How many states can we have within the State?

Federalism has had a rather mixed record during the twentieth century, with 46 per cent federations having failed. This is not surprising, given the worldwide resurgence of ethno-nationalism and regionalism. But more often than not, these failures can be attributed to a failed model of federalism and a resultant failure of governance, rather than to the concept of federalism itself. This has been the case in India, where federalism has failed to ensure democratization, inclusion and administrative efficiency, resulting in repeated reorganization of states.

The defining feature of Indian politics and society is its heterogeneity, be it the case of religion, language, ethnicity or culture. Previous state reorganization demands have emerged from linguistic factors (the south in 1956, the west in 1960 and the Punjab in 1966) or ethnic/cultural factors (the northeast in 1971 and central India in 2000). Reorganization on religious basis, which has indeed been demanded, has been avoided. The present regionalist demands – in Telangana, Vidarbha, Gorkhaland, Bundelkhand, Poorvanchal and so on – are based primarily on the contention that these regions have lagged behind in basic parameters of development. However, there is always an attempt to link these movements to some factor that enjoys populist appeal, such as a shared history or culture.

Given India’s diversity, there is no telling where regionalist demands will stop. The situation is not helped by the fact that there has been no clear government policy on this matter and no lessons seem to have been drawn from past experience. The only factor that does not seem to have been considered while reorganizing states each time is administrative efficiency. The same model of governance has been replicated in the newly formed states, which, except perhaps for the case of Himachal Pradesh, has not led to remarkable socio-economic progress in any of the newly formed states. There has, unfortunately, been no attempt to test alternative patterns of governance – for instance, a greater devolution of powers to local bodies in order to ensure greater administrative efficiency, democratization and inclusion. And this failure is precisely what fuels further regionalist demands. If India is to be saved from this scourge of divisive politics, this is the area that needs reform most urgently.

Where have all the young girls gone?

TWENTY YEARS after the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act came into force to end sex-selective foeticide, we are confronted with horror stories of hundreds of aborted foetuses being found in Patiala district in Punjab. Efforts to tackle this social evil, inspite of amendments to the Act, do not seem to be going anywhere. According to Census 2001, India has an average sex ratio of 933 women to 1,000 men, whereas women outnumber men by 5-6 per cent in most parts of the world. These skewed statistics are most clearly visible in Punjab, which has the country’s lowest sex ratio — 874:1000. Conventional wisdom suggests that increasing prosperity, education, industrialisation and urbanisation would improve the status of women and thus the sex ratio. This is where Punjab leaves policymakers flummoxed — the state ranks second in the country’s Human Development Index and has among the highest per capita income figures in the country. There is no significant difference in the sex ratios of urban and rural areas, or industrialised and non-industrialised districts. The ratio is declining despite improved overall life expectancy, greater availability of health services and falling female mortality. Neither prosperity, nor educational levels, seem to make a difference.
So is the low status of women in Punjabi society a cultural phenomenon born out of the region’s history? Its martial and agricultural traditions have led to a valorisation of the male heir, a situation exacerbated during the Eighties’ militancy. Today, the increasing acceptance of the small-family norm has sharpened the preference for the male child. Counter-intuitively, scarcity of females has not meant an increase in women’s status; it has only worsened the situation.
Development practitioners have been seized of the need to integrate gender justice within the larger development paradigm. Gender and power relations mediate the process of development, and gender inequalities have an adverse impact on larger social objectives. Clearly, the steps taken to stop female foeticide/infanticide are not only inadequate but actually misguided. There is need to address the underlying cultural roots of the problem. There is scope here, perhaps, to develop gender scholarship within the evolving Indian context, and using better intellectual and social tools to advance the cause of gender equality.

Red Crossing the line

The recent participation of officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a function to inaugurate a hospital run by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, was an imprudent step. As India has mentioned in its complaint to the ICRC in Geneva, the JUD is nothing but a front for the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, a terrorist organisation. The ICRC enjoys unparalleled international respect because of its role as “an impartial humanitarian body” — as described in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. But by associating with the JUD, its officials may jeopardise this non-partisan character while lending a degree of legitimacy to a terrorist group.
For over a century, the ICRC has fulfilled its mission of protecting and assisting victims of war while promoting humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles. Over the years, as new non-State actors have emerged and gained in size and importance, this latter task has led to a perceptible effort on the part of the ICRC to have laws governing armed conflict apply to irregular fighters. This is best exemplified by its campaign against the US prisons in Guantanamo and its cooperating with the Hamas. However, the JUD-LeT is not a popular resistance movement like the Hamas but an armed terrorist organisation whose raison d’etre is launching strikes against India.
Since the 2004 earthquake, the JUD has been striving to win popular support by organising relief and rehabilitation efforts. It actually succeeded in becoming a nodal point for many international aid agencies. Nevertheless, this doesn’t take away from the fact that the JUD is first and foremost a terrorist organisation, not a grassroots humanitarian aid group as it pretends to be, that leaves no opportunity to cause loss of life and property in a neighbouring State. International NGOs, especially those of the stature of the ICRC, cannot afford to be taken for a ride by such unscrupulous elements and led into making such political and strategic errors.

Pakistan circa 2006

THE FIERCE debate that has been raging in Pakistan regarding the controversial Hudood Ordinance, which criminalises sex outside marriage, has finally led to the Pakistani cabinet approving draft amendments to the Ordinance. Promulgated in 1979, the Ordinance espouses a literal interpretation of the Sharia law pertaining to zina (adultery). Other than the fact that it gives the State the right to interfere in what is essentially a personal matter, it takes a highly skewed view of rape (zina bil jabr) as a form of adultery. A rape victim has to present four male witnesses to testify in order to prove her charges. If unable to do so – which has, not surprisingly, been the experience in most cases – she becomes liable to the charge of adultery because she has admitted to a sexual act outside of marriage. Since the punishment for adultery is lesser than for rape, the accused may admit to adultery, thereby implicating the victim as well. The law has also been used by parents to punish children for marrying against their wishes. The result has been that of the 7,000 women lodged in Pakistani jails, nearly 88 per cent are accused of crimes under the Hudood Ordinance. Although most are eventually acquitted, this is not before they have spent five years on average in prison.
The proposed amendment seeks to take away the prerogative of the police to register an FIR in a case of zina, and makes failure to prove zina itself liable for prosecution. It also provides for divorce in case a woman has been wrongfully accused by her husband of adultery. In addition, it puts rape squarely under the Pakistan Penal Code, admits conventional forms of evidence while doing away with the requirement of four male witnesses, and also treats the marriage of a girl under the age of 16 as rape. However, this falls short of the demand by moderate elements and rights activists that the Ordinance be scrapped altogether. Whether even these limited amendments will be passed by Parliament is highly suspect – commissions to study the Hudood Ordinance were set up under the Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif governments, but neither government followed through with the recommendations.
Gen Musharraf claims to be leading Pakistan on the path of “enlightened moderation”, a claim that won him a pat on the back from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to the country. Although he has to play a delicate balancing act to accommodate various moderate and radical voices in his own government, he would do his country a big service by espousing a progressive, moderate version of Islam. Perhaps the amendment will be a test case.

Who are we kidding?

THE LABOUR Ministry’s notification banning employment of children below 14 years of age as domestic servants or helpers in eating joints is typical of the government’s piecemeal and short-sighted approach to entrenched socio-economic problems. The decision has been taken following a recommendation of the Technical Advisory Committee on Child Labour, which has termed such occupations as ‘hazardous’ to children as they put them at risk for physical and psychological abuse – a fair and laudable stance.

However, the government’s record of monitoring and imposing the ban on industries in which the order is already in force is far from exemplary. To begin with, there is no uniformly accepted age limit to classify someone as a ‘child’ – for Indian labour laws it is 14, for the IPC 16, and for the Ministry of Women and Child Development, 18. Enforcement has been so poor that 20 years after the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act came into force, about 25-30m children remain a part of the workforce, and an estimated 75% of them are employed in hazardous occupations. Despite the government’s avowed aim to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14, over 40m children are out of school. Moreover, the Labour Ministry’s rehabilitation scheme under the National Child Labour Project, although well-intentioned, only covers 250 child-labour endemic districts of the country.

No one would deny that child labour is an unhealthy phenomenon – it robs a child of their childhood, exposes them to dangerous situations, and can have long-lasting psychological implications. In an ideal world where all children went to school and got two square meals a day, it would be positively objectionable and undesirable. But what is a child born to destitute parents, with no access to a school or any social security benefit, to do if s/he is even denied the right to earn a living? Until the government is able to provide the supporting infrastructure to ensure that no child needs to work to earn a living, child labour will continue. The present notification, in all likelihood, will lead to a new Inspector Raj, wherein law enforcers will turn a blind eye for the price of a hafta.