http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.indian.marathi/browse_thread/thread/8a1efe054a3bf157/1b416b79cddb669b
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.indian.marathi/browse_thread/thread/8a1efe054a3bf157/39078a38d2496b48
...and I am Sid Harth
Prostitution in India.
Article 6: States Parties shall take all appropriate measures,
including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and
exploitation of prostitution of women in India. According to a 1994
report in Asian Age there are at least 70,000 women sex workers in
Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, Bangalore and Hyderbad. 30% of these women
are under 20 years of age. 40% are 20-30 years of age, and
approximately 15% of them became prostitutes as children under the age
of 12.
In India, many innocent victims are forced into prostitution by their
husbands or relatives. Some are tricked or enticed into prostitution.
http://www.indianchild.com/prostitution_in_india.htm
This traffic does not stop
The bondage of cross-border sex-workers
Lucknow, February 15, 2002: When 12-year-old Rupa, a Dalit girl from a
village near Varanasi, said that she had been raped by the landlord's
son and friends, the village panchayat (village council) refused to
believe her. Instead, the panchayat maintained that she was concocting
stories. Rupa's problems did not end here. On the pretext of helping
her, Rupa's neighbour offered her domestic work in Kolkata. But
instead of taking her to this eastern Indian city, he brought her to
Delhi and sold her to a brothel for Rs 10,000 (1US$= Rs 48). According
to Rupa, there are many other girls from her village and her caste in
this brothel.
Like Rupa, 20-year-old Mala was lured to come to Uttar Pradesh from
Nepal when she was 10 years old. She was raped by her custodians who
held her captive for over a month and then took her to Mumbai. She has
been working in this city as a sex worker for the last decade, often
servicing six to 10 clients every night This bestial, sleazy world of
intra-country and trans-border trafficking in women and young girls
was highlighted recently in a workshop organised in Lucknow by the
BETI Foundation, UNDP.
Trafficking in human beings is more lucrative than trade in arms or
narcotics according to Roma Shyamsundar, Vice President of STOP, a
Delhi based non-governmental organisation (NGO) actively involved in
the rescue of trafficked girls. According to Shyamsundar, a lifelong
exploitative situation is established when a woman or a girl is
trafficked: she is forced into prostitution and thus begins a vicious
cycle of paying the brothel owner for whom she works. Even if she is
rescued, her plight does not improve because she is not accepted
either by her family or by society. And she has no means of survival.
Consequently, many rescued victims have no choice but to go back to
sex work.
Given the abysmal poverty in Bangladesh and Nepal, the porous borders
with India and even culturally sanctioned prostitution like the
Devdasi system, the business of trafficking girls has fertile soil on
which to grow in the region. Expectedly, it is highest in border
regions with high poverty and low women's literacy. The new state of
Uttaranchal too is a popular hub, especially along the porous borders
at Pithoragarh and Champawat.
A 1994 UN definition of trafficking limits it to the clandestine and
illegal movements of persons across national borders with the goal of
forcing women and children into sexually exploitative situations.
Today, this definition in its wider sense also includes internal
trafficking through kidnapping, migration and luring women and girls
to cities for better work prospects.
What is causing alarm both in governmental and NGO circles is the
escalation in trafficking of young girls in the last decade. NGOs like
STOP and MAITI in Nepal report that most trafficking in India (both
trans-border and in-country) is for prostitution. And 60 per cent of
those trafficked into prostitution are adolescent girls in the age
group of 12 to 16 years. Still more alarming is the fact that the
average age of trafficked girls, which was 14 to 16 years in the
1980s, came down to between 10 and 14 years in the 1990s. These
figures are corroborated by a study done by the Department of Women
and Children in 13 sensitive districts of Uttar Pradesh. It reveals
that all sex workers who formed a part of this survey had entered the
profession as young girls.
Globalisation, professionalisation of trafficking syndicates,
feminisation of poverty and rise in sex tourism - all have contributed
to an increase in trafficking. This problem is further compounded
because of two factors: linkages of trafficking with the spread of HIV/
AIDS and the clandestine nature of the activity.
Studies now show that while women of all ages are more vulnerable to
the infection than men, young girls are even more at risk because
their genital tracts are immature. In addition, they have absolutely
no control over sexual relations and sexual health. So a physical
vulnerability is compounded by a gender vulnerability. Says a Nepali
child rescued from a brothel by STOP, "Clients don't like condoms and
the owner of the brothel tells me to do what the clients want. If I
refuse then the man chooses another girl and not only do I lose out on
making money, I am also beaten up."
The clandestine nature of trafficking, which is often undertaken with
familial consent, means that there are no action plans either at the
governmental or the NGO level to deal with the problem. For instance,
the study done in 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh shows that in a sample
of 1,341 sex workers, brothel-based prostitution was 793 and family-
based prostitution came close at 548.
However, progress -- though very little -- is being made. Efforts at
rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked women and girls have now
turned from a welfare to a rights-oriented approach. Interventions are
increasingly based on issues like combating stigma related to HIV/
AIDS, developing empowering strategies for victims and involving
communities in the rehabilitation of rescued women and girls.
But there is a lot that still needs to be done. Involvement of
communities is of the greatest significance here since it has been
seen that rescued women and girls are not accepted by their families
and communities. The situation becomes worse if someone tests positive
for HIV because she is immediately labeled a prostitute - a perception
that creates a complex situation in the rehabilitation programmes.
Even if trafficked returnees can avoid such treatment, they have few
options for survival. There are very few rehabilitation centres that
provide physical, mental and emotional support or legal and literacy
expertise. Consequently, many young HIV positive girls and women
return to sex work, thereby continuing the transmission of HIV
infections. Says Shyamsundar, "We believe that all brothel children
have to be rescued. A 10-year-old is expected to take on 10 or 12
customers a day. It is worse than rape."
What is needed is a multi-pronged strategy which can help in curbing
trafficking and empowering communities and which also has scope for
rescue and rehabilitation processes. The task is not just daunting,
given the political priorities of most governments it is not given the
importance it deserves.
Radha Rastogi
February 2002
Radha Rastogi is a Lucknow based journalist with over 25 years
experience with mainstream media. She specialises in development
issues and has specifically worked in the field of education in the
state of Uttar Pradesh. This opinion on India Together is provided by
the Women's Feature Service.
Feedback: Tell us what
http://www.indiatogether.org/women/opinions/traffic.htm
MAITI in Nepal
http://www.maitinepal.org/
UNDP homepage
http://www.undp.org/
http://www.indiatogether.org/women/opinions/traffic.htm
Fantasies of city life attracts minor girls !!! - 2010-01-21
A fresh incident of interception of eight minor girls from Information
and vigilance booth of Maiti Nepal Nagdhunga unraveled the extremity
to which capital city, Kathmandu attracts innocent girls from rural
areas. Observing their dress up and behavior reveals the fact that
they were attracted by the fashion vibes and sense of freedom posed
by the capital city.
On 12th January, 2010 ,eight innocent girls were intercepted at
Nagdhunga for being at a high risk of trafficking. All eight girls
were minors, age varying from 9 years to 18 years. All of them
belonged to Tanahu district and were traveling to Kathmandu to find
jobs. After series of counseling sessions, they said that five of
them lied to their parents saying that they were going for a movie
while three of them ran away from school. They had sold their gold
nose stud to get money for bus fare.
While questioned at the check post, they had no clue about where they
were staying in Kathmandu. Thaey said they were traveling to Kathmandu
to find "a nice job" and earn their livelihood. Although all of them
are literate to a certain grade, they were aloof about human
trafficking. During counseling sessions, it was observed that their
interest was mainly on pursuing material satisfaction like cell
phones, nice dress, shoes and cosmetics, etc. Their prime focus was on
earning money and fulfilling their fantasy rather than going to the
school.
This incident manifests the burgeoning gravity between the capital
city and remote districts. Undoubtedly, Kathmandu is soaring high on
creating fashion and as a consequence it is luring innocent girls
towards a so called city lifestyle which further generates hazardous
upheavals and risks in their life.
On 17th January, 2010 their respective family members were contacted
and brought together for family counseling. All the girls were handed
over to their respective parents Maiti Nepal is committed to provide
every kind of support to these girls that may be required for their
successful reintegration
http://www.maitinepal.org/ndetails.php?option=News&cid=127
Internal trafficking as an escalating challenge to a civilized
society!!! - 2010-01-10
The number of girls entrapped in sexual exploitation is atrocious.
Undoubtedly, the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu holds a lot of job
opportunities. What attracts these girls to the capital city is the
superficial conception, that they could change their lifestyle by
merely changing their city. With a commitment to themselves of
improvising their life situations, they travel to Kathmandu with risks
and hazards. In fact, they are “trafficked” to Kathmandu. In the guise
of dance bars, cabin restaurants and massage parlors, these innocent
girls are sexually and physically exploited. Most of these girls are
easily lured, molded and convinced and hence they are trafficked
at minor age.
In a recent incident of a raid operation conducted by Nepal Police at
various so called “Prostitution hubs” of the capital city, number of
girls were rescued and kept for inquiry at Hanuman Dhoka Metropolitan
Police Range. Maiti Nepal provided psychosocial counseling to the
girls and minors were referred to Maiti Nepal for rehabilitation and
family re-integration. Officials of Maiti Nepal visited the custody
wherein the girls were handcuffed and kept in a dreadful condition.
Currently, Maiti Nepal's rehabilitation home Kathmandu is providing
safe shelter to nine girls. At the shelter home, the girls are
receiving counseling, life skills trainings and medical
supervision.The girls revealed that they had adopted the profession
just to keep them alive as other livelihood opportunities seemed a far
cry for them. Maiti Nepal is keen on finding alternative livelihood
opportunities for them .Their family members are being located and
provided with family counseling.
Data of girls at the shelter home:
Age Range: - 15 years – 22 years http://www.undp.org/
Districts: - Dhading, Dharan, Argakhachi, Nuwakot, Kavrepalanchowk
http://www.maitinepal.org/ndetails.php?option=News&cid=126
Helping women - by reaching out to men
by Rajeev Narayan
UNV volunteer Rajeev Narayan (left, with notebook) in discussions with
youth groups on issues of Gender-Based Violence and masculinity in
Uttar Pradesh, India. (UNV)UNV volunteer Rajeev Narayan (rear centre
left, in orange shirt) engages with youth. "A central focus of my work
is MASVAW (Men’s Action for Stopping Violence Against Women) which has
initiated campaigns urging boys and men to raise various issues of
safety and violence against women in their communities," he says.
(UNV)01 March 2010
New Delhi, India: In 2008, an innovative UN joint programme in the
Asia-Pacific region was launched, called 'Partners for Prevention:
Working with Boys and Men to Prevent Gender-Based Violence'. Given the
strong potential volunteerism has to support and champion violence
prevention, especially at the community level, UNV saw a unique
opportunity to contribute.
UNV joins with UNDP, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and
the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in this initiative.
'Partners for Prevention' (P4P) incorporates volunteerism both through
the placement of UNV volunteers at P4P’s regional secretariat, and
with national partners working on violence prevention to document,
share, and support country-level initiatives.
Each volunteer supports the programme in different ways. For my part,
I am a national UNV volunteer Network and Outreach Coordinator based
at the Centre for Health and Social Justice (CHSJ) in India.
There is a growing movement which calls for dynamism from youth and
adult men to reduce the rapid rate of violence against women. My host
organization, CHSJ, is at the centre of this movement in India. CHSJ
is a policy resource centre working on issues of health, gender
equality and social justice and currently holds the network
secretariat for the Forum to Engage Men (FEM), a national network
working with boys and men for eliminating Gender-Based Violence.
I have been working with issues of masculinity, including what it
means to be a man in my culture, and on Gender-Based Violence
prevention for the last couple of years. My role as a UNV volunteer
has allowed me to gain vital experience at the community level in
India, and document best practices and learning. I then in turn have
the exciting opportunity to connect with partners across the region
through Partners for Prevention to share this learning.
A central focus of my work is MASVAW (Men’s Action for Stopping
Violence Against Women) which has initiated campaigns urging boys and
men to raise various issues of safety and violence against women in
their communities. MASVAW is unique in that it is a volunteer-driven
movement and works with a chain of volunteers taking responsibility at
the individual level and at each of the respective districts
throughout the state. We count on these men and prepare them for
future leadership roles.
I have been actively participating in MASVAW activities, mobilizing
volunteers, assisting the secretariat in documenting case studies,
challenges, and learning to be shared within the Forum to Engage Men
network. Through Partners for Prevention, I also work with other
organizations in the region that are interested in building similar
volunteer movements in their countries.
My knowledge of the local dialect has helped me a lot in connecting
with the people in the local communities of Uttar Pradesh where
Bhojpuri is the common language.
I am also involved in the development of Partners for Prevention’s
social media campaign pilot in India. The campaign aims to raise
awareness and build sensitivity among youth on issues of violence and
prevention.
The campaign will reach out to youth through online social media
applications (like Facebook) and also link them with real world events
and volunteer activities promoting violence prevention to get them
actively involved and engaged in a meaningful way. And I have been
working together with P4P staff and partners in India to build
partnerships with local universities and youth volunteer groups for
the campaign.
Overall my work as a volunteer with Partners for Prevention has helped
me to understand the importance of community-based approaches to
create knowledge and raise public awareness on sensitive issues such
as gender discrimination, marginalization, the gender division of
labour and Gender-Based Violence.
Through my experiences with Men’s Action for Stopping Violence Against
Women I have been able to regain strength, courage and confidence in a
clear-cut message: 'Not all men are violent'. I have also had the
opportunity to participate in international and regional workshops and
events providing me with a range of inspiring and educational
experiences as well as the opportunity to share the work being done in
India.
Given these rewarding experiences, I can say that I feel proud to
serve as a UNV volunteer with Partners for Prevention and CHSJ. Day by
day I believe that my commitment can really lead to concrete results
in my area of work, wherein a society free of violence exists.
http://www.unv.org/en/news-resources/news/doc/helping-women-by.htmlPreventing
gender-based violence by working with boys and men
by Rizwan Latif
UNV volunteer Rizwan Latif (standing) works as Outreach & Capacity
Development Officer at ROZAN, an Islamabad based NGO working on issues
related to emotional and psychological health, gender, violence
against women and children, and the psychological and reproductive
health of adolescents. (UNV)11 March 2010
Islamabad, Pakistan: I’m a national UNV volunteer working as Outreach
and Capacity Development Officer at ROZAN, an Islamabad based NGO
working on issues related to emotional and psychological health,
gender, violence against women and children, and the psychological and
reproductive health of adolescents. ROZAN is a partner organization of
Partners for Prevention (P4P), a UN Regional Joint Programme on the
“Prevention of Gender-based Violence by Working with Boys and Men” of
UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM and UNV in Asia-Pacific.
I believe individual self-growth is the key to bringing changes to
society for the promotion of human development. Pakistan is a country
where the majority of the population is comprised of youth. Access to
basic necessities and knowledge is a very big challenge and youth is
the most vulnerable segment of society. Engaging youth for gender
equality is possible only when both men and women realize their
individual roles and responsibilities to contribute to a society free
of violence.
Being a UNV volunteer gives me the opportunity to engage men and boys
in order to stop violence against women and promote gender equality.
The main objective of the promotion of volunteerism is to achieve
peace and development and to turn global development challenges
around. Through the promotion of volunteerism and volunteers, there
are opportunities to prevent gender-based violence in general and
violence against women in particular. I feel gender equality or
violence issues are my own issues and this is my motivation. It is
great to fight for a cause and involve individuals and groups to bring
changes in society, particularly on the gender-based violence issue.
Women in Pakistan are the most marginalized segment of society. The
main problem women are facing is the negligence of their role by their
own partners, family and state. There are cultural barriers and
strictness, which prohibit women from competing and promoting self-
awareness and growth. Several issues are associated with women only,
i.e. lack of education, of basic health facilities, violence
(physical, sexual, psychological) etc. State level policies especially
related to violence against women exist, but proper implementation is
still a big challenge.
To assign a UNV volunteer to support a local organization is a very
innovative idea. This particular UNV assignment through P4P and ROZAN
will provide me with an opportunity for self-growth to understand and
gain knowledge on this specific issue of male involvement to prevent
gender-based violence. In our society, men will be the main active
agents to bring about change, since due to lack of understanding and
persistent traditional cultural practices, women have still a very
limited space.
Volunteers engaging men and boys for gender-based violence prevention
will be a major resource for interventions and activities to stop and
put an end to gender-based violence. The volunteers will make a
difference through the dissemination of relevant knowledge, and by
demonstrating in a practical way their commitment and willingness to
initiate self-actions to end gender-based violence, and violence
against women in particular. Through the involvement of media,
volunteers will be able to effectively communicate and involve every
part of society to stop gender-based violence.
At ROZAN, I am associated with a project called “Hamqadam – male
involvement initiative to address gender-based violence”. It aims to
initiate and sustain change in male (men and boys) attitudes about
themselves and their role in society, sensitizing them about the issue
of violence against children and women.
Patriarchal society and its links to gender-based violence are very
pressing issues, particularly in Pakistani society. It’s a very
interesting and unique work to highlight and understand the factors
responsible for gender-based violence and violence against women. A
formative research, which was conducted by ROZAN focusing on male
dominance and its link to violence, gave me an insight into how male
dominance is constructed by society. The gender equitable men (GEM)
scale adaptation system, which was implemented in the intervention
areas of the Hamqadam project by ROZAN, is a very effective tool to
measure the perception and attitudes of the community.
ROZAN believes in the essence and importance of volunteers for human
development. Within the organization, a volunteer management system is
functioning effectively. A volunteer coordination committee is working
within the ROZAN programmes. Every programme by ROZAN has established
a volunteer network engaging volunteers to prevent gender-based
violence and violence against women.
There are also other implementation strategies in the Hamqadam project
activities under the umbrella of ROZAN. Prevention of gender-based
violence and violence against women is a very interesting and
distinctive area of work and I feel a great pleasure to be part of it.
Addressing complex issues around core thematic areas, with focus and
dedication, to bring about change in society gives me great
motivation.
http://www.unv.org/en/perspectives/doc/preventing-gender-based-violence-by.html
UNVs help the women of Orissa rebuild their lives
by Anita Katyal*
03 June 2000
Orissa, India: The state of Orissa in eastern India was devastated by
a cyclone on 29 October 1999. High-velocity winds accompanied by
massive tidal waves left behind a trail of destruction and human
misery. A total of 19,000 villages were fully or partially destroyed,
affecting an estimated 13 million people. The official death toll is
just under 10,000 while thousands of cattle have been killed and
thousands of hectares of land destroyed.
Six months have elapsed since that fateful night. Efforts have been in
full swing to help the affected people of Orissa first through
immediate relief measures and later through long-term rehabilitation
schemes. Several agencies under the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) in New Delhi have come together here to work jointly
towards helping the victims. The UN's mission in Orissa, however,
could not have been such a success were it not for the efforts of the
13 national United Nations Volunteers (NUNVs).
Seven women UNVs have proved particularly invaluable in these efforts.
Now that attention is focused on rehabilitation for victims, the UNV
district support officers as they have been designated, are
concentrating on how they can help the women most affected in the
natural disaster.
Abha Mishra of India joined as a UNV in December and has since served
in the Balasore district. With the flood waters rising to over nine
feet and entire villages submerged, her first task was to document the
extent of damage, monitor the movement of relief materials and assess
conditions in the field. "I toured the affected villages extensively,
spoke to the villagers, the village headmen, the local authorities and
especially the women to find out their problems," she explains.
In addition, she was also asked to pitch in with the United Nations
Children's Fund's ongoing rural water and sanitation programme that
was expanded after the cyclone ravaged the district. "This involved
long conversations with the women as I tried to explain to them the
benefits of proper sanitation and hygiene," says Abha.
"The women were remarkably enthusiastic and assured me that they would
pay greater attention to their personal hygiene and would not hesitate
to fetch water even if they have to walk a kilometre." The women were
motivated enough to set up mahila mandals (women's groups) to educate
the other women. Like her counterparts, Abha has drawn up elaborate
plans to organize the women in remote villages into self-help groups
and is currently in the process of putting them in place. At the same
time, she has also held regular meetings with the community workers in
the affected villages. These community workers, or anganwadi workers
as they are referred to, provide basic services like nutrition and
immunization for children and neonatal care to pregnant mothers at the
government-run community centres. Most of these centres were destroyed
in the cyclone but they have started functioning in temporary tent
structures.
"I am motivating the anganwadi workers to organize the village women
into self-help groups. After all, we are here for a short time and it
will be difficult for us to follow up on these activities. Therefore,
I am involving the local NGOs and anganwadi workers since they will be
here even after we leave," says Abha.
Sandhaya, a 27-year-old anganwadi worker in Talanagar, recalls when
Abha first came to their village. "She told us how these groups would
help the women in sharing their problems and also told us how we could
set up a thrift fund and start some income-generating schemes," she
says. More importantly, she adds, Abha's visit helped them air their
grievances. For instance, she says, the foodgrains at their anganwadi
centre were badly damaged and they brought this to Abha's attention
who, in turn, asked the local authorities to take immediate remedial
measures. "When Abha came to our village and discussed our problems,
we felt that finally our grievances would be relayed to the right
quarters," she says.
Radhamani Singh, who supervises 48 anganwadi centres under her charge,
says the sessions with Abha proved extremely helpful. The workers told
how they are working in makeshift structures with virtually non-
existent infrastructure. Abha listened attentively, gave them useful
tips on checking malnutrition and keeping track of the health of women
in general. "After this meeting, the anganwadi workers felt more
confident and more capable of handling all the problems thrown up in
the post-cyclone period," says Radhamani.
Talking to outsiders who are not part of the official machinery also
helps, she explains. When a government official comes, people are
generally hesitant to talk because they run the risk of annoying
somebody. "But with UNVs, there are no such problems and so it is easy
to talk. It is also good to know that somebody is genuinely interested
in our problems and will do something about them, " she adds.
UNV Rita Missal, located in the Cuttack district, has managed to get
the women in Nodaarisol village to discard their veils and became
active participants in the development plans of their village. "Women
in this village are traditionally not supposed to step out of their
homes but after several meetings with them, I have persuaded them to
sit on the village committee where decisions are taken about the
future rehabilitation plans of the village," she says.
Similarly, women's participation in reconstruction work was nil but
here again, she convinced them that their participation will mean
extra income for the family. The women have also constituted a mahila
mandal, or a self-help group, which has not only set up a thrift fund
but has become involved in such diverse activities as distribution of
relief materials to the monitoring of sanitation and immunization
programmes.
Kalika Mohapatra, who is responsible for the Khurda district, has been
working as a UNV since December - weeks after the cyclone hit Orissa.
She remembers her initial visits to the villages when people were
living under hastily-erected tents and tarpaulins, eating from
community kitchens and fighting for the relief materials being
distributed.
Since the crops were severely damaged by the cyclone and it would be
some time before agricultural activity could be resumed, Kalika helped
the women set up groups to explore income-generating activities.
"After several discussion sessions, the women became gradually
receptive to forming self-help groups when they realized that they
could also contribute to the family income," says Kalika. "A lot of
them showed interest in starting kitchen gardens which would provide
them a steady income. In fact, we found that after several such group
discussions, the women became more vocal and confident and voluntarily
discussed their problems... they became more aware of their
difficulties but also realized they could also contribute in making a
difference," she says, adding that they also started seeking
information about immunization programmes and how they could keep
their communities clean.
As part of their mandate, UNVs also coordinate the activities of NGOs
working in the field and help them in the implementation of their
programmes. Soon after she joined, Kalika says she was approached by a
local NGO, Childcare, which works in a group of villages, about 35
kilometres from Orissa's capital Bhubaneswar. The villages, she says,
were destroyed during the cyclone and its inhabitants had, by some
mistake, been overlooked in the relief and rehabilitation programmes
launched by the government.
Childcare, she says, had already been working in these villages and
after the cyclone the people were keen to expand their activities.
However, funding was proving to be a problem as they came up against a
wall each time they tried seeking resources. Kalika says she
approached a governmental funding agency which gives money for rural
programmes and also got in touch with an Italian NGO, CESUI, which had
evinced interest in undertaking a worthwhile programme for the
victims.
Gradually, these efforts paid off as an integrated development
programme has been put in place in the village of Bhalunka. A non-
formal centre for children has been set up which is proving quite a
relief to the women who can now leave their children there knowing
they will not be wandering around aimlessly in the fields and will
instead be looked after.
At the same time, the women themselves, who earlier earned a pittance
working as casual labourers, have been given special training in
mushroom cultivation.
"We had lost everything in the cyclone but we are now trying to
rebuild our lives. Learning mushroom cultivation has really helped me
in this process....earlier I did not earn more than Rs. 35 a day and
then, again, work was not regular. Today, my income has nearly
doubled," says Urmilla Singh, 30. Urmilla is among 20 women from the
village who have received this training. "Earlier, there was never
enough money to meet the needs of the family. Today, with this
additional income, I am able to look after my four sons a little
better," says 28-year-old Gauri Singh, who is also getting health
services that were earlier not available to her. Gautmi Singh says she
now enjoys a increased, regular income and better working conditions.
"Besides, we have more time to look after our families," she explains.
The women have organized a group that meets once a month to discuss
their common problems and also established a thrift fund to be used
for emergency purposes, explains group secretary Gautmi Singh.
*Anita Katyal is a journalist based in New Delhi.
http://www.unv.org/en/what-we-do/thematic-areas/gender/doc/unvs-help-the-women.html
Restoring Punjab's cultural heritage, UNVs foster a sense of community
by Dr. Savyssachi and Gurmeet S. Rai
07 September 2000
BONN: In the northern Indian State of Punjab, the historical landscape
bears testimony to the fact that people from different communities
have interacted from ancient to modern times.
In the recent past, however, violence and terrorism have fragmented
the State's social and cultural fabric. Cultural Heritage and the
Promotion of Understanding in Punjab, a joint project supported by the
UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) the UN
Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Volunteers (UNV),
seeks to restore cultural heritage and develop a sense of community
amongst people from different religious and social traditions. The
overall objective is to foster a culture of peace. To that end,
restoration efforts have been interlinked with community development
activities. Seven national UN Volunteers -- social scientists, art
restorers and conservation architects -- are part of the project. It
is implemented by the Cultural Resources Conservation Initiative
(CRCI), a voluntary group of conservation architects.
On what ground can the people be engaged as members of a community?
How can it be ensured that the physical restoration of building
structures is simultaneously a restoration of the sense of community?
What are the necessary social conditions for extending the life of
these buildings?
With these considerations in mind, three old religious shrines, Kishan
Mandir (Krishna's Temple) in Kishankot Village, Guru Ki Masjid (the
Mosque of the Master) in Sri Hargobindpur Village and Massania Dargah
of Baba Shah Badar Diwan in Massania Village, were selected for
restoration. Of these, Kishan Mandir was chosen as the first project
for the UN Volunteers.
In Kishankot, 50 per cent of the population are Sikhs, 25 per cent are
Hindus and 25 per cent Christian. The walls of the temple are
decorated with paintings depicting Hindu and Sikh themes. It was
obvious that the UNV social scientists and conservation specialists
had to work hand in hand.
The temple restoration could only be successful and lasting if the
community was flourishing. This however, was not the case. "The
village had no facilities", recalls Zamrooda Khanday, one of the UNV
social scientists. "The school was ill-equipped, there was no
qualified doctor and a large majority engaged in gambling and was
consumed by alcohol." In addition, a large number of men migrate
seasonally to different parts of India in search of work -- mostly
agricultural -- as there is no opportunity for productive work at
home.
UNV specialists identified health, education and horticulture
activities to be linked to the restoration process. They successfully
worked together with women, children and the elderly members of the
community. "Initially, people of the village seemed laid back,"
recalls Asif Iqbal, another UNV social scientist. "However, in the
course of our work it emerged that they were willing to do many
things, and given an opportunity would not let it go by."
Children and youth are now engaged in gardening, the local library, a
recreation and sports club and in non-formal education (NFE). The UNVs
took part in supportive classes for education, detoxification and
counselling work with families as the building blocks of community. At
present, efforts are being made to facilitate public participation and
generate awareness regarding political rights in order to facilitate
the functioning of the panchayat, or the local governing council.
Every household was given an opportunity to contribute to the
restoration of the Mandir, either in cash or in kind. The link between
temple restoration and sustainable community development began to
emerge. For instance, the art conservators organized workshops with
children on clay modelling and drawing. The workshops were to be
organized before the completion of the restoration to strengthen the
link between the community and the temple. "I am encouraging most of
the younger guys to learn on-site how to take care of the temple,"
says UNV art restorer Prashant Gadpaile, who works on preserving the
temple's precious, yet deteriorating paintings. Part of his work is
raising awareness within the community: "I have to guide people
regarding the code of conduct. For instance, they should not write on
the temple walls, they should not smoke in the temple area and they
should not touch the paintings."
Mohalla, or street corner meetings, were organized together in
cooperation with the UNV social scientists to explain about the
restoration work. "People responded in a very positive manner and
showed greater interest in the process after the meetings," recalls
Munish Pandit, a UNV conservation architect. Furthermore, the mohalla
meetings serve as a forum where apart from temple restoration other
social issues can be discussed.
"In one of the mohalla meetings, an old lady complained about her bad
eyesight. Many others attending stated that this was a general problem
for all ladies in the village. On further discussion it emerged that
smoke from the chulha (a cooking stove) damages their eyes. We then
suggested the smokeless chulha," says Munish Pandit.
Through the community's participation facilitated by the UN
Volunteers, a sense of belonging to the Kishan Mandir has evolved.
While this is crucial to ensure the temple's maintenance once the
restoration work is completed, the UNVs also see to it that the
necessary technical skills are passed on. Conservation architect
Munish Pandit, for instance, trains two local masons in restoration
work. He is confident about the temple's future.
"They have shown great interest and aptitude to learn more about the
traditional techniques, materials and methods of construction," says
the national UN Volunteer. "They will be able to maintain the temple
in an appropriate manner without the need of a specialist."
http://www.unv.org/en/what-we-do/countries-and-territories/india/doc/restoring-punjabs-cultural-heritage.html
FILM REVIEW
Documenting the flesh trade
"I wanted to show not just a few victims, but to help viewers
understand the mechanics and the politics of trafficking and
migration," says Ananya Chatterjee. Shoma Chatterji revies
Understanding Trafficking.
19 July 2009 - Eighty seven minutes is rather long for a serious
documentary on one of the ugliest realities of life - the tracking of
young women, usually turned into sexual slaves. But Understanding
Trafficking does not drag because it embarks on a journey of shocking
discoveries about girls who are made to cross their Lakshman Rekhas by
physical force, by diabolic manipulation, sometimes, even by their
parents and close ones to be sold like cattle in the flesh markets of
Nepal, Bangladesh and India. Are these girls 'bad'? Or are they
'good'? Ananya Chatterjee's film drives us to redefine the
implications of what 'good' or 'bad' mean for these tragic victims.
The film tracks the trade across Nepal, Bangladesh and West Bengal in
India, through interviews with NGO workers, victims of trafficking,
victims who have been rescued and rehabilitated, some pimps and agents
who pretend to be social activists, and some women who head
organisations working to stop trafficking and rescue innocent victims
from this illegal trade. Through captive audiovisual shots that go
into forbidden ghettoes of the trade, it shows how trafficking is an
integral part of organized crime with a long human chain that begins
with the girl's family, including her parents, and reaches her to the
brothel she has been sold to, to live and die there as a sex worker.
"The project was part of a competition floated by IAWRT (International
Association for Women in Radio and Television) over three years ago. I
won that competition along with two other international film makers.
It is funded by FOKUS, a women and child welfare organisation in
Norway. I always wanted to make a film on trafficking ever since I
came into film making in 1991. I would like to extend this project
both geographically and deeper than its present form," says
Chatterjee, who had honed her skills in documentaries with her earlier
films on the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, on sexual harassment of
women at the workplace, and other topics.
Although human trafficking is illegal in almost every country,
thousands of girls become sexual slaves each year. The human
trafficking industry has a reported annual income of $8 billion, and
the UN estimates that it may employ as many as 40 million women.
What is trafficking? Who is trafficked, by whom, where and how? Are
the victims aware that they are being trafficked? What role do the
families play? Do they play a positive and reassuring role in the
rehabilitation of the girls when and if they come back home? What are
the reasons that lead to trafficking? Is it poverty or is it easy
money? Is it ignorance - true or pretended, or is it greed? Does it
result from lack of education and any earning skills? These are some
of the questions Understanding Trafficking raises. It also stresses on
the sad fact that no separate and exclusive law exists to punish the
trafficking of girls and women for prostitution. Also, no social or
governmental infrastructure exists for their rescue, rehabilitation,
education, training and mainstreaming of these girls.
Why did she name the film Understanding Trafficking? "I wanted to show
not just a few victims, but to help viewers understand the mechanics
and the politics of trafficking and migration," says Chatterjee. The
film opens with graphics designed and created by Anirban Ghosh. It
then moves on to Farah Gherda, a young girl studying in St. Xavier's
College, Kolkata, planning to go abroad to pursue her interests in
professional photography. She has the backing of her parents to seek
fresh pastures. She is distanced from the Lakshman Rekha. - maybe not
even aware of its existence. But she is one of the lucky few among the
millions of little girls who do have choices to make.
The film tries to explore the differences between sex work and
trafficking, migration and trafficking, etc. Through captive
audiovisual shots that go into forbidden ghettoes of the trade, it
shows how trafficking is an integral part of organized crime with a
long human chain that begins with the girl's family, including her
parents, and reaches her to the brothel she has been sold to, - to
live and die there as a sex worker.
"I have used the metaphor of the Lakshman Rekha because generally,
trafficking victims are handled from a welfare-based approach. Women
are thought to be weak and vulnerable, needing protection, and it is
expected that they should not attempt to venture out. Women and girls
are dissuaded from migrating, even to find work, since they might get
trafficked. This limits women from exploring their full potential. And
if a woman does get trafficked, it becomes extremely difficult for her
to reintegrate into society, which blames her for crossing the line.
As a feminist, however, I feel there should be no such man-made
boundaries to define or confine
Photo: A teenaged girl rescued from being trafficked now learns
music.
The narrative in the film focuses on both individual lives as well as
institutional issues. Juhi, a pretty girl who was trafficked by her
'mother' is shown being rescued from the notorious Sonagachi district
of Kolkata and educated by a city NGO Sanlaap, only for her 'mother'
to again sell her off to the brothel after claiming her from the NGO.
Indrani Sinha, Sanlaap's president, says the organisation works with
victims of trafficking, who they try to rehabilitate and put back into
the mainstream. One is also introduced to a self-proclaimed social
activist named Dipak Prahladka who steps in to 'rescue' Juhi from
Sanlaap itself - traffickers often disguise themselves as do-gooders,
says Sanlaap.
One of the highlights of the film is a wonderful rehabilitation
programme for trafficking victims ventured into by Jabala, a West
Bengal-based NGO which works on prevention and rehabilitation of
trafficking victims. They regularly organise football camps for the
girls. Survivors of trafficking have a lot of anger in them, which
they need to take out. So kicking the football is a therapeutic
process for them, and playing gives them confidence and becomes a
route to empowerment. The camps take place in Murshidabad.
The film includes an exploration of Nepal's attempts to protect its
women from being exploited in India, primarily through the Foreign
Employment Act, which imposed a ban on foreign employment for single
Nepali women. However because of the conflict situation in Nepal and
opportunities in the international labour market, many Nepali women
migrated through illegal channels. These women remained undocumented
in official records. Research has shown that migrant Nepali women
contribute 8 per cent towards the country's national budget. In 2002,
a modified FEA stated that women seeking foreign employment required a
permission letter from their fathers or husbands. In 2008, the FEA of
Nepal was again modified due to sustained activism by women's groups.
It now allows women to seek foreign employment independently.
Technically, the film stands out because of its aesthetic music and
lyrics, penned by the late Gautam Chatterjee. Two beautiful songs on
the sound track lend themselves into the ambience of the film - its
context and its visualisation. The imaginative background score and
difficult editing are by Saikat Sekhareswar Roy. Sukanta Majumdar has
done the sound design and Joydeep Bose has done the cinematography
that is restrained and refrains from sensationalizing facts and
incidents. ⊕
Shoma Chatterji
19 Jul 2009
Dr. Shoma A Chatterji, freelance journalist and author, writes on
cinema, media, human rights, cultural issues and gender.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2009/jul/rvw-traffic.htm
BOOK EXCERPT
Karma Sutra
With the closure of the dance bars, the sex industry has another arm.
Thousands of women without education have lost their livelihood. They
have to cash in on their looks before the passage of time wrinkles it.
Excerpts from Rajendar Menen's book.
26 June 2008 - The ladies bars, which shot into the media spotlight
with their closure, are expensive and most men who visit them have a
drink and spend a lot of money to watch beautiful women dance. It is
an extravagant and harmless way to spend time. The women charge
enormous amounts for more private sessions and very few men can afford
them.
And those who can are only getting rid of ill-gotten wealth. Most
business transactions in India involve payments under the table and
ladies bars are a good way to get rid of the money that can't be
stored in banks or used with credit cards and cheque books. The
parallel economy in India is colossal. There has to be some way to
spend the money that can't be kept legitimately. It will make good
economic sense for the government to support a proliferation of such
bars. It will generate employment and the money that needs to be
hidden will surface. It is an excellent way of mopping up black money.
The morality issues that have been raked up to support the ban won't
cut a denture anywhere because the girls simply disappear and find
similar employment with a different calling card.
At the bars the women dance energetically and with an imaginative show
of skin to loud Hindi film music rich in innuendo and beat. They are
in sarees and other traditional Indian costumes and their dances look
far less obscene than the 'item' numbers that sell Hindi cinema at the
box-office. Men shower the girls they fancy with currency notes that
are picked up by attendants and dropped into boxes set aside for such
collections. The dancers take a portion of the largesse. The
management decides what to do with the rest.
Several people in positions of power have to be paid to allow all this
to happen. It is widely accepted that hundreds of thousands of rupees
are dropped into the boxes in the ladies bars every single night. It
is quite a spectacle: non-stop dancing, strobe lights, loud music and
scores of men seated around tables drinking, eating and ogling away. A
Hijra dance is also added to the scream of offerings if the management
feels like it. A compilation of both genders in one form, neither
fully masculine nor covertly feminine, stretching wildly to music,
always meets with requests for an encore. It adds variety to the
choreography. The garden has a new flower.
At erratic intervals, a man beckons a girl with currency notes or he
just walks over to the dance floor and garlands her with money. Some
men join the dancers too to the accompaniment of wolf whistles and
loud appreciation. Everyone has a great time. Bouncers keep a close
watch and there is never any ruffle in the proceedings. Its all owned
and run by unlikely bedfellows brought together by the lure of quick
and big money born without a chartered accountant's whistle or a
padre's conscience.
The author's book Karma Sutra: Essays from the Margin was published
by Saga Books in February 2007.
Now, with the closure of these bars, the sex industry has another arm.
Thousands of women without education have lost their livelihood. They
have to cash in on their looks before the passage of time wrinkles it.
So they have slipped into the flesh industry in every corner of the
city, moved to other states in India and even to different countries.
Sex workers have a very short shelf life. They have to mint the moment
even if the sun has temporarily blighted it in eclipse mode.
I have interviewed several bar girls. Most of the interviews have
taken place in the green room. It is a little room with mirrors and
benches, painted in innocuous cream or pastel shades, with a toilet
attached to it. It is very basic. There are containers of talc, soaps,
makeup kits, a few combs and towels. You finish your dance, rush in,
change clothes and prepare for another round. You adjust your make-up
in the large mirror, ask the others how you look, take a final glance,
and you are off. There is no time even for gossip.
After the show, the girls change into ordinary, everyday clothes, if
they have the time, and finally get a chance to yak away. They will
talk about the money earned and about the customers. Some of them will
accompany clients for the night, but most of them will go home to
families that they look after with their earnings.
It is very late at night when they pack up, early morning really, and
they don't need more attention on the way home. So make-up, jewellery
and all the glamorous outfits are removed and they get into dowdy
salwar kameez if they can. Groups of women don't always travel at this
time of the night and so they are a visible presence. Cabs wait
outside the bars. They share it to their destinations somewhere in
this lonely, dreary city or to the nearest railway station if they are
living far away. A spate of rapes and robberies has made the
authorities place an armed policeman in the ladies compartment. If the
policeman behaves himself, this can be a deterrent to crime.
Lata is from Agra, from a basti near the Taj Mahal. She says she is
twenty-seven and married with two children. Her husband left her, the
children are in school and she takes care of old and sick parents. She
is slightly built and wears spectacles when she isn't dancing. Her
features are soft. She isn't garrulous like the others and can pass
off as a chemistry teacher at some municipal school. She has a stern
look and a commanding air. You will never imagine that she makes a
living dancing to currency notes.
"I make good money," she tells me. "But it is hard work. You know how
it is. Dancing for so many hours every day is not easy. My feet pain
every night and I need to be massaged. I have varicose veins and take
medicines. Every man thinks we are game. I haven't been to anyone till
now. I dance, collect the money and go home. I have many
responsibilities. My children are in an English medium school and my
father has lakva (paralysis). I have to look after them. If something
happens to me, they are finished. I can't even afford to fall sick for
a day. I pray to God that nothing happens."
Several people in positions of power have to be paid to allow all this
to happen.
I ask her if she has given a thought to marriage again. "No, I will
never marry again," she retorts fiercely. "It is no use. I will have
more kids and more problems. I am very happy without a man. Who needs
a man anyway? I am earning well. I can also get sex anytime I want, so
why do I need a husband? Marriage is just legal prostitution."
Rani is also from Uttar Pradesh. She is also in her twenties and is
married with children. Her husband is still with her but doesn't
contribute to the household. "He drinks all the time and doesn't work.
If I don't give him money, he hits me. I don't really care about him,
he can leave me and go if he wants to, but I am worried for my
children. Nothing should happen to them. I should secure their future.
That's my only concern."
Both girls have bank accounts and have made small investments. They
met in Mumbai and have become good friends. They dance at the same
bar, live in the same building, go shopping together and help look
after each other's families. There is great bonding. They understand
one another well. They also go home to their villages together, along
with their families, at least once a year. They don't have to tell the
world what they do for a living. It's their secret. The job provides
for the family and gives them the dignity that money can buy.
Shama is glamorous and very attractive. Even while talking to me, she
keeps checking her make-up and looks into her little mirror. She knows
she is beautiful. She has the look of a woman who enjoys the attention
of men. She is also about twenty-seven and married with kids. She is
from Delhi. All of them are from poor families. They have studied till
the third or fourth standards and then dropped out. Educating girls is
considered unnecessary in poor Indian families. They will anyway get
married and leave home. They are paraya dhan, - someone else's wealth.
So they are taught housework.
All of them have been married off in their teens and their parents
have rustled up huge amounts of dowry and elaborate wedding
arrangements. Grown up, unmarried girls are not appreciated in Indian
families and so when a girl is born all attention is directed to
getting her a spouse. Unfortunately, all the three husbands have
turned out to be useless, good for nothing jerks. They have spent the
dowry and taken to drink, gambling and womanising. The girls are the
only earning members in their families and, worse, they run the risk
of contracting a sexual disease from their husbands!
I met these girls while talk was on about the impending ban on
bargirls. They had read about it and heard about it and were obviously
worried. What will you do if the bars really shut down, I ask. (As I
write this, the bars have shut indefinitely). "We will have to go to
other cities or somewhere else in Mumbai. We don't know what to do
really. But something will have to be done. Whatever is written in our
naseeb (destiny) will happen." They know that they can't dance forever
and have to make quick money and bank it somewhere, possibly even
start a small shop or enterprise. The sooner they do this the better.
It all depends on how much money they have to kick-start a new
venture. For now, prostitution is the only recourse and they recognise
that fact. It is lucrative.
"We will have to take to dhandha," they tell me without sounding
alarmed. They have obviously thought about it. "What else can we do?
We have no other skill?" Some girls have made contacts with bar owners
in neighbouring states. Some have also decided to move out of the
country. The sex industry all over the world has sent feelers to the
bar girls. Most of the girls are very attractive and dance
exceptionally well. They are checking out options. The girls and their
managers meet up frequently to discuss plans.
Their lives will be disrupted. Children's schooling, parents' medical
treatment, new employers and clients, a new country altogether; every
aspect of their lives will be turned upside down. It's a big move and
they are very uncomfortable with it. But there is no choice. If they
don't dance, fast and furious now, the wide net of everyday, unkind
prostitution will eventually suck them into its intricate folds. ⊕
Rajendar Menen
26 Jun 2008
This article is extracted from Rajendar Menen's book "Karma Sutra:
Essays from the Margin", published by Saga Books in February 2007.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/jun/wom-karma.htm
BOOK REVIEW: A LIFE LESS ORDINARY
A journey of courage
Baby Halder's life is like that of millions of poor, exploited women.
What is different, and astoundingly so, is that she has written a book
about it - a story which saddens us with its matter-of-fact narrative
of a life of tribulation, but also makes us rejoice vicariously in its
extraordinary triumph, writes Neeta Deshpande.
29 November 2006 - "Many days have passed; Only a few remain now."
Simple, candid words. Words which say little, yet span a lifetime. It
is in these sparing words that sixty-five year old Bai - who was
employed to care for me during my childhood - sums up her life of
privation and suffering. As a little girl, my days were enlivened by
moments with her - listening to her hilarious aphorisms, eating her
delicious laddus of leftover rotis, ghee and sugar, and warming myself
around her wood fires in the winters.
But despite our close relationship, I am ashamed to admit that I know
very little about Bai's life before she moved into our house as a
domestic help. Fleeting statements from her have hinted at a childhood
of penury, marriage at a precariously early age to an abusive man, an
early widowhood, and the hardship which followed. "Listen to me - I
have seen it all. I have gone to bed on an empty stomach", she would
tell me on rare occasions. Though I wanted to know more, I did not
have the courage to ask her to summon up memories of all the sadness
she had endured. So when I came across the much acclaimed
autobiography of Baby Halder - a domestic worker - I gravitated
towards it for my own reasons. Perhaps I would find Bai in the book,
speaking through the author's voice.
I was not wrong. Baby Halder's life seemed to traverse a similar
trajectory to Bai's, or for that matter, millions of poor, exploited
women in an India where they are treated as lesser human beings.
Victims of an endless cycle of poverty, their needs are routinely
ignored, their aspirations systematically thwarted. Like Bai, Baby too
was married off at a tender age. Her husband - twice as old as she was
then - also turned out to be violent, abusing her verbally and beating
her often. Soon, she was forced into a life of drudgery as a domestic
worker, her days filled with mindless chores in other people's homes.
However, here the similarities end, for Baby Halder, unlike most women
of her background, can read and write. Her schooling up to the seventh
standard equipped her to recount her life in her Bengali book Aalo
Aandhari (Light and Darkness), a story which saddens us with its
matter-of-fact narrative of a life of tribulation, but also makes us
rejoice vicariously in its extraordinary triumph.
Childhood
Translated into English as A Life Less Ordinary, Baby's memoir begins
like an innocent school essay, interspersed with swirling snowflakes,
flowering hills and an occasional, joyous rainbow - elements of her
life as a little girl in Dalhousie. However, in tune with her short-
lived childhood, these happy reminiscences are numbered as well. For
soon, we find her drawing sketches of an often absent, abusive father,
and a frustrated mother who abandoned the family, pressing a coin into
the four-year-old Baby's palm before walking away. The coin served as
an unforgettable memory of a mother whom she saw only years later. She
received no love from her step-mother either, who beat her often.
The author looks back on her childhood in these evocative lines,
peculiarly written in the third person, perhaps in an effort to
distance herself from painful memories. "Poor Baby! What else could
one say of her? Imagine a childhood so brief, so ephemeral, that you
could sit down and the whole thing could unravel in front of you in
barely half an hour! And yet her childhood fascinates Baby. Perhaps
everyone is fascinated by the things they've been deprived of, the
things they long for. Baby remembers her childhood, she savours every
moment of it, she licks it just as a cow would her newborn calf,
tasting every part."
However, despite their adverse circumstances, Baby's mother earnestly
wanted her to go to school, and her father encouraged her to study. On
her part, the little girl loved school as much as she hated home,
worked hard, and never missed a day. Her precarious life sowed many
hurdles in her schooling, but she persisted and managed to study.
Marriage and motherhood
At the naive age of thirteen, Baby was hastily married off to a 26-
year-old man, her evanescent childhood relegated to her memories. Soon
after she entered her new home, her husband roughly pulled her towards
him one night. Little Baby just "shut her eyes and her mouth tightly
and let him do what he wanted". At the age of fourteen - a child
herself - she had to endure an excruciatingly painful delivery. The
poignancy of her state is expressed by an incident during her
pregnancy. Tired of staying within the four walls, she would venture
out to watch the children at play. She alone knew how desperately she
wanted to play with them. One day, when their gulli landed at her
feet, she picked it up, and without being fully aware of what she was
doing, ran into the field to join them. Only when a woman chided her
that she should be careful lest she hurt her stomach, did she run back
into the house in embarrassment.
Despite bearing children at a ridiculously young age, Baby clearly
understood her responsibilities as a mother. She wanted a good life
for her children, including a proper education. According to her, it
was not enough to give birth, for parenthood brought with it a
responsibility to enable a person to grow into a human being.
These were not mere words; she would soon act on them too. Her
husband, who had initially been negligent of her - desisting from
answering her queries and even refusing to take her to the hospital in
time for her delivery - now turned abusive, and would beat her
regularly. One such instance, during her second pregnancy, caused an
agonising miscarriage. Eventually, his violence pushed her to the
brink of desperation, when she firmly decided to part ways. Soon, she
boarded a train for distant Delhi for the sake of her children. Later
in a newspaper article, she would explain that she was glad she moved,
because there were no good schools for her children back home.
The author looks back on her childhood in evocative lines, peculiarly
written in the third person, perhaps in an effort to distance herself
from painful memories.
To feed herself and her three little ones, she found work as a
domestic help, work which entailed slogging from dawn until midnight.
Her employer would shout at Baby's children who would be locked up on
the roof all day, and did not even allow her to meet her eldest son
who was working and living elsewhere. Fed up with such inhuman
treatment, she left, and by a stroke of serendipity found a new
employer - one who would transform her life in unimaginable ways.
Writing
Baby's new 'Sahib', former professor of anthropology Prabodh Kumar,
whom she would later call 'Tatush' - the name that his sons used for
him - helped her in more ways than one. He provided her a room when
her house was broken down by bulldozers, reunited her with her eldest
son, found a school for her children, and supplied them with the
necessities of life. But over and above all his help, he would talk to
her, asking her to think of him as a "father, brother, mother,
friend ..." Baby was touched when he treated her as a human being,
given that most people behave callously towards servants and pay them
precious little - the employers taking advantage of the desperation of
domestic workers to subsidise their own lives.
His most significant contribution to her life, however, enabled her to
transgress the boundaries drawn around her, bringing forth an aspect
of her personality that she would never have been aware of. After he
saw her peering at a Bengali book while she dusted his bookshelves, he
asked if she could read. The next day, he pulled out a book for her,
and asked her to read out its name. With his encouragement, she
blurted out Amar Meyebela, the first book she read on her way to
writing one herself. When he found her making progress with reading
the book, he provided her a notebook and pen, and prodded her to write
the story of her life. The astonishing result - Aalo Aandhari - is her
story of darkness and light, the travails and joys in a journey of
courage.
Progressive outlook
Baby's book is peppered with her thoughts on various aspects of her
life, including the size of her family and the education of her
children. Upon realizing that she might be following the 'local
custom' in her neighbourhood of three to four children per couple, she
had the foresight to undergo a family planning operation after her
third issue. Her views on the status of women and the discrimination
they face are also worth noting. When her husband turned the house
into a dirty, horrible mess whenever she was away, she questioned a
neighbour as to why the woman of the house had to be around to keep
the place clean.
Now writing her second book, Baby told a newspaper that in her
autobiography, she simply wrote about all that she had faced. This
time, she would be more analytical and try to find out why she was put
in those situations in the first place.
A rare voice
The people behind the book must be congratulated for bringing out this
unusual life-story of a person who would otherwise have been relegated
to the background of her employers' houses, condemned to a furtive,
silent existence. Prabodh Kumar translated the manuscript from the
original Bengali into Hindi, cleaning it up as required, but leaving
Baby's own voice intact. Publisher and writer Urvashi Butalia of
Zubaan translated the narrative from Hindi into English.
While reading the book, one is struck by Baby's courage to resolutely
live as a single woman with three children in faraway, unfamiliar
Delhi, where she painstakingly carved out a new life for herself.
Though she does not ask uncomfortable questions of her readers, the
mere narration of her life leaves us to ponder why she should have had
to suffer through the ordeals of a child marriage, an abusive husband
and exploitative employers.
Though this is not a book to be read for its literary merit, it should
be valued for its powerful story of survival and success in the face
of relentless, overwhelming odds - a story which will remain etched on
our minds for its author's grit and determination to refuse to accept
defeat. This down-to-earth memoir stirs and delights, saddens and
overpowers, humbles and uplifts us with its direct, unpretentious take
on the universal experience of being human. ⊕
Neeta Deshpande
29 Nov 2006
Neeta Deshpande is a student of Hindustani vocal music based in Goa. A
Life Less Ordinary by Baby Halder, translated by Urvashi Butalia, is
published by Zubaan in collaboration with Penguin Books, 173 pp., Rs.
195.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/nov/rvw-halder.htm
WISDOM SONG
A life of conviction
The book serves a felt need, as also the purpose of getting Baba Amte
under the reader's skin. But the author does not tease out historical
and sociological connections, and ask questions of broader relevance.
The definitive interpretation of Amte's life and its significance is
still awaited. Neeta Deshpande reviews Wisdom Song: The life of Baba
Amte.
24 October 2006 - One does not need glorious words to portray the work
of Baba Amte. Be it enabling victims of leprosy to live a life of
dignity, or buttressing the movement of people being displaced by the
Sardar Sarovar dam, his actions have always spoken eloquently for
themselves. However, despite his remarkable life of courage,
conviction and endurance, there isn't a good biography of this
tireless crusader. Neesha Mirchandani's book, Wisdom Song: The Life of
Baba Amte attempts to fill this void, narrating the story of his life
in simple prose.
Peppered with quotes and remembrances from Amte and the many
committed men and women he inspired, Mirchandani recounts the
extraordinary stories of his lifelong endeavours. The narrative
encompasses the celebrated Anandwan - a sprawling rehabilitation
centre for the leprosy-affected and physically challenged - in
Maharashtra (1951 onwards), Amte's advocacy on behalf of the tribals
affected by the Bhopalpatnam and Icchampalli dams (1984), the Bharat
Jodo yatras (1985-86 and 1987-88), and finally, the decade he spent on
the banks of the Narmada, putting his moral weight behind the Narmada
Bachao Andolan (1990-2000).
Amte's defining moment came one rainy night, when he encountered a man
dying of leprosy. "It was like being sucked into the eye of a
hurricane. Everything went blank and in that moment, the social
justice work, the evening prayers, my wife, children ... everything
lost perspective and meaning," he reminisces vividly. Thus, in 1951,
began the unbelievable story of Anandwan, painstakingly hewn out of
barren, rock-strewn land infested by wild animals, by Amte, his wife
Sadhana and their fellow workers afflicted by leprosy. It took six
weeks of severe toil to cut through the rock while digging the first
well, a task accomplished by a few crippled persons along with Amte.
With poverty and extreme hardship as constant companions, the group
transformed their harsh surroundings into verdant fields. Since then,
Amte has never looked back. Dedicating his entire life to the
downtrodden, despite suffering an excruciatingly painful degeneration
of the spine, this cheerful nonagenarian defiantly marches on.
Amte has often said that one can live without fingers, but not without
self-respect. True to this maxim, beyond healing people's wounds, he
restored their dignity by providing them with work. Thus, those
shunned by society and condemned to a life of begging were enabled to
work in the fields and vocational training centres of Anandwan. A
veteran resident recalls that when he visited Warora - a nearby town -
during the early days of Anandwan, no one would give him water to
drink. Now, as Amte proudly reiterates in an interview, people call
Anandwan residents to help install water pumps and other devices. Over
the years, his dream has evolved into a town with hospitals, schools,
homes, agricultural land and occupational training centres, built and
run by the leprosy-affected and physically challenged themselves.
continue reading article ...
In the process of reconstructing Amte's life, Mirchandani's narrative
is enlivened by the reminiscences of his family and co-workers, who
carry his work forward. One such recollection is that of Bharati Amte,
his daughter-in-law who runs a hospital at Anandwan. "He taught me
that the first thing I should ask a patient is, 'Have you eaten?' Many
people who came to Anandwan have to walk for miles - they are tired,
hungry and poor. They don't teach this humanity at medical school."
The book also provides perspectives of people who have benefited from
his work. Devram Kanera, from a village to be submerged in the Narmada
Valley, elaborates that only when Amte came to the region did people
begin to understand the broader canvas of their struggle and its
motives.
"He taught me that the first thing I should ask a patient is, 'Have
you eaten?' Many people who came to Anandwan have to walk for miles -
they are tired, hungry and poor. They don't teach this humanity at
medical school."
Prior to relocating to the Narmada Valley to bolster the efforts of
the Narmada Bachao Andolan, Amte led a movement of tribals who would
have been displaced without rehabilitation by the Bhopalpatnam and
Icchampalli dams in 1984, had it not been for his intervention. He
believes that the big dams which he opposed "pillaged from the poor to
provide luxuries to the select rich, destroying natural resources in
the process for short-term financial gain." Living by his conviction,
he fought for the tribals and farmers who would be dispossessed of
their homes and agricultural lands in the name of development.
Although it serves a felt need, Mirchandani's book has its
limitations. While her broad sympathy to Amte's cause is well-placed,
the author fails to maintain a critical distance, which would have
made the biography more well-rounded. Given that rehabilitating the
leprosy-affected was Amte's calling, a chapter providing the medical,
historical and social background of the disease would have helped. At
times, the biography comes across as casual; the author includes her
scribbled notes of conversations with Amte before elaborating on these
notes. At others, it is sentimental. The first chapter could have done
without a romanticized juxtaposition of Amte's birth in 1914 with a
'Christmas truce' between German and British soldiers during the First
World War. Crucially, the book does not go beyond the story of Amte's
life, to tease out historical and sociological connections, and ask
questions of broader relevance. For instance, it would have been
useful to understand how Amte's efforts have influenced social
perception of leprosy at a wider level.
As the Marathi litterateur P.L. Deshpande cautions us, "... once Baba
Amte gets under your skin, you will never be the same again." The book
serves the purpose of getting Baba Amte under the reader's skin. But
the definitive interpretation of his life and its significance is
still awaited. ⊕
Neeta Deshpande
24 Oct 2006
Neeta Deshpande is a student of Hindustani vocal music based in Goa.
"Wisdom Song: The Life of Baba Amte", by Neesha Mirchandani, is
published by Roli Books, p.280, Rs.395.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/oct/rvw-babaamte.htm
NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR WOMEN
A gallery of failures
A former member of the National Commission for Women, Syeda Hameed
records the powerlessness of the institution in her new book, They
hang: Twelve women in my portrait gallery. Deepti Priya Mehrotra notes
the chilling refusal of the system to defend women against
atrocities.
19 May 2006 - Women's activists throughout the country have reported
the hostile attitude of the police and the judiciary when it comes to
punishing perpetrators of violence. But when a high-placed government
functionary faces similar hostility, and finds herself powerless to
deal with it, it is indeed an eye-opener.
Planning Commission member Syeda S Hameed is one such person. In her
recent book, 'They Hang - Twelve Women in My Portrait Gallery', she
narrates her personal experience of trying to help 12 wronged women
get justice. Syeda Hameed's book, based on her work as Member of the
National Commission for Women (1997-2000), is an explosive account of
the impotence of this institution. Not only does she document, in
brutal detail, the violence committed on women in a range of contexts,
but also the chilling refusal of `the system' to bring the guilty to
book.
The atrocities Syeda recounts are not unusual, nor are they unknown to
us. Several have been in the public eye during the late 1990s. For
instance, Ila Pandey's case against her husband Rajneesh Pandey, who
was repeatedly raping their 10-year-old daughter in Karvi, Uttar
Pradesh. Or the story of Lalita Oraon, raped by Amrit Lugan, India's
First Secretary, Economic Affairs, Paris, while she worked in his
house as a maid and nanny.
Syeda provides information from her role as investigator in these
cases: she took down testimonies of hundreds of people, and wrote
detailed reports. Her Karvi report clearly indicated the culpability
of Rajneesh as well as the virulent campaign launched by his
supporters against local women's groups who took up the case. Entitled
`Case of Child Sexual Abuse and Targeting of Women's Rights Groups',
the report received media coverage and "momentarily shook the
establishment". Years later, however, Rajneesh remarried, while the
case filed by Ila drags on.
Similarly, Syeda wrote an NCW report entitled `The Alleged
Exploitation and Abuse of Lalita Oraon in Paris, France' and sent it
to all relevant government departments authorised to present an Action
Taken Report on the issue. But the report was stillborn. Says Syeda,
in the book: "I was anxious to begin taking action, but the matter
never saw the light of day. No matter how I tried, I could not get the
report released. It disappeared mysteriously from the scene, fell
between the cracks of procedure and protocol.... Lalita Oraon vanished
into thin air. Years passed without a word about Lalita."
One NCW report, `Come In, but One by One: Sexual Harassment at Delhi
Public School' - connected with the alleged harassment of women by the
DPS NOIDA principal Varma, was released at a crowded press conference
in New Delhi. It got media attention, but soon vanished from the
public sphere. The school protected its principal, despite concrete
evidence of sexual harassment of at least three women teachers (whose
services he had terminated as soon as they refused to comply with his
wishes). Varma served his full term and, after superannuating, was
given an extension for another three years. Syeda notes bitterly, "My
report probably still lies (in NCW), carefully preserved in files
which no one ever opens, or it may have been shredded with all other
five-year-old documents...."
Syeda's book displays strong personal commitment as well as rare
honesty. The book is uncompromising in its recording of experiences.
At places she moves beyond precise facts into an imaginative
reconstruction of events and persona - always clarifying which of the
writing is fact, and which is `faction'.
One disturbing aspect emerging from her accounts is the nasty role
played by `society' - families, relatives and neighbourhoods - in
instigating violence. In Haryana's Sudaka village for instance, 15-
year old Maimun's family forced her to marry Aijaz. This was to
protect their `izzaat' (honour) that was compromised by Maimun's
affair with Idris, a man from her own village. Aijaz and his cronies
gang-raped Maimun, slashed her with a knife from neck to midriff, and
left her to die.
"My report probably still lies carefully preserved in files which no
one ever opens, or it may have been shredded with all other five-year-
old documents..."
• By choice and circumstance
Later, strangers found and nursed Maimun, and then Idris located her.
Her parents filed a case against Idris, and the police arrested
Idris's old parents. When Maimun and Idris came to NCW, Syeda and her
colleagues were moved and angry, and immediately drove to Sudaka
village. There they faced an extremely hostile mob of villagers, who
dragged Maimun out of the vehicle. The Haryana police did not move a
muscle to prevent this. The NCW team returned empty-handed - no
justice delivered. Instead, they had actually handed over the lamb for
slaughter.
All the 12 stories indicate that NCW lacks infrastructure, back-up,
and `teeth'. Although it is the apex body for women in India, it is
powerless to actually move the administration, police and judiciary,
to make them take appropriate action. Gross violations of women's
human rights carry on with impunity. Everybody knows that the guilty
are seldom punished. Even though, NCW members and hundreds of other
women's groups might work tirelessly to handle the deluge of cases
that pour in, their efforts could still end up in vain.
In the same book, Syeda also highlights the stories of fighting women,
those who speak out against exploitation - file First Investigation
Reports (FIRs); refuse to succumb to brutal backlash; and refuse to
kowtow to the powers-that-be. Thus, one elderly trustee of DPS,
refused to condone the principal's misconduct, rather she testified
that the principal "used his power and position to extract sexual
favours from women teachers...." Sometimes, Syeda `imagines in' a
woman who fights back - Rajneesh Pandey's second wife perhaps; or
Chaddo, who becomes a lawyer after her elder sister Shaddo was killed
by in-laws. She imagines Sajoni - a tribal woman from Bagjori village,
Bihar, branded a witch, thrashed by villagers after she ploughed her
fields - leaving the village with her five children to find a better
place to survive in.
Sheila Rani, a sweeper in DPS, provides incisive analysis as well as
ground-level strategy. When the principal tried to molest her, she
fought back, and later told a teacher of the school, "Every dog in
this place wants a piece of flesh.... We can fight our battles in our
own way. We can kick and bite and scratch. Your court-kacheri will
never get us a scrap of justice." She asked for a transfer saying,
"There is no dearth of toilets to clean. If not here, I will find them
in other schools. But the shit has become JK cement on these haramis
('bastards' in Hindi); only a bolt of lightning can shatter it. I am
going where, if I clean hard enough, the dirt will come off!"
Sadly - nay, tragically - the NCW has been unable to send the bolts of
lightning needed to shatter the concrete structures sheltering
criminals and routinely abetting crimes against women.
Syeda wrote the book because she doesn't want these stories of
terrible violence to disappear from public memory. She also wanted to
highlight that NCW is unable to achieve justice in these cases because
it is toothless: "The Commission's reports are not binding on anyone,
and its jurisdictions stops at its front door." (Courtesy: Women's
Feature Service) ⊕
Deepti Priya Mehrotra
19 May 2006
Deepti Priya Mehrotra is a Delhi based freelance journalist "They Hang
- Twelve Women in My Portrait Gallery", Syeda S. Hameed, Women
Unlimited, New Delhi, 2006, 183 pp, Rs 275.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/may/wom-ncw.htm
By choice and circumstance
Uma Chakravarty turns the pages of Deepti Priya Mehrotra's stories of
single mothers.
October 2003 - New Delhi, (WFS) - One day, recently, I checked in a
bit early to catch a flight at the Bangalore airport. As I sat getting
bored, I decided to browse at the bookstall, something I almost never
do because of the peculiar mix of books airport stalls have - travel,
oriental India, spiritual India, Jeffrey Archer - that I neither have
the time nor money for.
I was both surprised and pleased to find many copies of Home Truths,
Deepti Priya Mehrotra's recently published book on single mothers, on
one of the shelves. And I began wondering at the many transformations
this could represent. Is it because Penguin, which has a wide reach in
the market, has published the book? Are 'single moms' an important
part of today's reality? Has the women's movement created a space for
thinking about issues in new ways? Or is it merely that the title of
the book is eye-catching?
Whatever the reason, it is good to know that a feminist rendering of
an emerging facet of life has a readership beyond the already
converted communities. Home Truths is a narration of the experiences
of single mothers as they cope with multiple emotions and challenges
in a world defined by the nuclear-extended family, which is regarded
as the norm in India. Even in the post-globalisation, market oriented,
consumerist metropolitan India, the family (as shown in
advertisements), is the nuclear family plus dad's mother and father on
the one hand, and 'couple-dom' on the other. The single mother
phenomenon is an aberration in such a situation and there are almost
no institutional supports available for women to mediate their
difficulties, as Mehrotra notes in her afterword.
Single mothers face problems and overwork, yet they also savour a
sense of autonomy and independence.
The experiences of single mothers constitute the main part of the
book - a series of stories of women from different social locations.
Although the number of narratives is small, the women are drawn from
different communities, regions and professions. Single mothers face
problems and overwork, yet they also savour a sense of autonomy and
independence.
I was particularly drawn to some of the narratives. Nafisa of
Hyderabad for instance, just walked out of a bad marriage one day. She
took courage from women she had seen on TV - those who refused to
accept that their lives would continue to be determined by men who
tried to victimise them - and arrived at the dargah (shrine) of
Nizammudin, in Delhi. Meena, a nautanki (song-dance-drama) artist,
recognises that for one like her "there is no one when she is old";
her daughter too has become a nautanki artist and dances for a living.
Then there is the narrative of Sapna, a widow who says quite matter-of
factly, "I am the mother, I am the father". There is no place for self-
pity in her approach; she insists on living by a code that she has
evolved. And because Sapna has become part of a newly forged community
of women activists in a working class area, she has a protective
shadow of women friends falling over her. And so, she is not alone.
Pratima's husband died in an accident; she struggled for years to be
independent, to feed her children on her own earnings and is finally
able to craft a new life where she is at peace because now, she can
add curry to the rice that the family managed on, earlier.
These are stories of extreme fragility - of survival, of choices
denied and others consciously made, of anger and bitterness at
betrayals, and of pleasure gained at achieving autonomy. No two
stories are similar, even as there are many common threads. The
narratives in the book can be read separately, as they stand on their
own. The prologue pegs the book and an afterword seeks to address some
of the issues the narratives throw up. Yet, there are many other
issues that the individual reader can relate to, or draw out from the
richly woven tapestry of experiences that women recount as they
generously let you into their lives, their difficulties, their sorrows
and their fears as well as their dreams and hopes.
Mehrotra has also tried to bridge the distance and the hierarchy that
is inherent in a relationship when one person talks about her own life
and another writes it down, even as the book binds the two together as
single mothers. The author includes an account of her own life as a
single mother - which she taped - becoming for that duration, both the
narrator and the listener. The author's narrative is a very honest
account, one of the rare retellings of complex emotions in the book -
of anger and rage, and a sense of betrayal at the break up of a
marriage. Toward the end of the narrative, there is an equally honest
recognition that her ex-partner is not a villain but rather another
person with his own needs and shortcomings. Finally, she has got to a
stage where she sees herself as part of a flow of people, work, music
and laughter, of being able to finally savour her space and freedom.
In the author's personal narrative, we see that she has got to a stage
where she sees herself as part of a flow of people, work, music and
laughter, of being able to finally savour her space and freedom.
Not all the narratives are about reaching some kind of resolution to
difficulty. There is an implicit understanding that there is
considerable insecurity in their lives. But equally, there is the
insight that 'security' usually goes along with economic dependence,
and accepting arbitrariness as an aspect of the relationship with a
partner. As Mehrotra puts it, the price of security could also be the
condition that "no home is forever". And when that home breaks up -
through death, abandonment or choice - you could be left feeling that
as a single woman there is no one for you. Or, that although it's been
a long, tough journey, you have created your own secure kind of place.
⊕
Uma Chakravarty
October 2003
Uma Charavarty writes on gender and history; she taught history in
Miranda House, Delhi University for many years.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2003/oct/wom-singlemom.htm
FEMALE ILLITERACY
Educating India
The Annual Status of Education Report, 2009 points out yet again that
what stands between rural girls and a good education is often basic
facilities like transport and proper toilets, writes Kalpana Sharma.
14 February 2010 - 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.
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. (click here for ASER web site).
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 rural 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. ⊕
Kalpana Sharma
14 Feb 2010
Kalpana Sharma has been Chief of the Mumbai Bureau and Deputy Editor
with The Hindu. Her opinions, which appear in a regular column with
The Hindu, are concurrently published in India Together with
permission.
Comments (1)
Posted by Usha Gupta,
I fully agree that the educational scenario can improve only if we pay
attention at providing quality primary education. I believe that the
Govt primary schools, whether in rural or urban ares, if not
delivering, should be handed over to NGOs or private societies who are
eager to educate the young children at a low cost or free, if
required. Unless we take our education system seriously ,things at
economic, social & even at political level will not improve. We have
made education a fundamental right without trying to make it a viable
reality. It is high time we stop thinking in terms of building
statistics only, & start making qualitative difference.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2010/feb/ksh-educate.htm
...and I am Sid Harth
