Needs, abuses, options(?)

So, are we spending 12 paise per child per day?

Not really. The vast majority of the 35 million kids get zero paise per day.

About 10 percent, i.e., about 36,500 children are lucky enough to find their way into various facilities like juvenile institutions, homes, shelters, or other state-supported infrastructure. There is zero guarantee that they will be safe and happy here. But their chances of suvival, of not being isolated, and not being physically, sexually or economically abused are higher, as compared to their chances on the streets.

Those who don't live in families or in state-run facilities end up in private institutions where, thanks to a poor monitoring mechanism, they sometimes find themselves abused.

Something like this happened at the Swami Balnath Ashram in Ghaziabad. Happened to dozens of girls over decades, while nobody heard a whisper of protest, until some foreign altruists smelt a rat and called in local activists, who called in the media, who called the national commission for women, who called the cops, who raided the place.

I first heard of the ashram through Project Why, and decided to check out the place.

Ghaziabad is less than an hour's drive out of Delhi, and Balnath Ashram was one of the few places (perhaps the only one) where orphans or abandoned girl-children - especially those with disabilities - could be taken.

We (me and a collegue) visited the ashram, which has been running since 1979, without prior intimation.

A makeshift school was in progress, with three teachers leading a jumbled chorus of voices crying out 'ka-ba-kab...ta-ba-tab'.

A large signboard proclaimed that a special school for children with disabilities existed, but there was no teacher in sight. There used to be one but was missing at the moment. Balnath claimed she was sick for 15 days. The other teachers said that she has been gone so long that they don't even remember her name.

There was one male caretaker, but no female attendant or teacher living within the ashram although nearly all the 70-odd inmates were girls.

The girls with disabilities (and there were only girls there) were isolated and uncared for. They seemed to live in a separate wing of the building, and though Balnath denied their being isolated from the other girls, it was evident that the other girls were given rooms elsewhere.

Some of them were severely malnourished but it was hard to say whether that is neglect or whether that is because they have recently arrived and they came from poor homes. Some girls had injuries and scars, which they refused to explain. A few seemed very sick and in urgent need of medical attention. Balnath, the saffron-clad swami, claimed that one girl had been in and out of hospital. That she'd needed a saline drip. To me, she looked very much like she still needed to be in hospital and still needed a saline drip. Probably a lot more.

The older ones managed the kitchen themselves, and bathed the little ones. There are piles of clothes and mattresses lying locked up in store-rooms. However, many of the girls seem to be sleeping on bare, hard beds, without mattresses.

Without being asked a question, Balnath had complained, "These girls are forming a non-cooperation movement against me. They keep saying they're not taken care of. I'm sick of them."

The girls did not say a word against him. Not to me. But after a few hours there, some of them had begun to clutch at my hands, my kurta. Some wanted to leave right away. One howled, calling for her mummy.

This ashram once used to be a co-gendered one. There were both boys and girls. Balnath claimed he got rid of the boys (transferred them to another similar home in another location) because "the boys were leading the girls into bad activities... introducing them to strangers outside".

The girls said they missed the boys they'd grown up with. They were like their brothers.

The school running inside the premises was not recognized and was only upto class 8; the only option for taking the secondary exam was to do so privately. However, so far, none of the girls had cleared this exam. Not since 1979. No vocational courses were taught either. Balnath claimed that the girls were simply not interested, and that they did learn something, anyway: bhajans and harmonium practise.

"We get them married off, as soon as they turn 18, to poor boys from Haryana and Punjab. They only are in a hurry to be married."

Incidentally, he admitted that there was a bit of a conflict situation. A local muslim woman had been claiming that her daughter was being held in that ashram and had been fighting in court to get her back. Balnath refused to let the child go. Because of "legal complications... these muslims are not allowed to adopt Hindu children, and what if this baby is a Hindu?"

Although he had been running the ashram since 1979, he claimed to have received state funding only once. "Rs 40-45,000 from the UP government. But now, we get private donations. There is so much food and material that there is no need for government money."

The Balnath Ashram is not a special home or a shelter in the legal sense. Balnath admitted that he did not have a licence to run an orphanage; it is simply a registered charity that doubles up as a dump for unwanted children. The result is that it does not show up in government records as a children's shelter or home, and is not subject to routine inspections by the authorities.

On the same visit, we also paid a visit to the Ghaziabad probation office, and found that there was no government sanctioned child institution or shelter in the block. Not one.

The probation officer himself was unavailable (doing election duty because, clearly, some by-election or the other was more important than protecting children in non-existent shelters) but one of the clerks agreed to speak to us, anonmously, of course. He said that the closest children's home was the Rajkiya Bal Griha in Meerut.

Another interesting fact. There is only one inspector for one mandal, who sits at Meerut. The mandal includes Ghaziabad, Muzzafarnagar, Saharanpur, Rampur, Moradabad, Bijnaur and Meerut districts.

Seven districts. One inspector.

"In 2004, the UP government cancelled children's homes in all except 17 districts. It is true that this state order violated the Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) Act, 2000. It is imperative that orphans or abandoned children be produced before a juvenile justice board. If the local police find them, they have to send them to Meerut. Else, they are just left at the Balnath Ashram. We know it doesn't have a license, but where's the option?"

When I asked why they didn't intervene, he said, "What can we do if we don't have an alternative? Take them out of the ashram, but take them where?"

For children with disabilities this is true many times over. Where does one take them?

While it is difficult to look after children with disabilities, it is a responsibility that, once assumed, must be discharged with persistence and grace. Unfortunately, there are few homes with special facilities. Besides, when it comes to abuse, it is hard to ascertain levels of ability, activists say, since traumatized children often refuse to respond, or display behavioural problems until they can be counselled.

Inu Annie Stephen, a strategy alliance coordinator for the Childline India Foundation, knows that the resource crunch is frustrating and limiting, especially when it comes to special services attuned to needs.

"One of the major challenges is differently abled children. Even government homes sometimes refuse to keep them. We have emergency services and organisations like the Missionaries of Charity, but even NGOs get fed up of our requests. The government is supposed to take in all kinds of children with whatever level of ability, but there are no special homes and there are no skilled staff to cater to special children."

Project Why is one of the few organisations that does have a special section. The founder, Anouradha Bakshi believes that families must be made to assume primary responsibility for children, including those with special needs. Her daughter, Shamika works as a special educator and has helped bathe and groom her students, but she also has to argue with parents' on the child's behalf, since families often send a special child to school dirtier than other siblings. Sometimes, no lunch is given, or rotten leftovers are set aside.

But teachers like Bakshi are a rarity. In places like the Balnath Ashram, the teachers were probably silent witnesses to the misery and squalor of girls who may or may not have been disabled. May or may not have been abused.

When activists began to prod and probe the ashram, they tracked down one of the women who had once lived on the premises. She admitted to one of the social workers that she suspected some of the girls were being abuses. But she did not call the cops. She did not blow the whistle. She did not insist that Balnath (or his male cohorts) not have access to the girls' rooms after a certain time of day. She did not insist that the girls be taught something that might make them independent. She simply lived there until matters soured between her and her husband (who worked there), and then she upped and left.

I don't know what will happen to the girls. I don't know where they are and I don't know if, when they turn 18, they will simply be turned out of the government-run shelter - without a clue about how they can make a living, without being taught the most rudimentary laws under which they can seek protection, without the tools of citizenry and dignity.

A twelve-paise investment

So, 35 million children need to be provided for. And what can we do but provide?

Provide shelters. Provide uniforms, food, exercise. Provide skills, training, and a little laughter. Surely, we will provide all this, won't we?

Yet, feeding 35 million citizens is not a joke. Feeding, clothing, educating, sheltering, protecting 35 million is the sort of thing that makes economists and financial planners pull out their beards. Even so, they scrimp a little here, save a little there; make a fund here; make an allotment there. They scratch the bottom of the taxpayers' barrel and come up with Rs 1077 crores to be spent on children.

Mind you, ALL children. To be precise, in the 10th five-year plan, the total allocation for child-related programmes was about Rs 1077.08 crores. This would include the money spent on feeding kids in anganwadi centres and at mid-day meals in school.

Of the total amount we decide to spend on children, only 1% goes towards protection. The allocation for children in need of protection is no more than Rs 71.66 per child per year. Of this, 60 percent goes towards administrative costs. Running offices, shelters etc, paying salaries, etc.

What's left? In effect, per day, the state allows each child 12 paise per day.

That's right. Twelve paise.

The ministry of women and child development defines child protection as "protecting children from or against any perceived or real danger or risk to their life, their personhood and childhood. It is about reducing their vulnerability... ensuring that no child falls out of the social security and safety net and those who do, receive necessary care, protection and support so as to bring them back into the safety net".

It goes on to say that child protection ought to encompass prevention, care and recovery, and that "once victimized, (children) are entitled to services, which hasten their recovery and reduce further trauma."

It is said that children are a nation's investment in the future. What sort of return our nation's planners expect on a 12-paise investment is a question worth asking. However, I have another question for the planning commission: when was the last time they bought anything worth twelve paise?

A fistful of rice?
A bowl of grain?
The chaff of the grain?
A blanket? Socks? A piece of coal?
A notebook? A pencil?
A toy? A pill? A joyride?
Mud? Dung?
A visit to the shrink?
What?

Before the numbers fade

When somebody asked me about my politics (was I right, left, liberal, anarchist?), without thinking much about why, I responded by saying, "My politics is children".

Part of this was rooted in the fact that I'd been trying to write about child protection for nearly three months, and was at the moment trying to determine whether it was 17 skulls and 22 dismembered skeletons they're found in that drain in my city's backyard, or was it 18, or was it 38?

In our country - a young country, we proudly say - there is too much of everything. Too many babies. Too much crime. Too much bureaucracy. Too many religions and castes. Too many languages. Too much abuse. Too much poverty. Too much filth. Too much to bear, almost.

When children, one by one, disappear, and the police does not bother, it is too much to forgive. It took, at the very least, 22 children and the finding of their hacked-up bodies to jumpstart an investigation. It may have taken 38.

But, you see, children do go missing. They run away; they're kidnapped; they lose their way home; they go looking for adventure, or better food. And there are so many of them that we don't pay attention. On our street signals. Selling papers, books, flowers, pens, balloons, art. In our restaurants, waiting on us. And in our homes. On our streets, begging. In our red-light districts, being raped. In our disaster-struck villages, orphaned. They're everywhere. Millions of them, with about 45,000 being added to the 'missing' lists every year.

That's right. Forty-five thousand.

These are the ones that fall off our collective maps, because their skeletons are not found, stuffed into drains. They just vanish into the dark hole that is our streets, the fortress of our homes, the war-zone that is our international human trafficking rings. And melt into a pool of 35 million.

That's right. Thirty-five million.

These millions are, what the government of India collectively calls, 'children in need of protection'. Defined by the ministry of social justice and empowerment as children in 'extremely difficult circumstances', they include children in conflict with the law, victims of crime or natural disasters, orphaned, abandoned or runaway children, rescued child labourers, trafficked children, amongst others.

Children who, however briefly, are nobody's; and therefore, ours. To be cared for by the state, or state-supported institutions/organisations.

The next few posts will take a look at how we deal with these numbers. Our children.

The gentleman finds leisure to blog

The Jesustan Diaries, ladies and gentlemen, is back.

If you were wondering where the fine gentleman of leisure has been all this time, perhaps this might offer a clue:

"Patriotic Duty, which is much the same in any land, was like that only. I cannot tell you how miserable it was: hour after hour after hour of ceaseless in-out, in-out, in-out with Memsahibs who had been reared for years on extra-large size packets of aloo chips in sour cream dip, and having all the while to listen to the strange squeaking sounds made by the springs the natives insist on nailing under their manjis.

Oh, the horror, the horror. That spoiled so-and-so Joseph Conrad had no idea what the heart of darkness looks like, and this I can tell you, it most certainly isn't in Africa.

Now, though, I am free, to write (and to nurse what was once my proud manhood, but resembles nothing so much as a gajar as it is being shredded to be turned into halwa .)"


He goes on to delight you with an account of how wives of Jesustani soldiers have found a solution for, er, loneliness, and averted a major social crisis. With Create-a-Mate.

'Zindabad!' he says.

The GM sequence

Recent developments related to GM technology in India.

(Most of what you see below comes from news items or is extracted from press releases by environment groups lobbying for stringent norms to control, if not ban, GM crops)

February, 2006

Recent ruling by WTO panel upholding the complaints of USA and other countries on Europe's precautionary approach to GMOs as illegal under WTO trade rules. Centre for Sustainable Agriculture reacts by saying that this ruling seriously undermines the sovereignty of nation-states in deciding upon appropriate environmental and food safety.

Widespread criticism, especially from Europe, on the incapability of WTO to rule on issues like genetic modification, allegations of non-transparent functioning, and disputes about whether trade agreements should supercede international environmental agreements like the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol .

[A complaint had been filed by the USA and other nations like Canada, Argentina, Mexico and Egypt, in May 2003, in the WTO, as the Biosafety Protocol began shaping up. Europe was charged with imposing a defacto ban on GM products, in violation of trade rules. On September 11, 2003, the Cartagena Protocol came into effect, with fifty countries including India ratifying the protocol]


'Civil society groups' (activists) prepared a critique based on monitoring of GM crops in five states in India. They allege - "Even though we have been assured of a presentation slot in this [February] GEAC meeting, we have now been told that we will be called for the meeting in March and that our representation would be discussed in this meeting, without us!"

They also point out the absolute failure of regulation: "unapproved GM soy imports continue to surge in India in violation of EPA rules... gross irregularities in the field trials of Bollgard II and Fusion Bt Cotton... this failure of regulation is now being carried into food crop field trials too, as the case of GM Okra demonstrates."

July 2006

Mahyco seed company granted permission on July 11 by the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) under the Department of Biotechnology to conduct multi-location limited field trials in GM paddy (rice).

July, 2006

A fact-finding team reports on 'Sheep mortality after feeding on Bt cotton leaves in Warangal dist' by ANTHRA, (AP Goatherds and Shepherds' Union and Centre for Sustainable Agriculture) generates debate on the biosafety of the bt cotton. GEAC (Genetic Engineering Approval Committee), governments and the companies and their 'advisors/consultants' discount the report.

The team later sent a letter to the GEAC protesting the objectionable manner in which it conducted its investigations. The letter was based on the activists' access to the postmortem register and on the findings of the Veterinary Biological Research Institute, Hyderabad. According to them, "The reports clearly indicate that there seems to be many different possibilities about how Bt Cotton grazing could have affected the animals in a manner that was not witnessed in those years when animals were grazed on non-Bt Cotton...the correlation and tentative diagnosis (was) drawn by the veterinary department official, connecting Bt-cotton grazing with the poisoning symptoms... the postem mortem records in the warangal dist hospital are tampered to show that pesticides were responsible while the investigations by CSA shows that the farmers/shepherds have not reported any such spraying of pesticides on the cotton fields prior to feeding.... Reports from VBRI and agriculture/veterinary university raise newer issues - that nitrates/nitrates were found in excessive levels in the plants. This could possibly have a connection with the higher use of chemical fertilisers on Bt Cotton and subsequent accumulation of nitrates in the plant. What is clear however is that the GEAC and other regulators governing our biosafety regime do not even know what to test for during so-called biosafety testing before approvals are provided."

September 2006

An Independent Expert Commitee, on Bt Brinjal, submits full report, wherein it found that research guidelines evolved by DBT (department of biotechnology), related to biosafety assessment of transgenic crops, have not been adhered to by the developers of Bt Brinjal.

"The Committee notes that with the existing data, "it is not possible to arrive at any meaningful conclusions regarding the safety of the product" or "its efficacy".... some tests as laid down by the DBT were not taken up in the safety evaluation or test protocols were not as per the specifications laid down in the guidelines.... Bt Brinjal is not compared with the best agronomic and pest management practices available nor have trials been taken up for at least three years."
October, 2006

Village Eenabavi in Warangal district declared itself GM-Free on October 11 th, 2006. Supported by organizations like CROPS, Centre for World Solidarity and Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, this small village in the heartland of farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh is into its third year of chemical-free agriculture and is proving to the world that food security can indeed be secured without any chemical or GM solutions.

The farmers took an oath to remain GM-Free and organic. They grow a variety of crops without the use of chemicals including paddy, chilli, vegetables, cotton, tobacco, maize etc. The village is also experimenting with the System of Rice Intensification [SRI]. A Farmer Resource Centre, run by the farmers of Eenabavi, was also inaugurated.

October-November, 2006

Irate members of the Bharathiya Kisan Union (BKU), under the leadership of Mr Rakesh Tikait, uprooted and burnt a trial field of genetically modified (GM) rice of the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (MAHYCO) near Karnal in Haryana, followed by similar burning of Bt rice fields in Tamil Nadu, by The Tamil Nadu Farmers Association.

November, 2006

After the Uttar Pradesh government, the Chattisgarh state government orders an inquiry into a Bt Rice trial, near Raipur. State officials were not informed about the trial even though the company is required to inform the local panchayat, the concerned authorities in the district and the state administration.

"State agriculture minister Mr Nankiram Kawar visited the Bt Rice trial plot in the field of a farmer called Jagdishlal Arora in Purara village close to Raipur city (a village that has been annexed into the city) after receiving reports from media and activists that trial has been conducted without information to state authorities and worse, that crop remains have been allowed to lie around including some grain, without being destroyed as per biosafety guidelines. He ordered the immediate destruction of the remaining crop in the field by burning."

This trial happened at a distance of only around one kilometer from the world's richest collection of rice germplasm, at the Indira Gandhi Krishi Vidyalaya, the state agriculture university.

Trials for GM rice are against the Cartagena biosafety framework, given that India is a Centre of Origin and diversity for rice.

The team visiting the trial at the behest of the DBT also found Bt Okra on a plot next to the Bt Rice plot. It had already been harvested and the Bt Rice plot was in mid-harvest. The local Councillor had no information about the trial, nor did the district authorities in the agriculture department. They were told about the trial only towards the end of the season, when the Department of Biotechnology in the Government of India asked them to be part of A monitoring team to visit the plot.

The state agriculture department claims that the state government has not given permission to the trial and that the regulatory institutions, as laid down under the Environment Protection Act, have not been set up in the state of Chattisgarh.

December 23rd 2006 - National Farmers' Day -

Tamil Nadu farmers and traders (of seeds) join hands to reject genetic engineering in agriculture. A seminar attended by more than 1200 farmers, a rally through the city of Thanjavur (known as the Rice Bowl of South India) and a public meeting where major political parties called a halt to GM crop experimentation and cultivation.

The seminar welcomed the decision of Tamil Nadu state government to bring in a legislation to ban all GM crop trials...

January 2007

Bt Cotton companies go to town with the news that India has touched record cotton production this year with 250 lakh bales, an increase from 244 lakh bales last year. They also claimed that the increase was thanks to the use of Bt.

The claim is contested by newspapers (some said that production in 2006-07 was lower than previous years and that such false claims were being used to artificially depress prices for farmers). The Coalition for GM-Free India rejected the claims by the Bt lobby and sent forth this data -
"Growth in Indian cotton production has fluctuated even before the introduction of Bt Cotton... For instance, Indian cotton productivity showed a growth of 10.8% over the previous year, in 2001-02, when no Bt Cotton was allowed in the country. In the year 2003-04, when Bt Cotton cultivation constituted a mere 1.3% of the total cotton extent (total land under cotton), the highest increase in productivity - upto 26.3% - was seen. If increasing Bt Cotton cultivation leads to increases in productivity, there should be a steady increase in the growth rate of production and yields per hectare, given that Bt Cotton area increased 2.6 times more than previous years. Bt Cotton is projected to be around 40% of all cotton cultivation in the country in 2006-07, up from around 15% in the earlier year, (but) production has increased by only 2%, to touch 250 lakh bales from 244 lakh bales last year. This clearly shows that the reasons for increases in production and productivity, if any, should be looked for elsewhere."

January 2007

Bt Cotton tragedy strikes Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu
Dharmapuri farmers, after the total failure of Bt cotton planted this year, petitioned the Collector asking for action against the seed company. About 4000 acres are affected. The farmers plan to go to the Consumers' Court.

January 2007

According to Agencyfaqs:

"JWT, Mumbai, has won the creative duties for two products belonging to the agriculture based biotechnology company, Monsanto India. These are Bollgard 1 and Bollgard 2, two varieties of biotechnological cotton seeds. Executives from Monsanto India have confirmed this development, although they were unwilling to comment any further. No comments were withstanding from JWT executives....
For the record, Monsanto's work in India began over 50 years ago. The company applies innovation and technology to help farmers around the globe produce healthier foods, better animal feeds and more fiber, while also reducing agriculture’s impact on environment. High-yield crop varieties and hybrid crops such as corn, sunflower and cotton are vital crops that the company wishes to develop. Monsanto, through its field operations, agricultural production knowledge and search for new agricultural solutions and technologies, seeks to develop, communicate and provide sustainable solutions to Indian farmers.However, in 2005, there were some controversies around the Monsanto ads, when NGO Greenpeace and its local partner, Pasumai Thaayagam (Green Motherland), had filed a complaint with the ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India) against a print campaign by Mahyco Monsanto Biotech, alleging it to be misleading. In the ad, a farmer poses in front of a tractor, with the copy explaining to other farmers that if a farmer sows Bt cotton, he will be able to afford assets such as a tractor or a lorry. Allegedly, the farmer who posed was misinformed as to what his picture would be used for."


Food for thought:

"Trials conducted in UK reveal that the cultivation of GE organisms has been found to damage the wildlife. Reports are available from different countries on the threat of contamination of indigenous varieties. Throughout the world, consumer preferences are against GE in food – only 21 countries across the world have approved the planting of GM crops, almost 15 years of their initial development. Even this consists of only traits of insect and herbicide resistance in four main crops – cotton, soybean, maize and canola. 94% of the World GE crops are grown in just four countries (USA, Argentina, Canada and China). 91% of GE seed is made and owned by one company called Monsanto. 27 of 30 EU top retailers have a non-GE policy throughout the EU... no GM crop in the world which has contributed to increase in crop productivity. Evidence is in fact to the contrary, showing that yields of GM crops are actually lower than conventional crops." (From GM Watch)

Blame games I like

A blog that I've been following with a great deal with relish, and which ought to be mandatory reading in my humble, starstruck opinion - I blame the Patriarchy.

From the FAQ section :

I Blame The Patriarchy exists to advance the radical feminist views of Twisty Faster. These views revolve around evidence that patriarchy is a violently tyrannical but nearly invisible social order based on an oppressive paradigm of class and status fetishizing dominance and submission. Patriarchy's benefits are accrued according to a rigid hierarchy at the top of which are rich honky males and at the bottom of which are poor women of color. The Twisty Revolution envisions a post-patriarchal order free of theocracy, gender, race, deity worship, marriage, prostitution, exploitation, reproduction, caste, pornography, rape, and government interference in private uteruses, domestic arrangements, drug habits, lives, and deaths.

I too, I too! Blame!

Skills and schooling

Recently, I saw a report in the papers about unemployment trends and how it may actually be rising in India (can't find the link), and the lack of relevant skills was one of the main reasons.

Which made me think about vocational training. Which usually makes me slightly angry, becausewhen it comes to young adults, training is often restricted to sewing/tailoring for girls and electrician's/mechanic's work for boys. It bothers me: this acute famine of the imagination. I mean, is this all we can think of? Is this all we want - tailors and electricians?

Then again, I was forced to do a rethink about skills, when I noticed that my bai's daughter wearing a frock with her back exposed. The frock was a rather pretty one; it was just that a few buttons had fallen off. I asked my bai (Raj) why she didn't mend the dress and discovered that she didn't know how!

I was surprised, because I'd assumed that everybody knew how to put a button on a shirt. Later, I discovered that the bai working in my mother's house didn't know either.

This is particularly hurtful, because not only can she not afford too many new clothes, but the ones she does get have to be discarded very quickly. One button or hook falls off and the clothes begin to look shabby. As things stand, Raj cannot imagine using her hands to do anything except cleaning, or at most, cooking. Not only does this limit her work options, she is actually spending more than is necessary, paying other people to get the edge of a saree done or loosening a kurta.

Now, I happily wear decade-old clothes. I even wear mom's clothes, at least thirty years old, if they're in reasonably good shape. (There was one pair of socks that I was especially loathe to throw away since my mom's darning is so exquisite). Which got me thinking about the way I acquired my (admittedly limited) skills.

I can replace buttons, create button-holes and hook-loops, hem, seam, make very basic clothes... (regretfully, can't darn or embroider). Despite being terrible at needlework, I was more or less forced to learn, thanks to my mother who headed the school and made this stuff compulsory - even for the boys (a favourite pink lehenga, cut out of an old chikan saree, was a self-made gift from the nieghbours' son).

Similarly, all students did gardening work - we hefted pickaxes, grew small patches of sugarcane and maize, handled manure and took turns to water potted plants.

The strange thing is, we never thought of it as acquisition of skills. We thought of it as an unnecessary pain, because we were sure that we weren't going to become tailors or gardeners. It is only now, when I see how frighteningly limited Raj's options are, that those lessons in Art&Craft and SUPW (Socially Useful Productive Work) seem to be rather useful.

But the problem is, I don't know if they exist where they're needed. And if they do, then why have separate vocational schools? It would be much simpler to just introduce an extra class focussing entirely on one skill (ideally chosen by the students themselves), let's say, in secondary school. By the time a child clears his secondary level boards, he/she would have at least two sets of additional skills. No?

This business of beauty

This business of thin women... is an awkward business.

We could begin with the feminine shape itself, and how beauty has been interpreted differently in different cultures. All cultures recognize the difference between fat and thin, but traditionally, not all cultures have longed for thin, or fair, or blonde or tall.

We could talk about the statues of goddesses found at ancient excavation sites and point out that they do not look like Kate Moss. The feminine ideal (goddess) was fat/pregnant, sometimes depicted in positions of giving birth, or in the act of coitus, and at other times, simply being herself: thick-limbed, fertile.

But there is not much point talking about ancient excavations. Civilizations change, people's aspirations change, goddesses change.

(Go to Durga Puja pandals in any given year and you will see what I mean. This year, at CR Park, I could have sworn that the statue of the goddesses were modelled on the picture of Aishwarya Rai in the nakshatra ads. They were very white, with long flowing hair, straight at the root and waved just so towards the end. Full bosoms, but narrow frames, slight arms, delicate wrists, colours all pastels.)

The point is that now, the feminine ideal is, unfortunately, firmly, unescapably, the screen goddess, who - sadly - is not fat, not pregnant, and definitely not doing anything as overtly sexual as actually having sex, or giving birth.

From a feminine perspective, I find this change fascinating. Not only has the shape of the ideal changed, the value system associated with her form has also changed. Therefore, the feminine ideal that beckons - lashes laden with a desire that is more yours than her own - from magazine covers, from music videos, from movies, is never completely naked. She will have a towel, a bodysuit, a bikini, a micro-mini, hotpants, etc. In the mainstream, (let us, for the moment, not discuss porn; that has never been mainstream) the new ideal feminine is not naked.

Consider this paradox. A body that looks lovely naked is never quite allowed to be naked. Even when there is not a stitch of fabric visible, the body itself is used as a drape of modesty: legs crossed, arms wrapped round herself, eyes half-closed, face half-averted.

Read the above para again, you will notice that I used the phrase 'a body'. Without meaning to, I used the word 'body' instead of woman, or even 'model' because that is how I thought of it. A body... Is this what they mean by objectification? Is this what it means to stop short of being a person, like all other persons, and turn into something desirable? Some-THING desirable. More importantly, do I have a problem with this sort of objectification?

But we could turn this around so easily.

Delhi is plastered with hoardings advertising a new health magazine. The cover has a picture of a boyish male model with a very flat, gym-hardened stomach; one hand is pulling up his vest to expose his crafted abs. It is a nice body. You cannot see the face. His face is thrown back, upwards, so you only see the man's jaw. This is not about men, or health; this is about the body.

The magazine is not targeted at me. I might have (if I had the inclination and money to spare) picked up a copy to look at the pictures. No nudes, but idealized, oiled, male bodies on show - perfect curls on the head, perfect white smiles, perfectly shadowed chins - tall, slim, young, alluring bodies.

Is this what you call objectification?

I don't know if it is such a terrible thing to look at a person as a thing. I don't know if this automatically translates into an assumption that this thing does not feel, does not speak, need not react, does not carry the threat of getting up and walk off and leave you with your empty desire.

But let us, for a minute, return to the original business. This business of thin women.

I have always been troubled by this question - if thin women are more desirable than fat ones, or like we now like to say 'real' ones, does that make the rest of society culpable for the unhappiness of all women who are not thin?

Are we (especially the media, who constantly generate and flood the public sphere with images of beauty) guilty of breeding a world of eternal physical dissatisfaction - where men are never male enough and women are never feminine enough?

Vijayeta says: '..."curvy" is just another veiled reference to being thin. Look at all the women who're popularly described as curvy. Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce etc. And while they are curvy indeed, they're also super thin. Not a milligram of extra fat, unsightly bulges or spare tyres thanks to an insane diet and workout regime. Be curvy, not skinny is the new mantra. But how?'

This too is a creation of the media. We describe Ms Lopez as curvy, though Ms Lopez is absolutely thin. The bits of her that are rounder - well, compared to Kate Moss - are genetic. If you don't have that kind of genetic shape, you're not going to acquire it through eating more or working out more.

We (the media) airbrush models' skins and shapes. We invest large amounts of money in photo shoots that make an ordinarily pretty woman look like a flawless goddess. We construct myths.

Does the average magazine reader know about airbrushing and money?
Well, thanks to reality shows, we can see how glamour tools transform a face. We know there is an almost 'real' woman out there behind the make-up, beyond the camera. But still, we get taken in by the myth.

Is the media really to blame, in that case? Assuming that airbrushing is a deception of sorts, and assuming that society has outlawed media deception of all kinds - would it be okay if the media continued to use pictures of thin women? Only of thin women?

What exactly is the media guilty of?

Of promoting, agressively, relentlessly, the idea of beauty as a thin body? Of not allowing for diversity of shape and size? Of giving in to the whims of fashion designers who want live, walking-talking clotheshorses, instead of women to show off their clothes?

Whose is the real deception, then?

Are fashion designers deceiving you by pretending that their clothes are fantastic? The clothes are just... what they are. They are meant for a buying public. The public comes in all shapes and sizes and, ideally, a designer should be catering to all of them. Or at least, to the majority, which is not as thin as ramp models. And yet, by using very thin bodies to show off the clothes, the designers imply that their clothes are desirable - if only the woman would lose some weight! The fact that, to most women, these clothes are actually not desirable is hushed up, buried under the hoo-haa-hoopla of just how lovely the models look.

Truth is - most models are rather ordinary. And about as real as the next woman, though possibly anaemic and deeply, psychologically stressed. Fashion designers decide that this woman/this shape/this length is the definition of beauty. Photographers - who get paid to do this - play along and create beauty from an image that is, at best, ordinary and at worst, pathetic. The media buys these pictures. And in doing so, subscribes to the view that this picture/this woman/this shape/this length is beautiful.

And we - ALL of us - buy this view... this woman/this shape/this length.

Why do we do this?

Why do we ALL do this?

Because we are all idiots without an opinion of our own?

Or because, beauty itself is a myth?

Or because, what is beautiful just is beautiful - and we cannot bear to accept it?

Or because, beauty is the sort of thing that has no intrinsic value, unless it is matched by an acknowledgment of desire from somewhere outside of us?

I, object

I like my feminism as much as the next woman. However, I'm a little behind on feminist theory; for one, I do not buy many books on the subject - though I will gladly consume essays and articles on the web. Secondly, none of my friends or colleagues seems to want to instruct me. And perhaps, just perhaps, I like to discover my own feminism. The limits of it, the forms of it, the practical consequences of it. Slowly.

But for the last few days, I've been grappling with questions.

Who is a feminist?

Perhaps, I should modify this a little bit: Who is a woman? How do you define a woman?

As the female of the species? Does that mean an acknowledgment of womanhood as the fact of femaleness - in other words, that part of us which is different from the male?

If you remove the female parts from a woman's body, does it become a male body?

If you remove the trappings of what is usually associated with feminity - long nails, paint, cosmetics, styled hair, anklets, glass bangles, neatly crossed legs, swaying hips, skirts, off-shoulder tops, high heels, soft giggling laughter, sequins, feet pressed together - does that make you less feminine? Is a naked, silent woman in a forest not feminine? Would she be more 'feminine' if she acquired the trappings?

Sacred insanity, through a part-provocative, part-confessional essay 'The shape of things', nudged me closer to questions such as these:

Are feminists hairy, raucous harridans? (Are you not entitled to feminism if you're not?)
Are beautiful women/feminine women silk-smooth, fragile, thin?

But before globalisation, before cable television, just fifteen years ago, I can recall a time when a woman could be indeed 'too thin'. And the women we considered really beautiful then, seem almost ordinary in comparison to the airbrushed, made-up perfection of the photos in the new glossies.

There was a time when I had a poster of Madhubala up on my walls. When I was a child, she was still the epitome of beauty. By modern standards, she would be grossly overwieght.

By modern standards, Kate Moss or Aishwarya Rai (in her new, 'toned' avataar) are the ideal. I no longer have any posters on my walls. Kate Moss means nothing to me.
Why is this?
Is this because she is foreign and I have not seen too much of her in magazines or on TV?
Or is this because I am no longer a child and no longer given to gawking at beauty?
Or is this because Madhubala was Madhubala, a woman whose eyes held mischief, lashes held a dawning age, cheekbones lifted like the rising breath of a nation, and hair waved at the viewer like a million strands of lively abandon, while Kate Moss is.... well, a shape (on narcotics).


What happens to a woman when the quotient of her feminine attraction is based upon her BMI?
What happens when you are considered worthy (or worthier), only when your shape inches as close as possible to a shape transmited to us as the ideal, and the ideal is a fake photo?

Is this what feminists mean by 'objectification'? Why is objectification a problem? Why does it matter so much that the length of a woman's legs or the size of her breasts determine how attractive she is, or how womanly?

When we cry foul at such trends, are we really crying foul at our own inability to meet the modern ideal's criteria?
Or at our unwillingness to try and meet these criteria (and the pain this involves)?
Or, at our resentment at being reduced to legs, breasts, face?

Would the same person be as attractive, let's say, minus arms, minus neck, minus back?
Let us assume that we take each little physical bit into account - arms, fingers, back, backsides, everything - does that then mean that we have begun to treat a person as 'whole'?

What happens if we reduce a man similarly - legs, belly, face, butt?
What happens when we decide how attractive a man is, based solely on how flat his abdomen is, how thin his legs, how broad his shoulders and how chiselled his face? How much hair he has on his head?
What happens when we decide that a man is less worthy of our attention, our affection, our admiration, if he does not have a taut belly, a full shock of hair and long legs?

If a woman is naturally thin, naturally silk-smooth, naturally fragile, naturally quiet, is she less empowered than a woman who is plump, hairy, sturdy and raucous? Do thin-but-curvilicious women lose the right to call themselves feminists?

How much curviness is curvilicious? (I personally find thin women with obvious silicon implants somewhat repulsive, but then, I'm not the demographic they're catering to)

What if you're not thin, in a world that likes thinness? Do feminists lose the right to want to be desirable?

What is a 'real' woman? Are only un-thin, complexed women with flawed skins 'real'? Are thin women not real? Are anorexic women not real? Are obese women more real than anorexics?

What is a commodity? (Any thing? Any thing that can be bought and sold?)
What does it mean to commodify? (To convert from non-thing to a thing that can be bought and sold?)
Why is the commodification of women so important? (Because when you have beautiful women in advertisements, you are not selling a product, you are selling a woman, and everything that she represents? Because what the world of buyers really wants is a woman, and everything that she represents, and not your stupid product? [what does a woman represent?] Is that why there are more 'real' women in advertisements targeted at other women - washing machines, detergent, tea?)
Who is commodifying women? (Businesses that peddle products? Media houses that depend on these businesses? Photographers and filmmakers who depend on the media?)

Because you are viewed as a 'thing', will you be bought as a thing? Once you are an object, as the next logical step, will you be a commodity? Will there be attempts to put you in a nice package, in a box, on a shelf, to be handed over to whoever is willing to pay? What exactly are you being sold as, in that case?
A sexual object?
But what if you are not an overtly sexual object?
A covertly sexual object?
An object that is desirable, but without desire of her/his own?

Once you have commodified one person, does that pave the way for a whole gender, a whole race, a whole world to be commodified? If one woman is an object of desire, does it follow that other women - less desirable, perhaps - are objects, nevertheless, whether desired or not?

Who is the victim in this game of commodification? The thin woman? The fat woman? All women? All humanity? Do men suffer equally, when women are commodified? How?

To all these questions, I don't have answers. I just have more questions.
Any answers?

Children's stories

Children's stories are such perfectly choreographed dream sequences, aren't they? Despite the wolves, the witches, evil stepmothers, greedy kings, the eternal sleep, the eternal wait for one kiss of redemption... and it all comes right in the end.

But whenever I meet children who have lived dangerous fairytales, who have suffered the witch and the wolf and lived to tell the tale, I can't help wondering whether it has come right. Whether it can ever come right.

A while ago, I had written of Bubli, of Sukku, Sohail, Budhiya; these children's stories exemplify why it was so important to ban child labour. Not necessarily because kids should be in school, not necessarily because kids have a right to food and education but because kids are vulnerable. Because kids don't always know what to do to protect themselves, or indeed, if they have any right to seek protection against adults.

A few weeks ago, I met my own question in the shape of Kalu.

Kalu. Dark-skinned teenager with a genuinely shy, pleasant smile. An obvious wonder lurks just one layer deep in his eyes. He is very willing to talk.

We met entirely by accident. I had gone to the Bachpan Bachao Andolan office to meet the founder, the general secretary, the adults... but there was this team of excited teenaged boys in maroon sweaters (the kind I wore to school), hauling backpacks off a bus. They'd been on the road for days, driving around the countryside, staging plays and raising awareness about children's rights.

Kalu was introduced to me as the boy made famous by the Clinton visit; he was photographed with the former president of the US and subsequently splashed across many a newspaper and magazine. It made him blush - the teasing from the teacher about how famous his face was. But he recovered soon enough and began to tell his story with confidence. With such guileless, unflinching confidence that it made me flinch.

Kalu comes from village Murho in Madhepura, Bihar. When he was barely six or seven, he was kidnapped when he was out minding the goats (or were they sheep?). Two strangers showed up where he and another small boy sat, while the animals grazed. "You know how kids are, ma'am. They love sweets. These two men gave us sweets. They lured us away, making promises of more sweets, and saying that they would take us to the cinema. That was how we were kidnapped."

First, Kalu was taken to Allahabad, and for that first week, he was given good food. Next thing he knew, he was put to work on the carpets. Day and night. Day and night. For meals, he was given rice and water. Old sarees were used as blankets. And he was beaten.

Once, he feel asleep at the loom. The punishment was severe. The adults supervising him assaulted him with a knife. He received two wounds on the chest. "They did not take me to the hopsital. To prevent infection, they would burn the wounds. The wound was filled with the 'masala' that you see on the tip of a matchstick. This was set fire to.... the other boys stood on my arms and legs to prevent me from moving. Somebody used to clamp an arm down on my mouth. I was not even allowed to scream."

I stared with a stilling horror at this class ten student, smiling at me, genuinely smiling. The questions dried up suddenly, as I tried to imagine the boy at eight. The boy with fire on his chest, several pairs of feet pinning down his limbs. I did not want to see the scars.

Kalu extended his hands. There were more scars. "Every time I made a mistake while weaving the carpets, they would drive knives into the back of my hands. Again, they'd set fire to the wounds, never take us to a doctor."

There was not that much to say, was there?

Before I could recover from the searing numbness of one story, I met another.

Pradeep is younger, about 13. He's a student of class seven and a little less articulate. Or perhaps, just less willing to talk. He only answered the questions put to him.

He belonged to Agra's Kamlapur village. His dad was a driver. His mother was told by a sadhu that Pradeep would bring ill luck. Not just to the family, but to the whole village. The village had indeed had problems with water scarcity. The sadhu persuaded Pradeep's parents to sacrifice the child during durga-puja.

They blindfolded him and took an axe to him, at the local temple, but he was struggling so that the axe fell on his head rather than his chest. The sadhu decided at this point that the sacrifice ritual had been interrupted, and therefore, was rendered invalid. So, they left the boy there at the temple where devotees found him in the morning. He was taken to the hospital but the boy was so scared that he would be attacked again that he ran away to Agra. Once there, he began work at a dhaba, from where he was rescued by BBA activists.

The chairman himself went to the village, to persuade the parents to accept the boy, but they thought of him as a curse and did not want him back. So, he lives at the ashram in Rajasthan, with other boys. Studies. Travels.

When people like me come to ask questions, he tells them the story.

I tell you... children's stories!

Sacking the order

I have always wondered why this didn't happen sooner.

"Deep in the heartland of Uttar Pradesh... the priests are getting sacked.

Dalits have stopped depending on Brahmin priests for weddings, funerals and other ceremonies. Instead, they have turned to a Buddhism-inspired book which has rituals that can be performed by any literate person. The wide use of the Bhim Patra, named after Bhimrao Ambedkar, is part of a quiet rebellion against upper-caste domination.

"We have nothing to do with the Brahmin pandits," said Chhabi Lal of Ghunghter village, 45 km from Lucknow. "They tell us, 'Your parents died; so to make their souls happy, give us a bed and a cow as gifts.' As if it is all going to reach them."


For weddings, the bride and the groom light candles, exchange wedding vows and garlands. No dowry, no auspicious dates and times and as witness, a statue of a man you respect and venerate... finally!

Do read the report here.

(Update: Sorry, the link doesn't seem to work anymore, but the report appeared in Hindustan Times a few weeks ago)

Trading sides

zig has put forth a challenge - don't take sides; trade sides. Try and be somebody you're not. Try and put on someone else's shoes.

The challenge has been posted in the form of an exercise, over at Caferati, and I'm copy-pasting the rough guidelines.

Pick any topic on which you have very strong views.
Write about it.
The idea is to write postively about something you'd normally write negatively about.
To stretch your imagination to encompass a world view that you despise, ridicule or just don't believe in.

No restictions on genre or style.

You can write it on the exercise thread, or on your own space, or as a comment on the Caferati blog.

Actually, Caferati promotion apart, just do the exercise - write it in your private diary if you please, and don't show it anybody, if you can't. But attempt it.

It should be interesting, at the very least.

Bad girls!

Yes, yes, stealing is a bad thing to do. But for some reason, I can only shake my head and laugh at this all-girl gang of teenagers who call themselves the 'spider-girls' in Chile, who are 'infamous for climbing up buildings in Santiago to burgle luxury apartments'.

And what's more -
'Despite both being heavily pregnant, they still managed to climb up to the third floor of some flats.'

What I am not so pleased about is that those who affected - probably the legit occupants of those luxury apartments whose jewelry and clothes these girls stole - want these girls to go to jail. Not to reform centres, not under juvenile justice laws, where some of these girls have already been before.

"Many Chileans have been angered by the girls' antics, saying the law is too soft and needs to be changed so under 18- year-olds get tougher punishments and do not think they are above the law."

Well, they aren't. But why does the idea of stringent punishments for teenaged daredevilry (for admittedly grubby motives) make me so uncomfortable?

Class as a function of fear (Auto-maton 7)

"Classy film."

"He's got class"
"What do you expect? That place has no class."
"Class! Disperse!"
"She must repeat the class."
"You can either cater to the classes or the masses."
"Arre, it's an everyday thing, with that class."
"That class of man is not used to seeing women out, alone. They can't handle it."
"Mom! They don't even have third class seats any more."
"First class first."
"Business class."
"A class apart."

Do not take autos at night. If you must, take a taxi. Take a prepaid taxi. Take a taxi where the driver knows he will not get away with it.

11.30 pm. Airport.

There are pre-paid taxis. There are also autos.
You take an auto, because the driver agrees to a reasonable price. It is an old-ish man. A minute later, he stops and asks another to join him on the front seat. It is a young boy - not more than fourteen. You are relieved it is such a young boy.

12. Midnight. Lutyen's Delhi.
You are lost. In the dark, nothing is familiar. You suspect the driver is lost too. He has not been paying attention to the roads at all, and has kept up a steady stream of conversation with the boy, mostly revolving around what to eat for dinner, and where.

12.15 am. Chanakyapuri.
You know this is the embassy zone. You just don't know how to get out of here. The driver has no clue either.
You admonish him with a single word - "Bhaiyya!"
He reassures you with - "Yes, yes. I'll just find a way."

12.25 am. Chanakyapuri.
The driver is looking grim. The boy is silent. They keep trying various small lanes, some of which lead to a dead-end, others seem to lead you around in circles. You are definitely lost.
You admonish - "Bhaiyya, what are you doing?"
He reassures - "Bas, bas - I'll just find a way."

1 am. Lajpatnagar.
Familiar zone. You are no longer lost and giving crisp, rather cross directions to a clueless old man.

1.15 am. The street outside your home.
The driver stops and does not ask you for any extra money, though you are half-prepared for the demand, after such a long time on the road.
He apologizes - "I'm sorry. I know it is worrying to be lost so late at night."
You decide to be gracious - "That's okay."
He adds - "But I have to say, you're a brave one. Any other girl would have been frightened."

You decide not to dispel the illusion.

1.16 am.
A car slows down when you are paying the auto driver. There are two prosperous-looking young men inside.
One of them peers out and addresses you - "Where do you want to go? We will take you."
You snap - "I want to go to hell. Will you come along?"
Sheepishly, he mutters - "Oh! Well, we could go there too."
but they do not hang around. The car picks up speed and leaves.

The auto driver clicks his tongue - "It is a bad world out here at night."
You shrug, "It's an everyday thing", but you remember to thank him warmly.


Do not take autos late at night? Take taxis, instead?

More on the 'auto' : Auto-maton 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

The economics of motherhood - 1

Food is a human 'right'.
Maternity is a 'benefit'.
Gender is a 'problem'.

Never mind, let me tell you a story.

Khairi is a new mother. Khairi has just given birth, at home. Hours after the birth, Khairi is seen sitting up, pressing warm pads (an old saree folded into a cushion and heated on top of a stove) to her belly, in a futile effort to ease the pain. For the next two days, her baby will survive (perhaps) by licking jaggery off her fingertips. The first feed (the thick yellowish breast milk) within hours of birth is crucial to the baby's health - Khairi knows. But she is not feeding the baby, because she has not eaten herself. Even through her pregnancy, she never had more than two-three rotis a day. She hopes that to produce some milk, hopes to feed the baby, hopes to keep it alive.

Khairi will not get three months' leave from work. She is an agricultural labourer. If she does not work, she does not eat. The government offers her or her child no guarantees. She can go to the anganwadi and collect her allocation, which is supposed to supplement her diet. Supplements, yes....but supplement what?

Khairi might have a husband. In this story, we don't know for sure. He is probably a labourer himself. Perhaps, he makes enough to feed his wife well. Perhaps, he does not. Perhaps, he does not think that he needs to make enough for her or her baby.

Let us assume that Khairi's husband did not want the baby. He just wanted uncomplicated sex.

Let us also assume that Khairi is willing to bring up her own baby, and that society will not ostracise her. Khairi goes back to work within three days of having a baby. She carries the baby around with her (she can do this since she is an agricultural labourer; it would have been difficult if she made presentations in corporate board-rooms). Perhaps, she already had another child. This child will most likely be pulled out of school to look after the newborn.

We (society) have the following options:

- Let Khairi's baby die. It is unwanted and if the mother cannot keep it alive, well, tough!
- Insist that Khairi's husband pay for the child. Acting on the philosophy that there is no such thing as uncomplicated sex, and that reproduction is the natural outcome thereof.
- Find out whose decision it was to have the baby (after having established without doubt that abortion facilities were freely available to the couple) to assign responsibility for the child.
- Pay for the baby collectively (through taxes), but not enough for Khairi's survival.
- Pay collectively for Khairi, at least for three months, possibly for eighteen months.

Which option sounds the most reasonable to you?

Did you decide that ALL mothers must be taken care of, regardless of background or type of employment, to allow for motherhood?

If not, then - in all fairness - you must also decide to abandon all child nutrition/health/education/safety services; after all, your logic suggests that children are the parents' (at least, the mother's) responsibility. They only deserve as much health, as much protection, as their biological parents can afford. Correct?

And if this too is not acceptable, then, what do you recommend?

Do you recommend that women go on pushing themselves to work, to the dishes, to the hospital, to the boundaries of endurance, because they are the ones who have babies?

Do you recommend that women stop having babies, unless they can find a male human who coughs up enough money to survive a few years?

Do you recommend that companies who refuse to hire mothers (or are found to suffer from a disproportionate lack of mothers in their work-force) be penalised?

Do you recommend that women confine themselves to kitchen, crib and bedroom, and put up with anything their men may throw their way - in exchange for the glorious opportunity to get pregnant?

Do you recommend that women give birth and then abandon babies, because, surely, people can change their minds?

Do you recommend that we allow women to sell babies? Why should the state intervene? Why does society (we) feel outraged and/or concerned when a woman sells her baby? Do we assume the right to prevent such sales? (But rights bring responsibilities.)

I make none of the aforementioned recommendations.

But I would like to know - especially those who disagree with the suggestion that mothers be allowed at least eighteen months of social support - What do you recommend?

[In response to - Why mothers? Why now? Why, when half the nation's children are hungry, and half the women don't have access to pre/post-natal care, and half the men are jobless and half the world at war? Why, when we can't seem to get the population to stop producing a more infernal population?]

Zigzackly points us to Esha, and a simple project through which you could help blind kids.

"You pay a rupee a card to get your visiting cards Braille-embossed. So, your cards can then be read by people who read Braille. And you help visually-impaired people get a little more financial independence.
You can reach Nidhi and Esha at Esha_braille AT yahoo DOT com."

A new kind of fruit.

I get a little frustrated with conversations about 'gender'. It is almost as if we were talking about an interesting vase on the dining table, or a new kind of fruit.

As if, it has nothing to do with the salaries we draw, the amounts we spend on travel and/or self-indulgence, our health, our place in newspapers, the status of the kitchen sink, the vocational courses offered by the ashram for rescued street children. As if, gender was something to be tucked into a recycled paper folder, on a conference table.

Every conversation about gender or feminism quickly disintegrates into 'emancipation' or 'but it should not become a man vs woman debate' or 'learn to be equal, first'.

In recent memory, not one person (politician/activist/student/feminist/writer/friend) has spoken to me about gender from the perspective of motherhood. About the economics of motherhood.

Three months' paid leave, yes. Creches at the work-place, yes. But what about the fact that, despite maternity benefits, a new mother often runs the risk of becoming an economic liability unto herself? Because, with a baby in her arms, it is not easy to cook, clean, commute, stay up late working on projects, functioning on too little sleep.

It is easy to say - let the man take half the burden. What happens when there is no man in the picture? Because, often, there isn't. In any case, that argument is a flawed one, based on the assumption that every mother WANTS to be married/live with a man. What if she doesn't? Where does she get financial help, or social support?

And why are Indians not pushing the boundaries further? Are three months enough? Is it fair to expect a mother to return to work with a three-month old infant? Let me put it this way - does society want three-month old infants in day-care centres, to be taken home by a frazzled mother who must go on working - cooking, cleaning, etc? Is that the ideal way to bring up a generation?

Another question - do we, as a people, as a species, accept that children are our collective responsibility? That children belong to the world, and the world must do its bit to bring them up?

In a world where men do not always assume paternal responsibilities, especially if they have not legally married the mother, how do we make them do their bit? If men were wild creatures like wolves or penguins or something, one could count upon them to feed the young ones, and let the mother recover. Since this trait, however, does not seem to be part of their DNA, how do we, as a world, make men pay their share of the price for the continuation of the species?

Like the USA, do we keep track of fathers, using the law to hunt them down, and MAKE them pay for their biological children? Or do we impose a tax on ALL men, to extend social security to ALL pregnant women?

Do we extend maternity benefits to a year, or eighteen months? Or does the mother quit her job, avail of social support for upto eighteen months, and then look for a new job?

But what happens next? When the benefit-zone comes to an end, do we welcome this not-so-new mother back into the work force? By all reports, we do not.

According to a study, "Mothers face greater discrimination in finding a job than disabled people, Asian women and the elderly, new government research has found.
Women returning to work after starting a family face the highest 'personal employment penalty' of any group in society - they are around 40 per cent less likely than the average white, able-bodied man to be offered a post, says the study."

If we do nothing at all, if we expect that women will fight for equality, on men's terms, and deal with the world of men, by trying to turn into men, this is what you will be confronted with - a baby shortage.

"Britain is suffering a baby 'shortage' with potentially disastrous consequences as work pressures force young women to shelve plans for a family, according to dramatic new research, urging an £11bn campaign to boost parenthood. Women have not turned against becoming mothers and, if they could have the number of children they actually wanted, more than 90,000 extra babies a year would be born."

India is young. India does not yet have the spectre of an aged, dependent majority looming over a shrinking work-force. But we'll get there, some day. It would not hurt to prevent a crisis, for once.

Priyanka will not be avenged

I should have written about Kherlanji earlier, perhaps. Except that I did not know what to say.

When Shivam first sent me the link to the story, it took four attempts to read it through to the end. With each reading, I'd be overwhelmed by a wave - something between frustration, nausea, panic - rising up in revolt.

I did not want to read the story. I did not want to confront the fact that it was true, and that this was what the world like. That the perpetrators were ordinary villagers - like the ones I meet when I travel. Ordinary young and old men with complaints about electricity, the lack of health services and joblessness. That it is not one or two or three or four but nearly a whole village.

I still don't know what to say.

Except that Priyanka will not be avenged even if the whole village hangs. Priyanka will not be avenged as long as you have even one square inch on earth where a woman is held as the repository of male honour.

Bedsheet and bigotry

Right now, I am wearing a skirt that my mother unflatteringly describes as a bedsheet.

My mother does not like me wearing bedsheets. She does not wear bedsheets herself. Through childhood, the one constant memory of her clothes comes to me wrapped in chiffon sarees in flowery prints and sleeveless blouses. And stilettos. Turtlenecks in winter.

And then, there is one other memory. Only once have I seen my mother wear a bedsheet.

It was a dark night, perhaps close to midnight, and we were piled into a tonga, from the railway station to the maternal-ancestral house in which I was born, and to which I had not returned since. I was half-asleep, though thrilled to be sitting in a tonga, when, to my surprise, my mother began to unpack a bag.

She pulled out a bedsheet and draped it round her head. By way of explanation, she told me that she did not wish to offend our hosts - the larger extended family.

Once we entered the house, I understood why. Back then, the house was still divided into 'zenana' and 'mardana' sections. Now, this word 'zenana' might conjure up visions of royalty, and a palatial section replete with special, fragrant swimming/bathing pools and jharokhas.

No such extravagance. This 'zenana' was simply that part of the house where 'outside' men were not permitted, and where women could lie about on a charpai, without a veil. When they stepped outside the house, they put on a burqa, or draped a thick, dupatta-like piece of cloth around themselves. A chadar.

My mother does not wear a chadar. But she loves her family, even those of the family who wear the veil and treat her with a mixture of affection and exasperation, for not conforming.

I do not wear a chadar and, to my immense relief, many of the women from the maternal-ancestral household have given it up. Yet, I cover my head in places where it is expected of me - in a dargah or a temple or a gurudwara. I do not do this because I think the demand is justified. I do this as a mark of respect to my hosts of the moment. After all, when you visit somebody else's house, you do not question their rules - if they say 'take off your slippers', you take them off; if they lay food on a dastarkhaan instead of a table, you sit down cross-legged, on the floor.

The trouble arises when people begin to insist that the rules of their house apply to public spaces. If, for instance, the priests began to insist that I cover my head on the streets, I would stop looking upon them as temporary spiritual hosts, and would be very suspicious of them.

On the other hand, how would you feel if you visited somebody's home, and this somebody insisted that you strip down to your underwear, because those are the rules of the house?

That is why this business of the chadar (chador/burqa/burkha/abaya/ hijaab/purdah/ghoonghat) is such a prickly one.

For, you see, I can easily imagine such a situation. After all, we are not allowed to step into swimming pools unless we wear a swimsuit. There could well be beaches (don't know of any, yet) where you are not allowed unless you're in beach-wear. There are clubs and lounges where you are not allowed in, unless you're in formal 'evening wear'. (I clearly recall one instance in Bombay where a journalist was thrown out of a pub for being in a salwar-kameez).

Do you find any of the above situations acceptable? For a society where these rules apply, would you use adjectives such as 'rigid' 'orthodox' 'ultra-conservative' and even 'oppressive'?

Why does the chadar provoke such extreme reactions, then?

To me, this is a very significant question. Partly because, and sadly because, the veil often comes as a package deal. It comes laden with a set of no-nos, with fear and disrespect for women's bodies and ambitions, and with a patriarchy-heavy culture. Not always, but often. Not always in Islamic nations; also in rural India where women are often punished for breaking free of the ghoonghat and stepping into the political-economic limelight.

I find myself recoiling from both ends of the extreme - the injunction to wear the veil, and the insistence on banning it.

On the one hand, I completely agree with the authorities in this sort of scenario, where, in brief -

A primary school teacher - a language teacher, in fact - wears the hijaab, masking the face, except for the eyes. Kids find it hard to understand what she's saying. The school authorities ask her to either give up the burqa or leave her job.

After all, a teacher's job is to teach and teach well. Besides, the burqa serves no purpose in the classroom (if it serves any purpose at all). If your religious beliefs prevent you from working properly, well... too bad. Make a choice.

On the other hand, there is this country that wants to ban all forms of hijaab, including the headscarf, as a move towards outlawing 'sectarian dress'.

This is silly.

Would you also ban hats? What about a fez? What about the cap the pope wears? What about scarves that are worn on the head but tied at the nape of the neck, like a bandana? What about bikinis? What about sarees? Are they sectarian? Are they cultural? Are they are a threat?

Can a woman in a bedsheet/tent be a threat to a nation?

For me, the veil, in any form, is a tricky issue. Not just because it indirectly makes women responsible for the potential crimes against them, not just because it violates my aesthetic sensibilities (though I have to confess, I was forced to reconsider after that photograph doing the forward rounds - the one with a row of women in black burqas, faces covered and legs bared... I can't find it; does anyone have it stored away somewhere?), but primarily because it is incumbent upon women.

I can understand the temptation to call for a ban, because, sometimes it seems as if that is the only way to protect women from a forced tent-ization, to divorce their clothes from their rights and duties.

Yet, I would like to reserve the right to wear a burqa, as and when I choose to.

Because I will NOT do anything you force me to do. I will NOT wear a bedsheet even if that's the only guise in which I am allowed to enter heaven, for I don't believe in a God who cannot bear to see his own creations uncovered. But nor will I NOT wear a bedsheet, just because you don't like it.

And if a woman with her head covered, frightens you, you probably have deep-rooted insecurities and need to see a shrink.

Five things feminism has done for me
(in response to Aishwarya's tag)

I've been trying, but how do I pin-point what feminism has done for me? Besides, there are kinds and kinds of feminists - which of them do I thank, for what? Perhaps, a better way of doing this would be to point out what life would have been like, if it were not for the feminists of the last century.

1] I would not have had the right to vote.

Like I have said (in this post, remembering the struggle for universal suffrage) equality is a long journey on a rough road. Today, I can vote because it is taken for granted that women have a stake in the politics of a nation. It was not always so. To be denied the vote is to be denied citizenship, to be denied the constitution, to be rendered powerless and voiceless in a democracy. I am grateful I was not denied all this.

2] I would not have realised that I have a choice - about everything.

Through childhood, my brother and I were treated the same. I never thought about feminism; it was never discussed and it was certainly not upheld as a virtue or a necessary part of our education.

My earliest recollection of feminism is a family member laughing about the 'bra-burning type'. I did not ask questions, but this little floating wisp of info stayed in my mind - that somewhere, somebody was burning her bra... why? Later, I began to wonder - What does it mean to wear, or not, a bra? What does it mean culturally, socially, intellectually?

I have yet to meet any woman who burnt a bra, even as a token gesture (they're too expensive). But feminism has shown us that we can, should we choose to. And if we choose to, feminists can explain what exactly we will be rejecting - not a piece of cloth with clasps, but an idea - about what a female body is supposed to accomplish.
(Recommended reading - Germaine Greer's The Madwoman's Underclothes)

Take something as simple as the right to be neither Miss or Mrs, to insist upon Ms - I would not have known that I had the choice, if it had not been for the feminists who have exercised that choice before me.

Similarly, it is feminist movements who have argued for abortion rights, contraceptive rights, etc. I feel much, much safer living in a country where I have these rights, legally. I would, for instance, not like to be in Nicaragua, right now.

3] I would not have known who I am, with whom I belong.

The first time I heard the word 'feminist' was when it was hurled at me like an accusation. Which prompted me to go look it up in the library and begin to read up about it. And then I knew - this was where I belonged. Amongst women who are not content to be the gentler sex, the second sex, the weaker sex, the anything-but-equal sex.

Feminism, to me, is an intellectual cave of refuge. Now, I wear the label like a badge of honour. In fact, I admit that I am impatient with women who are not feminists, and unforgiving towards men who are not.

4] I may never have gone to college.

College may not have given me much by way of (academic) knowledge, but it was fun, gave me a couple of lifelong (one hopes) friends, gave me ideas, and the space to find out what my talents were and how I was going to use them. Which led to still-higher education, which led to a job, which led to independence.

5] I would not have learnt to question religion, social norms, economic systems, political systems and my own beliefs.

Questioning is the first step towards freedom. It would have been easy to conform. But as I grew up, read books, argued, confronted this business of being a woman - our place in the world, the rules that bind us, the sacrifices demanded of us - I began asking questions. One question led to ten anothers. One theory led to ten others. When I began asking questions about one thing, I learnt to question everything else. I'm still asking.

I'm tagging -

Smriti
Vijayeta
Charu
eM
Monica