Call it a case of FOMO but I am really hoping that India doesn’t get left out of an emerging global mega-trend – a trend that can potentially have significant consequences on the country’s long-run economic growth and prosperity. I am talking about the trend which made 2018 a historical year – that of record number of women contesting in national elections, winning their seats and increasing representation of women in parliaments and legislative bodies in many countries around the world.

The year saw a “pink-wave” sweep across the world, from America to Spain to Bahrain to Ethiopia and beyond, and I literally felt goosebumps every time I saw images of these women in power flashed all over the media and when I thought about the kind of impression they would have created on the citizens of their country.

And now I am harbouring a burning desire to see this pink-wave sweep into India in 2019!

The upcoming General Elections are perhaps the only chance for India in the next 5 years to catch up with this global trend and increase the percentage of women in Parliament from the current 11% (nearly the lowest in the World). I do know that for this to happen, we would first need enough number of women candidates to even stand for elections – and that is, unfortunately, looking as unlikely as it ever did because no national political party has yet come out with any commitment to field more women in the elections.

But even then, since the elections are just around the corner and parties are still finalising their candidates’ lists as we read this, I thought I will put out these 10 images to illustrate how women in political power in different parts of the world are inspirational and why I so badly want to see more women leading the country!

 #1 and #2 India’s Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj

Whenever I see these pictures of Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj as the only women standing in between male peers at Multilateral meetings – I feel inspired to give up the feelings of discomfort that come with being the “odd-one-out” in the room. Every time I think that I don’t “fit into” a gathering or I am shorter than the rest or I am conscious about being dressed differently – I think of these ladies and their confidence, oratory skills and ability to be themselves while retaining their Indian identity in saris. And I really wish to see many more such images of many more power-women from India, as they are real role models for women of the country to rise and shine in a “man’s world”.

#3 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the other 100 American Women Elected To Office In
2018

The backstory of the 100 plus women who were elected to office in America in 2018 – the “Year of the Woman” – is inspirational. The record number of who women ran for office- nearly 4,000- were mostly women from the Democratic Party who were powered by a female-led resistance movement forged in opposition to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton two years ago. The movement was supported by female political operatives that assisted candidates with everything from fundraising to figuring out how to balance childcare with campaigns. I’m sure that the coming of these ladies to power would have given hope and assurance to American women that their voice and demands will now be heard and addressed.

The most inspirational among the new lot of women in American politics is 29-year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest ever Congresswoman. She is dynamic and articulate, had worked as a bartender only months before being nominated by her party and has openly taken on Donald Trump on various issues. When Republicans leaked an old video of her as a college student dancing on a rooftop in an attempt to embarrass her, she responded by posting a video of herself dancing into her office in Congress! All of this has made “AOC” the face of a new generation of American progressive politicians who has been able to fire up younger, millennial voters. And we in India could surely do with some young women like Ocasio-Cortez to inspire the youth that is fast losing faith in its Government!

 #4 New Zealand’s PM Jacinda Ardern

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is a great example that shows women have different leadership styles than men and can bring about global mindset changes that men just can’t. The pictures of the pregnant Prime Minister or those of her sitting with her baby in the UN General Assembly inspired the working mother in me to stop using my child as an excuse for holding back my career! Her deliberate moves to include her baby in her work life would now mean that every woman in her country and around the world can cite her example to confidently demand support from employers and from husbands in times of need!

More recently, viral images of PM Ardern wearing a hijab and hugging members of the Muslim community after the Christchurch mosque’s attack on 15th March, 2019 are pretty overwhelming. Her compassionate and heartfelt response to the incident displayed an unprecedented style of leadership and a “feminine” touch to dealing with the global issue of terrorism. And it really gives me hope that having more women in similar roles might bring peaceful solutions to terror and border issues facing India as well.

#5 and # 6 Theresa May, PM of UK and German Chancellor Angela Merkel

“Brexit” is going to change the history of the global economy. It will have an impact not just on the UK and European Union but on trade and economic prospects of the entire world. And the process of negotiating the most favourable terms for Brexit is almost entirely being led by PM Theresa May and Chancellor Angela Markel – the two most powerful women in the World today. These women are live examples to prove that women leaders, with their own unique leadership styles, can achieve nothing less than what men can do and do not shy away from dealing with tough situations.

#7 Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet of Ministers Elected In 2015

When Justin Trudeau became Canada’s new prime minister in 2015, he inducted 15 women and 15 men into his Cabinet, giving a gender balanced ministerial team that for the first time in the country’s history. When asked why? He simply answered: “Because it’s 2015”. And I think that’s the best logic that can be given every Prime Minister who, in 2019, STILL needs convincing that his cabinet must have a gender balance!

#8 Spain’s Cabinet of Ministers Elected in 2018

Spain elected more women than men in its cabinet in 2018 and the picture of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez with the 11 women who were chosen in his 17-strong cabinet team is a real picture of male leaders giving women a place of equality. I am pretty sure that with this move, the PM can actually demand this kind of equality and diversity initiatives from every citizen and every business in his country – unlike a Government that itself does not reflect a commitment to gender equality.

 #9 Japan’s “Womenomics”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Womenomics” package of reforms to increase and retain women in the workforce has not only included measures to encourage the private sector to promote more women but also included initiatives to recruit and promote more women in the Government and public institutions. And thanks to these measures, Japan has increased its Female Labour Force Participation to 67% in 2018. For me, this is another example of how a Government’s commitment to correct its own gender balance can give it the power to demand the private sector to employ and promote more women to leadership roles and Board positions.

 #10 Rwanda’s Women Dominated Parliament

Rwanda has the highest proportion of women in Parliament in the world (68%). But the story of how they achieved this is interesting. In the aftermath of a genocide in 1994 that killed almost 1 million people in the country, 60-70% of the remaining population in Rwanda was female. This extreme situation pushed more women to get educated and join workplaces as there was no choice. Yet, in the 1990s, women made up 18% of Rwandan Parliament members. But after a 2003 Constitutional quota of 30% of women Parliament members was initiated, the number gradually jumped to 64% after the 2013 elections and 68% in 2018. Consequently, Rwanda is ranked 6^th in the Global Gender Gap report despite being the 19^th poorest country in the World. This is pretty much a good-enough, standalone pitch for having gender quotas in Parliament a passing the Women’s Reservation Bill in India!

These are just some images that inspired me to dream about an India led by more powerful women in politics who can be role models for all of us women and men in the country. There are already enough and more statistically backed reasons as to why India needs more women in political leadership. If the Parliament does not reflect the trend of more women getting educated and achieving excellence, they will face a crisis of credibility in the future. The Government will also be unable to partner with businesses and citizens to collectively take actions to make India a better place for women.

Therefore, I feel that all of us need to come together to help achieve the gender balance needed in the Government – women with political aspirations must come forward to show their prowess, political parties need to give more tickets to women candidates and all of us Indian citizens need to give unbiased votes to deserving female candidates in our constituencies. This is not a case of women’s empowerment or a subject which woman alone need to fight for – it is a demand for actions that are vital for the sustained social and economic growth and prosperity of the whole country.

The post I Want More Women In India’s Parliament In 2019 – Because I Love These 10 Images appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

The global legal marijuana market is expected to reach USD 146.4 billion by the end of 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Usually a topic of debate, due to its medical benefits, cannabis also has a huge potential to boost India’s economy and create millions of jobs. As a nation, we have enormous learning about its utilisation and good climatic conditions for its production. Legalising cannabis would pave the way for India to be a key player in the industry and carve a niche for ourselves as pioneers of cannabis-based products.

In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, introduced the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act which ensured complete prohibition on sale and purchase of Ganja (bud) and Charas (resin) in India. However, the drug had already been illegal in the country for over two decades because the Indian government had signed the UN’s Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs treaty in 1961. Many blamed the PM for succumbing to America’s pressure which began its war on drugs in 1971, long before India.

Although India’s ‘war on drugs’ story is, I think, not as heartbreaking as the USA’s, where a particular community has paid a hefty price over the decades just for the possession and consumption of a plant. The prohibition meant the rise of drug mafias and cartels, and a huge quantity of marijuana was smuggled in across borders to meet the demand. A lack of supply and growing demand meant the quality of weed was compromised for quick bucks. From boot polish to other cheap psychoactive drugs, peddlers added it all to the drugs.

Instead of regulating its supply, like an economic commodity, we brushed aside the topic from the public sphere, resulting in the creation of a taboo around it. Fast forward to today, social awareness campaigns like the Great Legalisation Movement have been educating masses about the benefits of Marijuana and Hemp. Support from Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, BJP MP Maneka Gandhi, and BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy for medical marijuana legalisation has garnered wide attention.

“Regulation allows cannabis buyers to know what they’re consuming and moderate their intake, in the same way that a drinker can distinguish and choose between a whiskey and a beer. Imposing a tax on cannabis sales can create revenue that can be spent on educating people about the risks of cannabis use, as we already do with public service information on alcohol and tobacco,” writes Shashi Tharoor, in The Print.

In October last year, Canada took the historic decision of legalising recreational marijuana after 95 years of prohibition. The total cannabis market in Canada, including medical, illegal, and legal recreational products, is expected to generate up to $7.17 billion in sales in 2019 — up to $4.34 billion of which will come from the legal recreational market. According to the Grand View report, the U.S. legal marijuana market size was estimated at USD 7.06 billion in 2016 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.9% from 2017 to 2025.

Cannabis-centric start-ups and products have already entered the Indian market. These early birds are the Bombay Hemp Company, incorporated in 2013; it raised about $1m from a group of investors including the likes of Ratan Tata.

Be Hemp, a Bangalore-based company, promotes the use of edible hemp seeds and protein for a healthier lifestyle. Hemp Cann, a Bhubaneswar-based start-up, imports hemp products from countries that have legalised hemp.

An unregulated criminal market and a growing number of youngsters using marijuana can be a harmful duo for a progressive society. Therefore, there is a need for an open discussion regarding cannabis. It’s time for the government to legalise India’s sacred plant for medical research purposes in the first phase. Then, create a supply chain to regulate the flow of cannabis across the country in the second phase. 

The post The Cannabis Industry: India’s Untouched Gold Mine appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Youth Ki Awaaz has turned 11 today. And it sure has been a long journey from the time the first ever YKA community developed on Orkut (heh!), till today when YKA continues standing as India’s largest crowdsourced media platform for young people to address key social justice issues. Over the last 11 years, YKA has had more than 72,000 people join its community – and all for a common mission – to speak up on issues that matter, that the traditional media continues to ignore.

As we usher into the new year, I am excited to make a few key announcements about how YKA and its community will continue shaping this year, and over the next decade.

More community ownership

This year, we piloted YKA’s Peer to Peer (P2P) editors model, where a select group of top users from the YKA community will get an opportunity to review and give feedback to posts published by thousands of our new users. For long now, YKA’s regular community members have been leading and shaping dialogues on the platform – interacting with, and helping onboard new users. We launched this initiative to take it a step further, speed up our content review and feedback process, create more community ownership and an even more bottom up approach to how we, as a community, are building YKA. We currently have a group of six P2P editors in English, and two P2P editors in Hindi, and we’re hoping to grow this community drastically in the coming months.

Video storytelling

At the start of 2019, YKA also launched its video storytelling initiative, to add a layer on top of the writing platform, where anyone and everyone can create and publish videos on key socio-political and cultural issues, amplifying it through the YKA network. Several YKA users have already started engaging on key issues, such as a critical review of the 5 years of the Modi Govt, love versus caste, and growing unemployment in India, among others. YKA users can be a part of this movement by simply sending us a video story of themselves, or a citizen journalist report on an issue around them via Whatsapp at +919999181201. We will also be launching simple tutorials and extended video support communities in collaboration with partner organisations, to take video storytelling to hundreds of thousands of young people across the country.

A more accessible and stronger platform

This year, we’re already reaching out to thousands of new YKA community members via Awaaz Bot, our Facebook Messenger community. We’ve also recently launched the Youth Ki Awaaz Prime Ministerial Brief, a weekly email newsletter that brings together powerful stories and narratives by young people that the Prime Minister, our political leaders, and anyone with Prime Ministerial aspirations should be reading. The Prime Ministerial Brief talks real issues, told in an honest, fact-based manner. Sign up now to receive your edition of the YKA Prime Ministerial Brief. And last but not the least, expect multi-lingual expansion by YKA this year.

Impact Through Data

This year, YKA has also pledged to solve the critical issue of a severe lack of youth perception data around key political issues. We already did the largest ever youth voter survey in India, and several others with think tanks and high-impact organisations around issues such as urban mobility, sexual and reproductive health and rights and road safety, and 2019 will see us creating more data which will be open and publicly accessible for researchers, entrepreneurs, organisations and non-profits, and activists to use and create impact. Not only this, YKA also lets you play a key role in building this data by creating your own polls on the platform, and crowdsourcing public data yourself – turning you into an #ImpactThroughData change maker.

What more?

Tell us! Help turn YKA into a stronger, more impact driven platform by telling us what you think we should focus on this year. Send us an email at info@youthkiawaaz.com.

Onward and upward to the next decade!

The post Youth Ki Awaaz Turns 11: All You Can Expect In The Coming Year appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Far far beyond the sight of our honourable bureaucrats and politicians; lies a place where humans with limbs and hearts like me and you are left to survive and rot.

In 2016, an Odisha TV (also known as O TV) video of an Adivasi carrying the dead body of his beloved wife from Bhawanipatna Government Hospital to his village, Melghara, which was 50 kilometres away, shocked the conscience of the people. Usually there are number of SUVs draped as ambulances and mortuary vans around the Bhawanipatna Government Hospital. But along with the luxury, comes an exorbitant price which is beyond the capacity of people like Dana Majhi to afford.

Kalahandi is a district which is an epicenter of poverty, hunger, starvation deaths and numerous diseases that come with poverty. Last month, I had the privilege to visit Thuamul Rampur Block in Kalahandi, the block which witnessed the highest number of deaths due to tuberculosis, malnutrition and other diseases which are more prevalent in lower-income population.

Semikhaal is a village in Silet Gram Panchayat. To reach the village, you have to endure the high terrains and cross two streams. There is no mode of transportation. So, either you take the risk of going on a bike or a 4×4 drive like Thar. It’s a 45-minutes journey from the nearest health centre which is run by an NGO called Swasthya Swaraj, which has been working in Thuamul Rampur block for the last 5 years in association with Tata Trusts. The village is populated with Adivasis from Kutia Kondh community. Unlike other Adivasis where the socio-cultural role of women is more than men, Kutia Kondh tribe is patrilineal or patriarchal in nature.

The journey starts with meeting Sarada, a mother of five kids. The youngest being seven months old. The baby looked underweight. On asking the reason why the baby looked malnourished, she said, “We hardly have any food to eat. There was a time when we were even denied PDS as our ration card was revoked.” In the little hamlets, the families depend on subsistence farming for their food. In order to earn money, they depend on working as daily wage labourers.

On your way, you will find more number of women and adolescent girls working as labourers at very low rates constructing roads. But one reality in every household is that when the food is prepared, the men and the male children are fed first. The daughters and the mother eat the leftovers – which means less intake of food by the female members of the household. One of the adversity is that due to low intake of proteins, the mammary glands hardly produce any milk leaving the babies malnourished.

As we proceed inside Semikhaal, we realize that every house has at least one child who is suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). We met Suboti, a mother who delivered seven kids out of which six are alive. Her 3-month-old baby looked so weak that I remember being numb. The age difference between her children was less than a year. When the gap between babies is less than 18 months, problems such as pre-term birth and low birth weight develops.

The National Health Mission prescribes a three-year gap between children. When asked if the mother is considering to not procreate further; silence surrounded the premises and she meekly said, “My husband knows.” On asking a man who has four kids – three boys and a girl, he said, “I had a son who died couple of days after his birth. We want to have one more son and then we will stop”. When asked what if he had a daughter next time, he was in a fix.

The economics of a rural household is simple. They think that more children will result in more hands at work. More number of sons will be an asset as they will remain in the family and bring food to the family. More number of daughters is a liability as they have to be married off. So most couples go on procreating until they have four sons at least. Another dynamics that add to their family planning is that even if their babies are malnourished or they have an SAM child, they will hardly take them to the clinic. They think that it’s a waste of time, energy and money.

So, death of their babies is a brutal phenomenon they’ve befriended over the ravages of time. Therefore, another reason for giving birth to too many kids is that they know that by the time the kids grow up, some of them will die. The reason behind the kids’ deaths is mostly undernourishment and the root cause is the scarcity of the existing resources for consumption in a household. The bread earner is constant; with rise in the number of consumers, the share in the resources decreases for every member of the household.

Every village is filled with quacks and traditional healers called ‘guruguniyaaas’. They are entrusted the opportunity to loot people by their healing. Thus, in most cases, the villagers have no trust over the scientific healthcare. Despite having tuberculosis, villagers go to these guruguniyaas rather than the clinics. The guruguniyaas call the disease an evil possession and try to treat it with the help of their wizardry.

Even the delivery of babies is done at home. The lack of institutional delivery in these Adivasi hamlets has led to the high incidence of fetal and maternal morbidity and mortality. There was a case where the uterus of a woman slipped out of the vagina and was lying on the floor along with the baby. She was in shock; but this is not the only case, there have been several other cases of uterine prolapse.

In a conversation with Dr. Aquinas Edassery, the Executive Director of Swasthya Swaraj, she said, “Swasthya Swaraj conducts ANC-U5 (pregnant women & under-five children) clinics  regularly once in 2-3 months in Semikhaal in the community building (VDC ghar). Our team consists of doctors, nurses, lab techs etc. who reach out to the people in remote, hard to reach locations and there will be usually more than 100 under-five chidren and pregnant women from 6 villages around the vicinity. Last month when we went to the clinic we found the building is occupied – one non-tribal man from the neighbouring Kashipur Block was running a regular shop, staying there with family. The larger room, where we used to conduct training programmes for adolescent girls, was occupied by a neighbouring tribal family.”

These cases of corruption may seem to be small, but they are of utmost importance when compared to the impact they have on the lives of tribal people. There are Anganwadi workers, ASHA workers and ANM workers allotted in the villagers (from other non-tribal villages) making occasional visits or nil (but there are hardly any). Even the officers in Block Development Office have really poor attendance as most of them take their posting as ‘punishment posting’ and voice their protest through absenteeism.

The schools have buildings (complete or incomplete) but they are operational only on events when uniforms are distributed on Saraswati Puja, Republic Day, Independence Day and Ganesh Puja. Rest of the working days are holidays for the teachers and headmasters. The peon along with teachers and headmaster siphon off the food materials meant for mid-day meal. So, you will hardly find any student from these tribal hamlets who can even do basic math or know alphabets.

There are numerous projects by the government of India and government of Odisha for the development of KBK Plus regions, but most of them are just a farce. Roads are built, then they are broken. Then they are built again. And this goes on in a loop. Most of the sub centres, primary health centres and community health centres are adorned with locks on their main doors and you will rarely find a nurse attending. So, in this circus of development, somewhere deep inside, even an Adivasi does not know when this big world writes his/her obituary and leaves him/her to rot.

I distinctly remember Tilika, a woman in her early forties, saying, “They abuse him and he abuses us.” Being a woman at the receiving end of all abuses – the linear chain of exploitation continues. The distress call for me is that in our cities we have numerous dialogues on ‘gender parity’ and ‘equal rights for women’, there are many movements around feminism, but is there any movement where the voices of Adivasi women from a patriarchal tribal community like Kutia Kondh can co-exist with the urban and peri-urban narrative of ‘women empowerment’?

The post Where Do The Adivasis Go To Die? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

It was the winter of 1991. I remember jumping from my school bus window (don’t ask me why) and a day later experiencing some pain in my right hip and lower back. I thought that the pain might be due to a muscle pull and ignored it. It went away in a couple of days.

I was back to leading the life of a normal 13-year-old boy, but the pain returned within a fortnight, and this time it was excruciating. It seemed that my right hip joint was frozen and I couldn’t put any weight on it while walking. We consulted an orthopaedic doctor who wasn’t sure of the reason for the pain. But after looking at x-rays, he put traction on my leg. He wanted to pull out some fluid from the thigh and groin area for diagnosis (at my home, and not at a lab) but then we never heard back from him.

Growing Up With A Misdiagnosis

As the pain subsided in the following weeks, I rejoined school and went back to doing my normal chores. In the winter of 1992, I again felt that pain and this time visited a hospital. I was admitted there for 15 days and after another set of x-rays and a Mantoux test, I was told that I might have Bone TB. So I was put on medication—some injections every 15 days for two months and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).

Over the next seven or eight years, I met five different doctors, was admitted to two different hospitals, had numerous x-rays, tests for bone density, bone culture, bone marrow aspiration, Mantoux test, CT scans, and an MRI done, but nothing was conclusive. I didn’t find out the reason for my pain and loss of movement in the right hip. But all this while I was given medicines (NSAIDs) for Bone TB. I even tried Homeopathy, Ayurveda, and Acupressure, but nothing worked.

The journey from puberty to adulthood was one I’d like to forget. For years I was in pain, moving inside the house by holding walls or doors. I would suddenly stop because of excruciating pain that ran down from my spine to my foot. Sitting in the balcony and watching my friends play, I wondered if I would ever experience that feeling again. By the time I turned 17, I had to give up playing cricket, football, and cycling. Whenever my friends asked me to come to play or hang out, I always made an excuse as it would take me several minutes to walk out of my home and climb down the stairs. I was confined to my home and gradually lost touch with most of my friends.

Ankylosing Spondylitis not only impacted me physically but mentally and emotionally too.

A Diagnosis: Ankylosing Spondylitis

One thing I constantly heard from my doctors and everyone who visited me was “You are too young for all this”. But I wasn’t feeling like a normal young lad, I felt like an old man. I was so frustrated with the constant pain, loneliness, and always being home.

It was the turn of the millennium and finally, one doctor asked me to go for an HLA B27 test. I was finally diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a disease that has no known causes and no cure, too. It targets the sacroiliac joints in adolescence and spreads to the spine, neck, and chest. As the inflammation spreads, new bones form as a way to repair the damage resulting in the hip joints and spine fusing together.

I was happy that I finally knew what I was suffering from, but sad that the diagnosis came about nine years late. By now, my right hip joint and spine were fused and I had a stooped posture known as Kyphosis. My doctor suggested a hip replacement surgery was my only option.

Surgery was a big decision and I was hesitant. My family and I met a couple more doctors who advised us against the surgery because of the risks involved as total hip replacement (THR) wasn’t popular and successful at that time in India.

I went back to the doctor who had suggested surgery in the first place and he categorically stated that due to misdiagnosis and having NSAIDs and Bone TB medicines for so many years, he can’t put me on any medicine and surgery was the only option. I was informed that if I decide not to go for surgery then it’s possible that my left hip joint will also get fused as it was bearing most of my body’s weight.

Hip Replacement Surgery

Come 2006-07, my right hip joint was totally fused, however the left still had some movement. By 2008, a lot of surgeons had started doing hip replacement surgeries in India. We did our research and landed at the clinic of one of India’s most renowned hip replacement specialists.

He assured us that THR was safe, and even gave us references for work he had done. We spoke to a couple of his patients and a month later, I had my right hip replacement surgery done. There were more complications than a normal surgery, but by God’s grace I was in good hands, and the surgery was successful. A year later I was operated on, this time on the left side. Both surgeries were followed by months of physiotherapy.

Though these surgeries gave my life a new perspective, and I was almost 90% mobile, a common drawback was the shortening of the leg. Due to extreme wear and tear in my right hip, Doctors had to put an extended hip implant and as a result, my right leg was shorter than the left by an inch. I used padding inside my shoe to minimise that impact. And there I was, doing stuff that I never thought I would be able to do again, like walking a long distance, driving, para-sailing, para-gliding, and more.

Revision Surgery And A Near-Death Experience

By 2017, I began to feel discomfort in my right hip-joint. I consulted a doctor who advised me to visit India’s premier medical institution, AIIMS. I met a team of senior doctors and a medical enthusiast, who, after carefully examining my case, suggested doing a revision surgery. For this, they planned to make a 3D Titanium cage to compensate for the loss of bones from my previous surgery. It took them almost nine months (multiple prints, prototypes, amendments, and improvements) to make a replica of my pelvic bone in Titanium, and there I was lying on the operating table again. It was India’s first 3D hip replacement surgery and I was both excited and nervous about being a part of it.

It was a team of about a dozen multi-disciplinary doctors who operated on me. After cutting me open, at first, they thought of not putting in the new joint as the nerves and veins inside my thigh and hip region were badly tangled and it was risky to cut any of them. But they were committed to giving me a better life and they decided to go ahead with the surgery.

For the next 12 hours, the doctors struggled but did an amazing job in not only keeping me alive but also deciding against amputating my leg, as my iliac vein had been badly severed during surgery. After a marathon 9-hour surgery, they had almost stitched me back but had to cut open again due to a thrombus (blood clots) in my leg and lack of blood flow. It took them another three hours to remove the blood clots and yet again save me from an amputation.

It surely wasn’t Doctors but Angels sent by God to work that day.

Life In My 40s

Life has been a roller coaster since the surgery. At times I am myself amazed that I made it through a 12-hour surgery, and a day and half of induced coma, ventilator, 12 units of blood (more than what an average human body has), 6 units of plasma, countless IV drips, injections, medicines, more than 50 stitches, and a total of 27 days in hospital!

It’s almost been 11 months since I had my surgery. I am still walking with a forearm crutch and have another thrombus (blood clot) in the right leg for which I am on medication.

Since I am single, I don’t have to worry about a girlfriend or spouse or kids. 

Also, my employers couldn’t give me more leaves, so I had no option but to leave my job and am currently unemployed. ना नौकरी ना छोकरी (No job, no girl)!

My ordeal has taught me that when you are successful, independent, have money, and time, there are so many friends by your side. But when you lose a job, your money, and are dependent, everyone disappears emotionally and physically.

While I was in the hospital, I remember sending a text to almost everyone in my phone book a night before my surgery. Only about half of them replied and wished me luck and prayed for my well being. But the remaining?

Everyone becomes so engrossed in their lives (and possibly new friends). Very few are even bothered about you. But then again, my friend circle has shrunk in size. But it has increased in value, and I love all of the people in my life.

Life can continue throwing random stuff at me but I will live with my chin up and smile. Even though Ankylosing Spondylitis continues to be the pain in my ass, I am too young to give up and die.

Featured image for representation only. Source: Pexels.

The post A Pain In The Ass: Surviving Years Of Misdiagnoses For A Life-Changing Surgery appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

This is a story of a person living with HIV right from birth, and how he shaped his life. It is an example of what happens when you take charge of life and write your own destiny.

I was seven when my parents died in a car accident. I lost everything that night – not only my parents but also my school, my friends, my house and everything that constituted my little world.

My sister and I were shunted amongst our relatives till 2003, when it was decided I should be admitted to a hostel. As part of the routine admission procedure, I had to undergo an HIV test. I tested positive – and entered a new world, a world of stigma and discrimination, bewildering to a child of my age.

The hostel denied me admission, and this pattern was repeated over and over again. My excellent academic record meant nothing. No school or hostel would admit a child with AIDS. By some good fortune, my uncle came to know about Manavya in Pune, which was the only orphanage in India at that time for HIV positive children. At first, along with the other orphanage children I was sent to the village school, but we faced such hostility there that it became impossible to attend classes. We were abused, spat on, our bags were trashed and our books were torn by the village children, egged on by their parents.

Eventually, Manavya started an in-house school, but my learning came from weekend tuitions in math and science by volunteers from Pune. When I was 14, I won a prize in a science exhibition at the prestigious Inter-University Center for Astronomy (IUCAA) which inspired me to take up my studies even more seriously. I was the first student from Manavya to clear the 12th standard board exams but despite good scores, I had to struggle to find a college that would accept me.

I worked at odd jobs as a gardener, a watchman, computer teacher, in pest control and as a house help to earn enough to fund my education and that of my sister’s. My efforts were rewarded, when, in 2015, I became the first student from Manavya to graduate. In 2014, I started MyRaddi.com, an online portal to collect old newspapers for destitute women who earned a living making paper bags.

I joined Prayas, an NGO working with AIDS affected people, as a group coordinator of the So What, a support group for youngsters with HIV. During my tenure, I created a district level support group to provide a safe environment for adolescents living with AIDS.

Currently, I am pursuing my Master’s in Development Studies at Azim Premji University in Bangalore. I engage with the HIV positive community through various NGOs as a youth advocate. I travel abroad frequently as a global ambassador for youngsters with AIDS and speak at conferences and public events.

I have come a long way from the child who was spat on for no fault of his own. I love challenges. I have no fear in disclosing my status anymore and I speak publicly to motivate people like me. My positive status is just a part of my identity – I am much more than that.

Life is like a rainbow and I believe there are many shades to it like happiness, sadness, enjoyment. Similarly, HIV is one of the shades of my life and I accept it and I live with it!This story is for all those children, adolescents, men and women who have been diagnosed with HIV – I’d like to tell them that life can be normal and it is our responsibility to make it happier and safer for future generations.

You can listen to me on RED FM here

The post Transitioning Positively: For Me HIV Is Not An Ailment, It Is An Opportunity appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Kolkata, West Bengal: On March 13 this year, a 16-year-old girl Moumita (name changed) of Nadia district in West Bengal would have got married off to a man twice her age. She is a class nine student of a village high school in Nadia. Childline got a phone call about her wedding just two days before it took place. The district coordinator of Childline immediately informed the block development officer of Chapra. It is a block among 17 blocks of Nadia which shares an international border with Bangladesh.

Chapra is one of the most child marriage prevalent blocks in the state. In the last month, block officials and Childline jointly intervened in around 20 child marriages in these border villages. Initially, they succeeded in preventing child marriage but parents took their daughters to another village and married them off despite signing a bond.

The day before Moumita’s marriage while the rituals were going on, Childline volunteers along with two block development officers and six police personnel from Chapra police station, reached the village. I was a part of the intervention team. Moumita came out when the police jeep reached her house while family members were busy in last minute preparation. Block officials asked her parents to show her birth certificate and they found that her age is 16 years. An officer informed them about the laws regarding child marriage and instructed them to stop the preparations for the wedding immediately. The situation got critical, around 200 villagers gathered at their courtyard. Parents, relatives requested the police to allow them as everything was ready and her father is mentally disturbed but police forced them to sign a bond that says they won’t arrange the marriage of their daughter until she reaches 18 years.

Moumita belongs to a Hindu farmer family and she is the youngest child of her parents. Eventually, the marriage didn’t happen but it was a disaster for Moumita and her family. While she promised officers with tears in eyes that she will continue her schooling, her grandmother said to us, “We took loans to give her marriage, we have already paid for decorators, caterers. What can I say to the groom’s family? They won’t wait for two years.”

Moumita’s is not a one-off case. If reports are anything to go by, child marriage is rampant in the state specifically Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia, Paschim Medinipur, Purulia and South 24 Parganas districts. 15-year-old Nafisa (name changed) was recently married off to a man in a remote village of Samsergunj block in Murshidabad district. She is not bothered about her education. Now she rolls beedis along with her mother-in-law. Murshidabad is now a popular hub of the beedi industry in the state and about 90% of the workforce constitutes women and children. Nafisa said, “Demand in the matrimonial market depends on the speed and accuracy of which she can roll beedis, and education has no place in her livelihood.”

As elections are coming up in the state, no political party wants to address it rather only addressing it in their election manifesto, they do not even want to comment on this issue. They find it “a family problem” rather a social problem. However this year, ruling party Trinamool Congress is likely to talk about the various developmental and social schemes including Kanyashree and Rupashree in their election manifesto which have been undertaken by the Trinamool government in the state since 2011.

A new report, Factsheet Child Marriages 2019, released by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) stated that the prevalence of girls getting married before 18 years of age in India has declined from 47% in 2005-2006 to 27% in 2015-2016 while West Bengal now has the highest incidence of girls aged between 15 and 19 years being married off. Although child marriages in India have declined, a few states like Bihar and West Bengal continue to carry on with the harmful practice and there is nearly 40% prevalence in these states, UNICEF said.

According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 41.6% girls in West Bengal were married off before the age of 18 years which is far ahead of states such as Rajasthan, with a prevalence of 35.4% child marriages, which has been traditionally associated with child marriage. When the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) was held in 2005-2006, Bihar was at the top with 69.0% prevalence of girls getting married before 18 years of age. The percentage in Bihar has now dipped to 42.5%. Jharkhand, which was at 63.2% in the previous report, has also shown a steep downward curve and stands at 37.9%. However, both are still above the national average. Bengal has shown slow progress of reducing 12.4% prevalence of child marriage while other eastern Indian states such as Bihar and Jharkhand reduced 26.5% and 25.3% respectively during the same period.

However, West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR) Chairperson Ananya Chakraborty claims that the data used in the report is five years old. She also highlights the Chief Minister’s achievements towards women empowerment in the last few years. “There have been several recent instances in the state where girls objecting to parents’ attempt to get them married were stopped successfully. Girls’ associations like Chetana and Kanyashree Mancha relentlessly campaign against child marriage in all districts of West Bengal. Families are taking benefit of Kanyashree and Rupashree scheme. Situations are not the same as claimed in the report.”

But there are hundreds of others that WBCPCR doesn’t want to mention who have been forced into marriage because of a range of reasons. “One of the major reason that parents rush to get their daughters married is that parents are worried that their daughter will fall in love with a boy from a different caste or get pregnant. Families often married off their girls to avoid high price because as the girl grows older, more dowry to be paid. The practice of dowry still persists in the state. Even sexual harassment is a big problem in rural areas, so families feel that marriage would mean security and something that they themselves feel they will fail to provide,” explains Sabarna Saraswati, a volunteer of grass root level organisation Sreema Mahila Samity.

District Social Welfare Officer (DSWO) of Malda Ashok Kumar Poddar says, “Now the situation is changing, girls are benefitting from the government schemes. Kanyashree is best implemented across the district but we must consider the fact that more than 50% of the rural inhabitants of Malda are migrant labourers. These families are initially reluctant to enrol themselves under Kanyashree scheme as males or head of the families live outside the district. In the absence of a guardian, availability of smartphones among girls sometimes led them to a love affair with a man who is double of her age or a man from a different religious community. Then the mother and other family members fix her marriage with a man of their own choice without considering her age.”

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) revealed that 14 districts in West Bengal are among the top 100 high prevalence districts of the country. District-level analysis of child marriage in West Bengal using NFHS-4 reveals that Malda, Murshidabad, Paschim Medinipur, Birbhum, South 24 Parganas and Dakshin Dinajpur, Purba Medinipur, Purulia, Nadia, Coochbehar, Barddhaman, Uttar Dinajpur, Bankura and North 24 Parganas – these 14 districts recorded more than 35% prevalence of child marriage of which Malda topped the list with 56.80% child marriage.

Animesh Kanti Manna, Block Development Officer of Chapra reveals, “Many underage girls were married off even after block official and police’s intervention. Initially, we stopped the marriage but families would arrange the marriage within a month in the same village or in some relative’s house. As of now, there is no instance in the state where parents or a man is fined or jailed for marrying an under-age girl though there is provision for strict punishment in law. I myself stopped 60-65 child marriages in my career as a BDO and I feel only strict legal action can eradicate child marriage from our country but it is not my job to register FIR.”

In some cases block officers and police asked members of Childline to file a case in court. But it is not the only job for Childline. Then who will take action? Every district has a district child protection officer who is designated to intervene, follow up with child marriage cases across the district and take legal steps, file FIRs where necessary. “There is no such instance in the state because lack of political will and sluggish government approach,”, says a social worker based in South Bengal who wishes to be anonymous. He further claims, “As interventions usually happened on the day of marriage or day before, sometimes it is tough for the girl to return to school afterwards. They need proper counselling but nobody visits from the district administration or NGOs to support her though there is provision in laws.” In this regard WBCPCR chairperson says, “It is not yet decided but we think we have to take legal action in future to send a message to people.”

What is pathetic about child marriage cases is that young teenage girls are then forced to bear children. A UNICEF report states that while many Indian states show disparities in early childbearing between child brides and non-child brides; the greatest differences are found in West Bengal among the key states. “With lack of education and family planning awareness, a major portion of girls end up getting pregnant,” reveals the District Social Welfare Officer of Malda.

While West Bengal performed well in birth control since last ten years by reducing TFR (Total Fertility Rate) at 1.6, it recorded 18.3% prevalence of teenage pregnancy in NFHS-4 which implies 18 out of 100 pregnant women are teenage mothers, which is alarming for the state. NFHS data further revealed Tripura topped the list of teenage pregnancy with 18.8% while the national figure is 7.9%. National Human Rights Commission’s (NHRC) Secretary Ambuj Sarma held a press conference on September 12 last year and said, “The NHRC had recently formed a core group on child marriage. In our report to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, we have noted that a necessary step to prevent early marriage is to make education free and compulsory for all children up to the age of 18 years. Accordingly, the Right to Education Act must be amended so that it is applicable up to class 14 instead of class 8 right now.”

P.S. Many NGOs working on child protection issues across the state were approached to share their views but all avoided commenting.

Tanmoy Bhaduri is Kolkata-based independent photojournalist and writer who focuses on social, cultural and environmental issues. This data-driven story was developed as part of the Vital Strategies Data For Health workshop in India.

The post With The Highest Cases Of Child Marriage, How West Bengal Overtook Rajasthan And Bihar appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

The battle lines for 2019 elections have become pretty much clear now. It’s the populist manifesto of the Congress versus the nationalist manifesto of the BJP. Congress has chosen to use its tried and tested strategy of focusing on agrarian crisis, unemployment and inflation which won it the three key states of MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh in 2018 assembly elections. BJP is going ahead with focusing on national security by trying to leverage on Pulwama and Balakot.

This juxtaposition approach of the two major national parties in the election assumes significance in many ways. BJP had won the mandate of the people in 2014 on the plank of economic revival, rooting out corruption and nationalism. But the fact that they are not using any of their initiatives such as Demonetization or GST implementation in election campaigns implies the fact that every step they took in governance in the last five years has turned into disastrous failures.

Harping on Pulwama and Balakot and trying to stoke the fear of national security among people is a dangerous path to tread.

Neither PM Modi, HM Rajnath Singh nor DM Nirmala Seetharaman took any responsibility for the Pulwama massacre. Instead they chose to ignore intelligence warnings and implicitly let it happen. When Abhinandan was captured by Pakistan forces, no one in the BJP government spoke about getting him back safely. Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s decision to return Abhinandan to India unconditionally was a political masterstroke that has not only bolstered his image on the international stage and at the same time has flattened Modi’s attempts to project himself as a strong leader.

The fact that Modi, the unabashed lover of paparazzi and razzmatazz neither went to receive Abhinandan nor went to his house to meet him clearly shows that this was not the outcome he was expecting. He may have wanted Abhinandan’s long term captivity in Pakistan or even his death during the aerial engagement with Pakistan air force to project Pakistan as India’s perpetual nemesis and use that premise to claim that only he can protect Indians from their “enemies”.

Imran Khan took the wind out of Modi’s sails with the return of Abhinandan which carries the statement “why be enemies when we can be friends and brothers?” International media has verified and confirmed that no terrorist camps were destroyed at Balakot. US has confirmed that none of the F-16 jets it supplied to Pakistan is missing. Modi’s bubbles of lies regarding both have been busted. His woes have been accentuated by the fact that the army has been expressing it’s distastefulness in being dragged into politics for Modi to get cheap brownie points at their expense.

As a desperate last resort, he has even tried to take ownership of the satellite defense system developed by DRDO (ASAT) by shooting down a live satellite which was derided and trolled on social media. The technology was developed way back in 2012 when UPA was in power, but the then DRDO chief had refused to do a live demo and had mentioned that simulation demo was enough. Modi went to the extent of making him lie that UPA government had refused permission to do a live demo which was called out immediately on social media.

DRDO missions are usually explained to media by its officials and when Modi himself announced it, people quickly realized that he was taking credit for it. NASA has condemned the Indian government for leaving satellite debris in space and endangering its international space station mission. Significantly, people were trolling Modi on social media by saying that when they heard about Modi going to make an important announcement on TV, they rushed to pull out all their money in the banks and were wondering if Modi was going to make 2000 rupee notes invalid, an obvious reference to the disastrous demonetization. People of the country becoming paranoid about their leader speaking to them is a clear indicator of the country’s governance in disarray and its democratic values in danger.

Congress, on the other hand has caught the eye of the storm by announcing the NYAY scheme and putting money directly in the hands of people. Governments doling out money to its citizens could result in economic disaster, but Rahul Gandhi seems to have the backing of leading economists such as Raghuram Rajan. Indian economy was paralyzed by the effects of demonetization and the recovery has been snail paced and torturous. People are struggling without enough money to spend for their needs.

Putting money in their hands will incentivize them to spend thereby creating a small but significant impetus in the market. Moreover, Modi had promised creation of 2 crore jobs per year, but in 2017-18 alone, more than 1 crore jobs have been lost without the creation of new ones. Modi has almost destroyed all government PSUs and new government jobs are all in limbo. No matter who forms the next government, job creation is going to take some time. NYAY scheme is supposedly to fill that time gap and revive the economy at the same time.

The way Rahul Gandhi is positioning himself as the polar opposite of Modi is very interesting. Whereas Modi pulled all the money out of people’s hands through demonetization Rahul is proposing to put money into people’s hands. He has also been avoiding new alliances with regional political parties. His strategy seems to be to bring back the former glory of Congress and win as many seats on its own as it can. This would ensure that in case of a hung Parliament post elections, if a non-BJP government forms it would be with Congress at its center. Congress’ decision to field him from a second constituency in Wayanad seems to be a wise move and its objective seems to be to maximize Congress wins in South India along with vitalizing Congress cadre.

The country is clearly not in awe of Modi’s narratives and rhetoric anymore. People put their trust in him when he first called demonetization as the way to stop black money hoarding and rooting out corruption. That changed to digitizing economy and then to stopping terrorism in J&K. But each one turned out to be a hoax or what is now famously called “jumla”. Without anything of value in governance to highlight, Ayodhya and Ram temple long past its expiry date and fizzling out of beef ban and Sabarimala issue, Modi had nothing to speak about till Pulwama happened and he tried to squeeze more benefit out of it through Balakot.

Though national security is an issue of national importance, India is not at war or on the brink of war with any country. What is paramount for people now are agrarian crisis, unemployment, inflation, education, law and order and everything that constitutes good governance and civil administration. Modi seems to be oblivious to all of these and is showing remarkable lack of empathy and compassion as he urges people to ignore all their sufferings and needs and vote for him in the name of national security.

Rahul Gandhi’s fortunes took a turn for the better when the Rafale deal got exposed as a scam. His “Chowkidar chor hai” (the protector is the thief) hit the bull’s eye and where it could have hurt the most: Modi’s ego and his self construed image of a strong leader. While chowkidar chor hai has stuck to Modi, Rahul has slowly eased the “pappu” (good for nothing) tag off him. Treating him with derision has gradually given way to consternation and apprehension about him in the BJP ranks.

Modi looks haggard and a pale shadow of his chest thumping days in 2014, whereas Rahul looks energised as he walks through crowds of people and tries to connect with them. Talking about national security and chest thumping to project himself as the protector of the country from behind bullet proof glass panels, surrounding himself with layers of Z+ security and reading pre-written scripts from teleprompter in no way gives Modi the aura of a strong leader. So what prevents him from moving among crowds like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal especially after espousing himself as pradhan sevak and chowkidar of the people? Is it the guilt and fear of repercussions for past misdeeds? The same goes for Amit Shah and other BJP leaders as well.

The days leading to the elections are bearing witness to antics of epic proportions from political leaders aspiring to be candidates. Sitting MP and actress of yesteryears Hema Malini was seen draped in expensive designer saree doing a photo op of her holding a sickle and bundle of grains in a paddy fleld surrounded by real farm workers. The irony is, her travel to the paddy field and back was by a helicopter. It flew right back in the face of Modi’s “sab ka saath sab ka vikas” (Modi with everyone and development for everyone) slogan and clearly showing that development is only for some people.

Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan became turncoat and jumped ship to BJP with the hope of getting to contest in the election but got snubbed. Not enough with creating a propaganda movie on Modi, NaMoTV, a propaganda channel has been launched and that too without any broadcasting rights and licenses. More people are getting incensed with the channel being into everybody’s homes as a free channel through the most popular satellite TV service providers. Modi continues to brazenly use every government machinery for his whims and fancies even during election time as EC has been reduced to a muted spectator.

What is worse, five years back people wanted to move on from Congress governance. Five years on, people have been forced to look for hope in Congress again. BJP’s “Congress mukth Bharat” (India free from Congress) slogan has changed to “if Congress can so can we” and “if Congress can’t how can we?”

मक्कारों से सावधान ! pic.twitter.com/eTyYqFxZuD

— कटु वचन (@Katu__Vachan) April 3, 2019

Rather than accepting its mistakes, learning from them and improving its own performance, the government has sought to lay the blame of every act of its misgovernance on past Congress governments and its leaders. Return of Modi government with full majority would be nothing short of a catastrophe for the country. He has already undermined even the judiciary and the Constitution itself on several occasions in the last five years. Another five years in power could possibly mean no more elections in future and the Constitution in danger, more so now with Amit Shah contesting in the election and being portrayed as second-in-command to Modi.

Modi never fulfilled his 2014 poll promise of arresting Robert Vadra on charges of corruption. Rahul Gandhi has ploughed his way back into political limelight by piggybacking on the dubious Rafale deal. Modi staying away from Vadra raises a very important question. In the event of a non-BJP government forming with Congress at its helm, will Rahul get the Rafale deal investigated and get Modi indicted if he is found guilty? Or will he reciprocate Modi’s gesture to stay away from Vadra? After calling out Anil Ambani as Modi’s corrupt friend innumerable times in public, will Rahul get Dassault to cancel their deal with Reliance? Will he resurrect the PSU that Modi has almost destroyed and reverse the policies of Modi government that has stagnated the country’s economic growth? Multitude of questions still remain unanswered.

Elections are for the political class and their survival and sustenance. The country continues to stare at an uncertain future.

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The post It’s Populism Vs Nationalism In 2019 Elections appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

कल दरभंगा के पेंटर रबिंदर दास जी के फेसबुक वॉल के माध्यम से मालूम हुआ कि मधुबनी स्टेशन को मिथिला पेंटिंग से सजाने वाले कलाकारों के खिलाफ अरेस्ट वारेंट जारी किया गया है। चूंकि, इन दिनों मेरे शहर पटना की दीवारों को मिथिला पेंटिंग और मॉर्डन आर्ट से सुसज्जित किया गया है, ऐसे में कलाकारों के प्रति संवेदना के साथ सम्मान और भी अधिक बढ़ जाता है।

मैंने सबसे पहले रबिंदर दास जी को फोन करके इस संबंध में विस्तार से बात जानने की कोशिश की। उन्होंने बताया,

केंद्र सरकार कलाओं को लेकर कितनी संवेदनशील है, इस बात का अंदाज़ा आप खुद ही लगा सकते हैं। राकेश कुमार झा जो मधुबनी स्टेशन को सुंदर रूप देने के लिये चर्चित हुए, आज उनकी टीम पर वारेंट जारी हो चुका है।

रबिंदर जी ने आगे बताया, “जब कलाकारों के श्रमदान से मिथिला पेंटिंग द्वारा मधुबनी स्टेशन को सुंदर बनाया गया, उस दौरान बात हुई थी कि ये वर्ल्ड का सबसे बड़ा फोक आर्ट होगा, जिसे गिनीज़ बुक ऑफ रिकॉर्ड में दर्ज किया जाएगा। असलियत यह है कि रिकॉर्ड बुक में नाम दर्ज नहीं हुआ और तो और अंतिम दिन ONGC, IOCL, कोल इंडिया लिमिटेड जैसी बड़ी कंपनियों का बैनर स्पॉन्सर के रूप में टांगा दिया गया।

जब आयोजक राकेश कुमार झा ने सवाल उठाया कि फ्री के काम में स्पॉन्सर कहां से आया और आया तो फिर वो पैसे कलाकारों में बराबर बंटे? तो आनन-फानन में सारे बोर्ड हटा दिए गए और कलाकारों पर कमीशन मांगने का आरोप लगा दिया गया। बाद में रेलवे मंत्रालय द्वारा दी गई पुरस्कार राशि का भी बंदरबांट हुआ। इसी विरोध में कलाकारों द्वारा 2 दिन 4-4 घण्टे स्वतंत्रता सेनानी एक्सप्रेस रोकी गई पर कोई रेलवे का अधिकारी बात करने नहीं आया और इन कलाकारों के खिलाफ केस कर दिया, जिसका अब वारेंट निकला है।”

रबिंदर जी ने बताया,

बड़े-बड़े स्पॉन्सरों से धन उगाही के बाद भी उचित मुआवज़ा ना मिलने पर अपना हक मांगने वाले कलाकारों को अब ट्रेन रोकने के अपराध की सज़ा भी भुगतनी पड़ेगी।

इसके बाद मैंने राकेश कुमार झा से सम्पर्क कर विशेष जानकारी ली तो उन्होंने बताया कि 2 अक्टूबर से 12 अक्टूबर 2017 के बीच उन्होंने कई कलाकार साथियों के साथ मिलकर मधुबनी स्टेशन के साथ मधुबनी शहर की सरकारी इमारतों को मिथिला पेंटिंग से सजाया था। इसके लिए उन लोगों ने भारतीय रेलवे से कोई पैसे नहीं लिए क्योंकि उन्हें बताया गया था कि उनकी परंपरागत पेंटिंग को गिनिज़ बुक में दर्ज कराया जाएगा लेकिन ऐसा नहीं हुआ।

जुलाई 2018 को राकेश जी को मालूम हुआ कि कई बड़ी कम्पनियों द्वारा रेलवे स्टेशन पर की गई पेंटिंग को स्पॉन्सर किया गया है, मतलब जो काम रेलवे ने फ्री में इन लोगों से करवाया है, उसके लिए रेलवे ने खुद पैसे उगाही कर ली।

इसके बाद कलाकारों ने जुलाई 2018 में विरोध दर्ज कराते हुए दो दिन स्वतंत्रता सेनानी एक्सप्रेस को कुछ घंटे रोककर रखा था, जिसके बाद रेलवे ने सभी कलाकारों को 250रुपए/दिन के हिसाब से देने की बात की।

कलाकारों के मेहनतनामा के नाम पर यह राशि बहुत कम थी, फिर भी उन्होंने इतने पर संतुष्ट होकर विरोध वापस ले लिया लेकिन दूसरी ओर उसी तारीख को समस्तीपुर रेल थाना में चार कलाकारों राकेश कुमार झा, सुरेंद्र पासवान, रत्नेश झा, सोनू निशांत के साथ सात अनाम के खिलाफ एफआईआर दर्ज की गई। जो काम फ्री में मिथिला पेंटिंग को सम्मान दिलाने के लिए किया गया था, उसके लिए सम्मान की जगह अरेस्ट वारेंट जारी किया जाना दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण है।

कलाकारों को इस संबंध में तब खबर हुई जब अप्रैल 2019 को इनकी गिरफ्तारी के लिए उनके घरों में छापामारी शुरू हुई। राकेश जी से जब मेरी बात हुई थी तब तक किसी भी कलाकार की गिरफ्तारी नहीं हो पाई थी, क्योंकि वे घर से भागे हुए हैं और सोशल मीडिया और फोन के माध्यम से लोगों को इस अन्याय के खिलाफ एकजुट होकर संघर्ष करने की अपील कर रहे हैं।

आपको बताते चले कि राकेश जी का अपना एक ऑर्गनाइजेशन है, ‘क्रॉफ्टवाला’, जिनके कलाकारों ने पटना स्थित कलेक्ट्रियट गंगा घाट से पटना कॉलेज तक मिथिला पेंटिंग की है और इसकी खूबसूरती से प्रभावित होकर पटना नगर निगम ने वृहद स्तर पर पूरे पटना शहर को मॉर्डन आर्ट और मिथला पेंटिंग से सजाने का फैसला किया था।

मिथिला पेंटिंग के इस कार्य की अगुवाई भले ही पुरुषों द्वारा की गई लेकिन इस कार्य में 90% महिलाओं का योगदान रहा है, जिन्हें सही मेहनताना और सम्मान की जगह भारतीय रेलवे गिरफ्तार कर दमन करने की योजना बना रही है।

एसपी ने बात करने से कर दिया मना

दूसरी तरफ हमने भारतीय रेलवे के इस कदम पर पटना रेलवे के एसपी सुजीत कुमार से भी बात करने की कोशिश की, जिसपर उन्होंने कोई भी स्टेटमेंट देने से मना कर दिया। नाम ना छापने की शर्त पर रेलवे के एक अधिकारी ने कहा कि रेल रोकना कानूनन अपराध है ऐसे में कार्रवाई होना मुमकिन था।

फिर प्रश्न यह भी है कि आए दिन राजनीतिक दल के लोगों के द्वारा रेल रोकने की घटना होती रहती है, ऐसे में उन सब पर नामजद कर्रवाई की जगह अनाम या भीड़ का नाम दे दिया जाता है, फिर इन कलाकारों के खिलाफ नामजद कर्रवाई क्यों हुई? क्या रेलवे स्पॉन्सरसिप के द्वारा प्राप्त मोटी कमाई को छुपाना चाहता है? ऐसे कई प्रश्नों के साथ अब कुल मिलाकर कलाकारों की उम्मीदें हम और आप जैसे आम लोगों के साथ पर आकर रूक गई हैं, उम्मीद है उन्हें सम्मान के साथ न्याय मिले।

The post मधुबनी स्टेशन को मधुबनी आर्ट से सजाने वाले कलाकारों पर FIR appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

The UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, has urged the youth to “reclaim their space” by asserting their voices nationally and globally to strengthen efforts aimed at fostering peace, the rule of law and human rights.

In an exclusive interaction with  UNODC South Asia‘s Communications Officer, Samarth Pathak, the popular youth icon also extended support to UNODC’s efforts towards engaging young people in promoting peace, human rights and the rule of law, and using sports and education to prevent crime, substance use and violence.

Following are selected excerpts from the discussion:

Samarth Pathak: As the first female Youth Envoy of the UN Secretary-General, tell us about your journey so far. What is your vision for this role?

Jayathma Wickramanayake: It has been great, really hard and fun at the same time! I was appointed to be the UN Envoy on Youth by Secretary-General António Guterres in 2017 – I was 26 back then, being the second and youngest ever appointed to a senior management role.

Still today, when someone says “envoy”, one generally thinks of a middle-aged male. Being a woman, a young woman in power allows me to break not just one but two glass ceilings of age and gender by being resilient and vocal, and claiming my and my generation’s space.

My vision for this role is to continue creating spaces for young people to get more involved in decision-making processes, by getting their voices heard by the United Nations, Member States and partners.

In the past year, the United Nations family made great strides through the creation of Youth 2030, the United Nations Youth Strategy. In the future, I really want to see the UN working as one with and for young people really realizing our shared vision of a world where no one is left behind – especially no young person.

SP: “Nothing about us, without us” has been your key message to global leaders at multiple fora. Please elucidate the meaning of this statement, for our young readers.

JW: Nothing about us, without us means no policy, program, initiative and decision should be made, implemented or reviewed without the full and direct participation of groups in society that are affected by that policy. In young people’s case, the policies we are making right now not only have direct impact on our present lives, but also have an impact on our future.

Currently, the world counts the largest generation of young people: 1.8 billion. So, it is important and should be natural for young people to be included in all policy-making processes. However, let’s not even talk about youth being given a seat at the table – too often their voices are not heard. One of the key mandates of my job is to build a bridge between young people and decision-makers to make sure that young people’s ideas and opinions are heard, and they can take active control not only of their future, but of their lives now.

SP: What is the role of youth in the realization of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and world peace?

JW: The Preamble of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development reads that young people are the torchbearers of sustainable development. I say they are also the thinkers, doers and innovators who can realize this agenda. Without the full participation of half of the world population, achieving SDGs is going to be a dream rather than a reality.  Especially under SDG 16, fostering peace, justice and strong Institutions is achievable, but only if everyone is working together towards it, and young people play an extremely vital role.

Young people under the age of 30 account for over half of the world’s population. It is impossible for us to achieve world peace without their participation, and they are willing to make their contribution in many ways. They can be active agents of change in peace-building processes, and in many places, they are seen as community leaders in building peace.

With regard to maintaining world peace, in my belief, young people should also play a key role in supporting multilateralism and promoting prevention and mediation of conflict. Having said that, policy makers are also responsible for creating such safe spaces for young people to contribute to these discussions. Otherwise, we put responsibility on young people without empowering them or without offering them the necessary resources or platforms for meaningful engagement.

SP: You hail from South Asia, a region vibrant with great economic and demographic opportunities and yet riddled with problems such as crime, corruption, poverty, violence and strife. It is also home to a key segment of the global youth population. What are the key youth-specific challenges in South Asia?

JW: I was born into a war. Sri Lanka went through a 30-years-long armed conflict and I remember being frustrated and sad about all the lives that were being lost due to the war.

Young people make up a huge portion of population in South Asia. In India, about 600 million people, more than half of population, are under 25 years old. In Pakistan, 64 percent of the nation is younger than 30, and 29 percent of Pakistanis are between 15 and 29 years old. In Bangladesh, young people aged between 18 to 35 years old constitute one-third of the total population.

Indeed, there are many challenges young people face in South Asia. I think the first challenge is the high-rate of youth unemployment. Taking Sri Lanka for example, the unemployment rate is 18.3%, with young women and rural youth being particularly vulnerable. Young people are 3 times more likely to be unemployed compared to the older populations.

Also, many youths from the rural areas are involved in the informal economy. To tackle this, we must ensure market-relevant skill development amongst the youth. It is also critical to provide inclusive and equal decent employment opportunities for young people across all sectors such as public, private, non-governmental, humanitarian and development.

Gender-based violence is still seen in many places in the form of street harassment to child marriages. Participation of women in politics is also low. Urgent action is required to eliminate discrimination against girls and young women, protect their rights and promote their participation in civic and political life as well as various employment sectors, especially the male-dominated sectors such as science, technology and mathematics.

SP: How do you perceive the response of governments and civil society so far in bringing youth voices into policy-making and the global development agenda? Do you see the need for governments to frame new legislation and legal frameworks that incorporates young voices?

JW: Always. Whenever a government establishes new legal frameworks that have young people’s voices in it, I feel proud and excited. Many countries have done amazing work including young people in policy-making and the global development agenda, but we definitely need to see more governments doing so. In the meantime, we as the UN family are also endeavoring to be an effective platform to enable young people to share their voices, and also build a bridge between young people and member states.

For example, through the ECOSOC Youth Forum we work to engage young people and youth ministers on a conversation about the goals under review at the High-Level Political Forum each year. But we would love to see the Regional Economic Commissions also doing this at the regional level and Member states nationally including youth organizations and young people in the making of their Voluntary National Reviews.

So many years later we still have only a handful of member states bringing youth delegates to the UN, General Assembly and Functional Commissions of the ECOSOC. If you look at the civil society organizations too there is so much more to be done. Some civil society organizations have established youth advisory panels for example to benefit from youth views and inputs and such initiatives should be encouraged and amplified.

SP: UNODC, under its Education for Justice Initiative, works actively with students and educators in promoting SDG 16. In your view, what is the role of schools and universities in promoting the rule of law, peace and human rights?

JW: I think the first step is universal quality education; informing young people what the rules of law, peace and human rights are, and assisting them in practicing the values and principles in day-to-day life. Often, “Justice” and “Peace” are taught in schools as if they are abstract concepts. It is key that young people identify those concepts as lived realities. Understanding one’s role in society and the need for protecting, defending and advocating for human rights is the basis for this education.

Also, equally important is to inculcate not just the knowledge but skills in young people/students. Team work, conflict resolution, mediation are some of the skills that could be taught through non-formal and informal education outside the class rooms. These could really help shape how young people interact with and contribute to society.

I extend support to UNODC’s efforts towards engaging young people in promoting peace, human rights and the rule of law, and using sports and education to prevent crime, substance use and violence. I look forward to joint efforts in this direction.

SP: What should be components of a good national strategy on youth crime prevention?

JW: Inclusion. Many young people get attracted to violent behavior due to the exclusion they face from economic, social and even political opportunities. Equality and inclusion should be at the heart of crime prevention strategy.

Looking at young people not only as perpetrators of violence, but recognizing their positive potential and contributions to society is also equally important to build the right narrative for young people’s meaningful participation in crime prevention.

It may seem impossible, but if we make the right investments and national strategy to ensure young people’s basic rights are guaranteed and the establishment of a safe environment for them to live in, we can prevent youth crime drastically.

SP: What are the greatest challenges that hinder youth participation in governance, politics and decision-making today, and what are the opportunities?

JW: One type of challenge is the societal stigma and misconceptions about young people. Young people are seen as “half citizens” or “citizens in training”, as opposed to a group that is capable of making decisions and leading communities and countries.

But this is a social contract. Ones expertise and leadership skills do not depend on years of experience but on their skills and innovation.

Therefore, the myths and misconceptions should be debunked, and inter-generational barriers should be removed for young people to fully realize their full potential.

Another type of challenge is legal barriers.  According to IPU 73% of countries restrict young people from running for office, even when they can vote. This mean the age limit for running for political office is higher than the age of voting. This prevents young people from participating in formal politics, running for elections and becoming part of political parties and institutions. My office supports and leads a campaign called “Not Too young To Run”, through which we advocate for the removal of such discriminatory laws and policies.

Violence associated with elections, financial and other resource constrains are also reasons that discourage young people in taking active roles in politics and governance. Male dominated political party structures especially limit young women’s participation in politics.

SP: Please share a special message for our young viewers/readers who aspire to be tomorrow’s leaders. What are the key actions they can take to effectively contribute to SDGs and foster global harmony?

JW: All over the world, young people are already organizing, mobilizing and leading positive change for everyone. My message to young people is- Keep doing what you are doing. Your voices are essential for the world’s progress, so make sure they are heard. Do not wait for an invitation – until you are given a seat at the table. Just take a seat and take part in order to make a difference.

(This interview was first published as part of UNODC’s Conversations series, on the website of UNODC Regional Office for South Asia.)

(Disclaimer: All photos sourced from official social media accounts of the UN Youth Envoy, with permission.)

The post UN Youth Envoy On How She Smashed Glass Ceilings Of Age And Gender With Her Resilience appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

India is the world’s largest democracy with a population of over 1.2 billion, spread over an area of 3.287 million sq. km. With almost 1600 spoken languages, 2000 ethnic groups, and with people from the 9 most recognized religions, India is one the most diverse nations in the world. In a country like ours, an efficient political system, with responsible and accountable leadership is essential. We have a democratic form of government, and in a democracy, it is necessary that the people vote and do so responsibly. Our constitution gives its people the right to vote irrespective of their religion, caste, economic status, gender or sex. 11th April 2019 will mark the offset of the 17th Lok Sabha elections.

With the upcoming elections, I want to throw some light on certain issues through this article.

India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35. As this data indicates, India is a country of the youth. The youth has a vital role to play in deciding the nature of politics, the future of politics, and thus, the future of this country. The problem, however, is the ignorance and indifference of people when it comes to politics. It is as a result of this mass political unconsciousness of the people and the youth, that democracies fail.

The common notion is that politics does not have any role in our lives, and that thinking about it and talking about it is simply an utter waste of time. However, the reality is vastly different from the common notion. Politics has everything to do with our lives. Our education – what we get to learn, what we get to teach, what our jobs are, how much we are to be paid for our jobs, our healthcare facilities, the prices of the things that we are going to buy, it’s the reservation quotas we will have to deal with, the colleges we will go to, the amount of taxes we are going to pay, our future pension plans, everything is decided by political bodies, figures, and the nature of politics.

Even though politics literally control our lives most people, and especially the youth chooses to be ‘apolitical’, because it’s easier to stay within their comfort zones. Thus, it is rightly said that for them, ignorance is bliss. Well, what happens when people choose to remain ignorant about politics? When they are too lazy to let go of their privileges and come out of their comfort zone and remain ‘apolitical’?

Here’s a glimpse of what the situation of our country is right now:

The party that is in power has members who say that the voting rights should be taken away from the entire Muslim community, who comprise about 15% of the population. The hate speech by the party politicians has increased by almost 500% of what it was under the previous government. In most cases, the targets of hate speech have been the people of the Muslim community and other minorities of this country.

In Maharashtra, the names of 40 lakh voters, 17 lakh of which are Muslims and 10 lakhs of which are Dalits, are missing from the voting lists. Hate crimes against Dalits have reached a new high. Dalits, SCs, OBCs are being ostracized, they are being denied their right to education. In certain backward areas of the country, they are getting lynched simply for their desire to pursue education. Dalits and Muslims comprise about 70% of the mob lynching victims.

Today, a new kind of violence is haunting India, a term, probably never heard by millennials before 2015; cow vigilantism. People are being beaten to death for eating beef or for wearing leather. As many as 97% of these attacks were reported after the new government came to power in May 2014, and about half the cow-related violence – 32 of 63 cases – were from states governed by the same political party when the attacks were reported. And very surprisingly, most of the victims turned out to be Muslims.

Farmers whose hard work is the reason we have food on our plates, are not getting paid their fair share. In certain states of the country, they are being made to sell onions and potatoes at about Rs. 1.04/kg. The farmer suicide has reached 12000 per year. That’s 1000 every month, and thus, about 33 every single day. The government is still quiet about this matter and has done nothing to improve the situation

Manual scavenging is still legal in our country. Those working in the stigmatized industry face acute challenges, given their low social status and abysmal working conditions, which expose them to death-like situations or life-threatening diseases, and one manual scavenger dies every five days but the government hasn’t taken any action for the betterment of the situation.

The Army, whose name the government never fails to use in their rally speeches to stir the nationalist sentiments among the people, the army who is politicized constantly and is used as nothing but as pawns in their political agenda, is being underpaid. The government creates an image as if it truly cares about the army and wants to protect its integrity but the facts are clearly against it. The army is being deprived of basic human working conditions and privileges but surprisingly enough, the government which poses as the protector of the army has not said anything about the actual problem it is facing.

When it comes to the issue of women, India is now officially the worst country in terms of women’s safety. 106 is the average number of rape cases filed every single day in India, 4 out of 10 of which are minors. Moreover, government agency data has given proof that almost 99% of rape and sexual harassment cases go unreported. Members of the ruling party are taking advantage of the established patriarchal system and are campaigning by promising that they will bring back child marriage if voted into power. Marital rape, even after 72 years of independence, is not a crime. Women who cook mid-day meals for school children are paid the menial amount of ₹37 only, which probably does not even help them afford a three square meal every day. Human trafficking levels of India are off the charts.

It is one of the most significant phases in the history of democracy in our country, and also probably one of the worst ones. The government’s ultra-nationalist, casteist, xenophobic and communal nature is now directly violating the secular, inclusive, egalitarian and just provisions of the constitution which defines how the country is supposed to be. The government is campaigning about building a temple on a disputed land and thus taking advantage of the religious nature of the people of the country while shifting the focus from the real issues and the issues that actually matter.

In a country like India, with over 9 major religions, if a political party in power has communal and supremacist ideology towards a particular religion or community, the effects can be and will be catastrophic. It can lead to civil unrest, communal riots, and whatnot. Recognize the communal and divisive politics in play here just to pit one group against another for their vote banks.

It’s time we realized and accepted the reality that we are all Indians and we all deserve equal rights. The cabinet of ministers, including the prime minister is avoiding being held accountable for what they say or do. The prime minister has not held a single press conference since coming to power. The education minister said that Darwin was wrong, the health minister himself said that cancer is the result of past sins.

The media’s role in a democracy is to keep people informed, it is to make people aware of the government’s policies and laws. However, it is now controlled by big corporates and capitalists who take sides with the government. Today, news channels and newspapers do propaganda for the government or to simply defame people on live TV, and spread fake and fabricated news about the government’s deeds. Thus, the government is coming in the way of free speech which is essential for the democracy to survive especially in a country like ours.

46 journalists have been killed and government action has been taken against 27 so far for simply criticizing the government’s policies. Activists, journalists, lawyers, economists, and dissenters of the government are being labelled “anti-nationals”, “urban naxals”, “urban Maoists” for not agreeing with the government’s policies, for practising their constitutional right of protesting. They are receiving death threats for practising their right of freedom of speech and expression publicly, and are being told to go to Pakistan if they are talking about ideas like secularism and equality.

I would request my readers to fact check everything I have said above. Everything you see on the internet, or as WhatsApp forwards should be verified before believing, this should not be an exception either. There are tons of other issues that can be discussed, but this article is not about that.

The Indian struggle for independence was a long, hard and apathetic battle fought by our brave freedom fighters, who believed in certain ideas instituted in our constitution. But that does not guarantee our continued freedom. Democratic rights and freedom requires constant effort in order to be sustained. You might be one of those people who favour the economic policies and other agendas of this government and there is nothing wrong in having your own opinion. I cannot turn you into a secular, egalitarian, liberal-minded person through this one article. But my appeal to you is, this: Stand up for your own rights, stand up for democracy, stand up and hold up the supremacy of the constitution, for it is in danger now.

The democratic nature of this nation is in danger now. The secular, inclusive and accepting nature of this country is under threat. You can be a narrow-minded, conservative, casteist person, but do not think for one second that the government cares about you just because it’s favouring your religion or your class of people at this moment, it’s exploiting YOU the most; it’s because of people like you who have the liberty of being politically unconscious because of your privileges that they are being successful with their agenda. Do not think for one second that if this country is deprived of its democratic spirit, it will be favourable for you, no matter how you are inclined politically or what your political views are.

Your democratic rights are at stake too, your freedom of expression is at stake too. It’s just a matter of time before the government implements a law or policy that puts you in a bad position. Your future, our future, the country’s future is at stake now. Good people of this country, this is what our nation has come to. It’s too late to sit idle and be experimental while electing the government and let politics take its own course. It’s high time to get out of our comfort zones and our seemingly blissful state of ignorance and indifference and get involved.

Place your opinions. Make yourself aware of your constitutional and fundamental rights. Make yourself aware of the policies of the government. Question the powers that be. Discuss politics with your friends, listen to one another, exchange opinions, form your own opinions. It’s all on us now. Without you, without us, the country is doomed. Without you, democracy is doomed. Do not let yourself be subject to propaganda, do not let your focus be sidetracked when the government tries to stir your nationalistic senses by creating a fake atmosphere of war, or by any other means.

Be a nationalist if you want to be, be a patriot if you want to be. But make sure your patriotism or nationalism is also stirred when the farmers of YOUR country are dying and when the women of YOUR country are getting raped. And finally, vote. Vote, not because it’s your right, but because it’s your responsibility as a citizen of this democratic nation. Great things have happened in this country, and do not have anyone make you believe that great things will never happen to this country again.

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Sarhul is one of the most significant tribal festivals celebrated across Jharkhand, mainly by the Uraon, Mundas, Santhals, and the Ho tribe, along with thirty other tribal groups. The festival lasts for three days, starting from the third day of the Chaitra, the first month of the Hindu calendar. The tribals pay their obeisance to the Sal tree for providing them with food, drink, shade, shelter, livelihood, prediction of harvest and weather, and even protection from the evil eye all year around.

The tribals in Jharkhand, clad in colorful and traditional sarees and dresses, perform traditional dances on the popular folk tunes of the region. Dances like Paika, Santhal, Sarna, Phagna, Bheja, Damkach, etc. are performed. Even though men participate enthusiastically in the festival of Sarhul to show their solidarity towards mother nature, the women in Jharkhand have lived in harmoniously with their natural environment since ages, and have evolved a culture and certain traditions that are in complete sync with the nature; hence the same has passed on to their festivals and worship rituals.

Jharkhand literally means land of forests, and as per a survey by the Forest Survey of India, this eastern state has a forest cover of about 30%, compared to the national average of 22%, which vindicates the Sanskrit term “Jharikhanda”, meaning a region of dense forest.

Natural resources and forest covers are naturally endowed to Jharkhand and form the very basis of it existence. The rich natural resources have also always attracted a lot of business interests in the name of development in this globalized world. This invasion, in the name of development and consequent uplifting of living conditions, leads to large scale exploitation of the natural resources leading to an adverse impact on the flora and fauna of the state.

Given their deep-rooted connection with nature and natural resources, tribal people also get exploited, especially the female population. In fact, rich natural and mineral resources in Jharkhand, have proved a bane and a boon since the exploitation of women and these resources go hand in hand. There has been a rampant acquisition of forest land for mining purposes with no regard to damage to forest cover and displacement of tribal folks.

A Centre for Science and Environment report says, “The very people for whom Jharkhand was ostensibly created are now being sacrificed in the name of their own state development.” The negative repercussion of growing mining and the pollution caused in the process has always had an impact on the biological capacity and health of the women.

Amidst all the development mayhem, it’s the women who suffer the most. Tribal female population has always been at the receiving end everywhere. But naturally, ecofeminism in Jharkhand takes its roots here. It’s the women who have always revolted, or, more aggressively, defended their habitat and environment. The case is similar with the tribal women of Jharkhand.

In the past, they had always been at the forefront of the tribal struggle against the foreign intrusion on their land. Be it against British India’s Forest Act in Chotanagpur region for expanding railways, or against feudal landlords and moneylenders who used to exploit them financially as well as sexually. They were also part of Santhal Hool, the famous Santhal rebellion against the British regime and zamindari system which stripped them of their natural rights to their land.

Tribal women have also participated in numerous other movements to safeguard nature and environment, like the Munda Uprising and certain political movements which aimed at claiming back land usurped by landlords and moneylenders.

Recently, I had the opportunity of meeting a group of women, in a tribal dominated village, Karra, about 35 km away from Ranchi, the state capital of Jharkhand. These women are mobilising their communities towards protection of forest land, restoration of green cover and against rampant and indiscriminate exploitation of other natural resources, through the recently concluded two-day global investors’ summit, Momentum Jharkhand. The Jharkhand government has shown expediency to acquire land to provide to industries, both domestic and multinationals, to set up development infrastructure in Jharkhand.

The summit aims to establish Jharkhand as an investment destination on the global stage. However, there has been a sustained opposition of government’s initiative by the tribal populations who fear that that in the garb of development, the business houses will usurp their property and natural habitat and resources. This movement has mostly been spearheaded by the female population.

The women of Karra are up in arms against such moves which they claim is to destroy the natural and forest reserves of the Jharkhand, and to render them devoid of their environment. They have termed this summit as a meeting of land grabbers and money makers who are looking to grab tribal land.

Recent amendments to the Chotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act and the Santhal Parganas Tenancy (SPT) Act, have irked tribal and rights activists. They fear that amendments have paved the way for the state’s largely poor tribal people to lose their small land holdings to industrial, commercial and welfare projects. However, the government counters that the amendments made are going to benefit tribals in the long run.

Earlier the tribal families couldn’t use their land for commercial activities despite having large land holdings. This has changed with the changes in the act and now many activities can be carried out on these lands to prosper.

Historically too, Jharkhand has been home to a lot of industries and mineral extraction setups due to its rich reserves. Women opposing the government consider this as a move to perpetuate more exploitation of mother nature to which they feel connected.

The Jharkhand society, being highly patriarchal, has always inflicted twin domination, both on women and nature. The tribals do not provide land rights to women folks, and they are reduced to mere workers on their own land. These women want to expose and dismantle both the domination of nature and women in the name of globalisation.

Real growth and amelioration can only occur when women who are likely to be hit harder by environmental degradation and climate change are uplifted from their socio-economic backwardness, and made integral to sustainable development.

Thus, Sarhul lets us strive hard to make women an integral part of our ecosystem and give due credit to their sacrifice and efforts towards environmental sustainability and stability.

The post The Significance Of The Sarhul Festival In Promoting Ecofeminism In Jharkhand appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

The Federation of State Humanities Councils in the United States of America started a programme called ‘Democracy and the Informed Citizen’ in 2018. Under the program, 49 humanities council were given funds to examine the critical role of journalism in the preservation of the idea of the electoral process and by extension, of the idea of a sustainable democracy. This dependence of the success of democracy on ethical and appropriate journalism holds much more worth now, given the impact that social media and connectivity have had on our lives.

In about two months from now, Indians would be glued to their television sets, waiting to hear about the fate of their preferred politicians. But for the next two months, these same Indians would have to pay back the debt that they owe to the sanctity of our country’s democracy: their duty to vote. They have to walk to the nearest booths and cast their one vote to the candidate that promises them the right things.

The affirmation of the feasibility of said promised and the candidates’ competence to fulfill said promises is where the electoral crowd relies on the so-called watchdog of justice, the media. This fourth pillar of democracy bears the duty of informing the electorate with information that would be relevant and helpful to the voters when they step into that booth. For example, when Rahul Gandhi proposes the idea of a universal basic income of ₹6000 rupees per month, the responsibility of the mainstream media is to not just debate on how this proposal might impact the election scene in the coming days, but also discuss the feasibility of such a proposal and its impact on the population.

All of us, at one point of time, have been part of that WhatsApp group which is filled with forwards and links that seem shady enough for us to ignore, but we either lack the conviction or the resources to help convince ourselves of that particular claim’s falsity. This piece shall list a few sources which might help a confused user confirm the validity of a claim because in the few weeks following the elections, fake news and fake claims would gain the upper hand over the ignorance of the electorate easily.

1) Factly

With a section on the Modi government’s 48 months in power, Factly has managed to fact-check a lot of the government’s claims. From their piece on fact-checking the government’s assertions in the banking sector to their work on putting the leadership’s claims of their programmes against tuberculosis to test, Factly has managed to clear the mist that has come to surround the actual statistics.

For example, the BJP government published an infographic that made four claims about the enabling of legislators in fighting corruption. Factly ran a piece on the same, checking those four claims and presenting a detailed analysis of the same.

With the environment of fake news prevalent today and biased agendas being broadcast on our prime-time television, the idea of more fact-checking websites has been gaining pace. Newer and newer such initiatives have started taking up space on the internet to provide for fact-checking through elaborate and different methodologies to confirm various claims. A couple more of such websites that users can rely on are FactChecker and FactCrescendo.

2) NewsLaundry

Although stating news-media as a reliable source is a fire that might burn my own hands, NewsLaundry has managed to stand out from a lot of its mainstream counterparts. One of the major reasons for this media house’s success in terms of authenticity and their affection towards facts lies in the standard of their ownership. While the major newspapers and media giants in the country continue to be owned by conglomerates and influential figures, like Shobhana Bhatia for the Hindustan Times Group, the Marans for the Sun, and Chandan Mitra for the Pioneer, NewsLaundry has managed to sustain under a subscriber model for now.

Unlike its peers, which rely heavily on advertisers and its investors to keep them alive, NewsLaundry makes its earnings from the subscriptions it sells. Although this makes it restrictive only to people who can afford to pay a periodic price, it does provide a fresher and unbiased perspective into the daily news from across the country.

For example, Pune Mirror, a tabloid owned by the Times group, recently claimed that a construction worker arrested by the ATS was related to the Pulwama attacks. Other media giants like the Daily Pioneer and Lok Satta soon jumped the bandwagon on claiming the same. In contrast to this, NewsLaundry released a piece that described the entire process that led to the birth of this claim and how it is not true.

3) Alt News

Started by a software engineer, this website has contributed strongly to the process of fact-checking the Indian social media as well as the Indian news media. Another thing that makes me put Alt News up as a reliable source here is their extremely detailed transparency, as far as an online media platform is considered. If one goes through their website, it won’t take too long to discover their openness about the steps they follow to fact-check their claims. With separate tabs for the methodology followed to fact-check a claim, the technique that they use to source any of their claims as well as their transparency towards their funding, Alt News surely puts forward a strong example for the mainstream media giants in the country.

One of their more recent pieces, for example, works to debunk the fact that had been making rounds on social media for a while. At one of Rahul Gandhi’s rallies at Wayanad, the participants were alleged to have raised Pakistan’s national flag. Alt News ran a piece describing, in detail, as to how the flag that was used was from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and how similar claims had been made in the past too.

4) Newspapers

In today’s world, where social media reigns supreme and media houses have either moved their workings to the internet, have chosen a path of struggle and decline, or have treaded a path between the two, an economy based on quality has turned into one that is run by quantity. In a market that strives on consumer attention, it is almost natural to assume that media entities would transform into more of a sales force than a group of journalists aiming for better standards. Obviously, there are exceptions to this, but this is the easy way to make money online now.

Additionally, in a pressure to release fresher news every day, the process to fact-check and prepare the piece in a better way starts to suffer. In contrast to this, the country’s print media, although suffering economically, seems to hold its journalistic standards to a higher measure than most of the electronic and online media houses. Although newspapers like The Hindu, or The Pioneer have widely been criticised for respectively taking left-leaning as well as pro-BJP stands, a lot of their pieces do provide unbiased and fair opinions at times.

Furthermore, I agree that newspapers are no less culprits than the online players, especially when their content has, at times, reflected the ideologies of their respective owners. But, in hindsight, given their limited power on the Indian consumer, print media, especially local-run newspapers, seem to provide more honest stories and more accurate facts than their internet-savvy counterparts.

5) Responsibility Of The Reader

Finally, even if you, the consumer of the news, steps out to fight the battle against misinformation, armed with the above resources, the onus of not contributing to the vicious circle of misinformation falls on you. At an event held by the South Dakota Humanities Council, Washington Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, said, “if all they (information sources) do is reinforce your point of view, you should be highly suspicious of them, because that is their purpose.” This is, what I feel, where our duty, as consumers of news comes into play. In an adrenaline-fueled frenzy that follows the moment we see something agreeing to our political ideology online, we don’t hesitate to retweet or share it around.

This way, we are unknowingly contributing to a culture that further thrives on the desire of being agreed with. A lot of outlets mentioned above state the methodologies they follow while debunking various claims and these processes can easily be put to use by a regular consumer. From running a basic Google search on the topic, to using the feature of reverse image search, consumers can begin contributing to the dismantling of this toxic culture in place. Additionally, this video explains the kind of thought process that you can follow before you decide on resharing an item that agrees with you.

In times like today, when we have submitted ourselves to the technology around us, we must also ponder on the extent of its power. We must acknowledge that objectivity is a myth and begin looking at every piece of news with skepticism and use the resources at our dispatch to stop this exploitation of our intellectual selves. Only then, can we, the world’s biggest democracy, provide for a truly fair and free platform.

Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: Garry Knight/Flickr.

The post 5 Reliable Sources You Can Check Facts And Information At Before Casting Your Vote appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

These are the dark times of the media landscape in India.

We entered the age of fake news a long time ago, and certain intellectuals and scholars have just started to call it the age of “post-truth.” When did it start and when it will end, nobody knows. There are different views about the beginning of the post-truth age.

Some say that it started with the invasion of Afghanistan by US based on fake reasons, by spreading misinformation before the invasion. Some blame it on the Iraq War, while some take it to the Fatwa which was issued on Salman Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Some trace its roots to WWII, when Nazi propaganda maestro Joseph Goebbels allegedly said: “A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told thousand times becomes truth.” 

One thing is clear: We are living in a society with half-baked knowledge and misinformation. The result of which is chaos. Here, everything is presumed right and true, presented on screen with a few flashes and images. With the advent of services like Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms, everything is taken for granted, and we believe in everything without verifying it.

In this post-truth world, facts matter less and emotions are exploited to gain advantage. Public opinions are formed on the untruth and personal views to gain immediate access to power.

The interesting part is that people don’t know that they are falling victim to propaganda and fake news.

India has attained the unique distinction of possibly generating more fake news than any other country in the world. This fake news has taken the lives of many, mostly Muslims and other marginalized communities. It has not even spared intellectuals, writers, and journalists. This fake news really kicked into gear with the BJP rule, which boasts of nationalism and has questioned every Indian who opposes its policies and politics of hate and their sense of patriotism.

WhatsApp has become particularly dangerous in India. It’s easy to use and you don’t have to stand in queue to register for it. What you need is a smartphone and an internet connection, which are easily available now.

There are thousands of WhatsApp groups created simply for spreading fake news and to spread hatred in any society. Most of these groups are created by people who don’t believe in democratic norms. With the political backing of their ruling party, they spread misinformation through these pages.

Hindutva-affiliated groups, through various social media platforms, first spread wrong information intentionally. Within a few minutes, this spreads and we see people marching to the Muslim localities and homes, burning the localities and killing innocents. We have seen how Muslims have felt the brunt of this — thrashed, stabbed, and lynched in every part of India.

Other victims of this hate have been Hindus who support progressive values. Activists, writers, and journalists, like Kalburgi, Gauri Lankesh, Pansare, have fallen to this hate. Ravish Kumar, an eminent journalist, is receiving constant threats for his fair and uncompromising reporting and writing.

It seems now the perpetrators and propagators of hate are feeling exhausted after threatening and killing Indian Muslims on baseless allegations. The tide of hate has now been turned towards Kashmiris, particularly in the north Indian cities. This came after the Pulwama blasts, which were blamed on Pakistan. Many Kashmiris were beaten, and misinformation circulated on social media, creating an atmosphere of fear in mainland India.

Most Kashmiri students have left their studies midway and many businessmen have shut down their businesses.

A professor was recently beaten and made to apologize publicly for a post which Hindutva goons failed to understand. The post was simply against war and in favour of peace.

The tussle between India and Pakistan has brought about further propaganda material, with Facebook pages and WhatsApp groups uploading movie and video game snippets of military drills to display India’s might against its opponents. This was picked up by certain jingoistic TV news channels which further stoked the fires of nationalism, and created a craving for war.

The lies, especially from the last four years, have spread enough poison in society. It will take many decades to rid Indian society of the fear and hatred created in the name of fake nationalism and fake patriotism.

Until then, who knows where India will be standing and what will happen to its minorities?

Ashraf Lone is a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress (INC) have both released their manifestos. While the Congress promises “to deliver,” the BJP is promising a “sashakt and sankalpit Bharat.”

The Congress has millions of Indians, the citizens on the cover page of their manifesto; BJP has Narendra Modi on the cover page of what they are calling the “Sankalp Patra.” Without taking a dig on what that says about their priorities, and what they are choosing to represent, the manifestos represent what both parties are promising if they’re elected to power.

There hasn’t been a social issue that hasn’t tapped into the education system. Name it, and we have dealt with it. With the education system already battling the evils of politicisation, privatisation, casteism, curbing of dissent, entry of religion in academics, and sexism, better policies in education will prove to be a battleground for political parties. Following is a breakdown of what the parties are each pitching in terms of educational development.

What Is The Congress Promising?

The Congress is majorly promising the following:

1. Transferring school education under the State List, while retaining higher education in the Union List.
2. More importance to “learning outcomes,” after ASER (Annual Survey Education Report) highlighted poor quality of education and poor learning outcomes.
3. To restore the autonomy in campuses, and also restore the 200-point roster system in colleges.
4. The Congress will pass a Students Rights Bill to codify the rights and obligations of students in colleges and universities.
5. Increase in teacher training institutes and a scheme on the “continuing education of teachers” which would entail mandatory participation.
6. Increment of education GDP to the ideal 6% from the current 3%; increase in the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in Higher Education from the current level of 25.8 to the level of at least 40 in a period of 5 years.
7. Scrapping of the NEET examination and incorporating a state level examination of equivalent standard
Increase in funding and grants to colleges, and scholarships to students
8. Expanding the Education Loan programme, making it more efficient, accessible and smooth for students and waiver of outstanding interest dues on old education loans as of March 31, 2019.
9. Include guest, temporary and contract teachers in the regular establishment of universities so that they receive the benefits due to them.
10. Better infrastructure, technology-enabled teaching, compulsory vocational training from classes I-XII, more universities, more Kendriya and Navodya Vidyalayas, among important things.

Where The Congress Won

The Congress’ manifesto is more definitive, clear and specific in issues it wants to address.

1. Working towards guest and contract teachers getting their due is a big win, because they have been grappling with the lack of a permanent status and pay for a while.
2. With education being a privilege in India, making the ‘Education Loan Programme’ more efficient and wide-reaching is a great step in working towards accessibility of education.
3. Especially after the numerous fund cuts at JNU and TISS, and fee hikes in various universities, increase in funding is an issue that needed to be addressed.
4. The state of education in a country speaks volumes about its development as a nation, and a 6% budgetary allocation would be the best means to achieve the end. The waiver of the outstanding student loans would be a great step, too.
5. Students across the country have suffered the most struggling for the most basic freedoms and issues of moral policing, gender bias and lack of freedom to dissent. A Student Code Bill would help in addressing all these problems collectively to a great extent.
6. Transferring School Education to State List would help tackle a lot of issues that need immediate attention and get delayed because of the hierarchy and the institutionalization.
7. Restoring the 200-point roster would be a big relief from the chaos and dysfunctionality the 13-point roster has caused.

Where The Congress Lost

While the Congress focuses on mending a lot of things and lacunas that crept into campuses in the past few years, the manifesto isn’t too vocal on some long term goals that it seeks to achieve. While it’s great that higher education has been given more preference in the manifesto, school education should have also been more attention to, given that schools are where the cracks and fault lines begin to develop and appear.

What Is The BJP Promising?

The BJP is promising the following:

1. After having identified the learning outcomes, the party now promises to work towards achieving them; also ensures ‘teachers’ training’ and ‘capacity building.’
2. Establishment of national institutes of teachers’ training with four-year integrated courses that would set standards for quality teachers in schools.
3. More smart classes; 200 more Kendriya and Navodya Vidyalayas by 2024.
4. Launch of the ‘Prime Minister Innovative Learning Programme’ which will bring together children from all over the country, at a place, for a period of time, and provide facilities and resources to excel and encourage innovation.
5. Increment in seats in all law, engineering, and management institutions by 50%.
6. Development of online courses as a major resource for higher education.
7. Incorporation of arts, culture, music universities and state-of-the-art tourism and hospitality university to also promote arts.
8. Increased autonomy in institutions; 50 Institutes of Eminence (IoE) by 2024, more Indian institutes in top 500 world ranking by 2024.
9. Expansion of their launched ‘National Digital Library of India’ to also provide access to leading journals free of cost; promote a ‘Study In India’ programme.

Where The BJP Won

1. Increment in seats by 50% for all courses would be a great step in addressing other related problems of reservation.
2. Opening arts, music and tourism universities would be a great way to assert the equal importance of arts and humanities as vocations and professions, instead of solely focusing on science and management.Having said that, while opening new colleges provides a great boost, it’s essential to pay attention to the already existing colleges which are established names but face neglect and lack of funds.
3. Imparting education through online courses would enable access and equity to a lot of students throughout the country. What remains to be seen is how it’ll be made a reality, as a lot of online courses were scrapped last year due to change in policy.

Where The BJP Lost

An overall analysis of how the manifesto covers education is highly disappointing and massively lacking in substance. It talks about achieving numerous high-end goals, but clearly lack the scheme and measures to achieve the goal. Instead of unfound promises and meaningless assurances, they should have focused on increasing budgetary allocation for education, increasing funding for universities and state grants. Political parties like AAP have already implemented more than half of what BJP is promising, with optimum utilization of minimal resources. Furthermore, the government has been extremely inconsistent with their criterion for exams like NET, NEET and others.

1. BJP begins the education section with the far-fetched claim saying “having achieved access and equity in school education…” then going on to enlist how they want to achieve quality education. Reports from India Today, Oxford Humans Rights Hub say otherwise.
2. Providing four year integrated courses for teachers’ training is a vague promise, and a huge time investment, given that most of our teachers choose academics because of the absence of any other option. The same holds true for the ‘Prime Minister Innovative Learning Programme.’
3. ‘Capacity building,’ ‘teachers’ training,’ ‘identified learning outcomes’ are vague, yet fancy phrases that only highlight the lack of a definitive scheme to tackle the sorry state of education in India-both in schools, and universities.
4. Programmes like ‘Study in India’ sound good on paper, but are an impossibility given the fact that our universities are not in great shape, and are still struggling with the most sensitive issues of gender, patriarchy, funding and quality. We need policies that understand the nerve of the problem and trickle down to the smallest unit and address it.
5. Promising more autonomy? It’s quite ironic given that the government has actively tried to curb it at every possible instance. Institutions have lost independence, more so in the last five years. “In the past five years, a number of our institutions have figured in the top 500 institutions of the world,” the manifesto states. Only five institutes have found place in all of 500 around the world. It doesn’t make sense to present a flowery picture when it doesn’t even exist. Development can really be planned only when the present state is honestly acknowledged.

Our colleges haven’t seen many “achche din” in the last five years. The focus needs to be on picking up the pieces and bettering India in its current form, instead of wanting to revamp the entire structure and routing for a ‘new India.’

Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: Keshav Singh for Hindustan Times via Getty; Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India/Wikimedia Commons.

The post Manifesto Check: How Do The BJP And Congress Plan On Improving India’s Education? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

“By ‘Ramrajya’ I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by ‘Ramarajya’ divine Raj, the kingdom of God. For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of truth and righteousness.”

– Mahatma Gandhi.

Does this definition still hold? Are we still talking about the same Ramarajya that Gandhi was talking about? Or are we just focusing on the word ‘Ram’ without understanding the true meaning of the term?

So What Does Ramrajya Actually Mean?

It’s an ideal form of government, a government where the ruler and subjects have a sort of a parent-child relationship, where the subjects can approach the ruler anytime with whatever problem they have and the ruler works for his/her subjects with a sense of duty, responsibility and love. Like a parent the ruler doesn’t discriminate between its subjects (children), and treats all his/her subjects with equal compassion.

The ruler focuses on public good coupled with self-austerity. It’s a state where no decision is taken that harms even a single person, where every voice is heard and where justice is swift and accessible to even the poorest, the weakest and the marginalised. It’s a state where even the subjects are righteous, nobody steals and nobody speaks any untruth, an absolute ideal society.

It goes without saying that it’s a utopian idea. There’s no such state, there never was and most likely there never will be. But nevertheless it’s an interesting concept and more so because of the way it has been twisted, misinterpreted and misused in recent years.

The concept of Ramarajya finds its roots in Ramayana, the holy Hindu scripture, like many other religious books it describes how humans and society at large should behave and conduct themselves and thus setting moral guidelines. The concept was later popularised by Mahatma Gandhi. He wanted India to be a Ramrajya after independence, but he never meant it to be a Hindu nation or a nation on lines of Hindu ideology, he simply wanted India to be a nation where the government is as ideal as described by Ramrajya. On several occasions, he clarified that for him Rama wasn’t just the Hindu God but Khuda and Jesus too. This concept was never communal, it was never intended to glorify Hindus.

So When Did The Shift Happen?

When did we start to identify it with the idea of a Hindu nation? Was it the Partition? Or the early 1990s when the Babri Masjid was demolished in the name of Ram? Or very recently where every political party is using or rather misusing Rama to further their political ambitions?

I think the answer is all of them and more. I think it all started even before independence and kept on getting strengthened with each of these historic watersheds. Britishers had a basic philosophy they called ‘Divide and Rule’, as it is popularly said it’s easier to break one stick at a time than breaking five together. They sowed the seeds of communal hatred and incited the two main religions in India the majority Hindus and the largest minority Muslims against each other and politicians to this very day are nurturing it and reaping the fruits.

This dirty trick that the Britishers played was so efficient that the two communities who had lived together in harmony for almost a millennia became each other’s biggest enemy. Their divisive policy led to growing resentment in the hearts of both the communities and their politically motivated encouragement of ‘Two Nation’ solution and finally partition on the lines of religion was the biggest blow to our nation’s secularism.

The Partition was their dirtiest trick to keep the conflict in the region go on forever and never let us focus on peace and development. Obviously there were elements who genuinely wanted a separate Muslim nation and some others who wanted to make India a Hindu state just for Hindus. The British involvement gave them legitimacy and they were used as pawns by the Britishers. Over time these elements grew both in size and power leading to a bloody partition in which countless innocent lives were lost.

Later numerous wars between these two new nations cemented this hatred and gave these fringe elements on both sides a chance to further their ideology and political ambitions. Later incidents like Shah Bano case in 1986 where the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Shah Bano ordering her husband to pay her alimony. There was a huge backlash from various Muslim clerics and politicians against the judgement as according to them the ruling was in conflict with Islamic laws.

The then Rajiv Gandhi government, in order to appease the Muslim vote bank passed Muslim Women (Protection of Right on Divorce) Act 1986, which limited rights of Muslim women to alimony only during the time of iddat (90 days after divorce). The religious politics has always been a reality in India, the deeply rooted religious divide solidified by British policies was again being used by the people in power. The RSS and its political arm Bhartiya Jan Sangh even though gained popularity but never managed to win more than 35 seats in the general elections. Jan Sangh merged with Janta Party in 1977 and was succeeded by Bhartiya Janta Party in 1980 after the fall of Janta government.

The BJP secured only 2 seats in 1984 General Election, its seat share increased to 85 in 1989, but VP Singh government implemented Mandal Commission’s recommendation of providing 27% reservation and in fear of losing its Hindu vote bank the then BJP president L. K. Advani, members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other members of the Sangh Parivar organized a Rath Yatra from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh to erect an idol of Ram in Babri Masjid.

According to the Ramayana, Rama was born in Ayodhya, and according to hearsay, the Babri Masjid was the very spot where Rama was born. The Ratha Yatra was joined by several militant Hindu organisations and several lakh people reached Ayodhya in December 1992. On 6th the unthinkable happened, people climbed on the three domes of the Babri Masjid and started breaking the structure, with the Masjid our hopes of a peaceful, secular India were also demolished that day.

As I see it, along with the politicians, the people present in Ayodhya and those who actually demolished the structure, we are all to blame. Politicians do what they do for votes, it is us who allow them to divide us and distract us from the real issues. The Babri Masjid demolition and the associated Rama Janambhoomi case which is still sub-judice show us the real picture of our divided society. The violence and hatred continued and this led to the Godhra riots.

A train full of Hindus was returning from Ayodhya in 2002 and was burned by some Muslims, this led to the Godhra riots or rather pogrom, where allegedly the then BJP state government asked the police to let people vent out their anger and to not take action against those who might retaliate to the train burning incident. What could be the purpose of such an act by the government other than appeasement! The issue of Ram Mandir has come up time and again and particularly in election years, the pattern of escalation of tension around this issue surely tells us the only purpose it serves. An absolutely apt line someone said about the issue, “Ayodhya mein tanav hain kya? Dekho dekho chunaav hain kya?” perfectly describes it.

This strategy to divide and polarize people to serve their political ends is still prevalent. Recently the so called Gau Raksha Movement where cow vigilantes have lynched several people on rumors of them eating beef. The Triple Talaq case and the Sabarimala case are the perfect examples to prove the double standards and appeasement. Triple talaq was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in August 2017 and later in December 2017 a bill was introduced by the incumbent government banning the practice.

The bill failed to pass, the government in 2018 promulgated an ordinance and reintroduced the bill in winter session of 2018. This bill was passed by Lok Sabha but failed to pass in the Rajya Sabha even in the Budget session of 2019, the bill has now lapsed and will have to be reintroduced after 2019 General Election. Even though the bill seeks to end a regressive practice it was brought in by the incumbent government and was opposed by the opposition to appease their respective votebanks.

The Sabrimala case is the exact opposite because the religion in question here is different. The Supreme Court in September 2018 struck down a rule that banned females in age group of 10-50 from entering the temple. Both of these verdicts are laudable, ending regressive practices and a step towards gender equality, but in Sabrimala case, the opposition and incumbent state government were in support, incumbent central government opposing the verdict.

The Prime Minister in an interview said that triple talaq is not an integral part of Islam, but the Sabrimala entry rule is an old tradition which shouldn’t be broken. Does this make any sense? Don’t these two cases prove that the only core value system these political parties have is to build the vote bank?

Slowly and gradually with each of these incidents the idea and concept of Ramrajya got corrupted. It went from being the idea of an ideal secular state to being one of a Hindu state based on the lines of Hindu ideology, where noone who doesn’t allow Hindu hegemony should be allowed to live. The idea of Ramrajya has during this transformation acquired ideas of Hindutva and these two terms are now used interchangeably. Hindutva started as a cultural movement, defining a Hindu as anyone who considers India as their fatherland and holy land- people united by common cultural heritage.

The term was polularized by V.D Savarkar and was adopted by RSS as its ideology and sole aim to achieve. Hindutva being a cultural movement, sets it apart from Nazi fascism or neo-fascist movements like KKK which were/are solely based on race. But a fine look into the very definition of Hindutva excludes the two main minorities, the Muslims and the Christians for considering Arabia and Jerusalem respectively as their holy land. They may love India, they may be ready to die for their country but they cannot be considered a part of the Hindutva culture and this what is being taught and spread.

The idea of the Hindu culture or Hindutva has also become increasingly rigid over time. History is told in a fashion to make Hindus insecure. Muslims are called outsiders who came here to enslave the Indian aboriginals (Hindus). India since the age of the Harappan civilisation has been a prosperous land and thus attracting people from all parts of the world for trade. India has also been the birth place of several religions and numerous scholars and missionaries like Al-Beruni, Fa-Hien, Huien-Tsang, Ibn Batuta, Magasthenes, Marco Polo and countless others have visited India from time to time to learn about our culture, religions and political system.

All these traders, scholars, missionaries, travellers and ambassadors along with learning about our culture also influenced ours by bringing in ideas from their countries. India has adopted and incorporated several of these ideas into its own culture and this has in turn made India a melting pot of various cultures and thoughts and has given us our distinct identity. Only a few years after Islam was founded, its ideas and philosophies also came into India with the traders from the Middle East first in the southern region of the country now the state of Kerala. Many in India adopted the idea and accepted Islam as their religion, the religion may not have been founded in India but does adopting it as their religion make these Indians outsiders too?

 Who Are The Original Inhabitants Of India?

The Harappan Civilisation got extinct suddenly around 2000-1800 BC, there are several theories but nobody know for sure what eventually happened to these people. Aryans (as given in several history books) arguably came in from Central Asia and settled here, they then wrote the Vedas and the Hindu way of life was developed and was adopted by many in India. Like many other prosperous civilisations India too has faced several invasions and immigrants from outside have come here from time to time to make India their home.

First the Aryans came and settled here and later after Islam was founded in Arabia many tribes and rulers came in from the adjacent western region and India was ruled by several Muslim Dynasties, Mughal Empire being the most important one. This has always been the case, people throughout history have come to India, settled here and made India their home. So does it really matter who came first and who came later as long as they accept India as their home? Or does it matter which philosophy or religion came or was developed first as long as people following it consider India as their home?

Religion has nothing to do with these invasions, a prosperous region attracts people from outside, this has always been the case and this still happens, even though its form might have changed. We talk about Aurangzeb who proselytised people and imposed taxes on non-Muslims, but which country hasn’t experienced reign of bad kings? We hear the names of Babur and Aurangzeb because it suits the narrative and it helps the propaganda. Nobody talks about Akbar who was secular, called Hindustan his homeland, had several Hindus in his court and married several Hindu princes (even though for political reasons).

We don’t talk about Bahadur Shah Zafar who was declared the Shahenshah-i-Hind by both Hindus and Muslims during the revolt of 1857 because it didn’t matter which religion we followed we were all just Hindustanis then. Whatever happened in the past, the present population, whichever religion they may follow, whether their ancestors were the original inhabitants or came in later, whether they adopted a religion wilfully or were proselytized, have been living here for several centuries and millenniums now, then how can they be termed outsiders? And even if people from outside today come and settle here, what difference does that make?

Ours has been an inclusive and accommodating culture, this xenophobia and bigotry have been very recently infused into our secular tolerant society by people who wanted to divide us by cultivating these insecurities and by telling us that our identity is in danger.

This has been done very systematically one religious hysteria at a time. Even though some might have been forcefully converted to Islam by kings like Aurangzeb but after tens of generation how can we differentiate between someone who was forcefully converted and one who adopted it wilfully?

Does it really matter what happened 400-500 years ago? Even if it does and some may argue that some of these people might have been Hindus if they hadn’t been forcefully converted but religion any way is a personal affair, the only thing that matters is what today’s generation, the people alive today identify themselves as. Isn’t converting Muslims today, born as Muslims and following their religion as true believers to Hinduism in the name of ‘Ghar Wapasi’ proselytism too?

This is the biggest hurdle in India’s growth story. This doesn’t just have social implications but political, economic, legal implications too.

There are several social problems the new rigid Hindutva has intensified, let’s take them up one by one. It has further solidified casteism in Indian society, Hindutva in its present form is a so called upper caste movement. Hindutva by its very definition aims to establish a Hindu Rajya on the lines of Hindu ideology and varna system is part of this Hindu ideology. There has been a rise in crime against people from Scheduled Castes in both the incumbent government’s and last government’s tenure seeing a fall only in 2015. This rise can be attributed to several factors including rise in awareness and reporting of such crimes, which is a positive thing but shouldn’t rise is reporting also lead to rise in the justice delivery and ultimately fall in such incidents?

A closer look at the geographical distribution of such crimes reveals that such cases are high in the Hindi heartland which is also the epicentre of the caste and religious politics. In 2016 over a quarter of such crimes took place in Uttar Pradesh alone followed by Bihar and Rajasthan. It is a sad truth that caste is deeply ingrained in the Indian society and there are several factors apart from divisive politics for such crimes, but the rise in Hindutva and divisive politics will only worsen the situation which is already out of hand.

The status of women in our society will further deteriorate in the present environment. The new rigid Hindutva has strengthened the patriarchal system which has led to increase in crime against women. Their wrong understanding and misinterpretation of the Hindu culture has further curtailed women’s freedom. Even in today’s day and age the dowry system is still prevalent.

Many of these Hindutva leaders have now started preaching their followers to breed as many children as they can so as to maintain their hegemony over minority, this has and will further reduce women’s status to just a childbearing machine and in turn promotes child marriage to increase childbearing age.

With the rise is divisive politics both on the lines of religion and caste, the cases of honour killing will only rise. ‘Love Jihad’ is a very popular term. Hindutva leaders have convinced their followers that Muslims boys are sent on a mission to “trap” Hindu girls and convert them to Islam. They feel a need to impose restriction on women for their own safety, this shows their misogynistic mindset. Women suffer most in communal violence, they are raped, killed and even when they are left alive many of them are not accepted by their families. The Sabrimala case and the halfhearted attempt to pass the triple talaq bill shows the attitude of this divisive political scenario towards addressing women’s issues.

Communal division is both the result and the tactic of divisive politics. It’s a vicious cycle, the more communally divided we get in this divisive environment, the more divisive tactics they use and the more divisive tactics they use, the more communally divided we get.

Politically too it has huge implications, both on our domestic political system and international political relations. Domestically, this divisive politics weakens the democracy and deviates us from the real issues. Just look at the political speeches of our leaders just after independence and speeches of leaders now. From ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ we have now stooped to a level where one party says ‘Mandir wahin banayege’, one of the leaders of the main opposition says they’ll find the path Ram travelled during his exile and construct a ‘Rampath’. From the slogan of ‘Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai, sab aapas mein bhai bhai’ we have reached a time where both Hindu and Muslim leaders have time and again shamefully in their political speeches dared police to step aside for them to show their strength. This also weakens the idea of a cooperative federal structure.

Internationally due to this divisive politics India will weaken its status of a soft power. India is viewed internationally as a diverse but still a united country. Diversity of culture, religion, race, language, topography, climate and what not but everything has been adopted and accepted with open arms.

India still doesn’t have the economic or military might to compete with the US or China, but being a soft power India has more acceptability and trustworthiness than these two. India aims to become a major global power and maybe a superpower someday, this divisive politics and ultimately division in the society at large will be a major hindrance.

In this divisive scenario, economic divide among communities will widen with the party in power giving patronage to their votebank. Bias against minorities and strengthening of patriarchy will lead to lesser participation of the minorities and women in the economy leaving a major segment of the population out of the economic development. This will have a negative impact of the GDP and economic growth. India being such a diverse country could be a hot destination for tourism but this environment of communal intolerance and violence will hamper India’s chance of being a preferable tourist destination and thus losing billions in potential forex earnings. The tourism industry is also a huge job creator and India will miss out on such job creation opportunities.

This rise in Hindutva might sour our relations with some of the oil rich Middle-East Asian countries which will have direct impact on our energy needs and thus the economy at large. Our scientific temper has been attacked by claims such as ancient India had made exceptional strides in science and technology developing airplanes, atomic bombs and plastic surgery. We are made to believe that during Islamic rule we lost all our glory (even though India was the largest economy in the world during Akbar’s reign controlling 25% of global trade) and the only way to restore India past glory is a prolonged Hindutva rule. This push for mythological glory will not develop scientific temper and promote innovation. Shouldn’t we rather glorify our real scientific geniuses and encourage our youth to follow the likes of Aryabhatta, Sushruta, JC Bose, CV Raman, Homi Jehangir Bhabha and lead the world in scientific innovation? This won’t suit their narrative and won’t help their cause.

So What Really Is The Solution?

How can we achieve a true Ramrajya? The solution is simple- ‘We, the people’. Our constitution starts with these very words, ‘We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’.

The people in power know the tune we all dance to and they are playing it at full blast. Yes, we have as a nation faced several atrocities in the past but will fighting over it among ourselves improve our present or our future? The only people it is helping are those in control, those whom we have given authority over our lives. It is popularly said that the politics and politicians are a reflection of society and ours look divided on the lines of religion, caste and gender. We are a democratic country, a crooked, biased, divided and influenced democracy, but a democracy nonetheless and these people are one of us. We are both the cause and solution of the state of our democracy, we will have to change ourselves first, as Gandhi ji quoted “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

The post Seeking Ramrajya: What It Really Means appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Elections bring promises. Promises beget aspirations. Aspirations blossom into expectations after a party comes into Government. Expectations largely contort into dejection for voters. With the two largest parties bringing out their manifestos, without forgetting the idealistic picture they intend to project, it is important to look into whether these 2 pieces of paper are actually worth the paper they are written on. Are the promises practical? Do they recognise the crux of the problems that besot India? Whether the solutions they give are incremental or radical? Obviously, the parties do not lack expertise, but does expertise translate into sensible policy? I shall delve into a running commentary on a few issues.

The Challenger

The Congress starts off with the promise of protecting existing jobs and facilitating new ones. Its main solution is when it promises to fill up 4 lakh vacancies in Government; a choice that will lead to, especially with the existing 7th Pay Commission, a huge burden on the fiscal deficit. Congress itself mentions this when it says that “the revenue deficit will be contained, as far as possible, under 1 per cent of GDP” (page 19). Not even close to being possible. It is hard balancing increasing Government jobs with macro-economic stability. However, for a situation to occur, where a bulky Government, inundated with innumerable employees, has to make lay-offs (or reduce money from important measures) due to an unsustainable deficit will be even worse. Congress goes for overkill. There is a reason why “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” was a success. Inexorably, automation and digitisation will make Government jobs smaller. To artificially inflate the Government’s size, to spend hard-earned tax-payer money on people who might benefit from skill development, would be better.

Next, the Congress, correctly identifies that MSME’s definition must be towards employment instead of capital. “I employ x number of people” is much better and truer a reflection of a small business than “I invest x amount in plant and machinery“. Commendable. It also promises a Tourism Development Bank to promote tourism, a desperately needed measure since tourism is booming.

On pages 13 and 14, a political jibe appears as the party wants “to do a quick review of the rules and regulations made by the BJP Government in the last 5 years and repeal as many of them as are necessary to free industry and business from the ‘Control Raj'”. If the Congress was paying any attention, it’s removing regulations that the BJP has been obsessed with. Take a glance at the Ease of Doing Business reports. More importantly, Congress would do well to remove ALL unnecessary regulations, lest they forget who instituted the Licence-Permit-Quota Raj.

On infrastructure, the Congress is right. India is clamouring for massive investment into its highways, roads, bridges, railways and wastewater plants. However, its proposal for having directly elected mayors seems contentious. Elected mayors may sound reformative, but, it misses the more pertinent issue of how to wrest control by state Governments from municipalities, politically and financially. What happens when a mayor is from the CPI but the state government is the BJP as happened in Himachal Pradesh? Is a Presidential system better than a Parliamentary system for local governments? Will it ensure an accountable face in cities? Yes. Will that exclusively led to better governance? No.

The Congress rightly talks about reforming the Essential Commodities Act, APMC Acts, digitisation of land records etc. It extends MGNREGA to 150 days. The system of wage distribution, which is largely swallowed by the middle-man must also be reformed. The biggest self-proclaimed trump card it has is its minimum income guarantee scheme i.e. the NYAY Scheme. Forget about the fact that Government debt-to-GDP is over 60%. Forget about the fact that this scheme will basically ensure higher direct and indirect taxes on people who will not benefit from this scheme. Forget the fact that subsidies will have to, not might be, reduced or “rationalised”. Forget that not every poor has a bank account. Forget that it will not help the lower-middle class. Forget it will be heavily inflationary and might raise the fiscal deficit from below 3.5 % to 7%-8%. Even disregard that the beneficiaries are identified on just the outdated and wrongly defining (poverty based on assets not income) SECC 2011 census. The scheme is intended, but should not be uniform. A poor person in Kochi is not the same level as a poor person in Ranchi. Its implementation is vague, since it is intended to be a pilot first.

The Congress’s promise to abolish the e-way bill (page 22), an anti-corruption mechanism for inter-state goods over Rs. 50,000, and rely solely on “risk management mechanism and strengthening the intelligence machinery” is vague and uncertain. Not good for business or logistics. When it promises increasing expenditure on science to 2% of GDP as well as creating a patent pool, that seems commendable and much needed.

The promise of scrapping the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 is nonsensical. Citizenship to persecuted minorities (Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists and Christians) in Muslim majority countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh is important, but, must be balanced by not dishonouring the Assam Accord. Assam and other North-Eastern states must not share the majority of the burden of these refugees. These minorities must be signalled that they have a home in India, which is truly secular. The Congress, in placating North-East sentiments, is looking the other way when atrocities against minorities in our neighbourhood takes place. Even worse, on the NRC, it is hazy. Nothing less than weeding out illegal immigration should do, in my opinion. What of a country’s sovereignty, of fairness to legal immigrants and our own citizens, if everyone, including non-persecuted illegal immigrants, get citizenship? Double-standards.

The Congress is 100% right in their answer to the question of whether defamation is a crime or not? It is not. Change the law. No democracy can afford to supersede a person’s reputation in front of free speech. However, another law they intend to amend is the sedition law. Whilst it is asinine to say that the freedom to offend must not be present, it is critical if people, in their disagreement, stoke separatist sentiments or if they attack the idea of India, not the Government. True, the law has been misused, but changing the law is rather dim. Even AFSPA, which is promised at being “reviewed”, I am sure will be opposed by the forces. That law is not even misused as much as the Public Safety Act. AFSPA must be removed from central areas and must, if possible, be exclusive to border areas which are usually disturbed areas. Removing laws versus ensuring they are not misused is an important line the Congress is missing.

The amendment to include the prohibition of discrimination against disability has been a long time coming. A good move to end discrimination against people with physical and mental handicaps. The Congress talks about amending the Anti-Defection Law for instant disqualification if a member does not obey the whip. Really?  I have written at length about the need to abolish this farcical provision. It also plans to introduce a law for hate crimes. Although I believe, for hate crimes, existing laws are stringent enough, I only hope this law is vastly different from its Communal Violence Bill.

Lastly, politically, the Congress promises to review the Rafale Deal (page 33). What it will find that the Supreme Court or CAG did not, I do not know; what it will definitely do is deter people from doing defence deals in India. Likewise, politically, when it talks about investigating people who defrauded the country, it forgets these people got loans under their regime. On the whole, it seems like a mixed bag of trying to promise everything under the sun. Some good, others not thought through.

The Incumbent

The BJP’s manifesto, while devoid of any “big-bang” ideas, is largely a continuation of its existing ideas spread over their 5 years. They start with talking about a zero tolerance to terrorism approach. Largely similar to the Congress’ claim, what distinguishes the BJP now is that it will not waver from responding back. More interestingly, unlike the Congress, it promises to enact a Model Police Act. This has been a reform since the 1970s. Commission after commission has suggested this. To de-politicise the police and hold it accountable is beyond exigent.

The BJP promises, much like the Congress, to increase the working conditions of forces at the border (construction of roads, welfare etc.). Good. Thankfully, the BJP, unlike the Congress, promises to not only repeal Article 370 and end its “special status”, it will also repeal Article 35-A which is discriminatory to say the least. Used by Indians to discriminate against Indians. I have written about this extensively. Should it not be the case that an Article, which was inserted through an order, not a law, and is plainly discriminatory, must go?

It wants to implement the Citizenship Amendment Bill. In terms of national security, there is no doubt who is stronger. The BJP amends its farm crop insurance scheme to make it voluntary, not mandatory. This scheme has been ineffective and this change will do nothing to ensure the high premiums of the insurance companies subside.

The BJP remains committed to building 60,000 kilometres in the next 5 years. Its current record, which is genuinely impressive, if continues has the opportunity to transform rural India. Unfortunately, on GST, it still does not want to include petroleum, real-estate or electricity. This is a low-hanging fruit affirmed by both parties and should not have been excluded. Despite starting a committee to look into direct taxes, the BJP does not talk about the Direct Taxes Code (DTC), unlike the Congress who does.

The BJP also recommits to Article 44 – a Uniform Civil Code. In a country with huge diversity; a UCC should look sensible when a country is subjected to the same criminal laws, it must be, to the same civil ones. It’s a different matter as to what the UCC would look like as there has never been a draft, but, more importantly, there must be political consensus on this matter.

Both parties do not offer any radical transformation in our labour or land laws. Apart from the desirable goal of digitisation of land records, there should have been a vision on how labour and laws must be changed to balance urbanisation and commercialisation, with protecting the marginalised.

The BJP promises more arbitration centres which might make the judicial burden lesser. Speaking of the judiciary, they seem to have left out the NJAC Act, which, the Congress actually has implemented. Surprising to see why, since the BJP (with the Congress) passed the Bill, which was later ruled unconstitutional, unfairly so, in my opinion.

Why the BJP chooses to include simultaneous elections is beyond me. It is not the right approach to deal with incessant elections, or their . At best, a legitimate case, based on consensus, could be made to create a mid-term elections. Where one phase happens in April-May (general elections) and one in October-November within 2 years.  It also, in foreign policy has an ambitious goal to get a UNSC Permanent Membership. Although it can be debated how effective the UN is, or whether it is possible to get a membership, this Government’s track record of getting India into the SCO, MTCR and the Wassenaar Arrangement is rather impressive.

Overall, a sedate incumbent. Its best aspect is that it does not over-promise or try to exorbitantly attract. It is confident in its schemes and seeks to get back into Government on the back of its existing schemes, with an exponential push on those schemes.

Who Wins?

Manifestos are ideal. They try to project a vision of the country and what you would do with power in your hands. I have problems with both, but both offer a whole host of things to their core supporters whilst being wide enough to attract voters. Instead of balancing the line, I readily admit I am clearly allured towards the BJP’s pragmatism over the Congress’ exercise in extravaganza, however, manifestos, like rhetoric, work well in theatrics and not so much in governance, where impatience and flip-flopping come to bite the party back.

The post A Tale Of 2 Manifestos: Are The Promises Made By BJP And Congress Practical? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Two thirds of India currently is less than 35 yeas of age and suicide is the second leading cause of death among those aged 15-29. These statistics are alarming. Additionally, several young people are coming out of the closet regarding their gender and sexual identities, but society’s response often makes it difficult to live life on one’s own terms. When social structures extinguish the possibility of living an authentic and fulfilling life, suicide feels like the only course of action. Being from the queer community myself, I view suicide as preventable deaths. It can be stopped if we become a more aware and inclusive society. If there’s a way of shaping a better world, I wish to be part of it.

The ‘right to mental health care’ has become a legal provision for the first time in India due to the Mental Health Care Act 2017. However, the government must implement the law in letter and spirit for provision of quality, affordable, accessible mental health care. Thus, Centre For Mental Health Law and Policy, Anjali, Mariwala Health Initiative and Anubhuti Trust formed a coalition to make this a priority issue during an election year. The initiative invited everyone associated with mental health across sectors to join a nation-wide campaign on ‘Bridge The Care Gap.’

Having joined as the Chief Advisor at Mariwala Health Initiative, it has been a privilege to be associated with Bridge the Care Gap. Though I was not an active part of the think tank, the campaign has become close to my heart in the way it has approached mental health from a psychosocial lens and given particular emphasis to voices on the margins. This has been a major first, and as a queer feminist who believes in social justice, this campaign ticks all the boxes.

As political parties were currently working on their election manifestos, our coalition members met with political representatives to explain our demands and provide inputs for use in political manifestos. Bridge the Care Gap also asks for people to sign an online petition to say that mental health matters to their vote.

As a queer mental health practitioner, I would say, one of the critical elements of this campaign are the video-documentaries of first-person accounts from user-survivors, and influencer voices. With the videos in English, Marathi, Bengali and Tamil, there is a significant expansion and reframing of the mental health conversation. We have three mental health professionals with lived experience, including a queer and trans narrative. The videos talk of multiple paths towards resilience, such as psychotherapy, medication, art therapy, and how support is important.

Bridge The Care Gap has also seen support from over 50 organisations, many of whom work on mental health. They are the Live Love Laugh Foundation, White Swan Foundation, Banyan, Iswar Sankalpa, and Bipolar India, with their work areas ranging from knowledge on mental health, service delivery, and user-led advocacy. Notably, we are joined by multiple organisations who do not work directly on mental health, but on child rights, women’s rights, law and policy, LGBTQ concerns, human rights, and livelihood. This participation is crucial and resonates with my politics, for it follows an intersectional and intersectoral approach—looking at systemic and structural barriers and highlights inclusion, social justice and human rights.

With nearly 8,500 signatures and two political parties—Congress (I) and CPI (M)—including our demands in their manifestos, this campaign has become a landmark, with mental health being mentioned for the first time in political manifestos. We had reached out to other national and regional parties, but mental health did not get included in their manifestos. However, we are continuing to engage with others who are yet to publish their manifestos.

This campaign has meant that we will be able to hold two political parties accountable to their promises, as well as widen the stakeholders who work on mental health. Reframing the discourse around mental health and situating it in the psychosocial is key to not only improving mental health outcomes, but working on social justice. But most importantly, we must recognise that any one of us could have mental health issues and therefore we must be involved in creating quality resources that we can bank on.

To participate in this historical campaign, head here to sign the petition.

The post Will Our Political Parties Rise To The Occasion And Make Mental Health A Priority? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Can you believe that the IELTS exam eliminated caste marriages? Did you know many Punjabi’s have immigrated illegally through Mexico in the past and maybe are still doing it? What would Donald Trump think? There’s a strong reason why the ‘Punjab Exodus’ is rampant at the moment and it’s got to do with finding a better future and getting jobs.

More importantly, why are young people running away from Punjab? It could be because of a lack of jobs, gangs or drugs? or is it because of a complete failure of societal and political systems in Punjab?

PlucCreators Sandeep and Shubham Gupta explore the ‘Punjab Exodus’ by travelling to more than 15 villages, talking to people who have immigrated illegally.

The post Why Are Young Punjabis Illegally Immigrating To America And Canada? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

There’s a persisting notion that development means fancy things you can touch and feel. The identity of an average Indian today rests on a post-colonial social fabric, while balancing itself on a post-liberalisation economy that still has no jobs for its youth (!!!). While we desperately convert our small towns into Shanghais, and distribute mobile services to every rural resident, what happens to the development of the mind? Are we any more open as a people than we were a few decades ago? Have we made any significant progress in ensuring everyone has equal opportunity?

Maybe not, but we do have women’s colleges.

I had always known that I would attend a women’s college when my time came. The reason for this was that I was lucky to have grown up surrounded by women who are trailblazers. Many of them credited their independence and drive to the fact that they attended women’s colleges. I was convinced my college life would free me, from a problem of plenty. Plenty of an unbiased, and a relatively liberal, upbringing.

My higher education took place in an institution that has been ranked number one for the second time in a row. Interestingly, I happened to be the third generation in my family to have attended the institution. So in my view, Miranda House has always been number one.

Even so, being a tiny part of a larger process of equalisation was liberating, to say the least. I emerged wiser, happier, funnier, and more in control of who I wanted to be. And, of course, my discipline challenged me and forced me to look beyond resources that were immediately available.

I cannot speak of Miranda House without mentioning how empowered the women are in that campus. I knew the kind of legacy I was going to be a part of – this is the place where Urvashi Butalia did away with Miss Miranda before establishing a feminist publishing house. If anything, the alumni of the institution have the tag of a “oh, feminist ho!” attached to them wherever they go, and for good reason.

The freedom on the campus has to be experienced to be believed. There is, of course, the stereotype that students in women’s colleges spend a majority of their time engaging in petty fights with each other, but that was never the case with me. Everyone I knew, friends and acquaintances, entered and left Miranda House as two different people.

When the NIRF rankings came to college, I was close to wrapping up a blissful three-year journey. I also happened to be at a meeting that was held with the then-principal, Pratibha Jolly. Representatives from each discipline were asked to attend and categorically told to “avoid wearing shorts,” “not lie down on the floor in the canteen area,” and “be dressed properly.” This was preceded by an exercise where each of us was asked what our goals are, but many students were dismissed for having “unrealistic goals that are not achievable.”

I must be honest, at this point, I left the room. I didn’t make a scene, I just slipped out. It was a hot afternoon, and my friends were waiting for me at the canteen. We had plans to lie down on the floor and drink juice in our shorts.

However, that got us thinking. How did what we wear impact the quality of what we studied, the kind of students we were, or how the infrastructure of the college was?

A sexist statement like that directly from the principal was no less than a big thwack on all the woke-ness I had participated in the last two years. What was even more saddening was that it was for the sake of a ranking that a perpetually ideologically defunct body was producing.

In an institute where diversity of thought is encouraged, I was surprised to see my principal say something so absurd, with utter conviction. That remains the one and only time I have been in the same room as her.

Funny thing is, she also attended Miranda House in her youth. We are both products of the same system and the same institution. Yet, we are separated by a system of rankings.

But, I guess that’s just it. That’s why it’s so important to question. It’s easy to ‘other’ the problem, but it’s hard when the fingers have to be pointed at people sitting at the same table as you. In the end, development can be as tangible as a building with a number one attached to it, but what are you going to do about the development of the mind?

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