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Sunderban: Breaking the Chains of a Historic Injustice

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A public hearing brigs to focus the ongoing struggle between the indigenous peoples and a forest department, always exploitative and increasingly being coerced by industry that has little regard for the preservation of national resources that the Sunderban embodies

 “Present-day discourses such as those on the ‘environmentally degrading prawn seed collectors’ or the ‘thieving locals’ are in line with a history of discrimination against the poorest and most marginalised.” Annu Jalais in her path breaking study of the Sunderban[i]  echoes our core understanding about the essential relation between forest-dependent people and the forest, or more specifically, with the “political forest” – forest as a political entity with its own governing institution – the Forest Department.

This Forest Department engineered by colonising powers represents a story of forcible ouster, regulation, control and thus discrimination, resulting in “historical injustice” on the forest- dependent Dalit, Adivasi and other minority sections.

The history of the people of Sunderban is no different. And it is this history of continued injustice on the forest-dependent populace of Sunderban which is what we wanted to bring out  through the very voices of the people of this pristine mangrove forest – people who bear the brunt of the vagaries of weather such as the devastating cyclones; people who are constantly forced to arrange their living as per the daily ebb and high tide water level fluctuations of the labyrinthine channels of rivers running into the sea at the  mouth of the largest delta in the world – the Ganga Bramhaputra delta as it flows into the Bay of Bengal whose salty waters, in turn, run backwards to envelop large parts of the mangroves during high tides; people who have to deal with crocodiles and sharks which abound in these salty sweet confluence spots of the sea and the river, and the royal Bengal tigers. And also the most dreaded entity which oppresses and terrorises and demeans them the most – the Forest Department.

The deep discrimination manifested through sheer arbitrariness and verbal and physical abuse perpetrated, day in and day out on the forest dependent people of Sunderban by the overlord of the forest – the Forest Department – burst forth in the depositions of the people who could manage to voice their horror stories in front of a distinguished panel along with hundreds of local people from different islands of Sunderban and close to a hundred forest dependent Adivasis and Dalits from different corners of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, at  a public hearing in Gosaba, South 24 Parganas on January 31, 2016.
 
On being prodded by the panellists, Sufia Bibi from Shamsernagar island admitted that though she was not personally a victim of sexual harassment she was well aware of such pains inflicted on other forest going women. The minister in charge of Sunderban from the West Bengal government, vows to bring justice if such cases of sexual harassment are proven. But the same minister looks at the persistent tales of physical and verbal abuse by the forest department quite differently, in his suggestion that people are over reacting in order to voice their latent anger at being denied fishing access in the Core Zone of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve.

This Forest Department engineered by colonising powers represents a story of forcible ouster, regulation, control and thus discrimination, resulting in “historical injustice” on the forest- dependent Dalit, Adivasi and other minority sections.
 
We do not know what his reaction would be to peoples’ claims that they do not understand the very need, the absolute arbitrariness, in the declaring of the Core and Buffer zones.  
 
The bizarre demarcation patterns of the ‘Core’ and ‘Buffer’ are designed to necessitate people’s entry into the Buffer only through the Core. Thus they are almost always being caught while crossing the Core to go the Buffer and being heckled and fined for this idiosyncrasy of the Forest Department. We know what the Tiger lobby and the Conservation lobby think of the peoples’ claims to their inalienable rights to the forests of Sunderban now enshrined as a Special Act of Parliament – the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, popularly called the FRA – the Forest Rights Act.
 
Sunderban Tiger Reserve field director Nilanjan Mullick has a different take. Speaking to the media after the public hearing, he said, “Fishing is allowed in the areas under South 24-Parganas forest division spread over 1500 sq km. Fishing trips are also allowed in the 500 sq km buffer area of the tiger reserve. So, of the entire 4500 sq km forest, fishing activities are being carried out in 2000 sq km area. What else do they want? Should we scrap the wildlife protection act and all other measures to protect wildlife?”  he wondered. [1]
 
The field director should have known that his utterances are a violation of the FRA for which he can be legally challenged because the FRA clearly says: “notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force". The clause is "non-obstante", that is, it constitutes "a very important and categorical message from the Indian Parliament that the rights vested and recognised by the Forest Rights Act shall over-ride any legal regime or executive arrangement which is contrary to such right."
 
 Also, he is challenging the very claims of the forest dependent people of Sunderban and thus refuting the very essence of the definition of a forest dweller as defined in the FRA which says,
(c) “forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes” means the members of the community of the Scheduled Tribes who primarily reside in and who depend on the  forests or forest lands for bona fide livelihood needs and includes the Scheduled Tribe pastoralist communities:

Kolkata's honorary wildlife warden Suchandra Kundu, also quoted by the media after the public hearing, said: "There are no forest-dwelling communities in the Sunderbans. People live on the fringe areas of the forest and not inside the mangroves. They are known as fringe population. So, why the forest rights act here?”[2] And while people who deposed felt that the catch of fish has dwindled due to too many motorized tourist boats and cargo trawlers spilling fuel, and also because of  Kolkata city underground drainage flowing into the estuaries of Sunderban, State wildlife advisory board member Biswajit Roy Chowdhury claimed over-fishing was already a cause of concern in the Sunderban. “There's over-fishing in the buffer areas. The catch has dwindled. An increase in the fishing activities will only spell doom for the landscape” he added.
 
There is concern only for the environment and the tiger. People seem to be treated merely as an accidental presence and also as a hindrance to the very survival of the forest and of the tigers. The powers that be want the people to leave. Note this utterance :“At a time when we are fearing large-scale exodus from the Sunderbans due to climate change, such a move (to give rights to people over the Sunderban forests- our explanation) will make the situation even worse.“
 
The Boat Licence Certificate (BLC) and forcible collection of honey from deep inside forests – physically a highly challenging work with highest possibility of tiger attacks- are two livelihood issues which constantly came up during the peoples’ deposition before the panel at the Public Hearing. BLC issued by the Forest Department (FD) just after the Sunderban was declared a Tiger Reserve in 1972, (923 in all) are peoples’ license to enter the forested islands and channels of waterways to catch fish.
 
Without it, whether you are hungry or not , you are not allowed to enter the forested islands for fishing. The situation is such that original genuine fishing people hardly have these licenses in their name. Licenses now are mostly in the name of what has become a rentier class, who are not even living anywhere near Sunderban.
 
The BLCs are rented out on a yearly lease at rates between 30-50 thousand rupees, which, after adjusting the advances (and the interest thereon) fishermen have to take from araathdars  (big stockist/traders) for each seven-ten day foray into the forest for fishing. This leaves them with barely below poverty level subsistence incomes. Honey collection and sale in the open market could get people a decent earning. Each person has to compulsorily collect 120 kilograms and compulsorily deposit the entire collection to the Forest Department (FD).
 
The open market rate at which they can sell is at least Rs. 200 per kilogram. Thus an earning of 120 x Rs 200 = Rs.24,000 is possible. But the FD forcibly buys it at Rs 110 per kg as per the rate last year, thus giving them only 120 x Rs110 = Rs13,200 making them losers by at least Rs 10,000. And who is making this profit – the FD; which profits more than this.
 
This is a gross violation of all laws, and thus gross discrimination. Thus the people unanimously reverberated with the feeling – “Sunderban is ours; not the fiefdom of the FD”. Demands have come from people that the State government should announce a minimum support price and instruct the West Bengal SC/ ST Development and Finance Corporations under its Backward Classes Ministry to purchase the honey directly from honey collectors. Suggestions were strongly put forward by members of the panel asking the state government to help form co- operatives of honey collectors to help the forest dependent people of Sunderban to earn a better living – a right very much theirs as per the amendments to the FRA in July 2012.
 
Tiger attacks and tiger victims are omnipresent in these mangroves. Culturally the people of the Sunderban have negotiated this relationship between man and tiger through the conceptualisation of the myth of Bonbibi which is thought to have been created by Sufi practitioners around the 12th century AD – surely a strong cultural locator of almost a thousand year old human habitation.
 
While the Forest Department always finds an excuse not to pay any compensation to families of tiger victims, they also terrorise the people so much that many cases of tiger attack / killings are not even reported.
 
This long time conflict between tiger and people has been played up by the Forest department in collusion with the tiger lobby. “…… how tigers have been appropriated into urban literature as one of the most prominent trademarks of global conservation, as well as the absence of humans in the literature on the Sundarban ” is something noteworthy. “Today, the tiger’s image is used to frame moral and ethical debates around wildlife by various transnational animal-centric charities and development agencies like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) or the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in bids to fund projects. This…. Tiger …………has become the rallying point for urbanites’ concerns for wildlife protection.”(Annu Jalais, 2010)
 
A myraid issues surround the Sunderban, and each is important. The only problem is that the forest dependent people of Sunderban are not the subjects or objects of these multiple concerns. The All India Union of Forest Working people (AIUFWP), after a twenty year wait to realise the dream first envisioned by Comrade Bharati Roy Chowdhury when she visited the Sunderban in 1996 with the organisation which preceded the AIUFWP, wants to initiate a process whereby this concern is prioritised.

The bizarre demarcation patterns of the ‘Core’ and ‘Buffer’ are designed to necessitate people’s entry into the Buffer only through the Core. Thus they are almost always being caught while crossing the Core to go the Buffer and being heckled and fined for this idiosyncrasy of the Forest Department.

The legal framework is in the hands of the people – FRA. Advocate Sanjay Parikh who helped keep the Niyamgiri as a cultural heritage of the Dongria Kondh  Adivasis by winning a landmark legal battle in the Supreme Court of India,  against the clutches of a mining and metal manufacturing tycoon, exhorted the people to feel brave and claim their rights, failing which avenues of legal challenges should be sought to challenge this denial of the rights recognized after admission of “historical injustice” to the forest dependent Adivasi and Dalits.

The veil of fear has been lifted. The people of Sunderban will rise up, rekindling the legacy of the brave Tebhaga movement (which is unknown to many) and claim their community rights over the Sunderban. They know how to take care of the forest – their livelihood source. They challenge this sweeping accusation made without understanding the nuances, that “cutting trees is harmful for the environment, for the forest”.

Chanat Gazi from the island of Shamsernagar, now a voluntarily retired fisherman says that “the Forest Department does not understand that if trees are not cut in the forests these forests will never grow. Some trees need to be trimmed, if necessary cut. Our forefathers did it. We never cleared the forests to build colonies, it is because of our forefathers that the forests grew, they took care of the forest, then why will we destroy the forests? We hear all the time the advice that we must save trees to get oxygen but one must also know how to grow trees in the forest. The real truth is that the dust which collects on leaves need to be removed to look beautiful, for forests to grow properly. If the forests are properly pruned, some painful areas have to be removed and this is true for us humans and for trees as well".

The officers are being trained with the erroneous notion that cutting trees per se is bad for Sundarban. That’s wrong, Sundarban will not reduce in size if trees are pruned and parts which require to be cut off are cut off. Timber merchants have cut hectares (without re-planting) for ages. What people do not know is how trees grow in forests. They initially are in a close cluster of 15-20 trees. After growing to a certain size, if some number of trees are not cut off, pruned, none of the trees will have a healthy growth. So the notion that is spread by everybody including the forest department is wrong. This ban on even cutting the big round leaves of the trees in the forest is so harmful; they are neither saving the trees nor the jungle. Firewood (that is taken by us) is from the trees which have died on their own, we take away only the dead parts as the live parts will grow better if the dead portions are cut off.

For new trees to grow it is important that old / dead trees are removed but who other than local people will do it? Will the foresters do it? Their only work is to 'manufacture' news".

Chanat stresses that he understands the importance of overseeing the health of the Sunderban and says, “The current system of BLC is bad which needs to be changed but there should be some monitoring system to regularly go to the forest and ensure that the forest is not destroyed….”

People have enough of a knowledge pool, good enough to sustain the environment, natural resources – which is in fact their locales of sustenance and very existence. The issue is acknowledging this. We need to re-orient our focus, trust and include the indigenous peoples in this quest and endeavour.

The struggle is however intensifying. The foci of capitalist drive to derive surplus is now centred in locales of the natural resources of the global south. And thus this will become the new locales of opposition to the logic of capital.

The failure of the BJP government at the Centre to push through corporate favourable Land Acquisition law was anticipated to lead to attempts to dilute/bypass acts like FRA so as to make acquisition of mineral resources and natural resources easier.

And a first such attempt – through the attempted change in forest laws by the Maharashtra government – has just come to light. The situation is now germane with the possibility of building stronger resistances at the grassroots: the core of locales which have natural resources in abundance.

Such ground level struggles need to be backed by a thorough re-orientation and re-thinking, re-enforced by a colonial hangover, towards institutions or departments like the Forest Department. This Department has functioned unchecked, in utter disregard of the laws of the land, even the Indian Constitution.

There can be no time like the present, when the RSS-backed BJP government at the Centre is trying to lay claims on what is patriotic and national. For us all, battling for the preservation of the rights of indigenous peoples and natural resources, we need to say that it is this battle that will save us from a re-colonisation, all over again. It is a battle for the collective ownership and protection of land, water and what is below the land and water, from a dangerous destruction.

The Public Hearing at the Sunderban left us with hope. It makes us feel there is an impending possibility of a wider, deeper political coming togetherness of the pro-people progressive strands of the Indian political firmament, enabling the ouster of the RSS brand of  political narrative that is being thrust upon us.

(Ashok Chowdhury is currently the general secretary of the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), vice-president of the independent national trade union federation – New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) and a prime mover of the Land Rights Movement platform – Bhumi Adhikar Andolan; Avijit is an activist with the AIUFWP 

 

[1] Both these comments were made to reporters after the conclusion of the Tribunal 
[2] Both these comments were made to reporters after the conclusion of the Tribunal

[i] Jalais, Annu, Forest of Tigers: People, Politics & Environment in the Sunderbans (Routledge India, 2010)

The story I never got to tell – of rape and torture by the Indian army

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Twenty five years ago this February 23, 2016 , the infamous Kunan Poshpora incident is alleged to have occurred. Units of the Indian armed forces allegedly launched a search and interrogation operation in the village of Kunan Poshpora, located in Kashmir’s extremely remote Kupwara district

The recent debates on Indian nationalism and anti-nationalism spurred by the belligerent ring-wing after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power have only served to distract the masses from what is going on in different parts of India. The doctored videos that played a pivotal role in the arrest of the students at Jawaharlal Nehru University(JNU) in Delhi have finally exposed the corporate-state-media nexus.

The JNU arrests are not an aberration. Neither is mass outrage. Those who have been standing up to dissent have paid a huge price for several years. Criminalisation of dissent has always been an integral part of this democracy, with structural violence at its core. Over the years, we have witnessed many upright citizens being charged under unconstitutional laws all over the country, not just the disturbed areas.

From the jailed Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba, to Dr Binayak Sen, Manipur’s Irom Sharmila to Santosh Yadav and Somaru Nag; the journalists jailed in Chhattisgarh, from tribal leader Soni Sori and cultural activist Hem Mishra; to the youth of Kashmir who are charged under the draconian Public Safety Act – all have borne the brunt of dissent against the state for many years.

Almost a decade ago, I remember the muscles in my shoulders stiffen as I mentally prepared myself to interview the women of Kunan and Poshpora villages in north Kashmir. The long drive there was distracting – the untouched beauty of the land made it hard to believe that gut-wrenching horrors were carried out there on a mass scale. India’s best-kept secrets are sprinkled all over the landscape, which is ironically referred to as Paradise.

As we walked on the muddied path that smelled fresh from the incessant drizzle, I recall thinking I should leave my shoes outside the house of the family we were going to visit to avoid sullying the floor. The mind comes up with the most mundane stuff in order to avoid trauma. While trudging up the trail that seemed to be longer than it was, we chanced upon an old lady who was standing in her courtyard. She was 105 years old, they said, adding she was one of the 56 women raped by the soldiers of the Indian Army, 17 years ago on a cold day in February.

Hastily, she waved us away saying that she had told her story to many people over the years and that had not helped her get justice. She saw no point in talking to us. We walked on. I was led by two local journalists to a home of a family that survived that horrible night when a battalion of Indian soldiers encircled the village at night and brutalised both men and women, all in the name of “protecting the national interests”.

A mother and a daughter-in-law of the household were raped, while their father was tortured in the snow outside, I was told. We were ushered into a spacious room and the ladies of the house laid out tea and biscuits for us. As we all sat there, the village head was quickly summoned. Our translators directed questions to him out of courtesy and respect for the aggrieved family.

Euphemisms and innuendos came to our rescue. There could be no ambiguities. I had to file my report to a mainstream national newspaper where I worked back in Bombay.

I had decided to visit the village on a day when protesters took to the streets after Al-Aqsa mosque in Palestine was vandalised by the Israeli forces. Had they forgotten the Kunan-Poshpora survivors? It was also the day Kunan-Poshpora changed forever 17 years ago.

As we progressed with our questions, delicately formed and delivered in hushed tones, tears began to flow. First, it was the women, then the men. We spoke about everything that happened that hellish night… the panic, the screams, cries for mercy, wails of pain, the blood, broken bones and depression and stress-related illnesses that would plague the survivors for decades to come.

It wasn’t just the women who were targeted in this time of war. The men were dragged out of their homes in the snow. “They threw buckets of water on us right here, in several feet of snow that night. Then they beat us with their rifle butts. There were so many of them – over 1,000. Women were screaming for all the houses,” said the village head, pointing to a spot outside our window.

A heavily pregnant lady was not spared. Days later she delivered a child with a broken arm. The women talk about how they’ve never been well since then, about how no one would want to give their daughters in marriage to these two villages because of the stigma of rape, about how they’d become social outcasts by a community steeped in violence that further deepened gender biases. Intermittently, they would politely ask us to sip our tea and offer us biscuits, between muffled sobs. We couldn’t. The lumps in our throats wouldn’t let us.

Finally, he asked, “Puraney zakhm kyu khured rahey ho? (why are you bringing up old wounds?)” I replied that justice had not been done and the guilty were not booked. Pushing my luck, I asked to see the files of the incident and he told me that the files were destroyed, as it had been 17 years. In the end, I explained that I was doing my job and that he should do his and hung up as his tone changed.

Their stories, their immaculate memories, the gaps in their stories that were caused by extreme trauma that the Indian government exploited and labeled the incident “Pakistan’s conspiracy against India”, the miniscule details, the irrelevant details – all made me hang my head in shame. Indian’s army had raped these women and they were offering us tea and biscuits on that cold, rainy day. For 17 years, the villagers had been hoping for justice but there was none. Time stood still for all of us.

Finally, leading us to our car after the interview, the village head, an old man, wiped his tears and squeezed my hand. “You are like my child. I am old. We have waited for justice for so long. Tell us you will bring us justice,” he said. At my bravest best, I retorted, “I cannot promise you anything but I will do everything in my power to tell the truth and put your story out.” Here, I got my first lesson in hope. It never dies. The harder the circumstances, the stronger it burns.

Not a word was said in the car during the long winding journey back to Srinagar. I was disturbed and so I didn’t want to file the report right away. I was waiting to settle down in my head. Back in office a week later, I started writing. I finished it in one go. I wanted to wait and not pass it on to the editors. For some reason, I wasn’t ready to let it go.

Later that evening, I got a call from the PRO of the Ministry of Defence in Delhi. The lieutenant general on the line asked me if I was doing a story on the villages. I said I was. He asked me how old I was and then said I was as old as his daughter. Then he denied that mass rapes had occurred, stating it was a conspiracy by Pakistan to defame the Indian army. I asked him if I could quote him in my report. He insisted that I meet the defence PRO in my city so he could brief me. I said I had no time and he wouldn’t have a different statement to make from his boss.

Finally, he asked, “Puraney zakhm kyu khured rahey ho? (why are you bringing up old wounds?)” I replied that justice had not been done and the guilty were not booked. Pushing my luck, I asked to see the files of the incident and he told me that the files were destroyed, as it had been 17 years. In the end, I explained that I was doing my job and that he should do his and hung up as his tone changed.

I felt my story would be dropped if I waited anymore, so I put the file in the editor’s folder for editing. A few hours and many whispers later, the story was allotted to a sub-editor. Since he sat on the next desk, I was eager to monitor the process. He said it was against the army and he wouldn’t use it. So I went and complained to the chief editor who prevailed upon him. By the end of the day, he watered down the story and was not afraid to show his displeasure.

“Why don’t you go back to Iran if you hate India country so much?” he asked from his seat. I’m a Zoroastrian by faith and I’ve never been to Iran. I said it had nothing to do with India and that it was a question of justice. A heated debate followed and most of the sub-editors took his side, saying what I was doing was anti-national and hence, pro-Pakistan.

I tried reasoning, “If this happened to your family, you would want justice, right?” But hate is blind to common sense. Finally, the report came out. It was toned down. Unfortunately, it has been taken down from the newspaper website since then. I got a few calls from concerned citizens in the next few days, asking how they could help and how ashamed they were. I asked them to file RTIs (right to information requests).

I have interviewed lots of survivors of rape at the hands of the security forces and non-state actors or mercenaries. I stumbled on the same sadness after interviewing tribal leader and school teacher Soni Sori in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. Her quest for justice followed. It was amazing to see her document cases of mass rapes in the region and ask the powers that be for accountability. Her own story of surviving sexual torture was inspiring beyond words. To ask the perpetrators for justice is brave beyond any measure.

As the media indulges in time-consuming debates on nationalism and anti-nationalism, those hungry for justice stand tall before an intricate web of state machinery, fortified with militarism that is engineered to obliterate a people’s identity, culture, land and natural resources and way of life – all for a spurt in the GDP in the interest of the nation.

http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/pakistan-indian-army-rape/

(The author is a Bombay-based journalist and a PhD student)

 
 

Delhi High Court Order granting Bail to Kanhaiya Kumar March 2, 2016

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Full text of the Delhi High Court order by Justice Pratibha Rani, granting Kanhaiya Kumar bail for 6 months can be read here. It was delivered around 6.45 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2, 2016.


 

Bail Granted to Kanhaiya Kumar

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The Delhi High Court today (Wednesday, March 2, 2016), granted interim bail for six months to JNU Students Union president  Kanhaiya Kumar on a personal bail bond of Rs 10,000. The court has also asked Kanhaiya to cooperate in the investigation. At the last hearing on Monday, February 29, 2016 Justice Pratibha Rani had reserved the order after over three hours of hearing. Full Full text of the Delhi High Court order by Justice Pratibha Rani, granting Kanhaiya Kumar bail for 6 months can be read here. It was delivered around 6.45 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2, 2016.

Two advocates, Victor Dheesa and Bajinder Singh were present in the courtroom when the order was delivered. Speaking to Sabrangindia, advocate Dheesa said that Kanhaiya Kumar was likely to be released tomorrow after the matter of standing surety and the bail bond of Rs 10,000 was furnished in the Court. Kanhaiya Kumar was not present in the courtroom when the order was read out. Senior counsel, Kapil Sibal had argued the matter for over three hours on Monday. Vrinda Grover was also assisting the team.

Kanhaiya Kumar had been arrested on February 12, 2016 by the Delhi Police, allegedly without a warrant. On February 18, 2016 he had written a letter to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) saying he feared for his life. See SabrangIndia
  
On February 17, 2016 in a shameful attack, men in black coats had brutally assaulted Kanhaiya Kumar in the premises of the Tees Hazari Court even as the Supreme Court of India had been approached in a petition filed by activist ND Jayaprakash. See SabrangIndia
 
Sabrangindia had, within days of Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest, carried a translation of the speech he made at JNU, the day he was arrested, See SabrangIndia
 

We reproduce here the English translation of his speech:

 
"They are the ones who burnt the Tricolour. They are followers of Savarkar who apologised to the British. They are the ones who, in Haryana, have changed the name of one airport. There was one airport named after Bhagat Singh. The Khattar government has now named it after one Sanghi (a person associated with the RSS).
 
What I mean to say is that we don't need the certificate of patriotism from the RSS. We don't need a nationalist certificate from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). We belong to this country. We love this country. We fight for the 80 per cent of the poor population of this country. For us, this is nation worship.
 
We have full faith in Babasahab (Ambedkar). We have full faith in the Constitution of India. We want to say this very forcefully that if anyone tries to challenge the Constitution, be it the Sanghis, we will not tolerate.
 
We have faith in the Constitution. But we don't have faith in the Constitution that is taught in Jhandewalan (RSS headquarters in Delhi) and Nagpur. We don't have faith in Manusmriti, we don't have faith in the caste system in this country.
 
The Constitution and Babasahab Ambedkar talk about corrective measures. The same Babasahab Ambedkar talks about abolishing capital punishment. The same Babasahab Ambedkar talks about freedom of expression. And we want to uphold the Constitution, we want to uphold our right.
 
But it's shameful and sad that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), in association with friends from a section of the media, is running such an orchestrated campaign. Yesterday, the ABVP joint secretary said that we fight for fellowships. How ridiculous it sounds! Their government, Madam ManuSmriti Irani is ending fellowships and they accuse us of fighting for fellowships. Their government has reduced the higher education budget by 17 per cent.
 
Our hostel has not been built for the past four years, there is no Wi-fi.  BHEL gave us one bus but the administration has no money for oil. And ABVP people stand like Dev Anand claiming that they will get hostels built, they will get Wi-fi and they will get fellowships.
 
They will be exposed if there is a debate on the basic issues in this country. We are proud of being JNU-ites because we discuss and debate the basic issues concerning this country. We raise issues related to the dignity of women, Dalits, tribals and minorities in this country. And so, their Swamy (Subramanian Swamy) says that jihadis live in JNU, that JNU students spread violence.
 
They (RSS) say that five fingers are not equal. They advocate that women should emulate Sita and give agnipariksha. There is democracy in this country, and democracy gives equal rights to all – be it a student, a worker, the poor or the rich, Ambani or Adani. And when we talk about equal rights of women, they accuse us of destroying Indian culture.

On behalf of JNU, I want to challenge RSS ideologues. Call us and hold a debate. We want to debate the concept of violence. We want to raise questions about the frenzied ABVP's slogans, their slogan that they will do tilak with blood and aarti with bullets. Whose blood do they want to spill?
 
They aligned with the British and fired bullets on the freedom fighters of this country. They fired bullets when poor people demanded bread; they fired bullets when people dying of hunger talked about their rights; they have fired bullets on Muslims; they have fired bullets on women when they demand equal rights.

They say that five fingers are not equal. They advocate that women should emulate Sita and give agnipariksha. There is democracy in this country, and democracy gives equal rights to all – be it a student, a worker, the poor or the rich, Ambani or Adani. And when we talk about equal rights of women, they accuse us of destroying Indian culture.
 
We want to destroy the culture of exploitation, the culture of caste, the culture of Manuwad and Brahminism. Till now, the definition of culture has not been resolved. They have a problem when people of this country talk about democracy, when they give blue salute along with red salute, when people talk about Ambedkar along with Marx, when people talk about Asfaqulla Khan (the freedom fighter). They can't tolerate. It is their conspiracy. They were British stooges. I dare them to file a defamation case against me. I say that the RSS's history is one of siding with the British. These traitors today are distributing certificates of nationalism.
 
Check my mobile phone, friends. Dirty abuses are being hurled at my mother and sister. Which Mother India are you talking about? If my mother is not part of your Mother India, your concept of Mother India is not acceptable to me.
 
My mother is an Anganwadi sewika, my family runs with the Rs 3,000 she earns and they are abusing her. I'm ashamed that in this country, the mothers of the poor, Dalit farmers are not part of Mother India. I will hail the mothers of this country, I will hail the fathers of this country, I will hail the mothers and sisters of this country, I will hail the poor farmers, Dalits, tribals and labourers. I will tell them that if they have courage, then say ' Inquilab zindabad', say 'Bhagat Singh zindabad', say 'Sukhdev zindabad', say 'Asfaqulla Khan zindabad', say 'Babasahab Ambedkar zindabad'.
 
Only then will I believe that you have faith in this country.
 
They are enacting the drama of celebrating Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary. If they have courage, they should raise the issues Ambedkar raised. Caste system is one of the biggest problems in this country. Talk about caste system, bring reservation in every sector, bring reservation in the private sector. Raise these questions, then I will believe that you have faith in this country.
This nation had never been yours and will never be yours. A nation is made by its people and if there is no place for hungry and poor people in your idea of the nation, then it is no nation.
 
Yesterday, I said in one TV debate that we are in difficult times. The way fascism is coming in the country, even the media would not be spared. The media would be provided with written scripts from the RSS office, just as written scripts came from the Congress office during the Emergency.
 
Some media friends told me that JNU runs on taxpayers' money, on subsidy. Yes, it is our right that JNU runs on subsidy. But I want to raise the question: what are universities for?
 
Universities are there for critical analysis of the society's collective conscience. Critical analysis should be promoted. If universities fail in their duty, there would be no nation. If people are not part of a nation, it will turn into a grazing ground for the rich, for exploitation and looting.
 
My mother is an Anganwadi sewika, my family runs with the Rs 3,000 she earns and they are abusing her. I'm ashamed that in this country, the mothers of the poor, Dalit farmers are not part of Mother India. I will hail the mothers of this country, I will hail the fathers of this country, I will hail the mothers and sisters of this country, I will hail the poor farmers, Dalits, tribals and labourers.

If we don't assimilate people's culture, beliefs and rights, a nation would not be formed. We stand firmly with the country, we stand for the dreams of Bhagat Singh and Babasahab Ambedkar. We stand for equal rights. We stand for the right to live. Rohith (Vemula) had to lose his life to stand for these rights.
 
But we want to tell these Sanghis – "shame on your government". We challenge the central government – we will not allow in JNU whatever it did in the case of Rohith. Rohith will not lose his life here. We will not forget Rohith's sacrifice. We will stand for freedom of expression.
Leave aside Pakistan and Bangladesh, we call for unity of the poor and the toiling masses of the world. We hail the humanity of this world, we hail the humanity of India.
 
We have identified those who are against humanity. This is the biggest issue before us today. We have identified that face of casteism, the face of Manuwad, the face of the nexus between Brahminism and capitalism. And we have to expose these faces. We have to usher in real freedom, and that freedom will come through the Constitution, through Parliament. And we will achieve it.
 
I want to appeal to you friends that despite all the differences, we have to safeguard this freedom of expression, we have to safeguard our Constitution, we have to safeguard the unity and integrity of this country. For this, we have to remain united and fight the forces trying to divide our country, the forces that give shelter to terrorists.
 
One last question before I end my speech. Who is Kasab? Who is Afzal Guru? Who are these people, who are in a state to wrap bombs around their body and kill? If these questions are not raised in universities, the existence of universities becomes pointless.
 
If we don't define justice, if we don't define violence and how we see violence? Violence is not only about killing somebody with a gun. There is violence when the JNU administration denies the constitutional rights guaranteed to Dalits. This is institutional violence.
 
They talk about justice. Who will decide what justice is?
 
Brahminism did not allow Dalits to enter temples. The British did not allow dogs and Indians to enter restaurants. That was justice then. We challenged that justice and today we challenge the justice of the ABVP and the RSS because their justice does not accommodate justice for us. If their justice doesn't accommodate justice for us, we will not accept their justice and this freedom.
 
We will accept this freedom when every person gets his constitutional right. We will accept justice when there is equal rights for all.
 
Friends, the situation is very serious. Under no circumstances does the JNUSU (the JNU students' union) support any violence, any terrorist, any terror incident and any anti-India activity. I want to reiterate that the JNUSU strongly condemns slogans of "Pakistan zindabad" raised by some unidentified people.
 
I want to share one thing with you, friends. It is a question related to the JNU administration and the ABVP. Thousands of things take place on this JNU campus. Listen carefully to the slogans being raised by the ABVP now. They are calling us 'communist dogs'. They are calling us 'Afzal Guru's dogs'. They are calling us 'children of jihadis'.
 
If the Constitution gives us the right to be citizens, then is it not an attack on our constitutional right when they call our parents dogs? We want to ask this question to the ABVP and the JNU administration.
 
We want to ask the JNU administration for whom, with whom and on what basis it works. It is now clear that the JNU administration first gives permission and then withdraws it on receiving a call from Nagpur. This thing of first giving permission and then withdrawing, it has intensified.
 
First, they will announce fellowship and then tell that it has been withdrawn. This is the RSS and ABVP pattern with which they want to run this country.
 
We want to ask the JNU administration. Permission (for the February 9 programme where eventually the anti-India slogans were shouted) was granted despite the fact that posters had been put up and pamphlets distributed. When it gave permission, on whose directive was it withdrawn? We want to ask this to the JNU administration.
 
At the same time, understand the truth of these (ABVP) people. Don't hate them. I feel sad for them. They are jumping today because they feel that the way they got Gajendra Chauhan (in the FTII), they would get people like him in every institution. They feel that with people like Chauhan everywhere, they would get jobs. Once they get jobs, they will forget nation worship and Bharat Mata. What to tell of the Tricolour, which they have never respected? They will also forget the saffron flag.
 
I want to know what kind of nation worship they are talking about? If an owner doesn't behave properly with his employees, if a farmer doesn't do justice with his workers, if a highly paid CEO of a media house doesn't behave properly with the meagrely paid reporters, then what is this nation worship?
 
Their nation worship ends with an India-Pakistan cricket match. After that when they go out on the road, they misbehave with the person selling bananas. When the person selling bananas tells them that a dozen comes for Rs 40, they abuse him and accuse him of looting customers. They demand a dozen for Rs 30.
 
The day the person selling bananas turns and tells them that you are the real looters, they will term the poor fellow anti-national. Nation worship begins and ends with wealth and facilities. I know a number of ABVP people and I ask them whether the fervour of nationalism moves them? They tell me: "What to do, brother, this government is for five years and two years are already over. Three years' talktime is left and whatever has to be done, should be done in this period."
 
But I ask them what will happen if, tomorrow, one of their own members, who is going around in trains checking for beef, holds them by the collar and accuses them of being anti-national since they are from JNU? They could be lynched. I ask them whether they realise this danger?
 
They tell me that they realise this danger and so are opposing‪ #‎JNUShutdown (a Twitter hashtag). First, they build an atmosphere against JNU and, then, oppose it when they realise that ultimately they have to live in JNU only.
 
This is why I want to tell all JNU-ites that elections are coming in March. The ABVP people will seek your votes with the "Om" flag. Ask them: "We are jihadis, we are terrorists, we are anti-nationals and by taking our votes, will they also become anti-national?" Do ask them these questions. I know when you ask them these questions, they will tell you, "not you but a few people are anti-nationals". Then ask them, "why did they not tell this in the media then"? Ask them why their vice-chancellor and registrar too did not tell then?
 
Tell them that those few people too are saying that they did not raise slogans of "Pakistan zindabad", nor did they support terrorism. Those few people are asking why at first permission was granted and then withdrawn and this is an attack on their democratic right? These few people are saying that if somewhere a democratic struggle is being fought, they will stand for it.
 
They will never understand this. But the people, who have gathered here at short notice, understand the issue. They will go around the campus and tell the students that the ABVP is not only breaking this country but also JNU and we will not allow this to happen.
 
Long live JNU. JNU will continue to actively participate in all democratic struggles taking place across the country, continue to strengthen the voice of democracy, the voice of freedom and freedom of expression. We will struggle and win and defeat the traitors of this country. With these words, I thank you all and appeal for unity.

Jai Bhim, Lal Salaam."
 

In the video below, Kanhaiya Kumar nails the Delhi police inaction during Patiala House court attack on February 17, 2016

 

Hindu Marriage Bill, Pakistan: Serious Gaps

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Notwithstanding the positives, the Hindu Marriage Bill, 2016 approved by the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice leaves some serious gaps.

Section 12 (iii) of the bill has implications for the constitutional guarantee of protection of family (Article 35) as well as protective measures ordered by the Supreme Court on June 19, 2014 for the Hindu minority. The clause intrudes upon an area that other family laws dare not tread – changing religion while in a marriage bond.

If parliament chooses to pass the bill in the present form, this clause – which makes change of religion a ground for dissolution of marriage – will lead to serious legal, social and political implications.

First, it implies that the law in Pakistan prohibits diversity of belief for cohabitation or marriage. So the proviso poses a challenge to the concept of interfaith marriages. Secondly, making conversion of faith an issue for merely Hindu couples would be discriminatory; personal laws for other communities will also have to be revisited.

Forced conversions, alleged or proven, often involve sexual harassment, rape and/or abduction. In these circumstances the influence of the perpetrators, the positive bias of the justice system on the majority religion etc play out in favour of the manipulation of legal procedures.

The person who has reportedly converted is separated from her family, making the element of coercion difficult to prove. A statement on oath by the newly converted and married stratifies the court requirement. Therefore, the local magistrate orders the case shut.

Politically, this clause will only lead to lowering the confidence the Hindu community has in the legal system. The Hindu community has been rightly alarmed because clause 12 (iii) is likely to facilitate the forced conversion of Hindu women.

No wonder activists Kishan Shamra, Pooja Rajput and Deepak Kumar reacted promptly, terming this clause of the draft bill “unacceptable”. MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar, who should have exercised his muscle in the National Assembly in the first place, has expressed his apprehensions regarding the clause too.

The draft law that was originally prepared by the National Commission on Status of Women in 2011 did not have this clause. Reportedly, someone in the National Assembly sent the Hindu Marriage Bill to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) for an opinion.

First, it implies that the law in Pakistan prohibits diversity of belief for cohabitation or marriage. So the proviso poses a challenge to the concept of interfaith marriages. Secondly, making conversion of faith an issue for merely Hindu couples would be discriminatory; personal laws for other communities will also have to be revisited.

The CII added two clauses, one about reducing the age for marriage and the second this conversion clause. The NA Standing Committee bowed down to the conversion clause (section 12 (iii)) without even considering whether the CII had any mandate on this.

The Standing Committee seems to have disregarded the jurisprudence regarding cases involving minority men and women in connection with conversion and marriage. For instance, the courts held that conversion of faith does not dissolve a marriage automatically in Ms Kundani v The State (PLD 1988 FSC 89) and more recently in Ms Fatima Bibi v SHO Ichchra Police Station Lahore (PLD 2005, Lahore 128).

The Supreme Court of Pakistan exercising its ‘parental jurisdiction’ in Misri Ludhani v Amjad Shahzad, etc (Crml.Misc.P.No. 2k, 2006) ordered submission of surety bonds to the tune of Rs1.5 million as a guarantee that Neelum Ludhai, a Hindu girl who was reported to have married a Muslim man out of free will, would be treated humanely. The court had further ordered that the respondent would make sure that the girl could meet her parents freely.

Hence, the courts have tried to repair the damage caused by lack of legal and administrative protections, though in other cases the Supreme Court also failed to check the injustice. For instance, it overlooked the issue of age verification in the Rinkle Kumari case.

Sensing the situation, the Pakistan Hindu Council had filed a petition in the Supreme Court (CP 130, 2007), asking for binding orders to the government for legislation to curb forced conversion; this remains to be heard unfortunately.

Making conversion a ground for dissolution of marriage, in the absence of safeguards against forced conversion, is more a travesty of justice. The Special Marriage Act 1872 is strict and obsolete, and therefore a weak remedy for couples opting for unconventional marriages. Therefore, besides the personal laws of each community, a common civil code governing such marriages becomes necessary.

The Hindu Marriage Act of Sindh 2016 managed to stay out of this pitfall. The federal legislation on matrimonial laws will have to safeguard several interests – citizenship rights, freedom of choice of marriage, founding a family and freedom of religion and belief. Parliament has a duty to protect the institution of the family from unnecessary and illegal breakups as well.

The Standing Committee has in a way made the business of forced conversion easier – unless parliament rectifies this mistake.

Courtesy: The News International Lahore, February 27, 2016.

(The writer, a freelance writer, was associated with the National Commission for Justice and Peace until 2013 and is currently Executive Director at the Lahore-based Centre for Social Justice)
 

Challenging Heterogeneity in Universities

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This short essay aims to deconstruct and challenge the heterogeneity claims made by certain universities. Such a challenge is informed by Phule-Ambedkarite scholarships. It is not original. It is a reiteration of old, relevant facts. This essay is timely as we are increasingly witnessing hysteric and glorious accounts on nation and universities (across party lines). What seems to be missing (or deliberately pushed under the carpet) is the critique of Brahmin-Savarna supremacy on material and cultural resources everywhere, including universities.

Brahmin-Savarnas occupy Strategic Posts
In JNU, teachers and students have come together to stage a united fight against organised Hindutva forces and militarization of the campus. As per one of the speakers, their fight aims at saving the soul of ‘India’ by defending its ‘universities’. One may agree or disagree with them. However, one cannot fail to notice the caste and class differences between the teachers and the students.

While students form a relatively heterogeneous group, thanks to affirmative action; teachers continue to be dominated by Brahmins and other Savarnas (hereafter Brahmin-Savarnas). Is this difference a problem?

Well, such ‘differences’ are part of all campuses in India.

The statistics of All India Survey in Higher Education is quite instructive. Though the survey doesn’t ‘count’ upper-castes separately, one can safely say that 66% of all teaching positions are occupied by ‘Non-SC, ST, OBC, Muslim, Other religious Minority and PwD’ teachers.  Who form ‘Non-SC, ST, OBC, Muslim, Other religious Minority and PwD’ teachers, is anybody’s guess! If 66% of all teachers come from Brahmin-Savarna backgrounds, it effectively means that all important decision-making bodies in higher education are dominated by privileged social groups, who are historically part of the ruling social class.

This being the case, it is hard to believe that teachers and students would have the ‘same’ or ‘similar’ intentions behind saving public-funded universities. The powerful groups dominating powerful posts would want to save the university to maintain their power and control over resources, irrespective of their progressive lip service. We do not have many reasons to think otherwise. For example, have we witnessed Brahmin-Savarna teachers forming human chains or organising hunger strikes to fill SC/ST/OBC backlog positions in Universities?

On the other hand, Dalit-Bahujan and other minority students would want to save universities (or any other pubic-funded institution) to essentially dismantle its status-quo and claim their rightful share.

This contradiction in interests should be historicised and analyzed carefully. We can build meaningful solidarities only if we show the courage to face conflicting histories and interests.

The formation of the Independent Indian State consolidated the Brahmin-Savarna supremacy in no simple ways. We can go through the community and genealogical histories of several groups to understand the ways in which they ensured their inclusion (and over-representation) by denying equal opportunities to others and maintaining the status quo.  

Let us briefly look at one example. This example or rather a case study appears in an essay written by C. J. Fuller and Haripriya Narasimhan titled ‘From landlords to software engineers: migration and urbanisation among Tamil Brahmans.’ They collected eighteen such genealogical accounts to understand the generational movement of Tamil Brahmins –

 Nagalingam, born in 1927, belongs to one of Tippirajapuram’s leading landed families. Both his grandfathers were landlords there; his father qualified as an accountant, but did not practice and instead looked after his land, which Nagalingam has retained. Nagalingam is also an auditor still working in the City Union Bank (CUB), which is largely controlled by Vattimas. He went to college in Madras and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1953. He first worked for a central government department in Jaipur and Calcutta, and later joined a leading private-sector company, but he fell ill and returned to Tippirajapuram in 1963, where he practiced accountancy….Nagalingam and his wife have two sons in their forties, both auditors in Chennai, and one daughter in her fifties who is a housewife married to a doctor living in Ohio and has three children, all trainee doctors. Nagalingam’s father had one brother, whose only daughter, Rajalakshmi, also born in 1927, married a landlord, and they have four children, now in their fifties. Rajalakshmi’s elder son works for the CUB in Coimbatore and the younger son works in Bangalore for a financial advice and services company started in Chennai in 1974 by Vasudevan, Rajalakshmi’s younger daughter’s husband, who is also a chartered accountant. Vasudevan’s elder daughter is an IT professional living in the United States, his younger daughter is married to CUB manager in Kumbakonam, and his son works for his father’s company in Chennai. Rajalakshmi’s elder daughter is married to her cross-cousin (once removed), a landlord in another Vattima village, and they have three sons, one working for the same financial company in Mumbai (Bombay) and the other two for software companies in Chennai. Nagalingam’s father also had one sister, whose four sons, all born in the 1930s, are respectively two retired lawyers, who practiced in nearby Kumbakonam and Mayuvaram, and two landlords (one just mentioned as married to his cross-cousin). Each lawyer had two sons: one works for the CUB in Tirucchirappalli, and three are in Chennai, one in a large private-sector company, one in business, and one an accountant.

 In Nagalingam’s family, banking and accountancy have been common occupations, mostly practiced in Chennai and other Tamilnadu towns.

Fuller and Haripriya’s essay try to make sense of the ‘over-representation’ of Tamil Brahmins in IT professions. They contextualise it in the history-induced migration of this group. The essay is not political in any measure but it captures the objective realities which led to Tamil Brahmin expansion in strategic sectors.

In the above example, we would find that quite a few individuals from Nagalingam’s family are chartered accountants. There are historical reasons for the same. During the British rule, land settlements were administered through the village accountants and headmen. Most of the accountants were Brahmins.

These ‘revenue Brahmins’ (as Conlon refers to them, quoted in Fuller) started migrating to towns and cities to man several state jobs. One also needs to note that most of the Tamil Brahmin landlords received proprietary rights under the ryotwari system and were exempted from tax payments as they owned ‘inam’ land or ‘gifted’ land. Their preferred ‘life’ of wealth and ‘education’ was made possible by their total non-involvement with any labour in the field. All the labour was outsourced to the Dalit-Bahujan communities.

In 1891, the only group to draw salaries above Rs.500/month in Travancore Services was the Foreign Brahmin (mostly Tamil Brahmins)[1]. Kannadiga Brahmins sought affirmative action against Tamil Brahmins in the Mysore Presidency, owing to the latter’s ‘over-representation’ in services. The ‘Malayali Memorial’ submitted in 1891 was a concerted effort mostly by Nairs, Syrian Christians and marginally by Ezhavas against the supremacy of Tamil Brahmins.

It should be noted that Dalits were not included in this endeavor. More than 10,000 Nairs, Syrian Christians and Ezhavas gave a written petition to the Travancore State, asking for representation in state jobs. While the state considered the demands of the Nairs and Syrian Christians, the Ezhavas were denied any opportunity and nobody really bothered about the Dalits. 

The formation of ‘Indian State’ does not weaken the position of the Tamil Brahmin. In fact you would find an explosion of opportunities and choices for them in public and private sectors. This is the case with most of the Brahmin-Savarna groups.

We need to bear in our minds that Universities, like other state-supported public institutions, have been the meeting place of the ruling social classes or the Brahmin-Savarnas. Educational Institutions of National Importance have always witnessed an alarming presence of these groups. JNU or any other university is no exception. If one goes through the surnames of teachers in the JNU faculty directory, one would find an alarming diversity of Brahmin-Savarna surnames cutting across religion and region. I could list almost seventy such surnames, many of them often appeared more than five times in the list. Let us be assured that the situation would be no different in other universities. What does this supremacy indicate? It tells us about the nature of public institutions – its composition, its beneficiaries and decision-makers.

In his message to the Maratha Community (dated March 23, 1947) Dr. B.R. Ambedkar writes- 
“The Brahmin Community is able to maintain itself against all odds, against all oppositions; it is due to the fact that strategic posts are held by Brahmins”

Babasaheb points out that Brahmins, a numerical minority, continue to maintain their supremacy by ‘having a controlling influence on the State’. Such an influence is assured through the ‘capture’ of strategic posts. Even during the Muslim rule in India, key ministerial berths were captured by Brahmins[2]. Such capture over finite resources and positions has meant exclusion and betrayal of the majority.

In the light of the above discussion, let us reflect on a few statistics provided by the Deputy Registrar of JNU to the Parliament in 2013 and 2014[3].
As per 2013 data, number of SC/ST/OBC vacant teaching posts is as follows –
 
(a) SC
Professor: 23
Associate Professor: 34
Assistant Professor: 11
 (b) ST
Professor: 10
Associate Professor: 15
Assistant Professor: 03
 (c) OBC
Professor: Not applicable
Associate Professor: Not applicable
Assistant Professor: 10
 
SC/ST reservation in Associate professor and Professor levels were adopted in 2007 by the JNU Executive Council. OBC reservations (27%) have not been adopted at the level of Associate professor and Professor. In 2014 more than half the sanctioned OBC positions at the Assistant Professor level remained vacant, even after seven years of adopting the implementation of 27% OBC reservation. According to replies to an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act filed in 2015, there are 29 OBC assistant professors, which is again less than the sanctioned positions. 
 Let us take a look at the non-teaching Group C and D positions at JNU. As per the Deputy Registrar, between 2009 and 2013, JNU has not appointed a single SC cook. In spite of 10 sanctioned positions. 141 Safai Karamchari positions were exclusively 'chalked out' only for SCs. During the same period the appointments of Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, Finance Officer and Librarian were made under the 'Unreserved categories'.

None of these statistics should come to us as a surprise. It simply reaffirms that universities are like any other place within a Brahmin-supremacist, patriarchal caste order.

Dalit-Bahujan diversity cannot be achieved by ‘reserving’ 141 sanitation worker posts for SCs, nor can it be achieved only through implementation of affirmative action in enrolling students. Heterogeneity can be meaningful only when it is achieved at the higher echelons of power and decision-making. 

We also need to acknowledge that increasing student heterogeneity of certain universities is simply a faint reflection of the real heterogeneity of our geography. We are more than 5000 castes and tribes with several sub-groups, genders, speaking distinct languages, residing in varied geographies, involved in diverse occupations.

To my mind, ‘heterogenising’ universities would ideally mean
(a) Establishment of fully state-supported universities in accessible physical and cultural locations
(b) Universalization of University education: Where everybody has a right to University Education
(c) Active participation and agency of all castes and tribes in accessing and shaping Higher Education
(d) Meaningful affirmative action in teaching, non-teaching/administrative positions. However, all these conditions go against the grain of the established Brahmanic and neo-liberal order. Implementing these conditions would also mean decentralizing Higher Education and dismantling the false hierarchies of state and central universities. Most importantly, the ruling social class (read as Brahmin-Savarnas) doesn’t and wouldn’t support such propositions aimed at heavily undoing their hegemony.

Who has laboured for heterogeneity in Universities?
Having said that, let me also acknowledge that the faint reflection of heterogeneity in certain universities is not the generosity of the ‘university’ or its predominantly Brahmin-Savarna faculty. It is a consequence of the politics, labour, time and energy put in by communities, especially Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi women and men.

The reiteration of these collective struggles is important to ward off ‘heroic individualism’ of any kind. Angela Davis uses the term ‘heroic individualism’ to express how people reduce collective struggles to the heroic individuality of a place or a person in the context of the Civil Rights Movement in U.S.A.

It is their ability to creatively organise meagre resources to ensure that their children reach the examination hall to write JNU’s (or any other university’s) entrance test. It is often a result of generations of out-migrations from places of origin to ensure dignity, social security, education and access to modern institutions in the face of great social hostility. It is a result of political mobilisations to enter schools, colleges, hospitals and public offices. Such political mobilidations have meant creation of hostels, schools, colleges and hospitals. For example, the creation of Ambedkar student’s hostels, social welfare hostels has been a watershed in the history of access to higher education.

Neither JNU nor any other university can explain its student heterogeneity by only looking for the reasons in its rulebooks or protests within its executive councils or physical boundaries. Most of the reasons lie clearly outside its territory and purview. The image of the ‘university’ as a modern space with emancipatory potentials is cultivated and nurtured through social movements and community mobilisations outside of universities. These social meanings emerge from the modernist visions of anti-caste movements which always placed ‘education’ as their central focus (of mobilization).
It is extremely important for all of us to constantly reiterate the significance of anti-caste community mobilisations which fought to access ‘public institutions.’ Why is this reiteration important?

Sunny Kapicadu underlines that public places and institutions were made ‘public’ by Anti-caste mobilisations. It is only with the entry of historically excluded groups that places and institutions achieve a ‘modern’ character. He recalls the market-entry and school-entry movements led by Ayyankali in early 20th century Kerala to substantiate this observation. The Entry of Dalits has historically meant ‘entry for all’. The idea that places and institutions can be ‘accessible to all’ emerges from anti-caste movements in the Indian sub-continent.

This contribution was not an unexpected by-product. It was/is the central plank of anti-caste struggles- imagining and politically articulating dignified and accessible places and institutions for everyone. The fact that Jotiba and Savitribai Phule opened schools ‘for everyone’ is another example of how the idea of ‘public’ was made meaningful in our geography. Drawing from the first reason, one can argue that making places and institutions ‘public’ was the first step towards making them democratic and representative. Anti-caste mobilisations for representation in public office, jobs and universities continue to be very important for democracy.

Warding off the ‘Heroic Individualism’ of Universities
The reiteration of these collective struggles is important to ward off ‘heroic individualism’ of any kind. Angela Davis uses the term ‘heroic individualism’ to express how people reduce collective struggles to the heroic individuality of a place or a person in the context of the Civil Rights Movement in U.S.A. She underlines that a series of ‘non-heroic’ everyday tasks are involved in making a movement. She remembers the Black women who mimeographed pamphlets all night to execute the bus strike in 1955 America. However, nobody remembers the names of these women.

In India millions of unsung, unknown poor, Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi women and men are toiling, migrating, mobilising, fighting to make certain ‘spectacles’ of heterogeneity possible in Universities. The four decade old struggle of Tamil Nadu’s Narikuravar community to get enlisted in the Scheduled Tribe List is one such fight. They are single-mindedly continuing this struggle to ensure meaningful access to Hostels, Higher Education and jobs.  The idea of meaningful representation is a product of collective struggles; it flows from collective struggles to the university and not the other way round.

However, it is interesting to note that Nivedita Menon (in her speech delivered at JNU administrative block) remembers the ‘white bearded’ men who ‘worked out the deprivation points’ in the 1970s which, according to her, ‘ensured the heterogeneity of JNU’. Her recollections of JNU’s struggle for ensuring representation is significant but is not rounded or complete, to say the least.

Without active community mobilisations among Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi communities to access education in the face of a hostile Brahmanical order, none of the ‘deprivation points’ or by-rules would have been of any use.

Selective recollections, which single-mindedly argue that heterogeneity is a consequence of a few men’s ability to chalk out ‘deprivation points’ makes any keen listener feel that there is something ‘very special’ about JNU. Something very unique about the place which makes it naturally intelligent and sensitive! 

It is important to understand Indian Universities as historical products of a caste society. In recent times we are also witnessing its intimate collusions with neo-liberalism. They mirror the larger structural realities of an unequal society.  Its everyday life is based on gendered and caste-based labour, like any other historical product.

This being the case, how do we understand glorious slogans such as JNU is ‘Tarq ka Gadh and Nyan ka Jad’ or a place where everyone questions, discusses everything under the sun and imagines a new world?

Well, such claims and dreams operationalise only when large portions of reproductive labour are outsourced to women and men who are not part of these discussions and deliberations.  In other words, a ‘non-participant’ is effectively cooking, cleaning, mopping, washing, or sweeping for every participant. As mentioned above, if 141 seats are reserved for SC sanitation workers, we know who are the ‘non-participants’!

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in the constitution of the Republican Party of India highlights the importance of ‘education’ over ‘propaganda’ in the functioning of a government. This is true in the case of universities as well. Universities, their history and composition should be subjected to a detailed critique. This critique should be linked to the society and its realities and not as stand-alone islands. Such an exercise would be educational.

While the current struggle against criminalising students is important, one does not require fighting in binaries or in other words, hail universities as ‘heaven on earth’. Dalit-Bahujan struggles for public-institutions include destruction of Brahmin-Savarna hegemony and reclaiming democracy for everyone. Heroic individualism of certain universities would simply help in reinstating Brahmin-Savarna supremacy, as they ‘embody’ these spaces more than any other group. Glorious accounts of universities (any university) in a Brahmin-supremacist, patriarchal caste order would essentially invisiblise the majority. Universities should be understood as part of larger social realities which need radical reconstruction.

[1] George Mathew, ‘Communal Road to a Secular Kerala’, p.52
[2] P. Laxmi Narasu in his book ‘A Study of Caste’ re-published in 2009, Samyak Prakashan , p. 105
[3]Based on the response filed to the Parliament by JNU deputy registrar on the status of new sanctioned appointments, dated 8th August 2013 and the reply filed by deputy registrar to MHRD, dated July 25th 2014; Material for reply to Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1136 for 16.12.2013 asked by Shri Ali Anwar Ansari regarding “Reservation policy in Central Universities”. 
 
Illustration by Nidhin Shobhana
 
(The writer is an artist and writer. He is a Programme Associate with NCDHR, the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights)
 
Courtesy: roundtableindia.co.in
 
 

Irom Sharmila’s Anguished Appeal to Women of India

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Irom Sharmila on a hunger fast for the past 15 years, and released from detention by a court in Imphal, Manipur on Monday, February 29,  has appealed to the women of India for support to her cause.

Irom Sharmila had started her hunger strike on November 4, 2000 demanding a repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958. In an open appeal issued on March 1, she has addressed Indian women activists on two issues. One, she wants active support for repeal of AFSPA and second, she wants an open discussion on whether her fast should continue. The existence of AFSPA on the statute books has ensured impunity for India's armed forces for repeated human rights violations against Manipuri people, especially women.

A court in Imphal on February 29, 2016 released Irom Sharmila, who has been on a 15-year-long hunger strike to press for the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, from custody. On her release Sharmila Irom is quoted by the media to have said,  “I shall continue the fast at the footsteps of the Shahid Minar in Imphal town. I will not eat anything till my goal is achieved,” she said while coming out of the court room. She also expressed regret over the declining support to her cause, particularly from women activists.

“I am sorry that women activists and civil society organisations have distanced themselves from me and my cause. If they had extended support to my campaign, perhaps by now the AFSPA, which gives carte blanche to the security forces, might have been repealed,” she said. She further said, “I am not discouraged by the lack of support since I know that victory will be there at last.”

“Sharmila was charged with attempting to commit suicide under Section 309 of IPC. However the court found no evidence to establish that she is trying to commit suicide and accordingly ordered her release,” C. Momon, Sharmila’s advocate, told reporters in Imphal. Local media has reported that given Sharmila’s condition and her resolve to continue her fast unto death, she may be re-arrested soon, a police officer is quoted to have said.

She has been arrested, tried and released several times on the charge of trying to take her own life. Sharmila is also undergoing trial in the Patiala House court in Delhi on the same charge.

Until her release in Imphal on February 29, Sharmila was lodged in a security ward of Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal. She is guarded round-the-clock by jail, police and hospital staff. The government is spending about Rs.70,000 a month on her medication and feeding her through the nose.

Appeal for:

– A collective statement by women and other activists to the President, Prime Minister and other authorities.
– Launching a  'Save Sharmila' campaign  among students.
– All ex-army men  writing a joint representation to the authorities.
– A day-long fast in solidarity and a message to Sharmila Irom.
 
 

For Children, Just a Pittance in the 2016-2017 Budget

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HAQ: Centre for Child Rights
 
Mr. Finance Minister deserves a huge applause when he says, “I have outlined the agenda of our Government to ‘Transform India’ for the benefit of the farmers, the poor and the vulnerable”, but perhaps this is minus children, who are yet to become a priority.
 
Though children constitute 37 percent of the country’s population, this year’s budget speech found no specific mention of children. While there is a slight increase in budgetary allocations up to 3.32 % from last year’s 3.26 %, this in no way compensates for the drastic almost 30 % cut last year, the first full-fledged budget of the Modi government.
 
Progress of a country can be determined by the health of its citizens, especially children. But does this year’s budget (2016-2017) reflect this concern at all?
 
The calculation of children’s share is the budget is based on the figures presented by the Government in Statement 22, Expenditure Budget Volume I 2015-16 and 2016-2017 –Budget Provisions for Schemes for the Welfare of Children.  However, this year’s analysis was challenged by the discrepancies in the figures presented in  Statement 22, which raises concerns not just about the veracity of the numbers presented, but also the seriousness of the government towards its young citizens.
 
Some Good News
 

  • Of the 442 million children of the country, the young child (0-6 years age group) has the most reason to rejoice as there is a substantial increase in the budget for schemes like the ICDS, Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital. This is long overdue and much needed attention to the young child is welcome, but the same should have been paid to the other age groups and sectors as well. We know that ICDS had witnessed drastic cuts in the budget last year, some of which was restored in the supplementary budget. However, it still is not adequate for the targets of universalisation of education

 
However
Share of children in all sectors except child development has gone down both in the Union Budget and the Budget for Children (BfC). As always health and protection remain the most under-resourced sectors.
 
Child Protection
Not only does the protection sector remain the most under-resourced, the 2016-17 budget clearly does not offer much solace with the allocation for Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) down by 1.3%
 
Example of Discrepancies
The Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley in his budget Speech of 2016-17 mentioned that Plan allocations have been given special attention for sectors like agriculture, irrigation, social security including health and women and child development etc. But if we delve deeper into the document [Statement 22] there are several discrepancies which must be highlighted at the outset:

Discrepancy No. 1
The Statement No. 22 of 2015-16 [ Budget Statement related to the Welfare of Children, Expenditure Budget Vol. I] indicated that a total sum of Rs. 57918.51 Crore was allocated at BE stage for children specific programmes. But, in Statement 22 of 2016-17, the total allocated amount for children at BE stage in 2015-16 has been incorrectly indicated as Rs. 58016.72 Crore. There is a huge difference of Rs. 98 Crore in government’s own documents brought out in two different years with respect to Budget Estimates for the year 2015-16. [See the images below]. This makes it difficult for people undertaking budget analysis to arrive at a final set of calculations and increases scope for unreliability. (Detailed Discrepancies below)
 
Quick Highlights

  • The share of children in the Union Budget 2016-17 goes up to 3.32%, a slight increase from 3.26% in the year 2015-16. Although this small increase is welcome after the drastic almost 30% decrease we saw last year, it still does not compensate for the falling share of children in the budget over the years.

  

 
 
 

  • Of the 442 million children of the country, the young child (0-6 years age group) has the most reason to rejoice as there is a substantial increase in the budget for schemes like the ICDS, Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital. This is long overdue and much needed attention to the young child is welcome, but the same should have been paid to the other age groups and sectors as well. We know that ICDS had witnessed drastic cuts in the budget last year, some of which was restored in the supplementary budget. However, it still is not adequate for the targets of universalisation.  
  • Share of children in all sectors except child development has gone down both in the Union Budget and the Budget for Children (BfC). As always health and protection remain the most under-resourced sectors.
Sectoral Share in Union Budget (in per cent)
YearHealth BEDevelopment BEEducation BEProtection BEOther than BfC
2012-20130.181.103.440.0495.24
2013-20140.161.103.340.0395.36
2014-20150.161.063.260.0495.49
2015-20160.130.512.570.0596.74
2016-20170.120.772.400.0396.68

 

Sectoral Share within BfC (in per cent)
YearHealth BEDevelopment BEEducation BEProtection BE
2012-20133.7723.1672.220.85
2013-20143.4223.7972.070.72
2014-20153.5923.3672.210.78
2015-20163.9315.7478.951.38
2016-20173.5923.2372.141.04

 
 

  • Despite repeated claims of striving for inclusive growth, the budget fails to live up to it as it is the already marginalised who will bear the brunt of the budget cuts.
Reduced Allocation in Schemes Related to children belonging to Religious or Traditionally Minority Strata
Programmes & Schemes2015-20162015-20162016-2017 
 BEREBEPercent increase /decrease in Allocation over the last year
Pre-Matric Scholarship for Minorities1040.001040.10931.00-10.48
Post Matric Scholarship for Minorities580.10580.10550.00-5.19
Girls Hostels for SC4.994.403.90-21.84
Boys Hostels for SC2.460.460.49-80.08
Pre-matric scholarship for children of those engaged in certain occupation8.822.071.62-81.63
Up-gradation of merit of SC students3.903.903.00-23.08
Assistance to voluntary organizations for SCs7.507.507.35-2.00
Boys and Girls hostels for OBCs4.153.783.60-13.25
Assistance to Voluntary Organisations for OBCs0.900.750.54-40.00
Prematric Scholarship for OBCs121.50108.22114.30-5.93
Pre-Matric Scholarship for SCs743.28479.99485.10-34.74
Strengthening of education among ST girls in low literacy districts40.000.000.00-100.00
Scheme for providing Education to Madrassas/ Minorites375.50335.50120.00-68.04
Incentive to children of vulnerable groups among Schedule Caste0.1000.000.010-90.00

 

  • Some critical flagship schemes  have witnessed reduced allocations, including the Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme – the only one that is in this statement for disabled children.
Reduced Allocations in Flagship Schemes
Programmes & Schemes2015-162015-20162016-2017Percent increase /decrease in Allocation over the last year
 BEREBE
Routine Immunization0.000.000.000.00
Pulse Polio Immunization0.000.000.000.00
Reproductive and Child Health Project0.000.000.000.00
National Bal Bhavan19.7019.2815.50-21.32
Scheme for Setting up of 6000 Model School at block Level as Benchmark of Excellence1.000.000.00-100.00
National Scheme for Incentive to Girl Child for Secondary Education (SUCCESS)100.00112.0045.00-55.00
National Means Cum Merit Scholarship Scheme70.0081.5035.00-50.00
Rajiv Gandhi National Crèche Scheme205.94144.00150.00-27.16
Grant to Lakshdweep council for child welfare and providing accommodation for Anganwadi, creche Centres (Lakshdweep)0.620.000-100.00
Nutrition (A&N Islands)3.375.003-10.98
Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme24.0020.4018.00-25.00
Funds for Children Corner0.030.000.00-100.00
Crèche Facilities for CRPF0.500.000.00-100.00
Crèche Facilities for CISF0.490.000.00-100.00
Provision for NE Region & Sikkim42.1942.8739.76-5.76
Improvement in working conditions of child/women labour25099.50140-44.00
Scheme for welfare of working children in need of care and protection107.003-70.00
Central Adoption Resource Agency11.856.8510.5-11.39
Integrated Child Protection Scheme402.23402.23397-1.30

 
SECTORAL HIGHLIGHTS
 
Education

  • As share of the Union Budget, education has seen a consistent decline over the last five years, going down from 3.44% in 2012-13 to 02.40% in 2016-17.
  • As against a 21.90% decline in the allocations for education last year, this year there has been an increase of 3.75%. However, proportion of Union Budget, it has declined from 2.57% in 2015-16 to 2.40% in 2016-17.

Health

  • As against a 21.84% decline in the child health allocations last year, this year witnesses an increase of 3.60%, but as proportion of Union Budget, it has declined from 0.13% in 2015-16 to 0.12% in 2016-17.
  • As share of the Union Budget, child health has seen a consistent decline over the last five years, going down from 0.18% in 2012-13 to 0.12% in 2016-17.

Development

  • As against a 51.88% decline in the child development allocations last year, this year there has been an increase of 67.60%.
  • Even as proportion of Union Budget, the share of child development has improved marginally from 0.51% in 2015-16 to 0.77% in 2016-17.

 
 Protection

  • There has been a significant decrease of 14.39% in the share of allocations this year as against an increase of 26.57% in child protection allocations last year. This is particularly worrying that this cut in budget is despite increase in crimes against children as well as number of children coming in conflict with the law. Even as proportion of Union Budget, it has declined from 0.05% in 2015-16 to 0.03% in 2016-17, going back to the situation that existed in 2013-14.
  • This reflects the very low priority accorded to protection of children despite all the lip service from the legislators and members of the government. At a time when there is need for increased investment in child protection, a decline is bound to give a major setback to the most vulnerable and unprotected children of India. It also amounts to ignoring the various Supreme Court directions for strengthening the child protection system.

The Devolution Saga

The Statement 22 (a separate budget statement on children related scheme) of 2015-16 Union Budget, explained “the heavy cuts towards children specific Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) on account of enhanced devolution of Union Taxes to States as recommended by the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) and to keep the Budget for such programmes unchanged, States are to contribute from their enhanced resources”[1]. The Fourteenth Finance Commission recommended that share of the states in the divisible pool of taxes should be increased to 42% from 32%.
While, in principle, the Devolution of Central taxes to States is an ideal arrangement, there have been various media reporting of States feeling discomfort around the new development[2]. Economists are concerned over the suddenness with which the changed devolution mechanisms have been thrust upon States.

Although, devolution of Central taxes to State governments are expected in increased share of States, but the States’ revenue is not going to increase multiple fold. For example, Tamil Nadu has not gained due to higher devolution of taxes. There is only 1.16% increase for Tamil Nadu State after devolution by the 14th Finance Commission[3]. Moreover, most of the weaker States are not fully equipped to generate resources on their own and it is feared that children related schemes would not form core of the State agenda. Thus in order to fulfill the National Development Agenda, States cannot be left on their own without significant support from the Central government. The States have raised their inability to adapt to the new fiscal arrangement even in the Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on rationalization of CSS, constituted by NITI Ayog. Thus, the onus of financing the CSS majorly lies on the Central Government through adequate resource allocation in the Union Budget.

At a recent an interface with the government officials and other stakeholders in Assam and Tripura shared similar concerns over poor allocation of ICPS, especially in light of the enactment of the new Juvenile Justice Act which calls for money to meet the additional infrastructural and human resource requirements laid down in it.

Detailed Analysis

  • Education

As a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the expenditure on education was reported in the Economic Survey of 2015-16 to be hovering around 3 per cent during 2008-09 to 2014-15. This despite an age old goal of reaching at least 6% of GDP. The Survey further highlights that during 2013-14, out of the total expenditure on social services, 11.6 per cent was spent on education.
 
Quoting the 2014 ASER Report that showed a declining trends in percentage of enrolment in government schools in rural areas from 72.9 per cent in 2007 to 63.1 per cent in 2014, The Economic Survey 2015-16 states, “In addition to the need to increase the percentage of enrolment substantially to achieve universalization of education, concerns about the decline in enrolment in government schools need to be identified and addressed”.
 
However, the Finance Minister seems to be thinking quite differently as he believes India has achieved universalisation of primary education. In his speech he stressed that “After universalisation of primary education throughout the country, we want to take the next big step forward by focusing on the quality of education. An increasing share of allocation under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan will be allocated for this. Further, 62 new Navodaya Vidyalayas will be opened in the remaining uncovered districts over the next two years”.
 
Indeed the Economic Survey also points out that “Decline in enrolment in government schools and some shift to private schools might be largely related to the poor quality of education offered in government schools, since it is free or offered for a nominal fee”. Finance Minister’s focus on improving quality of education and an allocation of Rs. 22500 for SSA is therefore quite welcome.
 
Can a mere 2.3% increase in the SSA budget from the previous year help address both decline in enrolment in government schools and improved quality of primary education? 
 
And there is yet another side to the story that has been completely ignored. This is about closing down of government schools in the recent past in Karnataka, Rajasthan and other states and how this is affecting the children.[4]  The closure of the government schools leaves no option for parents but to send their children to private schools, or not send them to school at all. It must be remembered that it is the poor children that go to government schools.
 
Can the Finance Minister’s proposal to start 62 new Navodaya Vidyalayas address this problem and that too in a school education system that is highly stratified with parallel systems of government schools in operation? Will these 62 schools cater to the real poor of the country? Is this truly being inclusive? These questions remain unaddressed.
 
Last year the NDA government had announced the “Scheme for Setting up 6000 Model schools at block level as benchmark of excellence” with great pride. It took just a year for the government to revisit its decision and hence no more model schools in 2016-17.
We cannot but wonder if that will also be the fate of the proposal to make 10 public and 10 private higher education institutions world-class institutions.

Here are the following schemes under Department of School Education and Literacy that have seen budget cuts:

SchemeDecline (in percentage)
National Bal Bhavan21.3%
National Scheme for incentive to girl child for Secondary Education55%
National Means cum Merit Scholarship Scheme50%
Education scheme for Madarsas/Minorities68%

 

  • Child Protection

Not only does the protection sector remain the most under-resourced, the 2016-17 budget clearly does not offer much solace with the allocation for Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) down by 1.3%
 

Integrated Child Protection SchemeBE 2015-16 (in Crores)BE 2016-17 (in Crores)
402.23397.00

 
The ICPS was designed as a flagship scheme in the Eleventh Five Year Plan to enable the creation of a protective environment for children through the creation of child protection mechanisms at every stage. Some of these structures have even found place in the new Juvenile Justice Law. Moreover, this scheme was designed based on the low allocations in the budget for protection of children. To see it so badly under-resourced is very disheartening.

But what is even more surprising is to see ICPS is subsumed under what is now termed as the “Umbrella ICDS”, only to make child rights activists wonder how one flagship scheme can be subsumed under another. Or is this a deliberate decision to suggest that the Ministry now plans to cut down on its staff and have one and the same division/department handling ICDS and other children related schemes including the ICPS.
 
Both increase in Crimes against Children and by Children make them even more vulnerable, and hence this lack of attention to child protection is very disconcerting. Despite  considerable economic and social progress since independence, a large number of children in India still live in inhuman and pathetic conditions. Unfortunately, with increase in incidence of child abuse, exploitation and violence, the well-being of our 442 million children and that of our country is questionable. Indeed it places every other right under threat.
 

  • A total of 89,423 cases of crimes against children were reported in the country during 2014 as compared to 58,224 cases during 2013, showing an increase of 53.6%. 
  • On the other hand, a total of 48,230 juveniles were apprehended during 2014 as against 43,506 in 2013. 
  • Such children need special care and protection. They need to be rescued, rehabilitated, repatriated and reintegrated into the mainstream of life.

India’s Public Expenditure on Child Protection and Juvenile Justice: A case in point
 
According to the 264th Report of Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development, the percentage share of children’s budget within the Union Budget has been reduced from 4.76% in 2012-13 to 4.64% in 2013-14 [para 3.44, pg.39].
 
Budget for Children analysis undertaken by HAQ: Centre for Child Rights in India also reveals a consistent decline in children’s budget in the last few years, going down from 4.52% in 2014-15 to 3.26% in 2015-16. The dip in the financial year 2015-16 is huge and there are no answers as to how will this improve the children’s condition.
 
Inadequacy in public spending on child protection and juvenile justice is reflected in the fact that on an average, in the last ten years, child protection received only 3 paise out of every 100 Rupees spent by the Union of India. Analysis of flagship programmes like the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, which is the vehicle for implementing juvenile justice and child protection, shows poor financial planning, abysmal funding and huge under spending.

The report further highlights that of all sectors, the budget for child protection has always been the lowest and in 2015-16 it is only 0.04% of the total union budget. This covers juvenile justice system, child labour and provision for orphan and street children. Further, the report says, “These low investments result in different financial outlays in different states. The training support is not uniform and the secretariat support to CWC and JJB is limited and most importantly the investment into developing infrastructure is negligible”.[5]

While there is no separate and distinct budget for implementing the juvenile justice legislation, the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) is the main scheme which provides the financial resources for implementing various child protection laws, including the law on juvenile justice. Although 2015-16 budget allocates 402.23 Crore Indian Rupees for the ICPS, this was only a 0.5% increase from the allocation made in 2014-15 (INR 400 Crore) and was still short of the requirement as per the revised financial norms set out for the scheme. And now, a further decline in the budget for ICPS to 397 Crore Rupees indicates a further dilution in the commitment to child protection, including the commitment to ensuring safety of child victims of sexual abuse, for which ICPS never had any budget.

As per the revised norms, the cost of setting up a State Child Protection Society (SCPS) in the 35 states, and a District Child Protection Unit (DCPU), a Child Welfare Committee (CWC), a Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) in 675 districts, comes to INR 363.30 Crore.
If the only the recurring costs of other components of ICPS are added, the amount would far exceed the current allocation of 397 Crore, which is less than the allocation of INR 402.23 in the previous year.   These other components include Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), State Adoption Resource Agencies (SARA), Childline mother NGO, Regional Centres of Childline and Childline services on ground, National Institute for Public Cooperation & Child Development (NIPCCD) and its Regional Centres, various institutions for children, non-institutional care other than adoption e.g. foster care and sponsorship, and the Central Project Support Unit located in the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

  • Child Health

Unfortunately, child health continues to be largely understood as that for infants and the young child. Adolescent health remains unrecognised largely and unaddressed, except perhaps reproductive and sexual health (ARSH). So the specific child health related programmes are those that fall under the reproductive and child health initiatives.

As share of the Union Budget, child health has seen a consistent decline over the last five years, going down from 0.18% in 2012-13 to 0.12% in 2016-17, showing the low priority accorded to this sector over the years. Right to health as a fundamental right remains a distant dream.

As against a 21.8% decline in the child health allocations last year, this year witnesses an increase of 3.6%. But as proportion of Union Budget, it has declined from 0.13% in 2015-16 to 0.12% in 2016-17. The 2015-16 Economic Survey clearly notes that “While the achievements of the National Health Mission in reaching affordable healthcare services must be applauded, the need of universal healthcare, both in terms of access and quality remains a cause of concern”.

Despite the fast growing economy of the country the health situation of children has not improved adequately. Malnutrition is more common in India than in sub-Saharan African countries where per capita income is much lower than that of India. Although statistics on malnutrition show improvement, about 30% of children below the age of five are reported to be underweight, 38.8% are stunted and 15% wasted. While India had a Millennium Development Goal target of 27 for infant mortality rate, it still remains at 42. India had the highest number of under-five deaths in the world in 2012, with 1.4 million children dying before reaching their fifth birthday. 140,000 children of them are estimated to be dying every year due to diarrhoea. WHO’s Global Analysis tells us that environmental factors contribute to 36% of all deaths of children between 0 to 14 years. Reportedly, 1.3 million deaths occur in India due to environmental pollution every year. Thus children’s well-being in particular and human development in general continues to be a major challenge even in the times of economic growth of the country.
 
The only child health schemes that have seen a consistent increase in the last two years have been the Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital and Child Care Training Centre, Singur.

The largest increase has always been for the Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital despite Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital featuring in media for all the wrong reasons, including the deplorable condition of children in this hospital. The Hindustan Times article dated 09th July 2015 reported that one of Asia’s biggest hospitals is sitting on infection bomb as filth and biomedical waste lie all around the hospital in open[6].

The Finance Minister has announced provision of health insurance of up to Rs. 1 lakh per family; and a top up of Rs. 30,000 for people above 60 years.

While the plan is a good step, the insurance coverage amount of Rs. 1 lakh and the implication that this may see with respect to reduced public spending on healthcare, raise concerns about slipping on the universal health care goals.
 
Conlcusion
 
The growth of GDP has now accelerated to 7.6%, announced the Finance Minister in his opening remarks of the Budget Speech, 2016-17. Indeed this is something to feel proud of. But what is really being done for children? Mr. Finance Minister seems to have already forgotten the warning from the Economic Survey 2015-16 which stated that “India is already halfway through its demographic dividend, and taking full advantage requires a healthy and educated population”.

What more, the government seems to have forgotten its own commitment to inclusive growth. A mere increase from 3.26% to 3.32% cannot be a call for celebration, when children remain unprotected and uncared for.
 
We forget that children and childhood cannot be divided to focus only on one stage of development in their life. So while, the increased budget for the young child (0-6 years) is appreciated, not much is forthcoming for others. 
 
The glaring blunders in Statement 22 this time only add to confusion with respect to government’s intent and pose questions on reliability of the budget figures.
 
Blunders by the Government in Budget 2016-2017: The Nation Wants to Know!
 
The Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley in his budget Speech of 2016-17 mentioned that Plan allocations have been given special attention for sectors like agriculture, irrigation, social security including health and women and child development etc.
 But if we delve deeper into the document [Statement 22] there are several discrepancies which must be highlighted at the outset:

Discrepancy No. 1
The Statement No. 22 of 2015-16 [ Budget Statement related to the Welfare of Children, Expenditure Budget Vol. I] indicated that a total sum of Rs. 57918.51 Crore was allocated at BE stage for children specific programmes. But, in Statement 22 of 2016-17, the total allocated amount for children at BE stage in 2015-16 has been incorrectly indicated as Rs. 58016.72 Crore. There is a huge difference of Rs. 98 Crore in government’s own documents brought out in two different years with respect to Budget Estimates for the year 2015-16. [See the images below]. This makes it difficult for people undertaking budget analysis to arrive at a final set of calculations and increases scope for unreliability.

Discrepancy No. 2
In Statement 22 of 2015-16 Budget, under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, there were two schemes mentioned, which were:

  1. Strengthening of education among ST girls in low literacy districts
  2. Umbrella Scheme for education of ST children

Coming to the Statement 22 of 2016-17 Union Budget, we found that this year too, there are two schemes under Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which are:

  1. Grant-in-Aid to voluntary organisations working for Welfare of STs
  2. Umbrella Scheme for education of ST children

Even though the Grant-in-Aid to voluntary organisations working for Welfare of STs seems to have been introduced only in 2016-17 since there was no such scheme in Statement 22 for the year 2015-16, the Statement 22 of 2016-17 shows allocations made under this scheme in 2015-16 also. In other words, either the 2015-16 Statement 22 was incorrect or the one this year is incorrect, further increasing unreliability of Budget for Children given in Statement 22. [see the images below]
 
Discrepancy No. 3
In Annexure III-B to Part A of Budget Speech of 2016-17, the allocations for ‘Integrated Child Development Scheme (Umbrella ICDS)’ is indicated to be a sum of Rs. 16120 Crore. But if one looks at Statement 22 for 2016-17, even the total allocation for ‘Umbrella ICDS’ comes to only Rs. 15360 Crore, though somehow this umbrella ICDS covers a lot more than ever before with inclusion of the Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme, the ICPS and the scheme for working children in need of care protection in addition to the usual ICDS related programmes. There is a huge discrepancy of Rs. 760 Crore between Statement 22 and Annexure III-B to Part A of the Finance Minister’s Budget Speech. One can only wonder where is the rest of money for ICDS if the Finance Minister’s speech is to be relied upon?

Discrepancy No. 4
 
Further, the figure given for allocations for ‘Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital’ in the year 2015-16 are different in the in Statement 22 published last year and the one presented this year. This once again puts a question mark on the reliability of budget figures and makes calculations difficult.


 
Discrepancy No. 5

In another blunder, the allocations for Andaman and Nicobar Islands at BE stage have been completely changed in Statement 22 of 2016-17 as compared to Statement 22 of 2015-16. [see images below]


 
Discrepancy No. 6
The allocations for ‘Pre Matric Scholarship’ under Ministry of Minority Affairs appears slightly different in Statement 22 of 2016-17 as compared to Statement 22 of 2015-16. This slight difference amounts to INR 10 lakh in real and absolute terms.

 

[1] Excerpts from Statement 22; Expenditure Budget Volume I 2015-16
[3] Chief Ministers’ Sub Group report on Rationalization of CSS; http://niti.gov.in/mgov_file/Final%20Report%20of%20the%20Sub-Group%20submitter%20to%20PM.pdf
[5]Parliament of India, Rajya Sabha (February 2015), Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development, Two Hundred Sixty Fourth Report, The Juvenile Justice (Care And Protection Of Children) Bill, 2014, Presented to the Rajya Sabha on 25th February 2015 and Laid on the Table of Lok Sabha on 25th February 2015, p 39.  Rajya Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi. Available on:
www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Juvenile%20Justice/SC%20report-%20Juvenile%20justice.pdf
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