A life, that too, is lived

Chandan, who came to Chennai with four pairs of trousers and shirts, takes order with a straight face, serves food without delay, cleans the table and adjusts the stool for other customers and even assists in preparing meals if need be. The boy symbolizes the fate of the landless poor and the unskilled classes, who had no choice but to migrate to far regions in search of a paltry income. In States such as Tamil Nadu where there is a perennial shortage of manual labour, as more and more people graduate to better paying jobs, lads like him are welcomed.

This 12-year-old doesn’t know anything about Delhi’s monuments, museums, galleries, gardens, the only city he had gone to see, but remembers precisely what the big gate and garden lawns of one of the country’s largest jails, the Tihar jail looked like. Besides, fascinating architecture of the Delhi High Court captured his mind’s eye and he retains a vivid memory of it.

Chandan, a child migrant labourer from Bihar finds himself as a boy in attendance, ready to serve Paranthas at a roadside eatery in South Indian city of Chennai, in the present. He was paying a visit to his grandfather in the jail, “nana danga kara tha toh jail gaya tha (my granddad picked up a fight and went to jail)” Chandan tells. He had been a poor peasant, the cook in the eatery, from Chandan’s village informs, and was bailed later. The time courts took in granting bail gave this boy of 11 a peep into the world of prisoners and cops while other kids his age admired India gate and Red Fort when visiting the city. “The walls of the jail were grey concrete, rising high and topped with barbed wire. Wild hemp plants grew all along the side below and I felt nervous as the prison gates came into view.” Chandan recalls a year old experience. “I walked through the entrance with my uncle. We followed the drift of people towards an office where we lined up at several places before meeting nana. I also spent some time in the jail canteen where the seats and tables were all metal unlike these” he points at the seats in the restaurant and draws comparisons “and the cops wandered in and out in this atmosphere. I imagined a team of thulla (policemen) would jump on me at any moment and march me off for interrogation.” After the wait, he barely saw his nana standing at the corner of a right angle of dark corridors through three wired fences on the other side. “The chaos was further augmented by the guards who rang the bell overhead with no particular purpose” he recollects.

Born amid the locale of Indian rural poverty and pungent mystery of the Bihar’s tropics, he became friends with good climbing trees when his mother cooked; father worked; and his five brothers and one sister educated themselves in school. The trees in the jungle in his district were his lair for all games and adventures but not for long could he run in the rain or play gilli danda with his friends. Nine months later he starts his day at 9 AM to sweep the eating place as he looks down the crowded street where children of his age walk to the school but soon gets back to what his life has imposed on him. Then he prepares tea for all the workers which is extensively appreciated even by the waiters at the next door snack shop. In little time he has made friends with rest of workers who are much elder to him.

Rajasthani Roti Ghar, his work place is a small and cramped area where bare feet he has to squeeze through the tiny sit down area with stools put out to reach the kitchen, time after time, during the days work. “I came to this city to work because I did not like it there. There is no work, just jungle in my village” he says while rattling the menu to a customer “sattu parantha, aalu parantha, gobi parantha, aalu or pyaaz parantha…” alongside he eagerly sweeps the table of a customer to accommodate the next one. With his brilliant mind, Chandan has become adept at solving arithmetical problems of addition in a jiffy. For this reason he has been nicknamed ‘child computer’ by some of the regular customers at the eatery.

This kid, who came to Chennai with four pairs of trousers and shirts, takes order with a straight face, serves food without delay, cleans the table and adjusts the stool for other customers and even assists
in preparing meals if need be. In the little space available next to the eating place, he fills water bottles from the water can and keeps the used dishes in a bucket to be washed later as soon as a customer
vacates the table. To sum his days work, the owner of the eatery calls it waitergiri (the job of a waiter). He is too mature for his age, tells a customer he is attending. “He is a workaholic kid, may possibly make a shrewd business man. It is even difficult to make him smile.”

Under the fluorescent tube, amid the smell of parnthas, chandan’s little hands struggle with the aluminium foil cover to pack the paranthas, even as he talks a little, after being unforthcoming for a long time, the story of severe poverty. Poverty among the biggest group of migrant labour, whom one is bound to see anywhere in India, comprises Biharis. He toils here for a mere two meals a day and meagre monthly earning of Rs. 2000 “Main saara paisa ghar bhejta hoon, wahaan pe zaroori hai (I send all the money back home, they need it)” he says with a hopeless expression in the eyes. He takes out a packet of his favourite Parle G biscuits from his pocket “or tip ke paise ka biscuit khata hoon ya picture dekhta hoon (I eat biscuits or watch money from the tip that I get).”

The boy symbolizes the fate of the landless poor and the unskilled classes, who had no choice but to migrate to far regions in search of a paltry income. In States such as Tamil Nadu where there is a perennial shortage of manual labour, as more and more people graduate to better paying jobs, lads like him are welcomed.

Chandan carefully washes his hands and sits to eat his much loved sattu parantha for lunch on the same chair where the prosperous bits of Hindi Speaking India, living in the lodges of Triplicane High Road, satisfy their taste buds in this unfamiliar land. In contrast to the migration of the poor, illiterate and the downtrodden, who make living out of carefully serving the thali that comes with a bit of pumpkin, potato curry and piling paranthas.

Mandate

Hey Peter Patter,

lets make things better,

lets play in the rain,

and spend sometime in vain. 

Lets climb that tree,

and eat some mulberries for free,

lets make a castle in the beach sand,

and join the old man’s band. 

Together we will have lots of fun,

and we will be answerable to none,

we both know nothing really matter,

so  Peter  Patter, lets make things better. 

Cast(e) into school

There are subtle — often not so subtle — types of discrimination an SC student faces in the village. For instance, studying in an English medium school gives the MBC children the obvious edge over SC kids in proficiency in speaking English.

Caste/class inequalities emerge in every aspect of society and culture and even in the education scenario of Sakkangudi, a village in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu. In Sakkangudi, the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) and Backward Castes (BCs) are roughly three times the population of Scheduled Castes (SCs), according to the 2001 census statistics of the village. But a look at the Panchayat Middle school’s enrolment numbers shows that the number of MBCs and SCs students is just about equal.

In Sakkangudi, the Vanniyars (MBCs) own most of the land in the village and majority of the SCs are agricultural labourers. Scheduled Tribes (STs) and BCs constitute a small part of the village population. The inequalities between the landed and landless classes in the village society are opened up early in the context of education.

The nature and type of schools have contributed to this evident polarization across class and caste. The Panchayat School has come to be identified with the poor, and more so with the SCs. This school has also come to be associated with poorer quality of teaching as compared to English medium matriculation school in the village, to which the MBC children go to subsequently find comfortable jobs in urban centers. NCERT has stated in the Sixth All-India Educational Survey that SCs mainly avail themselves of government schooling.

School attendance rates are lower for the SC and tribal students compared to boys from MBC and BC social groups in the Panchayat School. Data on school dropout of SC children remains fairly high at the middle school stage. For most of them agricultural and other wage labour becomes the primary occupation and poverty becomes a major deterrent to regular attendance at school. The adverse learning environment experienced by scheduled-caste pupils affects their educational aspirations and achievements.

There are subtle — often not so subtle — types of discrimination an SC student faces in the village. For instance, studying in an English medium school gives the MBC children the obvious edge over SC kids in proficiency in speaking English.

The School Education Department’s Policy Note 2007-2008 recognizes that most of the rural students fail only in English in Public Examinations and can not continue their study. The note also says that in a world of globalization, proficiency in English language is considered essential yet teachers imparting education in the Panchayat School fail to effectively follow the English Medium curriculum.

These are areas in which the equality of access and the promise of comparable outcomes provided in the Constitution are not remotely real to lower castes. The fact here, for too many people, is that their destinies are ultimately determined by their caste. There is much to be said about public education itself but the question of caste is all pervading. The lower castes can not be expected to have much faith in a system based on economic needs when it is so thoroughly misrepresented by the privileged.

Caste in gender

Dalit feminists share a definite sense of identification with many basic articulations raised by the Dalit movement and the feminist movement due to the shared historicity based on experiences of oppression and discrimination.

 

Dr. Ambedkar responded strongly to the age old religious and social practices of Sati, enforced widowhood and girl marriage in the paper ‘Castes in India, their Mechanism, Genesis and Development’. He believed that the Varna system had not only subjugated untouchables but also women. He attacked the scriptures that granted social sanction to such practices by tracing the genesis of discrimination and degradation of the Indian women to the Laws of Manu and his Manusmriti.

 

“There can be no doubt that there has been an utter downfall in position of women in India from what it was once was. One cannot say much about the part they played in ancient time in the state craft. But there is no doubt they did occupy a very high position in the intellectual and social life of the country.”

According to him a caste was an enclosed class that existed before Manu. However, Manu’s codification of caste rules reinforced all these practices.

Later, Ambedkar’s introduction of the Hindu Code Bill to liberate the upper caste women laid the keystone for an attack on feminist causes by the religion based identity politics. The battle lines remain multi-layered and meaningful even today in religious identity-based politics that has become a dominant feature of Indian politics now. He critiqued the Brahminical centre of Hinduism by emphasising that the lower caste women did not suffer from as much inequality as compared to the higher caste women. As he said, “It would however be a mistake to suppose that only the wrongs of men are a religion to him. For the Brahmin has given his support to the worst wrongs that women have suffered from in any part of the world. Widows were burnt alive as suttees. Widows were never allowed to remarry.” To save those women the Hindu Code Bill was brought to parliament.

 

Ambedkar was way ahead of his time and this was reflected when he drafted the Hindu Code Bill. However he resigned from the cabinet after the Hindu Code Bill could not be passed as visualised. His fight for a woman’s right to divorce was fiercely opposed in the Parliament by the right wing Hindus like Shyama Prasad Mukharjee.

The parallels of this polarisation between these two camps came to the fore much later, when on September 4, 1987, 17-year-old Roop Kanwar consigned herself to flames or was burnt alive on the funeral pyre of her husband Maal Singh Shekhawat at Deorala village of Sikar district in Rajasthan. This infamous incident came to be referred to as the “sati” case. Sixteen years later, 11 persons, including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator and then State party vice-president Rajendra Singh Rathore, nephew of Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Narendra Singh Rajawat of the Rajput Mahasabha were let off for lack of evidence. They were among 16 persons accused of participating in the protests glorifying the practice of sati against the alleged police action in the wake of the incident.

 

Dalit feminists share a definite sense of identification with many basic articulations raised by the Dalit movement and the feminist movement due to the shared historicity based on experiences of oppression and discrimination.

 

The question of communalism has been fore grounded in the discussions about identity. This predominant strand within the thinking of the women’s movement is evident as defined by Jana Everett for analyzing the relationship between gender and identity politics. This frame identifies contemporary contexts which have shaped much of feminist notions of identity politics in India. According to Everett, ‘The upsurge of fundamentalism and communal violence in India over the past decade has led feminist scholars to analyse the interrelationships among the state, identity politics and gender.’

 

Zoya Hasan has also pointed out, ‘In the final analysis, the reaffirmation of religio-cultural distinctions constricts the articulation of gender interests within the terms of reference set by a specific communitarian discourse, and whatever rights may have been achieved in earlier political moments are sacrificed in the interests of identity politics’

 

Both texts raise different questions, the solution is obviously premised on the belief that a woman’s identity and her rights can be disassociated from the religious, ethnic, national or cultural context of her existence. These contexts do not shape her identity as a woman. However, they overlook the fact that it is in the realm of the culture that a ‘woman’ exists and it is in the cultural realm that alternate and feminist identities are sought to be constructed.

 

Different identity movements are indeed patriarchal. But the question for feminist politics really is: Is patriarchy the only lens through which to view women’s identity? The women’s movement has to find other ways of engaging with identity movements, specially, in India rather than focus only on the patriarchal dimension of the movements and denounce them.

Deprivation and aspiration

The aspiration of the poor of a lifestyle probably has done more than any social program to motivate some of the disenchanted to become enfranchised. However, it may also be perceived that the multicoloured noisy enclaves of urban prosperity have promoted crass consumerism.

 

One may be distressed at seeing a dish antenna atop a ramshackle house, inside of which there is neither fan nor LPG cylinder but a 14 inch television set. Clean drinking water is also a distant dream for this household. Outside of this hut, children with swollen stomachs give visible signs of acute malnutrition. However the thought that struck me was the yearning of a people to have superfluous badges of affluence that may promise to them a more lasting peace than any political system has ever delivered. The same children, in a small community in rural India, adore Jackie Chan but are not acquainted with the name of country’s Prime Minister. I don’t mean to overlook the complexities here.

 

The aspiration of the poor of a lifestyle probably has done more than any social program to motivate some of the disenchanted to become enfranchised. However, it may also be perceived that the multicoloured noisy enclaves of urban prosperity have promoted crass consumerism. The trend is a classic demonstration of Marxist concept of ‘commodity fetishism’ implying that capitalist rulers in a bourgeois democracy can weave their ideology in the social consciousness by fetishizing market economy, and make it appear absolutely necessary to the citizens.

 

Since Marx’ times the Indian media has become a powerful non-violent tool in the hands of the budding neo-right urban middle class, to which also belong the journalists of the mainstream media like I am to be, in shaping public psyche in this mould. So I admit the ugly truth. After spending the last few weeks trying to understand the pull of the material world, I have become far more sympathetic to its blandishments and far more forgiving of its excesses.

 

Nehru’s grand vision of independent India determined to remove the barriers of class stratification and their far reaching effects on inequality and deprivation gave a thrilling image that could rival Alfred Tennyson’s eloquence: “For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see. Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.” All the same, there is disturbing evidence that the battle against class divisions has been substantially weakened by the designated warriors themselves.

 

While in the village no kid cares about the number of vowels in her name, or the colour of her skin, or whether you know the difference between like and as, when real Jackie Chan is playing with her — that’s got to mean something.

 

Gender in religious and cultural politics

The distant and unattainable woman in a skimpy outfit, born on the celluloid became a dream and an aspiration for the masses in the 1990s. However, it provoked the Hindu right and Muslim radicals to give birth to ‘disorder and chaos’. Just as in Bhagwad Gita, Arjuna tells Krishna, “In overwhelming chaos Krishna, women of the family are corrupted; and when women are corrupted, disorder is born in society.”

The uncontrolled woman, the woman with the dishevelled hair and rampant sexuality was splashed across the TV screens and she entered our drawing rooms with the liberalisation and globalisation of 90s. They became the most tangible symbol of ‘chaos’. From the early 1990s, the BJP and the Shiv Sena began a concerned attack on what they saw as the ‘deterioration of cinema culture’ which amounted to an ‘insult to the Hindu faith’ by ‘body exposure,’ as Shohini Ghosh commented in Seminar. The Hindu right was perhaps quicker to sense the subversive potential of popular cinema.

These regular incidents provoked public and media debate; it became evident that the incidents were just part of the larger known reality of religious and cultural make up of some political factions. As Brinda Bose points out in Sexuality, Censorship and Cinema, there emerged a consensus that most strident and shrill demands for censorship around sex and sexuality have been focussed on women – what they say, how they are shown or not shown, how ‘vulgar’ their representations are, and little attention has continuously been paid to censorship instigated and sustained by aged religious and cultural patriarchies.

‘Choli ke Peeche’

It all started in the domain of Indian popular culture in 1993, the film song ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai’ (What is behind the blouse?) in Khalnayak plunged the nation into a debate about morality. The lyrics of the song stood accused of transmitting improper sexual mores.

R. P Chugh, an advocate and a Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) supporter filed a legal petition alleging the song as obscene, defamatory to women and is likely to incite “the commission of offence.” He assumed that sexuality is obscene and such references “dishonoured” women – assumptions common to the cultural discourse in India that followed. His request to prohibit the song from state television proved futile in the wake of innumerable private channels ushered in with the advent of liberalisation. Satellite Television revealed the fragility of national boundaries and state authority.

In 1997 the women-sexuality-censorship-cinema debate hit the media again with Deepa Mehta’s landmark endeavour, Fire, the so called first Indian lesbian film. The protests, this time from Bal Thackeray’s camp, saw vandalised cinema halls and activists stripping outside the Bombay home of actor Dilip Kumar who, along with Deepa Mehta, filed a petition against the protests. The dark humour in sisters-in-law, Sita and Radha’s, loving alliance provoked political and religious rivalries. Bal Thackeray proclaimed that contrary to the story of the film, lesbianism did not exist in Hindu families and a radical Hindu leader declared that the attacks would cease if the two women were shown to be Moslem. Fire may have received 14 international awards but on the ‘harm’ Deepa Mehta caused by ushering in a ‘wretched culture’ was thoroughly deliberated upon by the reactionaries.

 

Sujata Moorti argued in Inflamed Passions that many of the concerns developed because Fire represented the genre of global films and was made by an NRI. Mehta’s western locus evoked the ire of the religious right. One of Fire’s major contributions to contemporary debates and discourses on sexuality and representation has been the ingression of queer subjectivity. It’s now an obvious threat to the national polity, changing the sexual landscape. The Indian lesbian community that for years had maintained a silent, almost secret existence in the country certainly welcomed this film.

The number of runaway lesbian ‘marriages’ after the controversy also became regular on the daily newscast. Women from all parts of the country, urban and non urban areas, in the face of opposition from family and society and largely without any support from anyone else have the right to be left alone and lead their lives, said a queer feminist writer and activist, Shalini Mahajan in ‘Questioning Norms And Bodies’.

Recently, the same year that two popular Hindi films – Salaam Namaste and Neal-n-Nikki – celebrated pre-marital sex and live-in relationships, Tamil film actress Khushboo found herself embroiled in a national controversy. The agitation launched by the Dalit Panthers of India against Khushboo openly claimed that the remarks went against Tamil culture and ethos. BJP and Pattali Makkal Katchi also took a dig at Khushboo demanding an apology. Khushboo was finally forced to apologise for offending many sections of the Indian society.

Ironically, films cleared by the Censor Board continued to cause heartburn, violence and large scale resentment. In 2006, Sharmila Tagore, chairperson was reported to have said that while the board under her leadership was not averse to kissing scenes, she did not endorse the screening of pornographic content in films saying, “I don’t think society or Indian people are ready for it. There is a cultural difference between India and the rest of the world.” The same year, however, the Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai kiss in Dhoom 2 sparked of court action when a Bhopal based lawyer filed a case saying that the kissing scene lowered the dignity of women for its vulgarity. Off-screen Richard Gere-Shilpa Shetty kiss also received the censure of a certain high moral public brigade.

Feminists respond

Feminists have often argued that the definitions of ‘obscenity’, ‘indecency’ and ‘morality’ are questionable. Not recognising women’s sexuality and upholding their dignity by reducing them to asexual beings in the popular culture is critiqued a great deal by feminist activists and theorists.

The secular feminists are divided into those who have favoured “reasonable restrictions” in the form of censorship to protect against sexual exploitation through representation. Whereas those opposing censorship of sexualised representation believe that the ideas of ‘purity’ and ‘chastity’ oppress women into silent domination in domestic roles that feminists try to eradicate. What, then, is ‘obscene’ as against the ‘aesthetic’? Whose morality is being imposed as a diktat through the censorship of images?

The bold sexualities of women, constantly attempting to derail the existing prevalent practices and ideas of morality, even drew flak from the fraternity of women. This tussle became most evident when, the President of the Women’s Wing of the BJP, supporting Chugh’s petition, wrote: “Choli ke peeche kya hai is an obscene song and as a result of which new anti-social elements have got the excuse of singing this song on seeing girls. Many incidents of eve-teasing have occurred. The film song singers only just to earn money are shamelessly singing such type of songs which are against the public interest.”

Similarly, some women activists threatened to file cases against the National Award winning actress Suhasini for justifying the controversial remarks made by Khushboo over pre-marital sex. Yesteryear actress Manorama also thought that the remarks should not have been made.

The danger is defined; an encroaching decadent ‘West’ is becoming the source of much ‘chaos’. The Hindu and Muslim reactionaries have chosen to not insulate themselves from the danger or retire to a life of purity in the mountains. Instead they continue to fight with absolutism and with violence.

Muslim women face the wrath

The Indian tennis star Sania Mirza refused to be drawn into a controversy over what she wears on court after being accused by a leading cleric of wearing “indecent dress” and being a “corrupting influence on young women.” Haseeb-ul-hasan Siddiqui, a leading cleric of the Sunni Ulema Board, said: “The dress she wears on the tennis courts not only doesn’t cover large parts of her body but leaves nothing to the imagination.” This attack came after she became the first Indian woman to reach the fourth round of the US Open. The adverse effect of success in the form of controversies hit the then teenager. She said, “Wherever I go people look at me. That’s why these days I prefer to stay at home. I have to learn to live with all this.”

The filming of a sequence for Namaste London, which featured actress Katrina Kaif wearing a short dress, inside Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti’s dargah created uproar among khadims (servers) and the shrine administration. The film’s director Vipul Shah, keen to avoid any controversy, even said “If people want, we will have another shoot for the film with Katrina wearing a proper dress. We are even ready to drop the scene from the film.”

 

 

Law

Relationship between women and censorship is governed by the indecent representation of women (prohibition) act of 1986 that makes punishable the figure of a woman, her form or body or any part thereof in such a way as to have the effect of being derogatory or denigrating women or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure public morality or morals.

The ‘need for censorship’ section in the report of the working group on National film policy (1980) says:-

“Particularly in the context of a hyper-conservative society like India, which has rigid social and religious norms of behaviour, where the political consciousness has still not matured and where harsh economic conditions inhibit individual growth, there are bound to be serious limitations of the freedom of expression.

In this situation, any system of formal censorship is bound to come under heavy pressure on the one hand from the traditional elements in society who want to preserve status quo and, therefore, demand rigid standards of censorship, and on the other hand from artists and intellectuals who challenge the status quo and therefore, want maximum liberalisation. The latter are ironically supported by market manipulators who demand complete freedom to depict anything which is likely to sell. We feel that if the overall objective of censorship is to safeguard generally accepted standards of morality and decency, in addition to the well recognised interests of the State, the standards of censorship applicable to freedom of expression cannot be very much ahead of the standards commonly accepted in the society. Censorship can become liberal only to the extent society itself becomes genuinely liberal”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reorienting the Security Paradigm

This book is a welcome addition to the literature on a subject, Women in Peace Politics, which needs more exploration. It is densely written and its heavily footnoted text draws on a vast and diverse array of academic research. As one might expect, the essays cover a range of subjects and vary in their depth and complexity. Ruhi Kandhari reviews the book

Third in the series of South Asian Peace Studies, ‘Women in Peace Politics’ elaborates on the ‘non-traditional’ security concerns that are being continuously thrown up by social and political realities of conflict-torn areas in South Asia. The book points to the need for a new vocabulary, which probes into the local dimensions of peace as separate from the global understanding of security; prioritising justice, human rights and dignity over state-sponsored terror. After three volumes in the South Asian Peace Studies series that dealt with the concept, scope and theme of peace studies as separate from security studies and peace accords in South Asia, this book brings out the experiences of women in conflict situations.

The global understanding of security is largely understood as the absence of violence. By raising a debate on the quality of peace, seen through the lens of gender, the compilation of essays fulfils the imperative to widen the catchment-area of security to include peace.

Women’s experiences of war and conflict have, by and large, been etched in the popular consciousness by mainstream media as the distress of mothers and widows.  However, ‘women in peace politics’ highlights the role of women, as cadres in revolutionary movements and as women who face displacement, migration, harassment and sexual exploitation by foregrounding gender in the security discourse. Control Arms Foundation of India Vice President, Anuradha Chenoy, points out, “The gendered aspect of military violence, by emphasising that sexual violence continues to be the specific experience of women during war.”

The outlines of the discourse on the quality of peace from a gender perspective are being laid out in the 21st century global order just as the perils of the globalised markets begin to gain prominence and laws that curb civil liberties by empowering military get publicly debated. Insurgency and lopsided development are becoming the breeding grounds for the birth of movements and these political tensions often subsume within themselves a hierarchy of conflicts. As renowned environmental and social activist, Vandana Shiva, points out that military and markets are major threats to human security. However, there appears to be considerable ambiguity on what constitutes the sphere of peace studies and how gender is understood in the, by and large, masculine turf of war.

The UN Decade for Women from 1975 to 1985 brought forth the idea of building positive peace, by addressing gender-based inequalities within the nation, thus adding to women’s vulnerability, as opposed to the idea of negative peace that merely means the end of war. The essays in this volume bring into sharp focus the subtle and nuanced experiences induced by everyday negotiations by women in South Asia, issues that normally escape public debate.

Sumona Das Gupta observes in his book, ‘Security, Gender and Conflict Prevention: Perceptions from South Asia, “By prioritising survival, livelihood and dignity as the building blocks of security, human security has helped to rethink security in ways that place people and their participation at the centre. In the absence of such an enabling concept, political and economic elites often invoking national security tend to do it alone in a process that often marginalizes and impoverishes the people.” She identifies three clusters of security issues through the lens of the non-traditional and critical security approaches: militarism and militarisation of state and society; development and globalisation; and post-conflict reconstruction and peace building processes.

The central argument of the book is that the South Asian region has emerged as one of the most conflict prone zones in the world and so it is apparent that the agenda for peace has, as yet, not received the attention that it should. Feminist researchers, activists, journalists and civil society groups draw on insights from fieldwork to illuminate important questions of wide relevance in the essays. Paula Banerjee, a specialist in issues of conflict and peace in South Asia, has edited the volume and written its introduction.

This volume is divided into three sections with their own sectional introductions: Ideas and Ideologies; Movements and Voices. Of the many faces of women in conflict in South Asia, the book looks at three major ones – fate of women migrating in search of jobs and security, women in revolutionary political space and women protesting for peace as mothers.

Ranabir Samaddar’s essay titled ‘Shefali on a woman’s trans-border migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal in India’ calls attention to the fact that thousands of women and children from Bangladesh and Nepal are sold and forced into prostitution, organ trade and slave labour in India and Pakistan. He has based his findings on human rights activists, civil society groups, newspaper reports and police records, he argues that every day, more than 50 women and children are reportedly trafficked with false promises of jobs, marriage and other forms of security. Women and children are not only trafficked within South Asia, they are trafficked to other Asian countries and to Europe and America as well.

The story of Shefali showcases the oppression she faces at the household, societal and state levels. She is called an illegal immigrant and deported back to Bangladesh. Her story needs to be deliberated on for the implications it holds of being a ‘woman’ in such a scenario and getting rehabilitated appropriately.

The concerns of women in South Asia range from that of the innumerable Shefali to women of violence represented by the armed soldiers of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam) in Sri Lanka or the Maoists fighting in the Telangana movement in Andhra Pradesh. Movements from such conflict torn areas have in turn influenced wider social movements, which have impacted larger movements for justice.

Women’s participation in armed conflict, their feelings and the push and pull factors influencing the decision to join the struggle for Telangana are some of the issues explored in this book. Besides women’s views on the movements, their leaders, policies, and the programmes of their parties are also brought into focus. On the one hand, the movements filled women with unprecedented confidence. They could travel alone at night and carry guns, which gave them a sense of equality with men. The change in public life made it necessary for them to recast their private lives, which were otherwise an impossible agenda for organisations spearheading such movements.

While analysing the lives of women cadres in the LTTE and Telangana movements, the essays, rich in detail, raise several questions. How involved are these women in decision-making and to what extant are they initiators of political and social projects? How are women’s sexualities used to control their physical movement? What are the manners in which marriage, relationships and child-birth are regulated?

Similarly, Saro Thiruppathy and Nirekha De Silva in Women in Sri Lankan Peace Politics point out that even though advocacy on peace politics continues through a variety of women’s organisations and at the individual level as well, the role of women in direct peace negotiations is not yet a reality. While the Sri Lankan government has taken a positive initiative by becoming the first country in South Asia to have a gender subcommittee as part of the formal peace-building process, women’s voices are still not taken seriously where they count the most—at the negotiating table.

On the one hand there are the women of violence and on the other the women for peace. In north-east India and Sri Lanka, women have successfully organised mothers’ movements and made successful claims to sit in ceasefire negotiations, which are often male domains. At various points, the essays delve into the question of how the anxieties and pains of individual mothers about their daughters and sons – tortured, incarcerated, killed or missing in action – get slowly translated into collective and more organised forms of resistance. It is often argued that motherhood has become the governing metaphor of women’s politics in North-East India today.

A case in point is that of 32-year-old Manorama Devi, who was pulled from her home by soldiers and found dead a few hours later. Her bullet-ridden body was left beside a paddy field in Manipur in 2004. The army defended itself by saying that she was a militant and was shot while trying to escape. After the incident, Imphal erupted in protest. Old women took off their clothes in front of army barracks and paraded a sign saying “Indian Army, Rape Us”.

Paula Banerjee’s, The space between, focuses on the north-eastern region of India, which has witnessed sustained insurgency, socio-political turmoil due to draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) which legitimise military violence and ethnic conflicts. The region also has many strong civil society movements, particularly women’s movements. Similar social movements in Nagaland and Manipur have been represented by two strong women’s organisations that are active in social and political affairs. Naga Mothers’ Association (NMA) and Meira Paibis (a Manipuri women’s organisation also known as torchbearers) believe in a broader definition of peace. That is the reason, according to Banerjee, their movements are more successful than those who find peace in ending armed conflict in the region. These groups believe that peace can be achieved through dialogue and political negotiations. They equate peace with justice and development. Paula Banerjee argues: “Women not only influence the politics of peace but their own lives are affected by participating in the politics of peace in myriad ways. They are able to legitimise their leadership roles and question unequal distribution of resources.”

The last section of the book, Voices, documents some of the inspiring tales of women who struggle against oppression. The introduction to this section by Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal emphasises the fact that these women have also fought against all that is unfair to humans. The section structured around six narratives of women negotiating violent politics in their everyday lives shifts the focus away from the discourse of the victimised and explores women’s agency for peace and conflict. It includes individual pamphlets by the Naga Mothers Association, Womens Action Forum of Pakistan and an extract from Viramma: Life of an Untouchable.

Missing issues

While ‘Women in Peace Politics’ points out the impediments to security arising from globalisation, the assault on minorities and ‘the war against terror’, which has added yet another dimension to the existing polarisation in South Asia, it does not delve deeply into any of them.

The book fails to cover the entire gamut of issues. While arguments on conflicts in Andhra Pradesh and north-eastern India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka run across the three sections of the book and come through repeatedly, the volume omits issues ranging from communal violence in India, violence due to the imbalances of the neo-liberal growth patterns and to the US war on terror in Afghanistan. Delhi in 1984, Gujarat in 2002 and Orissa in 2008 showed the failure of the democratic state as it acted on communal lines. One would have liked to see more debates on globalisation in the light of protests by the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the Nandigram rapes. Fauzia Gardezi’s essay touches on the tension between religion and gender but the book misses the larger debate on the US war of terror in Afghanistan. A global women’s movement has made itself heard over the violence of Bush’s so-called “war on terror” following the 9/11 attacks. Reports of Taliban insurgency, factional fighting, instability in Kandahar and Kabul, widespread looting and banditry, rapes and abuse continue unabated. Another problem with the book, a trait it shares with many academic books, is its size and verbosity. What has been expressed in 300 pages could easily have been compressed in about 200, without sacrificing any substance.

Despite these shortcomings, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on a subject that needs more exploration. It is densely written and its heavily footnoted text draws on a vast and diverse array of academic research. As one might expect, the essays cover a range of subjects and vary in their depth and complexity.

Women in many parts of the world find themselves in trying situations of violence. They continue to battle for a more human world, struggling against war, religious and ethnic hatred and for protecting the environment against the ravages of global capital, raising questions about nationalism and humaneness in an increasingly violent world. Volumes such as this, by expanding the definition of security and focusing on such issues, help in reorienting attitudes towards the orthodox security paradigm.

Govt tightens the screws on child labour

9 Jun, 2008

Ruhi Kandhari

NEW DELHI: The Union labour ministry has notified expansion of the list of professions that are deemed “hazardous” under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. This is expected to come into force by September this year. The government has intended to add occupations due to the associated health risks to the list of 15 occupations and 9 other hazardous processes to the existing 57 which are prohibited under the Act for employment of children.

The amended list is to cover processes involving exposure to excessive heat or cold or free silica as in the case of slate, pencil industry, stone grinding, slate stone mining, stone quarries and agate industry. The Act will now also prohibit employment of children below 14 years of age for mechanised fishing, timber handling and loading, food processing, beverage industry, mechanical lumbering and warehousing.

Under the current Child Labour Act, 1986, occupations and processes deemed hazardous include the making of glass, bangles and fireworks, beedi-making, carpet-weaving and cement manufacturing. The Act also regulates conditions in industries where children are still permitted to be employed. Regulation covers all the occupations and processes that are not specifically prohibited for employment of children. The Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee had recommended that nine more processes be added to the list of hazardous occupations. The list was expanded after consultations with the states on the issue.

Also expected is a detailed protocol that lays down procedures for repatriating migrant child workers to their homes and rehabilitating them so that rescued children do not drift back into the workforce.

States and ministries have been making several suggestions to the Centre for the protocol.

Along with these incremental steps, the government is also working on a complete overhaul of the 1986 Act to bring it in line with evolving ground realities. States and ministries have been making several suggestions to the Centre for amending the law. The Central Monitoring Committee for the law’s implementation has also backed the need for changing the law during its last annual meeting in June 2007. States’ views on the various proposals have already been received.

Delhi Ridge Invaded

 INTRODUCTION

On a sunny morning in December, a peacock scans the clouds from its vantage point on a tree while an owl hunts for game amongst the thick, thorny shrubs. The ground is bright rust and the earth wet. The Delhi Ridge plays host to many such magical moments, when nature astonishes with its simple beauty.

Part of the Aravalli range, the ridge is the only one of its kind in the country’s metros, a Delhi icon that is as much a part of the capital’s heritage as the imposing façade of Rashtrapati Bhavan or the gracious sandstone arch of India Gate. A swathe of green on higher ground, the ridge soothes the hot winds from the deserts of neighbouring Rajasthan before they reach the city and stashes away welcome raindrops to boost dipping groundwater levels[1]. But over the years, much of the ridge has disappeared under the brick and mortar that now define most Indian cities. The most recent threat has come from swanky hotels and malls. A multi-stakeholder board, Ridge Management Board is supposed to protect the ridge, but is fraught with conflicts of interest.

The awareness to conserve and protect the ridge has been there even in the Sultanate period. In 14^th century, afforestation was done on the ridge by Emperor Firoz Tughlaq[2]. During British period, in 1913, part of the ridge was declared as Reserve Forest under Indian Forest Act, 1878[3]. Large swathes of the Ridge were lost, beginning in the second half of the 19^th century when precincts such as Paharganj and Paharipur – whose names recall their hilly character – were levelled. But the great dismantling of the Ridge took place after independence, especial since the 1970s, as the population swelled and new suburbs pushed south of the new capital city.[4]

 High plateaux and heavily forested Aravalli separates the block from the Indo-Gangetic plains[5]. Delhi’s ‘ridge,’ elevated and rocky landform is the tail end of the 1500 years old Aravalli hills. These hills stretch 800 kilometres from Gujarat through Rajasthan and Haryana, pushing into Delhi from the south-west[6]. Here, one branch bends eastwards to create the broken spurs and ravines of Tughlakabad, Jaunapur and bhatti. The main spine of low hills continues in a north-easterly axis through Mehrauli and Vasant Vihar into Chanakyapur. Just short of Sadar Bazar, the hills disappear only to surface again near the Barafkhana, where the road steeply climbs past the Mutiny Memorial to Hindu Rao Hospital.

 Today, for administrative purposes, Ridge is divided into four zones: South-Central, Central, North and South. The old or the Northern ridge denotes the hilly area near Delhi University and is by far the smallest segment of the ridge[7]. Nearly 170 hectares were declared a reserve forest in 1915. Less than 87 hectares remains today. The new or central Ridge was made into a reserve forest in 1914 and stretches from south of Sadar Bazar to Dhaula Kuan. It extends over 864 hectares, but some bits have been nibbled away. The sourthern ridge sprawls across 6200 hectares and includes the Asola and Bhatti wildlife sanctuaries. A lot of it is village or privately owned land. Even these pockets are under assault: debris is dumped in many parts and illegal constructions are commonplace. A worst-case scenario is already on display in the South-Central Ridge, encompassing 633 hectares, where swanky hotels and malls are slowly but surely replacing trees.

Among the Capitals, Delhi hosts the largest number of resident and migratory birds after Nairobi due to a confluence of three different habitats – the Aravalli belt, northern scrub forest and the Gangetic plane which attracts the aquatic habitat. This diversity helps in attracting birds.[8] However, altered land use pattern of Delhi Ridge has led to disappearance, displacement or dispersal of many species. In 1940 there were 300 species of birds in Delhi but by 1990s the number had gone down to 200[9]. Among mammals, fox, hare, pig, blackbuck, chinkara, jackal, nilgai, hogdeer, laeopard cat, wolf, hyena, porcupine, cheetal and wild boar were present in the Ridge about a century back, but today higher mammals have almost vanished.

In terms of flora, the green lung of Delhi, recently threw up a pleasant surprise. In what was described as a remarkable discovery, researchers located 37 plant species never before reported from the city. The good old Delhi Ridge currently has over 120 species of plants and serves as a sink for many pollutants, air purifier and supplier of oxygen.[10] In spite of this, Ridge has been waging a battle against Prosopis Juliflora, a weed colonising the native vegetation.

With Delhi’s rapid growth and development, land sharks have been making efforts to eat into this green lung on one hand. On the other, concerned citizens with the support of judiciary have been effective in keeping concrete monsters at bay. And all this while, the Ridge quietly went on working alongside – air conditioning in summer, oxygenating, absorbing exhaust, buffering noise, harbouring hundreds of species of flora and fauna, and providing a haven to thousands of city worn visitors.

Commercialisation spree

In autumn of 2003, an unexpected animal – a bulldozer – was busy clearing trees and excavating to construct swanky shopping malls, expected to be the biggest shopping hubs in Delhi. One of the malls will be the largest mall in Asia and 4th largest in the world^[11]. A powerful commercial lobby has been able to get authorities to bend rules in favour of development on this 640 hectares on the South Central Ridge, surrounded by Vasant Vihar, Vasant Kunj, Mahipalpur and National Highway 8. Hotels and Malls are slowly but surely replacing trees on this otherwise undisturbed tract of Delhi Ridge.

In 1996 Geographical survey of India (GSI) identified the whole 640 hectares as part of Delhi ridge[12]. Later on Forest department and Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) identified this area as forest and water recharging area respectively[13]. The report of the GSI clearly states that the area in question is Aravali ridge. The Aravalis are also protected by the 1994 Aravali Fragile Area Notification[14]. The major protests by citizens groups and environmentalists, spearheaded by Ridge Bachao Andolan and Citizens for the Preservation of the Quaries and Lakes wilderness (CPQLW), are with regard to a patch of 92 hectares, on 315 hectares under DDA, allotted for the construction of malls and institutions.

This area includes Residential area of 15 hectares, which consists of Hill View Apartments and Kusumpur Village, 24 hectares on which School of Planning and Architecture and National Book Trust are to build and 25 hecatares for shopping malls and Grand hotel leaving rest as Green buffer zone and Transportation area. Today heavy construction is on at 92 hectares of this land and the other 223 is being developed (amidst protest by environmentalists) as a bio-diversity park[15].

In addition, a surprising offender in the area has been the Army, which has been constructing residential quarters on the 325 hectares it owns since 70’s. But since late nineties the army has carried out construction activity at a rapid pace and more so in the last couple of years[16].

The DDA has consistently insisted that the area where the malls are coming up cannot be considered a art of the ridge but just “rocky land”at all — though its own Draft Masterplan for Delhi-2021 alludes to the drastic reduction in groundwater potential in these parts. In its affidavit before the Supreme Court in July 2004 and again in February 2005, the DDA stated that the land was just “rocky land” and merely a “land classification” which did not indicate the “land use.”

 While 7777 hectares of the ridge zones are notified forest areas (a notification declaring an area as a forest is issued by the central government in conjunction with the state government) by the Loveraj Kumar Committee in 1994, parts of what has been traditionally considered as the ridge such as this 640 hectares in Vasant Kunj have been excluded from its ambit. According to the EPCA, for some inexplicable reason, not to do with the court’s orders, many unbuilt portions of ridge were left out of the notification. Afterwards, a member of the committee records in the CEC report (2004) that the DDA deliberately misled the court by calling it a development area so it could better preserve it. This is one such pristine portion.

The attempt to commerialise this area began in 1996, when the DDA announced, in the newspaper, a gigantic International Hotels Complex (IHC) of 13 luxury hotels in this same ridge forest area. CPQLW filed a PIL in SC against building the Int. Hotels Complex and on 13 Sept.1996 SC stayed the project and directed the Central Government to constitute an Environmental Impact Assessment Authority- (EIAA) to look into the Environmental aspects of this project. The EIAA commissioned the Geological Survey of India (GSI) to demarcate the ridge, which found that the entire 315 hectares to be Aravali Ridge. In January 1997, EIAA stopped all construction activity in the area. However, the dissolution of IEAA later on by the Central Government on the plea that it was just an adhoc committee proved detrimental to the cause of saving this part of the ridge. After which the EIAA was dismantled and its functions were ceded to the newly notified Environment (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA) for NCR or the Bhure Lal Committee of Supreme Court. As it happened the Grand Hyatt went to court and the apex court later allowed construction in 92 hectares of the area held by the DDA but subject to all environmental laws and clearances In august 1997. Even though, the EPCA observed, “the said area of 315 hectares would stand classified as forest irrespective of whether it is outside or within the notified forest area.”

Its conservation status was reinforced by the CEC report in which the Army has deposed that it will not build more than 4% of the area and preserve the area as reserved forest. However, the present Army constructions, which started after July 2004 have destroyed a huge portion of the forest. The Army stated that the disputed area was theirs and categorised as A-1 which was needed to rehabilitate those who had fought in the Kargil War. A look from google world shows that clearly. CEC directed that no construction or cutting of trees take place in March 2004 CEC recommended that the area should be declared Reserve Forest or National Park in July 2004. Army has violated both and though it said that finally it would build a maximum 19% and maintain the rest as res. forest it has been building constantly much more. Its construction has been found illegal for lack of mandatory environment clearances[17].

According to the CGWB reports, the ridge area acts as a single aquifer system and is continuous with the aquifer systems of the surrounding areas. Also the recharge of fresh water in the ridge area is stopping the movement of saline front from Pappan Kalaan towards the ridge area and pushing the fresh/saline water interface to deeper levels. The report noted, “Development activities in the areas extending from Mehrauli to Masudpur and north to Vasant Vihar may adversely affect the groundwater regime.” Referring to the acute water problem in these parts, where residents are increasingly becoming dependent on tankers for water supply at all times of the year, a report of the Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court on the South-Central Ridge concurred, “…This portion of the ridge, which has been identified as an area critical for recharging groundwater, should be strictly protected and declared as a no-construction zone and reserved forest.” The total groundwater recharge amounts to 150 million cubic metres per year but private withdrawal of water is three times the replenished, according to a study by INTACH[18].

A report on the area carried out by the Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF), DC Khanduri in 1996 clearly identifies the area as geographically being an extension of the Aravalli Ridge with dense growth of forest trees. Here some erstwhile mining pits have developed into excellent water bodies which harbour a number of spices of water birds that include the spot billed duck, the little grebe, moorhens, cormorants and herons. In addition peacock, partridge, quail, spotted owlet, horned owl, flycatchers are also found in the area. These water bodies were perennial till 1999 but have dried since. A result of the construction activity going around, allege environmentalists. The area ahas 14 water bodies – protected by Government notification – all have gone dry due to the illegal extraction of water by the Grand Hotel, Army and the DDA environmentalists from Ridge Bachao Andolan and CPLQW allege.

Besides, in its 1962 and 2001 Master Plan DDA has earmarked the area as ridge area. The ridge according to MPD 1962 and MPD 2001 “the ridge must be conserved with utmost care and should be afforested with indigenous species with minimum of artificial landscape.” The partial notification of the ridge as Reserved forest in 1994 has resulted in a completely falsified demarcation of the Ridge in the Masterplan also. In 2001 Masterplan DDA excluded the same 640 hectares of the ridge ratified by the Geological Survey of India. While all the Master Plans have stated that ‘the Ridge must be maintained in its pristine glory and no further infringements are permitted.’

The draft Delhi Masterplan 2021 as well does not include the 650 hectares as ridge but mentions only 7,777 hectares as the notified Ridge. Through it all, the DDA has been steadfastly insisting that the area where the malls are coming up cannot be considered a part of the ridge at all — though its own Draft Masterplan for Delhi-2021 alludes to the drastic reduction in groundwater potential in these parts.

Sadly, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF), Central and Delhi Govt. and the Judiciary have not done much to enforce the ‘No Construction’ orders. The Supreme Court has yet to stay these constructions despite its own CEC clearly directed “No Construction’, in March 2004, for this ridge.

On one hand, environmentalists and urban planners warn that the mall projects signal a potentially disastrous situation, since it’s a drainage area, without trees water will not remain for long. Residents and local NGOs have even alleged that after the construction frenzy began, the small water bodies that used to exist at one time have all dried up. The DDA’s only contribution to protecting the South-Central Ridge has been to plant saplings in a corner the authority has designated as a biodiversity park.

Green ‘colonisation’ on the Ridge

The already abused Ridge has also been putting up a stiff fight to remain green as its trouble has increased manifolds with the native and exotic weeds invading its space. Scientists are fighting an unsung battle against an evasive plant prosopis juliflora (PJ).

A report by Nairobi based English daily The Nation[19] said Kenyan National Environment management wes up in arms against the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UNO for introducing prosopis juliflora, but not owning the responsibility for damages it had caused. Similar reactions have also been heard from the Ethiopia, where the weed has been branded as a Devil Tree, causing deserts and famine like situations[20].

A joint venture of Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE), Delhi University (DU) and Delhi Development Authority (DDA), a project aimed at establishing an “Aravalli Bio-Diversity Park” where the original forest eco-systems that used to exist about 100 years ago on the Ridge can be recreated and sustained all over the ridge.

According to CEMDE, whole of Delhi Ridge just consists of monoculture of Prosopis juliflora, which is a massive botanical disaster still continuing from the Raj’s days. DU scientists claim that this weed has strong stem, sucks nutrients from aquifers, removes sub-soil moisture killing native plant species, has inflammable leaves which don’t decompose, nor has a canopy to protect grounds from scorch of sun. Its roots stretch upto a depth of 21 metres below the surface and suck out water at an ever-increasing rate and does not allow the recharging of ground water, being the major cause behind the water scarcity of Delhi. Scientists argue that the British went on a tree plantation drive after shifting the imperial capital to Delhi. Since they wanted more trees, and wanted them to grow fast, they planted trees like ‘Vilayati Kikar,’ or prospis juliflora, a Mexican weed, and Eucalyptus[21].

One of Delhi’s principal trees that made its entry through the afforestation work done by the British was vilayati keekar which has become a ubiquitous, invasive tree throughout Delhi, aggressively colonizing any patch of bare land. Within a few decades vilayati keekar dominates Delhi’s tree flora and has become the principal cause for a number of species on the ridge edging towards local extinction.[22]

Pradip Krishen in his illustrious Trees of Delhi supports CEMDE’s standpoint. He cites that plans for afforesting the ridge were set in motion by PH Clutteruck, Conservator of Forests in the United Provinces in 1912, He recommended ever green species, which was an ecological miscalculation for the most arid habitat in Delhi. Besides, allowing this specie to grow will flout the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) rules, to which India is a signatory. The Prosopis Juliflora now features in the IUCN’s new list of 100 world’s worst invasive alien species. A survey[23] recently accomplished that the weed has displaced native vegetation and degraded wildlife habitat due to its toxic leaves. Scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and School of Environmental Sciences have also held that Infestation of the weed-like Prosopis Juliflora, in the ridge is not only making the area nutrient deficient, but also enhancing stress on soil moisture and faunal distribution besides acting as a trigger for asthmatics[24].

Studies have also revealed that Delhi’s rising green cover was behind several respiratory disorders, bronchial allergies, being reported in the city[25].

The foundation stone of Aravalli Biodiversity Park was laid on 22^nd February 2004. Since then the park has been embroiled in a controversy after residents and NGOs filed complaints with the Supreme Court Empowered Committee claiming that the development of the Park was in violation of the designated green area.

DDA and CEMDE’s aim to nurture thousands of species and biotic communities in the park, between Vasant Vihar and Vasnat Kunj, has raised serious doubts among the concerned residents about the authenticity’s intentions. So much so that a PIL has been filed in the SC asking for the whole stretch to be declared a reserve forest. Not withstanding the doubts, people from the DDA and CEMDE, the two agencies involved in the project have big plans.  The Aravalli Biodiversity Park will serve as a major site for water harvesting in order to restore and revitalise the Delhi ridge. It is proposed to develop some of the large mined out pits into water bodies by diverting the excess storm and rainwater to these pits. As a result the park will have 3-4 large perennial water bodies that will lead to recharging of ground water by reactivating some of the dead aquifers. The park will also have a rock garden, a butterfly park and a safari park[26] and sustain black buck, Indian bustard, chitals populations[27].

Environmentalist had questioned and written to the Vice-Chancellor asking him about the feasibility of building the Bio-Diversity Park. Coming out in defence of its ambitious Bio-Diversity Park project, DU has maintained that the venture “is not aimed at just creating an artificial park in the conventional sense but at restoring and building a self-sustaining eco-system”[28].

CEMDE biologists and botanists are awaiting Supreme Court ruling on a presentation how the weed caused devastation in the Delhi green areas and pushed border regions to the preliminary stage of desertification. On a recent PIL by a few citzens at Vasant Kunj and a local NGO challenging the CEMDE decision to fell the weed at the park, the court about two months back had asked the DDA to file an affidavit explaining why the weed needed to be felled at the Aravali Biodiversioty Park.

Professor, Vikram Soni, a resident of Vasant Vihar who has a citizen group called Citizens for the Preservation of the Quaries and Lakes wilderness (CPQLW) has been fighting to save the ridge says “According to the MPD, this area is a pristine forest and should be preserved as such. We do not want any human interference here and that too with DDA backing. If left alone with only protective forest department the forest will replenish itself.” It is another way of land grabbing by DDA like building malls and hotels, allege citizen groups[29].

Ridge Violated

Look either way and dhabas dot the peripheries; people are digging into Indian Chinese and hot parathas. Their plates are washed inside the forest area and the disposable bottles and cups find their way into small, dying water bodies…And this is considered one of the more well-preserved Ridge areas. DDA calls it ‘Sanjay Van’.

Malba, bricks and small garbage dumps dot the landscape. The water bodies are littered with plastic bags. It gets slightly better as you go further in, and the flora and fauna get a chance to breathe. Well-paved paths take you through several natural habitats, old dried-up wells and small, abandoned hutments. There’s DDA’s ‘chowkidaar hut’, but it is unoccupied. Despite restrictions, scooters and motorcycles routinely take a short cut through the area. Deep within the forest, the ground shows signs of old fires.

The green lungs of the Capital resemble more of commercial parkland than a reserved forest with several broad paths, illegal constructions and no patrolling in the central ridge has noted the Ridge Management Board (RMB) in its occasional inspection reports.

Delhi High Court took serious view of the abuse of the notified Central Ridge and directed the DDA to ensure that “the Ridge is maintained as Ridge only” in 2004. The court, then acknowledged that several paths and even a cremation ground had been constructed in the notified area of the Central Ridge by DDA. The court said it was appalled to note that even a water body had been covered up and a path constructed over it. Chief Justice B.C. Patel and Justice B.D. Ahmed directed the DDA that all paths — two kuchcha and one cemented — were to be turned into a green area. Observing that the area ‘‘must be maintained as a forest’’, the court ordered the cremation sheds to be demolished and the water body to be restored.

Two other kuchcha paths — 2.5 metres to 3 metres wide — had been made ‘‘obviously by first cutting down trees…’’ advocate Raj Panjwani, amicus curiae in this case, had pointed out that the kuccha path led to the R-block park in Rajinder Nagar, questioning how a park could come up in the first place[30]. Strange as it may sound, R-Block Rajinder Nagar Park “encroaches” on the Ridge Area. Ridge Management Board later “discovered” that apart from all the utilities of a park, like benches and paths, a DDA office was also located in the park[31]. Ridge Management Board’s member Ravi Aggarwal claimed that the undeclared park had a jungle gym, slides benches and even lights and there is no clear demarcation between the park and the forest area[32].

The court also took note of the fact that debris was being regularly dumped there. All bricks and debris must be removed, the court said. 5,000 metric tonnes of Debris, brought into the area from the nearby Karol Bagh and Patel Nagar, where large scale construction[33] was going on was reported to be dumped on the Central Ridge. The DDA lobbied to let it remain there since it claimed it was several thousand truckloads. The DDA also claimed that though the portion of the Ridge is under its control, the Authority was not responsible for its dumping.

Further, a massive construction exercise at the Mahavir Jayanti Park was reported in the same year. This included the construction of a tiled parking lot, toilet complexes and a pucca tiled working track. The Central Public Works Department (CPWD), the authority in command of the land said that the construction was done under the instructions of the then Urban Development Minister, Mr Jagmohan, and it was necessary for a big Jain Convention which was to be held later that year, in 2003. The CPWD was asked to present fresh plans but the existing construction, which had already taken place, was left alone[34].

An added violation of forest act is a polo ground, which was believed to be shut, is in fact carrying on and horse-riding tracks have made way throughout the Ridge area. The Forest Department, itself had cleared the Polo Ground for continuation. RMB claims that several such clearances have been given by FSO which the Forest Department claims no knowledge of[35].

Similar abuse of the ridge has been noted in Sanjay Van – 626 hectares of forest that forms the densest part of the Capital’s Ridge area – in the Southern Ridge. Survey conducted by the Ridge Management Board[36] in Sanjay Van. From illegal roads, parking lots and over 15 ‘‘temples’’ to even a shed that, RMB officials said, was owned by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which is solely responsible for maintaining Sanjay Van.

Brilliantly located Asaram Bapu’s ashram with police officials as security guards nestles among the dry forests of the central ridge while the case against this ridge road ashram is in the court. This encroached land belongs to forest department. Step inside and you might even see a peacock or two strutting about.

Buddha Jayanti Park, Mahavir Park, parts of Sanjay Van, and Rabindra Rangshala are some other examples of Ridge forest land giving way to recreational areas.

Conclusion

The Ridge Management Board, a seven-member non-statutory body set up in 1995 consisting of representatives from the government, DDA and non-government organisations, supposed to protect the ridge, has been unable to prevent the construction frenzy. The board, headed by the Chief Secretary of Delhi, has been under “tremendous pressure to deal with land issues”, said environmentalist Ravi Agarwal, director of NGO Toxics Link and a member of the board. Most of the violations have been carried out by government bodies such as the DDA — whose vice-chairperson, incidentally, is also a member of the board — making it even more difficult for the board to take action. “Theoretically, we have all the powers, and the board is effective to a point. But how do you punish a body such as the DDA?” said he[37].

This speaks volumes about how the state machinery employs a range of regulatory instruments to preserve and protect its natural resources. As a system for doing so, the law has been working badly. The legislature is quick to enact laws regulating most aspects of industrial and development activity but is chary to require effective implementation. Government agencies like MOEF wield vast power to regulate the Forest area but are reluctant to use their power to discipline violators. The judiciary, a spectator to environmental despoliation for more than two decades[38], has though assumed the pro-active role at times but in the larger issue of Urban Biodiversity it advocated development for environment.

The flurry of legislation, lax enforcement, different levels of bureaucracy and assertive judicial oversight have combined to create a unique implementation dichotomy: one limb represented by the hamstrung formal regulatory machinery comprised of the forest bureaucracies and state agencies like the DDA and the other, consisting of a non-formal, ad hoc citizen and court-driven implementation mechanism. The movement to protect the Ridge is largely the story of India’s judiciary responding to the complaints of its citizens against environmental degradation and administrative sloth.

The ‘biotic’ pressure on urban forests stems from the city dweller, in their multifarious needs of modern, urban sophistication in which they are ensnared. The urban population is bound to pay the price. Water economics of Delhi is reflecting that in ever growing problem of water in the posh colonies.

The contention here is not that non forest activity on forest lands by powerful vested interests is a serious issue and must be dealt with by the state agencies. Also the real forest destroyers are industrial and urban encroachers, and of course ‘legalised’ destroyers in the name of development projects. Remarkably, the Courts have overlooked all these dimensions governed by a vision of ‘forests’ existing in isolation and out of context. The court’s definition of ‘forest’ itself, and the assumption that forests are best managed by state bureaucracies, is highly problematic given the long history of forest degradation under state control and serious conflicts with forest dwelling tribal and other communities due to their being denied customary access to forest resources for survival[39].

Recently, the Supreme Court lamented:

‘If the mere enactment of laws relating to the protection of environment was to ensure a clean and pollution free environment, then India would, perhaps, be the least polluted country in the world. But, this is not so. There are stated to be over 200 central and state statutes which have at least some concern with environmental protection, either directly or indirectly. The plethora of such enactments has, unfortunately, not resulted in preventing environmental degradation which, on the contrary, has increased over the years.[40]’

Although courts are ill-equipped to take over enforcement functions, the dismal performance of government agencies has compelled the higher judiciary to secure compliance through public interest litigations. The lack of co-ordination between multiple agencies and lack of political will have contributed to the fast deterioration of this urban biodiversity.

Bibliography

 

v    Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide by Pradip Krishen (Dorling Kindersley India)

v    Illustrations to the Flora of Delhi by JK Maheshwari (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research)

v    The Highlands of India by D. J. F Newall (London, I882)

v    Loveraj committee report(1993)

v    Fauna of Delhi (Zoological Survey of India)

v    www.indianrealtynews.com

v    Environment (Prevention & Control) Authority report(2000)

v    Centrally Empowered Committee Report(2004)

v    Economic and Political Weekly

v    Times News Network

v    Geography and You

v    The Hindu

v    www.toxicslink.org

v    Indian Express

v    www.Indiatogether.com

v    Seminar

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[1] Flora of Delhi by JK Maheshwari

[2] Zoological Survey of India’s Fauna of Delhi

[3] Ibid

[4] Trees of Delhi by Pradip Krishen

[5] The Highlands of India by D. J. F Newall

[6] Zoological Survey of India’s Fauna of Delhi

[7] Loveraj committee report(1993)

[8] Zoological Survey of India’s Fauna of Delhi

[9] Ibid

[10] Forest Research Institute’s Vegetation Survey and Inventorisation

[11] http://www.indianrealtynews.com/indian-states/delhi/vasant-kunj/

[12] Environment (Prevention & Control) Authority report(2000) and Centrally Empowered Committee Report(2004)

[13] Ibid

[14] Ibid

[15] Centrally Empowered Committee Report(2004)

[16] Ibid

[17] MOEF expert committee report (2006)

[18] EPW Water and Carrying capacity of a city: Delhi November 8  2003.

 

[19] Indian Express May 20, 2007

[20] Times News Network May 26, 2005

[21] Based on interview with Prof C R Babu, director, CEMDE, Faiyaz A Khudsar,  wildlife expert associated with CEMDE and M Shah Hussain, Aravalli Biodiversity Park scientist incharge

[22] Trees of Delhi by Pradip Krishen

[23] Journal: Geography and You July- August 2007

[24] Ibid

[25] Study called “Human Sensitisation to Prosopis Juliflora Antigen in Saudi Arabia” conducted by a group of professors reported by The Hindu – May 01, 2007

[26] The Hindu April 30, 2006

[27] Interview with Vilas Gokte, consultant of the park

[28] The Hindu August 2, 2006

[29] Vasant Vihar RWA and activists with Ridge Bachao Andolan

[30] Indian Express 16th July 2004

[31] Indian Express Sep 20, 2004

[32] Ibid

[33] The Hindu -30 April 2004

[34]Illegal constructions in the Ridge area – toxicslink.org, by Ravi Agarwal 07 July 2004

[35]Ridge inspection unearths more irregularities By Ravi Agarwal – toxicslink.org, 07 July 2004

[36] Indian Express 27 December 2005

[37]  Indiatogether.com Malls trampling Delhi’s green belt 19 August 2005

[38] Seminar Legislative framework and judicial craftsmanship 25 June 2001

[39] Seminar Who is encroaching on whose land? Wednesday, 30 October 2002,

 

[40] Seminar Legislative framework and judicial craftsmanship Monday, 25 June 2001

 

 

Nama text author may change climax

23 May, 2008

Amiti Sen & Ruhi Kandhari

NEW DELHI: Two days after introducing the much-criticised draft text on liberalising trade in industrial goods at the World Trade Organization (WTO)

, non-agriculture market access (Nama) committee chairman Don Stephenson seems ready to make amends.

In a letter sent to all members on Tuesday evening, the chairman invited senior officials to meet next week and work through the weekend in an attempt to reduce the number of square brackets in the text.

To avoid an encore, the chairman has stated that no amendments will be introduced in the text unless there is a consensus. A host of issues have been left unresolved in the draft text.

In his letter, Mr Stephenson said the purpose of the programme of work was to narrow and achieve either resolution or greater clarity on as many issues as possible. In order to avoid adding more square brackets — indicating areas needing more negotiations — to his text, the chair said the changes to the draft text will be introduced only if there is a consensus or emergence of views nearing convergence.

If the meeting is successful, there will be a fresh draft on Nama in the first week of June, an official said.

There are 97 square brackets in the draft Nama text, which is around three times more than the square brackets in the previous draft circulated in February. “The February draft was tailormade to please the US.

Since it infuriated a number of countries, it seems the chairman tried to please several countries this time around by including all their proposals and putting them in square brackets. The result is a total mess and we have a text with numerous brackets that can never form the basis for holding a ministerial,” the official added.

With India coming up with a statement on Tuesday criticising the confusing Nama text, Argentina too spoke against the text. In his letter, the Nama chair acknowledged that some members had criticised the presence of a large number of square brackets in the text and, hence, there was a need to arrive at a greater convergence soon. He said it was critical that delegations be represented at the senior level in the meeting.

Speaking at a roundtable organised by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Thursday, commerce secretary G K Pillai said the text on Nama totally misses the development perspective and will need a complete overhaul.

Officials reiterated that while the proposed reduction coefficients in the new text don’t reflect the less-than-full reciprocity clause for developing countries, relating of flexibilities and coefficients is not acceptable. As per the Doha mandate, the onus of tariff reduction on developing countries has to be lower than that undertaken by the developed countries.

The senior officials meeting will start next Wednesday and continue over the weekend till Monday. Officials said the meeting will begin with an open-ended meeting where all members will participate with their group of officials. This will be followed by a meeting of 35-40 countries on various issues related to the Nama negotiations.

The first day will be dedicated to discussions on tariff-reduction formula and flexibilities for developing countries. The second day will discuss how to tackle tariffs of members with low binding coverage. Issues related to least developed countries will be dealt with on the third day while the recently-acceded members will discuss their problems on the following day. Sunday has been marked for holding discussions on non-tariff barriers, an area of great interest to developing countries.

The discussions will be rounded off by another open-ended meeting on Monday, June 2.

Policing body finds 173 out of 199 mines violating rules

Date: 16/09/2008

Ruhi Kandhari

IN A shocking report that exposes flouting of environmental and social regulations by mining companies, Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) has found that 173 out of 199 mines inspected in August were violating rules.

Most of the violations of the Mineral Conservation and Development Rules (MCDR) under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act were due to noncompliance of mining plan.

In other words, inadequate or complete absence of environmental and social considerations that may adversely impact the residents of the communities residing near mines led to maximum number of violations. Mining plan is prepared by a mining company and approved by the bureau before a mining company can apply for other environmental clearances. It is last step before grant of a mining lease.

A senior official in IBM said that the violations included inadequate acid mine waters neutralising systems, ground water monitoring systems, waste rock disposal systems, blast vibration analysis, preservation of flora and fauna in the region and non-execution of the mine closure plan. He added that most violations were reported from the iron ore, limestone, dolomite and bauxite mines.

IBM launched five prosecution cases in various courts against the violators that did not comply with the norms even after repeated warnings from IBM in August, in addition to the 568 outstanding cases launched by IBM. In addition, IBM issued 27 show cause notices to the violators.

“Bureau of Mines gives 45 days to a mining company to comply with the norms after violation is pointed out. If the company doesn’t rectify the defiance of norms in stipulated time, then show cause notices are issued. IBM launches legal prosecution in case of regular offenders that do not comply even after repeated warnings,” said a senior official of IBM without naming companies that violated the norms. He said that IBM could withdraw the case if the violator complies with the norms along with paying a fine that can range between 5,000 and 50,000.

Indian Bureau of mines is the policing body, under the ministry of mines that performs regulatory functions including enforcement of the Mineral Conservation and Development Rules (MCDR). MCDR governs regulations on reconnaissance, prospecting and mining operations; environment; examination of minerals and issue of directives and penalty.