Brew of old and new ideas

Acknowledging the need to wean society from its “patriarchal moorings” and including issues such as the needs of single women, the impact of climate change, male sterilisation and trafficking, the government’s draft national policy on women ticks many boxes. But much as India itself lumbers towards gender parity with a one step forward, two steps backward clumsy march, the document also has some glaring gaps.

In setting out the framework for empowerment for the next “15 to 20 years”, the draft policy, released by Women and Child Development minister Maneka Gandhi this week, seeks to replace the National Policy for Empowerment of Women formulated way back in 2001 — when, too, the NDA was in power.

Aiming to move away from a welfare-oriented approach to a rights-based one, it is well-intentioned enough and does include in its ambit the many changes in the 15 years since the last policy. So it does, for instance, make note of cyber crime and harassment of women through mobiles and internet and the lack of regulatory frameworks to deal with them. Also, the strides in artificial reproductive techniques and the need to “ensure the rights” of “surrogate mothers, commissioning mothers along with children born as a result”.

What it doesn’t take into account are burning topics like marital rape and triple talaq (that don’t find any mention at all), the challenges of ensuring that laws are enforced and the persisting gaps between idea and implementation in a country where women continue to be undermined —in its teeming cities and villages, at home and at work.

A patchwork of something old and something new, some things great and some things missing, the 22-page draft — that will be finalised after considering comments and inputs from women’s groups and others — states its vision and mission with clarity. It envisages a society “in which women attain their full potential and are able to participate as equal partners in all spheres of life and influence the process of social change”. And the mission, it says, “is to create an effective framework to enable the process of developing policies, programme and practices which will ensure equal rights and opportunities for women in the family, community, workplace and in governance”.

Among its priority areas are health, including nutrition, education, governance, violence, environment and climate change. The ‘emerging areas’ section includes cyber security, social protection of single women, “redistribution of gender roles for reducing unpaid care work to maintain balance between work and family roles” and “constitutional provisions to enable equitable and uniform entitlements for women irrespective of caste, community or religion”.

Despite its avowedly noble intentions, there are several problem areas in terms of both presumption and perception. In a separate sub-section on the media, for instance, the document states that gender parity in the print and electronic media, the advertising and film industry as well as new media will be promoted “by increasing the presence of women in decision-making positions”. While that is something to aim for, the idea must surely be to move towards a society where gender parity is ingrained in both men and women, where it doesn’t need a woman to be in a decision-making position to enforce it.

Policy frameworks provide the outline, the colours within them that complete the picture are an amalgam of the base reality and the intent to implement what is being suggested.

In a somewhat problematic vein, there is an entire section on governance and decision-making which discusses among other things the need to establish mechanisms to promote women’s participation in all three branches of the government — the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. But the women’s reservation bill that is languishing in Parliament and the endless stalling tactics of political parties, all of whom purportedly stand for equality and emancipation, tells its own tale.

Equally, to make effective an action plan that states that the role and responsibilities of “panchayats and urban local bodies with respect to gender” will be strengthened, it will also be necessary to look at the macro picture of a still feudal India where khap panchayats rule and where honour killings are not just decreed but also agreed to by the rest of the village. Laws against them exist on paper but are never really implemented.

Ironically, even as the ministry released its draft policy — opening it up for comments from the public — a Monster India report revealed that the gender pay gap in the country stood at a high 27 per cent. While men earned a “median gross hourly salary” of Rs288.68 per hour, women got only Rs207.85 per hour.

Other statistics are equally dismal, laying out the enormity of the challenges that lie ahead — that there were 8,455 dowry deaths in 2014, up from 8,083 the year before is only one indication. Consider also the fact that crimes against women have doubled in the last 10 years and the number of women in the 543-member lower house of Parliament in the world’s largest democracy stands at a dismal 62. The figures are many, the story the same.

Unfortunately, the government also takes a pragmatic view, deciding when to intervene and when to stay safely away. The matter of marital rape is a classic example. Rape may be a crime punishable by death but behind the closed doors of matrimony it still passes muster. In fact, Maneka Gandhi had said in a reply to Parliament that the “concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context”. The government, she clarified again while releasing the draft policy this week, cannot intervene in a sensitive matter such as this.

Referring to the other hot button issue of the entry of women into religious places, she said in an interview that some things should “be left outside the government’s purview”. In all democracies, she said categorically, there is clear demarcation between religion and the state.

The draft policy, which must be appreciated for bringing in several new clauses and hopes to rescript women’s empowerment, unfortunately reflects this wariness.

The author is a consulting editor, dna