True victories?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, August 18, 2013

  

PTIIndia's P.V. Sindhu.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(To read the original, click here.)

Naturally rich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(To read the original, click here.)

The forgotten bill

The HinduWhat now? Photo: S. Subramanium

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(To read the original, click here.)

No more tree huggers

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, July 7, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(To read the original, click here.)

The shocking truth

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(To read the original, click here.)

A living hell

  

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, June 9, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(To read the original, click here.)

A life they did not choose

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, May 26, 2013

  

Her insecure space. Photo: K Murali Kumar

TOPICS

crime

sexual assault & rape

family

marriage

social issue

people

social issues (general)

social issues (general)

discrimination

When it comes to women, success stories are heard more easily than the voice of those who fight the odds every day.

Summer is often called the “silly season”. Nothing much happens. People go away on holidays. In Mumbai, the city where I live, the roads are a little less jammed, the trains fractionally emptier.

During these times, people in the news business welcome a scandal, something with which to fill their news hours. So spot-fixing is the flavour of this “silly season” even as the never-ending IPL season finally draws to a close. As a result, the concerns of women have slipped under the radar. Campaigns launched last year, after the December 16 gang-rape in Delhi, have ended. It is as if enough has been written and said about women and that now we can all sit back.

But can we?

I ask myself that as I pass the two women who live with their three children, two boys and a girl, on my street. Once in a while I see a man. They live, eat and sleep next to a small garbage dump. They are rag pickers. When the sweepers from the surrounding multi-storied buildings dump garbage in the large metal bin, the two women rummage through it to extract plastic, bottles, paper, cloth, tin and anything else that could be recycled and sold.

In 10 years, I have seen no improvement in their lives. They started as young, single girls. Today both are mothers with no evident male around. Yet, they laugh, scold their children, miraculously bathe them and clean them up, feed them and send them off to the local municipal school. Some like me “see” them every day, exchange smiles, a few words. To the majority of the people living in the buildings near this small dump, they are invisible. And their stories will certainly never make it to the news pages, even in this “silly season”.

We read about the crime graph climbing in our cities and women remain the principal victims. Each day there are stories about women who are violated, raped, murdered for dowry, tortured and forced to leave their marital homes, roughed up on the road, harassed in offices, schools and colleges. The two women near the garbage dump would have suffered their share of such violence. But we will never read about the daily violence of their lives.

There is also another side, one that we do read about. We know about the women who have “made it”, who have succeeded where women did not in the past. We read recently about the two women, one from Kerala and one from Kashmir, who excelled in the UPSC examinations. And many more who are topping their classes in school and college exams. The very fact that these successes are noted, and written about, underscores that these stories are not the norm but an exception. Despite the odds placed against them as women, as girls, they have “made it”.

Yet even as we celebrate these successes, we should not forget that for every girl or woman who makes it, there are many more who do not get into school, or if they do, cannot complete their education. The two women separating waste are a part of that story. The little girl who is now a member of their “family” might be able to craft another story for her life, or she might just repeat her mother’s story.

One of the reasons so many girls do not make it through school is because they are forced into early marriage. There is a law banning child marriages. No girl should be married before the age of 18. Yet, 47 per cent of Indian girls are married by the time they turn 18. And 18 per cent are married before they are 15.

On any count, this is unacceptable. Indeed, what could be crueller than to dangle the carrot of education with one hand and the stick of early marriage with the other? If the statistics are right, then almost one in every two girls in India will never know the options available if she finishes school and defers marriage. Instead, girls as young as 15 are being pulled out of school and married to men much older than them.

It is these girls, whose bodies are not yet ready to bear children, who are another statistic in the depressingly high maternal mortality rate in India. (In India, pregnancy — by no stretch of imagination a life-threatening disease — is the leading cause of death of women between the ages of 15 and 19). It is these adolescent girls who are vulnerable to contracting HIV because the men they are forced into marrying might be carriers. It is these young girls who are often victims of the worst forms of domestic violence.

We don’t hear much about this, or read about it, because we prefer not to acknowledge that this too is an Indian reality. That, among the many other lists on which India features, it is also among the top 15 countries in the world where early and forced marriages of girls take place.

So next year, summer will come around again. So will the IPL, one presumes, despite the spot-fixing. But will we begin to make a dent on this shameful back-story of millions of Indian girls being forced into a life they did not choose?

(To read the original, click here.)

Cyberspace violence

  

The HinduNot really safe. Photo: H. Vibhu

TOPICS

crime

cyber crime

social issue

Women in public life are vulnerable not just to criticism about their views but also to personal abuse.

The face and voice of Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, became familiar to viewers across India and around the world when she spoke clearly and fearlessly after the December 16, 2012, gang rape incident in Delhi. She minced no words about what this meant for Indian women and what it revealed about the state of governance.

In this time of social media and the Internet, voices such as Kavita’s are amplified. Even if the mainstream media had ignored her, she would have been heard. Today, thanks to this kind of exposure, Kavita has been recognised by many mainstream television channels as an articulate and passionate advocate for women’s rights.

Yet, such exposure through media has its down side. When you become a public persona, you lay yourself open to criticism that is often trenchant. But women are vulnerable not just to criticism about their views but to personal abuse of the kind that Kavita faced recently when she agreed to a live online chat on issues around women and violence on a well-known website. The comments should have been moderated. Instead, Kavita had to face remarks like: “Kavita, tell me where I should come and rape you using a condom” by someone called RAPIST. The comments were also in capital letters. Kavita is not the only woman who has had to face equally vile, offensive, explicit and violent comments in cyberspace.

So on the one hand, the Internet has opened the way for many more people to be heard, people who might not have found much space in mainstream media. Even women who are not political see the Internet and social media as a space where they can express themselves, where they can connect with other like-minded people, where supportive communities can be formed. Although there is little reliable data on the extent to which women use the Internet in India, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that a growing number of women are using social media. Yet, many realise that what they considered a safe place to “hangout” is actually not that secure because of the men who lurk behind anonymous identities to jointly or individually harass, taunt, threaten and basically bully women into silence.

While one can argue that this kind of violence affects only a small percentage of women — after all Internet access is still very low in this country with hardly 11 per cent penetration — it is symbolic of the larger issues that have been discussed intensely in many fora since December last year. Essentially, the basic issue is women’s right to access “public spaces”, either physical — as in parks, beaches, the street, etc or virtual — as in the Internet and social media.

When women in the public space sense that they will be targeted and attacked, for no other reason than that they are women, many choose to withdraw rather than fight it out. Even if there are laws to protect women’s rights to access these spaces, the majority of women prefer to err on the side of safety than take a chance, especially against the reality of our poorly functioning criminal justice system.

Increasing evidence is now available to show that this is being mirrored in cyberspace where women who have entered with the full faith that they would have the freedom to access this space, are now choosing to pull back rather than fight for their right. As in sexual harassment or sexual assaults, most incidents go unreported when it comes to sexist abuse or stalking in cyberspace. Women will not complain even to their friends or parents. Recent studies have revealed that the majority withdraw, close accounts on social networking sites, change email addresses and try and be invisible.

Is there a way out? Clearly, the solution is not to withdraw. As with so many other battles women have had to fight, this too will be one with which women need to engage. Some younger women are doing just that. But just as individual women cannot fight battles that have to do with societal mindsets, in this arena too the fight must be one that is collective. The Internet Democracy Project mentions one such collective with the Twitter handle #MisogynyAlert. Anyone facing harassment on the Internet can send a message to this address. Also, following Kavita Krishnan’s example, we need to “out” the abusers, compel the sites that allow such abuse to happen to do something to curb it, and figure out if there is anything that can be done with existing laws so that a legal precedent is set for others to use in the future.

The harassment and abuse in cyberspace ultimately reminds us that even as we advance technologically, even as more women and men are educated, even as more information is available through a variety of media, some things do not change. There will always be men who want to confine women to specific roles and will want to punish those women who transgress. Speaking out as a free individual, expressing strong views and even being young and carefree do not conform to the frame that patriarchy has designed for women in India.

(To read the original, click here.)

When protectors turn predators

  

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, April 28, 2013

APNot safe anywhere.

TOPICS

people

children

social issue

abusive behaviour

juvenile delinquency

social issues (general)

social problems

‘Child sexual abuse in juvenile justice institutions [in India] is rampant, systematic and has reached epidemic proportions,’ says a damning report from the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR).

This past week, “rape” is once again the topic of discussion. There has been despair and outrage because this time we also have to talk about a child, a girl, just five years old. Just as the young woman gang-raped on December 16, 2012 was not the first, and certainly not the last, this little girl sadly is also not the first, nor the last.

Even the daily list of rapes that now inhabit our news pages does not indicate the extent of the sickness that is now staring us in the face. According to a distressing report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), 48,338 children have been raped in the decade between 2001 and 2011. In these 10 years, there has been a 336 per cent increase in the number of child rapes. Yet, this is only a very partial picture because, as the report emphasises, the majority of child rapes are never reported.

The report is disturbing because it focuses on those institutions where children are supposed to be “protected” — observation homes, shelter homes, children’s homes and special homes designed to take care of children who have been abandoned, have run away or been trafficked. Yet, as the 56 pages of the ACHR report titled “India’s hell holes” details, scores of these children, girls and boys, are raped, sodomised, tortured, forced to work and condemned to live in “inhuman conditions”. The authors of the report conclude: “Child sexual abuse in juvenile justice institutions is rampant, systematic and has reached epidemic proportions.”

Just as stronger laws have been demanded to deal with rape, there are laws to address sexual assaults on children. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2006 was enacted for this purpose. In addition, last year the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 was brought in to specifically deal with such crimes against children. Yet, as the report illustrates, these laws have been rendered toothless with the deliberate violation of their provisions in state after state. For instance, under the law, all homes that shelter children are supposed to be registered. Yet scores of these institutions continue to function without registration or oversight and there is no provision in the law to punish them for this. In any case, even formal registration makes little difference as is evident from what happens in officially recognised institutions. The atrocities against children taking place in such places escape discovery because the mandated Inspection Committees that are supposed to carry out surprise checks either do not exist, or if they do, do not function.

As a result, all forms of abuse, including sexual abuse, are common in such “protection” homes. The report lists just 39 instances but they read like a modern-day horror story. In each instance, young children who are led to believe that they are in a safe environment end up being sexually abused by the very people tasked to look after them — wardens, watchmen and other staff as well as older inmates. The protectors become the predators. From several of these “hell holes” children have run away, never to be traced. In Karnataka, between 2005 and 2011, 1,089 children below 14 are missing from 34 children’s homes. The story is repeated in West Bengal and other states. Where are these children? How can they disappear from places where they are supposed to be protected? What kind of torture did they experience to force them to run away?

One of the worst horror stories is that of two unregistered homes in Mansarovar and Jagatpura in Jaipur. On March 12, the Rajasthan State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, accompanied by local activists and the media raided the homes and rescued 51 children, 27 girls and 24 boys. Of these, 21 were from Manipur, six each from Nagaland and Uttar Pradesh, four each from Assam, Nepal, Rajasthan and Punjab and two from Delhi. The homes were filthy, the food had fungus and the children said they had been locked into the homes. But that was not all. The girls spoke of sexual abuse including being forced to sleep with the man running the home. A 17-year-old girl from Nagaland said she had been repeatedly raped from the age of 11. The children had been lured to the home with a promise of good food and education. Instead, they were served inedible food and educated in sexual torture. This is only one story. The other 38 documented in the report are equally horrific.

So if children are not safe in these “protection homes” and they are not safe in their own homes, what is the answer? It is evident that just having stronger laws is not enough of a deterrent. At the same time, the demand for instant solutions, even if it is understandable in the face of the daily deluge of such atrocities, will solve little.

The significance of so many more people feeling incensed and angry at this state of affairs is that it will turn the spotlight onto the dark corners, like these protection homes where child sexual abuse has been part of the system. Even if we have woken up to the horror of child sexual abuse because of one atrocity, we must recognise that this malady is not skin deep. It has afflicted the entire body.

(To read the original, click here.)