Women in politics?

Women in Politics – it is not that as if they do not exist. However, the perception is that the representation ratio is not equal. So, they explore the possibilities of increasing by the way Indian politicians knew better – reservation. Even as the women's reservation Bill repeatedly flounders in Parliament, it should be recognized that this process has a long history.

In 1917, a delegation of Indian women put up its demand for franchise before secretary of state Ewin Montagu. In the 1920s, the right to vote was granted to propertied women. They were, however, not allowed to participate in legislatures. Courtesy, constant lobbying by the Women's Indian Association, this right to contest was granted in 1930. Muthulakshmi Reddy became the first woman legislator. In the Round Table Conference held in 1930, two women activists, Begum Jahanara Shah Nawaz and Radhabai Subbarayan, pleaded for 5 per cent reservation for women in the legislatures.

Other women activists, did not appreciate this sort of favor-seeking but were in favor of universal adult suffrage through which women would automatically carve out their political niche. The Government of India Act, 1935, which broadened the franchise base, provided for formal induction of women in the political process both in reserved and general seats. Provincial elections held under the Act returned 56 women against 1,500 seats — 41 from reserved constituencies, 10 from general constituencies and five nominated. Besides, 30 women were elected to the Central Assembly, including Begum Jahanara Shah Nawaz. In the 1940s, when the Pakistan movement picked up momentum, there was large-scale political participation of women, albeit along communal lines.

In the constituent assembly the idea of reserved seats for women found no favor with members. As late as in 1975 the Committee on the Status of Women in India rejected the idea. In 1980, the women's lobby was able to force the Planning Commission to allocate 30 per cent funds in poverty alleviation schemes with women as specific target group beneficiaries, a departure from the earlier family-centered approach. It, however, took many more years before reserved seats for women were granted, though only at village and district level local bodies.

Through the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments in 1993, it was provided that local bodies at those levels should have at least 33 per cent seats reserved for female members, of which one-third must belong to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. More than one million women function in these bodies as members, which certainly is a great experiment, notwithstanding the fact that many function as proxies of their husbands, fathers or brothers.

All said and done, I am at loss to understand how women’s participation in politics would add value to the process. I am ready to take the brickbats that I will get from the women friends. Nor I am bothered about being labeled as Male chauvinist pig. (After-all, my origin is from Sreemushnam, where the deity Lord Vishnu who Himself appears in the form of a pig).

Politics is the last refuge of scoundrels and why women would like to take plunge in this? In my career of 20 years, I have observed that women, once married, shifts priority to family over their career. I welcome this. Unless they build a good family, a good society cannot be built. They are experts in this! One cannot have the best of both the worlds. If they have to take care of the country, they cannot pay attention to their family. A country cannot flourish by destroying a family.

What we learn from history is we do not learn from history. There are cases that women proved to be examples of misrule. Be it Indira Gandhi, Jayalalita, Mayawati, Sonia – all of them did more harm than doing good to the State. Bandaranayike, Benazir, Marcos – one can have a long list of women who stood examples of misrule.

Every one of us has a core competency and women’s core competency is to build a nice home. I would prefer them concentrating on their core skills.

Whose fault?

“Who are they?” my son asked me.

“I’ll tell you later!”

“Why do they look so different?” he could not wait.

“Let them go! I will explain later!”

“Why not now?

By now that person took the seat that got vacated. As the person sat, the lady sitting next to the vacated seat got up and stood aside.

“Kyon uth gayee? Hum achoot hai kya? Mera koi galti hai? (Why you got up? Are we untouchables? Did I commit any mistake?)” the eunuch asked. I could feel that she is crying.

“Why did that lady say so? What sin did she do?’ my son perturbed me. I will have a tough time explaining him. However, it kept some bells ringing in my mind. “Whose fault is this?”

Transgender communities have existed in most parts of the world with their own identities, customs and rituals. The hijra (Eunuch) community in India, which has a recorded history of more than 4,000 years, was considered to have special powers because of its third-gender status.

Mentioning of Hijras can be traced back to Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Rama, while leaving for the forest upon being banished from the kingdom for 14 years, turns around to his followers and asks all the `men and women' to return to the city. Among his followers the hijras alone do not feel bound by this direction and decide to stay with him. Impressed with their devotion, Rama sanctions them the power to confer blessings on people on auspicious occasions like childbirth and marriage, and also at inaugural functions. This set the stage for the custom of badhai in which hijras sing, dance and confer blessings.

The legend in the Mahabharata is that Aravan, the son of Arjuna and Nagakanya, offers to be sacrificed to ensure the victory of the Pandavas in the Kurukshetra war. The only condition that he made was to spend the last night of his life in matrimony. Since no woman was willing to marry one who was doomed to be killed, Krishna assumes the form of a beautiful woman called Mohini and marries him. The hijras of Tamil Nadu consider Aravan their progenitor and call themselves aravanis.

Considering themselves neither men nor women, members of this so-called ‘third sex’ generally adopt feminine names, dress like women and are traditionally referred to as ‘she.’ Faced with lives of isolation, poverty and public ridicule, eunuchs often resort to prostitution for economic survival and beg on streets. Such people never gain the affection or support of their families, a desire that for many will remain just another dream for them. Suffering from a sexual identity crisis and physical deformities, they could not talk to anyone in her family and was labeled a ‘sinner’ for behaving like a girl.

The discrimination based on their gender makes the hijra community the most disempowered groups in Indian society. The hijras in India find it hard to get a good education, employment opportunities are rare. Most public and private companies use several excuses to deny employment. Hijras in India have virtually no safe spaces, not even in their families, where they can be protected from prejudice and abuse.

Reports show that this prejudice is translated into violence, in public spaces, police stations, prisons and even in their homes. The main factor behind the violence is that society is not able to come to terms with the fact that hijras do not conform to the accepted gender divisions. The systematic violence that hijras face is reinforced by the family, media. The worst part is, it is given legitimacy by the legal system.
The hijra community is deprived of several rights under civil law as Indian law recognizes only two sexes. This means that hijras do not have the right to vote, marry and own a ration card or a driving license, or claim employment and health benefits.

Under the law, the local government was required to keep a register of the names and residences of all eunuchs who were ‘reasonably suspected of kidnapping or castrating children or committing offences under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code’. The law also decreed eunuchs as incapable of acting as a guardian, making a gift, drawing up a will or adopting a child.

According to the Indian medical establishment, trans-sexualism is defined as a `gender identity disorder'. The doctors usually prescribe a sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), which resorts to hormone therapy and surgical reconstruction that may include electrolysis, speech therapy and counseling. Surgical construction could include the removal of male sex organs and the construction of female ones. Since government hospitals and qualified private practitioners do not usually perform SRS, many hijras go to quacks, thus placing themselves at serious risk. Neither the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) nor the Medical Council of India (MCI) has formulated any guidelines to be followed in SRS. The attitude of the medical establishment has only reinforced the low sense of self-worth that many hijras have at various moments in their lives.

The law that is used most to threaten the hijra communities in India, is Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalizes carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal" even if it is voluntary. In effect, it criminalizes certain kinds of sexual acts that are perceived to be `unnatural'. The law, which has its origin in colonial ideas of morality, in effect presumes that a hijra or a homosexual person is engaging in `carnal intercourse against the order of nature", thus making this entire lot of marginalized communities vulnerable to police harassment and arrest.

If God made mistake in His creation, we blew it out of proportion with our wrong approach towards them. They need your care and not your alms or sympathy! Educating the eunuchs and accommodating them in the mainstream society is the only solution to end the numerous troubles faced by them. Most of them can be pulled out of prostitution by providing employment. The Indian society should come forward to accommodate these people with the mainstream society.

Sand on Soil

http://ngkjrs69.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/one-of-india-s-unsung-heroes.htm

There is no dearth of temples in India that you can find many of them even on all Indian highways but to locate a public-toilet is difficult. Unfortunately, this is the importance we give to toilets! We always felt that to defecate in public is nothing wrong! An interesting observation by the Indian Planning commission is as follows:

Nearly 80% of the country's population still either defecate in open or use unsanitary bucket latrines or smelly public toilets. This is true even in urban areas where hardly 20 per cent of the population has access to water/flush toilets connected to a sewerage system & only 14% enjoy water-borne toilets connected to septic tanks or leach pits. In rural areas a mere 3% of the population has access to sanitary toilets. This lack of adequate sanitation is responsible for diseases like Cholera, dysentery, typhoid, para-typhoid, infectious hepatitis etc that costs our lives.

In 1967, a 25 year-old youth named Bindeshwar Pathak was hunting for a job. A family friend promised him a good job, in the Gandhi Centenary Committee at Rs.600 per annum. The promised job wasn't there. The Centenary Committee’s term was nearing its end. Chief Ministers changed; Salaries were just numbers in books, no money received in hand. There was no Rs.600 job instead there was a temporary one at Rs.12 per month. Pathak hung-in there in hope of a 'permanent' job someday.

Rajendra Lal Das, a member of Sarvodaya urged Pathak to devote himself on scavenger liberation or Bhangi Mukti. Bhangis are those who removed the night-soil of others. Pathak went to live in a Bhangi colony in Bettiah. The three months there revealed that people who cleaned others' toilet did not care to keep their own, clean.

The only solution was to make toilets maintenance-free and re-train the scavenger caste for other occupations. The western-style flush toilet and centralized water-borne sewage system was too unaffordable for India. Pathak remembered the slogan of Gandhiji, 'tatti par mitti' (soil over shit) - compost it! The World Health Organization [WHO], many years after Gandhiji and after much research with all available solutions, said "out of heterogeneous mass of latrine designs, the pit privy emerges as the most universally applicable type." It was low-cost, needed little water, did not pollute (it instead turned waste into resource), offered privacy, could be built quickly, locally, and most all needed no scavengers to maintain.

Sulabh but not so sulabh! (Easy but not)
Sulabh Sauchalya Sansthan (Simple Toilet Institution) was formed in 1970. Pathak realized that the pit privy was suitable for not just rural but for urban India also. A deeply sloping toilet pan was developed to enable effective flushing with just a mug of water. Not only the water was conserved but there was no excess water to leach and pollute ground water. A standard, two pits and a toilet-pan, connected by a Y-channel was developed, which enabled quick switch soon as one pit filled, after say 6 months. Many variations of the Pan-Y-Two concept were developed to suit local conditions.

There was no money for Sulabh as the Governments were not keen. Grants were approved but never materialized. IAS officers promised much but were transferred, before they could act. One would list exactly the set of circumstances as reasons for not being involved in India. Pathak's obsession with scavenger eradication, however, made him hang in there.

After a three year wait, Pathak went back to selling home-cure bottles. But the Sulabh obsession never left him. Finally in the town of Arrah, Bihar, he approached a Municipal officer to retail the Sulabh idea. He had an order within minutes. The officer was enthusiastic and at once paid an advance amount of Rs.500 for two public toilets. Thus born India's first two-pit, maintenance-free privy in 1973 by Pathak using local masons.

From Arrah, also emerged the Sulabh business model that holds well till this day - Sulabh will insist on advance payments but will seek no subsidies, donations, loans or grants. Orders followed in quick succession and soon made the entire Sulabh operation self-sustaining. Soon in 1974, Patna got a grand public toilet with 48 seats, 10 urinals and 20 baths for Rs.60,000/-.

It became the talk of the town. All Sulabhs are pay-toilets, in order to make their maintenance sustainable. People were amazed that the public, that would dodge bus fares, would pay to use the toilet. Legislators and ministers visited the site daily to see this social miracle. Unfortunately, they did not learn the lesson therein: build a quality service and people will pay.

Sulabhs began to sprout everywhere. The first step was to get municipalities not to retrench them. Sulabh began training courses to enable scavengers take up carpentry, tailoring, etc. Some women have even become beauticians- some change that, for the once untouchables. It started a school for where English-medium courses are run to enhance their self-esteem. A research wing at Sulabh constantly develops related technologies. There have been bio-gas generators, water clarifiers, compost granulators, and of course new design variations of the Pan-Y-Two system. There's a toilet museum in the Sulabh campus in Delhi to make people comfortable enough to discuss the sanitation issue.

But the task is huge. Over 7 million toilets are still being scavenged by human beings in India. We need 10 million toilets to eradicate scavenging. Get a measure of that task by noting that in 30 years Sulabh has managed to build just 1.5 million of them. More people, groups and towns have to get active. The Sulabh model works.

How many of us are aware of Mr. Pathak? Despite the huge success, there are states that are unaware of Sulabh. Bindeshwar Pathak did not get the due recognition and I am sure most of the Indians might not have even heard of him. This is how we respect our heroes. We neither recognize them nor do we follow them. Pathak is an unsung hero. His services are to be glorified so that it inspires the younger generation!

Mission Accomplished

Disclaimer: All the characters and incidents are ficitious. Any resemblence is a sheer coincidence only!

Lt. Gajendra Singh was summoned by Major General. “Your leave is sanctioned and you are proceeding on leave from tomorrow. But be back by 2nd of next month. You have only 20 days. My advance congratulations on your marriage1”

Gajendra could not believe it even now. He is standing on the railway platform waiting for his train. 4 days will be lost in train and hardly 15 days. Still, his face was gleaming. Suddenly, he heard a familiar noise that is of shooting. He saw two militants on the over-bridge linking platforms 3, 4, 5 & 6 firing from top onto the platform creating panic among public.

“Gajji you need to act!” he told to himself. Gajji climbed the bridge from rear side through the metallic pillars. He held one of the terrorists from behind and strangled his neck literally. The firing from this terrorist went haywire. Seeing this, the first terrorist now shot at Gajendra and two bullets pierced Gajji’s back. Gajendra took shield behind the second terrorist. The bullets went through the terrorist and he died. Gajendra is severely hit and hardly could walk. But he was determined. He took the gun from the second terrorist and started walking towards the first terrorists firing continuously on him. In the end the terrorist too died.

“Mission accomplished!” was the last words uttered by Gajendra. He fell like an uprooted tree. With him shattered the hopes of his parents who were waiting for him eagerly and the dreams of the young girl who was supposed to tie the nuptial knot.



Blessed are those parents who gave a birth to such brave hearts who put their life ahead of country. If such sacrifices do not inspire us to focus our actions towards the welfare of our country, we better call ourselves as traitors! Our ministry would recommend Gajendra’s name for Pam Vir Chakra award. The entire nation salutes brave hearts like Lt. Gajendra Singh Thakur”

The minister was going through the draft again. “It needs another round of editing. This statement should act as a slap on the face of the opposition who are determined to eject me out. All these male chauvinist pigs are making repeated statements that a woman can never be a strong and stern minister. With this single incident, I will make every one of them bite the dust! Let me meet the Prime Minister first” Saying this, the minister headed to meet the Prime Minister.

“my friend, you are aware, I am not against anyone. We are all here because of one person. None of our actions should antagonize him. I would advice to consult him before we make any such statement!”

The minister accompanied by the Prime Minister was waiting in the lounge. It is almost midnight and almost all the news channels had flashed this news. “Sir! Any delay would further damage our reputation. Do you still feel we need to talk to him? I don’t think he will oppose it! It’s a tactical move that will prove to a shot in our arm!”

Suddenly the Prime Minister got up from his chair and so did the minister. “What’s up? Its so late in the night.” Both briefed him the entire story. The man in his nightgown sat on the sofa tapping his cigarette ashes onto the tray.

“I would say let us wait and watch. You see this is election year! What happened is happened. We got rid of two terrorists. However, let us not react and go overboard in this issue. It might boomerang on our votes as one particular community will feel isolated away from us. I do not want to take chances in this year.” He paused for a while and extinguished his cigarette. He got up and went closer to the window.

He continued, “This jawan has not done this when he is on duty! He was proceeding on a leave. Let us term it as fake!" The man showed no expression and was cool. "It was his personal animosity and he killed two Muslims. A commission will be set up to inquire on the incidents happened. you see!, Hindus can be divided on region, language, caste etc., but you can’t do this with Muslims. The people will forget everything in 2 weeks time. I am concerned about the elections. If we win, we will change our stances based on the findings of the commission! As far as your continuance in the cabinet, let people cry! They are not the ones who decide the cabinet. It’s me! Why do you worry! Now let’s go. Take care! Good night!”