alice in the women's land
In the original Alice book she had the rare opportunity to travel to the wonderland: a world where everything around her change so rapidly and quizzically that perplex a layperson. In the old Disney animation film on it, a short one that was, the prelude song tells about ‘growing tall getting small ...’ and other rapidly changing things even to Alice herself. On remarking whether it was not odd that the caterpillar would turn into a butterfly, or what should have been her own ‘right’ size (and surely it should not be three inches), the hookah-smoking caterpillar, disgusted though he was facing such silly simple comments, answered matter-of-factly: how could things be otherwise, moreover there was nothing that can be called the ‘right’ size and he consoled Alice that she would be accustomed to the size (or sizes) she had then. But in our own India Alice is not that lucky as she see things otherwise, something changing swiftly in a decade while some others remaining unchanged for millennia or more. Though of course there is a similarity – here also she will find not only a Cheshire Cat with or without a Grin but also a plenty of wicked Grins without the Cheshire Cats.
A CBSE standard history book, Primary History 3, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow meant for class 5 students, written by Ms Devi Kar and Dayita Datta, starts with the chapter on “How English Education Came To India”. It discussed ‘what is a colony’, ‘why India became a British colony’, ‘the old education system and the one set up by the British and its reason’, the social reform movement including activities of Raja Rammohan, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar who fought against Sati, female infanticide, for widow remarriage, for women’s education etc. After the chapter and its Q&A ended there was a ‘News Item’ for ‘Activity Time’ of the learners (or discussion among them), which of course most of the schools, and students too, skip-over. Let us reproduce part of that:
Chennai, 15 August, 1997
Female infanticide has been going on in Usilampatti, near Madurai, for the last 10 to 15 years. The doctors in the Usilampatti Government Hospital say that nearly 600 girls are born in the hospital every year. Out of this almost 570 are killed. ...It is found that even educated parents commit female infanticide.
A young wife of a graduate was forced by her husband to kill their first baby girl. Baby girls are killed because the parents fear that they will have to save a lot of money for dowry when the girls grow up. Some people also think that if a baby girl is killed, the next baby would be a boy. ... (Italics ours)
How many of the students read it, what they understood or how they reacted that time were not known; but months later, while discussing ‘Average’ and ‘Estimation’ in Arithmetic a girl student said, “It is impossible to tell what is the most likely average % of boys or girls in a group of 100 children”, and as the reason she mentioned that news which she has read almost 9 or 10 months back! And then, it was impossible for her to believe that it was not at all the general picture of at any rate, say, civilized, developed countries, and not even in our Kerala.
Perhaps we seniors were ashamed to tell all these, so we avoid telling children that our ‘states with affluence or high per capita income’ (and highest ‘capitalist development’ in agriculture too) Punjab-Haryana fares very bad in such figure (Haryana – from the year 1991 to 2001 number of women per 1000 men decreased from 865 to 861 and for Punjab the same decreased from 882 to 874 respectively) – while our poor Adivasi inhabited Chhattisgarh of salwa judum fame will put them to shame with increasing sex ratio, it was 990 in 2001 from 985 in 1991. On the brighter side Kerala had 1036 women per 1000 men in 1991 which increased to 1058 in 2001, but then Kerala, popularly known as ‘God’s own country’, is something different or unique in this otherwise global back streets named India which has some dazzling islands vulgarly displaying heaps of wealth sweeping underdevelopment under the carpet. So rich Delhi can spend billions on a ‘Games’ show for the world while conceal fact of such a poor sex ratio (821), very poor ‘Gross Enrolment Ratio’ (school intake) etcetera presenting a woman CM and of course with the first woman President of India living there, that India which was given 134th place among countries in the world according to Human Development Index.
A more awful picture was presented by Mr Pavan Nair, in India Together website, posted on March 15, 2010; and that tells us not to feel better by ‘rising sex ratio’ in between 1991 and 2001. The filename was: “Missing males lifts the overall sex ratio”. That article tells us that Child (0 to 6 years) Sex Ratio is continually decreasing in India, but Overall Sex Ratio figure increased rather drastically in between 1991 and 2001 due to premature deaths of males due to smoking, alcoholism, HIV infection and etc. According to his calculations, nearly 8 million males are ‘missing’ in census figures, as could have been the case taking normal projection.
His figures are:
TABLE 1: Child (0-6 yrs) Sex Ratio (CSR) and Overall Sex Ratio (OSR)
Child (0-6 years) Sex Ratio (CSR) and Overall Sex Ratio (OSR) | ||||||
Year ? | 1951 | 1961 | 1971 | 1981 | 1991 | 2001 |
CSR | 983 | 976 | 964 | 962 | 945 | 927 |
OSR | 946 | 941 | 930 | 934 | 927 | 933 |
And also for the four states that contributed most for ‘increasing sex ratio’ due to premature deaths of males the figures are:
TABLE 2: SEX RATIOS- FEMALES PER THOUSAND MALES
Year ? | 1951 | 1961 | 1971 | 1981 | 1991 | 2001 |
Bihar | 1000 | 1005 (+5) | 957 (-48) | 948 (-9) | 911 (-37) | 925 (+14) |
MP | 945 | 932 (-13) | 920 (-12) | 921 (+1) | 931 (+10) | 937 (+7) |
Rajasthan | 921 | 908 (-13) | 911 (+3) | 919 (+8) | 910 (-9) | 922 (+12) |
UP | 908 | 907 (-1) | 876 (-31) | 882 (+6) | 878 (-4) | 901 (+23) |
But we have more things to be ashamed of, and it is not known whether the CBSE or NCERT will plan to publish those too in the subsequent years. This year when the government of India and all the parliamentary parties were busily discussing manoeuvres and tactic for the then upcoming Bill for 33% reservation of legislative and parliamentary seats for women, perhaps they glossed over or had not enough time for a news item published in Times of India on the 17th February by Vimal Bhatia. TNN, Feb 16, 2010, 06.21am IST: Devda village set to welcome 2nd baraat in 120 yrs. “JAISALMER: It’s a proud moment not just for Panna Singh’s family but for the entire Devda village. For, on Tuesday it will welcome a ‘baraat’ - only the second time in 120 years. Panna Singh’s daughter Shagun Kanwar will wed Shailendra Singh at this Rajput village, Devda, which had earned notoriety for the very high incidence of female infanticide.
“The only other time a ‘baraat’ came to Devda was in 1998, when Shagun’s cousin Jayant Kanwar became the first girl to get married in over a century in this village. ‘‘We have the distinction of being the only family to have got two of their girls married. On Tuesday, my daughter will be married to Shailendra Singh of Bikaner who works with the tourism department. It’s a proud moment for us,’’ said Panna Singh.
“There’s a centuries old reprehensible custom in these parts of killing the girl child. It was almost an act of revolt by Inder Singh Bhati and his wife who, 29 years ago, decided against the wishes of the community that their baby girl will live. While everybody else around them killed their daughters, the Bhatis, who had lost 3 sons before Jayant’s birth, could not bring themselves to follow the bizarre village ritual with infant girls. “I don’t remember what we were thinking but it was my wife who took the decision. I supported her,” recalls Inder Singh.” (Italics ours.)
In an ‘Article Base’ report (by one ‘Indian Sawaal’) on that issue we find: “Cnn-Ibn aired a special report recently about a village in jaisalmer rajasthan. ... In interview to [the] channel the bride said that she is thankful to her parents that they went against tide and took tough decision and that DECISION was to allow the girl to live!!!!!”(Find it at http://www.articlesbase.com/)(Italics, underline ours)
When did our parliament passed the bill, and then it became an act, regarding 33% seat reservation in Panchayats and other village ‘self governance’ bodies and urban Municipalities/Corporations too? Starting from the year 1993 we had that glorious Act of ‘Empowering’ women. Almost 6 years after that the news from Chennai came and this latest news, the abovementioned one, came almost 17-18 years after that great ‘empowerment’ act. What were the results? While reporting the same story cited above The Times of India Mobile Edition mentioned that there is only one girl above 10 years age in that Rajasthan village!
(If women really had power they should have bantered such an insulting term as ‘empowerment’ – who the ‘men’ are to give them power as if out of benevolence!!! and shame on you and the ‘power’ you ‘bestowed’ upon us!)
There is a research paper named “Female Infanticide in Tamil Nadu, India: From Recognition Back to Denial?” (www.cwds.ac.in/library/collection/.../ss_female_infanticide_in_tamil.pdf) by Sabu M George. It is not known whether the author matter-of-factly or rhetorically wrote there, “... When the leading newsmagazine India Today exposed female infanticide in Usilampatti in 1986, the then government asserted that the practice was confined only to that particular place in the state. Moreover, the government ...reportedly brought false and baseless charges against the Society for Integrated Rural Development (SIRD), an NGO based in Usilampatti that was instrumental in getting the information published. This apparent form of harassment was presumably meant to discourage them from continuing to publicise the issue. ...In contrast, the response of the government of Tamil Nadu in 1992, under Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha, was different in that the existence of the practice in the state was acknowledged. Earlier that year the state government had launched the 'Cradle Babies' scheme, whereby families were asked to abandon unwanted female infants in cradles provided for that purpose in government primary health centres, rather than kill them.” So, an encouraging response is “families were asked to abandon unwanted female infants in cradles provided for that purpose in government primary health centres, rather than kill them”! And the head of the government was a woman, or rather ever-side-changing Ms. Jayalalitha who in the latest state assembly election was befriended by the CPIM and before that by Congress. Further, it is not known whether the CPIM and the Congress know about (or bother) girl infanticide in that state or the cradle baby project (that is about the crying and dying cradle-babies). Now the result after the cradle-baby scheme: “There were also arrests by district police, particularly in Salem, of some families who had committed female infanticide. The combination of media attention and police persecution led to the abandonment of a large number of babies in the cradles in Salem. In 1992, 77 girls were left in cradles in the district. The government gave money to some NG0s to look after the abandoned girls. Some of them died and over 20 were given up for adoption.”
If we are not satisfied with non-professionals’ reports we may reflect on an article in the “Nursing Journal of India”, which told us, “Female foeticide is now more widespread in the country than ever before. The practice was restricted to few states a few years ago has now spread all over the country. Girls and women not only face inequity and inequality, they are even denied the right to be born if their families do not wish so. In fact many families do not wish their women folk to deliver baby daughters. ... According to UNICEF study done over 3 years (1994-1996), there are only five states where no case of foeticide or infanticide have been reported which are Sikkim, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Jammu & Kashmir.” (Female foeticide on the rise in India, by Sarna, Kamla, Feb 2003 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4036/) How telling a picture presented to us by the two Sisters – and well, what the names of the states with no foeticide suggest?
But did things change in the last 16-17 years?
Some Law Abiding persons also filed public interest litigation in the Supreme Court. Besides ordering the union govt and states governments some other actions were also taken, e.g. “...Supreme Court directed 9 companies to supply the information of the machines sold to various clinics in the last 5 years. Details of about 11,200 machines from all these companies and fed into a common data base. ...Three associations’ viz., The Indian Medical Association [IMA], Indian Radiologist Association [IRA], and the Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Societies of India [FOGSI] were asked to furnish details of members using these machines. Since the supreme court directive 99 cases were registered and in 232 cases ultrasound machines, other equipment and records were seized. Today there is an estimated 25000 ultrasound machines in the country, of these 15000 have been registered. State governments have communicated ...in writing ... they are satisfied that sex determination services are no longer being provided in their respective states.” (Female Foeticide: Need To Change The Mindset Of People – by Banashri B. Savanoor, Legal Service India, article Added Date: 23 Jan 2009, http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l292-Female-Foeticide.html)
And as a latest info, we may look at a news in the OUTLOOK magazine “Global Campaign Against Female Foeticide, Infanticide” by Raj Kumar Sharma/New Delhi, Mar 05, 2010: “Days before Women’s Day, an Indian-origin woman has collaborated with Nobel Peace Prize nominee James Garrow to launch a global campaign against the malpractice of female foeticide and infanticide in India. People from five countries - Ireland, Australia, Kuwait, US and India - will conduct peaceful marches to protest against the gender holocaust. “I realised the gravity of the situation when I decided to adopt a baby girl from India three years ago and was told to wait at least for two to three years,” says Nyna-Pais Caputi, a US citizen currently living in Karnataka and the brain behind the project. “Then the orphanage I visited in my home state pointed out a lake to me in the vicinity where baby girls used to be drowned by their parents,” she told PTI.”
Or we may look into a LAW related site law is greek – “Delhi High Court Recommends Softer Approach on Mothers who Kill Girl Child: On 12th March 2010, a division bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Suresh Kait recommended to the Delhi Government to frame rules that allow the latter to decide either for remission of sentence or clemency can be granted to mothers who are convicted of killing their own children.” (http://www.lawisgreek.com/delhi-high-court-recommends-softer-approach-on-mothers-who-kill-girl-child/#more-767) so, as per this recommendation, women will be empowered to kill their girl children if forced to do so, and their offence will be leniently dealt with.
But all these did not matter for our newsmakers and political parties when they flaunted and headlined, e.g. in The Hindu: india takes a giant leap for womankind. Newspapers like The Hindu stay blindfolded when the vices of left parties, particularly the CPIM. The CPI (M) wrote in its paper that it was demanding and fought for this law for so many years, when it was first sent to some select committee ... etc. The Hindu blamed Congress and BJP totally concealing the role of CPIM in this matter in their article “Politics of Women's Reservation Bill” dated March 16, 2010, by Vidya Subrahmaniam (http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article245970.ece) – “...in the May 2009 Lok Sabha election, the Congress and the BJP, the two biggest champions of the Bill, fielded 43 and 44 women respectively. That is less than 10 per cent of the Lower House's strength of 544. And that is not even one-fourth of the one-third mark. The Congress is led by Sonia Gandhi, unarguably India's single most powerful politician. ...The BJP's Sushma Swaraj packs a punch, .... Was it beyond the means of these two leaders to ensure that women got their fair share during ticket distribution?” But those left-friends hid the record of the left parties. “In the recent LS elections, out of the 443 candidates declared by the Congress, the party pitched only 40 women candidates (less than 10%). ...BJP was no better ... fielding only 43 women candidates out of the total 427 seats. Left parties, the self claimed flag-bearer of the cause of women reservation, had the worst record of women representation in their list of candidates with the left parties not even giving 5% of the tickets to women candidates for the 15th Lok Sabha elections. While, the CPM only fielded 4 women candidates out of the 80 declared seats, the CPI gave only 3 women candidates out of the 45 seats it was contesting.” (http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/other/20090530264 33.htm) In the “advanced unedited version” of “Baseline Report Women and Political Participation in India” we find (our TABLE 3:)
Table 5: Women’s Participation in Political Party Committees | |||
Party | Women | Men | % Women |
Congress(I) | 2 | 17 | 11.7 |
BJP | 8 | 62 | 12.5 |
JD | 3 | 25 | 12.0 |
CPI (M) | 3 | 58 | 5.1 |
CPI | 2 | 18 | 11.1 |
Source: Coordination Unit (1995).
In the last 15 years the picture surely has not changed even that much to claim that at least inside the parties some sort of gender equality was achieved, however loudly Brinda Karat, Sushma Swaraj and Sonia Gandhi proclaim their exuberance for their achievement.
But oh me – India has so much in store for our little Alice! Alice has everything to be astounded here, moreover she will find a meaning of the famous saying about India as a country of ‘unity among diversity’ when she will read about the “30-year-old, MBA grad Chhavi Rajawat quits job to be sarpanch”, in the Economic Times (9th March, 2010) – a story of the same Rajasthan where there is that village Devda we just visited. Let us quote some lines, but not in the order as presented by the newspaper, from that incredible story. “Chhavi Rajawat, the corporate girl-turned-sarpanch from Rajasthan, says she’s used to rural life. “I am used to it. I grew up playing with kids of farmers. Besides, my parental house is in Soda, so I spend time there and don’t miss anything. I am pretty comfortable,” she says. Besides being sarpanch, she also tends to a hotel that the family owns in Jaipur and the numerous horses that are part of her riding school. “It’s a passion,” she explains.” And there is... “She worked with five comapanies in various capacities before changing focus. But today, as Chhavi heads NREGA meetings in her village dressed in jeans and T-shirt, she is fast emerging as the changing face of rural Rajasthan. “It should change. ...” she says.” “And it is a change that Chhavi attributes to her grandfather Brigadier Raghubir Singh. As sarpanch of Soda, years ago, he had made Chhavi’s mother (her own daughter in-law!) drive through the village without a veil. Villagers looked surprised as the car entered but no one uttered a word.” But, how dare common folk utter a word about the khandaan of Brigadier sahab or Singh sahab! And what a humbleness, simplicity of this ‘bade ghar ki beti’; she even used to play with ‘children of the farmers’ – such non-haute outlook!
We spent much time with a single theme, that of girl foeticide-infanticide in India. But now that our lawmakers are keen to bestow ‘power’ on wretched creatures called ‘women’, let us shift our focus to another issue, that of ‘women empowerment’ whatever nasty the term may sound or literally mean. Here too our little Alice will time-travel to and fro in India in search of great accomplishments of women’s empowerment.
Besides the 33p.c. reservation in the various levels of ‘local governments’ like municipalities, metro city corporations, village level panchayats, block level panchayat samitis and district level jillah parishads, India also showcased SJGSY (golden jubilee village self-income plan or scheme – which also had its urban counterparts) forming self-help groups sponsored by government and public sector banks and suchlike things as ‘women’s empowerment’. And a prestigious non-government self-help self-income women’s group, perhaps the biggest one comprising some 45,000 women members and having almost 100,000,000 $ (or Rs 500 crores) annual turnover is the lijjat, a ‘company’ which can give each of its Mumbai-Thane (worker) ‘members’ a grand Diwali Bonus that included a 5 GRAM GOLD COIN!!! The Internet abundantly supplies file-names or headlines like “lijjat – a success story”, “Lijjat - Empowering women through papads for 50 years”, “55 things that make india proud!!!” etc.
They have generated warm admiration not only from high flying academicians, who’s-who of the business and political world of India, management gurus and the like but also from those ordinary people who think and believe that an organisation like Lijjat have provided women a ‘decent income’ and thus created their financial ‘independence’ in a ‘dignified way’. Even slight criticism to any such organisation, from any angle, undoubtedly will be greeted with boos and jeers. So let us visit some parts of a couple of success stories first.
Studying Labour Cooperatives with Lijjat Papad, Written By: Pratik Shah on October 30, 2009 (http://managementfunda.com/studying-labour-cooperatives-with-lijjat-papad/) “... The main objective of Lijjat is to provide employment to women to enable them to earn decent and dignified livelihood. Any women who can render physical work to the organization without distinction of caste, creed and color and agrees to abide by the objective of the organization can become a member from the date on which she starts working. ... The cooperative form of organization has a committee of 21 that decides how the profits are to be distributed. They generally buy gold coins - 5 gm or 10 gm, depending on the profit. Everyone gets an equal share of profit, irrespective of who does what work, irrespective of seniority or responsibility. ... The organization along with all its member sisters has adopted the concept of mutual family affection, concern and trust. All affairs of the institution are dealt in a manner similar to that of a family carrying out its own daily household chores. ... After a woman has signed the pledge form, which serves as her formal entry and introduction to the formal working environment, she is considered as a sister-member. The branch office normally operates from 6.00 to 10.30 am during which time some sisters prepare the dough, while others receive ready papads from those who had taken the dough home the previous day. ... The Lijjat, have never shied away from sharing power in all of the activities. All sister members of the institution are the owners.
“Each and every member has the veto power. All decisions, major or minor, are based on consensus among members. Any single member’s objection can nullify a decision. Another important fact about the organization is that no male can become a member and has voting rights. ...” Now let us jump to another. “Dignity though Papad making: Lijjat Papad does not turn its women into millionaires, but it’s the realization of dignified self-employment that is its success, says Arun Srivastav. ... The success of Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad [now onwards Lijjat - author] lies, among other things, in its ability to offer self-employment opportunities to women at all its 61 branches. Any woman looking for work can approach any of Lijjat’s branches and join the 40,000 plus strong team of Lijjat’s sister-members without any fuss, and earn Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 every month for her roughly six hours of work.... ... The wage pattern is such that the same amount of work fetches almost the same wages. ... Each sister-member is expected, as also bound by the pledge, to roll out at least three kilograms of papad everyday. A new member, after about 15 days of on-the-job training, starts achieving this target in about five to six hours and goes on to roll out one kilogram per hour after some months.... ... The Muzaffarpur branch, according to Lijjat sources, paid Rs 2,500 as extra vanai charge to its sister-members. Similarly, the Mumbai and Thane branch distributed gold coins of five grams to each of the 4,056 sister-members ...” (http://indiatogether.com/2003/feb/eco-lijpapad.htm)
But consider this: Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 12, Num. 1, 2008, pp. 33-36 (http://www.bioline.org.br/request?oe08008) Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 12, No. 1, January-April, 2008, pp. 33-36 /Medknow Publications/ Original Article: A study on health status of women engaged in a home-based "Papad-making" industry in a slum area of Kolkata; Roy Sima, Dasgupta Aparajita, Department of Community Medicine, Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Kolkata. So this is a ‘professional’ viewpoint written by 2 postgraduate doctor students that appeared in a ‘professional’ and also ‘respectable’ journal – not at all can be thrown into the bin. “...it is evident that 60% of the women are in this occupation for more than ten years and most of them spend about five hours for the ‘papad' making work over and above their household job. ... Musculoskeletal problem is their commonest health problem. Neck is the most commonly affected part followed by the low back ...A statistically significant relationship (?2 = 20.11, df = 1, P = < .001) was found to exist between duration of occupation and musculoskeletal problem ... Their other problems include generalized weakness, acidity, menstrual problems, insomnia, headache, excessive sweating, burning sensation during micturition, swelling of feet and problem with vision. Pallor (75%), ...poor oral health (15%), hypertension (12.5%), ... were found on examination ... Neck is found to be the most commonly affected part followed by the low back. Study done by How-Ran Guo reported that musculoskeletal disorders of body parts other than the back are the neck, shoulders, hands and wrists. ...In the 'papad-making' industry there is no provision for a retirement age, as the emphasis is on earning one’s bread through daily work, all through one’s life. ...A focus group discussion was arranged for two days ...on the second day their social, familial and personal problems were elicited. They complained of low wage, and lack of cooperation of the employer. Since they have to perform their household activities over and above this specific job, family care was affected, there was lack of time to take rest, to attend to personal health problems ...” It is strange that these obvious things were not seen by the admirers. It can of course happen that they do not know what the word “musculo-skeletal” means, but back and neck pain, lack of cooperation of the employer, dissatisfaction about wages among the workers need no specialist’s eyes to be seen! Why the Calcutta slum women did not see their work as ‘devotion’, or why they looked at Lijjat in terms of ‘us and them’ instead of thinking in terms of ‘we-ours’ did not crop up at all in the mind of the sociological and economic analysis that filled the cyber space! They are simply oblivious of the fact that in this society of ‘employers and workers’, masters and slaves, even NGOs inherit the same master-slave architecture.
However let us spare our lawmakers, established and parliament-centrist parties and specialists in the bourgeois media for now, we shall have many other occasions and issues to deal with them, and concentrate on just two questions: (1) why can customs like girl foeticide/infanticide, girls’ and women’s malnutrition, early death etc persist in this ‘world’s No:1 democracy’ and (2) why it is impossible to ‘empower’ women (if for the time being we do not mind such an ugly phrase like ‘empowering women’) in this socio-economic set-up.
India still has, to a large extent, its peculiar feudalism or pre-capitalism. Peculiar, because almost each and every of the countries or sub-continent like zones has some characteristic feature/s that may or may not be same in some other, e.g. German feudalism and Chinese feudalism did not have all the same characteristic features. Moreover many things got distorted here as the British colonialists implanted their desired land-owing patterns differently in different zones. But one characteristic is really unique and the Brits could not change it or rather did not want to change it and that is the age-old Hindu (or Brahminical) caste-system laden society. As we know and often discuss among us about how the ideology of the ruling class becomes the ruling ideology, the same way the society at large assimilated Hindu-Brahminic value system, and those who rejected it were exiled out of the caste system or from any position in the hierarchical caste ladder, like the Dalits (‘low-caste’), Adivasi people (‘Bratya’ or outsider, Gandhi called the ‘Giribasi’ or hill side people), Mleccha (In the epic Mahabharata, some Mleccha warriors are described ...[as being] impure in habits, ....” They are “dwellers of hills” and “denizens of mountain-caves.” – (Mleccha is a name which was later used for Muslims also), then Chandal (lowly, untouchable) etc. In the caste laden Hindu value system a ‘he’ is certainly better than a ‘she’ child, and sometimes the ‘she’ can be literally sacrificed in the altar of the value system with an expectation that next time a ‘he’ comes! So in the childhood a ‘she’ will definitely be given less food, less attention, less chances of education than a ‘he’ child and the former has to share the household chores to spare the later (“after all she will have to take charge of the kitchen and household works after marriage”). A ‘she’ child is a ‘burden’ as she will have to be maintained till her marriage and at marriage a huge amount of cash and jewellery are to be given as dowry. On the other hand the family of ‘he’ will get all that wealth plus a domestic work-hand, also a ‘sex-object’ to be enjoyed at his husband’s beck and call. It became a ritual in some places that after marriage when the bridegroom comes back with his bride he has to call his mother and tell – look mom I brought a slave (dasi) for you. Hindu ‘epics’ give a vivid picture of cruel attitude shown by the heroes towards their wives. Decades of ‘capitalist development’ have passed bringing not much change in this value system, the most glaring examples being Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana etc. To get a clearer picture from another angle let us see the following data:
(http://www.mospi.gov.in/nsso_press_%20note_516.htm) “During 2004-2005, the over all sex ratio in India was 951 females per 1000 males. The sex ratio was 959 among the STs, 954 for both the SCs and OBCs, and 943 among others.” We know that ‘others’ here mean both higher caste Hindus and Muslims. It is now an accepted fact to the demographers that Muslims have higher sex ratio than Hindus (means, naturally, caste Hindus), e.g., “The child sex ratio of Muslims (950 out of 1,000) is better than that of Hindus (925 out of 1,000).” Hence we can assume the significantly low sex ratio among higher caste Hindus. Another set of data from the census 2001 show sex ratio among different Scheduled Tribes: our TABLE 4:
Jharkhand – Sex Ratio among Scheduled Tribes
Age Groups | India | Jharkhand | Kharia | Ho | Munda | Santhal |
All ages | 978 | 987 | 1026 | 1010 | 994 | 985 |
0 – 6 | 973 | 979 | 977 | 986 | 983 | 980 |
Therefore it is a clear cut fact – those outside the Hindu-Brahmanic caste hierarchy are as far as possible from the value system of the upper caste Hindus – the farther they are from that caste ladder the better is the probability of having better or higher sex ratio among them. But then lower sex ratio implies not only girl-child-foeticide and infanticide but also girl-child-malnutrition related deaths (and also there are dowry related deaths, suicides etc) and some other reasons. For the Dalit/Adivasi families women are not thought to be ‘burden’ as in higher caste ones because in such families women earn working in the fields along with their male counterparts. Among Adivasi societies women are in a respectable position and while taking a bride the groom’s family has to pay a token offering and women get almost the same freedom as men. Although it is a sordid part of reality that some vices of the ‘higher’ society were (or, are being) assimilated by them, moreover their societies are backward (old patriarchal domination, women’s chance of education, lower standard of living as a result of abject poverty, etc) and hence some brutal and patriarchal practices are seen among them.
It would however be wrong to conjecture that more ‘labouring’ and ‘earning’ females mean more ‘empowered’ women, better sex ratio and more prestigious position of women in societies in this present India. Dalit women work and earn, poor residents Bihar and UP are also major labour supplier to rich Punjab and Haryana. But among Dalits in these two states and among people in these two states the picture is dreadful. Let us present some data:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091014/jsp/frontpage/story_11612917.jsp
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 ||Bengal slips on gender parity, rises on power|| CHARU SUDAN KASTURI
Bengal is ranked 24th out of 35 states on the gender equity index and 16th on the women’s empowerment measure for 2006. /The Indian government’s GDI is calculated by comparing the infant mortality, life expectancy at the age of one, literacy rates, average years of education and estimated income per capita for girls and boys. / As a country, India’s GDI has improved from 0.568 in 1996 to 0.633 in 2006. The higher the GDI, the greater the gender equality . . .
The GEM is calculated by measuring political and economic participation and control wielded by women in different Indian states. Like the GDI, a higher GEM represents greater empowerment of women. Bihar is at the bottom of both the GDI and GEM indices - for both 1996 and 2006.
Then, at http://ultraviolet.in/2008/04/14/dangerous-dalit-women-and-witch-hunters/ we find
April 14, 2008 || Dangerous Dalit Women and Witch-Hunters|| By Meena Kandasamy
From 1991 to 2000, over 522 cases of witch-hunting have been registered in Bihar alone.
Then, http://hindu.theuniversalwisdom.org/india-faces-high-rate-domestic-abuse-0 || India Faces High Rate of Domestic Abuse || Sun, 10/21/2007 - 15:00
Bihar has been found to be the worst state with abuse rate as high as 59%. About 63% of these incidents of violence on women were in urban families. Bihar was followed by Rajasthan (46.3%), MP (45.8%), Manipur (43.9%), UP (42.4%), TN (41.9%) and West Bengal (40.3%).
And last, the following table for Indian major states with lowest sex ratio from census figures: (here we should remember the deceptiveness of the overall sex ratio figures as told by Mr Pavan Nair that is given a few pages back).
TABLE 5:
| Year 1991 | females to 1000 males | Year 2001 | females to 1000 males |
Haryana | 865 | Haryana | 861 |
UP | 876 | Punjab | 876 |
Punjab | 882 | UP | 898 |
Bihar | 907 | Bihar | 919 |
Rajasthan | 910 | MP | 919 |
MP | 912 | Rajasthan | 921 |
Of course ‘capitalist development’ is going on in India since ‘independence’ but the capitalist development through reform, keeping strong remnants of feudalism (or pre capitalism) and to a large extent being dominated by imperialism, naturally could not revolutionise the mindset in India – and that is amply clear by the data provided by Mr Pavan Nair in our Table 1 where we see that Child Sex Ratio is actually falling since ‘independence’. If we plot the Child Sex Ratio (CSR) falling with time we shall get a downwardly heading graph showing situation is deteriorating!
So, to change the picture drastically what is needed is a revolutionary change in the society to eradicate, uproot pre-capitalism, which in political term is called a democratic revolution. It is not needed for economic change only, rather, only through a thoroughly revolutionary practice by the men and women combined, the mindset, the deeply ingrained value system can start to change. Democratic Revolutionary practice alone can begin the journey to change it, not a ‘gradual’ capitalist development.
A question may appear here; say after another century or half of capitalist development and allied change of value system, assuming that in the latter conscious role will also be taken from the government, NGO-s, political parties (and religious bodies too – like the supreme seat of the Sikh Panth not long ago took this as a matter of grave concern and described it as immoral) etc this girl-child foeticide-infanticide disappear from the society to the extent that sex ratio jumps up to 990 or more. Can we then say that ‘India has moved out from gender related prejudices’? History proved otherwise giving factual evidences from the advanced capitalist countries regarding that problematic called equality, ‘empowerment’ and ‘male domination’.
Let us see some other data from http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/nov/law-women.htm in our TABLE 6
TABLE: 1 Country data on political representation of women | |||
Country | % elected women | Quota in Parliament | Quota in Parties |
Sweden | 47 (2006) | No | Yes |
Argentina | 40 (2007) | Yes | Yes |
Norway | 36 (2005) | No | Yes |
Canada | 24 (2006) | No | Yes |
United Kingdom | 20 (2005) | No | Yes |
France | 18 (2007) | No | Yes |
USA | 17 (2006) | No | No |
We can see percentage of women in parliament like institutions of some other countries in recent times.
Rwanda 48.8%; Cuba 43.2%; Finland 41.1%;
Argentina 40.0%; Holland 39.3%; Denmark 38.0%;
Costa Rica 36.8%;
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/map-world-womenpolitics/)
It may be recalled that, based on many indices, Great Britain was far more capitalistically developed country before the First World War than what India is now. But there was no provision for women’s suffrage there at that time. There had to be an intense fight for women’s suffrage by group of women known as Suffragettes. One Suffragette activist, Emily Davison, threw herself in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby 1913. Many of them were imprisoned and tortured. The First World War drew a huge number of males for war, and women filled up vacancies in jobs of different levels. They showed that in terms of ability they are no less than men. Changed perception yielded, and women above 30 got right to vote on 1918. Finally, women got equal voting right on 1928. After ‘freedom’ India inherited so many British systems and those included a parliament and universal suffrage as in Britain. Anyway, women had to fight and get rights; no capitalist development bestowed on them rights automatically.
Hence, elevation of women or their position from some perception like percentage of women in law making bodies does not correspond 1 to 1 with the degree of capitalist development in that particular country, at least the above data say so.
We will be astonished to know that in ‘civilized’ countries like France, political parties field women in ‘unsafe seats’, give ‘fines’ for not filing candidates according to law, etc to avoid increase in female parliamentarians! This shows the value system impregnated in such a developed country. So, we may say that elevation or position of women in society is, to a good extent, related to socio–cultural, axiological (i.e. regarding value system) etc perspectives.
Two cases suffice to prove this. Take Cuba. The Cuban revolution certainly changed the social milieu and values to that extent that 43.2% of its lawmakers are women. Not only that, there the number of women among engineering and health professionals etc are higher that of men. Rwanda did not face any such political revolution, but in a sense a ‘revolution’ happened – in the wars between Rwanda and Burundi, that continued for years, countless men died and percentage of women in society changed drastically, they became majority. After the war, and also during the war, women had to come to forefront to continue running of the social machine. But then they got, to some extent, the taste of power, taste of freedom, and now they do not want to go back to do household chores only. They could have pushed further than the position they earned through their daily struggle. Perhaps they will, someday.
So even if capitalist development is less, a thorough social change can change the social milieu, can alter their position, and naturally, in that change, women have to take equally active part, otherwise society or social inertia will not retreat to leave front bench for them. We are waiting for this social change, in India and other countries.
But nonetheless, even Socialist Revolution cannot even achieve proper equality between men and women because it is not that easy to change totally the social culture, values etc just by establishing the dictatorship of proletariat. We know class struggle continues in the period of dictatorship of proletariat, the phase of transition from capitalism to socialism. With a radical development of class struggle under dictatorship of proletariat for a pretty long time, we may presume, equality in real terms can be achieved - because inequality among men and women dates back to formation of class society (more or less), it is a thousands of years’ old vice and we cannot dream of wiping it out it in a few decades.
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