A determined matriarch has taken the reins at a time when the party is totally demoralised. The Congress leadership should offer a ‘new Congress’ to the voters to attract them like the Labour Party in the UK came up with a New Labour
Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s comeback as the chief recently might have silenced the Young Turks as well as the old guard in the party about who should replace Rahul Gandhi, but she has her task cut out.
However, it’s not as if Sonia doesn’t know the problems that beset the party and the challenges that lie ahead, as she was the Congress president for almost two decades before she relinquished the post and Rahul was elected president in 2017.
Sonia took charge of the Congress in 1998 when it was at its lowest ebb, with many leaders leaving the Grand Old Party, but she was able to stop the exodus. She even brought the party back to power in 2004 and then again in 2009.
Now again, an ailing but determined Sonia has taken the reins at a time when the party is totally demoralised after its humiliating defeat in the recent Lok Sabha polls and consequent desertions by party workers and leaders. But 2019 is not 1998.
The Gandhis have deftly resolved the leadership issue albeit temporarily. The old guard propping up some senior leader and the younger leaders suggesting names like Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia were quickly silenced after Sonia came back, stifling the debate about Rahul’s successor. Her return provided them with relief even as it scuttled chances of any non-Gandhi becoming party president.
The other challenge for Sonia is the growing erosion and indiscipline in the party. On August 18, former Haryana chief minister BS Hooda gave an ultimatum that unless he was made the chief of the party unit in the State, he would explore other options. The impressive rally at Rohtak was a show of strength. Though the Congress leadership has not reacted, it may send a wrong signal if Hooda leaves the party now. As it is, the chances of the faction-ridden Congress in the State are bleak. If Hooda departs now, he may not benefit but the party will get zero seats in the ensuing Assembly polls. There is not much time left for damage control as three states, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand, will go to polls later this year and Delhi will follow suit early next year.
In a trend that is bound to worry Sonia, ten Congress legislators recently shifted to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Goa. In Telangana, 12 of the 18 MLAs went over to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Maharashtra too saw defections. The party saw its strength reduced in the Rajya Sabha, too, as senior leaders Sanjay Sinh and Bhubaneswar Kalita resigned their membership and joined the BJP. All these do not augur well.
The third urgent matter on Sonia’s plate is the need to contain the discordant voices emerging from Congress leaders on various issues. There’s a division in Congress ranks on the party’s response to key issues such as the Triple Talaq Bill, abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
Moreover, leaders like Jairam Ramesh, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Shashi Tharoor suggesting that the Congress stop demonising Narendra Modi was embarrassing to the Congress leadership, which has been making personal attacks on the Prime Minister. Do they perhaps mean that there’s a need for change of strategy or are they emboldened because of a weak leadership?
Fourth, more than anything, Sonia has to think of organising a brainstorming session to thrash out several issues, including the reasons for the 2019 poll defeat and come up with a new strategy to take on the BJP. The party leaders should be given a chance to speak their mind in the session. This might stop them from voicing their views in public.
If the party could win even one of the three poll-bound states, it would go a long way to revive the party that received yet another body blow with the recent arrest of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram in the INX Media case.
Fifth, the Congress should be clear about what it stands for. The earlier planks of unity and diversity popularised by Indira Gandhi have become an old concept. Secularism versus communalism also has lost its appeal as seen in the last two Lok Sabha polls. The Congress only ended up with being perceived as a pro-Muslim party, which ignores the majority community. Therefore there is every need to come up with a catchy slogan like the Aam Aadmi as it did in 2004, to lure the voters. In fact, the Congress leadership should offer a ‘new Congress’ to the voters to attract them like the Labour party in the UK came up with a ‘New Labour.’
Above all, with so much water under the bridge, is the Congress ready for a course correction? Is it ready to look back and introspect what has gone wrong? If not, it can give up hope of a revival as things have changed, voters have changed, aspirations have changed and leadership is in transition.
The defeat should be viewed as an opportunity and a new Congress should emerge out of a party conclave.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
Writer: Kalyani Shankar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
People cannot be looked at as enemies of the State even as we score in diplomacy at G7
We may have been able to blunt the edge of the Trumpian kind of Twitter diplomacy, which blows hot and cold over the US position on Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and is now in line with India’s argument that the Valley is our internal matter and a bilateral concern with Pakistan. But we may not be able to hold off till we get round to normalising the situation on the ground. It is the Modi 2.0’s diplomatic triumph of convincing the world, particularly the Islamic nations, that the abrogation of Article 370 was well within legal parameters of a sovereign nation, but it is equally important that the lockdown shouldn’t be prolonged so much as to trigger a debate on rights violations, denial of basic freedoms or flaunting supremacist behaviour. First, we have got to accept that an overturning of status quo that has so far defined the identity of Kashmiris and their engagement with the mainstream will but evoke unpleasant reactions, so distrust is a given. As a democracy, we should have the strength to stomach dissent and in Kashmir, allow contrarian viewpoints their space of expression if not accommodation, rather than suspect them to be enemies of the State and alienate them further. Militarisation has only frightened the common Kashmiri, who should have been made to feel that the changeover would not affect his/her daily life but could perhaps improve it in the long run, and look at the revocation of Article 370 as an offensive assault on the right to live and the basis of a long-drawn conflict than peace. It is not just the politics but the crippling of the local economy that cannot be allowed to drag on. In the age of communication, people still have to walk up to 10 km to find a phone booth to connect with their folks over landline as mobile networks may be silent for some more time. People cannot be greeted in their own community and neighbourhood by more than 10 people as that would amount to fomenting trouble. Such is the mistrust that some stone-pelters, who are defying curfew in sporadic bursts, attacked a truck of a fellow Kashmiri, thinking it belonged to the security forces. And buying daily rations certainly doesn’t do anything for the consumerist economy. Even those are in short supply. The worst-hit are the tourist operators and apple growers. Asia’s second largest apple market at Sopore is going empty, prices have crashed and farmers find it cheaper to trash unsolds as waste than repackage them for further use. These apple farmers, already in a debt trap, have no way of clawing their way out of it. The State’s horticulture sector, too, has been hit for one cannot ensure a coordinated flow in supply-chain management. All hotel bookings have been cancelled in the festive season, when a huge inflow of domestic tourists would keep Srinagar and surrounds buzzing. Existing small and medium-scale businesses are gasping, delivery service start-ups are on the verge of a meltdown with stoppage of services, the flight of labour and in the absence of internet. Of course, the Government has promised an investors’ summit in October but it should make sure that the atmosphere exists for both investors and local entrepreneurs to feel safe in the first place and carry on business operations uninterruptedly. Or else the economic incentive will matter little in what is being perceived as an economic blockade of sorts. Anyway, given its terrain, there are limitations to long-gestation projects and, therefore, the doable sectors need to be up and running.
Of course, there is a political vacuum that has been created with the arrest of mainline party leaders, who have for years helmed the pro-India movement, albeit serving their selfish interests too. This along with the information shutdown and fear psychosis have created a dark whirlpool that could throw the Valley into a dangerous tailspin if an attempt at empowering the locals is not made in some way, be it as encouraging an alternative leadership or facilitating local self-governance. Right now, there’s the government and the people with no filters in between and there’s all the more reason to not appear confrontational and ruin our new diplomatic paradigm.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
Some prominent members of the Congress Party are now advising colleagues and political fellow travellers to come to terms with reality
At last, we are now hearing some voices of sanity in the Congress! After practising politics of abuse for months and years and being in denial ever since they were reduced to a rump in the Lok Sabha after the parliamentary election in 2014, some prominent members of the Congress Party are now advising party members and political fellow travellers to come to terms with reality. Jairam Ramesh, one of the saner voices in the party, who has often tried to ensure that his political loyalty does not cloud his judgement, has recently said that demonising Prime Minister Narendra Modi all the time is not going to help the Congress because Mr Modi’s governance model is not a “complete negative story”.
He seemed to be particularly impressed by Mr Modi’s “economics of governance” and the Ujjwala Scheme to provide cooking gas connections to women in poor households across the country, which has given the Prime Minister political traction. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, another senior member of the party, soon joined the chorus to say that “demonising Modi was wrong.” The decisions of the Modi Government “must be judged issue wise and not person wise.” He even went further to say that “the Ujjwala scheme is only one amongst other good deeds.”
This is quite in contrast to the constant criticism of the Prime Minister by the party’s top leadership, including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on every issue. In fact, though the Modi Government has taken many significant decisions, which have won acclaim all round the country, there is not a single instance when Mr Modi’s work has been acknowledged by members of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
As regards abrogation of Article 370, the decisive move made by the Modi-Shah combine has stunned the Congress Party and made its leaders run hither and thither. The utter confusion among the party brass is rooted in the party’s loud commitments to “protect” 370 at any cost. Only last April, the Congress declared in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha election that “nothing will be done or allowed to change the constitutional position.”
Having thus dug itself in on this issue, the party had nowhere to go but to plug this moth-eaten line, which has been a drag on India’s unity and integrity. So, we had Rahul Gandhi declare loftily that national integration cannot be achieved by “unilaterally tearing the state apart.” Priyanka Gandhi tweeted and asked “Does the Modi-Shah Govt believe India is still a democracy?”
Sadly, the Congress does not appear to have a mind of its own on such critical national issues. Since the late 1960s, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi needed Communist crutches to run her government, the party has been nose-led by Left-wing politicians and intellectuals, resulting in the complete abandonment of its nationalist ideology. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now comfortably ensconced in this space and the Congress does not know which way to turn. As a result, you will find that invariably the Congress and the Communists sing the same tune on all issues. After Rahul Gandhi, P Chidambaram has accused the government of dismembering the state.
This is in line with the approach of Left leaders, including Sitaram Yechury, who have demanded that Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) be restored to its earlier status. However, the party’s response to the 370 issue is not to be seen in isolation. It is in line with the scepticism and distrust it has displayed even in regard to the daring surgical strike carried out by the Indian Army to eliminate several terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in J&K on September 29, 2016.
While the entire country hailed the bravery and commitment of our soldiers and the surgical precision with which the Army had targeted terrorist hide-outs across the border, the Congress claimed that many such “surgical strikes” had been carried out when it was in power.
However, there were few takers for this story. While one leader of his party in Maharashtra said the surgical strike was “fake”, Mr Chidambaram demanded “proof” that the strike was carried out. Rahul Gandhi accused the Prime Minister of trying to make “political capital” out of surgical strikes. The disrespect it showed towards the Indian Air Force (IAF) after its daring airstrike on Jaish-e-Mohammad Training Camps in Balakot on February 26, 2019 was even more shocking. Chidambaram criticised the government’s claim about the number of terrorists who had been killed in the IAF strike. Another Congress leader, Navjot Singh Sidhu, seemed to debunk the purpose of the strike by asking “Were you uprooting terrorists or trees? Was this an election gimmick?”
Finally, what about the phenomenal success of several social sector schemes launched and delivered by the Modi Government? The Ujjwala Scheme, which proved to be a game-changer, has ensured domestic cooking gas connections to 60 million households with another 20 million in the pipeline over the next year or so.
Similarly, the medical insurance scheme that provides a cover of Rs 5 lakh per poor household per year is the biggest health insurance scheme in the world. Similarly, the Jan Dhan Yojana, which ensured that all people below the poverty line opened bank accounts, has been a spectacular success, resulting in the opening of over 360 million new bank accounts. This, too, is a global record. There are many more such schemes which have been planned and executed by the Modi Government but members of the Nehru-Gandhi family have never ever acknowledged the efficacy of any one of them. Taking a cue from them, members of the Congress Party have spent their time pooh-poohing these schemes and thus losing support of the millions of citizens who have benefitted from them.
The intolerance of the Nehru-Gandhis to the achievements of other national leaders from the days of Sardar Patel and Dr BR Ambedkar is now a well-established truth and has been adequately chronicled in recent years. The family got away with this for many decades, but the people have now begun to see through the pettiness and jealousy that permeates the family’s responses in this regard. More importantly, public awareness has resulted in diminishing electoral dividends for this family. If the Congress Party is to cut its losses, its responses to government decisions and schemes will have to be more credible. Jairam Ramesh has shown the way. Hope others will follow!
(The writer is an author specialising in democracy studies. Views expressed are personal)
Writer: A Surya Prakash
Courtesy: The Pioneer
It was only at the confluence of the iron and golden ages when God intervened, did his job of transformation to start something new, says Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj Ji
All of us have heard the most famous verse from chapter eight of the Bhagavad Gita, where God says that he will appear on this earth during every age to protect the righteous, to annihilate the wicked and to re-establish the principles of dharma. However, the question that one might raise here is that when, in the history of this world, did the Almighty perform this task?
The words sambhavami yuge yuge in the Gita has led most of us to believe that God’s descent takes place in each of the four yugas or ages in the cycle of time. Really? Well, after some reflection, it becomes clear that this is not possible because the time cycle begins with the golden age or the satyuga, when both human souls and the elements of nature were in their purest state. Humans at that time were replete with divine virtues and free of all vices, for which they are worshipped as deities even now. They were blessed with health, wealth and happiness.
Evil did not exist in that age and hence every soul lived in a blissful state through the golden and silver ages, even though they lost some of their shine over the time. Thus, it is obvious that there was no need for God to intervene in this happy state of affairs.
As we all know, humans call out to God in times of sorrow and when things deteriorate beyond human tolerance. So, God, the redeemer, rejuvenator and remover of sorrows, comes to restore peace and happiness in this world. Practically-speaking, God’s descent is meant to remove human suffering and rejuvenate the world.
In the copper age, as humans came increasingly under the influence of vices, their pain and suffering increased and they lost the awareness that they were souls and begin to identify themselves with their bodies, which gave rise to lust, anger, greed and ego. As the copper age gave way to the iron age, this process of degradation gathers pace, which would not have happened had God come to salvage humanity at the end of the age. Finally, seeing that his beloved children are unable to get out of the grip of vices and suffering, he came to this world to remind them of their true, spiritual identity. God also reminded them about their relationship with him and how they could regain their original, pure state by re-connecting with and remembering him. By this remembrance, souls filled themselves with power and virtues, gradually overcoming the influence of vices. Those who made the effort to get cleansed in this way and attained a divine status became worthy of taking birth in the golden age that dawned after the iron age. All others were also liberated from sorrow in this process of change when the Almighty brought about the destruction of all evil and paved the way for the golden era.
So in the entire cycle of time, it was only at the end of the iron age that this massive and positive process of world transformation took place and it could only be carried out by the Supreme. During the rest of the cycle, souls underwent a process of degradation — which was quite slow in the beginning and faster as time went by. Thus, it was only at the confluence of the iron and golden ages, also called the sangam between the kaliyuga and the i, when God intervened, did his job of transformation to start a new beginning.
Writer: Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj ji
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The fight for total mainstreaming of J&K with the rest of India began with the birth of the All Jammu & Kashmir Praja Parishad in 1947
The political movement headed by Sheikh Abdullah, that originated in Kashmir in 1931, to some extent remained unsuccessful in gaining the support of Jammu, especially the Hindu- dominated areas. Its genesis, growth and ideological moorings made it suspect in the eyes of Dogra nationalists who viewed it as something alien and unacceptable. Pandit Prem Nath Dogra led the All Jammu and Kashmir Rajya Hindu Sabha as the main opposition party. It merged with Praja Parishad which was formed in Jammu immediately after the tribal invasion in November 1947.
The struggle for total integration of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) with India began with the birth of the All Jammu & Kashmir Praja Parishad, popularly known as Praja Parishad. It opposed Abdullah’s major policy planks such as abolition of landlords, anti-Dogra drive, attempts at framing a separate constitution for J&K, a separate flag and so on.
Sheikh Abdullah became the Prime Minister of J&K in March 1948. He abhorred opposition and wanted to become de facto ruler of the state. As an advocate of a one-party State, he forced the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to introduce Article 370 in the Constitution of India to ensure Kashmiri Muslim domination. After, that he began annihilation of the opposition. His cronies chanted slogans like, “ek rehnuma (mentor), Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, ek tanzeem (organisation) National Conference, ek jhanda (flag), Halwala, ek manshoor (manifesto) Naya Kashmir, which alarmed the pro-integration Dogras of Jammu. Prem Nath Dogra and his colleagues felt this was dangerous for democracy and would fulfill Abdullah’s totalitarian ambitions.
Moreover, Abdullah’s policies were exclusively confined to the welfare of Kashmiri Muslims and ignored the sentiments and interests of the people of Jammu and Ladakh. His animosity towards the Maharaja transformed into hatred for the Dogras of Jammu. Unfortunately, he had clout with the ruling party at the Centre which had a Kashmir-centric inclination. This was a major cause of concern for the people of Jammu. Praja Parishad was committed to full integration of J&K with the Indian union and safeguarding the legitimate democratic rights of the people of Jammu. Consequently, it became popular in Jammu, including among Muslims there. Its growing popularity irked Abdullah who resorted to suppressing its growth. Several activists, including the author’s grandfather, Bishan Das Mahajan, were expelled from the state. Praja Parishad leaders were also put behind bars in February 1949 and by mid-1949, Abdullah imprisoned as many as 294 of its workers. In May 1949, the Parishad began a protest for the release of Prem Nath Dogra.
Abdullah finally yielded to the combined pressure and intervention of some nationalist leaders in Delhi and released him from jail in October 1949. However, the persecution did not end there and Abdullah’s hatred for the nationalists was further aggravated by the fact that the Parishad’s demand for full integration clashed directly with the National Conference (NC) demand for complete autonomy for J&K. As many as 15 youths were shot and some others injured at various places for hoisting the Tricolour. The agitationists even included the demand for abolishing the permit system for entering or leaving J&K.
Many may argue about the relevance of this article under the changed circumstances but it is imperative for the present generation to be aware of the struggles and sacrifices made by their predecessors which acted as the enabler of the present landmark achievement.
The Parishad tirelessly tried to unite the people of Jammu with a view to foil the attempts of those who either favoured autonomy or tried to separate the state from the Indian Union. It also opposed the setting up of a separate Constituent Assembly and favoured the application of the Indian Constitution.
Despite being opposed to a separate constitution for the state, a special session of the party held on May 8, 1951, decided to contest the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Because of large-scale rejection of nomination papers of its candidates and nefarious manipulation of the elections by Abdullah, the party decided to boycott the elections. In spite of its strong support base, it did not have a single member in the Constituent Assembly, which under Abdullah’s leadership, framed a constitution that promoted the concept of “State within a State.”
The NC and Abdullah did everything to ensure that all party members were part of the J&K Assembly. Abdullah dubbed the Parishad as communal, ignoring the fact that many Muslims were also contesting on its tickets. Slowly, the Parishad turned into a mass movement and played a key role in opposing separatist and communal politics in J&K.
Emboldened by the support he enjoyed from Nehru and after signing of the Delhi Agreement, Abdullah began hoisting the NC flag at official functions and atop government buildings. However, in keeping with his habit of double-speak, he implemented the agreement only in part to further his agenda of autonomy. On January 15, 1952, he delivered a speech at an official function at Gandhi Memorial College, Jammu and hoisted the NC’s flag alongside the Tricolour, asking the students to salute it but they objected. This infuriated Abdullah and he ensured that they were penalised.
This was followed by a 38-day hunger strike by students in 1952. On February 8, 1952, the people of Jammu came out in solidarity with them that led Abdullah to impose curfew and get PN Dogra arrested. The intense public pressure that followed this forced Delhi to act and ensure the release of Dogra and others. It soon turned into a public movement against Abdullah’s despotism and his anti-national activities. The movement found support nationally in the form of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was formed in 1951.
Another mass movement was launched by the Parishad in November 1952 against the separatist and communal politics of Abdullah. In December 1952, Jan Sangh president Syama Prasad Mookerjee announced the launch of a nation-wide agitation for the abolition of Article 370. On May 8, 1953 he decided to enter J&K, thus violating the prevalent permit system and was arrested by Abdullah as soon as he set foot in the state. He was jailed and tortured at Srinagar, which led to his mysterious death on June 23, 1953. An estimated 10,000 activists were imprisoned in Jammu, Punjab and Delhi, including Members of Parliament, leading to an uproar in India.
Blinded by his ambition, Abdullah indulged in competitive communalism and worked towards the establishment of an independent Muslim majority-state claiming that India was not secular enough. The Parishad opposed it tooth and nail and accused Abdullah of not being Indian enough. Abdullah was finally arrested in August 1953 after he made secessionist speeches at RS Pura on April 10 and on July 13.
After this, the Praja Parishad movement largely subsided and it finally merged with the Jana Sangh in 1963. Ever since then, Jana Sangh and later its successor, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had been struggling and agitating for ending J&K’s special status, which not only promoted separatism, religious militancy but was the major cause of rampant corruption and poor development. The re-entry of Sheikh Abdullah in state politics in 1975 under an agreement with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the subsequent Rajiv-Farooq accord and Rahul-Omar bonhomie gave a new fillip to the demand for autonomy and saw the rise of jihadi and radical forces in Kashmir.
The historic decision of August 5, 2019 is the result of the struggle and sacrifices of three generations of Praja Parishad, Jana Sangh and BJP workers. The BJP, as a successor of the Jana Sangh, remained focussed and committed to abolition of Article 370 and J&K’s full integration with India. Many accused the party of using it only as an election plank to woo voters in the Hindi heartland but all of them have been proved wrong.
(The author is a Jammu based political commentator and columnist)
Writer: Anil Gupta
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Can Sitharaman’s announcements be the energy drink that the Indian economy needs to wake up from its slumber?
The Government is right about something, the Indian economy is still growing. But the problem is nobody believes that it is doing so or that it is catching up as fast as it should and this lacklustre conviction is the Government’s fault. Growth numbers have been manipulated and uncomfortable figures massaged, others have been withheld to spin a particular narrative. But not all numbers can be fudged. Declining sales and growth figures for publicly listed companies do come out as does Government data. These numbers are painting a grim picture. And while Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman may be right in arguing that India too will be impacted as the world itself is headed towards a cyclical slowdown, the fact is that the Indian economy is still largely based on domestic consumption. This makes arguments from the likes of former vice chairman of Niti Aayog, Arvind Panagariya — which essentially went (with due apologies to Marie Antoinette) “let them export” when he was talking of the troubles faced by the Indian automotive industry — belie an understanding of the situation. But at least someone in the Government, maybe even the Prime Minister, saw that private sector investment in our country was hurtling downhill. This, coupled with little or no major foreign investment, will worsen the job crisis further. India, which mind you needs to create a million jobs a month over the next decade to absorb its “demographic dividend,” might actually start losing them.
At least the realisation has dawned that unless domestic consumption is enhanced, there can be no short-term growth. So the measures announced by the Finance Minister, crucially about bank recapitalisation and associated issues as well as the Government paying back its dues to ease working capital crisis alongside, are a good start. It is the cup of coffee that many people have to start their day. It is, however, not a full meal and one hopes that the Government thinks of some other radical new measures to boost the economy. While cutting tax rates is an anathema to Indian Governments — whether on the personal side or on products — it might become essential to boost spending because when people are worried about the state of the economy, they will not spend unless one actually puts money in their hands. Cheaper loans will not make an iota of difference if people do not want them. At the same time, the Government has to rein in motormouths inside the official structure, who have actively gone and harmed industries with comments that have been out of line. Many of those remarks have come from motivated individuals inside policy-making institutions and others, who hold important roles. There is no doubt that this Government, or any Indian government, will have major social sector priorities but if economic growth falters, the aim to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty will remain a pipe-dream. The situation is frankly quite critical and while one should not go as far as to say that the survival of the modern Indian nation state depends on competent handling of the situation, anyone who makes such an argument today will have the attention of many. We are hoping that this stimulus will lift sentiments and energise the equity market. Others still want the big bang reforms, not a nudge.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Govt’s decision to abruptly remove 10-year-old seed varieties from the market may do more harm than good. It must phase them out gradually and earn farmers’ trust
The Government is about to make a terrible mistake with its seed policy. The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare has decided to withdraw certified/notified varieties of seeds that are older than 10 years from the market. The Government system, backed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), cancelled the indent of seed producers, who have requested for popular varieties between 10-15 years old.
Several small and medium seed companies across the country obtain breeder seeds from ICAR every year and take up the production of foundation seeds and certified seeds to distribute them to the farmers. Older varieties, between 10 and 15 years, are still very popular among the farmers. In fact, they demand varieties that are older than 25 years, too, because of their adaptability, resilience and high-yielding capabilities under adverse conditions. The sudden disappearance of the seeds from the market will rob the farmers of freedom, their right to choose the seeds he/she wants to grow and the market of laissez-faire principles. Besides, this conservative policy decision may also cause extreme chaos among the farming community, disrupt the seed economy and impact crop production negatively.
Any sound agriculturist will tell you that diversity breeds resilience, delivering both higher yields and immunity for the plants from diseases and pests. This can be achieved through breeding and introduction of newer varieties to maintain pace with natural evolution among pests and pathogens. With time, older varieties need replacement as they become vulnerable to biotic and abiotic factors. Seeds bred for disease resistance may lose those traits as pests/diseases keep evolving, depending on agro-climatic conditions, among other things. This results in decreased efficiency of the seed or requirements of more crop protection or artificial boosters to maintain sustained yields. So when it comes to science, the Government is making an objective decision, a scientific one.
But a one size fits all approach does not work in the farm sector. And why should it? The category of the Indian farmer is occupied by many — starting from the forest-dwelling Santhal farmers of Jharkhand to the progressive cereal farmers from Punjab, the Gond farmers growing corn in central India, the Assamese farmer cultivating paddy in the fields of North-East, the desert farmers of Ladakh and Thar and the coastal farmers from Kerala. The list can go on and on.
The Indian farmers are a diverse group with different qualities and limitation but have one common requirement of certified/superior seeds. While farmers in Punjab are very progressive and quick to adapt to newer schemes and seeds, the Gond farmers of Madhya Pradesh may not even know about the many Government schemes and seeds, given they are remotely located.
It can be concluded from historical evidence based on the spread of Green Revolution in India that there are three groups — Core areas, covering Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu; periphery, covering eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala; and remote, covering North-Eastern and hilly States, Goa and Puducherry — when it comes to the spread of technological innovation in agriculture.
The time of adaptation or even a variety being accepted by one zone differs to a great degree. After the commercialisation of a variety, it may take around one to three years for it to be widely accepted by core areas such as Punjab and Haryana. For the same variety to trickle down to eastern Uttar Pradesh, it may take another three to four years and for it to reach remote areas like Jharkhand, six to eight years. By the time farmers across these zones gain confidence in the variety and raise demands, the 10-year period is already over.
Old is gold, there is no better adherent to this adage than Indian farmers. General consensus on a good seed is built on how it performed last year or when some farmers get higher yields or less disease. The approach to buying seeds is very conservative. Mostly, varieties that have proved themselves over a season or two in the region are sold. Smaller farmers do not gamble with new varieties. Medium/large farms may experiment with newer varieties but it takes two to three seasons before the intended advantage is delivered.
Farmers need to trust a variety before they adopt it. And given the climatic variations and water scarcity, it may take a longer time for the seed to perform ideally. Hence, the time of adaptation increases, depending on the area.
The harshest truth of the seed world is that its economy is based on the choices made by the farmers. The market is driven by demand and is based not only on science but farmers’ intuition. They trust their logic over and above the Government/seed retailer or the labelling. To cultivate demand for a particular variety of seed, therefore, may take ten years or more. In India, the saturation point may be reached way beyond the 25-30 year period. There are many examples. PBW-343 (1996), WH-147 (1978) in wheat, Varuna (1976) for mustard, Pusa Basmati 1 (1989), Govind (1989) in paddy among others are still the farmers’ favorites and they have continuously given yields and performed optimally. If suddenly they are removed from the market, with no alternative to the farmers, this may lead to discontentment among the agrarian community.
This will also encourage black marketing, hoarding of trusted varieties as the farmers will not gamble. Besides, it may give birth to a shadow seed economy. Instead of aiding the farmers, the Government may well push them to act complicitly with black marketers. The rural economy will suffer and the seed economy along with the markets will see a decline, which may translate to a decrease in crop production.
But the Government can still steer the moment towards creating a positive impact. It may begin by allowing varieties till 15 years to be produced through the ICAR system. Then, it should do a detailed study to get an estimate of market penetration of new varieties and understand market trends to bring transformative changes. This policy needs to be reviewed on a case-to-case basis.
While less popular varieties can be phased out after 10-12 years, more popular varieties may continue up to 20-22 years. Preparing for the replacement drive of a variety of seed, the Government can use digital media to showcase efficiency, using farmer-friendly videos in regional
languages and live crop demonstrations.
This campaign can be strengthened by efforts of Krishi mitra/village-level agriculture officers. The Government can supply new varieties to the farmers directly so that they can sow them in small patches in their region. Once the farmers see the new varieties perform better, they will develop trust for new seeds and, thus, natural demand can be created. The Government must not only make the best use of scientific principles but also keep in mind economic forces of demand as for many farmers, old seed is still gold.
(The writer is Programme Director for Policy and Outreach at the National Seed Association of India)
Writer: Ajoy Kumar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The misery of rape survivors doesn’t end with the crime. Shalini Saksena and Musba Hashmi tell you that there is much more to their stories — the traumaof reporting the crime at a police station, to the agony of the two-finger test, to being shunned by society, to being shamed and stigmatized
It was a bright and sunny day. One of those usual afternoons when 14-year-old Mansi (name changed), was taking lunch for her parents, who were toiling in the field. But the day didn’t turn out to be usual. Mansi was kidnapped on her way, by a perpetrator who had his eyes on her for a long time. He forcefully took her to a river bank, beat her up and raped her.
Mansi’s parents were waiting for her to come for lunch unaware of what had transpired. After some time, Mansi’s mother Geeta Devi saw her daughter coming towards her. It brought a smile on her face only to fall into doom.
Devi’s daughter was trembling with fear. She instantly knew that the devil was back.
This was not the first time that Mansi was raped by the same man.
“It was in 2013, when a boy from the neighbourhood gatecrashed into our house at 2 am. My husband and I were away for work. My daughter was alone. It was one horrible night as he raped my daughter. My daughter was in shock and pain. She was only 10 then. The incident devastated her. We complained about the boy to his family. But, no action was taken,” Devi tells you.
In 2016, history repeated itself. While Mansi on her way to school, the same boy forcefully took her to a deserted place and raped her again. A traumatised Mansi stopped going to school.
The boy belonged to a powerful family and no action was, thus, taken against him.
“It was again in 2017, that the devil raped my daughter. But I knew that I had to put an end to it. That was when we decided that complaining to the panchayat or the boy’s family would get us nowhere. We went to the police station to lodge an FIR. We were surprised by their behaviour. We were made to wait for five hours before an FIR was finally registered. We were treated like we were the culprits,” she recalls.
The police, a word that instils fear in some and is a ray of hope among others, was of no help. Instead, the officers insisted that the girl’s family should make a compromise and the matter be settled amicably between the families as the boy was from the same village and of the same caste.
“When we didn’t agree, everyone in the village stopped talking to us. My daughter stopped going out of the house. I felt like my world had fallen apart. The thought of seeing my daughter in that condition where I was a mere spectator, was killing me every day. So, I gathered courage and decided to leave the village. I knew that place was not safe for my family. We shifted to Jhansi. Then we came to know about Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan. We contacted them and they are helping us. My daughter has started going to school,” she tells you.
Devi has only one request to the Government — that the rape survivors should not be humiliated and justice should be delivered in time. “There are many girls who fall prey to such crimes. They are not able to speak up and their voice goes unheard. My only request to the Government is that justice should be delivered on time. No girl should ever have to beg for justice. It is their right. If this wouldn’t happen, then people like Hitesh will not hesitate in committing such crimes in future too. Strict actions should be taken against such criminals and they should be put behind bars,” she opines.
Geeta Devi and her daughter are not alone. Thirty five-year-old woman — Nisha (name changed) has a similar story.
Nisha, a resident of a village in Ujjain, was raped by middle-aged Bhagwan Singh, Arjun Singh and Bajrang Singh, from the same family, in 2016. Nisha used to work as a domestic help. It was on one unfortunate day, when Bhagwan lured her with finding her more work at his village. He raped her there with the other two.
Nisha’s miseries started when her husband refused to keep her with him. She had nowhere to go, even her parents refused to take her in.
“Those were tough times. When I reported the incident to my husband and in-laws, they said that I could no longer live with them, they refused to accept me. They beat me up. Even my parents said that agar mar bhi jao toh bhi yahaan mat aana. I was a mother of two. My husband kept both the children and threw me out,” Nisha recounts, tears up.
Even the police didn’t come to Nisha’s rescue. She went to the police station for four days and only then a complaint was registered. “No one was listening to me. The policemen said I was making false claims. When I went for the medical test, the doctor conducted a two-finger test. Nothing came in the report, no injuries were shown even when there were clear marks on my body. The case came to court. The lawyers blamed me for implicating the culprits. No one believed me,” she tells you.
Nisha’s problems were compounded when she couldn’t find work. “After that, I left my village and shifted to Ujjain. But, there too I faced a lot of difficulties. No one was willing to keep me as a domestic help. I was jobless for six months. The moment I used to narrate my horror story to people, their behaviour towards me used to change. Even the men in their families would start looking at me weirdly. They would think of me ki yeh toh aisi hi hai. It felt like it was all my fault. But, I stood strong. I knew it was not my fault,” she tells you.
Another woman who went through the same trauma is Gauri (name changed), a resident of Indore. Seven years back, she was raped by a 35-year-old man from her neighbourhood. The reason behind this heinous act — he wanted to take over their house.
“He had been eyeing our property for a long time. Initially, he came and threatened us that if we didn’t leave our house, he would kill us. When we didn’t take him seriously, he came and beat us up. Then, also we were not willing to leave our house and why would we — it was our property. That was when one night, around 3 am, he forced himself into our house, beat up my husband and raped me. Somehow I managed to free myself from him and ran to the police station. The police made me sit there till 9 am before they finally lodged a complaint against him. The reasons they gave for not filing a report was abhi bade sahab nahin hain, vo aayenge toh report likhenge. At 11 am they took me for a medical test. The doctor did a two-finger test,” she tells you.
The good part in this horror situation was that her husband, who works as a labourer, stood with Gauri through thick and thin, giving her the confidence to fight.
“Now, whenever I come to know that a girl is going through an ordeal or is not speaking up about rape, I go to her and explain that reporting a crime is important. If you don’t, then it will only give the culprit more courage to repeat the crime. I ask them to go the police and file a complaint. People usually don’t understand it at one go. It is only after insisting upon them a couple of times, when they finally go and register a complaint,” she tells you.
The one thing to look out for in these stories was they all were similar — not only in terms of what happened to them but for the fact that they all survived and stood strong. They are the real fighters, who dared to raise their voice against the evil and didn’t fear the culprit or his power.
Vijay Raj, Jansash Development Society, Madhya Pradesh, Devash and working in Ajmer and Jaipur, tells you that the problem lies in the fact that there are some communities who force the girls into prostitution. “These communities, for generations, have been forcing their daughters into this profession. Take the case of the Rajnak community. Most of the girls from these communities end up as beer bar dancers or in prostitution. The young girls get lured by the glamour. They see other girls dancing in bars, wearing fancy clothes and golden jewellery. They see only one side of the coin. They don’t see the dark side of this business until they are there. By then it is too late. There is no escape then,” Raj opines.
He tells you that the reason why girls from the community are in this profession because it is expected of them. “Then there is there the age old traditions that families follow,” Raj tells you.
But not all is lost. Over the last five to eight years, a lot of work has been done to educate the girls by holding workshops and telling them about the pitfalls of getting into this profession. “The good is that many families have realised this and are now open to sending their daughters to school. These girls are now studying beyond Class VIII, something that was unthinkable in 2010. The achievement is that three girls from a small village near Ajmer are in college,” Raj says.
A 20-year-old from the Bachda community who has been working to improve the plight of the girls in her community agrees with Raj and tells you that the girls of her community are forced into prostitution because when the sons get married they have to give Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh to the girl. Obviously, the parents can’t give this kind of dowry. So they force their daughters into prostitution,” she tells you.
She is lucky that her father studied till Class XII and hence made sure that all his daughters studied. However, this didn’t sit well with their community. “They feel that my father is going again the tradition. It my father put his foot down. He told all my sisters that they should concentrate on their studies and not worry about what the people are saying. This has not been easy for us. We have been looking for an alternative for a long time. We want to leave our small in Madhya Pradesh and start over some place else. For this we need to sell our land to start afresh, but we are not getting the correct price,” she says.
Ashif Shaikh, Convenor National Survivor Forum tells you that there are several challenges when it comes to dealing with rape and sexual abuse survivors. First, there are several communities in the country especially in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the girls are forced into prostitution because it is a tradition. “The parents force their daughters into this. We have come across many cases where young girls have been made to service up to 30 men in a day. The police look the other way because they feel that the women are being paid and hence it is consensual. The truth is that these girls have no say. These girls are forced. The money they earn goes into building a dowry that they can give to the girl their son marries. But they forget that nobody will marry their daughters. Since it is an ageold tradition, they are not bothered as long as the money keeps coming in,” Shaikh says.
The second challenge is that there are over 600 women who are yet to get the compensation that that has been set even though their abuser has been convicted. The amount varies from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 7 lakh that has been set by law. “This money goes a long way into rehabilitating these women,” Shaikh says who has recently submitted a letter to the Chief Justice of India with signatures of over 1500 women and their families pulling their attention towards the plight of the rape survivors.
“We are also in the process of submitting more data that will help our case. This included data of the States where despite conviction, the survivors have not received compensation,” Shaikh shares.
However, he doesn’t agree that providing compensation will escalate rapes in the country. “The truth is that timely conviction will go a long way to curb crime against women. Another thing that needs to be done is that instead of supporting the perpetrator, the survivor should be supported. As of now, it is always the survivor who is shamed. In almost 90 per cent cases when a survivor goes to the police to report, she is one who is blamed. Worse, people don’t believe that she is telling the truth.
In such cases the perpetrator goes scot-free. This when only one or two per cent cases are reported. Almost 98 per case still go unreported especially where minors are involved. In many cases, the survivor only comes forward after she has been rapes repeatedly by the same person over a prolonged period,” Shaikh says and paints a horror picture by telling you that the reason why the woman is shamed is because there are thousands of cases where it is a relative who has d the minor.
“Fathers and uncles being most common. We live in a patriarchal society. The man wants to show his domination over the weak. Women are vulnerable. Raping them and abusing them is easy. It proves that the men are in control and can get away with whatever they dish out to the woman,” Shaikh explains who is now working towards gathering national data of sexual abuse in shelter homes for women and children.
“We believe that there are over a million children involved in sexual exploitation in India. However, the police and the Governments opine that they are sex workers. But we believe that they are being raped by more than 20 different men in a day. So we are initiating a national survey in such cases. These cases therefore needed to be reported under POCSO Act. Third, we are interacting with over a crore students in schools creating awareness about what constitutes sexual abuse,” Shaikh says.
It was a bright and sunny day. One of those usual afternoons when 14-year-old Mansi (name changed), was taking lunch for her parents, who were toiling in the field. But the day didn’t turn out to be usual. Mansi was kidnapped on her way, by a perpetrator who had his eyes on her for a long time. He forcefully took her to a river bank, beat her up and raped her.
Mansi’s parents were waiting for her to come for lunch unaware of what had transpired. After some time, Mansi’s mother Geeta Devi saw her daughter coming towards her. It brought a smile on her face only to fall into doom.
Devi’s daughter was trembling with fear. She instantly knew that the devil was back.
This was not the first time that Mansi was raped by the same man.
“It was in 2013, when a boy from the neighbourhood gatecrashed into our house at 2 am. My husband and I were away for work. My daughter was alone. It was one horrible night as he raped my daughter. My daughter was in shock and pain. She was only 10 then. The incident devastated her. We complained about the boy to his family. But, no action was taken,” Devi tells you.
In 2016, history repeated itself. While Mansi on her way to school, the same boy forcefully took her to a deserted place and raped her again. A traumatised Mansi stopped going to school.
The boy belonged to a powerful family and no action was, thus, taken against him.
“It was again in 2017, that the devil raped my daughter. But I knew that I had to put an end to it. That was when we decided that complaining to the panchayat or the boy’s family would get us nowhere. We went to the police station to lodge an FIR. We were surprised by their behaviour. We were made to wait for five hours before an FIR was finally registered. We were treated like we were the culprits,” she recalls.
The police, a word that instils fear in some and is a ray of hope among others, was of no help. Instead, the officers insisted that the girl’s family should make a compromise and the matter be settled amicably between the families as the boy was from the same village and of the same caste.
“When we didn’t agree, everyone in the village stopped talking to us. My daughter stopped going out of the house. I felt like my world had fallen apart. The thought of seeing my daughter in that condition where I was a mere spectator, was killing me every day. So, I gathered courage and decided to leave the village. I knew that place was not safe for my family. We shifted to Jhansi. Then we came to know about Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan. We contacted them and they are helping us. My daughter has started going to school,” she tells you.
Devi has only one request to the Government — that the rape survivors should not be humiliated and justice should be delivered in time. “There are many girls who fall prey to such crimes. They are not able to speak up and their voice goes unheard. My only request to the Government is that justice should be delivered on time. No girl should ever have to beg for justice. It is their right. If this wouldn’t happen, then people like Hitesh will not hesitate in committing such crimes in future too. Strict actions should be taken against such criminals and they should be put behind bars,” she opines.
Geeta Devi and her daughter are not alone. Thirty five-year-old woman — Nisha (name changed) has a similar story.
Nisha, a resident of a village in Ujjain, was raped by middle-aged Bhagwan Singh, Arjun Singh and Bajrang Singh, from the same family, in 2016. Nisha used to work as a domestic help. It was on one unfortunate day, when Bhagwan lured her with finding her more work at his village. He raped her there with the other two.
Nisha’s miseries started when her husband refused to keep her with him. She had nowhere to go, even her parents refused to take her in.
“Those were tough times. When I reported the incident to my husband and in-laws, they said that I could no longer live with them, they refused to accept me. They beat me up. Even my parents said that agar mar bhi jao toh bhi yahaan mat aana. I was a mother of two. My husband kept both the children and threw me out,” Nisha recounts, tears up.
Even the police didn’t come to Nisha’s rescue. She went to the police station for four days and only then a complaint was registered. “No one was listening to me. The policemen said I was making false claims. When I went for the medical test, the doctor conducted a two-finger test. Nothing came in the report, no injuries were shown even when there were clear marks on my body. The case came to court. The lawyers blamed me for implicating the culprits. No one believed me,” she tells you.
Nisha’s problems were compounded when she couldn’t find work. “After that, I left my village and shifted to Ujjain. But, there too I faced a lot of difficulties. No one was willing to keep me as a domestic help. I was jobless for six months. The moment I used to narrate my horror story to people, their behaviour towards me used to change. Even the men in their families would start looking at me weirdly. They would think of me ki yeh toh aisi hi hai. It felt like it was all my fault. But, I stood strong. I knew it was not my fault,” she tells you.
Another woman who went through the same trauma is Gauri (name changed), a resident of Indore. Seven years back, she was raped by a 35-year-old man from her neighbourhood. The reason behind this heinous act — he wanted to take over their house.
“He had been eyeing our property for a long time. Initially, he came and threatened us that if we didn’t leave our house, he would kill us. When we didn’t take him seriously, he came and beat us up. Then, also we were not willing to leave our house and why would we — it was our property. That was when one night, around 3 am, he forced himself into our house, beat up my husband and raped me. Somehow I managed to free myself from him and ran to the police station. The police made me sit there till 9 am before they finally lodged a complaint against him. The reasons they gave for not filing a report was abhi bade sahab nahin hain, vo aayenge toh report likhenge. At 11 am they took me for a medical test. The doctor did a two-finger test,” she tells you.
The good part in this horror situation was that her husband, who works as a labourer, stood with Gauri through thick and thin, giving her the confidence to fight.
“Now, whenever I come to know that a girl is going through an ordeal or is not speaking up about rape, I go to her and explain that reporting a crime is important. If you don’t, then it will only give the culprit more courage to repeat the crime. I ask them to go the police and file a complaint. People usually don’t understand it at one go. It is only after insisting upon them a couple of times, when they finally go and register a complaint,” she tells you.
The one thing to look out for in these stories was they all were similar — not only in terms of what happened to them but for the fact that they all survived and stood strong. They are the real fighters, who dared to raise their voice against the evil and didn’t fear the culprit or his power.
Vijay Raj, Jansash Development Society, Madhya Pradesh, Devash and working in Ajmer and Jaipur, tells you that the problem lies in the fact that there are some communities who force the girls into prostitution. “These communities, for generations, have been forcing their daughters into this profession. Take the case of the Rajnak community. Most of the girls from these communities end up as beer bar dancers or in prostitution. The young girls get lured by the glamour. They see other girls dancing in bars, wearing fancy clothes and golden jewellery. They see only one side of the coin. They don’t see the dark side of this business until they are there. By then it is too late. There is no escape then,” Raj opines.
He tells you that the reason why girls from the community are in this profession because it is expected of them. “Then there is there the age old traditions that families follow,” Raj tells you.
But not all is lost. Over the last five to eight years, a lot of work has been done to educate the girls by holding workshops and telling them about the pitfalls of getting into this profession. “The good is that many families have realised this and are now open to sending their daughters to school. These girls are now studying beyond Class VIII, something that was unthinkable in 2010. The achievement is that three girls from a small village near Ajmer are in college,” Raj says.
A 20-year-old from the Bachda community who has been working to improve the plight of the girls in her community agrees with Raj and tells you that the girls of her community are forced into prostitution because when the sons get married they have to give Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh to the girl. Obviously, the parents can’t give this kind of dowry. So they force their daughters into prostitution,” she tells you.
She is lucky that her father studied till Class XII and hence made sure that all his daughters studied. However, this didn’t sit well with their community. “They feel that my father is going again the tradition. It my father put his foot down. He told all my sisters that they should concentrate on their studies and not worry about what the people are saying. This has not been easy for us. We have been looking for an alternative for a long time. We want to leave our small in Madhya Pradesh and start over some place else. For this we need to sell our land to start afresh, but we are not getting the correct price,” she says.
Ashif Shaikh, Convenor National Survivor Forum tells you that there are several challenges when it comes to dealing with rape and sexual abuse survivors. First, there are several communities in the country especially in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the girls are forced into prostitution because it is a tradition. “The parents force their daughters into this. We have come across many cases where young girls have been made to service up to 30 men in a day. The police look the other way because they feel that the women are being paid and hence it is consensual. The truth is that these girls have no say. These girls are forced. The money they earn goes into building a dowry that they can give to the girl their son marries. But they forget that nobody will marry their daughters. Since it is an ageold tradition, they are not bothered as long as the money keeps coming in,” Shaikh says.
The second challenge is that there are over 600 women who are yet to get the compensation that that has been set even though their abuser has been convicted. The amount varies from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 7 lakh that has been set by law. “This money goes a long way into rehabilitating these women,” Shaikh says who has recently submitted a letter to the Chief Justice of India with signatures of over 1500 women and their families pulling their attention towards the plight of the rape survivors.
“We are also in the process of submitting more data that will help our case. This included data of the States where despite conviction, the survivors have not received compensation,” Shaikh shares.
However, he doesn’t agree that providing compensation will escalate rapes in the country. “The truth is that timely conviction will go a long way to curb crime against women. Another thing that needs to be done is that instead of supporting the perpetrator, the survivor should be supported. As of now, it is always the survivor who is shamed. In almost 90 per cent cases when a survivor goes to the police to report, she is one who is blamed. Worse, people don’t believe that she is telling the truth.
In such cases the perpetrator goes scot-free. This when only one or two per cent cases are reported. Almost 98 per case still go unreported especially where minors are involved. In many cases, the survivor only comes forward after she has been rapes repeatedly by the same person over a prolonged period,” Shaikh says and paints a horror picture by telling you that the reason why the woman is shamed is because there are thousands of cases where it is a relative who has d the minor.
“Fathers and uncles being most common. We live in a patriarchal society. The man wants to show his domination over the weak. Women are vulnerable. Raping them and abusing them is easy. It proves that the men are in control and can get away with whatever they dish out to the woman,” Shaikh explains who is now working towards gathering national data of sexual abuse in shelter homes for women and children.
“We believe that there are over a million children involved in sexual exploitation in India. However, the police and the Governments opine that they are sex workers. But we believe that they are being raped by more than 20 different men in a day. So we are initiating a national survey in such cases. These cases therefore needed to be reported under POCSO Act. Third, we are interacting with over a crore students in schools creating awareness about what constitutes sexual abuse,” Shaikh says.
Writer: Shalini Saksena and Musba Hashmi
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Decades after the Indian republic was founded, citizens today are worried about the increasing erosion of credibility of elected representatives who continue enjoying legislative privileges
In a democracy, citizens enjoy the privilege of casting their vote to elect representatives. In India, we elect leaders right from the panchayat level to the Parliament. The right to vote is prized and all of us are taught about it in our schools and universities. We are also reminded about this by politicians of all hues before every election. It is also a well-established fact that the Indian voter is far more mature now and knows about the “power” of his/her vote. This was proved beyond any doubt to one and all — nationally and internationally — in 1977 when the citizens unseated Indira Gandhi from her traditional family fiefdom in Uttar Pradesh and simultaneously threw her out of power at the national level by decimating her political party. A very interesting interlude followed her defeat. People had high hopes from the next Government as it was supposed to work under the astute guidance of Jayaprakash Narayan. Those, who inherited power, could not manage the Government. They were assessed unfit by the people and Indira Gandhi was brought back to power within three years. People not only pardoned her but also taught a lesson to those who could not rise above petty personal feuds as they had not “learnt to live and work together.” All this, experts say, is the essence of democracy.
Democracy shines when a humble person, setting aside all his/her woes, concerns and stress of providing the next meal, enters the polling booth and puts his/her finger on the EVM button. Who can read or visualise what clouds their minds in the shape of a better tomorrow for him/her, the family and for the little world that deserves outside support on many counts. The voter is still far from the promises made in the Constitution of India. One more election opportunity and expectations soar again. The Indian voter has also witnessed how elected representatives have often let them down on several counts. Most of them vanish for five years, take more interest in their own welfare than that of the electorate, show little concern and connectivity to their electors, give no dignity to them and after five years, return with folded hands, pleading for “one more chance.” But if one weighs the performance of elected representatives on Gandhian expectations, one would mostly be disappointed.
Winston Churchill never expected that India could manage its independence. He was convinced that Indians were unfit to govern themselves and, hence, the British had to stay on to look after them. It was not easy for him or those of his ilk to see beyond the cobwebs of the much-publicised altruistic perception that the British essentially travelled to India to “salvage the souls of the savages.” One could claim with a sense of pride and achievement that whether Churchill liked it or not, India has established its credentials in “how to make its democracy operational in its minutest nuances.” We could do it as it was not new to democratic practices of governance.
The Ganrajyas of Licchavi and Vaishali are well-known historical instances. Even at that time, education for preparing young ones with a focus on “lot learn to live together” began in joint families that accommodated four generations under one roof. It was also a ground to teaching them to respect different viewpoints and accommodate the likes and dislikes of everyone. Respect for diversity and the realisation how essential it was, were inherent in the Indian tradition. Indian culture prepares its children for a duty-bound society that respects relationships within the family and beyond.
It will be worthwhile to remember what Churchill said: “Democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all others”, which invites learned and informed deliberations even now. He viewed democratic politics not only as an “insurance” for future, against external dangers, but also against threats “scarcely less grave and much more near and constant” that threaten us all. India, like every other functional and dynamic democracy, must remain conscious of the dangers to its democracy that are emerging within the system from the very functionaries that are entrusted with the task of sustaining and strengthening democratic values.
We are all aware how traditional democratic values have confronted difficult situations in the era of globalisation and commercialisation. They stand overshadowed by emerging materialist values. On several occasions, elected representatives, including those holding positions of greater political power, find it difficult to maintain the right balance between Indian perception of democratic public life and the lure of power and pelf — glamour and glitz in a globalised free-market world.
The chinks emerging in the Indian democracy are not unexpected. Mahatma Gandhi could envision in April 24, 1922, that “As we become independent, all the defects of the system of elections, injustice, the tyranny of the richer classes as also the burden of running administration, are bound to come upon us. People would begin to feel that during those days, there was more justice, better administration and peace and there was honesty to a great extent among the administrators compared to the days after Independence.”
When I came across this part of Gandhian writing some four decades ago, my simplistic query to eminent Gandhian personalities was: How could Gandhiji cultivate such serious apprehensions about elections when we had no such experience in India? They were kind enough to enlighten me that Gandhiji had studied the British election system in-depth and could visualise what impact the taste of power produces on the majority of elected representatives.
Having elected 17 Parliaments and innumerable State Assemblies, district and panchayat level bodies, the Indian voter has seen it all. They are worried and are struggling with the increasing erosion of credibility of elected representatives, who unfortunately — exceptions apart — could not live up to expectations. They have seen how representatives coming from humble backgrounds become billionaires. They know for sure that their Minister, Chief Minister or Deputy Chief Minister could spend anywhere from Rs 5 crore to Rs 50 crore to refurbish their official bungalows. Former Chief Ministers are given huge bungalows for life with support staff. When the High Court ruled against this practice, the Madhya Pradesh Government found a new way to bypass the court’s orders. Using discretionary quota, it reallotted the same houses. Such instances could be aplenty.
The youth of today may find it difficult to believe that the members of the Constituent Assembly did not get any salary, let alone pension. They got an allowance of Rs 45 per day for the days of sitting. And they were the ones who got it reduced to Rs 40 per day in consideration of the tough economic condition of the country.
An eminent expert on the nuances of parliamentary democracy and an internationally acknowledged scholar and author of Our Constitution, Subhash Kashyap brilliantly analysed the “rise” of the Indian parliamentarian at the national level in his latest outstanding treatise, State of the Nation: Democracy Governance and Parliament. Members of the Constituent Assembly were mostly freedom fighters and men and women known throughout the length and breadth of the country for the sacrifices they made. They worked tirelessly to give India its Constitution. They gave themselves a sitting allowance of Rs 40 per day. Contrast this with their successors. The salaries and allowances of Members of Parliament Act, 1954, fixed a salary of Rs 400 per month for an MP and a daily allowance of Rs 21.
After this, there have been 29 upward revisions to the Act. There were members, whose conscience was pricked but their viewpoint was overlooked by the majority. Nanaji Deshmukh was one such exception. He raised this issue in 2004 and pointed out that “salaries and allowances of members had gone up 90 times during the first 50 years”. But his words made no impact. These upward revisions invariably got a full-throated fast-track approval from the MPs. Kashyap describes the position in its totality: “At a time when the salary of a member was only Rs 12,000 per month, Nanaji had estimated that the direct monthly expenditure on an MP was at least Rs 3 lakh per month. Himself an MP, he knew first hand. On that basis, the present monthly cost of an MP must work out close to Rs 10 or15 lakh per month or more, which could be few hundred times the per capita income of an Indian.”
Whenever issues related to MPs or State legislatures come up during discussions, I am invariably reminded of the Gandhian vision that defects of elections would weigh heavily on our people. The resilience of electors in democracy may have its upper limits. It is public knowledge that each candidate is supposed to submit a detailed statement of the expenditure incurred during election campaigns. They also know that it should always be within the limits prescribed by the Election Commission of India.
Every Indian voter would be willing to say “every one spends much more than what they claim to have spent”, exceptions apart. Is this situation acceptable? May be, someday, some young elected representative will launch a campaign against this routine practice and be hailed as a “hero” striving to restore democratic values. This could be done by some young person, who remains honest, humble and humane as the representative of people.
(The writer is the Indian Representative on the Executive Board of UNESCO)
Writer : JS Rajput
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Protests over Sant Ravidas’s shrine show that SC/STs are becoming equally aggressive about identity politics
The political import of the thousands of Dalits marching in Delhi to save the shrine of their saint Ravidas is not just about claiming rights and space in a Brahminical order or the appropriation of land as evidenced by the parks of their supreme leader Mayawati. It is about equality and comparative weighing of scales, another form of minority assertion in the face of brute majoritarianism, a question mark on different approaches to the similarity of contexts, and another manifestation of identity politics. Besides, Sant Ravidas embodies a socio-cultural idea of India that undercuts the monolithic imposition of today. Born in the 15th century in Varanasi to leather makers, he denounced the Hindu Brahminical order, challenged deity worship and worked for an egalitarian society against a Hindu Rashtra, becoming the one voice of the marginalised. And such was the power of his messages that many of his disciples even found mention in the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs. None can miss the impactful swathe of this man from Varanasi, unmistakably a prime political constituency today. Nor can the appropriation of the “mandir wahin banayenge” slogan be missed as an equal claimant as the Ram temple in Ayodhya. For starters, both have historicity of belief. Lord Rama was believed to be born in Ayodhya, Guru Ravidas was believed to have visited the Chamarwala Johar in Tughlaqabad 500 years ago. Like Ayodhya, this memorial site is disputed with facts of 1950 differing from facts of 1963, the latter being accepted by the court as encroachment and, therefore, a ground for demolition. Like Ayodhya, status quo has been continuing for years with no party, and even the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), carrying out any demolition on the ground. Like Ayodhya, protesters do not want the memorial shifted as a reconciliatory move and want it on hallowed ground, asking whether Ram temple activists would agree to a commensurate shift in venue? Besides, Dalit activists argue, the construction of Tughlaqabad Ravidas temple is not on the road or creating any obstruction to the general masses. In fact, it can even be part of the Centre’s forest project and, without any other pressing logic, seems just another harassment ploy by the mainstream Right. The latest demolition follows two others by the DDA, one of Buddha Vihar at Devli Hill, and the other at Bhagwan Valmiki Mandir in Seemapuri. Which is why the Tughlaqabad incident has snowballed as a politico-cultural movement, linking both Ravidas and Babasaheb Ambedkar.
The latest round of protests also reflects the growing counter-muscularity in the Dalit leadership, being led from the front by Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad. His agitationist politics is finding resonance given the waning political influence of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, who, while arguing for the restoration of the temple, disagreed with the violence associated with it as diluting the key plank. Of course, Behenji still believes Azad to be a foisted creation of the BJP’s ideological parent, the RSS, and there are still a lot of theories as to whether Guru Ravidas followers are being coopted into the Hindutva sub-culture. But considering Azad’s traction among the youth across north India and a combined Dalit iconisation of all leaders, it is a constituency strong enough to negotiate with anybody, not only, as alleged by Mayawati many times, the BJP. Azad may have been deployed as a vote-cutter initially but now has a solid consolidation of Dalit youth, who are countering majoritarian celebrations by scaling up celebrations of Guru Ravidas, Valmiki, Dr Ambedkar, a signal that they do not want to be subsumed or Sankritised in their thinking. Now that the Bhim Army has started working nationwide, Dalit youth are being motivated to assert and not deny their ancestry. This is important given that the young Dalit vote could be a change-maker in the forthcoming Assembly elections. Only this week, Azad launched the Bhim Army Students Federation (BASF) and said he wanted students of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and religious minorities to be aware of both their rights and duties. Clearly, he is creating a new swell in the existing discourse.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
Vatsalya, an initiative to improve the health and nutritional status of women and children, was undertaken in 22 villages in Amreli’s Rajula Block
The small boat at Gujarat’s bustling Pipavav Port bobs up and down as it waits to ferry passengers to Shiyal Bet Island barely 600 metres away. It’s a rainy morning and the waters of the Arabian Sea are beginning to turn choppy. Fifty-year-old Dakuben jumps onto the boat with ease, having undertaken the 12-minute journey innumerable times to visit her daughter in Shiyal Bet. However, this time, her visit is mired in sorrow as she is going to mourn the death of her newborn granddaughter.
Gujarat’s Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is 30 deaths per 1,000 live births and the state ranked tenth in the country according to the NITI Aayog’s 2016 IMR report. According to statistics 69 per cent of infant deaths in Gujarat were neonatal, higher than the national average of 67.60 per cent.
Anaemia is one of the major factors responsible for the rising neonatal, infant and maternal mortality in Gujarat, especially among rural women. According to the fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) conducted in 2014-15, 54.9 per cent women in the age group of 14-49 years are anaemic and 51.3 per cent of pregnant women have anaemia.
The NFHS-4 placed Gujarat among the top 15 states with the highest incidence of anaemia as the percentage of anaemic women there was higher than the national average of 53 per cent.
The survey revealed that lack of education played a major role and anaemia was particularly high among illiterate women due to lack of awareness about health-related issues.
At 31.2 per cent, Shiyal Bet’s literacy rates are much lower than the state’s 78.3 per cent (2011 census). With the island’s female literacy rate being just 15.48 per cent, it’s no surprise that awareness about anaemia and other health issues is low.
In order to change this scenario, Vatsalya, an initiative to improve the health and nutritional status of women, children, and adolescents was undertaken in Shiyal Bet and 21 villages with similar poor health and development indicators in Rajula Block in Amreli district. Launched in 2016 by the Centre for Health Education, Training, Nutrition Awareness (CHETNA), a not for profit organisation, the three-year programme has been able to bring down undernutrition, improve antenatal and postnatal care and ensure safe motherhood.
It has also been able to break myths related to early breastfeeding, promote healthy feeding practices, timely immunization and increase access to basic health services.
The intervention, supported by Gujarat Pipavav Port Limited (GPPL) APM Terminals under their corporate social responsibility initiative, used a multi-pronged strategy including games, Q&A sessions and street theatre to engage the community. Sustained efforts, coupled with community participation helped to bring down the number of children suffering from undernutrition from 30 per cent in 2016 to 14 per cent in 2019. The number of children who attained normal body mass index also rose.
The intervention marked up registration of pregnancies by almost 42 per cent and increased the number of women receiving antenatal care, tetanus injections and folic acid tablets. A rise in institutional deliveries by 9.42 per cent was also seen at the end of the three years.
“We are committed to bringing change in the lives of marginalised communities. Therefore, empowering them with factual information and linking them to government schemes and programmes was imperative. This intervention was more challenging because we had to work in difficult-to-reach villages like Shiyal Bet and with migrating populations and communities that were isolated and neglected. But we were able to make a difference in their lives thanks to our dedicated field team, and our partnership with the community, frontline health workers and panchayat leaders,” said Pallavi Patel, Director, CHETNA.
A key to this success was the strategy to train women from the community as Vatsalya mitras (friends).This gave the community a sense of ownership and led to increased participation. So when Shantuben Chauhan became a trained Vatsalya mitra, she used her influence as an anganwadi worker (AWW) to reach out to pregnant and lactating women. Chauhan, an AWW for the last 15 years, is a popular face in Shiyal Bet. With both her marital and natal home being in Shiyal Bet, Chauhan was able to mobilise the community very effectively.
However, when the CHETNA team first visited Shiyal Bet, they found that although Chauhan was articulate and good at her work as an AWW, she, like most of the others, believed in many myths related to reproductive and sexual health. One of the biggest misconceptions she had was related to menstruation. Not only was it a taboo subject, but neither she nor her three daughters practiced menstrual hygiene. Considering that only 54 per cent of rural women use a hygienic method of menstrual protection (NFHS-4), this was not surprising. The fact that women with at least 12 years of schooling were more than twice as likely to be using a hygienic method (79 per cent) as against women with no schooling (34 per cent) meant that Chauhan who is uneducated, didn’t get access to information which could help her practice menstrual hygiene.
So the first step was to demystify menstruation. The team knew that once they were able to get Chauhan on board then she would get the others. “I was ashamed to discuss this issue. The training helped me understand why I should not be ashamed and why menstrual hygiene is important. I used the scientific information to convince other women and adolescents during Vatsalya samwads (dialogue),” recalled Chauhan.
For Vatsalya mitra Vandanaben Goswami, the training cured her of the belief that she was ‘impure’ during her periods and going to the temple or kitchen was wrong. “After I became better informed, I no longer forced my daughters to follow these customs. I used my own example to convince other women and girls,” contended Goswami.
The monthly Vatsalya samwads proved to be a good move as they helped break the ice on many ‘uncomfortable’ issues like the tradition of early marriage and family planning in all 22 villages. Besides explaining the consequences of early marriage on the health of adolescents, the importance of antenatal care and postnatal care visits for pregnant and lactating women were discussed. Also addressed were myths related to early and exclusive breastfeeding. According to NFHS-4, just 50 per cent women in Gujarat start breastfeeding in the first hour of life as recommended by the World Health Organisation, thus depriving newborns of the highly nutritious first milk, colostrums, and the antibodies it contains. In fact, about one in five children who were ever breastfed were given something other than breast milk during the first three days.
Raziben’s three children were among them. She had followed the custom of feeding her children goat’s milk or hot water mixed with jaggery immediately after birth. It was only after attending the Vatsalya samwads that she understood why this was not healthy for the newborn. This helped her initiate early breastfeeding for her fourth child born last year. Inspired by this, her friend and neighbour Manjuben also breastfed her daughter within 24 hours of her birth in June this year. In fact, there was an 22 per cent increase in early breastfeeding by the end of the project.
A big factor in the improving health and nutrition indicators was the partnership with local leaders and panchayats. Leaders like Gangabhai, the sarpanch of Kundaliya Village, played an active role in mobilizing the community and promoting awareness.
“There has been a big change in my village after CHETNA began their work. The AWWs have become more informed and active. More women are attending the monthly Mamta Divas. Earlier only 7-8 women had health cards, now 60 of them have cards. I also pay visits to support and motivate them,” he said.
While the success has been encouraging, challenges remain. Considering the entrenched patriarchy and caste barriers in Gujarat, sustaining behavioural change requires greater investment of time and resources. Only then, will no one be left behind.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
Writer: Swapna Majumdar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
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