The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

A good beginning
Need to sensitize medicos for rape victims' care

The long-neglected area of providing fast and proper medical aid to the victims of sexual violence has finally got attention from Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, who has inaugurated the first-of-its-kind one- stop crisis centre for rape victims in Bhopal. To improve the conviction rate in cases of rape, the Union Health Ministry has come out with a new set of guidelines to ensure a sensitive handling of the victims and a thorough documentation of medical evidence, which is often ignored by doctors while dealing with rape victims.

Before the amendment to the criminal law changed the approach to crimes of sexual violence — shifting the burden of proof on to the accused rather than the victim — most medical professionals were taught to carry out the two-finger test to establish innocence or guilt of the victim. The test has now been banned under the amended law. Most medical professionals, however, continue to follow the old practice either out of ignorance or due to a callous attitude towards the victims of sexual violence, who are viewed as a burden on the already over-stretched medical services.

Time is a crucial factor for the collection of evidence in rape cases. Lack of lady doctors often compounds the problems of rape victims in their struggle to get justice. It is incumbent on every government hospital to treat rape victims on priority and free of charge. Private hospitals should also offer free treatment as part of their corporate social responsibility. Yet a rape victim's examination is often delayed for days. In many states, government hospitals do not have the rape evidence collection kit for collecting crucial forensic evidence and they do not follow the written guidelines for the treatment of injuries and prevention of pregnancy and AIDS. Before more such centres come up, a few training programmes should be made mandatory for doctors and nurses to sensitize them about the new approach, crucial for the physical and psychological well-being of the victims of sexual violence.

Thought for the Day

Existentialism means that no one else can take a bath for you. — Delmore Schwartz

On this day...100 years ago

lahore, friday, june 19, 1914

Punjabis in Canada

WE are glad to learn that the Punjab Hindu Sabha of which the Hon. Sir P.C. Chatterji is the President has sent the following Telegram to the Premier of the Dominion Government, Ottawa: "Punjab Hindu Sabha emphatically protests against refusing admission 600 Hindu passengers on Komagata Maru." The Sabha should have been the first in the field, but it is something that it has allowed itself slumber to be disturbed by the din of public meetings and resolution of Singh Sabhas and Khalsa Dewans. We hope the Sabha has not forgotten to send copies of the telegram to the Government of India and to the Secretary of State for India.

Source of information on India

IN commending the answer of "an oversea correspondent" to the Times' article on the Indian Peril," the Statist offers a few excellent remarks on the necessity of Englishmen fully acquainting themselves with Indian as opposed to Anglo-Indian opinion of every measure affecting the welfare of Indians. Anglo-Indians are at the best mere birds of passage and their interest in the welfare of the country is influenced by a desire to maintain their own over-lordship. The Statist writes: "Now the ordinary Englishman wishes honestly to understand the condition of India. He has no interest in injuring India in any way. But living so far from India, he has no opportunity of learning for himself the wants of India. Consequently, he ought to seek information in the sources where it can be found. And one of these sources indisputably is the Indian people, who recognise the advantage of belonging to a great world-wide Empire and yet are discontented with the position in which India finds herself at the moment.

ARTICLE

China-Pak nuclear proliferation
India should counter the challenge diplomatically
G Parthasarathy

While explaining the rationale for Pakistan's nuclear weapon programme, its then Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto noted that while the Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations had nuclear weapons capability, it was the Islamic civilization alone that did not possess nuclear weapons. He asserted that he would be remembered as the man who had provided the Islamic civilization with full nuclear capability. Bhutto's views on Pakistan's nuclear weapons contributing to the capabilities of the Islamic civilization were shared by Pakistan's senior nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood who, along with his colleague Chaudhri Abdul Majeed, was detained shortly after the terrorist strikes of 9/11. They were both charged with helping Al Qaida acquire nuclear and biological weapon capabilities. Two other Pakistan scientists, Suleiman Asad and Al Mukhtar, wanted for questioning about their links with Osama bin Laden, disappeared after it was claimed that they had gone to Myanma.

The original sinner in nuclear proliferation, however, is not Pakistan, but China. Director of the Wisconsin Project of Arms Control Gary Milhollin has commented: "If you subtract China's help from the Pakistani nuclear programme, there is no Pakistani nuclear programme". There is evidence, including hints from Bhutto's prison memoirs, that suggest that China initially agreed to help Pakistan develop nuclear weapons when Bhutto visited Beijing in 1976. It is now acknowledged that by 1983 China had supplied Pakistan with enough enriched uranium for around two weapons and the designs for a 25-Kiloton bomb. Chinese support for the Pakistan programme is believed to have included a quid pro quo in the form of Pakistan providing China the designs of centrifuge enrichment plants. Interestingly, thanks to China, Pakistan acquired nuclear arsenal at least five years before India decided to cross the nuclear threshold.

China's assistance to Pakistan continued even after Beijing acceded to the NPT. When Pakistan's enrichment programme faced problems in 1995, China supplied Pakistan 5,000 ring magnets. China has subsequently supplied Pakistan with unsafeguarded plutonium processing facilities at Khushab. There is also evidence that China has supplied Pakistan with a range of nuclear weapons designs with the passage of time. While the nuclear weapons designs supplied by Dr A.Q. Khan to Libya were of a Chinese warhead tested in the 1960s, the nuclear warheads tested by Pakistan in 1998 were of a different design

According to Thomas Reed, a former Secretary of the US Air Force, who was closely associated with the US nuclear weapons establishment and Dan Stillman, a US nuclear expert who had extensive interactions with his Chinese counterparts a Pakistani derivative of the Chinese CHIV-4 nuclear bomb was tested by Pakistan in China on May 26, 1990. This was eight years before India's 1998 tests that validated its nuclear weapons. Reed stated that while in China, Stillman had noted that his stay at the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research "also produced a first insight into the extensive hospitality extended to Pakistani nuclear scientists during the late 1980s time period". Reed has disclosed that "in 1982, China's Premier Deng Xiao Ping began the transfer of nuclear technology to Pakistan".

Moreover, after warmly welcoming Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Beijing in 1988, Deng commenced missile collaboration with Pakistan, with the supply of short range Hatf 2 missiles. This was followed up by assistance to manufacture Shaheen 1 (750 km range) and Shaheen 2 (range 1500-2000 km), at Fatehjang. China has thus not only provided Pakistan assistance for manufacturing nuclear weapons, but also for missiles which can target population centres across India. Not satisfied with providing nuclear weapons designs, knowhow and modern uranium enrichment centrifuges, China soon found that Pakistan's arsenal would become more potent if it included lighter plutonium warheads, both for easier mating with the Chinese designed ballistic missile and for development of tactical nuclear weapons.

Pakistan and China adopt a parallel approach on nuclear and missile proliferation in the Islamic world. Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister, Prince Sultan, was given unprecedented access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons facilities in Kahuta in March 1999. Shortly thereafter Dr. A.Q. Khan paid a visit to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of Prince Sultan in November 1999. Khan's visit was followed by a visit to Pakistan's nuclear facilities by Saudi scientists who had been invited by him to visit Pakistan. Given these developments and the fact that China had supplied long-range CSS 2 Saudi missiles to Saudi Arabia in the past, there is interest about the precise directions that nuclear and missile collaboration of Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia could take. Pakistan could, for example, justify the deployment of nuclear weapons and missiles on Saudi soil. It is not without significance that the Chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen Khalid Shamim Wynne, who handles its nuclear arsenal, was received at a high level in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, while Pakistan provided the designs of nuclear centrifuges to Iran over two decades ago, China is known to have been on the forefront of transfer of ballistic missile knowhow and technology to Tehran.

The issue of Beijing issuing stapled visas for Indian nationals from Arunachal Pradesh visiting China was raised by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during the recent visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi by pointedly calling on China to adopt a “One India” policy. While the Chinese provide stapled visas for Indian nationals from Arunachal Pradesh and oppose international funding for projects in Arunachal Pradesh and J&K, they warmly and officially welcome high functionaries from PoK, Gilgit and Baltistan. Members of China's Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) have in recent years been involved in large numbers in building roads and tunnels in Gilgit/Baltistan. The construction work is said to be for a transportation corridor linking China to Arabian Sea at the Port of Gwadar. But tunnels across high mountains slopes are also ideal locations for nuclear weapon silos. India has passively not taken up its concerns about the China-Pakistan missile and nuclear collaboration strongly with Beijing. This challenge surely needs to be more seriously addressed and countered, both diplomatically and strategically.

MIDDLE

Touching the feet
P. Lal

As I bent down to touch his feet in the verandah of his sprawling bungalow on the University Road, he smiled and felt mighty happy. The secret of pleasing him as had been whispered to me by his confidant appeared to be working.

He was the Head of the Department (HoD for short) of Physics in Lucknow University from where I had done M.Sc. that very year (1966) and where I had been appointed a Lecturer on a temporary basis on that very day, much against his wish.

On a routine visit to the Department of Physics sometime in the latter part of 1966, I had seen a notice on the display-board announcing the requirement of two lecturers on a temporary basis(three months) in the pay scale of Rs 400-900.The eligibility condition was a first-class M.Sc. or a Ph.D. I put in the application as I had a first division in M.Sc.

I had almost forgotten about the application when one fine day, during a visit to the department, I saw my name on the list of selected candidates on the notice board. No written examination and no interview had been held. A committee headed by the Vice-Chancellor and including the Head of the department had selected the candidates.

I felt on cloud nine. The salary of Rs 400 plus dearness allowance of Rs 40 was a big amount.

(For comparison with today’s salaries, I use the price of a ‘masala dosa’instead of depending on the government controlled price indices. A piece of ‘masala dosa’ in Ranjana, a restaurant in Hazratganj, Lucknow, cost paise 25 at that time. A similar piece in a restaurant in Chandigarh now costs Rs 125, an escalation of 500 times. So, Rs 440 would amount to Rs 2,20,000 today!) I was in the midst of planning a celebration with my friends in Ranjana that evening when a person claiming to be close to the HoD dropped in and warned me: “Don’t be too happy. You would not last long on the post as the HoD wanted another candidate, a Ph.D., to get the job but the Vice-Chancellor put his foot down in your favour, quoting instructions of the University Grants Commission which stipulated preference to a candidate with five first divisions over a Ph.D. with a consistent second division record.”

So, my five first divisions (High School, Intermediate, B.Sc., B.Sc. (Hons) and M.Sc.) had stood me in good stead.

Greatly worried over what the HoD's confidant had told me, I asked him for his advice.

“Go to his home in the evening, not with a packet of sweets, but with humility on your face and touch his feet and thank him”, he advised me.

I was in a dilemma; I had not touched any body's feet earlier.

However, I did as I was told. And I did it on every Holi and Diwali and on every other occasion when the situation so warranted. And the extension in my lectureship was recommended by the HoD every quarter, which I believed was more on account of my merit and work and conduct than on anything else which I had been doing on the side!

oped-women

Plight of the invisible economic actors
Modern studies on women’s migration suffer from cultural limitations. Since most women remain invisible on paper as economic actors, they face discrimination as a work force and fail to receive welfare schemes
Vandana Shukla

For centuries Indian women have lived their lives as refugees, in their own land. Their migration has been accepted as a natural result of matrimony. Now, forced under rapid urbanisation and the complexity it generates, migration has become a subject of fresh enquiry and research.

A home away from home: Migrant labourers, from as far as South India, help to keep Corbusier’s modern city, Chandigarh, clean. Photo: Manoj Mahajan

Migration and displacement are the changes women are prepared for right from their childhood. Matrimony changes their name, identity and geographical location. Displaced from their roots for most part of their lives, women live with a sense of ambiguity about their identity, but are unable to articulate it for the cultural sanction of their displacement. The acceptance of their migration as a natural outcome of their being born a female has never called for an enquiry into their displacement. It is thus obvious that the research and studies conducted on migration in India do not capture gender-sensitive realities of migration. It is assumed that migration of women is natural and does not lead to further probe into causes and effects, rights and entitlements of women migrants.

Across regional boundaries of India, vidai songs like chidiyan da chamba, or, babul mora naihar chhoota jaaye, sung at the time of wedding mark the departure from a lifestyle she was accustomed to at her parental home. These songs express the pain of an unwanted uprooting and separation, a woman is doomed to take in her stride. It also reflects the limitation of choices women are born with. Overnight their identities change, in some communities they are rechristened afresh, as though taking a new birth, doing away with identity associations of the past. The domestic help, the woman who migrates yet again with her man to work in the middle class urban homes, often changes her name and attire to adapt to the city manners, to earn more acceptability in the urban milieu. Many Ramkalis, Imarti Devis and Rampyaris rechristen themselves as Vimla and Sunita to fit into the urban domestic space. And soon learn to switch their vocabulary.

Gender-specific migration experiences, of the educated and the labour force are not addressed in India due to these cultural connotations, in spite of the fact that women constitute an overwhelming majority of migrants. For most studies conducted on migration, it is assumed that men migrate in search of work. According to the census of 2001, 70.7 per cent women were migrants, with different motivations, patterns and options and faced more obstacles for internal migration than men. Men work on sites and women work in homes — and that calls for complex cultural negotiations.

Following their men

A study conducted by the UNICEF, under the Internal Migration in India Initiative concluded that marriage was the most prominent reason given by women responders; by 91.3 per cent women in rural India and 60.8 per cent women in the urban areas, according to National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data of 2007-08. However, several researchers are working to uncover the more complex reality lying behind statistics and consider that by reducing all women to mere numbers, they fail to grasp the complexity of both the scale and motives of women who migrate for other reasons, or, those who enter the labour force after migrating as a member of a migrating household, which often means accompanying their husbands.

The trouble with most research formats — since respondents are asked to cite only one reason for migrating — most women cite marriage as the sole reason for migration. Many of them are a part of the labour force, a fact that is not revealed by the data collected.

Women’s migration for employment remains under-reported due to cultural factors, which emphasise social rather than economic roles for women to migrate and contribute towards making women invisible economic actors of society. It reinforces the old belief that women migrate for matrimony alone.

Faces without a name

Those who migrate in the lower-end informal sector occupations, which constitute the majority of migrant population of women, remain invisible and discriminated against in the work force. Since data does not reflect their existence, there are hardly any schemes for their welfare. Female migrants remain less represented in regular jobs and thus more likely to be self-employed, or employed in the informal sector than the non-migrant women. The NSSO data 2007-08 indicates that nearly 60 per cent of female migrants in rural areas were self-employed and 37 per cent were casual workers, whereas in urban areas, 43.7 per cent of women migrants were self-employed (which is again a misnomer) and 37 per cent were engaged in regular jobs. The fact is, a majority of them are engaged as domestic workers, which perhaps does not fit in the classification of either a regular worker or as casual worker. They are paid less than male migrants and have no privilege of maternity leave, other maternity entitlements or breast-feeding breaks at worksites. Lack of sanitation too has serious health consequences but women and girls suffer in silence because of the stigma around women’s personal hygiene issues at work sites.

Sexual harassment

As such, in India occurrences of gender-based violence are widespread. According to National Family Health Survey (NHFS-III), one-third of women between the age of 15 and 49 had experienced physical violence, and one in 10 had been a victim of sexual violence. Migrant women and girls, in particular, remain vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse, especially at the hands of agents and contractors. Poverty may cause women migrants to get pushed into sex work at the destination, either by coercion or to supplement their earnings. A recently released film City Lights highlighted this issue in a layered manner. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 was passed to strengthen penalties for crimes against women, and in particular, trafficking of persons for exploitation in prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation. But, most migrant women, who are at the lowest rung of the social hierarchy, do not have access to information about their rights, nor do they have resources to engage legal help. They fail to come out of the trap of poverty, ignorance and exploitation.

Domestic help needs help

Migrant women constitute a highly vulnerable and socially sensitive group, particularly domestic workers who are in constant interaction with the other strata of society due to their large numbers. They need promotion of safe migration, along with others migrant workers. Most women who migrate to urban areas in search of work, either with family members or in groups are poor and are mostly illiterate. It’s a vicious circle; illiteracy, poverty and migration are interconnected. The lack of education and skills leave them vulnerable to exploitation at the hands of illegal employment agencies and touts. Estimates indicate that the number of domestic workers in India vary from 4.75 million to 6.4 million (Census 2001).

The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector has estimated that out of four million domestic workers, 92 per cent are women, girls and children, and 20 per cent of them are under 14 years. This challenges the rights of children guaranteed under many legislations. Other sources suggest that these figures are underestimated and the number of domestic workers in the country could be much higher. The sector is said to have grown by 222 per cent since 1999-2000, and is the largest sector of female employment in urban India, involving approximately 3 million women. Paradoxically, as one section of women is getting economically empowered, it requires other section of women to support it. But, the latter do not have their rights charted out in the absence of their existence on paper.

To regulate the migration process and make it safer for women, registration of domestic workers, guaranteeing legal protection against trafficking and exploitation by touts and fixed minimum wages need to be introduced. It is a huge task, but nothing can be impossible. Few efforts in this direction have been made in different parts of the country, but what is needed is a concerted effort.

The National Commission of Women drafted a bill titled “Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Act 2012”, which is yet to be passed in Parliament. The first requirement, before the bill is passed, is some kind of process by which the domestic workers get a registration card and number to ensure their basic rights.

Identity crisis

India is a signatory to the convention on the elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the General Recommendation no 26 of CEDAW deals with woman migrant workers, which remains largely unimplemented in India.

In India, internal migration accounts for a large population of 309 million as per Census of India 2001, and by more recent estimates the number is estimated to be 360 million (NSSO 2007-2008), nearly 30 per cent of the total population.

Internal migrants, of which 70.7 per cent are women, are excluded from the economic, cultural, social and political life of society and are often treated as second-class citizens.

In the absence of proof of identity and residence, internal migrants cannot claim social protection entitlements and often remain excluded from government- sponsored welfare schemes and programmes.