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FIFTH
COLUMN
The
Other Half's Lot
The
Human Development Report 2000 underscores the sorry plight of Indian women
By
P. Chidambaram
 I
quickly read the first few chapters of the Human Development Report (HDR)
2000, and I stopped. I started reading it again through the eyes of a
woman, and I stopped again. During the third reading, I read the report
through the eyes of a girl child. And I was depressed.
Mark Malloch
Brown, in the foreword, reaches this distressing conclusion: "Life
remains a torment for children in the teeming barrio of a developing country
city, for refugees caught up in a conflict, for women in a society that
still denies them the equality and freedom-every day bringing physical
and psychological threats."
 I
thought of the girl child who spends three times more hours than her brother
fetching water and doing other household chores. I thought of the girl
child and her million sisters working as domestic servants when they should
be in school. I thought of the girl child, abandoned by her parents and
who has taken refuge in the streets of Delhi or Mumbai-a statistic in
that numbing, hyphenated description "street-children".
The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) begins with the solemn and elevating
proclamation that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity
and rights". Not if the human being finds herself trapped in the
body of a girl and is left to fend for herself as a domestic servant or
on the streets of an Indian city. Read the UDHR document again through
the eyes of the girl child, and you will find how hollow and untruthful
it rings.
At every
turn, at every stage of her life, the girl child, growing into a woman,
faces insurmountable obstacles. Look at these chilling facts:
- Some
90 million children are out of school at the primary level-most of them
are girl children. In India in 1992, 59 million children were out of
school, which included 36 million girls.
- 30,000
children die every day from mainly preventable causes-evidently, at
least half of them girls.
- Worldwide,
there are some 250 million child labourers, 140 million boys and 110
million girls-not counting the girl child who begs at your street corner.
- 1.2 million
women and girls under 18 are trafficked for prostitution each year-your
neighbourhood girl child on the street will probably be dragged into
the racket.
- Between
85 million and 115 million girls and women have undergone some form
of genital mutilation and suffer from its adverse physiological and
psychological effects. And every year an estimated two million more
young girls undergo genital mutilation.
- Women
still face discrimination in inheritance. Only a few state legislatures
in India have amended the Hindu Succession Act to give equal rights
to sons and daughters in the parents' estate.
It is trite
to say that it is a man's world. The view that is presented in our Parliament
and legislatures, in the media and in most public platforms is the man's
view-usually that of the educated urban male. Destitute children rarely,
if ever, figure on the radar of the Indian urban male. The girl child's
problems are rarely, if ever, seriously discussed.
DISTRESSING:
The evils listed in HDR 2000 are obviously present in India. Even genital
mutilation is suspected to be prevalent in one community. There is more.
Amniocentesis is widespread to detect if the womb carries a girl. There
are more abortions of female foetuses than male foetuses. Female infanticide
has been reported in many parts of India. When the Tamil Nadu government
placed cradles for abandoned newborns, most babies found in the cradles
were female.
It should
not, therefore, surprise anyone that India's ranking in the Gender Development
Index, according to HDR 2000, is 108 out of 143 countries which were ranked.
Several countries in our neighbourhood have a higher ranking: Kuwait (34),
Malaysia (57), Fiji (59) and Sri Lanka (68).
What should
surprise-and distress-us is that India does not figure at all among the
70 countries in the Gender Empowerment Measure (gem) ranking. gem is designed
to measure gender inequality in economic and political opportunities.
It focuses on women's opportunities rather than their capabilities.
In India,
only 20 per cent of professional positions are held by women. Women fill
only 8.9 per cent of seats in Parliament. There is one woman judge in
the Supreme Court and one woman cabinet minister. No woman has ever been
elected President or vice-president of India in 50 years. While our panchayats
have seats reserved for women, by some strange logic similar reservation
in Parliament is stoutly opposed.
According
to HDR 2000, the world has a long way to go. India has a longer way to
go.
(The
author is a former Indian finance minister and a TMC leader.)
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