Women workers face new realities

Women workers face new realities

In a three-part series starting today, Mint examines the issue of informal labour from the perspective of such women, whose traditional roles are changing in the face of India’s transformation

Cordelia Jenkins & Malia Politzer

New Delhi: The economic future of urban India has its foundation in a vast and amorphous force of informal labour.

In April, a McKinsey and Co. study estimated that by 2030, nearly 590 million Indians will live in the cities— roughly twice the population of the US. This urban boom is a combination of factors: a massive pull from development, construction projects and increased demand for domestic staff from a growing middle class.

Nuclear families with two working partners are becoming more common in the cities and, without the support of an extended family, domestic servants have become a necessity.

These trends have catalysed the mass movement of migrant workers to the cities in search of better job opportunities. Such workers, particularly the women, are becoming the driving force behind urbanization and the crutch that supports India’s economic expansion.

A recent study of domestic workers in the slums of Delhi by the Indian Social Studies Trust found that nearly 80% of them were migrants, 41% of whom said they came to Delhi for jobs as domestic workers.

Yet they remain a largely invisible force, working in the informal economy as maids, cooks and nannies, unprotected by labour laws and frequently falling prey to social exclusion and financial, physical and sexual exploitation. Perhaps the most vulnerable are the single women who flock to the cities with spurious “placement agencies” to work as live-in maids and those who fall prey to traffickers. But there are positive outcomes too.

In Delhi, married women moving their families into urban slums have become the primary bread earners. In Bihar, village women who have all but lost their men to seasonal migration must figure out how to function as the de facto household heads.

In a three-part series starting today, Mint examines the issue of informal labour from the perspective of such women, whose traditional roles are changing in the face of India’s transformation.

In the shadow of abuse, exploitation

With no regulatory oversight, dishonest agencies are placing domestic help in a legal and economic vacuum

New Delhi: Bardani Logun sits on a plastic chair in the communal room of a hostel in Rohini, north Delhi, where she lives with her toddler, and speaks candidly about being beaten, abused and starved.

She is one of countless young women from the tribal belt of India who have migrated to Delhi to find work as live-in maids, hoping to send their earnings back home to support impoverished families in Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh or West Bengal. Like many others, Logun found work through a placement agency, which promised to find her a full-time job and a secure salary living with a Delhi family.

The reality was grim. Her employers kept her trapped in the house, bullied and starved her. “I worked for them for only a month,” she says, “and then I couldn’t stay any more.” The placement agency withheld her wages and she couldn’t afford the train fare home. Logun and her daughter, Theresa, were stranded homeless in Delhi until they found the hostel run by Nirmala Niketan, a non-governmental organization (NGO).

As her mother speaks, Theresa runs about with the other boys and girls who stay in the hostel, shrieking with laughter in the glare of a muted TV set in the corner. Other women listen in. Each has her own tale to tell and the accounts are depressingly uniform: a litany of sexual or physical abuse, stolen wages and isolation; they illustrate a wide-spread, but largely unacknowledged, problem.

While there is surging demand for household help in metros such as Delhi, the absence of a regulatory framework has led to the emergence of a shadow industry of placement agencies, spiking from a handful at the start of the decade to more than 1,000 today in the Capital alone.

In the absence of oversight or registration requirements, these agencies are given free rein to recruit and place women in private homes without being held accountable for their working conditions. Worse, in some instances, agents have been guilty of trafficking girls, forcing them into bonded labour or prostitution and stealing their wages.

The problem

Domestic work is not recognized under India’s labour laws, nor is it included under the minimum wage law in most states. As a result, agencies are not required to retain lists of women placed, or records of employers.

“Workers are not being told the conditions under which they are being placed. They might not know how much their salary is, how much commission the placement agencies will take, or when they will get paid,” says Neetha Pillai, a senior fellow at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, a think tank. As a result many women move from one exploitative situation to another.

According to Pillai, agencies create a network of locals in the villages who are paid about Rs. 1,000 per head for every girl they send to the cities. Grace, who uses only one name, was only eight years old when she was first brought to Delhi, by a neighbour who helped find her a job through an agent.

Now 17, she wears a green kurta and a bold, somewhat combative, expression as she describes the abuse she suffered. “The mother would slap me and shout at me,” she says. After four years of abuse, Grace went to the agency for help. “I cried in front of them and said that I didn’t want to stay here any more; I said I wanted to go home.” The agent refused to pay Grace her wages and instead placed her with another family.

Her next employer was equally harsh. “She said that I didn’t know anything, that I was from the jungle and I was ignorant. She said it was God who was providing me with shelter and a home and that I should feel lucky to be there. It built up her pride to make me feel lower than her,” Grace says.

She was kept inside, even prevented from going to church on Christmas Day, until a neighbour’s maid intervened and told Grace about Nirmala Niketan, a women’s cooperative that acts as a placement agency, children’s hostel and safe house for domestic workers in need.

Subhash Bhatnagar, who has been running Nirmala Niketan for six years, has regular dealings with employers and notes that dishonest agents exploit them too, holding them to ransom over commission fees and availability of staff.

For some girls, the outcome is even worse—the brothels in places such as GB Road in Delhi are full of migrant women. According to Ravi Kant, of the anti-trafficking NGO Shakti Vahini, most of the girls on GB Road are either from Nepal or the tribal belt. Most, he says, were recruited by local agents who promise good jobs as domestic workers.

Unsafe migration

A 20-year-old from a poor village in Andhra Pradesh is one such victim. She was brought to Delhi by an acquaintance from her village who promised to help place her with a good family as a maid. Instead, she was sold to a brothel along GB Road. There she was raped, beaten and forced to have sex with nearly 40 men daily. She was one of the lucky ones—she was rescued by the Delhi police and Shakti Vahini after her family filed a missing persons report. Most women do not escape.

“There’s a breaking-in period,” says Asha Jayamaran, who works at anti-trafficking NGO Apne Aap. “They are raped repeatedly, tortured such as burnt with cigarettes, blackmailed, threatened that their families will be hurt. By the time the breaking-in period is complete, they suffer a sense of shame and guilt and do not want to return to their villages.”

It’s hard to say how many women are trafficked into prostitution by dishonest placement agencies, but villages are rife with stories of missing girls. And once a girl disappears, it’s virtually impossible to track her down.

“There is a big link between unsafe migration and trafficking,” says Kant. “A lot of the unskilled labour is coming to Delhi in search of the migrant dream. But they don’t necessarily know where to look, so they rely on placement agencies, who say they’ll place them in homes. Instead they’re sold to brothels, or placed in prostitution rackets and sent to various villages in Haryana, Delhi and Punjab. Migration gone wrong becomes trafficking.”

Most activists and experts advocate formalizing the connection between agents and employers by mandated registration as a way out of this destructive cycle. The fact that Delhi’s live-in maids exist in a legal and economic vacuum (often without bank accounts or identification papers) makes them virtually untrackable, unprotected by law and liable to disappear without a trace.

Easier said than done

“Yes, placement agencies have to register—but they don’t have to say what they do,” says Reiko Tsushima, a specialist on gender equality and women workers’ issues, at the International Labour Organization (ILO). “Agencies can be registered as societies, trade unions, trusts, NGOs—but there aren’t any audits or mechanisms for labour checks.”

However, this is easier said than done. There have been attempts to regulate the industry since independence (nationally, there are around 11 versions of Bills to regulate and improve conditions of domestic workers), but none has succeeded in becoming law. In 2008, the National Commission for Women (NCW) attempted to address some of these issues in a Domestic Workers Bill, which would require compulsory registration of agencies, employers and workers and regulate working conditions. However the Bill never made it past the draft stage.

With legal recourse not readily available, the only hope is a clutch of not-for-profit organizations. Bhatnagar, for instance, is working through Nirmala Niketan to try to establish a system by which girls can return home, but he acknowledges that it won’t be easy. There’s also the problem of sexual abuse and its stigma in the villages. In fact, according to Pillai, rape is so common that some agencies inform girls at the outset that they will pay for an abortion should a pregnancy occur. But because many of the girls are Christians, they refuse to have abortions, and are consequently excluded if they try to go back. Returning home can be a more daunting prospect than leaving, says Bhatnagar. “Their families don’t want them to come back or get married. In the long term, these girls are stuck here.”

It isn’t surprising then, that despite everything that’s happened to her in Delhi, Bardani Logun won’t go back to her village. Her in-laws don’t want her any more, she says, and she can’t survive alone. Similarly, Grace has nothing to return to: “My parents didn’t take an interest in my life, they only wanted the money.” For most girls, the journey back to the village will remain an unrealized goal.

 

Bringing home the bread

Multiple part-time jobs offer the chance of higher wages to migrant women, but they come with a lack of security

New Delhi: The Karkardooma slum is hidden in plain sight. Tucked behind a billboard, makeshift houses of cinder blocks and corrugated steel crowd narrow lanes, just a short walk from the manicured gardens and three-storey bungalows of Anand Vihar, in the eastern part of Delhi. Small children play marbles under the watchful eye of the neighbours. Shobha Kumari, a resident of the slum, wakes up every day at 5.30 in the morning, cooks for her four children and husband and then leaves for work—she is a part-time help.

Her actual home is Madhya Pradesh. The family moved to Delhi many years ago, like other families in similar circumstances, to look for a better existence. Unlike in the village, there are jobs aplenty for women like Kumari in the city, albeit poorly paid and with no security. By working at several homes in the neighbourhood and charging Rs. 200 per month for each of the services rendered—sweeping and washing dishes, for instance—these women have managed to survive outside of the network of placement agencies. In many instances, they are slowly replacing their husbands as primary bread earners.

Helping hand: Jyoti, a grass-roots organizer of the Self Employed Women’s Association, tells a part-time domestic worker about her rights.Photographs by Ankit Agrawal/Mint

As a result, for the first time, married migrant women from rural India have become independent wage earners, a phenomenon that is triggering its own social dynamics and which offers yet another face of urban migration.

The new bread earners

Although working part-time affords Kumari a certain degree of independence, her schedule is still largely dictated by her employers. There is no question of missing a day of work if she becomes sick. “If you miss more than three days of work, they replace you,” she says.

Part-time workers in Delhi are increasingly in demand, according to Bina Agarwal, director and professor of economics at the Institute of Economic Growth. “Earlier you only had live-in domestic help, but now families are more nuclear, space is constrained, it’s a much more fluid market,” she says.

Still, while multiple part-time jobs offer the chance of higher wages, they come with job insecurity.

A yet-to-be-published study by the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST), a non-governmental organization (NGO), of 1,438 domestic workers living in the poorest areas of Delhi, has found that lack of job security is only the first challenge. Low-caste workers can be prohibited from using their employer’s toilets or drinking their water, notes Shrayana Bhattacharya, the author of the study. This results in a high level of urinary infections among women.

Workers sit outside a house in the Karkardooma slum

In Delhi, ISST found that the majority of women interviewed reported bladder problems and nearly 40% said they feared to take sick leave. Because most also lack identification cards, they sometimes face police harassment, have trouble enrolling their children in school and are often unable to access government schemes.

Part of the problem is that most domestic workers—unless they’ve had formal instruction from NGOs or others—don’t have any real understanding of their rights, according to Surabhi Mehrotra of Jagori, an NGO that works with domestic workers.

“Most don’t think of this as a form of work. They see it as an extension of something they do at home,” she says. “Before they can negotiate for their rights, they need to see themselves as workers.”

There is also the risk of jeopardizing the job. Kumari, who has two boys and two girls, says the Rs. 2,500 she earns each month is the most secure source of income for the family. Although her husband, a cement pourer, earns more when he works, his income is project-based and uncertain. This is common to many poor families.

Of the husbands of domestic workers, surveyed by ISST in 117 slums in and around Delhi, one-third were casual labourers and the rest, either unemployed or in low-paying jobs as rickshaw pullers, cleaners and waste pickers. At the subsistence level, these women are a critical source of family income.

There’s some evidence to show that as women earn more, their husbands feel emasculated—particularly if they are unemployed. There are also instances of some of the women, encouraged and emboldened by their own abilities, aspiring for more.

An exception

Radha Devi Verma sits shyly at the table at the house of one of her clients, beaming with quiet pride as she recounts her accomplishments.

Since migrating to Delhi 15 years ago from Uttar Pradesh to get a job, first as a part-time domestic worker and eventually a masseur, she’s been able to fund an expensive surgery that may have saved her husband’s life, paid for her mother-in-law’s eye surgery, built a home in her village, and, though illiterate herself, put her four children, two boys and two girls, through school, married her eldest daughter off to a teacher, even presented her son-in-law with a motorcycle. Later this year, she plans to fund a religious festival in her home village.

Her husband has taken on household duties, including cooking, cleaning and childcare, she says, and is delighted that she is able to contribute so much to the family.

Verma’s accomplishments represent an optimistic trajectory for women working as part-time maids and cleaners. The move to the city allowed her to break free of caste-restrictions and acquire new skills that would have been prohibited in the village. Eventually, while working as a cleaner at a beauty parlour, she learnt how to give head and body massages—a profession looked down upon in her village—and built up her own clientele. Her salary went from about Rs. 1,000 per month (as a domestic worker) to nearly Rs.15,000 per month.

Still, Verma is mindful of the caste hierarchy, and is meticulously careful that word of her profession does not get back to her people.

In an ideal world, according to Reiko Tsushima, specialist on gender equality at the International Labour Organization, part-time domestic workers would all end up like Verma, starting with relatively unskilled labour, like mopping and sweeping, and eventually leading to more skilled professions—cooking, caring for children or the elderly, or like Verma, becoming beauticians. However, this is more the exception than the rule.

According to Sanjay Kumar, regional director of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Verma’s experience is quite exceptional. “There might be one woman in 100 like that,” he says. “Maybe two in 500. Without a catalyst, it’s unlikely.”

In an attempt to provide such a trigger, SEWA has been working in the slums of Delhi, Kerala and Gujarat, informing domestic workers of their rights, helping them to form unions; it will also, eventually, provide vocational courses.

Ranjana Kumari, president of Centre for Social Research, suggests that such unions help increase the opportunities available to part-time workers.

SEWA has successfully unionized at least 400 domestic workers in Kerala. Almost immediately, Kumar says, the women in the union were able to raise their wages by around 40%. They also learnt how to negotiate with their employers.

Today, most women have at least four days’ holiday per month. If they work for more than 3 hours, they are able to have tea or water breaks. Women who are sick can ask another member of the group to go work for them, so they will not lose their jobs. “When they organize themselves, they have a platform to talk about their rights,” Kumar says. “Organizing is key to all of the rights they hope to access.”

While the challenges of their work space are daunting, it is evident that their new-found social and economic empowerment is triggering aspirations among some or at least ensure it for the next generation. Shobha Kumari’s dream is that her daughters will be “educated”, meaning literate (Kumari is not), and capable of making a living independently as skilled workers.

The ISST survey found that although three out of four women surveyed in Delhi said they were happy doing domestic work, almost an equal proportion said they wouldn’t want the same future for their daughters. “I do not want them to do what I do,” agrees Kumari. “It is not good work.”

From homemakers to decision makers

Collectives in Bihar are slowly transforming the social role of women to leading their families as men migrate for work

Madhubani, Bihar: Arhuliya Devi remembers a time when she could barely sleep because of stress. A petite woman with a weather-worn face, she tightens her red scarf around her hair and shudders at the memory.

One of her children was sick with high fever, bad chills and nausea. Her husband was away in Punjab working as a migrant agricultural labourer. She had no money to pay for a doctor, no way to take her child to a hospital even if she could afford it, no way to contact her husband to ask for money, and had four other children to care for.

Because of her poverty and Dalit status, local moneylenders were reluctant to give her a loan. She finally managed to get a small loan—at more than 60% interest—that would take her many months to pay off. It was the turning point for Arhuliya Devi and her family; she realized she could no longer depend on her husband to be the decision maker. She would have to learn to manage on her own.

Much has changed since. After forming a women’s collective of migrant workers’ wives, not only is she out of debt, but also, often, funds her husband’s trips to Punjab. She’s one of a growing number of Madhubani wives who see collectivization as a survival strategy. Such collectives, which often serve as de facto support groups, sources of credit, insurers and decision-making bodies, are slowly transforming the social role of women in rural areas. This is particularly true of Dalit communities that, for at least six months of the year when the men migrate in search of work, are run nearly exclusively by women.

The phenomenon is evident all over India. As men move away from their homes and villages in greater numbers, “an unprecedented change is under way in how the households and communities function”, according to a recent study on women in Rajasthan by the Aajeevika Bureau, a non-profit organization providing services to seasonal migrants.

“In particular, changes are visible in relation to women’s status, responsibility and challenges as they cope with the new reality of long and frequent absence of men—husbands and fathers—from their midst,” it says.

In the village of Jhanjharpur, Bihar, women toil on small wheat patties (pieces of land), often bringing their children along with them to work. Poverty—in the form of pothole-riddled dirt roads, lack of electric lights or vehicles, and small huts with thatched roofs and manure-packed floors—is a fact of life.

New challenges

Less apparent is the dearth of men. For between four and eight months every year, nearly 70% of Jhanjharpur’s male population migrates to places such as Delhi, Punjab, Mumbai and Haryana in search of work, according to Ramesh Kumar, president of the non-profit Ghoghardiha Prakhand Swarajya Vikas Sangh (GPSVS), which has set up self-help groups in the area.

Most men are illiterate, married and landless, and send back remittances to support their families.

Due to the recent droughts, many men are leaving earlier, and staying until later, every year.

According to a study published by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) in July, Bihar is the biggest source of migration in the country —nearly 5.2 million people—closely followed by Uttar Pradesh, the vast majority of whom are married men migrating solo in search of work.

Around 84% of the Bihar migrants surveyed said they believed male migration to be on the rise. But the tremendous pressure this puts on women is just beginning to be studied.

Arhuliya Devi describes having to cobble together income from odd jobs such as sharecropping and selling vegetables in the market, as remittances from her husband are irregular.

“Suddenly she will have to manage agricultural expenses, interface with banks, insurance products, sell produce in the market—all things that men usually do,” says Prema Gera, who heads the poverty unit at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “It’s very tough.”

A larger issue is credit: Most women can’t easily get a loan without a man. According to the IIPA study, 58% of migrant families from Bihar are in debt to moneylenders. Unaccustomed to dealing with women, some banks and moneylenders simply refuse to work with them, says Gera. “Women are invisible to some service providers,” she adds.

An additional problem is that women do not have title to the property the family owns. “Many have to till their own land if they want to increase productivity, they need to have fertilizer—to get that, they need credit, money—which they can’t get,” says Reiko Tsushima, gender specialist at the International Labour Organization. “They are completely dependent on men to access this system. This is where self-help group can be helpful.”

Changing roles

At a recent gathering in Madhubani, Arhuliya Devi—along with nearly 20 other Dalit women—sat on a dusty tarp in a clearing between tiny open rooms. The group, one of many that have been set up in Madubhani by GPSVS, meets twice monthly to administer small loans and discuss problems.

It might not look particularly well organized, but the women say it’s had a transformational effect on their lives. Prior to its formation, all members of the group reported having been in debt to loan sharks—with interest that ranged from 60-120%. Many also reported chronic health problems, malnourished children and depression—feeling of loneliness and stress.

Such self-help groups have flourished in Madhubani. Introduced nearly 11 years ago by GPSVS, there are now 296 such groups in the region, 80% of which are headed by women, in the absence of men who had migrated in search of work, Kumar says. Although this group is relatively new—just three years old—all its members have already managed to get out of debt. Between them, they’ve saved nearly Rs. 8,400 that members can dip into to pay for health or food expenses. Such common funds can be accessed even to pay for a daughter’s wedding.

The husband of one of the members says that he feels secure now that there is a group to take care of his family when he is away. “In Punjab I only earn Rs. 100 per day, I can’t save that much—now (my wife) is sometimes earning more than me, and taking care of the family. So it’s a great comfort to me,” he says.

One member joined the local panchayat, or village council. She has since secured three solar lights for the village, and is pushing through old age pension applications for 12 of the group members. “Before, I had no information about it, I had no confidence,” she says. “Now I can help the collective to access government schemes.”

When a banker repeatedly refused to open an account for another women’s collective in the village of Gurgipati, they used their collective power to force him. Nearly 100 of them camped out in front of the public sector bank early in the morning, and refused to allow it to open until they were heard. After 5 hours, the banker opened an account for them. No woman has had a problem there since.

Family benefits

UNDP has found that levels of distress migration drop in areas where there are well-established, financially savvy women’s groups. “There is more opportunity created back home because women have access to collective loans, so there’s benefit for the entire family,” says Gera. “This creates more opportunities for men.”

But the new-found power of women in such communities is limited, according to Bina Agarwal, an economist at the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi who studies gender and land rights. “The men are never entirely away,” she says. “They still have a say in whether or not the women form a collective. In general, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have to be the catalyst.”

Still, having effected some change through self-help groups, the women are inspired. In the village of Suggapapi, one of the more established groups struck out collectively to address the problem of liquor consumption in the village. They exerted pressure through local police officers and panchayatleaders, staged a public rally and eventually succeeded in shutting down the local liquor store.

Alongside, they mounted social pressure on their husbands by refusing to serve them food until they gave up their drinking habits. Eventually the men had to take a public vow not to drink.

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Gender war, yet to be won

Gender war, yet to be won

V.R. Krishna Iyer

The move to create a U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, named U.N. Women, is a major stride for humankind.

Whether you believe in god or not, every effect must have a cause. Out of nothing, nothing comes: ex nihilo nihil fit. Any creation must have a creator: call him Brahman, God, Allah the Merciful... God is everywhere and in everything. As the philosopher Arthur Young said, god sleeps in the mineral, wakes in the vegetable, walks in the animal, flies in the bird and thinks in man. This critical awareness is unique to human beings, gives them the power to identify themselves with creativity and universal consciousness. Call it omnipresent infinity through absolute power present universally and ubiquitously. The vedic seer's universal vision of existence does not discriminate.

Walt Whitman wrote: “… [A] leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars. And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, and the tree toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven.” Indeed, the deepest waters and the summit skies are made sublime by the same divine wonder.

Jesus described this infinite wonder the kingdom of god and made it the universal truth: “The Kingdom of God is within you,” he told humanity. The upanishads called it Advaita Brahman. Islam stands for peace, purity, submission. Every human being finds a celestial essence in cosmic brotherhood, whatever his or her religion. So he is all-merciful. The vedic vision is absolute unity in creation. Brahman is not plurality of gods but one god — Advaita.

So, whatever be your religion we have but one god, the awakened over the supreme wonder as the Buddha. The Buddha did not preach. God believed in truth and non-violence — the Enlightened One, a Hindu avatar. So I am a Brahmin, a spark of Brahman. Thus I am a Christian with Jesus' vision, and also Islam's single brotherhood credo. This profound unitary global glory is the foundation of Indian constitutional-cultural-theological secularism. Ignorant of this deeper spiritual core, those who set off religious acrimony and communalism forget the quintessence of secularism. Vulgar religious rivalry violates sublime secularism.

We discriminate between man and woman and consider the latter to be inferior. No man is born without a woman. There are some biological differences but they do not warrant basic discrimination. Man, woman and child are humanity in unity.

This sublime, supreme truth of divinity has led the United Nations to found a gender wonder. It seeks to give a stronger voice to the notionally illusory weaker sex. They are equal in terms of their potency. The queen on the throne is no less than the king can be. Indira Gandhi was as powerful as her father was before her. So too the spiritual-temporal jurisprudence of peer sex power.

The U.N General Assembly on July 2, 2010 voted unanimously to create a U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, named U.N. Women (UNW). The new entity is meant to accelerate progress in meeting the needs of women and girls worldwide. It aims to create a new vibrant ethos, a valiant instrument to accelerate gender equality and women's empowerment, bring to a close discriminatory disparity, according to a U.N. statement. UNW brings four U.N bodies dealing with gender issues under one umbrella. It is meant to be an egalitarian organ.

With the creation of UNW, the egalitarian gender jurisprudence is affirmed unanimously. Hopefully, a grand transformation is under way now that it has come into being. A man or a woman can be vibrantly one. But, give woman nuclear weapons, and she will bomb as terribly as a man will.

Every faculty in the cerebral power is equal across genders. But this militant equality has yet to become a social reality. Indian culture accepts the wealthy and the ‘illthy', the rich and the indigent, equally in its epics. Egalite is writ large in constitutional print. Currently in Indian politics a few women are right at the top, such as Sonia Gandhi and Mayawati. But in Parliament, the judiciary and the executive, or in the professions, have women gained gender equality? It is a war yet to be won.

The U.N. resolution has called for the appointment of an Under-Secretary-General to head the UNW, and the establishment of an executive board to provide intergovernmental support to and supervision of its operation. All public institutions must aid this process.

This move must be radically supported by every country. India should not lag behind. It is a shame that the Indian Parliament does not yet have one-third composition of women members. In the judiciary, too, women are obscure. India should have at least a third of all judges coming from the humblest among women. Then social justice will become gentler, more compassionate and real.

Equal roles

Women are not domestic slaves to be sold for a dowry and beaten up by alcoholic husbands. They are equal and eligible to wield public power. Women can be economically independent and be the guardians of minor children under the law.

More women should come into the police department, for one. They are generally less corrupt and harsh than many of their male counterparts, less violent in handling persons in custody, kinder to women offenders and juveniles. We need more police women in high positions, just as we need successful women District Collectors, Chief Secretaries and Chief Justices.

Women, awake, arise and make every political party include equal gender justice as a policy in their manifesto. In the matter of C.B. Muthamma, who was the first woman to join the Indian Foreign Service, I had condemned statutory gender discrimination resorted to by the Union government.

A women's code to deal with special requirements for gender development calls for special institutions. The right to be born healthy must be guarded for the girl. In education, sports, conjugal life, maternal facilities, old age maintenance, the law has to show special concern. This writer once presented a fair and comprehensive women's code, prepared by a committee appointed by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. But there has been no legislation in this regard yet. Public pressure is needed to make the code a law. India has promises to keep for gender justice. A Ministry for gender justice is essential.

UNICEF made me chairman of a committee to prepare a children's code since the Government of India had failed to produce a statute under the International Children's Convention. Margaret Alva, a Minister under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, appointed me chairman of a panel to prepare a report on the maladies facing women kept in custody. In both these cases the committees drafted exemplary codes and presented them to the Central government. But the story ended there: the reports were not implemented.

Many gender-oriented reforms in jurisprudence were recommended by the Kerala Law Reforms Commission, of which this writer was the Chairman. The Bills are progressive and will transform society if implemented. But there has not been any movement on this front.

The unanimous U.N resolution for the creation of the UNW was a great day for world womanhood, indeed all of humankind. All thinking persons will greet the decision. Gender power will gain strength as humanity becomes aware that sans mother there is no man. When I advocate the development of womanhood I really argue for the cause of humanity as a whole.

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It's a woman's world

It's a woman's world

KANKANA BASU

Women have been portrayed in a variety of ways in Hindi cinema over the years. While some actors rejoiced in author-backed sensitive roles, others were confined to a fleeting appearance in a male-dominated film. KANKANA BASU takes a look at how women are asserting themselves again in Bollywood: both as actors and filmmakers.

When Waheeda Rehman relinquished her dupatta to the winds and cast aside her inhibitions and marital obligations as well, little did she know that her signature tune would become an anthem for generations of women.

Decades after the film was made, kaanton se kheech ke ye aanchal......aaj phir jeene ki tamanna haifrom “Guide” continue to epitomise the blithe, free spirit of women.

One of the first films to have an adulterous heroine, “Guide” remains a path-breaking film in terms of maturity and a deep understanding of a woman's emotional needs. As a young dancer who leaves her abusive and elderly husband for the sympathetic young guide Raju, the character of Rosy was well ahead of the social period it was made in (1965). Women-centric movies continued to be made in later years (bold, timid and in-between) but were destined to follow a rather erratic graph.

Sensitive portrayals

There was a time when entire stories were woven around the female protagonist. Filmmakers like Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal, Shakti Samant and Yash Chopa will be remembered for the sensitivity with which they handled their screen women.

Their muses (Waheeda Rehman, Nutan, Sharmila Tagore, Madhubala, Sadhna, Nargis and others) continue to be the stuff legends are made of. Satyajit Ray's “Charulata”, a film that explored the innermost labyrinths of the female psyche, remains the eternal yardstick for judging woman-sensitive cinema.

With author-backed roles for the heroines, the filmmakers of that era were masters at portraying women with all their complexities using obtuse techniques involving light, shadows, music and muted dialogue.

“The 1960s and the 1970s were a period of the best in women-centric movies. Actors lived and breathed their roles, so much so that their screen images often spilled into their personal lives. Meena Kumari will always be synonymous with the neglected zamindar's wife of ‘Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam' (who ultimately descends into alcoholism), ditto Waheeda Rehman with the tempestuous dancer Rosy of ‘Guide', Nutan with ‘Sujata', Beena Rai with ‘Anarkali'and Nargis with ‘Mother India'. There was no dichotomy between the actor and the role she played,” says Rekha Banerjee, wife of the late film director and screenplay-writer, Shanu Banerjee.

She recalls Meena Kumari sobbing inconsolably long after the director had called ‘cut', so deeply did she immerse herself in the role; while years later, on the sets of “Khubsoorat” (a movie for which her husband had written the screenplay), she remembers her namesake, actor Rekha, laughing and frolicking much like her movie role of a tomboy.

The next generation of heroines left an equally deep impact as the impressionable viewer came to associate Jaya Bhaduri with Guddi, Hema Malini with the angelic Seeta as well as her naughty twin Geeta and Sridevi with Chandni. “There was an aura of mystery and allure surrounding them and their personal lives were almost as fascinating as their screen lives. Now heroines double up as cricket team owners, fitness gurus, restaurateurs, reality show participants/judges and columnists. Their much-hyped public images often get in the way of their screen roles detracting from the credibility of their performance,” says Banerjee.

Era of revenge

The departure of Rajesh Khanna from the silver screen marked the end of romance, while the arrival of the angry young man Amitabh Bachan heralded a cinematic era of rage and revenge. The heroine found herself relegated to a scattered peripheral presence either as the love interest of the hero or a decorative piece in a movie filled with muscles and testosterone. Consequently, a breed of actors emerged who looked like sculpted goddesses and who were quick to perfect the art of running around trees. The thinking actor was a threatened species and the likes of Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi and Deepti Naval will always be remembered for holding their own during this masculine and masochistic Bollywood chapter.

“The turn of the millenium was a dark phase for Bollywood films: rehashed themes, tinny music, lyrics sans poetry and women often projected in a derogatory manner,” says Naheed Merchant, a keen observer of Bollywood changes. However, this period was responsible for heralding some startling changes in social and gender stereotypes. Yesteryear heroines had been virginal, docile, bathed in virtue, the professions they hailed from being slightly vague; they were either nurses, dutiful daughters, students or beautiful women just content to be. The heroine and the vamp were two distinct identities.

“The sensational,promiscuous cheroot-smoking Zeenat Aman swaying to dum maaro dumin “Hare Ram Hare Krishna” was a defining moment in Hindi cinema, one that was destined to change the image of the leading lady forever. Parveen Babi followed suit by doing a smouldering cabaret in ‘Shaan' and the watertight compartments reserved for the leading lady and the vamp respectively dissolved forever,” says Mumbai based photographer and movie aficionado Deepankar B.

Shades of grey

The heroine was suddenly not a demi-goddess any more but a woman of flesh and blood, often with interesting shades of grey to her personality. Previously attired in traditional attire, the heroine was now ready to experiment with both Western clothes and a liberal international state of mind. “Heroines are no longer hesitant about flaunting their sexuality or making the first move in a relationship,” observes Deepankar. He cites Mahi Gill's character in “Dev D” and Deepika Padukone as Sonali Mukherjee in “Karthik calling Karthik”, to illustrate his point.

The recent spate of movies shows women at the top once again, rubbing shoulders with the leading man in terms of popularity and demand. Vidya Balan as the scheming seductress in “Ishqiya”, who has her male leads running loops around her (and each other), neatly sums up the GenNext heroine. Interestingly, while the actors boasting of hot bods, immaculate looks and carefully constructed public images seem to be falling back in the race for survival, the power house performers with unconventional looks and indifferent fashion sense are proving to be the marathon runners. Kajol, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vidya Balan, Tabu and Nandita Das, are the contemporary faces of intelligent cinema, agree most movie buffs. Of these, Nandita Das, besides acting, doubles up as director and screenplay writer. "From acting in filmsto directing them seemed a natural progression for me. I had the strong desire to tell my own story in my own way,” says Nandita, who is on cloud nine after her debut film “Firaaq” bagged the Filmfare Critics'' choice for the best film. She admits that being a woman director comes with its own share of gender-related hassles, “but which profession doesn't?” is her argument.

The new age heroine not only has a mind of her own but also seems to have a well chalked out career. She could be a doctor, lawyer, journalist, interior decorator, editor, fashion designer, hair stylist or even a cab driver (Deepika Padukone in “Bachna Ae Haseeno”)!

Astonishing transformation

Probably the character who has undergone the most astonishing transformation in recent years is the screen mother. From a sniffling, weary woman weighed down by the cares of the world and perennially slaving over a sewing machine (immortalised by Nirupa Roy), the mother is now smart, savvy, even sassy at times. Reading hi-brow literature late into the night in her pyjamas, crusading for social causes in the day and at all times finely tuned in to the love life of her adolescent son, Ratna Pathak in “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na” is the undisputed new-age ‘cool mom'. “I'm frequently told that I'm the face of the new screen mother and it feels very good!” says Ratna. “However, one swallow does not a summer make. Movies generally have manufactured images seen from a male viewpoint. But a definite shift is happening to give a fresh perspective to women,” she says.

Women-centric films that connect with both the male and the female viewers are gaining in number. “Dor”, “Ishqiya”, “Parineeta”, “Fashion”, “Page 3”, “Wake Up Sid” (with its older woman-younger man theme) continue to be favourites “Even though Shah Rukh Khan played the title role, the heroine fighting to avenge her dead son in a foreign land is what comes to mind repeatedly. I think ‘My Name is Khan'belonged to the mother (Kajol),” says Deepankar.

Nandini Rao, professor of sociology, names Madhur Bhandarkar as another director who does justice to women. “He portrays them as strong individuals straining to break out of the shackles of society and carve their own space in a man's world,” says Nandini.

Behind the camera

No one quite understands a woman like another woman and women directors are going places. While Mira Nair's “Monsoon Wedding” tackled paedophilia lurking within the family, Aparna Sen spun “36 Chowringhee Lane” around the loneliness of old age among the Anglo-Indian community. The petite Tanuja Chandra chose to explore the criminal mind (with chilling success) in “Dushman” while Reema Kagti had the crowds swinging to the off-beat “Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.”.

“Dor”, one of the most sensitive films made in recent times was made by a man, Nagesh Kukunoor. Zoya Akhtar, Farah Khan, Kalpana Lajmi and Meghna Gulzar are other filmmakers who have left a mark on the silver screen.

With the star factory shutting shop, star power is on the wane. It is the day of the thinker and the performer. But for all those who fear that the old order changing may mean cinema losing its lustre and glamour- appeal, there is good news. The ingredients remain the same, it is the treatment that is changing rapidly. With author-backed roles lined up for actors of substance, a breed of visionary film-makers is waiting to greet a new cinematic dawn.

Just let them play

Just let them play

KALPANA SHARMA

Women are visible as spectators in most big sporting events but face great hurdles in their attempts to excel in sports.

I can play too...

Today, after a whole month of watching men kicking a ball around a field, and hearing the buzz of the Vuvuzela, the drama of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa will end. Millions of eyes that remained glued to television screens will get a rest. Emotions will settle. Life will move on, to other sports, other interests.

The FIFA World Cup is the world's most watched sporting event. This year, we are told, it has successfully drawn in an ever greater number of women viewers, over 40 per cent. Women were certainly visible as spectators, or rather the television cameras made sure that they were visible. But does a larger women's viewership of what is seen as a men's game have any relevance in the context of women and sports?

Clearly not. Because sports is not about watching others play; it is about being able to participate, to enjoy the physicality, the team spirit, the self-confidence, the exhilaration that sport imbues in the people who participate. Of course, in this media and corporate age, it has also come to represent fame, fortune and glamour.

But what draws millions of young women and men around the world to the playing field is not the prospect of money or fame as much as the sheer enjoyment and freedom that sports represents. Yet, we know only too well, that women who want to excel in sport face many hurdles. A few succeed. The more glamorous amongst them get name and fame. Others appear occasionally on our television screens and news pages and are then forgotten.

Where are the women?

In contrast, pages are devoted to men's sports and individual men who excel in sports. Looking at an average sports page, or sports coverage on our television channels, you could almost believe that women either do not play any sports, or are not interested.

Take just soccer, or football. The American team made a mark in this World Cup. But it is women who made soccer popular in the U.S. The American women's soccer team won the FIFA Women's World Cup as far back as 1999 in a spectacular match against the Chinese team.

Even in China, women have done extremely well on the football field. Not so their male counterparts, who have not yet managed to qualify for the World Cup. And in Germany, women's football is successful and they now even have professional clubs like the men.

In many countries, women's participation in sports increased because those who manage sports acknowledged that traditional gender biases work against women taking part in sports, and because of that specific steps sometimes have to be taken to encourage them to participate.

Thus, in the United States, for instance, Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education including athletics, was enacted in 1975. As a result, more women could enter institutes of higher learning on athletic scholarships. Before the law, only two per cent of women college students participated in sport. After it, by 2001, the number had jumped to 43 per cent. Similarly before Title IX, only seven per cent of girls in high school participated in sport. By 2001, 41.5 per cent were doing so.

In athletics, the Olympic Charter was amended in 2004 with the following inclusion: “The IOC encourages and supports the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures, with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women” (Rule 2, para 7, Olympic Charter). Possibly because of this specific provision, the participation of women in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 touched an all time high of 42 per cent.

Of course, gender equity in sports is not just a numbers game. The playing field can serve so many other functions. Sticking still with football, a unique experiment of bringing healing to a nation that saw the worst genocide since World War II was undertaken in Rwanda a few years ago. “Kicking for Reconciliation” is a project in which over 100 girls, both Tutsis and Hutus, have been trained to play football.

One of their trainers, a young woman called Emertha, said in an interview to Women without Borders, the organisation that initiated the project, “In football, there are no Hutus and Tutsis, there is just us, we, the team.” Passionate about football, Emertha had to overcome the questioning of her neighbours when she took to the field. They told her that this was a man's game. To which she replied, “Why? I have my legs and I use them! What's up? Do I ask you to help me? It's me who's playing and the ball is there. So let me just play.”

Facilities

In fact, that is what millions of young girls around the world must be saying, “Let me just play”. In this country, we don't talk enough about women's sports. It is virtually invisible from our sports pages barring the exceptional sports woman. But should we not be looking at sporting facilities for children, including girls, in schools? Are they given adequate encouragement? Do they have role models if they really want to pursue a future in sports? Where can they go for further training? Do colleges give sports scholarships? How many girls win them? Is their percentage going up or declining? Even as we encourage girls' education, should we not be looking at sports as an integral part of education?

India is hosting the Commonwealth Games later this year. We read constantly about the infrastructure being put in place in New Delhi for it. The spanking new airport is now the envy of every major Indian city including Mumbai, which suffers the problems of making do with an incrementally improved airport. Yet will these games encourage more young Indians, women and men, to aspire to be sportspersons?

That is unlikely if even the few sports facilities that exist for young people are swallowed up by the infrastructure being built for the Commonwealth Games. As the former director of the NCERT, Krishna Kumar, wrote in this newspaper last week ( The Hindu, June 28), school playgrounds in Delhi have become dumping grounds for construction material and some grounds have been taken over. Delhi schools will be closed during the Games. As a result, when children return to school, they will be forced to make up with extra classes, leaving precious little time to enjoy sports. We might have the Right to Education now, but young people still cannot assert the right to play sports. And young women cannot even dream of kicking a ball around a football field leave alone saying, “Let me just play”.

Defining sexual assault

The Other Half

Defining sexual assault

KALPANA SHARMA

The sentence in the Ruchira Talwar case is a small step in rectifying an anomaly in the law. The draft Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2010 now seeks to tighten laws dealing with sexual assault…

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What is important is that women are made aware of what their rights would be if the law is passed.

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The enhancement of the sentence of former Haryana DGP S.P.S. Rathore, charged with molesting 14-year-old Ruchika Talwar, from just six months to one and a half years, is a very small step in rectifying the glaring anomaly in the law that allowed him to almost get away with a serious crime. In the absence of the popular furore over what happened, and the determined efforts of the young woman's friends and family, it is possible that Rathore would have continued to hold office and escape the jail sentence awarded to him. But even as many will believe that 18 months is hardly adequate punishment for a crime that led to a young woman taking her own life, the sentencing is the beginning of an important process of change in our antiquated laws dealing with sexual assaults of all kinds.

Ruchika's is only one case. There are hundreds of such cases in India that never reach the point of conviction. And many more incidents that are never even reported. But because more such cases are coming out in the open, the demand for a change in the law has built up to the point that the government has finally taken note.

Change, finally

The draft Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2010 aims to tighten current laws dealing with rape and sexual assault. This has happened not because of a sudden flash of enlightenment by those who make laws but because of the sustained campaign by women's groups for well over three decades. The fact that such a law is finally on the anvil illustrates yet again how important it is that civil society groups exert pressure and provide detailed alternatives when opposing existing laws.

For, in this case, what women's groups have done is not just to point out the obvious, that the existing provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) dealing with rape are antiquated (based on a 19 {+t} {+h} century law) and ineffective but have also submitted to the government detailed suggestions on how these provisions can be changed. The National Commission on Women has also provided the government with a draft law. Such interventions ensure that the discussion does not remain in the area of generalities but actually deals with the specifics.

But here is where the problems often begin. While civil society groups work on changes based on their actual experiences of dealing with cases — such as those of rape, sexual assault, child abuse etc — the bureaucrats who draft laws appear to have a different set of concerns. So some of the suggestions are incorporated but loopholes are allowed to remain that will permit offenders to slip through.

Yet, despite its apparent weaknesses, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2010, also popularly referred to as Sexual Assault Bill, will herald important changes in the sections of the IPC dealing with rape. It has enlarged the definition of rape to sexual assault, thereby bringing under the aegis of the law many other forms of assault on women that so far have not been considered rape and that have allowed offenders to get away with the minimum punishment of just two years. This is a welcome change. (The entire draft is available on the Union Home Ministry's website:http://mha.nic.in/writereaddata/12700472381_CriminalLaw(Amendment)Bill2010.pdf)

It has also specified that such a crime would be treated more seriously when the offender is a police officer, a public servant who has taken advantage of his official position, a person on the management or staff of a jail or remand home, a person on the management or staff of a hospital, the relative or a person in a position of trust or authority etc. The punishment would be a minimum of 10 years extending to life. Clearly, if such a provision had been in place earlier, Rathore would never have escaped with such a light sentence.

The draft law has also included specific provisions on child abuse that should be welcome. Groups working on children's rights have been demanding a separate law dealing with this but lawyers point out that having specific provisions within the IPC helps as the police usually act on the basis of these provisions. Thus the punishment for sexual abuse of a minor (defined as under the age of 18) will now be a minimum of seven years extending to life.

Women's groups are not entirely happy with the version of the law presented by the government because they hold that it is poorly drafted, is vague in some parts and could provide offenders a window through which they could escape. Their detailed responses have been sent to the Home Ministry and one hopes that they will be taken on board seriously.

What is important at this stage is that these provisions in the law are debated and that people, and particularly women, are made aware of what their rights would be if the law is passed. In India, a major problem is the absence of accurate information on important laws. And the media does not always help as the manner in which these issues are reported leads to a misunderstanding of the law.

Skewed balance

For example, instead of looking more closely at provisions in the draft law, some newspapers have been emphasising the opinions of little known groups that insist that the law will victimise men. This is an amazing form of “balanced” reporting where you place on an equal footing the very real problem facing millions of women who have been sexually assaulted, and their rights, with small, fringe “men's rights” groups who are given equal or sometimes even more media space.

Instead, what we need to consider is why the graph of assaults against women has been steadily climbing in this country, and why the rate of conviction remains pitifully low. According to the latest figures for 2008 assembled by the National Crimes Records Bureau, there has been a five per cent increase in crimes against women — from 1,85,312 in 2007 to 1,95, 856 in 2008. These crimes include rape, molestation, kidnapping and abduction of girls, sexual harassment, trafficking (defined as “importation of girls”) and cruelty by husband and relatives. The last has the largest number of recorded cases — 81,344, followed by 40,413 of molestation, 22,939 of abduction of girls, 21,467 of rape and 12,214 of sexual harassment.

It goes without saying that a change in the law by itself will not reduce crimes. But in this instance, the important expansion of the term “rape” into the much more specific term of “sexual assault” is long overdue. The real challenge, if and when the law is tabled in Parliament, and hopefully passed, will be how well it is implemented.

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Motherhood at peril

Motherhood at peril

ANANTHAPRIYA SUBRAMANIAN

Are the mothers of India safe? A vast majority of them do not have access to basic health care...

Every year, 50 million women in the developing world give birth at home with no professional help whatsoever.

Are the mothers of India safe? A vast majority of them do not have access to basic health care...

Every year, 50 million women in the developing world give birth at home with no professional help whatsoever.

PHOTO: RAGHU RAI FOR MAGNUM/SAVE THE CHILDREN

PROFESSIONAL CARE : Crucial for safety.

Thirty-year-old Naseem Bano is a mother of five who makes a living rolling beedis at home in Tonk district of Rajasthan. Naseem's last child was born in a hospital. Her first four children were delivered at home. She had one miscarriage before her last son was born. According to Naseem, “she was too scared to go to a hospital for delivering her first four children.” Crucially, her husband would not allow her to go to a hospital with a male gynaecologist.

Naseem's story is shared by millions of women in India and across the developing world. Today, the world over, a day has been dedicated to celebrate the mother. Underlying the warm eulogies of the woman donning different roles as mother, sister, wife, etc, there is another subaltern narrative of the woman who has never been to school, who has no control over resources in her own home, and who will be dictated to by her husband and the elders in the family on whether she can go to hospital to deliver her child.

No infrastructure

Every year, 50 million women in the developing world give birth at home with no professional help whatsoever. And every year, nearly 350,000 women die during pregnancy or childbirth. Almost all these deaths happen not because of untreatable complications but because these mothers do not have access to basic health care services or if these are available, they are of very poor quality.

Most of these deaths could be prevented if skilled and well-equipped health care workers were available to serve the poorest, hardest to reach mothers. However, there is a very strong link between whether a woman can access skilled health care and her level of education. Poorer and less educated women, and especially those living in rural areas, are far less likely to give birth in the presence of a skilled health worker than better educated women who live in wealthier households.

A UNESCO report says worldwide, 39 million girls are not attending school and millions more complete only a year or two of schooling. In India, female literacy stands at a disappointing 53.67 per cent. Women like Naseem with little or no schooling lack the confidence and authority to make decisions for their own health and the health of their children.

Moreover, social and cultural barriers often prevent women like Naseem from visiting health providers. Typically, in rural areas, husbands and elder family members often decide whether a woman may go for health care outside the home and women themselves often choose to forego health care if the provider is male due to social stigma. In such circumstance, the presence of a skilled female health care provider could mean the difference between life and death for the mother and her newborn child.

Experience in many countries has shown that modest investments in female community health workers can have a strong impact on mothers surviving in rural communities. Between 1990 and 2008, Bangladesh has cut its maternal mortality rate dramatically by 53 per cent. In 1997, the government launched a safe motherhood initiative aimed at improving emergency obstetric care and training 17,000 skilled birth attendants to work at the community level. Though still more than 116,000 mothers die each year in Bangladesh mainly because of inadequate care during childbirth, a vibrant home-grown NGO sector has shown that health workers with limited education and training can have a significant impact on the survival of mothers.

Recent findings presented in The Lancet indicating a 1.5 per cent yearly rate of decline in maternal mortality since 2005 is good news. In India, the National Rural Health Mission has completed five years this year. Despite good schemes, their implementation leaves a lot to be desired. A recent Comptroller and Auditor General report found that institutional deliveries have not really taken off due to several irregularities in the States where maternal mortality and infant mortality rates are high. Only 47 per cent of women give birth attended by skilled health attendants.

Poor health care

In 2000, India, along with 189 Heads of State and government committed to reducing the numbers of mothers dying by 2015 in their Millennium Declaration. Despite a decline in maternal mortality rate, the question arises if we are doing enough to save the lives of thousands of mothers who are still dying because there is no health care provider nearby to spot complications early on and intercede on behalf of these mothers before it is too late.

A worldwide survey done recently by Save the Children finds India at 73 out of 77 middle-income countries in terms of the best country to be a mother. To paraphrase Nehru, you can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women. In a country that has glorified women in mythology and fiction, it is incongruous to have a reality where women have no control over their destiny and indeed their lives and, are dying because they cannot access basic health care.

Ananthapriya Subramanian is Media and Communications Manager with Save the Children

Educating India

Educating India

KALPANA SHARMA

The Annual Status of Education Report, 2009, is out… pointing out yet again that what stands between rural girls and a good education is often basic facilities like transport and proper toilets…

Photo: A. Muralitharan

Soldiering on: How long before they are forced to drop out?

Swati and Anita are two young women from rural Maharashtra. They have one thing in common. Both dropped out of school once they completed Standard VIII. They wanted to complete their schooling. Both spoke passionately to me when I met them about their desire to study. Even their parents wanted them to study further. But circumstances would not permit this.

Both girls faced an identical dilemma. While the school up to Standard VIII was in their village or close by, the high school was some distance away. The only way to go there was by the local State Transport bus. While going to school was not such a problem as it was during the day, at the end of the school day, they had to wait several hours before they could catch the bus back. If for some reason the bus was cancelled, and this would happen with alarming frequency, they would have had to walk back to the village in the dark, something their parents would not contemplate. Hence, the only option was to drop out of school. In contrast, the brother of one of the girls faced no such problem. As soon as he was through with his classes, he would hitch a ride on a passing truck and make his way back. This was not an option open to the girls.

Tragic situation

What is tragic is that both these girls are as bright as any you would meet in a city like Mumbai. The only reason they will not become the engineers and doctors of the future is because there is no reliable transport linking their village to the nearest school. And theirs are not remote villages in the interior of Maharashtra. Swati lives a mere hour away from Pune. If this is the story of Swati and Anita, think how many millions more like them must be chafing at being deprived for no other reason than a safe mode of transport.

We also know that many more girls drop out even before Standard VIII for another reason: the lack of toilets in schools. The latest ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) 2009, a comprehensive survey of government and private schools in 575 out of 583 districts in India, revealed that only 50 per cent of government schools have toilets and that four out of 10 government schools did not have separate toilets for girls. Even where there were separate toilets for girls, as many as 12-15 per cent were locked and only 30-40 per cent were “usable”. I visited a school in Bihar where toilets had been constructed but within days their doors had been stolen and the toilet pans smashed making them unusable. If girls dropout when they reach adolescence, it is often for no other reason than the lack of toilet facilities. Even in a city like Mumbai, the dropout rate amongst girls attending municipal schools is markedly higher than that of boys because of the absence of toilets for them.

The annual ASER study, facilitated by the NGO Pratham, is a constant and important reminder of the state of education in this country. In 2009, ASER surveyed 16,000 villages, 300,000 households and 700,000 children. There is nothing on this scale done by an agency outside government, hence its importance. But each year, when ASER results are made public, we are reminded that education is not just about quantity, or the number of children who enrol in school — a number that is increasing — but the quality of the education these children get. And that, although it is getting better in some states, is still shockingly poor.

Conducting simple reading and mathematics tests in schools, the survey reveals that a little over half of all children in Standard V in government schools cannot read a Standard II text book. This means a 10-year-old cannot read what a seven-year-old is supposed to be able to read. What then are these children learning even if they become a statistic showing increased enrolment and attendance in schools?

Disturbing trend

Precious little, it would seem. What they cannot learn in school, they do so by paying for private tuitions. One of the more disturbing statistics in the survey reveals that one in four children in Standard I in private schools is sent for private tuitions as are 17 per cent of Standard I students in government schools. Can you imagine that? Little six-year-olds being sent for private tuition. By the time they reach Standard VIII, over one third try and learn what they are clearly not taught in school through private tutoring. An analysis of the budget of poor people would reveal what a chunk of their earnings goes into such tuitions because they hold on to the belief that education will pull them out of poverty. But given the poor quality of education in these schools, their children will never be able to compete with those with ability to pay for better quality schooling.

Fortunately, not the entire ASER report is gloom and doom. One of the brighter moments in it is the fact that in Bihar, the state considered a basket case on most counts, the dropout rate for girls in the 11-14 age group has reduced from 17.6 per cent in 2006 to 6 per cent in 2009. So Bihar must be doing something right. In fact, one of the striking sights in Bihar today is of girls on bicycles, given by the government if they clear Standard VIII, going to the nearest high school.

The desire to ensure that children get a good education runs deep in most Indian families. Parents will sacrifice and save to invest in their children's future. Even poor families, including the homeless with no secure shelter, find a way of sending their children to school. The increase in the enrolment rate in India — 96 per cent of children between the ages of 6-14 are enrolled in school, government and private — is proof of that.

What urgently needs to be tackled is the quality of education, basic facilities like toilets and running water, and transport, particularly for girls. Even this will not suffice unless there is a notable change in the status accorded teachers who ultimately decide whether and what children learn. Instead of the inordinate amount of attention that continues to be paid to institutes of higher learning, or private institutions that promise to prepare rich children for studies abroad, something much more simple and basic can and needs to be done to educate India and Indians.