The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Protecting career women
Bill to prevent sexual harassment at offices

The Union Cabinet’s approval of the Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010, was long overdue in the context of increasing complaints of the victims. The Bill, which is expected to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament, meets the long standing demand of women for a legislation that would not only protect them from harassment at their respective workplaces but also bring the guilty to justice. If Parliament passes the Bill, women can complain against the court-mandated definition of sexual harassment, which includes any physical contact, advances, demand or request for sexual favour, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography and any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal contact of sexual nature. Significantly, the proposed legislation recognises the promise or threat to a women’s job prospects or creation of hostile work environment as “sexual harassment” and expressly seeks to prohibit such acts.

The Bill is broad based in its nature and scope as it includes women working in all enterprises — public, private, organised and unorganised. It will apply even to establishments with less than 10 employees, but their complaints will be directed to a local complaints committee at the district level. Moreover, any woman who enters the workplace as a client, customer, apprentice, daily wage earner or in an ad hoc capacity, students and research scholars in colleges and universities, patients in hospitals will all have the right to complain against sexual harassment. A complainant can seek transfer, go on leave or seek the transfer of her harasser while the inquiry is on. She will not be named or her name publicised. The onus of enforcement of the legislation will be on the Centre and the state governments as the case may be.

Surprisingly, domestic help have been left out of the ambit of the Bill. This is unfortunate because they are the most exploited lot by their masters. Remember the Shiny Ahuja case in Mumbai last year? The argument that they were left out of the Bill in view of “administrative difficulties” in proving sexual harassment due to lack of witnesses and the effectiveness of the local committees in the home of the accused is unconvincing. When the Bill is tabled in Parliament, members cutting across party lines should debate the various provisions thoroughly and demand bringing domestic help into the ambit of the legislation.

Human development
Progress slow; made worse by inequalities

ECONOMIC progress of a country loses much of its meaning if its human development in terms of health and education is not commensurate with it. Unfortunately, that has been happening with India in an alarming manner. According to UNDP’s 2010 Human Development Report released globally last week, although India counted among the top 10 movers on GDP growth, it ranked a low 119 among 169 countries on the human development index. This was an improvement of just one rank between 2005 and 2010, whereas China moved up as many as eight notches during the same period, to be at the 89th position. The HDI is a composite index measuring progress towards a healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. India fared badly because of gross inequalities, gender gaps and multidimensional poverty.

What has been all the more galling is the fact that some of its much poorer neighbouring nations performed better than it. For instance, Nepal was the only South Asian country which despite low income stood as the third best performer in the top 10 movers while India was at the 10th spot. Bangladesh and Pakistan beat India on all major markers of human development like life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling and female labour force participation etc.

In gender equality too, India fared worse than Pakistan. The 2010 report for the first time measured gender inequality index (GII) and India ranked 122 out of 138 countries whereas Pakistan was better placed at 112. This may come as a surprise at the first reading but the conclusions are backed by stark statistics. India has an abysmal record on maternal mortality, reproductive health, level of empowerment based on educational attainment and parliamentary representation. No wonder Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed candidly admitted that she could not sleep the whole night on reading the report.

Thought for the Day

One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about. — Oscar Wilde

ARTICLE

The Taliban’s social wars
All about imposing its version of Islam
by D. Suba Chandran

The Taliban has been involved in a bloody insurgency in Afghanistan and its franchisees a calibrated war within Pakistan. The primary focus of this war has been on the engagements between the Taliban insurgents and the militaries. What has gone unnoticed or under-noticed are the other wars that the Taliban and its franchisees are fighting on the social front. At least, three specific social wars of the Taliban need to be understood and countered; else the social scars these will leave at the end of this war on terrorism will take a long time to heal. Worse, the wounds may never heal.

The first is the Taliban war against local culture and traditions, which is limited primarily to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. There is adequate data to prove that for the last few years the Taliban has been carrying on a vendetta drive against the Pashtun jirgas in the FATA region. Jirga in Pashtun society, culture, tradition and history has been a social institution from the beginning. Comprising the elders, the jirgas have been republican in nature and the primary institution of conflict resolution - either between the families or tribes. From marital disputes to inter-tribal and intra-tribal problems, jirgas have remained an effective institution to settle differences.

Today, the Taliban see these jirgas as a primary competitor to impose their will over the tribal society. Instead of settling the differences by a jirga, based on pashtunwali, the tribal code of the Pashtuns, the Taliban wants to impose its religious code based on its own version of shariah. This could be seen from the forms of punishment carried out by the Taliban in recent years — from flogging women to public hanging and stoning — not common to the Pashtun way of life. The Taliban is also against the Pashtun poetry; the attack on the tomb of Rehman Baba, one of the most revered Pashtun poets (along with Khushal Khan Khattak), is a part of the Taliban’s vendetta against Pashtun culture, tradition and customs.

The second war against society led by the Taliban targets Sufism. Despite the publicity received by groups such as the Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban or the TTP in short, the Sipah-e-Sahaba, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other sectarian groups, the radical groups in Pakistan, even today form the fringe. The majority in Pakistan, especially in the rural areas, adhere to sufism and believe in Sufi saints and their teachings. It is no coincidence that the Taliban and its proxies are targeting the sufi saints in Pakistan; like in FATA, the Taliban is attempting to attack their competitor in mainland Pakistan.

The attack on shrines of Abdullah Ghazi (in Karachi) in October and Syed Ali Hajwairi, better known as Data Ganj Bakhsh (in Lahore), in July should be seen as a part of the Taliban’s internal jihad within Islam to impose their version and remove any other form of Islam. Abdullah Ghazi is considered as the patron-saint of Karachi; his shrine, perched on a hillock facing the Arabian Sea, is believed to have protected Karachi from cyclones. The Data Ganj Bakhsh shrine in Lahore is considered sacred not only by Muslims but also non-Muslims, and the shrine has been a landmark for centuries.

It is believed that Moinuddin Chishti, another major sufi saint, well known for the Chishti order with its headquarters in Ajmer, visited Lahore to pay his respect to Data Ganj Baksh. Both Abdullah Ghazi and Data Ganj Baksh came from Persia and settled in Karachi and Lahore during the eighth and tenth centuries respectively.

The Taliban’s third war is sectarian, and is carried out by the TTP and its Punjabi partners. While the TTP is carrying out a sectarian vendetta in FATA and Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa (earlier the NWFP), its partners — primarily the Sipah-e-Sahaba, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, referred to as the Punjabi Taliban — are on a sectarian spree during the last two years.

In FATA, especially in Orakzai and Kurram agencies, the Taliban has been carrying out a sectarian onslaught against the Shia community and non-Muslims, especially the miniscule Sikh population. Kurram, with its political headquarters in Parachinar, is the only Shia-majority Pashtun tribal agency in FATA. For the last few years, the Taliban has been attacking the Shias and choking the supply lines leading to Parachinar.

Outside FATA and Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, the Punjabi Taliban has been carrying out a similar strategy vis-à-vis the Shias and the Ahmadis. In Lahore, in May this year, there was a multiple attack involving suicide bombers and other terrorists at an Ahmadi place of worship, killing more than 100 people. In 2009, in Dera Ghazi Khan district in Punjab, there was another sectarian attack at a Shia mosque killing more than 30 people. According to an estimate, there were more than 15 such sectarian attacks in 2009 alone, resulting in the death of more than 250 people.

The fourth war has been against mainstream secular education. Though this war is limited primarily to FATA and some of the districts in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province — for example, in Swat, Hangu, Bannu and DI Khan — the Taliban has an advantage in this sector. They don’t have to do anything spectacular in terms of attacking educational institutions for two specific reasons. First, thanks to the prevailing pathetic situation — poor attention provided by the state — mainstream education is already in doldrums. Second, owing to various other reasons, the madarsa system is doing reasonably well vis-à-vis the state-run educational institutions.

Clearly, there are four strands of violence in which the Taliban and its franchisee organisations are engaged in Pakistan. Why are they doing this? What is their objective? While the sectarian organisations of Punjab have been engaged in anti-Shia and anti-Ahmadi violence for the last two decades, the recent trend led by the Taliban seems to be striking at the roots of other sources of beliefs and social institutions which demand popular respect and legitimacy. The Taliban wants to impose its version of Islam as the only legitimate source of faith and justice.

Without doubt, the Taliban and its franchisee organisations are not going to limit their activities to fighting the security forces in FATA. They are preparing for a long haul, and in mainland Pakistan. The Ahmadis and the Shias are the easy targets; Sufi Islam may be tougher, but the Taliban seems to have made a beginning. If they can terrorise the Pashtun society aiming to delegitimise the jirgas and other social institutions based on pashtunwali, they may like to repeat the same
elsewhere as well.

What are likely to be their next targets? The judiciary, perhaps? Given their success in imposing the sharia as the source of justice instead of the jirgas based on the pashtunwali in the tribal regions, the Taliban may like to expand its turf into mainland Pakistan. It was no coincidence that the local franchisee in Swat wanted to impose Nizam-e-Adl instead of the mainstream judicial institutions. Given the nature of judicial systems at the lower level and the time and expenses involved, many in rural Pakistan may find it beneficial to go in for the Taliban justice as the local population in Swat did.

The writer is Deputy Director, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi.

MIDDLE

The sunflowers
by V.K. Kapoor

Sunflowers always look to the rising sun. Everybody likes power and authority. Some politicians, bureaucrats and cops remain relevant in all power structures. They are like sunflowers. Power has only two settings, all or Nothing. In the power game there are no opponents, only enemies. No debates, only plots.

The sunflowers are not amenable to being exiled from power.I remember a senior politician saying that there is a cure for the snakebite, but there is no cure for a “Kursi Bite”.

It is necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish. The sunflowers plant the right seed at the right moment and at the right spot. Sleaze is an accepted way of life. Some bureaucrats and cops manage to get good jobs in any power equation. They operate across the board. They are sleek, deceitful and cunning with a satin-smooth facade.

In democracy power is influence. Influence is a hard thing to quantify, but you know it when you see it. Power solely stems from the position. The chair of authority is like a philosopher’s stone. It changes this base lead to pure gold. No one sees anything but one’s own advantage.

To be relevant in power corridors, one needs a certain oiliness, and infinite capacity for simulation and a facade of altruism. Politics requires different sets of skills. The art of compromise, the popular touch, Machiavellian guile, a rare gift of persuasion.

The corridors of power echo with the sound of flattery. Flattery at its core is language that advances selfinterest by concealing it at the same time. Flattery is often better than gifts and a smooth tongue makes faster friends than all the virtues.

Bureaucrats and cops take the route of money, manipulation and minister. In democracy, power lies in influencing the elected machine. Truth is economised

Immoral politicians and amoral bureaucrats and cops have a tactical courtship. Bureaucrats and cops easily tilt to the prevailing winds. It is a world that strives on superficiality. Beneath the perfect smile he cracks, the flash hides the flaws.

Politicians enjoy the cooing of sycophants. Some of hangerons not only lick, but slurp also, and feel happy when their slurp is heard. I remember a senior bureaucrat telling an important politician:“Huzur , hum to aap ki gali ke kutte hain, jahan kahenge bhonk denge” We are your street dogs and will bark wherever you say.

The politician said grandly: “Aap ek industrial plot to le hi lijiye madam ke naam” (You take an industrial plot in your wife’s name). The bureaucrat replied obsequiously. ‘Voh to aapki Bhagat hai (she is your devotee). This bureaucrat was adjusted in an old age home (a job after retirement).

People who pursue power and money rather than ideals have longer and prosperous careers, plum postings, junkets abroad, are better off financially and are more socially sought after than those who lead puritanical and spartan lives. Straight-forward people slit their own throats and get automatically marginalised.

OPED DEVELOPMENT

Globalisation has come a long way. It has merits and demerits. This raises the question whether it is a boon or bane. Though the material life of people has improved, poverty still looms large. As globalisation is an inexorable force, we must live in harmony to grow
Globalisation: The juggernaut will roll on
Simran Joidka

Globalisation is now a phenomenon. Like a juggernaut moving inexorably, it has taken over the world. The means of communications have spelt the 'death of distance'. Is this a bane or boon? The boundaries between nations are no longer invulnerable. Nations as marooned islands and cocoons of self-reliance no longer exist. Time and space have truly shrunk.

The world is getting more and more integrated. The material life of man has improved. The curse of poverty still looms large but it stands attenuated. The effects of globalisation are not uniformly beneficial and encouraging. It is certainly not an all-inclusive phenomenon.

The schism between the rich and the poor has widened. The concept of globalisation stands dented. It has riven communities, nations and regions. The state's withdrawal in the wake of privatisation has given a fillip to human insecurity and conflict. Is this not a clear violation of human rights?

An unhappy fall out of this phenomenon is the spectre of terrorism that stalks many continents. Terrorism has wrought destruction in the US, UK, India, Indonesia and at many more places. The terrorists move with impunity across the continents. They learn the know-how in Europe and the US, hone their skills in Pakistan and wreak decimation the world over.

Globalisation has also raised the spectre of unemployment. Even Americans are threatened by outsourcing of work to India by their firms. Teachers in Ludhiana are imparting online instructions to school kids in the UK.

True, we have a better banking system, a mature capital market today. Indian computer wizards dominate the Silicon Valley. The skills of Indian technocrats and technicians are much sought after all over the world. Indian entrepreneurs are buying big business enterprises in Europe and America. India has allowed foreign equities to enter the Indian market scene. All this is mutually profitable.

Yet, the powerful Occident is pushing its way in the daily life, religion and culture of the Orient. This gives way to tensions. The 9/11 and the killing of Australian tourists in Bali are inerasable upshots of the clash of cultures. The West is more permissive and tolerant of prostitution, pre-marital sex. This has caused an alarming increase in the incidence of AIDS. Christmas and Valentine day are celebrated with more gusto than the local festivals.

Those who do not know English have been pushed to the wall. American food outlets like McDonalds and cold drinks like Coke rule the roost in the third world countries. Perhaps we should not be too squeamish and pusillanimous about inroads. But these are those who think these constitute incursions in their way of life. They view the development with suspicion and a violation of the human rights in the East.

Employment insecurity in the wake of privatisation and the consequent withdrawal of state are also viewed as breaches of human rights. The discos, the malls, the Hollywood movies have captured the imagination of the Third World. The Tibetan Lamas are not immune to the charms of Britney Spears. Kids all over the world are enthralled by Harry Porter. No doubt, it is impossible to say that there is no erosion of the native values and mores.

In the US, the zealots in the banks let loose their purse strings. The excessive credit, extreme capitalisation and carte blanche to the market with no state control led to the collapse of economy. We witnessed pandemic recession. India with its constraints somehow kept floating. But countries like Greece simply collapsed and had to be bailed out by international agencies. Thus, globalisation makes countries vulnerable to external shocks. The epicentre of economic folly may be in the US but the tremors are felt all over.

Do multinational companies protect human rights? The MNCs made their way into India in the LPG era. Their effect on human rights are not uniform. Surely, we have better roads, clean water, better health and educational facilities. The labour laws too have been upgraded. Reebok had made it compulsory not to employ children in their manufacturing units. The Right to Education for children has come into force. Yet the rules are circumvented and many MNCs and Indian manufacturing units continue to employ children because of cheap labour - a clear case of human greed overriding humane considerations.

Consumerism is another ill-effect of globalisation. Lured by aggressive advertising and the desire to keep up with Joneses, we consume more than what is good for us. This excessive and obsessive consumption erodes the vital human resources. Coal, gas and water are depleting at a fast pace. There are too many factories and vehicles. The inevitable carbon emissions pollute air and water. Glaciers are melting.

The spectre of ecological imbalance is looming large due to excessive consumerism. No country is willing to reduce carbon emissions and life is becoming more and more unsustainable. However, globalisation has brought about an improvement in the status of women and we are more conscious of the iniquity of gender discrimination. Trade, commerce and agriculture have indeed picked up.

Globalisation is an inexorable force. This juggernaut will roll on. We can only work for mitigating its ill-effects. We may not push it too aggressively. We must live in harmony to grow. Mutual interaction leads to greater growth and awareness. We cannot live like ostriches buried in sands. Yet, the sudden commingling of cultures, religions and varied values often leads to friction. Let us assimilate the best of East and West.

The blitzkrieg of market forces through globalisation cannot be allowed to bludgeon their way to chaos and disorder. Let us yoke and tame the beast of globalisation for the common weal of nations.

The writer is Asst. Professor of Economics, DAV College, Sector 10, Chandigarh.

It has come to stay

n Globalisation is a process of social, political, economic and cultural integration of nations. The means of communications have spelt the ‘death of distance’.

n When India experienced unprecedented economic crisis in 1991, we were neck deep in fiscal deficit, double-digit inflation, balance of payments crisis and stagnant industrial production. The World Bank and the IMF bailed us out with substantial loans with attendant Structural Adjustment Programme. This ushered in liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation.

n The effects of globalisation are not uniformly beneficial and encouraging. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened. It has also raised the spectre of unemployment.

n In the US, the banks let loose their purse strings. Excessive credit, extreme capitalisation and carte blanche to the market with no state control led to the collapse of the economy. Despite pandemic recession, India somehow kept floating. But countries like Greece collapsed and international agencies had to bail them out.

n Another ill-effect of globalisation is consumerism. We consume more than what is good for us. And this excessive consumption erodes the vital human resources.

n Globalisation has brought about an improvement in the women’s status and we are more conscious of the iniquity of gender discrimination. Indeed, trade, commerce and agriculture have picked up.

Empowerment of individuals holds the key to growth
Vineet Kapoor

THE interface of human rights and development has been increasingly gaining currency and legitimacy in the international and national policy domains since past quarter of a century now. This relationship between development and human rights has begun to discover congruence and close compatibility as exemplified in the Human Development Report 2000. It states, "human rights and human development are close enough in motivation and concern to be congruous and compatible, and they are different enough in strategy and design to supplement each other fruitfully".

Starting from a formal existence within the human rights community through the World Conference on Human Rights, held at Tehran in 1968, there has been significant progress in this direction, namely through the proclamation of the existence of human right to development by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1977, to the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986.

The political consensus reached on this issue through the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993 further reinforced the interrelationships existing within the development and human rights. This relationship was further strengthened by the UN Secretary General's call for all UN agencies and programmes in 1997 to mainstream human rights throughout the UN system.

The constructive engagement of the human rights community, with the development actors in the 1990s, led to the promotion of the rights-based approach to development. More recently, in the light of the Millennium Development Goals, this has been further endorsed through the "Common Understanding on the Human Rights Based Approach to Development Cooperation," at a meeting of ten UN agencies and a wide range of other development agencies.

The Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights lays emphasis on the rights based approach to development by stressing on the rights based empowerment of the poor in its 'Conceptual Framework on Human Rights and Poverty Reduction'. Empowerment of the individuals and communities according to a human rights based approach is one of the salient determinants of development. This understanding of development places pre-eminence on human rights, existing within a participatory democratic framework where the voices of the poor are heard and respected.

In recent years, local governments have become important instruments to promote political, economic and social reforms. Decentralisation is occurring in 80 per cent of developing and transition countries and local governments are charged with delivering a wide range of essential services. New responsibilities in health and education have been added to older ones for street lighting, water and sanitation. The crucial interactions amongst the human rights, development and local democracy are increasingly being realised. These interactions and linkages are the central context of a rights based approach to development.

The projection given to this aspect of human rights through the UN and its allied agencies has tried to mainstream these concerns within the national public policy domain and in the policy making and practice of international donor agencies and civil society organisations worldwide. This has directly impacted on the public policy and developmental planning in the developing world.

The Indian scene has been very proactive in this perspective. The development planning and the nomenclature of most development schemes now bear names which directly refer to the beneficiaries as rights bearing individuals and their transactions with the state are referred as a matter of rights and entitlements rather than mere endowments.

Similarly, the biggest edge which Indian developmental and public policy scenario has as compared to other developing countries is in the context of its grassroots democracy mainstreamed through the panchayati raj system.

The panchayati raj system is one of the world's largest democratic bases. The fact that village-level developmental decisions have to be initiated and approved through the elected panchayats makes the human rights based approach to development finely put into perspective of developmental scenario in India.

The implementation of development scheme with our absentee doctors, nurses and health workers, with ever-elusive teachers in the villages and with doubtful credibility of our Below Poverty Line cards and other problems of the similar nature, remain a big drag. The poor picture which Indian developmental indices paint highlights the fact that we are good in theory but lag behind in commitment and implementation. It is here that we need to work with zest.

The writer, an IPS officer, is Asst. Inspector-General of Police (Training), Govt. of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal