Two-child family not to blame for sex-ratio fall

As the world population growth is hurtling towards 10 billion mark and India towards 1.4 billion, population issues continue to be forgotten by political parties in the hurly burly of power chase and elections over the last decade and more. The two-child family norm which could help stabilize India’s population by 2060 continues to be a fitful idea than a realistic target. What is worse is that it is being blamed for skewing the male-female sex ratio in places where it is being implemented as an eligibility condition for election to public offices. A recent report ( Hindu, September 14) based on research by a couple of foreign based ‘economists’ suggests that the two-child rule as an eligibility condition for candidates in panchayat (village) elections in some of the states is skewing sex ratio. The research, limited to only 11 out of India’s 33 states and based on unquantified sample surveys, sends a wrong signal in tackling India’s sex-ratio in population issues. The so-called rule is more often flouted than obeyed even in these few states. The country’s sex-ratio is skewed not so much by the two-child ‘norm’ as by the massively practised female infanticide. With the availability of modern technology and ultrasound techniques, infanticide is turning into female foeticide in large parts of the country. “The implementation of the 1994 pre-conception and pre-natal diagnistic techniques (PCPNDT) Act continues to be poor, and the nexus of greed forged by clinics, doctors and the political class is proving difficult to break,” says social affairs writer and journalist Usha Rai. In a syndicated article (Infochange) appearing in a magazine under the heading ‘Death before Birth,’ she points out that even after 20 years of the pre-conception and pre-natal Act, the child sex ratio continues to be on the downward spiral. The 2001 Census revealed that there were 927 girls to 1,000 boys. Ten years later in 2011 it fell another eight points to 919, says Rai’s analysis based on the findings of 200 NGOs across 23 states of the country in 2012-2013. In a country where patriarchy rules the waves, sex-selection is rapidly becoming easier with the advances in technology. Mobile ultrasound machines are zig-zagging their way into rural heartlands and tribal India and medical advances have made it easier to determine the sex of the foetus through blood and urine tests. The machines are also getting smaller and easier to hide, further skewing the sex-ratio. And all this is on top of the old established crude methods of choking the new-born girl child with chilli powder or putting her head in the narrow neck of an earthen pot and shaking it wildly till the little life is extinguished. Snuffing out the girl child’s life remains one of the main causes of India’s skewed sex-ratio. Just before going to press, a shocking example of another variety of killing little girls emerged from Bharatpur district in Rajasthan where a two-and-a half year old ailing girl, was buried alive and her grave turned into a samadhi or a place of worship with claims by parents that she was a goddess ! Local villagers, instead of raising alarm, joined in by offering flowers and supporting the parents who committed the crime out of belief or inability or unwillingness to afford medical treatment. Burying her alive was the easy way out. Describing the incident as outrageous , child rights lawyer Ravi Kant said the circumstances prima facie indicate the involvement of the victim’s parents. Since her grave was turned into a samadhi the role of neighbours and other villagers could not be ignored. A former member of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Vinod Tickoo, said the incident brought to light the prevalence of barbaric practices like “female genocide”. Calling for stringent punishment for such acts, he said : “Female foeticide and genocide is still prevalent in Rajasthan and it is time to weed out these inhuman practices.” CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat added her voice by saying that the central government should have promptly taken action and instituted an inquiry. “Glorification of murder is unacceptable and should not be allowed under any circumstances.” The way to tackle the larger issue of falling male-female sex-issue and continuing population explosion is not by relaxing the two-child norm for panchayat election candidates and thus exacerbate the population growth but through spreading welfare schemes like the ‘Ladli’ plan in some states which offer a rupee cash gift at birth, besides Rs one lakh insurance plus free education up to secondary school level or even university stage. The worsening imbalance in sex-ratio needs both positive welfare measures as well as strong government measures to curb and punish medical practitioners flouting the law. The importance of panchayat election candidates as role models cannot be under-estimated in a country like India which has been caught in a population explosion for several decades in the past with no sign of escape in the near future. The two-child norm needs to be extended rather than reversed if the upcoming millions of youngsters are to be offered any hope of meaningful employment, hope, and a modicum of prosperity.

BJP, ‘Love-Jihad’ and elections ......

For nearly a month in the run-up to the by-elections to 11 assembly seats and one parliamentary seat on saturday 13 September in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has been relentlessly playing its divisive ‘Love-Jihad’ card. The chagesheeting of Amit Shah, former party general secretary and now president, for alleged hate speech in April seems to be having no effect. Nor has the ban on BJP MP Yogi Adityanath or the election commission notice for violation of model code has had any effect. The country is witnessing an open defiance of the law of the land. In its bid to repeat its victory in parliamentary elections in by-elections on Saturday, the party is using every weapon in its armoury, however dangerous for peace and stability of the state and the nation. Not satisfied with its leader Amit Shah’s old slogan of ‘badla’ or revenge for the alleged disrespect (apmaan) to the majority community by minority community members during last year’s Muzaffarnagar riots , the Sangh parivar has sharpened its new love-jihad weapon. Yogi’s violation of both state government’s ban on his pulic meetings in Lucknow and elsewhere and EC’s notice is a double defiance. He has been unashamedly propagating the myth of Hindu girls being lured by Muslim men into marriage and conversion to Islam. Without any facts or figures the Yogi has been spreading his campaign of fear and suspicion. The EC’s notice has been served too late – only four days before the bye-elections! As in Amit Shah’s case, the damage has already been done. His hate campaign had a free run for several weeks. Even the Sangh parivar’s official news weeklies – the Organiser in English and Panchjanya in Hindi – have joined in the love-jihad campaign. Strangely enough the Election Commission has not served them any notice for violating the model code. By its very name love-jihad is an highly emotional and separatist weapon capable of poisoning young minds. It is a new kind of ‘khap’ which goes beyond sect and gotra and invades the religious domain or territory. It is Sangh parivar’s fatwa against inter-religious marriages. Real love and marriage have no boundaries. It is a matter between the couples and their God with no room for any politician or religious fanatic to interfere. The world today is witnessing not just cross-gotra, cross-sect, cross-religion marriages but even inter-racial marriages. Are the Sangh parivar and its counterparts in other religions going to annul (nakkar) all those marriages across the world? At a more local local, what about the case of BJP leaders Shahnawaz Hussain and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi who have been long married to Hindu women? asks SP leader and UP minister Azam Khan. Who has trapped (phasaya) whom? .....................................................................................................................................................................

Orwell’s ‘1984’ Big Brother echoes in India & abroad

George Orwell whose year-long birth centenary celebrations have been marked with an extended run of the stage play “1984” in a dramatic version of his prophetic novel of the same name in London has a double connection with India. It is known to many that he was born in Bihar just over 100 years ago in June, 1913 . What may surprise them is that his distant thunder reverberates through numerous emerging polities from Africa to Middle East and the sub-continent including India . And not just Asia and Africa, major Western democracies too are using thought control tactics to gag whistle blowers like Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and US whistleblower Edward Snowden. Government by an all-powerful Big Brother based on a single track thought process or ideology, the central theme of Orwell’s “1984”, is the order of the day in many lands. Be it of communist variety, or Islamist brand raging through Asia, or of Hindutva ideology in India since this year’s elections. In the Orwellian projection, global power bloc Oceana under Big Brother scores a big hit off the Malabar coast in the Indian waters against Eurasia , providing the “Proles” or ordinary people with fodder for jingoistic celebrations. In the same vein two-minute Hate rallies in front of two-way TV screens are held where the faithful shout their anger at Big Brother’s opponents, brilliantly enacted by stage stars at The Playhouse theatre in London. Turning the formula on its head, Indian election rallies witnessed hysteria in adulation of Big Brother Narendra Modi, successfully catapulting him into the pole position of the nation’s Prime Minister. As in Orwell’s work, Big Brother government is run by an “Inner Party” along with an “Outer Party”; so is Modi government run by hardcore RSS (Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh) the inner party, along with BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) the outer party. Like the Newspeak language of “1984”, Hindutva-speak is the language of India’s new government. Since assumption of power Prime Minister Modi seems to have dispensed with the well established tradition of ruling party stalwarts and ministers meeting opposition members and journalists over cups of tea in the Central Hall of Parliament for off the record banter. All information is increasingly channelled through rather faceless bureaucrats attached to PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) . On select occasions , he communicates his thoughts and policies through his high representative, finance and defence minister Arun Jaitley like O’Brien of “!984.” Old style exchange of views is being replaced with Hindutva newspeak. Across the sea in the Arab world the Big Brother has assumed Sunni, Shia and other sectarian identities , some openly militaristic, others religiously authoritarian with varying intensity. Yet others have assumed ultra jihadist identity, leaving no room at all for minority dissent. Suppression, conversion and expulsion of minorities has become the norm in large parts of this world ruled by potentates with priests or mullahs in their tow. All this is accompanied by cultural suppression of diverse kinds. Some ultra religious leaders have virtually confined women to life within the four walls of home; others have asked them not to laugh or smile in public. Song and dance are taboo in these mono-culture theocracies. The restrictions, of course, have not gone unchallenged. Opposition has been open and instant . Thousands of women in places like Istanbul went laughing and smiling on twitter in open defiance of high advice, an echo of the “1984” protagonist Julia’s declaration of sex and love as a “political act” in defiance of the Big Brother regime. Julia while embracing Winston, her partner in thought crime, fires another salvo at Big Brother by closing her eyes for a moment and telling Winston : “I have just killed Big Brother.” “Do it again” replies overjoyed Winston. Yara Hanna as Julia and Sam Crane as Winston execute this central dialogue and theme of Orwell’s work with a brilliant flourish. The torture which Julia and Winston suffer later is life shattering but not before they have lit the flame of soul stirring avowal of human spirit. An everlasting example of derring-do against the Big Brother in his various avatars world over and in times past, present and future. Directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, it is a thrilling production which brings the Orwellian nightmare vividly alive. A co-pproduction of three groups -- Headlong, the Almeida and the Nottingham Playhouse – brought to London’s West End, it transmutes Orwell’s dystopia into a chilling reality. Its message was as relevant when the novel was published 60 years ago in 1944 as in our immediate world today with the probability of remaining alive through 2050 and beyond. And for India it is a matter of realisation and inspiration that governing party members like Nitish Kumar in Bihar state and local admirers and businessmen like Debapriya Mookerjee have come together to convert the dilapidated bungalow in Motihari town where Eric Arthur Blair (pen name George Orwell) was born into an Orwell museum and library. Help has been promised by authorities at the George Orwell Archive at University College London where the writer’s son, Richard Blair, is an executive committee member of the archive. The timing and significance of the museum initiative derives from the fact that it comes from thinkers opposed to the rising Big Brother Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. ......................................................................................................................................................................

BJP’s 100 ‘achche’ days – courtesy UPA

The BJP is praising itself for the first 100 days’ performance of the Modi government. By coincidence the first quarter GDP figure rose to 5.7 per cent, its highest in the previous ten quarters. The government was quick to pounce on it and drummed it up as a sure sign of its success. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Finance and Defence minister Arun Jaitley said the growth would be much higher in the coming days because of the steps “we have taken.” A day earlier at a newspaper ‘adda’ in Mumbai’s Taj Hotel he had declared that “achché din or good days” were already there. Jaitley claimed that there were enough food stocks in the country though inflation remained a cause for worry. And the press obediently echoed those claims. But Jaitley failed to mention who built up those food stocks and who had put the economy on a sound track which was now beginning to show encouraging results. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has been quick to remind the new government that it is stealing Congress policies. It was showcasing UPA programmes and claiming as its own. In a reference to Modi government’s “Swachch Bharat” slogan, she asked: ” Who started Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in every village? Who made construction of toilets as part of MGNAREGA?” Jaitley while crowing about growth and success failed to remind himself and the general public that the achievements of the first quarter , first half-year or even a full year are the result of work done during the previous year or years and not the result of waving of some magic wand by new occupants of the seats of power. Congress leader P. Chidmbaram rightly pointed out that the UPA government deserved credit for the good economic growth that the country was now witnessing. He said that growth in the first 100 days or quarter was the result of the steps taken by the UPA in the previous year before the Modi government came to power. Clearly the Modi government is reaping the harvest of the outgoing Congress –led UPA government’s good work, and long may it go on reaping that harvest. After all it is all for the common benefit of the country despite the BJP’s pre -election tirade of rubbishing everything done by the UPA. It would do BJP no harm if it could give the Congress ‘devil’ its due. Even the groundwork for Prime Minister Modi’s Japan visit had been laid by the UPA government. Projects like the bullet train from Ahmedabad to Bombay had already been negotiated with Japan by the UPA government. Pilgrim trains to Katra for Vaishno Devi shrine in Kashmir or to Char Dham in Uttrakhand had been readied by the UPA. The BJP has only waved the hari jhandi or green signal ! Two sectors where the BJP is blowing its trumpet too loud are the so-called public-private –partnership or PPP development model and open gate policy on FDI. As with FDI, the home grown private investor is also driven by profit motive. The experience so far has been rather less than inspirational. Quite the contrary. The experience of Britain, the country which led with its Thatcherite export model, has shown that the confidence in the PPP strategy has been misplaced. There is widespread talk of re-nationalising the railways in Britain. Privatisation is no longer thought to be the panacea of all shortcomings. The PPP model instead has become the vehicle of private profit at public cost. It is common knowledge that the so-called private investment is nothing like what it is advertised to be. The private investment funds are in fact no more than easy loans from public banks. The loans are then trotted out as private funds to which more money is added directly from the government . Once the partnership business starts, very often costs escalate beyond control, forcing the public sector to rescue the operation from collapse. The Indian experience is no different . Perhaps worse. The so-called private investor is also the bank loan defaulter. The huge NPAs or non-performing assets of Indian banks are an ever bloating testament to that manipulation by vast section of private investors. The public sufferings caused by the rise and fall of Mallya’s UB and Kingfisher Airline and Sahara group are a warning enough. The government’s headlong jump for Foreign Direct Investment to speed up growth and development has been hailed in certain quarters. The Budget announcement to raise FDI limit from 26 per cent to 49 per cent in defence and insurance sectors has naturally pleased the foreign and national business groups. But the underlying security concerns in the defence sector cannot be underestimated. Even in non-defence sectors the FDI’s strong presence can have a destabilising impact on national economy. The native private players’ ability to resist temptations offered by the foreign investors could be put under severe pressure to the point of capitulation. After all the foreign investor’s driving motive is to make profit and increase his country’s influence in the recipient country’s economy and polity. ............................................................................................................................................