WHY THE INDIA-CHINA DIALOGUE GO BEYOND PLATITUDES?

By M H Ahssan / New Delhi

Among a section of Indian leaders and policymakers, there is a discernible tendency to avoid pointed mention of potentially niggling issues with China in the belief that the problem will take care of itself – or at least be overtaken by events and other headlines. When the first signs of incursion by Chinese troops in Ladakh surfaced last month, the first instinct of everyone from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid was to downplay the development, and even hold out alibis to account for China’s behaviour.

GRIM FACTS: WHAT'S BEHIND A GLASS OF MILK?

By M H Ahssan / Hyderabad

INN throws light on some grim details about the cow in India, the world’s largest producer of milk.

You know that child who throws a terrible tantrum over a glass of milk. How he kicks and screams and refuses to touch the stuff? Haven’t you wondered what the fuss is all about? After all, it’s just a glass of milk.

It turns out the child may just have the right idea. The business of producing milk — indeed, the multi-crore rupee cattle industry it’s a part of — is sustained by a process of relentless cruelty towards animals, from birth till death, with little letup. Cruelty compounded by poorly defined, poorly implemented methods and gross violations.

'ARUNACHAL' TOPS IN HANDLING 'CHILD NUTRITION'

By M H Ahssan / New Delhi

The problem is likely to be less severe than UN statistics indicate, given faulty yardsticks. If asked to name the state with the lowest incidence of child malnutrition in India, readers will overwhelmingly pick one of Kerala, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab or West Bengal. But they will all be wrong by a wide margin: none of these states appears among even the top five performers. 

SUSPICIOUS CHINESE WHISPERS IN THE BORDERLAND

By Kajol Singh / Delhi

Used in the political sense, the term ‘Buddhist problem’ conjures up images of Sri Lanka. But India could well be sitting on an evolving problem on the other end of the map. A spurt in activities in Buddhist monasteries and caves strung along India’s border with Nepal and Bhutan has of late aroused suspicion and unease.

CHINA'S INTRUSION: WHAT WILL INDIA DO NEXT?

By M H Ahssan / New Delhi

Late on the night of 19 October 1962, Chinese artillery began pounding five Indian posts perched to the east of India’s northern-most military base, Daulat Beg Oldi.  Faced with impossible odds, the men held out for three days—and then, fought their way back along the track towards the base.

WHAT DOES CHINA WANT FROM INDIA?

By Rajinder Puri / Delhi

There is widespread speculation about China’s motives after its troops encroached into Ladakh and camped there before the forthcoming visit of the Chinese Premier  Li Keqiang. I present my take on the subject. I know of course that it is only of academic interest. It is futile to discuss foreign policy as long as moronic puppets continue to dominate India’s political scene.

To assess Chinese motives there is need to appraise the personality of China’s new leader  Xi Jinping; China’s new priorities in a changing world; and Beijing’s assessment of India in the perspective of China’s future global role.

TERROR HAVEN: THE NASTY AND THE NORTHEAST

By M H Ahssan / Shillong

Manir Khan's 'operational area' was Assam. The sub-inspector with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had executed two 'assignments' in the state. But he was third time unlucky, as Indian sleuths nabbed him from west Tripura in July 2010. 

Khan told interrogators that his duty was to ferry back “quality information” for better “tactical appreciation” of cross-national issues to his masters in Pakistan. In his initial visits, Khan had carried out “feasibility recces” of the Tripura corridor connecting Bangladesh-Tripura and Assam, says an interrogation report. 

INDIA, CHINA FACE OFF AT THE 'GATE OF HELL'

By M H Ahssan / New Delhi

Yarkandi caravan guides on the great Himal’s routes to Leh, might have mapped the journey thus: from the great plains, climb into the pass of the black gravel, the Karakoram.  From there, cross the Chip-Chap, the very quiet river, to reach Daulat Beg Oldi, the spot where the great and rich man died,. Then, you reach a long open space, the Depsang plateau, leading on to the Qazi Langar, a qazi, or cleric once ran a kitchen.  Then comes the camp at Burtsé, named for shrubs that can heal wounds, and burn well. Now, ahead, lies the Mur-go, the gate to hell.

FROG WEDDING TO APPEASE 'RAIN GOD' IN NORTHEAST INDIA

By CJ Sandeep Hazarika in Itanagar

In a ritual to appease the rain god, villagers in Tripura and Assam married off frogs hoping that it would end their sufferings arising out of a protracted dry spell in India’s northeastern region. Frog weddings are traditionally performed in northeastern India during drought-like situations before the onset of monsoon. “It is believed that the rain god is pleased when a frog wedding is performed. Since there has been no rain for the past couple of months, we have conducted a frog wedding to appease ‘Barun Devata’ (rain god),” said Sandhya Chakraborty, a resident of Fatikroy village, 115 km north of here.

Where Has All The 'India Defence' Money Gone?

It was the summer of 1999. From May 26 to July 26, the road to war-torn Kargil from Leh was crisscrossed by the tyre treads of Tatra trucks carrying the Indian Army’s 410 155mm Bofors howitzers on their way to the mountainous war front where scores of Indian soldiers were fighting to recapture the heights of Batalik, Tololing and Tiger Hill where Pakistani irregulars had dug into bunkers. 

The key heights of the Kargil sector at 16,000 feet to 18,000 feet were under their control. The Indian Army’s answer was the controversial Bofors gun, with its 35-km range, which became its primary weapon to bombard enemy positions relentlessly. The Artillery had even struck upon a new strategy, by changing the angle of the guns to fire more effectively—a manoeuvre that has found its way into US military manuals. The Bofors howitzers were one of the primary factors in India winning the war. Firing three rounds in 12 seconds, they pounded the enemy ceaselessly for nearly two months, as the Indian infantry mounted attacks on the mountain slopes where the ice had melted in summer.

India Is Asia’s Dharamshala – Why Not Learn To Love It?

The benevolence of politicians and bureaucrats is sometimes no benevolence at all. For some time now, there has been a trickle of Hindus from Pakistan coming to India on short-term visas, but their real purpose has never been in doubt: to flee discrimination and violence against Hindus in Pakistan.

Earlier this week, the home ministry granted a one-month visa extension to 480 Pakistani Hindus who have been seeking permanent resident status here.  An Indian Express report quoted a ministry official thus: “They will not be deported. Since it takes time to take any decision on their appeals, we have extended their visas for a month.”

Sorry, sir, this is no longer about 480 people. For the last 65 years, India has been facing an influx of people fleeing either religious persecution or ethnic strife or economic conditions in all our neighbouring countries. But we have simply refused to evolve a policy to address all these issues. We want to do everything on a case-by-case basis, or, better still, ignore the problem till it gets resolved illegally: by people acquiring Indian residency by stealth.

Given the numbers of illegal migrants – perhaps running into millions now – we have probably become the world’s biggest dharamshala, but that is something to be proud of. It validates the idea of inclusive India. What we cannot be proud of is that we have allowed this to happen by accident and exception, rather than by a clear-sighted policy.

Our inward immigration policy is a mess. We have separate policies (or default approaches) for Tibetans, for Nepalese, for Sri Lankan Tamils, for Bangladeshis, for Pakistani Hindus and for the rest. Then there are Muslim Rohingyas from Myanmar and Afghans (a motley group comprising Sikhs, Hindus and even Muslims) and what not – and we don’t have a clue what to do with them.

For a country that was artificially partitioned in 1947, it should have been obvious that people will migrate here and there. As a secular alternative to all our less-than-secular neighbours, we have always known that immigration will be more inward and less outward. As a democratic oasis in a largely undemocratic or autocratic south Asian region, we should have had policies to accept refugees fleeing persecution.

As a rapidly globalising country, we have known since 1991 that Indian companies need to recruit foreign professionals to work here just as we expect foreign governments to allow Indians to work in their countries.

But what we have now is a patchwork and illogical system that has been adapted to exigencies of specific situations at specific times.

The Tibetans were allowed in in Nehru’s time. But do we have a policy in case it finally becomes clear that they will never get an autonomous state inside China and can’t return? What if they have to stay here permanently? Will they be given full Indian citizenship?

The Nepalese, under the 1950 India-Nepal Friendship Treaty, are allowed almost free access inside India – almost like Indian citizens. This is the most liberal policy we have with our neighbours, and has remained on the statute book even though our political relationship with Nepal has gone from good to uncertain after the Communists entered government and ended the Hindu monarchy.

When it comes to Bangladesh, we have three policies – or non-policies: one for Assam, another for some north-eastern states, and yet another for the rest.

Under the Assam Accord of 1985, anyone who came to Assam before 1 January 1966 will be allowed to stay and become Indian citizens. Those who came between this date and 24 March 1971 were to be detected but not deported. They would be deleted from electoral rolls, but could get back after 10 years. The rest were to be detected and deported.

The accord has more or less been a dead letter, since politicians in need of immigrant votes refused to implement it. As for the remaining north-eastern states, migration is either fully illegal and politically accepted, or we have restrictions that apply even to Indian citizens.

In Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, Indians need inner line permits to visit those states even as tourists. The Bangladeshis who enter India traipse around tribal Meghalaya, but have found an easy perch in Tripura. Together with pre-1947 migration, they have relegated the locals to minority status. As for Kashmir, Indians can tour the state but can’t buy property or settle there. Even if they marry Kashmiris, they can’t acquire property there.

As for potential workers and immigrants from the rest of the world, we have the most restrictive policy on board, where the intention is to debar foreigners from working here – unless they earn more than $25,000 per annum. This rules out any kind of work visa for foreigners in India beyond highly qualified technical personnel or short-term consultants – so forget about allowing for easy migration.

As a liberal, democratic country, India has an obligation to run a truly liberal and open immigration policy that does not discriminate. This is a country that took in persecuted people from ancient times to the modern era (Zoroastrians, Jews, Tibetans). We have even accepted invaders as our own.

This should be the broad backdrop against which we should frame a unified immigration and work permit policy. The policy should include the following:

First, we must have a clear policy for taking in refugees from persecution. It does not matter which religion or ethnic group the person belongs to. It is ironic that political parties are willing to plead the case of Bangladeshi Muslims, who can only be chasing economic opportunities here, but not Hindu refugees from Pakistan. At a later stage, we should be willing to take in even Muslim refugees from Pakistan – for who knows what will happen if the Taliban takes over Pakistan? Obviously, this policy needs safeguards, but if there is a will, we can put one in place.

Second, we must have a system of regularising long-term migrants who are settled here. The Assam accord specifically provided for that, but we didn’t implement it. We neither put in place an impenetrable fence to keep future immigrants out nor a system of formally recognising the Bangladeshis’ need to find work here – through a system of work permits or guest workers with no citizenship rights.

Third, India needs to work out a free-movement agreement (especially for tourism and work) with all its neighbours barring Pakistan. Setting a high salary limit of $25,000 for work permits may be all right for westerners, but not for our neighbours in South Asia. The threshold needs to be much lower.

Fourth, residency permits and citizenship norms need to be easier. Currently, it takes 12 years for a foreigner to get citizenship by naturalisation, and seven years if they are married to an Indian citizen. One wonders why this waiting period needs to be so long. Seven years is too long a wait for a marriage to be seen as legitimate enough to warrant grant of citizenship to the foreign spouse.

Isn’t it high time we opened our front doors to the world instead of winking at their entry through the back door?

Water Scarcity Increase Tensions Across The World

Water will be one of the defining issues of the next half century. It’s a critical issue and this realization is already started from this early summer 2013. 

There are a number of reasons why water will be so critical. Let’s start from Southeast Asia and go all the way to Africa. Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos; then there’s China, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey; then we go south to Israel, Palestine, Egypt and all the way to Tanzania. It’s a mega arc of hydro insecurity.

If water supply drops by 5 percent in 20-25 years in China and India, food production here will also drop, while demand would have gone up substantially. Already there are food crises. The world noticed that in 2008 when prices went up for the first time. Right now, India and China are not in the market in a big way. In another 25 years you have a possibility of these countries entering the food market as buyers. This will wreak huge havoc. 

This won’t take place 25 years from now; it’ll start in the next two years as people start noticing these trends. Speculation in commodities will increase substantially. 

Water is already emerging as a global issue in the security debate, not in the global economic or food debate. The initial response is short sighted. 

They are constantly engaged in negotiating allocation of respective shares, which actually leads to conflicts between upper and lower riparian countries. You have tensions between Turkey and Syria, Iraq; Israel-Palestine; Egypt-Ethiopia. There’s now tension between Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos as well. 

Water could emerge as a potential source of conflict. But it could also emerge as a potential source of economic growth and co-operation between these countries. It’s in this context that water is important in 2013.

The solution lies in looking at water from a different point of view. Due to a number of international developments, in 2013, we will see a substantial impetus to the concept of water efficiency of economies. 

Eighty percent of water in most developing economies is used for agriculture. Water for drinking and other biological purposes is 5 percent and for industries is 15 percent. By simply reducing the usage of water in agriculture, you will save a lot of water. 

Israel has developed IOD [irrigation on demand] where they use software in a field. The control mechanism gets to know if any plants are over- watered or under-watered. The software will communicate between the plant and control mechanism to influence the flow of water. The Israelis estimate this will save 50 percent of water [in agriculture]. This will be a game changer. 

Another technological development tackles the problem of leaking pipes. Water which is lost in leakages varies from 10 to 40 percent across the world. South Africa has developed a new technology where the pipes communicate with a control mechanism to identify leakage and that will alert the supervisors immediately. 

In 2013, there are a couple of political developments taking place. The World Water Forum will take place in France. This will lead to a major reassessment of the whole water scene in the world. Second, the Swiss Parliament has specially allocated authority and support to the government to find solutions to the world’s water problems. Singapore will also give a big push. They have their annual version of World Water Forum. Third, Israel’s technologies will hit the market.

New agreements are being negotiated. What you require to do in different countries is encourage production of certain crops in some countries and other crops in other countries depending on soil, moisture and other factors. In South Asia, some crops can be grown in Pakistan, some in India and some in China. To do that you need strong economic co-operation and a free trade market in agriculture. That means you have to go for new forms of regional co-operation.  

There are a lot of political leaders in all these countries who are open to the idea of using water as an instrument to increase economic growth and develop technology. But there is bureaucratic resistance. They still think of water as ‘my water versus your water’. 2013-2015 will be a crucial period where the will of politicians will be tested against bureaucratic resistance across the mega arc. 

Take the Brahmaputra. China wants to develop its Southwest region and India, its Northeast. Both countries need to generate electricity. From India it is easier to take lines to China’s Southwest than to the rest of India. India wants to develop Arunachal Pradesh as a major producer of electricity to develop eastern India. If carefully monitored transit co-operation takes place, India would be doing China a big favour. China doesn’t have too many ports in that region. There can be a multi-modal transport via the Brahmaputra. You have to include Bangladesh in this as well.

If a group of countries decide to take a co-operative approach to exploit the full potential of water and sustain environment at the same time and rejuvenate water itself, they will be the beneficiaries.

Over 1,000 IAS Officers Fail To Submit Property Returns

Over 1,000 IAS officers have failed to submit their immovable property returns (IPRs) to the government within the stipulated time frame this year.

Of the total of 1,057 officers who did not submit their IPRs for 2012, a highest of 147 are from Uttar Pradesh cadre, 114 of Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT), 100 of Manipur-Tripura, 96 of Jammu and Kashmir and 88 of Madhya Pradesh cadre among others, according to Department of Personnel and Training data.

Suspended IAS couple Arvind and Tinoo Joshi of MP cadre are also among the list of erring officials. Joshis, both 1979 batch officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre, made headlines after Income Tax department raided their residence in February, 2010 and allegedly unearthed assets worth over Rs 350 crore.

58 IAS officers of Karnataka cadre, 53 of Andhra Pradesh, 48 of Punjab, 47 of Orissa, 45 of West Bengal, 40 of Himachal Pradesh, 35 of Haryana, 25 of Jharkhand, 23 of Assam-Meghalaya, 22 of Rajasthan, 20 of Tamil Nadu, 17 of Maharashtra, 16 of Nagaland, 14 of Gujarat, 13 of Bihar, 10 of Kerala, nine each of Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh and eight of Sikkim cadre have not given their IPRs, it said.

The total sanctioned strength of IAS is 6,217, including 1,339 promotion posts. Of these, 4,737 officers are in position.

An all-India service officer is bound to file property returns of a year by January end of the following year, failing which promotion and empanelment to senior level postings may be denied.

Besides, there are 107 IAS officers who have not submitted their IPRs for 2011. As many as 198 IAS officials did not give their property details for 2010. “A circular has already been sent to all cadre
controlling authorities to inform them about timely submission of their IPRs,” said an official of the DoPT, which acts as a nodal agency for administrative matters of the IAS officers.

Villages Disappear As Rivers Change Course In Arunachal Pradesh

A number of hamlets in the foothills of Arunachal Pradesh and upper Assam have disappeared under water in the last few decades with climate change causing rivers to migrate from their route, experts say.

Many such cases of inundation were initially described as flash floods by the administration, but gradually it has emerged that rivers like Bikram, Ranga, Bogi, etc, originating from the Arunachal mountains have actually changed their course due to long spells of high intensity rainfall.

A number of small villages like Hatkhola, Kapisala, Tenga, Bango and Vikram Chapori in Assam’s Lakhimpur and Dhemaji district and Papum Pare district in Arunachal have been among the worst affected as a number of settlements have gradually submerged under water, this visiting correspondent found.

An analysis of geological data shows that in some places the rivers have changed their course by 300 metres while in other areas the change was as high as 1.8 km in between 1963 and 2009.

“As a result, parts of some villages have gone under water while in other cases the entire villages have simply vanished,” points out geologist S K Patnaik of Arunachal’s Rajiv Gandhi University.

A study under climate change fellowship by the New Delhi -based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) shows that this has not rendered hundreds of people homeless but also damaged agricultural fields and the rich biodiversity of this north-eastern state.

Although the total rainfall hasn’t changed much all these years, yet there has been an unprecedented increase in the duration and intensity of rainfall as well as cloudbursts in the Eastern Himalayas, explains Dr Prasanna K Samal, scientist in-charge at the G B Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development in Itanagar.

Where Are Our Missing Children?

In India, a child goes missing every eight minutes, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Almost 40 percent of those children haven’t been found.

If you are a parent, go hug your child before you read this piece. We have an epidemic on, an epidemic that gets but a passing mention in the newspapers, an epidemic that is real and tangible only for those parents who wait for the call that never comes, the child who never returns, who do the rounds of the police stations, photographs in hand, who put out advertisements in the newspapers, describing what their child was wearing when he or she went missing, who live a life in limbo. Our children are going missing. One child every eight minutes across India. 

“In India, a child goes missing every eight minutes, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Almost 40 percent of those children haven’t been found.” Wall Street Journal India Realtime.

On October 25, 2012, firstpost.com stated, 

“According to the police, a newborn boy was kidnapped from Wadia Hospital in Central Mumbai. The day-old boy was stolen during visiting hours when his mother, Jasmine Naik (28), was taking an evening walk in the corridor of the hospital, they said. She had left the baby unattended in the ward and was taking a stroll when someone took him away, police said, adding the hospital, run by a private trust, didn’t have CCTV cameras.” 

DNA pointed out in its October 26, 2012 issue, 

“The Bombay High Court in 2009 issued 23 guidelines for enhancing security in government, semi-government and BMC-run hospitals after a four day old baby of Mohan and Mohini Nerurkar was kidnapped from the maternity ward of BMC-run Sion hospital. The HC order said that sensitive areas such as the neo-natal, post-natal and paediatric wards should have CCTV cameras. The court said they should also be installed at all entry and exit routes. However, not one camera has been installed inside the premises of Wadia Maternity Hospital. The management has left a proposal to install CCTV cameras worth Rs 1 lakh pending for three years.” 

In its July 8, 2012 issue, DNA pointed out, 

“Three year old Sangita, who was kidnapped from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) on June 10, was rescued from her kidnapper at the Haridwar bus station by the Haridwar Police on Saturday afternoon. The alleged kidnapper, identified as Raju, was also arrested by the Haridwar police. The Government Railway Police (GRP) of Maharashtra recently released shocking CCTV footage of the kidnapping. It shows a limping man alighting from a train and wandering about the station before spotting the sleeping family and three year old Sangita, who was not asleep at the time. The man then sat beside her and took her away.” 

Sangita’s parents were lucky that she was found. Not all kidnappings have a happy ending; some children are never found, or are found dead. 

Perhaps the most chilling are the 2006 Nithari killings, where remains of 17 children were found in drains outside a bungalow. 

“For the last two years, more than forty young children and women went missing from a small urban hamlet of Nithari, at the centre of Noida, a satellite town bordering Delhi (India). The local media regularly covered the incidents of missing children; the National Commission for Women also took cognisance of the matter, but the children continued to vanish in thin air. However, in the last week of December 2006, by sheer chance some human remains were spotted at the backyard of a palatial house situated at the edge of the village of Nithari. When the spot was searched further what emerged was a chilling tale of cold blooded serial murders that perhaps qualify as the biggest serial killings any where in the world.” http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Child/2007/nithari.html 

The unimaginable horror of Nithari killings, were further abetted by a lackadaisical police force that refused to take complaints of missing children. 

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), almost 60,000 children were reported missing in 2011. Of these, 22,000 are yet to be located. However, according to a report by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), nearly 11 children go missing every hour, and at least, 4 of them are never found. According to BBA, the number of missing children could be as high as 90,000 per year. West Bengal topped the charts of missing children with 12,000 children missing in 2011. Madhya Pradesh followed with 7,797 cases, while Delhi had 5,111 cases. These are merely reported cases that discount those children who might run away due to various factors, ranging from abuse to dysfunctional homes, and exam stress, or some who might get lost while families travel. Majority of the missing children are just taken away. The statistics are scary – in 2011, 15,284 cases of kidnapping were reported. This was up 43 percent from the previous year. 

Children are kidnapped for human trafficking, illegal organ transplantation, prostitution, child porn racketing, child labour in factories and unpaid domestic help. Many children are forced to beg; some are mutilated to evoke sympathy for more earning potential, and a small percentage for ransom. 

Kidnappings for ransom are on the rise, and in some cases even after paying up, the parents never see their children again. According to a report in the Guardian, 

“Figures from Delhi police show that kidnap for ransom is on the rise. In 2008, there were 1,233 cases in the national capital; by last year that had soared to 2,975. In the first three months of 2011, 802 cases were registered.” 

According to an estimate by NGOs, only 50 percent of missing children are actually reported to the NCRB. Urban slum children are the most vulnerable as they are easily lured into promise of good food and clothes. According to news reports, there are over 800 gangs with 5,000 members involved in the kidnapping and trafficking of children, much in the same way they would traffic drugs, or contraband. Some parents are so poor; they don’t have recent photographs to give the police. Children between the ages of 6 and 13 are the most targeted and vulnerable. Infants are also taken; sometimes from the very hospitals they are born in, or from railway stations, and other crowded places. The children, who are lucky enough to be found and rescued or have the presence of mind to run away, speak of being sold into agricultural or factory labour. 

Why do we have so many missing children and why are they not found? 

It starts with how the investigation is done. Very often, First Information Reports are not registered; just an entry is made into a list of missing persons at the police station, and a photograph of missing child sent across city police stations. Cases are only investigated if the person reporting the missing child files a case of kidnapping. 

Delhi scores better in this regard – if a child is not found within 24 hours, a case of kidnapping is to be filed mandatorily. An initiative called Pehchaan (recognition) in Delhi has policemen taking pictures of children in slums for record, and copies are provided to their families. The Crime Branch has launched an exclusive portal (www.trackthemissingchild.gov.in) to track down missing children across the country. All states have to compulsorily put this facility into place. A PIL filed by Bachpan Bachao Andolan, states that over 1.7 lakh children have gone missing in the country between January 2008 and 2010. In response to this PIL, Supreme Court has instructed the chief secretaries of all states and union territories to ask police stations to register an FIR, and start an investigation. Supreme Court also directed that all police stations should have a special juvenile police officer. 

This may be too little, too late for those parents who have waited endlessly. For those children, who have already become statistics in the long lists, these measures might not be of any help. But we can, and we must push for more attention to the growing menace; we cannot let this get brushed under the carpet.

Nobody’s Missing Children

NGO’s working in the field estimate that barely 10 percent of all missing children cases are registered with the police. An overwhelming 90 percent disappear into the great morass of the Never Seen Never Heard of Again.

“Nobody seems to be concerned about the missing children. This is the irony,” stated a bench of the Supreme Court on Feb 5. The remark is indicative of the apathy shown by the Centre and state governments toward the issue of missing children. The court had directed the Centre and the various states to file status reports on the status of the missing children in the country and in their states in March 2012. The notices were issued by Justices Altamas Kabir and SS Nijjar in response to a Public Interest Litigation by the NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan on the escalating numbers of missing children in India. Unfortunately, a year later, these status reports are still to be filed by the Centre and several state governments.

The Supreme Court, taking serious note of the absence of the chief secretaries of Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu despite being directed to be physically present and not through their counsels, threatened to issue non bailable arrest warrants against them. The West Bengal counsel incidentally submitted that the status report had not been filed since there was no instruction, which the SC took exception to. Of the five States whose chief secretaries had been specifically asked to be present, only the chief secretaries of Goa and Orissa were present. Not only the Centre but also the governments of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Uttrakhand, West Bengal and Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, NCT of Delhi and Lakhshadweep have not filed their status reports, the court noted.

The numbers are scary. According to the figures filed by BBA in its PIL, over 1.7 lakh children had gone missing between January 2008 and January 2010. The exact figures given were 1,17,480 children who had gone missing, of which 41,546 children were still untraced. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, one child goes missing in India every eight minutes. Forty per cent of these children will never be found and will end up as mere statistics in an ever growing list of missing children in this country, children who are picked up from streets, from outside their homes, from railway stations, even from hospitals as newborns. Many of these children will end up trafficked, either as cheap labour, or to beggar syndicates or into the sex trade. For their parents it is a nightmare they live through every single day, the waiting for news that their child has been found, the hoping against hope, catching a sudden glimpse of someone in a crowded place who resembles their child, receiving information from distant places, that perhaps their child has been spotted there, only to rush there and be disappointed.

In 2011, 15,284 children were kidnapped, up 43 percent from the previous year. Around 3,517 cases of child trafficking were reported in the same year, buying and selling girls for the sex trade, for marriage, as well as trafficking of children for the organ trade, as drug mules, into bonded labour in the unorganised sector and to begging syndicates across the country. According to unconfirmed reports, there are close on 800 organised child trafficking gangs across the country. Traffickers target children from the lower income groups, where the families do not have the financial strength or the political connections to pursue their cases with the authorities. They pick up children who aren’t watched over too carefully from slums and congested areas. Merely a handful of the children who get kidnapped are taken for ransom. Sometimes, if the parents pay up, or the police locates the kidnapped child, the child is reunited with its family. Sometimes, despite paying up, some kidnapped children are brutalised and killed.

The highest number of untraced children are from Delhi, followed by Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bangalore, city wise. According to the BBA, the number of missing children is highest in Maharashtra followed by West Bengal, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh and the number of untraced missing children is highest in West Bengal followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Sadly, 75 per cent of missing children in Kolkata and 65 per cent in Delhi “continue to remain untraced” according to a two-year study, titled ‘Trafficking of Women and Children in India’, compiled by Shankar Sen and P M Nair, with a team of ISS researchers. The report also found that sometimes, these children are actually sold to traffickers by their own family or people who know them, at times for as little as Rs 5,000. The survey interviewed over 500 rescued children who were now in homes. Of these, 40 percent told the surveyors that they had been sold when they were younger than ten, the rest were sold when they were between 11 and 14 years of age. Of these, only a mere seven percent of the rescued children stated they had been trafficked by total strangers.

India has the largest number of child labourers in the world, even though child labour is prohibited by the law. Data suggests that 12.66 million children are employed illegally in cigarette, bidi, firework and carpet weaving factories. Children are also employed at construction sites and in homes as domestic workers. Many of these are victims of child trafficking.

NGO’s working in the field estimate that barely 10 percent of all missing children cases are registered with the police. An overwhelming 90 percent disappear into the great morass of the Never Seen Never Heard of Again. The way missing children are investigated by our authorities is another reason why recovery rates are so low. Except for a few states, FIRs are not registered for missing children. The name of the missing child is just entered into a list of missing persons at the police station where it is reported. This does not lead to an in depth investigation. Photos of the missing child are sent to all police stations in cities like Mumbai but no active investigation into the disappearance of the child is done, unless the person who reports the child missing asks the police to file a case of kidnapping. Post the horrific Nithari murders in 2006, the law in Delhi requires a case of kidnapping to be filed by the police if a child is not located within 24 hours of being reported missing. In the Nithari killings, children had begun going missing from the neighbourhood for two years, but the police refused to register complaints or investigate the cases.

As a start, the police have begun sharing an integrated database of missing children, www.zipnet.in, as well as unidentified children found. Some of the parents of the children on the database are so poor, they don’t even have a recent photograph of the child they can provide. There is an interesting recent initiative by the Delhi police where it goes into the slums, photographs and registers all the children so that in the event of the child going missing recent photographs and details of the child are available. What is of immediate need though is an integrated country wide database that allows states to track missing children who are trafficked across states and work in tandem to rescue trafficked children, as well as trace children who might have run away for reasons ranging from dysfunctional homes, to exam pressure to a desire to see a big city. A standard protocol procedure to deal with a case of missing children needs to be put into place across the country by investigation and law enforcement agencies.

The Supreme Court’s annoyance on this issue is well justified. The “last opportunity” given to the Centre and the states to file their affidavits is now February 19. Whether the status reports will be filed by February 19 or not remains to be seen, but the fact remains that we, as a country, are not concerned about our missing children. They disappear into files, remain photographs on posters and morph into mere statistics. The parents live through the nightmare every single day of not knowing whether their child is alive or dead, or if alive, living under what unimaginable conditions. And we need to hang our heads in shame at our collective apathy to this terrifying issue.

Inside RSS Women’s Wing: Yes To Wife Beaters, No To Divorce

Following the incident of rape in Delhi, which left a 23-year-old physiotherapy student dead, the struggle for women’s rights and safety has gathered momentum in the country. While one would like to think that women across the country echo the same feelings and are probably equally restless about the patriarchal structure around which they have to arrange their lives, the RSS women’s wing seems to be a study in contradictions.

One one hand they encourage women to come out of their homes to join a political organisation and organise camps to encourage sports on the other hand they keep reiterating that a woman’s primary duty is towards her family and its well-being.

An Outlook article by Neha Dixit, explores the amusing mechanisms within the women’s section of the party, called the Rashtra Sevika Samiti.

The article traces how the pracharikas or the workers of the group take pride in the fact that they are not backing or demanding women’s rights. Rather, they seem to be content with the fact that they are working towards the creation of a ‘Hindu’ nation. The women’s wing, which has close to 55,000 branches across the country also seem skeptical of the feminist movements working their way against patriarchal domination in the country.

In a particularly interesting section, the reporter talks to a young woman about the dynamics of the man-woman relationship, to which the said RSS workers reveals shockingly misogynistic ideas. What is even more strange is probably that, in the mammoth women’s organisation she works in and for, such ideas are endorsed as perfectly credible.

The reporter quotes twenty-something Sharda from Jabalpur: I turn to Sharda from Jabalpur. In her late twenties, Sharda has been a whole timer for five years. She tells me that apart from the shakhas, the Samiti also counsels women in their respective areas. There is a manual that is followed. When I ask her, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?” she answers, “Don’t parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband’s moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non option for women. She says, “Our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try counsel the husband too.”

While women of the country might be busy taking potshots at men and the likes of Mohan Bhagwat, perhaps it’s time to take a deeper, critical look at their own kinds.

Last fortnight saw two debuts: One, the nation for the first time thronged the streets on the issue of gender. Two, RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s moment of epiphany was well timed, like never before, for the nation to reflect upon his misogyny and sexism. Bhagwat, within a span of three days, came up with two significant statements: a rapist prefers ‘Indian’ women over ‘Bharatiya’ women and a woman must satisfy her husband for food, shelter and protection. The Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the RSS’s women wing, with 55,000 shakhas all over the country, not just ascribe to the above tenets but also holds camps and indoctrinates thousands of girls-toddlers, adolescents and old- to propagate the idea of a ‘culturally sanitised’ Hindu rashtra and the patriarchal roles it offers women to conform.

The rubber slippers were neatly lined outside the assembly hall. Thirty eight pairs, I counted. The multi-coloured chalks decorated the blackboard, next to the shut door, that announced, ‘12th December, Swadeshi Diwas, Akhil Bhartiya Pracharika Abhyas Varg, Sambhajinagar.’ This, one of the many, three day training camp for the Pracharikas of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti commenced just a day before Gujarat went to polls. A sudden cacophony of hurried footsteps broke the silence, that was powerfully guarded by the hillocks of Jatwada village twenty five km from Aurangabad district for Arya Chanakya Vidyadham, the venue for the this training camp.

Three black dots appeared in the corridor where I was waiting. They were three women.. Sunita, the first dot was the organiser of the camp in her early forties, ran to the hall to instruct the pracharikas to maintain silence. Shanthakaka, the Pramukh Sanchalika of the Samiti, and Sharad Renu, the Bauddhik pramukh tried to match the fast steps of Suresh ‘Bhaiyyaji’ Joshi, the general secretary of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Bhaiyyaji was here to train the pracharikas over the next three days. Shanthakaka’s authority reflected in her salt and pepper hair and double chin, Sharda’s stoic face changed with a flush of reverence and submission. Bhaiyyaji entered the hall, grabbed the microphone and said, “ Gaiy jab ghas khaati hai to apne bacche ke liye baandh kar nahin laati magar ek mahila kuch bhi khaati hai to apne parivar ke liye baandh kar lati hai. Is antar ko pehchaano. Yahi ek mahila ki shakti hai ( A cow does not pack grass after she finishes grazing but a woman packs some part of it for her family to bring it back home. Identify this difference. This is the strength of a woman.)” While motherhood is taught as the absolute objective for a woman , it is this subordination of Shanthakaka and her battalion of Samiti whole timers to be indoctrinated by a man with alacrity, is what establishes the existence of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, India’s largest right wing women’s organisation.

Even though the RSS was founded in 1925, when women were already active in all shades of anticolonial movements-nonviolent as well as revo­lutionary extremism-it did not even develop a women's front for the next eleven years. Lakshmibai Kelkar, known as ‘mausiji’, the mother of a Maharashtrian RSS veteran, had approached Dr. Keshav Bali­ram Hegdewar, the founder and leader of the RSS, many times in the early thirties for the admission of women, but he was not responsive. At last in 1936 he agreed to her proposal and advised her to set up a separate women's wing. The Samiti was formed with intention to create awareness among women about their cultural and social responsibilities. Replicating the RSS schedule, the women are trained in the Hindutva idealogy and paramilitary through shakhas, vargs, yoga and discussions.

“Mausiji lived next to my mausi’s house, where I grew up, in Nagpur. Mausiji was touring the region with her son to spread the network of Samiti Shakhas. Her idea of worshipping Devi Ashtabhuja drew me to the Samiti. Devi Ashtabhuja is a symbol of realisation of Hindu women’s image. That of a woman’s chastity, purity, boldness and sacrifice. Above all, a woman has the divine power of womanhood who can nurture a character based society, ”says 83 year old Pramila Medhe fondly known as Pramila Tai. She is the oldest member of the Samiti and has served with all the four Pramukh Sanchalikas and has been a Samiti Pracharika (whole-timer) for the last sixty years. Epitomising the tenets laid down for a samiti pracharika, Pramila Tai is a celibate like the pracharaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 

The position of Pramila Tai, as a pracharika in the Samiti is a prestigious one. With a high level training in paramilitary and the Hindutva ideology, they are expected to take on the responsibility to move into new and sometimes remote areas to spread the message. Chastity heightens their iconic status for it is deeply associated in Hinduism with notions of spirituality, purity. These qualities also make these women reliable spokes­persons for the future Hindu rashtra sons for the future Hindu rashtra (nation). Renunciation-both sexual and material--exercises enor­mous moral force within the parameters of Hinduism. 

Immaculately dressed in a pink cotton nine yard Maharashtrian saree and a spotless, crisp white blouse, she gestures me to eat the freshly plucked custard apples as she goes on to explain the basic values and the purpose behind forming the Samiti and the role of a pracharika. “Pracharikas pledge their lives to the making of the hindu rashtra instead of running towards material and domestic bliss. Once we commit ourselves to the cause, it is the Samiti’s responsibility to take care of our well being. In that process we need to learn to live humbly and simultaneously train ourselves to be strong enough to travel to villages, often alone and use public transport like bus, trains etc.” Once the pracharikas are trained, they establish new shakhas in their areas and train other sevikas in physi­cal or intellectual skills and organize campaigns.

It is important to note that the name Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh means ‘Nationalist Volunteers’. In contrast, the term Rashtra Sevika denotes women who serve the nation. This difference in the meaning does hint at the conventional humble service that is expected of a sacrificial woman. The sense of autonomy and self-choice that are associated with the word "volunteer" are notably missing.

The pracharikas are categorically told that the difference between the Rashtra Sevika Samiti and other women’s organisation is that unlike others they do not fight for women’s rights, instead they fight to create a Hindu rashtra. With the ‘bhagwa’ (saffron) flag for guru, the Samiti believes that the Indian women already enjoy equal rights in an egalitarian Hindu rashtra. “It is the western women who had fight for their rights in the 1920s unlike us,” says Tai emphatically. 

When I ask her how possible is it in a patriarchal society like India where women are expected to conform to the subordination, she is outraged and echoes the same ‘social contract’ Mohan Bhagwat talked about last week, “We are not feminists, we are familists. We believe in ‘dampatya’ (conjugality) where a man and a woman together need to bring up a family.” . The Samiti does not confront them with the larger problems of their socially exploited sisters, so that the Hindutva women are never forced to choose between gender and their own class/caste privileges. It keeps them tied to family interests and ideology while spicing their lives with the excitement of a limited but important public identity.

The gong rings and pracharikas break for lunch. I am invited to join them as they sit in queues, legs folded, waiting for their turn to be served food by the volunteers. That is when I got a chance to interact with Sunita, the organiser of the camp. Sunita, originally from Aurangabad was sent to the Northeast to organise shakhas and mobilise women to join the Samiti. Her posting was a follow up to the Nellie massacre in Assam in 1983 where the Bangladeshi muslims and Assamese Muslims of Bengali origin were targetted as ‘outsiders’ by the locals. Official records suggest that over 1800 people died and several injured. The report submitted by the Tiwari Commission in 1984 was never made public by the government. “I have been working there for the last 25 years under difficult circumstances battling the Muslim and Christian invasions.” 

Conflict areas like the Northeast, often ignored by the Indian state, sometimes for their remoteness and mostly because of cultural alienation are the breeding grounds for indoctrination. Kokrajhar, an Assam district, recently in news for communal riots has been at receiving end of the tensions between the locals and the Muslims, who have to keep proving their East Bengal origins. With increased competition for livelihood, land and political power has led to frequent violence in this district due to its geographical proximity to Bangladesh.

In 2008, in an exact replica of the recent violence in Kokrajhar in July this year, Bodos-minority community violence killed 100 people and displaced nearly 200,000.Twenty eight year old Karabi’s house was also burnt and she lived in the refugee camps for the next three months. “The food was limited, there was no place to even sleep. My family was dispersed and my mother died during the riots. The camp was infiltrated by the Bangladeshi immigrants. It is then when I met Sunita didi. She took me to the Samiti shivir where I learnt how to fight for my rights and to take away what is mine.” 

Karbi, originally from the Bodo tribe is now a carrier of the Hindu religion in Assam. Roma Chakraborty, a Grahini sevika (part-timer) who joined the Samiti in 2009 after retiring from her job at a local power grid, is helping Karbi organise bal shivirs in Silchar district in Assam. They are required to travel to all the tribal villages in the state and distribute Hindu literature, lockets, pamphlets. According to them, travelling to muslim villages in particularly difficult. “By the end of January 2013, we wish to see photographs of Bharat mata in each household in this area.” says Roma. 

The increasing conversions to Christianity in Arunachal Pradesh is another threat that needs to be tackled. “The christians have money and thats how they are luring the tribals and converting their faith.” To fight this, 13 pracharikas from Assam have travelled to train themselves at the camp. Roma also hints at a joint action that is being planned by the samiti along with the RSS to stop the Bangladeshis to cross the border and stay in the refugee camps at Kokrajhar.

The bal shivirs, Karbi and Roma are set to organise, are popular tools to inculcate ideas and cognitive Hindutva strategies in the kids. These kids, often in the age group of 5 to 8, attend camps of different durations ranging from one day to three day organised by the Samiti. “Isn’t it better if they learn ‘Bharat desh, mera desh, meri mata aur pranesh, meri jaan, mere praan, Bharat mata ko qurbaan’ instead of ‘Baba black sheep, have you any wool’, says Radha Mehta, Delhi Prant Karyavahika. The malleable minds of these kids are worked upon through games, patriotic songs, arts and crafts workshops to teach the importance and the need of a Hindu rashtra. “We make them draw Lord Ram, Rani Laxmibai and Lotus flower and make them curious enough to ask about these figures,” she adds. 

Door to door campaigns and counselling of the families helps them convince the parents to send their kids for the camps. Lure of free food and clothing are often reasons enough that these kids become regulars at these camps, the importance of which is best realised in conflict zones like the Northeast, poverty stricken areas like Vidarbha or the ghettos in metros like New Delhi that accommodate the migrants from the villages.

Another training camp targeted at the adolescents is called the kishori varg. In Delhi alone, last year over 250 girls attended the 15 day camp. Door to door campaigns, targeting young girls who hit puberty and thereafter are engaged in ideological discourses about Hindutva and paramilitary exercises like sword fighting and martial arts. The social base of the women of the Hindu Right, however, is easily identified as overwhelmingly upper caste, middle class, and urban. When I ask Radha, sitting in the drawing room of her West Delhi home, with the embellishments accordingly matched to her maroon velvet sofa and cushions, about the socio-economic status of these girls who attend the camps, she is evasive, “ We get volunteers from all classes. There are several migrant families near our office in Paharganj. And then there are girls from areas like Chandni Chowk from ‘well to do’ families.” 

At this point, it is interesting to note that in the last elections in the Chandni Chowk constituency in New Delhi in 2009, it was recorded that the Muslim electorate went down from 40 percent to 13.38 percent with a 62 percent Hindu population, mostly dominated by OBCs and SCs. Inducing the alacrity in the parents to send the daughters to the kishori vargs is lined with initial complications. “People are often apprehensive about sending their daughters to the camp because they think like the pracharikas, their daughters too will opt out of a family life,” says Roma.

Dressed in a salwar kameez, with the dupatta slung across one shoulder and tied on waist diagonally, she was serving food and refilling the pracharikas’s plates at the Aurangabad camp in the most efficient manner. Supriya Hattekar, 22, has been associated with the Samiti since she was 12. When I sit her down and ask her where is she from, she emphatically says, “Sambhajinagar.” In January, 2011, the ruling Shiv Sena in Aurangabad passed a resolution to rename the city to ‘Sambhajinagar’. 

Several centuries ago, the city was named Aurangabad after the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb whose mortal remains are buried in the city. The city has almost 60 percent Muslim population. Supriya is a student of Master of Computer Application and aspires to become a software engineer. “Besides unemployment, there are two major problems that need to be addressed”, she says. “One is that young girls must be stopped from putting their pictures on social networking websites like Facebook. They risk their honour and then their pictures are morphed into nude ones and circulated. They invite blackmailing by this. Secondly, when girls are eve teased, they are scared to talk about it for the fear of defamation. 

There is a need for a body which these girls can approach to avoid this.” It reverberates the misogynist comments like that of BJP leader Sushma Swaraj who described a rape survivor as a ‘zinda laash’ (corpse). To add to that it also reminds of the fatwa issued by Madarsa Manzar-e-Islam of Dargah Aala Hazrat, an organisation of Sunni Muslim clerics, last month who termed as 'haraam' the uploading of photos on the internet for matrimonial purpose and on social networking sites. Curiously but expectedly, the patriarchal idea of female honour, a commodity that needs to be protected, and the religious practice of putting the onus on women for being wronged are deeply manifested in Supriya’s notion of female values.

It is also significant that female-pattern violence is more often characterized by self-defense as opposed to male pattern violence. The body-centered practices for women have old and varied meanings and values within different currents of Hindu patriarchy. Supriya also volunteers to teach sword fighting and martial arts at the kishori vargs. These trainings can be witnessed at the training camps: elaborate, passionate drills with cries of ‘Jai Shiv Shankar’ and ‘Jai Maa Durga ki’ follow after each attack on the opponent. When I ask Pramila Tai, the purpose of training the girls in sword fighting in this day and age, she says, “I know it is obsolete. But it gives the girls a confidence that if an invader attempts to violate them, they can turn around and hit him hard with any object that comes handy.”

Muslim lust for the Hindu woman has been one of the staples of RSS propaganda and selective memories of rape during the Partition riots are well known.The ‘invader’ here is a direct reference to non-Hindus i.e. Muslims and Christians. From Savarkar's formative writings on Muslim rule in India, the stereotype of an eternally lustful Muslim male with evil designs on Hindu women has been reiterated. While the women are made to establish themselves as political subjects through an agenda of hatred and brutality against a besieged minority, it is love jehad that is seen as a crucial combat that they need to collectively and strongly engage in. Says Shanthakaka, “Muslim boys are encouraged to elope with our girls. The money they are paid to elope and marry a Hindu girl depends on the caste of the girl. The remuneration for Rajput girls is Rs one lakh and for Brahmin girls is Rs two lakhs.” Girls from lower castes are not seen as a good ‘catch’ neither does it bother the Samiti enough.

The kishori vargs are most potent tools to entangle seething teenage emotions with patriarchy. They propogate the idea of gendered spaces, curbing young questioning minds to aspire for domesticity and motherhood instead of independent, ambitious, liberated lives. Says Rekha, “ When the girls join the camp, they question us when we ask them not to wear western outfits like jeans or backless tops. They are told that it not our tradition to show the shape of our body parts. It takes time to make them understand the logic.” Comparatively, this may seem a lesser battle to fight. 

The Samitis regard higher education and professional careers for women as desirable, even though strictly conditional upon pa­rental consent. Not surprisingly, most pracharikas are graduates and postgraduates. However,the Samiti manual clearly mentions that ‘after marriage, a girl will have many responsibilities in her new home. It is not advisable for her to bring disquiet by refusing to compromise. If ordained by her fate, her husband will permit her to study.’ This stems from the clear understanding that domesticity is the sole purpose of a woman’s existence and that equilibrium has to maintained at all personal costs. Similarly, love marriage can only be allowed through parental consent.

Kemi Wahengbam, 26, has been a whole timer for the last two years. Originally from Manipur, her association with the Samiti dates back to when she was a teenager. Initially hostile and then hesitant to talk to me, she said, “ Our work is like sugar in water. You cannot understand it unless you taste it.” Kemi later reveals, “I grew up amidst the army rule, bombs, killings. Association with the Samiti was a welcome change. Religion not just gave my life a direction but also a chance to see the rest of the country.” Kemi has been posted in Gujarat for the last two years and under her tutelage at least 50 new girls have joined the Gujarat shakha. When I ask Kemi about the Gujarat riots and the killings of 2,000 Muslims she resorts to the age old definition of a riot, which is irrational, spontaneous violence, not once acknowledging the possibility of it being organised. She says, “It was a reaction. Hindus are very tolerant by nature. 

Hindu kings have even funded the construction of mosques and churches in this country. So clearly, during Gujarat 2002, all thresholds were crossed for the Hindus to turn so violent.” Kemi’s answer exposes the complicity of the Samiti in the riots and the violence against the Muslims in the way that involves their informed assent to the brutalities against Muslim women which involves gangrapes, slicing of their breasts and the tearing open of pregnant wombs. Refusing to talk to me further, Kemi leaves the dormitory, where the pracharikas were staying for the camp.

I turn to Sharda from Jabalpur. In her late twenties, Sharda has been a whole timer for five years. She tells me that apart from the shakhas, the Samiti also counsels women in their respective areas. There is a manual that is followed. When I ask her, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?” she answers, “Don't parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband's moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non option for women. She says, “our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try counsel the husband too.”

Discussion in the Samiti are no mindless gestures but highly informed convictions. Knowledge and education are often used to vociferously debate contemporary issues in the light of Hindutva. The next session was to discuss such issues. FDI, the most recent point of opposition evoked passionate debates among pracharikas. Pramila Tai goes on to give an example, “Twenty years back, there were television commercials for food products that claimed that it is like ‘home-cooked food’. Now a days, the television commercials sell food products with a tagline that it is ‘restaurant-like’. 

Isn’t this an insult to women?” Her argument against capitalism is seen through the prism of the domesticated roles assigned to women. She adds, “Even when I may have ideological differences with Indira Gandhi, she took great care to meet the smallest of demands of her sons, Rajiv and Sanjay.” Live-in relationships are seen as an anomaly. “They do not guarantee legal rights to the women, neither do they provide the framework for a family and children to lead a normal life,” says Poonam, the pracharika from Delhi. She goes on to discuss homosexuality, “These days, western concepts like lesbianism have seeped into the Indian culture. They are destructive and abnormal.” Falling female sex ratio emerges as another talking point. Sharda, the bauddhik pramukh argues, “If the number of girls will go down, the number of Hindus will decrease. 

And it has been historically proven that whenever, the number of Hindus has gone down in this country, the nation has suffered a crisis.” In an ideology, where women are predominantly mothers who could help the Sangh cause most by rearing their children within the RSS framework of samskaras- a combination of family ritual and unquestioning deference toward patriarchy and religion, these responses are predictable. However, the areas of marriage, divorce, inheritance, sexuality, and reproductive rights in this context also define the place of women and assign them a subordinate status within the community. When I ask them about Hindu terrorism and Sadhvi Pragya, Tara from Panipat jumps to the defence of Hindutva, “She cannot be involved in such an incident. It is a conspiracy to malign Hinduism as a religion. The Samiti teaches the concept of ‘vasudev kutumbakam’. 

A Hindu can never be a terrorist. Terrorism in itself is an ‘American concept.’ She cannot harm on her own family members. What she did could have been a reaction.” I see this as an apt moment to bring in the age old debate about the Ram janmabhoomi and Babri Masjid. There is tense silence when Pramila Tai decides to take the lead. “The ASI has handed over evidence of the mandir. Inspite of that we have been suffering the humiliation of not being able to construct a mandir. When we demand it, we are branded as communal. Hindus have a history of tolerance. Unlike, in Russia where people demolished the statues of Lenin and Stalin, we have allowed mosques to exist that were built during Aurangzeb’s era. Instead of appreciating that we are denied our rights and are instead misinterpreted.”

In the company of such forthright women, it is only pertinent to ask why women still do not hold powerfully political positions in the country. Shathakaka answered,” We do not believe in satta. Parliament is simply a law producing machine. We believe in reforming the society which cannot happen through the weak foreign and economic policies of the political parties.”

No wonder, when compared to the women’s organisations of the Left like the All India Democratic Women’s Association, the Samiti has always taken a backseat in initiating social reform movements.

The Samiti has led a low­ priority, non innovative, routine-bound existence and it is that passivity and unquestioning attitude that is being indoctrinated in young girls through these camps. They are brainwashed with that Hindu nationalism that has always sought legitimacy in notions of female selflessness, sacrifice, and martyrdom. The image of a sustaining, nurturing commu­nity is then used to undercut all left attacks on political and social hierarchies-be it the demands of the states for greater autonomy or of the lower castes, classes, and women for equal rights and affirmative action.

It is in this light of the recent Delhi gangrape protests, the statements of a Mohan Bhagwat propagating patriarchy and blaming western attacks on family values as the reason of rape in the urban India and that of Asha Ram Bapu who said, “the woman could have been saved had she attempted to evoke brotherly sentiments in the six rapists,” that the Hindu right wings notions of a family need to be questioned. The Sevika Samiti, entangled in its own patriarchal values, will never attempt to don this mantle. 

Or get rid of its myopic vision to see that family values are no less corrupted by the corrosive effects of individualism, consumerism and injustice. As Pramila Tai says, “Women demand extra freedom at the cost of the family. This is destructive.” Instead it legitimises gender differences embodied in traditional attitudes. It never empowers women and alter gender relations in the household. In the Samiti, the women continue to be neither subjects of the democratic discourse, nor active participants in it, but the invisibilized site on which masculinist arguments about state transformation unfold.