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Inexplicable tardiness Tobacco kills |
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FDI promises and challenges
Money and mare made the maid go
When society is threatened by love
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Inexplicable tardiness IT has been four months since Punjabis in Iraq have been held hostage, reportedly by ISIS. The young men left their homes in search of employment, and they have been caught in a war zone ever since ISIS forces took over northern Iraq. The young men have been in intermittent contact with their families, but lately this has also decreased. The Modi government had initial success in getting some Indians back from Iraq. The most notable case was the return of nurses from Kerala, for which the state and the Central governments worked together. Political rivalry was set aside, and in fact, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was profuse in thanking External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for the successful return of the nurses. India also evacuated many Indian citizens from Iraq, but this group of Punjabis seems to have fallen through the cracks. As days pass, the intensity of efforts to get them back seems to have decreased. The lack of information bedevils the families, as does the cutting of economic support from the bread earners. Family members say that they are yet to receive the Rs 20,000 per month stipend that the state government had announced. There is no news about fresh initiatives to bring back our youth home. The prompt action of Indian diplomats and the government that resulted in the return of the first batch of Indians from Iraq shows what can be accomplished. It has also raised hopes that similar results would follow for those who were still stuck there. The Government of India needs to take effective steps to ensure the early return of the hostages. The state government enjoys a good rapport with the Centre, and thus more is expected from it. The Chief Minister should, as his counterpart in Kerala did a few months ago, personally monitor the effort to secure the release of the abducted youth and also the process of providing the families with information and economic aid to tide over this difficult time.
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Tobacco kills AS tobacco continues to be the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and about one million lives are lost in India alone due to tobacco-related diseases, any move that can drive home the message that tobacco kills is welcome. The news that it will now ring louder and more explicitly is doubly appreciable. Thus there can be no two issues with the notification that has made it mandatory for tobacco companies to devote 85 per cent space on tobacco packets to warnings. Both pictorial and text messages will caution consumers against the perils of tobacco that are far too many. With this India will not only be in the company of nations proactive on anti-tobacco campaigns but will also take the lead along with Thailand as far as pictorial health warnings go. For quite some time now India has not only been making the right kind of noises but also taking well-meaning initiatives to discourage tobacco use. From declaring cities smoking free to introducing anti-smoking scrolls during smoking scenes in films to graphic warnings on tobacco products much has been done. Yet despite anti-smoking laws, a staggering number of people are hooked to the fatal addiction. While the number of women smokers in India has increased by 18 per cent, even more shocking is the fact that each day thousands of children start using tobacco. Not surprising the economic burden of tobacco-related diseases is more than what the country spends on health. The Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has a point when he says, "We should do whatever we can to make people aware." But even he realises that awareness drives alone will not make users kick off the killer habit. Raising taxes on tobacco products is being rightly seen as an important tool to discourage tobacco consumption. Indeed, if anti-tobacco campaign has to have any meaning and impact, the drives have to be both holistic and multi-pronged. Apart from ensuring proper implementation of anti-smoking laws and increasing access to quitting methods, it's time to look into ways of curbing the production of tobacco.
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Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. — Mark Twain
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A South Indian "plea" for an Indian Navy SPEAKING as chairman of the Reception Committee at the Kistna District Conference on Saturday last the Hon'ble Mr. M. Ramachandra Rao said that the time had come when India should set about having a fleet of its own for home defence and that the question of finance, considering the importance of interests involved, is not outside the range of practical politics. It is astonishing how the venturesome exploits of a solitary enemy cruiser in Indian waters has frightened some "politicians" to throw overboard elementary principles of State finance in matters affecting the defence of India and trot out the stale suggestion which has from time to time appeared in the Jingo press.
Counter-attractions to liquor IN the course of his reviews of the annual report on Excise administration in the Punjab during last year, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor makes an interesting reference to the Hon'ble Mr. Maynard's recent circular on the subject of the provision of counter-attractions to liquor. His Honour says that, as was the case in the United Kingdom a generation ago, an increase in the prosperity of the people appears to lead to increased expenditure on drink. This tendency has, says His Honour, in recent years been steadily combated in the United Kingdom by the spread of more enlightened ideas and by the facilities given for more innocent forms of recreation. This is undoubtedly an important aspect of the problem of the rise in the consumption of liquor, but there are other, and no less important factors also to be taken note of, viz., the increases of consumption due to moral depravation and growing craving, which stand apart from the growth of decline of prosperity.
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FDI promises and challenges
Billions
of dollars in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have been assured to India thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's successful foreign tours and the visit of President Xi Jinping of China. Hopefully countries with more wealth and technology than us will help us create jobs. But in his efforts at gathering FDI, Modi is not any different from the previous government that also staged many road shows with union and state ministers, politicians and even the Prime Minister going abroad to woo foreign investors. Everyone knows the advantages of FDI but there are disadvantages also. One has to remember that FDI in the past has been capital intensive and not labour intensive. Foreign companies tend to use more technology to retain their competitiveness and flexibility than go for hiring more workers. Most are afraid of encountering labour problems. Millions of jobs, however, are needed in India and therefore, there has to be a policy of encouraging labour-intensive FDI. In mining industry, there is a danger of FDI harming the environment. Hence India has to scrutinise carefully what kind of FDI it wants. Choosing the right kind of investors is critical because India already has many consumer goods industries. What it needs is investment in infrastructure and capital goods industries. Yet most investors are reluctant to enter the infrastructure sector because returns are low and slow. If China can invest heavily in infrastructure in our neighboring countries, we should insist on upgrading our infrastructure. Efforts have already begun to build industrial corridors like the Delhi-Mumbai corridor with Japanese collaboration. But the problem in India is of delay and procrastination. If things could be done faster, India's infrastructure would be efficient and competitive sooner. Since all countries are competing with each other for FDI, investors have the option of picking and choosing the country where they want to set up industries. More open economies with less government interference and good infrastructure are attractive to foreign investors. But more than anything they prefer a disciplined and skilled labour force. That is a weak area in India (as compared to China) and has to be addressed through rapid skill development. One can hope that the Modi government, which is corporate friendly, will make it easier for business to operate by lessening bureaucratic stranglehold and red tape. India ranks low (134th position) in World Bank's 'Ease of Doing Business'. It has to be seen whether these age old bureaucratic methods can be reformed easily. For example both exporters and importers need to undertake a huge amount of paper- work and get different types of clearances that spawn corruption and delays, all of which can cause patience to run out, making foreign investors pack up and go. Actually, domestic investment is facing the same obstacles as FDI and both would benefit if the efficiency of the system improves. One can take note that China is now encouraging domestic investment and domestic consumption and is shifting away from export-led growth. India has a lot of black money that could be used for domestic investment instead of being spent on gold and real estate and buying fancy cars. Widening the tax net could easily garner more financial resources for the government. Indians have billions of dollars stashed abroad in tax havens. What happened to the quest for bringing back black money from abroad? We would not require much help from foreign investors if money from Swiss banks could be returned to India. While on the one hand we are so eager to have FDI, on the other we are letting our industrialists freely set up factories abroad. The outgoing FDI amounted to $29.34 billion in 2013-14. Why is Indian investment going abroad? Perhaps because Indian industrialists want highly skilled labour force and also the brand names of foreign companies through joint ventures, mergers and acquisition. What then is the difference between the economic policies of the Modi government and those of the UPA? There seems to be little difference and the NDA government seems to be following the same path as the previous government in trying to please the western investors with promises of reforms. How rapidly the reforms are enacted could be the point of difference. So far there has not been any significant reform but it is too early to say. In Modi era it is surprising that so much emphasis is being laid on foreign investment and not on domestic investment. It is slack domestic investment that is preventing manufacturing growth from picking up. This is linked to domestic interest rate policy which is bound by the rate of retail inflation that is refusing to come down to the desired level of 6 per cent. Thus a lot of fine tuning will be needed to make the economy move forward and create jobs. Also migrants who are coming to the cities daily, live in the most horrible conditions. They are without skills and assets. If this homeless population is not settled by giving them work, then Modi's promises of "achche din" will sound hollow. Domestic investment will be able to give jobs to the unskilled as opposed to FDI which will benefit those with degrees, experience and connections. Corporate salaries will see huge hikes and the problem of rising inequality of incomes will become worse. Thus public investment in housing for the poor, healthcare and basic education will have to be stepped up as that will give the ‘aam admi’ the ability to earn an income and live decently. Women’s participation in labour force has to be increased also and they should be employable in foreign enterprises but the conditions of work need to be good. There also has to be real technology transfer that spills over to the local economy. Only then will Modi's dream of FDI as 'First Development India' can be fulfilled.
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Money and mare made the maid go Karmu’s long association with my friend’s family had made him not only informal with the young master but also indispensable. Besides looking after his horses and dogs, he guarded his estate with an eagle eye and ruled over a large retinue of servants. His ‘wife’Lajo looked after the comforts of the young master and, at times, his friends besides other household chores. Whenever she came to clean my room, I politely addressed her as Mrs Karamdin. The members of the aristocratic family often made fun of my addressing her in such a formal manner. During hot summer afternoons when everyone was either away to work or enjoying the afternoon siesta in air-conditioned comfort, Karmu would often sneak into my room and sleep on the cool marble floor disturbing me with his heavy snoring. On getting up he would try to engage me into some conversation with a view to prolonging his stay a little longer. From whatever I could ferret out of his cryptic comments, I gathered that he knew a little too much about the life and ways of his young master and everyone else in the family. He appeared to be a talking-encyclopedia of their whole dynasty. This chance encounter with Karmu brought back the memories of my days in my friend’s house. Keen on connecting with the one who had suddenly revived the memories of the first year of my career, I got down from the bus. Walking across to him I enquired if he was the same Karmu. Recognising me, he respectfully acknowledged in his old cryptic way that he was the same man and yet not the same. He had perhaps been given the boot. “How are you?”, I asked. “Living by His grace”, he responded. “How is Lajwanti?”, I enquired. “I sold her away years ago. With that money I bought this mare and the cart”, he said without blinking an eyelid. Perceiving the sense of disgust and disapproval on my face, he went on to explain, “I had bought her at a hefty price. She had grown old and would have been utterly useless in a couple of years.” Before I could recover and pose any more questions, Karmu raised the whip, tugged at the reins and put the animal into a trot.
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When society is threatened by love
Love Jihad, which is actually a jihad against love, is a 'delicious' political fantasy, a lethal mobilisation strategy, a vicious crusade, and an emotive mythical campaign. It is an attempt by Hindutva forces for political and communal mobilisation in the name of women. They allege that 'love jihad' is an organised conspiracy and movement, whereby Muslim men are forcefully converting vulnerable Hindu women to Islam through trickery and marriage. Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh's sarkaryawah Suresh Bhayyaji Joshi stated in a press conference as late as October 20, 2014, that the 'Hindu samaj (society) has been facing the 'shame' of 'love jihad' since long, and the Uttar Pradesh government should take a 'serious view' of it, as it 'hurts the dignity of women'. The September 7, 2014, issues of RSS's mouthpieces, Panchjanya and Organiser, had their cover stories on 'love jihad'. They urged people to raise the slogan 'love ever, love jihad never!' We have witnessed an aggressive campaign around 'love jihad' in various villages, mofussils and towns of western UP in the months of August and September, particularly prior to the recent elections, by Hindutva organisations like the Dharma Jagran Manch, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal. The political landscaping of communalism has historically drawn on the figure of woman to carry on such orchestrated campaigns. Besides the politics of vote bank and elections, the issue has multiple layers, as it simultaneously attempts to invoke Hindu male prowess, promote images of a 'licentious' Muslim male, fabricate fears of declining Hindu numbers, construct a homogenous Hindu identity and nation over a sharply caste-class divided society, reinstate familial patriarchies, and above all expose grave anxieties over women's independent and individual expressions of love, desire and intimacy. Hindu masculinity Constructions of 'love jihad' are based on carrying an orchestrated propaganda campaign against alleged deceitful romance and conversions of Hindu women by Muslims, whereby Hindu men have been asked to assert their prowess, protect their women and avenge such wrongs. Hindu publicists have also felt that while the Ramjanmabhoomi movement has lost its steam, this issue can be even more emotive, as it enters our most intimate, domestic spaces, and can potentially carry the 'fear' of Muslim into every Hindu home. It is believed that it can also provide a cohesive Hindu unity, camouflaging deeper social tensions around caste. Thus, giving a clarion call to Hindus of western UP, BJP MLA, Sangeet Singh Som recently announced a mahapanchayat to protest against 'love jihad' in his assembly constituency of Sardhana in Meerut district. The movement perceives rape and conversions of Hindu women as a characteristic Muslim activity. The Uttar Pradesh president of BJP, Laxmikant Bajpai pronounced, 'Have they got certificate to rape girls because they belong to a particular religion? He went on to enunciate that ninety per cent of all rapes were committed by Muslims! It is even professed that Muslim youth are receiving funds from abroad for purchasing designer clothes, vehicles, mobile phones and expensive gifts to woo Hindu women and lure them away. There is an endeavour to move the centre of sexual violence from men in general and Hindu men in particular towards the Muslim male. Hindu wombs, Muslim progeny One of the arguments given by Hindu groups has been that forced conversions of Hindu women in the name of love are linked with enhancing Muslim numbers, and this is part of an international conspiracy to increase Muslim population. Numbers game, and constructed fears around it, has been central to the modern politics of Hindutva. RSS thus describes love jihad as a movement to convert vulnerable Hindu girls to Islam, to decrease the population of Hindus and increase Muslim numbers in the country. In a weird arithmetical equation, the Hindutva forces have coined the slogan: hum do, humare do, woh paanch, unke pachees (We two, our two; they five, their twenty-five). However, various surveys have completely debunked such theories, and there has been as much increase in the percentage of Hindus as that of Muslims. What is particularly important here is that how through such arguments, even a dominant majority can represent itself as an 'endangered' minority. Hindutva forces further claim that while they have 'no objection' to voluntary conversion, they are explicitly opposed to 'forced' conversions. But then how do we describe force? Historically, when Dalits, or others who have been on the margins of Hindu society, be it widows, low caste women and prostitutes, have converted, it is often because they have felt 'lured' by the fact that it can signal some dignity, education, clothing, employment, and roti-beti (food-marriage) ties for them. Conversion can also be a declaration of an altered relationship with the world through the right to inhabit unmarked bodies. Good clothing, footwear and bodily comportment — standing erect while speaking, refusing to contort the body in a submissive fashion — have been critical to Dalit self-fashioning. Can this be called 'luring' or an implicit 'forcing'? It has also been argued that if one is marrying for love, why should conversion follow? Conversion, however, is a matter of personal choice, and is very much allowed by our constitution. Moreover, the Special Marriage Act, under which such marriages can take place, requires one month notice, which an eloping couple is afraid to give, faced as they already are with deep parental opposition. Patriarchies are so deeply entrenched in our society that Muslim families get equally worried when their daughters marry Hindu men. In fact, inter-religious marriages are opposed by most Hindu and Muslim families, which further expose the bogey of 'love jihad' as being some organised conspiracy. Campaigns like 'love jihad' thus privilege moral panic and public morality over constitutional morality. Hindu organisations also claim that while Hindu women have married Muslim men, the reverse has not really happened. However, there is a long list of celebrated Hindu husbands with Muslim wives, to name a few: Sunil Dutt-Nargis, Atul Agnihotri-Alvira Khan, Urdu author Krishan Chander-Salma Siddiqui and many others. However, when a Hindu man marries a Muslim woman, it is always portrayed as 'romance' and 'love' by Hindu organisations, while when the reverse happens, it is depicted as 'coercion'. Regulating women The Hindu woman has been regarded as an exclusive preserve of the Hindu man, and in the name of protecting her, which she has never asked for, all violence is justified. Even before the term 'love jihad' was coined, the Bajrang Dal ran a 'Bahu Betiyon ki Izzat Bachao' campaign. Ram Sena leader Pramod Muttalik launched a 'Beti Bachao Andolan' in Karnataka, and was also instrumental in coining the term 'love jihad'. More recently, an organisation called Meerut Bachao Manch has been floated in Meerut to fight the 'menace' of love jihad. Such campaigns always represent the woman as foolish, with no mind or heart of her own. Armed with peacock feathers and blessed water, godman Baba Rajakdas has been selling a love 'cure' in Saharanpur to save Hindu girls, who according to him, get easily carried away by Muslim boys as they do not understand that they are being exploited. The 'love jihad' campaign has attempted to therefore penetrate everyday lives of women. In various meetings, detailed instructions have been given to Hindu women, including 'not to wear green clothes', 'not to go to Muslim tailors and barbers', and 'not to go to any grave of Muslim saints'. Everyday public spaces like schools, colleges, theatres and ice-cream and juice parlours, mobile charge shops and internet cafes have been identified as sites where Hindu girls are 'wooed'. Pramod Muttalik has written a book Love Jihad: Red Alert for Hindu Girls, which devises 'preventive' measures and gives instructions on how to prevent Hindu women from 'becoming victims'. It has instructions like: 'Be cautious about her wearing a head-scarf since it becomes difficult to recognise a girl who wears a headscarf and sits behind a two-wheeler…. Since some cases of love jihad have taken place with help of mobile phones, check incoming calls. Remember that saved numbers may be under a false name…. To get help from Hindus in a difficult situation, apply kumkum on the forehead.' Muslim men have also been banned from garba celebrations, and clarion calls have been issued to patrol all spaces of possible interactions between women and men. The lies of love jihad In the 'love jihad' campaign, venomous generalisations and wild claims have been made that 30,000 to 300,000 thousand women have been converted till now. The concrete examples have repeatedly been falsified, exposing the fallacy and fantasy of 'love jihad'. Turning love marriage on its head, the ogre of love jihad became a public citation of Hindu communalists in BJP ruled Karnataka in August 2009 when 18 year old Silija Raj ran away with 24 year old Asgar Nazar. A division bench of the court ordered a CID probe in October 2009. After detailed investigations, the CID DGP D. V. Guruprasad told the high court: “There is no organised attempt by any group of individuals to entice girls/women belonging to Hindu or Christian religions to marry Muslim boys with the aim of converting them to Islam.” Not only did the Karnataka high court finally close the investigations into 'love jihad' in November 2013 after no evidence of any such conspiracy was found, the high court said Silija Raj was free to go anywhere she wished. She chose to go with her husband. In 2012, the Kerala police categorically declared that love jihad was a 'campaign with no substance', and instead brought legal proceedings against the website hindujagruti.org for spreading religious hatred and false propaganda. Anxieties of love Inter-caste and inter-religious love has increased much more in contemporary India, and has broken all boundaries. Constructed myths like 'love jihad' expose deep seated anxieties against female free will, against the subversive potential of love, and against threat to traditions. Inter-communal couples question the authority of family and religious communities in determining their life, and upset relentless communal polarisation. These localised and embodied practices of women, which require great social courage and also reveal how women have taken control over their lives, have deep social ramifications. The recalcitrance of love, inter-religious marriage, and desires to improve one's position can throw up emancipatory possibilities, and has the potential to become a metaphor for a new vocabulary of body, of interiority, of subjectivity.
The writer teaches at the Department of History, University of Delhi. She is the author of Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims and the Hindu
Public in Colonial India Fact versus fiction The notorious Meerut gang-rape and forced conversion case has taken a complete U-turn. Even the case of shooter Tara Sahdev seems a complex family story where her husband has claimed he was born of a Sikh father and a Muslim mother and himself a late convert. In a case reported from Muzaffarnagar the police gave a clean chit to a youth named Pervez on 7 September, 2014, who was accused of kidnapping and forcibly converting an 18 year- old- girl. The girl gave her statement in a local court stating that she had gone with Pervez of her own free will. So far there is no hard empirical evidence of love jihad. If love jihad is really an organised conspiracy, then is it not amazing that the CID, the courts, the police, governments where BJP has been in power, have found no basis for such a planned 'crime'? If there is any conspiracy here, it is a conspiracy of the Hindu Right to polarise communal passions and control women. Shadows of history
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