Be afraid, disasters are waiting to happen

Whatever the arguments, a lifestyle of frugality and conservation is the only chance of surviving a future with few resources and fewer funds

One of the unfortunate ironies emerging from the Paris talks is the discrepancy between the Indian position and the Indian situation.

India is the site for the most extreme forms of environmental degradation. It is home to 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, according to the Centre for Science and Environment; its major rivers are degraded, silted and dead; its forests form only 23.7 per cent of land area, according to the World Bank; and it has one of the highest global figures for respiratory and water-borne diseases.

Gautam Bhatia

But in spite of such damning statistics, the government position on ‘development’ remains unchanged. If the U.S. polluted the world in the 20th century and enlarged its carbon footprint to 20 times the world standard, the 21st century belongs to India. The opportunity to pollute in equal measure must not be denied, so the argument goes. To enlarge Indian norms for carbon, every Indian should now own two cars, a four-burner gas stove, numerous home electronics, a basement deep freezer, travel the country, entertain on a lavish scale, buy plastics for daily use, increase meat consumption, and produce 12 times more waste. It is an entitlement that follows a tit-for-tat view, a position that is untenable, outrageous and unreasonable.

Obviously, the dirty fuel path to development has had such a convincing history that everyone feels entitled to it. What the U.S. and Europe achieved in a century after the Industrial Revolution, China compressed in a maddening rush of industrialisation in a mere two decades. By becoming the world’s worst polluter, China’s position now as an active participant in an alternative future places it squarely with the Americans — with high levels of per capita consumption, but with a professed desire to cut back to green fuels and technologies.

India, however, is still pitted with Colombia, Nigeria, the Gambia and other countries of West Africa and Latin America. But unlike these smaller countries, the scale of its operation is large enough to cause a noticeable coal dirt cloud over the world’s clean energy horizon. India has neither funds nor technical know-how to ease poverty without resorting to fossil fuels and the Western model. A case being illustrated now is the lacklustre experiment to unpollute Delhi.

Technology failure

New Delhi today stands as a sad microcosm of India’s own alternative technology failure. Seen only as a 15-day trial, pollution control in Delhi is based on the erroneous belief that mere limiting of private cars on the road will be a major step towards changing the city’s respiratory health. No similar limits are extended to illegal industry, trucks or buses; no incentives are given to electric vehicles; and cycling and other non-polluting modes of transport have not been encouraged. Should those with two or more cars be penalised with higher road taxes and should those without cars be allowed to travel free on public transport? No expert needs to tell you that commuting is one of the biggest causes of pollution in Indian cities. Rather than building highways and increasing public transport, should mixed-use developments be encouraged so that they cut out commuting altogether? The Delhi experiment is an example of the tentative half-baked nature of most environmental initiatives in India.

Obviously, no one can deny India or China or countries in Africa their need to develop and prosper, but the inconsistency of the face that India presents at home and at international forums is both worrying and out of line with its own values. Throughout the Paris dialogue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi harped on the twin ideals of climate justice and sustainable lifestyle. How has this translated to reality? In 2008, the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, had proposed an eight-pronged National Action Plan on Climate Change that outlined serious structural changes to mitigate climate change. Among them were the promotion of solar power at a commercial scale, a new energy-building code, and incentives for urban public transport. Those eight laudable objectives lie today on a dusty government shelf, even as India is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Despite wordy assurances, the Paris promises remain hollow and unsubstantiated. Neither the funds nor the technology promised to the developing world seems to be forthcoming. While the Modi government rightly asks that rich countries should have more stringent responsibilities towards the climate agreement, in reality India’s growth path itself needs serious correction. Indian ground conditions are now so desperate that they call for immediate action to alter lifestyle, urban transport and civic design. Industrial policy and the creation of buildings from an environmental perspective should be a national imperative.

Unfortunately, unable to take a stand on international ideals, India has always used abstinence as its moral calling, as was the case with North Korea, Bosnia, and Israel and Palestine. But climate change is another story. The persistent droughts in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, the melting of Himalayan glaciers, and the Kashmir and Chennai floods make it all too clear that we can no longer sit on the fence. We are quick to point out the sins of the rich world, but the real offences have a decidedly local origin: among them, overbuilding, constructing in shallow riverbeds and floodplains, uncontrolled urban migration, proliferation of illegal polluting industries, lack of environmental controls, no restrictions on transport and sale of cars, and absence of clear green alternatives. Without initiatives of its own or the ability to think independently, India is a disaster waiting to happen.

Many in the developed world question whether climate change is natural or man-made; some even say it doesn’t exist. Sadly, we don’t have the luxury of choice. Whatever the arguments, a lifestyle of frugality and conservation is the only chance of surviving a future with few resources and fewer funds. When megacities the size of Delhi and Chennai become disaster zones, the time to think and react has already gone.

(Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based architect and sculptor.)

Keywords: Paris Talks, Paris Agreement, climate change, 

Source: The Hindu, 18-12-2015

Evil man. Okay. Evil woman. Not okay?

The debate about programming content and oversight by regulators will get more fierce as network television expands in India

There is this particularly stunning woman, long locks, in the garb of a do-gooder-rent-a-saint out to wreak havoc on a deeply devout family. Make that a large Indian family of countless cousins who worship together and have chosen to put their collective faith in this woman to act as the medium between them and the powerful goddess they worship. The serial is called Sasural Simar Ka (the home of Simar’s in-laws) and, from all accounts, drawing eyeballs at prime time — including viewers possibly troubled by what they get to see. Sasural Simar Ka is one of five serials whose depiction of women has had the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) sit up and take notice.

Anuradha Raman

Set up by the Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF), the apex broadcaster, in June 2011 as a self-regulatory mechanism for entertainment content beamed into our homes, the Council is empowered to take cognisance of complaints and issue advisories — more in the nature of Asoka’s edicts serving as a moral compass for broadcasters — that strive to reconcile freedom of expression with norms of public morality.

Of course, transgressions are not tolerated and carry the threat of penalties, but they look paltry compared to the advertising revenues raked in by the broadcasters; the maximum fine of up to Rs. 30 lakh has seldom been imposed anyhow, such is the power wielded by the Council.

Complaints beget advisories

The Council has thus far come out with two status reports on content aired on general entertainment channels and complaints received, which show just how many people write in or mail their concerns with content: of the 4,545 specific complaints received by it over a period of one year, 39 per cent had to with portrayal of women and the way gods were represented in serials.

So far, 13 advisories have gone out in the four years since the Council was established, and serve as checks on broadcasters. Repeat offenders are referred to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which deals with them according to the gravity and scale of the transgression.

Quite predictably, the latest advisory sent on December 10 banishing women as witches and sorceresses from prime-time television has been hailed in several quarters, including by the IBF itself and the National Union of Journalists. But a closer reading raises troubling questions for which there are no easy answers. For instance, is it only a particular kind of portrayal that prompts the regulator to step in after complaints have been scrutinised — that of a strong, tough-as-nails woman who has no shades of grey and no shot at redemption as episodes unravel?

What’s wrong with that, one may ask? After all, these are works of fiction. More specifically, does such portrayal require an advisory telling the broadcaster to tread cautiously on the negative portrayal of women on television? How does this portrayal affect viewers? Officials in the BCCC say the content on TV has undergone a change from the times when fictionalised rape trials were aired on television only to be withdrawn after viewers complained.

How do regulators elsewhere read the rule book for the conduct of programmes? The BCCC resembles the Canadian regulatory authority, CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission), which is not a statutory body either but whose guidelines are binding. The CRTC’s guidelines on gender portrayal make for interesting reading. Titled “Gender Portrayal Guidelines” (for commercials and programmes), the regulator lays down the rules for what makes for good programming. The guidelines state that neither sex should be portrayed as exerting domination over the other by means of overt or implied threats, or actual force. Advertising should portray both women and men in the full spectrum of diversity and as equally competent in a wide range of activities both inside and outside the home. Broadcasters must portray women and men equally as decision-makers, including in the financial sphere.

The BCCC also invites comparisons with Ofcom, the communications regulator in the U.K., and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. Both have powers to penalise and both have also attracted criticism over their functioning; the former is a statutory body while the latter is an independent government body answerable to the Congress. The codes lay emphasis on protecting children.

Interestingly, the Ofcom code says programmes dealing with occult or paranormal should not be aired during regular hours and should be reserved for the “watershed hours”, that is, after 11 p.m. The same prescription is obtained in the FCC code. The BCCC in its advisory says the same.

When the Council can echo its British and American counterparts on the apt time slots for a certain kind of programming, why are its overall guidelines so tame, going only so far as to ask broadcasters not to portray women in a negative light? What does that mean anyway? That it is not okay for women to be evil but okay for men?

A vague template

For this, to understand how the BCCC came into existence would be instructive. Around 2010 end, when over 200 complaints by viewers to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry made the whole process of a measured response burdensome, a suggestion came from the broadcasters themselves to establish a self-regulatory body to look into the specific complaints. The programming code that the BCCC drew on is the one framed by the Ministry under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, which merely states the following: no programme should be aired which encourages superstition or blind belief or denigrates women through the depiction in any manner of the figure of a woman, her form or body or any part thereof in such a way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to women, or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality or morals. It is the vagueness of the language that often poses a problem.

Its office-bearers insist that they step in only when the complaints come in, and that they engage with the judiciary, the executive and even Parliament on these matters on a regular basis, but between upholding free speech and observing its mandate to regulate, the BCCC perhaps errs on the side of caution when it comes to content control. As the media sector grows and as channels proliferate, content and oversight by regulators will continue to be locked in a fierce debate that is unlikely to be settled by answering a simple question: why can’t the viewer simply reach for the remote?

anuradha.r@thehindu.co.in

Keywords: Sasural Simar Ka, Indian Broadcasting Federation, Broadcasting Content Complaints Council, women on TV, TV programmes, freedom of expression

Source: The Hindu, 21-12-2015

Big questions for our generation

The manner in which crucial laws are being amended will end up eroding rights that have deep consequences on the lives of our children and us as citizens of a thriving democracy. All because the state hasn’t been able to deliver what it was mandated to do.

The last few months have seen an alarming trend of crucial laws being amended, or sought to be amended, in a manner that will end up hurting the very cause that they were envisaged for — to protect rights that have deep ramifications on the lives of our children and us as citizens of a thriving democracy. All because the state has not been able to deliver what it was mandated to do.

The most recent, and probably the one that must concern us all the most, is the law upheld by the Supreme Court: the Haryana State government’s amendment of the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015. The amendment was ostensibly an attempt to promote education and sanitation by mandating that candidates for Panchayat elections had to be both literate (Class 10 in the general category, Class 8 for Dalits and Class 5 for Dalit woman) and have a toilet in their homes.

While the courts have upheld the amendment, and their decision must be based on the correct interpretation of the law, we could well be at a dangerous inflexion point in our democracy — as such reasoning could extend itself to the next two levels of our democratic institutions (Legislative Assemblies and Parliament) if we are not careful.

We seem to be forgetting that the Constituent Assembly of India had debated the issue of universal adult suffrage extensively and finally decided to give Indians this strongest tenet of modern-day democracy. It took a measured decision that education, gender, economic status or religion cannot restrict an adult Indian’s ability to vote or stand for election.

So, while 100 per cent literacy and sanitation are definitely objectives that the State and national governments must strive towards, the fact that the state has failed to provide the same must not be remedied by taking away the political voice of a citizen of this country.

Impacting learning outcomes

The next and closely related case in point are the amendments to the path-breaking Right to Education (RTE) Act. While the Act’s implementation has been a bit of a mixed bag as poor learning outcomes set alarmbells ringing for policymakers, there is no denying that the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) has seen a steady upswing across the country. At the elementary level (Class I-VIII), the GER is up to a remarkable 95 per cent, with girls seeing an incredible score of 100.6 per cent (2013-14). The news is even more heartening for Scheduled Caste students, with the GER for both boys and girls at a whopping 102.8 per cent for the year 2013-14. When traditionally marginalised sections of society see such significant change, thanks to a piece of legislation, there is reason to celebrate.

Yet, a key and egalitarian aspect of the RTE, the “no detention policy”, that may at least partly be responsible for these off-the-charts GER numbers, is being questioned by some experts, bureaucrats, political parties and governments. The idea behind the policy was that children should not face the psychological and emotional trauma of examinations till Class VIII. Those pushing for dropping the “no detention policy” argue that this has perpetuated poor learning outcomes and essentially postpones the inevitable, burdening the school system from Class IX onwards.

It is a view that led the Delhi and Rajasthan governments to amend the RTE, but it does not take into consideration that as a part of the no-detention policy and the RTE, children’s learning outcomes were meant to be measured via a system called the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation, or CCE. The CCE required teachers to track each student’s progress and tailor lessons to student capabilities and provide remedial learning opportunities for students who needed help.

If more States and the Centre adopt this amendment, we will be back to children as young as five undergoing the stress of examinations and trauma of being kept behind if they fail. Activists point out that the biggest effect of this step would be on children from poor families, with chances of them dropping out of the system. So, not only could we be reversing the progress we have made in the GER numbers, largely because the state did not ensure effective implementation of the CCE and the RTE Act, but also end up reducing the chances of children from such families later standing for Panchayat elections in, say, Haryana.

Rehabilitating juveniles

The third is a more emotionally charged debate: amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2015 adopted by the Lok Sabha this May and expected to be taken up by the Rajya Sabha in the current session of Parliament. The most contentious amendment to this Bill proposes that the minimum age for a child to be placed in the adult criminal justice system should be lowered from the current 18 years to 16 years for certain crimes. This is supported by certain sections of society which have literally been baying for blood, post the horrifying Nirbhaya rape case. Ill-informed arguments have muddied the discourse to make the average citizen believe that juveniles committing crimes do not really face any punishment today, whereas the truth is that the juvenile justice system actually provides an alternative system for trial and punishment of juveniles in keeping with their age, physical and emotional status.

There is extensive research to prove that transferring children to the adult justice and prison system does not reduce crime, and in fact increases recidivism as it exposes these children to hardened criminals. Experts also believe that the human brain is not completely developed till one is in one’s mid-20s and young adults are actually more susceptible to peer pressure, and relatively unstable in emotionally charged situations. Globally, most progressive countries and their judicial systems have taken cognisance of such research, a case in point being the state of Connecticut, in the U.S., which has recently seen a move to raise the age of juvenility. There is also extensive research to prove that more rehabilitative juvenile justice systems have repeatedly been found to lead to lower re-arrest rates than the adult system, and, therefore, result in lowering overall crime numbers.

While National Crime Records Bureau data indicates that children from the marginalised sections of society will suffer the most (as over 55 per cent children in the juvenile justice system come from families from the lowest income bracket) if these amendments pass, they could also end up impacting a number of young boys in consensual relationships, as they may face incarceration in the adult prison system if their partner’s parents decide to file a case against them under the proposed law.

It is strange that the very state which has not been able to ensure the effective implementation of the envisaged ecosystem for rehabilitating children through various institutions (child welfare and selection committees, juvenile justice boards, special juvenile police unit, etc.) established under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 (and therefore has in some way contributed to the rise in crime?) is now trying to “remedy” the situation by actually worsening it.

Children at work

And finally, let’s look at the much ignored issue of child labour in India. There are reportedly 43 lakh children who are forced to work in our country and the proposed amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill is meant to strengthen the legislative framework that prohibits their employment. But will it?

Children under the age of 14 are currently banned from working in hazardous industries but the government proposes to drastically reduce the number of industries considered hazardous from 83 to 3. Under the garb of family-run enterprises, children will also be allowed to work in industries like zari, bangle and carpet making, brick kilns, diamond cutting and, arguably, even scavenging.

The truth is that a number of these industries rely on the small nimble fingers of children and perpetuate a system that thrives on bonded labour, or at best very poor wages. The government argues that these amendments are being made in response to the socio-economic realities of the country and to allow children to learn traditional crafts after school hours.

Even if we were to say for a moment that this was not a specious argument trotted out by those who want to perpetuate the existing system, a sobering study points out that while combining school and work is a reality for poor children in India, the likelihood of children who work for over three hours dropping out of the school system is estimated to be as high as 70 per cent. In a country where the trafficker passes off as a “Mama” or a “Mausi”, where is the question of the state actually being able to monitor the number of hours a child actually works, even if he is actually working in the family enterprise?

And once again it will be the girl child who will be the first to be pulled out of school and put into the workforce, as will children from the economically weaker and marginalised sections of society — the very children most at risk and whom the Act is largely designed to protect.

Not only will these amendments not help eliminate child labour, but they will also, in all likelihood, deny our children their rights under the RTE Act, possibly creating the perfect preconditions for some of them to take to juvenile crime.

Will we be the generation that will preside over a system where the state dropped the ball — and our children and we paid the price for it? Under the garb of doing right by them?

(Barkha Deva, a commentator on the intersects between politics, governance and policy, is Associate Director at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies. These are her personal views and do not represent the views of the RGICS or its trustees.)

Keywords: Juvenile Justice Board, Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill 2015, Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bil, RTE Act

Source: The Hindu, 21-12-2015

Gita Promotes An Estrogenic, Feminine Civilisation

K M Gupta





There can be any number of approaches to the spirit and substance of the world which in common parlance is called God. In the Vaishnava approach, Krishna or Vishnu in any name or form is the sole male, and all living souls, jivatmas, are emale. Union of the female with the ole male Paramatman is spiritualism.The rasa lila in Vrindavan is symbolic of he union of female jivatmas with the male Paramatman.In Vaishnava tradition, spiritual eekers are required to ingest and nurse eminine qualities. The more feminine you are in nature, the closer you are to God. Sri Ramakrishna would dress and behave like a woman. It was not just a performance; to him, it was an incredible ransmutation. He virtually transformed nto a sweet woman; he called this sweetness madhura bhava. According to him madhura bhava is the sweetest and easiest way to God. When he was in madhura bhava, people often found it hard to accept that this was Sri Ramakrishna! Krishna means `one who attracts'.The point of Krishna having thousands of consorts and sweethearts is that he is the sole male attracting all females, jivatmas, to him. Not only this, but, in his presence, even males wished they were female. People think that in the Bhagwad Gita, Krishna is urging Arjuna to `manliness' when in fact Krishna is actuating Arjuna to `womanliness', to madhura bhava. Krishna asks him to `be engrossed in me and fight' and `let go of all pursuits and take shelter solely in me'. He is asking Arjuna to be a `female warrior' with madhura bhava ­ an Amazon, a Semiramis of Nineveh, a Boudicca, a Queen Myrina, a Rani Jhansi, fighting w Myrina, a Rani Jhansi, fighting while still retaining the feminine madhura bhava. Observe how Arjuna conducted himself throughout the Mahabharata war. He was fighting with madhura bhava, without rancour. In all those 18 days, only once he lost his cool and that too with his own brother Yudhishtira, not with the opposite camp. Later in the Mahabharata, Arjuna once tells he has forgotten what Krishna taught him at Kuruskshetra. Arjuna forgot the text of Gita but retained its culture ­ which is waging the war of life with madhura bhava.
Krishna wants Arjuna to be a woman fighter and fight for him (Krishna) and not himself (Arjuna). That is action for God, action without reference to fruits. For men, acting without reference to fruits is hard, but it comes naturally to women.
Krishna assures Arjuna he is endowed with godly qualities. He says daivi s liberate and evil qualities qualities liberate and evil qualities bind. He gives a long list of 26 godly qualities. These are feminine; daivi or godly qualities are estrogenic and asuri or demonic qualities are testosteronic.Indic culture has been striving to cast people in feminine (godly) qualities.That is why India is rooting for ahimsa, peace and compassion, all female qualities. Paths like Jainism and Buddhism can take birth only on Indic soil, producing a Mahavira or Buddha.All testosteronic civilisations worldwide fought their way to selfdestruction and mutual destruction.Estrogenic India is the only surviving civilisation among the ancient ones.
In Indic culture, God is female, Shakti, not male. Male is the polarity of female Shakti. The female polarises for the sake of Creation. As Shankara puts it in Soundarya Lahari, the male cannot even stir without being charged by the female. The female is perpetually regenerative. India is regenerative.The Bhagwad Gita is not about a testosteronic war but the estrogenic tyaga, renunciation. (December 21is Gita Day .)

Mainstream, VOL LIII No 51 New Delhi December 12, 2015

Unfortunate Woman

Sunday 13 December 2015, by Sangeeta Mall

WOMEN’S WORLD

‘Oh poor India!... How sad! The country, whose male population is unkind, unreligious and unaware of the distinction between good and evil and doesn’t care about justice and fairness and where abiding by rituals is the chief preoccupation of religion, should not give birth to girls!’ In the 19th century, noted social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar gave this lament. Have things changed much since then?

Last year I happened to spend a few hours at Dubai Airport. As I sat in the waiting lounge and observed the travellers, one thing that jumped out at me was the number of women who were travelling alone. I contrasted this with the situation in Mumbai, where almost all the women were travelling as a part of a group, mostly a family. Since this was an international airport, most of the women were well-off by Indian standards. And yet, there were hardly any unaccompanied females. They were also much smaller in number compared to their male fellow-travellers.

An Indian friend settled in Australia recounted his dismay when his adolescent daughter declared her intention of going to India on a study tour. That’s what Australian students, boys and girls, do after high school. They take some time off to go to foreign lands and assimilate those cultures. It makes them better prepared to live in the world as adults. My friend responded with unadulterated horror. Anywhere but India, he pleaded with his daughter. My motherland isn’t safe for women.

As women in India, we have become accustomed to being somehow inferior. We are shameless hussies who need to be tamed constantly in order to uphold Indian values. This is the narrative that we must endure if we are to survive in this country. If we live as professionals, making choices and taking decisions, we are admired for being ‘bold’. Thousands of young women who enter the professional arena every year are told by society that they are simply supposed to bide their time until they finally ‘settle down’. If a woman asserts her rights, she is labelled ‘bold’, an euphemism for ‘promiscuous’, and nine times out of ten, judged ‘available’.

A judge of the Bombay High Court allowed a litigant to express himself about how modern dresses invite rape, claiming it was the common man’s view. The court didn’t specify what the common woman’s view is.

An entire village in Haryana stopped sending its girls to school because of the harassment they faced from the boys in the neighbourhood. There was no question of publicly shaming the boys or stopping their access to public services.

In a village in Maharashtra, every girl is called ‘no name’, in denial of her very existence.

In recognition of the fact that the participation of women is central to the prosperity of a community, a development organisation in the field of agricultural growth made it mandatory for its village council to have fifty per cent female participation. And only those families that joined the village council became eligible for assistance. In northern India, particularly Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, while women were enrolled as members, they weren’t allowed to attend council meetings as mingling with men was against their ‘culture’.

Studies show that South Asia remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for women. India as much as the rest. And as women’s aspirations grow, as they try to take their rightful place in society, as they step ahead to contribute to the country’s economy, almost every part of the country’s dispensation is doing its utmost to hold them back.

For centuries, girls in India have been treated as inferior beings, a burden on society, on their parents, vessels for producing and raising children, and seldom anything more. Every religious practice either ignores women altogether, as though they aren’t even worthy of consideration, or assigns to them an inferior status. There are still temples in India that deny entry to women, there are still rituals that only men can conduct, and the clergy continues to defend overtly misogynistic practices like triple talaq.

The situation of women in a country reflects its overall status. No matter how one paints it, India’s situation remains dismal in world rankings on various parameters. On the Human Development Index, India, in spite of its claims to being one of the world’s superpowers, continues to hover towards the bottom, competing with countries like Pakistan and Iran. Why should this be the case when incomes continue to grow, when we enjoy one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world? If we are growing economically, shouldn’t this be reflected in our overall position in the world? Why should we still face horrendous maternal and infant mortality rates? Why are we at the bottom where sanitation and personal hygiene is concerned? In large swathes of the country, malnourished children continue to be born and raised because women, even if pregnant, are not considered deserving of medical or nutritional attention.

Can simple economic prosperity overcome these obstacles to our country’s growth? We always claim to take pride in our ‘culture’ and ‘heritage’. A key aspect of this heritage is the status of women. How can we take pride in a culture where one-half of the population is considered permanently inferior, from birth to death, and even beyond, judging by the haste with which many widowers remarry?

While we keep emphasising our technological advancements and aspire to a permanent seat on the Security Council of the UN, in our backyard we have the situation of menstruating women being quarantined, a custom probably derived from times when female hygiene during menstruation was a cumbersome proposition. For the practice to continue into this era shows the utter lack of commitment our society and political class has towards modernisation.

There are enough examples to show how badly we treat our women, from the different rites attending the birth of a boy versus a girl, to the lack of appreciation of a girl’s special needs during menstruation, to a disregard for her dignity and a complete disavowal of her agency as an individual. Women in India are particularly disadvantaged because they bear the dual burden of caste and gender.

The mindset is so deep-rooted that often it seems impossible that it will ever change. Recently, a leading politician, responsible for the political emancipation of the backward castes, complimented a TV news anchor during an interview in the aftermath of a stunning election victory. He was indulgent and almost fatherly towards her, as though she wasn’t a highly respected journalist, but more impor-tantly, a younger woman, almost a daughter. Indian men have a need to deny a woman’s mind, in order to assert their superiority.

There are very tiny, thin rays of hope in this scenario. The various governments, in the States and at the Centre, are offering incentives to get the girl child into school. Almost every day, newspapers feature stories of inspiration with women as the heroes. In a landmark decision, the Indian Air Force has now allowed women to fly combat aircraft. But the rate of change is almost glacial. While women across the world are taking their place in every possible profession, from the highest to the lowliest, standing shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts, in India we are still struggling with issues related to the female identity. Is a woman first a woman, and then everything else?

Can this rate of change be ramped up? How can it be? How can we keep mouthing platitudes about female empowerment without examining the roots of this oppression? Everything in our ‘cultural heritage’ emphasises the role of woman as secondary or non-existent in the growth of society. If we remain unwilling to examine this context, how can we move to the next stage of entitlement? The irony is that every narrative is now trying to reimagine that heritage. In the new discourse, women are shown to be actually ‘strong’ in our mythology. Examples of Draupadi and Sita, both considered the epitome of righteousness and valour, are given. Primetime TV shows are now trying to represent women as powerful beings. The principal of my son’s school declared that it was nonsense to say that women are treated as inferior beings in this country. In fact, she said, in no country are women as respected as in India, whose pantheon of gods have strong female figures like Lakshmi and Saraswati. She repeated the very common defence that while monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam have males at the top, it is only in Hinduism that women are accorded a place of equality. The hypocrisy of such storytelling is mindboggling. Two dimensional caricatures of famous women can in no way compensate for the daily humiliation of almost every woman in our society. And retelling mythology to cast a rosier hue on its women cannot change the horrific interpretation of women’s role in society by our scriptures. Unless we learn to question these scriptures, perhaps even to disown them, how can we ever change the way we perceive our women?

It is facile to laugh away our religious heritage, while, at the same time, accepting it. If we are to take our due place in society, must we not invite the environment to disown this horrible legacy? Mere whitewash can never cover the structural weakness of our roots. In a country where the largest and most powerful social organisation, the RSS, encourages celibacy amongst its leaders at a time when such preferences are being questioned even within the Catholic world, what hope is there for women unless they teach themselves to ask the right questions?

Indeed, the odds against women’s emancipation in India are overwhelming. Religion, society, the political class are all against it. The last is particularly ironic, for when a government benefits women, it is most likely to be voted back into power. Therefore in which direction should we move to release one-half of our population from bondage in perpetuity? Certainly not in the direction of whitewashing our history and mythology. Nor in the direction of venerating our cultural legacy. Nor can we afford any more patriarchal interventions like glorifying the role of the mother or wife in our culture. In fact we fail our women most when we talk of ‘respecting’ them. Women don’t need, and often don’t deserve, respect. Just as men don’t need or deserve it. What women need is the right to exercise free choice, choice over their bodies and their minds, without feeling beholden to society. A good beginning would be to ensure that all girls till the age of sixteen go to school. At the same time, the curriculum must contain a healthy dose of human rights education so that both students and teachers are sensitised to their rights as individuals.

It is true that greater industrialisation weakens the militant nature of patriarchy. In India, unfortunately, there’s a strong lobby that wishes to ‘protect’ the Gandhian ideal of the village economy. But is there a viable alternative to urbanisation where women’s rights are concerned? Urbanisation is inevitably accompanied by the dilution of caste-based identity and a feudal social structure. In the Indian situation, urbanisation is also accompanied by the march of exogamy, a necessary, if not sufficient condition, for female empowerment.

Is a new dawn of women’s liberation appearing in India? There doesn’t seem to be an answer in these dark days of rising fundamentalism and militant Hindutva. But perhaps we shall get pushed towards it by the rest of the world, even if we kick and scream all the while.

Sangeeta Mall is an author of two novels. She is the former Managing Editor of The Radical Humanist and former Editor of the International Humanist News. She can be reached on @livingbyondpink.

All the world’s in a moral panic

As the argumentative Indian makes way for the outraged Indian, public discourse threatens to spiral into uncharted territory. It is time we switched off from breaking news and instant analysis.

The outpouring of outrage that has characterised public discourse over the past few years shows no signs of abating.

A few years ago, many were outraged, first against corruption, and then against those who were not supporting the movement that had sprung up in protest. Over the last few weeks, we saw outrage being directed at actor Anupam Kher and his fellows for directing outrage against those expressing outrage against outrageous acts of violence against people who had said things that were considered outrageous. Then, in Bengaluru, a community-organised, traditionally non-partisan literary festival became the locus of a controversy where many were outraged that some writers had threatened to pull out of the event. This was due to their outrage over the remarks of one of the organisers who had criticised those who had returned their awards in outrage against the government that they saw as silent in the face of violent outrage against intellectuals whose views the killers considered outrageous.

Nitin Pai

Earlier, we used to react to events. Then we began reacting to the media’s portrayal of events. Now, with social media, we react to reactions to events, and reactions to reactions to reactions to events, and so on.

First we had news. Then it became a news cycle, then an outrage cycle, and now we have nested, recursive outrage cycles. There are cycles within cycles. Public discourse is fast spiralling into unknown territory. It is now mostly a grotesque drama of screaming anchors, shouting talking heads, hyperventilating reporters, partisan commentators, opportunistic cheerleaders and online hordes of the self-righteous, all venting outrage against their respective devils of the day. To not stone the devil is to invite association with him.

Dysfunctional democracy

This is dangerous to public policy and, at a deeper level, to our democratic republic: policy disagreements turn permanent and ever greater, the credibility of knowledge is forever in doubt, and the legitimacy of political authority is contested. For decades, India has been walking the tightrope between being a deliberative democracy and a confrontational one. If the current trend breaches the middle class and permeates the masses, the country risks falling off the tightrope, ending up as a dysfunctional democracy.

Yatha raja, tatha praja [like ruler, like ruled]. In a democracy, it is yatha praja, tatha raja too. Those who govern us are cut from the same cloth as the rest of us. It might not be a mere coincidence that there is increasing dysfunction in Parliament, where, too, outrage — not debate — is the currency of political contestation.

We are in the throes of a new form of what sociologists call “moral panics”. The term originated in the late 1960s, when sociologist and criminologist Stanley Cohen identified a social phenomenon of exaggerated responses to events, egged by the then emergent mass media, championed by “moral entrepreneurs”, leading to disproportionate changes to laws. In his own words, “Moral panics are expressions of disapproval, condemnation, or criticism, that arise every now and then to phenomenon, which could be defined as deviant… The media are carriers of moral panics, which they either initiate themselves, or they carry the message of other groups… The moral part is the condemnation and social disapproval, and the panic is the element of hysteria and over reaction. Which subsequently can be applied to all sorts of waves of phenomenon. It is largely created by the media: no media — no moral panic.”

Folk devils

Cohen coined the term “folk devil” to describe certain individuals or groups that are presumed to be a threat to society. Folk devils are painted — by the media — as entirely negative in character, with no redeeming features. They are then hysterically vilified by the public, and sought to be severely penalised. From youth gangs in the late-1960s, to concerns over inner-city crimes, to drug epidemics and so on, scholars have diagnosed many social phenomena as moral panics. Importantly, moral panics can be based on reality, and they can highlight desirable issues: what characterises them is exaggeration and volatility. In other words, society moving from outrage to outrage.

Diversity adds further fuel to the fire. Cohen notes that “as long as there is not one single set of moral values across a whole society, there will always be these episodes of moral panic”. Ergo, in India, with its immense diversity along ethnic, geographic, religious, class and caste lines, we are especially vulnerable. The question of whether women should be free to wear jeans, for instance, is likely to cause separate moral panics in conservative, liberal, local and national circles.

Effect of social media

We are yet to see academic studies of how the advent of social media changes the course of moral panics. Societies are already getting deeply networked with the penetration of mobile phones and the Internet. Twitter, to take one example, has lowered the quality of public discourse where blogs had once elevated it. WhatsApp forwards are personalised gonzo journalism, far more pernicious because people might believe such personal messages more than they would believe in a tabloid known and consumed for its sensationalism. Santosh Desai, advertising professional and columnist, argues that “[there] is a growing constituency for expressing feelings that one should not have but one does, and upon finding that there are many more who feel similarly, these politically incorrect sentiments get crystallised into a larger movement”.

Moral panics in radically networked societies are likely to be intense, personal and, of course, transient. It is unclear how they will affect public policy: politicians and bureaucrats can overreact to what they see as popular demand, or contrarily, tend to ignore what they see as a temporary fad among the digitally connected population. Either way, there are risks. Politicians and parties need to keep their ear to the ground as well as have a finger on the pulse to function effectively. If they lose it, or are confused, the results are unpredictable.

Unfortunately, we know little about how to manage and defuse ordinary moral panics, less these social media-driven recursive ones. We have to grope our way out of the darkness. The stakes, especially for us in India, are high: it is not only about sustaining the conditions for economic growth and transformation. It is also about preserving our constitutional values: As Mr. Desai warns, albeit in another context, there is a risk of how “using the instrument of democracy, fear and divisiveness are likely to triumph over ideals and inclusiveness”.

How to calm down

So, what can we do to calm down? Everyone in India who consumes news must engage in introspection and self-reflection. This, however, is too much to ask before a deep national crisis, which, let us hope, does not visit us. However, leaders of civil society, the media and public intellectuals do have a responsibility to challenge certitudes instead of reinforcing the passionate intensities.

At the risk of preaching my own preferences, dear reader, you can take the first step by stopping watching television. All television. Stop believing what you receive on WhatsApp and forwarded emails. Limit your exposure to social media, except during emergencies. Instead, embrace proven wireless technology with nearly infinite battery life: newspapers and magazines. Cold print is still more conducive to reflection than television or your Twitter app.

That said, I do plan to tweet this article, share it on Facebook, forward it on WhatsApp and email. And someone, somewhere is bound to express outrage over it.

(Nitin Pai is director of the Takshashila Institution, an independent think tank and school of public policy.)

Keywords: Public discourse, threatens to spiral into uncharted territory. It is time we switched off from breaking news and instant analysis

Source: The Hindu, 18-12-2015

Only 6.67% Indian institutes headed by women: Report

There is a significant shortage of female academic leaders in the higher education system of the country, as only 6.67% of Indian institutes are headed by women, says a report.

According to Edushine Advisory Group, a strategic management consulting firm specialising in higher education in the country, India’s Gender Inequality Index (GII) is 0.563 which is worse than the world average of 0.450.

The report which assessed percentage of females in positions of influence such as Vice-Chancellors or Directors in 810 institutions of higher education in India, found that only 6.67% institutions (54 out of 810) are headed by females.

“Recently, government regulations have increased female participation in corporate board rooms, however, it is important for us to create female academic leaders who can inspire young girls during their study days to take up leadership roles,” EduShine Managing Partner Kalpesh Banker said.

Though gender gap in academic leadership is a global phenomenon, India lags much behind the developed countries like the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom which have female participation at leadership level at 18%, 21% and 17%, respectively.

Female participation at top positions in Indian universities is negligible. Moreover, the most prestigious institutions in India have no female academic heads, the report said.

It noted that Central universities have the highest female participation as 9.8% institutes (5 out of 51) are headed by females, while, State universities have only 8.61% (28 out of 325).

Institutes of national importance that includes IITs, NITs, IISERs, AIIMS have only 5.47% (4 out of 73) representation at director level.

Interestingly, India has registered significant progress in female enrollment in education. In 1950-51, India’s female enrollment ratio was 14 females per 100 males. By 2013-2014, it has improved to 80 females per 100 males, the report added.

The institutions covered in the research includes all the universities categorised into Central University, State University, State Private University, Deemed University, Institute of National Importance and IIMs.

Source: Hindustan Times, 18-12-2015