Sarojini Sahoo is a bilingual writer from the Indian subcontinent. Her writings are a rare insight into the mind of women who question the givens of patriarchal society. Sahoo offers an alternative discourse on issues related to women in India from women’s perspective. She has braved a lot of criticism for writing against the grain of patriarchy. However, her writings exemplify her philosophy which speaks of inclusiveness of peace and equality for both men and women. It has been a pleasure interacting with the author who is so approachable and forth coming with her knowledge and findings.
Excerpts of the Interview
HNN: You’ve mentioned ‘secular sexuality’ in your blog Sense and Sensuality; could you explain your take on that?
Answer: Perhaps a Baul saint Lalon Fakir (1774–1890) of Bangladesh declared first the notion in his song:
“Shob loke koy lalon ki jaat shongshaare
Aar lalon bole jaater ki roop,
Dekhlaam-na ei nojore.
Sunnath dile
hoy mussalmaan
Naari jaatir ki hoy bidhaan?
Aami bamun chini poita proman
Bamni chini kishe re?”
The English translation of that song is:
“Everyone asks, ‘What religion has Lalon in this world?’
And Lalon says, ‘What the shape of religion is,
I have not seen with my eyes’.
The religion he speaks of encompasses and surpasses
not only religious identity, but also notions of gender.
‘If circumcision makes you a Muslim,
what then is the dictum for women?
If a Brahmin can be identified by his sacred thread,
how shall I know a Brahmin woman?’
Any honest, thinking person cannot ignore the blatant misogyny and barbarity of all religions towards women. The powerful Creator Gods were the product of a patriarchal, tribal, violent, intolerant society. They reflect the ignorance and brutality of that society and at the dawn of a new millennium, fundamentalists insist that we should all abide by their religious law. So, I’m always in support of the idea that a woman has no religion.
What I can configure is (correct me if I am wrong), women should also be able to express their sexual needs as freely as men do. Do you think it is safe for women in India to be assertive about their sexuality when the social conditions are quite contrary? The legal system in India is also not able to protect the freedom of women here.
It’s a vague and absurd idea that woman’s right over her own body (rather we shouldn’t name it as sexual liberation) is responsible to enhance sex crime. Look at Denmark. There were six registered sex offenders living in Denmark in early 2007, according to State List. All names presented here were gathered at a past date. No representation is made that the persons listed there are currently on the state's sex offender’s registry. The ratio of number of residents in Denmark to the number of sex offenders is 357:1. But the country is very much liberal, having a less control over sexual restrictions.
In 2006, a greater number of sex crimes are registered in spring and summer, according to figures provided by the Municipal Department of Internal Affairs in Moscow. In February of that year, nine rapes were committed in the capital, whereas in March this figure reached 15, and in May, it rose to 22, and in June, it rose even higher to 23. Can we then blame seasonal effect for increasing in sex crime?
The fact is that only 20 percent of rapists are so-called sex maniacs. Another 30 percent are drunken teenagers or released criminals. In half of these cases, the rapist is a person with whom the victim is already familiar, even if they have only just met at the house of a mutual acquaintance or at a bus stop. In the case of teenage girls, who are not always able to say “no” to an adult, the statistics are even higher: four out of five victims of sexual crimes suffered at the hands of a neighbor, class-mate, or family friend. So how can you say woman’s right over her body is responsible for the increase in rape cases? Why not the son, the hormones, and alcohol?
I think this type of argument has a motivated intention to maintain masculine dominance over feminine rights.“Woman’s right over her body” in the American context was about the right to have abortion. What is your implication of using this slogan in the Indian context?
Let us discuss how the ‘body’ of a female acquired its place in the total Western discourse. In the nineteenth century, when the Contagious Diseases Act was enforced in Britain and women were forcibly examined for venereal disease, the ‘body’ also came into prominence. Josephine Butler was the prominent figure to raise her voice through the campaign. In feminist history, we find the Seneca Falls Convention (July 19-20, 1848) does not mention the body, it was first mentioned as a marker of race and class differences within the feminist movement by Sojourner Truth in her famous speech, “Ain't I a Woman?” at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851.Truth told in her speech, “I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear de lash a well! And ain't I a woman?”
However, credit goes to Simone De Beauvoir, who embodied the ‘female body’ with a philosophical strategy. In the first chapter of The Second Sex, Beauvoir reviews the data of biology and later she provides an account of the phenomenology of the body as lived throughout the different stages of a woman's life. Here she is explicitly offering her narrative as an account of lived experience, the body in situations and not as part of the data of biology. She discusses social issues primarily affecting women in our culture, such as birth control, abortion, the family, sexual discrimination and harassment, and rape. Though Beauvoir begins her book with women’s bodies, she later she states that ‘connoisseurs’ do not declare every human with a uterus as a woman. “It would appear then," she writes, “that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity.” Beauvoir thus rejects the female body and from that time onward, feminist philosophy has been denying the need of a female body or female sexuality, and their only aim was in liberating women from reproductive tasks. Women were barred from beauty consciousness and from using cosmetics or fashionable dress and ‘femininity’ of a female was considered as the ‘negative’ aspects of her nature.
Luce Irigaray, a Belgian feminist, philosopher, linguist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and cultural theorist identified this ‘masculinism’ of feminists in her well-known book Speculum of the Other Woman (1974) (translated by G. C. Gill, and published by Cornell University Press, Ithaca). She pointed out that in the thoughts of these feminists, man was presented as the universal norm, and sexual difference was not recognized or recognised in such a way that woman was conceptualized as the ‘maternal-feminine,’ which had been left behind in the move to abstract thought.
I don’t know the actual facts and happenings with an infant girl-child, but in Asian and African countries, it's a regular practice to breastfeed girls for a shorter time than boys so that women can try to get pregnant again with a boy as soon as possible. In the case of adolescent girls, they are provided with less food than their brothers by their own mothers. As a result, girls miss out on life-giving nutrition during a crucial time in their development, which stunts their growth and weakens their resistance to disease. Sunita Kishor published a survey report in American Sociological Review (April 1993). In her article “May God Give Sons to All: Gender and Child Mortality in India,” she writes “despite the increased ability to command essential food and medical resources associated with development, female children [in India] do not improve their survival chances relative to male children with gains in development. Relatively high levels of agricultural development decrease the life chances of females while leaving males’ life chances unaffected; urbanization increases the life chances of males more than females. Clearly, gender-based discrimination in the allocation of resources persists and even increases, even when availability of resources is not a constraint.” Is this not gender discrimination as related to the body of a female?
How does your feminism differ from feminism in the West? Since you also talk about writing the body isn’t it the same as ecriture feminism of the French feminists?
For me, feminism is not a gender problem or any confrontational attack on male hegemony so it is quite different from that of Virginia Woolf or Judith Butler. I accept feminism as a total entity of female-hood, which is completely separate from the man’s world.
To me, femininity (rather than feminism) has a wonderful power. In our de-gendered times, a really feminine woman is a joy to behold and you can love and unleash your own unique yet universal femininity. We are here for gender sensitivity to proclaim the differences between men and woman with a kind of pretence that we are all the same. Too many women have been de-feminized by society. To be feminine is to know how to pay attention to detail and people; to have people skills; and to know how to connect to and work well with others. There will be particular times and situations within which you'll want to be more in touch and in tune with your femininity than others. Being able to choose is a great privilege and skill.
I think ‘femininity’ is the proper word to replace ‘feminism,’ because the latter has lost its significance and identity due to its extensive involvement with radical politics. Femininity comes from the original Latin word ‘femina’ which means ‘female’ or ‘women’ and certainly the word creates debatable identical characteristics. It separates the female mass from a masculine world with reference to gentleness, empathy, sensitivity, nurturance, deference, self-abasement, and succorance. And patriarchy also sets the group alien from them in their traditional milieu.
There are many more differences in theories among scientists, anthropologists, and psychologist regarding the nature and behavior of the female mass. Biologists believe the role of our hormones, particularly sex hormones, and the structure of our chromosomes are responsible for such a dichotomy in gender, though some queer theorists and other postmodernists, however, have rejected the sex (biology) / gender (culture) dichotomy as a “dangerous simplification.” Psychology, often influenced by patriarchy, categorizes women as different from the masculine world in certain behavioral, emotional and logical areas. Social anthropologists deny the concept of biology or psychology which keeps women aside from the masculine world. Simone De Beauvoir’s saying “one is not born a woman, but becomes one” impressed social anthropologists so much that they create a different theory of feminine socialization.
In my essays, I have constantly tried to analyze the ‘truth,’ as related by biologists and anthropologists. What I think true to my sense and sensibility, I have expressed without any hesitation.
Don’t you think ecriture feminism limits the writing style of women writers? Doesn’t’ it become prescriptive?
I don’t consider myself as a conformist because I consider myself more a writer and as a writer, I think I am always a genderless entity. In my opinion, a writer should not have any gender. But still, patriarchal society has prevailed; is there any possibility to have a genderless society?
What would you like to say about doubly marginalized women like the tribal women, widows in ashrams, or women from lower castes and poor women who have to deal with the daily grind of survival and humiliation? They are deprived of the basic human rights. Do they have time to think about sexual liberation when other issues of survival are more important to them?
A Dalit or tribal woman not only struggles for her lower economic status, but she has to live with a high risk of gender-based violence. At the household level, incest, rape and domestic violence continue to hinder women’s development across India.
Forty percent of all sexual abuse cases in India are incest, and 94% of the incest cases had a known member of the household as the perpetrator. Dowry related deaths, domestic violence, gang rape of lower caste women by upper caste men, and physical violence by the police towards tribal women all contribute to women’s insecurity in India. The class and caste structure inadvertently put poor women from lower class and tribal communities at the most risk of violence. Class and caste divisions also create grave challenges to poor, lower caste, and tribal women in accessing justice and retribution as victims and survivors of violence. So, sexual factors have a significant role in women’s life as their economic condition and so I argue for two types of liberation for women. One is economical and other is sexual.
How does a woman’s sexuality play a major role in the understanding of feminism in India?
In marital life in India and many other countries around the world, a woman has no sexual rights. She cannot express her desires and even she is not supposed to enjoy sex as it is told in the Hindu code that a wife is needed only for giving birth to a ‘male child.’ Expressing her own desire for sex or talking freely about orgasm to even one’s own husband may also be termed as a chasteless and debasing activity for a woman.
Though the Women and Child Development Ministry (WCD) and the National Commission for Women (NCW) have advised the government to amend the 1973 Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the 1872 Indian Evidence Act to recognize new categories of sexual assault by redefining rape to include sexual assault (including domestic sexual assault) of any form in its definition, still, most married woman are facing such marital rapes in their daily lives.
But talk about these ‘dicey’ topics by a woman is considered vulgar. Also, nobody thinks it proper to ask a woman before subjecting her to the killing of her fetus yet now, in some parts of India, ‘honor killings’ are granted if a woman steps out of bounds — by choosing her own husband, by flirting in public, or by seeking divorce from an abusive partner — she has brought dishonor to her family. Yet all these matters are related to a woman’s body and still, that woman has no right to make any of her own decisions.
In total, we can see the term ‘sex’ and ‘female sexuality’ has been totally misinterpreted in the discourse of Western feminism. Sexuality is not only a bodily matter and it does not limit itself to only sexual behavior and sexual activities, though they are a major factor. And most of the real meaning of female sexuality relatively termed with her body as well mind.
Does your writing represent only particular middle class women and their issues?
No, never. Many of my stories are related to the protagonists who come from urban or tribal background. Yash Publication of Delhi is going to publish a collection of my Hindi translated stories on these downtrodden ‘Dalit’ characters. One of my novels Pakshivas (this novel has been translated into Hindi and Bengali) is the saga of an untouchable, downtrodden cattle bone collector, Satnemi family from Kalahandi, the most backward region of western Orissa.
Do you think writings in ‘bhasha’ literatures in India are dependent on their translated versions to find a larger audience?
Yes, as India is a country of vast linguistic diversity, translation of Indian Literature from one language to another has a significant role to capture the wide audience from all over the country. But if you think English is the only language which could pay this role model, then you are probably wrong. Once the Indian author Shashi Deshpande expressed her ideas that the English language is in some ways harmful to Indian culture not because it is the language of the ex-colonizers, but because it has become the language of the privileged, elite classes in India. She admits that when she writes in English she is aware that her work will reach out to only a few English-speaking readers, most of whom will be thinking the way she does.
The problem is that if an author writes in English with the purpose of changing social traditions, the language excludes the poor and down-trodden whose involvement is most needed, and English has no place in the daily lives of those people.
But it is worth noting that English is the only source where a link can be made with global literary fields; although in India, the readability of literature in English shows a minuscule acceptance despite the rapid growth of literacy in English and in incomes of urban Indians. Presently and after globalization, it has remarkably placed its significance and never anyone today could define its tenure as colonial or outsider.
Do you think that a lot is lost in the process of translation of your work?
Yes, many times I feel the translator can’t transform the feelings or emotions or facts I want to express. Maybe a translator will be successful in transferring the message, but how about the beauty of the language or the aesthetic. One language might be beautiful according to the native speaker, but if it is transferred into another language the beauty of language will not be the same. On the other hand, if the translator just focuses the beauty of the language, he ignores the message or the idea.
Do you think that feminism in the west has influenced feminist rising in India and other third world nations like Africa?
Certainly westerns are premier in Feminism, but unlike Western countries, feminism in India had been motivated and ignited mostly by males and never females. It is a very interesting fact that in the colonial period, we find none of the female authors came forward with any question over the patriarchal milieu except some Anglo-Indian writers like Bithia Mary Crocker (1849 -1920), Maud Diver (1867-1945), Sara Duncan (1861-1921), F. E. Penny, Alice Perrin (1867-1934), and Flora Annie Steel (1847-1929). They all are now forgotten, but once they played a major role in molding conflicts and collusions between
British feminist discourses at the turn of the nineteenth century and contemporary conservative discourses bolstering colonial patriarchy. Though they were related to India somehow by their birth; culturally, they were not associated with India. The trend of feminism began in the late nineteenth century with the rise of the reformist movement in India by male reformists like Ram Mohan Ray, Chandra Vidyasagar, and others. I can’t say more about development of Feminism in Africa as this field is yet to be studied by me.
Who are the feminist writers from the west who have influenced your writings? You have been compared with Judith Butler and Simon de Beauvoir from the west, but you contend that your feminist position is different from their feminism. Could you elaborate how?
No doubt Simon de Beauvoir has inspired much to think more about feminism but not in my all writings. So far as the question related with literature or fiction, there are always male writers than female counterparts who impressed me.
Though Beauvoir has inspired me first to think over feminism, but I possess very different views from western feminist. I have opposed Simone De Beauvoir’s ‘other’ theory and opposite to her I believe that there are inherent physical, behavioral, emotional, and psychological differences between men and women and we affirm and celebrate these differences as wonderful and complementary. These differences do not evidence the superiority of one sex over the other but rather, serve to show that each sex is complemented and made stronger by the presence of the other. As a different unit, similar to man, the female mass has their right for equity as well. You can read more about my differences with Beauvoir on ‘other theory’ from an article titled ‘Other” at Wikipedia.
Now about Judith Butler. The concept of ‘right soul in a wrong body’ developed from Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando - A Biography to which Judith Butler described those signs or analytical models which dramatize incoherencies in the allegedly stable relations between chromosomal sex, gender and sexual desire and named it as ‘queer theory’. In my book Sensible Sensuality, I discussed these gestures and showed how these are throwing out powerful rhetoric of ‘thwarting the binary gender system’ means nothing if it comes from somebody who hates the world, loses his or her confidence to face life, and doesn't like himself or herself as a person. I can understand the positions of intersexuals or transsexuals who are born with differed biological bodies. There should be rational steps to make all feel comfortable and to mix up everyone into the mainstream. What I am against is the pop-culture clichés to express these feelings like “man trapped in a woman's body” or “woman trapped in a man's body.”
Feminism has branched out into many trajectories; can we talk of cross cultural feminism in the present scenario? Are there any cross connections? In the age of accelerated globalization, migration and displacement cross cultural feminist exchanges and dialogues become a basis for negotiating culturally differentiated feminist positions. Do you think third world feminist strategies can help feminist in the west and vice versa?
Recently in several European countries, a tendency to ban this full-body covering burqa or the face-covering ‘hijab’ has been seen and as governments there are trying to outlaw this dress code, which is pushing many countries toward a debate. In my blogging ‘Banning the Burqa: What’s Really Being Hid?’ I commented: “I think it is totally undemocratic to dictate any code of living to anyone. Democracy means freedom of choice! If anyone has freedom to wear jeans, they should also have the freedom to wear ‘burqa.’ Leave women to wear what they want.” What I find more a gender bias in this law is that this ban, in fact, would reduce the equality between men and women — whereas men are allowed to wear whatever they want, women again have their rights restrained. It is foolishness to think that by making any law or dress code, the institution making its rules can make people obey and follow as dictated. Rather, it usually serves to ignite emotions and increase the impulsive alienated attitude among some communities. But on the other hand I believe, if we have to support the Burqa wearing females, we should have to support Aliaa Magda Elmahdy’s attempt to publish her nude photos.
But it is also true that in the name of cross cultural feminism feminine mass has to bear a risk of becoming a tool in the hand of patriarchy control. For example: supporting Female Genital Mutilation in the name of cross cultural feminism seems to be harder for me. Holding a religious conviction and faith is a matter that must be left absolutely to each person’s inner choice of free will. It is a very sad commentary on mankind that they have over time turned all the teachings brought to them about Truth and Life into religions; and have maintained these religions with iron-clad rigid dogmas and doctrines. This way, the society, or particularly to say patriarchal society has brought serious dilution, and in some cases distortions, into the true teachings of the Prophets and Truth Bringers. Patriarchy always used religion as a tool for suppression to women and hence I think it is improper and harmful to add religious beliefs rather individual conviction to women’s moral values in the name of cross cultural feminism.
Some critics have criticized the feminist writings of the third world as tokenism and sometimes even farcical, what do you have to say to such kind of criticism?
I don’t think feminist writings in India are farcical. Before criticizing feminist writings, we have to keep in mind that a literary writing should not be propagandist one. The tabloid issued for any political movement can’t be named as literature. So, while judging writings of Ismat Chugtai, Amrita Pritam or Kamala Das, we have not to fix a feminist norm rather we have to keep in mind that how much sincere they are to their feelings and experiences with their womanhoods.
If a feminist writer chooses to write about the patriarchal dominance in the Hindu or even in Muslim traditions she is indicted for having joined hands with the west by the fundamentalists. Have you also faced similar kind of censure when you wrote against the grain of the Hindu tradition?
When my novel The Dark Abode first published in Odia under the title of Gambhiri Ghara in 2005, the Hindu fundamentalists raised their brows and I have to bear many insulting words in the name of criticism. One of our senior writers rebuked me over phone for playing with religious sentiments. But Gambhiri Ghara gained instant readers’ appreciation and good name in Odia literature and the book proved itself as a best seller of the time. Later it was translated and got published in English, Bengali, Hindi and Malayalam. In Bangladesh, the novel became popular and could attract critics’ attention.
You have used the Uma Shakti Myth in your novel The Dark Abode. Some scholars might blame you for promoting the Hindu religion and marginalizing women who don't follow Hinduism.
Religion and mythology are two different fixations. Religion is the broader term: besides mythological aspects, it includes aspects of ritual, morality, theology, and mystical experience. A given mythology is almost always associated with certain symbolic representation of ideas or philosophy of a ‘group’. It is very interesting to note that though Mesopotamian, Greek and Hindu civilizations, religions and cultures existed in different parts of the world and were separated by great distances and time, but there are some amazing similarities between their fables and myths. The concept of goddess always lies with sexuality and we find great similarities in all the myths of goddesses in worldwide. In Sumer, the goddess was known as Inanna, and in Babylon and Assyria, was known as Ishtar. She was Aphrodite for the Greeks. The Egyptians called her Hathor, Quaddesha and Aset. To the Phoenicians, she was Astarte. To the Hebrews, she was Ashtoreth and Ashera. And to the Philistines, she was Atergatis. So, the concept of Uma is universal idea/ philosophy of sexuality in all other cultures.
The foreword of the novel opens with metta, mudita, upekks” Pali words that mean love, joy, to see within; Are these words symbolic of the theme underlying your narrative?
In Chapter 2 of TDA, Kuki told Safiq, “What is the point of living like a caterpillar, or leading a life of unbridled enjoyment of female flesh without any emotions or attachments? Do you think I have been attracted towards you in anticipation of physical pleasure? I wish I was aware of all this from the beginning.”
Here ‘Caterpillar ‘is a symbol of ‘sex hunger’ and Kuki wants to raise her from mire of sex to celestial expansion. You could mark that the total novel is the description of slow process how a perverted person who enjoyed 52 fair sexes could raise himself to a perfect self in love.
Why have you brought the “historical background” to the foreground towards the end of the novel , since the novel deals with “personal story” of Kuki and Safiq, History remains in the background throughout, then why a sudden reversal towards the end?
The ‘historical background’ has not been brought at the end only. You could mark the starting of novel is from a ‘historical back ground’ where the partition, the Kashmir problem and Indo-Pak relations ship or Hindu-Muslim hatred scenarios in Kuki’s nostalgia occupy a major portion.
The novel also delves into the relationship between the ‘state’ and the ‘individual’ and comes to the conclusion that ‘the state’ represents the moods and wishes of a ruler and hence, ‘the state’ actually becomes a form of ‘an individual’. So, the ‘personal story’ of Kuki and Safiq actually represents the story of a subcontinent.
Reviewing TDA, Bangladeshi eminent writer Selina Hossain writes,” The course of life of two different citizens of two States does not give any other solution than waiting. How the State obstructs and suppresses the individual freedom has been shown in the version of Safiq, the painter. When he writes letter to Kuki in pseudonym, she understands that ‘It is a ploy to hide his identity from the Military Junta.’
Kuki wrote to Safiq, ‘Don’t think that there is any less exercise to cook up history in our India. Here the history changes its narrative with the change of rulers. It becomes difficult to ascertain who is the hero, who the villain. The historical facts read by the father are changed when it is the turn of the son to read it. Can you tell when the history of man will be available to man written impartiality?’ The writer does not rest without telling the tale of the individuals, the State, political tit bits, the behaviour of the military and misrule of the State in her novel. The inner conflict gives the heroine much trouble. Different aspects of the crisis of a woman’s life have been described in this novel. The woman fights with herself.”
Macro level of politics has been mentioned only fleetingly in the last chapters, you have tried to include all forces that regulate the destiny of a personal relation be it tradition, macro level politics, economic forces, political and geographical wars, religious and ethnical non tolerance and even terrorism. Was your intention to highlight the forces against which all human beings are pitted?
Your observations are very correct. That is why Kuki could realize Virginia Woolf’s sayings: “As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”
The character of Safique has been left in shrouds of mystery in the end. Is it deliberate? How do you account for it?
I am sometimes doubtful if all the imaginary situations I have used in my fictions are mine. Sometimes the imaginary is "running by itself" and the content is not typically what I would imagine out of my own desires. I suspect something mystic with writings can be real. To suppress such communication is something I am unsure of, because the characters of my fictions want to live their lives by their own will, because they want to heal their wounds, and how can I deny such a positive force?
Perhaps it is the ‘Safique’s will’ which would make him imperceptible at the end.
What is the relevance of the collage presentation of the rather erotic sketches by Ed Baker in the novel? Do they convey something you could not write as explicitly as a woman writer? How do you connect the sketches with the narrative?
I think mine is the expression of female sexuality in fiction or text form and Baker tries to represent the same idea through art form. In my original Odia (Oriya) novel there are also similar sketches drawn by Dr. Dinanath Pathi, the Secretary General of LalitKala Akademi.
HNN: Thank you for sharing your insights about feminism in the Indian context. Wish you good luck for your future projects.
The demands on P Chidambaram are many as he rises to present the Union Budget. Welfare schemes for a government that wants to win the next elections, corporates that want more tax breaks and markets that threaten to withhold their ‘animal spirits’ unless he delivers what they want. And all this while attempting to curb the nation’s fiscal deficit that threatens to spiral out of control.
But in an attempt to woo foreign investors and the various corporate houses that hold sway over political houses, does the Finance Minister risk leaving the common man and the marginalised out in the cold?
The Finance Minister should use this budget to emphasise the “political philosophy and notions of public morality” behind the current government’s economic philosophies, argues columnist Harish Khare in the Hindu today.
Acknowledging that the Finance Minister has friends in the corporate crowd, Khare says the UPA government cannot afford to present a budget that favours particular corporate houses, a move that will only backfire in the long run given how much it will alienate the remainder of the nation’s citizenry.
Nonetheless, it must be presumed that the Congress has not totally shut down its political antennae. Its leadership knows that many of these captains of industry have an interventionist political agenda. It is no secret that a sizeable section of the Mumbai club is keen to rearrange the ruling arrangements in New Delhi around, say, a Sharad Pawar or a Narendra Modi after the next Lok Sabha elections. There is no earthly reason why the budget should seek to mollify these very greedy and politically ambitious business houses that have proved so intractable these last few years. Rather, the corporate bluff must be called.
Arguing that the budget needs to be the promoter of social good and not just market sentiment, Khare says that Chidambaram needs to stop worrying purely about the growth of the Indian economy and ensure that the government’s handling of corporate India is balanced, and not biased as is being widely perceived.
However, the Finance Minister has little choice but to ignore such advice. As the elections loom and the government constrained to contain fiscal deficit that threatens to spiral out of control, the Finance Minister may have his morals in place, but will perhaps be forced to ignore them.
Corporate India, whether we like it or not, is the fuel powering the political engine of the nation. The Finance Minister would be a terrible politician if he chose to alienate the government’s corporate allies with just a year to go for the elections. The animal sentiments of the stock markets will also be left unhurt in order to ensure those dollars keep coming in to ensure the current account deficit remains manageable, and allow the government to attempt one last welfare scheme they can hope will swing the next national elections and upcoming state elections in their favour.
There may be a union budget in the future that upholds governance, political morality and economic equity. This is unlikely to be that one.
You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already!
Sound familiar?
If you’re a woman, it probably does.
Do you ever hear any of these comments from your spouse, partner, boss, friends, colleagues, or relatives after you have expressed frustration, sadness, or anger about something they have done or said?
When someone says these things to you, it’s not an example of inconsiderate behavior. When your spouse shows up half an hour late to dinner without calling—that’s inconsiderate behavior. A remark intended to shut you down like, “Calm down, you’re overreacting,” after you just addressed someone else’s bad behavior, is emotional manipulation—pure and simple.
And this is the sort of emotional manipulation that feeds an epidemic in our country, an epidemic that defines women as crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, unhinged. This epidemic helps fuel the idea that women need only the slightest provocation to unleash their (crazy) emotions. It’s patently false and unfair.
I think it’s time to separate inconsiderate behavior from emotional manipulation and we need to use a word not found in our normal vocabulary.
I want to introduce a helpful term to identify these reactions: gaslighting.
Gaslighting is a term, often used by mental health professionals (I am not one), to describe manipulative behavior used to confuse people into thinking their reactions are so far off base that they’re crazy.
The term comes from the 1944 MGM film, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. Bergman’s husband in the film, played by Charles Boyer, wants to get his hands on her jewelry. He realizes he can accomplish this by having her certified as insane and hauled off to a mental institution. To pull of this task, he intentionally sets the gaslights in their home to flicker off and on, and every time Bergman’s character reacts to it, he tells her she’s just seeing things. In this setting, a gaslighter is someone who presents false information to alter the victim’s perception of him or herself.
Today, when the term is referenced, it’s usually because the perpetrator says things like, “You’re so stupid” or “No one will ever want you,” to the victim. This is an intentional, pre-meditated form of gaslighting, much like the actions of Charles Boyer’s character in Gaslight, where he strategically plots to confuse Ingrid Bergman’s character into believing herself unhinged.
The form of gaslighting I’m addressing is not always pre-mediated or intentional, which makes it worse, because it means all of us, especially women, have dealt with it at one time or another.
Those who engage in gaslighting create a reaction—whether it’s anger, frustration, sadness—in the person they are dealing with. Then, when that person reacts, the gaslighter makes them feel uncomfortable and insecure by behaving as if their feelings aren’t rational or normal.
My friend Anna (all names changed to protect privacy) is married to a man who feels it necessary to make random and unprompted comments about her weight. Whenever she gets upset or frustrated with his insensitive comments, he responds in the same, defeating way, “You’re so sensitive. I’m just joking.”
My friend Abbie works for a man who finds a way, almost daily, to unnecessarily to unnecessarily shoot down her performance and her work product. Comments like, “Can’t you do something right?” or “Why did I hire you?” are regular occurrences for her. Her boss has no problem firing people (he does it regularly), so you wouldn’t know that based on these comments, Abbie has worked for him for six years. But every time she stands up for herself and says, “It doesn’t help me when you say these things,” she gets the same reaction: “Relax; you’re overreacting.”
Abbie thinks her boss is just being a jerk in these moments, but the truth is, he is making those comments to manipulate her into thinking her reactions are out of whack. And it’s exactly that kind manipulation that has left her feeling guilty about being sensitive, and as a result, she has not left her job.
But gaslighting can be as simple as someone smiling and saying something like, “You’re so sensitive,” to somebody else. Such a comment may seem innocuous enough, but in that moment, the speaker is making a judgment about how someone else should feel.
While dealing with gaslighting isn’t a universal truth for women, we all certainly know plenty of women who encounter it at work, home, or in personal relationships.
And the act of gaslighting does not simply affect women who are not quite sure of themselves. Even vocal, confident, assertive women are vulnerable to gaslighting.
Why?
Because women bare the brunt of our neurosis. It is much easier for us to place our emotional burdens on the shoulders of our wives, our female friends, our girlfriends, our female employees, our female colleagues, than for us to impose them on the shoulders of men.
It’s a whole lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who has been conditioned by our society to accept it. We continue to burden women because they don’t refuse our burdens as easily. It’s the ultimate cowardice.
Whether gaslighting is conscious or not, it produces the same result: it renders some women emotionally mute.
These women aren’t able to clearly express to their spouses that what is said or done to them is hurtful. They can’t tell their boss that his behavior is disrespectful and prevents them from doing their best work. They can’t tell their parents that, when they are being critical, they are doing more harm than good.
When these women receive any sort of push back to their reactions, they often brush it off by saying, “Forget it, it’s okay.”
That “forget it” isn’t just about dismissing a thought, it is about self-dismissal. It’s heartbreaking.
No wonder some women are unconsciously passive aggressive when expressing anger, sadness, or frustration. For years, they have been subjected to so much gaslighting that they can no longer express themselves in a way that feels authentic to them.
They say, “I’m sorry,” before giving their opinion. In an email or text message, they place a smiley face next to a serious question or concern, thereby reducing the impact of having to express their true feelings.
You know how it looks: “You’re late :)”
These are the same women who stay in relationships they don’t belong in, who don’t follow their dreams, who withdraw from the kind of life they want to live.
Since I have embarked on this feminist self-exploration in my life and in the lives of the women I know, this concept of women as “crazy” has really emerged as a major issue in society at large and an equally major frustration for the women in my life, in general.
From the way women are portrayed on reality shows, to how we condition boys and girls to see women, we have come to accept the idea that women are unbalanced, irrational individuals, especially in times of anger and frustration.
Just the other day, on a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a flight attendant who had come to recognize me from my many trips asked me what I did for a living. When I told her that I write mainly about women, she immediately laughed and asked, “Oh, about how crazy we are?”
Her gut reaction to my work made me really depressed. While she made her response in jest, her question nonetheless makes visible a pattern of sexist commentary that travels through all facets of society on how men view women, which also greatly impacts how women may view themselves.
As far as I am concerned, the epidemic of gaslighting is part of the struggle against the obstacles of inequality that women constantly face. Acts of gaslighting steal their most powerful tool: their voice. This is something we do to women every day, in many different ways.
I don’t think this idea that women are “crazy,” is based in some sort of massive conspiracy. Rather, I believe it’s connected to the slow and steady drumbeat of women being undermined and dismissed, on a daily basis. And gaslighting is one of many reasons why we are dealing with this public construction of women as “crazy.”
I recognize that I’ve been guilty of gaslighting my women friends in the past (but never my male friends—surprise, surprise). It’s shameful, but I’m glad I realized that I did it on occasion and put a stop to it.
While I take total responsibility for my actions, I do believe that I, along with many men, am a byproduct of our conditioning. It’s about the general insight our conditioning gives us into admitting fault and exposing any emotion.
When we are discouraged in our youth and early adulthood from expressing emotion, it causes many of us to remain steadfast in our refusal to express regret when we see someone in pain from our actions.
When I was writing this piece, I was reminded of one of my favorite Gloria Steinem quotes, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”
So for many of us, it’s first about unlearning how to flicker those gaslights and learning how to acknowledge and understand the feelings, opinions, and positions of the women in our lives.
But isn’t the issue of gaslighting ultimately about whether we are conditioned to believe that women’s opinions don’t hold as much weight as ours? That what women have to say, what they feel, isn’t quite as legitimate?
Braving social stigma, economic hardship and ill health, hundreds of young HIV positive women in India are claiming back their rights to a life of self-reliance and dignity.
In India, there are 2.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS. Official data revealed by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare shows, well over a million of these HIV-positive people are youths most of whom live in poverty with few means of earning a livelihood and a constant fear of social ostracism.
29–year old Krishna Savitha of Hyderabad – a city in the south of India – is, however, a marked difference.
A seller of red ribbons and glass bangles, Savitha barely has the time to sit and talk as customers pour into her tiny shop all day long. On some days, she does not even have time for lunch. Yet, Savitha is happy. The reason is not hard to guess: brisk business has also helped her earn well.
“I have been very busy since October. First, there were major festivals like Dasara, Diwali and Sankranthi. And right now, there is the season of weddings which goes on till the end of this week. In the past four days alone, I have made a profit of Rs 4,000. After this season is over, I will take a break. Maybe I will visit my relatives,’ says Savitha, with a smile.
Owning a business and making money of her own is like a miracle to Savitha who was married at fourteen to a man twice her age, and widowed at twenty with two toddlers. Her husband, a landless, migrant daily wager, had AIDS – a fact Savitha learned only after his death.
And then she also learned that she was infected with HIV - the virus that caused AIDS.
When she told her neighbors and relatives of this, instead of sympathizing with her, they shunned Savitha completely, fearing that she would infect them as well.
For three years, Savitha lived in utter loneliness and without hope. Many times, she thought of committing suicide.
Red Ribbon Entrepreneurs with a positive attitude
But, in 2008, a chance meeting with another young HIV positive woman called Swapna Raj changed Savitha’s life forever. Raj was the president of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) – a network of HIV positive people who help each other live with dignity and self-respect. PLHIV coordinates with local hospitals and when new cases of HIV are registered there, it meets the patients, encourages them to join the network where they can receive free counseling on health, career and above all, emotional support that can help them rebuild their lives.
When Savitha joined PLHIV, the first thing that she learned was how to make a red ribbon.
Recalls Savitha, “When I joined the network, I met many other women of my age. They told me that being HIV positive did not mean the end of the world and that I could start a business and they would help me in whichever way possible. I had no money of my own, so women from our network bought me some ribbons and pins and asked me to make red ribbons. They said that they the government, NGOs and even churches wanted these ribbons because they give message against HIV and AIDS.”
Making ribbons is a job Savitha found quite easy and in two weeks she could make as many as five thousand ribbons that were sold for one rupee a piece. At the end, she made a profit of INR 3,000 – with which she started a small, home-based business of selling glass bangles. For first few weeks, all of her customers were from the PLHIV network.
But soon, women in her neighborhood also started to shed their fear and visit Savitha’s shop. As business slowly picked up, Savitha, started to use the opportunity to spread words about HIV/AIDS. She usually begins by gifting each of her customers a red ribbon, before discussing what causes the virus and how to deal with it. “They are more aware of HIV/AIDS now and are no longer scared of getting infected by me,” Savitha says with a smile.
24-year old Shri Latha also makes red ribbons for a living. But, unlike Savitha, Latha has made this her full time occupation. Says Latha, “when I joined the network, AIDS Day was around the corner. Someone suggested that soon there would be a demand for red ribbons and I could try stitching some. Now, I make ribbons of all colors: red ribbon is anti-HIV, pink ribbons are anti-breast cancer and purple ribbons are anti- domestic violence. I get bulk orders from different NGOs and educational institutions. I normally make seven to eight thousand rupees a month.”
Like Savitha and Sri Latha, several hundred young HIV positive women from PHLIV in Hyderabad and nearby districts are turning entrepreneurs to find themselves a new life of financial security and dignity.
They are partnering with the government and various local and international NGOs on many livelihood programs for HIV/AIDS patients. They are also forming self-help groups, raise INR 3-5,000 to start a business, or, get trained in skills that can help earn a living: tailoring, selling flowers, fruits and vegetables, making decorative items, beads, selling bangles, running provision stores, tea kiosks, food stalls and so on.
And they also make red ribbons – something they find both financially viable and emotionally satisfying as it helps them spread awareness of HIV/AIDS.
Claiming their right to self-reliance and dignity
“The government gives us free treatment also a monthly stipend of INR 200. But nobody can support herself entirely with that money. Besides, we are young people. We have dreams. We want to live well. As we are on Anti-retroviral Therapy, we also need nutritious food. But not all of us are educated. Also, many employers think we are sick and not able-bodied. So, the logical thing to do is help us find self-employment. For women who do not have any particular skills, making red ribbons can be a start,” says Swapna Raj, founder of PLHIV who has personally trained over a hundred women in ribbon-making.
Jagadeesh Kumar, an HIV/AIDS expert says that the government has also started to support self-employment. “There is an effort to shift from ’charity mood’ to ‘self-sustainability mood,” says Kumar who partnered in a government-run health program called Balasahyoga (meaning child support) that helps young HIV positive women with children to earn a livelihood.
Kumar informs that in past five years, over ten thousand women - mostly young widows from marginalized communities - have been given training and loans to start a small business that can help them earn some profits while getting enough nutrition for herself and her children. These include growing fruits, vegetables and rearing chicken or a keeping a cow.
Guna Lakshmi is a 32 year old HIV positive woman from West Godavari – a coastal district - who had benefited from Balasahayog program. "My husband never told me he was HIV positive. But five years ago, he died and I started to get sick very often. The doctors at a local hospital told me that I had HIV virus and that my husband had also died of AIDS. But my parents-in-law threw me out of their house. They said, ‘you are going to die soon. So, just go someplace else and die,” says Lakshmi.
However, in 2010, under the Balasahyog program, Lakshmi received INR 8,000 and with that money, she bought a dairy cow. Today the number of Lakshmi’s cattle has grown to three and she is living comfortably selling milk to her neighbors and the sweet shops in the town. “I am on Anti-retroviral Therapy and I am not dead yet. Doctors say that I can live for another fifteen years. When it’s time for me to go, I will give these cows to a woman who also has nobody else.”
Young, passionate and responsible
Besides economic self-reliance, the young women of PLHIV network are also claiming their rights to companionship and remarrying, ending years of isolation and loneliness. In the network they open their hearts to each other which leads to understanding, support, and quite often, love. And when they decide to marry, it is an informed decision taken by two people who not only know each other, but also share a common passion for living.
So far, over 250 HIV positive couples in PLHIV have tied the knot in Hyderabad alone, informs Swapna Raj who also remarried in 2008 after her first husband died.
“Nobody has to die alone just for being HIV positive. At our network, we encourage all the single members to remarry. However, we also take the pledge that the virus must end with us. So, if both the partners are HIV positive, they must not have children as that would mean passing on the virus to the next generation. So, while we claim our rights, we also fulfill our responsibilities as citizens,” she says.
Mobile internet TV is one of the biggest growth areas in India. A recent survey conducted by Google in partnership with IPSOS and the MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) found that a third of Indian smartphone users watch TV on their smartphone.
TV household penetration in India has hit 65% and is as much as 88% in urban regions. This shows tremendous opportunities for live over-the-top (OTT) content and mobile internet TV for those households that currently have no existing terrestrial infrastructure, cable or satellite services. The operators know this and realize the potential of the market, so why haven’t more of them rolled out mobile video services?
Their reluctance stems from an understandable concern about major investments into hardware and infrastructure, and fears about the length of time it will take to recoup the money they think is needed to launch an OTT service. On top of this, many operators are busy rolling out 3G and LTE infrastructure and are worried about finding the resources to also deploy a video streaming service. They also question their ability to recoup the incremental costs of offering OTT at good enough quality to paid service in a prepay market.
However, rolling out new services shouldn’t always mean spending big on new infrastructure and back office systems or gambling on securing high numbers of initial users. Solutions exist today for operators and broadcasters to leave the hosting to a third party, allowing them to offset the risk of investment and then scale the service as required. By playing it safe and overlooking the very real business case, operators potentially risk losing out on a very lucrative revenue stream – one that other dynamic companies are now starting to benefit from.
With many operators yet to offer their own solutions, companies such as NyooTV, BIGFlix and Eros Now are seizing the opportunity and storming ahead with their paid-for streaming services. The success of these services shows that there’s a solid business opportunity there. The fact that India is one of the biggest consumers of set-top boxes (STBs) shows that consumers are happy to put their hands in their pockets.
However operators need to stop wasting money on multi-million STB rollouts and focus on mobile apps and content. Operators need to consider new media software-based solutions that will provide a better and quicker ROI, and give consumers what they want.
Vidiator recently commissioned an independent survey of Indian consumers to find out what people want from mobile video and if they’d ever pay for it. Of those surveyed, 88% said they would consider paying for mobile video now or in the future, with as many 54% saying they had already paid to access content.
People are genuinely willing to pay them for video content if the service is up to scratch. The one key caveat is that people will only pay for video that’s good quality and that’s delivered quickly. Put simply, a lot of the content on the market today isn’t good enough or at least not for many people to pay for.
Some of the more common problems include buffering and poor quality images. However, the biggest issue saw over 68% of people surveyed dissatisfied with the time it takes video to load. This isn’t an easy fix, but solutions do exist to deliver video more intelligently.
Operators are naturally wary of major investments into new services, but high-quality video streaming services don’t require new infrastructure and can be delivered efficiently. A PwC study commissioned by Vidiator forecasts that by 2015, there will be 176 million OTT viewers in India generating revenues of $552 million. Operators should not miss out on India’s big mobile video business opportunity.
India might be the world's hottest mobile market, but it also suffers from limited supply of the most critical resource - spectrum.
Indian operators are managing one of the world's greatest ever rampups in mobile demand with typically less than half the spectrum normally available. Last month's much-delayed 3G auction finally gave them a chance to grab more precious radio real estate.
But midway through the auction the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) dropped its bombshell: under its 2G spectrum blueprint it expects cellcos to pay for frequencies they already owned. The issue - involving billions of dollars of investment and some of the country's biggest enterprises - is almost certain to end up in court, or before the cabinet, or both.
For more than a year, the industry had been waiting on TRAI's 2G licensing roadmap. When it was finally unveiled on May 11, they learnt the regulator planned to slug them for allocations of more than 6.2 MHz that they had previously been given for free.
Officially, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has limited GSM spectrum in a single service area or "circle" to a maximum of 6.2 MHz. To begin with, an operator gets 4.4 MHz of spectrum for free in a circle with an operating license. When the operator reaches certain subscriber targets in a given circle, it can apply to increase its allocation to 6.2 MHz.
But on an ad hoc basis, between 2003 and 2006 the DoT allocated up to 12.4 MHz - twice the license quota - to GSM900 incumbents, including Bharti Airtel, BSNL/MTNL, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Aircel. Even 8-10 MHz of spectrum (only MTNL has 12.4 MHz of spectrum in both Mumbai and Delhi) is substantially lower than global norms of 15-20 MHz per operator for 2G.
Idea Cellular - the fifth largest pan-Indian operator, with 4.4-8 MHz per circle for 60+ million subscribers - says the small spectrum lots have increased operators' financial burden. "With spectrum at a minimum level of 4.4 MHz or 6.2 MHz, we need a really large dose of capex to get a network that is capable of operating seamlessly," Rajat Mukarji, chief corporate affairs officer for Axiata-backed Idea, told Telecom Asia. "If there had been spectrum allocated in larger chunks to a smaller number of operators, there would be more efficient networks, benefits of scale, far fewer towers and more realistic coverage for customers."
TRAI has suggested that a one-time fee for allocations of more than 6.2 MHz be benchmarked against 3G auction prices, which surpassed even the most conservative of estimates.
TRAI estimates that India's leading cellco Bharti will have to find 34.98 billion rupee ($776.5 million) for spectrum it has been given above 6.2 MHz. All up, operators will have to find a cool $3 billion to compensate the government previously handing out spectrum on a makeshift basis a few years ago. However, that's not all.
Under its refarming proposition, TRAI proposes that operators swap their 900-MHz spectrum for an equal amount of spectrum at 1800-MHz when their licenses come up for renewal (the bulk of Bharti and Vodafone's licenses are due for renewal in 2016). After an operator moves to 1800-MHz, the DoT will take the vacated 900-MHz spectrum and auction it for either 2G or 3G purposes. So for Bharti, if it has 10 MHz at 900-MHz, it can swap this for 10 MHz at 1800-MHz.
But it will first have to pay for excess spectrum above 6.2 MHz, and it will have to find additional capex if it wants to maintain its existing service levels (since it will need to deploy more base stations at 1800 MHz than it had at 900 MHz). Then, at a new auction, it can opt to bid for the 10 MHz of spectrum that was vacated at 900 MHz.
Legal challenge
Market leader Bharti has said the new rules "overturn all existing policies of Department of Telecommunications for the last 15 years, recommendations made by various government committees and even TRAI's own earlier recommendations." "Besides, these are against all existing global norms for spectrum allocation and efficiency."
Shiv Putcha, principal analyst with Ovum's emerging markets unit, believes GSM900 operators will legally challenge TRAI's refarming plan should it become policy. "The 900-MHz operators got the first mover advantage and have sunk in a lot of investment," he says. "I expect operators will want to keep their 900-MHz spectrum and push for re-farming in the true sense of the word [i.e., roll out 3G at 900 MHz]. I expect this to be the counter proposal."
There is 5-10 MHz of 900-MHz spectrum and 30 MHz of 1800-MHz spectrum not yet allocated to cellcos. However, both spectrum lots are occupied by various government agencies, including the defence forces.
For the time being, the operators' fate is in the hands of the DoT. "If the DoT adopts the TRAI recommendations as policy, I expect that action to lead to legal challenges and then eventually [issues will] be decided by committees and possibly cabinet level intervention," says Putcha. "This course of action will take a long time, probably over a year."
Yet even if the DoT does not accept TRAI's blueprint, a compromise formula is going to take months to be worked out and that means more delays. "If they [new operators] do not get more start-up spectrum any time soon, there will clearly be a loss of earnings for them," says Putcha. "Time to market and return on investment will also be much longer."
For established operators, a lack of new spectrum will crimp growth and quality of service. "For existing operators, there will be pressure to attract more subscribers in a circle," adds Putcha. "The only way to do that is more price competition, so there will be more pressure on pricing and margins."
Maxis-backed Aircel, which carries more than 35 million customers in blocks of mostly 4.4 MHz, says India's small spectrum lots are not enough. "If we have more spectrum, then we can add more frequency rather than cell splitting and so on which is more expensive," says the firm's boss for strategy and emerging business, Bharat Bhargava. But the capacity crunch is getting worse as Indian operators continue to add 17 million customers or more every month.
India's spectrum shortage is not only restricted to populous centers, says Luca Ferro, managing partner of management consultancy Value Partners, in Mumbai.
"There is definitely a spectrum crunch not just in metros (Delhi and Mumbai) but also in top cities of other circles; for example, Pune in Maharashtra," says Ferro. "Operators have invested significantly in the network; not just in increasing base stations but also in deploying new technologies like synchronized frequency hopping to increase capacity on their networks. "However, we have to remember that India is a low ARPU market and investments in network are limited by financial viability and whether there is a business case for additional investment."
Winners' curse
The lack of 2G frequencies is of course one of the reasons why 3G bids beat all expectations last month, topping out at a whopping $14.6 billion.
Leading operators abandoned plans to bid in all 22 circles, as aggressive bidding pushed the price tag for pan-Indian spectrum to $3.6 billion, almost three times higher than analysts' expectations. "It was a winner's curse," says Idea's Mukarji of the 3G auction. "You couldn't stop bidding because you needed the spectrum."
"First, we need to provide capacity in certain areas where there is high voice demand because of the extreme shortage of spectrum. In the second phase, I think we will see a migration of heavy data users onto the 2100-MHz spectrum band. "In a crowded market, if a customer has a 3G phone, they will automatically go to one of three 3G network providers," adds a source from Reliance Communications, India's second-biggest cellco. "As an incumbent operator, you don't want to miss out on that."
Since there was no possibility of gaining new 2G airwaves to ease capacity constraints, Ovum's Putcha says "3G was the only outlook to spectrum life." But he says, given the small 3G allotments, success will be limited if a particular service kicks off. "Operators run the risk of rapidly using up their lifeline which they've paid a lot of money for."
Putcha believes operators will find it difficult to make a return on 3G, since margins for all operators are falling amid the country's tariff war. "If your existing business is under threat and you struggle to fund your 3G buildout, an operator is going to struggle on a return for 3G," he says. It could take eight years or more for an operator to reach a profit on 3G, says Value Partner's Ferro.
"The PBT [profit before tax] varies a lot by operator and circle as well," Ferro told Telecom Asia. Had a tier 1 operator won pan Indian spectrum, it would have taken 12-14 years to return a pre-tax profit, he added. "There are circles with a lower PBT such as Kolkata (eight years), others with a higher one such as Andhra Pradesh, but again it varies a lot depending on the competitive positioning (market share, ARPU) of the operator in that specific circle."
Aircel's Bhargava believes that breakeven on its 3G networks won't be "very difficult as the 2G network is already there." But he says recovering Aircel's $1.4 billion 3G license fee will take a "period of time. We don't see a problem," he added.
LTE auctions
So much for 3G. Could LTE help ease the burden? In a pre-consultation paper, TRAI has identified at least 108 MHz in spectrum at 700 MHz for LTE. Unlike in Europe, this 108 MHz of spectrum is vacant.
TRAI will issue a consultation paper on 700-MHz allocation in the next two to three months, with a goal of publishing its 700-MHz spectrum plan by year-end. "There is also 114 MHz of spectrum, currently used for broadcasting, at 548-798 MHz, some of which could be used for LTE," noted an operator source. "One option would be to free up say 60 MHz of this spectrum for LTE by moving the broadcasters to other spectrum."
But the country's LTE auctions could be a couple of years away, or more, as the whole licensing process between TRAI, the DoT and eventually the government is only just getting started. And just how much 700-MHz spectrum per operator is eventually put up for grabs, might well depend on market consolidation.
Bharti, Reliance Com, Vodafone, Idea, Tata and Aircel are also in the mix for 2.3-GHz broadband wireless spectrum. In a BWA auction underway as Telecom Asia goes to press, they are competing with Qualcomm, which is planning to roll out TD-LTE, rather than Wimax.
The DoT says it has no schedule for the next 3G auction round, saying only that should a "further round of auction for 3G... spectrum take place within 12 months from the current round, the reserve price in such a round will be the same as the winning price in the current round."
"The ability to offer fresh [2100-MHz] spectrum depends on rehabilitating defense into other bands, which typically takes longer than expected," adds Putcha.
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