India’s menstrual health: End the crisis of shame

There are five areas that need attention to take up ‘safe-periods’ as a public health issue. We must look into them

Madhu (13) lives in a remote village in Northern India, and belongs to a low-income household with no toilet, and limited access to water. When she got her first period, Madhu’s mother gave her a piece of rag to manage her menses. She told Madhu, in whispers, that she was unclean, and what norms she should follow to avoid polluting the kitchen and puja (prayer) space. Following her mother’s well-meant advice, Manju began the process of endangering her health for five days, every month. She started accepting a natural body cycle as a matter of shame.

There are millions of girls like Madhu, especially across rural India. According to the National Family Health Survey 4 (NFHS-4), sanitary napkin usage in rural India is only 48.2%. In the absence of sanitary methods, women take recourse to dirty rags, ash, newspapers, and hay when they menstruate.

The health and social implications of poor menstrual hygiene are not widely appreciated. Reproductive tract infections are 70% more common among women who use unhygienic materials to manage their menses. These infections can also be passed on from pregnant woman to unborn child. Cervical cancer incidence in India is almost twice the global average and is associated with inadequate menstrual hygiene. The drop-out rate of girls in school is 23% when they start menstruating, and absenteeism is over 20% of the school year. (all data, ‘Spot On!’ report --Dasra, et al).

There are five areas that need attention to take up ‘safe-periods’ as a public health issue.

The first is to create awareness. Women’s self-help groups are widespread in many states, and often focus on savings. Health, including menstrual hygiene, needs to be part of their agenda. Menstrual health is supposed to be part of the rural school education programme — but it has to be taught to girls, and also to boys. Mothers-in-law must be counselled by the three government health workers who operate in every village.

Second, stigma must be tackled relentlessly. The cultural norm that menstruating women are in some way “unclean” and cannot enter places of worship, or kitchens must end. Until 1990, sanitary napkin advertisements were not allowed on TV — today’s media has a big role to play in fighting menstrual taboos. The movie Padman demonstrated the power of film to destigmatise the issue. TV shows like Veera incorporated the issue into their content.So far, no woman Bollywood star has championed the issue.

Third, there must be easy access to sanitary methods, and this is best done by involving the community. Locally produced napkins through women’s’ self-help groups was pioneered in Tamil Nadu. At Barefoot College, an NGO in Rajasthan, four women make enough high-quality sanitary napkins, to serve the entire village, at a cost of only Rs 11 per piece. Quality alternatives to the sanitary napkin are also needed – UNICEF has promoted the use of local, sanitised cloth.

Fourth, availability of water, sanitation and hygiene and disposal facilities are essential. Making sanitary napkins available is not adequate. Toilets are needed at home. The government’s Swachh Bharat scheme is a big step in this context. Tamil Nadu, in 2004, was the first state to address menstrual health management as part of its sanitation policies and programmes.

Fifth, school infrastructure must be made more comfortable for menstruating girls. Tamil Nadu provides separate toilets, incinerators and sanitary napkin vending machines for girls in school. Menstrual hygiene clubs increase awareness among students and teachers in government schools.

Sixth, governments must regard menstrual hygiene as much more than just a health issue. Himachal Pradesh has demonstrated how relevant and effective interdepartmental coordination can be in this context. Three government departments — health, education and rural development — have collaborated for the state-wide implementation of a menstrual hygiene programme.

The problems of menstrual health range from ignorance to infrastructure, sanitation to stigma — and more. Today, there is a much-needed national mission in nutrition. Swachh Bharat plays a pioneering mission role in sanitation. Surely, the time has come for India to also launch a national menstrual health management mission.

India’s women are enduring a crisis of menstrual health. Let’s put an end to this crisis of shame.

Ashok Alexander is founder-director of the Antara Foundation

Source: Hindustan Times, 4/08/2019

Homeless in Assam

The battle over NRC data pits government against Supreme Court, could open new faultlines

The National Register for Citizens (NRC) process in Assam seems to be spinning out of control with the state government refusing to toe the line set by the Supreme Court. On Thursday, a senior BJP minister in the Assam government, Chandra Mohan Patowary, revealed the district-wise break-up of the NRC inclusion and exclusion data (from the draft report published in July last year). The Court had instructed the NRC coordinator, Prateek Hajela, to submit this sensitive data in a sealed cover. The minister’s act is in defiance of the spirit of the Court order, therefore, and it may trigger new divides in the state. The move comes in the backdrop of the Court refusing to entertain the government’s plea for a 20 per cent re-verification of the data in districts bordering Bangladesh. The Court also noted that Hajela had submitted that NRC officials re-verified 27 per cent of the data when it adjudicated on the citizenship claims.

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The intent behind the state government’s move to reveal the NRC data at this juncture is, clearly, political. The BJP government in Assam considers the NRC an instrument to isolate those who it sees as people who came from Bangladesh after March, 1971. It has been argued that districts bordering Bangladesh are prone to high levels of illegal immigration. However, the NRC has altered the picture and threatens to subvert the narrative on illegal migration. According to the figures revealed by Patowary in the state assembly, maximum exclusion from the NRC has been reported from districts not on the border but in Hojai and Darrang in central Assam. And, ironically, a large percentage of the people who have failed to prove their citizenship claims are members of indigenous tribes and Bengali-speaking Hindus. The anachronism is hardly surprising since the sort of documentation demanded of people by the NRC is not readily available or easy to produce, especially in non-urban and tribal areas with low penetration of the government. The government is apprehensive that the exclusions may trigger a backlash. It should have anticipated this situation since these concerns were flagged by civil society groups at the very outset.

Both the Supreme Court and the government need to be sensitive to the enormous impact the NRC will have on the people. An estimated four million persons may lose citizenship rights and would be forced to relocate to camps as non-citizens or doubtful voters. The enormity of the crisis on hand seems to have escaped the authorities — the SC frames the NRC as a legalistic exercise while the government views it through an ideological lens. Neither approach is helpful to resolving the human tragedy unfolding in Assam.

Source: Indian Express, 3/08/2019

Suicide is Not an Option

Hermann Hesse was a famous German poet and novelist (1877-1962). In his early age, Hesse experienced personal turmoil and conflict with his parents. This situation led to extreme frustration such that at the age of 15 in 1892, he attempted suicide. But he was saved. According to a study, it has been established that those who attempt suicide but do not die, develop in them great incentive to live and later emerge as heroes. The same happened with Hermann Hesse. He completed his education and subsequently took to writing as a career. After a long struggle, he became a great writer and in 1946 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Man is not born in this world by way of accident, but in accordance with a divine plan. The Creator has endowed us with great qualities. It is required of every human being to unfold these qualities, unlock one’s potential and play the role that is destined for him by providence. According to this creation plan of the Creator, every person must live in hope. There is no reason or excuse for becoming pessimistic. The world is full of opportunities. If someone fails in doing something, he should take it as a temporary setback or an inordinate delay, and not as a final failure. In such a situation, committing suicide is not an option for any individual. One has to adopt the formula of wait and see, rather than killing oneself, for, by ending one’s life, one leaves no other option open.

Source: Economic Times, 5/08/2019

Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy

Volume 7 Issue 3, December 2018

Editorial

Editorial First Published November 27, 2018; pp. vii–ix Abstract |

Articles

Migration and Rural Differentiation: A Case Study of Two Selected Villages in Noakhali Region of Bangladesh Mausumi Mahapatro First Published October 25, 2018; pp. 275–300 Abstract Preview |

The Disrupted Passage from an Agrarian Rural to an Industrial Urban Workforce in Most Countries in the Global South Christoph Scherrer First Published October 25, 2018; pp. 301–319 Abstract Preview |

Special Section: The Politics of Food Sovereighty in South America

Theorizing Food Sovereignty from a Class-Analytical Lens: The Case of Agrarian Mobilization in Argentina Efe Can Gürcan First Published October 23, 2018; pp. 320–350 Abstract Preview |

Drafting a Law, Dissolving a Proposal: Food Sovereignty and the State in Ecuador Alexandra Martinez Flores, Guido Ruivenkamp, Joost Jongerden First Published October 23, 2018; pp. 351–380 Abstract Preview |

Third World Legacies

The Legacy of Ashok Mitra Prabhat Patnaik First Published October 30, 2018; pp. 381–393 Abstract Preview |

The Metamorphosis of the Revolutionary Intellectual Issa G. Shivji First Published November 9, 2018; pp. 394–400 Abstract Preview |

Book Reviews

Book review: James Young (2017), Union Power: The United Electrical Workers in Erie Pradeep Shinde First Published November 27, 2018; pp. 401–407 Abstract Preview |

Book review: Aillón, Lorgio Orellana (2016), Resurgimiento y caída de la gente decente: Un sendero en la formación de una clase-etnia dominante en Bolivia Apoena C. Cosenza First Published November 27, 2018; pp. 407–411 Abstract Preview |

Transforming livelihoods through farm ponds

They can be an effective tool for rainwater harvesting

With an increased variability of monsoons and rapidly depleting groundwater tables, large parts of India are reeling under water stress. A number of peninsular regions like Bundelkhand, Vidarbha and Marathwada have been facing recurring drought-like situations. Given the enormity of the crisis, at a recent NITI Aayog meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi explicated the need to implement innovative water management measures, stressing particularly the importance of rainwater harvesting both at the household and community levels. Here, one intervention that has been tried out in various States, and perhaps needs to be taken up on a bigger scale, is the construction of farm ponds.

Farm ponds can be cost-effective structures that transform rural livelihoods. They can help enhance water control, contribute to agriculture intensification and boost farm incomes. However, this is possible only if they act as rainwater harvesting structures and not as intermediate storage points for an increased extraction of groundwater or diversion of canal water. The latter will cause greater groundwater depletion and inequitable water distribution.

In a recent study on farm ponds in Jharkhand and West Bengal, we found that they aided in superior water control through the harvesting not just of rainfall but also of surface run-off and subsurface flows. Some of them functioned exclusively as recharge points, contributing to groundwater replenishment. They also helped in providing supplemental irrigation in the kharif season and an enhanced irrigation coverage in rabi. The yield of paddy, the most important crop in kharif, stabilised, thus contributing to greater food security.

Retention of water

Farm ponds retained water for 8-10 months of the year; thus farmers could enhance cropping intensity and crop diversification within and across seasons. The area used to cultivate vegetables and other commercial crops also increased. Further, figures indicated that the ponds were also a financially viable proposition, with a fairly high Internal Rate of Return, of about 19%, over 15 years.

However, in parts of peninsular India, the idea of a farm pond as an in-siturainwater harvesting structure has taken a complete U-turn. Here, some of them are benefiting farmers at an individual level, but not contributing to water conservation and recharge. They are being used as intermediate storage points, accelerating groundwater depletion and increasing evaporation losses as the groundwater is brought to the surface and stored in relatively shallow structures.

Need for inlet, outlet provisions

In Maharashtra, the State government is promoting farm ponds under a flagship programme that aims to dig over one lakh structures by offering a subsidy of up to ₹50,000 per farmer. However, most of them are being constructed without inlet and outlet provisions and their walls are raised above the ground level by only a few feet. They cannot arrest the excess run-off as there is no inlet, and therefore they cannot be used effectively for rainwater harvesting. Further, farmers line them at the bottom with plastic, restricting seepage and converting the ponds into intermediate storage points.

Such farm ponds have an adverse impact on the water tables and accelerate water loss. The usual practice here is to lift water from a dug well and/or a borewell, store it in the pond and then draw it once again to irrigate the fields, often using micro-irrigation. While offering secure irrigation facility, this intensifies competition for extraction of groundwater from the aquifer, which is a common pool resource.

In such cases, in the command area of the irrigation project, farmers fill up their farm ponds first when the canal is in rotation and then take it from the pond to the field. This can impede circulation of water.

During canal rotation, the aquifer will get recharged because of the return flow of water coming from the irrigated fields. This return flow benefits all, as most of the farmers access water though wells in this command. But if canals fill up the farm ponds first, it restricts their benefits only to the pond owners and, in the long term, reduces the overall return flow at the system level.

Overall, farm ponds can act as effective harvesting structures and also yield healthy financial returns. But if they are promoted merely for on-farm storage of groundwater and canal water, they could accelerate, rather than reduce, the water crisis in the countryside.

Nirmalya Choudhury works with VikasAnvesh Foundation. Sachin Tiwale teaches at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Source: The Hindu, 1/08/2019

Triple talaq law: A historic moment for social justice

Criminalisation is a key deterrent against triple talaq. Social reform must follow the legal change

The passing of the law against instant triple talaq is a historic moment. Reform in Muslim personal law has been mired in politics and patriarchy for decades. Gender justice for Muslim women in marriage and family has been of no interest to anyone. But this unfortunate reality began to change in the last 10 to 12 years, with Muslim women raising their voice, and demanding fair play in family matters.

Unlike in 1985, when the lone voice of Shah Bano was crushed by all — government, politicians, clergymen — several Muslim women have publicly demanded an end to instant triple talaq to bring fairness in divorce practices. They have approached the Supreme Court, made appeals to Parliament, and put pressure on the government and the Opposition. All of this, eventually, culminated into public discourse and support for the abolition of instant triple talaq.

Much of the opposition to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 has been because it was brought about by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government. But most of the so-called secular political parties failed to see the currents of change within the community. Every woman affected by instant triple talaq is also somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s mother, and the practice leads to pain and trauma for the whole family.

Besides, there has been a growing awareness about Quranic injunctions on gender justice. Today, Muslims are aware that instant triple talaq is not sanctioned by the Quran. The conservative All India Muslim Personal Law Board could not achieve much success in their attempts to invoke fear of “interference in shariat (Islamic law based on the teachings of Quran and traditions of the Prophet)”. Sadly, the so-called secular parties remained ambiguous, and did not openly support the agitating Muslim women.

This provided a window of opportunity to the BJP beyond their stated commitment to the Uniform Civil Code. It is pointless to go into the motivations of the ruling party, but do note that the Constitution mandates legal protection for women. It speaks volumes for the kind of secularism practised in our country that it took seven decades for a legislation over triple talaq to become reality.

One of the key objections to the new law is that it criminalises instant triple talaq, which is a civil matter. I welcome the law, while stating that the objective is not to punish the man, but to ensure justice and fair play to the victim woman. Nevertheless, a law would be meaningless without deterrence. Triple talaq has been taking place despite the SC judgment banning it. In such circumstances, what is the aggrieved woman supposed to do? She can do little else apart from quoting the judgment to the husband determined to pronounce talaq and throw her out.

However, the law enables reconciliation between the two, by making the offence bailable and compoundable. The fear mongering is unfounded as the First Information Report can be registered only by the wife or family members — all of whom would be fellow Muslims. The demonisation of the woman that she is waiting for the law to send the husband behind bars is ludicrous, and undoubtedly, patriarchal. After all, we are aware of the pathetically low conviction rates in cases dealing with, for example, bigamy, dowry, domestic violence and child sexual assault.

Those opposing the triple talaq law never engaged with the question of justice for Muslim women, but are now suddenly concerned about the harm that the law would bring. Their argument — “Who will provide for her for the three years when the husband is in jail?” — makes me laugh. For heaven’s sake, how did they learn that the husband pronouncing instant unilateral talaq follows up by providing maintenance to the wife he has just divorced? There are hundreds of documented cases of women saying that they did not receive a dime from the husband. Not just that, in several cases, the husband took away even her belongings and the items woman brought with her at the time of marriage.

The opposition to the bill smacks of political motivations, patriarchal mindsets, and utter lack of understanding about the lived realities of Muslim women. Some well-known figures too have joined the opposition – as, in their eyes, the BJP government can do no good ever. In throwing out the baby with the bath water, they are unwittingly contributing in retaining the male-dominated status quo.

It is not my case that the law will drastically and immediately change the lives of Muslim women. Legal reform is an important aspect of a much larger process of social reform. Large sections of Indian Muslim are poor, educationally and economically deprived. They are under threat from communal violence and discrimination. The triple talaq law will have to be followed by awareness, education and empowerment of both women and men. It will support the efforts of those who are engaged within the community working for social justice, empowerment and democracy. 

Zakia Soman is a founding member of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, one of the

petitioners in triple talaq case

Source: Hindustan Times, 1/08/2019

The Divine Mother

 The role of the Divine Mother in Her sattwic aspect — as distinct from the restlessly rajasic and the inertly tamasic aspects of Nature — is to draw all Her children, all self-aware beings everywhere, back to oneness with God. Women, more naturally than men, can manifest this feminine aspect of cosmic nature, if they so choose. Every human being has an obligation, above all to himself, to live by high ideals. In society, people have a duty also to help one another, and to cause injury to no one. None can offer more inspiration to others than he actually feels in himself. Everyone should strive always — even if only for an individual’s own sake — to reach out towards that high potential. If there is a single need greater than any other today, it is for selfless love, rather than self-interested love. Love is more easily and universally comprehensible when we identify it with mother-love. The Divine Mother, then, is a concept that can change the world. The Divine Mother is the source of the mother-instinct. We are Her own. As Paramhansa Yogananda prayed, “Divine Mother, naughty or good, I am Thy child. Thou must release me from this nightmare of delusion!” You can pray like that, with confidence, to the Divine Mother: scoldingly if you like; with pressing urgency if you like; demanding of Her in ways that you might not dare to address the Heavenly Father. We are Her own; She is forever ours. It is easier to establish a relation of mutual trust with the Divine Mother than with God in any other aspect.

Source: Economic Times, 1/08/2019