De-iconising Anna

The Hoot, November 27, 2011

Media makes personalities. It also breaks them. These last two weeks have been an illustration of how this happens and the ‘personality’ is Anna Hazare. KALPANA SHARMA on the downward slide of the Anna phenomenon.
Posted/Updated Saturday, Nov 26 21:33:37, 2011
Media makes personalities. It also breaks them. These last two weeks have been an illustration of how this happens and the ‘personality’ is Anna Hazare. More than the print, it is 24-hour news television that is principally responsible today for the creation of public personalities who become larger than life. Take Anna Hazare. Until earlier this year, he was barely known even in his home state of Maharashtra although he had campaigned for many years against corruption and taken on some powerful politicians. Today he is known all over India. And that is because television decided to adopt him, making him into an icon. He fit right into the imagery needed to run the anti-corruption story. The key word, in fact, is “story”. When you have to tell a story, you need a hero. And Hazare was that hero.   A part of the iconography was to convert a social activist into a “Gandhian”. Anyone who has known Anna Hazare’s work, and some of the tactics he has used such as those to curb alcoholism in Ralegaon Siddhi, would know that there is nothing “Gandhian” about them. Indeed, I doubt if Hazare referred to himself as a Gandhian before the media decided to attach that epithet to his name. The “Gandhian” tactic he did use, well before the Lokpal campaign this year, was that of non-violent protests, including hunger fasts, to highlight corruption in Maharashtra. His attire, including the khadi topi, is what men in Maharashtra’s villages wear. It has nothing to do with being “Gandhian”.   From the beginning of this year, ever since the Lokpal Bill became prominent, the Gandhian epithet was fixed to Hazare. He did nothing to deny it, nor did his acolytes. Hence, in the minds of the millions who were treated to the non-stop television coverage of the protests in Ramlila Maidan, there was no separating Hazare and Gandhi. In case you were in doubt, there was a huge image of Gandhi on the stage, which was always in soft focus whenever the camera focused on Hazare.   And now, in the last two weeks, it would appear that some in the media are trying to remind people that Hazare is not quite the “Gandhian” they had projected him to be. In his exclusive interview to Srinivasan Jain on NDTV, Hazare went into great detail to explain why he felt justified in tying alcoholics to a pole and thrashing them. He saw nothing wrong with that. After all mothers also beat their children sometimes, he said. Jain appeared to be egging Hazare on to explain his clearly non-Gandhian tactic in more explicit terms. And Hazare enthusiastically obliged.   As a result, the interview became the centre of several talk shows where Hazare’s take was criticized but also energetically defended by the telegenic Shazia Ilmi who is part of “Team Anna”. Having worked as a TV anchor, she knows how to use the medium. She never loses her cool, nor does she let anyone get away with even a stray remark. She is combative but smiles all the time; a great ambassador for Team Anna. In the discussion on Hazare’s non-Gandhian tactics, Ilmi claimed that the men who had been thrashed were actually grateful to Anna! NDTV has yet to independently verify this statement and inform its viewers. But apart from Ilmi, others on the panel also understood the basis of Hazare’s opposition to alcoholism. Several people acknowledged that alcoholism was a real problem that poor women, in particular, had to deal with. However, no one endorsed the Hazare tactic for curbing alcoholism.   As if this was not enough, Hazare obliged the media by making an off-the-cuff comment when asked what he thought about Sharad Pawar being slapped by a man in the crowd who was incensed about corruption and rising prices. Why only one, asked Hazare. Predictably, this went viral on television, giving more grist to the mill of those searching for subjects for talk shows. People tweeted, commented, condemned before Hazare put out a written statement condemning violence. And the redoubtable Shazia Ilmi once again came to her mentor’s defence, pointing out that his remark was a casual one and that “the slap” was in fact indicative of the anger and frustration felt by ordinary people about the people in power. But by virtue of repetition, something television is particularly good at, the damage had been done. And even though Hazare probably reflected the general lack of sympathy for the political class, for those who had decided he was a wise elder, this remark did not play out too well. So the persona the media had built came down one more notch.   None of this will have any impact on the Hazare loyalists. But it could influence the fence-sitters, people who are still not quite sure what Hazare is all about and whether “Team Anna” has anything in common beyond its determined campaign to get the government to pass the Lokpal Bill.   However, the very fact that journalists felt they had to get Hazare’s opinion on “the slap” brings out another aspect of the creation and destruction of media-created personalities. Having first raised them to a pedestal, the media then decides that they are repositories of all wisdom. So whether they have an opinion, or know anything about the issue, these individuals are asked to state an opinion on everything under the sun. The “sound byte” builds and destroys individuals. No one advises them that perhaps they should say they have nothing to say instead of being lured into stating an opinion.  The problem, of course, is that the media makes people larger than life and very soon, they too begin to believe that what they think counts. It is the rare individual who has the honesty to tell persistent media that they should go elsewhere for an opinion. So thanks to the media, we now have “opinion-makers” who include public relations men, best-selling authors, actors and even beauty queens who are asked their opinion on anything - from Kashmir to Telengana to the latest craze, “Kolaveri di”. (To read the original, click on the link below) http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=5616&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=10&valid=true

Another battle won

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, November 27, 2011

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The HinduEqual at last... Photo: V. Sudershan

The Supreme Court clears the way for women to become In-Flight Supervisors in Air India. Thanks to those women who believed in and fought for equality at the workplace.

This judgment passed virtually without comment. The media ignored it. Why should the rights of a relatively small group of women concern the rest of us? Yet the November 17 Supreme Court judgment, by Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph, upholding Air India's 2005 decision to remove the precondition that an In Flight Supervisor could only be a male, and that women cabin crew could also be appointed to that position, is significant.

The troubled airline has not been a shining example of gender equity. Yet, finally wisdom dawned and it did accept that there was no justification for a rule that held a particular job only for men when the men and women on flights had the same training and did virtually identical tasks.

Expected resistance

What is fascinating about this case is the manner in which the male cabin crew opposed the new rule and challenged it in court. In 2007, the Delhi High Court upheld Air India's right to make this change and held that it saw nothing wrong in the rule. That judgment is worth reading in its entirety as it spells out the history of the struggles of women cabin crew in Air India to assert their right to equal treatment. There have been innumerable court cases, on issues ranging from a different retirement age for male and female crew members to a rule at one point where women who became pregnant within four years of being appointed had to quit to one where women cabin crew were grounded if they exceeded a certain weight.

It is hard to fathom why a ‘national' airline should lag so behind the times on these issues. The women employed by Air India have had to turn to the courts on all these issues. These were not battles for additional powers. The women were simply asserting that they should have the same rights as other employees in a country where equality is guaranteed and where one is working for a ‘national' airline that ostensibly wishes to promote India's ‘national' image.

This last battle, to get the airline to remove the anomaly where a particular job was virtually kept as a ‘male only' designation for no reason at all, was in some ways the strangest. Senior women cabin crew members of Air India, some of whom trained other cabin crew members including men, had to contend with serving under the same men they had trained simply because, regardless of seniority or experience, they could never get the designation of In-Flight Supervisor. Even after private airlines came on the scene where there was no discrimination between male and female cabin crew, Air India persisted. And when it finally changed the rule, the male cabin crew objected, calling this positive change “discriminatory” and challenged it in Court.

In 2007, the Delhi High Court was quite clear in its ruling. It stated:

“The Court finds that IFS (In-Flight Supervisor) is no longer a post, much less a promotional post. It is a function that one among the cabin crew, on the basis of seniority, is asked to perform during the flight. This Court is unable to discern in any of the settlements any assurance or promise held out to the pre-1997 male cabin crew that a female colleague of theirs will never ever be asked to perform the function of an IFS. Nor do the judgments of the Supreme Court say so. The impugned order dated 27.12.2005 is not discriminatory to the male cabin crew. In fact, far from eliminating the possibility of the male cabin crew performing the function of IFS, it provides a chance to their female colleagues as well. In effect it removes the ‘ men only' tag on the function of IFS. We are asked by the pre-1997 male cabin crew to hold this to be unreasonable. We decline to do so. This Court finds nothing arbitrary, unreasonable or irrational in the pre-1997 male cabin crew being asked to serve on a flight which has their female colleague as an IFS. This then is the jist of the lengthy judgment that follows.” (http://delhicourts.nic.in/Oct07/ Rajendra%20Grover%20Vs.% 20Air%20India%20Ltd..pdf.) (LPA Nos. 122-125 of 2006, Date of Decision: October 8, 2007.)

Representatives of the male cabin crew had argued that they would not work under women, even if they were senior. The job had been promised only to men and they were determined to hang on to it. And women could not claim the right to equality in this matter because the job of a woman on flight and a man on flight were substantially different, they argued. Yet passengers on flights can observe for themselves that the men and women in the cabin crew do exactly the same things — welcome you, make announcements about safety regulations, serve you food and drink, clear up after you, help anyone needing help, remain alert in case there is an emergency and act if such an occasion should arise.

Catching up

All this is so obvious that it does not need repeating. Yet, none of this convinced the flight pursers employed by Air India who challenged the Delhi High Court judgment. The Supreme Court ruling, one hopes, has settled the matter and Air India will now be permitted to join the 21st century. And perhaps it will finally also decide to use gender-neutral terms to describe the men and women who are part of the cabin crew.

The court battles fought by women cabin crew of Air India are significant for other reasons. Many of the women who went to court could just have sat back and accepted conditions as they prevailed. After all, they had a secure job and a reasonable salary. But because some of them took the risk of even losing their jobs and challenged these discriminatory provisions, those who join the airline now will be much better placed than their seniors. The lesson these battles hold out is that discrimination does not disappear on its own and that managements are not struck by a sudden realisation that they should be fair to their employees. Positive change is more often than not the result of battles fought by those who believe strongly in equity and justice.

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

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2659397.ece

Are we not pretty anymore?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, November 13, 2011

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2621378.ece  

APA real test for the brains...

“Why is India on a losing streak?  Aren't we pretty anymore?” was the plaintive cry of the very presentable anchor of an English language news channel during a news discussion last week. She was not referring to cricket, quite obviously. Her concern was about the drought of Miss World and Miss Universe crowns for Indian women since 2000.  Does this mean Indian women are not the most beautiful in the world, she asked.

The question is clearly inane and does not even merit a serious discussion. And it is entirely possible that it was taken up for discussion on a low news day, when nothing much was happening in the country. But it was reminder of how the beauty business was bought and sold through these pageants in the 1990s with wall-to-wall coverage in the media, particularly by the media house promoting them, and how they have now become so routine as to merit hardly a mention. Even if such pageants, where women are paraded around in a variety of costumes and then asked some questions that are ostensibly supposed to judge their intelligence, seem an anomaly in the 21st Century, few women's groups would work up a head of steam to demonstrate against them as they did in the past.

One reason is possibly the fact that over time, beauty contests have lost the attention of the media. Major channels in the West do not telecast them, only cable channels do. And in Britain, for instance, you can only view them live on the Internet. Even in India, the media interest has waned as Indian women stopped winning. So why draw attention to them when the interest in them is so low?

Lure of the market

Did Indian women win continuously for several years because suddenly a crop of especially beautiful women had appeared? Or was it because the beauty business had discovered that there was a most lucrative market waiting to be exploited in India? From the figures of the growth of the cosmetics industry in India, it is more than evident that the beauty contests achieved their main purpose of pushing and establishing the beauty business in India. Today cosmetics are one of the fastest growing segments of consumer products with annual sales of beauty products exceeding Rs 35,660 crores. The sector is expected to continue growing at the rate of 17 per cent per year.

Cosmetics companies are now targeting smaller towns and even villages. My own experience during visits to several small towns in north India in 2009 for a series of articles on their governance problems illustrated the extent of the penetration of the cosmetics business. In Narnaul, Haryana, for instance, a small town with a population of under one lakh, I discovered there were more than 25 beauty parlours. One of the women corporators to the Narnaul nagarpalika was a beautician who owned her own parlour! Even college girls came for a variety of beauty treatments, she informed me. Similarly, in slums in Mumbai, the change is evident not only in the number of Internet cafes that have grown but also the tiny beauty parlours tucked away in the side streets.

Is there anything wrong with wanting to look beautiful? Even feminist will not deny the right of any woman to dress as she pleases, even if it means caking her face with makeup or wearing alluring clothes. Surely that is her individual right.

The objection is to the commodification of women's looks, where you have an entire industry projecting particular looks and size and luring women into believing that they can succeed only if they can somehow fit that norm. That is what leads to lack of self-esteem in those who were not born beautiful on the outside, wasted resources on quick fixes by many to change how they look, and harmful interventions by way of surgery and killer diets that often permanently damage the health of millions of young women.

It is the direct and indirect promotion of physical beauty as the dominant norm of a person's being that feminists have opposed and continue to do so. If you really believe that men and women are equal and should have the same rights, can you really justify a contest where women have to show off their physical attributes through a swimsuit round to qualify as a finalist? For the organisers to claim that they also consider brains and personality is hypocritical when the entry point is purely physical attributes and nothing else.

Perpetuating myths

Kat Banyard, author of The Equality Illusion and founder of the group UK Feminista, was one of those who demonstrated outside the Miss World contest in London recently. She is quoted in a report in The Guardian as explaining why she did: “We're here because Miss World has absolutely no place in a world that treats women and men equally. It perpetuates the beauty myth…The more a girls sees herself as an object, the more ashamed and disgusted she will feel about her own body. And that has massive implications for everything from being too ashamed to go to physical education lessons to developing an eating disorder.”

In India the interest has waned not just because the cosmetics industry has established itself and is growing, as is evident from the data, but because young women aiming to parachute into Bollywood now have other ways of being noticed. As a fashion designer on the television discussion pointed out, the “hunger for Bollywood” is now assuaged by getting a break through several other routes — modeling, anchoring on television, or simply trying your luck. The new crop of young women in Bollywood has made its way through other routes. The last Bollywood actor “discovered” through a beauty pageant was Priyanka Chopra.

The clutch of demonstrators outside the Miss World final in London was a reminder that there are still people who object to these contests even if some consider their objections as out of tune with the times. But just as the beauty pageants can claim the right to choice of the participants to win recognition on the basis of looks, so can those who oppose shows that judge a woman “by the sum of her parts”, as one demonstrator put it, assert the right to voice their opposition. If, after listening to the different arguments for and against these beauty pageants, young women still decide that their destiny is linked to winning such contests, can anyone object? What do young Indian women think?

(To read the original, click on the link)

Skewed health coverage

The Hoot

The health of the Indian media is supposedly robust but the state of healthcare coverage in the Indian media is almost comatose. It snaps out of that coma only when ‘health’ and ‘wealth’ meet.  Is it not the media's job to cover broader health issues than those related to the health of their readers, asks KALPANA SHARMA

Posted/Updated Wednesday, Oct 26 15:08:54, 2011

SECOND TAKE Kalpana Sharma   The health of the Indian media is supposedly robust compared to the media in many other countries, particularly the West. But the state of healthcare coverage in the Indian media is far from that; in fact it would appear its condition is critical, almost comatose. Occasionally, it snaps out of that coma – when ‘health’ and ‘wealth’ meet.   If that sounds a bit obtuse, let me explain. Anyone can do a spot check of five or six leading daily newspapers. Count the stories related to health. The stories receiving a large amount of space will be: a disease that has afflicted a celebrity, eg pancreatic cancer after Steve Jobs succumbed to it; lifestyle diseases and the extent of their occurrence in urban areas, eg diabetes and hypertension and obesity; an unusual condition afflicting a celebrity, eg some years ago excruciating details on something called‘diverticulitis’ because Amitabh Bachchan was struck down with it. Apart from this, the health coverage includes chapter and verse on a disease for which a particular day has been chosen, such as Breast Cancer day or TB Day, etc. Apart from these, there are literally “seasons” of health stories – usually linked to funding and fellowships. So you might get a spurt in articles on TB, or on HIV/AIDS, or on tobacco-related illnesses. And of course, one must not forget the “health” reporting of politicians arrested for corruption who regularly require hospitalization.   But what of the diseases that strike and kill thousands of our poor? The latest such example is Japanese encephalitis (JE) which has killed nearly 500 children in eastern UP. The media has only just woken up to this fact – well over a month after the first deaths occurred. CNN-IBN did a special programme on October 11. Predictably, NDTV followed suit a few days later. And as a result of this media spotlight, the Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad hotfooted it to the afflicted area, Gorakhpur in UP. And since then, the print media has taken note and several editorials decrying the pathetic state of health care have appeared in major newspapers.   Encephalitis in UP, or Bihar and Assam, is not a new disease. It has been around for decades. And it occurs every year. Children die, or survive with severe afflictions. There is always talk about doing something about it. But the plans are not implemented, or action is taken when it is too late to save children from dying. Much of what needs to be done is preventive – the fairly unglamorous process of dealing with sanitation, providing clean water supply, ensuring that the Culex mosquito does not get easy breeding grounds, providing protection by way of vaccines and treated mosquito nets to the vulnerable population etc. This is not high drama. It is difficult to picturise this process on film. But it can be done. And it can certainly be written about. To write would mean doing considerable legwork over a period of time. And the story might not make it to a prominent position. In any case, newspapers are now clear that they only write for their readers, who are middle class and urban. So encephalitis in deepest darkest UP is simply not sexy enough.    Health coverage in the media in many ways is a litmus test of the relevance of media in turning the spotlight on the dark corners in our country. With the media increasingly rendering invisible much of India, the news of tragedies, such as the encephalitis occurrence in UP, only come into the limelight when many avoidable deaths have occurred. Why should that be so? Is it not the task of the media to cover issues that are not directly related to the health of their readers but are essential to the health of the nation?   (Link to the original article) http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=5560&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=10&valid=true

Women and the Arab Spring

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, October 30, 2011

The cusp of change: Exercising the choice democracy brings. Photo: AP

As change sweeps through the Arab world and dictatorships are toppled, will women's rights be forgotten as it happened in Iran?

As the Arab Spring moves through the Arab Autumn towards winter, there is hope but also anxiety and apprehension about the future. The elections in Tunisia — with a record 90 per cent turnout — have triggered the hope that countries like Egypt and Yemen and now Libya, will also witness a peaceful transition to a democracy they have never known. But the grounds for apprehension are abundant.

As the world watches, a key question that is being raised is that of women's rights in the new political arrangements emerging in these countries. Arab women have spoken out, emphasising that a guarantee of their human rights is a prerequisite to a just society. But in the noise of the celebrations as dictators get toppled, these voices are sometimes being drowned out.

Arab voices

I was privileged to attend a fascinating discussion on the future of women in the Arab world at a recent conference in France. The Women's Forum for Society and the Economy 2011 drew together over a thousand women from around the world. But what turned out to be the most riveting session was the one where women from Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen and the renowned human rights activist and 2003 Nobel Peace Award winner Shirin Ebadi from Iran discussed how the future of Arab women would emerge following the Arab Spring. It threw up a relevant discourse on religion, secularism and law.

If women's rights are also human rights, then should societies fighting for the reassertion of human rights also first guarantee women their rights? Is it possible to allow religion to dictate law if the interpretation of that religion is left to men? Are rights that women have won, even in a dictatorship, still valid even after the overthrow of the dictator? Is it possible to have a ‘ secular' constitution and still respect religion and religious laws?

These were some of the questions that wove their way through the remarks made by the participants. Moushira Mahmoud Khattab, an impressive woman from Egypt who has been a diplomat and a Minister for Family and Population and is now a human rights activist, pointed out that even under Hosni Mubarak, women had won many rights. In fact, she was one of those central to bringing in laws to criminalise female genital mutilation (FGM) that is widespread in Egypt and other north African countries, raise the minimum age of marriage to 18, give women the right to initiate divorce, give women the right to custody of their children after divorce and allow children born outside wedlock to be registered. But now, after the January 25 uprising that led to the overthrow of Mubarak, she says there are voices that have been raised against these rights calling them “Suzanne's laws”. Suzanne was Mubarak's wife and all these changes were initiated in her name. But, asked Ms. Khattab, why should rights that women had won after a struggle be negated just because they had been initiated during a hated dictatorship? The role of women in the January 25 revolution was crucial, she said. Women challenged tradition when they went out and protested and even spent nights out in Tahrir square. Yet, today in Egypt, women's rights are being questioned.

Nadwa Al Dawsari is a young activist from Yemen. She has spent many days in Freedom Square in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a with this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman, who lives in a tent in the square. Ms. Dawsari said there was an assumption that in tribal societies, like the one in Yemen, women had no rights. Yet, over 30 per cent of the protestors in Freedom Square were women. The young people of Yemen wanted a civil state, not an Islamic state, she said. She insisted that what was important now was to get the dictator to leave Yemen and for free elections to be held. Other issues could be tackled later, even if the election brought the Islamists to power.

Tunisian women, however, are not as confident as Ms. Dawsari about the Islamists coming to power. In fact, many have gone on record to say they fear for the future if the Islamist party, al Nahda, wins the elections. But what primarily concerned Amira Yahyaoui, a young blogger and militant human rights activist from Tunisia, was that women's rights in Tunisia ought not be compared to other Arab countries but to those where women are better off. “We want women and men to have real equality. Women need to be considered not as women but as human beings. What we have at present is not enough,” she said. Currently, although Tunisian women have more rights than their counterparts in some other Arab countries, they do not have equal rights of inheritance. They also cannot marry non-Muslims.

Ms. Yahyaoui was also not confident that women would have enough of a say in the process of constitution-making in Tunisia. Under the list system of proportional representation, women did not stand a chance of winning in substantial numbers as political parties tended to push male candidates to the top of their lists.

After listening to the young women from Tunisia and Yemen, Shirin Ebadi spoke. “Look at Iran”, she told them, “Do not repeat our mistakes.” When she saw images of the protestors in Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, she saw them demanding democracy. “Did anyone say we are against polygamy? That we want divorce rights? That we are human beings and need equal rights? You are making the same mistake Iranian women made. We thought we could demand women's rights after the revolution”, she said.

Ms. Ebadi said that the Iranian women who participated in the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran, knew what they did not want. They wanted an end to dictatorship. What they did not demand and insist upon were the rights that they did want. They did not go on the streets and demand an end to polygamy, or the right to divorce. It was taken for granted that these rights could be negotiated later.

Biased interpretation

“I am a practising Muslim woman”, said Ms. Ebadi, “but when a government is based on Sharia law, it can be interpreted in different ways.” She said that she did not believe that Sharia law was against human rights and democracy. But when it is left to men within a patriarchal system to interpret that law, inevitably the suppression of women's rights is justified. The best way to prevent that, she advised her Arab sisters, was to push for women's rights during the struggle. “Don't wait for the victory. Choose your allies. Dictate these conditions before the alliance”, she said.

She reminded the Tunisian about a recent incident where a TV channel was attacked for telecasting the film “Persepolis”, an animated feature film about women's rights in Iran. The director of the channel had to give a public apology. “These are not good signs”, she said. Ms. Ebadi said that although Iranian women had succeeded, even under a fundamentalist regime, in wresting many rights, these were not enough. “We are expecting a bigger victory. Aim for complete equality between the rights of women and men”, she said.

As the Arab world goes through a political churning, the voices of these women need to be heard, and heeded.

(To read the original, click on the link)http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2573489.ece

Citizens, not 'naukranis'

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, October 16, 2011

  

Domestic workers are not servants, they have a right to fair wages and working conditions…

This Deepavali, will the woman who cleans your house and cooks for you be able to celebrate the festival with her family, or will she be cooking and washing dishes as you celebrate with your family and friends? Rarely does this question cross the minds of the majority of people who employ domestic help. Yet, the 3,000 domestic workers who gathered for a public hearing in Jaipur last month reminded us about precisely this reality: “We run two homes, yours and ours”, they said. “Can any of you in society do without our labour?” How easily we forget that these women also have their own homes to run even as they manage ours.

The women who gathered in Jaipur also demanded that they be recognised as workers. “We are not ‘naukranis', we are workers in a free India,” they asserted. Yet, the majority of the people who employ them rarely think of them as ‘workers'. As a result, there is no accepted standard of what they should be paid, how that payment should be calculated — per day, per hour, per month or according to the number of tasks performed. The rate at which they are paid depends on the demand and supply of domestic workers. In big cities like Mumbai, for instance, where demand often outstrips supply, these women — and the majority are women and girls — can negotiate a higher wage. In places where there is a surplus, they are forced to settle for next to nothing. For, if they demand more, there are always others willing to work for less.

Nebulous

The rights of domestic workers can no longer be ignored. For many poor women who have to manage their own households, part-time work in several households is the ideal way to earn money. The skills they use in their homes are precisely the skills required in their jobs. Yet, because this is paid labour, it ought to come with a clear set of rights that the employer recognises and respects. Nothing of this kind happens.

“She is like a member of the family”, some say about their domestic help. Yet the woman will not be allowed to use the toilet the family uses, sometimes not even to drink or eat out of the same utensils that everyone uses. And there is no question of time off, either during the day or one day in a week. So how can she be a “member of the family”?

Across the world, the issue of domestic workers, their rights, their wages has been a raging controversy. It has been particularly acute in the case of migrant workers engaged as domestic help in some countries. The most notorious cases of abuse, including sexual abuse, have emerged from Saudi Arabia. In June this year, an Indonesian maid was beheaded in Saudi Arabia after she was convicted for having killed her employer. The reason she was driven to do this was a history of abuse and torture. What she experienced is not the exception; testimonies from scores of domestic workers from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka who work in Saudi Arabia indicate just how widespread is such treatment. Graphically documented in a report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch titled, “As if I am not human: Abuses against Asian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia”, this is grim reading as dozens of women speak of being repeatedly raped, tortured, abused and forcibly confined so that they cannot escape and report the abuse. These stories have seen the light of day because a few did manage to escape. Tragically, even those that did escape did not find a happy ending. Their tormentors, their former employers, often got away under Saudi law while the women were left with no money to show for the years they had worked and had to face deportation.

Initial steps

These stories and the campaigns by those concerned about migrant domestic workers, particularly in the Gulf countries, finally prompted the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to pass a Convention Covering Decent Work for Domestic Workers in May this year. All countries, barring Swaziland, endorsed the Convention. It will become operational only once the parliaments of the individual countries ratify it.

The Convention sets out steps to protect the human rights of domestic workers, allow them freedom of association, eliminate forced or compulsory employment, abolish child labour, protect them against all forms of abuse and violence and provide decent working conditions. It also touches on the way remuneration is calculated — by the tasks done or the number of hours worked, their right to annual paid leave, weekly offs, daily rest periods and terms and conditions regarding termination of employment. In other words, a structure similar to that of workers employed in the formal sector where these things are stated and not assumed. A director of the ILO, Manuela Tomei stated that the new standards established by this Convention, “make clear that domestic workers are neither servants, nor ‘members of the family' but workers. And after today they can no longer be considered second-class workers.”

The problem in India is that domestics are not even considered ‘ workers', leave alone ‘second-class workers'. This is the crux of the problem. Until we acknowledge that however informal the arrangement, this is also work, we will continue to exploit the crucial service provided by the 50 lakhs and more domestic workers in India. In some states, notably Tamil Nadu, the first steps towards fixing a minimum hourly wage is being discussed. In countries around the world, where domestic workers are engaged, the payment is worked out on an hourly basis. As a result, whether a worker finds employment directly, or through an agency, she is guaranteed a set wage.

Uphill task

Although there are many efforts being made to organise domestic workers, particularly in some of the bigger cities, it is an uphill task because of the nature of the work, and the constant flow of people willing to work. Yet, just as the ILO has intervened on the international level, surely the government in India has to take some steps. If there is any genuine concern in government circles, it is not entirely evident. A law drafted in 2008 on domestic workers has not seen the light of day. Worse still, domestic workers have been excluded from the Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010, an area where there is urgent need for intervention. And even though the government has extended the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana to provide health insurance to ‘ registered' domestic workers between the ages of 18-59, there is no clarity on how this will be implemented if the majority of these workers remain unregistered.

The lights that will shine in many homes this Deepavali must now shine on these dark corners of our homes, where unfair practices and exploitative wages are allowed to continue.

(To read the original, click on the link) http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2540042.ece

Beating violence, not men

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, October 2, 2011

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2503137.ece

  

Violence against women, both inside homes and in the public space, needs to be treated with the seriousness it deserves…

Violence against women is no laughing matter. Yet, in Andhra Pradesh, the state Minor Irrigation Minister, Mr. T. G. Venkatesh seems to think it is something that can be treated as a joke. According to a front page news item in the Deccan Herald (September 25, 2011) headlined: “Cashing thrashing: Pati, Patni and ten thousand”, Mr. Venkatesh is reported to be offering a new scheme that he thinks will deal with abusive husbands.

“Beat your drunken husband if he touches you. The government will pay you a Rs. 1,000 reward. The more you beat him, the better as you can get up to Rs. 10,000”, he is reported to have told a women's meeting in Kurnool. The Minister apparently advised women to beat up their drunken and/or abusive husbands on the street so that everyone can see what they are doing. “Once you do this and you get rewarded, your husband will stop harassing you”, he reportedly stated. And went on to say that the scheme could be called “Pati, Patni and Rs. 10,000 scheme”. How simple life would be if we could remove alcoholism and domestic violence by beating up drunken men and stop murders by enforcing capital punishment!

Complex phenomenon

Dealing with violence against women is not such a simple matter. For one, most of the violence takes place within the home. Second, given the way women are socialised, the majority accepts domestic violence as an essential part of the deal of being married.

Yet, even though so few report it, the highest number of crimes categorised by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) as ‘ crimes against women' is under the head, ‘cruelty by husbands and relatives'. In 2009, out of 2,03,804 recorded ‘crimes against women', 89,546 were those of ‘cruelty by husbands and relatives'. And incidentally, Andhra Pradesh topped the list of states accounting for 12.5 per cent of the total crimes against women in the country (NCRB 2009) followed by West Bengal.

So perhaps Mr. Venkatesh thought, given his state's leading position in this category, he needed to devise a scheme to deal with violence against women. But his solution, if indeed the idea is a serious one and not a joke, mocks at the seriousness of the issue. The women at the receiving end of domestic violence are rarely if ever in a position to fight back. There is a strong body of evidence and documentation over the years in India that shows that even educated women bear the daily humiliation and physical violence rather than go public with it, or report it to the police. Many of them blame themselves. Others fear that they will be left destitute, a fate they believe is worse than suffering the violence.

Vital support

Of course women should resist and fight back. And the Domestic Violence Act enacted in 2005 is an important step to help them to do that. But before they can pick up the courage to do so, they need support, including places like shelter homes if they have no option but to physically get away from their abuser and report the violence. Unless such backing is available, there is little likelihood of an abused woman risking more violence by fighting back.

The section in the NCRB on crimes against women does not include rape, which is categorised separately under ‘violent crimes'. We know this is one crime that is grossly under-reported. Yet the growth in the incidence of rape in the NCRB data is stark. It seems to double every decade between 1971 and 1991. Between 2001 and 2009 the incidence grew from 16,075 reported cases to 21,397. And although 94.2 per cent of these reported cases were charge-sheeted, there were only 26.9 per cent convictions. This is obviously a major reason why women do not persist with rape cases, even after having overcome the hesitation to report them, and often withdraw the case when they realize how long it will take and how difficult it is to get a conviction.

In this connection, a small study by the Centre for Social Research (CSR) on rape cases in Delhi brings out another important aspect of crimes against women. The CSR study looked at 58 FIRs on rape filed between 2009 and 2011. The study deflated several popular hypotheses about rape. For instance, when there is a hue and cry about the rising incidence of rape, police officials are quick to advise women not to venture out after dark. It is assumed that women only get raped at night. Yet the CSR study data shows that seven rapes had occurred between 6 am and 12 noon, 17 between 12 and 6 pm and 14 between 6 pm and 12 midnight. In other words, more rapes took place in the daytime than either early in the morning or late in the evening.

Damning facts

Linked to this theory about a dangerous public space is the belief that women are ‘secure' in their homes. Yet, nine of the 58 incidents studied took place in the victim's home. And the majority of the rapes were by men known to the women. In fact, out of the 58 cases studied, 51 of the accused were relatives, neighbours, friends, teachers or acquaintances. Worse still, the majority of the victims were under 20 years old and of them 22 per cent were less than 10 years old. Thus, women are as unsafe in their homes as outside; they are as likely to be raped by men they know as by strangers and the age of a woman, even if she is a small child, is no bar to being raped.

Violence against women is a bad joke, not something we can laugh about.

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

Bucking the trend?

The Hoot, September 22, 2011

http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=5514&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=10&valid=true

Anubha Bhosle of CNN-IBN actually managed to interview Sharmila in her hospital room, something few journalists have done. On NDTV Jain looked at electric power generation in Jammu and Kashmir and unemployment and new entrepreneurship. Can one hope then that this is the beginning of a new trend on news TV in India, asks KALPANA SHARMA

Posted/Updated Thursday, Sep 22 19:10:44, 2011

It was a relief to see news television, or at least some channels, responding to the earthquake in ‘remote’ Sikkim on September 18 and covering it with enough of a sense of urgency to knock off the mindless discussions and coverage around Narendra Modi’s farcical Sadhbhavana fast. For once, lack of access to footage did not stop the channels from reaching people on the phone, showing the location of the epicentre on maps and discussing the impact. It would have been so much easier just to run a ‘breaking news’ ticker while continuing to discuss the Modi story. Can one hope that this represents the beginning of an acknowledgement by news television that there are stories waiting to be reported outside their studios and backyards?   If after the ‘Anna-mania’, as Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN called it, viewers have wondered why Indian television channels routinely fill their prime time with talking heads on the same subject for hours on end, there is some inkling available from a recent study of American television channels. Dave Marash, writing in the Columbia Review of Journalism, discusses the decreasing amount of time television news channels in the US are devoting to video footage of news events and the increasing amount of time on panel discussions, interviews and talking heads. “Interviews, panels, conversations among anchors, pundits, scholars, and ‘experts’ which, at best, produce intelligent but evergreen generalizations by people who haven’t ‘been there’ for a while, are preempting the current and specific observations available only from those who are there. While more and more of the world is ‘speaking’ video, American TV news is ignoring it, in favor of cheaper but less informative ways to report the news.” Marash could as well be commenting about Indian TV news.  One of the reasons, he suggests, is increased costs. Even channels like CNN that built their reputation through live coverage of the first Iraq war are increasingly cutting down on video packages – that is stories reported and edited by their correspondents on the ground – and substituting them with live commentary by reporters on the spot and talking heads in the studio. The problem with tying up your reporter to remain on standby during these talk shows is that she is then not available to record and report away from this spotlight. The one channel that continues to have many more “boots” on the ground, as Marash puts it, is Al-Jazeera, the only channel that gives you a real insight into what is happening in the Middle East. But even Al-Jazeera, Marash says, is beginning to fall for the now established routine in older news channels in the West of live comment from correspondents on the spot and the rest in studio.  In India proximity, as news channel officials admit, determines live coverage. (Former NDTV staffer T. Sudhir’s article on this website about the coverage of the deluge in Delhi at the cost of coverage of the devastating floods in Orissa is a case in point.) This was more than evident in the case of the saturation coverage of the Anna Hazare fast and protest. It was in Delhi, where the major channels are located. It required little effort to cover it. Only after criticism about this obsession with one fast to the exclusion of other protests – especially of the decade long fast by Irom Sharmila in Manipur – have some channels invested in sending their correspondents to prepare video packages from Manipur.    Both NDTV and CNN-IBN telecast two half-hour long shows on Sharmila’s fast against the background of the repression in Manipur. Anubha Bhosle of CNN-IBN actually managed to interview Sharmila in her hospital room, something few journalists have done. As a result, viewers heard the voice of this remarkable woman, saw the expression in her eyes, felt her vulnerability as well as her determination, and got a glimpse of the reasons why she persists. It was exceptional.    What would be even more exceptional is if this is followed up with other stories from the northeast, ones that give Indian viewers a sense of what daily life is like for people living in that region. And if other protests, such as the on-going standoff over the Kudankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu that has finally caught media attention after many weeks when thousands sat and protested, are also recognized as worthy of coverage. Surely, such protests are as much the voice of Indian ‘civil society’ as the Ramlila ground protests led by Anna Hazare.   Indeed, stories on life lived in places like Manipur, or Kashmir, will educate Indian viewers that people living in these conflict-ridden areas suffer more than just the fallout of conflict; they live with developmental neglect of the most basic kind. Srinivasan Jain’s attempt on NDTV to convey another story from Kashmir should be commended on that count. Jain looked at electric power generation in Jammu and Kashmir as well as unemployment and new entrepreneurship. Although the documentary was patchy in parts, you did get a sense of other issues of concern that do not detract in any way from the dominant issues of ‘azadi’ or autonomy.   Can one hope then that this is the beginning of a new trend on news TV in India? If it is, then it really is about time. Instead of complaining that weekly ratings are forcing channels to become more competitive and virtually imitate each other (note the string of ‘exclusives’ on Anna Hazare on the same day on practically all news television channels), should they instead re-evaluate formats and content to figure out what would appeal to their worn-out viewers? Just as the longer format is now gradually seeping into print – with Times of India leading the way with Crest and Mint with its Saturday Mint Lounge as well as the revival of Caravan magazine -- news television might be able to attract more eyeballs if it devised format and content that are distinctive and different. In the long run, surely this is a better way to keep the gaze of viewers rather than the current frenzied attempts to be the same as the competitor.