this seems to be The Truth. Although the police are shown torturing people, in the end all this is justified by the police officer as essential to "break" the "terrorists". Was there another side to the story? Is the case really so cut and dried? What about the hundreds of people who were picked up, questioned and finally let off because there was no case against them? What do they feel?
Most important, the film fails to point out that even though 100 people have been convicted in the '93 blasts case, not a single person has been charged for the killing, looting and arson that led to the deaths of hundreds of people during the riots that preceded the blasts. It was Bal Thackeray who was indicted by the Srikrishna Commission for his hate speech. Yet, he continues to lead a life untouched by any of this. And the media continues to report his "fatwas" without question.
In contrast, "Parzania", that moving if flawed film on the Gujarat violence of 2002, can still not be shown in Gujarat because the Bajrang Dal says so and the Narendra Modi government silently endorses the ban. Here is a flim that should be shown in Gujarat. If a film like this had been made about the Bombay riots -- not Mani Ratnam's romantic film but a straight hard-hitting feature that documents those terrible weeks -- will we in Mumbai be able to see it? Unlikely, so long as the government and the media continue to pander to the man and the party responsible for so much hate and division in this city.
The media boasts of the way India is moving ahead. Nine per cent growth. Indian companies buying up major companies in the rest of the world. India has arrived on the world stage, we are told. But has it? If in its most "global" city, the "fatwa" of one man determines what we can see or not see -- where have we arrived? Or rather where are we headed?
Friday, December 08, 2006
Ray of hope
The Other Half
The Hindu Sunday Magazine (December 3, 2006)
LAST month, a depressing story in a newspaper related how in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, where Japanese Encephalitis is recurrent, the wards in the district hospital were full of boys. Was it possible that no girls had contracted the disease? The answer, sadly, is rather obvious. When faced with a choice of loss of several days of paid labour, poor families chose to treat only their sons leaving their daughters to either succumb to the disease or be permanently impaired as a result of contracting it.
This is only one of the many harsh realities of women's health in this country that begins at birth, goes on through girlhood to adolescence and adulthood — an unchanging story of callous neglect. Every year, the statistics of infant mortality or maternal mortality only tell part of the story. For, the real burden of a shamefully inadequate public health care system in this country, particularly in the poorer and more deprived regions, has to be borne by women. It is like living under low-intensity conflict; you can never be sure from which direction you will be attacked and whether you will live to see another day.
But sometimes out of this gloomy scenario you catch glimpses of light, of something positive that is being done. In the midst of a serious discussion on the repercussions of conflict on women's health, at a National Dialogue on Women, Health and Development held recently in Mumbai, I chanced upon that glimmer of hope.
(For the rest of the article, click on the link)
Why are Maharashtra's Dalits so angry?
The Hindu (December 2, 2006)
WHY DID Maharashtra burst into flames on Thursday following Dalit protests, almost without warning? To those who have not been monitoring what is happening among Dalits, and more specifically amongst the followers of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar this year, it would appear that the protests came out of nowhere. Yet the signs of anger have been more than evident, particularly over the last two months since the murder of four Dalits in the village of Khairlanji, 100 km from Nagpur on September 29. Ironically, just three days after this atrocity in which the mother and three grown children of the Bhotmange family were brutally killed, a major event took place in Nagpur bringing together the national leadership of Dalits. On October 2, Dussehra Day, Dalits marked 50 years since Dr. Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism. On October 14, the actual date of the conversion, once again lakhs of people gathered in Nagpur. Not a whiff of the atrocity so close at hand disturbed the occasion.
The first protests against the Khairlanji killing emerged more than a month later, first in Nagpur and then in Amravati and Yavatmal. In each case, the protesters appeared as if out of nowhere and caught the police off guard. They seemed to be leaderless but did not escape the full force of police brutality, particularly in Amravati and Yavatmal. The anger that fuelled those demonstrations was clearly linked to Khairlanji and the State Government's failure to move swiftly to deal with the crime. Although since then, the State Home Ministry has taken some steps by suspending the officials who were lax in registering the atrocity and in the follow-up to it and arresting the sarpanch and upa sarpanch of the village, suspected of having led the mob, the general perception remains that the incident has not been taken seriously enough.
(For the rest of the article, click on the link)
Before the year ends
ulti khopdi
I have been lazy about keeping this blog updated. One of the reasons is that there are not many who access the blog. Nor have I made the time to let more people know about it. At the moment, most of the postings are links to my articles in The Hindu (have to post a few more).
As 2006 draws to close, I am struck by how quickly this year has passed. Does every year rush by like this? or do we feel this about years where so much happens that the days merge into weeks into months and before you know it, you are on the cusp of another year.
For Mumbaikars, this year really seems to have been non-stop with events stumbling onto each other -- another flood (not as bad as 2005), the July 11 serial blasts, the judgment in the 1993 serial bomb blasts case, the Dalit demonstrations and violence and the 50th death anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar that passed off peacefully, as it does each year, despite the dire predictions of those who believe that when large numbers of poor people get together, there is bound to be a law and order problem. They refuse to accept that the eruptions, such as the one on November 30 were the result of pent up anger that had built up over decades. (Read my article on this).
As we move into the last three weeks of the year, the weatherman says that Mumbai is "smoky". In fact, it is polluted and overcast because of a pollution haze. People step out in the morning to walk and improve their health. Instead they inhale vast quantities of the poisonous air and end up coughing, sneezing, wheezing. Do we have to accept this as the inevitable consequence of globalisation?
More on this when I get over my bout of sneezing!
I have been lazy about keeping this blog updated. One of the reasons is that there are not many who access the blog. Nor have I made the time to let more people know about it. At the moment, most of the postings are links to my articles in The Hindu (have to post a few more).
As 2006 draws to close, I am struck by how quickly this year has passed. Does every year rush by like this? or do we feel this about years where so much happens that the days merge into weeks into months and before you know it, you are on the cusp of another year.
For Mumbaikars, this year really seems to have been non-stop with events stumbling onto each other -- another flood (not as bad as 2005), the July 11 serial blasts, the judgment in the 1993 serial bomb blasts case, the Dalit demonstrations and violence and the 50th death anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar that passed off peacefully, as it does each year, despite the dire predictions of those who believe that when large numbers of poor people get together, there is bound to be a law and order problem. They refuse to accept that the eruptions, such as the one on November 30 were the result of pent up anger that had built up over decades. (Read my article on this).
As we move into the last three weeks of the year, the weatherman says that Mumbai is "smoky". In fact, it is polluted and overcast because of a pollution haze. People step out in the morning to walk and improve their health. Instead they inhale vast quantities of the poisonous air and end up coughing, sneezing, wheezing. Do we have to accept this as the inevitable consequence of globalisation?
More on this when I get over my bout of sneezing!
Sunday, October 15, 2006
A suggestion for Munnabhai
Source: The Hindu
The Other Half
GANDHIGIRI has become the flavour of the month. All of a sudden, following the release of the immensely popular Bollywood film, "Lage Raho Munnabhai", Mahatma Gandhi has been rediscovered. People go to the movie and after seeing it, buy his My Experiments with Truth from Gandhian activists who position themselves outside theatres.
Different takes
Gandhi said many things. Not all these are reflected in the film. Some argue that his concept of Satyagraha has been turned into a joke. Others feel that through the medium of a Bollywood film, the younger generation in particular has woken up to the existence of a man called Gandhi.
As Munnabhai has already tackled the callousness of our health system, and the greed of real estate sharks, how about tackling the one Indian tradition that refuses to die — that of dowry? I could imagine that such a film could work very well, and could in fact bring in the Gandhigiri that has caught on after the latest in the series.
For, one of the things Gandhi said, which has been conveniently forgotten, is that we should have enough for our need but not for our greed.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
The Other Half
GANDHIGIRI has become the flavour of the month. All of a sudden, following the release of the immensely popular Bollywood film, "Lage Raho Munnabhai", Mahatma Gandhi has been rediscovered. People go to the movie and after seeing it, buy his My Experiments with Truth from Gandhian activists who position themselves outside theatres.
Different takes
Gandhi said many things. Not all these are reflected in the film. Some argue that his concept of Satyagraha has been turned into a joke. Others feel that through the medium of a Bollywood film, the younger generation in particular has woken up to the existence of a man called Gandhi.
As Munnabhai has already tackled the callousness of our health system, and the greed of real estate sharks, how about tackling the one Indian tradition that refuses to die — that of dowry? I could imagine that such a film could work very well, and could in fact bring in the Gandhigiri that has caught on after the latest in the series.
For, one of the things Gandhi said, which has been conveniently forgotten, is that we should have enough for our need but not for our greed.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Islands of despair
Islands of despair
KALPANA SHARMA
IN every State in India, no matter how prosperous, there are islands of deprivation. Maharashtra is no exception. It stands almost at the top of the list in terms of prosperity. It fails miserably when it comes to equity.
Rural misery has been written about and noted, exemplified by the continuing suicides of farmers in Vidarbha and Marathwada. The Bombay High Court has also, once again, warned the Maharashtra Government that it must do something about the high incidence of malnutrition among children between the ages of one and six. In the last three years, over 24,000 children have died of malnutrition.
Economic neglect
What is not so well known is the pathetic state of some of the smaller towns of Maharashtra. This became evident when three bombs exploded in the powerloom centre of Malegaon in North Maharashtra on September 8. Not only did the bombs shatter the uneasy peace in this town of around 8,00,000 people, of whom the majority is Muslim, but they exposed the pathetic absence of civic infrastructure and economic neglect.
Thirty-one people were killed and over 200 injured on that Friday afternoon when the devout were almost through with their prayers. It was a big day, the Shab-e-barat, when prayers would be said at the Bada Kabristan through the night to remember the loved ones who had moved on. Instead, it became a night for multiple burials, as some of the dead were interred in the same graveyard.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
KALPANA SHARMA
IN every State in India, no matter how prosperous, there are islands of deprivation. Maharashtra is no exception. It stands almost at the top of the list in terms of prosperity. It fails miserably when it comes to equity.
Rural misery has been written about and noted, exemplified by the continuing suicides of farmers in Vidarbha and Marathwada. The Bombay High Court has also, once again, warned the Maharashtra Government that it must do something about the high incidence of malnutrition among children between the ages of one and six. In the last three years, over 24,000 children have died of malnutrition.
Economic neglect
What is not so well known is the pathetic state of some of the smaller towns of Maharashtra. This became evident when three bombs exploded in the powerloom centre of Malegaon in North Maharashtra on September 8. Not only did the bombs shatter the uneasy peace in this town of around 8,00,000 people, of whom the majority is Muslim, but they exposed the pathetic absence of civic infrastructure and economic neglect.
Thirty-one people were killed and over 200 injured on that Friday afternoon when the devout were almost through with their prayers. It was a big day, the Shab-e-barat, when prayers would be said at the Bada Kabristan through the night to remember the loved ones who had moved on. Instead, it became a night for multiple burials, as some of the dead were interred in the same graveyard.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Battling unjust laws
THE OTHER HALF
PRESIDENT Parvez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might have called a temporary truce during their Havana meeting but within Pakistan there seems to be no end in sight to the battle between the fundamentalists and Pakistani women who are demanding their basic human rights.
Many women in Pakistan had hoped that the day had finally dawned when the dreaded Hudood Ordinance, enacted in 1979 by Zia ul-Haq when Pakistan became an Islamic republic, would be withdrawn. The Hudood Ordinance, according to the Asian Centre for Human Rights, "criminalises adultery and non-marital sex, including rape. It further victimises the women victims by providing virtual impunity to the rapists and prosecuting the victims instead."
Under this law, if a woman is raped, and reports it, the onus is on her to prove that she was raped. She has to bring along four male eyewitnesses. Only then will the law consider her case. On the other hand, if she cannot prove that she was raped, then she could be charged with adultery, a non-bailable offence that can even invite the death penalty under certain circumstances.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
PRESIDENT Parvez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might have called a temporary truce during their Havana meeting but within Pakistan there seems to be no end in sight to the battle between the fundamentalists and Pakistani women who are demanding their basic human rights.
Many women in Pakistan had hoped that the day had finally dawned when the dreaded Hudood Ordinance, enacted in 1979 by Zia ul-Haq when Pakistan became an Islamic republic, would be withdrawn. The Hudood Ordinance, according to the Asian Centre for Human Rights, "criminalises adultery and non-marital sex, including rape. It further victimises the women victims by providing virtual impunity to the rapists and prosecuting the victims instead."
Under this law, if a woman is raped, and reports it, the onus is on her to prove that she was raped. She has to bring along four male eyewitnesses. Only then will the law consider her case. On the other hand, if she cannot prove that she was raped, then she could be charged with adultery, a non-bailable offence that can even invite the death penalty under certain circumstances.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Forced departures
Source: The Hindu
THE OTHER HALF
EARLIER this week, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the terror attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, the world's media focused on the event and its impact on the lives of people and on the rest of the world. But terror, perhaps of a different kind, is a constant in the lives of millions of women — a daily reality that is rarely reported or even acknowledged.
The State of the World's Population 2006, the annual assessment of population-related issues prepared by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has focused this time on women and international migration. The report would have contributed to the High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development that was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York on September 14 and 15.
A variety of reasons
When women are compelled to leave their homes and their countries, for one reason or another, they lay themselves open to new and old forms of violence and exploitation. Women move from village to town, from one country to another for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they join a husband who has gone ahead to look for better prospects; sometimes they go on their own to earn more; sometimes they are forced to move because of war, famine, poverty or political persecution. Whatever the compulsion, the choice is not an easy one. The move is often dictated by circumstances that are beyond the woman's control. Today, half of all international migrants are women.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
THE OTHER HALF
EARLIER this week, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the terror attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, the world's media focused on the event and its impact on the lives of people and on the rest of the world. But terror, perhaps of a different kind, is a constant in the lives of millions of women — a daily reality that is rarely reported or even acknowledged.
The State of the World's Population 2006, the annual assessment of population-related issues prepared by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has focused this time on women and international migration. The report would have contributed to the High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development that was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York on September 14 and 15.
A variety of reasons
When women are compelled to leave their homes and their countries, for one reason or another, they lay themselves open to new and old forms of violence and exploitation. Women move from village to town, from one country to another for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they join a husband who has gone ahead to look for better prospects; sometimes they go on their own to earn more; sometimes they are forced to move because of war, famine, poverty or political persecution. Whatever the compulsion, the choice is not an easy one. The move is often dictated by circumstances that are beyond the woman's control. Today, half of all international migrants are women.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Wounds that have yet to heal
Source: The Hindu
Kalpana Sharma
The judgment in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts should not obscure the absence of closure on the 1992-93 communal riots.
MARCH 12, 1993 is a day not many in Mumbai, who were present on that day, will forget. Over a dozen serial bomb blasts ripped through the city from the early hours of the afternoon. They tore apart chunks of Mumbai's landmarks such as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building on Dalal Street and the Air India building at Nariman Point. And, 257 people died, more than 700 were injured.
The blasts took place at a time when Mumbai's residents had yet to recover from weeks of the most vicious communal riots the city had witnessed in decades. Hundreds had died, crores of rupees of property had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people had been displaced. Virtually the entire city had been touched by the killing, the arson, the reprisals, the hate campaigns, and the fear.
Before people could fully recover, and even as the first tentative steps were being taken to come to terms with the riots, pin responsibility, compensate the families of the dead and the injured, and build structures that heal the rift between communities, the city was shaken once again. Some saw this as a closure, a statement on behalf of a community that had been deeply wounded. Others wondered whether this would make the community much more vulnerable in the years to come.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Kalpana Sharma
The judgment in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts should not obscure the absence of closure on the 1992-93 communal riots.
MARCH 12, 1993 is a day not many in Mumbai, who were present on that day, will forget. Over a dozen serial bomb blasts ripped through the city from the early hours of the afternoon. They tore apart chunks of Mumbai's landmarks such as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building on Dalal Street and the Air India building at Nariman Point. And, 257 people died, more than 700 were injured.
The blasts took place at a time when Mumbai's residents had yet to recover from weeks of the most vicious communal riots the city had witnessed in decades. Hundreds had died, crores of rupees of property had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people had been displaced. Virtually the entire city had been touched by the killing, the arson, the reprisals, the hate campaigns, and the fear.
Before people could fully recover, and even as the first tentative steps were being taken to come to terms with the riots, pin responsibility, compensate the families of the dead and the injured, and build structures that heal the rift between communities, the city was shaken once again. Some saw this as a closure, a statement on behalf of a community that had been deeply wounded. Others wondered whether this would make the community much more vulnerable in the years to come.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Babies in the well
Source: The Hindu
THE OTHER HALF
KALPANA SHARMA
IT is a story that should remain on the front pages of newspapers. Come
to think of it, perhaps our papers should create a corner on the front
page and call it something like Reality Check. So that even as we
celebrate India's growth rate, its shining successes in other fields, we are
reminded of other realities.
One such reality that ought not to slip off the news pages is the real
significance of a recent discovery in Punjab, one of India's most
prosperous States. In the vicinity of a private hospital in Patran, Patiala
district, a 30-ft-deep well yielded 50 dead foetuses, all female. The
location of the well near the clinic was not accidental. For, clearly,
despite the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention
of Misuse) Act, 1994, (usually referred to as the PNDT Act), the
aborting of female foetuses continues virtually unchecked. A few days after
this discovery, in another well near the same clinic bones that appeared
to be those of foetuses were found, although their sex was not evident.
The owner of the hospital has been arrested and the Punjab Government
has initiated checks into private clinics and hospitals across the
State.
The story is every bit as horrific as it sounds. But it seems to have
passed off as just another sad incident of the way women remain unwanted
and continue to be hated and undervalued in this country.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
THE OTHER HALF
KALPANA SHARMA
IT is a story that should remain on the front pages of newspapers. Come
to think of it, perhaps our papers should create a corner on the front
page and call it something like Reality Check. So that even as we
celebrate India's growth rate, its shining successes in other fields, we are
reminded of other realities.
One such reality that ought not to slip off the news pages is the real
significance of a recent discovery in Punjab, one of India's most
prosperous States. In the vicinity of a private hospital in Patran, Patiala
district, a 30-ft-deep well yielded 50 dead foetuses, all female. The
location of the well near the clinic was not accidental. For, clearly,
despite the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention
of Misuse) Act, 1994, (usually referred to as the PNDT Act), the
aborting of female foetuses continues virtually unchecked. A few days after
this discovery, in another well near the same clinic bones that appeared
to be those of foetuses were found, although their sex was not evident.
The owner of the hospital has been arrested and the Punjab Government
has initiated checks into private clinics and hospitals across the
State.
The story is every bit as horrific as it sounds. But it seems to have
passed off as just another sad incident of the way women remain unwanted
and continue to be hated and undervalued in this country.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Commerce, cosmopolitanism, and bans
Source: The Hindu
In an age where the flow of information cannot be stopped, are bans of the kind recently witnessed in Mumbai — on telecasting films with an "A" certificate — the right thing?
MUMBAI IS fast gaining the reputation of being not India's commercial capital but its "moral" capital. In the course of the last decade, there have been a string of incidents that have illustrated the extent to which moral policing is gaining ground. From stopping couples sitting near the sea-face, to banning bar girls to the most recent ban on telecasting films with an "A" certificate, Mumbai is taking the lead. For a city known for its modernity and cosmopolitanism this is, indeed, a strange turn. Are these trends accidental or are they part of a larger politics that is redefining the city?
Take the latest controversy, on which popular opinion is almost as divided as on the question of allowing girls to dance in bars. When a professor of political science from St Xavier's College petitioned the Bombay High Court, asking for a ban on the telecast of films certified "adults only" because they were adversely affecting children, most people did not take the issue seriously. They did not expect that the Bombay High Court would respond by asking cable operators to black out all such films. Despite its order of December 21, 2005, nothing happened. In any case, it would not have been possible for individual multi-system operators (MSOs) to check each day's programme on the movie channels, determine whether any of the films scheduled to be telecast had been certified "A," and then blank them out.
The status quo continued until the petitioner realised the court's order was not being implemented. Once again she moved the court. This time the High Court threatened to slap contempt of court on the Mumbai police if they did not act. And so they did. On a Sunday night, when many families sit back to watch a film on television, they suddenly found their television sets blank. To protest the police raids on MSOs, all cable operators simply turned off their transmission. The whole of the next day there was complete confusion; no one knew exactly what had happened. The local cable operator only had piecemeal information. Without even news channels, barring Doordarshan, people had no access to "breaking" news. Late that night, all other channels were restored except the movie channels when Home Minister R.R. Patil assured cable operators that they would not be penalised for something that was out of their control.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
In an age where the flow of information cannot be stopped, are bans of the kind recently witnessed in Mumbai — on telecasting films with an "A" certificate — the right thing?
MUMBAI IS fast gaining the reputation of being not India's commercial capital but its "moral" capital. In the course of the last decade, there have been a string of incidents that have illustrated the extent to which moral policing is gaining ground. From stopping couples sitting near the sea-face, to banning bar girls to the most recent ban on telecasting films with an "A" certificate, Mumbai is taking the lead. For a city known for its modernity and cosmopolitanism this is, indeed, a strange turn. Are these trends accidental or are they part of a larger politics that is redefining the city?
Take the latest controversy, on which popular opinion is almost as divided as on the question of allowing girls to dance in bars. When a professor of political science from St Xavier's College petitioned the Bombay High Court, asking for a ban on the telecast of films certified "adults only" because they were adversely affecting children, most people did not take the issue seriously. They did not expect that the Bombay High Court would respond by asking cable operators to black out all such films. Despite its order of December 21, 2005, nothing happened. In any case, it would not have been possible for individual multi-system operators (MSOs) to check each day's programme on the movie channels, determine whether any of the films scheduled to be telecast had been certified "A," and then blank them out.
The status quo continued until the petitioner realised the court's order was not being implemented. Once again she moved the court. This time the High Court threatened to slap contempt of court on the Mumbai police if they did not act. And so they did. On a Sunday night, when many families sit back to watch a film on television, they suddenly found their television sets blank. To protest the police raids on MSOs, all cable operators simply turned off their transmission. The whole of the next day there was complete confusion; no one knew exactly what had happened. The local cable operator only had piecemeal information. Without even news channels, barring Doordarshan, people had no access to "breaking" news. Late that night, all other channels were restored except the movie channels when Home Minister R.R. Patil assured cable operators that they would not be penalised for something that was out of their control.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Sunday, August 20, 2006
To the women of South Africa
Source: The Hindu
To the women of South Africa
THIS is a letter to our sisters in South Africa.
Fifty years ago, on August 9, 1956, 20,000 of you
defied your country's oppressive laws and marched to
protest against the discriminatory pass laws of that
despicable system of apartheid. Two years before
this, on April 17, 1954, when you founded the
Federation of South African Women, you formulated
"The Women's Charter" that is relevant even today.
Your words, "The level of civilisation which any
society has reached can be measured by the degree of
freedom that its members enjoy. The status of women
is a test of civilisation," have echoed around the
world since then.
Your slogan during the August 9 march also struck a
chord: "Now you have touched the women, You have
struck a rock, (You have dislodged a boulder!), You
will be crushed!"
Eventually, your prophecy came true and the terrible
nightmare of the apartheid regime ended in 1994 when
South Africa took its first step towards freedom. At
the opening of your country's first democratically
elected Parliament on May 24, 1994, your
inspirational first President, Nelson Mandela said,
"Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been
emancipated from all forms of oppression."
Today, some of that oppression has ended. The new
South Africa has accepted women as equal partners.
One third of your Parliament is made up of women.
And 43 per cent of the Ministers in President Thabo
Mbeki's cabinet are women.
That is enviable. But what is even more impressive
is the acknowledgement by the current male
leadership that despite being part of a
"progressive" movement to end apartheid, they did
not fully accept the need for gender equality. It
was a pleasant surprise to read what President Mbeki
said in his address on the 50th anniversary of the
Women's March. He admitted that in its earlier
history, the anti-apartheid movement "also
perpetuated the inferiority of women within its own
ranks." He said that at its foundation, the African
National Congress did not accept women as full
members and that its 1919 Constitution only allowed
them to be auxiliary members with no voting rights
or the chance to be elected to a position within the
movement.
This changed in 1943 when women became full members
of the ANC and a Women's League was established.
Even so, it took more than 10 years for the first
woman to be elected into the National Executive
Committee of the ANC. "The fact of the matter
therefore is that it took our movement more than 40
years fully to give expression within its own ranks
to the principle and practice of gender equality,"
said President Mbeki. He went further to acknowledge
that although 12 years after liberation, much had
been done to enhance women's status, "we have as yet
not achieved gender equality and are still some
distance away from realising the goal of a
non-sexist society."
That kind of admission from a head of state has to
be applauded because it is so rare. It would be
truly unusual if one of our leaders, from any of the
political parties, admitted past errors and accepted
current realities.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
To the women of South Africa
THIS is a letter to our sisters in South Africa.
Fifty years ago, on August 9, 1956, 20,000 of you
defied your country's oppressive laws and marched to
protest against the discriminatory pass laws of that
despicable system of apartheid. Two years before
this, on April 17, 1954, when you founded the
Federation of South African Women, you formulated
"The Women's Charter" that is relevant even today.
Your words, "The level of civilisation which any
society has reached can be measured by the degree of
freedom that its members enjoy. The status of women
is a test of civilisation," have echoed around the
world since then.
Your slogan during the August 9 march also struck a
chord: "Now you have touched the women, You have
struck a rock, (You have dislodged a boulder!), You
will be crushed!"
Eventually, your prophecy came true and the terrible
nightmare of the apartheid regime ended in 1994 when
South Africa took its first step towards freedom. At
the opening of your country's first democratically
elected Parliament on May 24, 1994, your
inspirational first President, Nelson Mandela said,
"Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been
emancipated from all forms of oppression."
Today, some of that oppression has ended. The new
South Africa has accepted women as equal partners.
One third of your Parliament is made up of women.
And 43 per cent of the Ministers in President Thabo
Mbeki's cabinet are women.
That is enviable. But what is even more impressive
is the acknowledgement by the current male
leadership that despite being part of a
"progressive" movement to end apartheid, they did
not fully accept the need for gender equality. It
was a pleasant surprise to read what President Mbeki
said in his address on the 50th anniversary of the
Women's March. He admitted that in its earlier
history, the anti-apartheid movement "also
perpetuated the inferiority of women within its own
ranks." He said that at its foundation, the African
National Congress did not accept women as full
members and that its 1919 Constitution only allowed
them to be auxiliary members with no voting rights
or the chance to be elected to a position within the
movement.
This changed in 1943 when women became full members
of the ANC and a Women's League was established.
Even so, it took more than 10 years for the first
woman to be elected into the National Executive
Committee of the ANC. "The fact of the matter
therefore is that it took our movement more than 40
years fully to give expression within its own ranks
to the principle and practice of gender equality,"
said President Mbeki. He went further to acknowledge
that although 12 years after liberation, much had
been done to enhance women's status, "we have as yet
not achieved gender equality and are still some
distance away from realising the goal of a
non-sexist society."
That kind of admission from a head of state has to
be applauded because it is so rare. It would be
truly unusual if one of our leaders, from any of the
political parties, admitted past errors and accepted
current realities.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Blogging in Beirut
Source: The Hindu
(http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2006/08/06/stories/2006080600060300.htm)
THE OTHER HALF
IMAGES of the Qana massacre in Lebanon are numbing. There can be no
comment. No words. Only immense sorrow and anger at the pointless nature
of war. Before our very eyes we are watching a nation being destroyed.
None of this is unfamiliar. It happened three years ago, in Iraq. But
Lebanon is another story. A tragic one. It has a history that seems
cyclical. The Israelis bombed Qana in 1996. Then, over 100 died. And then
it was bombed again by them on Sunday, July 30, 2006 and more than 50
died, 34 of them children.
It makes no sense because war makes no sense. We know that. Leaders of
nations should know that. History should have taught the world that.
And yet wars happen. Wars without end.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
(http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2006/08/06/stories/2006080600060300.htm)
THE OTHER HALF
IMAGES of the Qana massacre in Lebanon are numbing. There can be no
comment. No words. Only immense sorrow and anger at the pointless nature
of war. Before our very eyes we are watching a nation being destroyed.
None of this is unfamiliar. It happened three years ago, in Iraq. But
Lebanon is another story. A tragic one. It has a history that seems
cyclical. The Israelis bombed Qana in 1996. Then, over 100 died. And then
it was bombed again by them on Sunday, July 30, 2006 and more than 50
died, 34 of them children.
It makes no sense because war makes no sense. We know that. Leaders of
nations should know that. History should have taught the world that.
And yet wars happen. Wars without end.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Why Mumbai escaped a flare-up
Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/08/05/stories/2006080504921100.htm)
Kalpana Sharma
MUMBAI HAS not seen a serious communal conflagration since the post-Babri Masjid 1992-93 riots. The absence of a riot does not mean there has been no communal tension. But for a variety of reasons, the tension between communities has been restricted or contained within certain areas and has not spread to the entire city. This is something that has to be noted, not necessarily to be celebrated.
With the on-going investigations into the July 11 serial bomb blasts, the question about whether communal tensions could once again surface and come out in the open is being debated. Some feel that the anger in the minority community, which comprises over 17 per cent of Mumbai's population, is boiling over and some of it has found expression in the men suspected of having participated directly, or having assisted indirectly in the bomb blasts. It is evident that in some Muslim-dominated pockets, there is fear, anger, and even resignation following the "combing" operations being conducted by the police.
However, Muslim community leaders say this is nothing new.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
Kalpana Sharma
MUMBAI HAS not seen a serious communal conflagration since the post-Babri Masjid 1992-93 riots. The absence of a riot does not mean there has been no communal tension. But for a variety of reasons, the tension between communities has been restricted or contained within certain areas and has not spread to the entire city. This is something that has to be noted, not necessarily to be celebrated.
With the on-going investigations into the July 11 serial bomb blasts, the question about whether communal tensions could once again surface and come out in the open is being debated. Some feel that the anger in the minority community, which comprises over 17 per cent of Mumbai's population, is boiling over and some of it has found expression in the men suspected of having participated directly, or having assisted indirectly in the bomb blasts. It is evident that in some Muslim-dominated pockets, there is fear, anger, and even resignation following the "combing" operations being conducted by the police.
However, Muslim community leaders say this is nothing new.
(To read the rest of the article, click on the link)
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