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“Auto-driver’s daughter tops national CA exam“, “Hawker’s son clears IIT-JEE“, “Bidi labourer’s daughter clears UPSC exam“. April-May is the exam result season in India, and one invariably finds news headlines about such fantastic individual accomplishments. Indeed, clearing such demanding exams is a major accomplishment, and to do so with all the odds stacked against oneself is nothing short of remarkable. However, the response of the India’s middle classes and elites to such news deserves some scrutiny. It is one thing to be inspired by such achievements, but quite another to hold these rare events as triumphs of ‘merit’, as opposed to something else (aka reservations).

First, even if the triumph of ‘merit’ claim had any statistical backing (it doesnt, as we will see in a bit), being asked to clear extremely competitive exams to simply achieve a decent middle-class existence is not exactly fair. The workers that entered the middle class on the back of the automotive and other manufacturing industries in the US, and the factory workers moving out of poverty in modern China did not have to clear any competitive exams. These hyper-competitive exams are really the gateway to the elite and upper middle class worlds, sometimes the poor can get in through sheer grit and brilliance, but it is mostly a gateway to which only the middle classes have access.

To see this, we need to see where the vast majority of the people who clear these exams come from. 56 % of the successful IIT candidates came from the CBSE board, whereas only 5% of the total student body is enrolled in that board. Indeed, the CBSE board schools have traditionally been reserved for employees of the Central Government, although now they are the board of choice for the general middle class. Based on anecdotal observations, if we consider the set of students enrolled having a parent employed in a Government service (which cannot be more than 10% of the population), the vast majority of the successful candidates of the IIT, CA and UPSC exams will have such a background. So yes, the one odd poor student clears the exam, but the 99 other clearers are from the middle classes with educated parents.

So why does the middle class celebrate the achievements of these marginalized students ? After all, for most of the year,  it shows nothing but disdain for their ‘vernacular’ and ‘regional’ culture, and seeks to sequester itself from them by building gated communities and barricading public spaces for its own use. The answer is perhaps related to the mythologies of hard work and perseverance that middle classes around the world construct around themselves. Be it America, Brazil or India, the not quite elite and definitely not poor sections of society seek to create a discourse that legitimizes their own position of relative privilege in the society. By pointing out the ‘merit’ in the achievements of these marginalized students, the middle class is pointing to its own ‘merit’ and pointing to the ‘non-merit’ness of the reserved candidates, and the remaining poor.

More broadly, this celebration of merit is also a subtle endorsement of the status quo, notwithstanding how clearly unfair it is to the marginalized. The middle class is telling the marginalized, “Look its possible to move up the ladder, you just need to work hard enough.” Perhaps, it is time for the marginalized to tell the privileged sections, “If only the contractors who employ us to build your houses, paid us the salaries that we are due, factory owners compensated us fairly for the limbs we loose making your appliances and toys, doctors and teachers provide us with the essential services that both you and we paid taxes for, there would be fewer poor to ‘celebrate’ the achievements of.”

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The capacity of the Indian state to carry out its functions has been discussed earlier on this blog. Lant Pritchett in his paper “Is India a flailing state ?” points out ,

My impression from three years of living in India was that it was striking of how much of the intellectual discussion around policy and priorities looked entirely conventional, with the usual left-right splits about what the government “should” do, argued out, particularly among in the English language media I was exposed to, as if the government of India could do roughly whatever it was proposed they should do.

Clearly India suffers from severely deficient parameters on health, law enforcement and education. The state’s failures to provide basic healthcare are reflected in the low life expectancy, the daily reports of rapes and crimes point to the ineffective rule of law, and survey after survey reminds us of the appalling learning levels among Indian school children. What is striking is the fact that at the very top of India’s administrative and political pyramid, there has been a great consensus on improving health and education. Project after project has been brainstormed, thought out and funded handsomely to improve these basic indicators, with very little to show for. Why is this so ?

Beyond Corruption

The classic middle class response to this question, goes something like this. Money is allocated by the government, but ‘corrupt’ officials siphon off almost everything and it makes no impact. This conveniently made claim (buttressed by daily reports of egregious corruption in an unimaginably vast country) lays the blame at the moral failure of the political and administrative class. However, it cannot stand up to deeper scrutiny. Many other developing countries have as much or even much more corruption than India, but they do far better than India on these basic indicators. For example, Iraq, a country that has been the unfortunate victim of a dictator, then a long period of turmoil, and now a weak government and a continuing civil war, has a higher life expectancy than India. We clearly have to look for answers beyond corruption.

A Question of Capacity

The key point Lant Pritchett makes, and one we should pay careful attention to is that in India’s current situation, understanding what the government can do, is atleast as important as thinking about what the government should do. In his paper, Pritchett studies the behavior of government agents at the base level of the state, and concludes that their indiscipline and indifference to their duties is to blame. But the issue might be even more fundamental. It appears that the Indian state simply does not have enough personnel to perform the tasks of a basic modern nation state. The shortfall in personnel is not a matter of operating at half or even quarter of the required workforce in India, in certain areas the Indian state doesnt even have a tenth of the workers it needs to have to perform fundamental functions. Consider these facts:

1.  ”India has 1,622.8 government servants for every 100,000 residents. In stark contrast, the U.S. has 7,681. The Central government, with 3.1 million employees, thus has 257 serving every 100,000 population, against the U.S. federal government’s 840.” - Praveen Swami in The Hindu.
   
2. India had 9546 judges for a population of around a billion in the 90′s, at the same time, the US (which has a similar legal system) but a quarter of India’s population, had 28049 judges, more than three times as many. In other words, India has less than one-tenth the number of judges required to efficiently run the justice system. – John Armour & Priya Lele, – Law, Finance and Politics: The Case of India
3. “On the basis of police per capita, India is the second lowest among 50 countries ranked using data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime from 2010. Police forces around the world are commonly measured as the number of police per 100,000 people, and India has 129. Only Uganda fares worse.” – The New York Times The world average is close to 350, and it is possible that India’s figure include the CRPF, which does not do any direct policing. Anecdotally, any Indian in the US will tell you that they see cop cars patrolling the street far more frequently than in India.

Set aside even the efficiency and morality of each public servant, the Indian state simply has nowhere near the number of personnel needed to perform its functions.

Show Me The Money

How did we end up in this scenario, and what needs to be done to rectify this ? Lets perform a simple calculation. Suppose we want to increase the number of judges in India, so that we have the same number of judges per capita as the US. How much more would the expenditure be ? Assume that each judge gets paid Rs. 50,000 as salary every month, thats Rs. 600000 a year, and that there are 10,000 judges, all getting the same salary. This is a total current expenditure of Rs. 600 cr a year. If we were to increase the number of judges by a factor of 10, the expenditure would be Rs. 6000 cr a year, i.e. we would have to arrange for Rs. 5400 cr more per year.

It is difficult for me to see how this money can be arranged without economic growth. In fact, I would speculate that one of the main reasons the Indian state is so understaffed is that the historically low rates of economic growth have constrained recruitment. Unfortunately, fast economic growth comes with its own challenges in a country with a weak rule of law and historical inequalities like India. The very policies that encourage faster economic expansion, translate into exploitation and abuse at the ground level due to the weak rule of law. A catch-22 seems to arise here, we need economic growth to be able to enforce the rule of law, but in the short term at least, that very same economic growth can make a mockery of the rule of law.

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“Sab ko to parsaad baate, main maangu to mujhko daate” – Lyric from a recent Hindi song (Agent Vinod)

The new millennium has seen the establishment of a new device in Indian cinema, the ‘item girl’. It is interesting to speculate on the specific origins of the ‘item girl’ terminology. One possible source is the fact that young Indian men often call an attractive woman an ‘item’, reducing her personhood to a commodity in the most literal sense. It could also be an English translation of the ‘maal’ (thing) terminology used by Indian men in a similar context. Bollywood has featured attractive women and provocative female characters before, but the last decade has seen the ‘item girl’ and ‘item song’ becoming an attraction in themselves.

The typical ‘item girl’ in millennial Indian cinema has no past and no future. She has no relationships, no desires apart from gyrating for the pleasure of a few drunk men. Typically none of these drunk men who lust after her have any chance of ‘getting her’, only the hero is macho enough, but he is often not interested, most certainly not for the long term. After all, he has the cultured, coy and docile ‘typical Indian girl’ at home that he can order around and father respectable children with. Indeed, the ‘item girl’ phenomenon is a symptom of a severe moral crisis in Bollywood when it comes to dealing with women. Movie makers know that their consumers want to see sex and skin, but the lead actress cant be the one displaying this sexuality (atleast not outside the bonds of marriage), so in comes the slutty ‘item girl’ to the rescue.

So where do ‘Chikni Chameli’, ‘Sheila’ and ‘Munni’ come from ? They look too well nourished to come from our omnipresent slums. They most definitely do not come from our saas-bahu loving ‘middle class localities’. Actually, they come from much closer. Bollywood’s item girls are the produce of the dirty, patriarchal mind of the modern urban Indian male. The last two decades of liberalization have imparted Indian men with an ambiguous sense of sexual morality. Indian tradition ever only imposed constraints on Indian men’s sexuality in a weak sense. The ‘worst’ punishment for sexual transgressions for upper caste Hindu males was a hastily arranged marriage. For women, it was and still is death. What happened in the last 20 years ? Male sexuality has been almost completely released from even these weak bondages, young Indian men are no longer scared of their fathers and older relatives. There is a revolt against old expectations, but little reflection among men about their new expectations (see Jaa Chudail (Scram Witch) from execrable Delhi Belly below).

Jaa Chudail is one of a long line of Hindi songs that reflect the entrenched misogyny in the minds of Indian men, especially young, urban males. Mainstream Indian cinema of the last twenty years is a classic example of how a medium that could have ostensibly challenged sexual conventions (and indeed has, in the past done so) can be completely co-opted by the oppressive instincts of society. To be sure there are some brave exceptions, but it remains to be seen if they can shake up the current norm.

The impact of this new highly sexualized imagery of non-heroine women in Bollywood has been devastating for women and men of the working classes. In addition, the social legitimization of drinking has lead to widespread alcoholism among the underclass men, greatly increasing the dangers for the women who live with and around them. And limited job prospects, delayed age of marriage, lack of self-confidence and the underclass women’s inability to participate in romantic and sexual relationships due to severe social reprecussions, is leading to immense economic and sexual frustration.

It is critical to note the differing attitudes towards the sexuality of the lead actor’s wife, sister and Chikni Chameli. The lead actress seems more liberated, but stays within the boundaries of patriarchy, the sister’s sexuality is a threat and vulnerability to be guarded from opportunists, while Chikni Chameli is out there, a non-person, waiting to be taken advantage of. So ‘Chikni Chameli’ can be viewed as a construction of the elite Indian male mind, a construction that reflects its own sexual depravity and contempt of women, and projects it onto the mass medium to exploit and enhance the same tendencies in the minds of the masses.

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First, the rural scenario

Imagine you live in a mid-western town in provincial America. Public transport is unheard of. Without a car, you are going nowhere. You cant go to work. You cant go to the doctor. Your economic and social prospects are pretty much nil. Basically, without a car you are condemned to poverty. So you say, the solution is simple enough, go buy one.

But you cant. Not because there are ‘too many people competing for a car’. Nor because the license officials are ‘corrupt’. Its because you are simply not allowed to. The people who own the existing cars just wont let you. They think you are only fit to chauffeur and clean their cars, not own one yourself. They want you to be dependent on them, so they can keep exploiting you. Some of the lucky ones can repair cars, so they have a slightly higher status, but they cant own one. This is enough, however, for them to think they are ‘superior’ to you and destroy any solidarity you could have built with them to challenge the car owning classes.

Replace car with land. And class with caste. And you will begin to understand the nature of economic relations in rural India. A highly centralized economy, with land ownership, access to irrigation and electricity concentrated in the hands of a landed elite. And a mass population condemned to be labourers, with virtually no control of their economic lives. Note that the issue here is not the scarcity of land. India has the second highest area of arable land in the world after America¹, and its warmer climate is much more suitable to farming than America. The issue is the distribution of land. After successive rounds of very feeble land reform, the only major change in India’s rural economy is the transfer of some land ownership from the upper caste Hindus to the castes just below them. Even 65 years after Indian independence, the vast majority of the most marginalized in India, the Dalits and Adivasis remain de facto landless².

A very in depth, localized study of this situation is provided in Dr. Jan Breman’s (University of Amsterdam) book: ‘The Poverty Regime in Village India‘. Based on half a century of work in rural Gujarat, the book presents a penetrating account of the oppressive economic and social relations in south Gujarat, especially between the marginalized tribal Halpatis and the ruling Anavil Brahmin caste. Breman’s contributions cannot be covered in a single blog post, but I will summarize two key observations here, first from the book itself,

The idea of undeserving poor has taken root in the minds of those who are rich, more in these years of reforms. The rich, thus, neither feel guilty nor are afraid of any mobilisation by the poor in acute destitution because of the absence of solidarity among them. The result is that the landless, footloose rural proletariat lead a nomadic existence, following the seasonal, sectoral, and local fluctuations in the economy with occupational multiplicity.

From a review of the book in the Frontline magazine³,

The book shows that the expectation that the landless would leave the village seeking better life in non-agricultural and urban occupations and relieve pressure on land did not happen. On the contrary, it shows the irrational phenomenon of people having land acquiring skills and moving to lucrative non-agricultural occupations without leaving their hold on their land. The landless poor thus suffer “double denial”.

Rural India faces an enormously centralized and unequal economy based on agriculture, with virtually no non-farm employment⁴. Poverty and mass distress migration are natural outcomes.

Urban woes

The picture in metro India looks very different on the surface, but has the same underlying structure. After independence, India adopted a heavily socialist, state led path to industrial economic growth. Economic power was thus concentrated in the hands of bureaucrats who enjoyed state sanctioned discretionary powers, the few urban classes that were already moneyed due to the industrial expansion during colonial rule and the elite politicians, who formed the link between the moneyed classes and the bureaucrats.

The result was extremely slow economic growth rates and immense economic frustration among the newly educated classes. These new classes found themselves in an economy where they were neither able to start new economic activity, and were at the mercy of the business owning classes and bureaucrats despite their often superior skills. This drove the aspirational migration of the educated classes to the West (especially the US), where the freer market was better able to compensate and utilize their skills.

Distribution of GDP between the public and private sector in India 1961-1999
Source: ‘Why Ethnic Parties Succeed’, Kanchan Chandra, Pg 117

The 1990s brought a change in the structure of the urban economy in India. The dismantling of the infamous license raj opened the doors for the educated classes to create new businesses and the entry of multinationals has allowed them to access new jobs. However, it remains hard to start a business, and poor infrastructure continues to hamper the economic prospects of urban India.

On the other hand, the rural economy hasnt seen much change at all. Land distribution remains brutally unequal, and in addition the demand for land and other rural resources to fuel the economic expansion of the urban areas has led to further moves to centralize economic power in the rural context. Take for example, the recent move by the PMO to take away the power of approval granted to the village gram sabhas in matters of acquiring forest land, blatantly against the spirit of the Forest Rights Act⁵,
“The PMO-driven report required the environment ministry to change its August 2009 order—removing the clause that makes it mandatory for the state government to provide written consent from the project affected gram sabhas that all claims under the Forest Rights Act had been settled and that they approved of the diversion of forest land.”

India’s poverty is thus driven by extreme centralization of economic power. And this centralization is based on an unequal social and political contract between the ruling classes and the masses, not on any fundamental resource pressures or corruption.

References:

1:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_country
2:”According to the draft paper of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, 77% of dalits and 90% of adivasis are either ‘absolute landless’ (own no land) or ‘mere landless’.”http://www.empowerpoor.org/backgrounder.asp?report=162
3:Anatomy of Poverty, http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20080201506207600.htm&date=fl2502/&prd=fline&
4:”The dynamic rural nonfarm sector in China has been a major contributor to the country’s remarkable growth, while in India the growth in output and employment in this sector has been rather stagnant.” http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/dsgdp24.pdf
5: Diversion of forest land for industrial use may delay as environment ministry seeks time for consultations http://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/diversion-of-forest-land-for-industrial-use-may-delay-as-environment-ministry-seeks-time-for-consultations/articleshow/18127015.cms

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(हिंदी मैं गलतियो के लिए माफ़ी चाहता हू )

आज़ादी के संघर्ष में भारत की महिलाओं ने बराबर का योगदान दिया । बहुत सारी महिलओं ने नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस की आजाद हिन्द फ़ौज के ‘झाँसी की रानी’ सेन्य दल में अपनी जान की बाज़ी भी लगा दी। मगर आजाद हिंदुस्तान का सपना यह तो नहीं था, की समाज में लड़कियो पर अत्यचरो के खिलाफ आवाज़ उठाने के लिए, एक युविका को शहादत देनी पड़े। हमें औरत जाती की बराबरी हमारे लोकतंत्र और हमारे आजाद खयालोँ से कायम करनी थी, राष्ट्रपति निवास के सामने प्रदर्शन करके नहीं। मगर साफ़ हैं की आज हमारे आदिवासिओं के साथ-साथ, हमारी महिलाओं के लिए भी हमारा लोकतंत्र इन्साफ नहीं ला पाया हैं। मगर क्यो ?

भारत के लोकतंत्र ने कई सफलताएं हासिल की हैं। इंडिया के दलितो में सामजिक और आर्थिक परिवर्तन आया हैं। महिलायें भारी संख्या में पढ़े-लिखे और काम-काज करनेवालो में शामिल हुई हैं। एक बहुत विशाल, अत्यंत बहुरंगी मुल्क ने एक आजाद और लोकतांत्रिक राष्ट्र की पहचान पाई हैं। लेकिन कई पैमानो पर हमारा लोकतंत्र असफल भी रहा हैं। आज हमारा राष्ट्र समाज की बुराईयो से लड़ने की बजाएं समाज के खौफ में घुट रहा हैं।

इन असफलताओं के लिए कईं आकास्मिक और संरचनात्मक कारण हैं। भ्रष्ट नेता आकस्मिक कारण में गिने जायेंगे। मगर मैं यहाँ संरचनात्मक कारणो पर विश्लेषण करूंगा ।

हिंदुस्तान के रीती-रिवाज़ और हमारी विजातीय आबादी की वजह से महिलाओं की लैनागिकता (sexuality) पर समाज भारी पाबंदियां लगाता हैं। इंडिया की हर भाषा/धर्म/जाती पर आधारित हर कौम अपनी मर्दानगी के प्रदर्शन की ज़रुरत महसूस करती हैं। और हर कौम की ‘इज्ज़त’ महिलाओं के लैनागिक व्यवहार पर नियंत्रण रखने पर निर्भर करती हैं। सुसाध्य परिवारो में इसका अंजाम यह होता हैं की लड़कियो को अपने मनपसंद लड़के से शादी करने पर माँ-बाप के बहिष्कार का सामना करना पड़ता हैं, लेकिन कड़े परिवारो में ‘ऑनर किलिंग’ तक की जाती हैं। ज़ाहिर सी बात हैं की अगर कौम की ‘इज्ज़त’ स्त्रियो की लैनागिक ‘शुद्धता’ पर निर्भर करेगी, तो बलात्कार और यौन उत्पीडन, ख़ास तौर पर सामूहिक बलात्कार, कमज़ोर कौमो के खिलाफ एक हथ्यार बन जाते हैं। इसी वजह से सामूहिक बलात्कार भारत और पाकिस्तान मैं भारी मात्रा मैं होते हैं।

दूसरा संरचनात्मक कारण भारत के कुछ धार्मिक रिवाज़ हैं। हिंदुस्तान के सबसे बड़े मज़हब, हिन्दू धर्म और इस्लाम, औरतो पर भारी प्रतिबंध लगाते हैं। हिन्दू धर्म को दैवत्व के नारी प्रकार दिखाना का श्रेय तो ज़रूर मिलता हैं, लेकिन यह नारी प्रकार सिर्फ माँ के रूप मैं आती हैं। काली माँ, दुर्गा माँ, माता लक्ष्मी, माता पारवती, सरस्वती माँ … मैंने कभी किसीको शिव या विष्णु को शिव पिता या पिता विष्णु के नाम से सम्भोदित करते हुए नहीं सुना हैं। हिन्दू कथाओं और धर्मग्रंथो में स्वतन्त्र नारियां (जो किसीकी बहन, माँ या पतनी की भूमिका ना कर रही हो) कम देखने को मिलती हैं। जहाँ तक की इस्लाम का सावल हैं, डॉक्टर अम्बेडकर ने कहा हैं,

कोई शक की बात नहीं हैं की भारत के मुस्लिम समाज में वही खराबियां हैं जो हिन्दू समाज में हैं। बलकी, मुसलमानो मैं हिन्दुओं की खराबियां समेत कुछ और भी हैं। वोह हैं परदे की व्यवस्था।

कोई आसानी से देख सकता हैं की अगर महिलाओं को अपनी शकल भी दुनिया को दिखाने की अनुमति नहीं दी जाती हैं, तो और किसी तरह की आज़ादी का सवाल ही नहीं उठता।

तीसरा कारण, जो 1990s से काफी महत्वपूर्ण होगया हैं, वोह हैं मुक्त बाजारीक अर्थ व्यवस्था का दबाव और मीडिया उद्योग। इनकी वजह से औरतो का शरीर deodarant, शैम्पू, कपडे वाघ्येरा बेचने के लिए एक वस्तु बन गया हैं। काम-भावना हर जगह बिकती हैं। इसलिए कोई ताज्जुब की बात नहीं हैं की बॉलीवुड ने अपने नर दर्शको की लैंगिक दमित्ता का फायदा उठाने के लिए, चिकनी चमेली और मुन्नी बदनाम हुई जैसे साधनो का लगातार इस्तेमाल किया हैं। मुन्नी, चमेली और शीला का लोभ करने वाला हर आदमी यह सोचता हैं की यह किस्सी और की बहन या बीवी हैं, लेकिन शायद यह नहीं समझ पाता की बाकी मर्दों के लिए चमेली या शीला उसकी बहन या बेटी हो सकती हैं।

चौथा कारण भारत में लोकतंत्र का विकार और उसका मतलब सिर्फ चुनाविक लड़ाई बन जाना हैं। इस पर मैं काफिला ब्लॉग पर प्राची सिन्हा के लेख से एक वाक्यखण्ड प्रस्तुत करता हू ,

जब नारियो के खिलाफ हिंसा की बातचीत में वर्ग का मुद्दा उठता हैं, तो यह कहाँ जाता हैं की मर्द राज सारे वर्गों में लाबू हैं। लेकिन सच बात तो यह हैं की औरतो के खिलाफ अपराध झुग्गी झोपड़ियो में ज्यादा होते हैं। इस अलग दुनिया की महिलाओं को मध्य वर्ग की महिलाओं से अधिक खतरो का सामना करना पड़ता हैं। दर असल झुग्गियो की पूरी आबादी को इन इलाखो के गुंडो के डर मैं जीना पड़ता हैं, जिनकी  ऐसे अपराधो में शामिल होने की संभावना ज्यादा होती हैं।

मैं दस साल से शहर की झुग्गियो में गारिबो के साथ काम कर रही हु। और मैं यह दावे के साथ कह सकती हू की अगर इन गुंडो को झुग्गियो से हटा दिया जाये, तो गरीबी और गंदगी के बावजूद यह रहने के लिए बेहतर जगाएं बन जाएँगी। पर इन्हें कैसे निकाल सकते हैं ? आज हमारी राजनीतिक व्यवस्था ऐसी बन गयी हैं, की ऐसे गुंडे झुग्गियो मैं राजनितिक दलो की रीड की हड्डी बन चुके हैं। सियासी दलो के लिए यह गुंडे उस व्यवस्था के प्यादे हैं जो सीधे ऊपर तक पहुँचती हैं। हर राजनितिक दल जो सत्ता में आना चाहती हैं, वोह झुग्गियो में ऐसे गुंडो को पालती हैं। राज करनेवाले वर्ग झुग्गियो से तो दूर रहते हैं और इंडिया गेट के संसथान से राज करते हैं, लेकिन ऐसे पेचीदे जालो के द्वारा झुग्गियो से जुड़े होता हैं।

यह जाल हाल ही प्रदर्शित हुई दिबाकर बनेर्जी की फिल्म ‘शंघाई’ में खूबी से दिखाए गया हैं। कोई आश्चर्य की बात नहीं हैं की इस तरह की सियासी व्यवस्था राष्ट्र को हिंदुस्तानी नारियो की सहायता नहीं करने देगी।

अगर भारत की नारियो को इन्साफ दिलाना हैं तो कठोर दंड और ज्यादा निगरानी लाभदायक नहीं होन्गे। बल्कि यह हालातो को और बिगाड़ सकते हैं। पूर्व अमरीकी राष्ट्रपति बिल क्लिंटन ने कहा था की “कानोन का भय, उसकी निश्चिंतता पर आधारित हैं, उसकी कठोरता पर नहीं”। इन्साफ और बराबरी तभी मिलेगी जब राजनीति देश की जाती और धर्मं नहीं, उसकी समस्याओं के बारे में होगी, जब हिन्दुस्तानी अपने आप में मीडिया की चालबाजी और उसके भ्रष्टाचार को समझने की क्षमता बना पाएंगे, और जब लोग अपने समाज के शोशात्मक और प्रतिबंधक रीती-रिवाजो की खिलाफ खड़े होन्गे।

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The Republic of India was not supposed to need the martyrdom of a young student, to make an incremental advance against deeply entrenched patriarchy. India’s democracy and liberalism were supposed to do that job. It is clear today that they havent. The question is why ?

India’s democracy has seen many successes. India’s oppressed Dalits have seen social and economic gains. Women have joined the educated classes and workforce in impressive numbers. A hugely diverse sub-continent has been imbued with a collective consciousness as a liberal, democratic nation. But on key parameters, Indian democracy has been a remarkable failure. Far from taking on the ills of society, the state today seems to be afraid of it and at times even complicit in perpetuating these ills.

Many contingent reasons can be given for the state’s failure to tackle patriarchy. Corrupt leaders and a morally deficient elite, both uncommitted to liberalism appear to be favorites for bashing by the media and middle class. But what are the deeper structural reasons for the state’s failure to deliver the promise of India to its women. There are many, they are very serious and there is very little being done to tackle most of them.

India’s traditions and its highly heterogenous population drives anxieties towards female sexuality. Each of the thousands of linguistic/religious/caste communities come with their own need for masculine projection, and community ‘honour’ is reposed in controlling female sexual behaviour. In benign cases, this leads to females facing parental boycott for marrying someone from outside their community, in extreme cases, we have the phenomenon of ‘honour killings’. Of course, if honour is contained in the sexual purity of female relatives and community members, sexual violence, especially gang-rapes become a potent weapon against marginalized communities. This is why the gang rape is so much more common in South Asia than other regions of the world.

The second structural factor is religious tradition. Both the major religions practiced in India, Hinduism and Islam, place enormous constraints on women. Hinduism deserves some credit for presenting female forms of divinity, however these divine forms are always maternal figures. Kali maa, Durga maa, Mata Laxmi, Mata Parvathy, Saraswati maa … I have never heard anyone address Shiva or Vishnu as Shiva pita or Pita Vishnu. Traditional Hindu myths and scriptures do not have much room for an independent woman. As for Islam, I quote Dr. Ambedkar,

There can thus be no manner of doubt that the Muslim Society in India is afflicted by the same social evils as afflict the Hindu Society. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more. That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women.

Not much room for female autonomy can be imagined if they are not permitted to even show their faces to the world.

The third factor, especially pertinent since the early 1990s, is the pressure of the free market and media industry. These result in the increased objectification of women to sell products. Sex sells, even in the more egalitarian societies of the West. It is hardly surprising that Bollywood has relied on a highly sexualized presentation of women to appeal to its sexually repressed male audience. In the guise of ‘liberation’, mainstream cinema in India has increasingly legitimized the sexual harassment and assault of women.

The fourth factor is the general breakdown of the democratic norm in India and the reduction of democracy to an electoral civil war. Prachee Sinha summarizes the effects this malformed democracy at the ground level in urban India at the blog Kafila,

When the class dimension emerges in the course of a discussion, it is commonplace to assert that patriarchy is equally entrenched in all classes. One often cites examples of rapes and other crimes against women that take place in the high society. But the fact remains that such crimes are more likely to happen in the slum habitat and the poor neighbourhoods. Women of this other world face such dangers far more than those from the middle class localities. In fact entire population of the slum habitat suffers under the oppression of the local goons and bullies who are more likely to be involved in such crimes.

Before it is taken as a sign of elite prejudice, let me say that I have been working with the urban poor in the slum habitat for nearly ten years. I can assert with some measure of confidence that were the goons and bullies to be taken away from the scene, slums will turn into incomparably better places despite the filth and poverty. But how can they be removed from the scene? They are the backbone of the political process in the slum habitat. They are the ground-support of the structure of political patronage that reaches all the way to the top. Every political party that aspires to become the ruling party has these elements as their representatives and functionaries in the slums. Ruling classes live far away from the slum habitat and rule from the institutions around the India Gate, but they have an intricate web of linkages extending all the way to the slums.

This web has been potrayed well in the recent Dibakar Banerjee movie ‘Shanghai‘. It is no surprise that this kind of political ecosystem will not allow the state to help Indian women end patriarchy.

In the fight to ‘make India safe for its women’ stricter punishments and increased surveillance are going to be of little use. They might even be counter-productive. Only when politics becomes about issues that truly affect the Indian people, when people are sufficiently media-literate to understand its manipulations and corruptions, and when people can critically evaluate their traditions and religious customs can ills like patriarchy and sexual violence be erased from India.

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(This post has been written based on my received knowledge of Hinduism, and readings on the internet and books. And as such, it is based on the analysis of a layman, so please excuse any errors. I would be grateful if you could inform me of them.)

Whenever righteousness wanes and unrighteousness increases I send myself forth.
For the protection of the good and for the destruction of evil,and for the establishment of righteousness,
I come into being age after age. (Gita:4.7–8)

Through his many avatars, and especially Rama and Krishna, Vishnu attracts great devotion and love in India. Mainstream Hinduism today tends to emphasize the devotional aspects of the Vishnu avatars and related aspects of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. However, a political aspect of the major Vishnu avatars appears if one pays attention to not just who Vishnu appears as, but whom (s)he defeats and vanquishes.

Let us recap the major avatars of Vishnu (and the antagonists) in sequential order: Matsya, a fish avatar who saves Manu, the progenitor of man from the demon Damanaka; Kurma the turtle who churns the oceans for an immortality nectar; Varaha a boar that kills the demon Hiranyaksha. Next comes Mohini, the female avatar who kills the demon Bhasmasura; followed by the half-lion half-man Narasimha who defeats the demon Hiranyakashap and saves his son Prahlad. A major change in the nature of the Vishnu avatars and the antagonists occurs after this fifth avatar.

In his sixth avatar, Vishnu appears as a dwarf to remove the demon king Bali from the throne of heaven. In the seventh avatar, Vishnu appears as a human for the first time, as the Brahmin Parshurama who defeats the human king Kartavirya Arjun and his formidable army. The eighth avatar is Lord Rama, who is born a king, but abandons his throne for the forest and defeats the unbeatable warrior, great scholar, maestro of the Veena, ruler of a prosperous kingdom, the demon-king Ravana. The ninth avatar, Krishna, is raised in a cowherd’s family, and orchestrates the defeat of human Emperor Duryodhana, ‘the unconquerable one’ and ruler of the known world.

The latter avatars of Vishnu always appear to defeat kings. And with each avatar, the antagonist (who is always a king) becomes grander and more impressive. It is interesting to speculate on why this particularly sequence appears. Why is the evil or adharma always manifesting as a monarch ? And why is this monarch a stronger and seemingly more capable one with each avatar ?

The avatars of Vishnu appear in the various Puranas, whom historians typically date from the early centuries of the first millenium (100-200 CE). By this time, monarchy as a principle of authority was firmly established in India and the country had seen the first sequence of kingdoms and its first major empire (the Mauryan empire) had emerged, ruled and collapsed. The reemergence of empire (after the Mauryans) in India indicated that monarchy was here to stay, replacing the tribe and clan based Mahajanapada system that endured from 600 BCE to 300 BCE.

The Vishnu avatars defeat of increasingly powerful kings might thus be seen as a search by religious scholars for a new equilibrium in the societal balance of power. The deeds of the avatars and the reasons for their appearance can be seen as an attempt to institute a check against the kings power, which was otherwise becoming absolute. Thus, the religious scholars of ancient India can be seen as advocating some form of human rights, and seeking to constrain the unchecked coercive power of the king.

And looking from this viewpoint, one realizes that perhaps the main reason for the collapse of the great Indian empires was not the machinations of outsiders, but emperors who did not heed the message of the Vishnu avatars.

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Politics is the consequence of disagreements, sometimes trivial, sometimes profound. Sometimes real, often imagined. The nature of a society’s politics tells us how its disagreements are resolved. In democratic societies, disagreements are resolved within a democratic framework, validated by periodic elections and constrained by judicial oversight. In monarchical societies, disagreements are resolved by the monarch or some local representative of the monarch, a feudal lord perhaps. Tribal societies have their own mechanisms for resolving disputes, mediation by elders is typical, but rarely is such mediation constrained by any notion of individual rights.

For most of its history, the Indian subcontinent operated with a mixture of the monarchical and tribal setups, strongly constrained by religious authority. British conquest replaced this with a mixture of colonial administration, monarchical satraps and tribal backwaters. Some Indians disagreed with this system of maintaining order in society. Some thought it was patently cruel and unfair. Others thought it would destroy the ‘uniqueness’ of ‘India’, break its connection with its many pasts. Within this subset of Indians who disagreed with the British, some started the political process of resolving this dispute. Again, some thought that the English were outsiders who needed to be ‘kicked out’. Others were influenced by the wave of ‘people’s revolutions’ and sought to link up with their comrades around the world. Many saw glory in restoring their sanitized imagination of the old order. But one man was more influential than anyone else.

This man realized that disagreements never end. That the disagreement with the British would inevitably be replaced by disagreements among Hindus and Muslims, among Marathi’s and Kannadigas, among Tamil Brahmins and Tamil Dalits. If the first disagreement was resolved by ‘kicking’ the British out, Bengalis would soon be kicking Marwaris out, Malayalis would soon be pushing Tamils out, Jats would be elbowing Brahmins and they someone else and so on. He realized that that the very first disagreement should be resolved by talking, by agitating and protesting, not kicking and killing. This man never called anyone a traitor. Never called anyone an ‘anti-national’. Never. His character and intellect started attracting men and women of similar thoughts. These men and women brought their ideals, their own visions and energies to his movement.

These men and women dreamed of an India where disagreements would not be settled by power. Nor by the word of an emperor or the head of a tribe. They would be settled democratically, without recourse to violence and agitation. Sure enough, the disputes came. Disputes over state boundaries. State capitals. Official languages. Distribution of resources. Each a valid dispute. Each had a shade of grey, like all disputes do. But the post colonial masters of India, the same men and women who had so bravely and successfully disagreed with the colonialists deemed these disputes irrelevant. India learnt a new word: ‘anti-national’.

The British killed 1000 at Jallianwala Bagh for demanding independence. The post-independence government of Bombay state killed 105 at Hutatma Chowk for demanding Maharashtra. And, to the great misfortune of the people of the future state of Maharashtra, the man who led the independence movement was forgotten and a new regime slowly occupied his space. Now the new Maharashtra would be ruled, not by consultation, but by muscle. Indians had reclaimed India by being fearless against a formidable opponent. Now they would settle disputes amongst themselves by fear. By domination. And in a strange twist to the quote, by the strength in numbers.

Fear worked, as long as the opponent was not capable delivering the same violence back. So a mixed system evolved. If two similarly sized states were fighting over water from a river, the dispute was to be settled democratically. If a well-connected individual and the state were disagreeing over a piece of writing, the dispute was to be settled democratically. But almost everything else was settled by who could cause more damage, more fear, who commanded more ‘respect’. Electoral monarchy for the many weak, constitutional bureaucracy for the few powerful.

Now, the first generation of the monarchy is withering. Succession struggles are sprouting from every corner of the supposedly democratic nation. Such struggles in monarchies had a definite conclusion; the last man standing was the new king. After that, business as usual resumed. Something tells me that succession in India’s electocracies will be messier. The absence of many real choices means that electoral monarchy might continue for a while. But the anonymity of the vote perhaps implies that the outlook for the would-be successors is not as good as they would like to imagine.

In his ‘Burden of Democracy’, political analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta noted; democracy gives us the power to make a choice. And the choice is India’s to make.

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One of the major themes I have tried to cover in this blog is the history, activism and evolving culture of the Dalits in India, officially called Scheduled Castes or SCs. I have also shared material regarding India’s tribal populations (Scheduled Tribes or STs). Taken together, the SC/STs form a large chunk of the marginalized people in India. Their progress is perhaps the most important metric by which the Indian Republic must be judged. Therefore, I was excited when a Pratap Bhanu Mehta article in the Caravan pointed me to the paper ‘Castes and Labor Mobility‘ by Viktoria Hnatkovska, Amartya Lahiri and Sourabh Paul of the University of British Columbia.

The SC/STs of India have faced marginalization due to their low access to education, occupational rigidities prescribed by the caste system and consequent lower incomes. However, the paper presents evidence for significant convergence between the SC/STs and non-SC/STs in all these areas. Indeed they summarize their key findings as follows,

First, we find significant convergence in the education attainment levels and the occupation distribution of SC/STs and non-SC/STs between 1983 and 2004-2005. Second, we find a statistically significant trend of convergence of consumption and wages for the two groups. The median wage premium of non-SC/STs relative to the SC/STs has declined systematically from 36 % in 1983 to 21 % in 2004-05. Third we find that the overall consumption and wage convergence between the groups has been driven significantly by education choices ..

Thus, the SC/STs appear to have participated quite successfully in India’s recent economic expansion. And they have been able to do so because they have narrowed their education gap with the other castes and have had increased occupational mobility.

The paper first discusses the education data. The key findings here include the fact that the gap in the average years of schooling between SC/STs and non-SC/STs has shrunk from 2.57 years in 1983 to 1.74 years in 2004-05. It must be noted that the average years of schooling for SC/STs in 2004-05 (3.19 yrs) were lower than those for non-SC/STs even in 1983 (3.62), but education for SC/ST children has expanded at a much faster rate in the last twenty years. An important question is, in which part of the educational achievement distribution is the convergence more prominent ? In other words,

is the change in the average years of schooling due to more illiterates going to primary school or is it primarily due to more  people going on to middle school or higher ?

Figure 1 sheds light on this question.

Figure 1: The proportions of secondary and above (Edu 5), middle (Edu 4), primary (Edu 3), literate but below primary (Edu 4) and illiterate (Edu 1) persons in the non-SC/ST and SC/ST populations.

We see that SC/ST education has expanded at all levels, right from basic literacy (Edu2) to secondary and higher education (Edu5). It is interesting to speculate on how much the expansion of SC/ST higher education is driven by reservations. However, the authors of the paper do not tackle this particular question.

The second factor discussed in the article is occupational flexibility. Figure 2 shows the distribution of the non-SC/STs and SC/STs across three different occupation types: agriculture and allied activities (Occ3), blue collar jobs like sales, service and production workers (Occ2) and white collar jobs such as administrators and managers (Occ1).

Figure 2: The proportions of white collar (dark grey), blue collar (light grey) and primary (medium grey) workers in non-SC/ST (left) and SC/ST (right) populations.

The authors point out that

the largest expansion in the employment share of both groups has been in Occ2 which comprises mostly low skill blue collar and service sector jobs.

Thus the twenty year period between 1983-2004 has seen SC/STs move from their traditional caste occupations to other categories of work.

The authors then move on to analysis of the wage and consumption data. The inflation-adjusted wage data is summarized by Figure 3, which gives us the distribution for the income levels for SC/STs and non-SC/STs for two different years, 1983 and 2004-05. We can first contrast the curves for just the non-SC/ST group. We see that the mean of the non-SC/ST curve has moved significantly to the right, indicating an about 10-times increase in wages for an average non-SC/ST household between 1983 and 2004. We also note that the right side tail of the 2004 curve is much thicker than the left side tail. This means that the number of relatively more affluent non-SC/ST households has increased with India’s broader economic growth.

Figure 3: Income distribution curves for non SC/STs and SC/STs for the years 1983 and 2004-05.

For the SC/ST curves, we observe a rightward shift similar to the one observed for the non-SC/ST curve. We also observe a similar thickening of the right hand tail for the 2004 curve. Thus, India’s economic expansion has created a relatively large ‘middle-class’, with both non-SC/ST and ST households. Summarizing, as of 2004, SC/STs and non-SC/STs are equally likely to be extremely poor, SC/STs are more likely to be poor or lower middle class, and non-SC/STs are more likely to be middle/upper middle class.

The authors also point out an interesting contrast between inequality levels in India and the US,

Between 1980 and 2006, the median wage of black males relative to white males [in USA] has remained stable around 75 %. During the same period, the median wage of Hispanic men relative to white men declined from 71 % to under 60 %. In contrast, … the median wage of SC/STs relative to non-SC/STs has increased secularly from 64 % in 1983 to 79 % in 2004-05.

India’s SC/STs still have a lot of catching up to do, but the trend is very encouraging. With the recent political empowerment of SCs in north India, one would anticipate the rate of convergence to quicken. Note that although the wage gap between different castes has narrowed, the gap between the top earners and others has increased.

The authors then present further analysis to explain the reasons for the convergence in income levels (see Figure 4). According to their statistical models, most of the caste wage gap in India has been closed due to convergence in educational levels as opposed to demographic factors and reservation quotas. Opponents of reservation will perhaps be inclined to use this as evidence for the non-necessity of reservations. However, one must bear in mind the important role reservations play in the convergence of educational attainments, by powerful signalling mechanisms at lower levels and direct access at higher levels. They also play a critical role in the political empowerment of the marginalized groups and in increasing their presence in the governing institutions of the country.

Figure 4: Caste wage gap between SC/STs and non SC/STs for the year 2004-05. Notice that the wage gaps are smaller at the lower end of the curve and larger at the top.

The authors conclude with speculation on the reasons for the convergences discussed above,

increasing competition raises the losses to businesses from pursuing wage discrimination. The resultant decline in the wage gap could then also induce the disadvantaged groups to increase their education attainment rates since the returns to education rise. A second factor may be the rise of community based networks of SC/STs as suggested by Munshi (reference in paper). The third possibility is that the reservations policy in place since 1950 for public sector jobs and higher education seats may have played a key role …

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Modern India does not meet middle India’s expectations and corruption has been declared the number one culprit. In the last decade, the discourse and activism regarding corruption has reached a high decibel, with the popular agitations of Anna Hazare (IAC) and Baba Ramdev. This heightening disgust and mobilization has been fueled by allegations of massive corruption in the Commonwealth Games, the huge sums involved (the literally lakhon karodon rupya of the 2G and coal scams) and the relative ease of middle class mobilization due to social media.

So why is there so much corruption in India ? Is it because of ‘corrupt politicians’ ? The lack of a good law to tackle corruption perhaps ? Or as some commentators like to put it, ‘Corruption is in the DNA of Indians’ ? It is perhaps useful to take a step back, and ask a broader question. Corruption, while present in India, is by no means solely an Indian phenomenon. In fact, corruption seems prevalent across the world (see Figure below) and the only countries where it is low appear to be the Western nations and Japan, while the vast majority of the world appears to suffer from high levels of corruption.

Countries of the world colored by corruption levels (World Corruption Index 2010: Transparency International) Darker red means more corrupt.

I think we can understand corruption in India better if we first try and understand why corruption is so widespread in India-like countries. Then we can add in the India-specific factors to get a better understanding of the corruption phenomenon in India. Three common factors seem to drive corruption in India and many other post-colonial nations:
1) Very high levels of ethnic diversity which result naturally in a fragmented polity and low levels of societal trust
2) State control of the economy
3) Low levels of literacy, awareness and the consequent distance between the general population and government officials

I will first discuss the second factor. In many post-colonial nations, state led economic development was the stated goal of the political leadership. Specifically in India, the goal was for the state to take control of the ‘commanding heights of the economy’. Some statistics can shed light on how this state led program of economic expansion proceeded.

Distribution of GDP between the public and private sector in India 1961-1999
Source: ‘Why Ethnic Parties Succeed’, Kanchan Chandra, Pg 117

We see that since the 1960′s and upto the late 1980′s, India’s economic growth was concentrated almost entirely in state hands. This system naturally placed great economic power in the hands of government officials, who controlled production, expansion and most importantly, enjoyed great discretion in appointing personnel to jobs. Thus, the government officials in India came to wield both administrative and economic power.

Now for the first factor. In a democratic setup, one would expect a strong public pressure to tackle corruption, which would lead to corruption being a high priority for politicians to campaign on and fix. However, the presence of ethnic diversity greatly reduces the chances of such an effect. In ethnically diverse countries, ethnic parties dominate. This is as true of India, as it is of Nigeria, Congo and any other ethnically diverse country. In ethnically diverse societies, ethnic divisions are the most salient political phenomenon most individuals experience on a day to day level. In addition, when levels of literacy are low, voters can most easily differentiate between candidates and parties based on their ethnicity. The information costs of campaigning based on ethnicity are very low, in contrast to campaigns based on issues/ideologies which require much more communication and outreach. In other words, it is much easier to identify what community a candidate belongs to than finding out what important issues are and the candidate’s stand on them. In India, deciphering the caste and religion of a candidate is simply a matter of knowing their name.

In such an ethnic democracy setup, voters cast their votes as part of a transaction in which they expect returns for their ethnic groups in exchange for their votes. In a state led economic system, with few jobs; jobs and other economic resources (land, minerals) become the items that politicians offer in exchange of votes. Such a political setup necessitates corruption, without which such resources cannot be delivered to the victorious ethnic groups after their political victory.

We can certainly not make India or any other country ‘less diverse’, that will just have to wait for these divisions to become less salient. However, one can certainly reduce the state’s direct role in economic activity. However, recent evidence suggests that such a system has limited success, from the perspective of reducing corruption. In fact, the spate of recent scams (2G, coal) have arisen due to the misallocation of economic resources to private players and the non-enforcement of regulations. A liberal economic system can retain the same levels of corruption that a state led econmic system does.

The third factor is the low levels of literacy and consequent distance of the general public from the state. For example, in India, a large amount of official business is carried out in English, and lack of English knowledge puts the citizen in a much weaker position than the official. In addition, since Indian society (and other post-colonial societies in general) are only emerging from a pre-modern feudal/tribal social setup to a modern egalitarian setup, awareness of legal rights and laws is low. Democracy can address this social inequality only incrementally.

In India, the second and third factors are exacerbated by the secession of the Indian middle classes from electoral politics. The fact that the middle classes dont depend on the state for many of their daily necessities and the revulsion to caste-based politics has rendered the middle class a marginal force in India’s electoral landscape. This has led to an excessive dependence on the media (which is elite and middle class dominated) to achieve political goals. Although such politics through media can give the illusion of success, it is neither effective nor democratic. In addition, such domination of the media by middle class interests crowds out the problems of the weaker sections of the society, lowering the credibility of the media in the overall society.

A Lokpal can reduce and control corruption in high places, but there is no way any independent body can monitor the approximately 5 crore (50 million) transactions¹ that take place between the citizens of India and their government every day. The participation of the middle class in electoral politics is essential. It should also be kept in mind that such participation will not yield instant results. Kanchan Chandra in her book ‘Why Ethnic Parties Succeed’ notes that:

voters and politicians [who] are amateur mathematicians and statisticians. They count the heads of co-ethnics across parties and the electorate, use these head counts to attach probabilities to different outcomes, and choose their strategies according to the result of these calculations.

Until India’s middle class makes itself statistically significant in these electoral calculations, it cannot expect much from its government.

1: This is complete guesswork. There are approximate 2 crore (20 million) government employees in India (central, state and local)
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2843014.ece
. If we assume that about a quarter of them interact with the public, and that there are 10 transactions per day, we get approximately 5 crore (50 million) transactions.