What does the 2017 Budget have for women?

For a few days now, the budget has dominated our news and discussions. Always important, perhaps the unpredictable style of this government added to our anxiety around what is both a statement of accounts and a statement of policy. Confession: I am not an economist and usually find budget and fiscal policy discussions a fairly reliable cure for insomnia induced by stress about other policies. Having said that, I was curious to see how and how much women and gender featured in this budget. I looked up the official Budget highlights and the Budget speech transcript to find out.

The first mention of women, in both the highlights and the speech, related to the assistance promised last month to pregnant women (and senior citizens). Under this scheme, pregnant women will receive Rs 6000 via account transfer towards "hospital admission, vaccination and nutritional food". This modest offer has already been critiqued as token, barely building on pre-existing maternity benefits. It barely matches the Tamil Nadu state scheme or the Odisha one.

Women are one of the priority sections under the Mudra Yojana, which makes entrepreneurship loans available to those who might not otherwise be able to access capital. Again, this is not new, though the budget increases the allocation of funds to this scheme. The Budget speech mentions the ‘Stand Up India’ scheme, which is also an entrepreneurship finance scheme. Women are also mentioned along with the Model Shops and Establishments Bill 2016, which we are to understand will create job opportunities for them.

We are informed that “women participation in MGNREGA has increased to 55% from less than 48%.” This is a propos nothing that has gone before or after this statement. The larger interest is that the government continues to support MGNREGA to some extent.

“Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas begins with the girl child and women.” The budget provides for the setting up of Mahila Shakti Kendras in 14 lakh anganwadis that are to serve as one-stop centres for rural women to access skill development, digital literacy, employment, health and nutrition. At this point, like an exam essay crafted to show off length rather than depth, the highlights reiterate the pregnancy benefit of Rs 6000.

The stepped-up allocation of Rs 184 crore (roughly Rs 30 crore more) to the Ministry of Women and Child Development reads to this non-economist like an inflation adjustment. The money allocated to all ‘welfare of women’ schemes is just about Rs 25 crore more than last year. Through the budget, I heard about the ‘Mission for Empowerment and Protection for Women’, which has also received about Rs 20 crore more this year. The website for this mission lists all the schemes I assumed fell under the purview of the Ministry for Women and Child Development or ones I search for on the National Commission for Women website. How typical to set up multiple “files” with the same papers within them— a marketing sleight of hand we should start taking seriously for its political impact!

I looked for mention of the ‘Nirbhaya Fund’ and there was none in the two documents I searched. Indeed, there was no mention of women’s safety or gender-based violence at all. However, it has been reported that the Delhi Police’s Nirbhaya allocation has increased manifold. I am not sure what purpose the Fund has served beyond checking off an important box for political performers but its absence surely signifies that the government is not reading critical assessments like this one. (To be fair, read this press release explicating the use of the Fund.)

Money is important, but given the yawning gap between budget allocation and intended beneficiaries, my interest was really in what this government thinks about its women citizens. This is what I learnt: Women are mothers. Women are potential entrepreneurs and employees. The institutional line items relating to women are a box to check off.  That is all. All other women—who are not mothers, not entrepreneurs or employees—are immaterial. Perhaps we will find out that being overlooked is a good thing in this political moment.

I did also run a search for the word ‘gender’ and it showed up in just one place. “An Innovation Fund for Secondary Education will be created to encourage local innovation for ensuring universal access, gender parity and quality improvement.” I am struck by the use of ‘gender parity’ here because this is an idea that Indian politicians resist and dismiss when it comes to their own sphere. Moreover, in the context of education, it seems to me to signal that numbers would be enough whereas the point of education should be a more thorough transformation— gender equality, including gender parity.

India has a large community of brilliant feminist economists and in days to come, many of them will do thorough, erudite gender audits of this budget. As an ordinary citizen, however, I do not find myself in its pages and will probably only feel its import in my interface with the Indian state.

Swarna Rajagopalan is a feminist political scientist.