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Thursday, March 19, 2020

The Hard Truth

A Dalit insider’s experiment with touchables

Could Not Be Hindu — The Story of a Dalit in the RSS
Bhanwar Meghwanshi
Navayana
240 pages
` 399
I read Bhanwar Meghwanshi’s I Could Not Be Hindu — The Story of a Dalit in the RSS in one sitting and started writing this review before its gush of ideas, acts and truth could escape me. It is admirably plain-spoken, and it offers hitherto unknown facts about the 95-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. I am glad this book appeared while I am alive and working.

After Narendra Modi, a Bania with an OBC certificate became prime minister, there was and is a feeling among both Dalits and Shudras that the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party have opened up to all castes and tribes. For decades, when they were perceived to be Brahmin/Bania fiefdoms, the possibility of their capturing power in Delhi and other states was remote. Over the decades, the Sangh has thrown up the odd Shudra leader (Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, and others), only to use them and cast them aside.
At this juncture, the publication of Bhanwar’s book, first in Hindi and now in English, has the potential to change the opinion of Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis with definite proof of the Sangh Parivar’s anti-national Brahminism. Bhanwar, a Dalit from Bhilwara in Rajasthan who joined the local RSS shakha at the age of 13 thinking it was just fun and games, became privy to the operational structures and ideology of the Sangh. In about five years, despite his willingness to give his life for the organization, Bhanwar realised that Manu dharma governs the functioning of the RSS. Brainwashed, he participated in the kar seva in 1990, harassed Muslims, was high on toxic nationalism and spent time in jail.
One day in 1991, when kar sevaks on an asthi Kalash (funerary urn) yatra led by senior RSS and VHP leaders passed through his village, Sirdiyas, Bhanwar hosted a meal at his home. By that time he was a karyavah, the district office chief of RSS’s Bhilwara unit. But the dwija Sangh leaders turned down the food, saying that eating at an untouchable’s home was not part of the plan. They told him to pack the food; they would eat it on the way. But the next day he found that they had dumped all the puri and kheer by the wayside some kilometers away, and dined at a Brahmin home. Bhanwar realised what his true place in the RSS would be. His world was turned upside down.
Facts first. Of the six sarsanghchalaks who have headed the RSS, five (KB Hedgewar, MS Golwalkar, MD Deoras, KS Sudarshan and Mohan Bhagwat) are Brahmins and one is Kshatriya (Rajendra Singh). Sourcing internal information, Bhanwar says that in 2003 in a 36-member Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, the highest policy-making body of the RSS, 26 were Brahmins, five Banias, three Kshatriyas and two Shudras (who comprise nearly 50 percent of the population). No Dalit or Adivasi can make it to the top echelons for the next 50 years, nor can a Shudra of any caste become sarsanghchalak. The RSS is structurally and philosophically controlled by Brahmins (three percent of the population). The Banias (three percent) control Sangh finances. Money collected in donations is kept in their homes, never in banks. The RSS is not a registered body, and these unaccounted sums are laundered in Bania homes. Banias have operated the usury market for centuries, entrapping the poor into paying extortionate interest rates. The RSS makes money out of money. The Shudras who form the rank and file are not deemed dependable for this task.
The Sangh’s daily ritualistic prayer, “namaste sada vatsale mathrubhoome”, swearing “eternal dedication to the Motherland” is a consent-construction instrument that brainwashes people into the dogma of Hindu parampara. This is why the RSS catches the likes of Bhanwar and thousands of others at the school level so that they do not enter university education or adult life with an open mind. They need the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi cadre for muscle power. They are made to believe that Muslims are the enemy, and this works like a drug. But the hard truth is that even if all masjids in India are destroyed, the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis will never become the Brahmin’s equal.
What also struck me was the absence of any talk in the Sangh ideology of people involved in productive labour. Their literature and speeches are only about mythic stories with vague ideas of falsified past glory. Labour, wages or the science of advancing food production are never mentioned. It follows that those who work in the fields are the despised mlecchas. The tillers of the land, graziers, shepherds, potters, fishers, carpenters, smiths, shoemakers — all get mobilised as unequal to the Brahmins, Banias and Kshatriyas (dwijas) of the Hindu Rashtra. Shadow enemies are constructed on a daily and hourly basis so that the enemy within, caste, is not exposed.
Bhanwar’s book has the potential to undo all this scheming. This unputdownable work must be made compulsory reading for all schoolchildren and college and university students, especially among Shudras, Dalits, Adivasis, and women. Nivedita Menon’s translation from Hindi is elegant and Navayana has produced the volume handsomely.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is the author of Why I am Not a Hindu and Buffalo Nationalism
Source: Indian Express, 19/03/2020
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Wash hands with soap, not just for Covid-19


It shouldn’t take a global disaster to remind us that we need to adopt this vital hygiene habit

Covid-19 has shut down the world. Crowded metros like Mumbai and Delhi are like a postapocalyptic tundra with mask-wearing, beleaguered citizens and eerily-empty shopping areas. Ironically, the shutdown has led to a reduction in air pollution in countries like China and India, potentially preventing thousands of deaths. The State of Global Air 2019 report puts air pollution deaths in India alone at over 1.2 million. There is another thin silver lining to the cloud of fear and paranoia: People have started washing their hands with soap regularly. This personal hygiene practice which is crucial for our health should be a part of our daily routine. Somewhere at the back of our minds we’ve always known this. Over the decades, there have been numerous public and commercial campaigns highlighting the importance of washing with soap, because soap is an effective germkilling agent. Yet, according to a 2017 report of the World Health Organisation, each year something as commonplace as seasonal flu kills up to 6.5 lakh people globally. To a large extent this can be prevented merely by making sure everyone washes their hands with soap regularly. But for some reason, many of us have simply refused to adopt this habit. A cursory glance at any public bathroom — men’s or women’s — at a mall or an airport will reveal that only a fraction of people wash their hands with soap after using the services. It has taken a pandemic to change this. The belief that water alone is enough for cleansing is not unique to India. A 2010 study conducted in Bangladesh, published in the journal BMC Public Health, found that the number of Bangladeshis who washed hands with soap was “consistently low”, a large number of them believing water to be a “potent purifying agent”. The visual imagery of clean hands triggers a sense of false confidence in people, even as they pass on invisible germs to those they come in contact with. Quite apart from others, such people can seriously harm themselves, too. Not washing hands properly is directly related to malnutrition and stunting in India. Eating with unclean hands leads to infectious diseases. Repeated bouts of such diseases, like diarrhoea and environmental enteric dysfunction, lead to critical losses of both micro and macro nutrients, and are the leading causes of child stunting in the country. “India has one of the highest stunting rates in the world. Frequent handmouth contact, a potential source of bacteria, viruses and parasites, is most widespread among children,” says Madhavika Bajoria, from Impact4Nutrition Secretariat, a public-private engagement platform that aims to spread nutrition messaging to the last mile. “Limiting child exposure to pathogens through strategic interventions like hand washing can be critical in reversing the abysmal childhood stunting trend in India.” By following the misplaced “if it’s not looking dirty, it’s clean” notion, we pose a grave health risk to our children and ourselves. Instilling best hygiene practices at a young age will translate into a fitter, healthier future generation. In 2015, Sight and Life, a global non-profit working against malnutrition, initiated an
18-month nutrition and sanitation programme in Karnataka — in partnership with PATH, Karuna Trust and Akshaya Patra — to get teachers to motivate students to practice positive hygiene and nutrition behaviours. “Through games, rhymes, ambassadors and fun activities, we inculcated lasting behaviour change in 2,600 schools in four districts. Key practices include washing hands with soap,” says Kalpana Beesabathuni, Global Lead-Technology & Entrepreneurship, Sight and Life. The focus was also on balanced nutrition, but without hygiene and sanitation, the fight against stunting is incomplete. This kind of intervention is required across India on a war footing today. Recognising this, in 2018, the Government of India’s POSHAN Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission) included hand washing and sanitation in the key mass behaviour changes required to tackle malnutrition and stunting. Internationally, each year on October 15, Global Handwashing Day aims to drive home the importance of washing with soap in saving lives and keeping us healthy. In 2019, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US launched a ‘Life is Better with Clean Hands’ campaign much before the coronavirus hit us like an avalanche. Its main message is to highlight the crucial times in the day you must wash your hands with soap. “Research shows that to prevent infectious diseases and resulting nutritional imbalances, hand washing is most critical after toilet use and before food preparation,” says Bajoria. Chinese, Indian or American — adult or minor — you should also wash your hands with soap if you are unwell, sneezing or coughing; before and after you handle raw meats; and after using public transport. Remember this even after Covid-19 is history. Until then, keep calm and don’t sneeze into your palm.

Source: 19/03/2020
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IIT Bombay, TISS ask students to vacate hostels


IIT-B has also imposed curbs on entering departments

IIT Bombay and TISS have asked students to vacate hostels and return home in light of the coronavirus outbreak. Many varsities across the country have issued similar directions. Owing to likely disruption in services, including the mess facility, “it is insisted that students who are still in hostels leave the campus (by Friday),” IIT Bombay director Subhasis Chaudhuri said in a circular. The institute has also restricted entry and exit since Tuesday. Students, who are not able to return due to any emergency, including international students, were told to take special permission from the administration. The institute has also imposed restrictions on entering academic areas and departments. Visitors will not be allowed in the hostels till March 31. TISS also asked masters, MPhil and PhD students, including those accommodated in off-campus Surjog hostel, to vacate the premises. “All academic activities have been closed for the year. Students have to come back at the time of next semester. It’s a preventive measure as the campus is a public place,” acting registrar MP Balamurugan told Mirror. Mumbai University has also asked students to vacate hostels till March 31. Currently, only 47 out of 188 students are still staying at the hostels.

Source: Mumbair Mirror, 19/03/2020
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Virus Scare & Economy


Global markets saw a free fall as the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus Covid-19 as a pandemic. Corporations are already struggling with disrupted manufacturing, broken supply chains, empty stores and flagging demand for their wares, and fears of global recession are already looming. But by carefully looking at the current world scenario one could only say that the virus scare is only one among multiple similar triggers that could easily plunge economies to low levels. Global warming and other environmental crises, hostile countries threatening each other, fraudsters, cut-throat competition resulting in tariffs on competitors — each of these pose similar threats to the world economy that seems to be on the brink of one or other crisis because of all these factors. The wisdom of Indic sages contained in a scientific lifestyle were coherently beneficial to body, mind and soul of practitioners as repeatedly proved by various researches. Increased awareness about Indian culture, spirituality and philosophy and sponsoring of research for proving efficacy of the same, is sure to produce interest in more indigenous ways of living and healthy local alternatives. Rather, such wisdom need not be limited to local territory but could be shared with the entire world for its well-being. This will generate more interest towards sustainable local alternatives that can not only fuel growth, generate local employment, improve overall health and raise local community spirit but also avoid adverse environmental effects on the world.

Source: Economic Times, 19/03/2020
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Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Quote of the Day


“Tact is the art of making guests feel at home when that's really where you wish they were.”
‐ George E Bergman
“व्यवहारकुशलता उस कला का नाम है जिसमें आप मेहमानों को घर जैसा आराम दें और मन ही मन मनाते भी जाएं कि वे अपनी तशरीफ उठा ले जाएं।”
‐ जॉर्ज ई बर्गमैन
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Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents


Vol. 55, Issue No. 11, 14 Mar, 2020

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Decline in women work participation rates can be traced to poor quality of data collection processes

In our concern with ostensibly declining women’s work participation, we have missed out on identifying sectors from which women are excluded and more importantly, in which women are included. It may be time for us to count women’s work rather than women workers.

India is one of the few countries in the world where women’s work participation rates have fallen sharply — from 29 per cent in 2004-5 to 22 per cent in 2011-12 and to 17 per cent in 2017-18. Both the NDA and UPA governments have found themselves in a hot seat trying to defend economic policies that may have pushed women out of the workforce. Trying to explain whether women are choosing to focus on domestic responsibilities or whether they are pushed out of the workforce has become a minor industry among economists.
Strangely, the one explanation we have not looked at is whether the declining quality of economic statistics may account for this trend. Our pride in the statistical system built by PC Mahalanobis is so great that we find it unimaginable that it could fail to provide us with reliable employment data. However, as challenges to economic statistics have begun to emerge in such diverse areas as GDP data and consumption expenditure, perhaps it is time to consider the unimaginable. Is the decline in women’s labour force participation real or is it a function of the way in which employment data are collected?
The anatomy of the decline in women’s work participation rates shows that it is driven by rural women. In the prime working age group (25-59), urban women’s worker to population ratios (WPR) fell from 28 per cent to 25 per cent between 2004-5 and 2011-12, stagnating at 24 per cent in 2017-18. However, compared to these modest changes, rural women’s WPR declined sharply from 58 per cent to 48 per cent and to 32 per cent over the same period. Among rural women, the largest decline seems to have taken place in women categorised as unpaid family helpers — from 28 per cent in 2004-5 to 12 per cent in 2017-18. This alone accounts for more than half of the decline in women’s WPR. The remaining is largely due to a drop of about 9 percentage points in casual labour. In contrast, women counted as focusing solely on domestic duties increased from 21 per cent to 45 per cent.
How do we explain this massive change? Rather than assuming a sudden transformation that has turned Indian women into housewives or an economic catastrophe that has pushed women out of the labour force, let us consider the unthinkable — it is the change in our statistical systems that drives these results. The questionnaires through which the National Statistical Office (NSO) collects employment data have not changed, but the statistical workforce has, and the surveys that performed reasonably well in the hands of seasoned interviewers are too complex for poorly trained contract data collectors.
The National Sample Surveys (NSS) do not have a script that the interviewer reads out. They have schedules that must be completed. The interviewer is trained in concepts to be investigated and then left to fill the schedules to the best of his or her ability. Picture questioning a rural woman, busy juggling chapatis and a baby, “what was your primary activity over the last year? Is there another activity that you did for at least 30 days?” She thinks for a moment and says, “well, I looked after this baby and I cooked and had to take care of my mother-in-law when she was sick for a month”. Had the interviewer bothered to probe, she might have said and I also took care of a cow and sent my son to sell the milk and worked in my neighbour’s field. An experienced, well-trained investigator may know how to probe for this. However, with shortage of funds and trained personnel, the NSS increasingly relies on contract investigators hired for short periods, who lack these skills.
Do we need to return to the days of permanent employees or can we design our surveys to overcome errors committed by relatively inexperienced interviewers? A survey design experiment led by Neerad Deshmukh at the NCAER-National Data Innovation Centre provides an intriguing solution. In this experimental survey, interviewers first asked about the primary and secondary activity status of each household member, mimicking the NSS structure. They then asked a series of simple questions that included ones like, “do you cultivate any land?” If yes, “who in your household works on the farm?” Similar questions were asked about livestock ownership and about people caring for the livestock, ownership of petty business and individuals working in these enterprises. The results show that the standard NSS-type questions resulted in a WPR of 28 per cent for rural women in the age group 21-59, whereas the detailed activity listing found a WPR of 42 per cent — for the same women. This is an easily implementable module that does not require specialised knowledge on the part of the interviewer.
In our concern with ostensibly declining women’s work participation, we have missed out on identifying sectors from which women are excluded and more importantly, in which women are included. For rural men, ages 25-59, between 2004-5 and 2017-18, casual labour declined by about 6 percentage points. However, this decline is counter balanced by regular salaried work which increased by 4 percentage points. Thus, it seems likely that men are exchanging precarious employment with higher quality jobs. In contrast, women’s casual work has declined by 9 percentage points while their regular salaried work increased by a mere 1 percentage point. Moreover, the usual route to success, gaining formal education, has little impact on women’s ability to obtain paid work. Rural men with a secondary level of education have options like working as a postman, driver or mechanic — few such opportunities are open to women. It is not surprising that women with secondary education have only half the work participation rate compared to their uneducated sisters. Thus, the focus on employment for women needs to be on creating high quality employment rather than getting preoccupied with declining employment rates.
It may be time for us to return to the recommendations of ‘Shramshakti: Report of National Commission on Self Employed Women and Women in the Informal Sector’ and develop our data collection processes from the lived experiences of women and count women’s work rather than women workers. Without this, we run the risks of developing misguided policy responses.
This article first appreared in the print edition on March 17, 2020 under the title “Count work, not workers.” The writer is professor of sociology at University of Maryland and professor and centre director, NCAER-National Data Innovation Centre. Views are personal.
Source: Indian Express, 17/03/2020
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