Who is afraid of Women Reservation Bill??







Democracy is not merely a structural or a functional system. This, indeed, was not what the founding fathers of our Republic intended it to be. Democracy, in fact, is as much an ethical concept. As peoples’ participation is the backbone of democracy, in a modern democratic set up, the decision making process virtually begins and ends with the elected representatives. There will not be a disagreement that “people” include women also. However barring a couple of countries in the world, the women, who constitute about one-half of any nation’s population, are under represented in the various democratic institutions.

In India, women’s role in the political space is reduced to that of voters as well as activists within the parameters defined and earmarked for them by the political parties, which are once again, dominated by men. It is a fact that the political parties, irrespective of their ideology, have failed to provide adequate representation to women while selecting the candidates for elections. Resolutely, the parties keep women in the fringes of politics. Naturally, women’s representation in Parliament, the State Legislatures and in the local bodies suffered a set back due to this negative attitude.

The Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India in 1974 rightly pointed out the attitude of the political parties towards women’s representation in the democratic bodies. It said: “The parties reflect the established values of a male dominated society, which would be difficult to alter without certain structural changes in the socio –political set up. The parties would continue to pay lip services to the cause of women’s progress and the policy of tokenism by having a few women in legislative and executive wings of the government whose minority and dependent status offer serious obstacles in the path of their acting as spokespersons for women’s rights and opportunities”.

The pandemonium that accompanied when the Constitution Amendment Bill to ensure quota for women in Parlaiment and State Legislatures was taken up for voting in the Rajya Sabha (on March 8!) only confirms the observation of the Committee made over three and a half decades ago. The MPs who opposed the Bill went to the extent of snatching it away from the Chairperson of the House and tearing it to shreds literaly.It was not at all a democratic or matured behaviour the MPs put up. However, this was reflective of the chauvinism that is rooted in the existing socio- political culture that discriminates against women in the affairs of the state.

Ram Monohar Lohia, one of the founders of the socialist movement in India, attacked the segregation of women in politics and equated it with the segregation on the basis of caste identities. To him “the two segregations of caste and women are primarily responsible for the decline of the spirit. These two segregations have enough power to kill all capacity for adventure and joy. All those who think by the removal of poverty through a modern economy, the segregation will automatically disappear make a big mistake. All on war on poverty is a sham unless it is at the same time a conscious and sustained war on these two segregations”.(Ram Manohar Lohia, The Caste System, 1953). It is indeed an irony that the three most vocal opponents of the Bill – Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Sharad Yadav – claim to be the legatees of Dr. Lohia!

The History of the Bill

The 1974 Report on the Status of Women in India, submitted to the Parliament, recommended that “a system of reservation of a proportion of seats in these bodies (legislatures and parliament) would provide an impetus to both the women as well as the political parties to give a fairer deal to nearly half the population in the various units of the government. If women enter these bodies in larger number, the present inhibitions that result from their minority position in these institutions may disappear faster and give them grater freedom to articulate themselves” (p.302 (Towards Equality - The Report Of The Committee On The Status of Women In India, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare by a Committee, Department of Social Welfare, 1974). It recommended further that the political parties should adopt a definite policy regarding the percentage of the women candidates to be sponsored by them for elections to Parliament and State Assemblies.

However, these recommendations had to wait for long -- almost two decades -- to be acted upon. It did move forward. The 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments in 1993 were steps taken to get closer to the dream. For the first time in the history of local bodies in independent India, one-third of seats were reserved for women. And this remains a Constitutional imperative. This, indeed, was a radical step that initiated the demand in the political discourse to have such reservations to Parliamentary seats as well as the State Legislature. It is possible to trace the immediate provocation to the present Bill to the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments.

In this context, it will be interesting to see the women’s representation to Lok Sabha from 1952 to 2010. As the table shows that the women’s representation has never crossed the 10% mark except in the 15th Lok Sabha (present one). In 1971 and 1977, the 6th and the 7th Lok Sabha, women’s representation was abysmally low. It is the same story with the State legislatures too. If this is the case with the representation of women after half a century since independence, then it may take another century for women to touch the one third mark, without reservation. This is not to assert that reservation will empower the women. But this, indeed, will provide the political space for women and also the much needed exposure to the political discourse.

The contentious Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced for the first time in Parliament in September 1996, followed by the euphoria of the successful legislation of 73rd and 74th constitution amendment. The Bill that was known as the Constitution (Eighty First Amendment) was introduced when H D Deve Gowda was Prime Minister. Well. It was vehemently (and even physically) opposed, even at the introductory stage. Incidentally, the Gowda's government fell as the Congress withdrew its support. The Bill, however, remained alive and when I.K. Gujral was the Prime Minister, it was referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee which was headed by Geeta Mukherjee, veteran parliamentarian and Communist Party of India (CPI) member. That was in 1997.

As chairperson of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Women's Reservation Bill, she worked hard to accommodate the different view points and take the measure to its logical end. However she could not do so until her death on March 4, 2000. And with the fall of the Gujral Government and the subsequent dissolution of the Lok Sabha (in November 1997) the Constitution Amendment Bill too lapsed.

The bill was introduced again by the NDA government in June1998 as the 84th Constitution Amendment Bill. Unfortunately, the Vajpayee government also fell prematurely and the Bill lapsed. It was introduced again in November 1999 after the NDA returned to power. However, as expected, the political parties failed to reach a consensus and the Bill was put on hold. Sarad Yadav, a Janata Dal MP at that time and thus part of the ruling combine then spoke aloud that such “reservation will do nothing but helping few more women with bobbed hair (Bal kattis) to enter Parliament’’. This futile exercise was continued in 2002 and 2003. Despite the offer of support from the Congress and the Left no progress was made in this front.

The UPA government introduced the Bill once again in May 2008. And it was introduced in the Rajya Sabha; the difference is that the Bill will remain alive in that case even if the Government fell and the Lok Sabha dissolved! All that is only academic discussion now. This time it could not be mowed down. It went through the committee stage and the Bill was moved in the Upper House amidst protest from the Samajwadi Party, JD [U] and RJD MPs. Finally the Women reservation Bill reserving 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies to women was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday 9th March 2010.

Seven MPs (four from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and one each from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Lok Janshakti Party and the Janata Dal-United) were suspended for their unruly behaviour in the Upper House. The real absurdity was that these MPs who were physically lifted from the House, sat on a protest in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. The absurdity was given Gandhi’s opinion on the entry of women into the political space. The Bapu had held that as long as women of India do not take part in public life there can be no salvation for the country. ``I would have no use for that kind of swaraj to which such women have not made their full contribution”.

The Bill is expected to be introduced in the Lok Sabha in May 2010; however, in today’s political climate, one is not sure of that. The three Yadavs- Lalu, Sharad and Mulayam- and their party’s rank and file oppose it vehemently for flimsy reasons. Their contention is that since there is no provision in the Bill for reservation for women from the Muslim community and the Other Backward Classes, it will lead to the marginalisation of the women from these sections and provide an unfair advantage for the upper class women. The argument does not, however, explain the question as if that is so how do the men belong to backward castes and the Muslim community get elected to the parliament without reservation? Another question is as to what prevented these leaders of large and important political parties, and that too claiming to the legacy of Ram Manohar Lohia, from adopting pro-active measures all these years to open up educational and economic opportunities to the women from among the Backward communities?

It is nothing but politics of desperation. Men in the parliament are scared of loosing their seats. Even the one third reservations, it is for sure that some of them inadvertently will lose their fiefdoms. They were ``manning’’ the corridors of power for such a long years and do not want to loose that position. Hence the opposition!

Now those opposing the Bill are asking for a wider consultation to reach a consensus. The same excuses stalled the Bill in the earlier occasions for almost one and half decades since it was introduced for the first time in 1996.

The point is if democracy is seen as an ethical concern, keeping women out on the fringes of the political institutions is an un-ethical measure. The women, after all, constitute half the population. Let me conclude this article with a quote: No matter how noble the man is: or how good his intentions are, he cannot understand a woman’s needs or adequately represent her”.(Marie Mitchell Olesen Urbanski).

Photo- Chinku
Thank you Heike for bringing us the tulip plant, all the way from Feldafing, Germany to Chennai! It was little annoyed with the Chennai weather. However, this did not stop her from blooming beautifully!!

Shame on you Jayaram!

The news is that Actor Jayaram made a nasty comment on his domestic help; specifically on her looks. He reportedly told a Malayalam TV channel, recently, that "my maid, a Tamil woman, is like a dark fat buffalo. So how can I look at her", when asked whether he had taken a second look at his housemaid in real life. The interview was in the context of his recent film. Of course, his comments put him up in a soup and there were protests against Jayaram’s comments in Tamil Nadu and a Tamil outfit went to the extent of ransacking the garden in his house in Chennai.

There are two or three points that I would like to make in this note. Firstly, I strongly feel that we must learn to treat any attack on the modesty of a woman (what Jayaram did in this case) as an assault on women irrespective of the colour, caste, religion, place, groups and so on. How does it matter whether the victim is a Tamil woman or a woman from Rajastan or Bihar? Hence the outcry “Tamil Woman” is unwarranted. It is yet another matter that the majority of Tamil Films too depict/treat women as a commodity rather than human beings.

Now about Tamil women! As a person who has been working with women for many years, I have had ample opportunities to travel all over India to work with the less privileged working women. The Tamil women, especially those from the lowest economic strata, had always surprised me with their endurance and fortitude. They are very enterprising and hard working and they take up any job without any inhibition.

In Tamil Nadu, there are many women headed families or families in which women are the main bread winner. They work in the agricultural field, run small eateries on the road side, work as flower vendors in front of temples, theatres, beaches and any other crowd pulling places and also a large number of them work as domestic workers; sometimes they manage to work in more than 6 houses and the with the meagre income they contribute largely to their households. So describing a human being, who also happens to be cleaning up your mess at home, by her colour and figure is a criminal and inhuman act. Hence Jayaram’s words, no doubt, are condemnable.

At a different level, I am not surprised by his comment, in the sense that, there is no dearth of Jayarams in Kerala, the most literate state in India. If you sit through any of the “comedy’’ shows in the Malayalam channels, the major event would be caricaturing politicians and second to that is vulgarising women through suggestive comments. In most of the cases women are being treated like commodities and there is no sense of shame in visualising them in such a way in the TV serials.

In real life too, women are intimidated in the public places and public transport. I still remember that in my college days; in the private buses, there is a “creature” called ‘kili’, who is supposed to be the cleaner of the bus. He would invariably stand on the steps of the bus and that used to be very inconvenient for the women passengers to get down from the bus. Sometimes, these kilis would rub their shoulder against the girls. As student activists, we used to protest against this and would insist that this man should get down while we got off the bus. And invariably, these men used to make rude comments insulting our looks. Their comment would be ``what you think? You are a world beauty or what that I am dying to touch”. They would drop some famous actress’ name too.

One of my CPM friends confessed secretly to me that he is scared to send his grown up daughter alone for tuitions in the evenings. He says, chechi, times have changed. “Yes the times have changed and so have the people. Now where is the movement comrade?” I wanted to ask. Let me leave it at that and may be for another occasion.

So Jayaram is in no way different from these larger groups. It is yet another matter that Mr. Jayaram’s pleasantly-plum-relatively-on-the-darker-side-wife (who was also an actress), was considered to be one of the fattest in that era. One may still be interested to know whether Mr.Jayarm addresses her as a brown fat buffalo and refuses to look at her at home???

Film -Ayirathil oruvan (THE ONE in a thousand)

Director Selva Raghavan

I had the misfortune of watching the well advertised, much reviewed Tamil film “Ayirathil oruvan (THE ONE in a thousand)”. “Brave attempt at trying to come out with something new in the placid world of Tamil cinema”, “stunning visuals and grandeur”, “.breaking away from the shackles of the stereotypes”, the reviewers raved. Apart from the reviews, all the main actors too had done their bit in the print media by way of interviews recalling their spine-chilling and bizarre experiences while the film was in the making. Most importantly, the film took three long years to complete due the “density of the plot and the depth of its treatment” is what we were all told. And we were also informed that the director had to suffer a divorce, thanks to the film.

The film revolves around a bit of the Chola –Pandya rivalry; where the Cholas were pushed out of their kingdom to an Island somewhere near Vietnam. The heroine Anita Pandyan (Reema Sen) is in search of the idol of their deity, taken away by the Cholas, while on run. The second heroine Andrea is in search of her father, an archaeologist, who was lost somewhere in the Island while tracing the Cholas.

You have two heroines and unfortunately one hero who is condemned to carry the burden of the two heroines, literally, on his back. Well. He drops these compulsive ‘climbers’ then and there. It is yet another story that the second heroine cried foul before the press as her role thinned down after the first half.

We have this sexy and revolver wielding (she even manages to use them with ease, shooting down adversaries with both hands simultaneously) heroine, who is an archaeologist by training. She is supposedly strict; and hence filthy words flow with ease from her mouth while dealing with subordinates.

Karthi, the hero reminds us of his first movie paruthiveeran; his performance was acclaimed, for the right reason, in that film. He has the same ruffian role in this film too. However, in this movie, he cries too often. As it happens, finally he emerges as a real hero after a long absence in the second half.

The first half was boring enough and the graphics- supposed to be scary- were hilarious. Then we hope against the hope that the second half will give you something worth the money and the effort. That is where you go wrong. Despite the weak storyline you somewhat understand the story in the first half. But the second half leaves you blank. Thank God, the disclaimer said that the story is not exactly from any historical incidents: otherwise one would have searched the volumes of south Indian history to understand the plot.

But then you have this seductive number by Reema Sen, the first heroine and those who were interested in watching her cleavage and her flat belly the money spent was worth. Of course, there is no dearth of sexy numbers by these heroines.

And Partheepan, the Chola king looked like a king (raja part) in the village drama and he acted “too sincerely” for the money paid to him. His dialogues were too long and at the end of the sentence you almost forget where he started from. And he dances (Thandavam) too: Don’t ask why? I don’t have an answer.

There is a lot of violence and lots of men (supposed to be tribal) as if they were in a fancy dress competition. Most of them get killed. Of course, some of them at the hands of the heroine, brandishing two revolvers, and others by the army officers accompanying the trained archaeologist.

The film reminds one, in some frames of a series of English movies including Macanas Gold. But the director vehemently denies that the movie has anything to do with any of the Hollywood productions and let me trust him. What is wrong if two persons in two different parts of the world and living in two different times think alike?

The end of the film made me weep. I wept thinking about the money wasted along with a Saturday afternoon.

Photo by Chinku

Quiet Flows the Kaveri: A trip to Kodumudi

A dip in the river Kaveri on the first day of the Tamil month Ayppasi brings you blessings. Blessings or no blessing, the sight of the river and that too so early in the morning was too tempting. So we set out on the road to meet her at Kodumudi on a Sunday morning. Kodumudi is 40 KM away from Erode town. Believe me; we drove little more than 80 KM (both ways) in the morning just in order to have a bath in the Kaveri.

Well, it was a pleasant experience to drive along the Kaveri Delta. The cold morning breeze smelt a mix of paddy, sugar cane and turmeric plants. Coconut trees, plantains and lots of other trees made the whole stretch look like a green blanket. Small irrigation channels run through the fields making the soil rich and fertile. Early cows were eating their grass! This was a refreshing change-- from the irrational concrete jungle where we live to this green landscape full of human life. No wonder, civilizations began on the river banks.

Kaveri at Kodumudi flowed quietly. People were already there at the bathing ghat engrossed in pujas; it was also a day to remember the departed souls. Well, upon reaching there, I realised that taking bath in a river is an art and I do not know it so well. The women around there stared at me; I was getting into the water with my pyjamas and a long shirt. The water was pleasantly cold and I took one step at a time to avoid a sudden surge of the coldness. Once you are in the water, it is fun; time flies and you don’t want to come back to the banks.

However, under the water, at the bottom, there were residues of clothes that gave me an awful feeling: the only discomfort I want to forget. Well, it was not unexpected as we are famous for dirtying our natural spots. Many treat the historical monuments as a place for eternalising their love story by scribbling on the wall.

But I enjoyed the Kavery and the rising sun. Women changed their clothes, there on the banks itself. It surprised me. I was awestruck. That they went about changing their clothes, from the wet to new, in the open space with such poise. And that too into a saree, artistically rolling the five and half meters from a public place! They did not expose themselves even a bit. It was really a talent. They did all that, oblivious of their surroundings. In a moment, the women who bathed were in fresh clothes and bright red bindis on their foreheads. Me, too self conscious, had to pay to find a place for changing. Good learning! The way of life in a village is very different. I am not romanticising. They are less pretentious than us.

An ancient Shiva temple stood on the banks of Kaveri. After the dip in Kaveri you are supposed to be bodily pure and the visit to the temple makes you spiritually pure too. Inside the mammoth temple wall, there is a major structure devoted to the main deity - Lord Shiva and there are many small structures that accommodated other Gods and goddesses. Lord Brahma is also worshiped here: perhaps this is one of the few temples that have Brahma as a deity. Brahma prathishta is under an incredibly old tree (it is supposed to be 2000 years old). The pundit told us that this particular tree won’t blossom at all and Krishna says that we can claim the legacy of genetically modified plants from as early as some 2000 years ago.

You are supposed to take 7 rounds of the deity and the tree to get the blessings. Due to constraints of time, I decided to stop with only 3 rounds and am sure I will get my due. The pundit chanted the mantras mechanically reflecting the monotony of their work.

On our way back, we bought lots of bananas as it was cheap and fresh; straight from the farm on the banks of the Kaveri; just picked

Indeed, a holiday to remember!

Book Review Published in New Indian Express on December 13, 2009


Memories of a carnage unleashed

Justice delayed is justice denied. And 25 years is a long time for people waiting for justice. This is so with the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi and many other towns in northern India. There is a lot of talk, in recent times, of reconciliation and peace. But the simple point is that peace and reconciliation can be brought about only after justice is meted out.

On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards. In the aftermath, Delhi and some other places in the country witnessed extensive violence that left over 3,000 Sikhs dead, their establishments looted and burnt down. Rajiv Gandhi, who took over as prime minister just hours before the carnage began, shamelessly approved of the pogrom. He said: "When a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the Earth around it does shake a little". Evidently, the slaughter of more than 3,000 people seemed a natural course to him!

And if anyone argued that Rajiv Gandhis was an innocent statement in his hour of grief, evidence that it was not came soon after. The Congress leaders who organised the pogrom and orchestrated some of the mobs were rewarded with positions in Parliament and even in the Union Cabinet. All the while, the Sikhs were denied justice.

Jarnail Singh, an 11-year-old boy in November 1984, would not have thrown a shoe at Union home minister P Chidambaram in 2009 when he was 36, if justice had not been denied. For that matter, he would not have written this book, I Accuse. The writer is a journalist with Dainik Jagran who has reported extensively on Sikh politics and defence. The shoe incident made him (in) famous instantaneously.

While some felt he violated journalistic ethics that day, few others connected it to the plight of the Sikh yearning for justice.

The book is a detailed account of the 1984 violence and the brazen miscarriage of justice thereafter. The author interviewed some of the victims extensively and presents the carnage through their eyes. He narrates the brutal killing of an ex-army man in vivid detail: The mob was chanting; ˜kill these Sardars, traitors of the country". They first surrounded Mahan Singh and pulled off his pagri...

"He is an old army man, he has fought for the country", neighbours said.
"How does it matter¦ sardars are traitors"

Mahan Singh was murdered and his 11-year-old son Harkirat cut into three pieces.

This is only one of several stories. In many cases, all the men in a family were killed. Gurdwaras were ransacked and set on fire. The police were either passive onlookers or helped the mobs, the author says.

A number of the survivors have clearly identified the political leaders who led the mobs on their killing spree. H K L Bagat, Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, Dharam Das Sastri are names that figured in the depositions by survivors before the enquiry commissions. There were many commissions and as many reports. The Nanavati Commission, which submitted its report in August 2005, recommended registering cases against Sajjan Kumar. But no action has been taken.

For the Sikh community justice is still far away. And you cannot talk about peace when justice is denied. It is their incredible endurance that has enabled them to get on with their lives.

Reading through Jarnail Singh's account is bound to horrify anyone and leave them revolted at the government's inertia. It should be prescribed as a textbook so that generations to come will learn from it not to repeat it. Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Who will bell the cat?
Book Review published in New Sunday Express

I love Fabindia clothes; but it is expensive…….

In nutshell, Making India Work by William Nanda Bissell is a vision about India and how to accomplish that vision through constitutional means. The author is better known as the Managing Director of the Fabindia chain that works with 40,000 craft people and rural artisans.

The author’s premise is that India is not a poor country but a “poorly managed country.” And accordingly, the administration contributes to the poverty and vulnerability further. Add to this, the ‘reckless consumption driven economy’ which he stresses is not a solution but a problem itself. This is where even the west had failed. Excluding environmental and social assets from the market system is destroying the world leaving billions in poverty. Hence, an outline for a new system — economically viable and environmentally sustainable — with appropriately scaled institutions is suggested by the author.

The ultimate aim is to guarantee to each citizen a basic quality of life where sustainable growth, environmental regeneration and alleviation of poverty work together. The author, who advocates a radical paradigm shift for sustainable development, explains that his ideas are not utopian but a practical guide. His concept of “Standard Authority” is very interesting. In the proposed system, this will play the important role of codifying assets such as ‘air quality, water purity and bio-diversity into measurable and therefore tradable products; these are hitherto un-tradable.

For instance, a city dweller who cannot afford to keep the green space, will have to pay for the green space and biodiversity that is protected by the village community. This biosphere credit value will encourage the villagers to protect and enhance the natural resources further. The author also proposes a new tax system as the current one “penalises the productive activities” and hence arrest the growth. The individual professional taxes and taxes on productive activities must go for good in his scheme of things. The proposed tax system, on the contrary, relies on increased taxes on property, inheritance and tax on economic transactions. Large scale revenue can be generated through this and this, according to him, will result in multiplying the present revenue generation.

The introduction of Target Catalysts (TCs) will take care of the empowerment and mainstreaming of the poor. The author finds the existing system of poverty alleviation as “too expensive and ineffective” while public money evaporates in the name of development which is inimical to the interests of the poor. He discusses how the TCs work and facilitate the poor to access better services.

The author also outlines how to reach “power to the people” genuinely. The active participation and representation of the local community is imperative in order to avoid “over-centralised and over-extended” power. He advocates the downsizing of the Central government and refurbishing the administrative system with the citizen at the bottom; the community, area, region and national units must constitute the next hierarchical units in his vision.
Suggestions are also made about a ‘fast track and corruption free’ legal system as he feels the present legal system is ‘Byzantine’ and ‘riven with corruption, blindingly complex and excruciatingly slow.’ He stands for a uniform civil code and also advocates the reduction of the number of existing laws to avoid complexities which affect the productive activities. The book has all the details on how the new system would work.

The importance of the General Performance Parameters is emphasised to make the administration effective and efficient. Instead of cabinet, there will be POBs (Parliamentary Oversight Boards with 5 MPs each), to oversee the activities of various departments.

The book also talks about the corporations and civil society organisations and suggests a single structure and governing standards (to be known as associations) to these bodies with shareholders and stakeholders respectively. In the chapter ‘Sustainable Living’, the author recommends a series of reforms that will ‘transform the way we live.’ In the beginning, he takes three case studies to illustrate his ideas to reach India an ideal nation — Panchasheel, the city, Mussorie, the town, Sewari (Rajasthan), the village. And at the end of the book he picturises these three places where his hypothesis is proved right. He strongly believes that another India is possible. The book reads well and his blue print for reform is excellent. But one may not be able to share the optimism of Bissell particularly in the milieu in which we live and where corruption rules over every aspect of our life. The point is who will bell the cat?